{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_4584/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_4584","id":"gutenberg_4584","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4584","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Architecture","Category: Art","Category: History - Medieval/Middle Ages","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Cath\u00e9drale de Chartres","Civilization, Medieval","Mont-Saint-Michel (Abbey : France)"],"text":"Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres\n\nBy Henry Adams\n\nWith an introduction by Ralph Adams Cram\n\n\n\nEditor's Note\n\nFrom the moment when, through the courtesy of my friend Barrett\nWendell, I came first to know Mr. Henry Adams's book, Mont-Saint-\nMichel and Chartres, I was profoundly convinced that this privately\nprinted, jealously guarded volume should be withdrawn from its\nhiding-place amongst the bibliographical treasures of collectors and\namateurs and given that wide publicity demanded alike by its\nintrinsic nature and the cause it could so admirably serve.\n\nTo say that the book was a revelation is inadequately to express a\nfact; at once all the theology, philosophy, and mysticism, the\npolitics, sociology, and economics, the romance, literature, and art\nof that greatest epoch of Christian civilization became fused in the\nalembic of an unique insight and precipitated by the dynamic force\nof a personal and distinguished style. A judgment that might well\nhave been biased by personal inclination received the endorsement of\nmany in two continents, more competent to pass judgment, better able\nto speak with authority; and so fortified, I had the honour of\nsaying to Mr. Adams, in the autumn of 1912, that the American\nInstitute of Architects asked the distinguished privilege of\narranging for the publication of an edition for general sale, under\nits own imprimatur. The result is the volume now made available for\npublic circulation.\n\nIn justice to Mr. Adams, it should be said that such publication is,\nin his opinion, unnecessary and uncalled-for, a conclusion in which\nneither the American Institute of Architects, the publishers, nor\nthe Editor concurs. Furthermore, the form in which the book is\npresented is no affair of the author, who, in giving reluctant\nconsent to publication, expressly stipulated that he should have no\npart or parcel in carrying out so mad a venture of faith,--as he\nestimated the project of giving his book to the public.\n\nIn this, and for once, his judgment is at fault. Mont-Saint-Michel\nand Chartres is one of the most distinguished contributions to\nliterature and one of the most valuable adjuncts to the study of\nmediaevalism America thus far has produced. The rediscovery of this\ngreat epoch of Christian civilization has had issue in many and\nvaluable works on its religion, its philosophy, its economics, its\npolitics, and its art, but in nearly every instance, whichever field\nhas been traversed has been considered almost as an isolated\nphenomenon, with insufficient reference to the other aspects of an\nera that was singularly united and at one with itself. Hugh of Saint\nVictor and Saint Thomas Aquinas are fully comprehensible only in\ntheir relationship to Saint Anselm, Saint Bernard, and the\ndevelopment of Catholic dogma and life; feudalism, the crusades, the\nguilds and communes weave themselves into this same religious\ndevelopment and into the vicissitudes of crescent nationalities;\nDante, the cathedral builders, the painters, sculptors, and music\nmasters, all are closely knit into the warp and woof of philosophy,\nstatecraft, economics, and religious devotion;--indeed, it may be\nsaid that the Middle Ages, more than any other recorded epoch of\nhistory, must be considered en bloc, as a period of consistent unity\nas highly emphasized as was its dynamic force.\n\nIt is unnecessary to say that Mr. Adams deals with the art of the\nMiddle Ages after this fashion: he is not of those who would\ndetermine every element in art from its material antecedents. He\nrealizes very fully that its essential element, the thing that\ndifferentiates it from the art that preceded and that which\nfollowed, is its spiritual impulse; the manifestation may have been,\nand probably was, more or less accidental, but that which makes\nChartres Cathedral and its glass, the sculptures of Rheims, the Dies\nIrae, Aucassin and Nicolette, the Song of Roland, the Arthurian\nLegends, great art and unique, is neither their technical mastery\nnor their fidelity to the enduring laws of all great art,--though\nthese are singular in their perfection,--but rather the peculiar\nspiritual impulse which informed the time, and by its intensity, its\npenetrating power, and its dynamic force wrought a rounded and\ncomplete civilization and manifested this through a thousand varied\nchannels.\n\nGreater, perhaps, even than his grasp of the singular entirety of\nmediaeval civilization, is Mr. Adams's power of merging himself in a\nlong dead time, of thinking and feeling with the men and women\nthereof, and so breathing on the dead bones of antiquity that again\nthey clothe themselves with flesh and vesture, call back their\nsevered souls, and live again, not only to the consciousness of the\nreader, but before his very eyes. And it is not a thin simulacrum he\nraises by some doubtful alchemy: it is no phantasm of the past that\nshines dimly before us in these magical pages; it is the very time\nitself in which we are merged. We forgather with the Abbot and his\nmonks, and the crusaders and pilgrims in the Shrine of the\nArchangel: we pay our devoirs to the fair French Queens,--Blanche of\nCastile, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Mary of Champagne,--fighting their\nbattles for them as liege servants: we dispute with Abelard, Thomas\nof Aquino, Duns the Scotsman: we take our parts in the Court of\nLove, or sing the sublime and sounding praises of God with the\nCanons of Saint Victor: our eyes opened at last, and after many days\nwe kneel before Our Lady of Pity, asking her intercession for her\nlax but loyal devotees. Seven centuries dissolve and vanish away,\nbeing as they were not, and the thirteenth century lives less for us\nthan we live in it and are a part of its gaiety and light-\nheartedness, its youthful ardour and abounding action, its childlike\nsimplicity and frankness, its normal and healthy and all-embracing\ndevotion.\n\nAnd it is well for us to have this experience. Apart from the\ndesirable transformation it effects in preconceived and curiously\nerroneous superstitions as to one of the greatest eras in all\nhistory, it is vastly heartening and exhilarating. If it gives new\nand not always flattering standards for the judgment of contemporary\nmen and things, so does it establish new ideals, new goals for\nattainment. To live for a day in a world that built Chartres\nCathedral, even if it makes the living in a world that creates the\n\"Black Country\" of England or an Iron City of America less a thing\nof joy and gladness than before, equally opens up the far prospect\nof another thirteenth century in the times that are to come and\nurges to ardent action toward its attainment.\n\nBut apart from this, the deepest value of Mont-Saint-Michel and\nChartres, its importance as a revelation of the eternal glory of\nmediaeval art and the elements that brought it into being is not\nlightly to be expressed. To every artist, whatever his chosen form\nof expression, it must appear unique and invaluable, and to none\nmore than the architect, who, familiar at last with its beauties,\nits power, and its teaching force, can only applaud the action of\nthe American Institute of Architects in making Mr. Adams an Honorary\nMember, as one who has rendered distinguished services to the art,\nand voice his gratitude that it has brought the book within his\nreach and given it publicity before the world.\n\nWhitehall, Sudbury, Massachusetts, June, 1913.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nPREFACE\n\n   I. SAINT MICHIEL DE LA MER DEL PERIL\n  II. LA CHANSON DE ROLAND\n III. THE MERVEILLE\n  IV. NORMANDY AND THE ILE DE FRANCE\n   V. TOWERS AND PORTALS\n  VI. THE VIRGIN OF CHARTRES\n VII. ROSES AND APSES\nVIII. THE TWELFTH-CENTURY GLASS\n  IX. THE LEGENDARY WINDOWS\n   X. THE COURT OF THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN\n  XI. THE THREE QUEENS\n XII. NICOLETTE AND MARION\nXIII. LES MIRACLES DE NOTRE DAME\n XIV. ABELARD\n  XV. THE MYSTICS\n XVI. SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS\n\n\n\n\nPreface\n\n[December, 1904.]\n\nSome old Elizabethan play or poem contains the lines:--\n\n     . . . Who reads me, when I am ashes,\n     Is my son in wishes . . . . . . . . .\n\nThe relationship, between reader and writer, of son and father, may\nhave existed in Queen Elizabeth's time, but is much too close to be\ntrue for ours. The utmost that any writer could hope of his readers\nnow is that they should consent to regard themselves as nephews, and\neven then he would expect only a more or less civil refusal from\nmost of them. Indeed, if he had reached a certain age, he would have\nobserved that nephews, as a social class, no longer read at all, and\nthat there is only one familiar instance recorded of a nephew who\nread his uncle. The exception tends rather to support the rule,\nsince it needed a Macaulay to produce, and two volumes to record it.\nFinally, the metre does not permit it. One may not say: \"Who reads\nme, when I am ashes, is my nephew in wishes.\"\n\nThe same objections do not apply to the word \"niece.\" The change\nrestores the verse, and, to a very great degree, the fact. Nieces\nhave been known to read in early youth, and in some cases may have\nread their uncles. The relationship, too, is convenient and easy,\ncapable of being anything or nothing, at the will of either party,\nlike a Mohammedan or Polynesian or American marriage. No valid\nobjection can be offered to this choice in the verse. Niece let it\nbe!\n\nThe following lines, then, are written for nieces, or for those who\nare willing, for those, to be nieces in wish. For convenience of\ntravel in France, where hotels, in out-of-the-way places, are\nsometimes wanting in space as well as luxury, the nieces shall count\nas one only. As many more may come as like, but one niece is enough\nfor the uncle to talk to, and one niece is much more likely than two\nto listen. One niece is also more likely than two to carry a kodak\nand take interest in it, since she has nothing else, except her\nuncle, to interest her, and instances occur when she takes interest\nneither in the uncle nor in the journey. One cannot assume, even in\na niece, too emotional a nature, but one may assume a kodak.\n\nThe party, then, with such variations of detail as may suit its\ntastes, has sailed from New York, let us say, early in June for an\nentire summer in France. One pleasant June morning it has landed at\nCherbourg or Havre and takes the train across Normandy to Pontorson,\nwhere, with the evening light, the tourists drive along the\nchaussee, over the sands or through the tide, till they stop at\nMadame Poulard's famous hotel within the Gate of the Mount.\n\nThe uncle talks:--\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nSAINT MICHIEL DE LA MER DEL PERIL\n\nThe Archangel loved heights. Standing on the summit of the tower\nthat crowned his church, wings upspread, sword uplifted, the devil\ncrawling beneath, and the cock, symbol of eternal vigilance, perched\non his mailed foot, Saint Michael held a place of his own in heaven\nand on earth which seems, in the eleventh century, to leave hardly\nroom for the Virgin of the Crypt at Chartres, still less for the\nBeau Christ of the thirteenth century at Amiens. The Archangel\nstands for Church and State, and both militant. He is the conqueror\nof Satan, the mightiest of all created spirits, the nearest to God.\nHis place was where the danger was greatest; therefore you find him\nhere. For the same reason he was, while the pagan danger lasted, the\npatron saint of France. So the Normans, when they were converted to\nChristianity, put themselves under his powerful protection. So he\nstood for centuries on his Mount in Peril of the Sea, watching\nacross the tremor of the immense ocean,-immensi tremor oceani,-as\nLouis XI, inspired for once to poetry, inscribed on the collar of\nthe Order of Saint Michael which he created. So soldiers, nobles,\nand monarchs went on pilgrimage to his shrine; so the common people\nfollowed, and still follow, like ourselves.\n\nThe church stands high on the summit of this granite rock, and on\nits west front is the platform, to which the tourist ought first to\nclimb. From the edge of this platform, the eye plunges down, two\nhundred and thirty-five feet, to the wide sands or the wider ocean,\nas the tides recede or advance, under an infinite sky, over a\nrestless sea, which even we tourists can understand and feel without\nbooks or guides; but when we turn from the western view, and look at\nthe church door, thirty or forty yards from the parapet where we\nstand, one needs to be eight centuries old to know what this mass of\nencrusted architecture meant to its builders, and even then one must\nstill learn to feel it. The man who wanders into the twelfth century\nis lost, unless he can grow prematurely young.\n\nOne can do it, as one can play with children. Wordsworth, whose\npractical sense equalled his intuitive genius, carefully limited us\nto \"a season of calm weather,\" which is certainly best; but granting\na fair frame of mind, one can still \"have sight of that immortal\nsea\" which brought us hither from the twelfth century; one can even\ntravel thither and see the children sporting on the shore. Our sense\nis partially atrophied from disuse, but it is still alive, at least\nin old people, who alone, as a class, have the time to be young.\n\nOne needs only to be old enough in order to be as young as one will.\nFrom the top of this Abbey Church one looks across the bay to\nAvranches, and towards Coutances and the Cotentin,--the Constantinus\npagus,--whose shore, facing us, recalls the coast of New England.\nThe relation between the granite of one coast and that of the\nother may be fanciful, but the relation between the people who live\non each is as hard and practical a fact as the granite itself. When\none enters the church, one notes first the four great triumphal\npiers or columns, at the intersection of the nave and transepts, and\non looking into M. Corroyer's architectural study which is the chief\nsource of all one's acquaintance with the Mount, one learns that\nthese piers were constructed in 1058. Four out of five American\ntourists will instantly recall the only date of mediaeval history\nthey ever knew, the date of the Norman Conquest. Eight years after\nthese piers were built, in 1066, Duke William of Normandy raised an\narmy of forty thousand men in these parts, and in northern France,\nwhom he took to England, where they mostly stayed. For a hundred and\nfifty years, until 1204, Normandy and England were united; the\nNorman peasant went freely to England with his lord, spiritual or\ntemporal; the Norman woman, a very capable person, followed her\nhusband or her parents; Normans held nearly all the English fiefs;\nfilled the English Church; crowded the English Court; created the\nEnglish law; and we know that French was still currently spoken in\nEngland as late as 1400, or thereabouts, \"After the scole of\nStratford atte bowe.\" The aristocratic Norman names still survive in\npart, and if we look up their origin here we shall generally find\nthem in villages so remote and insignificant that their place can\nhardly be found on any ordinary map; but the common people had no\nsurnames, and cannot be traced, although for every noble whose name\nor blood survived in England or in Normandy, we must reckon hundreds\nof peasants. Since the generation which followed William to England\nin 1066, we can reckon twenty-eight or thirty from father to son,\nand, if you care to figure up the sum, you will find that you had\nabout two hundred and fifty million arithmetical ancestors living in\nthe middle of the eleventh century. The whole population of England\nand northern France may then have numbered five million, but if it\nwere fifty it would not much affect the certainty that, if you have\nany English blood at all, you have also Norman. If we could go back\nand live again in all our two hundred and fifty million arithmetical\nancestors of the eleventh century, we should find ourselves doing\nmany surprising things, but among the rest we should pretty\ncertainly be ploughing most of the fields of the Cotentin and\nCalvados; going to mass in every parish church in Normandy;\nrendering military service to every lord, spiritual or temporal, in\nall this region; and helping to build the Abbey Church at Mont-\nSaint-Michel. From the roof of the Cathedral of Coutances over\nyonder, one may look away over the hills and woods, the farms and\nfields of Normandy, and so familiar, so homelike are they, one can\nalmost take oath that in this, or the other, or in all, one knew\nlife once and has never so fully known it since.\n\nNever so fully known it since! For we of the eleventh century, hard-\nheaded, close-fisted, grasping, shrewd, as we were, and as Normans\nare still said to be, stood more fully in the centre of the world's\nmovement than our English descendants ever did. We were a part, and\na great part, of the Church, of France, and of Europe. The Leos and\nGregories of the tenth and eleventh centuries leaned on us in their\ngreat struggle for reform. Our Duke Richard-Sans-Peur, in 966,\nturned the old canons out of the Mount in order to bring here the\nhighest influence of the time, the Benedictine monks of Monte\nCassino. Richard II, grandfather of William the Conqueror, began\nthis Abbey Church in 1020, and helped Abbot Hildebert to build it.\nWhen William the Conqueror in 1066 set out to conquer England, Pope\nAlexander II stood behind him and blessed his banner. From that\nmoment our Norman Dukes cast the Kings of France into the shade. Our\nactivity was not limited to northern Europe, or even confined by\nAnjou and Gascony. When we stop at Coutances, we will drive out to\nHauteville to see where Tancred came from, whose sons Robert and\nRoger were conquering Naples and Sicily at the time when the Abbey\nChurch was building on the Mount. Normans were everywhere in 1066,\nand everywhere in the lead of their age. We were a serious race. If\nyou want other proof of it, besides our record in war and in\npolitics, you have only to look at our art. Religious art is the\nmeasure of human depth and sincerity; any triviality, any weakness,\ncries aloud. If this church on the Mount is not proof enough of\nNorman character, we will stop at Coutances for a wider view. Then\nwe will go to Caen and Bayeux. From there, it would almost be worth\nour while to leap at once to Palermo. It was in the year 1131 or\nthereabouts that Roger began the Cathedral at Cefalu and the Chapel\nRoyal at Palermo; it was about the year 1174 that his grandson\nWilliam began the Cathedral of Monreale. No art--either Greek or\nByzantine, Italian or Arab--has ever created two religious types so\nbeautiful, so serious, so impressive, and yet so different, as Mont-\nSaint-Michel watching over its northern ocean, and Monreale, looking\ndown over its forests of orange and lemon, on Palermo and the\nSicilian seas.\n\nDown nearly to the end of the twelfth century the Norman was fairly\nmaster of the world in architecture as in arms, although the\nthirteenth century belonged to France, and we must look for its\nglories on the Seine and Marne and Loire; but for the present we are\nin the eleventh century,--tenants of the Duke or of the Church or of\nsmall feudal lords who take their names from the neighbourhood,--\nBeaumont, Carteret, Greville, Percy, Pierpont,--who, at the Duke's\nbidding, will each call out his tenants, perhaps ten men-at-arms\nwith their attendants, to fight in Brittany, or in the Vexin toward\nParis, or on the great campaign for the conquest of England which is\nto come within ten years,--the greatest military effort that has\nbeen made in western Europe since Charlemagne and Roland were\ndefeated at Roncesvalles three hundred years ago. For the moment, we\nare helping to quarry granite for the Abbey Church, and to haul it\nto the Mount, or load it on our boat. We never fail to make our\nannual pilgrimage to the Mount on the Archangel's Day, October 16.\nWe expect to be called out for a new campaign which Duke William\nthreatens against Brittany, and we hear stories that Harold the\nSaxon, the powerful Earl of Wessex in England, is a guest, or, as\nsome say, a prisoner or a hostage, at the Duke's Court, and will go\nwith us on the campaign. The year is 1058.\n\nAll this time we have been standing on the parvis, looking out over\nthe sea and sands which are as good eleventh-century landscape as\nthey ever were; or turning at times towards the church door which is\nthe pons seclorum, the bridge of ages, between us and our ancestors.\nNow that we have made an attempt, such as it is, to get our minds\ninto a condition to cross the bridge without breaking down in the\neffort, we enter the church and stand face to face with eleventh-\ncentury architecture; a ground-plan which dates from 1020; a central\ntower, or its piers, dating from 1058; and a church completed in\n1135. France can offer few buildings of this importance equally old,\nwith dates so exact. Perhaps the closest parallel to Mont-Saint-\nMichel is Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire, above Orleans, which seems to have\nbeen a shrine almost as popular as the Mount, at the same time.\nChartres was also a famous shrine, but of the Virgin, and the west\nporch of Chartres, which is to be our peculiar pilgrimage, was a\nhundred years later than the ground-plan of Mont-Saint-Michel,\nalthough Chartres porch is the usual starting-point of northern\nFrench art. Queen Matilda's Abbaye-aux-Dames, now the Church of the\nTrinity, at Caen, dates from 1066. Saint Sernin at Toulouse, the\nporch of the Abbey Church at Moissac, Notre-Dame-du-Port at\nClermont, the Abbey Church at Vezelay, are all said to be twelfth-\ncentury. Even San Marco at Venice was new in 1020.\n\nYet in 1020 Norman art was already too ambitious. Certainly nine\nhundred years leave their traces on granite as well as on other\nmaterial, but the granite of Abbot Hildebert would have stood\nsecurely enough, if the Abbot had not asked too much from it.\nPerhaps he asked too much from the Archangel, for the thought of the\nArchangel's superiority was clearly the inspiration of his plan. The\napex of the granite rock rose like a sugar-loaf two hundred and\nforty feet (73.6 metres) above mean sea-level. Instead of cutting\nthe summit away to give his church a secure rock foundation, which\nwould have sacrificed about thirty feet of height, the Abbot took\nthe apex of the rock for his level, and on all sides built out\nfoundations of masonry to support the walls of his church. The apex\nof the rock is the floor of the croisee, the intersection of nave\nand transept. On this solid foundation the Abbot rested the chief\nweight of the church, which was the central tower, supported by the\nfour great piers which still stand; but from the croisee in the\ncentre westward to the parapet of the platform, the Abbot filled the\nwhole space with masonry, and his successors built out still\nfarther, until some two hundred feet of stonework ends now in a\nperpendicular wall of eighty feet or more. In this space are several\nranges of chambers, but the structure might perhaps have proved\nstrong enough to support the light Romanesque front which was usual\nin the eleventh century, had not fashions in architecture changed in\nthe great epoch of building, a hundred and fifty years later, when\nAbbot Robert de Torigny thought proper to reconstruct the west\nfront, and build out two towers on its flanks. The towers were no\ndoubt beautiful, if one may judge from the towers of Bayeux and\nCoutances, but their weight broke down the vaulting beneath, and one\nof them fell in 1300. In 1618 the whole facade began to give way,\nand in 1776 not only the facade but also three of the seven spans of\nthe nave were pulled down. Of Abbot Hildebert's nave, only four\narches remain.\n\nStill, the overmastering strength of the eleventh century is stamped\non a great scale here, not only in the four spans of the nave, and\nin the transepts, but chiefly in the triumphal columns of the\ncroisee. No one is likely to forget what Norman architecture was,\nwho takes the trouble to pass once through this fragment of its\nearliest bloom. The dimensions are not great, though greater than\nsafe construction warranted. Abbot Hildebert's whole church did not\nexceed two hundred and thirty feet in length in the interior, and\nthe span of the triumphal arch was only about twenty-three feet, if\nthe books can be trusted. The nave of the Abbaye-aux-Dames appears\nto have about the same width, and probably neither of them was meant\nto be vaulted. The roof was of timber, and about sixty-three feet\nhigh at its apex. Compared with the great churches of the thirteenth\ncentury, this building is modest, but its size is not what matters\nto us. Its style is the starting-point of all our future travels.\nHere is your first eleventh-century church! How does it affect you?\n\nSerious and simple to excess! is it not? Young people rarely enjoy\nit. They prefer the Gothic, even as you see it here, looking at us\nfrom the choir, through the great Norman arch. No doubt they are\nright, since they are young: but men and women who have lived long\nand are tired,--who want rest,--who have done with aspirations and\nambition,--whose life has been a broken arch,--feel this repose and\nself-restraint as they feel nothing else. The quiet strength of\nthese curved lines, the solid support of these heavy columns, the\nmoderate proportions, even the modified lights, the absence of\ndisplay, of effort, of self-consciousness, satisfy them as no other\nart does. They come back to it to rest, after a long circle of\npilgrimage,--the cradle of rest from which their ancestors started.\nEven here they find the repose none too deep.\n\nIndeed, when you look longer at it, you begin to doubt whether there\nis any repose in it at all,--whether it is not the most unreposeful\nthought ever put into architectural form. Perched on the extreme\npoint of this abrupt rock, the Church Militant with its aspirant\nArchangel stands high above the world, and seems to threaten heaven\nitself. The idea is the stronger and more restless because the\nChurch of Saint Michael is surrounded and protected by the world and\nthe society over which it rises, as Duke William rested on his\nbarons and their men. Neither the Saint nor the Duke was troubled by\ndoubts about his mission. Church and State, Soul and Body, God and\nMan, are all one at Mont-Saint-Michel, and the business of all is to\nfight, each in his own way, or to stand guard for each other.\nNeither Church nor State is intellectual, or learned, or even strict\nin dogma. Here we do not feel the Trinity at all; the Virgin but\nlittle; Christ hardly more; we feel only the Archangel and the Unity\nof God. We have little logic here, and simple faith, but we have\nenergy. We cannot do many things which are done in the centre of\ncivilization, at Byzantium, but we can fight, and we can build a\nchurch. No doubt we think first of the church, and next of our\ntemporal lord; only in the last instance do we think of our private\naffairs, and our private affairs sometimes suffer for it; but we\nreckon the affairs of Church and State to be ours, too, and we carry\nthis idea very far. Our church on the Mount is ambitious, restless,\nstriving for effect; our conquest of England, with which the Duke is\ninfatuated, is more ambitious still; but all this is a trifle to the\noutburst which is coming in the next generation; and Saint Michael\non his Mount expresses it all.\n\nTaking architecture as an expression of energy, we can some day\ncompare Mont-Saint-Michel with Beauvais, and draw from the\ncomparison whatever moral suits our frame of mind; but you should\nfirst note that here, in the eleventh century, the Church, however\nsimple-minded or unschooled, was not cheap. Its self-respect is\nworth noticing, because it was short-lived in its art. Mont-Saint-\nMichel, throughout, even up to the delicate and intricate stonework\nof its cloisters, is built of granite. The crypts and substructures\nare as well constructed as the surfaces most exposed to view. When\nwe get to Chartres, which is largely a twelfth-century work, you\nwill see that the cathedral there, too, is superbly built, of the\nhardest and heaviest stone within reach, which has nowhere settled\nor given way; while, beneath, you will find a crypt that rivals the\nchurch above. The thirteenth century did not build so. The great\ncathedrals after 1200 show economy, and sometimes worse. The world\ngrew cheap, as worlds must.\n\nYou may like it all the better for being less serious, less heroic,\nless militant, and more what the French call bourgeois, just as you\nmay like the style of Louis XV better than that of Louis XIV,--\nMadame du Barry better than Madame de Montespan,--for taste is free,\nand all styles are good which amuse; but since we are now beginning\nwith the earliest, in order to step down gracefully to the stage,\nwhatever it is, where you prefer to stop, we must try to understand\na little of the kind of energy which Norman art expressed, or would\nhave expressed if it had thought in our modes. The only word which\ndescribes the Norman style is the French word naif. Littre says that\nnaif comes from natif, as vulgar comes from vulgus, as though native\ntraits must be simple, and commonness must be vulgar. Both these\nderivative meanings were strange to the eleventh century. Naivete\nwas simply natural and vulgarity was merely coarse. Norman naivete\nwas not different in kind from the naivete of Burgundy or Gascony or\nLombardy, but it was slightly different in expression, as you will\nsee when you travel south. Here at Mont-Saint-Michel we have only a\nmutilated trunk of an eleventh-century church to judge by. We have\nnot even a facade, and shall have to stop at some Norman village--at\nThaon or Ouistreham--to find a west front which might suit the Abbey\nhere, but wherever we find it we shall find something a little more\nserious, more military, and more practical than you will meet in\nother Romanesque work, farther south. So, too, the central tower or\nlantern--the most striking feature of Norman churches--has fallen\nhere at Mont-Saint-Michel, and we shall have to replace it from\nCerisy-la-Foret, and Lessay, and Falaise. We shall find much to say\nabout the value of the lantern on a Norman church, and the singular\npower it expresses. We shall have still more to say of the towers\nwhich flank the west front of Norman churches, but these are mostly\ntwelfth-century, and will lead us far beyond Coutances and Bayeux,\nfrom fleche to fleche, till we come to the fleche of all fleches, at\nChartres.\n\nWe shall have a whole chapter of study, too, over the eleventh-\ncentury apse, but here at Mont-Saint-Michel, Abbot Hildebert's choir\nwent the way of his nave and tower. He built out even more boldly to\nthe east than to the west, and although the choir stood for some\nfour hundred years, which is a sufficient life for most\narchitecture, the foundations gave way at last, and it fell in 1421,\nin the midst of the English wars, and remained a ruin until 1450.\nThen it was rebuilt, a monument of the last days of the Gothic, so\nthat now, standing at the western door, you can look down the\nchurch, and see the two limits of mediaeval architecture married\ntogether,--the earliest Norman and the latest French. Through the\nRomanesque arches of 1058, you look into the exuberant choir of\nlatest Gothic, finished in 1521. Although the two structures are\nsome five hundred years apart, they live pleasantly together. The\nGothic died gracefully in France. The choir is charming,--far more\ncharming than the nave, as the beautiful woman is more charming than\nthe elderly man. One need not quarrel about styles of beauty, as\nlong as the man and woman are evidently satisfied and love and\nadmire each other still, with all the solidity of faith to hold them\nup; but, at least, one cannot help seeing, as one looks from the\nolder to the younger style, that whatever the woman's sixteenth-\ncentury charm may be, it is not the man's eleventh-century trait of\nnaivete;--far from it! The simple, serious, silent dignity and\nenergy of the eleventh century have gone. Something more complicated\nstands in their place; graceful, self-conscious, rhetorical, and\nbeautiful as perfect rhetoric, with its clearness, light, and line,\nand the wealth of tracery that verges on the florid.\n\nThe crypt of the same period, beneath, is almost finer still, and\neven in seriousness stands up boldly by the side of the Romanesque;\nbut we have no time to run off into the sixteenth century: we have\nstill to learn the alphabet of art in France. One must live deep\ninto the eleventh century in order to understand the twelfth, and\neven after passing years in the twelfth, we shall find the\nthirteenth in many ways a world of its own, with a beauty not always\ninherited, and sometimes not bequeathed. At the Mount we can go no\nfarther into the eleventh as far as concerns architecture. We shall\nhave to follow the Romanesque to Caen and so up the Seine to the Ile\nde France, and across to the Loire and the Rhone, far to the South\nwhere its home lay. All the other eleventh-century work has been\ndestroyed here or built over, except at one point, on the level of\nthe splendid crypt we just turned from, called the Gros Piliers,\nbeneath the choir.\n\nThere, according to M. Corroyer, in a corner between great\nconstructions of the twelfth century and the vast Merveille of the\nthirteenth, the old refectory of the eleventh was left as a passage\nfrom one group of buildings to the other. Below it is the kitchen of\nHildebert. Above, on the level of the church, was the dormitory.\nThese eleventh-century abbatial buildings faced north and west, and\nare close to the present parvis, opposite the last arch of the nave.\nThe lower levels of Hildebert's plan served as supports or\nbuttresses to the church above, and must therefore be older than the\nnave; probably older than the triumphal piers of 1058.\n\nHildebert planned them in 1020, and died after carrying his plans\nout so far that they could be completed by Abbot Ralph de Beaumont,\nwho was especially selected by Duke William in 1048, \"more for his\nhigh birth than for his merits.\" Ralph de Beaumont died in 1060, and\nwas succeeded by Abbot Ranulph, an especial favourite of Duchess\nMatilda, and held in high esteem by Duke William. The list of names\nshows how much social importance was attributed to the place. The\nAbbot's duties included that of entertainment on a great scale. The\nMount was one of the most famous shrines of northern Europe. We are\nfree to take for granted that all the great people of Normandy slept\nat the Mount and, supposing M. Corroyer to be right, that they dined\nin this room, between 1050, when the building must have been in use,\ndown to 1122 when the new abbatial quarters were built.\n\nHow far the monastic rules restricted social habits is a matter for\nantiquaries to settle if they can, and how far those rules were\nobserved in the case of great secular princes; but the eleventh\ncentury was not very strict, and the rule of the Benedictines was\nalways mild, until the Cistercians and Saint Bernard stiffened its\ndiscipline toward 1120. Even then the Church showed strong leanings\ntoward secular poetry and popular tastes. The drama belonged to it\nalmost exclusively, and the Mysteries and Miracle plays which were\nacted under its patronage often contained nothing of religion except\nthe miracle. The greatest poem of the eleventh century was the\n\"Chanson de Roland,\" and of that the Church took a sort of\npossession. At Chartres we shall find Charlemagne and Roland dear to\nthe Virgin, and at about the same time, as far away as at Assisi in\nthe Perugian country, Saint Francis himself--the nearest approach\nthe Western world ever made to an Oriental incarnation of the divine\nessence--loved the French romans, and typified himself in the\n\"Chanson de Roland.\" With Mont-Saint-Michel, the \"Chanson de Roland\"\nis almost one. The \"Chanson\" is in poetry what the Mount is in\narchitecture. Without the \"Chanson,\" one cannot approach the feeling\nwhich the eleventh century built into the Archangel's church.\nProbably there was never a day, certainly never a week, during\nseveral centuries, when portions of the \"Chanson\" were not sung, or\nrecited, at the Mount, and if there was one room where it was most\nat home, this one, supposing it to be the old refectory, claims to\nbe the place.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nLA CHANSON DE ROLAND\n\nMolz pelerins qui vunt al Munt\n Enquierent molt e grant dreit unt\n Comment l'igliese fut fundee\n Premierement et estoree.\n Cil qui lor dient de l'estoire\n Que cil demandent en memoire\n Ne l'unt pas bien ainz vunt faillant\n En plusors leus e mespernant.\n Por faire la apertement\n Entendre a cels qui escient\n N'unt de clerzie l'a tornee\n De latin tote et ordenee\n Pars veirs romieus novelement\n Molt en segrei por son convent\n Uns jovencels moine est del Munt\n Deus en son reigne part li dunt.\n Guillaume a non de Saint Paier\n Cen vei escrit en cest quaier.\n El tens Robeirt de Torignie\n Fut cil romanz fait e trove.\n\n\nMost pilgrims who come to the Mount\n Enquire much and are quite right,\n How the church was founded\n At first, and established.\n Those who tell them the story\n That they ask, in memory\n Have it not well, but fall in error\n In many places, and misapprehension.\n In order to make it clearly\n Intelligible to those who have\n No knowledge of letters, it has been turned\n From the Latin, and wholly rendered\n In Romanesque verses, newly,\n Much in secret, for his convent,\n By a youth; a monk he is of the Mount.\n God in his kingdom grant him part!\n William is his name, of Saint Pair\n As is seen written in this book.\n In the time of Robert of Torigny\n Was this roman made and invented.\n\n\nThese verses begin the \"Roman du Mont-Saint-Michel,\" and if the\nspelling is corrected, they still read almost as easily as Voltaire;\nmore easily than Verlaine; and much like a nursery rhyme; but as\ntourists cannot stop to clear their path, or smooth away the\npebbles, they must be lifted over the rough spots, even when\nroughness is beauty. Translation is an evil, chiefly because every\none who cares for mediaeval architecture cares for mediaeval French,\nand ought to care still more for mediaeval English. The language of\nthis \"Roman\" was the literary language of England. William of Saint-\nPair was a subject of Henry II, King of England and Normandy; his\nverses, like those of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, are monuments of\nEnglish literature. To this day their ballad measure is better\nsuited to English than to French; even the words and idioms are more\nEnglish than French. Any one who attacks them boldly will find that\nthe \"vers romieus\" run along like a ballad, singing their own\nmeaning, and troubling themselves very little whether the meaning is\nexact or not. One's translation is sure to be full of gross\nblunders, but the supreme blunder is that of translating at all when\none is trying to catch not a fact but a feeling. If translate one\nmust, we had best begin by trying to be literal, under protest that\nit matters not a straw whether we succeed. Twelfth-century art was\nnot precise; still less \"precieuse,\" like Moliere's famous\nseventeenth-century prudes.\n\nThe verses of the young monk, William, who came from the little\nNorman village of Saint-Pair, near Granville, within sight of the\nMount, were verses not meant to be brilliant. Simple human beings\nlike rhyme better than prose, though both may say the same thing, as\nthey like a curved line better than a straight one, or a blue better\nthan a grey; but, apart from the sensual appetite, they chose rhyme\nin creating their literature for the practical reason that they\nremembered it better than prose. Men had to carry their libraries in\ntheir heads.\n\nThese lines of William, beginning his story, are valuable because\nfor once they give a name and a date. Abbot Robert of Torigny ruled\nat the Mount from 1154 to 1186. We have got to travel again and\nagain between Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres during these years, but\nfor the moment we must hurry to get back to William the Conqueror\nand the \"Chanson de Roland.\" William of Saint-Pair comes in here,\nout of place, only on account of a pretty description he gave of the\nannual pilgrimage to the Mount, which is commonly taken to be more\nor less like what he saw every year on the Archangel's Day, and what\nhad existed ever since the Normans became Christian in 912:--\n\nLi jorz iert clers e sanz grant vent.\n Les meschines e les vallez\n Chascuns d'els dist verz ou sonnez.\n Neis li viellart revunt chantant\n\n\nDe leece funt tuit semblant.\n Qui plus ne seit si chante outree\n E Dex aie u Asusee.\n Cil jugleor la u il vunt\n Tuit lor vieles traites unt\n Laiz et sonnez vunt vielant.\n\n\nLi tens est beals la joie est grant.\n Cil palefrei e cil destrier\n E cil roncin e cil sommier\n Qui errouent par le chemin\n Que menouent cil pelerin\n De totes parz henissant vunt\n Por la grant joie que il unt.\n Neis par les bois chantouent tuit\n Li oiselet grant et petit.\n\n\nLi buef les vaches vunt muant\n Par les forez e repaissant.\n Cors e boisines e fresteals\n E fleutes e chalemeals\n Sonnoent si que les montaignes\n En retintoent et les pleignes.\n Que esteit dont les plaiseiz\n E des forez e des larriz.\n En cels par a tel sonneiz\n Com si ce fust cers acolliz.\n\n\nEntor le mont el bois follu\n Cil travetier unt tres tendu\n Rues unt fait par les chemins.\n Plentei i out de divers vins\n Pain e pastez fruit e poissons\n Oisels obleies veneisons\n De totes parz aveit a vendre\n Assez en out qui ad que tendre.\n\n\nThe day was clear, without much wind.\n The maidens and the varlets\n Each of them said verse or song;\n Even the old people go singing;\n\n\nAll have a look of joy.\n Who knows no more sings HURRAH,\n Or GOD HELP, or UP AND ON!\n The minstrels there where they go\n Have all brought their viols;\n Lays and songs playing as they go.\n\n\nThe weather is fine; the joy is great;\n The palfreys and the chargers,\n And the hackneys and the packhorses\n Which wander along the road\n That the pilgrims follow,\n On all sides neighing go,\n For the great joy they feel.\n Even in the woods sing all\n The little birds, big and small.\n\n\nThe oxen and the cows go lowing\n Through the forests as they feed.\n Horns and trumpets and shepherd's pipes\n And flutes and pipes of reed\n Sound so that the mountains\n Echo to them, and the plains.\n How was it then with the glades\n And with the forests and the pastures?\n In these there was such sound\n As though it were a stag at bay.\n\n\nAbout the Mount, in the leafy wood,\n The workmen have tents set up;\n Streets have made along the roads.\n Plenty there was of divers wines,\n Bread and pasties, fruit and fish,\n Birds, cakes, venison,\n Everywhere there was for sale.\n Enough he had who has the means to pay.\n\n\nIf you are not satisfied with this translation, any scholar of\nFrench will easily help to make a better, for we are not studying\ngrammar or archaeology, and would rather be inaccurate in such\nmatters than not, if, at that price, a freer feeling of the art\ncould be caught. Better still, you can turn to Chaucer, who wrote\nhis Canterbury Pilgrimage two hundred years afterwards:--\n\nWhanne that April with his shoures sote\n The droughte of March hath perced to the rote...\n Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages\n And palmeres for to seken strange strondes...\n And especially, from every shires ende\n Of Englelonde, to Canterbury they wende\n The holy blisful martyr for to seke,\n That hem hath holpen whan that they were seke.\n\n\nThe passion for pilgrimages was universal among our ancestors as far\nback as we can trace them. For at least a thousand years it was\ntheir chief delight, and is not yet extinct. To feel the art of\nMont-Saint-Michel and Chartres we have got to become pilgrims again:\nbut, just now, the point of most interest is not the pilgrim so much\nas the minstrel who sang to amuse him,--the jugleor or jongleur,--\nwho was at home in every abbey, castle or cottage, as well as at\nevery shrine. The jugleor became a jongleur and degenerated into the\nstreet-juggler; the minstrel, or menestrier, became very early a\nword of abuse, equivalent to blackguard; and from the beginning the\nprofession seems to have been socially decried, like that of a\nmusic-hall singer or dancer in later times; but in the eleventh\ncentury, or perhaps earlier still, the jongleur seems to have been a\npoet, and to have composed the songs he sang. The immense mass of\npoetry known as the \"Chansons de Geste\" seems to have been composed\nas well as sung by the unnamed Homers of France, and of all spots in\nthe many provinces where the French language in its many dialects\nprevailed, Mont-Saint-Michel should have been the favourite with the\njongleur, not only because the swarms of pilgrims assured him food\nand an occasional small piece of silver, but also because Saint\nMichael was the saint militant of all the warriors whose exploits in\nwar were the subject of the \"Chansons de Geste.\" William of Saint-\nPair was a priest-poet; he was not a minstrel, and his \"Roman\" was\nnot a chanson; it was made to read, not to recite; but the \"Chanson\nde Roland\" was a different affair.\n\nSo it was, too, with William's contemporaries and rivals or\npredecessors, the monumental poets of Norman-English literature.\nWace, whose rhymed history of the Norman dukes, which he called the\n\"Roman de Rou,\" or \"Rollo,\" is an English classic of the first rank,\nwas a canon of Bayeux when William of Saint-Pair was writing at\nMont-Saint-Michel. His rival Benoist, who wrote another famous\nchronicle on the same subject, was also a historian, and not a\nsinger. In that day literature meant verse; elegance in French prose\ndid not yet exist; but the elegancies of poetry in the twelfth\ncentury were as different, in kind, from the grand style of the\neleventh, as Virgil was different from Homer.\n\nWilliam of Saint-Pair introduces us to the pilgrimage and to the\njongleur, as they had existed at least two hundred years before his\ntime, and were to exist two hundred years after him. Of all our two\nhundred and fifty million arithmetical ancestors who were going on\npilgrimages in the middle of the eleventh century, the two who would\nprobably most interest every one, after eight hundred years have\npassed, would be William the Norman and Harold the Saxon. Through\nWilliam of Saint-Pair and Wace and Benoist, and the most charming\nliterary monument of all, the Bayeux tapestry of Queen Matilda, we\ncan build up the story of such a pilgrimage which shall be as\nhistorically exact as the battle of Hastings, and as artistically\ntrue as the Abbey Church.\n\nAccording to Wace's \"Roman de Rou,\" when Harold's father, Earl\nGodwin, died, April 15, 1053, Harold wished to obtain the release of\ncertain hostages, a brother and a cousin, whom Godwin had given to\nEdward the Confessor as security for his good behaviour, and whom\nEdward had sent to Duke William for safe-keeping. Wace took the\nstory from other and older sources, and its accuracy is much\ndisputed, but the fact that Harold went to Normandy seems to be\ncertain, and you will see at Bayeux the picture of Harold asking\npermission of King Edward to make the journey, and departing on\nhorseback, with his hawk and hounds and followers, to take ship at\nBosham, near Chichester and Portsmouth. The date alone is doubtful.\nCommon sense seems to suggest that the earliest possible date could\nnot be too early to explain the rash youth of the aspirant to a\nthrone who put himself in the power of a rival in the eleventh\ncentury. When that rival chanced to be William the Bastard, not even\nboyhood could excuse the folly; but Mr. Freeman, the chief authority\non this delicate subject, inclined to think that Harold was forty\nyears old when he committed his blunder, and that the year was about\n1064. Between 1054 and 1064 the historian is free to choose what\nyear he likes, and the tourist is still freer. To save trouble for\nthe memory, the year 1058 will serve, since this is the date of the\ntriumphal arches of the Abbey Church on the Mount. Harold, in\nsailing from the neighbourhood of Portsmouth, must have been bound\nfor Caen or Rouen, but the usual west winds drove him eastward till\nhe was thrown ashore on the coast of Ponthieu, between Abbeville and\nBoulogne, where he fell into the hands of the Count of Ponthieu,\nfrom whom he was rescued or ransomed by Duke William of Normandy and\ntaken to Rouen. According to Wace and the \"Roman de Rou\":--\n\nGuillaume tint Heraut maint jour\n Si com il dut a grant enor.\n A maint riche torneiement\n Le fist aller mult noblement.\n Chevals e armes li dona\n Et en Bretaigne le mena\n Ne sai de veir treiz faiz ou quatre\n Quant as Bretons se dut combattre.\n\n\nWilliam kept Harold many a day,\n As was his due in great honour.\n To many a rich tournament\n Made him go very nobly.\n Horses and arms gave him\n And into Brittany led him\n I know not truly whether three or four times\n When he had to make war on the Bretons.\n\n\nPerhaps the allusion to rich tournaments belongs to the time of Wace\nrather than to that of Harold a century earlier, before the first\ncrusade, but certainly Harold did go with William on at least one\nraid into Brittany, and the charming tapestry of Bayeux, which\ntradition calls by the name of Queen Matilda, shows William's men-\nat-arms crossing the sands beneath Mont-Saint-Michel, with the Latin\nlegend:--\"Et venerunt ad Montem Michaelis. Hic Harold dux trahebat\neos de arena. Venerunt ad flumen Cononis.\" They came to Mont-Saint-\nMichel, and Harold dragged them out of the quicksands.\n\nThey came to the river Couesnon. Harold must have got great fame by\nsaving life on the sands, to be remembered and recorded by the\nNormans themselves after they had killed him; but this is the affair\nof historians. Tourists note only that Harold and William came to\nthe Mount:--\"Venerunt ad Montem.\" They would never have dared to\npass it, on such an errand, without stopping to ask the help of\nSaint Michael.\n\nIf William and Harold came to the Mount, they certainly dined or\nsupped in the old refectory, which is where we have lain in wait for\nthem. Where Duke William was, his jongleur--jugleor--was not far,\nand Wace knew, as every one in Normandy seemed to know, who this\nfavourite was,--his name, his character, and his song. To him Wace\nowed one of the most famous passages in his story of the assault at\nHastings, where Duke William and his battle began their advance\nagainst the English lines:--\n\nTaillefer qui mult bien chantout\n Sor un cheval qui tost alout\n Devant le duc alout chantant\n De Karlemaigne e de Rollant\n E d'Oliver e des vassals\n Qui morurent en Rencevals.\n Quant il orent chevalchie tant\n Qu'as Engleis vindrent apreismant:\n \"Sire,\" dist Taillefer, \"merci!\n Io vos ai longuement servi.\n Tot mon servise me devez.\n Hui se vos plaist le me rendez.\n Por tot guerredon vos require\n E si vos veil forment preier\n Otreiez mei que io ni faille\n Le premier colp de la bataille.\"\n Li dus respondi: \"Io l'otrei.\"\n\n\nTaillefer who was famed for song,\n Mounted on a charger strong,\n Rode on before the Duke, and sang\n Of Roland and of Charlemagne,\n Oliver and the vassals all\n Who fell in fight at Roncesvals.\n When they had ridden till they saw\n The English battle close before:\n \"Sire,\" said Taillefer, \"a grace!\n I have served you long and well;\n All reward you owe me still;\n To-day repay me if you please.\n For all guerdon I require,\n And ask of you in formal prayer,\n Grant to me as mine of right\n The first blow struck in the fight.\"\n The Duke answered: \"I grant.\"\n\n\nOf course, critics doubt the story, as they very properly doubt\neverything. They maintain that the \"Chanson de Roland\" was not as\nold as the battle of Hastings, and certainly Wace gave no sufficient\nproof of it. Poetry was not usually written to prove facts. Wace\nwrote a hundred years after the battle of Hastings. One is not\nmorally required to be pedantic to the point of knowing more than\nWace knew, but the feeling of scepticism, before so serious a\nmonument as Mont-Saint-Michel, is annoying. The \"Chanson de Roland\"\nought not to be trifled with, at least by tourists in search of art.\nOne is shocked at the possibility of being deceived about the\nstarting-point of American genealogy. Taillefer and the song rest on\nthe same evidence that Duke William and Harold and the battle itself\nrest upon, and to doubt the \"Chanson\" is to call the very roll of\nBattle Abbey in question. The whole fabric of society totters; the\nBritish peerage turns pale.\n\nWace did not invent all his facts. William of Malmesbury is supposed\nto have written his prose chronicle about 1120 when many of the men\nwho fought at Hastings must have been alive, and William expressly\nsaid: \"Tune cantilena Rollandi inchoata ut martium viri exemplum\npugnaturos accenderet, inclamatoque dei auxilio, praelium\nconsertum.\" Starting the \"Chanson de Roland\" to inflame the fighting\ntemper of the men, battle was joined. This seems enough proof to\nsatisfy any sceptic, yet critics still suggest that the \"cantilena\nRollandi\" must have been a Norman \"Chanson de Rou,\" or \"Rollo,\" or\nat best an earlier version of the \"Chanson de Roland\"; but no Norman\nchanson would have inflamed the martial spirit of William's army,\nwhich was largely French; and as for the age of the version, it is\nquite immaterial for Mont-Saint-Michel; the actual version is old\nenough.\n\nTaillefer himself is more vital to the interest of the dinner in the\nrefectory, and his name was not mentioned by William of Malmesbury.\nIf the song was started by the Duke's order, it was certainly\nstarted by the Duke's jongleur, and the name of this jongleur\nhappens to be known on still better authority than that of William\nof Malmesbury. Guy of Amiens went to England in 1068 as almoner of\nQueen Matilda, and there wrote a Latin poem on the battle of\nHastings which must have been complete within ten years after the\nbattle was fought, for Guy died in 1076. Taillefer, he said, led the\nDuke's battle:--\n\nIncisor-ferri mimus cognomine dictus.\n\n\n\"Taillefer, a jongleur known by that name.\" A mime was a singer, but\nTaillefer was also an actor:--\n\nHistrio cor audax nimium quem nobilitabat.\n\n\n\"A jongleur whom a very brave heart ennobled.\" The jongleur was not\nnoble by birth, but was ennobled by his bravery.\n\nHortatur Gallos verbis et territat Anglos\n Alte projiciens ludit et ense suo.\n\n\nLike a drum-major with his staff, he threw his sword high in the air\nand caught it, while he chanted his song to the French, and\nterrified the English. The rhymed chronicle of Geoffrey Gaimer who\nwrote about 1150, and that of Benoist who was Wace's rival, added\nthe story that Taillefer died in the melee.\n\nThe most unlikely part of the tale was, after all, not the singing\nof the \"Chanson,\" but the prayer of Taillefer to the Duke:--\n\n\"Otreiez mei que io ni faille\n Le premier colp de la bataille.\"\n\n\nLegally translated, Taillefer asked to be ennobled, and offered to\npay for it with his life. The request of a jongleur to lead the\nDuke's battle seems incredible. In early French \"bataille\" meant\nbattalion,--the column of attack. The Duke's grant: \"Io l'otrei!\"\nseems still more fanciful. Yet Guy of Amiens distinctly confirmed\nthe story: \"Histrio cor audax nimium quem nobilitabat\"; a stage-\nplayer--a juggler--the Duke's singer--whose bravery ennobled him.\nThe Duke granted him--octroya--his patent of nobility on the field.\n\nAll this preamble leads only to unite the \"Chanson\" with the\narchitecture of the Mount, by means of Duke William and his Breton\ncampaign of 1058. The poem and the church are akin; they go\ntogether, and explain each other. Their common trait is their\nmilitary character, peculiar to the eleventh century. The round arch\nis masculine. The \"Chanson\" is so masculine that, in all its four\nthousand lines, the only Christian woman so much as mentioned was\nAlda, the sister of Oliver and the betrothed of Roland, to whom one\nstanza, exceedingly like a later insertion, was given, toward the\nend. Never after the first crusade did any great poem rise to such\nheroism as to sustain itself without a heroine. Even Dante attempted\nno such feat.\n\nDuke William's party, then, is to be considered as assembled at\nsupper in the old refectory, in the year 1058, while the triumphal\npiers of the church above are rising. The Abbot, Ralph of Beaumont,\nis host; Duke William sits with him on a dais; Harold is by his side\n\"a grant enor\"; the Duke's brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, with the\nother chief vassals, are present; and the Duke's jongleur Taillefer\nis at his elbow. The room is crowded with soldiers and monks, but\nall are equally anxious to hear Taillefer sing. As soon as dinner is\nover, at a nod from the Duke, Taillefer begins:--\n\nCarles li reis nostre emperere magnes\n Set anz tuz pleins ad estet en Espaigne\n Cunquist la tere tresque en la mer altaigne\n Ni ad castel ki devant lui remaigne\n Murs ne citez ni est remes a fraindre.\n\n\nCharles the king, our emperor, the great,\n Seven years complete has been in Spain,\n Conquered the land as far as the high seas,\n Nor is there castle that holds against him,\n Nor wall or city left to capture.\n\n\nThe \"Chanson\" opened with these lines, which had such a direct and\npersonal bearing on every one who heard them as to sound like\nprophecy. Within ten years William was to stand in England where\nCharlemagne stood in Spain. His mind was full of it, and of the\nmeans to attain it; and Harold was even more absorbed than he by the\nanxiety of the position. Harold had been obliged to take oath that\nhe would support William's claim to the English throne, but he was\nstill undecided, and William knew men too well to feel much\nconfidence in an oath. As Taillefer sang on, he reached the part of\nGanelon, the typical traitor, the invariable figure of mediaeval\nsociety. No feudal lord was without a Ganelon. Duke William saw them\nall about him.\n\nHe might have felt that Harold would play the part, but if Harold\nshould choose rather to be Roland, Duke William could have foretold\nthat his own brother, Bishop Odo, after gorging himself on the\nplunder of half England, would turn into a Ganelon so dangerous as\nto require a prison for life. When Taillefer reached the battle-\nscenes, there was no further need of imagination to realize them.\nThey were scenes of yesterday and to-morrow. For that matter,\nCharlemagne or his successor was still at Aix, and the Moors were\nstill in Spain. Archbishop Turpin of Rheims had fought with sword\nand mace in Spain, while Bishop Odo of Bayeux was to marshal his men\nat Hastings, like a modern general, with a staff, but both were\nequally at home on the field of battle. Verse by verse, the song was\na literal mirror of the Mount. The battle of Hastings was to be\nfought on the Archangel's Day. What happened to Roland at\nRoncesvalles was to happen to Harold at Hastings, and Harold, as he\nwas dying like Roland, was to see his brother Gyrth die like Oliver.\nEven Taillefer was to be a part, and a distinguished part, of his\nchanson. Sooner or later, all were to die in the large and simple\nway of the eleventh century. Duke William himself, twenty years\nlater, was to meet a violent death at Mantes in the same spirit, and\nif Bishop Odo did not die in battle, he died, at least, like an\neleventh-century hero, on the first crusade. First or last, the\nwhole company died in fight, or in prison, or on crusade, while the\nmonks shrived them and prayed.\n\nThen Taillefer certainly sang the great death-scenes. Even to this\nday every French school-boy, if he knows no other poetry, knows\nthese verses by heart. In the eleventh century they wrung the heart\nof every man-at-arms in Europe, whose school was the field of battle\nand the hand-to-hand fight. No modern singer ever enjoys such power\nover an audience as Taillefer exercised over these men who were\nactors as well as listeners. In the melee at Roncesvalles, overborne\nby innumerable Saracens, Oliver at last calls for help:--\n\nMunjoie escriet e haltement e cler.\n Rollant apelet sun ami e sun per;\n \"Sire compainz a mei kar vus justez.\n A grant dulur ermes hoi deserveret.\" Aoi.\n\n\n\"Montjoie!\" he cries, loud and clear,\n Roland he calls, his friend and peer;\n \"Sir Friend! ride now to help me here!\n Parted today, great pity were.\"\n\n\nOf course the full value of the verse cannot be regained. One knows\nneither how it was sung nor even how it was pronounced. The\nassonances are beyond recovering; the \"laisse\" or leash of verses or\nassonances with the concluding cry, \"Aoi,\" has long ago vanished\nfrom verse or song. The sense is as simple as the \"Ballad of Chevy\nChase,\" but one must imagine the voice and acting. Doubtless\nTaillefer acted each motive; when Oliver called loud and clear,\nTaillefer's voice rose; when Roland spoke \"doulcement et suef,\" the\nsinger must have sung gently and soft; and when the two friends,\nwith the singular courtesy of knighthood and dignity of soldiers,\nbowed to each other in parting and turned to face their deaths,\nTaillefer may have indicated the movement as he sang. The verses\ngave room for great acting. Hearing Oliver's cry for help, Roland\nrode up, and at sight of the desperate field, lost for a moment his\nconsciousness:--\n\nAs vus Rollant sur sun cheval pasmet\n E Olivier ki est a mort nafrez!\n Tant ad sainiet li oil li sunt trublet\n Ne luinz ne pres ne poet veeir si cler\n Que reconuisset nisun hume mortel.\n Sun cumpaignun cum il l'ad encuntret\n Sil fiert amunt sur l'elme a or gemmet\n Tut li detrenchet d'ici que al nasel\n Mais en la teste ne l'ad mie adeset.\n A icel colp l'ad Rollanz reguardet\n Si li demandet dulcement et suef\n \"Sire cumpainz, faites le vus de gred?\n Ja est co Rollanz ki tant vus soelt amer.\n Par nule guise ne m'aviez desfiet,\"\n Dist Oliviers: \"Or vus oi jo parler\n Io ne vus vei. Veied vus damnedeus!\n Ferut vus ai. Kar le me pardunez!\"\n Rollanz respunt: \"Jo n'ai nient de mel.\n Jol vus parduins ici e devant deu.\"\n A icel mot l'uns al altre ad clinet.\n Par tel amur as les vus desevrez!\n\n\nThere Roland sits unconscious on his horse,\n And Oliver who wounded is to death,\n So much has bled, his eyes grow dark to him,\n Nor far nor near can see so clear\n As to recognize any mortal man.\n His friend, when he has encountered him,\n He strikes upon the helmet of gemmed gold,\n splits it from the crown to the nose-piece,\n But to the head he has not reached at all.\n At this blow Roland looks at him,\n Asks him gently and softly:\n \"Sir Friend, do you it in earnest?\n You know 't is Roland who has so loved you.\n In no way have you sent to me defiance.\"\n Says Oliver: \"Indeed I hear you speak,\n I do not see you. May God see and save you!\n Strike you I did. I pray you pardon me.\"\n Roland replies: \"I have no harm at all.\n I pardon you here and before God!\"\n At this word, one to the other bends himself.\n With such affection, there they separate.\n\n\nNo one should try to render this into English--or, indeed, into\nmodern French--verse, but any one who will take the trouble to catch\nthe metre and will remember that each verse in the \"leash\" ends in\nthe same sound,--aimer, parler, cler, mortel, damnede, mel, deu,\nsuef, nasel,--however the terminal syllables may be spelled, can\nfollow the feeling of the poetry as well as though it were Greek\nhexameter. He will feel the simple force of the words and action, as\nhe feels Homer. It is the grand style,--the eleventh century:--\n\nFerut vus ai! Kar le me pardunez!\n\n\nNot a syllable is lost, and always the strongest syllable is chosen.\nEven the sentiment is monosyllabic and curt:--\n\nJa est co Rollanz ki tant vus soelt amer!\n\n\nTaillefer had, in such a libretto, the means of producing dramatic\neffects that the French comedy or the grand opera never approached,\nand such as made Bayreuth seem thin and feeble. Duke William's\nbarons must have clung to his voice and action as though they were\nin the very melee, striking at the helmets of gemmed gold. They had\nall been there, and were to be there again. As the climax\napproached, they saw the scene itself; probably they had seen it\nevery year, more or less, since they could swing a sword. Taillefer\nchanted the death of Oliver and of Archbishop Turpin and all the\nother barons of the rear guard, except Roland, who was left for dead\nby the Saracens when they fled on hearing the horns of Charlemagne's\nreturning host. Roland came back to consciousness on feeling a\nSaracen marauder tugging at his sword Durendal. With a blow of his\nivory horn--oliphant--he killed the pagan; then feeling death near,\nhe prepared for it. His first thought was for Durendal, his sword,\nwhich he could not leave to infidels. In the singular triple\nrepetition which gives more of the same solidity and architectural\nweight to the verse, he made three attempts to break the sword, with\na lament--a plaint--for each. Three times he struck with all his\nforce against the rock; each time the sword rebounded without\nbreaking. The third time--\n\nRollanz ferit en une pierre bise\n Plus en abat que jo ne vus sai dire.\n L'espee cruist ne fruisset ne ne briset\n Cuntre le ciel amunt est resortie.\n Quant veit li quens que ne la fraindrat mie\n Mult dulcement la plainst a sei meisme.\n \"E! Durendal cum ies bele e saintisme!\n En l'oret punt asez i ad reliques.\n La dent saint Pierre e del sanc seint Basilie\n E des chevels mun seignur seint Denisie\n Del vestment i ad seinte Marie.\n Il nen est dreiz que paien te baillisent.\n De chrestiens devez estre servie.\n Ne vus ait hum ki facet cuardie!\n Mult larges terres de vus averai cunquises\n Que Carles tient ki la barbe ad flurie.\n E li emperere en est e ber e riches.\"\n\n\nRoland strikes on a grey stone,\n More of it cuts off than I can tell you.\n The sword grinds, but shatters not nor breaks,\n Upward against the sky it rebounds.\n When the Count sees that he can never break it,\n Very gently he mourns it to himself:\n \"Ah, Durendal, how fair you are and sacred!\n In your golden guard are many relics,\n The tooth of Saint Peter and blood of Saint Basil,\n And hair of my seigneur Saint-Denis,\n Of the garment too of Saint Mary.\n It is not right that pagans should own you.\n By Christians you should be served,\n Nor should man have you who does cowardice.\n Many wide lands by you I have conquered\n That Charles holds, who has the white beard,\n And emperor of them is noble and rich.\"\n\n\nThis \"laisse\" is even more eleventh-century than the other, but it\nappealed no longer to the warriors; it spoke rather to the monks. To\nthe warriors, the sword itself was the religion, and the relics were\ndetails of ornament or strength. To the priest, the list of relics\nwas more eloquent than the Regent diamond on the hilt and the\nKohinoor on the scabbard. Even to us it is interesting if it is\nunderstood. Roland had gone on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He had\nstopped at Rome and won the friendship of Saint Peter, as the tooth\nproved; he had passed through Constantinople and secured the help of\nSaint Basil; he had reached Jerusalem and gained the affection of\nthe Virgin; he had come home to France and secured the support of\nhis \"seigneur\" Saint Denis; for Roland, like Hugh Capet, was a\nliege-man of Saint Denis and French to the heart. France, to him,\nwas Saint Denis, and at most the Ile de France, but not Anjou or\neven Maine. These were countries he had conquered with Durendal:--\n\nJo l'en cunquis e Anjou e Bretaigne\n Si l'en cunquis e Peitou e le Maine\n Jo l'en cunquis Normendie la franche\n Si l'en cunquis Provence e Equitaigne.\n\n\nHe had conquered these for his emperor Charlemagne with the help of\nhis immediate spiritual lord or seigneur Saint Denis, but the monks\nknew that he could never have done these feats without the help of\nSaint Peter, Saint Basil, and Saint Mary the Blessed Virgin, whose\nrelics, in the hilt of his sword, were worth more than any king's\nransom. To this day a tunic of the Virgin is the most precious\nproperty of the cathedral at Chartres. Either one of Roland's relics\nwould have made the glory of any shrine in Europe, and every monk\nknew their enormous value and power better than he knew the value of\nRoland's conquests.\n\nYet even the religion is martial, as though it were meant for the\nfighting Archangel and Odo of Bayeux. The relics serve the sword;\nthe sword is not in service of the relics. As the death-scene\napproaches, the song becomes even more military:--\n\nCo sent Rollanz que la mort le tresprent\n Devers la teste sur le quer li descent.\n Desuz un pin i est alez curanz\n Sur l'erbe verte si est culchiez adenz\n Desuz lui met s'espee e l'olifant\n Turnat sa teste vers la paiene gent.\n Pur co l'ad fait que il voelt veirement\n Que Carles diet et trestute sa gent\n Li gentils quens quil fut morz cunqueranz.\n\n\nThen Roland feels that death is taking him;\n Down from the head upon the heart it falls.\n Beneath a pine he hastens running;\n On the green grass he throws himself down;\n Beneath him puts his sword and oliphant,\n Turns his face toward the pagan army.\n For this he does it, that he wishes greatly\n That Charles should say and all his men,\n The gentle Count has died a conqueror.\n\n\nThus far, not a thought or a word strays from the field of war. With\na childlike intensity, every syllable bends toward the single idea--\n\nLi gentils quens quil fut morz cunqueranz.\n\n\nOnly then the singer allowed the Church to assert some of its\nrights:-\n\nCo sent Rollanz de sun tens ni ad plus\n Devers Espaigne gist en un pui agut\n A l'une main si ad sun piz batut.\n \"Deus meie culpe vers les tues vertuz\n De mes pecchiez des granz e des menuz\n Que jo ai fait des l'ure que nez fui\n Tresqu'a cest jur que ci sui consouz.\"\n Sun destre guant en ad vers deu tendut\n Angle del ciel i descendent a lui. Aoi.\n\n\nThen Roland feels that his last hour has come\n Facing toward Spain he lies on a steep hill,\n While with one hand he beats upon his breast:\n \"Mea culpa, God! through force of thy miracles\n Pardon my sins, the great as well as small,\n That I have done from the hour I was born\n Down to this day that I have now attained.\"\n His right glove toward God he lifted up.\n Angels from heaven descend on him. Aoi.\n Li quens Rollanz se jut desuz un pin\n Envers Espaigne en ad turnet sun vis\n De plusurs choses a remembrer li prist\n De tantes terres cume li bers cunquist\n De dulce France des humes de sun lign\n De Carlemagne sun seignur kil nurrit\n Ne poet muer men plurt e ne suspirt\n Mais lui meisme ne voelt metre en ubli\n Claimet sa culpe si priet deu mercit.\n \"Veire paterne ki unkes ne mentis\n Seint Lazarun de mort resurrexis\n E Daniel des liuns guaresis\n Guaris de mei l'anme de tuz perils\n Pur les pecchiez que en ma vie fis.\"\n\n\nSun destre guant a deu en puroffrit\n E de sa main seinz Gabriel lad pris\n Desur sun braz teneit le chief enclin\n Juintes ses mains est alez a sa fin.\n Deus li tramist sun angle cherubin\n E Seint Michiel de la mer del peril\n Ensemble od els Seinz Gabriels i vint\n L' anme del cunte portent en pareis.\n\n\nCount Roland throws himself beneath a pine\n And toward Spain has turned his face away.\n Of many things he called the memory back,\n Of many lands that he, the brave, had conquered,\n Of gentle France, the men of his lineage,\n Of Charlemagne his lord, who nurtured him;\n He cannot help but weep and sigh for these,\n But for himself will not forget to care;\n He cries his Culpe, he prays to God for grace.\n \"O God the Father who has never lied,\n Who raised up Saint Lazarus from death,\n And Daniel from the lions saved,\n Save my soul from all the perils\n For the sins that in my life I did!\"\n\n\nHis right-hand glove to God he proffered;\n Saint Gabriel from his hand took it;\n Upon his arm he held his head inclined,\n Folding his hands he passed to his end.\n God sent to him his angel cherubim\n And Saint Michael of the Sea in Peril,\n Together with them came Saint Gabriel.\n The soul of the Count they bear to Paradise.\n\n\nOur age has lost much of its ear for poetry, as it has its eye for\ncolour and line, and its taste for war and worship, wine and women.\nNot one man in a hundred thousand could now feel what the eleventh\ncentury felt in these verses of the \"Chanson,\" and there is no\nreason for trying to do so, but there is a certain use in trying for\nonce to understand not so much the feeling as the meaning. The\nnaivete of the poetry is that of the society. God the Father was the\nfeudal seigneur, who raised Lazarus--his baron or vassal--from the\ngrave, and freed Daniel, as an evidence of his power and loyalty; a\nseigneur who never lied, or was false to his word. God the Father,\nas feudal seigneur, absorbs the Trinity, and, what is more\nsignificant, absorbs or excludes also the Virgin, who is not\nmentioned in the prayer. To this seigneur, Roland in dying,\nproffered (puroffrit) his right-hand gauntlet. Death was an act of\nhomage. God sent down his Archangel Gabriel as his representative to\naccept the homage and receive the glove. To Duke William and his\nbarons nothing could seem more natural and correct. God was not\nfarther away than Charlemagne.\n\nCorrect as the law may have been, the religion even at that time\nmust have seemed to the monks to need professional advice. Roland's\nlife was not exemplary. The \"Chanson\" had taken pains to show that\nthe disaster at Roncesvalles was due to Roland's headstrong folly\nand temper. In dying, Roland had not once thought of these faults,\nor repented of his worldly ambitions, or mentioned the name of Alda,\nhis betrothed. He had clung to the memory of his wars and conquests,\nhis lineage, his earthly seigneur Charlemagne, and of \"douce\nFrance.\" He had forgotten to give so much as an allusion to Christ.\nThe poet regarded all these matters as the affair of the Church; all\nthe warrior cared for was courage, loyalty, and prowess.\n\nThe interest of these details lies not in the scholarship or the\nhistorical truth or even the local colour, so much as in the art.\nThe naivete of the thought is repeated by the simplicity of the\nverse. Word and thought are equally monosyllabic. Nothing ever\nmatched it. The words bubble like a stream in the woods:--\n\nCo sent Rollanz de sun tens ni ad plus.\n\n\nTry and put them into modern French, and see what will happen:--\n\nQue jo ai fait des l'ure que nez fui.\n\n\nThe words may remain exactly the same, but the poetry will have gone\nout of them. Five hundred years later, even the English critics had\nso far lost their sense for military poetry that they professed to\nbe shocked by Milton's monosyllables:--\n\nWhereat he inly raged, and, as they talked,\n Smote him into the midriff with a stone\n That beat out life.\n\n\nMilton's language was indeed more or less archaic and Biblical; it\nwas a Puritan affectation; but the \"Chanson\" in the refectory\nactually reflected, repeated, echoed, the piers and arches of the\nAbbey Church just rising above. The verse is built up. The qualities\nof the architecture reproduce themselves in the song: the same\ndirectness, simplicity, absence of self-consciousness; the same\nintensity of purpose; even the same material; the prayer is\ngranite:--\n\nGuaris de mei l'anme de tuz perils Pur les pecchiez que en ma vie\nfisi\n\n\nThe action of dying is felt, like the dropping of a keystone into\nthe vault, and if the Romanesque arches in the church, which are\nwithin hearing, could speak, they would describe what they are doing\nin the precise words of the poem:--\n\nDesur sun braz teneit Ie chief enclin Juintes ses mains est alez a\nsa fin.\n\nUpon their shoulders have their heads inclined,\n Folded their hands, and sunken to their rest.\n\n\nMany thousands of times these verses must have been sung at the\nMount and echoed in every castle and on every battle-field from the\nWelsh Marches to the shores of the Dead Sea. No modern opera or play\never approached the popularity of the \"Chanson.\" None has ever\nexpressed with anything like the same completeness the society that\nproduced it. Chanted by every minstrel,--known by heart, from\nbeginning to end, by every man and woman and child, lay or\nclerical,--translated into every tongue,--more intensely felt, if\npossible, in Italy and Spain than in Normandy and England,--perhaps\nmost effective, as a work of art, when sung by the Templars in their\ngreat castles in the Holy Land,--it is now best felt at Mont-Saint-\nMichel, and from the first must have been there at home. The proof\nis the line, evidently inserted for the sake of its local effect,\nwhich invoked Saint Michael in Peril of the Sea at the climax of\nRoland's death, and one needs no original documents or contemporary\nauthorities to prove that, when Taillefer came to this invocation,\nnot only Duke William and his barons, but still more Abbot Ranulf\nand his monks, broke into a frenzy of sympathy which expressed the\nmasculine and military passions of the Archangel better than it\naccorded with the rules of Saint Benedict.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE MERVEILLE\n\nThe nineteenth century moved fast and furious, so that one who moved\nin it felt sometimes giddy, watching it spin; but the eleventh moved\nfaster and more furiously still. The Norman conquest of England was\nan immense effort, and its consequences were far-reaching, but the\nfirst crusade was altogether the most interesting event in European\nhistory. Never has the Western world shown anything like the energy\nand unity with which she then flung herself on the East, and for the\nmoment made the East recoil. Barring her family quarrels, Europe was\na unity then, in thought, will, and object. Christianity was the\nunit. Mont-Saint-Michel and Byzantium were near each other. The\nEmperor Constantine and the Emperor Charlemagne were figured as\nallies and friends in the popular legend. The East was the common\nenemy, always superior in wealth and numbers, frequently in energy,\nand sometimes in thought and art. The outburst of the first crusade\nwas splendid even in a military sense, but it was great beyond\ncomparison in its reflection in architecture, ornament, poetry,\ncolour, religion, and philosophy. Its men were astonishing, and its\nwomen were worth all the rest.\n\nMont-Saint-Michel, better than any other spot in the world, keeps\nthe architectural record of that ferment, much as the Sicilian\ntemples keep the record of the similar outburst of Greek energy,\nart, poetry, and thought, fifteen hundred years before. Of the\neleventh century, it is true, nothing but the church remains at the\nMount, and, if studied further, the century has got to be sought\nelsewhere, which is not difficult, since it is preserved in any\nnumber of churches in every path of tourist travel. Normandy is full\nof it; Bayeux and Caen contain little else. At the Mount, the\neleventh-century work was antiquated before it was finished. In the\nyear 1112, Abbot Roger II was obliged to plan and construct a new\ngroup in such haste that it is said to have been finished in 1122.\nIt extends from what we have supposed to be the old refectory to the\nparvis, and abuts on the three lost spans of the church, covering\nabout one hundred and twenty feet. As usual there were three levels;\na crypt or gallery beneath, known as the Aquilon; a cloister or\npromenoir above; and on the level of the church a dormitory, now\nlost. The group is one of the most interesting in France, another\npons seclorum, an antechamber to the west portal of Chartres, which\nbears the same date (i 110-25). It is the famous period of\nTransition, the glory of the twelfth century, the object of our\npilgrimage.\n\nArt is a fairly large field where no one need jostle his neighbour,\nand no one need shut himself up in a corner; but, if one insists on\ntaking a corner of preference, one might offer some excuse for\nchoosing the Gothic Transition. The quiet, restrained strength of\nthe Romanesque married to the graceful curves and vaulting\nimagination of the Gothic makes a union nearer the ideal than is\noften allowed in marriage. The French, in their best days, loved it\nwith a constancy that has thrown a sort of aureole over their\nfickleness since. They never tired of its possibilities. Sometimes\nthey put the pointed arch within the round, or above it; sometimes\nthey put the round within the pointed. Sometimes a Roman arch\ncovered a cluster of pointed windows, as though protecting and\ncaressing its children; sometimes a huge pointed arch covered a\ngreat rose-window spreading across the whole front of an enormous\ncathedral, with an arcade of Romanesque windows beneath. The French\narchitects felt no discord, and there was none. Even the pure Gothic\nwas put side by side with the pure Roman. You will see no later\nGothic than the choir of the Abbey Church above (1450-1521), unless\nit is the north fleche of Chartres Cathedral (1507-13); and if you\nwill look down the nave, through the triumphal arches, into the\npointed choir four hundred years more modern, you can judge whether\nthere is any real discord. For those who feel the art, there is\nnone; the strength and the grace join hands; the man and woman love\neach other still.\n\nThe difference of sex is not imaginary. In 1058, when the triumphal\ncolumns were building, and Taillefer sang to William the Bastard and\nHarold the Saxon, Roland still prayed his \"mea culpa\" to God the\nFather and gave not a thought to Alda his betrothed. In the twelfth\ncentury Saint Bernard recited \"Ave Stella Marts\" in an ecstasy of\nmiracle before the image of the Virgin, and the armies of France in\nbattle cried, \"Notre-Dame-Saint-Denis-Montjoie.\" What the Roman\ncould not express flowered into the Gothic; what the masculine mind\ncould not idealize in the warrior, it idealized in the woman; no\narchitecture that ever grew on earth, except the Gothic, gave this\neffect of flinging its passion against the sky.\n\nWhen men no longer felt the passion, they fell back on themselves,\nor lower. The architect returned to the round arch, and even further\nto the flatness of the Greek colonnade; but this was not the fault\nof the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. What they had to say they\nsaid; what they felt they expressed; and if the seventeenth century\nforgot it, the twentieth in turn has forgotten the seventeenth.\nHistory is only a catalogue of the forgotten. The eleventh century\nis no worse off than its neighbours. The twelfth is, in\narchitecture, rather better off than the nineteenth. These two\nrooms, the Aquilon and promenoir, which mark the beginning of the\nTransition, are, on the whole, more modern than Saint-Sulpice, or Il\nGesu at Rome. In the same situation, for the same purposes, any\narchitect would be proud to repeat them to-day.\n\nThe Aquilon, though a hall or gallery of importance in its day,\nseems to be classed among crypts. M. Camille Enlart, in his \"Manual\nof French Archaeology\" (p. 252) gives a list of Romanesque and\nTransition crypts, about one hundred and twenty, to serve as\nexamples for the study. The Aquilon is not one of them, but the\ncrypt of Saint-Denis and that of Chartres Cathedral would serve to\nteach any over-curious tourist all that he should want to know about\nsuch matters.\n\nPhotographs such as those of the Monuments Historiques answer all\nthe just purposes of underground travel. The Aquilon is one's first\nlesson in Transition architecture because it is dated (1112); and\nthe crypt of Saint-Denis serves almost equally well because the Abbe\nSuger must have begun his plans for it about 1122. Both have the\nsame arcs doubleaux and arcs-formerets, though in opposite\narrangement. Both show the first heavy hint at the broken arch.\nThere are no nervures--no rib-vaulting,--and hardly a suggestion of\nthe Gothic as one sees it in the splendid crypt of the Gros Fillers\nclose at hand, except the elaborately intersecting vaults and the\nheavy columns; but the promenoir above is an astonishing leap in\ntime and art. The promenoir has the same arrangement and columns as\nthe Aquilon, but the vaults are beautifully arched and pointed, with\nribs rising directly from the square capitals and intersecting the\ncentral spacings, in a spirit which neither you nor I know how to\ndistinguish from the pure Gothic of the thirteenth century, unless\nit is that the arches are hardly pointed enough; they seem to the\neye almost round. The height appears to be about fourteen feet.\n\nThe promenoir of Abbot Roger II has an interest to pilgrims who are\ngoing on to the shrine of the Virgin, because the date of the\npromenoir seems to be exactly the same as the date which the Abbe\nBulteau assigns for the western portal of Chartres. Ordinarily a\ndate is no great matter, but when one has to run forward and back,\nwith the agility of an electric tram, between two or three fixed\npoints, it is convenient to fix them once for all. The Transition is\ncomplete here in the promenoir, which was planned as early as 1115.\nThe subject of vaulting is far too ambitious for summer travel; it\nis none too easy for a graduate of the Beaux Arts; and few\narchitectural fields have been so earnestly discussed and disputed.\nWe must not touch it. The age of the \"Chanson de Roland\" itself is\nnot so dangerous a topic. Our vital needs are met, more or less\nsufficiently, by taking the promenoir at the Mount, the crypt at\nSaint-Denis, and the western portal at Chartres, as the trinity of\nour Transition, and roughly calling their date the years 1115-20, To\noverload the memory with dates is the vice of every schoolmaster and\nthe passion of every second-rate scholar. Tourists want as few dates\nas possible; what they want is poetry. Yet a singular coincidence,\nwith which every classroom is only too familiar, has made of the\nyears--15 a curiously convenient group, and the year 1115 is as\nconvenient as any for the beginning of the century of Transition.\nThat was the year when Saint Bernard laid the foundations of his\nAbbey of Clairvaux. Perhaps 1115, or at latest 1117, was the year\nwhen Abelard sang love-songs to Heloise in Canon Fulbert's house in\nthe Rue des Chantres, beside the cloister of Notre Dame in Paris.\nThe Abbe Suger, the Abbe Bernard, and the Abbe Abelard are the three\ninteresting men of the French Transition.\n\nThe promenoir, then, shall pass for the year 1115, and, as such, is\nan exceedingly beautiful hall, uniting the splendid calm and\nseriousness of the Romanesque with the exquisite lines of the\nGothic. You will hardly see its equal in the twelfth century. At\nAngers the great hall of the Bishop's Palace survives to give a\npoint of comparison, but commonly the halls of that date were not\nvaulted; they had timber roofs, and have perished. The promenoir is\nabout sixty feet long, and divided into two aisles, ten feet wide,\nby a row of columns. If it were used on great occasions as a\nrefectory, eighty or a hundred persons could have been seated at\ntable, and perhaps this may have been about the scale of the Abbey's\nneeds, at that time. Whatever effort of fancy was needed to place\nDuke William and Harold in the old refectory of 1058, none whatever\nis required in order to see his successors in the halls of Roger II.\nWith one exception they were not interesting persons. The exception\nwas Henry II of England and Anjou, and his wife Eleanor of Guienne,\nwho was for a while Regent of Normandy. One of their children was\nborn at Domfront, just beyond Avranches, and the Abbot was asked to\nbe godfather. In 1158, just one hundred years after Duke William's\nvisit, King Henry and his whole suite came to the Abbey, heard mass,\nand dined in the refectory. \"Rex venit ad Montem Sancti Michaelis,\naudita missa ad magis altare, comedit in Refec-torio cum baronibus\nsuis.\" Abbot Robert of Torigny was his host, and very possibly\nWilliam of Saint-Pair looked on. Perhaps he recited parts of his\n\"Roman\" before the King. One may be quite sure that when Queen\nEleanor came to the Mount she asked the poet to recite his verses,\nfor Eleanor gave law to poets.\n\nOne might linger over Abbot Robert of Torigny, who was a very great\nman in his day, and an especially great architect, but too\nambitious. All his work, including the two towers, crumbled and fell\nfor want of proper support. What would correspond to the cathedrals\nof Noyon and Soissons and the old clocher and fleche of Chartres is\nlost. We have no choice but to step down into the next century at\nonce, and into the full and perfect Gothic of the great age when the\nnew Chartres was building.\n\nIn the year 1203, Philip Augustus expelled the English from Normandy\nand conquered the province; but, in the course of the war the Duke\nof Brittany, who was naturally a party to any war that took place\nunder his eyes, happened to burn the town beneath the Abbey, and in\ndoing so, set fire unintentionally to the Abbey itself. The\nsacrilege shocked Philip Augustus, and the wish to conciliate so\npowerful a vassal as Saint Michel, or his abbot, led the King of\nFrance to give a large sum of money for repairing the buildings. The\nAbbot Jordan (1191-1212) at once undertook to outdo all his\npredecessors, and, with an immense ambition, planned the huge pile\nwhich covers the whole north face of the Mount, and which has always\nborne the expressive name of the Merveille.\n\nThe general motive of abbatial building was common to them all.\nAbbeys were large households. The church was the centre, and at\nMont-Saint-Michel the summit, for the situation compelled the abbots\nthere to pile one building on another instead of arranging them on a\nlevel in squares or parallelograms. The dormitory in any case had to\nbe near a door of the church, because the Rule required constant\nservices, day and night. The cloister was also hard-by the church\ndoor, and, at the Mount, had to be on the same level in order to be\nin open air. Naturally the refectory must be immediately beneath one\nor the other of these two principal structures, and the hall, or\nplace of meeting for business with the outside world, or for\ninternal administration, or for guests of importance, must be next\nthe refectory. The kitchen and offices would be placed on the lowest\nstage, if for no other reason, because the magazines were two\nhundred feet below at the landing-place, and all supplies, including\nwater, had to be hauled up an inclined plane by windlass. To\nadminister such a society required the most efficient management. An\nabbot on this scale was a very great man, indeed, who enjoyed an\nestablishment of his own, close by, with officers in no small\nnumber; for the monks alone numbered sixty, and even these were not\nenough for the regular church services at seasons of pilgrimage. The\nAbbot was obliged to entertain scores and hundreds of guests, and\nthese, too, of the highest importance, with large suites. Every\nounce of food must be brought from the mainland, or fished from the\nsea. All the tenants and their farms, their rents and contributions,\nmust be looked after. No secular prince had a more serious task of\nadministration, and none did it so well. Tenants always preferred an\nabbot or bishop for landlord. The Abbey was the highest\nadministrative creation of the Middle Ages, and when one has made\none's pilgrimage to Chartres, one might well devote another summer\nto visiting what is left of Clairvaux, Citeaux, Cluny, and the other\nfamous monasteries, with Viollet-le-Duc to guide, in order to\nsatisfy one's mind whether, on the whole, such a life may not have\nhad activity as well as idleness.\n\nThis is a matter of economics, to be settled with the keepers of\nmore modern hotels, but the art had to suit the conditions, and when\nAbbot Jordan decided to plaster this huge structure against the side\nof the Mount, the architect had a relatively simple task to handle.\nThe engineering difficulties alone were very serious; The\narchitectural plan was plain enough. As the Abbot laid his\nrequirements before the architect, he seems to have begun by fixing\nthe scale for a refectory capable of seating two hundred guests at\ntable. Probably no king in Europe fed more persons at his table than\nthis. According to M. Corroyer's plan, the length of the new\nrefectory is one hundred and twenty-three feet (37.5 metres). A row\nof columns down the centre divides it into two aisles, measuring\ntwelve feet clear, from column to column, across the room. If tables\nwere set the whole length of the two aisles, forty persons could\nhave been easily seated, in four rows, or one hundred and sixty\npersons. Without crowding, the same space would give room for fifty\nguests, or two hundred in all.\n\nOnce the scale was fixed, the arrangement was easy. Beginning at the\nlowest possible level, one plain, very solidly built, vaulted room\nserved as foundation for another, loftier and more delicately\nvaulted; and this again bore another which stood on the level of the\nchurch, and opened directly into the north transept. This\narrangement was then doubled; and the second set of rooms, at the\nwest end, contained the cellar on the lower level, another great\nroom or hall above it, and the cloister at the church door, also\nentering into the north transept. Doorways, passages, and stairs\nunite them all. The two heavy halls on the lowest level are now\ncalled the almonry and the cellar, which is a distinction between\nadministrative arrangements that does not concern us.\n\nArchitecturally the rooms might, to our untrained eyes, be of the\nsame age with the Aquilon. They are earliest Transition, as far as a\ntourist can see, or at least they belong to the class of crypts\nwhich has an architecture of its own. The rooms that concern us are\nthose immediately above: the so-called Salle des Chevaliers at the\nwest end; and the so-called refectory at the east. Every writer\ngives these rooms different names, and assigns them different\npurposes, but whatever they were meant for, they are, as halls, the\nfinest in France; the purest in thirteenth-century perfection.\n\nThe Salle des Chevaliers of the Order of Saint Michael created by\nLouis XI in 1469 was, or shall be for tourist purposes, the great\nhall that every palace and castle contained, and in which the life\nof the chateau centred. Planned at about the same time with the\nCathedral of Chartres (1195-1210), and before the Abbey Church of\nSaint-Denis, this hall and its neighbour the refectory, studied\ntogether with the cathedral and the abbey, are an exceedingly\nliberal education for anybody, tourist or engineer or architect, and\nwould make the fortune of an intelligent historian, if such should\nhappen to exist; but the last thing we ask from them is education or\ninstruction. We want only their poetry, and shall have to look for\nit elsewhere. Here is only the shell--the dead art--and silence. The\nhall is about ninety feet long, and sixty feet in its greatest\nwidth. It has three ranges of columns making four vaulted aisles\nwhich seem to rise about twenty-two feet in height. It is warmed by\ntwo huge and heavy cheminees or fireplaces in the outside wall,\nbetween the windows. It is lighted beautifully, but mostly from\nabove through round windows in the arching of the vaults. The\nvaulting is a study for wiser men than we can ever be. More than\ntwenty strong round columns, free or engaged, with Romanesque\ncapitals, support heavy ribs, or nervures, and while the two central\naisles are eighteen feet wide, the outside aisle, into which the\nwindows open, measures only ten feet in width, and has consequently\none of the most sharply pointed vaults we shall ever meet. The whole\ndesign is as beautiful a bit of early Gothic as exists, but what\nwould take most time to study, if time were to spare, would be the\ninstinct of the Archangel's presence which has animated his\narchitecture. The masculine, military energy of Saint Michael lives\nstill in every stone. The genius that realized this warlike emotion\nhas stamped his power everywhere, on every centimetre of his work;\nin every ray of light; on the mass of every shadow; wherever the eye\nfalls; still more strongly on all that the eye divines, and in the\nshadows that are felt like the lights. The architect intended it\nall. Any one who doubts has only to step through the doorway in the\ncorner into the refectory. There the architect has undertaken to\nexpress the thirteenth-century idea of the Archangel; he has left\nthe twelfth century behind him.\n\nThe refectory, which has already served for a measure of the Abbot's\nscale, is, in feeling, as different as possible from the hall. Six\ncharming columns run down the centre, dividing the room into two\nvaulted aisles, apparently about twenty-seven feet in height.\nWherever the hall was heavy and serious, the refectory was made\nlight and graceful. Hardly a trace of the Romanesque remains. Only\nthe slight, round columns are not yet grooved or fluted, and their\nround capitals are still slightly severe. Every detail is lightened.\nThe great fireplaces are removed to each end of the room. The most\ninteresting change is in the windows. When you reach Chartres, the\ngreat book of architecture will open on the word \"Fenestration,\"--\nFenestre,--a word as ugly as the thing was beautiful; and then, with\npain and sorrow, you will have to toil till you see how the\narchitects of 1200 subordinated every other problem to that of\nlighting their spaces. Without feeling their lights, you can never\nfeel their shadows. These two halls at Mont-Saint-Michel are\nantechambers to the nave of Chartres; their fenestration, inside and\nout, controls the whole design. The lighting of the refectory is\nsuperb, but one feels its value in art only when it is taken in\nrelation to the lighting of the hall, and both serve as a simple\npreamble to the romance of the Chartres windows.\n\nThe refectory shows what the architect did when, to lighten his\neffects, he wanted to use every possible square centimetre of light.\nHe has made nine windows; six on the north, two on the east, and one\non the south. They are nearly five feet wide, and about twenty feet\nhigh. They flood the room. Probably they were intended for glass,\nand M. Corroyer's volume contains wood-cuts of a few fragments of\nthirteenth-century glass discovered in his various excavations; but\none may take for granted that with so much light, colour was the\nobject intended. The floors would be tiled in colour; the walls\nwould be hung with colour; probably the vaults were painted in\ncolour; one can see it all in scores of illuminated manuscripts. The\nthirteenth century had a passion for colour, and made a colour-world\nof its own which we have got to explore.\n\nThe two halls remain almost the only monuments of what must be\ncalled secular architecture of the early and perfect period of\nGothic art (1200-10). Churches enough remain, with Chartres at their\nhead, but all the great abbeys, palaces and chateaux of that day are\nruins. Arques, Gaillard, Montargis, Coucy, the old Louvre, Chinon,\nAngers, as well as Cluny, Clairvaux, Citeaux, Jumieges, Vezelay,\nSaint-Denis, Poissy, Fontevrault, and a score of other residences,\nroyal or semi-royal, have disappeared wholly, or have lost their\nresidential buildings. When Viollet-le-Duc, under the Second Empire,\nwas allowed to restore one great chateau, he chose the latest,\nPierrefonds, built by Louis d'Orleans in 1390. Vestiges of Saint\nLouis's palace remain at the Conciergerie, but the first great royal\nresidence to be compared with the Merveille is Amboise, dating from\nabout 1500, three centuries later. Civilization made almost a clean\nsweep of art. Only here, at Mont-Saint-Michel, one may still sit at\nease on the stone benches in; the embrasures of the refectory\nwindows, looking over the thirteenth-century ocean and watching the\narchitect as he worked out the details which were to produce or\naccent his contrasts or harmonies, heighten his effects, or hide his\nshow of effort, and all by means so true, simpler and apparently\neasy that one seems almost competent to follow him. One learns\nbetter in time. One gets to feel that these things were due in part\nto an instinct that the architect himself might not have been able\nto explain. The instinct vanishes as time creeps on. The halls at\nRouen or at Blois are more easily understood; the Salle des\nCaryatides of Pierre Lescot at the Louvre, charming as it is, is\nsimpler still; and one feels entirely at home in the Salle des\nGlaces which filled the ambition of Louis XIV at Versailles.\n\nIf any lingering doubt remains in regard to the professional\ncleverness of the architect and the thoroughness of his study, we\nhad best return to the great hall, and pass through a low door in\nits extreme outer angle, up a few steps into a little room some\nthirteen feet square, beautifully vaulted, lighted, warmed by a\nlarge stone fireplace, and in the corner, a spiral staircase leading\nup to another square room above opening directly into the cloister.\nIt is a little library or charter-house. The arrangement is almost\ntoo clever for gravity, as is the case with more than one\narrangement in the Merveille. From the outside one can see that at\nthis corner the architect had to provide a heavy buttress against a\ndouble strain, and he built up from the rock below a square corner\ntower as support, into which he worked a spiral staircase leading\nfrom the cellar up to the cloisters. Just above the level of the\ngreat hall he managed to construct this little room, a gem. The\nplace was near and far; it was quiet and central; William of Saint-\nPair, had he been still alive, might have written his \"Roman\" there;\nmonks might have illuminated missals there. A few steps upward\nbrought them to the cloisters for meditation; a few more brought\nthem to the church for prayer. A few steps downward brought them to\nthe great hall, for business, a few steps more led them into the\nrefectory, for dinner. To contemplate the goodness of God was a\nsimple joy when one had such a room to work in; such a spot as the\ngreat hall to walk in, when the storms blew; or the cloisters in\nwhich to meditate, when the sun shone; such a dining-room as the\nrefectory; and such a view from one's windows over the infinite\nocean and the guiles of Satan's quicksands. From the battlements of\nHeaven, William of Saint-Pair looked down on it with envy.\n\nOf all parts of the Merveille, in summer, the most charming must\nalways have been the cloisters. Only the Abbey of the Mount was rich\nand splendid enough to build a cloister like this, all in granite,\ncarved in forms as light as though it were wood; with columns\narranged in a peculiar triangular order that excited the admiration\nof Viollet-le-Duc. \"One of the most curious and complete cloisters\nthat we have in France,\" he said; although in France there are many\nbeautiful and curious cloisters. For another reason it has value.\nThe architect meant it to reassert, with all the art and grace he\ncould command, the mastery of love, of thought and poetry, in\nreligion, over the masculine, military energy of the great hall\nbelow. The thirteenth century rarely let slip a chance to insist on\nthis moral that love is law. Saint Francis was preaching to the\nbirds in 1215 at Assisi, and the architect built this cloister in\n1226 at Mont-Saint-Michel. Both sermons were saturated with the\nfeeling of the time, and both are about equally worth noting, if one\naspires to feel the art.\n\nA conscientious student has yet to climb down the many steps, on the\noutside, and look up at the Merveille from below. Few buildings in\nFrance are better worth the trouble. The horizontal line at the roof\nmeasures two hundred and thirty-five feet. The vertical line of the\nbuttresses measures in round numbers one hundred feet. To make walls\nof that height and length stand up at all was no easy matter, as\nRobert de Torigny had shown; and so the architect buttressed them\nfrom bottom to top with twelve long buttresses against the thrust of\nthe interior arches, and three more, bearing against the interior\nwalls. This gives, on the north front, fifteen strong vertical lines\nin a space of two hundred and thirty-five feet. Between these lines\nthe windows tell their story; the seven long windows of the\nrefectory on one side; the seven rounded windows of the hall on the\nother. Even the corner tower with the charter-house becomes as\nsimple as the rest. The sum of this impossible wall, and its\nexaggerated vertical lines, is strength and intelligence at rest.\n\nThe whole Mount still kept the grand style; it expressed the unity\nof Church and State, God and Man, Peace and War, Life and Death,\nGood and Bad; it solved the whole problem of the universe. The\npriest and the soldier were both at home here, in 1215 as in 1115 or\nin 1058; the politician was not outside of it; the sinner was\nwelcome; the poet was made happy in his own spirit, with a sympathy,\nalmost an affection, that suggests a habit of verse in the Abbot as\nwell as in the architect. God reconciles all. The world is an\nevident, obvious, sacred harmony. Even the discord of war is a\ndetail on which the Abbey refuses to insist. Not till two centuries\nafterwards did the Mount take on the modern expression of war as a\ndiscord in God's providence. Then, in the early years of the\nfifteenth century, Abbot Pierre le Roy plastered the gate of the\nchatelet, as you now see it, over the sunny thirteenth-century\nentrance called Belle Chaise, which had treated mere military\nconstruction with a sort of quiet contempt. You will know what a\nchatelet is when you meet another; it frowns in a spirit quite alien\nto the twelfth century; it jars on the religion of the place; it\nforebodes wars of religion; dissolution of society; loss of unity;\nthe end of a world. Nothing is sadder than the catastrophe of Gothic\nart, religion, and hope.\n\nOne looks back on it all as a picture; a symbol of unity; an\nassertion of God and Man in a bolder, stronger, closer union than\never was expressed by other art; and when the idea is absorbed,\naccepted, and perhaps partially understood, one may move on.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nNORMANDY AND THE ILE DE FRANCE\n\nFrom Mont-Saint-Michel, the architectural road leads across\nNormandy, up the Seine to Paris, and not directly through Chartres,\nwhich lies a little to the south. In the empire of architecture,\nNormandy was one kingdom, Brittany another; the Ile de France, with\nParis, was a third; Touraine and the valley of the Loire were a\nfourth and in the centre, the fighting-ground between them all, lay\nthe counties of Chartres and Dreux. Before going to Chartres one\nshould go up the Seine and down the Loire, from Angers to Le Mans,\nand so enter Chartres from Brittany after a complete circle; but if\nwe set out to do our pleasure on that scale, we must start from the\nPyramid of Cheops. We have set out from Mont-Saint-Michel; we will\ngo next to Paris.\n\nThe architectural highway lies through Coutances, Bayeux, Caen,\nRouen, and Mantes. Every great artistic kingdom solved its\narchitectural problems in its own way, as it did its religious,\npolitical, and social problems, and no two solutions were ever quite\nthe same; but among them the Norman was commonly the most practical,\nand sometimes the most dignified. We can test this rule by the\nstandard of the first town we stop at--Coutances. We can test it\nequally well at Bayeux or Caen, but Coutances comes first after\nMont-Saint-Michel let us begin with it, and state the problems with\ntheir Norman solution, so that it may be ready at hand to compare\nwith the French solution, before coming to the solution at Chartres.\n\nThe cathedral at Coutances is said to be about the age of the\nMerveille (1200-50), but the exact dates are unknown, and the work\nis so Norman as to stand by itself; yet the architect has grappled\nwith more problems than one need hope to see solved in any single\nchurch in the tie de France. Even at Chartres, although the two\nstone fleches are, by exception, completed, they are not of the same\nage, as they are here. Neither at Chartres nor at Paris, nor at Laon\nor Amiens or Rheims or Bourges, will you see a central tower to\ncompare with the enormous pile at Coutances. Indeed the architects\nof France failed to solve this particular church problem, and we-\nshall leave it behind us in leaving Normandy, although it is the\nmost effective feature of any possible church. \"A clocher of that\nperiod (circa 1200), built over the croisee of a cathedral,\nfollowing lines so happy, should be a monument of the greatest\nbeauty; unfortunately we possess not a single one in France. Fire,\nand the hand of man more than time, have destroyed them all, and we\nfind on our greatest religious edifices no more than bases and\nfragments of these beautiful constructions. The cathedral of\nCoutances alone has preserved its central clocher of the thirteenth\ncentury, and even there it is not complete; its stone fleche is\nwanting. As for its style, it belongs to Norman architecture, and\ndiverges widely from the character of French architecture.\" So says\nViollet-le-Duc; but although the great churches for the most part\nnever had central clochers, which, on the scale of Amiens, Bourges,\nor Beauvais, would have required an impossible mass, the smaller\nchurches frequently carry them still, and they are, like the dome,\nthe most effective features they can carry. They were made to\ndominate the whole.\n\nNo doubt the fleche is wanting at Coutances, but you can supply it\nin imagination from the two fleches of the western tower, which are\nas simple and severe as the spear of a man-at-arms. Supply the\nfleche, and the meaning of the tower cannot be mistaken; it is as\nmilitary as the \"Chanson de Roland\"; it is the man-at-arms himself,\nmounted and ready for battle, spear in rest. The mere seat of the\ncentral tower astride of the church, so firm, so fixed, so serious,\nso defiant, is Norman, like the seat of the Abbey Church on the\nMount; and at Falaise, where William the Bastard was born, we shall\nsee a central tower on the church which is William himself, in\narmour, on horseback, ready to fight for the Church, and perhaps, in\nhis bad moods, against it. Such militant churches were capable of\nforcing Heaven itself; all of them look as though they had fought at\nHastings or stormed Jerusalem. Wherever the Norman central clocher\nstands, the Church Militant of the eleventh century survives;--not\nthe Church of Mary Queen, but of Michael the Archangel;--not the\nChurch of Christ, but of God the Father--Who never lied!\n\nTaken together with the fleches of the facade, this clocher of\nCoutances forms a group such as one very seldom sees. The two towers\nof the facade are something apart, quite by themselves among the\ninnumerable church-towers of the Gothic time. We have got a happy\nsummer before us, merely in looking for these church-towers. There\nis no livelier amusement for fine weather than in hunting them as\nthough they were mushrooms, and no study in architecture nearly so\ndelightful. No work of man has life like the fleche. One sees it for\na greater distance and feels it for a longer time than is possible\nwith any other human structure, unless it be the dome. There is more\nplay of light on the octagonal faces of the fleche as the sun moves\naround them than can be got out of the square or the cone or any\nother combination of surfaces. For some reason, the facets of the\nhexagon or octagon are more pleasing than the rounded surfaces of\nthe cone, and Normandy is said to be peculiarly the home of this\nparticularly Gothic church ornament; yet clochers and fleches are\nscattered all over France until one gets to look for them on the\nhorizon as though every church in every hamlet were an architectural\nmonument. Hundreds of them literally are so,--Monuments Historiques,\n-protected by the Government; but when you undertake to compare\nthem, or to decide whether they are more beautiful in Normandy than\nin the Ile de France, or in Burgundy, or on the Loire or the\nCharente, you are lost, Even the superiority of the octagon is not\nevident to every one. Over the little church at Fenioux on the\nCharente, not very far from La Rochelle, is a conical steeple that\nan infidel might adore; and if you have to decide between provinces,\nyou must reckon with the decision of architects and amateurs, who\nseem to be agreed that the first of all filches is at Chartres, the\nsecond at Vendome, not far from Blois in Touraine, and the third at\nAuxerre in Burgundy. The towers of Coutances are not in the list,\nnor are those at Bayeux nor those at Caen. France is rich in art.\nYet the towers of Coutances are in some ways as interesting, if not\nas beautiful, as the best.\n\nThe two stone fleches here, with their octagon faces, do not\ndescend, as in other churches, to their resting-place on a square\ntower, with the plan of junction more or less disguised; they throw\nout nests of smaller fleches, and these cover buttressing corner\ntowers, with lines that go directly to the ground. Whether the\nartist consciously intended it or not, the effect is to broaden the\nfacade and lift it into the air. The facade itself has a distinctly\nmilitary look, as though a fortress had been altered into a church.\nA charming arcade at the top has the air of being thrown across in\norder to disguise the alteration, and perhaps owes much of its charm\nto the contrast it makes with the severity of military lines. Even\nthe great west window looks like an afterthought; one's instinct\nasks for a blank wall. Yet, from the ground up to the cross on the\nspire, one feels the Norman nature throughout, animating the whole,\nuniting it all, and crowding into it an intelligent variety of\noriginal motives that would build a dozen churches of late Gothic.\nNothing about it is stereotyped or conventional,--not even the\nconventionality.\n\nIf you have any doubts about this, you have only to compare the\nphotograph of Coutances with the photograph of Chartres; and yet,\nsurely, the facade of Chartres is severe enough to satisfy Saint\nBernard himself. With the later fronts of Rheims and Amiens, there\nis no field for comparison; they have next to nothing in common; yet\nCoutances is said to be of the same date with Rheims, or nearly so,\nand one can believe it when one enters the interior. The Normans, as\nthey slowly reveal themselves, disclose most unexpected qualities;\none seems to sound subterranean caverns of feeling hidden behind\ntheir iron nasals. No other cathedral in France or in Europe has an\ninterior more refined--one is tempted to use even the hard-worn\nadjective, more tender--or more carefully studied. One test is\ncrucial here and everywhere. The treatment of the apse and choir is\nthe architect's severest standard. This is a subject not to be\ntouched lightly; one to which we shall have to come back in a humble\nspirit, prepared for patient study, at Chartres; but the choir of\nCoutances is a cousin to that of Chartres, as the facades are\ncousins; Coutances like Chartres belongs to Notre Dame and is felt\nin the same spirit; the church is built for the choir and apse,\nrather than for the nave and transepts; for the Virgin rather than\nfor the public. In one respect Coutances is even more delicate in\nthe feminine charm of the Virgin's peculiar grace than Chartres, but\nthis was an afterthought of the fourteenth century. The system of\nchapels radiating about the apse was extended down the nave, in an\narrangement \"so beautiful and so rare,\" according to Viollet-le-Duc,\nthat one shall seek far before finding its equal. Among the\nunexpected revelations of human nature that suddenly astonish\nhistorians, one of the least reasonable was the passionate outbreak\nof religious devotion to the ideal of feminine grace, charity, and\nlove that took place here in Normandy while it was still a part of\nthe English kingdom, and flamed up into almost fanatical frenzy\namong the most hard-hearted and hard-headed race in Europe.\n\nSo in this church, in the centre of this arrangement of apse and\nchapels with their quite unusual--perhaps quite singular--grace, the\nfour huge piers which support the enormous central tower, offer a\ntour de force almost as exceptional as the refinement of the\nchapels. At Mont-Saint-Michel, among the monks, the union of\nstrength and grace was striking, but at Coutances it is exaggerated,\nlike Tristram and Iseult,--a roman of chivalry. The four \"enormous\"\ncolumns of the croisee, carry, as Viollet-le-Duc says, the \"enormous\noctagonal tower,\"--like Saint Christopher supporting the Christ-\nchild, before the image of the Virgin, in her honour. Nothing like\nthis can be seen at Chartres, or at any of the later palaces which\nFrance built for the pleasure of the Queen of Heaven. We are\nslipping into the thirteenth century again; the temptation is\nterrible to feeble minds and tourist natures; but a great mass of\ntwelfth and eleventh-century work remains to be seen and felt. To go\nback is not so easy as to begin with it; the heavy round arch is\nlike old cognac compared with the champagne of the pointed and\nfretted spire; one must not quit Coutances without making an\nexcursion to Lessayon the road to Cherbourg, where is a church of\nthe twelfth century, with a square tower and almost untouched Norman\ninterior, that closely repeats the Abbey Church at Mont-Saint-\nMichel. \"One of the most complete models of Romanesque architecture\nto be found in Normandy,\" says M. de Caumont. The central clocher\nwill begin a photographic collection of square towers, to replace\nthat which was lost on the Mount; and a second example is near\nBayeux, at a small place called Cerisy-la-Foret, where the church\nmatches that on the Mount, according to M. Corroyer; for Cerisy-la-\nForet was also an abbey, and the church, built by Richard II, Duke\nof Normandy, at the beginning of the eleventh century, was larger\nthan that on the Mount. It still keeps its central tower.\n\nAll this is intensely Norman, and is going to help very little in\nFrance; it would be more useful in England; but at Bayeux is a\ngreat: cathedral much more to the purpose, with two superb western\ntowers crowned by stone fleches, cousins of those at Coutances, and\ndistinctly related to the twelfth-century fleche at Chartres. \"The\nNormans,\" says Viollet-le-Duc, \"had not that instinct of proportion\nwhich the architects of the Ile de France, Beauvais, and Soissons\npossessed to a high degree; yet the boldness of their constructions,\ntheir perfect execution, the elevation of the fleches, had evident\ninfluence on the French school properly called, and that influence\nis felt in the old spire of Chartres.\" The Norman seemed to show\ndistinction in another respect which the French were less quick to\nimitate. What they began, they completed. Not one of the great\nFrench churches has two stone spires complete, of the same age,\nwhile each of the little towns of Coutances, Bayeux, and Caen\ncontains its twin towers and fleches of stone, as solid and perfect\nnow as they were seven hundred years ago. Still another Norman\ncharacter is worth noting, because this is one part of the influence\nfelt at Chartres. If you look carefully at the two western towers of\nthe Bayeux Cathedral, perhaps you will feel what is said to be the\nstrength of the way they are built up. They rise from their\nfoundation with a quiet confidence of line and support, which passes\ndirectly up to the weather-cock on the summit of the fleches. At the\nplane where the square tower is changed into the octagon spire, you\nwill see the corner turrets and the long intermediate windows which\neffect the change without disguising it. One can hardly call it a\ndevice; it is so simple and evident a piece of construction that it\ndoes not need to be explained; yet you will have to carry a\nphotograph of this fleche to Chartres, and from there to Vendome,\nfor there is to be a great battle of fleches about this point of\njunction, and the Norman scheme is a sort of standing reproach to\nthe French.\n\nCoutances and Bayeux are interesting, but Caen is a Romanesque\nMecca. There William the Conqueror dealt with the same architectural\nproblems, and put his solution in his Abbaye-aux-Hommes, which bears\nthe name of Saint Stephen. Queen Matilda put her solution into her\nAbbaye-aux-Femmes, the Church of the Trinity. One ought particularly\nto look at the beautiful central clocher of the church at Vaucelles\nin the suburbs; and one must drive out to Thaon to see its eleventh-\ncentury church, with a charming Romanesque blind arcade on the\noutside, and a little clocher, \"the more interesting to us,\"\naccording to Viollet-le-Duc, \"because it bears the stamp of the\ntraditions of defence of the primitive towers which were built over\nthe porches.\" Even \"a sort of chemin de ronde\" remains around the\nclocher, perhaps once provided with a parapet of defence. \"C'est la,\ndu reste, un charmant edifice.\" A tower with stone fleche, which\nactually served for defence in a famous recorded instance, is that\nof the church at Secqueville, not far off; this beautiful tower, as\ncharming as anything in Norman art, is known to have served as a\nfortress in 1105, which gives a valuable date. The pretty old\nRomanesque front of the little church at Ouistreham, with its portal\nthat seems to come fresh from Poitiers and Moissac, can be taken in,\nwhile driving past; but we must on no account fail to make a serious\npilgrimage to Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, where the church-tower and\nfleche are not only classed among the best in Normandy, but have an\nexact date, 1145, and a very close relation with Chartres, as will\nappear. Finally, if for no other reason, at least for interest in\nArlette, the tanner's daughter, one must go to Falaise, and look at\nthe superb clocher of Saint-Gervais, which was finished and\nconsecrated by 1135.\n\nSome day, if you like, we can follow this Romanesque style to the\nsouth, and on even to Italy where it may be supposed to have been\nborn; but France had an architectural life fully a thousand years\nold when these twelfth-century churches were built, and was long\nsince artistically, as she was politically, independent. The Normans\nwere new in France, but not the Romanesque architecture; they only\ntook the forms and stamped on them their own character. It is the\nstamp we want to distinguish, in order to trace up our lines of\nartistic ancestry. The Norman twelfth-century stamp was not easily\neffaced. If we have not seen enough of it at Mont-Saint-Michel,\nCoutances, Bayeux, and Caen, we can go to Rouen, and drive out to\nBoscherville, and visit the ruined Abbey of Jumieges. Wherever there\nis a church-tower with a tall fleche, as at Boscherville,\nSecqueville, Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, Caen, and Bayeux, Viollet-le-\nDuc bids notice how the octagonal steeple is fitted on to the square\ntower. Always the passage from the octagon to the square seems to be\nquite simply made. The Gothic or Romanesque spire had the advantage\nthat a wooden fleche was as reasonable a covering for it as a stone\none, and the Normans might have indulged in freaks of form very\neasily, if they chose, but they seem never to have thought of it.\nThe nearest approach to the freedom of wooden roofs is not in the\nlofty fleches, but in the covering of the great square central\ntowers, like Falaise or Vaucelles, a huge four-sided roof which\ntries to be a fleche, and is as massive as the heavy structure it\ncovers.\n\nThe last of the Norman towers that Viollet-le-Duc insists upon is\nthe so-called Clocher de Saint-Romain, the northern tower on the\nwest front of the Cathedral of Rouen. Unfortunately it has lost its\nprimitive octagon fleche if it ever had one, but \"the tower remains\nentire, and,\" according to Viollet-le-Duc, \"is certainly one of the\nmost beautiful in this part of France; it offers a mixture of the\ntwo styles of the Ile de France and of Normandy, in which the former\nelement dominates\"; it is of the same date as the old tower of\nChartres (1140-60), and follows the same interior arrangement; \"but\nhere the petty, confused disposition of the Norman towers, with\ntheir division into stories of equal height, has been adopted by the\nFrench master builder, although in submitting to these local customs\nhe has still thrown over his work the grace and finesse, the study\nof detail, the sobriety in projections, the perfect harmony between\nthe profiles, sculpture, and the general effect of the whole, which\nbelong to the school he came from. He has managed his voids and\nsolids with especial cleverness, giving the more importance to the\nvoids, and enlarging the scale of his details, as the tower rose in\nheight. These details have great beauty; the construction is\nexecuted in materials of small dimensions with the care that the\ntwelfth-century architects put into their building; the profiles\nproject little, and, in spite of their extreme finesse, produce much\neffect; the buttresses are skilfully planted and profiled. The\nstaircase, which, on the east side, deranges the arrangement of the\nbays, is a chef-d'oeuvre of architecture.\" This long panegyric, by\nViollet-le-Duc, on French taste at the expense of Norman temper,\nought to be read, book in hand, before the Cathedral of Rouen, with\nphotographs of Bayeux to compare. Certain it is that the Normans and\nthe French never talked quite the same language, but it is equally\ncertain that the Norman language, to the English ear, expressed\nitself quite as clearly as the French, and sometimes seemed to have\nmore to express.\n\nThe complaint of the French artist against the Norman is the\n\"mesquin\" treatment of dividing his tower into storeys of equal\nheight. Even in the twelfth century and in religious architecture,\nartists already struggled over the best solution of this\nparticularly American problem of the twentieth century, and when\ntourists return to New York, they may look at the twenty-storey\ntowers which decorate the city, to see whether the Norman or the\nFrench plan has won; but this, at least, will be sure in advance:--\nthe Norman will be the practical scheme which states the facts, and\nstops; while the French will be the graceful one, which states the\nbeauties, and more or less fits the facts to suit them. Both styles\nare great: both can sometimes be tiresome.\n\nHere we must take leave of Normandy; a small place, but one which,\nlike Attica or Tuscany, has said a great deal to the world, and even\ngoes on saying things--not often in the famous genre ennuyeux--to\nthis day; for Gustave Flaubert's style is singularly like that of\nthe Tour Saint-Romain and the Abbaye-aux-Hommes. Going up the Seine\none might read a few pages of his letters, or of \"Madame de Bovary,\"\nto see how an old art transmutes itself into a new one, without\nchanging its methods. Some critics have thought that at times\nFlaubert was mesquin like the Norman tower, but these are, as the\nFrench say, the defects of his qualities; we can pass over them, and\nlet our eyes rest on the simplicity of the Norman fleche which\npierces the line of our horizon.\n\nThe last of Norman art is seen at Mantes, where there is a little\nchurch of Gassicourt that marks the farthest reach of the style. In\narms as in architecture, Mantes barred the path of Norman conquest;\nWilliam the Conqueror met his death here in 1087. Geographically\nMantes is in the Ile de France, less than forty miles from Paris.\nArchitecturally, it is Paris itself; while, forty miles to the\nsouthward, is Chartres, an independent or only feudally dependent\ncountry. No matter how hurried the architectural tourist may be, the\nboundary-line of the Ile de France is not to be crossed without\nstopping. If he came down from the north or east, he would have\nequally to stop,--either at Beauvais, or at Laon, or Noyon, or\nSoissons,--because there is an architectural douane to pass, and\none's architectural baggage must be opened. Neither Notre Dame de\nParis nor Notre Dame de Chartres is quite intelligible unless one\nhas first seen Notre Dame de Mantes, and studied it in the sacred\nsources of M. Viollet-le-Duc.\n\nNotre Dame de Mantes is a sister to the Cathedral of Paris, \"built\nat the same time, perhaps by the same architect, and reproducing its\ngeneral dispositions, its mode of structure, and some of its\ndetails\"; but the Cathedral of Paris has been greatly altered, so\nthat its original arrangement is quite changed, while the church at\nMantes remains practically as it was, when both were new, about the\nyear 1200. As nearly as the dates can be guessed, the cathedral was\nfinished, up to its vaulting, in 1170, and was soon afterwards\nimitated on a smaller scale at Mantes. The scheme seems to have been\nunsatisfactory because of defects in the lighting, for the whole\nsystem of fenestration had been changed at Paris before 1230,\nnaturally at great cost, since the alterations, according to\nViollet-le-Duc (articles \"Cathedral\" and \"Rose,\" and allusions\n\"Triforium\"), left little except the ground-plan unchanged. To\nunderstand the Paris design of 1160-70, which was a long advance\nfrom the older plans, one must come to Mantes; and, reflecting that\nthe great triumph of Chartres was its fenestration, which must have\nbeen designed immediately after 1195, one can understand how, in\nthis triangle of churches only forty or fifty miles apart, the\narchitects, watching each other's experiments, were influenced,\nalmost from day to day, by the failures or successes which they saw\nThe fenestration which the Paris architect planned in 1160-70, and\nrepeated at Mantes, 1190-1200, was wholly abandoned, and a new\nsystem introduced, immediately after the success of Chartres in\n1210.\n\nAs they now stand, Mantes is the oldest. While conscientiously\ntrying to keep as far away as we can from technique, about which we\nknow nothing and should care if possible still less if only\nignorance would help us to feel what we do not understand, still the\nconscience is happier if it gains a little conviction, founded on\nwhat it thinks a fact. Even theologians--even the great theologians\nof the thirteenth century--even Saint Thomas Aquinas himself--did\nnot trust to faith alone, or assume the existence of God; and what\nSaint Thomas found necessary in philosophy may also be a sure source\nof consolation in the difficulties of art. The church at Mantes is a\nvery early fact in Gothic art; indeed, it is one of the earliest;\nfor our purposes it will serve as the very earliest of pure Gothic\nchurches, after the Transition, and this we are told to study in its\nwindows.\n\nBefore one can get near enough fairly to mark the details of the\nfacade, one sees the great rose window which fills a space nearly\ntwenty-seven feet in width. Gothic fanatics commonly reckon the\ngreat rose windows of the thirteenth century as the most beautiful\ncreation of their art, among the details of ornament; and this\nparticular rose is the direct parent of that at Chartres, which is\nclassic like the Parthenon, while both of them served as models or\nguides for that at Paris which dates from 1220, those in the north\nand south transepts at Rheims, about 1230, and so on, from parent to\nchild, till the rose faded forever. No doubt there were Romanesque\nroses before 1200, and we shall see them, but this rose of Mantes is\nthe first Gothic rose of great dimensions, and that from which the\nothers grew; in its simplicity, its honesty, its large liberality of\nplan, it is also one of the best, if M. Viollet-le-Duc is a true\nguide; but you will see a hundred roses, first or last, and can\nchoose as you would among the flowers.\n\nMore interesting than even the great rose of the portal is the\nremark that the same rose-motive is carried round the church\nthroughout its entire system of fenestration. As one follows it, on\nthe outside, one sees that all the windows are constructed on the\nsame rose-scheme; but the most curious arrangement is in the choir\ninside the church. You look up to each of the windows through a sort\nof tunnel or telescope: an arch enlarging outwards, the roses at the\nend resembling \"oeil-de-boeufs,\" \"oculi.\" So curious is this\narrangement that Viollet-le-Duc has shown it, under the head\n\"Triforium,\" in drawings and sections which any one can study who\nlikes; its interest to us is that this arrangement in the choir was\nprobably the experiment which proved a failure in Notre Dame at\nParis, and led to the tearing-out the old windows and substituting\nthose which still stand. Perhaps the rose did not give enough light,\nalthough the church at Mantes seems well lighted, and even at Paris\nthe rose windows remain in the transepts and in one bay of the nave.\n\nAll this is introduction to the windows of Chartres, but these three\nchurches open another conundrum as one learns, bit by bit, a few of\nthe questions to be asked of the forgotten Middle Ages. The church\ntowers at Mantes are very interesting, inside and out; they are\nevidently studied with love and labour by their designer; yet they\nhave no fleches. How happens it that Notre Dame at Paris also has no\nfleches, although the towers, according to Viollet-le-Duc, are\nfinished in full preparation for them? This double omission on the\npart of the French architect seems exceedingly strange, because his\nrival at Chartres finished his fleche just when the architect of\nParis and Mantes was finishing his towers (1175-1200). The Frenchman\nwas certainly consumed by jealousy at the triumph never attained on\nanything like the same scale by any architect of the Ile de France;\nand he was actually engaged at the time on at least two fleches,\nclose to Paris, one at Saint-Denis, another of Saint-Leu-d'Esserent,\nwhich proved the active interest he took in the difficulties\nconquered at Chartres, and his perfect competence to deal with them.\n\nIndeed, one is tempted to say that these twin churches, Paris and\nMantes, are the only French churches of the time (1200) which were\nleft without a fleche. As we go from Mantes to Paris, we pass, about\nhalf-way, at Poissy, under the towers of a very ancient and\ninteresting church which has the additional merit of having\nwitnessed the baptism of Saint Louis in 1215. Parts of the church at\nPoissy go back to the seventh and ninth centuries. The square base\nof the tower dates back before the time of Hugh Capet, to the\nCarolingian age, and belongs, like the square tower of Saint-\nGermain-des-Pres at Paris, to the old defensive military\narchitecture; but it has a later, stone fleche and it has, too, by\nexception a central octagonal clocher, with a timber fleche which\ndates from near 1100. Paris itself has not much to show, but in the\nimmediate neighbourhood are a score of early churches with charming\nfleches, and at Etampes, about thirty-five miles to the south, is an\nextremely interesting church with an exquisite fleche, which may\nclaim an afternoon to visit. That at Saint-Leu-d'Esserent is a still\neasier excursion, for one need only drive over from Chantilly a\ncouple of miles. The fascinating old Abbey Church of Saint-Leu looks\ndown over the valley of the Oise, and is a sort of antechamber to\nChartres, as far as concerns architecture. Its fleche, built towards\n1160,--when that at Chartres was rising,--is unlike any other, and\nshows how much the French architects valued their lovely French\ncreation. On its octagonal faces, it carries upright batons, or\nlances, as a device for relieving the severity of the outlines; a\ndevice both intelligent and amusing, though it was never imitated. A\nlittle farther from Paris, at Senlis, is another fleche, which shows\nstill more plainly the effort of the French architects to vary and\nelaborate the Chartres scheme. As for Laon, which is interesting\nthroughout, and altogether the most delightful building in the Ile\nde France, the fleches are gone, but the towers are there, and you\nwill have to study them, before studying those at Chartres, with all\nthe intelligence you have to spare. They were the chef-d'oeuvre of\nthe mediaeval architect, in his own opinion.\n\nAll this makes the absence of fleches at Paris and Mantes the more\nstrange. Want of money was certainly not the cause, since the\nParisians had money enough to pull their whole cathedral to pieces\nat the very time when fleches were rising in half the towns within\nsight of them. Possibly they were too ambitious, and could find no\ndesign that seemed to satisfy their ambition. They took pride in\ntheir cathedral, and they tried hard to make their shrine of Our\nLady rival the great shrine at Chartres. Of course, one must study\ntheir beautiful church, but this can be done at leisure, for, as it\nstands, it is later than Chartres and more conventional. Saint-\nGermain-des-Pres leads more directly to Chartres; but perhaps the\nchurch most useful to know is no longer a church at all, but a part\nof the Museum of Arts et Metiers,--the desecrated Saint-Martin-des-\nChamps, a name which shows that it dates from a time when the\npresent Porte-Saint-Martin was far out among fields. The choir of\nSaint-Martin, which is all that needs noting, is said by M. Enlart\nto date from about 1150. Hidden in a remnant of old Paris near the\nPont Notre Dame, where the student life of the Middle Ages was to be\nmost turbulent and the Latin Quarter most renowned, is the little\nchurch of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, towards 1170. On the whole,\nfurther search in Paris would not greatly help us. If one is to\npursue the early centuries, one must go farther afield, for the\nschools of Normandy and the Ile de France were only two among half a\ndozen which flourished in the various provinces that were to be\nunited in the kingdom of Saint Louis and his successors. We have not\neven looked to the south and east, whence the impulse came. The old\nCarolingian school, with its centre at Aix-la-Chapelle, is quite\nbeyond our horizon. The Rhine had a great Romanesque architecture of\nits own. One broad architectural tide swept up the Rhone and filled\nthe Burgundian provinces as far as the watershed of the Seine.\nAnother lined the Mediterranean, with a centre at Arles. Another\nspread up the western rivers, the Charente and the Loire, reaching\nto Le Mans and touching Chartres. Two more lay in the centre of\nFrance, spreading from Perigord and Clermont in Auvergne. All these\nschools had individual character, and all have charm; but we have\nset out to go from Mont-Saint-Michel to Chartres in three centuries,\nthe eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth, trying to get, on the way,\nnot technical knowledge; not accurate information; not correct views\neither on history, art, or religion; not anything that can possibly\nbe useful or instructive; but only a sense of what those centuries\nhad to say, and a sympathy with their ways of saying it. Let us go\nstraight to Chartres!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTOWERS AND PORTALS\n\nFor a first visit to Chartres, choose some pleasant morning when the\nlights are soft, for one wants to be welcome, and the cathedral has\nmoods, at times severe. At best, the Beauce is a country none too\ngay.\n\nThe first glimpse that is caught, and the first that was meant to be\ncaught, is that of the two spires. With all the education that\nNormandy and the Ile de France can give, one is still ignorant. The\nspire is the simplest part of the Romanesque or Gothic architecture,\nand needs least study in order to be felt. It is a bit of sentiment\nalmost pure of practical purpose. It tells the whole of its story at\na glance, and its story is the best that architecture had to tell,\nfor it typified the aspirations of man at the moment when man's\naspirations were highest. Yet nine persons out of ten--perhaps\nninety-nine in a hundred--who come within sight of the two spires of\nChartres will think it a jest if they are told that the smaller of\nthe two, the simpler, the one that impresses them least, is the one\nwhich they are expected to recognize as the most perfect piece of\narchitecture in the world. Perhaps the French critics might deny\nthat they make any such absolute claim; in that case you can ask\nthem what their exact claim is; it will always be high enough to\nastonish the tourist.\n\nAstonished or not, we have got to take this southern spire of the\nChartres Cathedral as the object of serious study, and before taking\nit as art, must take it as history. The foundations of this tower--\nalways to be known as the \"old tower\"--are supposed to have been\nlaid in 1091, before the first crusade. The fleche was probably half\na century later (1145-70). The foundations of the new tower,\nopposite, were laid not before 1110, when also the portal which\nstands between them, was begun with the three lancet windows above\nit, but not the rose. For convenience, this old facade--including\nthe portal and the two towers, but not the fleches, and the three\nlancet windows, but not the rose--may be dated as complete about\n1150.\n\nOriginally the whole portal--the three doors and the three lancets--\nstood nearly forty feet back, on the line of the interior\nfoundation, or rear wall of the towers. This arrangement threw the\ntowers forward, free on three sides, as at Poitiers, and gave room\nfor a parvis, before the portal,--a porch, roofed over, to protect\nthe pilgrims who always stopped there to pray before entering the\nchurch. When the church was rebuilt after the great fire of 1194,\nand the architect was required to enlarge the interior, the old\nportal and lancets were moved bodily forward, to be flush with the\nfront walls of the two towers, as you see the facade to-day; and the\nfacade itself was heightened, to give room for the rose, and to\ncover the loftier pignon and vaulting behind. Finally, the wooden\nroof, above the stone vault, was masked by the Arcade of Kings and\nits railing, completed in the taste of Philip the Hardy, who reigned\nfrom 1270 to 1285.\n\nThese changes have, of course, altered the values of all the parts.\nThe portal is injured by being thrown into a glare of light, when it\nwas intended to stand in shadow, as you will see in the north and\nsouth porches over the transept portals. The towers are hurt by\nlosing relief and shadow; but the old fleche is obliged to suffer\nthe cruellest wrong of all by having its right shoulder hunched up\nby half of a huge rose and the whole of a row of kings, when it was\nbuilt to stand free, and to soar above the whole facade from the top\nof its second storey. One can easily figure it so and replace the\nlost parts of the old facade, more or less at haphazard, from the\nfront of Noyon.\n\nWhat an outrage it was you can see by a single glance at the new\nfleche opposite. The architect of 1500 has flatly refused to submit\nto such conditions, and has insisted, with very proper self-respect,\non starting from the balustrade of the Arcade of Kings as his level.\nNot even content with that, he has carried up his square tower\nanother lofty storey before he would consent to touch the heart of\nhis problem, the conversion of the square tower into the octagon\nfleche. In doing this, he has sacrificed once more the old fleche;\nbut his own tower stands free as it should.\n\nAt Vendome, when you go there, you will be in a way to appreciate\nstill better what happened to the Chartres fleche; for the clocher\nat Vendome, which is of the same date,--Viollet-le-Duc says earlier,\nand Enlart, \"after 1130,\"--stood and still stands free, like an\nItalian campanile, which gives it a vast advantage. The tower of\nSaint-Leu-d'Esserent, also after 1130, stands free, above the second\nstorey. Indeed, you will hardly find, in the long list of famous\nFrench spires, another which has been treated with so much indignity\nas this, the greatest and most famous of all; and perhaps the most\nannoying part of it is that you must be grateful to the architect of\n1195 for doing no worse. He has, on the contrary, done his best to\nshow respect for the work of his predecessor, and has done so well\nthat, handicapped as it is, the old tower still defies rivalry.\nNearly three hundred and fifty feet high, or, to be exact, 106.5\nmetres from the church floor, it is built up with an amount of\nintelligence and refinement that leaves to unprofessional visitors\nno chance to think a criticism--much less to express one. Perhaps--\nwhen we have seen more--and feel less--who knows?--but certainly not\nnow!\n\n\"The greatest and surely the most beautiful monument of this kind\nthat we possess in France,\" says Viollet-le-Duc; but although an\nignorant spectator must accept the architect's decision on a point\nof relative merit, no one is compelled to accept his reasons, as\nfinal. \"There is no need to dwell,\" he continues, \"upon the beauty\nand the grandeur of composition in which the artist has given proof\nof rare sobriety, where all the effects are obtained, not by\nornaments, but by the just and skilful proportion of the different\nparts. The transition, so hard to adjust, between the square base\nand the octagon of the fleche, is managed and carried out with an\naddress which has not been surpassed in similar monuments.\" One\nstumbles a little at the word \"adresse.\" One never caught one's self\nusing the word in Norman churches. Your photographs of Bayeux or\nBoscherville or Secqueville will show you at a glance whether the\nterm \"adresse\" applies to them. Even Vendome would rather be praised\nfor \"droiture\" than for \"adresse.\"--Whether the word \"adresse\" means\ncleverness, dexterity, adroitness, or simple technical skill, the\nthing itself is something which the French have always admired more\nthan the Normans ever did. Viollet-le-Duc himself seems to be a\nlittle uncertain whether to lay most stress on the one or the other\nquality: \"If one tries to appreciate the conception of this tower,\"\nquotes the Abbe Bulteau (11,84), \"one will see that it is as frank\nas the execution is simple and skilful. Starting from the bottom,\none reaches the summit of the fleche without marked break; without\nanything to interrupt the general form of the building. This\nclocher, whose base is broad (pleine), massive, and free from\nornament, transforms itself, as it springs, into a sharp spire with\neight faces, without its being possible to say where the massive\nconstruction ends and the light construction begins.\"\n\nGranting, as one must, that this concealment of the transition is a\nbeauty, one would still like to be quite sure that the Chartres\nscheme is the best. The Norman clochers being thrown out, and that\nat Vendome being admittedly simple, the Clocher de Saint-Jean on the\nChurch of Saint-Germain at Auxerre seems to be thought among the\nnext in importance, although it is only about one hundred and sixty\nfeet in height (forty-nine metres), and therefore hardly in the same\nclass with Chartres. Any photograph shows that the Auxerre spire is\nalso simple; and that at Etampes you have seen already to be of the\nVendome rather than of the Chartres type. The clocher at Senlis is\nmore \"habile\"; it shows an effort to be clever, and offers a\nstandard of comparison; but the mediaeval architects seem to have\nthought that none of them bore rivalry with Laon for technical\nskill. One of these professional experts, named Villard de\nHonnecourt, who lived between 1200 and 1250, left a notebook which\nyou can see in the vitrines of the Bibliotheque Nationale in the Rue\nRichelieu, and which is the source of most that is known about the\npractical ideas of mediaeval architects. He came to Chartres, and,\nstanding here before the doors, where we are standing, he made a\nrough drawing, not of the tower, but of the rose, which was then\nprobably new, since it must have been planned between 1195 and 1200.\nApparently the tower did not impress him strongly, for he made no\nnote of it; but on the other hand, when he went to Laon, he became\nvehement in praise of the cathedral tower there, which must have\nbeen then quite new: \"I have been in many countries, as you can find\nin this book. In no place have I ever such a tower seen as that of\nLaon.--J'ai este en mult de tieres, si cum vus pores trover en cest\nlivre. En aucun liu onques tel tor ne vi com est cele de Loon.\" The\nreason for this admiration is the same that Viollet-le-Duc gives for\nadmiring the tower of Chartres--the \"adresse\" with which the square\nis changed into the octagon. Not only is the tower itself changed\ninto the fleche without visible junction, under cover of four corner\ntourelles, of open work, on slender columns, which start as squares;\nbut the tourelles also convert themselves into octagons in the very\nact of rising, and end in octagon fleches that carry up--or once\ncarried up--the lines of profile to the central fleche that soared\nabove them. Clearly this device far surpassed in cleverness the\nscheme of Chartres, which was comparatively heavy and structural,\nthe weights being adjusted for their intended work, while the\ntransformation at Laon takes place in the air, and challenges\ndiscovery in defiance of one's keenest eyesight. \"Regard... how the\ntourelles pass from one disposition to another, in rising! Meditate\non it!\"\n\nThe fleche of Laon is gone, but the tower and tourelles are still\nthere to show what the architects of the thirteenth century thought\ntheir most brilliant achievement. One cannot compare Chartres\ndirectly with any of its contemporary rivals, but one can at least\ncompare the old spire with the new one which stands opposite and\nrises above it. Perhaps you will like the new best. Built at a time\nwhich is commonly agreed to have had the highest standard of taste,\nit does not encourage tourist or artist to insist on setting up\nstandards of his own against it. Begun in 1507, it was finished in\n1517. The dome of Saint Peter's at Rome, over which Bramante and\nRaphael and Michael Angelo toiled, was building at the same time;\nLeonardo da Vinci was working at Amboise; Jean Bullant, Pierre\nLescot, and their patron, Francis I, were beginning their\narchitectural careers. Four hundred years, or thereabouts, separated\nthe old spire from the new one; and four hundred more separate the\nnew one from us. If Viollet-le-Duc, who himself built Gothic spires,\nhad cared to compare his fleches at Clermont-Ferrand with the new\nfleche at Chartres, he might perhaps have given us a rule where\n\"adresse\" ceases to have charm, and where detail becomes tiresome;\nbut in the want of a schoolmaster to lay down a law of taste, you\ncan admire the new fleche as much as you please. Of course, one sees\nthat the lines of the new tower are not clean, like those of the\nold; the devices that cover the transition from the square to the\noctagon are rather too obvious; the proportion of the fleche to the\ntower quite alters the values of the parts; a rigid classical taste\nmight even go so far as to hint that the new tower, in comparison\nwith the old, showed signs of a certain tendency toward a dim and\ndistant vulgarity. There can be no harm in admitting that the new\ntower is a little wanting in repose for a tower whose business is to\ncounterpoise the very classic lines of the old one; but no law\ncompels you to insist on absolute repose in any form of art; if such\na law existed, it would have to deal with Michael Angelo before it\ndealt with us. The new tower has many faults, but it has great\nbeauties, as you can prove by comparing it with other late Gothic\nspires, including those of Viollet-le-Duc. Its chief fault is to be\nwhere it is. As a companion to the crusades and to Saint Bernard, it\nlacks austerity. As a companion to the Virgin of Chartres, it\nrecalls Diane de Poitiers.\n\nIn fact, the new tower, which in years is four centuries younger\nthan its neighbour, is in feeling fully four hundred years older. It\nis self-conscious if not vain; its coiffure is elaborately arranged\nto cover the effects of age, and its neck and shoulders are covered\nwith lace and jewels to hide a certain sharpness of skeleton. Yet it\nmay be beautiful, still; the poets derided the wrinkles of Diane de\nPoitiers at the very moment when King Henry II idealized her with\nthe homage of a Don Quixote; an atmosphere of physical beauty and\ndecay hangs about the whole Renaissance.\n\nOne cannot push these resemblances too far, even for the twelfth\ncentury and the old tower. Exactly what date the old tower\nrepresents, as a social symbol, is a question that might be as much\ndisputed as the beauty of Diane de Poitiers, and yet half the\ninterest of architecture consists in the sincerity of its reflection\nof the society that builds. In mere time, by actual date, the old\ntower represents the second crusade, and when, in 1150, Saint\nBernard was elected chief of that crusade in this very cathedral,--\nor rather, in the cathedral of 1120, which was burned,--the workmen\nwere probably setting in mortar the stones of the fleche as we now\nsee them; yet the fleche does not represent Saint Bernard in\nfeeling, for Saint Bernard held the whole array of church-towers in\nhorror as signs merely of display, wealth and pride. The fleche\nrather represents Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, Abbot Peter the\nVenerable of Cluny, Abbot Abelard of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys, and\nQueen Eleanor of Guienne, who had married Louis-le-Jeune in 1137;\nwho had taken the cross from Saint Bernard in 1147; who returned\nfrom the Holy Land in 1149; and who compelled Saint Bernard to\napprove her divorce in 1152. Eleanor and Saint Bernard were\ncenturies apart, yet they lived at the same time and in the same\nchurch. Speaking exactly, the old tower represents neither of them;\nthe new tower itself is hardly more florid than Eleanor was; perhaps\nless so, if one can judge from the fashions of the court-dress of\nher time. The old tower is almost Norman, while Eleanor was wholly\nGascon, and Gascony was always florid without being always correct.\nThe new tower, if it had been built in 1150, like the old one, would\nhave expressed Eleanor perfectly, even in height and apparent effort\nto dwarf its mate, except that Eleanor dwarfed her husband without\nan effort, and both in art and in history the result lacked harmony.\n\nBe the contrast what it may, it does not affect the fact that no\nother church in France has two spires that need be discussed in\ncomparison with these. Indeed, no other cathedral of the same class\nhas any spires at all, and this superiority of Chartres gave most of\nits point to a saying that \"with the spires of Chartres, the choir\nof Beauvais, the nave of Amiens, and the facade of Rheims,\" one\ncould make a perfect church--for us tourists.\n\nThe towers have taken much time, though they are the least religious\nand least complicated part of church architecture, and in no way\nessential to the church; indeed, Saint Bernard thought them an\nexcrescence due to pride and worldliness, and this is merely Saint\nBernard's way of saying that they were an ornament created to\ngratify the artistic sense of beauty. Beautiful as they are, one's\neyes must drop at last down to the church itself. If the spire\nsymbolizes aspiration, the door symbolizes the way; and the portal\nof Chartres is the type of French doors; it stands first in the\nhistory of Gothic art; and, in the opinion of most Gothic artists,\nfirst in the interest of all art, though this is no concern of ours.\nHere is the Way to Eternal Life as it was seen by the Church and the\nArt of the first crusade!\n\nThe fortune of this monument has been the best attested Miracle de\nla Vierge in the long list of the Virgin's miracles, for it comes\ndown, practically unharmed, through what may with literal accuracy\nbe called the jaws of destruction and the flames of hell. Built some\ntime in the first half of the twelfth century, it passed, apparently\nunscathed, through the great fire of 1194 which burnt out the church\nbehind, and even the timber interior of the towers in front of it.\nOwing to the enormous mass of timber employed in the structure of\nthe great churches, these recurrent fires were as destructive as\nfire can be made, yet not only the portals with their statuary and\ncarving, but also the lancet windows with their glass, escaped the\nflames; and, what is almost equally strange, escaped also the hand\nof the builder afterwards, who, if he had resembled other\narchitects, would have made a new front of his own, but who, with\npiety unexampled, tenderly took the old stones down, one by one, and\nreplaced them forty feet in advance of their old position. The\nEnglish wars and the wars of religion brought new dangers, sieges,\nand miseries; the revolution of 1792 brought actual rapine and\nwaste; boys have flung stones at the saints; architects have wreaked\ntheir taste within and without; fire after fire has calcined the\nchurch vaults; the worst wrecker of all, the restorer of the\nnineteenth century, has prowled about it; yet the porch still\nstands, mutilated but not restored, burned but not consumed, as\neloquent a witness to the power and perfections of Our Lady as it\nwas seven hundred years ago, and perhaps more impressive.\n\nYou will see portals and porches more or less of the same period\nelsewhere in many different places,--at Paris, Le Mans, Sens, Autun,\nVezelay, Clermont-Ferrand, Moissac, Arles,--a score of them; for the\nsame piety has protected them more than once; but you will see no\nother so complete or so instructive, and you may search far before\nyou will find another equally good in workmanship. Study of the\nChartres portal covers all the rest. The feeling and motive of all\nare nearly the same, or vary only to suit the character of the\npatron saint; and the point of all is that this feeling is the\narchitectural child of the first crusade. At Chartres one can read\nthe first crusade in the portal, as at Mont-Saint-Michel in the\nAquilon and the promenoir.\n\nThe Abbe Bulteau gives reason for assuming the year 1117 as the\napproximate date of the sculpture about the west portal, and you saw\nat Mont-Saint-Michel, in the promenoir of Abbot Roger II, an\naccurately dated work of the same decade; but whatever the date of\nthe plan, the actual work and its spirit belong to 1145 or\nthereabouts, Some fifty years had passed since the crusaders\nstreamed through Constantinople to Antioch and Jerusalem, and they\nwere daily going and returning. You can see the ideas they brought\nback with the relics and missals and enamels they bought in\nByzantium. Over the central door is the Christ, which might be\nsculptured after a Byzantine enamel, with its long nimbus or aureole\nor glory enclosing the whole figure. Over the left door is an\nAscension, bearing the same stamp; and over the right door, the\nseated Virgin, with her crown and her two attendant archangels, is\nan empress. Here is the Church, the Way, and the Life of the twelfth\ncentury that we have undertaken to feel, if not to understand!\n\nFirst comes the central doorway, and above it is the glory of\nChrist, as the church at Chartres understood Christ in the year\n1150; for the glories of Christ were many, and the Chartres Christ\nis one. Whatever Christ may have been in other churches, here, on\nthis portal, he offers himself to his flock as the herald of\nsalvation alone. Among all the imagery of these three doorways,\nthere is no hint of fear, punishment, or damnation, and this is the\nnote of the whole time. Before 1200, the Church seems not to have\nfelt the need of appealing habitually to terror; the promise of hope\nand happiness was enough; even the portal at Autun, which displays a\nLast Judgment, belonged to Saint Lazarus the proof and symbol of\nresurrection. A hundred years later, every church portal showed\nChrist not as Saviour but as Judge, and He presided over a Last\nJudgment at Bourges and Amiens, and here on the south portal, where\nthe despair of the damned is the evident joy of the artist, if it is\nnot even sometimes a little his jest, which is worse. At Chartres\nChrist is identified with His Mother, the spirit of love and grace,\nand His Church is the Church Triumphant.\n\nNot only is fear absent; there is not even a suggestion of pain;\nthere is not a martyr with the symbol of his martyrdom; and what is\nstill more striking, in the sculptured life of Christ, from the\nNativity to the Ascension, which adorns the capitals of the columns,\nthe single scene that has been omitted is the Crucifixion. There, as\neverywhere in this portal, the artists seem actually to have gone\nout of their way in order to avoid a suggestion of suffering. They\nhave pictured Christ and His Mother in all the other events of their\nlives; they have represented evangelists; apostles; the twenty-four\nold men of the Apocalypse; saints, prophets, kings, queens, and\nprinces, by the score; the signs of the zodiac, and even the seven\nliberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry,\nastronomy, and music; everything is there except misery.\n\nPerhaps Our Lady of Chartres was known to be peculiarly gracious and\ngentle, and this may partially account also for the extreme\npopularity of her shrine; but whatever the reason, her church was\nclearly intended to show only this side of her nature, and to\nimpress it on her Son. You can see it in the grave and gracious face\nand attitude of the Christ, raising His hand to bless you as you\nenter His kingdom; in the array of long figures which line the\nentrance to greet you as you pass; in the expression of majesty and\nmercy of the Virgin herself on her throne above the southern\ndoorway; never once are you regarded as a possible rebel, or\ntraitor, or a stranger to be treated with suspicion, or as a child\nto be impressed by fear.  Equally distinct, perhaps even more\nemphatic, is the sculptor's earnestness to make you feel, without\ndirect insistence, that you are entering the Court of the Queen of\nHeaven who is one with her Son and His Church. The central door\nalways bore the name of the \"Royal Door,\" because it belonged to the\ncelestial majesty of Christ, and naturally bears the stamp of\nroyalty; but the south door belongs to the Virgin and to us. Stop a\nmoment to see how she receives us, remembering, or trying to\nremember, that to the priests and artists who designed the portal,\nand to the generations that went on the first and second crusades,\nthe Virgin in her shrine was at least as living, as real, as\npersonal an empress as the Basilissa at Constantinople!\n\nOn the lintel immediately above the doorway is a succession of small\ngroups: first, the Annunciation; Mary stands to receive the\nArchangel Gabriel, who comes to announce to her that she is chosen\nto be the Mother of God. The second is the Visitation, and in this\nscene also Mary stands, but she already wears a crown; at least, the\nAbbe Bulteau says so, although time has dealt harshly with it. Then,\nin the centre, follows the Nativity; Mary lies on a low bed,\nbeneath, or before, a sort of table or cradle on which lies the\nInfant, while Saint Joseph stands at the bed's head. Then the angel\nappears, directing three shepherds to the spot, filling the rest of\nthe space.\n\nIn correct theology, the Virgin ought not to be represented in bed,\nfor she could not suffer like ordinary women, but her palace at\nChartres is not much troubled by theology, and to her, as empress-\nmother, the pain of child-birth was a pleasure which she wanted her\npeople to share. The Virgin of Chartres was the greatest of all\nqueens, but the most womanly of women, as we shall see; and her\ndouble character is sustained throughout her palace. She was also\nintellectually gifted in the highest degree. In the upper zone you\nsee her again, at the Presentation in the Temple, supporting the\nChild Jesus on the altar, while Simeon aids. Other figures bring\nofferings. The voussures of the arch above contain six archangels,\nwith curious wings, offering worship to the Infant and His Imperial\nMother. Below are the signs of the zodiac; the Fishes and the Twins.\nThe rest of the arch is filled by the seven liberal arts, with\nPythagoras, Aristotle, Cicero, Euclid, Nicomachus, Ptolemy, and\nPriscian as their representatives, testifying to the Queen's\nintellectual superiority.\n\nIn the centre sits Mary, with her crown on her head and her Son in\nher lap, enthroned, receiving the homage of heaven and earth; of all\ntime, ancient and modern; of all thought, Christian and Pagan; of\nall men, and all women; including, if you please, your homage and\nmine, which she receives without question, as her due; which she\ncannot be said to claim, because she is above making claims; she is\nempress. Her left hand bore a sceptre; her right supported the\nChild, Who looks directly forward, repeating the Mother's attitude,\nand raises His right hand to bless, while His left rests on the orb\nof empire. She and her Child are one.\n\nAll this was noble beyond the nobility of man, but its earthly form\nwas inspired by the Empire rather than by the petty royalty of\nLouis-le-Gros or his pious queen Alix of Savoy. One mark of the\nperiod is the long, oval nimbus; another is the imperial character\nof the Virgin; a third is her unity with the Christ which is the\nChurch. To us, the mark that will distinguish the Virgin of\nChartres, or, if you prefer, the Virgin of the Crusades, is her\ncrown and robes and throne. According to M. Rohault de Fleury's\n\"Iconographie de la Sainte Vierge\" (11, 62), the Virgin's headdress\nand ornaments had been for long ages borrowed from the costume of\nthe Empresses of the East in honour of the Queen of Heaven. No doubt\nthe Virgin of Chartres was the Virgin recognized by the Empress\nHelena, mother of Constantine, and was at least as old as Helena's\npilgrimage to Jerusalem in 326. She was not a Western, feudal queen,\nnor was her Son a feudal king; she typified an authority which the\npeople wanted, and the fiefs feared; the Pax Romana; the omnipotence\nof God in government. In all Europe, at that time, there was no\npower able to enforce justice or to maintain order, and no symbol of\nsuch a power except Christ and His Mother and the Imperial Crown.\n\nThis idea is very different from that which was the object of our\npilgrimage to Mont-Saint-Michel; but since all Chartres is to be one\nlong comment upon it, you can lay the history of the matter on the\nshelf for study at your leisure, if you ever care to study into the\nweary details of human illusions and disappointments, while here we\npray to the Virgin, and absorb ourselves in the art, which is your\npleasure and which shall not teach either a moral or a useful\nlesson. The Empress Mary is receiving you at her portal, and whether\nyou are an impertinent child, or a foolish old peasant-woman, or an\ninsolent prince, or a more insolent tourist, she receives you with\nthe same dignity; in fact, she probably sees very little difference\nbetween you. An empress of Russia to-day would probably feel little\ndifference in the relative rank of her subjects, and the Virgin was\nempress over emperors, patriarchs, and popes. Any one, however\nignorant, can feel the sustained dignity of the sculptor's work,\nwhich is asserted with all the emphasis he could put into it. Not\none of these long figures which line the three doorways but is an\nofficer or official in attendance on the Empress or her Son, and\nbears the stamp of the Imperial Court. They are mutilated, but, if\nthey have been treated with indignity, so were often their temporal\nrivals, torn to pieces, trampled on, to say nothing of being merely\nbeheaded or poisoned, in the Sacred Palace and the Hippodrome,\nwithout losing that peculiar Oriental dignity of style which seems\nto drape the least dignified attitudes. The grand air of the twelfth\ncentury is something like that of a Greek temple; you can, if you\nlike, hammer every separate stone to pieces, but you cannot hammer\nout the Greek style. There were originally twenty-four of these\nstatues, and nineteen remain. Beginning at the north end, and\npassing over the first figure, which carries a head that does not\nbelong to it, notice the second, a king with a long sceptre of\nempire, a book of law, and robes of Byzantine official splendour.\nBeneath his feet is a curious woman's head with heavy braids of\nhair, and a crown. The third figure is a queen, charming as a woman,\nbut particularly well-dressed, and with details of ornament and\nperson elaborately wrought; worth drawing, if one could only draw;\nworth photographing with utmost care to include the strange support\non which she stands: a monkey, two dragons, a dog, a basilisk with a\ndog's head. Two prophets follow--not so interesting;--prophets\nrarely interest. Then comes the central bay: two queens who claim\nparticular attention, then a prophet, then a saint next the doorway;\nthen on the southern jamb-shafts, another saint, a king, a queen,\nand another king. Last comes the southern bay, the Virgin's own, and\nthere stands first a figure said to be a youthful king; then a\nstrongly sculptured saint; next the door a figure called also a\nking, but so charmingly delicate in expression that the robes alone\nbetray his sex; and who this exquisite young aureoled king may have\nbeen who stands so close to the Virgin, at her right hand, no one\ncan now reveal. Opposite him is a saint who may be, or should be,\nthe Prince of the Apostles; then a bearded king with a broken\nsceptre, standing on two dragons; and, at last, a badly mutilated\nqueen.\n\nThese statues are the Eginetan marbles of French art; from them all\nmodern French sculpture dates, or ought to date. They are singularly\ninteresting; as naif as the smile on the faces of the Greek\nwarriors, but no more grotesque than they. You will see Gothic\ngrotesques in plenty, and you cannot mistake the two intentions; the\ntwelfth century would sooner have tempted the tortures of every\nfeudal dungeon in Europe than have put before the Virgin's eyes any\nfigure that could be conceived as displeasing to her. These figures\nare full of feeling, and saturated with worship; but what is most to\nour purpose is the feminine side which they proclaim and insist\nupon. Not only the number of the female figures, and their beauty,\nbut also the singularly youthful beauty of several of the males; the\nsuperb robes they wear; the expression of their faces and their\nfigures; the details of hair, stuffs, ornaments, jewels; the\nrefinement and feminine taste of the whole, are enough to startle\nour interest if we recognize what meaning they had to the twelfth\ncentury.\n\nThese figures looked stiff and long and thin and ridiculous to\nenlightened citizens of the eighteenth century, but they were made\nto fit the architecture; if you want to know what an enthusiast\nthinks of them, listen to M. Huysmans's \"Cathedral.\" \"Beyond a\ndoubt, the most beautiful sculpture in the world is in this place.\"\nHe can hardly find words to express his admiration for the queens,\nand particularly for the one on the right of the central doorway.\n\"Never in any period has a more expressive figure been thus wrought\nby the genius of man; it is the chef-d'oeuvre of infantile grace and\nholy candour .... She is the elder sister of the Prodigal Son, the\none of whom Saint Luke does not speak, but who, if she existed,\nwould have pleaded the cause of the absent, and insisted, with the\nfather, that he should kill the fatted calf at his son's return.\"\nThe idea is charming if you are the returning son, as many twelfth-\ncentury pilgrims must have thought themselves; but, in truth, the\nfigure is that of a queen; an Eleanor of Guienne; her position there\nis due to her majesty, which bears witness to the celestial majesty\nof the Court in which she is only a lady-in-waiting: and she is\nhardly more humanly fascinating than her brother, the youthful king\nat the Virgin's right hand, who has nothing of the Prodigal Son, but\nwho certainly has much of Lohengrin, or even--almost--Tristan.\n\nThe Abbe Bulteau has done his best to name these statues, but the\nnames would be only in your way. That the sculptor meant them for a\nQueen of Sheba or a King of Israel has little to do with their\nmeaning in the twelfth century, when the people were much more\nlikely to have named them after the queens and kings they knew. The\nwhole charm lies for us in the twelfth-century humanity of Mary and\nher Court; not in the scriptural names under which it was made\northodox. Here, in this western portal, it stands as the crusaders\nof 1100-50 imagined it; but by walking round the church to the porch\nover the entrance to the north transept, you shall see it again as\nBlanche of Castile and Saint Louis imagined it, a hundred years\nlater, so that you will know better whether the earthly attributes\nare exaggerated or untrue.\n\nPorches, like steeples, were rather a peculiarity of French\nchurches, and were studied, varied, one might even say petted, by\nFrench architects to an extent hardly attempted elsewhere; but among\nall the French porches, those of Chartres are the most famous. There\nare two: one on the north side, devoted to the Virgin; the other, on\nthe south, devoted to the Son, \"The mass of intelligence, knowledge,\nacquaintance with effects, practical experience, expended on these\ntwo porches of Chartres,\" says Viollet-le-Duc, \"would be enough to\nestablish the glory of a whole generation of artists.\" We begin with\nthe north porch because it belonged to the Virgin; and it belonged\nto the Virgin because the north was cold, bleak, sunless, windy, and\nneeded warmth, peace, affection, and power to protect against the\nassaults of Satan and his swarming devils. There the all-suffering\nbut the all-powerful Mother received other mothers who suffered like\nher, but who, as a rule, were not powerful. Traditionally in the\nprimitive church, the northern porch belonged to the women. When\nthey needed help, they came here, because it was the only place in\nthis world or in any other where they had much hope of finding even\na reception. See how Mary received them!\n\nThe porch extends the whole width of the transept, about one hundred\nand twenty feet (37.65 metres), divided into three bays some twenty\nfeet deep, and covered with a stone vaulted roof supported on piers\noutside. Begun toward 1215 under Philip Augustus, the architectural\npart was finished toward 1225 under Louis VIII; and after his death\nin 1226, the decorative work and statuary were carried on under the\nregency of his widow, Blanche of Castile, and through the reign of\nher son, Saint Louis (1235-70), until about 1275, when the work was\ncompleted by Philip the Hardy. A gift of the royal family of France,\nall the members of the family seem to have had a share in building\nit, and several of their statues have been supposed to adorn it. The\nwalls are lined--the porch, in a religious sense, is inhabited--by\nmore than seven hundred figures, great and small, all, in one way or\nanother, devoted to the glory of the Queen of Heaven. You will see\nthat a hundred years have converted the Byzantine Empress into a\nFrench Queen, as the same years had converted Alix of Savoy into\nBlanche of Castile; but the note of majesty is the same, and the\nassertion of power is, if possible, more emphatic.\n\nThe highest note is struck at once, in the central bay, over the\ndoor, where you see the Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven, a\nfavourite subject in art from very early times, and the dominant\nidea of Mary's church. You see Mary on the left, seated on her\nthrone; on the right, seated on a precisely similar throne, is\nChrist, Who holds up His right hand apparently to bless, since Mary\nalready bears the crown. Mary bends forward, with her hands raised\ntoward her Son, as though in gratitude or adoration or prayer, but\ncertainly not in an attitude of feudal homage. On either side, an\narchangel swings a censer.\n\nOn the lintel below, on the left, is represented the death of Mary;\non the right, Christ carries, in the folds of His mantle, the soul\nof Mary in the form of a little child, and at the same time blesses\nthe body which is carried away by angels--The Resurrection of Mary.\n\nBelow the lintel, supporting it, and dividing the doorway in halves,\nis the trumeau,--the central pier,--a new part of the portal which\nwas unknown to the western door. Usually in the Virgin's churches,\nas at Rheims, or Amiens or Paris, the Virgin herself, with her Son\nin her arms, stands against this pier, trampling on the dragon with\nthe woman's head. Here, not the Virgin with the Christ, but her\nmother Saint Anne stands, with the infant Virgin in her arms; while\nbeneath is, or was, Saint Joachim, her husband, among his flocks,\nreceiving from the Archangel Gabriel the annunciation.\n\nSo at the entrance the Virgin declares herself divinely Queen in her\nown right; divinely born; divinely resurrected from death, on the\nthird day; seated by divine right on the throne of Heaven, at the\nright hand of God, the Son, with Whom she is one.\n\nUnless we feel this assertion of divine right in the Queen of\nHeaven, apart from the Trinity, yet one with It, Chartres is\nunintelligible. The extreme emphasis laid upon it at the church door\nshows what the church means within. Of course, the assertion was not\nstrictly orthodox; perhaps, since we are not members of the Church,\nwe might be unnoticed and unrebuked if we start by suspecting that\nthe worship of the Virgin never was strictly orthodox; but Chartres\nwas hers before it ever belonged to the Church, and, like Lourdes in\nour own time, was a shrine peculiarly favoured by her presence. The\nmere fact that it was a bishopric had little share in its sanctity.\nThe bishop was much more afraid of Mary than he was of any Church\nCouncil ever held.\n\nCritics are doing their best to destroy the peculiar personal\ninterest of this porch, but tourists and pilgrims may be excused for\ninsisting on their traditional rights here, since the porch is\nsingular, even in the thirteenth century, for belonging entirely to\nthem and the royal family of France, subject only to the Virgin.\nTrue artists, turned critics, think also less of rules than of\nvalues, and no ignorant public can be trusted to join the critics in\nlosing temper judiciously over the date or correctness of a portrait\nuntil they knew something of its motives and merits. The public has\nalways felt certain that some of the statues which stand against the\nouter piers of this porch are portraits, and they see no force in\nthe objection that such decoration was not customary in the Church.\nMany things at Chartres were not customary in the Church, although\nthe Church now prefers not to dwell on them. Therefore the student\nreturns to Viollet-le-Duc with his usual delight at finding at least\none critic whose sense of values is stronger than his sense of rule:\n\"Each statue,\" he says in his \"Dictionary\" (111, 166), \"possesses\nits personal character which remains graven on the memory like the\nrecollection of a living being whom one has known .... A large part\nof the statues in the porches of Notre Dame de Chartres, as well as\nof the portals of the Cathedrals of Amiens and Rheims, possess these\nindividual qualities, and this it is which explains why these\nstatues produce on the crowd so vivid an impression that it names\nthem, knows them, and attaches to each of them an idea, often a\nlegend.\"\n\nProbably the crowd did so from the first moment they saw the\nstatues, and with good reason. At all events, they have attached to\ntwo of the most individual figures on the north porch, two names,\nperhaps the best known in France in the year 1226, but which since\nthe year 1300 can have conveyed only the most shadowy meaning to any\nbut pure antiquarians. The group is so beautiful as to be given a\nplate to itself in the \"Monographie\" (number 26), as representing\nPhilip Hurepel and his wife Mahaut de Boulogne. So little could any\ncrowd, or even any antiquarian, at any time within six hundred years\nhave been likely to pitch on just these persons to associate with\nBlanche of Castile in any kind of family unity, that the mere\nsuggestion seems wild; yet Blanche outlived Pierre by nearly twenty\nyears, and her power over this transept and porch ended only with\nher death as regent in 1252.\n\nPhilippe, nicknamed Hurepel,--Boarskin,--was a \"fils deFrance,\"\nwhose father, Philip Augustus, had serious, not to say fatal,\ndifficulties with the Church about the legality of his marriage,\nand was forced to abandon his wife, who died in 1201, after giving\nbirth to Hurepel in 1200. The child was recognized as legitimate,\nand stood next to the throne, after his half-brother Louis, who was\nthirteen years older. Almost at his birth he was affianced to\nMahaut, Countess of Boulogne, and the marriage was celebrated in\n1216. Rich and strongly connected, Hurepel naturally thought\nhimself--and was--head of the royal family next to the King, and\nwhen his half-brother, Louis VIII, died in 1226, leaving only a son,\nafterwards Saint Louis, a ten-year-old boy, to succeed, Hurepel very\nproperly claimed the guardianship of his infant nephew, and deeply\nresented being excluded by Queen Blanche from what he regarded--\nperhaps with justice--as his right. Nearly all the great lords and\nthe members of the royal family sided with him, and entered into a\ncivil war against Blanche, at the moment when these two porches of\nChartres were building, between 1228 and 1230. The two greatest\nleaders of the conspiracy were Hurepel, whom we are expected to\nrecognize on the pier of this porch, and Pierre Mauclerc, of\nBrittany and Dreux, whom we have no choice but to admit on the\ntrumeau of the other. In those days every great feudal lord was more\nor less related by blood to the Crown, and although Blanche of\nCastile was also a cousin as well as queen-mother, they hated her as\na Spanish intruder with such hatred as men felt in an age when\npassions were real.\n\nThat these two men should be found here, associated with Blanche in\nthe same work, at the same time, under the same roof, is a fantastic\nidea, and students can feel in this political difficulty a much\nstronger objection to admitting Hurepel to Queen Blanche's porch\nthan any supposed rule of Church custom; yet the first privilege of\ntourist ignorance is the right to see, or try to see, their\nthirteenth century with thirteenth-century eyes. Passing by the\nstatues of Philip and Mahaut, and stepping inside the church door,\nalmost the first figure that the visitor sees on lifting his eyes to\nthe upper windows of the transept is another figure of Philippe\nHurepel, in glass, on his knees, with clasped hands, before an\naltar; and to prevent possibility of mistake his blazoned coat bears\nthe words: \"Phi: Conte de Bolone.\" Apparently he is the donor, for,\nin the rose above, he sits in arms on a white horse with a shield\nbearing the blazon of France. Obliged to make his peace with the\nQueen in 1230, Hurepel died in 1233 or 1234, while Blanche was still\nregent, and instantly took his place as of right side by side with\nBlanche's castles of Castile among the great benefactors of the\nchurch.\n\nBeneath the next rose is Mahaut herself, as donor, bearing her\nhusband's arms of France, suggesting that the windows must have been\ngiven together, probably before Philip's death in 1233, since Mahaut\nwas married again in 1238, this time to Alfonso of Portugal, who\nrepudiated her in 1249, and left her to die in her own town of\nBoulogne in 1258. Lastly, in the third window of the series, is her\ndaughter Jeanne,--\"Iehenne,\"--who was probably born before 1220, and\nwho was married in 1236 to Gaucher de Chatillon, one of the greatest\nwarriors of his time. Jeanne also--according to the Abbe Bulteau\n(111, 225)--bears the arms of her father and mother; which seems to\nsuggest that she gave this window before her marriage. These three\nwindows, therefore, have the air of dating at least as early as 1233\nwhen Philip Hurepel died, while next them follow two more roses, and\nthe great rose of France, presumably of the same date, all scattered\nover with the castles of Queen Blanche. The motive of the porch\noutside is repeated in the glass, as it should be, and as the Saint\nAnne of the Rose of France, within, repeats the Saint Anne on the\ntrumeau of the portal. The personal stamp of the royal family is\nintense, but the stamp of the Virgin's personality is intenser\nstill. In the presence of Mary, not only did princes hide their\nquarrels, but they also put on their most courteous manners and the\nmost refined and even austere address. The Byzantine display of\nluxury and adornment had vanished. All the figures suggest the\nsanctity of the King and his sister Isabel; the court has the air of\na convent; but the idea of Mary's majesty is asserted through it\nall. The artists and donors and priests forgot nothing which, in\ntheir judgment, could set off the authority, elegance, and\nrefinement of the Queen of Heaven; even the young ladies-in-waiting\nare there, figured by the twelve Virtues and the fourteen\nBeatitudes; and, indeed, though men are plenty and some of them are\nhandsome, women give the tone, the charm, and mostly the\nintelligence. The Court of Mary is feminine, and its charms are\nGrace and Love; perhaps even more grace than love, in a social\nsense, if you look at Beauty and Friendship among Beatitudes.\n\nM. Huysmans insists that this sculpture is poor in comparison with\nhis twelfth-century Prodigal Daughter, and I hope you can enter into\nthe spirit of his enthusiasm; but other people prefer the\nthirteenth-century work, and think it equals the best Greek.\nApproaching, or surpassing this,--as you like,--is the sculpture you\nwill see at Rheims, of the same period, and perhaps the same hands;\nbut, for our purpose, the Queen of Sheba, here in the right-hand\nbay, is enough, because you can compare it on the spot with M.\nHuysmans's figure on the western portal, which may also be a Queen\nof Sheba, who, as spouse of Solomon, typified the Church, and\ntherefore prefigured Mary herself. Both are types of Court beauty\nand grace, one from the twelfth century, the other from the\nthirteenth, and you can prefer which you please; but you want to\nbear in mind that each, in her time, pleased the Virgin. You can\neven take for a settled fact that these were the types of feminine\nbeauty and grace which pleased the Virgin beyond all others.\n\nThe purity of taste, feeling, and manners which stamps the art of\nthese centuries, as it did the Court of Saint Louis and his mother,\nis something you will not wholly appreciate till you reach the\ndepravity of the Valois; but still you can see how exquisite the\nVirgin's taste was, and how pure. You can also see how she shrank\nfrom the sight of pain. Here, in the central bay, next to King\nDavid, who stands at her right hand, is the great figure of Abraham\nabout to sacrifice Isaac. If there is one subject more revolting\nthan another to a woman who typifies the Mother, it is this subject\nof Abraham and Isaac, with its compound horror of masculine\nstupidity and brutality. The sculptor has tried to make even this\nmotive a pleasing one. He has placed Abraham against the column in\nthe correct harshness of attitude, with his face turned aside and\nup, listening for his orders; but the little Isaac, with hands and\nfeet tied, leans like a bundle of sticks against his father's knee\nwith an expression of perfect faith and confidence, while Abraham's\nleft hand quiets him and caresses the boy's face, with a movement\nthat must have gone straight to Mary's heart, for Isaac always\nprefigured Christ.\n\nThe glory of Mary was not one of terror, and her porch contains no\nappeal to any emotion but those of her perfect grace. If we were to\nstay here for weeks, we should find only this idea worked into every\ndetail. The Virgin of the thirteenth century is no longer an\nEmpress; she is Queen Mother,--an idealized Blanche of Castile;--too\nhigh to want, or suffer, or to revenge, or to aspire, but not too\nhigh to pity, to punish, or to pardon. The women went to her porch\nfor help as naturally as babies to their mother; and the men, in her\npresence, fell on their knees because they feared her intelligence\nand her anger.\n\nNot that all the men showed equal docility! We must go next, round\nthe church, to the south porch, which was the gift of Pierre\nMauclerc, Comte de Dreux, another member of the royal family, great-\ngrandson of Louis VI, and therefore second cousin to Louis VIII and\nPhilip Hurepel. Philip Augustus, his father's first cousin, married\nthe young man, in 1212, to Alix, heiress of the Duchy of Brittany,\nand this marriage made him one of the most powerful vassals of the\nCrown. He joined Philip Hurepel in resisting the regency of Queen\nBlanche in 1227, and Blanche, after a long struggle, caused him to\nbe deposed in 1230. Pierre was obliged to submit, and was pardoned.\nUntil 1236, he remained in control of the Duchy of Brittany, but\nthen was obliged to surrender his power to his son, and turned his\nturbulent activity against the infidels in Syria and Egypt, dying in\n1250, on his return from Saint Louis's disastrous crusade. Pierre de\nDreux was a masculine character,--a bad cleric, as his nickname\nMauclerc testified, but a gentleman, a soldier, and a scholar, and,\nwhat is more to our purpose, a man of taste. He built the south\nporch at Chartres, apparently as a memorial of his marriage with\nAlix in 1212, and the statuary is of the same date with that of the\nnorth porch, but, like that, it was not finished when Pierre died in\n1250.\n\nOne would like to know whether Pierre preferred to take the southern\nentrance, or whether he was driven there by the royal claim to the\nVirgin's favour. The southern porch belongs to the Son, as the\nnorthern belongs to the Mother. Pierre never showed much deference\nto women, and probably felt more at his ease under the protection of\nthe Son than of Mary; but in any case he showed as clearly as\npossible what he thought on this question of persons. To Pierre,\nChrist was first, and he asserted his opinion as emphatically as\nBlanche asserted hers.\n\nWhich porch is the more beautiful is a question for artists to\ndiscuss and decide, if they can. Either is good enough for us, whose\npose is ignorance, and whose pose is strictly correct; but apart\nfrom its beauty or its art, there is also the question of feeling,\nof motive, which puts the Porche de Dreux in contrast with the\nPorche de France, and this is wholly within our competence. At the\noutset, the central bay displays, above the doorway, Christ, on a\nthrone, raising His hands to show the stigmata, the wounds which\nwere the proof of man's salvation. At His right hand sits the\nMother,--without her crown; on His left, in equal rank with the\nMother, sits Saint John the Evangelist. Both are in the same\nattitude of supplication as intercessors; there is no distinction in\nrank or power between Mary and John, since neither has any power\nexcept what Christ gives them. Pierre did not, indeed, put the\nMother on her knees before the Son, as you can see her at Amiens and\nin later churches,--certainly bad taste in Mary's own palace; but he\nallowed her no distinction which is not her strict right. The angels\nabove and around bear the symbols of the Passion; they are\nunconscious of Mary's presence; they are absorbed in the perfections\nof the Son. On the lintel just below is the Last Judgment, where\nSaint Michael reappears, weighing the souls of the dead which Mary\nand John above are trying to save from the strict justice of Christ.\nThe whole melodrama of Church terrors appears after the manner of\nthe thirteenth century, on this church door, without regard to\nMary's feelings; and below, against the trumeau, stands the great\nfigure of Christ,--the whole Church,--trampling on the lion and\ndragon. On either side of the doorway stand six great figures of the\nApostles asserting themselves as the columns of the Church, and\nlooking down at us with an expression no longer calculated to calm\nour fears or encourage extravagant hopes. No figure on this porch\nsuggests a portrait or recalls a memory.\n\nVery grand, indeed, is this doorway; dignified, impressive, and\nmasculine to a degree seldom if ever equalled in art; and the left\nbay rivals it. There, in the tympanum, Christ appears again;\nstanding; bearing on His head the crown royal; alone, except for the\ntwo angels who adore, and surrounded only by the martyrs, His\nwitnesses. The right bay is devoted to Saint Nicholas and the Saints\nConfessors who bear witness to the authority of Christ in faith. Of\nthe twenty-eight great figures, the officers of the royal court, who\nmake thus the strength of the Church beneath Christ, not one is a\nwoman. The masculine orthodoxy of Pierre Mauclerc has spared neither\nsex nor youth; all are of a maturity which chills the blood,\nexcepting two, whose youthful beauty is heightened by the severity\nof their surroundings, so that the Abbe Bulteau makes bold even to\nsay that \"the two statues of Saint George and of Saint Theodore may\nbe regarded as the most beautiful of our cathedral, perhaps even as\nthe two masterpieces of statuary at the end of the thirteenth\ncentury.\" On that point, let every one follow his taste; but one\nreflection at least seems to force itself on the mind in comparing\nthese twenty-eight figures. Certainly the sword, however it may\ncompare with the pen in other directions, is in art more powerful\nthan all the pens, or volumes, or crosiers ever made. Your \"Golden\nLegend\" and Roman Breviary are here the only guide-books worth\nconsulting, and the stories of young George and Theodore stand there\nrecorded; as their miracle under the walls of Antioch, during the\nfirst crusade, is matter of history; but among these magnificent\nfigures one detects at a glance that it is not the religion or\nsacred purity of the subject, or even the miracles or the\nsufferings, which inspire passion for Saint George and Saint\nTheodore, under the Abbe's robe; it is with him, as with the plain\nboy and girl, simply youth, with lance and sword and shield.\n\nThese two figures stand in the outer embrasures of the left bay,\nwhere they can be best admired, and perhaps this arrangement shows\nwhat Perron de Dreux, as he was commonly called, loved most, in his\nheart of hearts; but elsewhere, even in this porch, he relaxed his\nseverity, and became at times almost gracious to women. Good judges\nhave, indeed, preferred this porch to the northern one; but, be that\nas you please, it contains seven hundred and eighty-three figures,\nlarge and small, to serve for comparison. Among these, the female\nelement has its share, though not a conspicuous one; and even the\nVirgin gets her rights, though not beside her Son. To see her, you\nmust stand outside in the square and, with a glass, look at the\ncentral pignon, or gable, of the porch. There, just above the point\nof the arch, you will see Mary on her throne, crowned, wearing her\nroyal robes, and holding the Child on her knees, with the two\narchangels on either side offering incense. Pierre de Dreux, or some\none else, admitted at last that she was Queen Regent, although\nevidently not eager to do so; and if you turn your glass up to the\ngable of the transept itself, above the great rose and the colonnade\nover it, you can see another and a colossal statue of the Virgin,\nbut standing, with the Child on her left arm. She seems to be\ncrowned, and to hold the globe in her right hand; but the Abbe\nBulteau says it is a flower. The two archangels are still there.\nThis figure is thought to have been a part of the finishing\ndecoration added by Philip the Fair in 1304.\n\nIn theology, Pierre de Dreux seems to show himself a more learned\nclerk than his cousins of France, and, as an expression of the\nmeaning the church of Mary should externally display, the Porche de\nDreux, if not as personal, is as energetic as the Porche de France,\nor the western portal. As we pass into the Cathedral, under the\ngreat Christ, on the trumeau, you must stop to look at Pierre\nhimself. A bridegroom, crowned with flowers on his wedding-day, he\nkneels in prayer, while two servants distribute bread to the poor.\nBelow, you see him again, seated with his wife Alix before a table\nwith one loaf, assisting at the meal they give to the poor. Pierre\nkneels to God; he and his wife bow before the Virgin and the poor;--\nbut not to Queen Blanche!\n\nNow let us enter!--\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE VIRGIN OF CHARTRES\n\nWe must take ten minutes to accustom our eyes to the light, and we\nhad better use them to seek the reason why we come to Chartres\nrather than to Rheims or Amiens or Bourges, for the cathedral that\nfills our ideal. The truth is, there are several reasons; there\ngenerally are, for doing the things we like; and after you have\nstudied Chartres to the ground, and got your reasons settled, you\nwill never find an antiquarian to agree with you; the architects\nwill probably listen to you with contempt; and even these excellent\npriests, whose kindness is great, whose patience is heavenly, and\nwhose good opinion you would so gladly gain, will turn from you with\npain, if not with horror. The Gothic is singular in this; one seems\neasily at home in the Renaissance; one is not too strange in the\nByzantine; as for the Roman, it is ourselves; and we could walk\nblindfolded through every chink and cranny of the Greek mind; all\nthese styles seem modern, when we come close to them; but the Gothic\ngets away. No two men think alike about it, and no woman agrees with\neither man. The Church itself never agreed about it, and the\narchitects agree even less than the priests. To most minds it casts\ntoo many shadows; it wraps itself in mystery; and when people talk\nof mystery, they commonly mean fear. To others, the Gothic seems\nhoary with age and decrepitude, and its shadows mean death. What is\ncurious to watch is the fanatical conviction of the Gothic\nenthusiast, to whom the twelfth century means exuberant youth, the\neternal child of Wordsworth, over whom its immortality broods like\nthe day; it is so simple and yet so complicated; it sees so much and\nso little; it loves so many toys and cares for so few necessities;\nits youth is so young, its age so old, and its youthful yearning for\nold thought is so disconcerting, like the mysterious senility of the\nbaby that--\n\n    Deaf and silent, reads the eternal deep,\n     Haunted forever by the eternal mind.\n\n\nOne need not take it more seriously than one takes the baby itself.\nOur amusement is to play with it, and to catch its meaning in its\nsmile; and whatever Chartres maybe now, when young it was a smile.\nTo the Church, no doubt, its cathedral here has a fixed and\nadministrative meaning, which is the same as that of every other\nbishop's seat and with which we have nothing whatever to do. To us,\nit is a child's fancy; a toy-house to please the Queen of Heaven,--\nto please her so much that she would be happy in it,--to charm her\ntill she smiled.\n\nThe Queen Mother was as majestic as you like; she was absolute; she\ncould be stern; she was not above being angry; but she was still a\nwoman, who loved grace, beauty, ornament,--her toilette, robes,\njewels;--who considered the arrangements of her palace with\nattention, and liked both light and colour; who kept a keen eye on\nher Court, and exacted prompt and willing obedience from king and\narchbishops as well as from beggars and drunken priests. She\nprotected her friends and punished her enemies. She required space,\nbeyond what was known in the Courts of kings, because she was liable\nat all times to have ten thousand people begging her for favours--\nmostly inconsistent with law--and deaf to refusal. She was extremely\nsensitive to neglect, to disagreeable impressions, to want of\nintelligence in her surroundings. She was the greatest artist, as\nshe was the greatest philosopher and musician and theologist, that\never lived on earth, except her Son, Who, at Chartres, is still an\nInfant under her guardianship. Her taste was infallible; her\nsentence eternally final. This church was built for her in this\nspirit of simple-minded, practical, utilitarian faith,--in this\nsingleness of thought, exactly as a little girl sets up a doll-house\nfor her favourite blonde doll. Unless you can go back to your dolls,\nyou are out of place here. If you can go back to them, and get rid\nfor one small hour of the weight of custom, you shall see Chartres\nin glory.\n\nThe palaces of earthly queens were hovels compared with these\npalaces of the Queen of Heaven at Chartres, Paris, Laon, Noyon,\nRheims, Amiens, Rouen, Bayeux, Coutances,--a list that might be\nstretched into a volume. The nearest approach we have made to a\npalace was the Merveille at Mont-Saint-Michel, but no Queen had a\npalace equal to that. The Merveille was built, or designed, about\nthe year 1200; toward the year 1500, Louis XI built a great castle\nat Loches in Touraine, and there Queen Anne de Bretagne had\napartments which still exist, and which we will visit. At Blois you\nshall see the residence which served for Catherine de Medicis till\nher death in 1589. Anne de Bretagne was trebly queen, and Catherine\nde Medicis took her standard of comfort from the luxury of Florence.\nAt Versailles you can see the apartments which the queens of the\nBourbon line occupied through their century of magnificence. All put\ntogether, and then trebled in importance, could not rival the\nsplendour of any single cathedral dedicated to Queen Mary in the\nthirteenth century; and of them all, Chartres was built to be\npeculiarly and exceptionally her delight.\n\nOne has grown so used to this sort of loose comparison, this\nreckless waste of words, that one no longer adopts an idea unless it\nis driven in with hammers of statistics and columns of figures. With\nthe irritating demand for literal exactness and perfectly straight\nlines which lights up every truly American eye, you will certainly\nask when this exaltation of Mary began, and unless you get the\ndates, you will doubt the facts. It is your own fault if they are\ntiresome; you might easily read them all in the \"Iconographie de la\nSainte Vierge,\" by M. Rohault de Fleury, published in 1878. You can\nstart at Byzantium with the Empress Helena in 326, or with the\nCouncil of Ephesus in 431. You will find the Virgin acting as the\npatron saint of Constantinople and of the Imperial residence, under\nas many names as Artemis or Aphrodite had borne. As Godmother [word\nin Greek] Deipara [word in Greek], Pathfinder [word in Greek],\nafterwards gave to Murillo the subject of a famous painting, told\nthat once, when he was reciting before her statue the \"Ave Maris\nStella,\" and came to the words, \"Monstra te esse Matrem,\" the image,\npressing its breast, dropped on the lips of her servant three drops\nof the milk which had nourished the Saviour. The same miracle, in\nvarious forms, was told of many other persons, both saints and\nsinners; but it made so much impression on the mind of the age that,\nin the fourteenth century, Dante, seeking in Paradise for some\nofficial introduction to the foot of the Throne, found no\nintercessor with the Queen of Heaven more potent than Saint Bernard.\nYou can still read Bernard's hymns to the Virgin, and even his\nsermons, if you like. To him she was the great mediator. In the eyes\nof a culpable humanity, Christ was too sublime, too terrible, too\njust, but not even the weakest human frailty could fear to approach\nhis Mother. Her attribute was humility; her love and pity were\ninfinite. \"Let him deny your mercy who can say that he has ever\nasked it in vain.\"\n\nSaint Bernard was emotional and to a certain degree mystical, like\nAdam de Saint-Victor, whose hymns were equally famous, but the\nemotional saints and mystical poets were not by any means allowed to\nestablish exclusive rights to the Virgin's favour. Abelard was as\ndevoted as they were, and wrote hymns as well. Philosophy claimed\nher, and Albert the Great, the head of scholasticism, the teacher of\nThomas Aquinas, decided in her favour the question: \"Whether the\nBlessed Virgin possessed perfectly the seven liberal arts.\" The\nChurch at Chartres had decided it a hundred years before by putting\nthe seven liberal arts next her throne, with Aristotle himself to\nwitness; but Albertus gave the reason: \"I hold that she did, for it\nis written, 'Wisdom has built herself a house, and has sculptured\nseven columns.' That house is the blessed Virgin; the seven columns\nare the seven liberal arts. Mary, therefore, had perfect mastery of\nscience.\" Naturally she had also perfect mastery of economics, and\nmost of her great churches were built in economic centres. The\nguilds were, if possible, more devoted to her than the monks; the\nbourgeoisie of Paris, Rouen, Amiens, Laon, spend money by millions\nto gain her favour. Most surprising of all, the great military class\nwas perhaps the most vociferous. Of all inappropriate haunts for the\ngentle, courteous, pitying Mary, a field of battle seems to be the\nworst, if not distinctly blasphemous; yet the greatest French\nwarriors insisted on her leading them into battle, and in the actual\nmelee when men were killing each other, on every battle-field in\nEurope, for at least five hundred years, Mary was present, leading\nboth sides. The battle-cry of the famous Constable du Guesclin was\n\"Notre-Dame-Guesclin\"; \"Notre-Dame-Coucy\" was the cry of the great\nSires de Coucy; \"Notre-Dame-Auxerre\"; \"Notre-Dame-Sancerre\"; \"Notre-\nDame-Hainault\"; \"Notre-Dame-Gueldres\"; \"Notre-Dame-Bourbon\"; \"Notre-\nDame-Bearn\";--all well-known battle-cries. The King's own battle at\none time cried, \"Notre-Dame-Saint-Denis-Montjoie\"; the Dukes of\nBurgundy cried, \"Notre-Dame-Bourgogne\"; and even the soldiers of the\nPope were said to cry, \"Notre-Dame-Saint-Pierre.\"\n\nThe measure of this devotion, which proves to any religious American\nmind, beyond possible cavil, its serious and practical reality, is\nthe money it cost. According to statistics, in the single century\nbetween 1170 and 1270, the French built eighty cathedrals and nearly\nfive hundred churches of the cathedral class, which would have cost,\naccording to an estimate made in 1840, more than five thousand\nmillions to replace. Five thousand million francs is a thousand\nmillion dollars, and this covered only the great churches of a\nsingle century. The same scale of expenditure had been going on\nsince the year 1000, and almost every parish in France had rebuilt\nits church in stone; to this day France is strewn with the ruins of\nthis architecture, and yet the still preserved churches of the\neleventh and twelfth centuries, among the churches that belong to\nthe Romanesque and Transition period, are numbered by hundreds until\nthey reach well into the thousands. The share of this capital which\nwas--if one may use a commercial figure--invested in the Virgin\ncannot be fixed, any more than the total sum given to religious\nobjects between 1000 and 1300; but in a spiritual and artistic\nsense, it was almost the whole, and expressed an intensity of\nconviction never again reached by any passion, whether of religion,\nof loyalty, of patriotism, or of wealth; perhaps never even\nparallelled by any single economic effort, except in war. Nearly\nevery great church of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries belonged\nto Mary, until in France one asks for the church of Notre Dame as\nthough it meant cathedral; but, not satisfied with this, she\ncontracted the habit of requiring in all churches a chapel of her\nown, called in English the \"Lady Chapel,\" which was apt to be as\nlarge as the church but was always meant to be handsomer; and there,\nbehind the high altar, in her own private apartment, Mary sat,\nreceiving her innumerable suppliants, and ready at any moment to\nstep up upon the high altar itself to support the tottering\nauthority of the local saint.\n\nExpenditure like this rests invariably on an economic idea. Just as\nthe French of the nineteenth century invested their surplus capital\nin a railway system in the belief that they would make money by it\nin this life, in the thirteenth they trusted their money to the\nQueen of Heaven because of their belief in her power to repay it\nwith interest in the life to come. The investment was based on the\npower of Mary as Queen rather than on any orthodox Church conception\nof the Virgin's legitimate station. Papal Rome never greatly loved\nByzantine empresses or French queens. The Virgin of Chartres was\nnever wholly sympathetic to the Roman Curia. To this day the Church\nwriters--like the Abbe Bulteau or M. Rohault de Fleury--are\nsingularly shy of the true Virgin of majesty, whether at Chartres or\nat Byzantium or wherever she is seen. The fathers Martin and Cahier\nat Bourges alone left her true value. Had the Church controlled her,\nthe Virgin would perhaps have remained prostrate at the foot of the\nCross. Dragged by a Byzantine Court, backed by popular insistence\nand impelled by overpowering self-interest, the Church accepted the\nVirgin throned and crowned, seated by Christ, the Judge throned and\ncrowned; but even this did not wholly satisfy the French of the\nthirteenth century who seemed bent on absorbing Christ in His\nMother, and making the Mother the Church, and Christ the Symbol.\n\nThe Church had crowned and enthroned her almost from the beginning,\nand could not have dethroned her if it would. In all Christian art--\nsculpture or mosaic, painting or poetry--the Virgin's rank was\nexpressly asserted. Saint Bernard, like John Comnenus, and probably\nat the same time (1120-40), chanted hymns to the Virgin as Queen:--\n\nO salutaris Virgo Stella Maris\n Generans prolem, Aequitatis solem,\n Lucis auctorem, Retinens pudorem,\n      Suscipe laudem!\n\n\nCeli Regina Per quam medicina\n Datur aegretis, Gratia devotis,\n Gaudium moestis, Mundo lux coelestis,\n      Spesque salutis;\n\n\nAula regalis, Virgo specialis,\n Posce medelam Nobis et tutelam,\n Suscipe vota, Precibusque cuncta\n     Pelle molesta!\n\n\nO Saviour Virgin, Star of Sea,\n Who bore for child the Son of Justice,\n The source of Light, Virgin always\n     Hear our praise!\n\n\nQueen of Heaven who have given\n Medicine to the sick, Grace to the devout,\n Joy to the sad, Heaven's light to the world\n     And hope of salvation;\n\n\nCourt royal, Virgin typical,\n Grant us cure and guard,\n Accept our vows, and by prayers\n     Drive all griefs away!\n\n\nAs the lyrical poet of the twelfth century, Adam de Saint-Victor\nseems to have held rank higher if possible than that of Saint\nBernard, and his hymns on the Virgin are certainly quite as emphatic\nan assertion of her majesty:--\n\nImperatrix supernorum!\n Superatrix infernorum!\n Eligenda via coeli,\n Retinenda spe fideli,\n Separatos a te longe\n Revocatos ad te junge\n    Tuorum collegio!\n\n\nEmpress of the highest,\n Mistress over the lowest,\n Chosen path of Heaven,\n Held fast by faithful hope,\n Those separated from you far,\n Recalled to you, unite\n     In your fold!\n\n\nTo delight in the childish jingle of the mediaeval Latin is a sign\nof a futile mind, no doubt, and I beg pardon of you and of the\nChurch for wasting your precious summer day on poetry which was\nregarded as mystical in its age and which now sounds like a nursery\nrhyme; but a verse or two of Adam's hymn on the Assumption of the\nVirgin completes the record of her rank, and goes to complete also\nthe documentary proof of her majesty at Chartres:--\n\nSalve, Mater Salvatoris!\n Vas electum! Vas honoris!\n     Vas coelestis Gratiae!\n Ab aeterno Vas provisum!\n Vas insigne! Vas excisum\n     Manu sapientiae!\n\n\nSalve, Mater pietatis,\n Et totius Trinitatis\n     Nobile Triclinium!\n Verbi tamen incarnati\n Speciale majestati\n     Praeparans hospitium!\n\n\nO Maria! Stella maris!\n Dignitate singularis,\n Super omnes ordinaries\n     Ordines coelestium!\n In supremo sita poli\n Nos commenda tuae proli,\n Ne terrores sive doli\n     Nos supplantent hostium!\n\n\nMother of our Saviour, hail!\n Chosen vessel! Sacred Grail!\n     Font of celestial grace!\n From eternity forethought!\n By the hand of Wisdom wrought!\n     Precious, faultless Vase!\n\n\nHail, Mother of Divinity!\n Hail, Temple of the Trinity!\n     Home of the Triune God!\n In whom the Incarnate Word had birth,\n The King! to whom you gave on earth\n     Imperial abode.\n\n\nOh, Maria! Constellation!\n Inspiration! Elevation!\n Rule and Law and Ordination\n     Of the angels' host!\n Highest height of God's Creation,\n Pray your Son's commiseration,\n Lest, by fear or fraud, salvation\n     For our souls be lost!\n\n\nConstantly--one might better say at once, officially, she was\naddressed in these terms of supreme majesty: \"Imperatrix\nsupernorum!\" \"Coeli Regina!\" \"Aula regalis!\" but the twelfth century\nseemed determined to carry the idea out to its logical conclusion\nin defiance of dogma. Not only was the Son absorbed in the Mother, or\nrepresented as under her guardianship, but the Father fared no\nbetter, and the Holy Ghost followed. The poets regarded the Virgin\nas the \"Templum Trinitatis\"; \"totius Trinitatis nobile Triclinium.\"\nShe was the refectory of the Trinity--the \"Triclinium\"--because the\nrefectory was the largest room and contained the whole of the\nmembers, and was divided in three parts by two rows of columns. She\nwas the \"Templum Trinitatis,\" the Church itself, with its triple\naisle. The Trinity was absorbed in her.\n\nThis is a delicate subject in the Church, and you must feel it with\ndelicacy, without brutally insisting on its necessary\ncontradictions. All theology and all philosophy are full of\ncontradictions quite as flagrant and far less sympathetic. This\nparticular variety of religious faith is simply human, and has made\nits appearance in one form or another in nearly all religions; but\nthough the twelfth century carried it to an extreme, and at Chartres\nyou see it in its most charming expression, we have got always to\nmake allowances for what was going on beneath the surface in men's\nminds, consciously or unconsciously, and for the latent scepticism\nwhich lurks behind all faith. The Church itself never quite accepted\nthe full claims of what was called Mariolatry. One may be sure, too,\nthat the bourgeois capitalist and the student of the schools, each\nfrom his own point of view, watched the Virgin with anxious\ninterest. The bourgeois had put an enormous share of, his capital\ninto what was in fact an economical speculation, not unlike the\nSouth Sea Scheme, or the railway system of our own time; except that\nin one case the energy was devoted to shortening the road to Heaven;\nin the other, to shortening the road to Paris; but no serious\nschoolman could have felt entirely convinced that God would enter\ninto a business partnership with man, to establish a sort of joint-\nstock society for altering the operation of divine and universal\nlaws. The bourgeois cared little for the philosophical doubt if the\neconomical result proved to be good, but he watched this result with\nhis usual practical sagacity, and required an experience of only\nabout three generations (1200-1300) to satisfy himself that relics\nwere not certain in their effects; that the Saints were not always\nable or willing to help; that Mary herself could not certainly be\nbought or bribed; that prayer without money seemed to be quite as\nefficacious as prayer with money; and that neither the road to\nHeaven nor Heaven itself had been made surer or brought nearer by an\ninvestment of capital which amounted to the best part of the wealth\nof France. Economically speaking, he became satisfied that his\nenormous money-investment had proved to be an almost total loss, and\nthe reaction on his mind was as violent as the emotion. For three\nhundred years it prostrated France. The efforts of the bourgeoisie\nand the peasantry to recover their property, so far as it was\nrecoverable, have lasted to the present day and we had best take\ncare not to get mixed in those passions.\n\nIf you are to get the full enjoyment of Chartres, you must, for the\ntime, believe in Mary as Bernard and Adam did, and feel her presence\nas the architects did, in every stone they placed, and every touch\nthey chiselled. You must try first to rid your mind of the\ntraditional idea that the Gothic is an intentional expression of\nreligious gloom. The necessity for light was the motive of the\nGothic architects. They needed light and always more light, until\nthey sacrificed safety and common sense in trying to get it. They\nconverted their walls into windows, raised their vaults, diminished\ntheir piers, until their churches could no longer stand. You will\nsee the limits at Beauvais; at Chartres we have not got so far, but\neven here, in places where the Virgin wanted it,--as above the high\naltar,--the architect has taken all the light there was to take. For\nthe same reason, fenestration became the most important part of the\nGothic architect's work, and at Chartres was uncommonly interesting\nbecause the architect was obliged to design a new system, which\nshould at the same time satisfy the laws of construction and the\ntaste and imagination of Mary. No doubt the first command of the\nQueen of Heaven was for light, but the second, at least equally\nimperative, was for colour. Any earthly queen, even though she were\nnot Byzantine in taste, loved colour; and the truest of queens--the\nonly true Queen of Queens--had richer and finer taste in colour than\nthe queens of fifty earthly kingdoms, as you will see when we come\nto the immense effort to gratify her in the glass of her windows.\nIllusion for illusion,--granting for the moment that Mary was an\nillusion,--the Virgin Mother in this instance repaid to her\nworshippers a larger return for their money than the capitalist has\never been able to get, at least in this world, from any other\nillusion of wealth which he has tried to make a source of pleasure\nand profit.\n\nThe next point on which Mary evidently insisted was the arrangement\nfor her private apartments, the apse, as distinguished from her\nthrone-room, the choir; both being quite distinct from the hall, or\nreception-room of the public, which was the nave with its\nenlargements in the transepts. This arrangement marks the\ndistinction between churches built as shrines for the deity and\nchurches built as halls of worship for the public. The difference is\nchiefly in the apse, and the apse of Chartres is the most\ninteresting of all apses from this point of view.\n\nThe Virgin required chiefly these three things, or, if you like,\nthese four: space, light, convenience; and colour decoration to\nunite and harmonize the whole. This concerns the interior; on the\nexterior she required statuary, and the only complete system of\ndecorative sculpture that existed seems to belong to her churches:--\nParis, Rheims, Amiens, and Chartres. Mary required all this\nmagnificence at Chartres for herself alone, not for the public. As\nfar as one can see into the spirit of the builders, Chartres was\nexclusively intended for the Virgin, as the Temple of Abydos was\nintended for Osiris. The wants of man, beyond a mere roof-cover, and\nperhaps space to some degree, enter to no very great extent into the\nproblem of Chartres. Man came to render homage or to ask favours.\nThe Queen received him in her palace, where she alone was at home,\nand alone gave commands.\n\nThe artist's second thought was to exclude from his work everything\nthat could displease Mary; and since Mary differed from living\nqueens only in infinitely greater majesty and refinement, the artist\ncould admit only what pleased the actual taste of the great ladies\nwho dictated taste at the Courts of France and England, which\nsurrounded the little Court of the Counts of Chartres. What they\nwere--these women of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries--we shall\nhave to see or seek in other directions; but Chartres is perhaps the\nmost magnificent and permanent monument they left of their taste,\nand we can begin here with learning certain things which they were\nnot.\n\nIn the first place, they were not in the least vague, dreamy, or\nmystical in a modern sense;--far from it! They seemed anxious only\nto throw the mysteries into a blaze of light; not so much physical,\nperhaps,--since they, like all women, liked moderate shadow for\ntheir toilettes,--but luminous in the sense of faith. There is\nnothing about Chartres that you would think mystical, who know your\nLohengrin, Siegfried, and Parsifal. If you care to make a study of\nthe whole literature of the subject, read M. Male's \"Art Religieux\ndu XIIIe Siecle en France,\" and use it for a guide-book. Here you\nneed only note how symbolic and how simple the sculpture is, on the\nportals and porches. Even what seems a grotesque or an abstract idea\nis no more than the simplest child's personification. On the walls\nyou may have noticed the Ane qui vielle,--the ass playing the lyre;\nand on all the old churches you can see \"bestiaries,\" as they were\ncalled, of fabulous animals, symbolic or not; but the symbolism is\nas simple as the realism of the oxen at Laon. It gave play to the\nartist in his effort for variety of decoration, and it amused the\npeople,--probably the Virgin also was not above being amused;--now\nand then it seems about to suggest what you would call an esoteric\nmeaning, that is to say, a meaning which each one of us can consider\nprivate property reserved for our own amusement, and from which the\npublic is excluded; yet, in truth, in the Virgin's churches the\npublic is never excluded, but invited. The Virgin even had the\nadditional charm to the public that she was popularly supposed to\nhave no very marked fancy for priests as such; she was a queen, a\nwoman, and a mother, functions, all, which priests could not\nperform. Accordingly, she seems to have had little taste for\nmysteries of any sort, and even the symbols that seem most\nmysterious were clear to every old peasant-woman in her church. The\nmost pleasing and promising of them all is the woman's figure you\nsaw on the front of the cathedral in Paris; her eyes bandaged; her\nhead bent down; her crown falling; without cloak or royal robe;\nholding in her hand a guidon or banner with its staff broken in more\nthan one place. On the opposite pier stands another woman, with\nroyal mantle, erect and commanding. The symbol is so graceful that\none is quite eager to know its meaning; but every child in the\nMiddle Ages would have instantly told you that the woman with the\nfalling crown meant only the Jewish Synagogue, as the one with the\nroyal robe meant the Church of Christ.\n\nAnother matter for which the female taste seemed not much to care\nwas theology in the metaphysical sense. Mary troubled herself little\nabout theology except when she retired into the south transept with\nPierre de Dreux. Even there one finds little said about the Trinity,\nalways the most metaphysical subtlety of the Church. Indeed, you\nmight find much amusement here in searching the cathedral for any\ndistinct expression at all of the Trinity as a dogma recognized by\nMary.\n\nOne cannot take seriously the idea that the three doors, the three\nportals, and the three aisles express the Trinity, because, in the\nfirst place, there was no rule about it; churches might have what\nportals and aisles they pleased; both Paris and Bourges have five;\nthe doors themselves are not allotted to the three members of the\nTrinity, nor are the portals; while another more serious objection\nis that the side doors and aisles are not of equal importance with\nthe central, but mere adjuncts and dependencies, so that the\narchitect who had misled the ignorant public into accepting so black\na heresy would have deserved the stake, and would probably have gone\nto it. Even this suggestion of trinity is wanting in the transepts,\nwhich have only one aisle, and in the choir, which has five, as well\nas five or seven chapels, and, as far as an ignorant mind can\npenetrate, no triplets whatever. Occasionally, no doubt, you will\ndiscover in some sculpture or window, a symbol of the Trinity, but\nthis discovery itself amounts to an admission of its absence as a\ncontrolling idea, for the ordinary worshipper must have been at\nleast as blind as we are, and to him, as to us, it would have seemed\na wholly subordinate detail. Even if the Trinity, too, is anywhere\nexpressed, you will hardly find here an attempt to explain its\nmetaphysical meaning--not even a mystic triangle.\n\nThe church is wholly given up to the Mother and the Son. The Father\nseldom appears; the Holy Ghost still more rarely. At least, this is\nthe impression made on an ordinary visitor who has no motive to be\northodox; and it must have been the same with the thirteenth-century\nworshipper who came here with his mind absorbed in the perfections\nof Mary. Chartres represents, not the Trinity, but the identity of\nthe Mother and Son. The Son represents the Trinity, which is thus\nabsorbed in the Mother. The idea is not orthodox, but this is no\naffair of ours. The Church watches over its own.\n\nThe Virgin's wants and tastes, positive and negative, ought now to\nbe clear enough to enable you to feel the artist's sincerity in\ntrying to satisfy them; but first you have still to convince\nyourselves of the people's sincerity in employing the artists. This\npoint is the easiest of all, for the evidence is express. In the\nyear 1145 when the old fleche was begun,--the year before Saint\nBernard preached the second crusade at Vezelay,--Abbot Haimon, of\nSaint-Pierre-sur-Dives in Normandy, wrote to the monks of Tutbury\nAbbey in England a famous letter to tell of the great work which the\nVirgin was doing in France and which began at the Church of\nChartres. \"Hujus sacrae institutionis ritus apud Carnotensem\necclesiam est inchoatus.\" From Chartres it had spread through\nNormandy, where it produced among other things the beautiful spire\nwhich we saw at Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives. \"Postremo per totam fere\nNormanniam longe lateque convaluit ac loca per singula Matri\nmisericordiae dicata praecipue occupavit.\" The movement affected\nespecially the places devoted to Mary, but ran through all Normandy,\nfar and wide. Of all Mary's miracles, the best attested, next to the\npreservation of her church, is the building of it; not so much\nbecause it surprises us as because it surprised even more the people\nof the time and the men who were its instruments. Such deep popular\nmovements are always surprising, and at Chartres the miracle seems\nto have occurred three times, coinciding more or less with the dates\nof the crusades, and taking the organization of a crusade, as\nArchbishop Hugo of Rouen described it in a letter to Bishop Thierry\nof Amiens. The most interesting part of this letter is the evident\nastonishment of the writer, who might be talking to us to-day, so\nmodern is he:--\n\nThe inhabitants of Chartres have combined to aid in the construction\nof their church by transporting the materials; our Lord has rewarded\ntheir humble zeal by miracles which have roused the Normans to\nimitate the piety of their neighbours ... Since then the faithful of\nour diocese and of other neighbouring regions have formed\nassociations for the same object; they admit no one into their\ncompany unless he has been to confession, has renounced enmities and\nrevenges, and has reconciled himself with his enemies. That done,\nthey elect a chief, under whose direction they conduct their waggons\nin silence and with humility.\n\nThe quarries at Bercheres-l'Eveque are about five miles from\nChartres. The stone is excessively hard, and was cut in blocks of\nconsiderable size, as you can see for yourselves; blocks which\nrequired great effort to transport and lay in place. The work was\ndone with feverish rapidity, as it still shows, but it is the\nsolidest building of the age, and without a sign of weakness yet.\nThe Abbot told, with more surprise than pride, of the spirit which\nwas built into the cathedral with the stone:--Who has ever seen!--\nWho has ever heard tell, in times past, that powerful princes of the\nworld, that men brought up in honour and in wealth, that nobles, men\nand women, have bent their proud and haughty necks to the harness of\ncarts, and that, like beasts of burden, they have dragged to the\nabode of Christ these waggons, loaded with wines, grains, oil,\nstone, wood, and all that is necessary for the wants of life, or for\nthe construction of the church? But while they draw these burdens,\nthere is one thing admirable to observe; it is that often when a\nthousand persons and more are attached to the chariots,--so great is\nthe difficulty,--yet they march in such silence that not a murmur is\nheard, and truly if one did not see the thing with one's eyes, one\nmight believe that among such a multitude there was hardly a person\npresent. When they halt on the road, nothing is heard but the\nconfession of sins, and pure and suppliant prayer to God to obtain\npardon. At the voice of the priests who exhort their hearts to\npeace, they forget all hatred, discord is thrown far aside, debts\nare remitted, the unity of hearts is established.\n\nBut if any one is so far advanced in evil as to be unwilling to\npardon an offender, or if he rejects the counsel of the priest who\nhas piously advised him, his offering is instantly thrown from the\nwagon as impure, and he himself ignominiously and shamefully\nexcluded from the society of the holy. There one sees the priests\nwho preside over each chariot exhort every one to penitence, to\nconfession of faults, to the resolution of better life! There one\nsees old people, young people, little children, calling on the Lord\nwith a suppliant voice, and uttering to Him, from the depth of the\nheart, sobs and sighs with words of glory and praise! After the\npeople, warned by the sound of trumpets and the sight of banners,\nhave resumed their road, the march is made with such ease that no\nobstacle can retard it ... When they have reached the church they\narrange the wagons about it like a spiritual camp, and during the\nwhole night they celebrate the watch by hymns and canticles. On each\nwaggon they light tapers and lamps; they place there the infirm and\nsick, and bring them the precious relics of the Saints for their\nrelief. Afterwards the priests and clerics close the ceremony by\nprocessions which the people follow with devout heart, imploring the\nclemency of the Lord and of his Blessed Mother for the recovery of\nthe sick.\n\nOf course, the Virgin was actually and constantly present during all\nthis labour, and gave her assistance to it, but you would get no\nlight on the architecture from listening to an account of her\nmiracles, nor do they heighten the effect of popular faith. Without\nthe conviction of her personal presence, men would not have been\ninspired; but, to us, it is rather the inspiration of the art which\nproves the Virgin's presence, and we can better see the conviction\nof it in the work than in the words. Every day, as the work went on,\nthe Virgin was present, directing the architects, and it is this\ndirection that we are going to study, if you have now got a\nrealizing sense of what it meant. Without this sense, the church is\ndead. Most persons of a deeply religious nature would tell you\nemphatically that nine churches out of ten actually were dead-born,\nafter the thirteenth century, and that church architecture became a\npure matter of mechanism and mathematics; but that is a question for\nyou to decide when you come to it; and the pleasure consists not in\nseeing the death, but in feeling the life.\n\nNow let us look about!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nROSES AND APSES\n\nLike all great churches, that are not mere storehouses of theology,\nChartres expressed, besides whatever else it meant, an emotion, the\ndeepest man ever felt,--the struggle of his own littleness to grasp\nthe infinite. You may, if you like, figure in it a mathematic\nformula of infinity,--the broken arch, our finite idea of space; the\nspire, pointing, with its converging lines, to unity beyond space;\nthe sleepless, restless thrust of the vaults, telling the\nunsatisfied, incomplete, overstrained effort of man to rival the\nenergy, intelligence, and purpose of God. Thomas Aquinas and the\nschoolmen tried to put it in words, but their Church is another\nchapter. In act, all man's work ends there;--mathematics, physics,\nchemistry, dynamics, optics, every sort of machinery science may\ninvent,--to this favour come at last, as religion and philosophy did\nbefore science was born. All that the centuries can do is to express\nthe idea differently:--a miracle or a dynamo; a dome or a coal-pit;\na cathedral or a world's fair; and sometimes to confuse the two\nexpressions together. The world's fair tends more and more\nvigorously to express the thought of infinite energy; the great\ncathedrals of the Middle Ages always reflected the industries and\ninterests of a world's fair. Chartres showed it less than Laon or\nParis, for Chartres was never a manufacturing town, but a shrine,\nsuch as Lourdes, where the Virgin was known to have done miracles,\nand had been seen in person; but still the shrine turned itself into\na market and created valuable industries. Indeed, this was the chief\nobjection which Saint Paul made to Ephesus and Saint Bernard to the\ncathedrals. They were in some ways more industrial than religious.\nThe mere masonry and structure made a vast market for labour; the\nfixed metalwork and woodwork were another; but the decoration was by\nfar the greatest. The wood-carving, the glass windows, the\nsculpture, inside and out, were done mostly in workshops on the\nspot, but besides these fixed objects, precious works of the highest\nperfection filled the church treasuries. Their money value was great\nthen; it is greater now. No world's fair is likely to do better to-\nday. After five hundred years of spoliation, these objects fill\nmuseums still, and are bought with avidity at every auction, at\nprices continually rising and quality steadily falling, until a bit\nof twelfth-century glass would be a trouvaille like an emerald; a\ntapestry earlier than 1600 is not for mere tourists to hope; an\nenamel, a missal, a crystal, a cup, an embroidery of the Middle Ages\nbelongs only to our betters, and almost invariably, if not to the\nState, to the rich Jews, whose instinctive taste has seized the\nwhole field of art which rested on their degradation. Royalty and\nfeudality spent their money rather on arms and clothes. The Church\nalone was universal patron, and the Virgin was the dictator of\ntaste.\n\nWith the Virgin's taste, during her regency, critics never find\nfault. One cannot know its whole magnificence, but one can accept it\nas a matter of faith and trust, as one accepts all her other\nmiracles without cavilling over small details of fact. The period of\neighteenth-century scepticism about such matters and the bourgeois\ntaste of Voltaire and Diderot have long since passed, with the\nadvent of a scientific taste still more miraculous; the whole world\nof the Virgin's art, catalogued in the \"Dictionnaire du Mobilier\nFrancais\" in six volumes by Viollet-le-Duc; narrated as history by\nM. Labarte, M. Molinier, M. Paul Lacroix; catalogued in museums by\nM. du Sommerard and a score of others, in works almost as costly as\nthe subjects,--all the vast variety of bric-a-brac, useful or\nornamental, belonging to the Church, increased enormously by the\ninsatiable, universal, private demands for imagery, in ivory, wood,\nmetal, stone, for every room in every house, or hung about every\nneck, or stuck on every hat, made a market such as artists never\nknew before or since, and such as instantly explains to the\npractical American not only the reason for the Church's tenacity of\nlife, but also the inducements for its plunder. The Virgin\nespecially required all the resources of art, and the highest. Notre\nDame of Chartres would have laughed at Notre Dame of Paris if she\nhad detected an economy in her robes; Notre Dame of Rheims or Rouen\nwould have derided Notre Dame of Amiens if she had shown a feminine,\ndomestic, maternal turn toward cheapness. The Virgin was never\ncheap. Her great ceremonies were as splendid as her rank of Queen in\nHeaven and on Earth required; and as her procession wound its way\nalong the aisles, through the crowd of her subjects, up to the high\naltar, it was impossible then, and not altogether easy now, to\nresist the rapture of her radiant presence. Many a young person, and\nnow and then one who is not in first youth, witnessing the sight in\nthe religious atmosphere of such a church as this, without a\nsuspicion of susceptibility, has suddenly seen what Paul saw on the\nroad to Damascus, and has fallen on his face with the crowd,\ngrovelling at the foot of the Cross, which, for the first time in\nhis life, he feels.\n\nIf you want to know what churches were made for, come down here on\nsome great festival of the Virgin, and give yourself up to it; but\ncome alone! That kind of knowledge cannot be taught and can seldom\nbe shared. We are not now seeking religion; indeed, true religion\ngenerally comes unsought. We are trying only to feel Gothic art. For\nus, the world is not a schoolroom or a pulpit, but a stage, and the\nstage is the highest yet seen on earth. In this church the old\nRomanesque leaps into the Gothic under our eyes; of a sudden,\nbetween the portal and the shrine, the infinite rises into a new\nexpression, always a rare and excellent miracle in thought. The two\nexpressions are nowhere far apart; not further than the Mother from\nthe Son. The new artist drops unwillingly the hand of his father or\nhis grandfather; he looks back, from every corner of his own work,\nto see whether it goes with the old. He will not part with the\nwestern portal or the lancet windows; he holds close to the round\ncolumns of the choir; he would have kept the round arch if he could,\nbut the round arch was unable to do the work; it could not rise; so\nhe broke it, lifted the vaulting, threw out flying buttresses, and\nsatisfied the Virgin's wish.\n\nThe matter of Gothic vaulting, with its two weak points, the flying\nbuttress and the false, wooden shelter-roof, is the bete noire of\nthe Beaux Arts. The duty of defence does not lie on tourists, who\nare at best hardly able to understand what it matters whether a wall\nis buttressed without or within, and whether a roof is single or\ndouble. No one objects to the dome of Saint Peter's. No one finds\nfault with the Pont Neuf. Yet it is true that the Gothic architect\nshowed contempt for facts. Since he could not support a heavy stone\nvault on his light columns, he built the lightest possible stone\nvault and protected it with a wooden shelter-roof which constantly\nburned. The lightened vaults were still too heavy for the walls and\ncolumns, so the architect threw out buttress beyond buttress resting\non separate foundations, exposed to extreme inequalities of weather,\nand liable to multiplied chances of accident. The results were\ncertainly disastrous. The roofs burned; the walls yielded.\n\nFlying buttresses were not a necessity. The Merveille had none; the\nAngevin school rather affected to do without them; Albi had none;\nAssisi stands up independent; but they did give support wherever the\narchitect wanted it and nowhere else; they were probably cheap; and\nthey were graceful. Whatever expression they gave to a church, at\nleast it was not that of a fortress. Amiens and Albi are different\nreligions. The expression concerns us; the construction concerns the\nBeaux Arts. The problem of permanent equilibrium which distresses\nthe builder of arches is a technical matter which does not worry,\nbut only amuses, us who sit in the audience and look with delight at\nthe theatrical stage-decoration of the Gothic vault; the astonishing\nfeat of building up a skeleton of stone ribs and vertebrae, on which\nevery pound of weight is adjusted, divided, and carried down from\nlevel to level till it touches ground at a distance as a bird would\nalight. If any stone in any part, from apex to foundation, weathers\nor gives way, the whole must yield, and the charge for repairs is\nprobably great, but, on the best building the Ecole des Beaux Arts\ncan build, the charge for repairs is not to be wholly ignored, and\nat least the Cathedral of Chartres, in spite of terribly hard usage,\nis as solid to-day as when it was built, and as plumb, without crack\nor crevice. Even the towering fragment at Beauvais, poorly built\nfrom the first, which has broken down oftener than most Gothic\nstructures, and seems ready to crumble again whenever the wind blows\nover its windy plains, has managed to survive, after a fashion, six\nor seven hundred years, which is all that our generation had a right\nto ask.\n\nThe vault of Beauvais is nearly one hundred and sixty feet high (48\nmetres), and was cheaply built. The vault of Saint Peter's at Rome\nis nearly one hundred and fifty feet (45 metres). That of Amiens is\none hundred and forty-four feet (44 metres). Rheims, Bourges, and\nChartres are nearly the same height; at the entrance, one hundred\nand twenty-two feet. Paris is one hundred and ten feet. The Abbe\nBulteau is responsible for these measurements; but at Chartres, as\nin several very old churches, the nave slopes down to the entrance,\nbecause--as is said--pilgrims came in such swarms that they were\nobliged to sleep in the church, and the nave had to be sluiced with\nwater to clean it. The true height of Chartres, at the croisee of\nnave and transept, is as near as possible one hundred and twenty\nfeet (36.55 metres).\n\nThe measured height is the least interest of a church. The\narchitect's business is to make a small building look large, and his\nfailures are in large buildings which he makes to look small. One\nchief beauty of the Gothic is to exaggerate height, and one of its\nmost curious qualities is its success in imposing an illusion of\nsize. Without leaving the heart of Paris any one can study this\nillusion in the two great churches of Notre Dame and Saint-Sulpice;\nfor Saint-Sulpice is as lofty as Notre Dame in vaulting, and larger\nin its other dimensions, besides being, in its style, a fine\nbuilding; yet its Roman arches show, as if they were of the eleventh\ncentury, why the long, clean, unbroken, refined lines of the Gothic,\ncurving to points, and leading the eye with a sort of compulsion to\nthe culminating point above, should have made an architectural\ntriumph that carried all Europe off its feet with delight. The world\nhad seen nothing to approach it except, perhaps, in the dome of\nSancta Sophia in Constantinople; and the discovery came at a moment\nwhen Europe was making its most united and desperate struggle to\nattain the kingdom of Heaven.\n\nAccording to Viollet-le-Duc, Chartres was the final triumph of the\nexperiment on a very great scale, for Chartres has never been\naltered and never needed to be strengthened. The flying buttresses\nof Chartres answered their purpose, and if it were not a matter of\npure construction it would be worth while to read what Viollet-le-\nDuc says about them (article, \"Arcs-boutants\"). The vaulting above\nis heavy, about fifteen inches thick; the buttressing had also to be\nheavy; and to lighten it, the architect devised an amusing sort of\narcades, applied on his outside buttresses. Throughout the church,\neverything was solid beyond all later custom, so that architects\nwould have to begin by a study of the crypt which came down from the\neleventh century so strongly built that it still carries the church\nwithout a crack in its walls; but if we went down into it, we should\nunderstand nothing; so we will begin, as we did outside, at the\nfront.\n\nA single glance shows what trouble the architect had with the old\nfacade and towers, and what temptation to pull them all down. One\ncannot quite say that he has spoiled his own church in trying to\nsave what he could of the old, but if he did not quite spoil it, he\nsaved it only by the exercise of an amount of intelligence that we\nshall never learn enough to feel our incapacity to understand. True\nignorance approaches the infinite more nearly than any amount of\nknowledge can do, and, in our case, ignorance is fortified by a\ncertain element of nineteenth-century indifference which refuses to\nbe interested in what it cannot understand; a violent reaction from\nthe thirteenth century which cared little to comprehend anything\nexcept the incomprehensible. The architect at Chartres was required\nby the Virgin to provide more space for her worshippers within the\nchurch, without destroying the old portal and fleche which she\nloved. That this order came directly from the Virgin, may be taken\nfor granted. At Chartres, one sees everywhere the Virgin, and\nnowhere any rival authority; one sees her give orders, and\narchitects obey them; but very rarely a hesitation as though the\narchitect were deciding for himself. In his western front, the\narchitect has obeyed orders so literally that he has not even taken\nthe trouble to apologize for leaving unfinished the details which,\nif he had been responsible for them, would have been his anxious\ncare. He has gone to the trouble of moving the heavy doorways\nforward, so that the chapels in the towers, which were meant to open\non a porch, now open into the nave, and the nave itself has, in\nappearance, two more spans than in the old church; but the work\nshows blind obedience, as though he were doing his best to please\nthe Virgin without trying to please himself. Probably he could in no\ncase have done much to help the side aisles in their abrupt\ncollision with the solid walls of the two towers, but he might at\nleast have brought the vaulting of his two new bays, in the nave,\ndown to the ground, and finished it. The vaulting is awkward in\nthese two bays, and yet he has taken great trouble to effect what\nseems at first a small matter. Whether the great rose window was an\nafterthought or not can never be known, but any one can see with a\nglass, and better on the architectural plan, that the vaulting of\nthe main church was not high enough to admit the great rose, and\nthat the architect has had to slope his two tower-spans upward. So\ngreat is the height that you cannot see this difference of level\nvery plainly even with a glass, but on the plans it seems to amount\nto several feet; perhaps a metre. The architect has managed to\ndeceive our eyes, in order to enlarge the rose; but you can see as\nplainly as though he were here to tell you, that, like a great\ngeneral, he has concentrated his whole energy on the rose, because\nthe Virgin has told him that the rose symbolized herself, and that\nthe light and splendour of her appearance in the west were to redeem\nall his awkwardnesses.\n\nOf course this idea of the Virgin's interference sounds to you a\nmere bit of fancy, and that is an account which may be settled\nbetween the Virgin and you; but even twentieth-century eyes can see\nthat the rose redeems everything, dominates everything, and gives\ncharacter to the whole church.\n\nIn view of the difficulties which faced the artist, the rose is\ninspired genius,--the kind of genius which Shakespeare showed when\nhe took some other man's play, and adapted it. Thus far, it shows\nits power chiefly by the way it comes forward and takes possession\nof the west front, but if you want a foot-rule to measure by, you\nmay mark that the old, twelfth-century lancet-windows below it are\nnot exactly in its axis. At the outset, in the original plan of\n1090, or thereabouts, the old tower--the southern tower--was given\ngreater width than the northern. Such inequalities were common in\nthe early churches, and so is a great deal of dispute in modern\nbooks whether they were accidental or intentional, while no one\ndenies that they are amusing. In these towers the difference is not\ngreat,--perhaps fourteen or fifteen inches,--but it caused the\narchitect to correct it, in order to fit his front to the axis of\nthe church, by throwing his entrance six or seven inches to the\nsouth, and narrowing to that extent the south door and south lancet.\nThe effect was bad, even then, and went far to ruin the south\nwindow; but when, after the fire of 1194, the architect inserted his\ngreat rose, filling every inch of possible space between the lancet\nand the arch of the vault, he made another correction which threw\nhis rose six or seven inches out of axis with the lancets. Not one\nperson in a hundred thousand would notice it, here in the interior,\nso completely are we under the control of the artist and the Virgin;\nbut it is a measure of the power of the rose.\n\nLooking farther, one sees that the rose-motive, which so dominates\nthe west front, is carried round the church, and comes to another\noutburst of splendour in the transepts. This leads back to\nfenestration on a great scale, which is a terribly ambitious flight\nfor tourists; all the more, because here the tourist gets little\nhelp from the architect, who, in modern times, has seldom the\nopportunity to study the subject at all, and accepts as solved the\nproblems of early Gothic fenestration. One becomes pedantic and\npretentious at the very sound of the word, which is an intolerable\npiece of pedantry in itself; but Chartres is all windows, and its\nwindows were as triumphant as its Virgin, and were one of her\nmiracles. One can no more overlook the windows of Chartres than the\nglass which is in them. We have already looked at the windows of\nMantes; we have seen what happened to the windows at Paris. Paris\nhad at one leap risen twenty-five feet higher than Noyon, and even\nat Noyon, the architect, about 1150, had been obliged to invent new\nfenestration. Paris and Mantes, twenty years later, made another\neffort, which proved a failure. Then the architect of Chartres, in\n1195, added ten feet more to his vault, and undertook, once for all,\nto show how a great cathedral should be lighted. As an architectural\nproblem, it passes far beyond our powers of understanding, even when\nsolved; but we can always turn to see what the inevitable Viollet-\nle-Duc says about its solution at Chartres:--\n\nToward the beginning of the thirteenth century, the architect of the\nCathedral of Chartres sought out entirely new window combinations to\nlight the nave from above. Below, in the side aisles he kept to the\ncustoms of the times; that is, he opened pointed windows which did\nnot wholly fill the spaces between the piers; he wanted, or was\nwilling to leave here below, the effect of a wall. But in the upper\npart of his building we see that he changed the system; he throws a\nround arch directly across from one pier to the next; then, in the\nenormous space which remains within each span, he inserts two large\npointed windows surmounted by a great rose ... We recognize in this\nconstruction of Notre Dame de Chartres a boldness, a force, which\ncontrast with the fumbling of the architects in the Ile de France\nand Champagne. For the first time one sees at Chartres the builder\ndeal frankly with the clerestory, or upper fenestration, occupying\nthe whole width of the arches, and taking the arch of the vault as\nthe arch of the window. Simplicity of construction, beauty in form,\nstrong workmanship, structure true and solid, judicious choice of\nmaterial, all the characteristics of good work, unite in this\nmagnificent specimen of architecture at the beginning of the\nthirteenth century.\n\nViollet-le-Duc does not call attention to a score of other matters\nwhich the architect must have had in his mind, such as the\ndistribution of light, and the relations of one arrangement with\nanother: the nave with the aisles, and both with the transepts, and\nall with the choir. Following him, we must take the choir\nseparately, and the aisles and chapels of the apse also. One cannot\nhope to understand all the experiments and refinements of the\nartist, either in their successes or their failures, but, with\ndiffidence, one may ask one's self whether the beauty of the\narrangement, as compared with the original arrangement in Paris, did\nnot consist in retaining the rose-motive throughout, while throwing\nthe whole upper wall into window. Triumphant as the clerestory\nwindows are, they owe their charm largely to their roses, as you see\nby looking at the same scheme applied on a larger scale on the\ntransept fronts; and then, by taking stand under the croisee, and\nlooking at all in succession as a whole.\n\nThe rose window was not Gothic but Romanesque, and needed a great\ndeal of coaxing to feel at home within the pointed arch. At first,\nthe architects felt the awkwardness so strongly that they avoided it\nwherever they could. In the beautiful facade of Laon, one of the\nchief beauties is the setting of the rose under a deep round arch.\nThe western roses of Mantes and Paris are treated in the same way,\nalthough a captious critic might complain that their treatment is\nnot so effective or so logical. Rheims boldly imprisoned the roses\nwithin the pointed arch; but Amiens, toward 1240, took refuge in the\nsame square exterior setting that was preferred, in 1200, here at\nChartres; and in the interior of Amiens the round arch of the rose\nis the last vault of the nave, seen through a vista of pointed\nvaults, as it is here. All these are supposed to be among the chief\nbeauties of the Gothic facade, although the Gothic architect, if he\nhad been a man of logic, would have clung to his lines, and put a\npointed window in his front, as in fact he did at Coutances. He felt\nthe value of the rose in art, and perhaps still more in religion,\nfor the rose was Mary's emblem. One is fairly sure that the great\nChartres rose of the west front was put there to please her, since\nit was to be always before her eyes, the most conspicuous object she\nwould see from the high altar, and therefore the most carefully\nconsidered ornament in the whole church, outside the choir. The mere\nsize proves the importance she gave it. The exterior diameter is\nnearly forty-four feet (13.36 metres). The nave of Chartres is, next\nperhaps to the nave of Angers, the widest of all Gothic naves; about\nfifty-three feet (16.31 metres); and the rose takes every inch it\ncan get of this enormous span. The value of the rose, among\narchitects of the time, was great, since it was the only part of the\nchurch that Villard de Honnecourt sketched; and since his time, it\nhas been drawn and redrawn, described and commented by generations\nof architects till it has become as classic as the Parthenon.\n\nYet this Chartres rose is solid, serious, sedate, to a degree\nunusual in its own age; it is even more Romanesque than the pure\nRomanesque roses. At Beauvais you must stop a moment to look at a\nRomanesque rose on the transept of the Church of Saint-Etienne;\nViollet-le-Duc mentions it, with a drawing (article, \"Pignon\"), as\nnot earlier than the year 1100, therefore about a century earlier\nthan the rose of Chartres; it is not properly a rose, but a wheel of\nfortune, with figures climbing up and falling over. Another supposed\ntwelfth-century rose is at Etampes, which goes with that of Laon and\nSaint-Leu-d'Esserent and Mantes. The rose of Chartres is so much the\nmost serious of them all that Viollet-le-Duc has explained it by its\nmaterial,--the heavy stone of Bercheres;--but the material was not\nallowed to affect the great transept roses, and the architect made\nhis material yield to his object wherever he thought it worth while.\nStanding under the central croisee, you can see all three roses by\nsimply turning your head. That on the north, the Rose de France, was\nbuilt, or planned, between 1200 and 1210, in the reign of Philip\nAugustus, since the porch outside, which would be a later\nconstruction, was begun by 1212. The Rose de France is the same in\ndiameter as the western rose, but lighter, and built of lighter\nstone. Opposite the Rose de France stands, on the south front,\nPierre Mauclerc's Rose de Dreux, of the same date, with the same\nmotive, but even lighter; more like a rose and less like a wheel.\nAll three roses must have been planned at about the same time,\nperhaps by the same architect, within the same workshop; yet the\nwestern rose stands quite apart, as though it had been especially\ndesigned to suit the twelfth-century facade and portal which it\nrules. Whether this was really the artist's idea is a question that\nneeds the artist to answer; but that this is the effect, needs no\nexpert to prove; it stares one in the face. Within and without, one\nfeels that the twelfth-century spirit is respected and preserved\nwith the same religious feeling which obliged the architect to\ninjure his own work by sparing that of his grandfathers.\n\nConspicuous, then, in the west front are two feelings:--respect for\nthe twelfth-century work, and passion for the rose fenestration;\nboth subordinated to the demand for light. If it worries you to have\nto believe that these three things are in fact one; that the\narchitect is listening, like the stone Abraham, for orders from the\nVirgin, while he caresses and sacrifices his child; that Mary and\nnot her architects built this facade; if the divine intention seems\nto you a needless impertinence, you can soon get free from it by\ngoing to any of the later churches, where you will not be forced to\nsee any work but that of the architect's compasses. According to\nViollet-le-Duc, the inspiration ceased about 1250, or, as the Virgin\nwould have dated it, on the death of Blanche of Castile in 1252. The\nwork of Chartres, where her own hand is plainly shown, belongs in\nfeeling, if not in execution, to the last years of the twelfth\ncentury (1195-1200). The great western rose which gives the motive\nfor the whole decoration and is repeated in the great roses of the\ntransepts, marks the Virgin's will,--the taste and knowledge of\n\"cele qui la rose est des roses,\" or, if you prefer the Latin of\nAdam de Saint-Victor, the hand of her who is \"Super rosam rosida.\"\n\nAll this is easy; but if you really cannot see the hand of Mary\nherself in these broad and public courts, which were intended, not\nfor her personal presence, but for the use of her common people, you\nhad better stop here, and not venture into the choir. Great halls\nseem to have been easy architecture. Naves and transepts were not\noften failures; facades and even towers and fleches are invariably\nmore or less successful because they are more or less balanced,\nmathematical, calculable products of reason and thought. The most\nserious difficulties began only with the choir, and even then did\nnot become desperate until the architect reached the curve of the\napse, with its impossible vaultings, its complicated lines, its\ncross-thrusts, its double problems, internal and external, its\ndefective roofing and unequal lighting. A perfect Gothic apse was\nimpossible; an apse that satisfied perfectly its principal objects\nwas rare; the simplest and cheapest solution was to have no apse at\nall, and that was the English scheme, which was tried also at Laon;\na square, flat wall and window. If the hunt for Norman towers\noffered a summer's amusement, a hunt for apses would offer an\neducation, but it would lead far out of France. Indeed, it would be\nsimpler to begin at once with Sancta Sophia at Constantinople, San\nVitale at Ravenna and Monreale at Palermo, and the churches at\nTorcello and Murano, and San Marco at Venice; and admit that no\ndevice has ever equalled the startling and mystical majesty of the\nByzantine half-dome, with its marvellous mosaic Madonna dominating\nthe church, from the entrance, with her imperial and divine\npresence. Unfortunately, the northern churches needed light, and the\nnorthern architects turned their minds to a desperate effort for a\nnew apse.\n\nThe scheme of the cathedral at Laon seems to have been rejected\nunanimously; the bare, flat wall at the end of the choir was an\neyesore; it was quite bad enough at the end of the nave, and became\nannoying at the end of the transepts, so that at Noyon and Soissons\nthe architect, with a keen sense of interior form, had rounded the\ntransept ends; but, though external needs might require a square\ntransept, the unintelligence of the flat wall became insufferable at\nthe east end. Neither did the square choir suit the church\nceremonies and processions, or offer the same advantages of\narrangement, as the French understood them. With one voice, the\nFrench architects seem to have rejected the Laon experiment, and\nturned back to a solution taken directly from the Romanesque.\n\n[Illustration with caption: SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS]\n\nQuite early--in the eleventh century--a whole group of churches had\nbeen built in Auvergne,--at Clermont and Issoire, for example,--\npossibly by one architect, with a circular apse, breaking out into\nfive apsidal chapels. Tourists who get down as far south as Toulouse\nsee another example of this Romanesque apse in the famous Church of\nSaint Sernin, of the twelfth century; and few critics take offence\nat one's liking it. Indeed, as far as concerns the exterior, one\nmight even risk thinking it more charming than the exterior of any\nGothic apse ever built. Many of these Romanesque apses of the\neleventh and twelfth centuries still remain in France, showing\nthemselves in unsuspected parish churches, here and there, but\nalways a surprise for their quiet, unobtrusive grace, making a\nharmony with the Romanesque tower, if there is one, into which they\nrise, as at Saint Sernin; but all these churches had only one aisle,\nand, in the interior, there came invariable trouble when the vaults\nrose in height. The architect of Chartres, in 1200, could get no\ndirect help from these, or even from Paris which was a beautifully\nperfect apse, but had no apsidal chapels. The earliest apse that\ncould have served as a suggestion for Chartres--or, at least, as a\npoint of observation for us--was that of the Abbey Church of Saint-\nMartin-des-Champs, which we went to see in Paris, and which is said\nto date from about 1150.\n\nHere is a circular choir, surrounded by two rows of columns,\nirregularly spaced, with circular chapels outside, which seems to\nhave been more or less what the architect of Chartres, for the\nVirgin's purposes, had set his heart on obtaining. Closely following\nthe scheme of Saint-Martin-des-Champs came the scheme of the Abbey\nChurch at Vezelay, built about 1160-80. Here the vaulting sprang\ndirectly from the last arch of the choir, as is shown on the plan,\nand bearing first on the light columns of the choir, which were\nevenly spaced, then fell on a row of heavier columns outside, which\nwere also evenly spaced, and came to rest at last on massive piers,\nbetween which were five circular chapels. The plan shows at a glance\nthat this arrangement stretched the second row of columns far apart,\nand that a church much larger than Vezelay would need to space them\nso much farther apart that the arch uniting them would have to rise\nindefinitely; while, if beyond this, another aisle were added\noutside, the piers finally would require impossible vaulting.\n\n[Illustration with caption: VEZELAY]\n\nThe problem stood thus when the great cathedrals were undertaken,\nand the architect of Paris boldly grappled with the double aisle on\na scale requiring a new scheme. Here, in spite of the most virtuous\nresolutions not to be technical, we must attempt a technicality,\nbecause without it, one of the most interesting eccentricities of\nChartres would be lost. Once more, Viollet-le-Duc:--\n\nAs the architect did not want to give the interior bays of the apse\nspaces between the columns (AA) less than that of the parallel bays\n(BB), it followed that the first radiating bay gave a first space\n(LMGH) which was difficult to vault, and a second space (HGEF) which\nwas impossible; for how establish an arch from F to E? Even if\nround, its key would have risen much higher than the key of the\npointed archivolt LM. As the second radiating bay opened out still\nwider, the difficulty was increased. The builder therefore inserted\nthe two intermediate pillars O and P between the columns of the\nsecond aisle (H, G, and I); which he supported, in the outside wall\nof the church, by one corresponding pier (Q) in the first bay of the\napse, and by two similar piers (R and S) in the second bay.\n\n[Illustration with caption: NOTRE DAME DE PARIS]\n\n\"There is no need to point out,\" continued Viollet-le-Duc, as though\nhe much suspected that there might be need of pointing out, \"what\nskill this system showed and how much the art of architecture had\nalready been developed in the Ile de France toward the end of the\ntwelfth century; to what an extent the unity of arrangement and\nstyle preoccupied the artists of that province.\"\n\nIn fact, the arrangement seems mathematically and technically\nperfect. At all events, we know too little to criticize it. Yet one\nwould much like to be told why it was not repeated by any other\narchitect or in any other church. Apparently the Parisians\nthemselves were not quite satisfied with it, since they altered it a\nhundred years later, in 1296, in order to build out chapels between\nthe piers. As the architects of each new cathedral had, in the\ninterval, insisted on apsidal chapels, one may venture to guess that\nthe Paris scheme hampered the services.\n\nAt Chartres the church services are Mary's own tastes; the church is\nMary; and the chapels are her private rooms. She was not pleased\nwith the arrangements made for her in her palace at Paris; they were\ntoo architectural; too regular and mathematical; too popular; too\nimpersonal; and she rather abruptly ordered her architect at\nChartres to go back to the old arrangement. The apse at Paris was\nhardly covered with its leading before the architect of Chartres\nadopted a totally new plan, which, according to Viollet-le-Duc, does\nhim little credit, but which was plainly imposed on him, like the\ntwelfth-century portal. Not only had it nothing of the mathematical\ncorrectness and precision of the Paris scheme, easy to understand\nand imitate, but it carried even a sort of violence--a wrench--in\nits system, as though the Virgin had said, with her grand Byzantine\nair:--I will it!\n\n[Illustration with caption: CHARTRES]\n\n\"At Chartres,\" said Viollet-le-Duc, \"the choir of the Cathedral\npresents a plan which does no great honour to its architect. There\nis want of accord between the circular apse and the parallel sides\nof the sanctuary; the spacings of the columns of the second\ncollateral are loose (laches); the vaults quite poorly combined; and\nin spite of the great width of the spaces between the columns of the\nsecond aisle, the architect had still to narrow those between the\ninterior columns.\"\n\nThe plan shows that, from the first, the architect must have\ndeliberately rejected the Paris scheme; he must have begun by\nnarrowing the spaces between his inner columns; then, with a sort of\nviolence, he fitted on his second row of columns; and, finally, he\nshowed his motive by constructing an outer wall of an original or\nunusual shape. Any woman would see at once the secret of all this\ningenuity and effort. The Chartres apse, enormous in size and width,\nis exquisitely lighted. Here, as everywhere throughout the church,\nthe windows give the law, but here they actually take place of law.\nThe Virgin herself saw to the lighting of her own boudoir. According\nto Viollet-le-Duc, Chartres differs from all the other great\ncathedrals by being built not for its nave or even for its choir,\nbut for its apse; it was planned not for the people or the court,\nbut for the Queen; not a church but a shrine; and the shrine is the\napse where the Queen arranged her light to please herself and not\nher architect, who had already been sacrificed at the western portal\nand who had a free hand only in the nave and transepts where the\nQueen never went, and which, from her own apartment, she did not\neven see.\n\n[Illustration with caption: LAON]\n\nThis is, in effect, what Viollet-le-Duc says in his professional\nlanguage, which is perhaps--or sounds--more reasonable to tourists,\nwhose imaginations are hardly equal to the effort of fancying a real\ndeity. Perhaps, indeed, one might get so high as to imagine a real\nBishop of Laon, who should have ordered his architect to build an\nenormous hall of religion, to rival the immense abbeys of the day,\nand to attract the people, as though it were a clubroom. There they\nwere to see all the great sights; church ceremonies; theatricals;\npolitical functions; there they were to do business, and frequent\nsociety. They were to feel at home in their church because it was\ntheirs, and did not belong to a priesthood or to Rome. Jealousy of\nRome was a leading motive of Gothic architecture, and Rome repaid it\nin full. The Bishop of Laon conceded at least a transept to custom\nor tradition, but the Archbishop of Bourges abolished even the\ntransept, and the great hall had no special religious expression\nexcept in the circular apse with its chapels which Laon had\nabandoned. One can hardly decide whether Laon or Bourges is the more\npopular, industrial, political, or, in other words, the less\nreligious; but the Parisians, as the plan of Viollet-le-Duc has\nshown, were quite as advanced as either, and only later altered\ntheir scheme into one that provided chapels for religious service.\n\n[Illustration with caption: BOURGES]\n\n[Illustration with caption: AMIENS]\n\nAmiens and Beauvais have each seven chapels, but only one aisle, so\nthat they do not belong in the same class with the apses of Paris,\nBourges, and Chartres, though the plans are worth studying for\ncomparison, since they show how many-sided the problem was, and how\nfar from satisfied the architects were with their own schemes. The\nmost interesting of all, for comparison with Chartres, is Le Mans,\nwhere the apsidal chapels are carried to fanaticism, while the\nvaulting seems to be reasonable enough, and the double aisle\nsuccessfully managed, if Viollet-le-Duc permits ignorant people to\nform an opinion on architectural dogma. For our purposes, the\narchitectural dogma may stand, and the Paris scheme may be taken for\ngranted, as alone correct and orthodox; all that Viollet-le-Duc\nteaches is that the Chartres scheme is unorthodox, not to say\nheretical; and this is the point on which his words are most\ninteresting.\n\n[Illustration with caption: BEAUVAIS]\n\nThe church at Chartres belonged not to the people, not to the\npriesthood, and not even to Rome; it belonged to the Virgin. \"Here\nthe religious influence appears wholly; three large chapels in the\napse; four others less pronounced; double aisles of great width\nround the choir; vast transepts! Here the church ceremonial could\ndisplay all its pomp; the choir, more than at Paris, more than at\nBourges, more than at Soissons, and especially more than at Laon, is\nthe principal object; for it, the church is built.\"\n\n[Illustration with caption: LE MANS]\n\nOne who is painfully conscious of ignorance, and who never would\ndream of suggesting a correction to anybody, may not venture to\nsuggest an idea of any sort to an architect; but if it were allowed\nto paraphrase Viollet-le-Duc's words into a more or less emotional\nor twelfth-century form, one might say, after him, that, compared\nwith Paris or Laon, the Chartres apse shows the same genius that is\nshown in the Chartres rose; the same large mind that overrules,--the\nsame strong will that defies difficulties. The Chartres apse is as\nentertaining as all the other Gothic apses together, because it\noverrides the architect. You may, if you really have no imagination\nwhatever, reject the idea that the Virgin herself made the plan; the\nfeebleness of our fancy is now congenital, organic, beyond stimulant\nor strychnine, and we shrink like sensitive-plants from the touch of\na vision or spirit; but at least one can still sometimes feel a\nwoman's taste, and in the apse of Chartres one feels nothing else.\n\n[Illustration with caption: CHARTRES]\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE TWELFTH-CENTURY GLASS\n\nAt last we are face to face with the crowning glory of Chartres.\nOther churches have glass,--quantities of it, and very fine,--but we\nhave been trying to catch a glimpse of the glory which stands behind\nthe glass of Chartres, and gives it quality and feeling of its own.\nFor once the architect is useless and his explanations are pitiable;\nthe painter helps still less; and the decorator, unless he works in\nglass, is the poorest guide of all, while, if he works in glass, he\nis sure to lead wrong; and all of them may toil until Pierre\nMauclerc's stone Christ comes to life, and condemns them among the\nunpardonable sinners on the southern portal, but neither they nor\nany other artist will ever create another Chartres. You had better\nstop here, once for all, unless you are willing to feel that\nChartres was made what it is, not by artist, but by the Virgin.\n\nIf this imperial presence is stamped on the architecture and the\nsculpture with an energy not to be mistaken, it radiates through the\nglass with a light and colour that actually blind the true servant\nof Mary. One becomes, sometimes, a little incoherent in talking\nabout it; one is ashamed to be as extravagant as one wants to be;\none has no business to labour painfully to explain and prove to\none's self what is as clear as the sun in the sky; one loses temper\nin reasoning about what can only be felt, and what ought to be felt\ninstantly, as it was in the twelfth century, even by the truie qui\nfile and the ane qui vielle. Any one should feel it that wishes; any\none who does not wish to feel it can let it alone. Still, it may be\nthat not one tourist in a hundred--perhaps not one in a thousand of\nthe English-speaking race--does feel it, or can feel it even when\nexplained to him, for we have lost many senses.\n\nTherefore, let us plod on, laboriously proving God, although, even\nto Saint Bernard and Pascal, God was incapable of proof; and using\nsuch material as the books furnish for help. It is not much. The\nFrench have been shockingly negligent of their greatest artistic\nglory. One knows not even where to seek. One must go to the National\nLibrary and beg as a special favour permission to look at the\nmonumental work of M. Lasteyrie, if one wishes to make even a\nbeginning of the study of French glass. Fortunately there exists a\nfragment of a great work which the Government began, but never\ncompleted, upon Chartres; and another, quite indispensable, but not\nofficial, upon Bourges; while Viollet-le-Duc's article \"Vitrail\"\nserves as guide to the whole. Ottin's book \"Le Vitrail\" is\nconvenient. Male's volume \"L'Art Religieux\" is essential. In\nEnglish, Westlake's \"History of Design\" is helpful. Perhaps, after\nreading all that is readable, the best hope will be to provide the\nbest glasses with the largest possible field; and, choosing an hour\nwhen the church is empty, take seat about halfway up the nave,\nfacing toward the western entrance with a morning light, so that the\nglass of the western windows shall not stand in direct sun.\n\nThe glass of the three lancets is the oldest in the cathedral. If\nthe portal beneath it, with the sculpture, was built in the twenty\nor thirty years before 1150, the glass could not be much later. It\ngoes with the Abbe Suger's glass at Saint-Denis, which was surely\nmade as early as 1140-50, since the Abbe was a long time at work on\nit, before he died in 1152. Their perfection proves, what his\nbiographer asserted, that the Abbe Suger spent many years as well as\nmuch money on his windows at Saint-Denis, and the specialists affirm\nthat the three lancets at Chartres are quite as good as what remains\nof Suger's work. Viollet-le-Duc and M. Paul Durand, the Government\nexpert, are positive that this glass is the finest ever made, as far\nas record exists; and that the northern lancet representing the Tree\nof Jesse stands at the head of all glasswork whatever. The windows\nclaim, therefore, to be the most splendid colour decoration the\nworld ever saw, since no other material, neither silk nor gold, and\nno opaque colour laid on with a brush, can compare with translucent\nglass, and even the Ravenna mosaics or Chinese porcelains are\ndarkness beside them.\n\nThe claim may not be modest, but it is none of ours. Viollet-le-Duc\nmust answer for his own sins, and he chose the lancet window of the\nTree of Jesse for the subject of his lecture on glass in general, as\nthe most complete and perfect example of this greatest decorative\nart. Once more, in following him, one is dragged, in spite of one's\nself, into technique, and, what is worse, into a colour world whose\ntechnique was forgotten five hundred years ago. Viollet-le-Duc tried\nto recover it. \"After studying our best French windows,\" he\ncautiously suggests that \"one might maintain,\" as their secret of\nharmony, that \"the first condition for an artist in glass is to know\nhow to manage blue. The blue is the light in windows, and light has\nvalue only by opposition.\" The radiating power of blue is,\ntherefore, the starting-point, and on this matter Viollet-le-Duc has\nmuch to say which a student would need to master; but a tourist\nnever should study, or he ceases to be a tourist; and it is enough\nfor us if we know that, to get the value they wanted, the artists\nhatched their blues with lines, covered their surface with figures\nas though with screens, and tied their blue within its own field\nwith narrow circlets of white or yellow, which, in their turn, were\nbeaded to fasten the blue still more firmly in its place. We have\nchiefly to remember the law that blue is light:--\n\nBut also it is that luminous colour which gives value to all others.\nIf you compose a window in which there shall be no blue, you will\nget a dirty or dull (blafard) or crude surface which the eye will\ninstantly avoid; but if you put a few touches of blue among all\nthese tones, you will immediately get striking effects if not\nskilfully conceived harmony. So the composition of blue glass\nsingularly preoccupied the glassworkers of the twelfth and\nthirteenth centuries. If there is only one red, two yellows, two or\nthree purples, and two or three greens at the most, there are\ninfinite shades of blue, ... and these blues are placed with a very\ndelicate observation of the effects they should produce on other\ntones, and other tones on them.\n\nViollet-le-Duc took the window of the Tree of Jesse as his first\nillustration of the rule, for the reason that its blue ground is one\ncontinuous strip from top to bottom, with the subordinate red on\neither side, and a border uniting the whole so plainly that no one\ncan fail to see its object or its method.\n\nThe blue tone of the principal subject [that is to say, the ground\nof the Tree of Jesse] has commanded the tonality of all the rest.\nThis medium was necessary to enable the luminous splendour to\ndisplay its energy. This primary condition had dictated the red\nground for the prophets, and the return to the blue on reaching the\noutside semicircular band. To give full value both to the vigour of\nthe red, and to the radiating transparency of the blue, the ground\nof the corners is put in emerald green; but then, in the corners\nthemselves, the blue is recalled and is given an additional solidity\nof value by the delicate ornamentation of the squares.\n\nThis translation is very free, but one who wants to know these\nwindows must read the whole article, and read it here in the church,\nthe Dictionary in one hand, and binocle in the other, for the\nbinocle is more important than the Dictionary when it reaches the\ncomplicated border which repeats in detail the colour-scheme of the\ncentre:--\n\nThe border repeats all the tones allotted to the principal subjects,\nbut by small fragments, so that this border, with an effect both\nsolid and powerful, shall not enter into rivalry with the large\narrangements of the central parts.\n\nOne would think this simple enough; easily tested on any illuminated\nmanuscript, Arab, Persian, or Byzantine; verified by any Oriental\nrug, old or new; freely illustrated by any Chinese pattern on a Ming\njar, or cloisonne vase; and offering a kind of alphabet for the\nshop-window of a Paris modiste. A strong red; a strong and a weak\nyellow; a strong and a weak purple; a strong and a weak green, are\nall to be tied together, given their values, and held in their\nplaces by blue. The thing seems simpler still when it appears that\nperspective is forbidden, and that these glass windows of the\ntwelfth and thirteenth centuries, like Oriental rugs, imply a flat\nsurface, a wall which must not be treated as open. The twelfth-\ncentury glassworker would sooner have worn a landscape on his back\nthan have costumed his church with it; he would as soon have\ndecorated his floors with painted holes as his walls. He wanted to\nkeep the coloured window flat, like a rug hung on the wall.\n\nThe radiation of translucent colours in windows cannot be modified\nby the artist; all his talent consists in profiting by it, according\nto a given harmonic scheme on a single plane, like a rug, but not\naccording to an effect of aerial perspective. Do what you like, a\nglass window never does and never can represent anything but a plane\nsurface; its real virtues even exist only on that condition. Every\nattempt to present several planes to the eye is fatal to the harmony\nof colour, without producing any illusion in the spectator ...\nTranslucid painting can propose as its object only a design\nsupporting as energetically as possible a harmony of colours.\n\nWhether this law is absolute you can tell best by looking at modern\nglass which is mostly perspective; but, whether you like it or not,\nthe matter of perspective does not enter into a twelfth-century\nwindow more than into a Japanese picture, and may be ignored. The\ndecoration of the twelfth century, as far as concerns us, was\nintended only for one plane, and a window was another form of rug or\nembroidery or mosaic, hung on the wall for colour,--simple\ndecoration to be seen as a whole. If the Tree of Jesse teaches\nanything at all, it is that the artist thought first of controlling\nhis light, but he wanted to do it not in order to dim the colours;\non the contrary, he toiled, like a jeweller setting diamonds and\nrubies, to increase their splendour. If his use of blue teaches this\nlesson, his use of green proves it. The outside border of the Tree\nof Jesse is a sort of sample which our schoolmaster Viollet-le-Duc\nsets, from which he requires us to study out the scheme, beginning\nwith the treatment of light, and ending with the value of the\nemerald green ground in the corners.\n\nComplicated as the border of the Tree of Jesse is, it has its mates\nin the borders of the two other twelfth-century windows, and a few\nof the thirteenth-century in the side aisles; but the southern of\nthe three lancets shows how the artists dealt with a difficulty that\nupset their rule. The border of the southern window does not count\nas it should; something is wrong with it and a little study shows\nthat the builder, and not the glassworker, was to blame. Owing to\nhis miscalculation--if it was really a miscalculation--in the width\nof the southern tower, the builder economized six or eight inches in\nthe southern door and lancet, which was enough to destroy the\nbalance between the colour-values, as masses, of the south and north\nwindows. The artist was obliged to choose whether he would sacrifice\nthe centre or the border of his southern window, and decided that\nthe windows could not be made to balance if he narrowed the centre,\nbut that he must balance them by enriching the centre, and\nsacrificing the border. He has filled the centre with medallions as\nrich as he could make them, and these he has surrounded with\nborders, which are also enriched to the utmost; but these medallions\nwith their borders spread across the whole window, and when you\nsearch with the binocle for the outside border, you see its pattern\nclearly only at the top and bottom. On the sides, at intervals of\nabout two feet, the medallions cover and interrupt it; but this is\npartly corrected by making the border, where it is seen, so rich as\nto surpass any other in the cathedral, even that of the Tree of\nJesse. Whether the artist has succeeded or not is a question for\nother artists--or for you, if you please--to decide; but apparently\nhe did succeed, since no one has ever noticed the difficulty or the\ndevice.\n\nThe southern lancet represents the Passion of Christ. Granting to\nViollet-le-Duc that the unbroken vertical colour-scheme of the Tree\nof Jesse made the more effective window, one might still ask whether\nthe medallion-scheme is not the more interesting. Once past the\nworkshop, there can be no question about it; the Tree of Jesse has\nthe least interest of all the three windows. A genealogical tree has\nlittle value, artistic or other, except to those who belong in its\nbranches, and the Tree of Jesse was put there, not to please us, but\nto please the Virgin. The Passion window was also put there to\nplease her, but it tells a story, and does it in a way that has more\nnovelty than the subject. The draughtsman who chalked out the design\non the whitened table that served for his sketch-board was either a\nGreek, or had before him a Byzantine missal, or enamel or ivory. The\nfirst medallion on these legendary windows is the lower left-hand\none, which begins the story or legend; here it represents Christ\nafter the manner of the Greek Church. In the next medallion is the\nLast Supper; the fish on the dish is Greek. In the middle of the\nwindow, with the help of the binocle, you will see a Crucifixion, or\neven two, for on the left is Christ on the Cross, and on the right a\nDescent from the Cross; in this is the figure of man pulling out\nwith pincers the nails which fasten Christ's feet; a figure unknown\nto Western religious art. The Noli Me Tangere, on the right, near\nthe top, has a sort of Greek character. All the critics, especially\nM. Paul Durand, have noticed this Byzantine look, which is even more\nmarked in the Suger window at Saint-Denis, so as to suggest that\nboth are by the same hand, and that the hand of a Greek. If the\nartist was really a Greek, he has done work more beautiful than any\nleft at Byzantium, and very far finer than anything in the beautiful\nwork at Cairo, but although the figures and subjects are more or\nless Greek, like the sculptures on the portal, the art seems to be\nFrench.\n\nLook at the central window! Naturally, there sits the Virgin, with\nher genealogical tree on her left, and her Son's testimony on her\nright to prove her double divinity. She is seated in the long halo;\nas, on the western portal, directly beneath her, her Son is\nrepresented in stone, Her crown and head, as well as that of the\nChild, are fourteenth-century restorations more or less like the\noriginal; but her cushioned throne and her robes of imperial state,\nas well as the flowered sceptre in either hand, are as old as the\nsculpture of the portal, and redolent of the first crusade. On\neither side of her, the Sun and the Moon offer praise; her two\nArchangels, Michael and Gabriel, with resplendent wings, offer not\nincense as in later times, but the two sceptres of spiritual and\ntemporal power; while the Child in her lap repeats His Mother's\naction and even her features and expression. At first sight, one\nwould take for granted that all this was pure Byzantium, and perhaps\nit is; but it has rather the look of Byzantium gallicized, and\ncarried up to a poetic French ideal. At Saint-Denis the little\nfigure of the Abbe Suger at the feet of the Virgin has a very\nOriental look, and in the twin medallion the Virgin resembles\ngreatly the Virgin of Chartres, yet, for us, until some specialist\nshows us the Byzantine original, the work is as thoroughly French as\nthe fleches of the churches.\n\nByzantine art is altogether another chapter, and, if we could but\ntake a season to study it in Byzantium, we might get great\namusement; but the art of Chartres, even in 1100, was French and\nperfectly French, as the architecture shows, and the glass is even\nmore French than the architecture, as you can detect in many other\nways. Perhaps the surest evidence is the glass itself. The men who\nmade it were not professionals but amateurs, who may have had some\nknowledge of enamelling, but who worked like jewellers, unused to\nglass, and with the refinement that a reliquary or a crozier\nrequired. The cost of these windows must have been extravagant; one\nis almost surprised that they are not set in gold rather than in\nlead. The Abbe Suger shirked neither trouble nor expense, and the\nonly serious piece of evidence that this artist was a Greek is given\nby his biographer who unconsciously shows that the artist cheated\nhim: \"He sought carefully for makers of windows and workmen in glass\nof exquisite quality, especially in that made of sapphires in great\nabundance that were pulverized and melted up in the glass to give it\nthe blue colour which he delighted to admire.\" The \"materia\nsaphirorum\" was evidently something precious,--as precious as crude\nsapphires would have been,--and the words imply beyond question that\nthe artist asked for sapphires and that Suger paid for them; yet all\nspecialists agree that the stone known as sapphire, if ground, could\nnot produce translucent colour at all. The blue which Suger loved,\nand which is probably the same as that of these Chartres windows,\ncannot be made out of sapphires. Probably the \"materia saphirorum\"\nmeans cobalt only, but whatever it was, the glassmakers seem to\nagree that this glass of 1140-50 is the best ever made. M. Paul\nDurand in his official report of 1881 said that these windows, both\nartistically and mechanically, were of the highest class: \"I will\nalso call attention to the fact that the glass and the execution of\nthe painting are, materially speaking, of a quality much superior to\nwindows of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Having passed\nseveral months in contact with these precious works when I copied\nthem, I was able to convince myself of their superiority in every\nparticular, especially in the upper parts of the three windows.\" He\nsaid that they were perfect and irreproachable. The true enthusiast\nin glass would in the depths of his heart like to say outright that\nthese three windows are worth more than all that the French have\nsince done in colour, from that day to this; but the matter concerns\nus chiefly because it shows how French the experiment was, and how\nSuger's taste and wealth made it possible.\n\nCertain it is, too, that the southern window--the Passion--was made\non the spot, or near by, and fitted for the particular space with\ncare proportionate to its cost. All are marked by the hand of the\nChartres Virgin. They are executed not merely for her, but by her.\nAt Saint-Denis the Abbe Suger appeared,--it is true that he was\nprostrate at her feet, but still he appeared. At Chartres no one--no\nsuggestion of a human agency--was allowed to appear; the Virgin\npermitted no one to approach her, even to adore. She is enthroned\nabove, as Queen and Empress and Mother, with the symbols of\nexclusive and universal power. Below her, she permitted the world to\nsee the glories of her earthly life;--the Annunciation, Visitation,\nand Nativity; the Magi; King Herod; the Journey to Egypt; and the\nsingle medallion, which shows the gods of Egypt falling from their\npedestals at her coming, is more entertaining than a whole picture-\ngallery of oil paintings.\n\nIn all France there exist barely a dozen good specimens of twelfth-\ncentury glass. Besides these windows at Chartres and the fragments\nat Saint-Denis, there are windows at Le Mans and Angers and bits at\nVendome, Chalons, Poitiers, Rheims, and Bourges; here and there one\nhappens on other pieces, but the earliest is the best, because the\nglass-makers were new at the work and spent on it an infinite amount\nof trouble and money which they found to be unnecessary as they\ngained experience. Even in 1200 the value of these windows was so\nwell understood, relatively to new ones, that they were preserved\nwith the greatest care. The effort to make such windows was never\nrepeated. Their jewelled perfection did not suit the scale of the\nvast churches of the thirteenth century. By turning your head toward\nthe windows of the side aisles, you can see the criticism which the\nlater artists passed on the old work. They found it too refined, too\nbrilliant, too jewel-like for the size of the new cathedral; the\nplay of light and colour allowed the eye too little repose; indeed,\nthe eye could not see their whole beauty, and half their value was\nthrown away in this huge stone setting. At best they must have\nseemed astray on the bleak, cold, windy plain of Beauce,--homesick\nfor Palestine or Cairo,--yearning for Monreale or Venice,--but this\nis not our affair, and, under the protection of the Empress Virgin,\nSaint Bernard himself could have afforded to sin even to drunkenness\nof colour. With trifling expense of imagination one can still catch\na glimpse of the crusades in the glory of the glass. The longer one\nlooks into it, the more overpowering it becomes, until one begins\nalmost to feel an echo of what our two hundred and fifty million\narithmetical ancestors, drunk with the passion of youth and the\nsplendour of the Virgin, have been calling to us from Mont-Saint-\nMichel and Chartres. No words and no wine could revive their\nemotions so vividly as they glow in the purity of the colours; the\nlimpidity of the blues; the depth of the red; the intensity of the\ngreen; the complicated harmonies; the sparkle and splendour of the\nlight; and the quiet and certain strength of the mass.\n\nWith too strong direct sun the windows are said to suffer, and\nbecome a cluster of jewels--a delirium of coloured light. The lines,\ntoo, have different degrees of merit. These criticisms seldom strike\na chance traveller, but he invariably makes the discovery that the\ndesigns within the medallions are childish. He may easily correct\nthem, if he likes, and see what would happen to the window; but\nalthough this is the alphabet of art, and we are past spelling words\nof one syllable, the criticism teaches at least one lesson.\nPrimitive man seems to have had a natural colour-sense, instinctive\nlike the scent of a dog. Society has no right to feel it as a moral\nreproach to be told that it has reached an age when it can no longer\ndepend, as in childhood, on its taste, or smell, or sight, or\nhearing, or memory; the fact seems likely enough, and in no way\nsinful; yet society always denies it, and is invariably angry about\nit; and, therefore, one had better not say it. On the other hand, we\ncan leave Delacroix and his school to fight out the battle they\nbegan against Ingres and his school, in French art, nearly a hundred\nyears ago, which turned in substance on the same point. Ingres held\nthat the first motive in colour-decoration was line, and that a\npicture which was well drawn was well enough coloured. Society\nseemed, on the whole, to agree with him. Society in the twelfth\ncentury agreed with Delacroix. The French held then that the first\npoint in colour-decoration was colour, and they never hesitated to\nput their colour where they wanted it, or cared whether a green\ncamel or a pink lion looked like a dog or a donkey provided they got\ntheir harmony or value. Everything except colour was sacrificed to\nline in the large sense, but details of drawing were conventional\nand subordinate. So we laugh to see a knight with a blue face, on a\ngreen horse, that looks as though drawn by a four-year-old child,\nand probably the artist laughed, too; but he was a colourist, and\nnever sacrificed his colour for a laugh.\n\nWe tourists assume commonly that he knew no better. In our simple\nfaith in ourselves, great hope abides, for it shows an earnestness\nhardly less than that of the crusaders; but in the matter of colour\none is perhaps less convinced, or more open to curiosity. No school\nof colour exists in our world to-day, while the Middle Ages had a\ndozen; but it is certainly true that these twelfth-century windows\nbreak the French tradition. They had no antecedent, and no fit\nsuccession. All the authorities dwell on their exceptional\ncharacter. One is sorely tempted to suspect that they were in some\nway an accident; that such an art could not have sprung, in such\nperfection, out of nothing, had it been really French; that it must\nhave had its home elsewhere--on the Rhine--in Italy--in Byzantium--\nor in Bagdad.\n\nThe same controversy has raged for near two hundred years over the\nGothic arch, and everything else mediaeval, down to the philosophy\nof the schools. The generation that lived during the first and\nsecond crusades tried a number of original experiments, besides\ncapturing Jerusalem. Among other things, it produced the western\nportal of Chartres, with its statuary, its glass, and its fleche, as\na by-play; as it produced Abelard, Saint Bernard, and Christian of\nTroyes, whose acquaintance we have still to make. It took ideas\nwherever it found them;--from Germany, Italy, Spain, Constantinople,\nPalestine, or from the source which has always attracted the French\nmind like a magnet--from ancient Greece. That it actually did take\nthe ideas, no one disputes, except perhaps patriots who hold that\neven the ideas were original; but to most students the ideas need to\nbe accounted for less than the taste with which they were handled,\nand the quickness with which they were developed. That the taste was\nFrench, you can see in the architecture, or you will see if ever you\nmeet the Gothic elsewhere; that it seized and developed an idea\nquickly, you have seen in the arch, the fleche, the porch, and the\nwindows, as well as in the glass; but what we do not comprehend, and\nnever shall, is the appetite behind all this; the greed for novelty:\nthe fun of life. Every one who has lived since the sixteenth century\nhas felt deep distrust of every one who lived before it, and of\nevery one who believed in the Middle Ages. True it is that the last\nthirteenth-century artist died a long time before our planet began\nits present rate of revolution; it had to come to rest, and begin\nagain; but this does not prevent astonishment that the twelfth-\ncentury planet revolved so fast. The pointed arch not only came as\nan idea into France, but it was developed into a system of\narchitecture and covered the country with buildings on a scale of\nheight never before attempted except by the dome, with an\nexpenditure of wealth that would make a railway system look cheap,\nall in a space of about fifty years; the glass came with it, and\nwent with it, at least as far as concerns us; but, if you need other\nevidence, you can consult Renan, who is the highest authority: \"One\nof the most singular phenomena of the literary history of the Middle\nAges,\" says Renan of Averroes, \"is the activity of the intellectual\ncommerce, and the rapidity with which books were spread from one end\nof Europe to the other. The philosophy of Abelard during his\nlifetime (1100-42) had penetrated to the ends of Italy. The French\npoetry of the trouveres counted within less than a century\ntranslations into German, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Flemish,\nDutch, Bohemian, Italian, Spanish\"; and he might have added that\nEngland needed no translation, but helped to compose the poetry, not\nbeing at that time so insular as she afterwards became. \"Such or\nsuch a work, composed in Morocco or in Cairo, was known at Paris and\nat Cologne in less time than it would need in our days for a German\nbook of capital importance to pass the Rhine\"; and Renan wrote this\nin 1852 when German books of capital importance were revolutionizing\nthe literary world.\n\nOne is apt to forget the smallness of Europe, and how quickly it\ncould always be crossed. In summer weather, with fair winds, one can\nsail from Alexandria or from Syria, to Sicily, or even to Spain and\nFrance, in perfect safety and with ample room for freight, as easily\nnow as one could do it then, without the aid of steam; but one does\nnot now carry freight of philosophy, poetry, or art. The world still\nstruggles for unity, but by different methods, weapons, and thought.\nThe mercantile exchanges which surprised Renan, and which have\npuzzled historians, were in ideas. The twelfth century was as greedy\nfor them in one shape as the nineteenth century in another. France\npaid for them dearly, and repented for centuries; but what creates\nsurprise to the point of incredulity is her hunger for them, the\nyouthful gluttony with which she devoured them, the infallible taste\nwith which she dressed them out. The restless appetite that snatched\nat the pointed arch, the stone fleche, the coloured glass, the\nilluminated missal, the chanson and roman and pastorelle, the\nfragments of Aristotle, the glosses of Avicenne, was nothing\ncompared with the genius which instantly gave form and flower to\nthem all.\n\nThis episode merely means that the French twelfth-century artist may\nbe supposed to have known his business, and if he produced a\ngrotesque, or a green-faced Saint, or a blue castle, or a syllogism,\nor a song, that he did it with a notion of the effect he had in\nmind. The glass window was to him a whole,--a mass,--and its details\nwere his amusement; for the twelfth-century Frenchman enjoyed his\nfun, though it was sometimes rather heavy for modern French taste,\nand less refined than the Church liked. These three twelfth-century\nwindows, like their contemporary portal outside, and the fleche that\ngoes with them, are the ideals of enthusiasts of mediaeval art; they\nare above the level of all known art, in religious form; they are\ninspired; they are divine! This is the claim of Chartres and its\nVirgin. Actually, the French artist, whether architect, sculptor, or\npainter in glass, did rise here above his usual level. He knew it\nwhen he did it, and probably he attributed it, as we do, to the\nVirgin; for these works of his were hardly fifty years old when the\nrest of the old church was burned; and already the artist felt the\nvirtue gone out of him. He could not do so well in 1200 as he did in\n1150; and the Virgin was not so near.\n\nThe proof of it--or, if you prefer to think so, the proof against\nit--is before our eyes on the wall above the lancet windows. When\nVillard de Honnecourt came to Chartres, he seized at once on the\nwestern rose as his study, although the two other roses were\nprobably there, in all their beauty and lightness. He saw in the\nwestern rose some quality of construction which interested him; and,\nin fact, the western rose is one of the flowers of architecture\nwhich reveals its beauties slowly without end; but its chief beauty\nis the feeling which unites it with the portal, the lancets, and the\nfleche. The glassworker here in the interior had the same task to\nperform. The glass of the lancets was fifty years old when the glass\nfor the rose was planned; perhaps it was seventy, for the exact\ndates are unknown, but it does not matter, for the greater the\ninterval, the more interesting is the treatment. Whatever the date,\nthe glass of the western rose cannot be much earlier or much later\nthan that of the other roses, or that of the choir, and yet you see\nat a glance that it is quite differently treated. On such matters\none must, of course, submit to the opinion of artists, which one\ndoes the more readily because they always disagree; but until the\nartists tell us better, we may please ourselves by fancying that the\nglass of the rose was intended to harmonize with that of the\nlancets, and unite it with the thirteenth-century glass of the nave\nand transepts. Among all the thirteenth-century windows the western\nrose alone seems to affect a rivalry in brilliancy with the lancets,\nand carries it so far that the separate medallions and pictures are\nquite lost,--especially in direct sunshine,--blending in a confused\neffect of opals, in a delirium of colour and light, with a result\nlike a cluster of stones in jewelry. Assuming as one must, in want\nof the artist's instruction, that he knew what he wanted to do, and\ndid it, one must take for granted that he treated the rose as a\nwhole, and aimed at giving it harmony with the three precious\nwindows beneath. The effect is that of a single large ornament; a\nround breastpin, or what is now called a sunburst, of jewels, with\nthree large pendants beneath.\n\nWe are ignorant tourists, liable to much error in trying to seek\nmotives in artists who worked seven hundred years ago for a society\nwhich thought and felt in forms quite unlike ours, but the medieval\npilgrim was more ignorant than we, and much simpler in mind; if the\nidea of an ornament occurs to us, it certainly occurred to him, and\nstill more to the glassworker whose business was to excite his\nillusions. An artist, if good for anything, foresees what his public\nwill see; and what his public will see is what he ought to have\nintended--the measure of his genius. If the public sees more than he\nhimself did, this is his credit; if less, this is his fault. No\nmatter how simple or ignorant we are, we ought to feel a discord or\na harmony where the artist meant us to feel it, and when we see a\nmotive, we conclude that other people have seen it before us, and\nthat it must, therefore, have been intended. Neither of the transept\nroses is treated like this one; neither has the effect of a personal\nornament; neither is treated as a jewel. No one knew so well as the\nartist that such treatment must give the effect of a jewel. The\nRoses of France and of Dreux bear indelibly and flagrantly the\ncharacter of France and Dreux; on the western rose is stamped with\ngreater refinement but equal decision the character of a much\ngreater power than either of them.\n\nNo artist would have ventured to put up, before the eyes of Mary in\nMajesty, above the windows so dear to her, any object that she had\nnot herself commanded. Whether a miracle was necessary, or whether\ngenius was enough, is a point of casuistry which you can settle with\nAlbertus Magnus or Saint Bernard, and which you will understand as\nlittle when settled as before; but for us, beyond the futilities of\nunnecessary doubt, the Virgin designed this rose; not perhaps in\nquite the same perfect spirit in which she designed the lancets, but\nstill wholly for her own pleasure and as her own idea. She placed\nupon the breast of her Church--which symbolized herself--a jewel so\ngorgeous that no earthly majesty could bear comparison with it, and\nwhich no other heavenly majesty has rivalled. As one watches the\nlight play on it, one is still overcome by the glories of the\njewelled rose and its three gemmed pendants; one feels a little of\nthe effect she meant it to produce even on infidels, Moors, and\nheretics, but infinitely more on the men who feared and the women\nwho adored her;--not to dwell too long upon it, one admits that hers\nis the only Church. One would admit anything that she should\nrequire. If you had only the soul of a shrimp, you would crawl, like\nthe Abbe Suger, to kiss her feet.\n\nUnfortunately she is gone, or comes here now so very rarely that we\nnever shall see her; but her genius remains as individual here as\nthe genius of Blanche of Castile and Pierre de Dreux in the\ntransepts. That the three lancets were her own taste, as distinctly\nas the Trianon was the taste of Louis XIV, is self-evident. They\nrepresent all that was dearest to her; her Son's glory on her right;\nher own beautiful life in the middle; her royal ancestry on her\nleft: the story of her divine right, thrice-told. The pictures are\nall personal, like family portraits. Above them the man who worked\nin 1200 to carry out the harmony, and to satisfy the Virgin's\nwishes, has filled his rose with a dozen or two little compositions\nin glass, which reveal their subjects only to the best powers of a\nbinocle. Looking carefully, one discovers at last that this gorgeous\ncombination of all the hues of Paradise contains or hides a Last\nJudgment--the one subject carefully excluded from the old work, and\nprobably not existing on the south portal for another twenty years.\nIf the scheme of the western rose dates from 1200, as is reasonable\nto suppose, this Last Judgment is the oldest in the church, and\nmakes a link between the theology of the first crusade, beneath, and\nthe theology of Pierre Mauclerc in the south porch. The churchman is\nthe only true and final judge on his own doctrine, and we neither\nknow nor care to know the facts; but we are as good judges as he of\nthe feeling, and we are at full liberty to feel that such a Last\nJudgment as this was never seen before or since by churchman or\nheretic, unless by virtue of the heresy which held that the true\nChristian must be happy in being damned since such is the will of\nGod. That this blaze of heavenly light was intended, either by the\nVirgin or by her workmen, to convey ideas of terror or pain, is a\nnotion which the Church might possibly preach, but which we sinners\nknew to be false in the thirteenth century as well as we know it\nnow. Never in all these seven hundred years has one of us looked up\nat this rose without feeling it to be Our Lady's promise of\nParadise.\n\nHere as everywhere else throughout the church, one feels the\nVirgin's presence, with no other thought than her majesty and grace.\nTo the Virgin and to her suppliants, as to us, who though outcasts\nin other churches can still hope in hers, the Last Judgment was not\na symbol of God's justice or man's corruption, but of her own\ninfinite mercy. The Trinity judged, through Christ;--Christ loved\nand pardoned, through her. She wielded the last and highest power on\nearth and in hell. In the glow and beauty of her nature, the light\nof her Son's infinite love shone as the sunlight through the glass,\nturning the Last Judgment itself into the highest proof of her\ndivine and supreme authority. The rudest ruffian of the Middle Ages,\nwhen he looked at this Last Judgment, laughed; for what was the Last\nJudgment to her! An ornament, a plaything, a pleasure! a jewelled\ndecoration which she wore on her breast! Her chief joy was to\npardon; her eternal instinct was to love; her deepest passion was\npity! On her imperial heart the flames of hell showed only the\nopaline colours of heaven. Christ the Trinity might judge as much as\nHe pleased, but Christ the Mother would rescue; and her servants\ncould look boldly into the flames.\n\nIf you, or even our friends the priests who still serve Mary's\nshrine, suspect that there is some exaggeration in this language, it\nwill only oblige you to admit presently that there is none; but for\nthe moment we are busy with glass rather than with faith, and there\nis a world of glass here still to study. Technically, we are done\nwith it. The technique of the thirteenth century comes naturally and\nonly too easily out of that of the twelfth. Artistically, the motive\nremains the same, since it is always the Virgin; but although the\nVirgin of Chartres is always the Virgin of Majesty, there are\ndegrees in the assertion of her majesty even here, which affect the\nart, and qualify its feeling. Before stepping down to the thirteenth\ncentury, one should look at these changes of the Virgin's royal\npresence.\n\nFirst and most important as record is the stone Virgin on the south\ndoor of the western portal, which we studied, with her Byzantine\nCourt; and the second, also in stone, is of the same period, on one\nof the carved capitals of the portal, representing the Adoration of\nthe Magi. The third is the glass Virgin at the top of the central\nlancet. All three are undoubted twelfth-century work; and you can\nsee another at Paris, on the same door of Notre Dame, and still more\non Abbe Suger's window at Saint-Denis, and, later, within a\nbeautiful grisaille at Auxerre; but all represent the same figure; a\nQueen, enthroned, crowned, with the symbols of royal power, holding\nin her lap the infant King whose guardian she is. Without pretending\nto know what special crown she bears, we can assume, till corrected,\nthat it is the Carlovingian imperial, not the Byzantine. The Trinity\nnowhere appears except as implied in the Christ. At the utmost, a\nmystic hand may symbolize the Father. The Virgin as represented by\nthe artists of the twelfth century in the Ile de France and at\nChartres seems to be wholly French in spite of the Greek atmosphere\nof her workmanship. One might almost insist that she is blonde, full\nin face, large in figure, dazzlingly beautiful, and not more than\nthirty years of age. The Child never seems to be more than five.\n\nYou are equally free to see a Southern or Eastern type in her face,\nand perhaps the glass suggests a dark type, but the face of the\nVirgin on the central lancet is a fourteenth-century restoration\nwhich may or may not reproduce the original, while all the other\nVirgins represented in glass, except one, belong to the thirteenth\ncentury. The possible exception is a well-known figure called Notre-\nDame-de-la-Belle-Verriere in the choir next the south transept. A\nstrange, almost uncanny feeling seems to haunt this window,\nheightened by the veneration in which it was long held as a shrine,\nthough it is now deserted for Notre-Dame-du-Pilier on the opposite\nside of the choir. The charm is partly due to the beauty of the\nscheme of the angels, supporting, saluting, and incensing the Virgin\nand Child with singular grace and exquisite feeling, but rather that\nof the thirteenth than of the twelfth century. Here, too, the face\nof the Virgin is not ancient. Apparently the original glass was\ninjured by time or accident, and the colours were covered or renewed\nby a simple drawing in oil. Elsewhere the colour is thought to be\nparticularly good, and the window is a favourite mine of motives for\nartists to exploit, but to us its chief interest is its singular\ndepth of feeling. The Empress Mother sits full-face, on a rich\nthrone and dais, with the Child on her lap, repeating her attitude\nexcept that her hands support His shoulders. She wears her crown;\nher feet rest on a stool, and both stool, rug, robe, and throne are\nas rich as colour and decoration can make them. At last a dove\nappears, with the rays of the Holy Ghost. Imperial as the Virgin is,\nit is no longer quite the unlimited empire of the western lancet.\nThe aureole encircles her head only; she holds no sceptre; the Holy\nGhost seems to give her support which she did not need before, while\nSaint Gabriel and Saint Michael, her archangels, with their symbols\nof power, have disappeared. Exquisite as the angels are who surround\nand bear up her throne, they assert no authority. The window itself\nis not a single composition; the panels below seem inserted later\nmerely to fill up the space; six represent the Marriage of Cana, and\nthe three at the bottom show a grotesque little demon tempting\nChrist in the Desert. The effect of the whole, in this angle which\nis almost always dark or filled with shadow, is deep and sad, as\nthough the Empress felt her authority fail, and had come down from\nthe western portal to reproach us for neglect. The face is haunting.\nPerhaps its force may be due to nearness, for this is the only\ninstance in glass of her descending so low that we can almost touch\nher, and see what the twelfth century instinctively felt in the\nfeatures which, even in their beatitude, were serious and almost sad\nunder the austere responsibilities of infinite pity and power.\n\nNo doubt the window is very old, or perhaps an imitation or\nreproduction of one which was much older, but to the pilgrim its\ninterest lies mostly in its personality, and there it stands alone.\nAlthough the Virgin reappears again and again in the lower windows,-\n-as in those on either side of the Belle-Verriere; in the remnant of\nwindow representing her miracles at Chartres, in the south aisle\nnext the transept; in the fifteenth-century window of the chapel of\nVendome which follows; and in the third window which follows that of\nVendome and represents her coronation,--she does not show herself\nagain in all her majesty till we look up to the high windows above.\nThere we shall find her in her splendour on her throne, above the\nhigh altar, and still more conspicuously in the Rose of France in\nthe north transept. Still again she is enthroned in the first window\nof the choir next the north transept. Elsewhere we can see her\nstanding, but never does she come down to us in the full splendour\nof her presence. Yet wherever we find her at Chartres, and of\nwhatever period, she is always Queen. Her expression and attitude\nare always calm and commanding. She never calls for sympathy by\nhysterical appeals to our feelings; she does not even altogether\ncommand, but rather accepts the voluntary, unquestioning,\nunhesitating, instinctive faith, love, and devotion of mankind. She\nwill accept ours, and we have not the heart to refuse it; we have\nnot even the right, for we are her guests.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE LEGENDARY WINDOWS\n\nOne's first visit to a great cathedral is like one's first visit to\nthe British Museum; the only intelligent idea is to follow the order\nof time, but the museum is a chaos in time, and the cathedral is\ngenerally all of one and the same time. At Chartres, after finishing\nwith the twelfth century, everything is of the thirteenth. To catch\neven an order in time, one must first know what part of the\nthirteenth-century church was oldest. The books say it was the\nchoir. After the fire of 1194, the pilgrims used the great crypt as\na church where services were maintained; but the builders must have\nbegun with the central piers and the choir, because the choir was\nthe only essential part of the church. Nave and transepts might be\nsuppressed, but without a choir the church was useless, and in a\nshrine, such as Chartres, the choir was the whole church. Toward the\nchoir, then, the priest or artist looks first; and, since dates are\nuseful, the choir must be dated. The same popular enthusiasm, which\nhad broken out in 1145, revived in 1195 to help the rebuilding; and\nthe work was pressed forward with the same feverish haste, so that\nten years should have been ample to provide for the choir, if for\nnothing more; and services may have been resumed there as early as\nthe year 1206; certainly in 1210. Probably the windows were designed\nand put in hand as soon as the architect gave the measurements, and\nany one who intended to give a window would have been apt to choose\none of the spaces in the apse, in Mary's own presence, next the\nsanctuary.\n\nThe first of the choir windows to demand a date is the Belle-\nVerriere, which is commonly classed as early thirteenth-century, and\nmay go with the two windows next it, one of which--the so-called\nZodiac window--bears a singularly interesting inscription: \"COMES\nTEOBALDUS DAT...AD PRECES COMIXIS PTICENSIS.\" If Shakespeare could\nwrite the tragedy of \"King John,\" we cannot admit ourselves not to\nhave read it, and this inscription might be a part of the play. The\n\"pagus perticensis\" lies a short drive to the west, some fifteen or\ntwenty miles on the road to Le Mans, and in history is known as the\nComte du Perche, although its memory is now preserved chiefly by its\nfamous breed of Percheron horses. Probably the horse also dates from\nthe crusades, and may have carried Richard Coeur-de-Lion, but in any\ncase the count of that day was a vassal of Richard, and one of his\nintimate friends, whose memory is preserved forever by a single line\nin Richard's prison-song:--\n\n    Mes compaignons cui j'amoie et cui j'aim,\n     Ces dou Caheu et ces dou Percherain.\n\n\nIn 1194, when Richard Coeur-de-Lion wrote these verses, the Comte du\nPerche was Geoffrey III, who had been a companion of Richard on his\ncrusade in 1192, where, according to the Chronicle, \"he shewed\nhimself but a timid man\"; which seems scarcely likely in a companion\nof Richard; but it is not of him that the Chartres window speaks,\nexcept as the son of Mahaut or Matilda of Champagne who was a sister\nof Alix of Champagne, Queen of France. The Table shows, therefore,\nthat Geoffroi's son and successor as the Comte du Perche--Thomas--\nwas second cousin of Louis the Lion, known as King Louis VIII of\nFrance. They were probably of much the same age.\n\nIf this were all, one might carry it in one's head for a while, but\nthe relationship which dominates the history of this period was that\nof all these great ruling families with Richard Coeur-de-Lion and\nhis brother John, nicknamed Lackland, both of whom in succession\nwere the most powerful Frenchmen in France. The Table shows that\ntheir mother Eleanor of Guienne, the first Queen of Louis VII, bore\nhim two daughters, one of whom, Alix, married, about 1164, the Count\nThibaut of Chartres and Blois, while the other, Mary, married the\ngreat Count of Champagne. Both of them being half-sisters of Coeur-\nde-Lion and John, their children were nephews or half-nephews,\nindiscriminately, of all the reigning monarchs, and Coeur-de-Lion\nimmortalized one of them by a line in his prison-song, as he\nimmortalized Le Perche:--\n\n    Je nel di pas de celi de Chartain,\n       La mere Loeis.\n\n\n\"Loeis,\" therefore, or Count Louis of Chatres, was not only nephew\nof Coeur-de-Lion and John Lackland, but was also, like Count Thomas\nof Le Perche, a second cousin of Louis VIII. Feudally and personally\nhe was directly attached to Coeur-de-Lion rather than to Philip\nAugustus.\n\nIf society in the twelfth century could follow the effects of these\nrelationships, personal and feudal, it was cleverer than society in\nthe twentieth; but so much is simple: Louis of France, Thibaut of\nChartres, and Thomas of Le Perche, were cousins and close friends in\nthe year 1215, and all were devoted to the Virgin of Chartres.\nJudging from the character of Louis's future queen, Blanche of\nCastile, their wives were, if possible, more devoted still; and in\nthat year Blanche gave birth to Saint Louis, who seems to have been\nthe most devoted of all.\n\nMeanwhile their favourite uncle, Coeur-de-Lion, had died in the year\n1199. Thibaut's great-grandmother, Eleanor of Guienne, died in 1202.\nKing John, left to himself, rapidly accumulated enemies innumerable,\nabroad and at home. In 1203, Philip Augustus confiscated all the\nfiefs he held from the French Crown, and in 1204 seized Normandy.\nJohn sank rapidly from worse to worst, until at last the English\nbarons rose and forced him to grant their Magna Carta at Runnimede\nin 1215.\n\nThe year 1215 was, therefore, a year to be remembered at Chartres,\nas at Mont-Saint-Michel; one of the most convenient dates in\nhistory. Every one is supposed, even now, to know what happened\nthen, to give another violent wrench to society, like the Norman\nConquest in 1066. John turned on the barons and broke them down;\nthey sent to\n\n[Genealogical chart showing the relationships among England,\nChampagne and Chartres and France and La Perche.]\n\nFrance for help, and offered the crown of England to young Louis,\nwhose father, Philip Augustus, called a council which pledged\nsupport to Louis. Naturally the Comte du Perche and the Comte de\nChartres must have pledged their support, among the foremost, to go\nwith Louis to England. He was then twenty-nine years old; they were\nprobably somewhat younger.\n\nThe Zodiac window, with its inscription, was the immediate result.\nThe usual authority that figures in the histories is Roger of\nWendover, but much the more amusing for our purpose is a garrulous\nFrenchman known as the Menestrel de Rheims who wrote some fifty\nyears later. After telling in his delightful thirteenth-century\nFrench, how the English barons sent hostages to Louis, \"et mes sires\nLoueys les fit bien gardeir et honourablement,\" the Menestrel\ncontinued:--\n\nEt assembla granz genz par amours, et par deniers, et par lignage.\nEt fu avec lui li cuens dou Perche, et li cuens de Montfort, et li\ncuens de Chartres, et li cuens de Monbleart, et mes sires Enjorrans\nde Couci, et mout d'autre grant seigneur dont je ne parole mie.\n\nThe Comte de Chartres, therefore, may be supposed to have gone with\nthe Comte du Perche, and to have witnessed the disaster at Lincoln\nwhich took place May 20, 1217, after King John's death:--\n\nEt li cuens dou Perche faisait l'avantgarde, et courut tout leiz des\nportes; et la garnisons de laienz issi hors et leur coururent sus;\net i ot asseiz trait et lancie; et chevaus morz et chevaliers\nabatuz, et gent a pie morz et navreiz. Et li cuens dou Perche i fu\nmorz par un ribaut qui li leva le pan dou hauberc, et l'ocist d'un\ncoutel; et fu desconfite l'avantgarde par la mort le conte. Et quant\nmes sires Loueys le sot, si ot graigneur duel qu'il eust onques, car\nil estoit ses prochains ami de char.\n\nSuch language would be spoiled by translation. For us it is enough\nto know that the \"ribaut\" who lifted the \"pan,\" or skirt, of the\nCount's \"hauberc\" or coat-of-mail, as he sat on his horse refusing\nto surrender to English traitors, and stabbed him from below with a\nknife, may have been an invention of the Menestrel; or the knight\nwho pierced with his lance through the visor to the brain, may have\nbeen an invention of Roger of Wendover; but in either case, Count\nThomas du Perche lost his life at Lincoln, May 20, 1217, to the\ndeepest regret of his cousin Louis the Lion as well as of the Count\nThibaut of Chartres, whom he charged to put up a window for him in\nhonour of the Virgin.\n\nThe window must have been ordered at once, because Count Thibaut,\n\"le Jeune ou le Lepreux,\" died himself within a year, April 22,\n1218, thus giving an exact date for one of the choir windows.\nProbably it was one of the latest, because the earliest to be\nprovided would have been certainly those of the central apsidal\nchapel. According to the rule laid down by Viollet-le-Duc, the\nwindows in which blue strongly predominates, like the Saint\nSylvester, are likely to be earlier than those with a prevailing\ntone of red. We must take for granted that some of these great\nlegendary windows were in place as early as 1210, because, in\nOctober of that year, Philip Augustus attended mass here. There are\nsome two dozen of these windows in the choir alone, each of which\nmay well have represented a year's work in the slow processes of\nthat day, and we can hardly suppose that the workshops of 1200 were\non a scale such as to allow of more than two to have been in hand at\nonce. Thirty or forty years later, when the Sainte Chapelle was\nbuilt, the workshops must have been vastly enlarged, but with the\nenlargement, the glass deteriorated. Therefore, if the architecture\nwere so far advanced in the year 1200 as to allow of beginning work\non the glass, in the apse, the year 1225 is none too late to allow\nfor its completion in the choir.\n\nDates are stupidly annoying;--what we want is not dates but taste;--\nyet we are uncomfortable without them. Except the Perche window,\nnone of the lower ones in the choir helps at all; but the clere-\nstory is more useful. There they run in pairs, each pair surmounted\nby a rose. The first pair (numbers 27 and 28) next the north\ntransept, shows the Virgin of France, supported, according to the\nAbbes Bulteau and Clerval, by the arms of Bishop Reynault de Moucon,\nwho was Bishop of Chartres at the time of the great fire in 1194 and\ndied in 1217. The window number 28 shows two groups of peasants on\npilgrimage; below, on his knees, Robert of Berou, as donor:\n\"ROBERTUS DE BEROU: CARN. CANCELLARIUS.\" The Cartulary of the\nCathedral contains an entry (Bulteau, i, 123): \"The 26th February,\n1216, died Robert de Berou, Chancellor, who has given us a window.\"\nThe Cartulary mentions several previous gifts of windows by canons\nor other dignitaries of the Church in the year 1215.\n\nNext follow, or once followed, a pair of windows (numbers 29 and 30)\nwhich were removed by the sculptor Bridan, in 1788, in order to\nobtain light for his statuary below. The donor was \"DOMINA JOHANNES\nBAPTISTA,\" who, we are told, was Jeanne de Dammartin; and the window\nwas given in memory, or in honour, of her marriage to Ferdinand of\nCastile in 1237. Jeanne was a very great lady, daughter of the Comte\nd'Aumale and Marie de Ponthieu. Her father affianced her in 1235 to\nthe King of England, Henry III, and even caused the marriage to be\ncelebrated by proxy, but Queen Blanche broke it off, as she had\nforbidden, in 1231, that of Yolande of Britanny. She relented so far\nas to allow Jeanne in 1237 to marry Ferdinand of Castile, who still\nsits on horseback in the next rose: \"REX CASTILLAE.\" He won the\ncrown of Castile in 1217 and died in 1252, when Queen Jeanne\nreturned to Abbeville and then, at latest, put up this window at\nChartres in memory of her husband.\n\nThe windows numbers 31 and 32 are the subject of much dispute, but\nwhether the donors were Jean de Chatillon or the three children of\nThibaut le Grand of Champagne, they must equally belong to the later\nseries of 1260-70, rather than to the earlier of 1210-20. The same\nthing is or was true of the next pair, numbers 33 and 34, which were\nremoved in 1773, but the record says that at the bottom of number 34\nwas the figure of Saint Louis's son, Louis of France, who died in\n1260, before his father, who still rides in the rose above.\n\nThus the north side of the choir shows a series of windows that\nprecisely cover the lifetime of Saint Louis (1215-70). The south\nside begins, next the apse, with windows numbers 35 and 36, which\nbelong, according to the Comte d'Armancourt, to the family of\nMontfort, whose ruined castle crowns the hill of Montfort l'Amaury,\non the road to Paris, some forty kilometres northeast of Chartres.\nEvery one is supposed to know the story of Simon de Montfort who was\nkilled before Toulouse in 1218. Simon left two sons, Amaury and\nSimon. The sculptor Bridan put an end also to the window of Amaury,\nbut in the rose, Amaury, according to the Abbes, still rides on a\nwhite horse. Amaury's history is well known. He was made Constable\nof France by Queen Blanche in 1231; went on crusade in 1239; was\ncaptured by the infidels, taken to Babylon, ransomed, and in\nreturning to France, died at Otranto in 1241. For that age Amaury\nwas but a commonplace person, totally overshadowed by his brother\nSimon, who went to England, married King John's daughter Eleanor,\nand became almost king himself as Earl of Leicester. At your leisure\nyou can read Matthew Paris's dramatic account of him and of his\ndeath at the battle of Evesham, August 5, 1265. He was perhaps the\nlast of the very great men of the thirteenth century, excepting\nSaint Louis himself, who lived a few years longer. M. d'Armancourt\ninsists that it is the great Earl of Leicester who rides with his\nvisor up, in full armour, on a brown horse, in the rose above the\nwindows numbers 37 and 38. In any case, the windows would be later\nthan 1240.\n\nThe next pair of windows, numbers 39 and 40, also removed in 1788,\nstill offer, in their rose, the figure of a member of the Courtenay\nfamily. Gibbon was so much attracted by the romance of the\nCourtenays as to make an amusing digression on the subject which\ndoes not concern us or the cathedral except so far as it tells us\nthat the Courtenays, like so many other benefactors of Chartres\nCathedral, belonged to the royal blood. Louis-le-Gros, who died in\n1137, besides his son Louis-le-Jeune, who married Eleanor of Guienne\nin that year, had a younger son, Pierre, whom he married to Isabel\nde Courtenay, and who, like Philip Hurepel, took the title of his\nwife. Pierre had a son, Pierre II, who was a cousin of Philip\nAugustus, and became the hero of the most lurid tragedy of the time.\nChosen Emperor of Constantinople in 1216, to succeed his brothers-\nin-law Henry and Baldwin, he tried to march across Illyria and\nMacedonia, from Durazzo opposite Brindisi, with a little army of\nfive thousand men, and instantly disappeared forever. The Epirotes\ncaptured him in the summer of 1217, and from that moment nothing is\nknown of his fate.\n\nOn the whole, this catastrophe was perhaps the grimmest of all the\nShakespearean tragedies of the thirteenth century; and one would\nlike to think that the Chartres window was a memorial of this\nPierre, who was a cousin of France and an emperor without empire;\nbut M. d'Armancourt insists that the window was given in memory not\nof this Pierre, but of his nephew, another Pierre de Courtenay,\nSeigneur de Conches, who went on crusade with Saint Louis in 1249 to\nEgypt, and died shortly before the defeat and captivity of the King,\non February 8, 1250. His brother Raoul, Seigneur d'Illiers, who died\nin 1271, is said to be donor of the next window, number 40. The date\nof the Courtenay windows should therefore be no earlier than the\ndeath of Saint Louis in 1270; yet one would like to know what has\nbecome of another Courtenay window left by the first Pierre's son-\nin-law, Gaucher or Gaultier of Bar-sur-Seine, who seems to have been\nVicomte de Chartres, and who, dying before Damietta in 1218, made a\nwill leaving to Notre Dame de Chartres thirty silver marks, \"de\nquibus fieri debet miles montatus super equum suum.\" Not only would\nthis mounted knight on horseback supply an early date for these\ninteresting figures, but would fix also the cost, for a mark\ncontained eight ounces of silver, and was worth ten sous, or half a\nlivre. We shall presently see that Aucassins gave twenty sous, or a\nlivre, for a strong ox, so that the \"miles montatus super equum\nsuum\" in glass was equivalent to fifteen oxen if it were money of\nParis, which is far from certain.\n\nThis is an economical problem which belongs to experts, but the\nhistorical value of these early evidences is still something,--\nperhaps still as much as ten sous. All the windows tend to the same\nconclusion. Even the last pair, numbers 41 and 42, offer three\npersonal clues which lead to the same result:--the arms of Bouchard\nde Marly who died in 1226, almost at the same time as Louis VIII; a\ncertain Colinus or Colin, \"de camera Regis,\" who was alive in 1225;\nand Robert of Beaumont in the rose, who seems to be a Beaumont of Le\nPerche, of whom little or nothing is as yet certainly known. As a\ngeneral rule, there are two series of windows, one figuring the\ncompanions or followers of Louis VIII (1215-26); the other, friends\nor companions of Saint Louis (1226-70), Queen Blanche uniting both.\nWhat helps to hold the sequences in a certain order, is that the\nchoir was complete, and services regularly resumed there, in 1210,\nwhile in 1220 the transept and nave were finished and vaulted. For\nthe apside windows, therefore, we will assume, subject to\ncorrection, a date from 1200 to 1225 for their design and\nworkmanship; for the transept, 1220 to 1236; and for the nave a\ngeneral tendency to the actual reign of Saint Louis from 1236 to\n1270. Since there is a deal of later glass scattered everywhere\namong the earlier, the margin of error is great; but by keeping the\nreign of Louis VIII and its personages distinct from that of Louis\nIX and his generation, we can be fairly sure of our main facts.\nMeanwhile the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, wholly built and completed\nbetween 1240 and 1248, offers a standard of comparison for the\nlegendary windows.\n\nThe choir of Chartres is as long as the nave, and much broader,\nbesides that the apse was planned with seven circular projections\nwhich greatly increased the window space, so that the guidebook\nreckons thirty-seven windows. A number of these are grisailles, and\nthe true amateur of glass considers the grisailles to be as well\nworth study as the legendary windows. They are a decoration which\nhas no particular concern with churches, and no distinct religious\nmeaning, but, it seems, a religious value which Viollet-le-Duc is at\nsome trouble to explain; and, since his explanation is not very\ntechnical, we can look at it, before looking at the legends:--\n\nThe colouration of the windows had the advantage of throwing on the\nopaque walls a veil, or coloured glazing, of extreme delicacy,\nalways assuming that the coloured windows themselves were\nharmoniously toned. Whether their resources did not permit the\nartists to adopt a complete system of coloured glass, or whether\nthey wanted to get daylight in purer quality into their interiors,--\nwhatever may have been their reasons,--they resorted to this\nbeautiful grisaille decoration which is also a colouring harmony\nobtained by the aid of a long experience in the effects of light on\ntranslucent surfaces. Many of our churches retain grisaille windows\nfilling either all, or only a part, of their bays. In the latter\ncase, the grisailles are reserved for the side windows which are\nmeant to be seen obliquely, and in that case the coloured glass\nfills the bays of the fond, the apsidal openings which are meant to\nbe seen in face from a distance. These lateral grisailles are still\nopaque enough to prevent the solar rays which pass through them from\nlighting the coloured windows on the reverse side; yet, at certain\nhours of the day, these solar rays throw a pearly light on the\ncoloured windows which gives them indescribable transparence and\nrefinement of tones. The lateral windows in the choir of the Auxerre\nCathedral, half-grisaille, half-coloured, throw on the wholly\ncoloured apsidal window, by this means, a glazing the softness of\nwhich one can hardly conceive. The opaline light which comes through\nthese lateral bays, and makes a sort of veil, transparent in the\nextreme, under the lofty vaulting, is crossed by the brilliant tones\nof the windows behind, which give the play of precious stones. The\nsolid outlines then seem to waver like objects seen through a sheet\nof clear water. Distances change their values, and take depths in\nwhich the eye gets lost. With every hour of the day these effects\nare altered, and always with new harmonies which one never tires of\ntrying to understand; but the deeper one's study goes, the more\nastounded one becomes before the experience acquired by these\nartists, whose theories on the effects of colour, assuming that they\nhad any, are unknown to us and whom the most kindly-disposed among\nus treat as simple children.\n\nYou can read the rest for yourselves. Grisaille is a separate branch\nof colour-decoration which belongs with the whole system of lighting\nand fenetrage, and will have to remain a closed book because the\nfeeling and experience which explained it once are lost, and we\ncannot recover either. Such things must have been always felt rather\nthan reasoned, like the irregularities in plan of the builders; the\nbest work of the best times shows the same subtlety of sense as the\ndog shows in retrieving, or the bee in flying, but which tourists\nhave lost. All we can do is to note that the grisailles were\nintended to have values. They were among the refinements of light\nand colour with which the apse of Chartres is so crowded that one\nmust be content to feel what one can, and let the rest go.\n\nUnderstand, we cannot! nothing proves that the greatest artists who\never lived have, in a logical sense, understood! or that omnipotence\nhas ever understood! or that the utmost power of expression has ever\nbeen capable of expressing more than the reaction of one energy on\nanother, but not of two on two; and when one sits here, in the\ncentral axis of this complicated apse, one sees, in mere light\nalone, the reaction of hundreds of energies, although time has left\nonly a wreck of what the artist put here. One of the best window\nspaces is wholly filled up by the fourteenth-century doorway to the\nchapel of Saint Piat, and only by looking at the two windows which\ncorrespond on the north does a curious inquirer get a notion of the\nprobable loss. The same chapel more or less blocks the light of\nthree other principal windows. The sun, the dust, the acids of\ndripping water, and the other works of time, have in seven hundred\nyears corroded or worn away or altered the glass, especially on the\nsouth side. Windows have been darkened by time and mutilated by\nwilful injury. Scores of the panels are wholly restored, modern\nreproductions or imitations. Even after all this loss, the glass is\nprobably the best-preserved, or perhaps the only preserved part of\nthe decoration in colour, for we never shall know the colour-\ndecoration of the vaults, the walls, the columns, or the floors.\nOnly one point is fairly sure;--that on festivals, if not at other\ntimes, every foot of space was covered in some way or another,\nthroughout the apse, with colour; either paint or tapestry or\nembroidery or Byzantine brocades and Oriental stuffs or rugs, lining\nthe walls, covering the altars, and hiding the floor. Occasionally\nyou happen upon illuminated manuscripts showing the interiors of\nchapels with their colour-decoration; but everything has perished\nhere except the glass.\n\nIf one may judge from the glass of later centuries, the first\nimpression from the thirteenth-century windows ought to be\ndisappointment. You should find them too effeminate, too soft, too\nsmall, and above all not particularly religious. Indeed, except for\nthe nominal subjects of the legends, one sees nothing religious\nabout them; the medallions, when studied with the binocle, turn out\nto be less religious than decorative. Saint Michael would not have\nfelt at home here, and Saint Bernard would have turned from them\nwith disapproval; but when they were put up, Saint Bernard was long\ndead, and Saint Michael had yielded his place to the Virgin. This\napse is all for her. At its entrance she sat, on either side, in the\nBelle-Verriere or as Our Lady of the Pillar, to receive the secrets\nand the prayers of suppliants who wished to address her directly in\nperson; there she bent down to our level, resumed her humanity, and\nfelt our griefs and passions. Within, where the cross-lights fell\nthrough the wide columned space behind the high altar, was her\nwithdrawing room, where the decorator and builder thought only of\npleasing her. The very faults of the architecture and effeminacy of\ntaste witness the artists' object. If the glassworkers had thought\nof themselves or of the public or even of the priests, they would\nhave strained for effects, strong masses of colour, and striking\nsubjects to impress the imagination. Nothing of the sort is even\nsuggested. The great, awe-inspiring mosaic figure of the Byzantine\nhalf-dome was a splendid religious effect, but this artist had in\nhis mind an altogether different thought. He was in the Virgin's\nemploy; he was decorating her own chamber in her own palace; he\nwanted to please her; and he knew her tastes, even when she did not\ngive him her personal orders. To him, a dream would have been an\norder. The salary of the twelfth-century artist was out of all\nrelation with the percentage of a twentieth-century decorator. The\nartist of 1200 was probably the last who cared little for the baron,\nnot very much for the priest, and nothing for the public, unless he\nhappened to be paid by the guild, and then he cared just to the\nextent of his hire, or, if he was himself a priest, not even for\nthat. His pay was mostly of a different kind, and was the same as\nthat of the peasants who were hauling the stone from the quarry at\nBercheres while he was firing his ovens. His reward was to come when\nhe should be promoted to decorate the Queen of Heaven's palace in\nthe New Jerusalem, and he served a mistress who knew better than he\ndid what work was good and what was bad, and how to give him his\nright place. Mary's taste was infallible; her knowledge like her\npower had no limits; she knew men's thoughts as well as acts, and\ncould not be deceived. Probably, even in our own time, an artist\nmight find his imagination considerably stimulated and his work\npowerfully improved if he knew that anything short of his best would\nbring him to the gallows, with or without trial by jury; but in the\ntwelfth century the gallows was a trifle; the Queen hardly\nconsidered it a punishment for an offence to her dignity. The artist\nwas vividly aware that Mary disposed of hell.\n\nAll this is written in full, on every stone and window of this apse,\nas legible as the legends to any one who cares to read. The artists\nwere doing their best, not to please a swarm of flat-eared peasants\nor slow-witted barons, but to satisfy Mary, the Queen of Heaven, to\nwhom the Kings and Queens of France were coming constantly for help,\nand whose absolute power was almost the only restraint recognized by\nEmperor, Pope, and clown. The colour-decoration is hers, and hers\nalone. For her the lights are subdued, the tones softened, the\nsubjects selected, the feminine taste preserved. That other great\nladies interested themselves in the matter, even down to its\ntechnical refinements, is more than likely; indeed, in the central\napside chapel, suggesting the Auxerre grisaille that Viollet-le-Duc\nmentioned, is a grisaille which bears the arms of Castile and Queen\nBlanche; further on, three other grisailles bear also the famous\ncastles, but this is by no means the strongest proof of feminine\ntaste. The difficulty would be rather to find a touch of certainly\nmasculine taste in the whole apse.\n\nSince the central apside chapel is the most important, we can begin\nwith the windows there, bearing in mind that the subject of the\ncentral window was the Life of Christ, dictated by rule or custom.\nOn Christ's left hand is the window of Saint Peter; next him is\nSaint Paul. All are much restored; thirty-three of the medallions\nare wholly new. Opposite Saint Peter, at Christ's right hand, is the\nwindow of Saint Simon and Saint Jude; and next is the grisaille with\nthe arms of Castile. If these windows were ordered between 1205 and\n1210, Blanche, who was born in 1187, and married in 1200, would have\nbeen a young princess of twenty or twenty-five when she gave this\nwindow in grisaille to regulate and harmonize and soften the\nlighting of the Virgin's boudoir. The central chapel must be taken\nto be the most serious, the most studied, and the oldest of the\nchapels in the church, above the crypt. The windows here should rank\nin importance next to the lancets of the west front which are only\nabout sixty years earlier. They show fully that difference.\n\nHere one must see for one's self. Few artists know much about it,\nand still fewer care for an art which has been quite dead these four\nhundred years. The ruins of Nippur would hardly be more intelligible\nto the ordinary architect of English tradition than these twelfth-\ncentury efforts of the builders of Chartres. Even the learning of\nViollet-le-Duc was at fault in dealing with a building so personal\nas this, the history of which is almost wholly lost. This central\nchapel must have been meant to give tone to the apse, and it shows\nwith the colour-decoration of a queen's salon, a subject-decoration\ntoo serious for the amusement of heretics. One sees at a glance that\nthe subject-decoration was inspired by church-custom, while colour\nwas an experiment and the decorators of this enormous window space\nwere at liberty as colourists to please the Countess of Chartres and\nthe Princess Blanche and the Duchess of Brittany, without much\nregarding the opinions of the late Bernard of Clairvaux or even\nAugustine of Hippo, since the great ladies of the Court knew better\nthan the Saints what would suit the Virgin.\n\nThe subject of the central window was prescribed by tradition.\nChrist is the Church, and in this church he and his Mother are one;\ntherefore the life of Christ is the subject of the central window,\nbut the treatment is the Virgin's, as the colours show, and as the\nabsence of every influence but hers, including the Crucifixion,\nproves officially. Saint Peter and Saint Paul are in their proper\nplace as the two great ministers of the throne who represent the two\ngreat parties in western religion, the Jewish and the Gentile.\nOpposite them, balancing by their family influence the weight of\ndelegated power, are two of Mary's nephews, Simon and Jude; but this\nsubject branches off again into matters so personal to Mary that\nSimon and Jude require closer acquaintance. One must study a new\nguidebook--the \"Golden Legend,\" by the blessed James, Bishop of\nGenoa and member of the order of Dominic, who was born at Varazze or\nVoragio in almost the same year that Thomas was born at Aquino, and\nwhose \"Legenda Aurea,\" written about the middle of the thirteenth\ncentury, was more popular history than the Bible itself, and more\ngenerally consulted as authority. The decorators of the thirteenth\ncentury got their motives quite outside the Bible, in sources that\nJames of Genoa compiled into a volume almost as fascinating as the\n\"Fioretti of Saint Francis.\"\n\nAccording to the \"Golden Legend\" and the tradition accepted in\nJerusalem by pilgrims and crusaders, Mary's family connection was\nlarge. It appears that her mother Anne was three times married, and\nby each husband had a daughter Mary, so that there were three Marys,\nhalf-sisters.\n\nJoachim-Anne-   Cleophas-                               -Salome\n\nJoseph-Mary         Alpheus-Mary                 Mary-Zebedee\n\nChrist   James       Joseph  Simon  Jude       James        John\nthe Minor   the                       the Major    the Evangelist\nApostle     Just                      St. Iago of Compostella\n\nSimon and Jude were, therefore, nephews of Mary and cousins of\nChrist, whose lives were evidence of the truth not merely of\nScripture, but specially of the private and family distinction of\ntheir aunt, the Virgin Mother of Christ. They were selected, rather\nthan their brothers, or cousins James and John, for the conspicuous\nhonour of standing opposite Peter and Paul, doubtless by reason of\nsome merit of their own, but perhaps also because in art the two\ncounted as one, and therefore the one window offered two witnesses,\nwhich allowed the artist to insert a grisaille in place of another\nlegendary window to complete the chapel on their right. According to\nViollet-le-Duc, the grisaille in this position regulates the light\nand so completes the effect.\n\nIf custom prescribed a general rule for the central chapel, it seems\nto have left great freedom in the windows near by. At Chartres the\ncurved projection that contains the next two windows was not a\nchapel, but only a window-bay, for the sake of the windows, and, if\nthe artists aimed at pleasing the Virgin, they would put their best\nwork there. At Bourges in the same relative place are three of the\nbest windows in the building:--the Prodigal Son, the New Alliance\nand the Good Samaritan; all of them full of life, story, and colour,\nwith little reference to a worship or a saint. At Chartres the\nchoice is still more striking, and the windows are also the best in\nthe building, after the twelfth-century glass of the west front. The\nfirst, which comes next to Blanche's grisaille in the central\nchapel, is given to another nephew of Mary and apostle of Christ,\nSaint James the Major, whose life is recorded in the proper Bible\nDictionaries, with a terminal remark as follows:--\n\nFor legends respecting his death and his connections with Spain, see\nthe Roman Breviary, in which the healing of a paralytic and the\nconversion of Hermogenes are attributed to him, and where it is\nasserted that he preached the Gospel in Spain, and that his remains\nwere translated to Compostella ... As there is no shadow of\nfoundation for any of the legends here referred to, we pass them by\nwithout further notice. Even Baronius shows himself ashamed of\nthem....\n\nIf the learned Baronius thought himself required to show shame for\nall the legends that pass as history, he must have suffered cruelly\nduring his laborious life, and his sufferings would not have been\nconfined to the annals of the Church; but the historical accuracy of\nthe glass windows is not our affair, nor are historians especially\nconcerned in the events of the Virgin's life, whether recorded or\nlegendary. Religion is, or ought to be, a feeling, and the\nthirteenth-century windows are original documents, much more\nhistorical than any recorded in the Bible, since their inspiration\nis a different thing from their authority. The true life of Saint\nJames or Saint Jude or any other of the apostles, did not, in the\nopinion of the ladies in the Court of France, furnish subjects\nagreeable enough to decorate the palace of the Queen of Heaven; and\nthat they were right, any one must feel, who compares these two\nwindows with subjects of dogma. Saint James, better known as\nSantiago of Compostella, was a compliment to the young Dauphine--\nbefore Dauphines existed--the Princess Blanche of Castile, whose\narms, or castles, are on the grisaille window next to it. Perhaps\nshe chose him to stand there. Certainly her hand is seen plainly\nenough throughout the church to warrant suspecting it here. As a\nnephew, Saint James was dear to the Virgin, but, as a friend to\nSpain, still more dear to Blanche, and it is not likely that pure\naccident caused three adjacent windows to take a Spanish tone.\n\nThe Saint James in whom the thirteenth century delighted, and whose\nwindows one sees at Bourges, Tours, and wherever the scallop-shell\ntells of the pilgrim, belongs not to the Bible but to the \"Golden\nLegend.\" This window was given by the Merchant Tailors whose\nsignature appears at the bottom, in the corners, in two pictures\nthat paint the tailor's shop of Chartres in the first quarter of the\nthirteenth century. The shop-boy takes cloth from chests for his\nmaster to show to customers, and to measure off by his ell. The\nstory of Saint James begins in the lower panel, where he receives\nhis mission from Christ, Above, on the right, he seems to be\npreaching. On the left appears a figure which tells the reason for\nthe popularity of the story. It is Almogenes, or in the Latin,\nHermogenes, a famous magician in great credit among the Pharisees,\nwho has the command of demons, as you see, for behind his shoulder,\nstanding, a little demon is perched, while he orders his pupil\nFiletus to convert James. Next, James is shown in discussion with a\ngroup of listeners. Filetus gives him a volume of false doctrine.\nAlmogenes then further instructs Filetus. James is led away by a\nrope, curing a paralytic as he goes. He sends his cloak to Filetus\nto drive away the demon. Filetus receives the cloak, and the droll\nlittle demon departs in tears. Almogenes, losing his temper, sends\ntwo demons, with horns on their heads and clubs in their hands, to\nreason with James; who sends them back to remonstrate with\nAlmogenes. The demons then bind Almogenes and bring him before\nJames, who discusses differences with him until Almogenes burns his\nbooks of magic and prostrates himself before the Saint. Both are\nthen brought before Herod, and Almogenes breaks a pretty heathen\nidol, while James goes to prison. A panel comes in here, out of\nplace, showing Almogenes enchanting Filetus, and the demon entering\ninto possession of him. Then Almogenes is seen being very roughly\nhandled by a young Jew, while the bystanders seem to approve. James\nnext makes Almogenes throw his books of magic into the sea; both are\nled away to execution, curing the infirm on their way; their heads\nare cut off; and, at the top, God blesses the orb of the world.\n\nThat this window was intended to amuse the Virgin seems quite as\nreasonable an idea as that it should have been made to instruct the\npeople, or us. Its humour was as humorous then as now, for the\nFrench of the thirteenth century loved humour even in churches, as\ntheir grotesques proclaim. The Saint James window is a tale of\nmagic, told with the vivacity of a fabliau; but if its motive of\namusement seems still a forced idea, we can pass on, at once, to the\ncompanion window which holds the best position in the church, where,\nin the usual cathedral, one expects to find Saint John or some other\napostle; or Saint Joseph; or a doctrinal lesson such as that called\nthe New Alliance where the Old and New Testaments are united. The\nwindow which the artists have set up here is regarded as the best of\nthe thirteenth-century windows, and is the least religious.\n\nThe subject is nothing less than the \"Chanson de Roland\" in pictures\nof coloured glass, set in a border worth comparing at leisure with\nthe twelfth-century borders of the western lancets. Even at\nChartres, the artists could not risk displeasing the Virgin and the\nChurch by following a wholly profane work like the \"Chanson\" itself,\nand Roland had no place in religion. He could be introduced only\nthrough Charlemagne, who had almost as little right there as he. The\ntwelfth century had made persistent efforts to get Charlemagne into\nthe Church, and the Church had made very little effort to keep him\nout; yet by the year 1200, Charlemagne had not been sainted except\nby the anti-Pope Pascal III in 1165, although there was a popular\nbelief, supported in Spain by the necessary documents, that Pope\nCalixtus II in 1122 had declared the so-called Chronicle of\nArchbishop Turpin to be authentic. The Bishop of Chartres in 1200\nwas very much too enlightened a prelate to accept the Chronicle or\nTurpin or Charlemagne himself, still less Roland and Thierry, as\nauthentic in sanctity; but if the young and beautiful Dauphine of\nFrance, and her cousins of Chartres, and their artists, warmly\nbelieved that the Virgin would be pleased by the story of\nCharlemagne and Roland, the Bishop might have let them have their\nway in spite of the irregularity. That the window was an\nirregularity, is plain; that it has always been immensely admired,\nis certain; and that Bishop Renaud must have given his assent to it,\nis not to be denied.\n\nThe most elaborate account of this window can be found in Male's\n\"Art Religieux\" (pp. 444-50). Its feeling or motive is quite another\nmatter, as it is with the statuary on the north porch. The Furriers\nor Fur Merchants paid for the Charlemagne window, and their\nsignature stands at the bottom, where a merchant shows a fur-lined\ncloak to his customer. That Mary was personally interested in furs,\nno authority seems to affirm, but that Blanche and Isabel and every\nlady of the Court, as well as every king and every count, in that\nday, took keen interest in the subject, is proved by the prices they\npaid, and the quantities they wore. Not even the Merchant Tailors\nhad a better standing at Court than the Furriers, which may account\nfor their standing so near the Virgin. Whatever the cause, the\nFurriers were allowed to put their signature here, side by side with\nthe Tailors, and next to the Princess Blanche. Their gift warranted\nit. Above the signature, in the first panel, the Emperor Constantine\nis seen, asleep, in Constantinople, on an elaborate bed, while an\nangel is giving him the order to seek aid from Charlemagne against\nthe Saracens. Charlemagne appears, in full armour of the year 1200,\non horseback. Then Charlemagne, sainted, wearing his halo, converses\nwith two bishops on the subject of a crusade for the rescue of\nConstantine. In the next scene, he arrives at the gates of\nConstantinople where Constantine receives him. The fifth picture is\nmost interesting; Charlemagne has advanced with his knights and\nattacks the Saracens; the Franks wear coats-of-mail, and carry long,\npointed shields; the infidels carry round shields; Charlemagne,\nwearing a crown, strikes off with one blow of his sword the head of\na Saracen emir; but the battle is desperate; the chargers are at\nfull gallop, and a Saracen is striking at Charlemagne with his\nbattle-axe. After the victory has been won, the Emperor Constantine\nrewards Charlemagne by the priceless gift of three chasses or\nreliquaries, containing a piece of the true Cross; the Suaire or\ngrave-cloth of the Saviour; and a tunic of the Virgin. Charlemagne\nthen returns to France, and in the next medallion presents the three\nchasses and the crown of the Saracen king to the church at Aix,\nwhich to a French audience meant the Abbey of Saint-Denis. This\nscene closes the first volume of the story.\n\nThe second part opens on Charlemagne, seated between two persons,\nlooking up to heaven at the Milky Way, called then the Way of Saint\nJames, which directs him to the grave of Saint James in Spain. Saint\nJames himself appears to Charlemagne in a dream, and orders him to\nredeem the tomb from the infidels. Then Charlemagne sets out, with\nArchbishop Turpin of Rheims and knights. In presence of his army he\ndismounts and implores the aid of God. Then he arrives before\nPampeluna and transfixes with his lance the Saracen chief as he\nflies into the city. Mounted, he directs workmen to construct a\nchurch in honour of Saint James; a little cloud figures the hand of\nGod. Next is shown the miracle of the lances; stuck in the ground at\nnight, they are found in the morning to have burst into foliage,\nprefiguring martyrdom. Two thousand people perish in battle. Then\nbegins the story of Roland which the artists and donors are so eager\nto tell, knowing, as they do, that what has so deeply interested men\nand women on earth, must interest Mary who loves them. You see\nArchbishop Turpin celebrating mass when an angel appears, to warn\nhim of Roland's fate. Then Roland himself, also wearing a halo, is\nintroduced, in the act of killing the giant Ferragus. The combat of\nRoland and Ferragus is at the top, out of sequence, as often happens\nin the legendary windows. Charlemagne and his army are seen marching\nhomeward through the Pyrenees, while Roland winds his horn and\nsplits the rock without being able to break Durendal. Thierry,\nlikewise sainted, brings water to Roland in a helmet. At last\nThierry announces Roland's death. At the top, on either side of\nRoland and Ferragus, is an angel with incense.\n\nThe execution of this window is said to be superb. Of the colour,\nand its relations with that of the Saint James, one needs time and\nlong acquaintance to learn the value. In the feeling, compared with\nthat of the twelfth century, one needs no time in order to see a\nchange. These two windows are as French and as modern as a picture\nof Lancret; they are pure art, as simply decorative as the\ndecorations of the Grand Opera. The thirteenth century knew more\nabout religion and decoration than the twentieth century will ever\nlearn. The windows were neither symbolic nor mystical, nor more\nreligious than they pretended to be. That they are more intelligent\nor more costly or more effective is nothing to the purpose, so long\nas one grants that the combat of Roland and Ferragus, or Roland\nwinding his olifant, or Charlemagne cutting off heads and\ntransfixing Moors, were subjects never intended to teach religion or\ninstruct the ignorant, but to please the Queen of Heaven as they\npleased the queens of earth with a roman, not in verse but in\ncolour, as near as possible to decorative perfection. Instinctively\none looks to the corresponding bay, opposite, to see what the\nartists could have done to balance these two great efforts of their\nart; but the bay opposite is now occupied by the entrance to Saint\nPiat's chapel and one does not know what changes may have been made\nin the fourteenth century to rearrange the glass; yet, even as it\nnow stands, the Sylvester window which corresponds to the\nCharlemagne is, as glass, the strongest in the whole cathedral. In\nthe next chapel, on our left, come the martyrs, with Saint Stephen,\nthe first martyr, in the middle window. Naturally the subject is\nmore serious, but the colour is not differently treated. A step\nfurther, and you see the artists returning to their lighter\nsubjects. The stories of Saint Julian and Saint Thomas are more\namusing than the plots of half the thirteenth-century romances, and\nnot very much more religious. The subject of Saint Thomas is a\npendant to that of Saint James, for Saint Thomas was a great\ntraveller and an architect, who carried Mary's worship to India as\nSaint James carried it to Spain. Here is the amusement of many days\nin studying the stories, the colour and the execution of these\nwindows, with the help of the \"Monographs\" of Chartres and Bourges\nor the \"Golden Legend\" and occasional visits to Le Mans, Tours,\nClermont Ferrand, and other cathedrals; but, in passing, one has to\nnote that the window of Saint Thomas was given by France, and bears\nthe royal arms, perhaps for Philip Augustus the King; while the\nwindow of Saint Julian was given by the Carpenters and Coopers. One\nfeels no need to explain how it happens that the taste of the royal\nfamily, and of their tailors, furriers, carpenters, and coopers,\nshould fit so marvellously, one with another, and with that of the\nVirgin; but one can compare with theirs the taste of the Stone-\nworkers opposite, in the window of Saint Sylvester and Saint\nMelchiades, whose blues almost kill the Charlemagne itself, and of\nthe Tanners in that of Saint Thomas of Canterbury; or, in the last\nchapel on the south side, with that of the Shoemakers in the window\nto Saint Martin, attributed for some reason to a certain Clemens\nvitrearius Carnutensis, whose name is on a window in the cathedral\nof Rouen. The name tells nothing, even if the identity could be\nproved. Clement the glassmaker may have worked on his own account,\nor for others; the glass differs only in refinements of taste or\nperhaps of cost. Nicolas Lescine, the canon, or Geoffroi Chardonnel,\nmay have been less rich than the Bakers, and even the Furriers may\nhave not had the revenues of the King; but some controlling hand has\ngiven more or less identical taste to all.\n\nWhat one can least explain is the reason why some windows, that\nshould be here, are elsewhere. In most churches, one finds in the\nchoir a window of doctrine, such as the so-called New Alliance, but\nhere the New Alliance is banished to the nave. Besides the costly\nCharlemagne and Saint James windows in the apse, the Furriers and\nDrapers gave several others, and one of these seems particularly\nsuited to serve as companion to Saint Thomas, Saint James, and Saint\nJulian, so that it is best taken with these while comparing them. It\nis in the nave, the third window from the new tower, in the north\naisle,--the window of Saint Eustace. The story and treatment and\nbeauty of the work would have warranted making it a pendant to\nAlmogenes, in the bay now serving as the door to Saint Piat's\nchapel, which should have been the most effective of all the\npositions in the church for a legendary story. Saint Eustace, whose\nname was Placidas, commanded the guards of the Emperor Trajan. One\nday he went out hunting with huntsmen and hounds, as the legend in\nthe lower panel of the window begins; a pretty picture of a stag\nhunt about the year 1200; followed by one still prettier, where the\nstag, after leaping upon a rock, has turned, and shows a crucifix\nbetween his horns, the stag on one side balancing the horse on the\nother, while Placidas on his knees yields to the miracle of Christ.\nThen Placidas is baptized as Eustace; and in the centre, you see him\nwith his wife and two children--another charming composition--\nleaving the city. Four small panels in the corners are said to\ncontain the signatures of the Drapers and Furriers. Above, the story\nof adventure goes on, showing Eustace bargaining with a shipmaster\nfor his passage; his embarcation with wife and children, and their\narrival at some shore, where the two children have landed, and the\nmaster drives Eustace after them while he detains the wife. Four\nsmall panels here have not been identified, but the legend was no\ndoubt familiar to the Middle Ages, and they knew how Eustace and the\nchildren came to a river, where you can see a pink lion carrying off\none child, while a wolf, which has seized the other, is attacked by\nshepherds and dogs. The children are rescued, and the wife\nreappears, on her knees before her lord, telling of her escape from\nthe shipmaster, while the children stand behind; and then the\nreunited family, restored to the Emperor's favour, is seen feasting\nand happy. At last Eustace refuses to offer a sacrifice to a\ngraceful antique idol, and is then shut up, with all his family, in\na brazen bull; a fire is kindled beneath it; and, from above, a hand\nconfers the crown of martyrdom.\n\nAnother subject, which should have been placed in the apse, stands\nin a singular isolation which has struck many of the students in\nthis branch of church learning. At Sens, Saint Eustace is in the\nchoir, and by his side is the Prodigal Son. At Bourges also the\nProdigal Son is in the choir. At Chartres, he is banished to the\nnorth transept, where you will find him in the window next the nave,\nalmost as though he were in disgrace; yet the glass is said to be\nvery fine, among the best in the church, while the story is told\nwith rather more vivacity than usual; and as far as colour and\nexecution go, the window has an air of age and quality higher than\nthe average. At the bottom you see the signature of the corporation\nof Butchers. The window at Bourges was given by the Tanners. The\nstory begins with the picture showing the younger son asking the\nfather for his share of the inheritance, which he receives in the\nnext panel, and proceeds, on horseback, to spend, as one cannot help\nsuspecting, at Paris, in the Latin Quarter, where he is seen\narriving, welcomed by two ladies. No one has offered to explain why\nChartres should consider two ladies theologically more correct than\none; or why Sens should fix on three, or why Bourges should require\nsix. Perhaps this was left to the artist's fancy; but, before\nquitting the twelfth century, we shall see that the usual young man\nwho took his share of patrimony and went up to study in the Latin\nQuarter, found two schools of scholastic teaching, one called\nRealism, the other Nominalism, each of which in turn the Church had\nbeen obliged to condemn. Meanwhile the Prodigal Son is seen feasting\nwith them, and is crowned with flowers, like a new Abelard, singing\nhis songs to Heloise, until his religious capital is exhausted, and\nhe is dragged out of bed, to be driven naked from the house with\nsticks, in this also I resembling Abelard. At Bourges he is gently\nturned out; at Sens he is dragged away by three devils. Then he\nseeks service, and is seen knocking acorns from boughs, to feed his\nemployer's swine; but, among the thousands of young men who must\nhave come here directly from the schools, nine in every ten said\nthat he was teaching letters to his employer's children or lecturing\nto the students of the Latin Quarter. At last he decides to return\nto his father,--possibly the Archbishop of Paris or the Abbot of\nSaint-Denis,--who receives him with open arms, and gives him a new\nrobe, which to the ribald student would mean a church living--an\nabbey, perhaps Saint Gildas-de-Rhuys in Brittany, or elsewhere. The\nfatted calf is killed, the feast is begun, and the elder son, whom\nthe malicious student would name Bernard, appears in order to make\nprotest. Above, God, on His throne, blesses the globe of the world.\n\nThe original symbol of the Prodigal Son was a rather different form\nof prodigality. According to the Church interpretation, the Father\nhad two sons; the older was the people of the Jews; the younger, the\nGentiles. The Father divided his substance between them, giving to\nthe older the divine law, to the younger, the law of nature. The\nyounger went off and dissipated his substance, as one must believe,\non Aristotle; but repented and returned when the Father sacrificed\nthe victim--Christ--as the symbol of reunion. That the Synagogue\nalso accepts the sacrifice is not so clear; but the Church clung to\nthe idea of converting the Synagogue as a necessary proof of\nChrist's divine character. Not until about the time when this window\nmay have been made, did the new Church, under the influence of Saint\nDominic, abandon the Jews and turn in despair to the Gentiles alone.\n\nThe old symbolism belonged to the fourth and fifth centuries, and,\nas told by the Jesuit fathers Martin and Cahier in their \"Monograph\"\nof Bourges, it should have pleased the Virgin who was particularly\nloved by the young, and habitually showed her attachment to them. At\nBourges the window stands next the central chapel of the apse, where\nat Chartres is the entrance to Saint Piat's chapel; but Bourges did\nnot belong to Notre Dame, nor did Sens. The story of the prodigal\nsons of these years from 1200 to 1230 lends the window a little\npersonal interest that the Prodigal Son of Saint Luke's Gospel could\nhardly have had even to thirteenth-century penitents. Neither the\nChurch nor the Crown loved prodigal sons. So far from killing fatted\ncalves for them, the bishops in 1209 burned no less than ten in\nParis for too great intimacy with Arab and Jew disciples of\nAristotle. The position of the Bishop of Chartres between the\nschools had been always awkward. As for Blanche of Castile, her\nfirst son, afterwards Saint Louis, was born in 1215; and after that\ntime no Prodigal Son was likely to be welcomed in any society which\nshe frequented. For her, above all other women on earth or in\nheaven, prodigal sons felt most antipathy, until, in 1229, the\nquarrel became so violent that she turned her police on them and\nbeat a number to death in the streets. They retaliated without\nregard for loyalty or decency, being far from model youth and prone\nto relapses from virtue, even when forgiven and beneficed.\n\nThe Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, showed no prejudice against\nprodigal sons, or even prodigal daughters. She would hardly, of her\nown accord, have ordered such persons out of her apse, when Saint\nStephen at Bourges and Sens showed no such puritanism; yet the\nChartres window is put away in the north transept. Even there it\nstill stands opposite the Virgin of the Pillar, on the women's and\nQueen Blanche's side of the church, and in an excellent position,\nbetter seen from the choir than some of the windows in the choir\nitself, because the late summer sun shines full upon it, and carries\nits colours far into the apse. This may have been one of the many\ninstances of tastes in the Virgin which were almost too imperial for\nher official court. Omniscient as Mary was, she knew no difference\nbetween the Blanches of Castile and the students of the Latin\nQuarter. She was rather fond of prodigals, and gentle toward the\nladies who consumed the prodigal's substance. She admitted Mary\nMagdalen and Mary the Gipsy to her society. She fretted little about\nAristotle so long as the prodigal adored her, and naturally the\nprodigal adored her almost to the exclusion of the Trinity. She\nalways cared less for her dignity than was to be wished. Especially\nin the nave and on the porch, among the peasants, she liked to\nappear as one of themselves; she insisted on lying in bed, in a\nstable, with the cows and asses about her, and her baby in a cradle\nby the bedside, as though she had suffered like other women, though\nthe Church insisted she had not. Her husband, Saint Joseph, was\nnotoriously uncomfortable in her Court, and always preferred to get\nas near to the door as he could. The choir at Chartres, on the\ncontrary, was aristocratic; every window there had a court quality,\neven down to the contemporary Thomas a'Becket, the fashionable\nmartyr of good society. Theology was put into the transepts or still\nfurther away in the nave where the window of the New Alliance elbows\nthe Prodigal Son. Even to Blanche of Castile, Mary was neither a\nphilanthropist nor theologist nor merely a mother,--she was an\nabsolute Empress, and whatever she said was obeyed, but sometimes\nshe seems to have willed an order that worried some of her most\npowerful servants.\n\nMary chose to put her Prodigal into the transept, and one would like\nto know the reason. Was it a concession to the Bishop or the Queen?\nOr was it to please the common people that these familiar picture-\nbooks, with their popular interest, like the Good Samaritan and the\nProdigal Son, were put on the walls of the great public hall? This\ncan hardly be, since the people would surely have preferred the\nCharlemagne and Saint James to any other. We shall never know; but\nsitting here in the subdued afternoon light of the apse, one goes on\nfor hours reading the open volumes of colour, and listening to the\nsteady discussion by the architects, artists, priests, princes, and\nprincesses of the thirteenth century about the arrangements of this\napse. However strong-willed they might be, each in turn whether\npriest, or noble, or glassworker, would have certainly appealed to\nthe Virgin and one can imagine the architect still beside us, in the\ngrowing dusk of evening, mentally praying, as he looked at the work\nof a finished day: \"Lady Virgin, show me what you like best! The\ncentral chapel is correct, I know. The Lady Blanche's grisaille\nveils the rather strong blue tone nicely, and I am confident it will\nsuit you. The Charlemagne window seems to me very successful, but\nthe Bishop feels not at all easy about it, and I should never have\ndared put it here if the Lady Blanche had not insisted on a Spanish\nbay. To balance at once both the subjects and the colour, we have\ntried the Stephen window in the next chapel, with more red; but if\nSaint Stephen is not good enough to satisfy you, we have tried again\nwith Saint Julian, whose story is really worth telling you as we\ntell it; and with him we have put Saint Thomas because you loved him\nand gave him your girdle. I do not myself care so very much for\nSaint Thomas of Canterbury opposite, though the Count is wild about\nit, and the Bishop wants it; but the Sylvester is stupendous in the\nmorning sun. What troubles me most is the first right-hand bay. The\nprincesses would not have let me put the Prodigal Son there, even if\nit were made for the place. I've nothing else good enough to balance\nthe Charlemagne unless it be the Eustace. Gracious Lady, what ought\nI to do? Forgive me my blunders, my stupidity, my wretched want of\ntaste and feeling! I love and adore you! All that I am, I am for\nyou! If I cannot please you, I care not for Heaven! but without your\nhelp, I am lost!\"\n\nUpon my word, you may sit here forever imagining such appeals, and\nthe endless discussions and criticisms that were heard every day,\nunder these vaults, seven hundred years ago. That the Virgin\nanswered the questions is my firm belief, just as it is my\nconviction that she did not answer them elsewhere. One sees her\npersonal presence on every side. Any one can feel it who will only\nconsent to feel like a child. Sitting here any Sunday afternoon,\nwhile the voices of the children of the maitrise are chanting in the\nchoir,--your mind held in the grasp of the strong lines and shadows\nof the architecture; your eyes flooded with the autumn tones of the\nglass; your ears drowned with the purity of the voices; one sense\nreacting upon another until sensation reaches the limit of its\nrange,--you, or any other lost soul, could, if you cared to look and\nlisten, feel a sense beyond the human ready to reveal a sense divine\nthat would make that world once more intelligible, and would bring\nthe Virgin to life again, in all the depths of feeling which she\nshows here,--in lines, vaults, chapels, colours, legends, chants,--\nmore eloquent than the prayer-book, and more beautiful than the\nautumn sunlight; and any one willing to try could feel it like the\nchild, reading new thought without end into the art he has studied a\nhundred times; but what is still more convincing, he could, at will,\nin an instant, shatter the whole art by calling into it a single\nmotive of his own.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE COURT OF THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN\n\nAll artists love the sanctuary of the Christian Church, and all\ntourists love the rest. The reason becomes clear as one leaves the\nchoir, and goes back to the broad, open hall of the nave. The choir\nwas made not for the pilgrim but for the deity, and is as old as\nAdam, or perhaps older; at all events old enough to have existed in\ncomplete artistic and theological form, with the whole mystery of\nthe Trinity, the Mother and Child, and even the Cross, thousands of\nyears before Christ was born; but the Christian Church not only took\nthe sanctuary in hand, and gave it a new form, more beautiful and\nmuch more refined than the Romans or Greeks or Egyptians had ever\nimagined, but it also added the idea of the nave and transepts, and\ndeveloped it into imperial splendour. The pilgrim-tourist feels at\nhome in the nave because it was built for him; the artist loves the\nsanctuary because he built it for God.\n\nChartres was intended to hold ten thousand people easily, or fifteen\nthousand when crowded, and the decoration of this great space,\nthough not a wholly new problem, had to be treated in a new way.\nSancta Sofia was built by the Emperor Justinian, with all the\nresources of the Empire, in a single violent effort, in six years,\nand was decorated throughout with mosaics on a general scheme, with\nthe unity that Empire and Church could give, when they acted\ntogether. The Norman Kings of Sicily, the richest princes of the\ntwelfth century, were able to carry out a complete work of the most\ncostly kind, in a single sustained effort from beginning to end,\naccording to a given plan. Chartres was a local shrine, in an\nagricultural province, not even a part of the royal domain, and its\ncathedral was the work of society, without much more tie than the\nVirgin gave it. Socially Chartres, as far as its stone-work goes,\nseems to have been mostly rural; its decoration, in the porches and\ntransepts, is royal and feudal; in the nave and choir it is chiefly\nbourgeois. The want of unity is much less surprising than the unity,\nbut it is still evident, especially in the glass. The mosaics of\nMonreale begin and end; they are a series; their connection is\nartistic and theological at once; they have unity. The windows of\nChartres have no sequence, and their charm is in variety, in\nindividuality, and sometimes even in downright hostility to each\nother, reflecting the picturesque society that gave them. They have,\ntoo, the charm that the world has made no attempt to popularize them\nfor its modern uses, so that, except for the useful little guide-\nbook of the Abbe Clerval, one can see no clue to the legendary\nchaos; one has it to one's self, without much fear of being trampled\nupon by critics or Jew dealers in works of art; any Chartres beggar-\nwoman can still pass a summer's day here, and never once be\nmortified by ignorance of things that every dealer in bric-a-brac is\nsupposed to know.\n\nYet the artists seem to have begun even here with some idea of\nsequence, for the first window in the north aisle, next the new\ntower, tells the story of Noah; but the next plunges into the local\nhistory of Chartres, and is devoted to Saint Lubin, a bishop of this\ndiocese who died in or about the year 556, and was, for some reason,\nselected by the Wine-Merchants to represent them, as their\ninteresting medallions show. Then follow three amusing subjects,\ncharmingly treated: Saint Eustace, whose story has been told; Joseph\nand his brethren; and Saint Nicholas, the most popular saint of the\nthirteenth century, both in the Greek and in the Roman Churches. The\nsixth and last window on the north aisle of the nave is the New\nAlliance.\n\nOpposite these, in the south aisle, the series begins next the tower\nwith John the Evangelist, followed by Saint Mary Magdalen, given by\nthe Water-Carriers. The third, the Good Samaritan, given by the\nShoemakers, has a rival at Sens which critics think even better. The\nfourth is the Death, Assumption, and Coronation of the Virgin. Then\ncomes the fifteenth-century Chapel of Vendome, to compare the early\nand later glass. The sixth is, or was, devoted to the Virgin's\nMiracles at Chartres; but only one complete subject remains.\n\nThese windows light the two aisles of the nave and decorate the\nlower walls of the church with a mass of colour and variety of line\nstill practically intact in spite of much injury; but the windows of\nthe transepts on the same level have almost disappeared, except the\nProdigal Son and a border to what was once a Saint Lawrence, on the\nnorth; and, on the south, part of a window to Saint Apollinaris of\nRavenna, with an interesting hierarchy of angels above:--seraphim\nand cherubim with six wings, red and blue; Dominations; Powers;\nPrincipalities; all, except Thrones.\n\nAll this seems to be simple enough, at least to the people for whom\nthe nave was built, and to whom the windows were meant to speak.\nThere is nothing esoteric here; nothing but what might have suited\nthe great hall of a great palace. There is no difference in taste\nbetween the Virgin in the choir, and the Water-Carriers by the\ndoorway. Blanche, the young Queen, liked the same colours, legends,\nand lines that her Grocers and Bakers liked. All equally loved the\nVirgin. There was not even a social difference. In the choir,\nThibaut, the Count of Chartres, immediate lord of the province, let\nhimself be put in a dark corner next the Belle Verriere, and left\nthe Bakers to display their wealth in the most serious spot in the\nchurch, the central window of the central chapel, while in the nave\nand transepts all the lower windows that bear signatures were given\nby trades, as though that part of the church were abandoned to the\ncommons. One might suppose that the feudal aristocracy would have\nfortified itself in the clerestory and upper windows, but even there\nthe bourgeoisie invaded them, and you can see, with a glass, the\nPastrycooks and Turners looking across at the Weavers and Curriers\nand Money-Changers, and the \"Men of Tours.\" Beneath the throne of\nthe Mother of God, there was no distinction of gifts; and above it\nthe distinction favoured the commonalty.\n\nOf the seven immense windows above and around the high altar, which\nare designed as one composition, none was given by a prince or a\nnoble. The Drapers, the Butchers, the Bakers, the Bankers are\ncharged with the highest duties attached to the Virgin's service.\nApparently neither Saint Louis, nor his father Louis VIII, nor his\nmother Blanche, nor his uncle Philippe Hurepel, nor his cousin Saint\nFerdinand of Castile, nor his other cousin Pierre de Dreux, nor the\nDuchess Alix of Brittany, cared whether their portraits or armorial\nshields were thrust out of sight into corners by Pastrycooks and\nTeamsters, or took a whole wall of the church to themselves. The\nonly relation that connects them is their common relation to the\nVirgin, but that is emphatic, and dominates the whole.\n\nIt dominates us, too, if we reflect on it, even after seven hundred\nyears that its meaning has faded. When one looks up to this display\nof splendour in the clerestory, and asks what was in the minds of\nthe people who joined to produce, with such immense effort and at\nsuch self-sacrifice, this astonishing effect, the question seems to\nanswer itself like an echo. With only half of an atrophied\nimagination, in a happy mood we could still see the nave and\ntransepts filled with ten thousand people on their knees, and the\nVirgin, crowned and robed, seating herself on the embroidered\ncushion that covered her imperial throne; sparkling with gems;\nbearing in her right hand the sceptre, and in her lap the infant\nKing; but, in the act of seating herself, we should see her pause a\nmoment to look down with love and sympathy on us,--her people,--who\npack the enormous hall, and throng far out beyond the open portals;\nwhile, an instant later, she glances up to see that her great lords,\nspiritual and temporal, the advisers of her judgment, the supports\nof her authority, the agents of her will, shall be in place; robed,\nmitred, armed; bearing the symbols of her authority and their\noffice; on horseback, lance in hand; all of them ready at a sign to\ncarry out a sentence of judgment or an errand of mercy; to touch\nwith the sceptre or to strike with the sword; and never err.\n\nThere they still stand! unchanged, unfaded, as alive and complete as\nwhen they represented the real world, and the people below were the\nunreal and ephemeral pageant! Then the reality was the Queen of\nHeaven on her throne in the sanctuary, and her court in the glass;\nnot the queens or princes who were prostrating themselves, with the\ncrowd, at her feet. These people knew the Virgin as well as they\nknew their own mothers; every jewel in her crown, every stitch of\ngold-embroidery in her many robes; every colour; every fold; every\nexpression on the perfectly familiar features of her grave, imperial\nface; every care that lurked in the silent sadness of her power;\nrepeated over and over again, in stone, glass, ivory, enamel, wood;\nin every room, at the head of every bed, hanging on every neck,\nstanding at every street-corner, the Virgin was as familiar to every\none of them as the sun or the seasons; far more familiar than their\nown earthly queen or countess, although these were no strangers in\ntheir daily life; familiar from the earliest childhood to the last\nagony; in every joy and every sorrow and every danger; in every act\nand almost in every thought of life, the Virgin was present with a\nreality that never belonged to her Son or to the Trinity, and hardly\nto any earthly being, prelate, king, or kaiser; her daily life was\nas real to them as their own loyalty which brought to her the best\nthey had to offer as the return for her boundless sympathy; but\nwhile they knew the Virgin as though she were one of themselves, and\nbecause she had been one of themselves, they were not so familiar\nwith all the officers of her court at Chartres; and pilgrims from\nabroad, like us, must always have looked with curious interest at\nthe pageant.\n\nFar down the nave, next the western towers, the rank began with\nsaints, prophets, and martyrs, of all ages and countries; local,\nlike Saint Lubin; national, like Saint Martin of Tours and Saint\nHilary of Poitiers; popular like Saint Nicholas; militant like Saint\nGeorge; without order; symbols like Abraham and Isaac; the Virgin\nherself, holding on her lap the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost;\nChrist with the Alpha and Omega; Moses and Saint Augustine; Saint\nPeter; Saint Mary the Egyptian; Saint Jerome; a whole throne-room of\nheavenly powers, repeating, within, the pageant carved on the\nporches and on the portals without. From the croisee in the centre,\nwhere the crowd is most dense, one sees the whole almost better than\nMary sees it from her high altar, for there all the great rose\nwindows flash in turn, and the three twelfth-century lancets glow on\nthe western sun. When the eyes of the throng are directed to the\nnorth, the Rose of France strikes them almost with a physical shock\nof colour, and, from the south, the Rose of Dreux challenges the\nRose of France.\n\nEvery one knows that there is war between the two! The thirteenth\ncentury has few secrets. There are no outsiders. We are one family\nas we are one Church. Every man and woman here, from Mary on her\nthrone to the beggar on the porch, knows that Pierre de Dreux\ndetests Blanche of Castile, and that their two windows carry on war\nacross the very heart of the cathedral. Both unite only in asking\nhelp from Mary; but Blanche is a woman, alone in the world with\nyoung children to protect, and most women incline strongly to\nsuspect that Mary will never desert her. Pierre, with all his\nmasculine strength, is no courtier. He wants to rule by force. He\ncarries the assertion of his sex into the very presence of the Queen\nof Heaven.\n\nThe year happens to be 1230, when the roses may be supposed just\nfinished and showing their whole splendour for the first time. Queen\nBlanche is forty-three years old, and her son Louis is fifteen.\nBlanche is a widow these four years, and Pierre a widower since\n1221. Both are regents and guardians for their heirs. They have\nnecessarily carried their disputes before Mary. Queen Blanche claims\nfor her son, who is to be Saint Louis, the place of honour at Mary's\nright hand; she has taken possession of the north porch outside, and\nof the north transept within, and has filled the windows with glass,\nas she is filling the porch with statuary. Above is the huge rose;\nbelow are five long windows; and all proclaim the homage that France\nrenders to the Queen of Heaven.\n\nThe Rose of France shows in its centre the Virgin in her majesty,\nseated, crowned, holding the sceptre with her right hand, while her\nleft supports the infant Christ-King on her knees; which shows that\nshe, too, is acting as regent for her Son. Round her, in a circle,\nare twelve medallions; four containing doves; four six-winged angels\nor Thrones; four angels of a lower order, but all symbolizing the\ngifts and endowments of the Queen of Heaven. Outside these are\ntwelve more medallions with the Kings of Judah, and a third circle\ncontains the twelve lesser prophets. So Mary sits, hedged in by all\nthe divinity that graces earthly or heavenly kings; while between\nthe two outer circles are twelve quatrefoils bearing on a blue\nground the golden lilies of France; and in each angle below the rose\nare four openings, showing alternately the lilies of Louis and the\ncastles of Blanche. We who are below, the common people, understand\nthat France claims to protect and defend the Virgin of Chartres, as\nher chief vassal, and that this ostentatious profusion of lilies and\ncastles is intended not in honour of France, but as a demonstration\nof loyalty to Notre Dame, and an assertion of her rights as Queen\nRegent of Heaven against all comers, but particularly against\nPierre, the rebel, who has the audacity to assert rival rights in\nthe opposite transept.\n\nBeneath the rose are five long windows, very unlike the twelfth-\ncentury pendants to the western rose. These five windows blaze with\nred, and their splendour throws the Virgin above quite into the\nbackground. The artists, who felt that the twelfth-century glass was\ntoo fine and too delicate for the new scale of the church, have not\nonly enlarged their scale and coarsened their design, but have\ncoarsened their colour-scheme also, discarding blue in order to\ncrush us under the earthly majesty of red. These windows, too, bear\nthe stamp and seal of Blanche's Spanish temper as energetically as\nthough they bore her portrait. The great central figure, the tallest\nand most commanding in the whole church, is not the Virgin, but her\nmother Saint Anne, standing erect as on the trumeau of the door\nbeneath, and holding the infant Mary on her left arm. She wears no\nroyal crown, but bears a flowered sceptre. The only other difference\nbetween Mary and her mother, that seems intended to strike\nattention, is that Mary sits, while her mother stands; but as though\nto proclaim still more distinctly that France supports the royal and\ndivine pretensions of Saint Anne, Queen Blanche has put beneath the\nfigure a great shield blazoned with the golden lilies on an azure\nground.\n\nWith singular insistence on this motive, Saint Anne has at either\nhand a royal court of her own, marked as her own by containing only\nfigures from the Old Testament. Standing next on her right is\nSolomon, her Prime Minister, bringing wisdom in worldly counsel, and\ntrampling on human folly. Beyond Wisdom stands Law, figured by Aaron\nwith the Book, trampling on the lawless Pharaoh. Opposite them, on\nSaint Anne's left, is David, the energy of State, trampling on a\nSaul suggesting suspicions of a Saul de Dreux; while last,\nMelchisedec who is Faith, tramples on a disobedient Nebuchadnezzar\nMauclerc.\n\nHow can we, the common people, help seeing all this, and much more,\nwhen we know that Pierre de Dreux has been for years in constant\nstrife with the Crown and the Church? He is very valiant and lion-\nhearted;--so say the chroniclers, priests though they are;--very\nskilful and experienced in war whether by land or sea; very adroit,\nwith more sense than any other great lord in France; but restless,\nfactious, and regardless of his word. Brave and bold as the day;\nfull of courtesy and \"largesse\"; but very hard on the clergy; a good\nChristian but a bad churchman! Certainly the first man of his time,\nsays Michelet! \"I have never found any that sought to do me more ill\nthan he,\" says Blanche, and Joinville gives her very words; indeed,\nthis year, 1230, she has summoned our own Bishop of Chartres among\nothers to Paris in a court of peers, where Pierre has been found\nguilty of treason and deposed. War still continues, but Pierre must\nmake submission. Blanche has beaten him in politics and in the\nfield! Let us look round and see how he fares in theology and art!\n\nThere is his rose--so beautiful that Blanche may well think it seeks\nto do hers ill! As colour, judge for yourselves whether it holds its\nown against the flaming self-assertion of the opposite wall! As\nsubject, it asserts flat defiance of the monarchy of Queen Blanche.\nIn the central circle, Christ as King is seated on a royal throne,\nboth arms raised, one holding the golden cup of eternal priesthood,\nthe other, blessing the world. Two great flambeaux burn beside Him.\nThe four Apocalyptic figures surround and worship Him; and in the\nconcentric circles round the central medallion are the angels and\nthe kings in a blaze of colour, symbolizing the New Jerusalem.\n\nAll the force of the Apocalypse is there, and so is some of the\nweakness of theology, for, in the five great windows below, Pierre\nshows his training in the schools. Four of these windows represent\nwhat is called, for want of a better name, the New Alliance; the\ndependence of the New Testament on the Old; but Pierre's choice in\nsymbols was as masculine as that of Blanche was feminine. In each of\nthe four windows, a gigantic Evangelist strides the shoulders of a\ncolossal Prophet. Saint John rides on Ezekiel; Saint Mark bestrides\nDaniel; Saint Matthew is on the shoulders of Isaiah; Saint Luke is\ncarried by Jeremiah. The effect verges on the grotesque. The balance\nof Christ's Church seems uncertain. The Evangelists clutch the\nProphets by the hair, and while the synagogue stands firm, the\nChurch looks small, feeble, and vacillating. The new dispensation\nhas not the air of mastery either physical or intellectual; the old\ngives it all the support it has, and, in the absence of Saint Paul,\nboth old and new seem little concerned with the sympathies of\nFrenchmen. The synagogue is stronger than the Church, but even the\nChurch is Jew.\n\nThat Pierre could ever have meant this is not to be dreamed; but\nwhen the true scholar gets thoroughly to work, his logic is\nremorseless, his art is implacable, and his sense of humour is\nblighted. In the rose above, Pierre had asserted the exclusive\nauthority of Christ in the New Jerusalem, and his scheme required\nhim to show how the Church rested on the Evangelists below, who in\ntheir turn had no visible support except what the Prophets gave\nthem. Yet the artist may have had a reason for weakening the\nEvangelists, because there remained the Virgin! One dares no more\nthan hint at a motive so disrespectful to the Evangelists; but it is\ncertainly true that, in the central window, immediately beneath the\nChrist, and His chief support, with the four staggering Evangelists\nand Prophets on either hand, the Virgin stands, and betrays no sign\nof weakness.\n\nThe compliment is singularly masculine; a kind of twelfth-century\nflattery that might have softened the anger of Blanche herself, if\nthe Virgin had been her own; but the Virgin of Dreux is not the\nVirgin of France. No doubt she still wears her royal crown, and her\nhead is circled with the halo; her right hand still holds the\nflowered sceptre, and her left the infant Christ, but she stands,\nand Christ is King. Note, too, that she stands directly opposite to\nher mother Saint Anne in the Rose of France, so as to place her one\nstage lower than the Virgin of France in the hierarchy. She is the\nSaint Anne of France, and shows it. \"She is no longer,\" says the\nofficial Monograph, \"that majestic queen who was seated on a throne,\nwith her feet on the stool of honour; the personages have become\nless imposing and the heads show the decadence.\" She is the Virgin\nof Theology; she has her rights, and no more; but she is not the\nVirgin of Chartres.\n\nShe, too, stands on an altar or pedestal, on which hangs a shield\nbearing the ermines, an exact counterpart of the royal shield\nbeneath Saint Anne. In this excessive display of armorial bearings--\nfor the two roses above are crowded with them--one likes to think\nthat these great princes had in their minds not so much the thought\nof their own importance--which is a modern sort of religion--as the\nthought of their devotion to Mary. The assertion of power and\nattachment by one is met by the assertion of equal devotion by the\nother, and while both loudly proclaim their homage to the Virgin,\neach glares defiance across the church. Pierre meant the Queen of\nHeaven to know that, in case of need, her left hand was as good as\nher right, and truer; that the ermines were as well able to defend\nher as the lilies, and that Brittany would fight her battles as\nbravely as France. Whether his meaning carried with it more devotion\nto the Virgin or more defiance to France depends a little on the\ndate of the windows, but, as a mere point of history, every one must\nallow that Pierre's promise of allegiance was kept more faithfully\nby Brittany than that of Blanche and Saint Louis has been kept by\nFrance.\n\nThe date seems to be fixed by the windows themselves. Beneath the\nProphets kneel Pierre and his wife Alix, while their two children,\nYolande and Jean, stand. Alix died in 1221. Jean was born in 1217.\nYolande was affianced in marriage in 1227, while a child, and given\nto Queen Blanche to be brought up as the future wife of her younger\nson John, then in his eighth year. When John died, Yolande was\ncontracted to Thibaut of Champagne in 1231, and Blanche is said to\nhave written to Thibaut in consequence: \"Sire Thibauld of Champagne,\nI have heard that you have covenanted and promised to take to wife\nthe daughter of Count Perron of Brittany. Wherefore I charge you, if\nyou do not wish to lose whatever you possess in the kingdom of\nFrance, not to do it. If you hold dear or love aught in the said\nkingdom, do it not.\" Whether Blanche wrote in these words or not,\nshe certainly prevented the marriage, and Yolande remained single\nuntil 1238 when she married the Comte de la Marche, who was, by the\nway, almost as bitter an enemy of Blanche as Pierre had been; but by\nthat time both Blanche and Pierre had ceased to be regents.\nYolande's figure in the window is that of a girl, perhaps twelve or\nfourteen years old; Jean is younger, certainly not more than eight\nor ten years of age; and the appearance of the two children shows\nthat the window itself should date between 1225 and 1230, the year\nwhen Pierre de Dreux was condemned because he had renounced his\nhomage to King Louis, declared war on him, and invited the King of\nEngland into France. As already told, Philippe Hurepel de Boulogne,\nthe Comte de la Marche, Enguerrand de Couci,--nearly all the great\nnobles,--had been leagued with Pierre de Dreux since Blanche's\nregency began in 1226.\n\nThat these transept windows harmonize at all, is due to the Virgin,\nnot to the donors. At the time they were designed, supposing it to\nbe during Blanche's regency (1226-36), the passions of these donors\nbrought France to momentary ruin, and the Virgin in Blanche's Rose\nde France, as she looked across the church, could not see a single\nfriend of Blanche. What is more curious, she saw enemies in plenty,\nand in full readiness for battle. We have seen in the centre of the\nsmall rose in the north transept, Philippe Hurepel still waiting her\norders; across the nave, in another small rose of the south\ntransept, sits Pierre de Dreux on his horse. The upper windows on\nthe side walls of the choir are very interesting but impossible to\nsee, even with the best glasses, from the floor of the church. Their\nsequence and dates have already been discussed; but their feeling is\nshown by the character of the Virgin, who in French territory, next\nthe north transept, is still the Virgin of France, but in Pierre's\nterritory, next the Rose de Dreux, becomes again the Virgin of\nDreux, who is absorbed in the Child,--not the Child absorbed in\nher,--and accordingly the window shows the chequers and ermines.\n\nThe figures, like the stone figures outside, are the earliest of\nFrench art, before any school of painting fairly existed. Among\nthem, one can see no friend of Blanche. Indeed, outside of her own\nimmediate family and the Church, Blanche had no friend of much\nimportance except the famous Thibaut of Champagne, the single member\nof the royal family who took her side and suffered for her sake, and\nwho, as far as books tell, has no window or memorial here. One might\nsuppose that Thibaut, who loved both Blanche and the Virgin, would\nhave claimed a place, and perhaps he did; but one seeks him in vain.\nIf Blanche had friends here, they are gone. Pierre de Dreux, lance\nin hand, openly defies her, and it was not on her brother-in-law\nPhilippe Hurepel that she could depend for defence.\n\nThis is the court pageant of the Virgin that shows itself to the\npeople who are kneeling at high mass. We, the public, whoever we\nare,--Chartrain, Breton, Norman, Angevin, Frenchman, Percherain, or\nwhat not,--know our local politics as intimately as our lords do, or\neven better, for our imaginations are active, and we do not love\nBlanche of Castile. We know how to read the passions that fill the\nchurch. From the north transept Blanche flames out on us in splendid\nreds and flings her Spanish castles in our face. From the south\ntransept Pierre retorts with a brutal energy which shows itself in\nthe Prophets who serve as battle-chargers and in the Evangelists who\nserve as knights,--mounted warriors of faith,--whose great eyes\nfollow us across the church and defy Saint Anne and her French\nshield opposite. Pierre was not effeminate; Blanche was fairly\nmasculine. Between them, as a matter of sex, we can see little to\nchoose; and, in any case, it is a family quarrel; they are all\ncousins; they are all equals on earth, and none means to submit to\nany superior except the Virgin and her Son in heaven. The Virgin is\nnot afraid. She has seen many troubles worse than this; she knows\nhow to manage perverse children, and if necessary she will shut them\nup in a darker room than ever their mothers kept open for them in\nthis world. One has only to look at the Virgin to see!\n\nThere she is, of course, looking down on us from the great window\nabove the high altar, where we never forget her presence! Is there a\nthought of disturbance there? Around the curve of the choir are\nseven great windows, without roses, filling the whole semicircle and\nthe whole vault, forty-seven feet high, and meant to dominate the\nnave as far as the western portal, so that we may never forget how\nMary fills her church without being disturbed by quarrels, and may\nunderstand why Saint Ferdinand and Saint Louis creep out of our\nsight, close by the Virgin's side, far up above brawls; and why\nFrance and Brittany hide their ugly or their splendid passions at\nthe ends of the transepts, out of sight of the high altar where Mary\nis to sit in state as Queen with the young King on her lap. In an\ninstant she will come, but we have a moment still to look about at\nthe last great decoration of her palace, and see how the artists\nhave arranged it.\n\nSince the building of Sancta Sofia, no artist has had such a chance.\nNo doubt, Rheims and Amiens and Bourges and Beauvais, which are now\nbuilding, may be even finer, but none of them is yet finished, and\nall must take their ideas from here. One would like, before looking\nat it, to think over the problem, as though it were new, and so\nchoose the scheme that would suit us best if the decoration were to\nbe done for the first time. The architecture is fixed; we have to do\nonly with the colour of this mass of seven huge windows, forty-seven\nfeet high, in the clerestory, round the curve of the choir, which\nclose the vista of the church as viewed from the entrance. This\nvista is about three hundred and thirty feet long. The windows rise\nabove a hundred feet. How ought this vast space to be filled? Should\nthe perpendicular upward leap of the architecture be followed and\naccented by a perpendicular leap of colour? The decorators of the\nfifteenth and sixteenth centuries seem to have thought so, and made\nperpendicular architectural drawings in yellow that simulated gold,\nand lines that ran with the general lines of the building. Many\nfifteenth-century windows seem to be made up of florid Gothic\ndetails rising in stages to the vault. No doubt critics complained,\nand still complain, that the monotony of this scheme, and its\ncheapness of intelligence, were objections; but at least the effect\nwas light, decorative, and safe. The artist could not go far wrong\nand was still at liberty to do beautiful work, as can be seen in any\nnumber of churches scattered broadcast over Europe and swarming in\nParis and France. On the other hand, might not the artist disregard\nthe architecture and fill the space with a climax of colour? Could\nhe not unite the Roses of France and Dreux above the high altar in\nan overpowering outburst of purples and reds? The seventeenth\ncentury might have preferred to mass clouds and colours, and Michael\nAngelo, in the sixteenth, might have known how to do it. What we\nwant is not the feeling of the artist so much as the feeling of\nChartres. What shall it be--the jewelled brilliancy of the western\nwindows, or the fierce self-assertion of Pierre Mauclerc, or the\nroyal splendour of Queen Blanche, or the feminine grace and\ndecorative refinement of the Charlemagne and Santiago windows in the\napse?\n\nNever again in art was so splendid a problem offered, either before\nor since, for the artist of Chartres solved it, as he did the whole\nmatter of fenestration, and later artists could only offer\nvariations on his work. You will see them at Bourges and Tours and\nin scores of thirteenth and fourteenth and fifteenth and sixteenth\ncentury churches and windows, and perhaps in some of the twentieth\ncentury,--all of them interesting and some of them beautiful,--and\nfar be it from us, mean and ignorant pilgrims of art, to condemn any\nintelligent effort to vary or improve the effect; but we have set\nout to seek the feeling, and while we think of art in relation to\nourselves, the sermon of Chartres, from beginning to end, teaches\nand preaches and insists and reiterates and hammers into our torpid\nminds the moral that the art of the Virgin was not that of her\nartists but her own. We inevitably think of our tastes; they thought\ninstinctively of hers.\n\nIn the transepts, Queen Blanche and Duke Perron, in legal possession\nof their territory, showed that they were thinking of each other as\nwell as of the Virgin, and claimed loudly that they ought each to be\nfirst in the Virgin's favour; and they stand there in place, as the\nthirteenth century felt them. Subject to their fealty to Mary, the\ntransepts belonged to them, and if Blanche did not, like Pierre,\nassert Herself and her son on the Virgin's window, perhaps she\nthought the Virgin would resent Pierre's boldness the more by\ncontrast with her own good taste. So far as is known, nowhere does\nBlanche appear in person at Chartres; she felt herself too near the\nVirgin to obtrude a useless image, or she was too deeply religious\nto ask anything for herself. A queen who was to have two children\nsainted, to intercede for her at Mary's throne, stood in a solitude\nalmost as unique as that of Mary, and might ignore the raw\nbrutalities of a man-at-arms; but neither she nor Pierre has carried\nthe quarrel into Mary's presence, nor has the Virgin condescended\neven to seem conscious of their temper. This is the theme of the\nartist--the purity, the beauty, the grace, and the infinite\nloftiness of Mary's nature, among the things of earth, and above the\nclamour of kings.\n\nTherefore, when we, and the crushed crowd of kneeling worshippers\naround us, lift our eyes at last after the miracle of the mass, we\nsee, far above the high altar, high over all the agitation of\nprayer, the passion of politics, the anguish of suffering, the\nterrors of sin, only the figure of the Virgin in majesty, looking\ndown on her people, crowned, throned, glorified, with the infant\nChrist on her knees. She does not assert herself; probably she\nintends to be felt rather than feared. Compared with the Greek\nVirgin, as you see her, for example, at Torcello, the Chartres\nVirgin is retiring and hardly important enough for the place. She is\nnot exaggerated either in scale, drawing, or colour. She shows not a\nsign of self-consciousness, not an effort for brilliancy, not a\ntrace of stage effect--hardly even a thought of herself, except that\nshe is at home, among her own people, where she is loved and known\nas well as she knows them. The seven great windows are one\ncomposition; and it is plain that the artist, had he been ordered to\nmake an exhibition of power, could have overwhelmed us with a storm\nof purple, red, yellows, or given us a Virgin of Passion who would\nhave torn the vault asunder; his ability is never in doubt, and if\nhe has kept true to the spirit of the western portal and the\ntwelfth-century, it is because the Virgin of Chartres was the Virgin\nof Grace, and ordered him to paint her so. One shudders to think how\na single false note--a suggestion of meanness, in this climax of\nline and colour--would bring the whole fabric down in ruins on the\neighteenth-century meanness of the choir below; and one notes,\nalmost bashfully, the expedients of the artists to quiet their\neffects. So the lines of the seven windows are built up, to avoid\nthe horizontal, and yet not exaggerate the vertical.\n\nThe architect counts here for more than the colourist; but the\ncolour, when you study it, suggests the same restraint. Three great\nwindows on the Virgin's right, balanced by three more on her left,\nshow the prophets and precursors of her Son; all architecturally\nsupport and exalt the Virgin, in her celestial atmosphere of blue,\nshot with red, calm in the certainty of heaven. Any one who is\nprematurely curious to see the difference in treatment between\ndifferent centuries should go down to the church of Saint Pierre in\nthe lower town, and study there the methods of the Renaissance. Then\nwe can come back to study again the ways of the thirteenth century.\nThe Virgin will wait; she will not be angry; she knows her power; we\nall come back to her in the end.\n\nOr the Renaissance, if one prefers, can wait equally well, while one\nkneels with the thirteenth century, and feels the little one still\ncan feel of what it felt. Technically these apsidal windows have not\nreceived much notice; the books rarely speak of them; travellers\nseldom look at them; and their height is such that even with the\nbest glass, the quality of the work is beyond our power to judge. We\nsee, and the artists meant that we should see, only the great lines,\nthe colour, and the Virgin. The mass of suppliants before the choir\nlook up to the light, clear blues and reds of this great space, and\nfeel there the celestial peace and beauty of Mary's nature and\nabode. There is heaven! and Mary looks down from it, into her\nchurch, where she sees us on our knees, and knows each one of us by\nname. There she actually is--not in symbol or in fancy, but in\nperson, descending on her errands of mercy and listening to each one\nof us, as her miracles prove, or satisfying our prayers merely by\nher presence which calms our excitement as that of a mother calms\nher child. She is there as Queen, not merely as intercessor, and her\npower is such that to her the difference between us earthly beings\nis nothing. Her quiet, masculine strength enchants us most. Pierre\nMauclerc and Philippe Hurepel and their men-at-arms are afraid of\nher, and the Bishop himself is never quite at his ease in her\npresence; but to peasants, and beggars, and people in trouble, this\nsense of her power and calm is better than active sympathy. People\nwho suffer beyond the formulas of expression--who are crushed into\nsilence, and beyond pain--want no display of emotion--no bleeding\nheart--no weeping at the foot of the Cross--no hysterics--no\nphrases! They want to see God, and to know that He is watching over\nHis own. How many women are there, in this mass of thirteenth\ncentury suppliants, who have lost children? Probably nearly all, for\nthe death rate is very high in the conditions of medieval life.\nThere are thousands of such women here, for it is precisely this\nclass who come most; and probably every one of them has looked up to\nMary in her great window, and has felt actual certainty, as though\nshe saw with her own eyes--there, in heaven, while she looked--her\nown lost baby playing with the Christ-Child at the Virgin's knee, as\nmuch at home as the saints, and much more at home than the kings.\nBefore rising from her knees, every one of these women will have\nbent down and kissed the stone pavement in gratitude for Mary's\nmercy. The earth, she says, is a sorry place, and the best of it is\nbad enough, no doubt, even for Queen Blanche and the Duchess Alix\nwho has had to leave her children here alone; but there above is\nMary in heaven who sees and hears me as I see her, and who keeps my\nlittle boy till I come; so I can wait with patience, more or less!\nSaints and prophets and martyrs are all very well, and Christ is\nvery sublime and just, but Mary knows!\n\nIt was very childlike, very foolish, very beautiful, and very true,-\n-as art, at least:--so true that everything else shades off into\nvulgarity, as you see the Persephone of a Syracusan coin shade off\ninto the vulgarity of a Roman emperor; as though the heaven that\nlies about us in our infancy too quickly takes colours that are not\nso much sober as sordid, and would be welcome if no worse than that.\nVulgarity, too, has feeling, and its expression in art has truth and\neven pathos, but we shall have time enough in our lives for that,\nand all the more because, when we rise from our knees now, we have\nfinished our pilgrimage. We have done with Chartres. For seven\nhundred years Chartres has seen pilgrims, coming and going more or\nless like us, and will perhaps see them for another seven hundred\nyears; but we shall see it no more, and can safely leave the Virgin\nin her majesty, with her three great prophets on either hand, as\ncalm and confident in their own strength and in God's providence as\nthey were when Saint Louis was born, but looking down from a\ndeserted heaven, into an empty church, on a dead faith.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nTHE THREE QUEENS\n\nAfter worshipping at the shrines of Saint Michael on his Mount and\nof the Virgin at Chartres, one may wander far and wide over France,\nand seldom feel lost; all later Gothic art comes naturally, and no\nnew thought disturbs the perfected form. Yet tourists of English\nblood and American training are seldom or never quite at home there.\nCommonly they feel it only as a stage-decoration. The twelfth and\nthirteenth centuries, studied in the pure light of political\neconomy, are insane. The scientific mind is atrophied, and suffers\nunder inherited cerebral weakness, when it comes in contact with the\neternal woman--Astarte, Isis, Demeter, Aphrodite, and the last and\ngreatest deity of all, the Virgin. Very rarely one lingers, with a\nmild sympathy, such as suits the patient student of human error,\nwilling to be interested in what he cannot understand. Still more\nrarely, owing to some revival of archaic instincts, he rediscovers\nthe woman. This is perhaps the mark of the artist alone, and his\nsolitary privilege. The rest of us cannot feel; we can only study.\nThe proper study of mankind is woman and, by common agreement since\nthe time of Adam, it is the most complex and arduous. The study of\nOur Lady, as shown by the art of Chartres, leads directly back to\nEve, and lays bare the whole subject of sex.\n\nIf it were worth while to argue a paradox, one might maintain that\nNature regards the female as the essential, the male as the\nsuperfluity of her world. Perhaps the best starting-point for study\nof the Virgin would be a practical acquaintance with bees, and\nespecially with queen bees. Precisely where the French man may come\nin, on the genealogical tree of parthenogenesis, one hesitates to\nsay; but certain it is that the French woman, from very early times,\nhas shown qualities peculiar to herself, and that the French woman\nof the Middle Ages was a masculine character. Almost any book which\ndeals with the social side of the twelfth century has something to\nsay on this subject, like the following page from M. Garreau's\nvolume published in 1899, on the \"Social State of France during the\nCrusades\":--\n\nA trait peculiar to this epoch is the close resemblance between the\nmanners of men and women. The rule that such and such feelings or\nacts are permitted to one sex and forbidden to the other was not\nfairly settled. Men had the right to dissolve in tears, and women\nthat of talking without prudery .... If we look at their\nintellectual level, the women appear distinctly superior. They are\nmore serious; more subtle. With them we do not seem dealing with the\nrude state of civilization that their husbands belong to .... As a\nrule, the women seem to have the habit of weighing their acts; of\nnot yielding to momentary impressions. While the sense of\nChristianity is more developed in them than in their husbands, on\nthe other hand they show more perfidy and art in crime .... One\nmight doubtless prove by a series of examples that the maternal\ninfluence when it predominated in the education of a son gave him a\nmarked superiority over his contemporaries. Richard Coeur-de-Lion\nthe crowned poet, artist, the king whose noble manners and refined\nmind in spite of his cruelty exercised so strong an impression on\nhis age, was formed by that brilliant Eleanor of Guienne who, in her\nstruggle with her husband, retained her sons as much as possible\nwithin her sphere of influence in order to make party chiefs of\nthem. Our great Saint Louis, as all know, was brought up exclusively\nby Blanche of Castile; and Joinville, the charming writer so worthy\nof Saint Louis's friendship, and apparently so superior to his\nsurroundings, was also the pupil of a widowed and regent mother.\n\nThe superiority of the woman was not a fancy, but a fact. Man's\nbusiness was to fight or hunt or feast or make love. The man was\nalso the travelling partner in commerce, commonly absent from home\nfor months together, while the woman carried on the business. The\nwoman ruled the household and the workshop; cared for the economy;\nsupplied the intelligence, and dictated the taste. Her ascendancy\nwas secured by her alliance with the Church, into which she sent her\nmost intelligent children; and a priest or clerk, for the most part,\ncounted socially as a woman. Both physically and mentally the woman\nwas robust, as the men often complained, and she did not greatly\nresent being treated as a man. Sometimes the husband beat her,\ndragged her about by the hair, locked her up in the house; but he\nwas quite conscious that she always got even with him in the end. As\na matter of fact, probably she got more than even. On this point,\nhistory, legend, poetry, romance, and especially the popular\nfabliaux--invented to amuse the gross tastes of the coarser class--\nare all agreed, and one could give scores of volumes illustrating\nit. The greatest men illustrate it best, as one might show almost at\nhazard. The greatest men of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth\ncenturies were William the Norman; his great grandson Henry II\nPlantagenet; Saint Louis of France; and, if a fourth be needed,\nRichard Coeur-de-Lion. Notoriously all these men had as much\ndifficulty as Louis XIV himself with the women of their family.\nTradition exaggerates everything it touches, but shows, at the same\ntime, what is passing in the minds of the society which tradites. In\nNormandy, the people of Caen have kept a tradition, told elsewhere\nin other forms, that one day, Duke William,--the Conqueror,--\nexasperated by having his bastardy constantly thrown in his face by\nthe Duchess Matilda, dragged her by the hair, tied to his horse's\ntail, as far as the suburb of Vaucelles; and this legend accounts\nfor the splendour of the Abbaye-aux-Dames, because William, the\ncommon people believed, afterwards regretted the impropriety, and\natoned for it by giving her money to build the abbey. The story\nbetrays the man's weakness. The Abbaye-aux-Dames stands in the same\nrelation to the Abbaye-aux-Hommes that Matilda took towards William.\nInferiority there was none; on the contrary, the woman was socially\nthe superior, and William was probably more afraid of her than she\nof him, if Mr. Freeman is right in insisting that he married her in\nspite of her having a husband living, and certainly two children. If\nWilliam was the strongest man in the eleventh century, his great-\ngrandson, Henry II of England, was the strongest man of the twelfth;\nbut the history of the time resounds with the noise of his battles\nwith Queen Eleanor whom he, at last, held in prison for fourteen\nyears. Prisoner as she was, she broke him down in the end. One is\ntempted to suspect that, had her husband and children been guided by\nher, and by her policy as peacemaker for the good of Guienne, most\nof the disasters of England and France might have been postponed for\nthe time; but we can never know the truth, for monks and historians\nabhor emancipated women,--with good reason, since such women are apt\nto abhor them,--and the quarrel can never be pacified. Historians\nhave commonly shown fear of women without admitting it, but the man\nof the Middle Ages knew at least why he feared the woman, and told\nit openly, not to say brutally. Long after Eleanor and Blanche were\ndead, Chaucer brought the Wife of Bath on his Shakespearean stage,\nto explain the woman, and as usual he touched masculine frailty with\ncaustic, while seeming to laugh at woman and man alike:--\n\n\"My liege lady! generally,\" quoth he,\n \"Women desiren to have soverainetee.\"\n\n\nThe point was that the Wife of Bath, like Queen Blanche and Queen\nEleanor, not only wanted sovereignty, but won and held it.\n\nThat Saint Louis, even when a grown man and king, stood in awe of\nhis mother, Blanche of Castile, was not only notorious but seemed to\nbe thought natural. Joinville recorded it not so much to mark the\nKing's weakness, as the woman's strength; for his Queen, Margaret of\nProvence, showed the courage which the King had not. Blanche and\nMargaret were exceedingly jealous of each other. \"One day,\" said\nJoinville, \"Queen Blanche went to the Queen's [Margaret] chamber\nwhere her son [Louis IX] had gone before to comfort her, for she was\nin great danger of death from a bad delivery; and he hid himself\nbehind the Queen [Margaret] to avoid being seen; but his mother\nperceived him, and taking him by the hand said: 'Come along! you\nwill do no good here!' and put him out of the chamber. Queen\nMargaret, observing this, and that she was to be separated from her\nhusband, cried aloud: 'Alas! will you not allow me to see my lord\neither living or dying?'\" According to Joinville, King Louis always\nhid himself when, in his wife's chamber, he heard his mother coming.\n\nThe great period of Gothic architecture begins with the coming of\nEleanor (1137) and ends with the passing of Blanche (1252).\nEleanor's long life was full of energy and passion of which next to\nnothing is known; the woman was always too slippery for monks or\nsoldiers to grasp.\n\nEleanor came to Paris, a Queen of fifteen years old, in 1137,\nbringing Poitiers and Guienne as the greatest dowry ever offered to\nthe French Crown. She brought also the tastes and manners of the\nSouth, little in harmony with the tastes and manners of Saint\nBernard whose authority at court rivalled her own. The Abbe Suger\nsupported her, but the King leaned toward the Abbe Bernard. What\nthis puritan reaction meant is a matter to be studied by itself, if\none can find a cloister to study in; but it bore the mark of most\npuritan reactions in its hostility to women. As long as the woman\nremained docile, she ruled, through the Church; but the man feared\nher and was jealous of her, and she of him. Bernard specially adored\nthe Virgin because she was an example of docile obedience to the\nTrinity who atoned for the indocility of Eve, but Eve herself\nremained the instrument of Satan, and French society as a whole\nshowed a taste for Eves.\n\n[Genealogical chart showing the relationships among the three\nqueens.]\n\nEleanor could hardly be called docile. Whatever else she loved, she\ncertainly loved rule. She shared this passion to the full with her\nonly great successor and rival on the English throne, Queen\nElizabeth, and she happened to become Queen of France at the moment\nwhen society was turning from worship of its military ideal, Saint\nMichael, to worship of its social ideal, the Virgin. According to\nthe monk Orderic, men had begun to throw aside their old military\ndress and manners even before the first crusade, in the days of\nWilliam Rufus (1087-1100), and to affect feminine fashions. In all\nages, priests and monks have denounced the growing vices of society,\nwith more or less reason; but there seems to have been a real\noutbreak of display at about the time of the first crusade, which\nset a deep mark on every sort of social expression, even down to the\nshoes of the statues on the western portal of Chartres:--\n\nA debauched fellow named Robert [said Orderic] was the first, about\nthe time of William Rufus, who introduced the practice of filling\nthe long points of the shoes with tow, and of turning them up like a\nram's horn. Hence he got the surname of Cornard; and this absurd\nfashion was speedily adopted by great numbers of the nobility as a\nproud distinction and sign of merit. At this time effeminacy was the\nprevailing vice throughout the world ... They parted their hair from\nthe crown of the head on each side of the forehead, and their locks\ngrew long like women, and wore long shirts and tunics, closely tied\nwith points ... In our days, ancient customs are almost all changed\nfor new fashions. Our wanton youths are sunk in effeminacy ... They\ninsert their toes in things like serpents' tails which present to\nview the shape of scorpions. Sweeping the dusty ground with the\nprodigious trains of their robes and mantles, they cover their hands\nwith gloves ...\n\nIf you are curious to follow these monkish criticisms on your\nancestors' habits, you can read Orderic at your leisure; but you\nwant only to carry in mind the fact that the generation of warriors\nwho fought at Hastings and captured Jerusalem were regarded by\nthemselves as effeminate, and plunged in luxury. \"Their locks are\ncurled with hot irons, and instead of wearing caps, they bind their\nheads with fillets. A knight seldom appears in public with his head\nuncovered and properly shaved according to the apostolic precept.\"\nThe effeminacy of the first crusade took artistic shape in the west\nportal of Chartres and the glass of Saint-Denis, and led instantly\nto the puritan reaction of Saint Bernard, followed by the gentle\nasceticism of Queen Blanche and Saint Louis. Whether the pilgrimages\nto Jerusalem and contact with the East were the cause or only a\nconsequence of this revolution, or whether it was all one,--a result\nof converting the Northern pagans to peaceful habits and the\nconsequent enrichment of northern Europe,--is indifferent; the fact\nand the date are enough. The art is French, but the ideas may have\ncome from anywhere, like the game of chess which the pilgrims or\ncrusaders brought home from Syria. In the Oriental game, the King\nwas followed step by step by a Minister whose functions were\npersonal. The crusaders freed the piece from control; gave it\nliberty to move up or down or diagonally, forwards and backwards;\nmade it the most arbitrary and formidable champion on the board,\nwhile the King and the Knight were the most restricted in movement;\nand this piece they named Queen, and called the Virgin:--\n\n    Li Baudrains traist sa fierge por son paon sauver,\n     E cele son aufin qui cuida conquester\n     La firge ou le paon, ou faire reculer.\n\n\nThe aufin or dauphin became the Fou of the French game, and the\nbishop of the English. Baldwin played his Virgin to save his pawn;\nhis opponent played the bishop to threaten either the Virgin or the\npawn.\n\nFor a hundred and fifty years, the Virgin and Queens ruled French\ntaste and thought so successfully that the French man has never yet\nquite decided whether to be more proud or ashamed of it. Life has\never since seemed a little flat to him, and art a little cheap. He\nsaw that the woman, in elevating herself, had made him appear\nridiculous, and he tried to retaliate with a wit not always\nsparkling, and too often at his own expense. Sometimes in museums or\ncollections of bric-a-brac, you will see, in an illuminated\nmanuscript, or carved on stone, or cast in bronze, the figure of a\nman on his hands and knees, bestridden by another figure holding a\nbridle and a whip; it is Aristotle, symbol of masculine wisdom,\nbridled and driven by woman. Six hundred years afterwards, Tennyson\nrevived the same motive in Merlin, enslaved not for a time but\nforever. In both cases the satire justly punished the man. Another\nversion of the same story--perhaps the original--was the Mystery of\nAdam, one of the earliest Church plays. Gaston Paris says \"it was\nwritten in England in the twelfth century, and its author had real\npoetic talent; the scene of the seduction of Eve by the serpent is\none of the best pieces of Christian dramaturgy ... This remarkable\nwork seems to have been played no longer inside the church, but\nunder the porch\":--\n\nDiabolus. Jo vi Adam mais trop est fols.\n\n\nEva. Un poi est durs.\n\n\nDiabolus. Il serra mols.\n Il est plus durs qui n'est enfers.\n\n\nEva. Il est mult francs.\n\n\nDiabolus. Ainz est mult sers.\n Cure ne volt prendre de sei\n Car la prenge sevals de tei.\n Tu es fieblette et tendre chose\n E es plus fresche que n'est rose.\n Tu es plus blanche que crystal\n Que neif que chiet sor glace en val.\n Mal cuple en fist li Criatur.\n Tu es trop tendre e il trop dur.\n Mais neporquant tu es plus sage\n En grant sens as mis tun corrage\n For co fait bon traire a tei.\n Parler te voil.\n\n\nEva. Ore ja fai.\n\n\nDevil. Adam I've seen, but he's too rough.\n\n\nEve. A little hard!\n\n\nDevil. He'll soon be soft enough!\n Harder than hell he is till now.\n\n\nEve. He's very frank!\n\n\nDevil. Say very low!\n To help himself he does not care;\n The helping you shall be my share;\n For you are tender, gentle, true,\n The rose is not so fresh as you;\n Whiter than crystal, or than snow\n That falls from heaven on ice below.\n A sorry mixture God has brewed,\n You too tender, he too rude.\n But you have much the greater sense,\n Your will is all intelligence.\n Therefore it is I turn to you.\n I want to tell you--\n\n\nEve. Do it now!\n\n\nThe woman's greater intelligence was to blame for Adam's fall. Eve\nwas justly punished because she should have known better, while\nAdam, as the Devil truly said, was a dull animal, hardly worth the\ntrouble of deceiving. Adam was disloyal, too, untrue to his wife\nafter being untrue to his Creator:--\n\nLa femme que tu me donas\n Ele fist prime icest trespass\n Donat le mei e jo mangai.\n Or mest vis tornez est a gwai\n Mal acontai icest manger.\n Jo ai mesfait par ma moiller.\n\n\nThe woman that you made me take\n First led me into this mistake.\n She gave the apple that I ate\n And brought me to this evil state.\n Badly for me it turned, I own,\n But all the fault is hers alone.\n\n\nThe audience accepted this as natural and proper. They recognized\nthe man as, of course, stupid, cowardly, and traitorous. The men of\nthe baser sort revenged themselves by boorishness that passed with\nthem for wit in the taverns of Arras, but the poets of the higher\nclass commonly took sides with the women. Even Chaucer, who lived\nafter the glamour had faded, and who satirized women to satiety,\ntold their tale in his \"Legend of Good Women,\" with evident\nsympathy. To him, also, the ordinary man was inferior,--stupid,\nbrutal, and untrue. \"Full brittle is the truest,\" he said:--\n\nFor well I wote that Christ himself telleth\n That in Israel, as wide as is the lond,\n That so great faith in all the loud he ne fond\n As in a woman, and this is no lie;\n And as for men, look ye, such tyrannie\n They doen all day, assay hem who so list,\n The truest is full brotell for to trist.\n\n\nNeither brutality nor wit helped the man much. Even Bluebeard in the\nend fell a victim to the superior qualities of his last wife, and\nScheherazade's wit alone has preserved the memory of her royal\nhusband. The tradition of thirteenth-century society still rules the\nFrench stage. The struggle between two strong-willed women to control\none weak-willed man is the usual motive of the French drama in the\nnineteenth century, as it was the whole motive of Partenopeus of\nBlois, one of the best twelfth-century romans; and Joinville\ndescribed it, in the middle of the thirteenth, as the leading motive\nin the court of Saint Louis, with Queen Blanche and Queen Margaret\nfor players, and Saint Louis himself for pawn.\n\nOne has only to look at the common, so-called Elzevirian, volume of\nthirteenth-century nouvelles to see the Frenchman as he saw himself.\nThe story of \"La Comtesse de Ponthieu\" is the more Shakespearean,\nbut \"La Belle Jehanne\" is the more natural and lifelike. The plot is\nthe common masculine intrigue against the woman, which was used over\nand over again before Shakespeare appropriated it in \"Much Ado\"; but\nits French development is rather in the line of \"All's Well.\" The\nfair Jeanne, married to a penniless knight, not at all by her\nchoice, but only because he was a favourite of her father's, was a\nwoman of the true twelfth-century type. She broke the head of the\ntraitor, and when he, with his masculine falseness, caused her\nhusband to desert her, she disguised herself as a squire and\nfollowed Sir Robert to Marseilles in search of service in war, for\nthe poor knight could get no other means of livelihood. Robert was\nthe husband, and the wife, in entering his service as squire without\npay, called herself John:--\n\nMolt fu mesire Robiers dolans cant il vint a Marselle de cou k'il\nn'oi parler de nulle chose ki fust ou pais; si dist a Jehan:\n\n--Ke ferons nous? Vous m'aves preste de vos deniers la vostre\nmierchi, si les vos renderai car je venderai mon palefroi et\nm'acuiterai a vous.\n\n--Sire, dist Jehans, crees moi se il vous plaist je vous dirai ke\nnous ferons; jou ai bien enchore c sous de tournois, s'll vous\nplaist je venderai nos ii chevaus et en ferai deniers; et je suis li\nmiousdres boulengiers ke vous sacies, si ferai pain francois et je\nne douc mie ke je ne gaagne bien et largement mon depens.\n\n--Jehans, dist mesire Robiers, je m'otroi del tout a faire votre\nvolente\n\nEt lendemam vendi Jehans ses .ii. chevaux X livres de tornois, et\nachata son ble et le fist muire, et achata des corbelles et\ncoumencha a faire pain francois si bon et si bien fait k'il en\nvendoit plus ke li doi melleur boulengier de la ville, et fist tant\ndedens les ii ans k'il ot bien c livres de katel. Lors dist Jehans a\nson segnour:\n\n--Je lo bien que nous louons une tres grant mason et jou akaterai\ndel vin et hierbegerai la bonne gent\n\n--Jehan, dist mesire Robiers, faites a vo volente kar je l'otroi et\nsi me loc molt de vous.\n\nJehans loua une mason grant et bielle, et si hierbrega la bonne gent\net gaegnoit ases a plente, et viestoit son segnour biellement et\nrichement, et avoit mesire Robiers son palefroi et aloit boire et\nmengier aveukes les plus vallans de la ville, et Jehans li envoioit\nvins et viandes ke tout cil ki o lui conpagnoient s'en\nesmervelloient. Si gaegna tant ke dedens .iiii ans il gaegna plus de\nccc livres de meuble sains son harnois qui valoit bien .L. livres.\n\nMuch was Sir Robert grieved when he came to Marseilles and found\nthat there was no talk of anything doing in the country, and he said\nto John: \"What shall we do? You have lent me your money, I thank\nyou, and will repay you, for I will sell my palfrey and discharge\nthe debt to you.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said John, \"trust to me, if you please, I will tell you what\nwe will do, I have still a hundred sous, if you please I will sell\nour two horses and turn them into money, and I am the best baker you\never knew, I will make French bread, and I've no doubt I shall pay\nmy expenses well and make money\"\n\n\"John,\" said Sir Robert, \"I agree wholly to do whatever you like\"\n\nAnd the next day John sold their two horse for ten pounds, and\nbought his wheat and had it ground, and bought baskets, and began to\nmake French bread so good and so well made that he sold more of it\nthan the two best bakers in the city, and made so much within two\nyears that he had a good hundred pound property Then he said to his\nlord \"I advise our hiring a very large house, and I will buy wine\nand will keep lodgings for good society\n\n\"John,\" said Sir Robert, \"do what you please, for I grant it, and am\ngreatly pleased with you.\"\n\nJohn hired a large and fine house and lodged the best people and\ngained a great plenty, and dressed his master handsomely and richly,\nand Sir Robert kept his palfrey and went out to eat and drink with\nthe best people of the city, and John sent them such wines and food\nthat all his companions marvelled at it. He made so much that within\nfour years he gained more than three hundred pounds in money besides\nclothes, etc, well worth fifty.\n\nThe docile obedience of the man to the woman seemed as reasonable to\nthe thirteenth century as the devotion of the woman to the man, not\nbecause she loved him, for there was no question of love, but\nbecause he was HER man, and she owned him as though he were child.\nThe tale went on to develop her character always in the same sense.\nWhen she was ready, Jeanne broke up the establishment at Marseilles,\nbrought her husband back to Hainault, and made him, without knowing\nher object, kill the traitor and redress her wrongs. Then after\nseven years' patient waiting, she revealed herself and resumed her\nplace.\n\nIf you care to see the same type developed to its highest capacity,\ngo to the theatre the first time some ambitious actress attempts the\npart of Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare realized the thirteenth-century\nwoman more vividly than the thirteenth-century poets ever did; but\nthat is no new thing to say of Shakespeare. The author of \"La\nComtesse de Ponthieu\" made no bad sketch of the character. These are\nfictions, but the Chronicles contain the names of women by scores\nwho were the originals of the sketch. The society which Orderic\ndescribed in Normandy--the generation of the first crusade--produced\na great variety of Lady Macbeths. In the country of Evreux, about\n1100, Orderic says that \"a worse than civil war was waged between\ntwo powerful brothers, and the mischief was fomented by the spiteful\njealousy of their haughty wives. The Countess Havise of Evreux took\noffence at some taunts uttered by Isabel de Conches,--wife of Ralph,\nthe Seigneur of Conches, some ten miles from Evreux,--and used all\nher influence with her husband, Count William, and his barons, to\nmake trouble ... Both the ladies who stirred up these fierce\nenmities were great talkers and spirited as well as handsome; they\nruled their husbands, oppressed their vassals, and inspired terror\nin various ways. But still their characters were very different.\nHavise had wit and eloquence, but she was cruel and avaricious.\nIsabel was generous, enterprising, and gay, so that she was beloved\nand esteemed by those about her. She rode in knight's armour when\nher vassals were called to war, and showed as much daring among men-\nat-arms and mounted knights as Camilla ...\" More than three hundred\nyears afterwards, far off in the Vosges, from a village never heard\nof, appeared a common peasant of seventeen years old, a girl without\nbirth, education, wealth, or claim of any sort to consideration, who\nmade her way to Chinon and claimed from Charles VII a commission to\nlead his army against the English. Neither the king nor the court\nhad faith in her, and yet the commission was given, and the rank-\nand-file showed again that the true Frenchman had more confidence in\nthe woman than in the man, no matter what the gossips might say. No\none was surprised when Jeanne did what she promised, or when the men\nburned her for doing it. There were Jeannes in every village.\nRidicule was powerless against them. Even Voltaire became what the\nFrench call frankly \"bete,\" in trying it.\n\nEleanor of Guienne was the greatest of all Frenchwomen. Her decision\nwas law, whether in Bordeaux or Poitiers, in Paris or in Palestine,\nin London or in Normandy; in the court of Louis VII, or in that of\nHenry II, or in her own Court of Love. For fifteen years she was\nQueen of France; for fifty she was Queen in England; for eighty or\nthereabouts she was equivalent to Queen over Guienne. No other\nFrenchwoman ever had such rule. Unfortunately, as Queen of France,\nshe struck against an authority greater than her own, that of Saint\nBernard, and after combating it, with Suger's help, from 1137 until\n1152, the monk at last gained such mastery that Eleanor quitted the\ncountry and Suger died. She was not a person to accept defeat. She\nroyally divorced her husband and went back to her own kingdom of\nGuienne. Neither Louis nor Bernard dared to stop her, or to hold her\nterritories from her, but they put the best face they could on their\ndefeat by proclaiming her as a person of irregular conduct. The\nirregularity would not have stood in their way, if they had dared to\nstand in hers, but Louis was much the weaker, and made himself\nweaker still by allowing her to leave him for the sake of Henry of\nAnjou, a story of a sort that rarely raised the respect in which\nFrench kings were held by French society. Probably politics had more\nto do with the matter than personal attachments, for Eleanor was a\ngreat ruler, the equal of any ordinary king, and more powerful than\nmost kings living in 1152. If she deserted France in order to join\nthe enemies of France, she had serious reasons besides love for\nyoung Henry of Anjou; but in any case she did, as usual, what\npleased her, and forced Louis to pronounce the divorce at a council\nheld at Beaugency, March 18, 1152, on the usual pretext of\nrelationship. The humours of the twelfth century were Shakespearean.\nEleanor, having obtained her divorce at Beaugency, to the deep\nregret of all Frenchmen, started at once for Poitiers, knowing how\nunsafe she was in any territory but her own. Beaugency is on the\nLoire, between Orleans and Blois, and Eleanor's first night was at\nBlois, or should have been; but she was told, on arriving, that\nCount Thibaut of Blois, undeterred by King Louis's experience, was\nmaking plans to detain her, with perfectly honourable views of\nmarriage; and, as she seems at least not to have been in love with\nThibaut, she was obliged to depart at once, in the night, to Tours.\nA night journey on horseback from Blois to Tours in the middle of\nMarch can have been no pleasure-trip, even in 1152; but, on arriving\nat Tours in the morning, Eleanor found that her lovers were still so\ndangerously near that she set forward at once on the road to\nPoitiers. As she approached her own territory she learned that\nGeoffrey of Anjou, the younger brother of her intended husband, was\nwaiting for her at the border, with views of marriage as strictly\nhonourable as those of all the others. She was driven to take\nanother road, and at last got safe to Poitiers.\n\nAbout no figure in the Middle Ages, man or woman, did so many\nlegends grow, and with such freedom, as about Eleanor, whose\nstrength appealed to French sympathies and whose adventures appealed\nto their imagination. They never forgave Louis for letting her go.\nThey delighted to be told that in Palestine she had carried on\nrelations of the most improper character, now with a Saracen slave\nof great beauty; now with Raymond of Poitiers, her uncle, the\nhandsomest man of his time; now with Saladin himself; and, as all\nthis occurred at Antioch in 1147 or 1148, they could not explain why\nher husband should have waited until 1152 in order to express his\nunwilling disapproval; but they quoted with evident sympathy a\nremark attributed to her that she thought she had married a king,\nand found she had married a monk. To the Frenchman, Eleanor remained\nalways sympathetic, which is the more significant because, in\nEnglish tradition, her character suffered a violent and incredible\nchange. Although English history has lavished on Eleanor somewhat\nmore than her due share of conventional moral reproof, considering\nthat, from the moment she married Henry of Anjou, May 18, 1152, she\nwas never charged with a breath of scandal, it atoned for her want\nof wickedness by French standards, in the usual manner of\nhistorians, by inventing traits which reflected the moral standards\nof England. Tradition converted her into the fairy-book type of\nfeminine jealousy and invented for her the legend of the Fair\nRosamund and the poison of toads.\n\nFor us, both legends are true. They reflected, not perhaps the\ncharacter of Eleanor, but what the society liked to see acted on its\ntheatre of life. Eleanor's real nature in no way concerns us. The\nsingle fact worth remembering was that she had two daughters by\nLouis VII, as shown in the table; who, in due time, married--Mary,\nin 1164, married Henry, the great Count of Champagne; Alix, at the\nsame time, became Countess of Chartres by marriage with Thibaut, who\nhad driven her mother from Blois in 1152 by his marital intentions.\nHenry and Thibaut were brothers whose sister Alix had married Louis\nVII in 1160, eight years after the divorce. The relations thus\ncreated were fantastic, especially for Queen Eleanor, who, besides\nher two French daughters, had eight children as Queen of England.\nHer second son, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, born in 1157, was affianced\nin 1174 to a daughter of Louis VII and Alix, a child only six years\nold, who was sent to England to be brought up as future queen. This\nwas certainly Eleanor's doing, and equally certain was it that the\nchild came to no good in the English court. The historians, by\nexception, have not charged this crime to Queen Eleanor; they\ncharged it to Eleanor's husband, who passed most of his life in\ncrossing his wife's political plans; but with politics we want as\nlittle as possible to do. We are concerned with the artistic and\nsocial side of life, and have only to notice the coincidence that\nwhile the Virgin was miraculously using the power of spiritual love\nto elevate and purify the people, Eleanor and her daughters were\nusing the power of earthly love to discipline and refine the courts.\nSide by side with the crude realities about them, they insisted on\nteaching and enforcing an ideal that contradicted the realities, and\nhad no value for them or for us except in the contradiction.\n\nThe ideals of Eleanor and her daughter Mary of Champagne were a form\nof religion, and if you care to see its evangels, you had best go\ndirectly to Dante and Petrarch, or, if you like it better, to Don\nQuixote de la Mancha. The religion is dead as Demeter, and its art\nalone survives as, on the whole, the highest expression of man's\nthought or emotion; but in its day it was almost as practical as it\nnow is fanciful. Eleanor and her daughter Mary and her granddaughter\nBlanche knew as well as Saint Bernard did, or Saint Francis, what a\nbrute the emancipated man could be; and as though they foresaw the\nsociety of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, they used every\nterror they could invent, as well as every tenderness they could\ninvoke, to tame the beasts around them. Their charge was of manners,\nand, to teach manners, they made a school which they called their\nCourt of Love, with a code of law to which they gave the name of\n\"courteous love.\" The decisions of this court were recorded, like\nthe decisions of a modern bench, under the names of the great ladies\nwho made them, and were enforced by the ladies of good society for\nwhose guidance they were made. They are worth reading, and any one\nwho likes may read them to this day, with considerable scepticism\nabout their genuineness. The doubt is only ignorance. We do not, and\nnever can, know the twelfth-century woman, or, for that matter, any\nother woman, but we do know the literature she created; we know the\nart she lived in, and the religion she professed. We can collect\nfrom them some idea why the Virgin Mary ruled, and what she was\ntaken to be, by the world which worshipped her.\n\nMary of Champagne created the literature of courteous love. She must\nhave been about twenty years old when she married Count Henry and\nwent to live at Troyes, not actually a queen in title, but certainly\na queen in social influence. In 1164, Champagne was a powerful\ncountry, and Troyes a centre of taste. In Normandy, at the same\ndate, William of Saint Pair and Wace were writing the poetry we\nknow. In Champagne the court poet was Christian of Troyes, whose\npoems were new when the churches of Noyon and Senlis and Saint Leu\nd'Esserent, and the fleche of Chartres, and the Leaning Tower of\nPisa, were building, at the same time with the Abbey of Vezelay, and\nbefore the church at Mantes. Christian died not long after 1175,\nleaving a great mass of verse, much of which has survived, and which\nyou can read more easily than you can read Dante or Petrarch,\nalthough both are almost modern compared with Christian. The quality\nof this verse is something like the quality of the glass windows--\nconventional decoration; colours in conventional harmonies;\nrefinement, restraint, and feminine delicacy of taste. Christian has\nnot the grand manner of the eleventh century, and never recalls the\nmasculine strength of the \"Chanson de Roland\" or \"Raoul de Cambrai.\"\nEven his most charming story, \"Erec et Enide,\" carries chiefly a\nmoral of courtesy. His is poet-laureate's work, says M. Gaston\nParis; the flower of a twelfth-century court and of twelfth-century\nFrench; the best example of an admirable language; but not lyric;\nneither strong, nor deep, nor deeply felt. What we call tragedy is\nunknown to it. Christian's world is sky-blue and rose, with only\nenough red to give it warmth, and so flooded with light that even\nits mysteries count only by the clearness with which they are shown.\n\nAmong other great works, before Mary of France came to Troyes\nChristian had, toward 1160, written a \"Tristan,\" which is lost. Mary\nherself, he says, gave him the subject of \"Lancelot,\" with the\nrequest or order to make it a lesson of \"courteous love,\" which he\nobeyed. Courtesy has lost its meaning as well as its charm, and you\nmight find the \"Chevalier de la Charette\" even more unintelligible\nthan tiresome; but its influence was great in its day, and the\nlesson of courteous love, under the authority of Mary of Champagne,\nlasted for centuries as the standard of taste. \"Lancelot\" was never\nfinished, but later, not long after 1174, Christian wrote a\n\"Perceval,\" or \"Conte du Graal,\" which must also have been intended\nto please Mary, and which is interesting because, while the\n\"Lancelot\" gave the twelfth-century idea of courteous love, the\n\"Perceval\" gave the twelfth-century idea of religious mystery. Mary\nwas certainly concerned with both. \"It is for this same Mary,\" says\nGaston Paris, \"that Walter of Arras undertook his poem of 'Eracle';\nshe was the object of the songs of the troubadours as well as of\ntheir French imitators; for her use also she caused the translations\nof books of piety like Genesis, or the paraphrase at great length,\nin verse, of the psalm 'Eructavit.'\"\n\nWith her theories of courteous love, every one is more or less\nfamiliar if only from the ridicule of Cervantes and the follies of\nQuixote, who, though four hundred years younger, was Lancelot's\nchild; but we never can know how far she took herself and her laws\nof love seriously, and to speculate on so deep a subject as her\nseriousness is worse than useless, since she would herself have been\nas uncertain as her lovers were. Visionary as the courtesy was, the\nHoly Grail was as practical as any bric-a-brac that has survived of\nthe time. The mystery of Perceval is like that of the Gothic\ncathedral, illuminated by floods of light, and enlivened by rivers\nof colour. Unfortunately Christian never told what he meant by the\nfragment, itself a mystery, in which he narrated the story of the\nknight who saw the Holy Grail, because the knight, who was warned,\nas usual, to ask no questions, for once, unlike most knights, obeyed\nthe warning when he should have disregarded it. As knights-errant\nnecessarily did the wrong thing in order to make their adventures\npossible, Perceval's error cannot be in itself mysterious, nor was\nthe castle in any way mysterious where the miracle occurred, It\nappeared to him to be the usual castle, and he saw nothing unusual\nin the manner of his reception by the usual old lord, or in the fact\nthat both seated themselves quite simply before the hall-fire with\nthe usual household. Then, as though it were an everyday habit, the\nHoly Grail was brought in (Bartsch, \"Chrestomathie,\" 183-85, ed.\n1895):--\n\nEt leans avail luminaire\n Si grant con l'an le porrait faire\n De chandoiles a un ostel.\n Que qu'il parloient d'un et d'el,\n Uns vallez d'une chambre vint\n Qui une blanche lance tint\n Ampoigniee par le mi lieu.\n Si passa par endroit le feu\n Et cil qui al feu se seoient,\n Et tuit cil de leans veoient\n La lance blanche et le fer blanc.\n S'issoit une gote de sang\n Del fer de la lance au sommet,\n Et jusqu'a la main au vaslet\n Coroit cele gote vermoille....\n A tant dui autre vaslet vindrent\n Qui chandeliers an lors mains tindrent\n De fin or ovrez a neel.\n Li vaslet estoient moult bel\n Qui les chandeliers aportoient.\n An chacun chandelier ardoient\n Dous chandoiles a tot le mains.\n Un graal antre ses dous mains\n Une demoiselle tenoit,\n Qui avec les vaslets venoit,\n Bele et gente et bien acesmee.\n Quant cle fu leans antree\n Atot le graal qu'ele tint\n Une si granz clartez i vint\n Qu'ausi perdirent les chandoiles\n Lor clarte come les estoiles\n Qant li solauz luist et la lune.\n Apres celi an revint une\n Qui tint un tailleor d'argent.\n\n\nLe graal qui aloit devant\n De fin or esmere estoit,\n Pierres precieuses avoit\n El graal de maintes menieres\n Des plus riches et des plus chieres\n Qui en mer ne en terre soient.\n Totes autres pierres passoient\n Celes del graal sanz dotance.\n\n\nTot ainsi con passa la lance\n Par devant le lit trespasserent\n Et d'une chambre a l'autre alerent.\n Et li vaslet les vit passer,\n Ni n'osa mire demander\n Del graal cui l'an an servoit.\n\n\nAnd, within, the hall was bright\n As any hall could be with light\n Of candles in a house at night.\n So, while of this and that they talked,\n A squire from a chamber walked,\n Bearing a white lance in his hand,\n Grasped by the middle, like a wand;\n And, as he passed the chimney wide,\n Those seated by the fireside,\n And all the others, caught a glance\n Of the white steel and the white lance.\n As they looked, a drop of blood\n Down the lance's handle flowed;\n Down to where the youth's hand stood.\n From the lance-head at the top\n They saw run that crimson drop....\n Presently came two more squires,\n In their hands two chandeliers,\n Of fine gold in enamel wrought.\n Each squire that the candle brought\n Was a handsome chevalier.\n There burned in every chandelier\n Two lighted candles at the least.\n A damsel, graceful and well dressed,\n Behind the squires followed fast\n Who carried in her hands a graal;\n And as she came within the hall\n With the graal there came a light So brilliant that the candles all\n Lost clearness, as the stars at night\n When moon shines, or in day the sun.\n After her there followed one\n Who a dish of silver bore.\n\n\nThe graal, which had gone before,\n Of gold the finest had been made,\n With precious stones had been inlaid,\n Richest and rarest of each kind\n That man in sea or earth could find.\n All other jewels far surpassed\n Those which the holy graal enchased.\n\n\nJust as before had passed the lance\n They all before the bed advance,\n Passing straightway through the hall,\n And the knight who saw them pass\n Never ventured once to ask\n For the meaning of the graal.\n\n\nThe simplicity of this narration gives a certain dramatic effect to\nthe mystery, like seeing a ghost in full daylight, but Christian\ncarried simplicity further still. He seemed either to feel, or to\nwant others to feel, the reality of the adventure and the miracle,\nand he followed up the appearance of the graal by a solid meal in\nthe style of the twelfth century, such as one expects to find in\n\"Ivanhoe\" or the \"Talisman.\" The knight sat down with his host to\nthe best dinner that the county of Champagne afforded, and they ate\ntheir haunch of venison with the graal in full view. They drank\ntheir Champagne wine of various sorts, out of gold cups:--\n\n   Vins clers ne raspez ne lor faut\n    A copes dorees a boivre;\n\n\nthey sat before the fire and talked till bedtime, when the squires\nmade up the beds in the hall, and brought in supper--dates, figs,\nnutmegs, spices, pomegranates, and at last lectuaries, suspiciously\nlike what we call jams; and \"alexandrine gingerbread\"; after which\nthey drank various drinks, with or without spice or honey or pepper;\nand old moret, which is thought to be mulberry wine, but which\ngenerally went with clairet, a colourless grape-juice, or piment. At\nleast, here are the lines, and one may translate them to suit one's\nself:--\n\nEt li vaslet aparellierent\n Les lis et le fruit au colchier\n Que il en i ot de moult chier,\n Dates, figues, et nois mugates,\n Girofles et pomes de grenates,\n Et leituaires an la fin,\n Et gingenbret alixandrin.\n Apres ce burent de maint boivre,\n Piment ou n'ot ne miel ne poivre\n Et viez more et cler sirop.\n\n\nThe twelfth century had the child's love of sweets and spices and\npreserved fruits, and drinks sweetened or spiced, whether they were\ntaken for supper or for poetry; the true knight's palate was fresh\nand his appetite excellent either for sweets or verses or love; the\nworld was young then; Robin Hoods lived in every forest, and Richard\nCoeur-de-Lion was not yet twenty years old. The pleasant adventures\nof Robin Hood were real, as you can read in the stories of a dozen\noutlaws, and men troubled themselves about pain and death much as\nhealthy bears did, in the mountains. Life had miseries enough, but\nfew shadows deeper than those of the imaginative lover, or the\nterrors of ghosts at night. Men's imaginations ran riot, but did not\nkeep them awake; at least, neither the preserved fruits nor the\nmulberry wine nor the clear syrup nor the gingerbread nor the Holy\nGraal kept Perceval awake, but he slept the sound and healthy sleep\nof youth, and when he woke the next morning, he felt only a mild\nsurprise to find that his host and household had disappeared,\nleaving him to ride away without farewell, breakfast, or Graal.\n\nChristian wrote about Perceval in 1174 in the same spirit in which\nthe workmen in glass, thirty years later, told the story of\nCharlemagne. One artist worked for Mary of Champagne; the others for\nMary of Chartres, commonly known as the Virgin; but all did their\nwork in good faith, with the first, fresh, easy instinct of colour,\nlight, and line. Neither of the two Maries was mystical, in a modern\nsense; none of the artists was oppressed by the burden of doubt;\ntheir scepticism was as childlike as faith. If one has to make an\nexception, perhaps the passion of love was more serious than that of\nreligion, and gave to religion the deepest emotion, and the most\ncomplicated one, which society knew. Love was certainly a passion;\nand even more certainly it was, as seen in poets like Dante and\nPetrarch,--in romans like \"Lancelot\" and \"Aucassin,\"--in ideals like\nthe Virgin,--complicated beyond modern conception. For this reason\nthe loss of Christian's \"Tristan\" makes a terrible gap in art, for\nChristian's poem would have given the first and best idea of what\nled to courteous love. The \"Tristan\" was written before 1160, and\nbelonged to the cycle of Queen Eleanor of England rather than to\nthat of her daughter Mary of Troyes; but the subject was one neither\nof courtesy nor of France; it belonged to an age far behind the\neleventh century, or even the tenth, or indeed any century within\nthe range of French history; and it was as little fitted for\nChristian's way of treatment as for any avowed burlesque. The\noriginal Tristan--critics say--was not French, and neither Tristan\nnor Isolde had ever a drop of French blood in their veins. In their\nform as Christian received it, they were Celts or Scots; they came\nfrom Brittany, Wales, Ireland, the northern ocean, or farther still.\nBehind the Welsh Tristan, which passed probably through England to\nNormandy and thence to France and Champagne, critics detect a far\nmore ancient figure living in a form of society that France could\nnot remember ever to have known. King Marc was a tribal chief of the\nStone Age whose subjects loved the forest and lived on the sea or in\ncaves; King Marc's royal hall was a common shelter on the banks of a\nstream, where every one was at home, and king, queen, knights,\nattendants, and dwarf slept on the floor, on beds laid down where\nthey pleased; Tristan's weapons were the bow and stone knife; he\nnever saw a horse or a spear; his ideas of loyalty and Isolde's\nideas of marriage were as vague as Marc's royal authority; and all\nwere alike unconscious of law, chivalry, or church. The note they\nsang was more unlike the note of Christian, if possible, than that\nof Richard Wagner; it was the simplest expression of rude and\nprimitive love, as one could perhaps find it among North American\nIndians, though hardly so defiant even there, and certainly in the\nIcelandic Sagas hardly so lawless; but it was a note of real\npassion, and touched the deepest chords of sympathy in the\nartificial society of the twelfth century, as it did in that of the\nnineteenth. The task of the French poet was to tone it down and give\nit the fashionable dress, the pointed shoes and long sleeves, of the\ntime. \"The Frenchman,\" says Gaston Paris, \"is specially interested\nin making his story entertaining for the society it is meant for; he\nis 'social'; that is, of the world; he smiles at the adventures he\ntells, and delicately lets you see that he is not their dupe; he\nexerts himself to give to his style a constant elegance, a uniform\npolish, in which a few neatly turned, clever phrases sparkle here\nand there; above all, he wants to please, and thinks of his audience\nmore than of his subject.\"\n\nIn the twelfth century he wanted chiefly to please women, as Orderic\ncomplained; Isolde came out of Brittany to meet Eleanor coming up\nfrom Guienne, and the Virgin from the east; and all united in giving\nlaw to society. In each case it was the woman, not the man, who gave\nthe law;--it was Mary, not the Trinity; Eleanor, not Louis VII;\nIsolde, not Tristan. No doubt, the original Tristan had given the\nlaw like Roland or Achilles, but the twelfth-century Tristan was a\ncomparatively poor creature. He was in his way a secondary figure in\nthe romance, as Louis VII was to Eleanor and Abelard to Heloise.\nEvery one knows how, about twenty years before Eleanor came to\nParis, the poet-professor Abelard, the hero of the Latin Quarter,\nhad sung to Heloise those songs which--he tells us--resounded\nthrough Europe as widely as his scholastic fame, and probably to\nmore effect for his renown. In popular notions Heloise was Isolde,\nand would in a moment have done what Isolde did (Bartsch, 107-08):--\n\nQuaint reis Marcs nus out conjeies\n E de sa curt nus out chascez,\n As mains ensemble nus preismes\n E hors de la sale en eissimes,\n A la forest puis en alasmes\n\n\nE un mult bel liu i trouvames\n E une roche, fu cavee,\n Devant ert estraite la entree,\n Dedans fu voesse ben faite,\n Tante bel cum se fust portraite.\n\n\nWhen King Marc had banned us both,\n And from his court had chased us forth,\n Hand in hand each clasping fast\n Straight from out the hall we passed;\n To the forest turned our face;\n\n\nFound in it a perfect place,\n Where the rock that made a cave\n Hardly more than passage gave;\n Spacious within and fit for use,\n As though it had been planned for us.\n\n\nAt any time of her life, Heloise would have defied society or\nchurch, and would--at least in the public's fancy--have taken\nAbelard by the hand and gone off to the forest much more readily\nthan she went to the cloister; but Abelard would have made a poor\nfigure as Tristan. Abelard and Christian of Troyes were as remote as\nwe are from the legendary Tristan; but Isolde and Heloise, Eleanor\nand Mary were the immortal and eternal woman. The legend of Isolde,\nboth in the earlier and the later version, seems to have served as a\nsacred book to the women of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,\nand Christian's Isolde surely helped Mary in giving law to the Court\nof Troyes and decisions in the Court of Love.\n\nCountess Mary's authority lasted from 1164 to 1198, thirty-four\nyears, during which, at uncertain intervals, glimpses of her\ninfluence flash out in poetry rather than in prose. Christian began\nhis \"Roman de la Charette\" by invoking her:--\n\nPuisque ma dame de Chanpaigne\n Vialt que romans a faire anpraigne\n\n\nSi deist et jel tesmoignasse\n Que ce est la dame qui passe\n Totes celes qui sont vivanz\n Si con li funs passe les vanz\n Qui vante en Mai ou en Avril\n\n\nDirai je: tant com une jame\n Vaut de pailes et de sardines\n Vaut la contesse de reines?\n\n\nChristian chose curious similes. His dame surpassed all living\nrivals as smoke passes the winds that blow in May; or as much as a\ngem would buy of straws and sardines is the Countess worth in\nqueens. Louis XIV would have thought that Christian might be\nlaughing at him, but court styles changed with their masters. Louis\nXIV would scarcely have written a prison-song to his sister such as\nRichard Coeur-de-Lion wrote to Mary of Champagne:--\n\nJa nus bons pris ne dirat sa raison\n Adroitement s'ansi com dolans non;\n Mais par confort puet il faire chanson.\n Moult ai d'amins, mais povre sont li don;\n Honte en avront se por ma reancon\n Suix ces deus yvers pris.\n\nCeu sevent bien mi home et mi baron,\n Englois, Normant, Poitevin et Gascon,\n Ke je n'avoie si povre compaingnon\n Cui je laissasse por avoir au prixon.\n Je nel di pas por nulle retraison,\n Mais ancor suix je pris.\n\n\nOr sai ge bien de voir certainement\n Ke mors ne pris n'ait amin ne parent,\n Cant on me lait por or ne por argent.\n Moult m'est de moi, mais plus m'est de ma gent\n C'apres ma mort avront reprochier grant\n Se longement suix pris.\n\n\nN'est pas mervelle se j'ai lo cuer dolent\n Cant li miens sires tient ma terre en torment.\n S'or li menbroit de nostre sairement\n Ke nos feismes andui communament,\n Bien sai de voir ke ceans longement\n Ne seroie pas pris.\n\n\nCe sevent bien Angevin et Torain,\n Cil bacheler ki or sont fort et sain,\n C'ancombreis suix long d'aus en autrui main.\n Forment m'amoient, mais or ne m'aimment grain.\n De belles armes sont ores veut cil plain,\n Por tant ke je suix pris.\n\n\nMes compaingnons cui j'amoie et cui j'aim,\n Ces dou Caheu et ces dou Percherain,\n Me di, chanson, kil ne sont pas certain,\n\n\nC'onques vers aus n'en oi cuer faus ne vain.\n S'il me guerroient, il font moult que villain\n Tant com je serai pris.\n\n\nComtesse suer, vostre pris soverain\n Vos saut et gart cil a cui je me claim\n Et par cui je suix pris.\n Je n'ou di pas de celi de Chartain\n La meire Loweis.\n\n\nNo prisoner can tell his honest thought\n Unless he speaks as one who suffers wrong;\n But for his comfort he may make a song.\n My friends are many, but their gifts are naught.\n Shame will be theirs, if, for my ransom, here\n I lie another year.\n\n\nThey know this well, my barons and my men,\n Normandy, England, Gascony, Poitou,\n That I had never follower so low\n Whom I would leave in prison to my gain.\n I say it not for a reproach to them,\n But prisoner I am!\n\n\nThe ancient proverb now I know for sure:\n Death and a prison know nor kin nor tie,\n Since for mere lack of gold they let me lie.\n Much for myself I grieve; for them still more.\n After my death they will have grievous wrong\n If I am prisoner long.\n\n\nWhat marvel that my heart is sad and sore\n When my own lord torments my helpless lands!\n Well do I know that, if he held his hands,\n Remembering the common oath we swore,\n I should not here imprisoned with my song,\n Remain a prisoner long.\n\n\nThey know this well who now are rich and strong\n Young gentlemen of Anjou and Touraine,\n That far from them, on hostile bonds I strain.\n They loved me much, but have not loved me long.\n Their plains will see no more fair lists arrayed,\n While I lie here betrayed.\n\n\nCompanions, whom I loved, and still do love,\n Geoffroi du Perche and Ansel de Caleux,\n Tell them, my song, that they are friends untrue.\n\n\nNever to them did I false-hearted prove;\n But they do villainy if they war on me,\n While I lie here, unfree.\n\n\nCountess sister! your sovereign fame\n May he preserve whose help I claim,\n Victim for whom am I!\n I say not this of Chartres' dame,\n Mother of Louis!\n\n\nRichard's prison-song, one of the chief monuments of English\nliterature, sounds to every ear, accustomed to twelfth-century\nverse, as charming as when it was household rhyme to\n\n                 mi ome et mi baron\n    Englois, Normant, Poitevin et Gascon.\n\n\nNot only was Richard a far greater king than any Louis ever was, but\nhe also composed better poetry than any other king who is known to\ntourists, and, when he spoke to his sister in this cry of the heart\naltogether singular among monarchs, he made law and style, above\ndiscussion. Whether he meant to reproach his other sister, Alix of\nChartres, historians may tell, if they know. If he did, the reproach\nanswered its purpose, for the song was written in 1193; Richard was\nransomed and released in 1194; and in 1198 the young Count \"Loweis\"\nof Chartres and Blois leagued with the Counts of Flanders, Le\nPerche, Guines, and Toulouse, against Philip Augustus, in favor of\nCoeur-de-Lion to whom they rendered homage. In any case, neither\nMary nor Alice in 1193 was reigning Countess. Mary was a widow since\n1181, and her son Henry was Count in Champagne, apparently a great\nfavourite with his uncle Richard Coeur-de-Lion. The life of this\nHenry of Champagne was another twelfth-century romance, but can\nserve no purpose here except to recall the story that his mother,\nthe great Countess Mary, died in 1198 of sorrow for the death of\nthis son, who was then King of Jerusalem, and was killed, in 1197,\nby a fall from the window of his palace at Acre. Coeur-de-Lion died\nin 1199. In 1201, Mary's other son, who succeeded Henry,--Count\nThibaut III,--died, leaving a posthumous heir, famous in the\nthirteenth century as Thibaut-le-Grand--the Thibaut of Queen\nBlanche.\n\nThey were all astonishing--men and women--and filled the world, for\ntwo hundred years, with their extraordinary energy and genius; but\nthe greatest of all was old Queen Eleanor, who survived her son\nCoeur-de-Lion, as well as her two husbands,--Louis-le-Jeune and\nHenry II Plantagenet,--and was left in 1200 still struggling to\nrepair the evils and fend off the dangers they caused. \"Queen by the\nwrath of God,\" she called herself, and she knew what just claim she\nhad to the rank. Of her two husbands and ten children, little\nremained except her son John, who, by the unanimous voice of his\nfamily, his friends, his enemies, and even his admirers, achieved a\nreputation for excelling in every form of twelfth-century crime. He\nwas a liar and a traitor, as was not uncommon, but he was thought to\nbe also a coward, which, in that family, was singular. Some\nredeeming quality he must have had, but none is recorded. His mother\nsaw him running, in his masculine, twelfth-century recklessness, to\ndestruction, and she made a last and a characteristic effort to save\nhim and Guienne by a treaty of amity with the French king, to be\nsecured by the marriage of the heir of France, Louis, to Eleanor's\ngranddaughter, John's niece, Blanche of Castile, then twelve or\nthirteen years old. Eleanor herself was eighty, and yet she made the\njourney to Spain, brought back the child to Bordeaux, affianced her\nto Louis VIII as she had herself been affianced in 1137 to Louis\nVII, and in May, 1200, saw her married. The French had then given up\ntheir conventional trick of attributing Eleanor's acts to her want\nof morals; and France gave her--as to most women after sixty years\nold--the benefit of the convention which made women respectable\nafter they had lost the opportunity to be vicious. In French eyes,\nEleanor played out the drama according to the rules. She could not\nsave John, but she died in 1202, before his ruin, and you can still\nsee her lying with her husband and her son Richard at Fontevrault in\nher twelfth-century tomb.\n\nIn 1223, Blanche became Queen of France. She was thirty-six years\nold. Her husband, Louis VIII, was ambitious to rival his father,\nPhilip Augustus, who had seized Normandy in 1203. Louis undertook to\nseize Toulouse and Avignon. In 1225, he set out with a large army in\nwhich, among the chief vassals, his cousin Thibaut of Champagne led\na contingent. Thibaut was five-and-twenty years old, and, like\nPierre de Dreux, then Duke of Brittany, was one of the most\nbrilliant and versatile men of his time, and one of the greatest\nrulers. As royal vassal Thibaut owed forty days' service in the\nfield; but his interests were at variance with the King's, and at\nthe end of the term he marched home with his men, leaving the King\nto fall ill and die in Auvergne, November 8, 1226, and a child of\nten years old to carry on the government as Louis IX.\n\nChartres Cathedral has already told the story twice, in stone and\nglass; but Thibaut does not appear there, although he saved the\nQueen. Some member of the royal family must be regent. Queen Blanche\ntook the place, and of course the princes of the blood, who thought\nit was their right, united against her. At first, Blanche turned\nviolently on Thibaut and forbade him to appear at the coronation at\nRheims in his own territory, on November 29, as though she held him\nguilty of treason; but when the league of great vassals united to\ndeprive her of the regency, she had no choice but to detach at any\ncost any member of the league, and Thibaut alone offered help. What\nprice she paid him was best known to her; but what price she would\nbe believed to have paid him was as well known to her as what had\nbeen said of her grandmother Eleanor when she changed her allegiance\nin 1152. If the scandal had concerned Thibaut alone, she might have\nbeen well content, but Blanche was obliged also to pay desperate\ncourt to the papal legate. Every member of her husband's family\nunited against her and libelled her character with the freedom which\nenlivened and envenomed royal tongues.\n\n  Maintes paroles en dit en\n   Comme d'Iseult et de Tristan.\n\n\nHad this been all, she would have cared no more than Eleanor or any\nother queen had cared, for in French drama, real or imaginary, such\ncharges were not very serious and hardly uncomplimentary; but Iseult\nhad never been accused, over and above her arbitrary views on the\nmarriage-contract, of acting as an accomplice with Tristan in\npoisoning King Marc. French convention required that Thibaut should\nhave poisoned Louis VIII for love of the Queen, and that this secret\nreciprocal love should control their lives. Fortunately for Blanche\nshe was a devout ally of the Church, and the Church believed evil\nonly of enemies. The legate and the prelates rallied to her support\nand after eight years of desperate struggle they crushed Pierre\nMauclerc and saved Thibaut and Blanche.\n\nFor us the poetry is history, and the facts are false. French art\nstarts not from facts, but from certain assumptions as conventional\nas a legendary window, and the commonest convention is the Woman.\nThe fact, then as now, was Power, or its equivalent in exchange, but\nFrenchmen, while struggling for the Power, expressed it in terms of\nArt. They looked on life as a drama,--and on drama as a phase of\nlife--in which the bystanders were bound to assume and accept the\nregular stage-plot. That the plot might be altogether untrue to real\nlife affected in no way its interest. To them Thibaut and Blanche\nwere bound to act Tristan and Isolde. Whatever they were when off\nthe stage, they were lovers on it. Their loves were as real and as\nreasonable as the worship of the Virgin. Courteous love was avowedly\na form of drama, but not the less a force of society. Illusion for\nillusion, courteous love, in Thibaut's hands, or in the hands of\nDante and Petrarch, was as substantial as any other convention;--the\nbalance of trade, the rights of man, or the Athanasian Creed. In\nthat sense the illusions alone were real; if the Middle Ages had\nreflected only what was practical, nothing would have survived for\nus.\n\nThibaut was Tristan, and is said to have painted his verses on the\nwalls of his chateau. If he did, he painted there, in the opinion of\nM. Gaston Paris, better poetry than any that was written on paper or\nparchment, for Thibaut was a great prince and great poet who did in\nboth characters whatever he pleased. In modern equivalents, one\nwould give much to see the chateau again with the poetry on its\nwalls. Provins has lost the verses, but Troyes still keeps some\nchurches and glass of Thibaut's time which hold their own with the\nbest. Even of Thibaut himself, something survives, and though it\nwere only the memories of his seneschal, the famous Sire de\nJoinville, history and France would be poor without him. With\nJoinville in hand, you may still pass an hour in the company of\nthese astonishing thirteenth-century men and women:--crusaders who\nfight, hunt, make love, build churches, put up glass windows to the\nVirgin, buy missals, talk scholastic philosophy, compose poetry:\nBlanche, Thibaut, Perron, Joinville, Saint Louis, Saint Thomas,\nSaint Dominic, Saint Francis--you may know them as intimately as you\ncan ever know a world that is lost; and in the case of Thibaut you\nmay know more, for he is still alive in his poems; he even vibrates\nwith life. One might try a few verses, to see what he meant by\ncourtesy. Perhaps he wrote them for Queen Blanche, but, to whomever\nhe sent them, the French were right in thinking that she ought to\nhave returned his love (edition of 1742):--\n\nNus hom ne puet ami reconforter\n Se cele non ou il a son cuer mis.\n Pour ce m'estuet sovent plaindre et plourer\n Que mis confors ne me vient, ce m'est vis,\n De la ou j'ai tote ma remembrance.\n Pour bien amer ai sovent esmaiance\n   A dire voir.\n Dame, merci! donez moi esperance\n   De joie avoir.\n\n\nJene puis pas sovent a li parler\n Ne remirer les biaus iex de son vis.\n Ce pois moi que je n'i puis aler\n Car ades est mes cuers ententis.\n\n\nHo! bele riens, douce sans conoissance,\n Car me mettez en millor attendance\n   De bon espoir!\n Dame, merci! donez moi esperance\n   De joie avoir.\n\n\nAucuns si sont qui me vuelent blamer\n Quant je ne di a qui je suis amis;\n Mais ja, dame, ne saura mon penser\n Nus qui soit nes fors vous cui je le dis\n Couardement a pavours a doutance\n Dont puestes vous lors bien a ma semblance\n   Mon cuer savoir.\n Dame, merci! donez moi esperance\n   De joie avoir.\n\n\nThere is no comfort to be found for pain\n Save only where the heart has made its home.\n Therefore I can but murmur and complain\n Because no comfort to my pain has come\n From where I garnered all my happiness.\n From true love have I only earned distress\n   The truth to say.\n Grace, lady! give me comfort to possess\n   A hope, one day.\n\n\nSeldom the music of her voice I hear\n Or wonder at the beauty of her eyes.\n It grieves me that I may not follow there\n Where at her feet my heart attentive lies.\n\n\nOh, gentle Beauty without consciousness,\n Let me once feel a moment's hopefulness,\n   If but one ray!\n Grace, lady! give me comfort to possess\n   A hope, one day.\n\n\nCertain there are who blame upon me throw\n Because I will not tell whose love I seek;\n But truly, lady, none my thought shall know,\n None that is born, save you to whom I speak\n In cowardice and awe and doubtfulness,\n That you may happily with fearlessness\n   My heart essay.\n Grace, lady! give me comfort to possess\n   A hope, one day.\n\n\nDoes Thibaut's verse sound simple? It is the simplicity of the\nthirteenth-century glass--so refined and complicated that sensible\npeople are mostly satisfied to feel, and not to understand. Any\nblunderer in verse, who will merely look at the rhymes of these\nthree stanzas, will see that simplicity is about as much concerned\nthere as it is with the windows of Chartres; the verses are as\nperfect as the colours, and the versification as elaborate. These\nstanzas might have been addressed to Queen Blanche; now see how\nThibaut kept the same tone of courteous love in addressing the Queen\nof Heaven!\n\nDe grant travail et de petit esploit\n   Voi ce siegle cargie et encombre\n   Que tant somes plain de maleurte\n Ke nus ne pens a faire ce qu'il doit,\n   Ains avons si le Deauble trouve\n Qu'a lui servir chascuns paine et essaie\n Et Diex ki ot pour nos ja cruel plaie\n   Metons arrier et sa grant dignite;\n Molt est hardis qui pour mort ne s'esmaie.\n\n\nDiex que tout set et tout puet et tout voit\n   Nous auroit tost en entre-deus giete\n   Se la Dame plaine de grant bonte\n Pardelez lui pour nos ne li prioit\n\n\n  Si tres douc mot plaisant et savoure\n Le grant courous dou grant Signour apaie;\n Molt par est fox ki autre amor essai\n   K'en cestui n'a barat ne fausete\n Ne es autres n'a ne merti ne manaie.\n\n\nLa souris quiert pour son cors garandir\n   Contre l'yver la noif et le forment\n   Et nous chaitif nous n'alons rien querant\n Quant nous morrons ou nous puissions garir.\n Nous ne cherchons fors k'infer le puant;\n Or esgardes come beste sauvage\n Pourvoit de loin encontre son domage\n   Et nous n'avons ne sens ne hardement;\n Il est avis que plain somes de rage.\n\n\nLi Deable a getey por nos ravir\n   Quatre amecons aescbies de torment;\n   Covoitise lance premierement\n Et puis Orguel por sa grant rois emplir\n   Et Luxure va le batel trainant\n Felonie les governe et les nage.\n Ensi peschant s'en viegnent au rivage\n   Dont Diex nous gart par son commandement\n En qui sains fons nous feismes homage.\n\n\nA la Dame qui tous les bien avance\n   T'en va, chancon s'el te vielt escouter\n Onques ne fu nus di millor chaunce.\n\n\nWith travail great, and little cargo fraught,\n   See how our world is labouring in pain;\n   So filled we are with love of evil gain\n That no one thinks of doing what he ought,\n   But we all hustle in the Devil's train,\n And only in his service toil and pray;\n And God, who suffered for us agony,\n   We set behind, and treat him with disdain;\n Hardy is he whom death does not dismay.\n\n\nGod who rules all, from whom we can hide nought,\n   Had quickly flung us back to nought again\n   But that our gentle, gracious, Lady Queen\n Begged him to spare us, and our pardon wrought;\n\n\n  Striving with words of sweetness to restrain\n Our angry Lord, and his great wrath allay.\n Felon is he who shall her love betray\n   Which is pure truth, and falsehood cannot feign,\n While all the rest is lie and cheating play.\n\n\nThe feeble mouse, against the winter's cold,\n   Garners the nuts and grain within his cell,\n While man goes groping, without sense to tell\n Where to seek refuge against growing old.\n   We seek it in the smoking mouth of Hell.\n With the poor beast our impotence compare!\n See him protect his life with utmost care,\n   While us nor wit nor courage can compel\n To save our souls, so foolish mad we are.\n  The Devil doth in snares our life enfold;\n   Four hooks has he with torments baited well;\n   And first with Greed he casts a mighty spell,\n And then, to fill his nets, has Pride enrolled,\n   And Luxury steers the boat, and fills the sail,\n And Perfidy controls and sets the snare;\n Thus the poor fish are brought to land, and there\n   May God preserve us and the foe repel!\n Homage to him who saves us from despair!\n\n\nTo Mary Queen, who passes all compare,\n   Go, little song! to her your sorrows tell!\n Nor Heaven nor Earth holds happiness so rare.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nNICOLETTE AND MARION\n\nC'est d'Aucassins et de Nicolete.\n\n\nQui vauroit bons vers oir\n Del deport du viel caitiff\n De deus biax enfans petis\n Nicolete et Aucassins;\n Des grans paines qu'il soufri\n Et des proueces qu'il fist\n For s'amie o le cler vis.\n Dox est li cans biax est li dis\n Et cortois et bien asis.\n Nus hom n'est si esbahis\n Tant dolans ni entrepris\n De grant mal amaladis\n Se il l'oit ne soit garis\n Et de joie resbaudis\n   Tant par est dou-ce.\n\n\nThis is of Aucassins and Nicolette.\n\n\nWhom would a good ballad please\n By the captive from o'er-seas,\n A sweet song in children's praise,\n Nicolette and Aucassins;\n What he bore for her caress,\n What he proved of his prowess\n For his friend with the bright face?\n The song has charm, the tale has grace,\n And courtesy and good address.\n No man is in such distress,\n Such suffering or weariness,\n Sick with ever such sickness,\n But he shall, if he hear this,\n Recover all his happiness,\n   So sweet it is!\n\n\nThis little thirteenth-century gem is called a \"chante-fable,\" a\nstory partly in prose, partly in verse, to be sung according to\nmusical notation accompanying the words in the single manuscript\nknown, and published in facsimile by Mr. F. W. Bourdillon at Oxford\nin 1896. Indeed, few poems, old or new, have in the last few years\nbeen more reprinted, translated, and discussed, than \"Aucassins,\"\nyet the discussion lacks interest to the idle tourist, and tells him\nlittle. Nothing is known of the author or his date. The second line\nalone offers a hint, but nothing more. \"Caitif\" means in the first\nplace a captive, and secondly any unfortunate or wretched man.\nCritics have liked to think that the word means here a captive to\nthe Saracens, and that the poet, like Cervantes three or four\nhundred years later, may have been a prisoner to the infidels. What\nthe critics can do, we can do. If liberties can be taken with\nimpunity by scholars, we can take the liberty of supposing that the\npoet was a prisoner in the crusade of Coeur-de-Lion and Philippe-\nAuguste; that he had recovered his liberty, with his master, in\n1194; and that he passed the rest of his life singing to the old\nQueen Eleanor or to Richard, at Chinon, and to the lords of all the\nchateaux in Guienne, Poitiers, Anjou, and Normandy, not to mention\nEngland. The living was a pleasant one, as the sunny atmosphere of\nthe Southern poetry proves.\n\n  Dox est li cans; biax est li dis,\n   Et cortois et bien asis.\n\n\nThe poet-troubadour who composed and recited \"Aucassins\" could not\nhave been unhappy, but this is the affair of his private life, and\nnot of ours. What rather interests us is his poetic motive,\n\"courteous love,\" which gives the tale a place in the direct line\nbetween Christian of Troyes, Thibaut-le-Grand, and William of\nLorris. Christian of Troyes died in 1175; at least he wrote nothing\nof a later date, so far as is certainly known. Richard Coeur-de-Lion\ndied in 1199, very soon after the death of his half-sister Mary of\nChampagne. Thibaut-le-Grand was born in 1201. William of Lorris, who\nconcluded the line of great \"courteous\" poets, died in 1260 or\nthereabouts. For our purposes, \"Aucassins\" comes between Christian\nof Troyes and William of Lorris; the trouvere or jogleor, who sang,\nwas a \"viel caitif\" when the Chartres glass was set up, and the\nCharlemagne window designed, about 1210, or perhaps a little later.\nWhen one is not a professor, one has not the right to make inept\nguesses, and, when one is not a critic, one should not risk\nconfusing a difficult question by baseless assumptions; but even a\nsummer tourist may without offence visit his churches in the order\nthat suits him best; and, for our tour, \"Aucassins\" follows\nChristian and goes hand in hand with Blondel and the chatelain de\nCoucy, as the most exquisite expression of \"courteous love.\" As one\nof \"Aucassins'\" German editors says in his introduction: \"Love is\nthe medium through which alone the hero surveys the world around\nhim, and for which he contemns everything that the age prized:\nknightly honour; deeds of arms; father and mother; hell, and even\nheaven; but the mere promise by his father of a kiss from Nicolette\ninspires him to superhuman heroism; while the old poet sings and\nsmiles aside to his audience as though he wished them to understand\nthat Aucassins, a foolish boy, must not be judged quite seriously,\nbut that, old as he was himself, he was just as foolish about\nNicolette.\"\n\nAucassins was the son of the Count of Beaucaire. Nicolette was a\nyoung girl whom the Viscount of Beaucaire had redeemed as a captive\nof the Saracens, and had brought up as a god-daughter in his family.\nAucassins fell in love with Nicolette, and wanted to marry her. The\naction turned on marriage, for, to the Counts of Beaucaire, as to\nother counts, not to speak of kings, high alliance was not a matter\nof choice but of necessity, without which they could not defend\ntheir lives, let alone their counties; and, to make Aucassins'\nconduct absolutely treasonable, Beaucaire was at that time\nsurrounded and besieged, and the Count, Aucassins' father, stood in\ndire need of his son's help. Aucassins refused to stir unless he\ncould have Nicolette. What were honours to him if Nicolette were not\nto share them. \"S'ele estait empereris de Colstentinoble u\nd'Alemaigne u roine de France u d'Engletere, si aroit il asses peu\nen li, tant est france et cortoise et de bon aire et entecie de\ntoutes bones teces.\" To be empress of \"Colstentinoble\" would be none\ntoo good for her, so stamped is she with nobility and courtesy and\nhigh-breeding and all good qualities.\n\nSo the Count, after a long struggle, sent for his Viscount and\nthreatened to have Nicolette burned alive, and the Viscount himself\ntreated no better, if he did not put a stop to the affair; and the\nViscount shut up Nicolette, and remonstrated with Aucassins: \"Marry\na king's daughter, or a count's! leave Nicolette alone, or you will\nnever see Paradise!\" This at once gave Aucassins the excuse for a\ncharming tirade against Paradise, for which, a century or two later,\nhe would properly have been burned together with Nicolette:--\n\nEn paradis qu'ai je a faire? Je n'i quier entrer mais que j'aie\nNicolete, ma tres douce amie, que j'aim tant. C'en paradis ne vont\nfors tex gens con je vous dirai. Il i vont ci viel prestre et cil\nvieil clop et cil manke, qui tote jour et tote nuit cropent devant\nces autex et en ces vies cruutes, et ci a ces vies capes ereses et a\nces vies tatereles vestues, qui sont nu et decauc et estrumele, qui\nmoeurent de faim et d'esci et de froid et de mesaises. Icil vont en\nparadis; aveuc ciax n'ai jou que faire; mais en infer voil jou aler.\nCar en infer vont li bel clerc et li bel cevalier qui sont mort as\ntornois et as rices gueres, et li bien sergant et li franc home.\nAveuc ciax voil jou aler. Et si vont les beles dames cortoises que\neles ont ii amis ou iii avec leurs barons. Et si va li ors et li\nagens et li vairs et li gris; et si i vont herpeor et jogleor et li\nroi del siecle. Avec ciax voil jou aler mais que j'aie Nicolete, ma\ntres douce amie, aveuc moi.\n\nIn Paradise what have I to do? I do not care to go there unless I\nmay have Nicolette, my very sweet friend, whom I love so much. For\nto Paradise goes no one but such people as I will tell you of. There\ngo old priests and old cripples and the maimed, who all day and all\nnight crouch before altars and in old crypts, and are clothed with\nold worn-out capes and old tattered rags; who are naked and footbare\nand sore; who die of hunger and want and misery. These go to\nParadise; with them I have nothing to do; but to Hell I am willing\nto go. For, to Hell go the fine scholars and the fair knights who\ndie in tournies and in glorious wars; and the good men-at-arms and\nthe well-born. With them I will gladly go. And there go the fair\ncourteous ladies whether they have two or three friends besides\ntheir lords. And the gold and silver go there, and the ermines and\nsables; and there go the harpers and jongleurs, and the kings of the\nworld. With these will I go, if only I may have Nicolette, my very\nsweet friend, with me.\n\nThree times, in these short extracts, the word \"courteous\" has\nalready appeared. The story itself is promised as \"courteous\";\nNicolette is \"courteous\"; and the ladies who are not to go to heaven\nare \"courteous.\" Aucassins is in the full tide of courtesy, and\nevidently a professional, or he never would have claimed a place for\nharpers and jongleurs with kings and chevaliers in the next world.\nThe poets of \"courteous love\" showed as little interest in religion\nas the poets of the eleventh century had shown for it in their poems\nof war. Aucassins resembled Christian of Troyes in this, and both of\nthem resembled Thibaut, while William of Lorris went beyond them\nall. The literature of the \"siecle\" was always unreligious, from the\n\"Chanson de Roland\" to the \"Tragedy of Hamlet\"; to be \"papelard\" was\nunworthy of a chevalier; the true knight of courtesy made nothing of\ndefying the torments of hell, as he defied the lance of a rival, the\nfrowns of society, the threats of parents or the terrors of magic;\nthe perfect, gentle, courteous lover thought of nothing but his\nlove. Whether the object of his love were Nicolette of Beaucaire or\nBlanche of Castile, Mary of Champagne or Mary of Chartres, was a\ndetail which did not affect the devotion of his worship.\n\nSo Nicolette, shut up in a vaulted chamber, leaned out at the marble\nwindow and sang, while Aucassins, when his father promised that he\nshould have a kiss from Nicolette, went out to make fabulous\nslaughter of the enemy; and when his father broke the promise, shut\nhimself up in his chamber, and also sang; and the action went on by\nscenes and interludes, until, one night, Nicolette let herself down\nfrom the window, by the help of sheets and towels, into the garden,\nand, with a natural dislike of wetting her skirts which has\ndelighted every hearer or reader from that day to this, \"prist se\nvesture a l'une main devant et a l'autre deriere si s'escorca por le\nrousee qu'ele vit grande sor l'erbe si s'en ala aval le gardin\"; she\nraised her skirts with one hand in front and the other behind, for\nthe dew which she saw heavy on the grass, and went off down the\ngarden, to the tower where Aucassins was locked up, and sang to him\nthrough a crack in the masonry, and gave him a lock of her hair, and\nthey talked till the friendly night-watch came by and warned her by\na sweetly-sung chant, that she had better escape. So she bade\nfarewell to Aucassins, and went on to a breach in the city wall, and\nshe looked through it down into the fosse which was very deep and\nvery steep. So she sang to herself--\n\nPeres rois de maeste\n Or ne sai quel part aler.\n Se je vois u gaut rame\n Ja me mengeront li le\n Li lions et li sengler\n Dont il i a a plente.\n\n\nFather, King of Majesty!\n Now I know not where to flee.\n If I seek the forest free,\n Then the lions will eat me,\n Wolves and wild boars terribly,\n Of which plenty there there be.\n\n\nThe lions were a touch of poetic licence, even for Beaucaire, but\nthe wolves and wild boars were real enough; yet Nicolette feared\neven them less than she feared the Count, so she slid down what her\naudience well knew to be a most dangerous and difficult descent, and\nreached the bottom with many wounds in her hands and feet, \"et san\nen sali bien en xii lius\"; so that blood was drawn in a dozen\nplaces, and then she climbed up the other side, and went off bravely\ninto the depths of the forest; an uncanny thing to do by night, as\nyou can still see.\n\nThen followed a pastoral, which might be taken from the works of\nanother poet of the same period, whose acquaintance no one can\nneglect to make--Adam de la Halle, a Picard, of Arras. Adam lived,\nit is true, fifty years later than the date imagined for Aucassins,\nbut his shepherds and shepherdesses are not so much like, as\nidentical with, those of the Southern poet, and all have so singular\nan air of life that the conventional courteous knight fades out\nbeside them. The poet, whether bourgeois, professional, noble, or\nclerical, never much loved the peasant, and the peasant never much\nloved him, or any one else. The peasant was a class by himself, and\nhis trait, as a class, was suspicion of everybody and all things,\nwhether material, social, or divine. Naturally he detested his lord,\nwhether temporal or spiritual, because the seigneur and the priest\ntook his earnings, but he was never servile, though a serf; he was\nfar from civil; he was commonly gross. He was cruel, but not more so\nthan his betters; and his morals were no worse. The object of\noppression on all sides,--the invariable victim, whoever else might\nescape,--the French peasant, as a class, held his own--and more. In\nfact, he succeeded in plundering Church, Crown, nobility, and\nbourgeoisie, and was the only class in French history that rose\nsteadily in power and well-being, from the time of the crusades to\nthe present day, whatever his occasional suffering may have been;\nand, in the thirteenth century, he was suffering. When Nicolette, on\nthe morning after her escape, came upon a group of peasants in the\nforest, tending the Count's cattle, she had reason to be afraid of\nthem, but instead they were afraid of her. They thought at first\nthat she was a fairy. When they guessed the riddle, they kept the\nsecret, though they risked punishment and lost the chance of reward\nby protecting her. Worse than this, they agreed, for a small\npresent, to give a message to Aucassins if he should ride that way.\n\nAucassins was not very bright, but when he got out of prison after\nNicolette's escape, he did ride out, at his friends' suggestion, and\ntried to learn what had become of her. Passing through the woods he\ncame upon the same group of shepherds and shepherdesses:--\n\n  Esmeres et Martinet,   Fruelins et Johannes,   Robecons et\nAubries,--\n\nwho might have been living in the Forest of Arden, so like were they\nto the clowns of Shakespeare. They were singing of Nicolette and her\npresent, and the cakes and knives and flute they would buy with it.\nAucassins jumped to the bait they offered him; and they instantly\nbegan to play him as though he were a trout:--\n\n\"Bel enfant, dix vos i ait!\"\n\n\"Dix vos benie!\" fait cil qui fu plus enparles des autres.\n\n\"Bel enfant,\" fait il, \"redites le cancon que vos disiez ore!\"\n\n\"Nous n'i dirons,\" fait cil qui plus fu enparles des autres. \"Dehait\nore qui por vos i cantera, biax sire!\"\n\n\"Bel enfant!\" fait Aucassins, \"enne me connissies vos?\"\n\n\"Oil! nos savions bien que vos estes Aucassins, nos damoisiax, mais\nnos ne somes mie a vos, ains somes au conte.\"\n\n\"Bel enfant, si feres, je vos en pri!\"\n\n\"Os, por le cuer be!\" fait cil. \"Por quoi canteroie je por vos, s'il\nne me seoit! Quant il n'a si rice home en cest pais sans le cors le\nconte Garin s'il trovait mes bues ne mes vaces ne mes brebis en ses\npres n'en sen forment qu'il fust mie tant hardis por les es a crever\nqu'il les en ossast cacier. Et por quoi canteroie je por vos s'il ne\nme seoit?\"\n\n\"Se dix vos ait, bel enfant, si feres! et tenes x sous que j'ai ci\nen une borse!\"\n\n\"God bless you, fair child!\" said Aucassins.\n\n\"God be with you!\" replied the one who talked best.\n\n\"Fair child!\" said he, \"repeat the song you were just singing.\"\n\n\"We won't!\" replied he who talked best among them. \"Bad luck to him\nwho shall sing for you, good sir!\"\n\n\"Fair child,\" said Aucassins, \"do you know me?\"\n\n\"Yes! we know very well that you are Aucassins, our young lord; but\nwe are none of yours; we belong to the Count.\"\n\n\"Fair child, indeed you'll do it, I pray you!\"\n\n\"Listen, for love of God!\" said he. \"Why should I sing for you if it\ndoes not suit me? when there is no man so powerful in this country,\nexcept Count Garin, if he found my oxen or my cows or my sheep in\nhis pasture or his close, would not rather risk losing his eyes than\ndare to turn them out! and why should I sing for you, if it does not\nsuit me!\"\n\n\"So God help you, good child, indeed you will do it! and take these\nten sous that I have here in my purse.\"\n\n\"Sire les deniers prenderons nos, mais je ne vos canterai mie, car\nj'en ai jure. Mais je le vos conterai se vos voles.\"\n\n\"De par diu!\" faits Aucassins. \"Encore aim je mix center que nient.\"\n\n\"Sire, the money we will take, but I'll not sing to you, for I've\nsworn it. But I will tell it you, if you like.\"\n\n\"For God's sake!\" said Aucassins; \"better telling than nothing!\"\n\nTen sous was no small gift! twenty sous was the value of a strong\nox. The poet put a high money-value on the force of love, but he set\na higher value on it in courtesy. These boors were openly insolent\nto their young lord, trying to extort money from him, and\nthreatening him with telling his father; but they were in their\nright, and Nicolette was in their power. At heart they meant\nAucassins well, but they were rude and grasping, and the poet used\nthem in order to show how love made the true lover courteous even to\nclowns. Aucassins' gentle courtesy is brought out by the boors'\ngreed, as the colours in the window were brought out and given their\nvalue by a bit of blue or green. The poet, having got his little\ntouch of colour rightly placed, let the peasants go. \"Cil qui fu\nplus enparles des autres,\" having been given his way and his money,\ntold Aucassins what he knew of Nicolette and her message; so\nAucassins put spurs to his horse and cantered into the forest,\nsinging:--\n\nSe diu plaist le pere fort\n Je vos reverai encore\n   Suer, douce a-mie!\n\n\nSo please God, great and strong,\n I will find you now ere long,\n   Sister, sweet friend!\n\n\nBut the peasant had singular attraction for the poet. Whether the\ncharacter gave him a chance for some clever mimicry, which was one\nof his strong points as a story-teller: or whether he wanted to\ntreat his subjects, like the legendary windows, in pairs; or whether\nhe felt that the forest-scene specially amused his audience, he\nimmediately introduced a peasant of another class, much more\nstrongly coloured, or deeply shadowed. Every one in the audience\nwas--and, for that matter, still would be--familiar with the great\nforests, the home of half the fairy and nursery tales of Europe,\nstill wild enough and extensive enough to hide in, although they\nhave now comparatively few lions, and not many wolves or wild boars\nor serpents such as Nicolette feared. Every one saw, without an\neffort, the young damoiseau riding out with his hound or hawk,\nlooking for game; the lanes under the trees, through the wood, or\nthe thick underbrush before lanes were made; the herdsmen watching\ntheir herds, and keeping a sharp look-out for wolves; the peasant\nseeking lost cattle; the black kiln-men burning charcoal; and in the\ndepths of the rocks or swamps or thickets--the outlaw. Even now,\nforests like Rambouillet, or Fontainebleau or Compiegne are enormous\nand wild; one can see Aucassins breaking his way through thorns and\nbranches in search of Nicolette, tearing his clothes and wounding\nhimself \"en xl lius u en xxx,\" until evening approached, and he\nbegan to weep for disappointment:--\n\nIl esgarda devant lui enmi la voie si vit un vallet tei que je vos\ndirai. Grans estoit et mervellex et lais et hidex. Il avoit une\ngrande hure plus noire qu'une carbouclee, et avoit plus de planne\npaume entre ii ex, et avoit unes grandes joes et un grandisme nez\nplat, et une grans narines lees et unes grosses levres plus rouges\nd'unes carbounees, et uns grans dens gaunes et lais et estoit\ncaucies d'uns housiax et d'uns sollers de buef fretes de tille\ndusque deseure le genol et estoit afules d'une cape a ii envers si\nestoit apoiies sor une grande macue. Aucassins s'enbati sor lui\ns'eut grand paor quant il le sorvit...\n\n\"Baix frere, dix ti ait!\"\n\n\"Dix vos benie!\" fait cil.  \"Se dix t'ait, que fais tu ilec?\"\n\n\"A vos que monte?\" fait cil.\n\n\"Nient!\" fait Aucassins; \"je nel vos demant se por bien non.\"\n\n\"Mais pour quoi ploures vos?\" fait cil, \"et faites si fait doel?\nCertes se j'estoie ausi rices hom que vos estes, tos li mons ne me\nferoit mie plorer.\"\n\n\"Ba! me conissies vos!\" fait Aucassins.\n\n\"Oie! je sai bien que vos estes Aucassins li fix le conte, et se vos\nme dites por quoi vos plores je vos dirai que je fac ici.\"\n\nAs he looked before him along the way he saw a man such as I will\ntell you.  Tall he was, and menacing, and ugly, and hideous.  He had\na great mane blacker than charcoal and had more than a full palm-\nwidth between his two eyes, and had big cheeks, and a huge flat nose\nand great broad nostrils, and thick lips redder than raw beef, and\nlarge ugly yellow teeth, and was shod with hose and leggings of raw\nhide laced with bark cord to above the knee, and was muffled in a\ncloak without lining, and was leaning on a great club.  Aucassins\ncame upon him suddenly and had great fear when he saw him.\n\n\"Fair brother, good day!\" said he.\n\n\"God bless you!\" said the other.\n\n\"As God help you, what do you here?\"\n\n\"What is that to you?\" said the other.\n\n\"Nothing!\" said Aucassins; \"I ask only from good-will.\"\n\n\"But why are you crying!\" said the other, \"and mounring so loud?\nSure, if I were as great a man as you are, nothing on earth would\nmake me cry.\"\n\n\"Bah! you know me?\" said Aucassins.\n\n\"Yes, I know very well that you are Aucassins, the count's son; and\nif you will tell me what you are crying for, I will tell you what I\nam doing here.\"\n\nAucassins seemed to think this an equal bargain. All damoiseaux were\nnot as courteous as Aucassins, nor all \"varlets\" as rude as his\npeasants; we shall see how the young gentlemen of Picardy treated\nthe peasantry for no offence at all; but Aucassins carried a softer,\nSouthern temper in a happier climate, and, with his invariable\ngentle courtesy, took no offence at the familiarity with which the\nploughman treated him. Yet he dared not tell the truth, so he\ninvented, on the spur of the moment, an excuse;--he has lost, he\nsaid, a beautiful white hound. The peasant hooted--\n\n\"Os!\" fait cil; \"por le cuer que cil sires eut en sen ventre! que\nvos plorastes por un cien puant! Mal dehait ait qui ja mais vos\nprisera quant il n'a si rice home en ceste tere se vos peres len\nmandoit x u xv u xx qu'il ne les envoyast trop volontiers et s'en\nesteroit trop lies. Mais je dois plorer et dol faire?\"\n\n\"Et tu de quoi frere?\"\n\n\"Sire je lo vos dirai. J'estoie liues a un rice vilain si cacoie se\ncarue.  iiii bues i avoit. Or a iii jors qu il m'avint une grande\nmalaventure que je perdi le mellor de mes bues Roget le mellor de me\ncarue. Si le vois querant. Si ne mengai ne ne bue iii jors a passes.\nSi n'os aler a le vile c'on me metroit en prison que je ne l'ai de\nquoi saure. De tot l'avoir du monde n'ai je plus vaillant que vos\nvees sor le cors de mi. Une lasse mere avoie, si n'avoit plus\nvaillant que une keutisele, si h a on sacie de desous le dos si gist\na pur l'estrain, si m'en poise asses plus que denu. Car avoirs va et\nviaent; se j'ai or perdu je gaaignerai une autre fois si sorrai mon\nbuef quant je porrai, ne ja por cien n'en plorerai. Et vos plorastes\npor un cien de longaigne! Mal dehait ait qui mais vos prisera!\"\n\n\"Certes tu es de bon confort, biax frere! que benois sois tu! Et que\nvaloit tes bues!\"\n\n\"Sire xx sous m'en demande on, je n'en puis mie abatre une seule\nmaille.\"\n\n\"Or, tien\" fait Aucassins, \"xx que j'ai ci en me borse, si sol ten\nbuef!\"\n\n\"Listen!\" said he, \"By the heart God had in his body, that you\nshould cry for a stinking dog! Bad luck to him who ever prizes you!\nWhen there is no man in this land so great, if your father sent to\nhim for ten or fifteen or twenty but would fetch them very gladly,\nand be only too pleased. But I ought to cry and mourn.\"\n\n\"And--why you, brother?\"\n\n\"Sir, I will tell you. I was hired out to a rich farmer to drive his\nplough. There were four oxen. Now three days ago I had a great\nmisfortune, for I lost the best of my oxen, Roget, the best of my\nteam. I am looking to find him. I've not eaten or drunk these three\ndays past. I dare n't go to the town, for they would put me in\nprison as I've nothing to pay with. In all the world I've not the\nworth of anything but what you see on my body I've a poor old mother\nwho owned nothing but a feather mattress, and they've dragged it\nfrom under her back so she lies on the bare straw, and she troubles\nme more than myself. For riches come and go if I lose to day, I gain\nto-morrow; I will pay for my ox when I can, and will not cry for\nthat. And you cry for a filthy dog! Bad luck to him who ever thinks\nwell of you!\"\n\n\"Truly, you counsel well, good brother! God bless you! And what was\nyour ox worth?\"\n\n\"Sir, they ask me twenty sous for it. I cannot beat them down a\nsingle centime.\"\n\n\"Here are twenty,\" said Aucassins, \"that I have in my purse! Pay for\nyour ox!\"\n\n\"Sire!\" fait il, \"grans mercies! et dix vos laist trover ce que vox\nqueres!\"\n\n\"Sir!\" said he; \"many thanks! and Go! grant you find what you seek!\"\n\nThe little episode was thrown in without rhyme or reason to the\nrapid emotion of the love-story, as though the jongleur were showing\nhis own cleverness and humour, at the expense of his hero, as\njongleurs had a way of doing; but he took no such liberties with his\nheroine. While Aucassins tore through the thickets on horseback,\ncrying aloud, Nicolette had built herself a little hut in the depths\nof the forest:--\n\nEle prist des flors de lis\n Et de l'erbe du garris\n Et de le foille autresi;\n Une belle loge en fist,\n Ainques tant gente ne vi.\n Jure diu qui ne menti\n Se par la vient Aucassins\n Et il por l'amor de li\n Ne si repose un petit\n Ja ne sera ses amis\n   N'ele s'a-mie.\n\n\nSo she twined the lilies' flower,\n Roofed with leafy branches o'er,\n Made of it a lovely bower,\n With the freshest grass for floor\n Such as never mortal saw.\n By God's Verity, she swore,\n Should Aucassins pass her door,\n And not stop for love of her,\n To repose a moment there,\n He should be her love no more,\n   Nor she his dear!\n\n\nSo night came on, and Nicolette went to sleep, a little distance\naway from her hut. Aucassins at last came by, and dismounted,\nspraining his shoulder in doing it. Then he crept into the little\nhut, and lying on his back, looked up through the leaves to the\nmoon, and sang:--\n\nEstoilete, je te voi,\n Que la lune trait a soi.\n Nicolete est aveuc toi,\n M'amiete o le blond poil.\n Je quid que dix le veut avoir\n Por la lumiere de soir\n Que par li plus clere soit.\n Vien, amie, je te proie!\n Ou monter vauroie droit,\n Que que fust du recaoir.\n Que fuisse lassus o toi\n Ja te baiseroi estroit.\n Se j'estoie fix a roi\n S'afferies vos bien a moi\n   Suer douce amie!\n\n\nI can see you, little star,\n That the moon draws through the air.\n Nicolette is where you are,\n My own love with the blonde hair.\n I think God must want her near\n To shine down upon us here\n That the evening be more clear.\n Come down, dearest, to my prayer,\n Or I climb up where you are!\n Though I fell, I would not care.\n If I once were with you there\n I would kiss you closely, dear!\n If a monarch's son I were\n You should all my kingdom share,\n   Sweet friend, sister!\n\n\nHow Nicolette heard him sing, and came to him and rubbed his\nshoulder and dressed his wounds as though he were a child; and how\nin the morning they rode away together, like Tennyson's \"Sleeping\nBeauty,\"--\n\n  O'er the hills and far away\n   Beyond their utmost purple rim,\n   Beyond the night, beyond the day,\n\n\nsinging as they rode, the story goes on to tell or to sing in verse--\n\nAucassins, li biax, li blons,\n Li gentix, It amorous,\n Est issous del gaut parfont,\n Entre ses bras ses amors\n Devant lui sor son arcon.\n Les ex li baise et le front,\n Et le bouce et le menton.\n Elle l'a mis a raison.\n \"Aucassins, biax amis dox,\n \"En quel tere en irons nous?\"\n \"Douce amie, que sai jou?\n \"Moi ne caut u nous aillons,\n \"En forest u en destor\n \"Mais que je soie aveuc vous.\"\n Passent les vaus et les mons,\n Et les viles et les bors\n A la mer vinrent au jor,\n Si descendent u sablon\n Les le rivage.\n\n\nAucassins, the brave, the fair,\n Courteous knight and gentle lover,\n From the forest dense came forth;\n In his arms his love he bore\n On his saddle-bow before;\n Her eyes he kisses and her mouth,\n And her forehead and her chin.\n She brings him back to earth again:\n \"Aucassins, my love, my own,\n \"To what country shall we turn?\"\n \"Dearest angel, what say you?\n \"I care nothing where we go,\n \"In the forest or outside,\n \"While you on my saddle ride.\"\n So they pass by hill and dale,\n And the city, and the town,\n Till they reach the morning pale,\n And on sea-sands set them down,\n Hard by the shore.\n\n\nThere we will leave them, for their further adventures have not much\nto do with our matter. Like all the romans, or nearly all,\n\"Aucassins\" is singularly pure and refined. Apparently the ladies of\ncourteous love frowned on coarseness and allowed no licence. Their\npower must have been great, for the best romans are as free from\ngrossness as the \"Chanson de Roland\" itself, or the church glass, or\nthe illuminations in the manuscripts; and as long as the power of\nthe Church ruled good society, this decency continued. As far as\nwomen were concerned, they seem always to have been more clean than\nthe men, except when men painted them in colours which men liked\nbest.\n\nPerhaps society was actually cleaner in the thirteenth century than\nin the sixteenth, as Saint Louis was more decent than Francis I, and\nas the bath was habitual in the twelfth century and exceptional at\nthe Renaissance. The rule held good for the bourgeoisie as well as\namong the dames cortoises. Christian and Thibaut, \"Aucassins\" and\nthe \"Roman de la Rose,\" may have expressed only the tastes of high-\nborn ladies, but other poems were avowedly bourgeois, and among the\nbourgeois poets none was better than Adam de la Halle. Adam wrote\nalso for the court, or at least for Robert of Artois, Saint Louis's\nnephew, whom he followed to Naples in 1284, but his poetry was as\nlittle aristocratic as poetry could well be, and most of it was\ncynically--almost defiantly--middle-class, as though the weavers of\nArras were his only audience, and recognized him and the objects of\nhis satire in every verse. The bitter personalities do not concern\nus, but, at Naples, to amuse Robert of Artois and his court, Adam\ncomposed the first of French comic operas, which had an immense\nsuccess, and, as a pastoral poem, has it still. The Idyll of Arras\nwas a singular contrast to the Idyll of Beaucaire, but the social\nvalue was the same in both; Robin and Marion were a pendant to\nAucassins and Nicolette; Robin was almost a burlesque on Aucassins,\nwhile Marion was a Northern, energetic, intelligent, pastoral\nNicolette.\n\n\"Li Gieus de Robin et de Marion\" had little or no plot. Adam strung\ntogether, on a thread of dialogue and by a group of suitable\nfigures, a number of the favourite songs of his time, followed by\nthe favourite games, and ending with a favourite dance, the\n\"tresca.\" The songs, the games, and the dances do not concern us,\nbut the dialogue runs along prettily, with an air of Flemish\nrealism, like a picture of Teniers, as unlike that of \"courtoisie\"\nas Teniers was to Guido Reni. Underneath it all a tone of satire\nmade itself felt, good-natured enough, but directed wholly against\nthe men.\n\nThe scene opens on Marion tending her sheep, and singing the pretty\nair: \"Robin m'aime, Robin ma'a,\" after which enters a chevalier or\nesquire, on horseback, and sings: \"Je me repairoie du tournoiement.\"\nThen follows a dialogue between the chevalier and Marion, with no\nother object than to show off the charm of Marion against the\nmasculine defects of the knight. Being, like most squires, somewhat\nslow of ideas in conversation with young women, the gentleman began\nby asking for sport for his falcon. Has she seen any duck down by\nthe river?\n\n  Mais veis tu par chi devant\n   Vers ceste riviere nul ane?\n\n\n\"Ane,\" it seems, was the usual word for wild duck, the falcon's\nprey, and Marion knew it as well as he, but she chose to\nmisunderstand him:--\n\nC'est une bete qui recane;\n J'en vis ier iii sur che quemin,\n Tous quarchies aler au moulin.\n Est che chou que vous demandes?\n\n\n\"It is a beast that brays; I saw three yesterday on the road, all\nwith loads going to the mill. Is that what you ask?\" That is not\nwhat the squire has asked, and he is conscious that Marion knows it,\nbut he tries again. If she has not seen a duck, perhaps she has seen\na heron:--\n\n  Hairons, sire? par me foi, non!\n   Je n'en vi nesun puis quareme\n   Que j'en vi mengier chies dame Eme\n   Me taiien qui sorit ches brebis.\n\n\n\"Heron, sir! by my faith, no! I've not seen one since Lent when I\nsaw some eaten at my grandmother's--Dame Emma who owns these sheep.\"\n\"Hairons,\" it seems, meant also herring, and this wilful\nmisunderstanding struck the chevalier as carrying jest too far:--\n\n  Par foi! or suis j'ou esbaubis!\n   N'ainc mais je ne fui si gabes!\n\n\n\"On my word, I am silenced! never in my life was I so chaffed!\"\nMarion herself seems to think her joke a little too evident, for she\ntakes up the conversation in her turn, only to conclude that she\nlikes Robin better than she does the knight; he is gayer, and when\nhe plays his musette he starts the whole village dancing. At this,\nthe squire makes a declaration of love with such energy as to spur\nhis horse almost over her:--\n\n  Aimi, sirel ostez vo cheval!\n   A poi que il ne m'a blechie.\n   Li Robin ne regiete mie\n   Quand je voie apres se karue.\n\n\n\"Aimi!\" is an exclamation of alarm, real or affected: \"Dear me, sir!\ntake your horse away! he almost hurt me! Robin's horse never rears\nwhen I go behind his plough!\" Still the knight persists, and though\nMarion still tells him to go away, she asks his name, which he says\nis Aubert, and so gives her the catchword for another song:--\"Vos\nperdes vo paine, sire Aubert!\"--which ends the scene with a duo. The\nsecond scene begins with a duo of Marion and Robin, followed by her\ngiving a softened account of the chevalier's behaviour, and then\nthey lunch on bread and cheese and apples, and more songs follow,\ntill she sends him to get Baldwin and Walter and Peronette and the\npipers, for a dance. In his absence the chevalier returns and\nbecomes very pressing in his attentions, which gives her occasion to\nsing:-\n\n  J'oi Robin flagoler\n   Au flagol d'argent.\n\n\nWhen Robin enters, the knight picks a quarrel with him for not\nhandling properly the falcon which he has caught in the hedge; and\nRobin gets a severe beating. The scene ends by the horseman carrying\noff Marion by force; but he soon gets tired of carrying her against\nher will, and drops her, and disappears once for all.\n\n  Certes voirement sui je beste\n   Quant a ceste beste m'areste.\n   Adieu, bergiere!\n\n\nBete the knight certainly was, and was meant to be, in order to give\nthe necessary colour to Marion's charms. Chevaliers were seldom\nintellectually brilliant in the mediaeval romans, and even the\n\"Chansons de Geste\" liked better to talk of their prowess than of\ntheir wit; but Adam de la Halle, who felt no great love for\nchevaliers, was not satisfied with ridiculing them in order to exalt\nMarion; his second act was devoted to exalting Marion at the expense\nof her own boors.\n\nThe first act was given up to song; the second, to games and dances.\nThe games prove not to be wholly a success; Marion is bored by them,\nand wants to dance. The dialogue shows Marion trying constantly to\ncontrol her clowns and make them decent, as Blanche of Castile had\nbeen all her life trying to control her princes, and Mary of\nChartres her kings. Robin is a rustic counterpart to Thibaut. He is\ntamed by his love of Marion, but he has just enough intelligence to\nthink well of himself, and to get himself into trouble without\nknowing how to get out of it. Marion loves him much as she would her\nchild; she makes only a little fun of him; defends him from the\nothers; laughs at his jealousy; scolds him on occasion; flatters his\ndancing; sends him on errands, to bring the pipers or drive away the\nwolf; and what is most to our purpose, uses him to make the other\npeasants decent. Walter and Baldwin and Hugh are coarse, and their\nidea of wit is to shock the women or make Robin jealous. Love makes\ngentlemen even of boors, whether noble or villain, is the constant\nmoral of mediaeval story, and love turns Robin into a champion of\ndecency. When, at last, Walter, playing the jongleur, begins to\nrepeat a particularly coarse fabliau, or story in verse, Robin stops\nhim short--\n\nHo, Gautier, je n'en voeil plus! fi!\n Dites, seres vous tous jours teus!\n Vous estes un ors menestreus!\n\n\n\"Ho, Walter! I want no more of that: Shame! Say! are you going to be\nalways like that? You're a dirty beggar!\" A fight seems inevitable,\nbut Marion turns it into a dance, and the whole party, led by the\npipers, with Robin and Marion at the head of the band, leave the\nstage in the dance which is said to be still known in Italy as the\n\"tresca.\" Marion is in her way as charming as Nicolette, but we are\nless interested in her charm than in her power. Always the woman\nappears as the practical guide; the one who keeps her head, even in\nlove:--\n\n   Elle l'a mis a raison:\n    \"Aucassins, biax amis dox,\n    En quele tere en irons nous?\"\n    \"Douce amie, que sai jou?\n    Moi ne caut ou nous aillons.\"\n\n\nThe man never cared; he was always getting himself into crusades, or\nfeuds, or love, or debt, and depended on the woman to get him out.\nThe story was always of Charles VII and Jeanne d'Arc, or Agnes\nSorel. The woman might be the good or the evil spirit, but she was\nalways the stronger force. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were\na period when men were at their strongest; never before or since\nhave they shown equal energy in such varied directions, or such\nintelligence in the direction of their energy; yet these marvels of\nhistory,--these Plantagenets; these scholastic philosophers; these\narchitects of Rheims and Amiens; these Innocents, and Robin Hoods\nand Marco Polos; these crusaders, who planted their enormous\nfortresses all over the Levant; these monks who made the wastes and\nbarrens yield harvests;--all, without apparent exception, bowed down\nbefore the woman.\n\nExplain it who will! We are not particularly interested in the\nexplanation; it is the art we have chased through this French\nforest, like Aucassins hunting for Nicolette; and the art leads\nalways to the woman. Poetry, like the architecture and the\ndecoration, harks back to the same standard of taste. The specimens\nof Christian of Troyes, Thibaut, Tristan, Aucassins, and Adam de la\nHalle were mild admissions of feminine superiority compared with\nsome that were more in vogue, If Thibaut painted his love-verses on\nthe walls of his castle, he put there only what a more famous poet,\nwho may have been his friend, set on the walls of his Chateau of\nCourteous Love, which, not being made with hands or with stone, but\nmerely with verse, has not wholly perished. The \"Roman de la Rose\"\nis the end of true mediaeval poetry and goes with the Sainte-\nChapelle in architecture, and three hundred years of more or less\ngraceful imitation or variation on the same themes which followed.\nOur age calls it false taste, and no doubt our age is right;--every\nage is right by its own standards as long as its standards amuse\nit;--but after all, the \"Roman de la Rose\" charmed Chaucer,--it may\nwell charm you. The charm may not be that of Mont-Saint-Michel or of\nRoland; it has not the grand manner of the eleventh century, or the\njewelled brilliancy of the Chartres lancets, or the splendid self-\nassertion of the roses: but even to this day it gives out a faint\nodour of Champagne and Touraine, of Provence and Cyprus. One hears\nThibaut and sees Queen Blanche.\n\nOf course, this odour of true sanctity belongs only to the \"Roman\"\nof William of Lorris, which dates from the death of Queen Blanche\nand of all good things, about 1250; a short allegory of courteous\nlove in forty-six hundred and seventy lines. To modern taste, an\nallegory of forty-six hundred and seventy lines seems to be not so\nshort as it might be; but the fourteenth century found five thousand\nverses totally inadequate to the subject, and, about 1300, Jean de\nMeung added eighteen thousand lines, the favourite reading of\nsociety for one or two hundred years, but beyond our horizon. The\n\"Roman\" of William of Lorris was complete in itself; it had shape;\nbeginning, middle, and end; even a certain realism, action,--almost\nlife!\n\nThe Rose is any feminine ideal of beauty, intelligence, purity, or\ngrace,--always culminating in the Virgin,--but the scene is the\nCourt of Love, and the action is avowedly in a dream, without time\nor place. The poet's tone is very pure; a little subdued; at times\nsad; and the poem ends sadly; but all the figures that were\npositively hideous were shut out of the court, and painted on the\noutside walls:--Hatred; Felony; Covetousness; Envy; Poverty;\nMelancholy, and Old Age. Death did not appear. The passion for\nrepresenting death in its horrors did not belong to the sunny\natmosphere of the thirteenth century, and indeed jarred on French\ntaste always, though the Church came to insist on it; but Old Age\ngave the poet a motive more artistic, foreshadowing Death, and quite\nsad enough to supply the necessary contrast. The poet who approached\nthe walls of the chateau and saw, outside, all the unpleasant facts\nof life conspicuously posted up, as though to shut them out of\ndoors, hastened to ask for entrance, and, when once admitted, found\na court of ideals. Their names matter little. In the mind of William\nof Lorris, every one would people his ideal world with whatever\nideal figures pleased him, and the only personal value of William's\nfigures is that they represent what he thought the thirteenth-\ncentury ideals of a perfect society. Here is Courtesy, with a\ntranslation long thought to be by Chaucer:-\n\nApres se tenoit Cortoisie\n Qui moult estoit de tous prisie.\n Si n'ere orgueilleuse ne fole.\n C'est cele qui a la karole,\n La soe merci, m'apela,\n Ains que nule, quand je vins la.\n Et ne fut ne nice n'umbrage,\n Mais sages auques, sans outrage,\n De biaus respons et de biaus dis,\n Onc nus ne fu par li laidis,\n Ne ne porta nului rancune,\n Et fu clere comme la lune\n Est avers les autres estoiles\n Qui ne resemblent que chandoiles.\n Faitisse estoit et avenant;\n Je ne sai fame plus plaisant.\n Ele ert en toutes cors bien digne\n D'estre empereris ou roine.\n\n\nAnd next that daunced Courtesye,\n That preised was of lowe and hye,\n For neither proude ne foole was she;\n She for to daunce called me,\n I pray God yeve hir right good grace,\n When I come first into the place.\n She was not nyce ne outrageous,\n But wys and ware and vertuous;\n Of faire speche and of faire answere;\n Was never wight mysseid of her,\n Ne she bar rancour to no wight.\n Clere browne she was, and thereto bright\n\n\nOf face, of body avenaunt.\n I wot no lady so pleasaunt.\n She were worthy forto bene\n An empresse or crowned quene.\n\n\nYou can read for yourselves the characters, and can follow the\nsimple action which owes its slight interest only to the constant\neffort of the dreamer to attain his ideal,--the Rose,--and owes its\ncharm chiefly to the constant disappointment and final defeat. An\nundertone of sadness runs through it, felt already in the picture of\nTime which foreshadows the end of Love--the Rose--and her court, and\nwith it the end of hope:--\n\nLi tens qui s'en va nuit et jor,\n Sans repos prendre et sans sejor,\n Et qui de nous se part et emble\n Si celeement qu'il nous semble\n Qu'il s'arreste ades en un point,\n Et il ne s'i arreste point,\n Ains ne fine de trespasser,\n Que nus ne puet neis penser\n Quex tens ce est qui est presens;\n S'el demandes as clers lisans,\n Aincois que l'en l'eust pense\n Seroit il ja trois tens passe;\n Li tens qui ne puet sejourner,\n Ains vait tous jors sans retorner,\n Com l'iaue qui s'avale toute,\n N'il n'en retourne arriere goute;\n Li tens vers qui noient ne dure,\n Ne fer ne chose tant soit dure,\n Car il gaste tout et menjue;\n Li tens qui tote chose mue,\n Qui tout fait croistre et tout norist,\n Et qui tout use et tout porrist.\n\n\nThe tyme that passeth nyght and daye.\n And restelesse travayleth aye,\n And steleth from us so prively,\n That to us semeth so sykerly\n That it in one poynt dwelleth never,\n But gothe so fast, and passeth aye\n\n\nThat there nys man that thynke may\n What tyme that now present is;\n Asketh at these clerkes this,\n For or men thynke it readily\n Thre tymes ben ypassed by.\n The tyme that may not sojourne\n But goth, and may never returne,\n As water that down renneth ay,\n But never drope retourne may.\n There may no thing as time endure,\n Metall nor earthly creature:\n For alle thing it frette and shall.\n The tyme eke that chaungith all,\n And all doth waxe and fostered be,\n And alle thing distroieth he.\n\n\nThe note of sadness has begun, which the poets were to find so much\nmore to their taste than the note of gladness. From the \"Roman de la\nRose\" to the \"Ballade des Dames du Temps jadis\" was a short step for\nthe Middle-Age giant Time,--a poor two hundred years. Then Villon\nwoke up to ask what had become of the Roses:--Ou est la tres sage\nHelois\n Pour qui fut chastie puis moyne,\n Pierre Esbaillart a Saint Denis?\n Pour son amour ot cest essoyne.\n\n\nEt Jehanne la bonne Lorraine\n Qu' Englois brulerent a Rouan;\n Ou sont elles, Vierge Souvraine?\n Mais ou sont les neiges dantan?\n\n\nWhere is the virtuous Heloise,\n For whom suffered, then turned monk,\n Pierre Abelard at Saint-Denis?\n For his love he bore that pain.\n\n\nAnd Jeanne d'Arc, the good Lorraine,\n Whom the English burned at Rouen!\n Where are they, Virgin Queen?\n But where are the snows of spring?\n\n\nBetween the death of William of Lorris and the advent of John of\nMeung, a short half-century (1250-1300), the Woman and the Rose\nbecame bankrupt. Satire took the place of worship. Man, with his\nusual monkey-like malice, took pleasure in pulling down what he had\nbuilt up. The Frenchman had made what he called \"fausse route.\"\nWilliam of Lorris was first to see it, and say it, with more sadness\nand less bitterness than Villon showed; he won immortality by\ntelling how he, and the thirteenth century in him, had lost himself\nin pursuing his Rose, and how he had lost the Rose, too, waking up\nat last to the dull memory of pain and sorrow and death, that \"tout\nporrist.\" The world had still a long march to make from the Rose of\nQueen Blanche to the guillotine of Madame du Barry; but the \"Roman\nde la Rose\" made epoch. For the first time since Constantine\nproclaimed the reign of Christ, a thousand years, or so, before\nPhilip the Fair dethroned Him, the deepest expression of social\nfeeling ended with the word: Despair.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nLES MIRACLES DE NOTRE DAME\n\nVergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio,\n Umile ed alta piu che creatura,\n Termine fisso d'eterno consiglio,\n Tu sei colei che l'umana natura\n Nobilitasti si, che il suo fattore\n Non disdegno di farsi sua fattura....\n La tua benignita non pur soccorre\n A chi dimanda, ma molte fiate\n Liberamente al dimandar precorre.\n In te misericordia, in te pietate,\n In te magnificenza, in te s'aduna\n Quantunque in creatura e di bontate.\n\n\nVergine bella, che di sol vestita,\n Coronata di stelle, al sommo sole\n Piacesti si che'n te sua luce ascose;\n Amor mi spinge a dir di te parole;\n Ma non so 'ncominciar senza tu aita,\n E di colui ch'amando in te si pose.\n Invoco lei che ben sempre rispose\n Chi la chiamo con fede.\n Vergine, s'a mercede\n Miseria estrema dell' umane cose\n Giammai ti volse, al mio prego t'inchina!\n Soccorri alia mia guerra,\n Bench'i sia terra, e tu del del regina!\n\n\nDante composed one of these prayers; Petrarch the other. Chaucer\ntranslated Dante's prayer in the \"Second Nonnes Tale.\" He who will\nmay undertake to translate either;--not I! The Virgin, in whom is\nunited whatever goodness is in created being, might possibly, in her\ninfinite grace, forgive the sacrilege; but her power has limits, if\nnot her grace; and the whole Trinity, with the Virgin to aid, had\nnot the power to pardon him who should translate Dante and Petrarch.\nThe prayers come in here, not merely for their beauty,--although the\nVirgin knows how beautiful they are, whether man knows it or not;\nbut chiefly to show the good faith, the depth of feeling, the\nintensity of conviction, with which society adored its ideal of\nhuman perfection.\n\nThe Virgin filled so enormous a space in the life and thought of the\ntime that one stands now helpless before the mass of testimony to\nher direct action and constant presence in every moment and form of\nthe illusion which men thought they thought their existence. The\ntwelfth and thirteenth centuries believed in the supernatural, and\nmight almost be said to have contracted a miracle-habit, as morbid\nas any other form of artificial stimulant; they stood, like\nchildren, in an attitude of gaping wonder before the miracle of\nmiracles which they felt in their own consciousness; but one can see\nin this emotion, which is, after all, not exclusively infantile, no\nspecial reason why they should have so passionately flung themselves\nat the feet of the Woman rather than of the Man. Dante wrote in\n1300, after the height of this emotion had passed; and Petrarch\nwrote half a century later still; but so slowly did the vision fade,\nand so often did it revive, that, to this day, it remains the\nstrongest symbol with which the Church can conjure.\n\nMen were, after all, not wholly inconsequent; their attachment to\nMary rested on an instinct of self-preservation. They knew their own\nperil. If there was to be a future life, Mary was their only hope.\nShe alone represented Love. The Trinity were, or was, One, and\ncould, by the nature of its essence, administer justice alone. Only\nchildlike illusion could expect a personal favour from Christ. Turn\nthe dogma as one would, to this it must logically come. Call the\nthree Godheads by what names one liked, still they must remain One;\nmust administer one justice; must admit only one law. In that law,\nno human weakness or error could exist; by its essence it was\ninfinite, eternal, immutable. There was no crack and no cranny in\nthe system, through which human frailty could hope for escape. One\nwas forced from corner to corner by a remorseless logic until one\nfell helpless at Mary's feet.\n\nWithout Mary, man had no hope except in atheism, and for atheism the\nworld was not ready. Hemmed back on that side, men rushed like sheep\nto escape the butcher, and were driven to Mary; only too happy in\nfinding protection and hope in a being who could understand the\nlanguage they talked, and the excuses they had to offer. How\npassionately they worshipped Mary, the Cathedral of Chartres shows;\nand how this worship elevated the whole sex, all the literature and\nhistory of the time proclaim. If you need more proof, you can read\nmore Petrarch; but still one cannot realize how actual Mary was, to\nthe men and women of the Middle Ages, and how she was present, as a\nmatter of course, whether by way of miracle or as a habit of life,\nthroughout their daily existence. The surest measure of her reality\nis the enormous money value they put on her assistance, and the art\nthat was lavished on her gratification, but an almost equally\ncertain sign is the casual allusion, the chance reference to her,\nwhich assumes her presence.\n\nThe earliest prose writer in the French language, who gave a picture\nof actual French life, was Joinville; and although he wrote after\nthe death of Saint Louis and of William of Lorris and Adam de la\nHalle, in the full decadence of Philip the Fair, toward 1300, he had\nbeen a vassal of Thibaut and an intimate friend of Louis, and his\nmemories went back to the France of Blanche's regency. Born in 1224,\nhe must have seen in his youth the struggles of Thibaut against the\nenemies of Blanche, and in fact his memoirs contain Blanche's\nemphatic letter forbidding Thibaut to marry Yolande of Brittany. He\nknew Pierre de Dreux well, and when they were captured by the\nSaracens at Damietta, and thrown into the hold of a galley, \"I had\nmy feet right on the face of the Count Pierre de Bretagne, whose\nfeet, in turn, were by my face.\" Joinville is almost twelfth-century\nin feeling. He was neither feminine nor sceptical, but simple. He\nshowed no concern for poetry, but he put up a glass window to the\nVirgin. His religion belonged to the \"Chanson de Roland.\" When Saint\nLouis, who had a pleasant sense of humour put to him his favourite\nreligious conundrums, Joinville affected not the least hypocrisy.\n\"Would you rather be a leper or commit a mortal sin?\" asked the\nKing. \"I would rather commit thirty mortal sins than be a leper,\"\nanswered Joinville. \"Do you wash the feet of the poor on Holy\nThursday?\" asked the King. \"God forbid!\" replied Joinville; \"never\nwill I wash the feet of such creatures!\" Saint Louis mildly\ncorrected his, or rather Thibaut's, seneschal, for these impieties,\nbut he was no doubt used to them, for the soldier was never a\nchurchman. If one asks Joinville what he thinks of the Virgin, he\nanswers with the same frankness:--\n\nUng jour moi estant devant le roi lui demanday congie d'aller en\npelerinage a nostre Dame de Tourtouze [Tortosa in Syria] qui estoit\nung veage tres fort requis. Et y avoit grant quantite de pelerins\npar chacun jour pour ce que c'est le premier autel qui onques fust\nfait en l'onneur de la Mere de Dieu ainsi qu'on disoit lors. Et y\nfaisoit nostre Dame de grans miracles a merveilles. Entre lesquelz\nelle en fist ung d'un pouvre homme qui estoit hors de son sens et\ndemoniacle. Car il avoit le maling esperit dedans le corps. Et\nadvint par ung jour qu'il fut amene a icelui autel de nostre Dame de\nTourtouze. Et ainsi que ses amys qui l'avoient la amene prioient a\nnostre Dame qu'elle lui voulsist recouvrer sante et guerison le\ndiable que la pouvre creature avoit ou corps respondit: \"Nostre Dame\nn'est pas ici; elle est en Egipte pour aider au Roi de France et aux\nChrestiens qui aujourdhui arrivent en la Terre sainte centre toute\npaiennie qui sont a cheval.\" Et fut mis en escript le jour que le\ndeable profera ces motz et fut apporte au legat qui estoit avecques\nle roi de France; lequel me dist depuis que a celui jour nous estion\narrivez en la terre d'Egipte. Et suis bien certain que la bonne Dame\nMarie nous y eut bien besoin.\n\nThis happened in Syria, after the total failure of the crusade in\nEgypt. The ordinary man, even if he were a priest or a soldier,\nneeded a miraculous faith to persuade him that Our Lady or any other\ndivine power, had helped the crusades of Saint Louis. Few of the\nusual fictions on which society rested had ever required such\ndefiance of facts; but, at least for a time, society held firm. The\nthirteenth century could not afford to admit a doubt. Society had\nstaked its existence, in this world and the next, on the reality and\npower of the Virgin; it had invested in her care nearly its whole\ncapital, spiritual, artistic, intellectual, and economical, even to\nthe bulk of its real and personal estate; and her overthrow would\nhave been the most appalling disaster the Western world had ever\nknown. Without her, the Trinity itself could not stand; the Church\nmust fall; the future world must dissolve. Not even the collapse of\nthe Roman Empire compared with a calamity so serious; for that had\ncreated, not destroyed, a faith.\n\nIf sceptics there were, they kept silence. Men disputed and doubted\nabout the Trinity, but about the Virgin the satirists Rutebeuf and\nAdam de la Halle wrote in the same spirit as Saint Bernard and\nAbelard, Adam de Saint-Victor and the pious monk Gaultier de Coincy.\nIn the midst of violent disputes on other points of doctrine, the\ndisputants united in devotion to Mary; and it was the single\nredeeming quality about them. The monarchs believed almost more\nimplicitly than their subjects, and maintained the belief to the\nlast. Doubtless the death of Queen Blanche marked the flood-tide at\nits height; but an authority so established as that of the Virgin,\nfounded on instincts so deep, logic so rigorous, and, above all, on\nwealth so vast, declined slowly. Saint Louis died in 1270. Two\nhundred long and dismal years followed, in the midst of wars,\ndecline of faith, dissolution of the old ties and interests, until,\ntoward 1470, Louis XI succeeded in restoring some semblance of\nsolidity to the State; and Louis XI divided his time and his money\nimpartially between the Virgin of Chartres and the Virgin of Paris.\nIn that respect, one can see no difference between him and Saint\nLouis, nor much between Philippe de Commines and Joinville. After\nLouis XI, another fantastic century passed, filled with the foulest\nhorrors of history--religious wars; assassinations; Saint\nBartholomews; sieges of Chartres; Huguenot leagues and sweeping\ndestruction of religious monuments; Catholic leagues and fanatical\nreprisals on friends and foes,--the actual dissolution of society in\na mass of horrors compared with which even the Albigensian crusade\nwas a local accident, all ending in the reign of the last Valois,\nHenry III, the weirdest, most fascinating, most repulsive, most\npathetic and most pitiable of the whole picturesque series of French\nkings. If you look into the Journal of Pierre de l'Estoile, under\ndate of January 26,1582, you can read the entry:--\n\nThe King and the Queen [Louise de Lorraine], separately, and each\naccompanied by a good troop [of companions] went on foot from Paris\nto Chartres on a pilgrimage [voyage] to Notre-Dame-de-dessous-Terre\n[Our Lady of the Crypt], where a neuvaine was celebrated at the last\nmass at which the King and Queen assisted, and offered a silver-gilt\nstatue of Notre Dame which weighed a hundred marks [eight hundred\nounces], with the object of having lineage which might succeed to\nthe throne.\n\nIn the dead of winter, in robes of penitents, over the roughest\nroads, on foot, the King and Queen, then seven years married, walked\nfifty miles to Chartres to supplicate the Virgin for children, and\nback again; and this they did year after year until Jacques Clement\nput an end to it with his dagger, in 1589, although the Virgin never\nchose to perform that miracle; but, instead, allowed the House of\nValois to die out and sat on her throne in patience while the House\nof Bourbon was anointed in their place. The only French King ever\ncrowned in the presence of Our Lady of Chartres was Henry IV--a\nheretic.\n\nThe year 1589, which was so decisive for Henry IV in France, marked\nin England the rise of Shakespeare as a sort of stage-monarch. While\nin France the Virgin still held such power that kings and queens\nasked her for favours, almost as instinctively as they had done five\nhundred years before, in England Shakespeare set all human nature\nand all human history on the stage, with hardly an allusion to the\nVirgin's name, unless as an oath. The exceptions are worth noting as\na matter of curious Shakespearean criticism, for they are but two,\nand both are lines in the \"First Part of Henry VI,\" spoken by the\nMaid of Orleans:--\n\nChrist's mother helps me, else I were too weak!\n\nWhether the \"First Part of Henry VI\" was written by Shakespeare at\nall has been a doubt much discussed, and too deep for tourists; but\nthat this line was written by a Roman Catholic is the more likely\nbecause no such religious thought recurs in all the rest of\nShakespeare's works, dramatic or lyric, unless it is implied in\nGaunt's allusion to \"the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son.\" Thus,\nwhile three hundred years caused in England the disappearance of the\ngreat divinity on whom the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had\nlavished all their hopes, and during these three centuries every\nearthly throne had been repeatedly shaken or shattered, the Church\nhad been broken in halves, faith had been lost, and philosophies\noverthrown, the Virgin still remained and remains the most intensely\nand the most widely and the most personally felt, of all characters,\ndivine or human or imaginary, that ever existed among men. Nothing\nhas even remotely taken her place. The only possible exception is\nthe Buddha, Sakya Muni; but to the Western mind, a figure like the\nBuddha stood much farther away than the Virgin. That of the Christ\neven to Saint Bernard stood not so near as that of his mother.\nAbelard expressed the fact in its logical necessity even more\nstrongly than Saint Bernard did:--\n\nTe requirunt vota fidelium,\n Ad te corda suspirant omnium,\n Tu spes nostra post Deum unica,\n Advocata nobis es posita.\n Ad judicis matrem confugiunt,\n Qui judicis iram effugiunt,\n Quae praecari pro eis cogitur,\n Quae pro reis mater efficitur.\n\n\n\"After the Trinity, you are our ONLY hope\"; spes nostra unica; \"you\nare placed there as our advocate; all of us who fear the wrath of\nthe Judge, fly to the Judge's mother, who is logically compelled to\nsue for us, and stands in the place of a mother to the guilty.\"\nAbelard's logic was always ruthless, and the \"cogitur\" is a stronger\nword than one would like to use now, with a priest in hearing. We\nneed not insist on it; but what one must insist on, is the good\nfaith of the whole people,--kings, queens, princes of all sorts,\nphilosophers, poets, soldiers, artists, as well as of the commoners\nlike ourselves, and the poor,--for the good faith of the priests is\nnot important to the understanding, since any class which is\nsufficiently interested in believing will always believe. In order\nto feel Gothic architecture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,\none must feel first and last, around and above and beneath it, the\ngood faith of the public, excepting only Jews and atheists,\npermeating every portion of it with the conviction of an immediate\nalternative between heaven and hell, with Mary as the ONLY court in\nequity capable of overruling strict law.\n\nThe Virgin was a real person, whose tastes, wishes, instincts,\npassions, were intimately known. Enough of the Virgin's literature\nsurvives to show her character, and the course of her daily life. We\nknow more about her habits and thoughts than about those of earthly\nqueens. The \"Miracles de la Vierge\" make a large part, and not the\npoorest part, of the enormous literature of these two centuries,\nalthough the works of Albertus Magnus fill twenty-one folio volumes\nand those of Thomas Aquinas fill more, while the \"Chansons de Geste\"\nand the \"Romans,\" published or unpublished, are a special branch of\nliterature with libraries to themselves. The collection of the\nVirgin's miracles put in verse by Gaultier de Coincy, monk, prior,\nand poet, between 1214 and 1233--the precise moment of the Chartres\nsculpture and glass--contains thirty thousand lines. Another great\ncollection, narrating especially the miracles of the Virgin of\nChartres, was made by a priest of Chartres Cathedral about 1240.\nSeparate series, or single tales, have appeared and are appearing\nconstantly, but no general collection has ever been made, although\nthe whole poetic literature of the Virgin could be printed in the\nspace of two or three volumes of scholastic philosophy, and if the\nChurch had cared half as truly for the Virgin as it has for Thomas\nAquinas, every miracle might have been collected and published a\nscore of times. The miracles themselves, indeed, are not very\nnumerous. In Gaultier de Coincy's collection they number only about\nfifty. The Chartres collection relates chiefly to the horrible\noutbreak of what was called leprosy--the \"mal ardent,\"--which\nravaged the north of France during the crusades, and added intensity\nto the feelings which brought all society to the Virgin's feet.\nRecent scholars are cataloguing and classifying the miracles, as far\nas they survive, and have reduced the number within very moderate\nlimits. As poetry, Gaultier de Coincy's are the best.\n\nOf Gaultier de Coincy and his poetry, Gaston Paris has something to\nsay which is worth quoting:--\n\nIt is the most curious, and often the most singular monument of the\ninfantile piety of the Middle Ages. Devotion to Mary is presented in\nit as a kind of infallible guarantee not only against every sort of\nevil, but also against the most legitimate consequences of sin and\neven of crime. In these stories which have revolted the most\nrational piety, as well as the philosophy of modern times, one must\nstill admit a gentle and penetrating charm; a naivete; a tenderness\nand a simplicity of heart, which touch, while they raise a smile.\nThere, for instance, one sees a sick monk cured by the milk that Our\nLady herself comes to invite him to draw from her \"douce mamelle\"; a\nrobber who is in the habit of recommending himself to the Virgin\nwhenever he is going to \"embler,\" is held up by her white hands for\nthree days on the gibbet where he is hung, until the miracle becomes\nevident, and procures his pardon; an ignorant monk who knows only\nhis Ave Maria, and is despised on that account, when dead reveals\nhis sanctity by five roses which come out of his mouth in honour of\nthe five letters of the name Maria; a nun, who has quitted her\nconvent to lead a life of sin, returns after long years, and finds\nthat the Holy Virgin, to whom, in spite of all, she has never ceased\nto offer every day her prayer, has, during all this time, filled her\nplace as sacristine, so that no one has perceived her absence.\n\nGaston Paris inclined to apologize to his \"bons bourgeois de Paris\"\nfor reintroducing to them a character so doubtful as the Virgin\nMary, but, for our studies, the professor's elementary morality is\neloquent. Clearly, M. Paris, the highest academic authority in the\nworld, thought that the Virgin could hardly, in his time, say the\nyear 1900, be received into good society in the Latin Quarter. Our\nown English ancestors, known as Puritans, held the same opinion, and\nexcluded her from their society some four hundred years earlier, for\nthe same reasons which affected M. Gaston Paris. These reasons were\njust, and showed the respectability of the citizens who held them.\nIn no well-regulated community, under a proper system of police,\ncould the Virgin feel at home, and the same thing may be said of\nmost other saints as well as sinners. Her conduct was at times\nundignified, as M. Paris complained, She condescended to do domestic\nservice, in order to help her friends, and she would use her needle,\nif she were in the mood, for the same object. The \"Golden Legend\"\nrelates that:--\n\nA certain priest, who celebrated every day a mass in honour of the\nHoly Virgin, was brought up before Saint Thomas of Canterbury who\nsuspended him from his charge, judging him to be short-witted and\nirresponsible. Now Saint Thomas had occasion to mend his hair-cloth\nshirt, and while waiting for an opportunity to do so, had hidden it\nunder his bed; so the Virgin appeared to the priest and said to him:\n\"Go find the archbishop and tell him that she, for love of whom you\ncelebrated masses, has herself mended his shirt for him which is\nunder his bed; and tell him that she sends you to him that he may\ntake off the interdict he has imposed on you.\" And Saint Thomas\nfound that his shirt had in fact been mended. He relieved the\npriest, begging him to keep the secret of his wearing a hair-shirt.\n\nMary did some exceedingly unconventional things, and among them the\ndarning Thomas A'Becket's hair-shirt, and the supporting a robber on\nthe gibbet, were not the most singular, yet they seem not to have\nshocked Queen Blanche or Saint Francis or Saint Thomas Aquinas so\nmuch as they shocked M. Gaston Paris and M. Prudhomme. You have\nstill to visit the cathedral at Le Mans for the sake of its twelfth-\ncentury glass, and there, in the lower panel of the beautiful, and\nvery early, window of Saint Protais, you will see the full-length\nfigure of a man, lying in bed, under a handsome blanket, watching,\nwith staring eyes, the Virgin, in a green tunic, wearing her royal\ncrown, who is striking him on the head with a heavy hammer and with\nboth hands. The miracle belongs to local history, and is amusing\nonly to show how little the Virgin cared for criticism of her\nmanners or acts. She was above criticism. She made manners. Her acts\nwere laws. No one thought of criticizing, in the style of a normal\nschool, the will of such a queen; but one might treat her with a\ndegree of familiarity, under great provocation, which would startle\neasier critics than the French, Here is an instance:--\n\nA widow had an only child whom she tenderly loved. On hearing that\nthis son had been taken by the enemy, chained, and put in prison,\nshe burst into tears, and addressing herself to the Virgin, to whom\nshe was especially devoted, she asked her with obstinacy for the\nrelease of her son; but when she saw at last that her prayers\nremained unanswered, she went to the church where there was a\nsculptured image of Mary, and there, before the image, she said:\n\"Holy Virgin, I have begged you to deliver my son, and you have not\nbeen willing to help an unhappy mother! I've implored your patronage\nfor my son, and you have refused it! Very good! just as my son has\nbeen taken away from me, so I am going to take away yours, and keep\nhim as a hostage!\" Saying this, she approached, took the statue\nchild on the Virgin's breast, carried it home, wrapped it in\nspotless linen, and locked it up in a box, happy to have such a\nhostage for her son's return. Now, the following night, the Virgin\nappeared to the young man, opened his prison doors, and said: \"Tell\nyour mother, my child, to return me my Son now that I have returned\nhers!\" The young man came home to his mother and told her of his\nmiraculous deliverance; and she, overjoyed, hastened to go with the\nlittle Jesus to the Virgin, saying to her: \"I thank you, heavenly\nlady, for restoring me my child, and in return I restore yours!\"\n\nFor the exactness of this story in all its details, Bishop James of\nVoragio could not have vouched, nor did it greatly matter. What he\ncould vouch for was the relation of intimacy and confidence between\nhis people and the Queen of Heaven. The fact, conspicuous above all\nother historical certainties about religion, that the Virgin was by\nessence illogical, unreasonable and feminine, is the only fact of\nany ultimate value worth studying, and starts a number of questions\nthat history has shown itself clearly afraid to touch. Protestant\nand Catholic differ little in that respect. No one has ventured to\nexplain why the Virgin wielded exclusive power over poor and rich,\nsinners and saints, alike. Why were all the Protestant churches cold\nfailures without her help? Why could not the Holy Ghost--the spirit\nof Love and Grace--equally answer their prayers? Why was the Son\npowerless? Why was Chartres Cathedral in the thirteenth century--\nlike Lourdes to-day--the expression of what is in substance a\nseparate religion? Why did the gentle and gracious Virgin Mother so\nexasperate the Pilgrim Father? Why was the Woman struck out of the\nChurch and ignored in the State? These questions are not antiquarian\nor trifling in historical value; they tug at the very heart-strings\nof all that makes whatever order is in the cosmos. If a Unity\nexists, in which and toward which all energies centre, it must\nexplain and include Duality, Diversity, Infinity--Sex!\n\nAlthough certain to be contradicted by every pious churchman, a\nheretic must insist on thinking that the Mater Dolorosa was the\nlogical Virgin of the Church, and that the Trinity would never have\nraised her from the foot of the Cross, had not the Virgin of Majesty\nbeen imposed, by necessity and public unanimity, on a creed which\nwas meant to be complete without her. The true feeling of the Church\nwas best expressed by the Virgin herself in one of her attested\nmiracles: \"A clerk, trusting more in the Mother than in the Son,\nnever stopped repeating the angelic salutation for his only prayer.\nOnce as he said again the 'Ave Maria,' the Lord appeared to him, and\nsaid to him: 'My Mother thanks you much for all the Salutations that\nyou make her; but still you should not forget to salute me also:\ntamen et me salutare memento.'\" The Trinity feared absorption in\nher, but was compelled to accept, and even to invite her aid,\nbecause the Trinity was a court of strict law, and, as in the old\ncustomary law, no process of equity could be introduced except by\ndirect appeal to a higher power. She was imposed unanimously by all\nclasses, because what man wanted most in the Middle Ages was not\nmerely law or equity, but also and particularly favour. Strict\njustice, either on earth or in heaven, was the last thing that\nsociety cared to face. All men were sinners, and had, at least, the\nmerit of feeling that, if they got their deserts, not one would\nescape worse than whipping. The instinct of individuality went down\nthrough all classes, from the count at the top, to the jugleors and\nmenestreus at the bottom. The individual rebelled against restraint;\nsociety wanted to do what it pleased; all disliked the laws which\nChurch and State were trying to fasten on them. They longed for a\npower above law,--or above the contorted mass of ignorance and\nabsurdity bearing the name of law; but the power which they longed\nfor was not human, for humanity they knew to be corrupt and\nincompetent from the day of Adam's creation to the day of the Last\nJudgment. They were all criminals; if not, they would have had no\nuse for the Church and very little for the State; but they had at\nleast the merit of their faults; they knew what they were, and, like\nchildren, they yearned for protection, pardon, and love. This was\nwhat the Trinity, though omnipotent, could not give. Whatever the\nheretic or mystic might try to persuade himself, God could not be\nLove. God was Justice, Order, Unity, Perfection; He could not be\nhuman and imperfect, nor could the Son or the Holy Ghost be other\nthan the Father. The Mother alone was human, imperfect, and could\nlove; she alone was Favour, Duality, Diversity. Under any\nconceivable form of religion, this duality must find embodiment\nsomewhere, and the Middle Ages logically insisted that, as it could\nnot be in the Trinity, either separately or together, it must be in\nthe Mother. If the Trinity was in its essence Unity, the Mother\nalone could represent whatever was not Unity; whatever was\nirregular, exceptional, outlawed; and this was the whole human race.\nThe saints alone were safe, after they were sainted. Every one else\nwas criminal, and men differed so little in degree of sin that, in\nMary's eyes, all were subjects for her pity and help.\n\nThis general rule of favour, apart from law, or the reverse of law,\nwas the mark of Mary's activity in human affairs. Take, for an\nexample, an entire class of her miracles, applying to the discipline\nof the Church! A bishop ejected an ignorant and corrupt priest from\nhis living, as all bishops constantly had to do. The priest had\ntaken the precaution to make himself Mary's MAN; he had devoted\nhimself to her service and her worship. Mary instantly interfered,--\njust as Queen Eleanor or Queen Blanche would have done,--most\nunreasonably, and never was a poor bishop more roughly scolded by an\northodox queen! \"Moult airieement,\" very airily or angrily, she said\nto him (Bartsch, 1887, p. 363):--\n\nCe saches tu certainement\n Se tu li matinet bien main\n Ne rapeles mon chapelain\n A son servise et a s'enor,\n L'ame de toi a desenor\n Ains trente jors departira\n Et es dolors d'infer ira.\n\n\nNow know you this for sure and true,\n Unless to-morrow this you do,\n--And do it very early too,--\n Restore my chaplain to his due,\n A much worse fate remains for you!\n Within a month your soul shall go\n To suffer in the flames below.\n\n\nThe story-teller--himself a priest and prior--caught the lofty trick\nof manner which belonged to the great ladies of the court, and was\ninherited by them, even in England, down to the time of Queen\nElizabeth, who treated her bishops also like domestic servants;--\n\"matinet bien main!\" To the public, as to us, the justice of the\nrebuke was nothing to the point; but that a friend should exist on\nearth or in heaven, who dared to browbeat a bishop, caused the\nkeenest personal delight. The legends are clearer on this point than\non any other. The people loved Mary because she trampled on\nconventions; not merely because she could do it, but because she\nliked to do what shocked every well-regulated authority. Her pity\nhad no limit.\n\nOne of the Chartres miracles expresses the same motive in language\nalmost plainer still. A good-for-nothing clerk, vicious, proud,\nvain, rude, and altogether worthless, but devoted to the Virgin,\ndied, and with general approval his body was thrown into a ditch\n(Bartsch, 1887, p. 369):--\n\nMais cele ou sort tote pities\n Tote douceurs tote amisties\n Et qui les siens onques n'oublie\n SON PECHEOR n'oblia mie.\n\n\n\"HER sinner!\" Mary would not have been a true queen unless she had\nprotected her own. The whole morality of the Middle Ages stood in\nthe obligation of every master to protect his dependent. The\nherdsmen of Count Garin of Beaucaire were the superiors of their\ndamoiseau Aucassins, while they felt sure of the Count. Mary was the\nhighest of all the feudal ladies, and was the example for all in\nloyalty to her own, when she had to humiliate her own Bishop of\nChartres for the sake of a worthless brute. \"Do you suppose it\ndoesn't annoy me,\" she said, \"to see my friend buried in a common\nditch? Take him out at once! I command! tell the clergy it is my\norder, and that I will never forgive them unless to-morrow morning\nwithout delay, they bury my friend in the best place in the\ncemetery!\":--\n\nCuidies vos donc qu'il ne m'enuit\n Quant vos l'aves si adosse\n Que mis l'aves en un fosse?\n     Metes Ten fors je le comant!\n     Di le clergie que je li mant!\n     Ne me puet mi repaier\n     Se le matin sans delayer\n     A grant heneur n'est mis amis\n     Ou plus beau leu de l'aitre mis.\n\n\nNaturally, her order was instantly obeyed. In the feudal regime,\ndisobedience to an order was treason--or even hesitation to obey--\nwhen the order was serious; very much as in a modern army,\ndisobedience is not regarded as conceivable. Mary's wish was\nabsolute law, on earth as in heaven. For her, other laws were not\nmade. Intensely human, but always Queen, she upset, at her pleasure,\nthe decisions of every court and the orders of every authority,\nhuman or divine; interfered directly in the ordeal; altered the\nprocesses of nature; abolished space; annihilated time. Like other\nqueens, she had many of the failings and prejudices of her humanity.\nIn spite of her own origin, she disliked Jews, and rarely neglected\na chance to maltreat them. She was not in the least a prude. To her,\nsin was simply humanity, and she seemed often on the point of\ndefending her arbitrary acts of mercy, by frankly telling the\nTrinity that if the Creator meant to punish man, He should not have\nmade him. The people, who always in their hearts protested against\nbearing the responsibility for the Creator's arbitrary creations,\ndelighted to see her upset the law, and reverse the rulings of the\nTrinity. They idolized her for being strong, physically and in will,\nso that she feared nothing, and was as helpful to the knight in the\nmelee of battle as to the young mother in child-bed. The only\ncharacter in which they seemed slow to recognize Mary was that of\nbourgeoise. The bourgeoisie courted her favour at great expense, but\nshe seemed to be at home on the farm, rather than in the shop. She\nhad very rudimentary knowledge, indeed, of the principles of\npolitical economy as we understand them, and her views on the\nsubject of money-lending or banking were so feminine as to rouse in\nthat powerful class a vindictive enmity which helped to overthrow\nher throne. On the other hand, she showed a marked weakness for\nchivalry, and one of her prettiest and most twelfth-century miracles\nis that of the knight who heard mass while Mary took his place in\nthe lists. It is much too charming to lose (Bartsch, 1895, p. 311):--\n\nUn chevalier courtois et sages,\n Hardis et de grant vasselages,\n Nus mieudres en chevalerie,\n Moult amoit la vierge Marie.\n Pour son barnage demener\n Et son franc cors d'armes pener,\n Aloit a son tournoiement\n Garnis de son contentement.\n Au dieu plaisir ainsi avint\n Que quant le jour du tournoi vint\n Il se hastoit de chevauchier,\n Bien vousist estre en champ premier.\n D'une eglise qui pres estoit\n Oi les sains que l'on sonnoit\n Pour la sainte messe chanter.\n Le chevalier sans arrester\n S'en est ale droit a l'eglise\n Pour escouter le dieu servise.\n L'en chantoit tantost hautement\n Une messe devotement\n De la sainte Vierge Marie;\n Puis a on autre comencie.\n Le chevalier vien l'escouta,\n De bon cuer la dame pria,\n Et quant la messe fut finee\n La tierce fu recomenciee\n Tantost en ce meisme lieu.\n \"Sire, pour la sainte char dieu!\"\n Ce li a dit son escuier,\n \"L'heure passe de tournoier,\n Et vous que demourez ici?\n Venez vous en, je vous en pri!\n Volez vous devenir hermite\n Ou papelart ou ypocrite?\n Alons en a nostre mestier!\"\n\n\nA knight both courteous and wise\n And brave and bold in enterprise.\n No better knight was ever seen,\n Greatly loved the Virgin Queen.\n Once, to contest the tourney's prize\n And keep his strength in exercise,\n He rode out to the listed field\n Armed at all points with lance and shield;\n But it pleased God that when the day\n Of tourney came, and on his way\n He pressed his charger's speed apace\n To reach, before his friends, the place,\n He saw a church hard by the road\n And heard the church-bells sounding loud\n To celebrate the holy mass.\n Without a thought the church to pass\n The knight drew rein, and entered there\n To seek the aid of God in prayer.\n\n\nHigh and dear they chanted then\n A solemn mass to Mary Queen;\n Then afresh began again.\n Lost in his prayers the good knight stayed;\n With all his heart to Mary prayed;\n And, when the second one was done,\n Straightway the third mass was begun,\n Right there upon the self-same place.\n \"Sire, for mercy of God's grace!\"\n Whispered his squire in his ear;\n \"The hour of tournament is near;\n Why do you want to linger here?\n Is it a hermit to become,\n Or hypocrite, or priest of Rome?\n Come on, at once! despatch your prayer!\n Let us be off to our affair!\"\n\n\nThe accent of truth still lingers in this remonstrance of the\nsquire, who must, from all time, have lost his temper on finding his\nchevalier addicted to \"papelardie\" when he should have been\nfighting; but the priest had the advantage of telling the story and\npointing the moral. This advantage the priest neglected rarely, but\nin this case he used it with such refinement and so much literary\nskill that even the squire might have been patient. With the\ninvariable gentle courtesy of the true knight, the chevalier replied\nonly by soft words:--\n\n   \"Amis!\" ce dist li chevalier,\n    \"Cil tournoie moult noblement\n     Qui le servise dieu entent.\"\n\n\nIn one of Milton's sonnets is a famous line which is commonly\nclassed among the noblest verses of the English language:--\n\n   \"They also serve, who only stand and wait.\"\n\n\nFine as it is, with the simplicity of the grand style, like the\n\"Chanson de Roland\" the verse of Milton does not quite destroy the\ncharm of thirteenth-century diction:--\n\n   \"Friend!\" said to him the chevalier,\n    \"He tourneys very nobly too,\n     Who only hears God's service through!\"\n\n\nNo doubt the verses lack the singular power of the eleventh century;\nit is not worth while to pretend that any verse written in the\nthirteenth century wholly holds its own against \"Roland\":--\n\n   \"Sire cumpain! faites le vus de gred?\n     Ja est co Rollanz ki tant vos soelt amer!\"\n\n\nThe courtesy of Roland has the serious solidity of the Romanesque\narch, and that of Lancelot and Aucassins has the grace of a\nlegendary window; but one may love it, all the same; and one may\neven love the knight,--papelard though he were,--as he turned back\nto the altar and remained in prayer until the last mass was ended.\n\nThen they mounted and rode on toward the field, and of course you\nforesee what had happened. In itself the story is bald enough, but\nit is told with such skill that one never tires of it. As the\nchevalier and the squire approached the lists, they met the other\nknights returning, for the jousts were over; but, to the\nastonishment of the chevalier, he was greeted by all who passed him\nwith shouts of applause for his marvellous triumph in the lists,\nwhere he had taken all the prizes and all the prisoners:--\n\nLes chevaliers ont encontrez,\n Qui du tournois sont retournes,\n Qui du tout en tout est feru.\n S'en avoit tout le pris eu\n Le chevalier qui reperoit\n Des messes qu' oies avoit.\n Les autres qui s'en reperoient\n Le saluent et le conjoient\n Et distrent bien que onques mes\n Nul chevalier ne prist tel fes\n D'armes com il ot fet ce jour;\n A tousjours en avroit l'onnour.\n Moult en i ot qui se rendoient\n A lui prisonier, et disoient\n \"Nous somes vostre prisonier,\n Ne nous ne pourrions nier,\n Ne nous aiez par armes pris.\"\n Lors ne fu plus cil esbahis,\n Car il a entendu tantost\n Que cele fu pour lui en l'ost\n Pour qui il fu en la chapelle.\n\n\nHis friends, returning from the fight,\n On the way there met the knight,\n For the jousts were wholly run,\n And all the prizes had been won\n By the knight who had not stirred\n From the masses he had heard.\n All the knights, as they came by,\n Saluted him and gave him joy,\n And frankly said that never yet\n Had any knight performed such feat,\n Nor ever honour won so great\n As he had done in arms that day;\n While many of them stopped to say\n That they all his prisoners were:\n \"In truth, your prisoners we are:\n We cannot but admit it true:\n Taken we were in arms by you!\"\n Then the truth dawned on him there,\n And all at once he saw the light,\n That She, by whom he stood in prayer,\n--The Virgin,--stood by him in fight!\n\n\nThe moral of the tale belongs to the best feudal times. The knight\nat once recognized that he had become the liege-man of the Queen,\nand henceforth must render his service entirely to her. So he called\nhis \"barons,\" or tenants, together, and after telling them what had\nhappened, took leave of them and the \"siecle\":--\n\n\"Moult est ciest tournoiement beaux\n Ou ele a pour moi tournoie;\n Mes trop l'avroit mal emploie\n Se pour lui je ne tournoioie!\n Fox seroie se retournoie\n A la mondaine vanite.\n A dieu promet en verite\n Que james ne tournoierai\n Fors devant le juge verai\n Qui conoit le bon chevalier\n Et selonc le fet set jutgier.\"\n Lors prent congie piteusement,\n Et maint en plorent tenrement.\n D'euls se part, en une abaie\n Servi puis la vierge Marie.\n\n\n\"Glorious has the tourney been\n Where for me has fought the Queen;\n But a disgrace for me it were\n If I tourneyed not for her.\n Traitor to her should I be,\n Returned to worldly vanity.\n I promise truly, by God's grace,\n Never again the lists to see,\n Except before that Judge's face,\n Who knows the true knight from the base,\n And gives to each his final place.\"\n Then piteously he takes his leave\n While in tears his barons grieve.\n So he parts, and in an abbey\n Serves henceforth the Virgin Mary.\n\n\nObserve that in this case Mary exacted no service! Usually the\nlegends are told, as in this instance, by priests, though they were\ntold in the same spirit by laymen, as you can see in the poems of\nRutebeuf, and they would not have been told very differently by\nsoldiers, if one may judge from Joinville; but commonly the Virgin\nherself prescribed the kind of service she wished. Especially to the\nyoung knight who had, of his own accord, chosen her for his liege,\nshe showed herself as exacting as other great ladies showed\nthemselves toward their Lancelots and Tristans. When she chose, she\ncould even indulge in more or less coquetry, else she could never\nhave appealed to the sympathies of the thirteenth-century knight-\nerrant. One of her miracles told how she disciplined the young men\nwho were too much in the habit of assuming her service in order to\nobtain selfish objects. A youthful chevalier, much given to\ntournaments and the other worldly diversions of the siecle, fell in\nlove, after the rigorous obligation of his class, as you know from\nyour Dulcinea del Toboso, with a lady who, as was also prescribed by\nthe rules of courteous love, declined to listen to him. An abbot of\nhis acquaintance, sympathizing with his distress, suggested to him\nthe happy idea of appealing for help to the Queen of Heaven. He\nfollowed the advice, and for an entire year shut himself up, and\nprayed to Mary, in her chapel, that she would soften the heart of\nhis beloved, and bring her to listen to his prayer. At the end of\nthe twelvemonth, fixed as a natural and sufficient proof of his\nearnestness in devotion, he felt himself entitled to indulge again\nin innocent worldly pleasures, and on the first morning after his\nrelease, he started out on horseback for a day's hunting. Probably\nthousands of young knights and squires were always doing more or\nless the same thing, and it was quite usual that, as they rode\nthrough the fields or forests, they should happen on a solitary\nchapel or shrine, as this knight did. He stopped long enough to\nkneel in it and renew his prayer to the Queen:--\n\nLa mere dieu qui maint chetif\n A retrait de chetivete\n Par sa grant debonnairte\n Par sa courtoise courtoisie\n Au las qui tant l'apele et prie\n Ignelement s'est demonstree,\n D'une coronne corronnee\n Plaine de pierres precieuses\n Si flamboianz si precieuses\n Pour pou li euil ne li esluisent.\n Si netement ainsi reluisent\n Et resplendissent com la raie\n Qui en este au matin raie.\n Tant par a bel et cler le vis\n Que buer fu mez, ce li est vis,\n Qui s'i puest assez mirer.\n \"Cele qui te fait soupirer\n Et en si grant erreur t'a mis,\"\n Fait nostre dame, \"biau douz amis,\n Est ele plus bele que moi?\"\n Li chevaliers a tel effroi\n De la clarte, ne sai que face;\n Ses mains giete devant sa face;\n Tel hide a et tel freeur\n Chaoir se laisse de freeur;\n Mais cele en qui pitie est toute\n Li dist: \"Amis, or n'aies doute!\n Je suis cele, n'en doute mie,\n Qui te doi faire avoir t'amie.\n Or prens garde que tu feras.\n Cele que tu miex ameras\n De nous ii auras a amie.\"\n\n\nGod's Mother who to many a wretch\n Has brought relief from wretchedness.\n By her infinite goodness,\n By her courteous courteousness,\n To her suppliant in distress\n Came from heaven quickly down;\n On her head she bore the crown,\n Full of precious stones and gems\n Darting splendour, flashing flames,\n Till the eye near lost its sight\n In the keenness of the light,\n As the summer morning's sun\n Blinds the eyes it shines upon.\n So beautiful and bright her face,\n Only to look on her is grace.\n\n\n\"She who has caused you thus to sigh,\n And has brought you to this end,\"--\n Said Our Lady,--\"Tell me, friend,\n Is she handsomer than I?\"\n Scared by her brilliancy, the knight\n Knows not what to do for fright;\n He clasps his hands before his face,\n And in his shame and his disgrace\n Falls prostrate on the ground with fear;\n But she with pity ever near\n Tells him:--\"Friend, be not afraid!\n Doubt not that I am she whose aid\n Shall surely bring your love to you;\n But take good care what you shall do!\n She you shall love most faithfully\n Of us two, shall your mistress be.\"\n\n\nOne is at a loss to imagine what a young gentleman could do, in such\na situation, except to obey, with the fewest words possible, the\nsuggestion so gracefully intended. Queen's favours might be fatal\ngifts, but they were much more fatal to reject than to accept.\nWhatever might be the preferences of the knight, he had invited his\nown fate, and in consequence was fortunate to be allowed the option\nof dying and going to heaven, or dying without going to heaven. Mary\nwas not always so gentle with young men who deserted or neglected\nher for an earthly rival;--the offence which irritated her most, and\noccasionally caused her to use language which hardly bears\ntranslation into modern English. Without meaning to assert that the\nQueen of Heaven was jealous as Queen Blanche herself, one must still\nadmit that she was very severe on lovers who showed willingness to\nleave her service, and take service with any other lady. One of her\nadmirers, educated for the priesthood but not yet in full orders,\nwas obliged by reasons of family interest to quit his career in\norder to marry. An insult like this was more than Mary could endure,\nand she gave the young man a lesson he never forgot:--\n\nIreement li prent a dire\n La mere au roi de paradis:\n \"Di moi, di moi, tu que jadis\n M'amoies tant de tout ton coeur.\n Pourquoi m'as tu jete puer?\n Di moi, di moi, ou est donc cele\n Qui plus de moi bone est et bele?...\n Pourquoi, pourquoi, las durfeus,\n Las engignez, las deceuz,\n Me lais pour une lasse fame,\n Qui suis du del Royne et Dame?\n Enne fais tu trop mauvais change\n Qui tu por une fame estrange\n Me laisses qui par amors t'amoie\n Et ja ou ciel t'apareilloie\n En mes chambres un riche lit\n Por couchier t'ame a grand delit?\n Trop par as faites grant merveilles\n S'autrement tost ne te conseilles\n Ou ciel serra tes lits deffais\n Et en la flamme d'enfer faiz!\"\n\n\nWith anger flashing in her eyes\n Answers the Queen of Paradise:\n \"Tell me, tell me! you of old\n Loved me once with love untold;\n Why now throw me aside?\n Tell me, tell me! where a bride\n Kinder or fairer have you won?...\n Wherefore, wherefore, wretched one,\n Deceived, betrayed, misled, undone,\n Leave me for a creature mean,\n Me, who am of Heaven the Queen?\n Can you make a worse exchange,\n You that for a woman strange,\n Leave me who, with perfect love,\n Waiting you in heaven above,\n Had in my chamber richly dressed\n A bed of bliss your soul to rest?\n Terrible is your mistake!\n Unless you better council take,\n In heaven your bed shall be unmade,\n And in the flames of hell be spread.\"\n\n\nA mistress who loved in this manner was not to be gainsaid. No\nearthly love had a chance of holding its own against this unfair\ncombination of heaven and hell, and Mary was as unscrupulous as any\nother great lady in abusing all her advantages in order to save HER\nsouls. Frenchmen never found fault with abuses of power for what\nthey thought a serious object. The more tyrannical Mary was, the\nmore her adorers adored, and they wholly approved, both in love and\nin law, the rule that any man who changed his allegiance without\npermission, did so at his own peril. His life and property were\nforfeit. Mary showed him too much grace in giving him an option.\n\nEven in anger Mary always remained a great lady, and in the ordinary\nrelations of society her manners were exquisite, as they were,\naccording to Joinville, in the court of Saint Louis, when tempers\nwere not overwrought. The very brutality of the brutal compelled the\ncourteous to exaggerate courtesy, and some of the royal family were\nas coarse as the king was delicate in manners. In heaven the manners\nwere perfect, and almost as stately as those of Roland and Oliver.\nOn one occasion Saint Peter found himself embarrassed by an affair\nwhich the public opinion of the Court of Heaven, although not by any\nmeans puritanic, thought more objectionable--in fact, more frankly\ndiscreditable--than an honest corrupt job ought to be; and even his\ninfluence, though certainly considerable, wholly failed to carry it\nthrough the law-court. The case, as reported by Gaultier de Coincy,\nwas this: A very worthless creature of Saint Peter's--a monk of\nCologne--who had led a scandalous life, and \"ne cremoit dieu, ordre\nne roule,\" died, and in due course of law was tried, convicted, and\ndragged off by the devils to undergo his term of punishment. Saint\nPeter could not desert his sinner, though much ashamed of him, and\naccordingly made formal application to the Trinity for a pardon. The\nTrinity, somewhat severely, refused. Finding his own interest\ninsufficient, Saint Peter tried to strengthen it by asking the\narchangels to help him; but the case was too much for them also, and\nthey declined. The brother apostles were appealed to, with the same\nresult; and finally even the saints, though they had so obvious\ninterest in keeping friendly relations with Peter, found public\nopinion too strong to defy. The case was desperate. The Trinity\nwere--or was--emphatic, and--what was rare in the Middle Ages--every\nmember of the feudal hierarchy sustained its decision. Nothing more\ncould be done in the regular way. Saint Peter was obliged to divest\nhimself of authority, and place himself and his dignity in the hands\nof the Virgin. Accordingly he asked for an audience, and stated the\ncase to Our Lady. With the utmost grace, she instantly responded:--\n\n\"Pierre, Pierre,\" dit Nostre Dame,\n \"En moult grand poine et por ceste ame\n De mon douz filz me fierai\n Tant que pour toi l'en prierai.\"\n La Mere Dieu lors s'est levee,\n Devant son filz s'en est alee\n Et ses virges toutes apres.\n De lui si tint Pierre pres,\n Quar sanz doutance bien savoit\n Que sa besoigne faite avoit\n Puisque cele l'avoit en prise\n Ou forme humaine avoit prise.\n\n\nQuant sa Mere vit li douz Sire\n Qui de son doit daigna escrire\n Qu'en honourant et pere et mere\n En contre lui a chere clere\n Se leva moult festivement\n Et si li dist moult doucement;\n \"Bien veigniez vous, ma douce mere,\"\n Comme douz filz, comme douz pere.\n Doucement l'a par la main prise\n Et doucement lez lui assise;\n Lors li a dit:--\"A douce chiere,\n Que veus ma douce mere chiere,\n Mes amies et mes sereurs?\"\n\n\n\"Pierre, Pierre,\" our Lady said,\n \"With all my heart I'll give you aid,\n And to my gentle Son I'll sue\n Until I beg that soul for you.\"\n God's Mother then arose straightway,\n And sought her Son without delay;\n All her virgins followed her,\n And Saint Peter kept him near,\n For he knew his task was done\n And his prize already won,\n Since it was hers, in whom began\n The life of God in form of Man.\n\n\nWhen our dear Lord, who deigned to write\n With his own hand that in his sight\n Those in his kingdom held most dear\n Father and mother honoured here,--\n When He saw His Mother's face\n He rose and said with gentle grace:\n \"Well are you come, my heart's desire!\"\n Like loving son, like gracious sire;\n Took her hand gently in His own;\n Gently placed her on His throne,\n Wishing her graciously good cheer:--\n \"What brings my gentle Mother here,\n My sister, and my dearest friend?\"\n\n\nOne can see Queen Blanche going to beg--or command--a favour of her\nson, King Louis, and the stately dignity of their address, while\nSaint Peter and the virgins remain in the antechamber; but, as for\nSaint Peter's lost soul, the request was a mere form, and the doors\nof paradise were instantly opened to it, after such brief\nformalities as should tend to preserve the technical record of the\nlaw-court. We tread here on very delicate ground. Gaultier de\nCoincy, being a priest and a prior, could take liberties which we\ncannot or ought not to take. The doctrines of the Church are too\nserious and too ancient to be wilfully misstated, and the doctrines\nof what is called Mariolatry were never even doctrines of the\nChurch. Yet it is true that, in the hearts of Mary's servants, the\nChurch and its doctrines were at the mercy of Mary's will. Gaultier\nde Coincy claimed that Mary exasperated the devils by exercising a\nwholly arbitrary and illegitimate power. Gaultier not merely\nadmitted, but frankly asserted, that this was the fact:--\n\nFont li deables:--\"de cest plait,\n Mal por mal, assez miex nous plest\n Que nous aillons au jugement\n Li haut jugeur qui ne ment.\n C'au plait n'au jugement sa mere\n De droit jugier est trop avere;\n Mais dieu nous juge si adroit,\n Plainement nous lest notre droit.\n Sa mere juge en tel maniere\n Qu'elle nous met touz jors arriere\n Quant nous cuidons estre devant.\n . . . . . . .\n En ciel et en terre est plus Dame\n Par un petit que Diex ne soit.\n Il l'aimme tant et tant la croit,\n N'est riens qu'elle face ne die\n Qu'il desveile ne contredie.\n Quant qu'elle veut li fait acroire,\n S'elle disoit la pie est noire\n Et l'eue trouble est toute clere:\n Si diroit il voir dit ma mere!\"\n\n\n\"In this law-suit,\" say the devils,\n \"Since it is a choice of evils,\n We had best appeal on high\n To the Judge Who does not lie.\n What is law to any other,\n 'T is no use pleading with His Mother;\n But God judges us so true\n That He leaves us all our due.\n His Mother judges us so short\n That she throws us out of court\n When we ought to win our cause.\n . . . . . . . .\n In heaven and earth she makes more laws\n By far, than God Himself can do,\n He loves her so, and trusts her so,\n There's nothing she can do or say\n That He'll refuse, or say her nay.\n Whatever she may want is right,\n Though she say that black is white,\n And dirty water clear as snow:--\n My Mother says it, and it's so!\"\n\n\nIf the Virgin took the feelings of the Trinity into consideration,\nor recognized its existence except as her Son, the case has not been\nreported, or, at all events, has been somewhat carefully kept out of\nsight by the Virgin's poets. The devils were emphatic in denouncing\nMary for absorbing the whole Trinity. In one sharply disputed case\nin regard to a villain, or labourer, whose soul the Virgin claimed\nbecause he had learned the \"Ave Maria,\" the devils became very\nangry, indeed, and protested vehemently:--\n\n\nLi lait maufe, li rechinie\n Adonc ont ris et eschinie.\n C'en font il:--\"Merveillans merveille!\n Por ce vilain plate oreille\n Aprent vo Dame a saluer,\n Se nous vorro trestous tuer\n Se regarder osons vers s'ame.\n De tout le monde vieut estre Dame!\n Ains nule dame ne fu tiez.\n II est avis qu'ele soit Diex\n Ou qu'ele ait Diex en main bornie.\n Nul besoigne n'est fournie,\n Ne terrienne ne celestre,\n Que toute Dame ne veille estre.\n Il est avis que tout soit suen;\n Dieu ne deable n'i ont rien.\"\n\n\nThe ugly demons laugh outright\n And grind their teeth with envious spite;\n Crying:--\"Marvel marvellous!\n Because that flat-eared ploughman there\n Learned to make your Dame a prayer,\n She would like to kill us all\n Just for looking toward his soul.\n All the world she wants to rule!\n No such Dame was ever seen!\n She thinks that she is God, I ween,\n Or holds Him in her hollow hand.\n Not a judgment or command\n Or an order can be given\n Here on earth or there in heaven,\n That she does not want control.\n She thinks that she ordains the whole,\n And keeps it all for her own profit.\n God nor Devil share not of it.\"\n\n\nAs regards Mary of Chartres, these charges seem to have been\nliterally true, except so far as concerned the \"laid maufe\" Pierre\nde Dreux. Gaultier de Coincy saw no impropriety in accepting, as\nsufficiently exact, the allegations of the devils against the\nVirgin's abuse of power. Down to the death of Queen Blanche, which\nis all that concerns us, the public saw no more impropriety in it\nthan Gaultier did. The ugly, envious devils, notorious as students\nof the Latin Quarter, were perpetually making the same charges\nagainst Queen Blanche and her son, without disturbing her authority.\nNo one could conceive that the Virgin held less influence in heaven\nthan the queen mother on earth. Nevertheless there were points in\nthe royal policy and conduct of Mary which thoughtful men even then\nhesitated to approve. The Church itself never liked to be dragged\ntoo far under feminine influence, although the moment it discarded\nfeminine influence it lost nearly everything of any value to it or\nto the world, except its philosophy. Mary's tastes were too popular;\nsome of the uglier devils said they were too low; many ladies and\ngentlemen of the \"siecle\" thought them disreputable, though they\ndared not say so, or dared say so only by proxy, as in \"Aucassins.\"\nAs usual, one must go to the devils for the exact truth, and in\nspite of their outcry, the devils admitted that they had no reason\nto complain of Mary's administration:--\n\n\"Les beles dames de grant pris\n Qui traynant vont ver et gris,\n Roys, roynes, dus et contesses, En enfer vienent a granz presses;\n Mais ou ciel vont pres tout a fait\n Tort et bocu et contrefait.\n Ou ciel va toute la ringaille;\n Le grain avons et diex la paille.\"\n\n\n\"All the great dames and ladies fair\n Who costly robes and ermine wear,\n Kings, queens, and countesses and lords\n Come down to hell in endless hordes;\n While up to heaven go the lamed,\n The dwarfs, the humpbacks, and the maimed;\n To heaven goes the whole riff-raff;\n We get the grain and God the chaff.\"\n\n\nTrue it was, although one should not say it jestingly, that the\nVirgin embarrassed the Trinity; and perhaps this was the reason,\nbehind all the other excellent reasons, why men loved and adored her\nwith a passion such as no other deity has ever inspired: and why we,\nalthough utter strangers to her, are not far from getting down on\nour knees and praying to her still. Mary concentrated in herself the\nwhole rebellion of man against fate; the whole protest against\ndivine law; the whole contempt for human law as its outcome; the\nwhole unutterable fury of human nature beating itself against the\nwalls of its prison-house, and suddenly seized by a hope that in the\nVirgin man had found a door of escape. She was above law; she took\nfeminine pleasure in turning hell into an ornament; she delighted in\ntrampling on every social distinction in this world and the next.\nShe knew that the universe was as unintelligible to her, on any\ntheory of morals, as it was to her worshippers, and she felt, like\nthem, no sure conviction that it was any more intelligible to the\nCreator of it. To her, every suppliant was a universe in itself, to\nbe judged apart, on his own merits, by his love for her,--by no\nmeans on his orthodoxy, or his conventional standing in the Church,\nor according to his correctness in defining the nature of the\nTrinity. The convulsive hold which Mary to this day maintains over\nhuman imagination--as you can see at Lourdes--was due much less to\nher power of saving soul or body than to her sympathy with people\nwho suffered under law,--divine or human,--justly or unjustly, by\naccident or design, by decree of God or by guile of Devil. She cared\nnot a straw for conventional morality, and she had no notion of\nletting her friends be punished, to the tenth or any other\ngeneration, for the sins of their ancestors or the peccadilloes of\nEve.\n\nSo Mary filled heaven with a sort of persons little to the taste of\nany respectable middle-class society, which has trouble enough in\nmaking this world decent and pay its bills, without having to\ncontinue the effort in another. Mary stood in a Church of her own,\nso independent that the Trinity might have perished without much\naffecting her position; but, on the other hand, the Trinity could\nlook on and see her dethroned with almost a breath of relief.\nAucassins and the devils of Gaultier de Coincy foresaw her danger.\nMary's treatment of respectable and law-abiding people who had no\nfavours to ask, and were reasonably confident of getting to heaven\nby the regular judgment, without expense, rankled so deeply that\nthree hundred years later the Puritan reformers were not satisfied\nwith abolishing her, but sought to abolish the woman altogether as\nthe cause of all evil in heaven and on earth. The Puritans abandoned\nthe New Testament and the Virgin in order to go back to the\nbeginning, and renew the quarrel with Eve. This is the Church's\naffair, not ours, and the women are competent to settle it with\nChurch or State, without help from outside; but honest tourists are\nseriously interested in putting the feeling back into the dead\narchitecture where it belongs.\n\nMary was rarely harsh to any suppliant or servant, and she took no\nspecial interest in humiliating the rich or the learned or the wise.\nFor them, law was made; by them, law was administered; and with\ntheir doings Mary never arbitrarily interfered; but occasionally she\ncould not resist the temptation to intimate her opinion of the\nmanner in which the Trinity allowed their--the regular--Church to be\nadministered. She was a queen, and never for an instant forgot it,\nbut she took little thought about her divine rights, if she had\nany,--and in fact Saint Bernard preferred her without them,--while\nshe was scandalized at the greed of officials in her Son's Court.\nOne day a rich usurer and a very poor old woman happened to be dying\nin the same town. Gaultier de Coincy did not say, as an accurate\nhistorian should, that he was present, nor did he mention names or\ndates, although it was one of his longest and best stories. Mary\nnever loved bankers, and had no reason for taking interest in this\none, or for doing him injury; but it happened that the parish priest\nwas summoned to both death-beds at the same time, and neglected the\nold pauper in the hope of securing a bequest for his church from the\nbanker. This was the sort of fault that most annoyed Mary in the\nChurch of the Trinity, which, in her opinion, was not cared for as\nit should be, and she felt it her duty to intimate as much.\n\nAlthough the priest refused to come at the old woman's summons, his\nyoung clerk, who seems to have acted as vicar though not in orders,\ntook pity on her, and went alone with the sacrament to her hut,\nwhich was the poorest of poor hovels even for that age:--\n\nClose de piex et de serciaus\n Comme une viez souz a porciaus.\n\n\nRoof of hoops, and wall of logs,\n Like a wretched stye for hogs.\n\n\nThere the beggar lay, already insensible or at the last gasp, on\ncoarse thatch, on the ground, covered by an old hempen sack. The\npicture represented the extremest poverty of the thirteenth century;\na hovel without even a feather bed or bedstead, as Aucassins'\nploughman described his mother's want; and the old woman alone,\ndying, as the clerk appeared at the opening:--\n\nLi clers qui fu moult bien apris\n Le cors Nostre Seigneur a pris\n A l'ostel a la povre fame\n S'en vient touz seus mes n'i treuve ame.\n Si grant clarte y a veue\n Que grant peeur en a eue.\n Ou povre lit a la vieillete\n Qui couvers iert d'une nateite\n\n\nAssises voit XII puceles\n Si avenans et si tres beles\n N'est nus tant penser i seust\n Qui raconter le vout peust.\n A coutee voist Nostre Dame\n Sus le chevez la povre fame\n Qui por la mort sue et travaille.\n La Mere Dieu d'une tovaille\n Qui blanche est plus que fleur de lis\n La grant sueur d'entor le vis\n A ses blanches mains li essuie.\n\n\nThe clerk, well in these duties taught,\n The body of our Saviour brought\n Where she lay upon her bed\n Without a soul to give her aid.\n But such brightness there he saw\n As filled his mind with fear and awe.\n Covered with a mat of straw\n The woman lay; but round and near\n\n\nA dozen maidens sat, so fair\n No mortal man could dream such light,\n No mortal tongue describe the sight.\n Then he saw that next the bed,\n By the poor old woman's head,\n As she gasped and strained for breath\n In the agony of death,\n Sat Our Lady,--bending low,--\n While, with napkin white as snow,\n She dried the death-sweat on the brow.\n\n\nThe clerk, in terror, hesitated whether to turn and run away, but\nOur Lady beckoned him to the bed, while all rose and kneeled\ndevoutly to the sacrament. Then she said to the trembling clerk:--\n\n\"Friend, be not afraid!\n But seat yourself, to give us aid,\n Beside these maidens, on the bed.\"\n\n\nAnd when the clerk had obeyed, she continued--\n\n\n\"Or tost, amis!\" fait Nostre Dame,\n \"Confessies ceste bone fame\n Et puis apres tout sans freeur\n Recevra tost son sauveeur\n Qui char et sanc vout en moi prendre.\"\n\n\n\"Come quickly, friend!\" Our Lady says,\n \"This good old woman now confess\n And afterwards without distress\n She will at once receive her God\n Who deigned in me take flesh and blood.\"\n\n\nAfter the sacrament came a touch of realism that recalls the simple\ndeath-scenes that Walter Scott described in his grand twelfth-\ncentury manner. The old woman lingered pitiably in her agony:--\n\nLors dit une des demoiselles\n A madame sainte Marie:\n \"Encore, dame, n'istra mie\n Si com moi semble du cors l'ame.\"\n \"Bele fille,\" fait Nostre Dame,\n \"Traveiller lais un peu le cors,\n Aincois que l'ame en isse hors,\n Si que puree soil et nete\n Aincois qu'en Paradis la mete.\n N'est or mestier qui soions plus,\n Ralon nous en ou ciel lassus,\n Quant tens en iert bien reviendrons\n En paradis l'ame emmerrons.\"\n\n\nA maiden said to Saint Marie,\n \"My lady, still it seems to me\n The soul will not the body fly.\"\n \"Fair child!\" Our Lady made reply,\n \"Still let awhile the body fight\n Before the soul shall leave it quite.\n So that it pure may be, and cleansed\n When it to Paradise ascends.\n No longer need we here remain;\n We can go back to heaven again;\n We will return before she dies,\n And take the soul to paradise.\"\n\n\nThe rest of the story concerned the usurer, whose death-bed was of a\ndifferent character, but Mary's interest in death-beds of that kind\nwas small. The fate of the usurer mattered the less because she knew\ntoo well how easily the banker, in good credit, could arrange with\nthe officials of the Trinity to open the doors of paradise for him.\nThe administration of heaven was very like the administration of\nFrance; the Queen Mother saw many things of which she could not\nwholly approve; but her nature was pity, not justice, and she shut\nher eyes to much that she could not change. Her miracles, therefore,\nwere for the most part mere evidence of her pity for those who\nneeded it most, and these were rarely the well-to-do people of the\nsiecle, but more commonly the helpless. Every saint performed\nmiracles, and these are standard, not peculiar to any one\nintermediator; and every saint protected his own friends; but beyond\nthese exhibitions of power, which are more or less common to the\nwhole hierarchy below the Trinity, Mary was the mother of pity and\nthe only hope of despair. One might go on for a volume, studying the\ncharacter of Mary and the changes that time made in it, from the\nearliest Byzantine legends down to the daily recorded miracles at\nLourdes; no character in history has had so long or varied a\ndevelopment, and none so sympathetic; but the greatest poets long\nago plundered that mine of rich motives, and have stolen what was\nmost dramatic for popular use. The Virgin's most famous early\nmiracle seems to have been that of the monk Theophilus, which was\nwhat one might call her salvation of Faust. Another Byzantine\nmiracle was an original version of Shylock. Shakespeare and his\nfellow dramatists plundered the Church legends as freely as their\nmasters plundered the Church treasuries, yet left a mass of dramatic\nmaterial untouched. Let us pray the Virgin that it may remain\nuntouched, for, although a good miracle was in its day worth much\nmoney--so much that the rival shrines stole each other's miracles\nwithout decency--one does not care to see one's Virgin put to money-\nmaking for Jew theatre-managers. One's two-hundred and fifty million\narithmetical ancestors shrink.\n\nFor mere amusement, too, the miracle is worth reading of the little\nJew child who ignorantly joined in the Christian communion, and was\nthrown into a furnace by his father in consequence; but when the\nfurnace was opened, the Virgin appeared seated in the midst of the\nflames, with the little child unharmed in her lap. Better is that\ncalled the \"Tombeor de Notre Dame,\" only recently printed; told by\nsome unknown poet of the thirteenth century, and told as well as any\nof Gaultier de Coincy's. Indeed the \"Tombeor de Notre Dame\" has had\nmore success in our time than it ever had in its own, as far as one\nknows, for it appeals to a quiet sense of humour that pleases modern\nFrench taste as much as it pleased the Virgin. One fears only to\nspoil it by translation, but if a translation be merely used as a\nglossary or footnote, it need not do fatal harm.\n\nThe story is that of a tumbler--tombeor, street-acrobat--who was\ndisgusted with the world, as his class has had a reputation for\nbecoming, and who was fortunate enough to obtain admission into the\nfamous monastery of Clairvaux, where Saint Bernard may have formerly\nbeen blessed by the Virgin's presence. Ignorant at best, and\nespecially ignorant of letters, music, and the offices of a\nreligious society, he found himself unable to join in the services:--\n\nCar n'ot vescu fors de tumer\n Et d'espringier et de baler.\n Treper, saillir, ice savoit;\n Ne d'autre rien il ne savoit;\n Car ne savoit autre lecon\n Ne \"pater noster\" ne chancon\n Ne le \"credo\" ne le salu\n Ne rien qui fust a son salu.\n\n\nFor he had learned no other thing\n Than to tumble, dance and spring:\n Leaping and vaulting, that he knew,\n But nothing better could he do.\n He could not say his prayers by rote;\n Not \"Pater noster\", not a note,\n Not \"Ave Mary,\" nor the creed;\n Nothing to help his soul in need.\n\n\nTormented by the sense of his uselessness to the society whose bread\nhe ate without giving a return in service, and afraid of being\nexpelled as a useless member, one day while the bells were calling\nto mass he hid in the crypt, and in despair began to soliloquize\nbefore the Virgin's altar, at the same spot, one hopes, where the\nVirgin had shown herself, or might have shown herself, in her\ninfinite bounty, to Saint Bernard, a hundred years before:--\n\n\"Hai,\" fait il, \"con suis trais!\n Or dira ja cascuns sa laisse\n Et jo suis ci i hues en laisse\n Qui ne fas ci fors que broster\n Et viandes por nient gaster.\n Si ne dirai ne ne ferai?\n Par la mere deu, si ferai!\n Ja n'en serai ore repris;\n Jo ferai ce que j'ai apris;\n Si servirai de men mestier\n La mere deu en son mostier;\n Li autre servent de canter\n Et jo servirai de tumer.\"\n Sa cape oste, si se despoille,\n Deles l'autel met sa despoille,\n Mais por sa char que ne soit nue\n Une cotele a retenue\n Qui moult estait tenre et alise,\n Petit vaut miex d'une chemise,\n Si est en pur le cors remes.\n Il s'est bien chains et acesmes,\n Sa cote caint et bien s'atorne,\n Devers l'ymage se retorne\n Mout humblement et si l'esgarde:\n \"Dame,\" fait il, \"en vostre garde\n Comant jo et mon cors et m'ame.\n Douce reine, douce dame,\n Ne despisies ce que jo sai\n Car jo me voil metre a l'asai\n De vos servir en bone foi\n Se dex m'ait sans nul desroi.\n Jo ne sai canter ne lire\n Mais certes jo vos voil eslire\n Tos mes biax gieus a eslicon.\n Or soie al fuer de taurecon\n Qui trepe et saut devant sa mere.\n Dame, qui n'estes mie amere\n A cels qui vos servent a droit,\n Quelsque jo soie, por vos soit!\"\n\n\nLors li commence a faire saus\n Bas et petits et grans et haus\n\n\nPrimes deseur et puis desos,\n Puis se remet sor ses genols,\n Devers l'ymage, et si l'encline:\n \"He!\" fait il, \"tres douce reine\n Par vo pitie, par vo francise,\n Ne despisies pas mon servise!\"\n\n\n\"Ha!\" said he, \"how I am ashamed!\n To sing his part goes now each priest,\n And I stand here, a tethered beast,\n Who nothing do but browse and feed\n And waste the food that others need.\n Shall I say nothing, and stand still?\n No! by God's mother, but I will!\n She shall not think me here for naught;\n At least I'll do what I've been taught!\n At least I'll serve in my own way\n God's mother in her church to-day.\n The others serve to pray and sing;\n I will serve to leap and spring.\"\n Then he strips him of his gown,\n Lays it on the altar down;\n But for himself he takes good care\n Not to show his body bare,\n But keeps a jacket, soft and thin,\n Almost a shirt, to tumble in.\n Clothed in this supple woof of maille\n His strength and health and form showed well.\n And when his belt is buckled fast,\n Toward the Virgin turns at last:\n Very humbly makes his prayer;\n \"Lady!\" says he, \"to your care\n I commit my soul and frame.\n Gentle Virgin, gentle dame,\n Do not despise what I shall do,\n For I ask only to please you,\n To serve you like an honest man,\n So help me God, the best I can.\n I cannot chant, nor can I read,\n But I can show you here instead,\n All my best tricks to make you laugh,\n And so shall be as though a calf\n Should leap and jump before its dam.\n Lady, who never yet could blame\n Those who serve you well and true,\n All that I am, I am for you.\"\n\n\nThen he begins to jump about,\n High and low, and in and out,\n\n\nStraining hard with might and main;\n Then, falling on his knees again,\n Before the image bows his face:\n \"By your pity! by your grace!\"\n Says he, \"Ha! my gentle queen,\n Do not despise my offering!\"\n\n\nIn his earnestness he exerted himself until, at the end of his\nstrength, he lay exhausted and unconscious on the altar steps.\nPleased with his own exhibition, and satisfied that the Virgin was\nequally pleased, he continued these devotions every day, until at\nlast his constant and singular absence from the regular services\nattracted the curiosity of a monk, who kept watch on him and\nreported his eccentric exercise to the Abbot.\n\nThe mediaeval monasteries seem to have been gently administered.\nIndeed, this has been made the chief reproach on them, and the\nexcuse for robbing them for the benefit of a more energetic crown\nand nobility who tolerated no beggars or idleness but their own; at\nleast, it is safe to say that few well-regulated and economically\nadministered modern charities would have the patience of the Abbot\nof Clairvaux, who, instead of calling up the weak-minded tombeor and\nsending him back to the world to earn a living by his profession,\nwent with his informant to the crypt, to see for himself what the\nstrange report meant. We have seen at Chartres what a crypt may be,\nand how easily one might hide in its shadows while mass is said at\nthe altars. The Abbot and his informant hid themselves behind a\ncolumn in the shadow, and watched the whole performance to its end\nwhen the exhausted tumbler dropped unconscious and drenched with\nperspiration on the steps of the altar, with the words:--\n\n\"Dame!\" fait il, \"ne puis plus ore;\n Mais voire je reviendrai encore.\"\n\n\n\"Lady!\" says he, \"no more I can,\n But truly I'll come back again!\"\n\n\nYou can imagine the dim crypt; the tumbler lying unconscious beneath\nthe image of the Virgin; the Abbot peering out from the shadow of\nthe column, and wondering what sort of discipline he could inflict\nfor this unforeseen infraction of rule; when suddenly, before he\ncould decide what next to do, the vault above the altar, of its own\naccord, opened:--\n\nL'abes esgarde sans atendre\n Et vit de la volte descendre\n Une dame si gloriouse\n Ains nus ne vit si preciouse\n Ni si ricement conreee,\n N'onques tant bele ne fu nee.\n Ses vesteures sont bien chieres\n D'or et de precieuses pieres.\n\n\nAvec li estoient li angle\n Del ciel amont, et li arcangle,\n Qui entor le menestrel vienent,\n Si le solacent et sostienent.\n Quant entor lui sont arengie\n S'ot tot son cuer asoagie.\n Dont s'aprestent de lui servir\n Por ce qu'ils volrent deservir\n La servise que fait la dame\n Qui tant est precieuse geme.\n Et la douce reine france\n Tenoit une touaille blance,\n S'en avente son menestrel\n Mout doucement devant l'autel.\n La franc dame debonnaire\n Le col, le cors, et le viaire\n Li avente por refroidier;\n Bien s'entremet de lui aidier;\n La dame bien s'i abandone;\n Li bons hom garde ne s'en done,\n Car il ne voit, si ne set mie\n Qu'il ait si bele compaignie.\n\n\nThe Abbot strains his eyes to see,\n And, from the vaulting, suddenly,\n A lady steps,--so glorious,--\n Beyond all thought so precious,--\n Her robes so rich, so nobly worn,--\n So rare the gems the robes adorn,--\n As never yet so fair was born.\n\n\nAlong with her the angels were,\n Archangels stood beside her there;\n Round about the tumbler group\n To give him solace, bring him hope;\n And when round him in ranks they stood,\n His whole heart felt its strength renewed.\n So they haste to give him aid\n Because their wills are only made\n To serve the service of their Queen,\n Most precious gem the earth has seen.\n And the lady, gentle, true,\n Holds in her hand a towel new;\n Fans him with her hand divine\n Where he lies before the shrine.\n The kind lady, full of grace,\n Fans his neck, his breast, his face!\n Fans him herself to give him air!\n Labours, herself, to help him there!\n The lady gives herself to it;\n The poor man takes no heed of it;\n For he knows not and cannot see\n That he has such fair company.\n\n\nBeyond this we need not care to go. If you cannot feel the colour\nand quality--the union of naivete and art, the refinement, the\ninfinite delicacy and tenderness--of this little poem, then nothing\nwill matter much to you; and if you can feel it, you can feel,\nwithout more assistance, the majesty of Chartres.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nABELARD\n\nSuper cuncta, subter cuncta,\n Extra cuncta, intra cuncta,\n Intra cuncta nec inclusus,\n Extra cuncta nec exclusus,\n Super cuncta nec elatus,\n Subter cuncta nec substratus,\n Super totus, praesidendo,\n Subter totus, sustinendo,\n Extra totus, complectendo,\n Intra totus est, implendo.\n\n\nAccording to Hildebert, Bishop of Le Mans and Archbishop of Tours,\nthese verses describe God. Hildebert was the first poet of his time;\nno small merit, since he was contemporary with the \"Chanson de\nRoland\" and the first crusade; he was also a strong man, since he\nwas able, as Bishop of Le Mans, to gain great credit by maintaining\nhimself against William the Norman and Fulk of Anjou; and finally he\nwas a prelate of high authority. He lived between 1055 and 1133.\nSupposing his verses to have been written in middle life, toward the\nyear 1100, they may be taken to represent the accepted doctrine of\nthe Church at the time of the first crusade. They were little more\nthan a versified form of the Latin of Saint Gregory the Great who\nwrote five-hundred years before: \"Ipse manet intra omnia, ipse extra\nomnia, ipse supra omnia, ipse infra omnia; et superior est per\npotentiam et inferior per sustentationem; exterior per magnitudinem\net interior per subtilitatem; sursum regens, deorsum continens,\nextra circumdans, interius penetrans; nec alia parte superior, alia\ninferior, aut alia ex parte exterior atque ex alia manet interior,\nsed unus idemque totus ubique.\" According to Saint Gregory, in the\nsixth century, God was \"one and the same and wholly everywhere\";\n\"immanent within everything, without everything, above everything,\nbelow everything, sursum regens, dear sum continens\"; while\naccording to Archbishop Hildebert in the eleventh century: \"God is\noverall things, under all things; outside all, inside all; within\nbut not enclosed; without but not excluded; above but not raised up;\nbelow but not depressed; wholly above, presiding; wholly beneath,\nsustaining; wholly without, embracing; wholly within, filling.\"\nFinally, according to Benedict Spinoza, another five hundred years\nlater still: \"God is a being, absolutely infinite; that is to say, a\nsubstance made up of an infinity of attributes, each one of which\nexpresses an eternal and infinite essence.\"\n\nSpinoza was the great pantheist, whose name is still a terror to the\northodox, and whose philosophy is--very properly--a horror to the\nChurch--and yet Spinoza never wrote a line that, to the unguided\nstudent, sounds more Spinozist than the words of Saint Gregory and\nArchbishop Hildebert. If God is everywhere; wholly; presiding,\nsustaining, embracing and filling, \"sursum regens, deorsum\ncontinens,\" He is the only possible energy, and leaves no place for\nhuman will to act. A force which is \"one and the same and wholly\neverywhere\" is more Spinozist than Spinoza, and is likely to be\nmistaken for frank pantheism by the large majority of religious\nminds who must try to understand it without a theological course in\na Jesuit college. In the year 1100 Jesuit colleges did not exist,\nand even the great Dominican and Franciscan schools were far from\nsight in the future; but the School of Notre Dame at Paris existed,\nand taught the existence of God much as Archbishop Hildebert\ndescribed it. The most successful lecturer was William of Champeaux,\nand to any one who ever heard of William at all, the name instantly\ncalls up the figure of Abelard, in flesh and blood, as he sang to\nHeloise the songs which he says resounded through Europe. The\ntwelfth century, with all its sparkle, would be dull without Abelard\nand Heloise.  With infinite regret, Heloise must be left out of the\nstory, because she was not a philosopher or a poet or an artist, but\nonly a Frenchwoman to the last millimetre of her shadow. Even though\none may suspect that her famous letters to Abelard are, for the most\npart, by no means above scepticism, she was, by French standards,\nworth at least a dozen Abelards, if only because she called Saint\nBernard a false apostle.\n\nUnfortunately, French standards, by which she must be judged in our\nignorance, take for granted that she philosophized only for the sake\nof Abelard, while Abelard taught philosophy to her not so much\nbecause he believed in philosophy or in her as because he believed\nin himself. To this day, Abelard remains a problem as perplexing as\nhe must have been to Heloise, and almost as fascinating. As the west\nportal of Chartres is the door through which one must of necessity\nenter the Gothic architecture of the thirteenth century, so Abelard\nis the portal of approach to the Gothic thought and philosophy\nwithin. Neither art nor thought has a modern equivalent; only\nHeloise, like Isolde, unites the ages.\n\nThe first crusade seems, in perspective, to have rilled the whole\nfield of vision in France at the time; but, in fact, France seethed\nwith other emotions, and while the crusaders set out to scale heaven\nby force at Jerusalem, the monks, who remained at home, undertook to\nscale heaven by prayer and by absorption of body and soul in God;\nthe Cistercian Order was founded in 1098, and was joined in 1112 by\nyoung Bernard, born in 1090 at Fontaines-les-Dijon, drawing with him\nor after him so many thousands of young men into the self-immolation\nof the monastery as carried dismay into the hearts of half the women\nof France. At the same time--that is, about 1098 or 1100--Abelard\ncame up to Paris from Brittany, with as much faith in logic as\nBernard had in prayer or Godfrey of Bouillon in arms, and led an\nequal or even a greater number of combatants to the conquest of\nheaven by force of pure reason. None showed doubt. Hundreds of\nthousands of young men wandered from their provinces, mostly to\nPalestine, largely to cloisters, but also in great numbers to Paris\nand the schools, while few ever returned.\n\nAbelard had the advantage of being well-born; not so highly\ndescended as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas who were to complete\nhis work in the thirteenth century, but, like Bernard, a gentleman\nborn and bred. He was the eldest son of Berenger, Sieur du Pallet, a\nchateau in Brittany, south of the Loire, on the edge of Poitou. His\nname was Pierre du Pallet, although, for some unknown reason, he\ncalled himself Pierre Abailard, or Abeillard, or Esbaillart, or\nBeylard; for the spelling was never fixed. He was born in 1079, and\nwhen, in 1096, the young men of his rank were rushing off to the\nfirst crusade, Pierre, a boy of seventeen, threw himself with equal\nzeal into the study of science, and, giving up his inheritance or\nbirthright, at last came to Paris to seize a position in the\nschools. The year is supposed to have been 1100.\n\nThe Paris of Abelard's time was astonishingly old; so old that\nhardly a stone of it can be now pointed out. Even the oldest of the\nbuildings still standing in that quarter--Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre,\nSaint-Severin, and the tower of the Lycee Henri IV--are more modern;\nonly the old Roman Thermae, now part of the Musee de Cluny, within\nthe walls, and the Abbey Tower of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, outside,\nin the fields, were standing in the year 1100. Politically, Paris\nwas a small provincial town before the reign of Louis-le-Gros (1108-\n37), who cleared its gates of its nearest enemies; but as a school,\nParis was even then easily first. Students crowded into it by\nthousands, till the town is said to have contained more students\nthan citizens, Modern Paris seems to have begun as a university town\nbefore it had a university. Students flocked to it from great\ndistances, encouraged and supported by charity, and stimulated by\nprivileges, until they took entire possession of what is still\ncalled the Latin Quarter from the barbarous Latin they chattered;\nand a town more riotous, drunken, and vicious than it became, in the\ncourse of time, hardly existed even in the Middle Ages. In 1100,\nwhen enthusiasm was fresh and faith in science was strong, the great\nmass of students came there to study, and, having no regular\nuniversity organization or buildings, they thronged the cloister of\nNotre Dame--not our Notre Dame, which dates only from 1163, but the\nold Romanesque cathedral which stood on the same spot--and there\nthey listened, and retained what they could remember, for they were\nnot encouraged to take notes even if they were rich enough to buy\nnotebooks, while manuscripts were far beyond their means. One\nvaluable right the students seem to have had--that of asking\nquestions and even of disputing with the lecturer provided they\nfollowed the correct form of dialectics. The lecturer himself was\nlicensed by the Bishop.\n\nFive thousand students are supposed to have swarmed about the\ncloister of Notre Dame, across the Petit Pont, and up the hill of\nSainte-Genevieve; three thousand are said to have paid fees to\nAbelard in the days of his great vogue and they seem to have\nattached themselves to their favourite master as a champion to be\nupheld against the world. Jealousies ran high, and neither scholars\nnor masters shunned dispute. Indeed, the only science they taught or\nknew was the art of dispute--dialectics. Rhetoric, grammar, and\ndialectics were the regular branches of science, and bold students,\nwho were not afraid of dabbling in forbidden fields, extended their\nstudies to mathematics--\"exercitium nefarium,\" according to Abelard,\nwhich he professed to know nothing about but which he studied\nnevertheless. Abelard, whether pupil or master, never held his\ntongue if he could help it, for his fortune depended on using it\nwell; but he never used it so well in dialectics or theology as he\ndid, toward the end of his life, in writing a bit of autobiography,\nso admirably told, so vivid, so vibrating with the curious intensity\nof his generation, that it needed only to have been written in\n\"Romieu\" to be the chief monument of early French prose, as the\nwestern portal of Chartres is the chief monument of early French\nsculpture, and of about the same date. Unfortunately Abelard was a\nnoble scholar, who necessarily wrote and talked Latin, even with\nHeloise, and, although the Latin was mediaeval, it is not much the\nbetter on that account, because, in spite of its quaintness, the\nnaivetes of a young language--the egotism, jealousies, suspicions,\nboastings, and lamentations of a childlike time--take a false air of\noutworn Rome and Byzantium, although, underneath, the spirit lives:--\n\nI arrived at last in Paris where for a long time dialectics had\nspecially flourished under William of Champeaux, rightly reckoned\nthe first of my masters in that branch of study. I stayed some time\nin his school, but, though well received at first, I soon got to be\nan annoyance to him because I persisted in refuting certain ideas of\nhis, and because, not being afraid to enter into argument against\nhim, I sometimes got the better. This boldness, too, roused the\nwrath of those fellow students who were classed higher, because I was\nthe youngest and the last comer. This was the beginning of my series\nof misfortunes which still last; my renown every day increasing,\nenvy was kindled against me in every direction.\n\nThis picture of the boy of twenty, harassing the professor, day\nafter day, in his own lecture-room before hundreds of older\nstudents, paints Abelard to the life; but one may safely add a few\ntouches that heighten the effect; as that William of Champeaux\nhimself was barely thirty, and that Abelard throughout his career,\nmade use of every social and personal advantage to gain a point,\nwith little scruple either in manner or in sophistry. One may easily\nimagine the scene. Teachers are always much the same. Pupils and\nstudents differ only in degrees of docility. In 1100, both classes\nbegan by accepting the foundations of society, as they have to do\nstill; only they then accepted laws of the Church and Aristotle,\nwhile now they accept laws of the legislature and of energy. In\n1100, the students took for granted that, with the help of Aristotle\nand syllogisms, they could build out the Church intellectually, as\nthe architects, with the help of the pointed arch, were soon to\nenlarge it architecturally. They never doubted the certainty of\ntheir method. To them words had fixed values, like numbers, and\nsyllogisms were hewn stones that needed only to be set in place, in\norder to reach any height or support any weight. Every sentence was\nmade to take the form of a syllogism. One must have been educated in\na Jesuit or Dominican school in order to frame these syllogisms\ncorrectly, but merely by way of illustration one may timidly suggest\nhow the phrases sounded in their simplest form. For example, Plato\nor other equally good authority deemed substance as that which\nstands underneath phenomena; the most universal of universals, the\nultimate, the highest in order of generalization. The ultimate\nessence or substance is indivisible; God is substance; God is\nindivisible. The divine substance is incapable of alteration or\naccident; all other substance is liable to alteration or accident;\ntherefore, the divine substance differs from all other substance. A\nsubstance is a universal; as for example, Humanity, or the Human, is\na universal and indivisible; the Man Socrates, for instance, is not\na universal, but an individual; therefore, the substance Humanity,\nbeing indivisible, must exist entire and undivided in Socrates.\n\nThe form of logic most fascinating to youthful minds, as well as to\nsome minds that are only too acute, is the reductio ad absurdum; the\nforcing an opponent into an absurd alternative or admission; and the\nsyllogism lent itself happily to this use. Socrates abused the\nweapon and Abelard was the first French master of the art; but\nneither State nor Church likes to be reduced to an absurdity, and,\non the whole, both Socrates and Abelard fared ill in the result.\nEven now, one had best be civil toward the idols of the forum.\nAbelard would find most of his old problems sensitive to his touch\nto-day. Time has settled few or none of the essential points of\ndispute. Science hesitates, more visibly than the Church ever did,\nto decide once for all whether unity or diversity is ultimate law;\nwhether order or chaos is the governing rule of the universe, if\nuniverse there is; whether anything, except phenomena, exists. Even\nin matters more vital to society, one dares not speak too loud. Why,\nand for what, and to whom, is man a responsible agent? Every jury\nand judge, every lawyer and doctor, every legislator and clergyman\nhas his own views, and the law constantly varies. Every nation may\nhave a different system. One court may hang and another may acquit\nfor the same crime, on the same day; and science only repeats what\nthe Church said to Abelard, that where we know so little, we had\nbetter hold our tongues.\n\nAccording to the latest authorities, the doctrine of universals\nwhich convulsed the schools of the twelfth century has never\nreceived an adequate answer. What is a species? what is a genus or a\nfamily or an order? More or less convenient terms of classification,\nabout which the twelfth century cared very little, while it cared\ndeeply about the essence of classes! Science has become too complex\nto affirm the existence of universal truths, but it strives for\nnothing else, and disputes the problem, within its own limits,\nalmost as earnestly as in the twelfth century, when the whole field\nof human and superhuman activity was shut between these barriers of\nsubstance, universals, and particulars. Little has changed except\nthe vocabulary and the method. The schools knew that their society\nhung for life on the demonstration that God, the ultimate universal,\nwas a reality, out of which all other universal truths or realities\nsprang. Truth was a real thing, outside of human experience. The\nschools of Paris talked and thought of nothing else. John of\nSalisbury, who attended Abelard's lectures about 1136, and became\nBishop of Chartres in 1176, seems to have been more surprised than\nwe need be at the intensity of the emotion. \"One never gets away\nfrom this question,\" he said. \"From whatever point a discussion\nstarts, it is always led back and attached to that. It is the\nmadness of Rufus about Naevia; 'He thinks of nothing else; talks of\nnothing else, and if Naevia did not exist, Rufus would be dumb.'\"\n\nAbelard began it. After his first visit to Paris in 1100, he seems\nto have passed several years elsewhere, while Guillaume de Champeaux\nin 1108, retired from the school in the cloister of Notre Dame, and,\ntaking orders, established a class in a chapel near by, afterwards\nfamous as the Abbaye-de-Saint-Victor. The Jardin des Plantes and the\nGare d'Orleans now cover the ground where the Abbey stood, on the\nbanks of the Seine outside the Latin Quarter, and not a trace is\nleft of its site; but there William continued his course in\ndialectics, until suddenly Abelard reappeared among his scholars,\nand resumed his old attacks. This time Abelard could hardly call\nhimself a student. He was thirty years old, and long since had been\nhimself a teacher; he had attended William's course on dialectics\nnearly ten years before, and was past master in the art; he had\nnothing to learn from William in theology, for neither William nor\nhe was yet a theologist by profession. If Abelard went back to\nschool, it was certainly not to learn; but indeed, he himself made\nlittle or no pretence of it, and told with childlike candour not\nonly why he went, but also how brilliantly he succeeded in his\nobject:--\n\nI returned to study rhetoric in his school. Among other\ncontroversial battles, I succeeded, by the most irrefutable\nargument, in making him change, or rather ruin his doctrine of\nuniversals. His doctrine consisted in affirming the perfect identity\nof the essence in every individual of the same species, so that\naccording to him there was no difference in the essence but only in\nthe infinite variety of accidents. He then came to amend his\ndoctrine so as to affirm, not the identity any longer, but the\nabsence of distinction--the want of difference--in the essence. And\nas this question of universals had always been one of the most\nimportant questions of dialectics--so important that Porphyry,\ntouching on it in his Preliminaries, did not dare to take the\nresponsibility of cutting the knot, but said, \"It is a very grave\npoint,\"--Champeaux, who was obliged to modify his idea and then\nrenounce it, saw his course fall into such discredit that they\nhardly let him make his dialectical lectures, as though dialectics\nconsisted entirely in the question of universals.\n\nWhy was this point so \"very grave\"? Not because it was mere\ndialectics! The only part of the story that seems grave today is the\npart that Abelard left out; the part which Saint Bernard, thirty\nyears later put in, on behalf of William. We should be more\ncredulous than twelfth-century monks, if we believed, on Abelard's\nword in 1135, that in 1110 he had driven out of the schools the most\naccomplished dialectician of the age by an objection so familiar\nthat no other dialectician was ever silenced by it--whatever may\nhave been the case with theologians--and so obvious that it could\nnot have troubled a scholar of fifteen. William stated a settled\ndoctrine as old as Plato; Abelard interposed an objection as old as\nAristotle. Probably Plato and Aristotle had received the question\nand answer from philosophers ten-thousand years older than\nthemselves. Certainly the whole of philosophy has always been\ninvolved in the dispute.\n\nThe subject is as amusing as a comedy; so amusing that ten minutes\nmay be well given to playing the scene between William and Abelard,\nnot as it happened, but in a form nearer our ignorance, with liberty\nto invent arguments for William, and analogies--which are figures\nintended to serve as fatal weapons if they succeed, and as innocent\ntoys if they fail--such as he never imagined; while Abelard can\nrespond with his true rejoinder, fatal in a different sense. For the\nchief analogy, the notes of music would serve, or the colours of the\nsolar spectrum, or an energy, such as gravity--but the best is\ngeometrical, because Euclid was as scholastic as William of\nChampeaux himself, and his axioms are even more familiar to the\nschoolboy of the twentieth, than to the schoolman of the twelfth\ncentury.\n\nIn these scholastic tournaments the two champions started from\nopposite points--one, from the ultimate substance, God--the\nuniversal, the ideal, the type--the other from the individual,\nSocrates, the concrete, the observed fact of experience, the object\nof sensual perception. The first champion--William in this instance--\nassumed that the universal was a real thing; and for that reason he\nwas called a realist. His opponent--Abelard--held that the universal\nwas only nominally real; and on that account he was called a\nnominalist. Truth, virtue, humanity, exist as units and realities,\nsaid William. Truth, replied Abelard, is only the sum of all\npossible facts that are true, as humanity is the sum of all actual\nhuman beings. The ideal bed is a form, made by God, said Plato. The\nideal bed is a name, imagined by ourselves, said Aristotle. \"I start\nfrom the universe,\" said William. \"I start from the atom,\" said\nAbelard; and, once having started, they necessarily came into\ncollision at some point between the two.\n\nWilliam of Champeaux, lecturing on dialectics or logic, comes to the\nquestion of universals, which he says, are substances. Starting from\nthe highest substance, God, all being descends through created\nsubstances by stages, until it reaches the substance animality, from\nwhich it descends to the substance humanity: and humanity being,\nlike other essences or substances, indivisible, passes wholly into\neach individual, becoming Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, much as\nthe divine substance exists wholly and undivided in each member of\nthe Trinity.\n\nHere Abelard interrupts. The divine substance, he says, operates by\nlaws of its own, and cannot be used for comparison. In treating of\nhuman substance, one is bound by human limitations. If the whole of\nhumanity is in Socrates, it is wholly absorbed by Socrates, and\ncannot be at the same time in Plato, or elsewhere. Following his\nfavourite reductio ad absurdum, Abelard turns the idea round, and\ninfers from it that, since Socrates carries all humanity in him, he\ncarries Plato, too; and both must be in the same place, though\nSocrates is at Athens and Plato in Rome.\n\nThe objection is familiar to William, who replies by another\ncommonplace:--\n\n\"Mr. Abelard, might I, without offence, ask you a simple matter? Can\nyou give me Euclid's definition of a point?\"\n\n\"If I remember right it is, 'illud cujus nulla pars est'; that which\nhas no parts.\"\n\n\"Has it existence?\"\n\n\"Only in our minds.\"\n\n\"Not, then, in God?\"\n\n\"All necessary truths exist first in God. If the point is a\nnecessary truth, it exists first there.\"\n\n\"Then might I ask you for Euclid's definition of the line?\"\n\n\"The line is that which has only extension; 'Linea vocatur illa quae\nsolam longitudinem habet.'\"  \"Can you conceive an infinite straight\nline?\"\n\n\"Only as a line which has no end, like the point extended.\"\n\n\"Supposing we imagine a straight line, like opposite rays of the\nsun, proceeding in opposite directions to infinity--is it real?\"\n\n\"It has no reality except in the mind that conceives it.\"\n\n\"Supposing we divide that line which has no reality into two parts\nat its origin in the sun or star, shall we get two infinities?--or\nshall we say, two halves of the infinite?\"\n\n\"We conceive of each as partaking the quality of infinity.\"\n\n\"Now, let us cut out the diameter of the sun; or rather--since this\nis what our successors in the school will do,--let us take a line of\nour earth's longitude which is equally unreal, and measure a degree\nof this thing which does not exist, and then divide it into equal\nparts which we will use as a measure or metre. This metre, which is\nstill nothing, as I understand you, is infinitely divisible into\npoints? and the point itself is infinitely small? Therefore we have\nthe finite partaking the nature of the infinite?\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly!\"\n\n\"One step more, Mr. Abelard, if I do not weary you! Let me take\nthree of these metres which do not exist, and place them so that the\nends of one shall touch the ends of the others. May I ask what is\nthat figure?\"\n\n\"I presume you mean it to be a triangle.\"\n\n\"Precisely! and what sort of a triangle?\"\n\n\"An equilateral triangle, the sides of which measure one metre\neach.\"\n\n\"Now let me take three more of these metres which do not exist, and\nconstruct another triangle which does not exist;--are these two\ntriangles or one triangle?\"\n\n\"They are most certainly one--a single concept of the only possible\nequilateral triangle measuring one metre on each face.\"\n\n\"You told us a moment ago that a universal could not exist wholly\nand exclusively in two individuals at once. Does not the universal\nby definition--THE equilateral triangle measuring one metre on each\nface--does it not exist wholly, in its integrity of essence, in each\nof the two triangles we have conceived?\"\n\n\"It does--as a conception.\"\n\n\"I thank you! Now, although I fear wearying you, perhaps you will\nconsent to let me add matter to mind. I have here on my desk an\nobject not uncommon in nature, which I will ask you to describe.\"\n\n\"It appears to be a crystal.\"\n\n\"May I ask its shape?\"\n\n\"I should call it a regular octahedron.\"\n\n\"That is, two pyramids, set base to base? making eight plane\nsurfaces, each a perfect equilateral triangle?\"\n\n\"Concedo triangula (I grant the triangles).\"\n\n\"Do you know, perchance, what is this material which seems to give\nsubstantial existence to these eight triangles?\"\n\n\"I do not.\"\n\n\"Nor I! nor does it matter, unless you conceive it to be the work of\nman?\"\n\n\"I do not claim it as man's work.\"\n\n\"Whose, then?\"\n\n\"We believe all actual creation of matter, united with form, to be\nthe work of God.\"\n\n\"Surely not the substance of God himself? Perhaps you mean that this\nform--this octahedron--is a divine concept.\"\n\n\"I understand such to be the doctrine of the Church.\"\n\n\"Then it seems that God uses this concept habitually to create this\nvery common crystal. One question more, and only one, if you will\npermit me to come to the point. Does the matter--the material--of\nwhich this crystal is made affect in any way the form--the nature,\nthe soul--of the universal equilateral triangle as you see it\nbounding these eight plane surfaces?\"\n\n\"That I do not know, and do not think essential to decide. As far as\nthese triangles are individual, they are made so by the will of God,\nand not by the substance you call triangle. The universal--the\nabstract right angle, or any other abstract form--is only an idea, a\nconcept, to which reality, individuality, or what we might call\nenergy is wanting. The only true energy, except man's free will, is\nGod.\"\n\n\"Very good, Mr. Abelard! we can now reach our issue. You affirm\nthat, just as the line does not exist in space, although the eye\nsees little else in space, so the triangle does not exist in this\ncrystal, although the crystal shows eight of them, each perfect. You\nare aware that on this line which does not exist, and its\ncombination in this triangle which does not exist, rests the whole\nfabric of mathematics with all its necessary truths. In other words,\nyou know that in this line, though it does not exist, is bound up\nthe truth of the only branch of human knowledge which claims\nabsolute certainty for human processes. You admit that this line and\ntriangle, which are mere figments of our human imagination, not only\nexist independent of us in the crystal, but are, as we suppose,\nhabitually and invariably used by God Himself to give form to the\nmatter contained within the planes of the crystal. Yet to this line\nand triangle you deny reality. To mathematical truth, you deny\ncompulsive force. You hold that an equilateral triangle may, to you\nand all other human individuals, be a right-angled triangle if you\nchoose to imagine it so. Allow me to say, without assuming any claim\nto superior knowledge, that to me your logic results in a different\nconclusion. If you are compelled, at one point or another of the\nchain of being, to deny existence to a substance, surely it should\nbe to the last and feeblest. I see nothing to hinder you from\ndenying your own existence, which is, in fact, impossible to\ndemonstrate. Certainly you are free, in logic, to argue that\nSocrates and Plato are mere names--that men and matter are phantoms\nand dreams. No one ever has proved or ever can prove the contrary,\nInfallibly, a great philosophical school will some day be founded on\nthat assumption. I venture even to recommend it to your acute and\nsceptical mind; but I cannot conceive how, by any process of\nreasoning, sensual or supersensual, you can reach the conclusion\nthat the single form of truth which instantly and inexorably compels\nour submission to its laws--is nothing.\"\n\nThus far, all was familiar ground; certainly at least as familiar as\nthe Pons Asinorum; and neither of the two champions had need to feel\nruffled in temper by the discussion. The real struggle began only at\nthis point; for until this point was reached, both positions were\nabout equally tenable. Abelard had hitherto rested quietly on the\ndefensive, but William's last thrust obliged him to strike in his\nturn, and he drew himself up for what, five hundred years later, was\ncalled the \"Coup de Jarnac\":--\n\n\"I do not deny,\" he begins; \"on the contrary, I affirm that the\nuniversal, whether we call it humanity, or equilateral triangle, has\na sort of reality as a concept; that it is something; even a\nsubstance, if you insist upon it. Undoubtedly the sum of all\nindividual men results in the concept of humanity. What I deny is\nthat the concept results in the individual. You have correctly\nstated the essence of the point and the line as sources of our\nconcept of the infinite; what I deny is that they are divisions of\nthe infinite. Universals cannot be divided; what is capable of\ndivision cannot be a universal. I admit the force of your analogy in\nthe case of the crystal; but I am obliged to point out to you that,\nif you insist on this analogy, you will bring yourself and me into\nflagrant contradiction with the fixed foundations of the Church. If\nthe energy of the triangle gives form to the crystal, and the energy\nof the line gives reality to the triangle, and the energy of the\ninfinite gives substance to the line, all energy at last becomes\nidentical with the ultimate substance, God Himself. Socrates becomes\nGod in small; Judas is identical with both; humanity is of the\ndivine essence, and exists, wholly and undivided, in each of us. The\nequilateral triangle we call humanity exists, therefore, entire,\nidentical, in you and me, as a subdivision of the infinite line,\nspace, energy, or substance, which is God. I need not remind you\nthat this is pantheism, and that if God is the only energy, human\nfree will merges in God's free will; the Church ceases to have a\nreason for existence; man cannot be held responsible for his own\nacts, either to the Church or to the State; and finally, though very\nunwillingly, I must, in regard for my own safety, bring the subject\nto the attention of the Archbishop, which, as you know better than\nI, will lead to your seclusion, or worse.\"\n\nWhether Abelard used these precise words is nothing to the point.\nThe words he left on record were equivalent to these. As translated\nby M. de Remusat from a manuscript entitled: \"Glossulae magistri\nPetri Baelardi super Porphyrium,\" the phrase runs: \"A grave heresy\nis at the end of this doctrine; for, according to it, the divine\nsubstance which is recognized as admitting of no form, is\nnecessarily identical with every substance in particular and with\nall substance in general.\" Even had he not stated the heresy so\nbluntly, his objection necessarily pushed William in face of it.\nRealism, when pressed, always led to pantheism. William of Champeaux\nand Bishop or Archbishop Hildebert were personal friends, and\nHildebert's divine substance left no more room for human free will\nthan Abelard saw in the geometric analogy imagined for William.\nThroughout the history of the Church for fifteen hundred years,\nwhenever this theological point has been pressed against churchmen\nit has reduced them to evasion or to apology. Admittedly, the weak\npoint of realism was its fatally pantheistic term.\n\nOf course, William consulted his friends in the Church, probably\nArchbishop Hildebert among the rest, before deciding whether to\nmaintain or to abandon his ground, and the result showed that he was\nguided by their advice. Realism was the Roman arch--the only\npossible foundation for any Church; because it assumed unity, and\nany other scheme was compelled to prove it, for a starting-point.\nLet us see, for a moment, what became of the dialogue, when pushed\ninto theology, in order to reach some of the reasons which reduced\nWilliam to tacit abandonment of a doctrine he could never have\nsurrendered unless under compulsion. That he was angry is sure, for\nAbelard, by thus thrusting theology into dialectics, had struck him\na full blow; and William knew Abelard well:--\n\n\"Ah!\" he would have rejoined; \"you are quick, M. du Pallet, to turn\nwhat I offered as an analogy, into an argument of heresy against my\nperson. You are at liberty to take that course if you choose, though\nI give you fair warning that it will lead you far. But now I must\nask you still another question. This concept that you talk about--\nthis image in the mind of man, of God, of matter; for I know not\nwhere to seek it--whether is it a reality or not?\"\n\n\"I hold it as, in a manner, real.\"\n\n\"I want a categorical answer--Yes or No!\"\n\n\"Distinguo! (I must qualify.)\"\n\n\"I will have no qualifications. A substance either is, or not.\nChoose!\"\n\nTo this challenge Abelard had the choice of answering Yes, or of\nanswering no, or of refusing to answer at all. He seems to have done\nthe last; but we suppose him to have accepted the wager of battle,\nand to answer:--\n\n\"Yes, then!\"\n\n\"Good!\" William rejoins; \"now let us see how your pantheism differs\nfrom mine. My triangle exists as a reality, or what science will\ncall an energy, outside my mind, in God, and is impressed on my mind\nas it is on a mirror, like the triangle on the crystal, its energy\ngiving form. Your triangle you say is also an energy, but an essence\nof my mind itself; you thrust it into the mind as an integral part\nof the mirror; identically the same concept, energy, or necessary\ntruth which is inherent in God. Whatever subterfuge you may resort\nto, sooner or later you have got to agree that your mind is\nidentical with God's nature as far as that concept is concerned.\nYour pantheism goes further than mine. As a doctrine of the Real\nPresence peculiar to yourself, I can commend it to the Archbishop\ntogether with your delation of me.\"\n\nSupposing that Abelard took the opposite course, and answered:--\n\n\"No! my concept is a mere sign.\"\n\n\"A sign of what, in God's name!\"\n\n\"A sound! a word! a symbol! an echo only of my ignorance.\"\n\n\"Nothing, then! So truth and virtue and charity do not exist at all.\nYou suppose yourself to exist, but you have no means of knowing God;\ntherefore, to you God does not exist except as an echo of your\nignorance; and, what concerns you most, the Church does not exist\nexcept as your concept of certain individuals, whom you cannot\nregard as a unity, and who suppose themselves to believe in a\nTrinity which exists only as a sound, or a symbol. I will not repeat\nyour words, M. du Pallet, outside this cloister, because the\nconsequences to you would certainly be fatal; but it is only too\nclear that you are a materialist, and as such your fate must be\ndecided by a Church Council, unless you prefer the stake by judgment\nof a secular court.\"\n\nIn truth, pure nominalism--if, indeed, any one ever maintained it--\nafforded no cover whatever. Nor did Abelard's concept help the\nmatter, although for want of a better refuge, the Church was often\ndriven into it. Conceptualism was a device, like the false wooden\nroof, to cover and conceal an inherent weakness of construction.\nUnity either is, or is not. If soldiers, no matter in what number,\ncan never make an army, and worshippers, though in millions, do not\nmake a Church, and all humanity united would not necessarily\nconstitute a State, equally little can their concepts, individual or\nunited, constitute the one or the other. Army, Church, and State,\neach is an organic whole, complex beyond all possible addition of\nunits, and not a concept at all, but rather an animal that thinks,\ncreates, devours, and destroys. The attempt to bridge the chasm\nbetween multiplicity and unity is the oldest problem of philosophy,\nreligion, and science, but the flimsiest bridge of all is the human\nconcept, unless somewhere, within or beyond it, an energy not\nindividual is hidden; and in that case the old question instantly\nreappears: What is that energy?\n\nAbelard would have done well to leave William alone, but Abelard was\nan adventurer, and William was a churchman. To win a victory over a\nchurchman is not very difficult for an adventurer, and is always a\ntempting amusement, because the ambition of churchmen to shine in\nworldly contests is disciplined and checked by the broader interests\nof the Church: but the victory is usually sterile, and rarely harms\nthe churchman. The Church cares for its own. Probably the bishops\nadvised William not to insist on his doctrine, although every bishop\nmay have held the same view. William allowed himself to be silenced\nwithout a judgment, and in that respect stands almost if not quite\nalone among schoolmen. The students divined that he had sold himself\nto the Church, and consequently deserted him. Very soon he received\nhis reward in the shape of the highest dignity open to private\nambition--a bishopric. As Bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne he made for\nhimself a great reputation, which does not concern us, although it\ndeeply concerned the unfortunate Abelard, for it happened, either by\nchance or design, that within a year or two after William\nestablished himself at Chalons, young Bernard of Citeaux chose a\nneighbouring diocese in which to establish a branch of the\nCistercian Order, and Bishop William took so keen an interest in the\nsuccess of Bernard as almost to claim equal credit for it. Clairvaux\nwas, in a manner, William's creation, although not in his diocese,\nand yet, if there was a priest in all France who fervently despised\nthe schools, it was young Bernard. William of Champeaux, the chief\nof schoolmen, could never have gained Bernard's affections. Bishop\nWilliam of Chalons must have drifted far from dialectics into\nmysticism in order to win the support of Clairvaux, and train up a\nnew army of allies who were to mark Abelard for an easy prey.\n\nMeanwhile Abelard pursued his course of triumph in the schools, and\nin due time turned from dialectics to theology, as every ambitious\nteacher could hardly fail to do. His affair with Heloise and their\nmarriage seem to have occupied his time in 1117 or 1118, for they\nboth retired into religious orders in 1119, and he resumed his\nlectures in 1120. With his passion for rule, he was fatally certain\nto attempt ruling the Church as he ruled the schools; and, as it was\nalways enough for him that any point should be tender in order that\nhe should press upon it, he instantly and instinctively seized on\nthe most sensitive nerve of the Church system to wrench it into his\nservice. He became a sort of apostle of the Holy Ghost.\n\nThat the Trinity is a mystery was a law of theology so absolute as\nin a degree to hide the law of philosophy that the Trinity was meant\nas a solution of a greater mystery still. In truth, as a matter of\nphilosophy, the Trinity was intended to explain the eternal and\nprimary problem of the process by which unity could produce\ndiversity. Starting from unity alone, philosophers found themselves\nunable to stir hand or foot until they could account for duality. To\nthe common, ignorant peasant, no such trouble occurred, for he knew\nthe Trinity in its simpler form as the first condition of life, like\ntime and space and force. No human being was so stupid as not to\nunderstand that the father, mother, and child made a trinity,\nreturning into each other, and although every father, every mother,\nand every child, from the dawn of man's intelligence, had asked why,\nand had never received an answer more intelligible to them than to\nphilosophers, they never showed difficulty in accepting that trinity\nas a fact. They might even, in their beneficent blindness, ask the\nChurch why that trinity, which had satisfied the Egyptians for five\nor ten-thousand years, was not good enough for churchmen. They\nthemselves were doing their utmost, though unconsciously, to\nidentify the Holy Ghost with the Mother, while philosophy insisted\non excluding the human symbol precisely because it was human and led\nback to an infinite series. Philosophy required three units to start\nfrom; it posed the equilateral triangle, not the straight line, as\nthe foundation of its deometry. The first straight line, infinite in\nextension, must be assumed, and its reflection engendered the\nsecond, but whence came the third? Under protest, philosophy was\ncompelled to accept the symbol of Father and Son as a matter of\nfaith, but, if the relation of Father and Son were accepted for the\ntwo units which reflected each other, what relation expressed the\nHoly Ghost? In philosophy, the product of two units was not a third\nunit, but diversity, multiplicity, infinity. The subject was, for\nthat reason, better handled by the Arabs, whose reasoning worked\nback on the Christian theologists and made the point more delicate\nstill. Common people, like women and children and ourselves, could\nnever understand the Trinity; naturally, intelligent people\nunderstood it still less, but for them it did not matter; they did\nnot need to understand it provided their neighbours would leave it\nalone.\n\nThe mass of mankind wanted something nearer to them than either the\nFather or the Son; they wanted the Mother, and the Church tried, in\nwhat seems to women and children and ourselves rather a feeble way,\nto give the Holy Ghost, as far as possible, the Mother's attributes\n--Love, Charity, Grace; but in spite of conscientious effort and\nunswerving faith, the Holy Ghost remained to the mass of Frenchmen\nsomewhat apart, feared rather than loved. The sin against the Holy\nGhost was a haunting spectre, for no one knew what else it was.\n\nNaturally the Church, and especially its official theologists, took\nan instinctive attitude of defence whenever a question on this\nsubject was asked, and were thrown into a flutter of irritation\nwhenever an answer was suggested. No man likes to have his\nintelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts\nabout it himself. The distinguishing essence of the Holy Ghost, as a\ntheological substance, was its mystery. That this mystery should be\ntouched at all was annoying to every one who knew the dangers that\nlurked behind the veil, but that it should be freely handled before\naudiences of laymen by persons of doubtful character was impossible.\nSuch license must end in discrediting the whole Trinity under\npretence of making it intelligible.\n\nPrecisely this license was what Abelard took, and on it he chose to\ninsist. He said nothing heretical; he treated the Holy Ghost with\nalmost exaggerated respect, as though other churchmen did not quite\nappreciate its merits; but he would not let it alone, and the Church\ndreaded every moment lest, with his enormous influence in the\nschools, he should raise a new storm by his notorious indiscretion.\nYet so long as he merely lectured, he was not molested; only when he\nbegan to publish his theology did the Church interfere. Then a\ncouncil held at Soissons in 1121 abruptly condemned his book in\nblock, without reading it, without specifying its errors, and\nwithout hearing his defence; obliged him to throw the manuscript\ninto the fire with his own hands, and finally shut him up in a\nmonastery.\n\nHe had invited the jurisdiction by taking orders, but even the\nChurch was shocked by the summary nature of the judgment, which\nseems to have been quite irregular. In fact, the Church has never\nknown what it was that the council condemned. The latest great work\non the Trinity, by the Jesuit Father de Regnon, suggests that\nAbelard's fault was in applying to the Trinity his theory of\nconcepts.\n\n\"Yes!\" he says; \"the mystery is explained; the key of conceptualism\nhas opened the tabernacle, and Saint Bernard was right in saying\nthat, thanks to Abelard, every one can penetrate it and contemplate\nit at his ease; 'even the graceless, even the uncircumcised.' Yes!\nthe Trinity is explained, but after the manner of the Sabellians.\nFor to identify the Persons in the terms of human concepts is, in\nthe same stroke, to destroy their 'subsistances propres.'\"\n\nAlthough the Saviour seems to have felt no compunctions about\nidentifying the persons of the Trinity in the terms of human\nconcepts, it is clear that tourists and heretics had best leave the\nChurch to deal with its \"subsistances propres,\" and with its own\nmembers, in its own way. In sum, the Church preferred to stand firm\non the Roman arch, and the architects seem now inclined to think it\nwas right; that scholastic science and the pointed arch proved to be\nfailures. In the twelfth century the world may have been rough, but\nit was not stupid. The Council of Soissons was held while the\narchitects and sculptors were building the west porch of Chartres\nand the Aquilon at Mont-Saint-Michel. Averroes was born at Cordova\nin 1126; Omar Khayyam died at Naishapur in 1123. Poetry and\nmetaphysics owned the world, and their quarrel with theology was a\nprivate, family dispute. Very soon the tide turned decisively in\nAbelard's favour. Suger, a political prelate, became minister of the\nKing, and in March, 1122, Abbot of Saint-Denis. In both capacities\nhe took the part of Abelard, released him from restraint, and even\nrestored to him liberty of instruction, at least beyond the\njurisdiction of the Bishop of Paris. Abelard then took a line of\nconduct singularly parallel with that of Bernard. Quitting civilized\nlife he turned wholly to religion. \"When the agreement,\" he said,\n\"had been executed by both parties to it, in presence of the King\nand his ministers, I next retired within the territory of Troyes,\nupon a desert spot which I knew, and on a piece of ground given me\nby certain persons, I built, with the consent of the bishop of the\ndiocese, a sort of oratory of reeds and thatch, which I placed under\nthe invocation of the Holy Trinity ... Founded at first in the name\nof the Holy Trinity, then placed under its invocation, it was called\n'Paraclete' in memory of my having come there as a fugitive and in\nmy despair having found some repose in the consolations of divine\ngrace. This denomination was received by many with great\nastonishment, and some attacked it with violence under pretext that\nit was not permitted to consecrate a church specially to the Holy\nGhost any more than to God the Father, but that, according to\nancient usage, it must be dedicated either to the Son alone or to\nthe Trinity.\"\n\nThe spot is still called Paraclete, near Nogent-sur-Seine, in the\nparish of Quincey about halfway between Fontainebleau and Troyes.\nThe name Paraclete as applied to the Holy Ghost meant the Consoler,\nthe Comforter, the Spirit of Love and Grace; as applied to the\noratory by Abelard it meant a renewal of his challenge to\ntheologists, a separation of the Persons in the Trinity, a\nvulgarization of the mystery; and, as his story frankly says, it was\nso received by many. The spot was not so remote but that his\nscholars could follow him, and he invited them to do so. They came\nin great numbers, and he lectured to them. \"In body I was hidden in\nthis spot; but my renown overran the whole world and filled it with\nmy word.\" Undoubtedly Abelard taught theology, and, in defiance of\nthe council that had condemned him, attempted to define the persons\nof the Trinity. For this purpose he had fallen on a spot only fifty\nor sixty miles from Clairvaux where Bernard was inspiring a contrary\nspirit of religion; he placed himself on the direct line between\nClairvaux and its source at Citeaux near Dijon; indeed, if he had\nsought for a spot as central as possible to the active movement of\nthe Church and the time, he could have hit on none more convenient\nand conspicuous unless it were the city of Troyes itself, the\ncapital of Champagne, some thirty miles away. The proof that he\nmeant to be aggressive is furnished by his own account of the\nconsequences. Two rivals, he says, one of whom seems to have been\nBernard of Clairvaux, took the field against him, \"and succeeded in\nexciting the hostility of certain ecclesiastical and secular\nauthorities, by charging monstrous things, not only against my\nfaith, but also against my manner of life, to such a point as to\ndetach from me some of my principal friends; even those who\npreserved some affection for me dared no longer display it, for\nfear. God is my witness that I never heard of the union of an\necclesiastical assembly without thinking that its object was my\ncondemnation.\" The Church had good reason, for Abelard's conduct\ndefied discipline; but far from showing harshness, the Church this\ntime showed a true spirit of conciliation most creditable to\nBernard. Deeply as the Cistercians disliked and distrusted Abelard,\nthey did not violently suppress him, but tacitly consented to let\nthe authorities buy his silence with Church patronage.\n\nThe transaction passed through Suger's hands, and offered an\nordinary example of political customs as old as history. An abbey in\nBrittany became vacant; at a hint from the Duke Conan, which may\nwell be supposed to have been suggested from Paris, the monks chose\nAbelard as their new abbot, and sent some of their number to Suger\nto request permission for Abelard, who was a monk of Saint-Denis, to\nbecome Abbot of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys, near Vannes, in Brittany.\nSuger probably intimated to Abelard, with a certain degree of\nauthority, that he had better accept. Abelard, \"struck with terror,\nand as it were under the menace of a thunderbolt,\" accepted. Of\ncourse the dignity was in effect banishment and worse, and was so\nunderstood on all sides. The Abbaye-de-Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys, though\nless isolated than Mont-Saint-Michel, was not an agreeable winter\nresidence. Though situated in Abelard's native province of Brittany,\nonly sixty or eighty miles from his birthplace, it was for him a\nprison with the ocean around it and a singularly wild people to deal\nwith; but he could have endured his lot with contentment, had not\ndiscipline or fear or pledge compelled him to hold his tongue. From\n1125, when he was sent to Brittany until 1135 when he reappeared in\nParis, he never opened his mouth to lecture. \"Never, as God is my\nwitness,--never would I have acquiesced in such an offer, had it not\nbeen to escape, no matter how, from the vexations with which I was\nincessantly overwhelmed.\"\n\nA great career in the Church was thus opened for him against his\nwill, and if he did not die an archbishop it was not wholly the\nfault of the Church. Already he was a great prelate, the equal in\nrank of the Abbe Suger, himself, of Saint-Denis; of Peter the\nVenerable of Cluny; of Bernard of Clairvaux. He was in a manner a\npeer of the realm. Almost immediately he felt the advantages of the\nchange. Barely two years passed when, in 1127, the Abbe Suger, in\nreforming his subordinate Abbey of Argenteuil, was obliged to\ndisturb Heloise, then a sister in that congregation. Abelard was\nwarned of the necessity that his wife should be protected, and with\nthe assistance of everyone concerned, he was allowed to establish\nhis wife at the Paraclete as head of a religious sisterhood. \"I\nreturned there; I invited Heloise to come there with the nuns of her\ncommunity; and when they arrived, I made them the entire donation of\nthe oratory and its dependencies ... The bishops cherished her as\ntheir daughter; the abbots as their sister; the laymen as their\nmother.\" This was merely the beginning of her favour and of his. For\nten years they were both of them petted children of the Church.\n\nThe formal establishment of Heloise at the Paraclete took place in\n1129. In February, 1130, on the death of the Pope at Rome, a schism\nbroke out, and the cardinals elected two popes, one of whom took the\nname of Innocent II, and appealed for support to France. Suger saw a\ngreat political opportunity and used it. The heads of the French\nChurch agreed in supporting Innocent, and the King summoned a Church\ncouncil at Etampes to declare its adhesion. The council met in the\nlate summer; Bernard of Clairvaux took the lead; Peter the\nVenerable, Suger of Saint-Denis, and the Abbot of Saint-Gildas-de-\nRhuys supported him; Innocent himself took refuge at Cluny in\nOctober, and on January 20, 1131, he stopped at the Benedictine\nAbbey of Morigny. The Chronicle of the monastery, recording the\nabbots present on this occasion,--the Abbot of Morigny itself, of\nFeversham; of Saint-Lucien of Beauvais, and so forth,--added\nespecially: \"Bernard of Clairvaux, who was then the most famous\npulpit orator in France; and Peter Abelard, Abbot of Saint-Gildas,\nalso a monk and the most eminent master of the schools to which the\nscholars of almost all the Latin races flowed.\"\n\nInnocent needed popular support; Bernard and Abelard were the two\nleaders of popular opinion in France. To attach them, Innocent could\nrefuse nothing. Probably Abelard remained with Innocent, but in any\ncase Innocent gave him, at Auxerre, in the following November, a\ndiploma, granting to Heloise, prioress of the Oratory of the Holy\nTrinity, all rights of property over whatever she might possess,\nagainst all assailants; which proves Abelard's favour. At this time\nhe seems to have taken great interest in the new sisterhood. \"I made\nthem more frequent visits,\" he said, \"in order to work for their\nbenefit.\" He worked so earnestly for their benefit that he\nscandalized the neighbourhood and had to argue at unnecessary length\nhis innocence of evil. He went so far as to express a wish to take\nrefuge among them and to abandon his abbey in Brittany. He professed\nto stand in terror of his monks; he excommunicated them; they paid\nno attention to him; he appealed to the Pope, his friend, and\nInnocent sent a special legate to enforce their submission \"in\npresence of the Count and the Bishops.\"\n\nEven since that, they would not keep quiet. And quite recently,\nsince the expulsion of those of whom I have spoken, when I returned\nto the abbey, abandoning myself to the rest of the brothers who\ninspired me with less distrust, I found them even worse than the\nothers. It was no longer a question of poison; it was the dagger\nthat they now sharpened against my breast. I had great difficulty in\nescaping from them under the guidance of one of the neighbouring\nlords. Similar perils menace me still and every day I see the sword\nraised over my head. Even at table I can hardly breathe ... This is\nthe torture that I endure every moment of the day; I, a poor monk,\nraised to the prelacy, becoming more miserable in becoming more\ngreat, that by my example the ambitious may learn to curb their\ngreed.\n\nWith this, the \"Story of Calamity\" ends. The allusions to Innocent\nII seem to prove that it was written not earlier than 1132; the\nconfession of constant and abject personal fear suggests that it was\nwritten under the shock caused by the atrocious murder of the Prior\nof Saint-Victor by the nephews of the Archdeacon of Paris, who had\nalso been subjected to reforms. This murder was committed a few\nmiles outside of the walls of Paris, on August 20, 1133. The \"Story\nof Calamity\" is evidently a long plea for release from the\nrestraints imposed on its author by his position in the prelacy and\nthe tacit, or possibly the express, contract he had made, or to\nwhich he had submitted, in 1125. This plea was obviously written in\norder to serve one of two purposes:--either to be placed before the\nauthorities whose consent alone could relieve Abelard from his\nrestraints; or to justify him in throwing off the load of the\nChurch, and resuming the profession of schoolman. Supposing the\nsecond explanation, the date of the paper would be more or less\nclosely fixed by John of Salisbury, who coming to Paris as a\nstudent, in 1136, found Abelard lecturing on the Mont-Sainte-\nGenevieve; that is to say, not under the license of the Bishop of\nParis or his Chancellor, but independently, in a private school of\nhis own, outside the walls. \"I attached myself to the Palatine\nPeripatician who then presided on the hill of Sainte-Genevieve, the\ndoctor illustrious, admired by all. There, at his feet, I received\nthe first elements of the dialectic art, and according to the\nmeasure of my poor understanding I received with all the avidity of\nmy soul everything that came from his mouth.\"\n\nThis explanation is hardly reasonable, for no prelate who was not\nalso a temporal lord would have dared throw off his official duties\nwithout permission from his superiors. In Abelard's case the only\nsuperior to whom he could apply, as Abbot of Saint-Gildas in\nBrittany, was probably the Pope himself. In the year 1135 the moment\nwas exceedingly favourable for asking privileges. Innocent, driven\nfrom Rome a second time, had summoned a council at Pisa for May 30\nto help him. Louis-le-Gros and his minister Suger gave at first no\nsupport to this council, and were overruled by Bernard of Clairvaux\nwho in a manner drove them into giving the French clergy permission\nto attend. The principal archbishops, a number of bishops, and\nsixteen abbots went to Pisa in May, 1135, and some one of them\ncertainly asked Innocent for favours on behalf of Abelard, which the\nPope granted.\n\nThe proof is a papal bull, dated in 1136, in favour of Heloise,\ngiving her the rank and title of Abbess, accompanied by another\ngiving to the Oratory of the Holy Trinity the rank and name of\nMonastery of the Paraclete, a novelty in Church tradition so\nextraordinary or so shocking that it still astounds churchmen. With\nthis excessive mark of favour Innocent could have felt little\ndifficulty in giving Abelard the permission to absent himself from\nhis abbey, and with this permission in his hands Abelard might have\nlectured on dialectics to John of Salisbury in the summer or autumn\nof 1136. He did not, as far as known, resume lectures on theology.\n\nSuch success might have turned heads much better balanced than that\nof Abelard. With the support of the Pope and at least one of the\nmost prominent cardinals, and with relations at court with the\nministers of Louis-le-Gros, Abelard seemed to himself as strong as\nBernard of Clairvaux, and a more popular champion of reform. The\nyear 1137, which has marked a date for so many great points in our\ntravels, marked also the moment of Abelard's greatest vogue. The\nvictory of Aristotle and the pointed arch seemed assured when Suger\neffected the marriage of the young Prince Louis to the heiress\nEleanor of Guienne. The exact moment was stamped on the facade of\nhis exquisite creation, the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis, finished in\n1140 and still in part erect. From Saint-Denis to Saint-Sulpice was\nbut a step. Louis-le-Grand seems to stand close in succession to\nLouis-le-Gros.\n\nFortunately for tourists, the world, restless though it might be,\ncould not hurry, and Abelard was to know of the pointed arch very\nlittle except its restlessness. Just at the apex of his triumph,\nAugust 1, 1137, Louis-le-Gros died. Six months afterwards the anti-\npope also died, the schism ended, and Innocent II needed Abelard's\nhelp no more. Bernard of Clairvaux became Pope and King at once.\nBoth Innocent and Louis-le-Jeune were in a manner his personal\ncreations. The King's brother Henry, next in succession, actually\nbecame a monk at Clairvaux not long afterwards. Even the\narchitecture told the same story, for at Saint-Denis, though the\narch might simulate a point, the old Romanesque lines still assert\nas firmly as ever their spiritual control. The fleche that gave the\nfacade a new spirit was not added until 1215, which marks Abelard's\nerror in terms of time.\n\nOnce arrived at power, Bernard made short work of all that tried to\nresist him. During 1139 he seems to have been too busy or too ill to\ntake up the affair of Abelard, but in March, 1140, the attack was\nopened in a formal letter from William of Saint-Thierry, who was\nBernard's closest friend, bringing charges against Abelard before\nBernard and the Bishop of Chartres. The charges were simple enough:--\n\nPierre Abelard seized the moment, when all the masters of\necclesiastical doctrine have disappeared from the scene of the\nworld, to conquer a place apart, for himself, in the schools, and to\ncreate there an exclusive domination. He treats Holy Scripture as\nthough it were dialectics. It is a matter with him of personal\ninvention and annual novelties. He is the censor and not the\ndisciple of the faith; the corrector and not the imitator of the\nauthorized masters.\n\nIn substance, this is all. The need of action was even simpler.\nAbelard's novelties were becoming a danger; they affected not only\nthe schools, but also even the Curia at Rome. Bernard must act\nbecause there was no one else to act: \"This man fears you; he dreads\nyou! if you shut your eyes, whom will he fear? ... The evil has\nbecome too public to allow a correction limited to amicable\ndiscipline and secret warning.\" In fact, Abelard's works were flying\nabout Europe in every direction, and every year produced a novelty.\nOne can still read them in M. Cousin's collected edition; among\nothers, a volume on ethics: \"Ethica, seu Scito teipsum\"; on theology\nin general, an epitome; a \"Dialogus inter Philosophum, Judaeum et\nChristianum\"; and, what was perhaps the most alarming of all, an\nabstract of quotations from standard authorities, on the principle\nof the parallel column, showing the fatal contradictions of the\nauthorized masters, and entitled \"Sic et Non\"! Not one of these\nworks but dealt with sacred matters in a spirit implying that the\nEssence of God was better understood by Pierre du Pallet than by the\nwhole array of bishops and prelates in Europe! Had Bernard been\nfortunate enough to light upon the \"Story of Calamity,\" which must\nalso have been in existence, he would have found there Abelard's own\nchildlike avowal that he taught theology because his scholars \"said\nthat they did not want mere words; that one can believe only what\none understands; and that it is ridiculous to preach to others what\none understands no better than they do.\" Bernard himself never\ncharged Abelard with any presumption equal to this. Bernard said\nonly that \"he sees nothing as an enigma, nothing as in a mirror, but\nlooks on everything face to face.\" If this had been all, even\nBernard could scarcely have complained. For several thousand years\nmankind has stared Infinity in the face without pretending to be the\nwiser; the pretension of Abelard was that, by his dialectic method,\nhe could explain the Infinite, while all other theologists talked\nmere words; and by way of proving that he had got to the bottom of\nthe matter, he laid down the ultimate law of the universe as his\nstarting-point: \"All that God does,\" he said, \"He wills necessarily\nand does it necessarily; for His goodness is such that it pushes Him\nnecessarily to do all the good He can, and the best He can, and the\nquickest He can ... Therefore it is of necessity that God willed and\nmade the world.\" Pure logic admitted no contingency; it was bound to\nbe necessitarian or ceased to be logical; but the result, as Bernard\nunderstood it, was that Abelard's world, being the best and only\npossible, need trouble itself no more about God, or Church, or man.\n\nStrange as the paradox seems, Saint Bernard and Lord Bacon, though\nlooking at the world from opposite standpoints, agreed in this: that\nthe scholastic method was false and mischievous, and that the longer\nit was followed, the greater was its mischief. Bernard thought that\nbecause dialectics led wrong, therefore faith led right. He saw no\nalternative, and perhaps in fact there was none. If he had lived a\ncentury later, he would have said to Thomas Aquinas what he said to\na schoolman of his own day: \"If you had once tasted true food,\"--if\nyou knew what true religion is,--\"how quick you would leave those\nJew makers of books (literatoribus judaeis) to gnaw their crusts by\nthemselves!\" Locke or Hume might perhaps still have resented a\nlittle the \"literator judaeus,\" but Faraday or Clerk-Maxwell would\nhave expressed the same opinion with only the change of a word: \"If\nthe twelfth century had once tasted true science, how quick they\nwould have dropped Avicenna and Averroes!\" Science admits that\nBernard's disbelief in scholasticism was well founded, whatever it\nmay think of his reasons. The only point that remains is personal:\nWhich is the more sympathetic, Bernard or Abelard?\n\nThe Church feels no doubt, but is a bad witness. Bernard is not a\ncharacter to be taken or rejected in a lump. He was many-sided, and\neven toward Abelard he showed more than one surface. He wanted no\nunnecessary scandals in the Church; he had too many that were not of\nhis seeking. He seems to have gone through the forms of friendly\nnegotiation with Abelard although he could have required nothing\nless than Abelard's submission and return to Brittany, and silence;\nterms which Abelard thought worse than death. On Abelard's refusal,\nBernard began his attack. We know, from the \"Story of Calamity,\"\nwhat Bernard's party could not have certainly known then,--the\nabject terror into which the very thought of a council had for\ntwenty years thrown Abelard whenever he was threatened with it; and\nin 1140 he saw it to be inevitable. He preferred to face it with\ndignity, and requested to be heard at a council to meet at Sens in\nJune. One cannot admit that he felt the shadow of a hope to escape.\nAt the utmost he could have dreamed of nothing more than a hearing.\nBernard's friends, who had a lively fear of his dialectics, took\ncare to shut the door on even this hope. The council was carefully\npacked and overawed. The King was present; archbishops, bishops,\nabbots, and other prelates by the score; Bernard acted in person as\nthe prosecuting attorney; the public outside were stimulated to\nthreaten violence. Abelard had less chance of a judicial hearing\nthan he had had at Soissons twenty years before. He acted with a\nproper sense of their dignity and his own by simply appearing and\nentering an appeal to Rome. The council paid no attention to the\nappeal, but passed to an immediate condemnation. His friends said\nthat it was done after dinner; that when the volume of Abelard's\n\"Theology\" was produced and the clerk began to read it aloud, after\nthe first few sentences the bishops ceased attention, talked, joked,\nlaughed, stamped their feet, got angry, and at last went to sleep.\nThey were waked only to growl \"Damnamus--namus,\" and so made an end.\nThe story may be true, for all prelates, even in the twelfth\ncentury, were not Bernards of Clairvaux or Peters of Cluny; all\ndrank wine, and all were probably sleepy after dinner; while\nAbelard's writings are, for the most part, exceedingly hard reading.\nThe clergy knew quite well what they were doing; the judgment was\ncertain long in advance, and the council was called only to register\nit. Political trials were usually mere forms.\n\nThe appeal to Rome seems to have been taken seriously by Bernard,\nwhich is surprising unless the character of Innocent II inspired his\nfriends with doubts unknown to us. Innocent owed everything to\nBernard, while Abelard owed everything to Innocent. The Pope was not\nin a position to alienate the French Church or the French King. To\nany one who knows only what is now to be known, Bernard seems to\nhave been sure of the Curia, yet he wrote in a tone of excitement as\nthough he feared Abelard's influence there even more than at home.\nHe became abusive; Abelard was a crawling viper (coluber tortuosus)\nwho had come out of his hole (egressus est de caverna sua), and\nafter the manner of a hydra (in similitudinem hydrae), after having\none head cut off at Soissons, had thrown out seven more. He was a\nmonk without rule; a prelate without responsibility; an abbot\nwithout discipline; \"disputing with boys; conversing with women.\"\nThe charges in themselves seem to be literally true, and would not\nin some later centuries have been thought very serious; neither\nfaith nor morals were impugned. On the other hand, Abelard never\naffected or aspired to be a saint, while Bernard always affected to\njudge the acts and motives of his fellow-creatures from a standpoint\nof more than worldly charity. Bernard had no right to Abelard's\nvices; he claimed to be judged by a higher standard; but his temper\nwas none of the best, and his pride was something of the worst;\nwhich gave to Peter the Venerable occasion for turning on him\nsharply with a rebuke that cut to the bone. \"You perform all the\ndifficult religious duties,\" wrote Peter to the saint who wrought\nmiracles; \"you fast; you watch; you suffer; but you will not endure\nthe easy ones--you do not love (non vis levia ferre, ut diligas).\"\n\nThis was the end of Abelard. Of course the Pope confirmed the\njudgment, and even hurried to do so in order that he might not be\nobliged to give Abelard a hearing. The judgment was not severe, as\njudgments went; indeed, it amounted to little more than an order to\nkeep silence, and, as it happened, was never carried into effect.\nAbelard, at best a nervous invalid, started for Rome, but stopped at\nCluny, perhaps the most agreeable stopping-place in Europe.\nPersonally he seems to have been a favourite of Abbot Peter the\nVenerable, whose love for Bernard was not much stronger than\nAbelard's or Suger's. Bernard was an excessively sharp critic, and\nspared worldliness, or what he thought lack of spirituality, in no\nprelate whatever; Clairvaux existed for nothing else, politically,\nthan as a rebuke to them all, and Bernard's enmity was their bond of\nunion. Under the protection of Peter the Venerable, the most amiable\nfigure of the twelfth century, and in the most agreeable residence\nin Europe, Abelard remained unmolested at Cluny, occupied, as is\nbelieved, in writing or revising his treatises, in defiance of the\ncouncil. He died there two years later, April 21, 1142, in full\ncommunion, still nominal Abbot of Saint-Gildas, and so distinguished\na prelate that Peter the Venerable thought himself obliged to write\na charming letter to Heloise at the Paraclete not far away,\ncondoling with her on the loss of a husband who was the Socrates,\nthe Aristotle, the Plato, of France and the West; who, if among\nlogicians he had rivals, had no master; who was the prince of study,\nlearned, eloquent, subtle, penetrating; who overcame everything by\nthe force of reason, and was never so great as when he passed to\ntrue philosophy, that of Christ.\n\nAll this was in Latin verses, and seems sufficiently strong,\nconsidering that Abelard's philosophy had been so recently and so\nemphatically condemned by the entire Church, including Peter the\nVenerable himself. The twelfth century had this singular charm of\nliberty in practice, just as its architecture knew no mathematical\nformula of precision; but Peter's letter to Heloise went further\nstill, and rang with absolute passion:--\n\nThus, dear and venerable sister in God, he to whom you are united,\nafter your tie in the flesh, by the better and stronger bond of the\ndivine love; he, with whom, and under whom, you have served the\nLord, the Lord now takes, in your place, like another you, and warms\nin His bosom; and, for the day of His coming, when shall sound the\nvoice of the archangel and the trumpet of God descending from\nheaven, He keeps him to restore him to you by His grace.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHE MYSTICS\n\nThe schoolmen of the twelfth century thought they could reach God by\nreason; the Council of Sens, guided by Saint Bernard, replied that\nthe effort was futile and likely to be mischievous. The council made\nlittle pretence of knowing or caring what method Abelard followed;\nthey condemned any effort at all on that line; and no sooner had\nBernard silenced the Abbot of Saint-Gildas for innovation than he\nturned about and silenced the Bishop of Poitiers for conservatism.\nNeither in the twelfth nor in any other century could three men have\nunderstood alike the meaning of Gilbert de la Poree, who seems to\none high authority unworthy of notice and to another, worthy of an\nelaborate but quite unintelligible commentary. When M. Rousselet and\nM. Haureau judge so differently of a voluminous writer, the Council\nat Rheims which censured Bishop Gilbert in 1148 can hardly have been\nclear in mind. One dare hazard no more than a guess at Gilbert's\noffence, but the guess is tolerably safe that he, like Abelard,\ninsisted on discussing and analyzing the Trinity. Gilbert seems to\nhave been a rigid realist, and he reduced to a correct syllogism the\nidea of the ultimate substance--God. To make theology a system\ncapable of scholastic definition he had to suppose, behind the\nactive deity, a passive abstraction, or absolute substance without\nattributes; and then the attributes--justice, mercy, and the rest--\nfell into rank as secondary substances. \"Formam dei divinitatem\nappellant.\" Bernard answered him by insisting with his usual fiery\nconviction that the Church should lay down the law, once for all,\nand inscribe it with iron and diamond, that Divinity--Divine Wisdom\n--is God. In philosophy and science the question seems to be still\nopen. Whether anything ultimate exists--whether substance is more\nthan a complex of elements--whether the \"thing in itself\" is a\nreality or a name--is a question that Faraday and Clerk-Maxwell seem\nto answer as Bernard did, while Haeckel answers it as Gilbert did;\nbut in theology even a heretic wonders how a doubt was possible. The\nabsolute substance behind the attributes seems to be pure Spinoza.\n\nThis supposes that the heretic understands what Gilbert or Haeckel\nmeant, which is certainly a mistake; but it is possible that he may\nsee in part what Bernard meant and this is enough if it is all.\nAbelard's necessitarianism and Gilbert's Spinozism, if Bernard\nunderstood them right, were equally impossible theology, and the\nChurch could by no evasion escape the necessity of condemning both.\nUnfortunately, Bernard could not put his foot down so roughly on the\nschools without putting it on Aristotle as well; and, for at least\nsixty years after the Council of Rheims, Aristotle was either\ntacitly or expressly prohibited.\n\nOne cannot stop to explain why Aristotle himself would have been\nfirst to forbid the teaching of what was called by his name in the\nMiddle Ages; but you are bound to remember that this period between\n1140 and 1200 was that of Transition architecture and art. One must\ngo to Noyon, Soissons, and Laon to study the Church that trampled on\nthe schools; one must recall how the peasants of Normandy and the\nChartrain were crusading for the Virgin in 1145, and building her\nfleches at Chartres and Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives while Bernard was\ncondemning Gilbert at Rheims in 1148; we must go to the poets to see\nwhat they all meant by it; but the sum is an emotion--clear and\nstrong as love and much clearer than logic--whose charm lies in its\nunstable balance. The Transition is the equilibrium between the love\nof God--which is faith--and the logic of God--which is reason;\nbetween the round arch and the pointed. One may not be sure which\npleases most, but one need not be harsh toward people who think that\nthe moment of balance is exquisite. The last and highest moment is\nseen at Chartres, where, in 1200, the charm depends on the constant\ndoubt whether emotion or science is uppermost. At Amiens, doubt\nceases; emotion is trained in school; Thomas Aquinas reigns.\n\nBernard of Clairvaux and Thomas of Aquino were both artists,--very\ngreat artists, if the Church pleases,--and one need not decide which\nwas the greater; but between them is a region of pure emotion--of\npoetry and art--which is more interesting than either. In every age\nman has been apt to dream uneasily, rolling from side to side,\nbeating against imaginary bars, unless, tired out, he has sunk into\nindifference or scepticism. Religious minds prefer scepticism. The\ntrue saint is a profound sceptic; a total disbeliever in human\nreason, who has more than once joined hands on this ground with some\nwho were at best sinners. Bernard was a total disbeliever in\nscholasticism; so was Voltaire. Bernard brought the society of his\ntime to share his scepticism, but could give the society no other\nintellectual amusement to relieve its restlessness. His crusade\nfailed; his ascetic enthusiasm faded; God came no nearer. If there\nwas in all France, between 1140 and 1200, a more typical Englishman\nof the future Church of England type than John of Salisbury, he has\nleft no trace; and John wrote a description of his time which makes\na picturesque contrast with the picture painted by Abelard, his old\nmaster, of the century at its beginning. John weighed Abelard and\nthe schools against Bernard and the cloister, and coolly concluded\nthat the way to truth led rather through Citeaux, which brought him\nto Chartres as Bishop in 1176, and to a mild scepticism in faith. \"I\nprefer to doubt,\" he said, \"rather than rashly define what is\nhidden.\" The battle with the schools had then resulted only in\ncreating three kinds of sceptics:--the disbelievers in human reason;\nthe passive agnostics; and the sceptics proper, who would have been\natheists had they dared. The first class was represented by the\nSchool of Saint-Victor; the second by John of Salisbury himself; the\nthird, by a class of schoolmen whom he called Cornificii, as though\nthey made a practice of inventing horns of dilemma on which to fix\ntheir opponents; as, for example, they asked whether a pig which was\nled to market was led by the man or the cord. One asks instantly:\nWhat cord?--whether Grace, for instance, or Free Will?\n\nBishop John used the science he had learned in the school only to\nreach the conclusion that, if philosophy were a science at all, its\nbest practical use was to teach charity--love. Even the early,\nsuperficial debates of the schools, in 1100-50, had so exhausted the\nsubject that the most intelligent men saw how little was to be\ngained by pursuing further those lines of thought. The twelfth\ncentury had already reached the point where the seventeenth century\nstood when Descartes renewed the attempt to give a solid,\nphilosophical basis for deism by his celebrated \"Cogito, ergo sum.\"\nAlthough that ultimate fact seemed new to Europe when Descartes\nrevived it as the starting-point of his demonstration, it was as old\nand familiar as Saint Augustine to the twelfth century, and as\nlittle conclusive as any other assumption of the Ego or the Non-Ego.\nThe schools argued, according to their tastes, from unity to\nmultiplicity, or from multiplicity to unity; but what they wanted\nwas to connect the two. They tried realism and found that it led to\npantheism. They tried nominalism and found that it ended in\nmaterialism. They attempted a compromise in conceptualism which\nbegged the whole question. Then they lay down, exhausted. In the\nseventeenth century the same violent struggle broke out again, and\nwrung from Pascal the famous outcry of despair in which the French\nlanguage rose, perhaps for the last time, to the grand style of the\ntwelfth century. To the twelfth century it belongs; to the century\nof faith and simplicity; not to the mathematical certainties of\nDescartes and Leibnitz and Newton, or to the mathematical\nabstractions of Spinoza. Descartes had proclaimed his famous\nconceptual proof of God: \"I am conscious of myself, and must exist;\nI am conscious of God and He must exist.\" Pascal wearily replied\nthat it was not God he doubted, but logic. He was tortured by the\nimpossibility of rejecting man's reason by reason; unconsciously\nsceptical, he forced himself to disbelieve in himself rather than\nadmit a doubt of God. Man had tried to prove God, and had failed:\n\"The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote (eloignees) from the\nreasoning of men, and so contradictory (impliquees, far-fetched)\nthat they make little impression; and even if they served to\nconvince some people, it would only be during the instant that they\nsee the demonstration; an hour afterwards they fear to have deceived\nthemselves.\" Moreover, this kind of proof could lead only to a\nspeculative knowledge, and to know God only in that way was not to\nknow Him at all. The only way to reach God was to deny the value of\nreason, and to deny reason was scepticism:--\n\nEn voyant l'aveuglement et la misere de l'homme et ces contrarietes\netonnantes qui se decouvrent dans sa nature, et regardant tout\nl'univers muet, et l'homme sans lumiere, abandonne a lui-meme et\ncomme egare dans ce recoin de l'umvers, sans savoir qui l'y a mis,\nce qu'il y est venu faire, ce qu'il deviendra en mourant, j'entre en\neffroi comme un homme qu'on aurait porte endormi dans une ile\ndeserte et effroyable, et qui s'eveillerait sans connaitre ou il est\net sans avoir aucun moyen d'en sortir. Et sur cela j'admire comment\non n'entre pas en desespoir d'un si miserable etat. Je vois d'autres\npersonnes aupres de moi de semblable nature, et je leur demande\ns'ils sont mieux instruits que moi, et ils me disent que non Et sur\ncela, ces miserables egares, ayant regarde autour d'eux, et ayant vu\nquelques objets plaisants, s'y sont donnes et s'y sont attaches Pour\nmoi je n'ai pu m'y arreter ni me reposer dans la societe de ces\npersonnes, en tout semblables a moi, miserables comme moi,\nimpuissants comme moi. Je vois qu'ils ne m'aideraient pas a mourir,\nje mourrai seul, il faut donc faire comme si j'etais seul or, si\nj'etais seul, je ne batirais pas des maisons, je ne m'embarrasserais\npoint dans des occupations tumultuaires, je ne chercherais l'estime\nde personne, mais je tacherais settlement a decouvrir la verite.\n\nAinsi, considerant combien il y a d'apparence qu'il y a autre chose\nque ce que je vois, j'ai recherche si ce Dieu dont tout le monde\nparle n'aurait pas laisse quelques marques de lui. Je regarde de\ntoutes parts et ne vois partout qu' obscuritd. La nature ne m'offre\nrien que ne soit matiere de doute et d'inquietude. Si je n'y voyais\nrien qui marquat une divinite, je me determinerais a n'en rien\ncroire. Si je voyais partout les marques d'un Createur, je me\nreposerais en paix dans la foi. Mais voyant trop pour nier, et trop\npeu pour m'assurer, je suis dans un etat a plaindre, et ou j'ai\nsouhaite cent fois que si un Dieu soutient la nature, elle le\nmarquat sans Equivoque; et que, si les marques qu'elle en donne sont\ntrompeuses, elle les supprimat tout a fait; qu'elle dit tout ou\nrien, afin que je visse quel parti je dois suivre.\n\nWhen I see the blindness and misery of man and the astonishing\ncontradictions revealed in his nature, and observe the whole\nuniverse mute, and man without light, abandoned to himself, as\nthough lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who put\nhim here, or what he has come here to do, or what will become of him\nin dying, I feel fear like a man who has been carried when asleep\ninto a desert and fearful island, and has waked without knowing\nwhere he is and without having means of rescue. And thereupon I\nwonder how man escapes despair at so miserable an estate. I see\nothers about me, like myself, and I ask them if they are better\ninformed than I, and they tell me no. And then these wretched\nwanderers, after looking about them and seeing some pleasant object,\nhave given themselves up and attached themselves to it. As for me I\ncannot stop there, or rest in the company of these persons, wholly\nlike myself, miserable like me, impotent like me. I see that they\nwould not help me to die, I shall die alone, I must then act as\nthough alone, but if I were alone I should not build houses, I\nshould not fret myself with bustling occupations, I should seek the\nesteem of no one, but I should try only to discover the truth.\n\nSo, considering how much appearance there is that something exists\nother than what I see I have sought whether this God of Whom every\none talks may not have left some marks of Himself. I search\neverywhere, and see only obscurity everywhere.  Nature offers me\nnothing but matter of possible doubt and disquiet. If I saw there\nnothing to mark a divinity, I should make up my mind to believe\nnothing of it. If I saw everywhere the marks of a Creator, I should\nrest in peace in faith.  But seeing too much to deny, and too little\nto affirm, I am in a pitiable state, where I have an hundred times\nwishes that, if a God supports nature, she would show it without\nequivocation; and that, if the marks she gives are deceptive, she\nwould suppress them wholly; that she say all of nothing, that I may\nsee my path.\n\nThis is the true Prometheus lyric, but when put back in its place it\nrefuses to rest at Port-Royal which has a right to nothing but\nprecision; it has but one real home--the Abbaye-de-Saint-Victor. The\nmind that recoils from itself can only commit a sort of ecstatic\nsuicide; it must absorb itself in God; and in the bankruptcy of\ntwelfth-century science the Western Christian seemed actually on the\npoint of attainment; he, like Pascal, touched God behind the veil of\nscepticism.\n\nThe schools had already proved one or two points which need never\nhave been discussed again. In essence, religion was love; in no case\nwas it logic. Reason can reach nothing except through the senses;\nGod, by essence, cannot be reached through the senses; if He is to\nbe known at all, He must be known by contact of spirit with spirit,\nessence with essence; directly; by emotion; by ecstasy; by\nabsorption of our existence in His; by substitution of his spirit\nfor ours. The world had no need to wait five hundred years longer in\norder to hear this same result reaffirmed by Pascal. Saint Francis\nof Assisi had affirmed it loudly enough, even if the voice of Saint\nBernard had been less powerful than it was. The Virgin had asserted\nit in tones more gentle, but any one may still see how convincing,\nwho stops a moment to feel the emotion that lifted her wonderful\nChartres spire up to God.\n\nThe Virgin, indeed, made all easy, for it was little enough she\ncared for reason or logic. She cared for her baby, a simple matter,\nwhich any woman could do and understand. That, and the grace of God,\nhad made her Queen of Heaven. The Trinity had its source in her,--\ntotius Trinitatis nobile Triclinium,--and she was maternity. She was\nalso poetry and art. In the bankruptcy of reason, she alone was\nreal.\n\nSo Guillaume de Champeaux, half a century dead, came to life again\nin another of his creations. His own Abbey of Saint-Victor, where\nAbelard had carried on imaginary disputes with him, became the\ndominant school. As far as concerns its logic, we had best pass it\nby. The Victorians needed logic only to drive away logicians, which\nwas hardly necessary after Bernard had shut up the schools. As for\nits mysticism, all training is much alike in idea, whether one\nfollows the six degrees of contemplation taught by Richard of Saint-\nVictor, or the eightfold noble way taught by Gautama Buddha. The\ntheology of the school was still less important, for the Victorians\ncontented themselves with orthodoxy only in the sense of caring as\nlittle for dogma as for dialectics; their thoughts were fixed on\nhigher emotions. Not Richard the teacher, but Adam the poet,\nrepresents the school to us, and when Adam dealt with dogma he\nfrankly admitted his ignorance and hinted his indifference; he was,\nas always, conscientious; but he was not always, or often, as cold.\nHis statement of the Trinity is a marvel; but two verses of it are\nenough:--\n\nDigne loqui de personis\n Vim transcendit rationis,\n   Excedit ingenia.\n Quid sit gigni, quid processus,\n Me nescire sum professus,\n   Sed fide non dubia.\n\n\nQui sic credit, non festinet,\n Et a via non declinet\n   Insolenter regia.\n Servet fidem, formet mores,\n Nec attendat ad errors\n Quos damnat Ecclesia.\n\n\nOf the Trinity to reason\n Leads to license or to treason\n   Punishment deserving.\n What is birth and what procession\n  Is not mine to make profession,\n   Save with faith unswerving.\n\n\nThus professing, thus believing,\n Never insolently leaving\n   The highway of our faith,\n Duty weighing, law obeying,\n Never shall we wander straying\n Where heresy is death.\n\n\nSuch a school took natural refuge in the Holy Ghost and the Virgin,\n--Grace and Love,--but the Holy Ghost, as usual, profited by it much\nless than the Virgin. Comparatively little of Adam's poetry is\nexpressly given to the Saint Esprit, and too large a part of this\nhas a certain flavour of dogma:--\n\nQui procedis ab utroque\n Genitore Genitoque\n   Pariter, Paraclite!\n . . . . . . . . . Amor Patris, Filiique\n Par amborum et utrique\n   Compar et consimilis!\n\n\nThe Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the\n Son; neither made nor created nor begotten,\n but proceeding.\n\n\nThe whole three Persons are coeternal\n together; and coequal.\n\n\nThis sounds like a mere versification of the Creed, yet when Adam\nceased to be dogmatic and broke into true prayer, his verse added a\nlofty beauty even to the Holy Ghost; a beauty too serious for modern\nrhyme:--\n\nOh, juvamen oppressorum,\n Oh, solamen miserorum,\n   Pauperum refugium,\n Da contemptum terrenorum!\n Ad amorem supernorum\n   Trahe desiderium!\n\n\nConsolator et fundator,\n Habitator et amator,\n   Cordium humilium,\n Pelle mala, terge sordes,\n Et discordes fac Concordes,\n   Et affer praesidium!\n\n\nOh, helper of the heavy-laden,\n Oh, solace of the miserable,\n   Of the poor, the refuge,\n Give contempt of earthly pleasures!\n To the love of heavenly treasures\n   Lift our hearts' desire!\n\n\nConsolation and foundation,\n Dearest friend and habitation\n   Of the lowly-hearted,\n Dispel our evil, cleanse our foulness,\n And our discords turn to concord,\n   And bring us succour!\n\n\nAdam's scholasticism was the most sympathetic form of mediaeval\nphilosophy. Even in prose, the greatest writers have not often\nsucceeded in stating simply and clearly the fact that infinity can\nmake itself finite, or that space can make itself bounds, or that\neternity can generate time. In verse, Adam did it as easily as\nthough he were writing any other miracle,--as Gaultier de Coincy\ntold the Virgin's,--and any one who thinks that the task was as easy\nas it seems, has only to try it and see whether he can render into a\nmodern tongue any single word which shall retain the whole value of\nthe word which Adam has chosen:--\n\nNe periret homo reus\n Redemptorem misit Deus,\n Pater unigenitum;\n Visitavit quos amavit\n Nosque vitae revocavit\n Gratia non meritum.\n\n\nInfinitus et Immensus,\n Quem non capit ullus sensus\n Nec locorum spatia,\n Ex eterno temporalis,\n Ex immenso fit localis,\n Ut restauret omnia.\n\n\nTo death condemned by awful sentence,\n God recalled us to repentance,\n Sending His only Son;\n Whom He loved He came to cherish;\n Whom His justice doomed to perish,\n By grace to life he won.\n\n\nInfinity, Immensity,\n Whom no human eye can see\n Or human thought contain,\n Made of infinity a space,\n Made of Immensity a place,\n To win us Life again.\n\n\nThe English verses, compared with the Latin, are poor enough, with\nthe canting jingle of a cheap religion and a thin philosophy, but by\ncontrast and comparison they give higher value to the Latin. One\nfeels the dignity and religious quality of Adam's chants the better\nfor trying to give them an equivalent. One would not care to hazard\nsuch experiments on poetry of the highest class like that of Dante\nand Petrarch, but Adam was conventional both in verse and thought,\nand aimed at obtaining his effects from the skilful use of the Latin\nsonorities for the purposes of the chant. With dogma and metaphysics\nhe dealt boldly and even baldly as he was required to do, and\nsuccessfully as far as concerned the ear or the voice; but poetry\nwas hardly made for dogma; even the Trinity was better expressed\nmathematically than by rhythm. With the stronger emotions, such as\nterror, Adam was still conventional, and showed that he thought of\nthe chant more than of the feeling and exaggerated the sound beyond\nthe value of the sense. He could never have written the \"Dies Irae.\"\nHe described the shipwreck of the soul in magnificent sounds without\nrousing an emotion of fear; the raging waves and winds that swept\nhis bark past the abysses and up to the sky were as conventional as\nthe sirens, the dragons, the dogs, and the pirates that lay in wait.\nThe mast nodded as usual; the sails were rent; the sailors ceased\nwork; all the machinery was classical; only the prayer to the Virgin\nsaved the poetry from sinking like the ship; and yet, when chanted,\nthe effect was much too fine to bear translation:--\n\nAve, Virgo singularis,\n Mater nostri Salutaris,\n Quae vocaris Stella Maris,\n Stella non erratica;\n Nos in hujus vitae mari\n Non permitte naufragari,\n Sed pro nobis Salutari\n Tuo semper supplica!\n\n\nSaevit mare, fremunt venti,\n Fluctus surgunt turbulenti;\n Navis currit, sed currenti\n Tot occurrunt obvia!\n Hic sirenes voluptatis,\n Draco, canes cum piratis,\n Mortem pene desperatis\n Haec intentant omnia.\n\n\nPost abyssos, nunc ad coelum\n Furens unda fert phaselum;\n Nutat malus, fluit velum,\n Nautae cessat opera;\n Contabescit in his malis\n Homo noster animalis;\n Tu nos, Mater spiritalis,\n Pereuntes liberal!\n\n\nFiner still is the famous stanza sung at Easter, in which Christ\nrises, the Lion of Judah, in the crash of the burst gates of death,\nat the roar of the Father Lion:--\n\nSic de Juda, leo fortis,\n Fractis portis dirae mortis,\n Die surgens tertia,\n Rugiente voce patris\n Ad supernae sinum matris\n Tot revexit spolia.\n\n\nFor terror or ferocity or images of pain, the art of the twelfth\ncentury had no use except to give a higher value to their images of\nlove. The figures on the west portal of Chartres are alive with the\nspirit of Adam's poetry, but it is the spirit of the Virgin. Like\nSaint Bernard, Adam lavished his affections on Mary, and even more\nthan Saint Bernard he could claim to be her poet-laureate. Bernard\nwas not himself author of the hymn \"Stella Maris\" which brought him\nthe honour of the Virgin's personal recognition, but Adam was author\nof a dozen hymns in which her perfections were told with equal\nfervour, and which were sung at her festivals. Among these was the\nfamous\n\nSalve, Mater Pietatis,\n Et totius Trinitatis\n Nobile Triclinium!\n\n\na compliment so refined and yet so excessive that the Venerable\nThomas Cantimpratensis who died a century later, about 1280, related\nin his \"Apiarium\" that when \"venerabilis Adam\" wrote down these\nlines, Mary herself appeared to him and bent her head in\nrecognition. Although the manuscripts do not expressly mention this\nmiracle, they do contain, at that stanza, a curious note expressing\nan opinion, apparently authorized by the prior, that, if the Virgin\nhad seen fit to recognize the salutation of the Venerable Adam in\nthis manner, she would have done only what he merited: \"ab ea\nresalutari et regratiari meruit.\"\n\nAdam's poems are still on the shelves of most Parisian bookshops, as\ncommon as \"Aucassins\" and better known than much poetry of our own\ntime; for the mediaeval Latin rhymes have a delightful sonority and\nsimplicity that keep them popular because they were not made to be\nread but to be sung. One does not forget their swing:--\n\nInfinitus et Immensus;\n\n\nor--\n\nOh, juvamen oppressorum;\n\n\nor--\n\nConsolatrix miserorum\n Suscitatrix mortuorum.\n\n\nThe organ rolls through them as solemnly as ever it did in the Abbey\nChurch; but in mediaeval art so much more depends on the mass than\non the measure--on the dignity than on the detail--that equivalents\nare impossible. Even Walter Scott was content to translate only\nthree verses of the \"Dies Irae.\" At best, Viollet-le-Duc could\nreproduce only a sort of modern Gothic; a more or less effaced or\naffected echo of a lost emotion which the world never felt but once\nand never could feel again. Adam composed a number of hymns to the\nVirgin, and, in them all, the feeling counts for more, by far, than\nthe sense. Supposing we choose the simplest and try to give it a\nmodern version, aiming to show, by comparison, the difference of\nsound; one can perhaps manage to recover a little of the simplicity,\nbut give it the grand style one cannot; or, at least, if any one has\never done both, it is Walter Scott, and merely by placing side by\nside the \"Dies Irae\" and his translation of it, one can see at a\nglance where he was obliged to sacrifice simplicity only to obtain\nsound:--\n\nDies irae, dies illa,\n Solvet seclum in favilla,\n Teste David cum Sibylla.\n\n\nQuantus tremor est futurus,\n Quando judex est venturus,\n Cuncta stride discussurus!\n\n\nTuba mirum spargens sonum\n Per sepulchra regionum,\n Coget omnes ante thronum.\n\n\nThat day of wrath, that dreadful day,\n When heaven and earth shall pass away,\n What power shall be the sinner's stay?\n How shall he meet that dreadful day?\n\n\nWhen shrivelling like a parched scroll\n The flaming heavens together roll;\n When louder yet and yet more dread\n Swells the high trump that wakes the dead.\n\n\nAs translation the last line is artificial.\n\nThe \"Dies Irae\" does not belong, in spirit, to the twelfth century;\nit is sombre and gloomy like the Last Judgments on the thirteenth-\ncentury portals; it does not love. Adam loved. His verses express\nthe Virgin; they are graceful, tender, fervent, and they hold the\nsame dignity which cannot be translated:--\n\nIn hac valle lacrimarum\n Nihil dulce, nihil carum,\n Suspecta sunt omnia;\n Quid hic nobis erit tutum,\n Cum nec ipsa vel virtutum\n Tuta sit victoria!\n\n\nCaro nobis adversatur,\n Mundus cami suffragatur\n In nostram perniciem;\n Hostis instat, nos infestans,\n Nunc se palam manifestans,\n Nunc occultans rabiem.\n\n\nEt peccamus et punimur,\n Et diversis irretimur\n Laqueis venantium.\n O Maria, mater Dei,\n Tu, post Deum, summa spei,\n Tu dulce refugium;\n\n\nTot et tantis irretiti,\n Non valemus his reniti\n Ne vi nec industria;\n Consolatrix miserorum,\n Suscitatrix mortuorum,\n Mortis rompe retia!\n\n\nIn this valley full of tears,\n Nothing softens, nothing cheers,\n All is suspected lure;\n What safety can we hope for, here,\n When even virtue faints for fear\n Her victory be not sure!\n\nWithin, the flesh a traitor is,\n Without, the world encompasses,\n A deadly wound to bring.\n The foe is greedy for our spoils,\n Now clasping us within his coils,\n Or hiding now his sting.\n\n\nWe sin, and penalty must pay,\n And we are caught, like beasts of prey,\n Within the hunter's snares.\n Nearest to God! oh Mary Mother!\n Hope can reach us from none other,\n Sweet refuge from our cares;\n\n\nWe have no strength to struggle longer,\n For our bonds are more and stronger\n Than our hearts can bear!\n You who rest the heavy-laden,\n You who lead lost souls to Heaven,\n Burst the hunter's snare!\n\n\nThe art of this poetry of love and hope, which marked the mystics,\nlay of course in the background of shadows which marked the\ncloister. \"Inter vania nihil vanius est homine.\" Man is an\nimperceptible atom always trying to become one with God. If ever\nmodern science achieves a definition of energy, possibly it may\nborrow the figure: Energy is the inherent effort of every\nmultiplicity to become unity. Adam's poetry was an expression of the\neffort to reach absorption through love, not through fear; but to do\nthis thoroughly he had to make real to himself his own nothingness;\nmost of all, to annihilate pride; for the loftiest soul can\ncomprehend that an atom,--say, of hydrogen,--which is proud of its\npersonality, will never merge in a molecule of water. The familiar\nverse: \"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?\" echoes Adam's\nepitaph to this day:--\n\nHaeres peccati, natura filius irae,\n Exiliique reus nascitur omnis homo.\n Unde superbit homo, cujus conceptio culpa,\n Nasci poena, labor vita, necesse mori?\n\n\nHeir of sin, by nature son of wrath,\n Condemned to exile, every man is born.\n Whence is man's pride, whose conception fault,\n Birth pain, life labour, and whose death is sure?\n\n\nFour concluding lines, not by him, express him even better:--\n\nHic ego qui jaceo, miser et miserabilis Adam,\n Unam pro summo munere posco precem.\n Peccavi, fateor; veniam peto; parce fatenti;\n Parce, pater: fratres, parcite; parce, Deus!\n\n\nOne does not conceive that Adam insisted so passionately on his sins\nbecause he thought them--or himself--important before the Infinite.\nChemistry does not consider an atom of oxygen as in itself\nimportant, yet if it wishes to get a volume of pure gas, it must\nseparate the elements. The human soul was an atom that could unite\nwith God only as a simple element. The French mystics showed in\ntheir mysticism the same French reasonableness; the sense of\nmeasure, of logic, of science; the allegiance to form; the\ntransparency of thought, which the French mind has always shown on\nits surface like a shell of nacre. The mystics were in substance\nrather more logical than the schoolmen and much more artistic in\ntheir correctness of line and scale. At bottom, French saints were\nnot extravagant. One can imagine a Byzantine asserting that no\nFrench saint was ever quite saintly. Their aims and ideals were very\nhigh, but not beyond reaching and not unreasonable. Drag the French\nmind as far from line and logic as space permits, the instant it is\nfreed it springs back to the classic and tries to look consequent.\n\nThis paradox, that the French mystics were never mystical, runs\nthrough all our travels, so obstinately recurring in architecture,\nsculpture, legend, philosophy, religion, and poetry, that it becomes\ntiresome; and yet it is an idea that, in spite of Matthew Arnold and\nmany other great critics, never has got lodgment in the English or\nGerman mind, and probably never will. Every one who loves travel\nwill hope that it never may. If you are driven to notice it as the\nmost distinctive mark of French art, it is not at all for the\npurpose of arguing a doubtful law, but only in order to widen the\namusement of travel. We set out to travel from Mont-Saint-Michel to\nChartres, and no farther; there we stop; but we may still look\nacross the boundary to Assisi for a specimen of Italian Gothic\narchitecture, a scheme of colour decoration, or still better for a\nmystic to compare with the Bernadines and Victorians. Every one who\nknows anything of religion knows that the ideal mystic saint of\nwestern Europe was Francis of Assisi, and that Francis, though he\nloved France, was as far as possible from being French; though not\nin the least French, he was still the finest flower from the French\nmediaeval garden; and though the French mystics could never have\nunderstood him, he was what the French mystics would have liked to\nbe or would have thought they liked to be as long as they knew him\nto be not one of themselves. As an Italian or as a Spaniard, Francis\nwas in harmony with his world; as a Frenchman, he would have been\nout of place even at Clairvaux, and still more among his own\nCordeliers at the doors of the Sorbonne.\n\nFrancis was born in 1186, at the instant when French art was\nculminating, or about to culminate, in the new cathedrals of Laon\nand Chartres, on the ruins of scholastic religion and in the full\nsummer of the Courts of Love. He died in 1226, just as Queen Blanche\nbecame Regent of France and when the Cathedral of Beauvais was\nplanned. His life precisely covered the most perfect moment of art\nand feeling in the thousand years of pure and confident\nChristianity. To an emotional nature like his, life was still a\nphantasm or \"concept\" of crusade against real or imaginary enemies\nof God, with the \"Chanson de Roland\" for a sort of evangel, and a\nfeminine ideal for a passion. He chose for his mistress \"domina\nnostra paupertas,\" and the rules of his order of knighthood were as\nvisionary as those of Saint Bernard were practical. \"Isti sunt\nfratres mei milites tabulae rotundae, qui latitant in desertis\"; his\nKnights of the Round Table hid themselves for their training in\ndeserts of poverty, simplicity, humility, innocence of self,\nabsorption in nature, in the silence of God, and, above all, in love\nand joy incarnate, whose only influence was example. Poverty of body\nin itself mattered nothing; what Francis wanted was poverty of\npride, and the external robe or the bare feet were outward and\nnecessary forms of protection against its outward display. Against\nriches or against all external and visible vanity, rules and laws\ncould be easily enforced if it were worth while, although the purest\nhumility would be reached only by those who were indifferent and\nunconscious of their external dress; but against spiritual pride the\nsoul is defenceless, and of all its forms the subtlest and the\nmeanest is pride of intellect. If \"nostra domina paupertas\" had a\nmortal enemy, it was not the pride beneath a scarlet robe, but that\nin a schoolmaster's ferule, and of all schoolmasters the vainest and\nmost pretentious was the scholastic philosopher. Satan was logic.\nLord Bacon held much the same opinion. \"I reject the syllogism,\" was\nthe starting-point of his teaching as it was the essence of Saint\nFrancis's, and the reasons of both men were the same though their\naction was opposite. \"Let men please themselves as they will in\nadmiring and almost adoring the human mind, this is certain:--that,\nas an uneven mirror distorts the rays of objects according to its\nown figure and section, so the mind ... cannot be trusted ...\"\nBacon's first object was the same as that of Francis, to humiliate\nand if possible destroy the pride of human reason; both of them knew\nthat this was their most difficult task, and Francis, who was\ncharity incarnate, lost his self-control whenever he spoke of the\nschools, and became almost bitter, as though in constant terror of a\npoison or a cancer. \"Praeodorabat etiam tempora non longe ventura in\nquibus jam praesciebat scientiam inflativam debere esse occasionem\nruinae.\" He foresaw the time not far off when puffed-up science\nwould be the ruin of his \"domina paupertas.\" His struggle with this\nform of human pride was desperate and tragical in its instant\nfailure. He could not make even his novices understand what he\nmeant. The most impossible task of the mind is to reject in practice\nthe reflex action of itself, as Bacon pointed out, and only the\nhighest training has sometimes partially succeeded in doing it. The\nschools--ancient, mediaeval, or modern--have almost equally failed,\nbut even the simple rustics who tried to follow Francis could not\nsee why the rule of poverty should extend to the use of a psalter.\nOver and over again he explained vehemently and dramatically as only\nan Italian or a Spaniard could, and still they failed to catch a\nnotion of what he meant.\n\n Quum ergo venisset beatus Franciscus ad locum ubi erat ille\nnovitius, dixit ille novitius: \"Pater, mihi esset magna consolatio\nhabere psalterium, sed licet generalis illud mihi concesserit, tamen\nvellem ipsum habere, pater, de conscientia tua.\" Cui beatus\nFranciscus respondit: \"Carolus imperator, Rolandus et Oliverus et\nomnes palatini et robusti viri qui potentes fuerunt in proelio,\nprosequendo infideles cum multa sudore et labore usque ad mortem,\nhabuerunt de illis victoriara memorialiter, et ad ultimum ipsi\nsancti martyres sunt mortui pro fide Christi in certamine. Nunc\nautem multi sunt qui sola narratione eorum quae illi fecerunt volunt\nrecipere honorem et humanam laudem. Ita et inter nos sunt multi qui\nsolum recitando et praedicando opera quae sancti fecerunt volunt\nrecipere honorem et laudem; ... postquam habueris psalterium,\nconcupisces et volueris habere breviarium; et postquam habueris\nbreviarium, sedebis in cathedra tanquam magnus prelatus et dices\nfratri tuo:--Apporta mihi breviarium!\"\n\nHaec autem dicens beatus Franciscus cum magno fervore spiritus\naccepit de cinere et posuit super caput suum, et ducendo manum super\ncaput suum in circuitu sicut ille qui lavat caput, dicebat: \"Ego\nbreviarium! ego breviarium!\" et sic reiteravit multoties ducendo\nmanum per caput. Et stupefactus et verecundatus est frater ille ...\nElapsis autem pluribus mensibus quum esset beatus Franciscus apud\nlocum sanctae Mariae de Portiuncula, juxta cellam post domum in via,\npraedictus frater iterum locutus est ei de psalterio. Cui beatus\nFranciscus dixit: \"Vade et facias de hoc sicut dicet tibi minister\ntuus!\" Quo audito, frater ille coepit redire per viam unde venerat.\nBeatus autem Franciscus remanens in via coepit considerare illud\nquod dixerat illi fratri, et statim clamavit post cum, dicens:\n\"Expecta me, frater! expecta!\" Et ivit usque ad eum et ait illi:\n\"Revertere mecum, frater, et ostende mihi locum ubi dixi tibi quod\nfaceres de psalterio sicut diceret minister tuus.\" Quum ergo\npervenissent ad locum, beatus Franciscus genuflexit coram fratre\nillo, et dixit: \"Mea culpa, frater! mea culpa! quia quicunque vult\nesse frater Minor non debet habere nisi tunicam, sicut regula sibi\nconcedit, et cordam et femoralia et qui manifesta necessitate\ncoguntur calciamenta.\"\n\nSo when Saint Francis happened to come to the place where the novice\nwas, the novice said: \"Father, it would be a great comfort to me to\nhave a psalter, but though my general should grant it, still I would\nrather have it, father, with your knowledge too.\" Saint Francis\nanswered: \"The Emperor Charlemagne, Roland and Oliver, and all the\npalatines and strong men who were potent in battle, pursuing the\ninfidels with much toil and sweat even to death, triumphed over them\nmemorably [without writing it?], and at last these holy martyrs died\nin the contest for the faith of Christ. But now there are many who,\nmerely by telling of what those men did, want to receive honour and\nhuman praise. So, too, among us are many who, merely by reciting and\npreaching the works which the saints have done, want to receive\nhonour and praise; ... After you have got the psalter, you will\ncovet and want a breviary; and after getting the breviary, you will\nsit on your throne like a bishop, and will say to your brother:\n'Bring me the breviary!'\"\n\nWhile saying this, Saint Francis with great vehemence took up a\nhandful of ashes and spread it over his bead; and moving his hand\nabout his head in a circle as though washing it, said: \"I, breviary!\nI, breviary!\" and so kept on, repeatedly moving his hand about his\nhead; and stupefied and ashamed was that novice. ... But several\nmonths afterwards when Saint Francis happened to be near Sta Maria\nde Portiuncula, by the cell behind the house on the road, the same\nbrother again spoke to him about the psalter. Saint Francis replied:\n\"Go and do about it as your director says.\" On this the brother\nturned back, but Saint Francis, standing in the road, began to\nreflect on what he had said, and suddenly called after him: \"Wait\nfor me, brother! wait!\" and going after him, said: \"Return with me,\nbrother, and show me the place where I told you to do as your\ndirector should say, about the psalter.\" When they had come back to\nit, Saint Francis bent before the brother, and said: \"Mea culpa,\nbrother, mea culpa! because whoever wishes to be a Minorite must\nhave nothing but a tunic, as the rule permits, and the cord, and the\nloincloth, and what covering is manifestly necessary for the limbs.\"\n\nSo vivid a picture of an actual mediaeval saint stands out upon this\nsimple background as is hardly to be found elsewhere in all the\nrecords of centuries, but if the brother himself did not understand\nit and was so shamed and stupefied by Francis's vehemence, the world\ncould understand it no better; the Order itself was ashamed of Saint\nFrancis because they understood him too well. They hastened to\nsuppress this teaching against science, although it was the life of\nFrancis's doctrine. He taught that the science of the schools led to\nperdition because it was puffed up with emptiness and pride.\nHumility, simplicity, poverty were alone true science. They alone\nled to heaven. Before the tribunal of Christ, the schoolmen would be\ncondemned, \"and, with their dark logic (opinionibus tenebrosis)\nshall be plunged into outer darkness with the spirits of the\ndarkness.\" They were devilish, and would perish with the devils.\n\nOne sees instantly that neither Francis of Assisi nor Bacon of\nVerulam could have hoped for peace with the schools; twelfth-century\necstasy felt the futility of mere rhetoric quite as keenly as\nseventeenth-century scepticism was to feel it; and yet when Francis\ndied in 1226 at Assisi, Thomas was just being born at Aquino some\ntwo hundred kilometres to the southward. True scholasticism had not\nbegun. Four hundred years seem long for the human mind to stand\nstill--or go backward; the more because the human mind was never\nbetter satisfied with itself than when thus absorbed in its mirror;\nbut with that chapter we have nothing to do. The pleasantest way to\ntreat it was that of Saint Francis; half-serious, half-jesting; as\nthough, after all, in the thought of infinity, four hundred years\nwere at most only a serio-comic interlude. At Assisi, once, when a\ntheologian attacked Fra Egidio by the usual formal arraignment in\nsyllogisms, the brother waited until the conclusions were laid down,\nand then, taking out a flute from the folds of his robe, he played\nhis answer in rustic melodies. The soul of Saint Francis was a\nrustic melody and the simplest that ever reached so high an\nexpression. Compared with it, Theocritus and Virgil are as modern as\nTennyson and ourselves.\n\nAll this shows only what Saint Francis was not; to understand what\nhe was and how he goes with Saint Bernard and Saint Victor through\nthe religious idyll of Transition architecture, one must wander\nabout Assisi with the \"Floretum\" or \"Fioretti\" in one's hand;--the\nlegends which are the gospel of Francis as the evangels are the\ngospel of Christ, who was reincarnated in Assisi. We have given a\ndeal of time to showing our own sceptical natures how simple the\narchitects and decorators of Chartres were in their notions of the\nVirgin and her wants; but French simple-mindedness was already\ncomplex compared with Italian. The Virgin was human; Francis was\nelementary nature itself, like sun and air; he was Greek in his joy\nof life:--\n\n ... Recessit inde et venit inter Cannarium\n et Mevanium. Et respexit quasdam arbores\n juxta viam in quibus residebat tanta multitudo\n avium diversarum quod nunquam in\n partibus illis visa similis multitudo. In campo\n insuper juxta praedictas arbores etiam multitudo\n maxima residebat. Quam multitudinem\n sanctus Franciscus respiciens et admirans,\n facto super eum Spiritu Dei, dixit sociis: \"Vobis\n hic me in via exspectantibus, ibo et praedicabo\n sororibus nostris aviculis.\" Et intravit\n in campum ad aves quae residebant in terra.\n Et statim quum praedicare incepit omnes aves\n in arboribus residentes descenderunt ad eum\n et simul cum aliis de campo immobiles perman\n serunt, quum tamen ipse inter eas iret plurimas\n tunica contingendo. Et nulla earum penitus\n movebatur, sicut recitavit frater Jacobus de\n Massa, sanctus homo, qui omnia supradicta\n habuit ab ore fratris Massei, qui fuit unus de\n iis qui tune erant socii sancti patris.\n\n\nQuibus avibus sanctus Franciscus ait:\n \"Multum tenemini Deo, sorores meas aves,\n et debetis eum semper et ubique laudare propter\n liberum quem ubique habetis volatum,\n propter vestitum duplicatum et triplicatum,\n propter habitum pictum et ornatum, propter\n victum sine vestro labore paratum, propter\n cantum a Creatore vobis intimatum, propter\n numerum ex Dei benedictione multiplicatum,\n propter semen vestrum a Deo in area reservatum,\n propter elementum aeris vobis deputatum.\n Vos non seminatis neque metitis, et Deus\n vos pascit; et dedit vobis flumina et fontes ad\n potandum, montes et colles, saxa et ibices ad\n refugium, et arbores altes ad nidificandum;\n et quum nec filare nec texere sciatis, praebet\n tam vobis quam vestris filiis necessarium indumentum.\n Unde multum diligit vos Creator\n qui tot beneficia contulit. Quapropter cavete,\n sorores mes aviculae, ni sitis ingratae sed\n semper laudare Deum studete.\"\n\n\n... He departed thence and came between\n Cannara and Bevagna; and near the road he\n saw some trees on which perched so great a\n number of birds as never in those parts had\n been seen the like. Also in the field beyond,\n near these same trees, a very great multitude\n rested on the ground. This multitude, Saint\n Francis seeing with wonder, the spirit of God\n descending on him he said to his companions:\n \"Wait for me on the road, while I go and\n preach to our sisters the little birds.\" And he\n went into the field where the birds were on\n the ground. And as soon as he began to preach,\n all the birds in the trees came down to him and\n with those in the field stood quite still, even\n when he went among them touching many\n with his robe. Not one of them moved,\n as Brother James of Massa related, a saintly\n man who had the whole story from the mouth\n of Brother Masseo who was one of those then\n with the sainted father.\n\n\nTo these birds, Saint Francis said: \"Much\n are you bound to God, birds, my sisters, and\n everywhere and always must you praise him for\n the free flight you everywhere have; for the\n double and triple covering; for the painted and\n decorated robe; for the food prepared without\n your labour; for the song taught you by the\n Creator; for your number multiplied by God's\n blessing; for your seed preserved by God in\n the ark; for the element of air allotted to you.\n You neither sow nor reap, and God feeds\n you; and has given you rivers and springs\n to drink at, mountains and hills, rocks and\n wild goats for refuge, and high trees for nesting;\n and though you know neither how to spin nor\n to weave, He gives both you and your children\n all the garments you need. Whence much must\n the Creator love you, Who confers so many\n blessings. Therefore take care, my small bird\n sisters, never to be ungrateful, but always strive\n to praise God.\"\n\n\nFra Ugolino, or whoever wrote from the dictation of Brother James of\nMassa, after the tradition of Brother Masseo of Marignano reported\nSaint Francis's sermon in absolute good faith as Saint Francis\nprobably made it and as the birds possibly received it. All were\nGod's creatures, brothers and sisters, and God alone knew or knows\nwhether or how far they understand each other; but Saint Francis, in\nany case, understood them and believed that they were in sympathy\nwith him. As far as the birds or wolves were concerned, it was no\ngreat matter, but Francis did not stop with vertebrates or even with\norganic forms. \"Nor was it surprising,\" said the \"Speculum,\" \"if\nfire and other creatures sometimes revered and obeyed him; for, as\nwe who were with him very frequently saw, he held them in such\naffection and so much delighted in them, and his soul was moved by\nsuch pity and compassion for them, that he would not see them\nroughly handled, and talked with them with such evident delight as\nif they were rational beings\":--\n\nNam quadam vice, quum sederet juxta ignem, ipso nesciente, ignis\ninvasit pannos ejus de lino, sive brachas, juxta genu, quumque\nsentiret calorem ejus nolebat ipsum extinguere. Socius autem ejus\nvidens comburi pannos ejus cucurrit ad eum volens extinguere ignem;\nipse vero prohibuit ei, dicens: \"Noli, frater, carissime, noli male\nfacere igni!\" Et sic nullo modo voluit quod extingueret ipsum. Ille\nvero festinanter ivit ad fratrem qui erat guardianus ipsius, et\nduxit eum ad beatum Franciscum, et statim contra voluntatem beati\nFrancisci, extinxit ignem. Unde quacunque necessitate urgente\nnunquam voluit extinguere ignem vel lampadem vel candelam, tantum\npietate movebatur ad ipsum. Nolebat etiam quod frater projiceret\nignem vel lignum fumigantem de loco ad locum sicut solet fieri, sed\nvolebat ut plane poneret ipsum in terra ob reverentiam illius cujus\nest creatura.\n\nFor once when he was sitting by the fire, a spark, without his\nknowing it, caught his linen drawers and set them burning near the\nknee, and when he felt the heat he would not extinguish it; but his\ncompanion, seeing his clothes on fire, ran to put it out, and he\nforbade it, saying: \"Don't, my dearest brother, don't hurt the\nfire!\" So he utterly refused to let him put it out, and the brother\nhurried off to get his guardian, and brought him to Saint Francis,\nand together they put out the fire at once against Saint Francis's\nwill. So, no matter what the necessity, he would never put out fire\nOr a lamp or candle, so strong was his feeling for it; he would not\neven let a brother throw fire or a smoking log from place to place,\nas is usual, but wanted it placed gently (piano) on the ground, out\nof respect for Him Whose creature it is.\n\nThe modern tourist, having with difficulty satisfied himself that\nSaint Francis acted thus in good faith, immediately exclaims that he\nwas a heretic and should have been burned; but, in truth, the\nimmense popular charm of Saint Francis, as of the Virgin, was\nprecisely his heresies. Both were illogical and heretical by\nessence;--in strict discipline, in the days of the Holy Office, a\nhundred years later, both would have been burned by the Church, as\nJeanne d'Arc was, with infinitely less reason, in 1431. The charm of\nthe twelfth-century Church was that it knew how to be illogical--no\ngreat moral authority ever knew it better--when God Himself became\nillogical. It cared no more than Saint Francis, or Lord Bacon, for\nthe syllogism. Nothing in twelfth-century art is so fine as the air\nand gesture of sympathetic majesty with which the Church drew aside\nto let the Virgin and Saint Francis pass and take the lead--for a\ntime. Both were human ideals too intensely realized to be resisted\nmerely because they were illogical. The Church bowed and was silent.\n\nThis does not concern us. What the Church thought or thinks is its\nown affair, and what it chooses to call orthodox is orthodox. We\nhave been trying only to understand what the Virgin and Saint\nFrancis thought, which is matter of fact, not of faith. Saint\nFrancis was even more outspoken than the Virgin. She calmly set\nherself above dogma, and, with feminine indifference to authority,\noverruled it. He, having asserted in the strongest terms the\nprinciple of obedience, paid no further attention to dogma, but,\nwithout the least reticence, insisted on practices and ideas that no\nChurch could possibly permit or avow. Toward the end of his life,\nhis physician cauterized his face for some neuralgic pain:--\n\nEt posito ferro in igne pro coctura fienda, beatus Franciscus volens\nconfortare spiritum suum ne pavesceret, sic locutus est ad ignem:\n\"Frater mi, ignis, nobilis et utilis inter alias creaturas, esto\nmihi curialis in hac hora quia olim te dilexi et diligam amore\nillius qui creavit te. Deprecor etiam creatorem nostrum qui nos\ncreavit ut ita tuum calorem temperct ut ipsum sustinere valeam.\" Et\noratione finita signavit ignem signo crucis.\n\nWhen the iron was put on the fire for making the cotterie, Saint\nFrancis, wishing to encourage himself against fear, spoke thus to\nthe fire: \"My brother, fire, noblest and usefullest of creatures, be\ngentle to me now, because I have loved and will love you with the\nlove of Him who created you. Our Creator, too, Who created us both,\nI implore so to temper your heat that I may have strength to bear\nit.\" And having spoken, he signed the fire with the cross.\n\nWith him, this was not merely a symbol. Children and saints can\nbelieve two contrary things at the same time, but Saint Francis had\nalso a complete faith of his own which satisfied him wholly. All\nnature was God's creature. The sun and fire, air and water, were\nneither more nor less brothers and sisters than sparrows, wolves,\nand bandits. Even \"daemones sunt castalli Domini nostri\"; the devils\nare wardens of our Lord. If Saint Francis made any exception from\nhis univeral law of brotherhood it was that of the schoolmen, but it\nwas never expressed. Even in his passionate outbreak, in the\npresence of Saint Dominic, at the great Chapter of his Order at\nSancta Maria de Portiuncula in 1218, he did not go quite to the\nlength of denying the brotherhood of schoolmen, although he placed\nthem far below the devils, and yet every word of this address seems\nto sob with the anguish of his despair at the power of the school\nanti-Christ:--\n\nQuum beatus Franciscus esset in capitulo generali apud Sanctam\nMariam de Portiuncula ... et fuerunt ibi quinque millia fratres,\nquamplures fratres sapientes et scientiati iverunt ad dominum\nOstiensem qui erat ibidem, et dixerunt ei: \"Domine, volumus ut\nsuadetis fratri Francisco quod sequatur consilium fratrum sapientium\net permittat se interdum duci ab eis.\" Et allegabant regulam sancti\nBenedicti, Augustini et Bernardi qui docent sic et sic vivere\nordinate. Quae omnia quum retulisset cardinalis beato Francisco per\nmodum admoni admonitionis, beatus Franciscus, nihil sibi respondens,\ncepit ipsum per manum et duxit eum ad fratres congregatos in\ncapitulo, et sic locutus est fratribus in fervore et virtute Spirit\nus sancti:--\n\n\"Fratres mei, fratres mei, Dominus vocavit me per viam simplicitatis\net humilitatis, et bane viam ostendit mini in veritate pro me et pro\nillis qui volunt mini credere et imitari. Et ideo volo quod non\nnominetis mihi aliquam regulam neque sancti Benedicti neque sancti\nAugustini neque sancti Bernardi, neque aliquam viam et formam\nvivendi praeter illam quae mihi a Domino est ostensa misericorditer\net donata. Et dixit mihi Dominus quod volebat me esse unum pauperem\net stultum idiotam [magnum fatuum] in hoc mundo et noluit nos ducere\nper viam aliam quam per istam scientiam. Sed per vestram scientiam\net sapientiam Deus vos confundet et ego confido in castallis Domini\n[idest dasmonibus] quod per ipsos puniet vos Deus et adhuc redibitis\nad vestrum statum cum vituperio vestro velitis nolitis.\"\n\nWhen Saint Francis was at the General Chapter held at Sancta maris\nde Portiuncula ... and five thousand brothers were present, A number\nof them who were schoolmen went to Cardinal Hugolino who was there,\nand said to him: \"My lord, we want you to persuade Brother Francis\nto follow the council of the learned brothers, and sometimes let\nhimself be guided by them.\" And they suggested the rule of Saint\nBenedict or Augustine or Bernard who require their congregations to\nlive so and so, by regulation.  When the cardinal had repeated all\nthis to Saint Francis by way of counsel, Saint Francis, making no\nanswer, took him by the hand and led him to the brothers assembled\nin Chapter, and in the fervour and virtue of the Holy Ghost, spoke\nthus to the brothers:\n\n\"My brothers, my brothers, God has called me by way of simplicity\nand humility, and has shown me in verity this path for me and\nthose who want to believe and follow me; so I want you to talk of no\nRule to me, neither Saint Benedict nor Saint Augustine nor Saint\nBernard, nor any way or form of Life whatever except that which God\nhas mercifully pointed out and granted to me.  And God said that he\nwanted me to be a pauper [poverello] and an idiot--a great fool--in\nthis world, and would not lead us by any other path of science than\nthis. But by your science and syllogisms God will confound you, and\nI trust in God's warders, the devils, that through them God shall\npunish you, and you will yet come back to your proper station with\nshame, whether you will or no.\"\n\nThe narration continues: \"Tunc cardinalis obstupuit valde et nihil\nrespondit. Et omnes fratres plurimum timuerunt.\"\n\nOne feels that the reporter has not exaggerated a word; on the\ncontrary, he softened the scandal, because in his time the Cardinal\nhad gained his point, and Francis was dead. One can hear Francis\nbeginning with some restraint, and gradually carried away by passion\ntill he lost control of himself and his language: \"'God told me,\nwith his own words, that he meant me to be a beggar and a great\nfool, and would not have us on any other terms; and as for your\nscience, I trust in God's devils who will beat you out of it, as you\ndeserve.' And the Cardinal was utterly dumbfounded and answered\nnothing; and all the brothers were scared to death.\" The Cardinal\nHugolino was a great schoolman, and Dominic was then founding the\nfamous order in which the greatest of all doctors, Albertus Magnus,\nwas about to begin his studies. One can imagine that the Cardinal\n\"obstupuit valde,\" and that Dominic felt shaken in his scheme of\nschool instruction. For a single instant, in the flash of Francis's\npassion, the whole mass of five thousand monks in a state of semi-\necstasy recoiled before the impassable gulf that opened between them\nand the Church.\n\nNo one was to blame--no one ever is to blame--because God wanted\ncontradictory things, and man tried to carry out, as he saw them,\nGod's trusts. The schoolmen saw their duty in one direction; Francis\nsaw his in another; and, apparently, when both lines had been\ncarried, after such fashion as might be, to their utmost results,\nand five hundred years had been devoted to the effort, society\ndeclared both to be failures. Perhaps both may some day be revived,\nfor the two paths seem to be the only roads that can exist, if man\nstarts by taking for granted that there is an object to be reached\nat the end of his journey. The Church, embracing all mankind, had no\nchoice but to march with caution, seeking God by every possible\nmeans of intellect and study. Francis, acting only for himself,\ncould throw caution aside and trust implicitly in God, like the\nchildren who went on crusade. The two poles of social and political\nphilosophy seem necessarily to be organization or anarchy; man's\nintellect or the forces of nature. Francis saw God in nature, if he\ndid not see nature in God; as the builders of Chartres saw the\nVirgin in their apse. Francis held the simplest and most childlike\nform of pantheism. He carried to its last point the mystical union\nwith God, and its necessary consequence of contempt and hatred for\nhuman intellectual processes. Even Saint Bernard would have thought\nhis ideas wanting in that \"mesure\" which the French mind so much\nprizes. At the same time we had best try, as innocently as may be,\nto realize that no final judgment has yet been pronounced, either by\nthe Church or by society or by science, on either or any of these\npoints; and until mankind finally settles to a certainty where it\nmeans to go, or whether it means to go anywhere,--what its object\nis, or whether it has an object,--Saint Francis may still prove to\nhave been its ultimate expression. In that case, his famous chant--\nthe \"Cantico del Sole\"--will be the last word of religion, as it was\nprobably its first. Here it is--too sincere for translation:--\n\nCANTICO DEL SOLE\n\n... Laudato sie, misignore, con tucte le tue creature\n spetialmente messor lo frate sole\n lo quale iorno et allumini noi per loi\n et ellu e bellu e radiante cum grande splendore\n de te, altissimo, porta significatione.\n\n\nLaudato si, misignore, per sora luna e le stelle\n in celu lai formate clarite et pretiose et belle.\n\n\nLaudato si, misignore, per frate vento\n et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo\n per lo quale a le tue creature dai sustentamento.\n\n\n        Laudato si, misignore, per sor aqua\n la quale e multo utile et humile et pretiosa et casta.\n         Laudato si, misignore, per frate focu\n per lo quale enallumini la nocte\n ed ello e bello et jocondo et robustoso et forte.\n\n\n        Laudato si, misignore, per sora nostra matre terra\n la quale ne sustenta et governa\n et produce diversi fructi con coloriti flori et herba.\n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\n         Laudato si, misignore, per sora nostra morte corporale\n de la quale nullu homo vivente po skappare\n guai acquelli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali....\n\n\nThe verses, if verses they are, have little or nothing in common\nwith the art of Saint Bernard or Adam of Saint-Victor. Whatever art\nthey have, granting that they have any, seems to go back to the\ncave-dwellers and the age of stone. Compared with the naivete of the\n\"Cantico del Sole,\" the \"Chanson de Roland\" or the \"Iliad\" is a\ntriumph of perfect technique. The value is not in the verse. The\n\"Chant of the Sun\" is another \"Pons Seclorum\"--or perhaps rather a\n\"Pons Sanctorum\"--over which only children and saints can pass. It\nis almost a paraphrase of the sermon to the birds. \"Thank you, mi\nsignore, for messor brother sun, in especial, who is your symbol;\nand for sister moon and the stars; and for brother wind and air and\nsky; and for sister water; and for brother fire; and for mother\nearth! We are all yours, mi signore! We are your children; your\nhousehold; your feudal family! but we never heard of a Church. We\nare all varying forms of the same ultimate energy; shifting symbols\nof the same absolute unity; but our only unity, beneath you, is\nnature, not law! We thank you for no human institutions, even for\nthose established in your name; but, with all our hearts we thank\nyou for sister our mother Earth and its fruits and coloured\nflowers!\"\n\nFrancis loved them all--the brothers and sisters--as intensely as a\nchild loves the taste and smell of a peach, and as simply; but\nbehind them remained one sister whom no one loved, and for whom, in\nhis first verses, Francis had rendered no thanks. Only on his death-\nbed he added the lines of gratitude for \"our sister death,\" the\nlong-sought, never-found sister of the schoolmen, who solved all\nphilosophy and merged multiplicity in unity. The solution was at\nleast simple; one must decide for one's self, according to one's\npersonal standards, whether or not it is more sympathetic than that\nwith which we have got lastly to grapple in the works of Saint\nThomas Aquinas.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nSAINT THOMAS AQUINAS\n\nLong before Saint Francis's death, in 1226, the French mystics had\nexhausted their energies and the siecle had taken new heart. Society\ncould not remain forever balancing between thought and act. A few\ngifted natures could absorb themselves in the absolute, but the rest\nlived for the day, and needed shelter and safety. So the Church bent\nagain to its task, and bade the Spaniard Dominic arm new levies with\nthe best weapons of science, and flaunt the name of Aristotle on the\nChurch banners along with that of Saint Augustine. The year 1215,\nwhich happened to be the date of Magna Charta and other easily fixed\nevents, like the birth of Saint Louis, may serve to mark the triumph\nof the schools. The pointed arch revelled at Rheims and the Gothic\narchitects reached perfection at Amiens just as Francis died at\nAssisi and Thomas was born at Aquino. The Franciscan Order itself\nwas swept with the stream that Francis tried to dam, and the great\nFranciscan schoolman, Alexander Hales, in 1222, four years before\nthe death of Francis, joined the order and began lecturing as though\nFrancis himself had lived only to teach scholastic philosophy.\n\nThe rival Dominican champion, Albertus Magnus, began his career a\nlittle later, in 1228. Born of the noble Swabian family of\nBollstadt, in 1193, he drifted, like other schoolmen, to Paris, and\nthe Rue Maitre Albert, opposite Notre Dame, still records his fame\nas a teacher there. Thence he passed to a school established by the\norder at Cologne, where he was lecturing with great authority in\n1243 when the general superior of the order brought up from Italy a\nyoung man of the highest promise to be trained as his assistant.\n\nThomas, the new pupil, was born under the shadow of Monte Cassino in\n1226 or 1227. His father, the Count of Aquino, claimed descent from\nthe imperial line of Swabia; his mother, from the Norman princes of\nSicily; so that in him the two most energetic strains in Europe met.\nHis social rank was royal, and the order set the highest value on\nit. He took the vows in 1243, and went north at once to help\nAlbertus at Cologne. In 1245, the order sent Albertus back to Paris,\nand Thomas with him. There he remained till 1248 when he was ordered\nto Cologne as assistant lecturer, and only four years afterwards, at\ntwenty-five years old, he was made full professor at Paris. His\nindustry and activity never rested till his death in 1274, not yet\nfifty years old, when he bequeathed to the Church a mass of\nmanuscript that tourists will never know enough to estimate except\nby weight. His complete works, repeatedly printed, fill between\ntwenty and thirty quarto volumes. For so famous a doctor, this is\nalmost meagre. Unfortunately his greatest work, the \"Summa\nTheologiae,\" is unfinished--like Beauvais Cathedral.\n\nPerhaps Thomas's success was partly due to his memory which is said\nto have been phenomenal; for, in an age when cyclopaedias were\nunknown, a cyclopaedic memory must have counted for half the battle\nin these scholastic disputes where authority could be met only by\nauthority; but in this case, memory was supported by mind. Outwardly\nThomas was heavy and slow in manner, if it is true that his\ncompanions called him \"the big dumb ox of Sicily\"; and in\nfashionable or court circles he did not enjoy reputation for acute\nsense of humour. Saint Louis's household offers a picture not wholly\nclerical, least of all among the King's brothers and sons; and\nperhaps the dinner-table was not much more used then than now to\nabrupt interjections of theology into the talk about hunting and\nhounds; but however it happened, Thomas one day surprised the\ncompany by solemnly announcing--\"I have a decisive argument against\nthe Manicheans!\" No wit or humour could be more to the point--\nbetween two saints that were to be--than a decisive argument against\nenemies of Christ, and one greatly regrets that the rest of the\nconversation was not reported, unless, indeed, it is somewhere in\nthe twenty-eight quarto volumes; but it probably lacked humour for\ncourtiers.\n\nThe twenty-eight quarto volumes must be closed books for us. None\nbut Dominicans have a right to interpret them. No Franciscan--or\neven Jesuit--understands Saint Thomas exactly or explains him with\nauthority. For summer tourists to handle these intricate problems in\na theological spirit would be altogether absurd; but, for us, these\ngreat theologians were also architects who undertook to build a\nChurch Intellectual, corresponding bit by bit to the Church\nAdministrative, both expressing--and expressed by--the Church\nArchitectural. Alexander Hales, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas,\nDuns Scotus, and the rest, were artists; and if Saint Thomas happens\nto stand at their head as type, it is not because we choose him or\nunderstand him better than his rivals, but because his order chose\nhim rather than his master Albert, to impose as authority on the\nChurch; and because Pope John XXII canonized him on the ground that\nhis decisions were miracles; and because the Council of Trent placed\nhis \"Summa\" among the sacred books on their table; and because\nInnocent VI said that his doctrine alone was sure; and finally,\nbecause Leo XIII very lately made a point of declaring that, on the\nwings of Saint Thomas's genius, human reason has reached the most\nsublime height it can probably ever attain.\n\nAlthough the Franciscans, and, later, the Jesuits, have not always\nshown as much admiration as the Dominicans for the genius of Saint\nThomas, and the mystics have never shown any admiration whatever for\nthe philosophy of the schools, the authority of Leo XIII is final,\nat least on one point and the only one that concerns us. Saint\nThomas is still alive and overshadows as many schools as he ever\ndid; at all events, as many as the Church maintains. He has outlived\nDescartes and Leibnitz and a dozen other schools of philosophy more\nor less serious in their day. He has mostly outlived Hume, Voltaire,\nand the militant sceptics. His method is typical and classic; his\nsentences, when interpreted by the Church, seem, even to an\nuntrained mind, intelligible and consistent; his Church Intellectual\nremains practically unchanged, and, like the Cathedral of Beauvais,\nerect, although the storms of six or seven centuries have\nprostrated, over and over again, every other social or political or\njuristic shelter. Compared with it, all modern systems are complex\nand chaotic, crowded with self-contradictions, anomalies,\nimpracticable functions and outworn inheritances; but beyond all\ntheir practical shortcomings is their fragmentary character. An\neconomic civilization troubles itself about the universe much as a\nhive of honey-bees troubles about the ocean, only as a region to be\navoided. The hive of Saint Thomas sheltered God and man, mind and\nmatter, the universe and the atom, the one and the multiple, within\nthe walls of an harmonious home.\n\nTheologians, like architects, were supposed to receive their Church\ncomplete in all its lines; they were modern judges who interpreted\nthe laws but never invented it. Saint Thomas merely selected between\ndisputed opinions, but he allowed himself to wander very far afield,\nindeed, in search of opinions to dispute. The field embraced all\nthat existed, or might have existed, or could never exist. The\nimmense structure rested on Aristotle and Saint Augustine at the\nlast, but as a work of art it stood alone, like Rheims or Amiens\nCathedral, as though it had no antecedents. Then, although, like\nRheims, its style was never meant to suit modern housekeeping and is\nill-seen by the Ecole des Beaux Arts, it reveals itself in its great\nmass and intelligence as a work of extraordinary genius; a system as\nadmirably proportioned as any cathedral and as complete; a success\nnot universal either in art or science.\n\nSaint Thomas's architecture, like any other work of art, is best\nstudied by itself as though he created it outright; otherwise a\ntourist would never get beyond its threshold. Beginning with the\nfoundation which is God and God's active presence in His Church,\nThomas next built God into the walls and towers of His Church, in\nthe Trinity and its creation of mind and matter in time and space;\nthen finally he filled the Church by uniting mind and matter in man,\nor man's soul, giving to humanity a free will that rose, like the\nfleche, to heaven. The foundation--the structure--the congregation--\nare enough for students of art; his ideas of law, ethics, and\npolitics; his vocabulary, his syllogisms, his arrangement are, like\nthe drawings of Villard de Honnecourt's sketch-book, curious but not\nvital. After the eleventh-century Romanesque Church of Saint Michael\ncame the twelfth-century Transition Church of the Virgin, and all\nmerged and ended at last in the thirteenth-century Gothic Cathedral\nof the Trinity. One wants to see the end.\n\nThe foundation of the Christian Church should be--as the simple\ndeist might suppose--always the same, but Saint Thomas knew better.\nHis foundation was Norman, not French; it spoke the practical\narchitect who knew the mathematics of his art, and who saw that the\nfoundation laid by Saint Bernard, Saint Victor, Saint Francis, the\nwhole mystical, semi-mystical, Cartesian, Spinozan foundation, past\nor future, could not bear the weight of the structure to be put on\nit. Thomas began by sweeping the ground clear of them. God must be a\nconcrete thing, not a human thought. God must be proved by the\nsenses like any other concrete thing; \"nihil est in intellectu quin\nprius fuerit in sensu\"; even if Aristotle had not affirmed the law,\nThomas would have discovered it. He admitted at once that God could\nnot be taken for granted.\n\nThe admission, as every boy-student of the Latin Quarter knew, was\nexceedingly bold and dangerous. The greatest logicians commonly\nshrank from proving unity by multiplicity. Thomas was one of the\ngreatest logicians that ever lived; the question had always been at\nthe bottom of theology; he deliberately challenged what every one\nknew to be an extreme peril. If his foundation failed, his Church\nfell. Many critics have thought that he saw dangers four hundred\nyears ahead. The time came, about 1650-1700, when Descartes,\ndeserting Saint Thomas, started afresh with the idea of God as a\nconcept, and at once found himself charged with a deity that\ncontained the universe; nor did the Cartesians--until Spinoza made\nit clear--seem able or willing to see that the Church could not\naccept this deity because the Church required a God who caused the\nuniverse. The two deities destroyed each other. One was passive; the\nother active. Thomas warned Descartes of a logical quicksand which\nmust necessarily swallow up any Church, and which Spinoza explored\nto the bottom. Thomas said truly that every true cause must be\nproved as a cause, not merely as a sequence; otherwise they must end\nin a universal energy or substance without causality--a source.\n\nWhatever God might be to others, to His Church he could not be a\nsequence or a source. That point had been admitted by William of\nChampeaux, and made the division between Christians and infidels. On\nthe other hand, if God must be proved as a true cause in order to\nwarrant the Church or the State in requiring men to worship Him as\nCreator, the student became the more curious--if a churchman, the\nmore anxious--to be assured that Thomas succeeded in his proof,\nespecially since he did not satisfy Descartes and still less Pascal.\nThat the mystics should be dissatisfied was natural enough, since\nthey were committed to the contrary view, but that Descartes should\ndesert was a serious blow which threw the French Church into\nconsternation from which it never quite recovered.\n\n\"I see motion,\" said Thomas: \"I infer a motor!\" This reasoning,\nwhich may be fifty thousand years old, is as strong as ever it was;\nstronger than some more modern inferences of science; but the\naverage mechanic stated it differently. \"I see motion,\" he admitted:\n\"I infer energy. I see motion everywhere; I infer energy\neverywhere.\" Saint Thomas barred this door to materialism by adding:\n\"I see motion; I cannot infer an infinite series of motors: I can\nonly infer, somewhere at the end of the series, an intelligent,\nfixed motor.\" The average modern mechanic might not dissent but\nwould certainly hesitate. \"No doubt!\" he might say; \"we can conduct\nour works as well on that as on any other theory, or as we could on\nno theory at all; but, if you offer it as proof, we can only say\nthat we have not yet reduced all motion to one source or all\nenergies to one law, much less to one act of creation, although we\nhave tried our best.\" The result of some centuries of experiment\ntended to raise rather than silence doubt, although, even in his own\nday, Thomas would have been scandalized beyond the resources of his\nLatin had Saint Bonaventure met him at Saint Louis's dinner-table\nand complimented him, in the King's hearing, on having proved,\nbeyond all Franciscan cavils, that the Church Intellectual had\nnecessarily but one first cause and creator--himself.\n\nThe Church Intellectual, like the Church Architectural, implied not\none architect, but myriads, and not one fixed, intelligent architect\nat the end of the series, but a vanishing vista without a beginning\nat any definite moment; and if Thomas pressed his argument, the\ntwentieth-century mechanic who should attend his conferences at the\nSorbonne would be apt to say so. \"What is the use of trying to argue\nme into it? Your inference may be sound logic, but is not proof.\nActually we know less about it than you did. All we know is the\nthing we handle, and we cannot handle your fixed, intelligent prime\nmotor. To your old ideas of form we have added what we call force,\nand we are rather further than ever from reducing the complex to\nunity. In fact, if you are aiming to convince me, I will tell you\nflatly that I know only the multiple, and have no use for unity at\nall.\"\n\nIn the thirteenth century men did not depend so much as now on\nactual experiment, but the nominalist said in effect the same thing.\nUnity to him was a pure concept, and any one who thought it real\nwould believe that a triangle was alive and could walk on its legs.\nWithout proving unity, philosophers saw no way to prove God. They\ncould only fall back on an attempt to prove that the concept of\nunity proved itself, and this phantasm drove the Cartesians to drop\nThomas's argument and assert that \"the mere fact of having within us\nthe idea of a thing more perfect than ourselves, proves the real\nexistence of that thing.\" Four hundred years earlier Saint Thomas\nhad replied in advance that Descartes wanted to prove altogether too\nmuch, and Spinoza showed mathematically that Saint Thomas had been\nin the right. The finest religious mind of the time--Pascal--\nadmitted it and gave up the struggle, like the mystics of Saint-\nVictor.\n\nThus some of the greatest priests and professors of the Church,\nincluding Duns Scotus himself, seemed not wholly satisfied that\nThomas's proof was complete, but most of them admitted that it was\nthe safest among possible foundations, and that it showed, as\narchitecture, the Norman temper of courage and caution. The Norman\nwas ready to run great risks, but he would rather grasp too little\nthan too much; he narrowed the spacing of his piers rather than\nspread them too wide for safe vaulting. Between Norman blood and\nBreton blood was a singular gap, as Renan and every other Breton has\ndelighted to point out. Both Abelard and Descartes were Breton. The\nBreton seized more than he could hold; the Norman took less than he\nwould have liked.\n\nGod, then, is proved. What the schools called form, what science\ncalls energy, and what the intermediate period called the evidence\nof design, made the foundation of Saint Thomas's cathedral. God is\nan intelligent, fixed prime motor--not a concept, or proved by\nconcepts;--a concrete fact, proved by the senses of sight and touch.\nOn that foundation Thomas built. The walls and vaults of his Church\nwere more complex than the foundation; especially the towers were\ntroublesome. Dogma, the vital purpose of the Church, required\nsupport. The most weighty dogma, the central tower of the Norman\ncathedral, was the Trinity, and between the Breton solution which\nwas too heavy, and the French solution which was too light, the\nNorman Thomas found a way. Remembering how vehemently the French\nChurch, under Saint Bernard, had protected the Trinity from all\ninterference whatever, one turns anxiously to see what Thomas said\nabout it; and unless one misunderstands him,--as is very likely,\nindeed, to be the case, since no one may even profess to understand\nthe Trinity,--Thomas treated it as simply as he could. \"God, being\nconscious of Himself, thinks Himself; his thought is Himself, his\nown reflection in the Verb--the so-called Son.\" \"Est in Deo\nintelligente seipsum Verbum Dei quasi Deus intellectus.\" The idea\nwas not new, and as ideas went it was hardly a mystery; but the next\nstep was naif:--God, as a double consciousness, loves Himself, and\nrealizes Himself in the Holy Ghost. The third side of the triangle\nis love or grace.\n\nMany theologians have found fault with this treatment of the\nsubject, which seemed open to every objection that had been made to\nAbelard, Gilbert de la Poree, or a thousand other logicians. They\ncommonly asked why Thomas stopped the Deity's self-realizations at\nlove, or inside the triangle, since these realizations were real,\nnot symbolic, and the square was at least as real as any other\ncombination of line. Thomas replied that knowledge and will--the\nVerb and the Holy Ghost--were alone essential. The reply did not\nsuit every one, even among doctors, but since Saint Thomas rested on\nthis simple assertion, it is no concern of ours to argue the\ntheology. Only as art, one can afford to say that the form is more\narchitectural than religious; it would surely have been suspicious\nto Saint Bernard. Mystery there was none, and logic little. The\nconcept of the Holy Ghost was childlike; for a pupil of Aristotle it\nwas inadmissible, since it led to nothing and helped no step toward\nthe universe.\n\nAdmitting, if necessary, the criticism, Thomas need not admit the\nblame, if blame there were. Every theologian was obliged to stop the\npursuit of logic by force, before it dragged him into paganism and\npantheism. Theology begins with the universal,--God,--who must be a\nreality, not a symbol; but it is forced to limit the process of\nGod's realizations somewhere, or the priest soon becomes a\nworshipper of God in sticks and stones. Theologists had commonly\nchosen, from time immemorial, to stop at the Trinity; within the\ntriangle they were wholly realist; but they could not admit that God\nwent on to realize Himself in the square and circle, or that the\nthird member of the Trinity contained multiplicity, because the\nTrinity was a restless weight on the Church piers, which, like the\ncentral tower, constantly tended to fall, and needed to be\nlightened. Thomas gave it the lightest form possible, and there\nfixed it.\n\nThen came his great tour-de-force, the vaulting of his broad nave;\nand, if ignorance is allowed an opinion, even a lost soul may admire\nthe grand simplicity of Thomas's scheme. He swept away the\nhorizontal lines altogether, leaving them barely as a part of\ndecoration. The whole weight of his arches fell, as in the latest\nGothic, where the eye sees nothing to break the sheer spring of the\nnervures, from the rosette on the keystone a hundred feet above down\nto the church floor. In Thomas's creation nothing intervened between\nGod and his world; secondary causes become ornaments; only two\nforces, God and man, stood in the Church.\n\nThe chapter of Creation is so serious, and Thomas's creation, like\nevery other, is open to so much debate, that no student can allow\nanother to explain it; and certainly no man whatever, either saint\nor sceptic, can ever yet have understood Creation aright unless\ndivinely inspired; but whatever Thomas's theory was as he meant it,\nhe seems to be understood as holding that every created individual--\nanimal, vegetable, or mineral--was a special, divine act. Whatever\nhas form is created, and whatever is created takes form directly\nfrom the will of God, which is also his act. The intermediate\nuniversals--the secondary causes--vanish as causes; they are, at\nmost, sequences or relations; all merge in one universal act of\nwill; instantaneous, infinite, eternal.\n\nSaint Thomas saw God, much as Milton saw him, resplendent in\n\n    That glorious form, that light unsufferable,\n       And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,\n     Wherewith he wont, at Heaven's high council-table,\n       To sit the midst of Trinal Unity;\n\n\nexcept that, in Thomas's thought, the council-table was a work-\ntable, because God did not take counsel; He was an act. The Trinity\nwas an infinite possibility of will; nothing within but\n\n    The baby image of the giant mass\n       Of things to come at large.\n\n\nNeither time nor space, neither matter nor mind, not even force\nexisted, nor could any intelligence conceive how, even though they\nshould exist, they could be united in the lowest association. A\ncrystal was as miraculous as Socrates. Only abstract force, or what\nthe schoolmen called form, existed undeveloped from eternity, like\nthe abstract line in mathematics.\n\nFifty or a hundred years before Saint Thomas settled the Church\ndogma, a monk of Citeaux or some other abbey, a certain Alain of\nLille, had written a Latin poem, as abstruse an allegory as the\nbest, which had the merit of painting the scene of man's creation as\nfar as concerned the mechanical process much as Thomas seems to have\nseen it. M. Haureau has printed an extract (vol. I, p. 352). Alain\nconceded to the weakness of human thought, that God was working in\ntime and space, or rather on His throne in heaven, when nature,\nproposing to create a new and improved man, sent Reason and Prudence\nup to ask Him for a soul to fit the new body. Having passed through\nvarious adventures and much scholastic instruction, the messenger\nPrudence arrived, after having dropped her dangerous friend Reason\nby the way. The request was respectfully presented to God, and\nfavourably received. God promised the soul, and at once sent His\nservant Noys--Thought--to the storehouse of ideas, to choose it:--\n\nIpse Deus rem prosequitur, producit in actum\n Quod pepigit. Vocat ergo Noym quae praepaert illi\n Numinis exemplar, humanae mentis Idaeam,\n Ad cujus formam formetur spiritus omni\n Munere virtutum dives, qui, nube caducae\n Carnis odumbratus veletur corporis umbra.\n Tunc Noys ad regis praeceptum singula rerum\n\n\nVestigans exempla, novam perquirit Idaeam.\n Inter tot species, speciem vix invenit illam\n Quam petit; offertur tandem quaesita petenti\n. Hanc formam Noys ipsa Deo praesentat ut ejus\n Formet ad exemplar animam. Tunc ille sigillum\n Sumit, ad ipsius formae vestigia formam\n Dans animae, vultum qualem deposcit Idaea\n Imprimit exemplo; totas usurpat imago\n Exemplaris opes, loquiturque figura sigillum.\n\n\nGod Himself pursues the task, and sets in act\n What He promised. So He calls Noys to seek\n A copy of His will, Idea of the human mind,\n To whose form the spirit should be shaped,\n Rich in every virtue, which, veiled in garb\n Of frail flesh, is to be hidden in a shade of body,\n Then Noys, at the King's order, turning one by one\n\n\nEach sample, seeks the new Idea.\n Among so many images she hardly finds that\n Which she seeks; at last the sought one appears.\n This form Noys herself brings to God for Him\n To form a soul to its pattern.  He takes the seal,\n And gives form to the soul after the model\n Of the form itself, stamping on the sample\n The figure such as the Idea requires.  The seal\n Covers the whole field, and the impression expresses the stamp.\n\n\nThe translation is probably full of mistakes; indeed, one is\npermitted to doubt whether Alain himself accurately understood the\nprocess; but in substance he meant that God contained a storehouse\nof ideas, and stamped each creation with one of these forms. The\npoets used a variety of figures to help out their logic, but that of\nthe potter and his pot was one of the most common. Omar Khayyam was\nusing it at the same time with Alain of Lille, but with a\ndifference: for his pot seems to have been matter alone, and his\nsoul was the wine it received from God; while Alain's soul seems to\nhave been the form and not the contents of the pot.\n\nThe figure matters little. In any case God's act was the union of\nmind with matter by the same act or will which created both. No\nintermediate cause or condition intervened; no secondary influence\nhad anything whatever to do with the result. Time had nothing to do\nwith it. Every individual that has existed or shall exist was\ncreated by the same instantaneous act, for all time. \"When the\nquestion regards the universal agent who produces beings and time,\nwe cannot consider him as acting now and before, according to the\nsuccession of time.\" God emanated time, force, matter, mind, as He\nmight emanate gravitation, not as a part of His substance but as an\nenergy of His will, and maintains them in their activity by the same\nact, not by a new one. Every individual is a part of the direct act;\nnot a secondary outcome. The soul has no father or mother. Of all\nerrors one of the most serious is to suppose that the soul descends\nby generation. \"Having life and action of its own, it subsists\nwithout the body; ... it must therefore be produced directly, and\nsince it is not a material substance, it cannot be produced by way\nof generation; it must necessarily be created by God. Consequently\nto suppose that the intelligence [or intelligent soul] is the effect\nof generation is to suppose that it is not a pure and simple\nsubstance, but corruptible like the body. It is therefore heresy to\nsay that this soul is transmitted by generation.\" What is true of\nthe soul should be true of all other form, since no form is a\nmaterial substance. The utmost possible relation between any two\nindividuals is that God may have used the same stamp or mould for a\nseries of creations, and especially for the less spiritual: \"God is\nthe first model for all things. One may also say that, among His\ncreatures some serve as types or models for others because there are\nsome which are made in the image of others\"; but generation means\nsequence, not cause. The only true cause is God. Creation is His\nsole act, in which no second cause can share.\" Creation is more\nperfect and loftier than generation, because it aims at producing\nthe whole substance of the being, though it starts from absolute\nnothing.\"\n\nThomas Aquinas, when he pleased, was singularly lucid, and on this\npoint he was particularly positive. The architect insisted on the\ncontrolling idea of his structure. The Church was God, and its lines\nexcluded interference. God and the Church embraced all the\nconverging lines of the universe, and the universe showed none but\nlines that converged. Between God and man, nothing whatever\nintervened. The individual was a compound of form, or soul, and\nmatter; but both were always created together, by the same act, out\nof nothing. \"Simpliciter fatendum est animas simul cum corporibus\ncreari et infundi.\" It must be distinctly understood that souls were\nnot created before bodies, but that they were created at the same\ntime as the bodies they animate. Nothing whatever preceded this\nunion of two substances which did not exist: \"Creatio est productio\nalicujus rei secundum suam totam substantiam, nullo praesupposito,\nquod sit vel increatum vel ab aliquo creatum.\" Language can go no\nfurther in exclusion of every possible preceding, secondary, or\nsubsequent cause, \"Productio universalis entis a Deo non est motus\nnec mutatio, sed est quaedam simplex emanatio.\" The whole universe\nis, so to speak, a simple emanation from God.\n\nThe famous junction, then, is made!--that celebrated fusion of the\nuniversal with the individual, of unity with multiplicity, of God\nand nature, which had broken the neck of every philosophy ever\ninvented; which had ruined William of Champeaux and was to ruin\nDescartes; this evolution of the finite from the infinite was\naccomplished. The supreme triumph was as easily effected by Thomas\nAquinas as it was to be again effected, four hundred years later, by\nSpinoza. He had merely to assert the fact: \"It is so! it cannot be\notherwise!\" \"For the thousandth and hundred-thousandth time;--what\nis the use of discussing this prime motor, this Spinozan substance,\nany longer? We know it is there!\" that--as Professor Haeckel very\njustly repeats for the millionth time--is enough.\n\nOne point, however, remained undetermined. The Prime Motor and His\naction stood fixed, and no one wished to disturb Him; but this was\nnot the point that had disturbed William of Champeaux. Abelard's\nquestion still remained to be answered. How did Socrates differ from\nPlato--Judas from John--Thomas Aquinas from Professor Haeckel? Were\nthey, in fact, two, or one? What made an individual? What was God's\ncentimetre measure? The abstract form or soul which existed as a\npossibility in God, from all time,--was it one or many? To the\nChurch, this issue overshadowed all else, for, if humanity was one\nand not multiple, the Church, which dealt only with individuals, was\nlost. To the schools, also, the issue was vital, for, if the soul or\nform was already multiple from the first, unity was lost; the\nultimate substance and prime motor itself became multiple; the whole\nissue was reopened.\n\nTo the consternation of the Church, and even of his own order,\nThomas, following closely his masters, Albert and Aristotle,\nasserted that the soul was measured by matter. \"Division occurs in\nsubstances in ratio of quantity, as Aristotle says in his 'Physics.'\nAnd so dimensional quantity is a principle of individuation.\" The\nsoul is a fluid absorbed by matter in proportion to the absorptive\npower of the matter. The soul is an energy existing in matter\nproportionately to the dimensional quantity of the matter. The soul\nis a wine, greater or less in quantity according to the size of the\ncup. In our report of the great debate of 1110, between Champeaux\nand Abelard, we have seen William persistently tempting Abelard to\nfall into this admission that matter made the man;--that the\nuniversal equilateral triangle became an individual if it were\nshaped in metal, the matter giving it reality which mere form could\nnot give; and Abelard evading the issue as though his life depended\non it. In fact, had Abelard dared to follow Aristotle into what\nlooked like an admission that Socrates and Plato were identical as\nform and differed only in weight, his life might have been the\nforfeit. How Saint Thomas escaped is a question closely connected\nwith the same inquiry about Saint Francis of Assisi. A Church which\nembraced, with equal sympathy, and within a hundred years, the\nVirgin, Saint Bernard, William of Champeaux and the School of Saint-\nVictor, Peter the Venerable, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Dominic,\nSaint Thomas Aquinas, and Saint Bonaventure, was more liberal than\nany modern State can afford to be. Radical contradictions the State\nmay perhaps tolerate, though hardly, but never embrace or profess.\nSuch elasticity long ago vanished from human thought.\n\nYet only Dominicans believe that the Church adopted this law of\nindividualization, or even assented to it. If M. Jourdain is right,\nThomas was quickly obliged to give it another form:--that, though\nall souls belonged to the same species, they differed in their\naptitudes for uniting with particular bodies. \"This soul is\ncommensurate with this body, and not with that other one.\" The idea\nis double; for either the souls individualized themselves, and\nThomas abandoned his doctrine of their instantaneous creation, with\nthe bodies, out of nothing; or God individualized them in the act of\ncreation, and matter had nothing to do with it. The difficulty is no\nconcern of ours, but the great scholars who took upon themselves to\nexplain it made it worse, until at last one gathers only that Saint\nThomas held one of three views: either the soul of humanity was\nindividualized by God, or it individualized itself, or it was\ndivided by ratio of quantity, that is, by matter. This amounts to\nsaying that one knows nothing about it, which we knew before and may\nadmit with calmness; but Thomas Aquinas was not so happily placed,\nbetween the Church and the schools. Humanity had a form common to\nitself, which made it what it was. By some means this form was\nassociated with matter; in fact, matter was only known as associated\nwith form. If, then, God, by an instantaneous act, created matter\nand gave it form according to the dimensions of the matter, innocent\nignorance might infer that there was, in the act of God, one world-\nsoul and one world-matter, which He united in different proportions\nto make men and things. Such a doctrine was fatal to the Church. No\ngreater heresy could be charged against the worst Arab or Jew, and\nThomas was so well aware of his danger that he recoiled from it with\na vehemence not at all in keeping with his supposed phlegm. With\nfeverish eagerness to get clear of such companions, he denied and\ndenounced, in all companies, in season and out of season, the idea\nthat intellect was one and the same for all men, differing only with\nthe quantity of matter it accompanied. He challenged the adherent of\nsuch a doctrine to battle; \"let him take the pen if he dares!\" No\none dared, seeing that even Jews enjoyed a share of common sense and\nhad seen some of their friends burn at the stake not very long\nbefore for such opinions, not even openly maintained; while\nuneducated people, who are perhaps incapable of receiving intellect\nat all, but for whose instruction and salvation the great work of\nSaint Thomas and his scholars must chiefly exist, cannot do battle\nbecause they cannot understand Thomas's doctrine of matter and form\nwhich to them seems frank pantheism.\n\nSo it appeared to Duns Scotus also, if one may assert in the Doctor\nSubtilis any opinion without qualification. Duns began his career\nonly about 1300, after Thomas's death, and stands, therefore, beyond\nour horizon; but he is still the pride of the Franciscan Order and\nstands second in authority to the great Dominican alone. In denying\nThomas's doctrine that matter individualizes mind, Duns laid himself\nopen to the worse charge of investing matter with a certain\nembryonic, independent, shadowy soul of its own. Scot's system,\ncompared with that of Thomas, tended toward liberty. Scot held that\nthe excess of power in Thomas's prime motor neutralized the power of\nhis secondary causes, so that these appeared altogether superfluous.\nThis is a point that ought to be left to the Church to decide, but\nthere can be no harm in quoting, on the other hand, the authority of\nsome of Scot's critics within the Church, who have thought that his\ndoctrine tended to deify matter and to keep open the road to\nSpinoza. Narrow and dangerous was the border-line always between\npantheism and materialism, and the chief interest of the schools was\nin finding fault with each other's paths.\n\nThe opinions in themselves need not disturb us, although the\nquestion is as open to dispute as ever it was and perhaps as much\ndisputed; but the turn of Thomas's mind is worth study. A century or\ntwo later, his passion to be reasonable, scientific, architectural\nwould have brought him within range of the Inquisition. Francis of\nAssisi was not more archaic and cave-dweller than Thomas of Aquino\nwas modern and scientific. In his effort to be logical he forced his\nDeity to be as logical as himself, which hardly suited Omnipotence.\nHe hewed the Church dogmas into shape as though they were rough\nstones. About no dogma could mankind feel interest more acute than\nabout that of immortality, which seemed to be the single point\nvitally necessary for any Church to prove and define as clearly as\nlight itself. Thomas trimmed down the soul to half its legitimate\nclaims as an immortal being by insisting that God created it from\nnothing in the same act or will by which He created the body and\nunited the two in time and space. The soul existed as form for the\nbody, and had no previous existence. Logic seemed to require that\nwhen the body died and dissolved, after the union which had lasted,\nat most, only an instant or two of eternity, the soul, which fitted\nthat body and no other, should dissolve with it. In that case the\nChurch dissolved, too, since it had no reason for existence except\nthe soul. Thomas met the difficulty by suggesting that the body's\nform might take permanence from the matter to which it gave form.\nThat matter should individualize mind was itself a violent wrench of\nlogic, but that it should also give permanence--the one quality it\ndid not possess--to this individual mind seemed to many learned\ndoctors a scandal. Perhaps Thomas meant to leave the responsibility\non the Church, where it belonged as a matter not of logic but of\nrevealed truth. At all events, this treatment of mind and matter\nbrought him into trouble which few modern logicians would suspect.\n\nThe human soul having become a person by contact with matter, and\nhaving gained eternal personality by the momentary union, was\nfinished, and remains to this day for practical purposes unchanged;\nbut the angels and devils, a world of realities then more real than\nman, were never united with matter, and therefore could not be\npersons. Thomas admitted and insisted that the angels, being\nimmaterial,--neither clothed in matter, nor stamped on it, nor mixed\nwith it,--were universals; that is, each was a species in himself, a\nclass, or perhaps what would be now called an energy, with no other\nindividuality than he gave himself.\n\nThe idea seems to modern science reasonable enough. Science has to\ndeal, for example, with scores of chemical energies which it knows\nlittle about except that they always seem to be constant to the same\nconditions; but every one knows that in the particular relation of\nmind to matter the battle is as furious as ever. The soul has always\nrefused to live in peace with the body. The angels, too, were always\nin rebellion. They insisted on personality, and the devils even more\nobstinately than the angels. The dispute was--and is--far from\ntrifling. Mind would rather ignore matter altogether. In the\nthirteenth century mind did, indeed, admit that matter was\nsomething,--which it quite refuses to admit in the twentieth,--but\ntreated it as a nuisance to be abated. To the pure in spirit one\nargued in vain that spirit must compromise; that nature compromised;\nthat God compromised; that man himself was nothing but a somewhat\nclumsy compromise. No argument served. Mind insisted on absolute\ndespotism. Schoolmen as well as mystics would not believe that\nmatter was what it seemed,--if, indeed, it existed;--unsubstantial,\nshifty, shadowy; changing with incredible swiftness into dust, gas,\nflame; vanishing in mysterious lines of force into space beyond hope\nof recovery; whirled about in eternity and infinity by that mind,\nform, energy, or thought which guides and rules and tyrannizes and\nis the universe. The Church wanted to be pure spirit; she regarded\nmatter with antipathy as something foul, to be held at arms' length\nlest it should stain and corrupt the soul; the most she would\nwillingly admit was that mind and matter might travel side by side,\nlike a doubleheaded comet, on parallel lines that never met, with a\npreestablished harmony that existed only in the prime motor.\n\nThomas and his master Albert were almost alone in imposing on the\nChurch the compromise so necessary for its equilibrium. The balance\nof matter against mind was the same necessity in the Church\nIntellectual as the balance of thrusts in the arch of the Gothic\ncathedral. Nowhere did Thomas show his architectural obstinacy quite\nso plainly as in thus taking matter under his protection. Nothing\nwould induce him to compromise with the angels. He insisted on\nkeeping man wholly apart, as a complex of energies in which matter\nshared equally with mind. The Church must rest firmly on both. The\nangels differed from other beings below them' precisely because they\nwere immaterial and impersonal. Such rigid logic outraged the\nspiritual Church.\n\nPerhaps Thomas's sudden death in 1274 alone saved him from the fate\nof Abelard, but it did not save his doctrine. Two years afterwards,\nin 1276, the French and English churches combined to condemn it.\nEtienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris, presided over the French Synod;\nRobert Kilwardeby, of the Dominican Order, Archbishop of Canterbury,\npresided over the Council at Oxford. The synods were composed of\nschoolmen as well as churchmen, and seem to have been the result of\na serious struggle for power between the Dominican and Franciscan\nOrders. Apparently the Church compromised between them by condemning\nthe errors of both. Some of these errors, springing from Alexander\nHales and his Franciscan schools, were in effect the foundation of\nanother Church. Some were expressly charged against Brother Thomas.\n\"Contra fratrem Thomam\" the councils forbade teaching that--\"quia\nintelligentiae non habent materiam, Deus non potest plures ejusdem\nspeciei facere; et quod materia non est in angelis\"; further, the\ncouncils struck at the vital centre of Thomas's system--\"quod Deus\nnon potest individua multiplicare sub una specie sine materia\"; and\nagain in its broadest form,--\"quod formae non accipiunt divisionem\nnisi secundam materiam.\" These condemnations made a great stir. Old\nAlbertus Magnus, who was the real victim of attack, fought for\nhimself and for Thomas. After a long and earnest effort, the\nThomists rooted out opposition in the order, and carried their\ncampaign to Rome. After fifty years of struggle, by use of every\nmethod known in Church politics, the Dominican Order, in 1323,\ncaused John XXII to canonize Thomas and in effect affirm his\ndoctrine.\n\nThe story shows how modern, how heterodox, how material, how\naltogether new and revolutionary the system of Saint Thomas seemed\nat first even in the schools; but that was the affair of the Church\nand a matter of pure theology. We study only his art. Step by step,\nstone by stone, we see him build his church-building like a\nstonemason, \"with the care that the twelfth-century architects put\ninto\" their work, as Viollet-le-Duc saw some similar architect at\nRouen, building the tower of Saint-Romain: \"He has thrown over his\nwork the grace and finesse, the study of detail, the sobriety in\nprojections, the perfect harmony,\" which belongs to his school, and\nyet he was rigidly structural and Norman. The foundation showed it;\nthe elevation, which is God, developed it; the vaulting, with its\nbalance of thrusts in mind and matter, proved it; but he had still\nthe hardest task in art, to model man.\n\nThe cathedral, then, is built, and God is built into it, but, thus\nfar, God is there alone, filling it all, and maintains the\nequilibrium by balancing created matter separately against created\nmind. The proportions of the building are superb; nothing so lofty,\nso large in treatment, so true in scale, so eloquent of multiplicity\nin unity, has ever been conceived elsewhere; but it was the virtue\nor the fault of superb structures like Bourges and Amiens and the\nChurch universal that they seemed to need man more than man needed\nthem; they were made for crowds, for thousands and tens of thousands\nof human beings; for the whole human race, on its knees, hungry for\npardon and love. Chartres needed no crowd, for it was meant as a\npalace of the Virgin, and the Virgin filled it wholly; but the\nTrinity made their church for no other purpose than to accommodate\nman, and made man for no other purpose than to fill their church; if\nman failed to fill it, the church and the Trinity seemed equally\nfailures. Empty, Bourges and Beauvais are cold; hardly as religious\nas a wayside cross; and yet, even empty, they are perhaps more\nreligious than when filled with cattle and machines. Saint Thomas\nneeded to fill his Church with real men, and although he had created\nhis own God for that special purpose, the task was, as every boy\nknew by heart, the most difficult that Omnipotence had dealt with.\n\nGod, as Descartes justly said, we know! but what is man? The schools\nanswered: Man is a rational animal! So was apparently a dog, or a\nbee, or a beaver, none of which seemed to need churches. Modern\nscience, with infinite effort, has discovered and announced that man\nis a bewildering complex of energies, which helps little to explain\nhis relations with the ultimate substance or energy or prime motor\nwhose existence both science and schoolmen admit; which science\nstudies in laboratories and religion worships in churches. The man\nwhom God created to fill his Church, must be an energy independent\nof God; otherwise God filled his own Church with his own energy.\nThus far, the God of Saint Thomas was alone in His Church. The\nbeings He had created out of nothing--Omar's pipkins of clay and\nshape--stood against the walls, waiting to receive the wine of life,\na life of their own.\n\nOf that life, energy, will, or wine,--whatever the poets or\nprofessors called it,--God was the only cause, as He was also the\nimmediate cause, and support. Thomas was emphatic on that point. God\nis the cause of energy as the sun is the cause of colour: \"prout sol\ndicitur causa manifestationis coloris.\" He not only gives forms to\nhis pipkins, or energies to his agents, but He also maintains those\nforms in being: \"dat formas creaturis agentibus et eas tenet in\nesse.\" He acts directly, not through secondary causes, on everything\nand every one: \"Deus in omnibus intime operatur.\" If, for an\ninstant, God's action, which is also His will, were to stop, the\nuniverse would not merely fall to pieces, but would vanish, and must\nthen be created anew from nothing: \"Quia non habet radicem in aere,\nstatim cessat lumen, cessante actione solis. Sic autem se habet\nomnis creatura ad Deum sicut aer ad solem illuminantem.\" God\nradiates energy as the sun radiates light, and \"the whole fabric of\nnature would return to nothing\" if that radiation ceased even for an\ninstant. Everything is created by one instantaneous, eternal,\nuniversal act of will, and by the same act is maintained in being.\n\nWhere, then,--in what mysterious cave outside of creation,--could\nman, and his free will, and his private world of responsibilities\nand duties, lie hidden? Unless man was a free agent in a world of\nhis own beyond constraint, the Church was a fraud, and it helped\nlittle to add that the State was another. If God was the sole and\nimmediate cause and support of everything in His creation, God was\nalso the cause of its defects, and could not--being Justice and\nGoodness in essence--hold man responsible for His own omissions.\nStill less could the State or Church do it in His name.\n\nWhatever truth lies in the charge that the schools discussed futile\nquestions by faulty methods, one cannot decently deny that in this\ncase the question was practical and the method vital. Theist or\natheist, monist or anarchist must all admit that society and science\nare equally interested with theology in deciding whether the\nuniverse is one or many, a harmony or a discord. The Church and\nState asserted that it was a harmony, and that they were its\nrepresentatives. They say so still. Their claim led to singular but\nunavoidable conclusions, with which society has struggled for seven\nhundred years, and is still struggling.\n\nFreedom could not exist in nature, or even in God, after the single,\nunalterable act or will which created. The only possible free will\nwas that of God before the act. Abelard with his rigid logic averred\nthat God had no freedom; being Himself whatever is most perfect, He\nproduced necessarily the most perfect possible world. Nothing seemed\nmore logical, but if God acted necessarily, His world must also be\nof necessity the only possible product of His act, and the Church\nbecame an impertinence, since man proved only fatuity by attempting\nto interfere. Thomas dared not disturb the foundations of the\nChurch, and therefore began by laying down the law that God--\nprevious to His act--could choose, and had chosen, whatever scheme\nof creation He pleased, and that the harmony of the actual scheme\nproved His perfections. Thus he saved God's free will.\n\nThis philosophical apse would have closed the lines and finished the\nplan of his church-choir had the universe not shown some\ndivergencies or discords needing to be explained. The student of the\nLatin Quarter was then harder to convince than now that God was\nInfinite Love and His world a perfect harmony, when perfect love and\nharmony showed them, even in the Latin Quarter, and still more in\nrevealed truth, a picture of suffering, sorrow, and death; plague,\npestilence, and famine; inundations, droughts, and frosts;\ncatastrophes world-wide and accidents in corners; cruelty,\nperversity, stupidity, uncertainty, insanity; virtue begetting vice;\nvice working for good; happiness without sense, selfishness without\ngain, misery without cause, and horrors undefined. The students in\npublic dared not ask, as Voltaire did, \"avec son hideux sourire,\"\nwhether the Lisbon earthquake was the final proof of God's infinite\ngoodness, but in private they used the argumentum ad personam\ndivinam freely enough, and when the Church told them that evil did\nnot exist, the ribalds laughed.\n\nSaint Augustine certainly tempted Satan when he fastened the Church\nto this doctrine that evil is only the privation of good, an amissio\nboni; and that good alone exists. The point was infinitely\ntroublesome. Good was order, law, unity. Evil was disorder, anarchy,\nmultiplicity. Which was truth? The Church had committed itself to\nthe dogma that order and unity were the ultimate truth, and that the\nanarchist should be burned. She could do nothing else, and society\nsupported her--still supports her; yet the Church, who was wiser\nthan the State, had always seen that Saint Augustine dealt with only\nhalf the question. She knew that evil might be an excess of good as\nwell as absence of it; that good leads to evil, evil to good; and\nthat, as Pascal says, \"three degrees of polar elevation upset all\njurisprudence; a meridian decides truth; fundamental laws change;\nrights have epochs. Pleasing Justice! bounded by a river or a\nmountain! truths on this side the Pyrenees! errors beyond!\" Thomas\nconceded that God Himself, with the best intentions, might be the\nsource of evil, and pleaded only that his action might in the end\nwork benefits. He could offer no proof of it, but he could assume as\nprobable a plan of good which became the more perfect for the very\nreason that it allowed great liberty in detail.\n\nOne hardly feels Saint Thomas here in all his force. He offers\nsuggestion rather than proof;--apology--the weaker because of\nobvious effort to apologize--rather than defence, for Infinite\nGoodness, Justice, and Power; scoffers might add that he invented a\nnew proof ab defectu, or argument for proving the perfection of a\nmachine by the number of its imperfections; but at all events,\nsociety has never done better by way of proving its right to enforce\nmorals or unity of opinion. Unless it asserts law, it can only\nassert force. Rigid theology went much further. In God's providence,\nman was as nothing. With a proper sense of duty, every solar system\nshould be content to suffer, if thereby the efficiency of the Milky\nWay were improved. Such theology shocked Saint Thomas, who never\nwholly abandoned man in order to exalt God. He persistently brought\nGod and man together, and if he erred, the Church rightly pardons\nhim because he erred on the human side. Whenever the path lay\nthrough the valley of despair he called God to his aid, as though he\nfelt the moral obligation of the Creator to help His creation.\n\nAt best the vision of God, sitting forever at His work-table,\nwilling the existence of mankind exactly as it is, while conscious\nthat, among these myriad arbitrary creations of His will, hardly one\nin a million could escape temporary misery or eternal damnation, was\nnot the best possible background for a Church, as the Virgin and the\nSaviour frankly admitted by taking the foreground; but the Church\nwas not responsible for it. Mankind could not admit an anarchical--a\ndual or a multiple--universe. The world was there, staring them in\nthe face, with all its chaotic conditions, and society insisted on\nits unity in self-defence. Society still insists on treating it as\nunity, though no longer affecting logic. Society insists on its free\nwill, although free will has never been explained to the\nsatisfaction of any but those who much wish to be satisfied, and\nalthough the words in any common sense implied not unity but duality\nin creation. The Church had nothing to do with inventing this\nriddle--the oldest that fretted mankind.\n\nApart from all theological interferences,--fall of Adam or fault of\nEve, Atonement, Justification, or Redemption,--either the universe\nwas one, or it was two, or it was many; either energy was one, seen\nonly in powers of itself, or it was several; either God was harmony,\nor He was discord. With practical unanimity, mankind rejected the\ndual or multiple scheme; it insisted on unity. Thomas took the\nquestion as it was given him. The unity was full of defects; he did\nnot deny them; but he claimed that they might be incidents, and that\nthe admitted unity might even prove their beneficence. Granting this\nenormous concession, he still needed a means of bringing into the\nsystem one element which vehemently refused to be brought:--that is,\nman himself, who insisted that the universe was a unit, but that he\nwas a universe; that energy was one, but that he was another energy;\nthat God was omnipotent, but that man was free. The contradiction\nhad always existed, exists still, and always must exist, unless man\neither admits that he is a machine, or agrees that anarchy and chaos\nare the habit of nature, and law and order its accident. The\nagreement may become possible, but it was not possible in the\nthirteenth century nor is it now. Saint Thomas's settlement could\nnot be a simple one or final, except for practical use, but it\nserved, and it holds good still.\n\nNo one ever seriously affirmed the literal freedom of will. Absolute\nliberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint;\ntherefore, the ideally free individual is responsible only to\nhimself. This principle is the philosophical foundation of\nanarchism, and, for anything that science has yet proved, may be the\nphilosophical foundation of the universe; but it is fatal to all\nsociety and is especially hostile to the State. Perhaps the Church\nof the thirteenth century might have found a way to use even this\nprinciple for a good purpose; certainly, the influence of Saint\nBernard was sufficiently unsocial and that of Saint Francis was\nsufficiently unselfish to conciliate even anarchists of the militant\nclass; but Saint Thomas was working for the Church and the\n\nState, not for the salvation of souls, and his chief object was to\nrepress anarchy. The theory of absolute free will never entered his\nmind, more than the theory of material free will would enter the\nmind of an architect. The Church gave him no warrant for discussing\nthe subject in such a sense. In fact, the Church never admitted free\nwill, or used the word when it could be avoided. In Latin, the term\nused was \"liberum arbitrium,\"--free choice,--and in French to this\nday it remains in strictness \"libre arbitre\" still. From Saint\nAugustine downwards the Church was never so unscientific as to admit\nof liberty beyond the faculty of choosing between paths, some\nleading through the Church and some not, but all leading to the next\nworld; as a criminal might be allowed the liberty of choosing\nbetween the guillotine and the gallows, without infringing on the\nsupremacy of the judge.\n\nThomas started from that point, already far from theoretic freedom.\n\"We are masters of our acts,\" he began, \"in the sense that we can\nchoose such and such a thing; now, we have not to choose our end,\nbut the means that relate to it, as Aristotle says.\" Unfortunately,\neven this trenchant amputation of man's free energies would not\naccord with fact or with logic. Experience proved that man's power\nof choice in action was very far from absolute, and logic seemed to\nrequire that every choice should have some predetermining cause\nwhich decided the will to act. Science affirmed that choice was not\nfree,--could not be free,--without abandoning the unity of force and\nthe foundation of law. Society insisted that its choice must be left\nfree, whatever became of science or unity. Saint Thomas was required\nto illustrate the theory of \"liberum arbitrium\" by choosing a path\nthrough these difficulties, where path there was obviously none.\n\nThomas's method of treating this problem was sure to be as\nscientific as the vaulting of a Gothic arch. Indeed, one follows it\nmost easily by translating his school-vocabulary into modern\ntechnical terms. With very slight straining of equivalents, Thomas\nmight now be written thus:--\n\nBy the term God, is meant a prime motor which supplies all energy to\nthe universe, and acts directly on man as well as on all other\ncreatures, moving him as a mechanical motor might do; but man, being\nspecially provided with an organism more complex than the organisms\nof other creatures, enjoys an exceptional capacity for reflex\naction,--a power of reflection,--which enables him within certain\nlimits to choose between paths; and this singular capacity is called\nfree choice or free will. Of course, the reflection is not choice,\nand though a man's mind reflected as perfectly as the facets of a\nlighthouse lantern, it would never reach a choice without an energy\nwhich impels it to act.\n\nNow let us read Saint Thomas:--\n\nSome kind of an agent is required to determine one's choice; that\nagent is reflection. Man reflects, then, in order to learn what\nchoice to make between the two acts which offer themselves. But\nreflection is, in its turn, a faculty of doing opposite things, for\nwe can reflect or not reflect; and we are no further forward than\nbefore. One cannot carry back this process infinitely, for in that\ncase one would never decide. The fixed point is not in man, since we\nmeet in him, as a being apart by himself, only the alternative\nfaculties; we must, therefore, recur to the intervention of an\nexterior agent who shall impress on our will a movement capable of\nputting an end to its hesitations:--That exterior agent is nothing\nelse than God!\n\nThe scheme seems to differ little, and unwillingly, from a system of\ndynamics as modern as the dynamo. Even in the prime motor, from the\nmoment of action, freedom of will vanished. Creation was not\nsuccessive; it was one instantaneous thought and act, identical with\nthe will, and was complete and unchangeable from end to end,\nincluding time as one of its functions. Thomas was as clear as\npossible on that point:--\"Supposing God wills anything in effect; He\ncannot will not to will it, because His will cannot change.\" He\nwills that some things shall be contingent and others necessary, but\nHe wills in the same act that the contingency shall be necessary.\n\"They are contingent because God has willed them to be so, and with\nthis object has subjected them to causes which are so.\" In the same\nway He wills that His creation shall develop itself in time and\nspace and sequence, but He creates these conditions as well as the\nevents. He creates the whole, in one act, complete, unchangeable,\nand it is then unfolded like a rolling panorama, with its\npredetermined contingencies.\n\nMan's free choice--liberum arbitrium--falls easily into place as a\npredetermined contingency. God is the first cause, and acts in all\nsecondary causes directly; but while He acts mechanically on the\nrest of creation,--as far as is known,--He acts freely at one point,\nand this free action remains free as far as it extends on that line.\nMan's freedom derives from this source, but it is simply apparent,\nas far as he is a cause; it is a reflex action determined by a new\nagency of the first cause.\n\nHowever abstruse these ideas may once have sounded, they are far\nfrom seeming difficult in comparison with modern theories of energy.\nIndeed, measured by that standard, the only striking feature of\nSaint Thomas's motor is its simplicity. Thomas's prime motor was\nvery powerful, and its lines of energy were infinite. Among these\ninfinite lines, a certain group ran to the human race, and, as long\nas the conduction was perfect, each man acted mechanically. In cases\nwhere the current, for any reason, was for a moment checked,--that\nis to say, produced the effect of hesitation or reflection in the\nmind,--the current accumulated until it acquired power to leap the\nobstacle. As Saint Thomas expressed it, the Prime Motor, Who was\nnothing else than God, intervened to decide the channel of the\ncurrent. The only difference between man and a vegetable was the\nreflex action of the complicated mirror which was called mind, and\nthe mark of mind was reflective absorption or choice. The apparent\nfreedom was an illusion arising from the extreme delicacy of the\nmachine, but the motive power was in fact the same--that of God.\n\nThis exclusion of what men commonly called freedom was carried still\nfurther in the process of explaining dogma. Supposing the\nconduction to be insufficient for a given purpose; a purpose which\nshall require perfect conduction? Under ordinary circumstances, in\nninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the conductor will be burned\nout, so to speak; condemned, and thrown away. This is the case with\nmost human beings. Yet there are cases where the conductor is\ncapable of receiving an increase of energy from the prime motor,\nwhich enables it to attain the object aimed at. In dogma, this store\nof reserved energy is technically called Grace. In the strict,\ntheological sense of the word, as it is used by Saint Thomas, the\nexact, literal meaning of Grace is \"a motion which the Prime Motor,\nas a supernatural cause, produces in the soul, perfecting free\nwill.\" It is a reserved energy, which comes to aid and reinforce the\nnormal energy of the battery.\n\nTo religious minds this scientific inversion of solemn truths seems,\nand is, sacrilege; but Thomas's numerous critics in the Church have\nalways brought precisely this charge against his doctrine, and are\ndoing so still. They insist that he has reduced God to a mechanism\nand man to a passive conductor of force. He has left, they say,\nnothing but God in the universe. The terrible word which annihilates\nall other philosophical systems against which it is hurled, has been\nhurled freely against his for six hundred years and more, without\nvisibly affecting the Church; and yet its propriety seems, to the\nvulgar, beyond reasonable cavil. To Father de Regnon, of the\nextremely learned and intelligent Society of Jesus, the difference\nbetween pantheism and Thomism reduces itself to this: \"Pantheism,\nstarting from the notion of an infinite substance which is the\nplenitude of being, concludes that there can exist no other beings\nthan THE being; no other realities than the absolute reality.\nThomism, starting from the efficacy of the first cause, tends to\nreduce more and more the efficacy of second causes, and to replace\nit by a passivity which receives without producing, which is\ndetermined without determining.\" To students of architecture, who\nknow equally little about pantheism and about Thomism,--or, indeed,\nfor that matter, about architecture, too,--the quality that rouses\nmost surprise in Thomism is its astonishingly scientific method. The\nFranciscans and the Jesuits call it pantheism, but science, too, is\npantheism, or has till very recently been wholly pantheistic.\nAvowedly science has aimed at nothing but the reduction of\nmultiplicity to unity, and has excommunicated, as though it were\nitself a Church, any one who doubted or disputed its object, its\nmethod, or its results. The effort is as evident and quite as\nlaborious in modern science, starting as it does from multiplicity,\nas in Thomas Aquinas, who started from unity; and it is necessarily\nless successful, for its true aims, as far as it is science and not\ndisguised religion, were equally attained by reaching infinite\ncomplexity; but the assertion or assumption of ultimate unity has\ncharacterized the Law of Energy as emphatically as it has\ncharacterized the definition of God in theology. If it is a reproach\nto Saint Thomas, it is equally a reproach to Clerk-Maxwell. In\ntruth, it is what men most admire in both--the power of broad and\nlofty generalization.\n\nUnder any conceivable system the process of getting God and man\nunder the same roof--of bringing two independent energies under the\nsame control--required a painful effort, as science has much cause\nto know. No doubt, many good Christians and some heretics have been\nshocked at the tour de force by which they felt themselves suddenly\nseized, bound hand and foot, attached to each other, and dragged\ninto the Church, without consent or consultation. To religious\nmystics, whose scepticism concerned chiefly themselves and their own\nexistence, Saint Thomas's man seemed hardly worth herding, at so\nmuch expense and trouble, into a Church where he was not eager to\ngo. True religion felt the nearness of God without caring to see the\nmechanism. Mystics like Saint Bernard, Saint Francis, Saint\nBonaventure, or Pascal had a right to make this objection, since\nthey got into the Church, so to speak, by breaking through the\nwindows; but society at large accepted and retains Saint Thomas's\nman much as Saint Thomas delivered him to the Government; a two-\nsided being, free or unfree, responsible or irresponsible, an energy\nor a victim of energy, moved by choice or moved by compulsion, as\nthe interests of society seemed for the moment to need. Certainly\nSaint Thomas lavished no excess of liberty on the man he created,\nbut still he was more generous than the State has ever been. Saint\nThomas asked little from man, and gave much; even as much freedom of\nwill as the State gave or now gives; he added immortality hereafter\nand eternal happiness under reasonable restraints; his God watched\nover man's temporal welfare far more anxiously than the State has\never done, and assigned him space in the Church which he never can\nhave in the galleries of Parliament or Congress; more than all this,\nSaint Thomas and his God placed man in the centre of the universe,\nand made the sun and the stars for his uses. No statute law ever did\nas much for man, and no social reform ever will try to do it; yet\nman bitterly complained that he had not his rights, and even in the\nChurch is still complaining, because Saint Thomas set a limit, more\nor less vague, to what the man was obstinate in calling his freedom\nof will.\n\nThus Saint Thomas completed his work, keeping his converging lines\nclear and pure throughout, and bringing them together, unbroken, in\nthe curves that gave unity to his plan. His sense of scale and\nproportion was that of the great architects of his age. One might go\non studying it for a lifetime. He showed no more hesitation in\nkeeping his Deity in scale than in adjusting man to it. Strange as\nit sounds, although man thought himself hardly treated in respect to\nfreedom, yet, if freedom meant superiority, man was in action much\nthe superior of God, Whose freedom suffered, from Saint Thomas,\nunder restraints that man never would have tolerated. Saint Thomas\ndid not allow God even an undetermined will; He was pure Act, and as\nsuch He could not change. Man alone was allowed, in act, to change\ndirection. What was more curious still, man might absolutely prove\nhis freedom by refusing to move at all; if he did not like his life\nhe could stop it, and habitually did so, or acquiesced in its being\ndone for him; while God could not commit suicide or even cease for a\nsingle instant His continuous action. If man had the singular fancy\nof making himself absurd,--a taste confined to himself but attested\nby evidence exceedingly strong,--he could be as absurd as he liked;\nbut God could not be absurd. Saint Thomas did not allow the Deity\nthe right to contradict Himself, which is one of man's chief\npleasures. While man enjoyed what was, for his purposes, an\nunlimited freedom to be wicked,--a privilege which, as both Church\nand State bitterly complained and still complain, he has\noutrageously abused,--God was Goodness, and could be nothing else.\nWhile man moved about his relatively spacious prison with a certain\ndegree of ease, God, being everywhere, could not move. In one\nrespect, at least, man's freedom seemed to be not relative but\nabsolute, for his thought was an energy paying no regard to space or\ntime or order or object or sense; but God's thought was His act and\nwill at once; speaking correctly, God could not think; He is. Saint\nThomas would not, or could not, admit that God was Necessity, as\nAbelard seems to have held, but he refused to tolerate the idea of a\ndivine maniac, free from moral obligation to himself. The atmosphere\nof Saint Louis surrounds the God of Saint Thomas, and its pure ether\nshuts out the corruption and pollution to come,--the Valois and\nBourbons, the Occams and Hobbes's, the Tudors and the Medicis, of an\nenlightened Europe.\n\nThe theology turns always into art at the last, and ends in\naspiration. The spire justifies the church. In Saint Thomas's\nChurch, man's free will was the aspiration to God, and he treated it\nas the architects of Chartres and Laon had treated their famous\nfleches. The square foundation-tower, the expression of God's power\nin act,--His Creation,--rose to the level of the Church facade as a\npart of the normal unity of God's energy; and then, suddenly,\nwithout show of effort, without break, without logical violence,\nbecame a many-sided, voluntary, vanishing human soul, and neither\nVillard de Honnecourt nor Duns Scotus could distinguish where God's\npower ends and man's free will begins. All they saw was the soul\nvanishing into the skies. How it was done, one does not care to ask;\nin a result so exquisite, one has not the heart to find fault with\n\"adresse.\"\n\nAbout Saint Thomas's theology we need not greatly disturb ourselves;\nit can matter now not much, whether he put more pantheism than the\nlaw allowed or more materialism than Duns Scotus approved--or less\nof either--into his universe, since the Church is still on the spot,\nresponsible for its own doctrines; but his architecture is another\nmatter. So scientific and structural a method was never an accident\nor the property of a single mind even with Aristotle to prompt it.\nNeither his Church nor the architect's church was a sketch, but a\ncompletely studied structure. Every relation of parts, every\ndisturbance of equilibrium, every detail of construction was treated\nwith infinite labour, as the result of two hundred years of\nexperiment and discussion among thousands of men whose minds and\nwhose instincts were acute, and who discussed little else. Science\nand art were one. Thomas Aquinas would probably have built a better\ncathedral at Beauvais than the actual architect who planned it; but\nit is quite likely that the architect might have saved Thomas some\nof his errors, as pointed out by the Councils of 1276. Both were\ngreat artists; perhaps in their professions, the greatest that ever\nlived; and both must have been great students beyond their practice.\nBoth were subject to constant criticism from men and bodies of men\nwhose minds were as acute and whose learning was as great as their\nown. If the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Paris\ncondemned Thomas, the Bernardines had, for near two hundred years,\ncondemned Beauvais in advance. Both the \"Summa Theologiae\" and\nBeauvais Cathedral were excessively modern, scientific, and\ntechnical, marking the extreme points reached by Europe on the lines\nof scholastic science. This is all we need to know. If we like, we\ncan go on to study, inch by inch, the slow decline of the art. The\nessence of it--the despotic central idea--was that of organic unity\nboth in the thought and the building. From that time, the universe\nhas steadily become more complex and less reducible to a central\ncontrol. With as much obstinacy as though it were human, it has\ninsisted on expanding its parts; with as much elusiveness as though\nit were feminine, it has evaded the attempt to impose on it a single\nwill. Modern science, like modern art, tends, in practice, to drop\nthe dogma of organic unity. Some of the mediaeval habit of mind\nsurvives, but even that is said to be yielding before the daily\nevidence of increasing and extending complexity. The fault, then,\nwas not in man, if he no longer looked at science or art as an\norganic whole or as the expression of unity. Unity turned itself\ninto complexity, multiplicity, variety, and even contradiction. All\nexperience, human and divine, assured man in the thirteenth century\nthat the lines of the universe converged. How was he to know that\nthese lines ran in every conceivable and inconceivable direction,\nand that at least half of them seemed to diverge from any imaginable\ncentre of unity! Dimly conscious that his Trinity required in logic\na fourth dimension, how was the schoolman to supply it, when even\nthe mathematician of to-day can only infer its necessity? Naturally\nman tended to lose his sense of scale and relation. A straight line,\nor a combination of straight lines, may have still a sort of\nartistic unity, but what can be done in art with a series of\nnegative symbols? Even if the negative were continuous, the artist\nmight express at least a negation; but supposing that Omar's kinetic\nanalogy of the ball and the players turned out to be a scientific\nformula!--supposing that the highest scientific authority, in order\nto obtain any unity at all, had to resort to the Middle Ages for an\nimaginary demon to sort his atoms!--how could art deal with such\nproblems, and what wonder that art lost unity with philosophy and\nscience! Art had to be confused in order to express confusion; but\nperhaps it was truest, so.\n\nSome future summer, when you are older, and when I have left, like\nOmar, only the empty glass of my scholasticism for you to turn down,\nyou can amuse yourselves by going on with the story after the death\nof Saint Louis, Saint Thomas, and William of Lorris, and after the\nfailure of Beauvais. The pathetic interest of the drama deepens with\nevery new expression, but at least you can learn from it that your\nparents in the nineteenth century were not to blame for losing the\nsense of unity in art. As early as the fourteenth century, signs of\nunsteadiness appeared, and, before the eighteenth century, unity\nbecame only a reminiscence. The old habit of centralizing a strain\nat one point, and then dividing and subdividing it, and distributing\nit on visible lines of support to a visible foundation, disappeared\nin architecture soon after 1500, but lingered in theology two\ncenturies longer, and even, in very old-fashioned communities, far\ndown to our own time; but its values were forgotten, and it survived\nchiefly as a stock jest against the clergy. The passage between the\ntwo epochs is as beautiful as the Slave of Michael Angelo; but, to\nfeel its beauty, you should see it from above, as it came from its\nradiant source. Truth, indeed, may not exist; science avers it to be\nonly a relation; but what men took for truth stares one everywhere\nin the eye and begs for sympathy. The architects of the twelfth and\nthirteenth centuries took the Church and the universe for truths,\nand tried to express them in a structure which should be final.\nKnowing by an enormous experience precisely where the strains were\nto come, they enlarged their scale to the utmost point of material\nendurance, lightening the load and distributing the burden until the\ngutters and gargoyles that seem mere ornament, and the grotesques\nthat seem rude absurdities, all do work either for the arch or for\nthe eye; and every inch of material, up and down, from crypt to\nvault, from man to God, from the universe to the atom, had its task,\ngiving support where support was needed, or weight where\nconcentration was felt, but always with the condition of showing\nconspicuously to the eye the great lines which led to unity and the\ncurves which controlled divergence; so that, from the cross on the\nfleche and the keystone of the vault, down through the ribbed\nnervures, the columns, the windows, to the foundation of the flying\nbuttresses far beyond the walls, one idea controlled every line; and\nthis is true of Saint Thomas's Church as it is of Amiens Cathedral.\nThe method was the same for both, and the result was an art marked\nby singular unity, which endured and served its purpose until man\nchanged his attitude toward the universe. The trouble was not in the\nart or the method or the structure, but in the universe itself which\npresented different aspects as man moved. Granted a Church, Saint\nThomas's Church was the most expressive that man has made, and the\ngreat Gothic cathedrals were its most complete expression.\n\nPerhaps the best proof of it is their apparent instability. Of all\nthe elaborate symbolism which has been suggested for the Gothic\ncathedral, the most vital and most perfect may be that the slender\nnervure, the springing motion of the broken arch, the leap downwards\nof the flying buttress,--the visible effort to throw off a visible\nstrain,--never let us forget that Faith alone supports it, and that,\nif Faith fails, Heaven is lost. The equilibrium is visibly delicate\nbeyond the line of safety; danger lurks in every stone. The peril of\nthe heavy tower, of the restless vault, of the vagrant buttress; the\nuncertainty of logic, the inequalities of the syllogism, the\nirregularities of the mental mirror,--all these haunting nightmares\nof the Church are expressed as strongly by the Gothic cathedral as\nthough it had been the cry of human suffering, and as no emotion had\never been expressed before or is likely to find expression again.\nThe delight of its aspirations is flung up to the sky. The pathos of\nits self-distrust and anguish of doubt is buried in the earth as its\nlast secret. You can read out of it whatever else pleases your youth\nand confidence; to me, this is all.\n\nTHE END","title":"Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":143372}