Part 12

Now, first of all and very briefly, here is the history of this abbey. Upon the ruins of an oratory constructed in this very place by the indefatigable Saint Victrice about 535, Clotaire erected a large church dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. In the last years of the Seventh Century, Saint Ouen restored it and wished it to be his sepulchre. According to the _Life_ of that great bishop attributed to Fridegode, a monk of Canterbury, it was a building of noble appearance, constructed of square stones in the _Gothic style_. It is useless to discuss these words, quoted on account of their curiosity, but which might well be accounted for by some alteration in the text, and, in any case, have but little meaning for us. After the appearance of the Northmen, the abbey experienced varied fortunes: it was sacked and demolished in 841, repaired in 1046 by the Abbé Nicholas of Normandy, son of Duke Richard III., and it was burned to the ground several times. A fragment of Nicholas’s apsis at the end of the nave is preserved under the name of _Chambre aux clercs_: a portion of the hemicycle arched cul-de-four is ornamented very coarsely, but it is strongly built.

But to resume: there was no glory for the monks of Saint Benoît here until the beginning of the Fourteenth Century and the advent of the Abbé Jean Roussel. This Jean Roussel, born in Quincampoix, near Rouen, and known, nobody knows why, by the nick-name of Marc d’ Argent, was a very original personage. Active, discreet, prudent, energetic, and devoted to everything under his charge, he re-established the monastic discipline and by the wisdom of his administration doubled the revenues; and, as Suger did before him at Saint Denis, he resolved to rebuild his abbey according to the latest developments in architecture. We do not know who was his master in this work; but certainly it must have been some clever man who had carefully studied Amiens, Beauvais, Troyes and Séez. Within a few years, the work was sufficiently advanced for his conception to have become definitive. His successors had nothing more to do than to follow out his ideas. Materials were not stinted. The quarries of Chaumont, Vernon and Saint-Leu furnished their magnificent calcareous stone, of fine grain mixed with silex. As the Abbé was never at a loss for funds, it was popularly imagined that he coined gold, and many a legend exists upon this subject. The truth is, he knew how to economize with large sums, obtained from the King important rights regarding the cutting of wood in the forest Verte and created disinterested good-will around him. In the year 1318, the first stone was laid, and in the year 1339, when he died, more than 79,936 livres (2,600,000 francs of our money) were paid to the stone-cutters. The inscription placed on his tomb, destroyed in 1562 by the Calvinists, described the state in which he left the church, the choir and the eleven transept chapels comprising the large terminal chapel were finished: the large pillars of the transept were only lacking the tower, the two arms of the transept were approaching completion, and doubtless also the nave was quite advanced.

The Hundred Years’ War retarded the work without actually interrupting it. We find Charles VI. in 1380 allowing 3,000 livres to the Abbé Arnaud du Breuil to hasten the work. The portal called _des Marmousets_ at the south arm of the transept is now given over to the sculptors. However the hour for rapid achievement has passed. It is not until 1439 that the two roses of Master Alexandre de Berneval and his legendary pupil unfold at the extremities of the transept. Under Admiral d’ Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen and Abbé of the monastery, the entrance to the choir was closed by a precious Gothic rood-screen; but the nave had yet to be finished, and the central tower and the façade had yet to be done. The Abbé Bohier at the very last of the Fifteenth Century, finished the building. The delicious square tower, eighty-two metres high, set off with bays, with gables and corner buttresses upon which are grafted the flying-buttresses of the octagonal belfry with the open-worked crown, is of the same date, the same style, and, perhaps, of the same hand as the _Tour de Beurre_. We possess the plan of the façade, drawn at this time by an unknown artist. It recalls the taste of the Normans for the porches under bell-towers of which few examples are to be found outside of their province after the Thirteenth Century. This master conceived two large, square towers placed diagonally, of a most original effect of perspective, and beneath which opened two lateral porches whose sheltered arches broke the draughts and were very converging and very convenient for the entrance and exits in and out of the church of the several filing processions. We are astonished to think that such a picturesque arrangement was never carried into effect. The execution of the plan was never commenced. The two bell-towers had been carried up to twenty metres and then abandoned. Their dimensions frightened the architect Grégoire, who in 1840 was charged with enriching Marc d’ Argent’s façade, and he pulled down the stumps to build those two towers with their thin spires and that commonplace façade with its dry lines that we now see.

A glance at the general plan of the building is necessary. Nothing could be simpler than this general arrangement: a polygonal choir and chapels between the buttresses; a lantern in the centre; some rather narrow branches of the transept; a large nave moderately wide, but very long with some quite narrow tributaries. The total length amounts to 138 metres; the width of the nave is restricted to twenty-six. What does this matter if these proportions are well united? What astonishes us beyond everything is the evident charming intention. There are no walls beyond those that are necessary; it is all tracery with support. The second impression is received from the forms; with the exception of a few architectural details in the bay near the porch, the style is perfectly homogeneous. There is no spirit of creation here; it is that admirable spirit of refinement and adaptation of the Fourteenth Century. As at Saint Urbain de Troyes, all the arches spring from pillars and all the ribs return to them, where, to employ the synthetic formula of Viollet-le-Duc, “the piers are nothing more than projections in clusters of the different profiles of the arches.” What then is the use of capitals under such conditions? They are more detrimental than useful. Moreover, you find no trace of them except in the oldest parts of the choir. The ribs of the arches instead of being strictly fastened against the walls cross the mass to leap outside in bracing arches and archivolts. Exactly as at Séez, the triforium drops very low and ends, not in a massive ledge but in a gallery of lace-work, in order to allow you to see from the nave across its spaces between the arches the dazzling lucidity of the windows of the gallery. And everywhere is manifested this threefold intention: elevation, ease and open-work.

And what windows to adorn these masses of filagree work! The most varied, the finest and the richest of the period of Louis XII. at its apogee. Patriarchs and martyrs, prophets and holy abbés, kings and sibyls stand out on all sides in the hues of brilliant and soft jewels. We have no longer the frank mosaic of former days giving life to the light, and bestowing upon it a certain mystical impression; they are not the simple large figures under sumptuous baldaquins brightened with silver gilt; they are, most frequently, the glass pictures of the Renaissance. We are astonished at the perfection of their treatment. Several subjects are those that the Thirteenth Century took pleasure in evoking; witness the legend of the pilgrim of Saint-Jacques, whose son, unjustly hung, is kept on the gibbet by the saint himself and recognized as innocent. Nothing seems to me, however, so memorable here, as much on account of the subject as for the treatment, as the series of sibyls--those pagans to which the Middle Ages had begun to give a Christian fate and which the Sixteenth Century treated so voluptuously. This is why they assume a new importance at Saint Ouen. The artist took pleasure in painting them under the adornments of elegant ladies, in landscapes bristling with buildings. Above all, I cannot forget the charming sibyl of Samos, in her embroidered robe covered with _orfèvrerie_ and jewels, two doves pecking at her feet in the midst of a piece of country scenery, and treated so to speak, in the manner of a portrait. This series of glass extending from one end of the church to the other and almost from top to bottom, forms an immense, translucent and radiant tapestry. It seems as if a breath might annihilate it. But no, it remains hard, rigid and as if incorporate with the very wall. Solid bars of iron, cutting the bays, give it an indestructible armature. The evanescent dream of the period has eternalized itself in a fairy-like vision.

What beautiful roses are cut out in the transept! On the central one, God the Father appears on his throne of gold, above the adoring kings. The other, with its more complicated outlines, shows us the Glory of Paradise. You know the tradition attached to these two architectural flowers with the resplendent lobes? Alexandre de Berneval having designed the first, became jealous of one of his disciples who traced the second, and in anger, killed him. To expiate the crime he had to die by the hands of the hangman. Who invented this story? The master lies yonder, in the second chapel down the nave to the right, by the side of one of his pupils, or, perhaps with his son Colin. Can any one believe that the monks would admit under any pretext beneath the holy vaults the body of an assassin and honour him with a superb sepulchral stone? Upon the stone the two architects live again in their long robes lined with vair, and their large hats. The older, his compass in his hand carving out a quarter-round, the younger one making a plan, the feet of both resting on a lion, and above them a Gothic daïs. The older is Berneval who died in 1440: the inscription tells us this. Of the younger we know nothing, for the inscription concerning him was never made.

There is no fine carving to note in the interior of the abbey. Many of the pillars in the nave were ornamented with statues in the style of the Fourteenth Century, but placed in niches that retreat a little. Broken in 1794, when the building was used as a forge, they have never been restored. The destruction of the rood-screen dates from 1791, at the time of the departure of the monks and the erection of the parish church. This rood-screen must assuredly have spoiled the perspective of a building so frankly conceived for the effect in perspective. But if one wants to delight in sculptured scenes, it is before the _portail des Marmousets_ that he must betake himself. Beneath a finely arched porch, is a door that is condemned to-day. The statue of Saint Ouen, decapitated by the Reformers, and the pier covered with little bas-reliefs, relates in detail the life and miracles of the holy bishop. On the tympanum, three zones of perfect figures describe the death of the Virgin, her funeral, her assumption and her entrance into heaven between two angels who are playing the organ and the rebeck. A curious popular invention has found its place in the funeral scene, where an impious Jew trying to make an attempt upon the coffin has to see the Archangel Michael cut off his hands and St. Peter give them back to him, whilst converting him. This decoration is of an exceptional vivacity and delicacy of carving.

From the public garden, we can take in the development of the apsis. The elegance of design and the working-out are seen in all their grandeur from here. From the pinacled buttresses spring the graceful double flying-buttresses responding exactly to the spring of the arches that are distributed and repeated with such wise judgment. Above the chapels with their pyramidal roofs runs a balustrade of quatrefoils inscribed in a curved quadrangle reproduced at the base of the top. These charming galleries whose stone rivals ironwork, in its extraordinary precision of the cutting, define the essential lines of the plan through the bristling lines of the secondary forms. They represent calm and order surrounded by agitation.

But from whatever point of view you survey Saint Ouen, you will recognize the most exemplary refinement of construction. It is not merely the frame which should be taken as a model with its square and chamfred wood, its suspended binding-pieces, its Saint Andrew’s cross, and its double sabliere plates gathered at the base of the chevrons. In the eyes of architects, the Abbey of the wise Abbé Marc d’ Argent will always be regarded as one of the _chefs d’œuvre_ of the art of building in France.

CARISBROOKE CASTLE

SIR JAMES D. MACKENZIE

The Isle of Wight, like Kent, was peopled by Jutes, who, coming in under the wing of the actual conquerors, Cerdic and Cynric, exterminated the existing Romano-British inhabitants at the bloody battle of Wihtgaresbyrg (Saxon Chron.), a name which, omitting the primary syllable, became “Carisbrooke.” The later castle, whose site is actually that of the battlefield of 530, was conferred by the conquerors on their relative Wihtgar. But whereas the Jutes of Kent were the first, those of the Isle of Wight were the last among the English to embrace Christianity, and in the Seventh Century the fine proselytizing zeal of the West Saxons led them to invade and annihilate with their murderous knives the heathen islanders, whose land they annexed to the Wessex diocese.

[Illustration: CARISBROOKE CASTLE, ENGLAND.]

The island was already found to give the shortest passage between England and Normandy, and for this reason was used in Saxon times, as also by William the Conqueror on some of his journeys to and from Normandy. It was here that he arrested his half-brother, Bishop Odo, as he was on his way to Rome, and here he tarried on quitting England for his last journey to France. William granted the Isle of Wight to William Fitz Osborne, Earl of Hereford, who, it is believed, reared the castle of Carisbrooke, in which Odo was arrested, as he likewise founded the priory adjoining. He had accompanied his leader from Normandy, and was one of his army marshals. Besides having the lordship of this isle, he was made constable of the newly built castles of York and Winchester, and justiciary for the King in the North. On the great mound of the Saxon burh at Wihtgaresbyrg he built a Norman keep, but as he was killed in France four years after coming to the isle, it is probable that the work he began was completed by his son, Roger de Bretteville, who was imprisoned for life by William for levying war against him, all his estates being forfeited to the Crown.

Henry I. next gave the lordship of the isle, with the castle and honour of Carisbrooke, to Richard de Redvers, whose son succeeding him (temp. Stephen) was made Earl of Devon; large additions were made by this family to the castle, which was held by the Redvers until that race ended in an heiress, Isabella de Fortibus, so called from her marriage with an Earl of Albemarle of that name. This lady lived here (1262–1293) and built a large part of the castle, which, at her death, she bequeathed to King Edward I. Afterwards, in the Fourteenth Century, the castle was held by Piers Gaveston, William Montague, the chivalrous Earl of Salisbury, and by Edward, Earl of Rutland, son of Edmund of Langley, fifth son of Edward III. who inherited his father’s title of Duke of York, and fell at Agincourt, when, after his widow, Philippa’s death, the castle and island fell to Humphrey, the Good Duke of Gloucester, in the reign of Henry VI. After him the lordship was enjoyed by several royal and other personages, and lastly by Anthony, Earl Rivers, and his brother, Sir Edward Woodville, who, together with a large force he had raised in the island, fell at the battle of St. Anbyn, in a foolish expedition against the King of France. Since that time Carisbrooke has always been held by the Crown. In Elizabeth’s reign, when preparations were made on the south coast to repel the Spanish Armada, very elaborate outworks were planned and executed at this castle, entirely surrounding it with fortifications of the then new type, escarp and ditch and ravelin and redan, which exist at the present time: but they were never wanted, and only served usefully as a promenade for the royal victim, King Charles, in his imprisonment.

Charles having escaped from his durance with the army at Hampton Court (November 11, 1647), rode to Titchfield, the Earl of Southampton’s place, where he might have sailed by Portsmouth Harbour to the Continent, as his intention was; but, by a mistake, Colonel Hammond, the Governor of the Isle of Wight, was brought to Titchfield, and he conducted the King to Carisbrooke, where he became again a prisoner. Here three attempts seem to have been made, chiefly by some gentlemen of the island, to give him freedom during the twelve months of his detention. On the first of these occasions it was arranged that Charles should pass through the window of his room, and let himself down to the ramparts, below which a guide with a horse was waiting, and a boat was ready to take him to a ship in the offing; but an iron bar in the window prevented his getting through, and so the King had to wave off his friends. The window in question is discernible from the outside of the King’s lodgings; it adjoins the only buttress of the wall, and is walled up. On another occasion implements having been provided for him, Charles managed to saw through and remove the bar which impeded him, and all arrangements were made for his flight, but a rascally officer, one Major Rolfe, was entrusted with the secret and betrayed it. So, when the King was about to make the attempt, he observed below more people than were expected, and wisely decided to remain where he was. It was said that Rolfe intended to have shot the King as he descended. After being there for a year, Charles was removed, with scant ceremony or respect from Carisbrooke. At daybreak one morning a party of soldiers were sent, who, rousing him from bed, took him off to Hurst Castle, a fort on the mainland, standing at the extremity of the spit of land, near Lymington, which stretches across the Solent Strait to within a mile of the opposite island. Here the King was detained for a month, when he was taken to Windsor. To Carisbrooke were sent the two royal children, the year succeeding their father’s judicial murder, but in less than a month the Princess Elizabeth was found dead in her room, her face resting on the Bible given her by her father at their last interview. Prince Henry remained there nearly two years. An attack was made on the castle at the outbreak of the civil war by the mayor and people of Newport, in obedience to the instructions of the Parliament, in order to get rid of the King’s captain, the Earl of Portland, and his successor, Lord Pembroke; and the fortress was yielded on honourable terms. After the Restoration, the governor, Lord Cutts, made great and lamentable alterations in the old fabric, quite modernizing a part of it; but at a recent date the Government have restored the work in a judicious manner, and brought to light some hidden and interesting features.

The Norman keep of Richard de Redvers stands on the ancient English mound at the north-east angle of the inner ward, surrounded by its moat; it is an irregular polygon in shape, a shell keep sixty feet across, with walls of great strength and thickness, the access to which is by a long flight of stairs, the postern being protected by double gates and a portcullis. One room only remains, in which is a deep well, the others are destroyed, but there remains a small staircase to the top, whence a very fine view is obtained; at the foot was a sally-port defended by a bastion, which has disappeared. The entrance is on the west by a fine machicolated gateway, flanked by two round embattled towers, through a high pointed archway with portcullis grooves; all this was built by Anthony, Lord Scales, who had the lordship in 1474, and whose arms are on the gatehouse, as they are on Middleton Tower near Lynn with the Rose of York. Inside are the older gates, with latticed ironwork, and on the right the ruins of the guardhouse, and the chapel of St. Nicholas, built in 1738 on the site of the ancient chapel. On the north are the ruins of the buildings occupied by King Charles, a small room being shown as his bedroom. The governor’s quarters, barracks and other buildings are all of different periods. In the centre of the south wall are remains of a mural tower, and there are the ruins of the Mountjoy, a Norman tower in the south-east corner, the walls here being eighteen feet thick: east are two other towers. Anciently there must have been some outworks, as in the Domesday Survey, the area of this castle is said to be one virgate, or twenty acres.

THE PANTHEON

AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE

The Pantheon, the most perfect pagan building in the city, was built B.C. 27, by Marcus Agrippa, the bosom friend of Augustus Cæsar, and the second husband of his daughter Julia. The inscription, in huge letters, perfectly legible from beneath, “M. Agrippa, L. F. Cos. Tertium Fecit,” records its construction. Another inscription on the architrave, now almost illegible, records its restoration under Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla, _c._ 202, who, “_Pantheum vetustate corruptum cum omni cultur restitverunt._” Some authorities have maintained that the Pantheon was originally only a vast hall in the baths of Agrippa, acknowledged remains of which exist at no great distance; but the name “Pantheum” was in use as early as A.D. 59.

[Illustration: THE PANTHEON, ITALY.]