Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
France -- Description and travel; Netherlands -- Description and travel
First for the cathedral, for what traveler of taste does not doff his
bonnet to the mother-church of the town through which he happens to be
traveling, or in which he takes a temporary abode? The west front,
always the forte of the architects's skill, strikes you as you go down,
or come up, the principal street--La Rue des Carmes--which seems to
bisect the town into equal parts. A small open space, which, however,
has been miserably encroached upon by petty shops, called the Flower
Gardens, is before this western front; so that it has some little
breathing room in which to expand its beauties to the wondering eyes of
the beholder. In my poor judgment, this western front has very few
elevations comparable with it--including even those of Lincoln and
York. The ornaments, especially upon the three porches, between the two
towers, are numerous, rich, and for the greater part entire, in spite
of the Calvinists, the French Revolution, and time.
As you enter the cathedral, at the center door, by descending two
steps, you are struck with the length and loftiness of the nave, and
with the lightness of the gallery which runs along the upper part of
it. Perhaps the nave is too narrow for its length. The lantern of the
central large tower is beautifully light and striking. It is supported
by four massive clustered pillars, about forty feet in circumference;
but by casting your eye downward, you are shocked at the tasteless
division of the choir from the nave by what is called a Grecian screen;
and the interior of the transepts has undergone a like preposterous
restoration.
The rose windows of the transepts, and that at the west end of the
nave, merit your attention and commendation. I could not avoid
noticing, to the right, upon entrance, perhaps the oldest side chapel
in the cathedral, of a date less ancient than that of the northern
tower, and perhaps of the end of the twelfth century. It contains by
much the finest specimens of stained glass--of the early part of the
sixteenth century. There is also some beautiful stained glass on each
side of the chapel of the Virgin, behind the choir; but altho very
ancient, it is the less interesting, as not being composed of groups,
or of historical subjects. Yet, in this as in almost all the churches
which I have seen, frightful devastations have been made among the
stained glass windows by the fury of the Revolutionists....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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