The Cathedrals of Northern FranceMansfield, M. F. (Milburg Francisco)
History
The Cathedrals of Northern France
Mansfield, M. F. (Milburg Francisco)
Cathedrals -- France; France -- Description and travel
The interior spreads itself out in severe and imposing lines with hardly
a remarkable feature in either transepts or nave. The organ-loft, a
Calvary, and a marble statue of the Virgin, by Lescornel, a sculptor of
Langres, and a few modern sculptured monuments, are the only decorative
attributes to be seen, if we except the Renaissance Chapelle des Fonts
Baptismaux with its sculptured vaulting on the left.
The symmetrical choir is in itself the true charm of St. Mammes. It has
a fine ambulatory, and a range of eight monolithic columns, removed,
says tradition, from an ancient Pagan temple. Their capitals are
ornamented with carven foliage, grimacing heads, and fantastic animals.
A sixteenth-century screen surrounds the choir, but is more like unto a
triumphal arch than a churchly accessory.
The high altar is a comparatively modern work, as may be supposed, and
dates only from 1810.
On the right of the choir is an elaborate Roman doorway, and preserved
in the Chapter Room are five paintings depicting the "Chaste Susanne." A
remarkable collection of reliques is shown by the sacristan, in the
Chapelle des Reliques.
V
NOTRE DAME D'AUXONNE
The small town of Auxonne, lying between Dijon and Besancon, is seldom
thought of in connection with a cathedral church. There is little there
to compel one's attention beyond the fact that the Church of Notre Dame,
of the fourteenth-sixteenth century, is an interesting enough example of
a minor edifice which at one time was classed as a cathedral.
The church is mainly Gothic and has the unusual arrangement of a
Romanesque tower rising above the transept.
_PART V
East of Paris_
I
INTRODUCTORY
No arbitrary territorial arrangement can be made to include with
exactness each and every ecclesiastical division, but, since the Royal
Domain and the immediately adjacent territory includes the major portion
of what are commonly accepted as the Grand Cathedrals, it has been
thought permissible, in the present case, to make a further subdivision
which shall include Boulogne and St. Omer, north of Paris; eastward to
the Rhine and southward to include Dijon and Besancon. A topographer
might not make such a division or arrangement of territory; but no other
seems possible which shall include the region lying between the extremes
of Besancon and Boulogne.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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