The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 5 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 5Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
History
The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 5 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 5
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de, 1768-1848
I went to see the cathedral, a Gothic fabric with a tall spire. The
aisles are divided into two narrow vaults, supported by a single row of
pillars, so that the interior of the edifice partakes at one time of
the character of the cathedral and the basilica. The pulpit has for a
canopy a graceful steeple ending in a point, like a mitre; the inside
of this steeple consists of a newel around which winds a helicoid vault
in stone filigree-work. Symmetrical spikes, piercing the outside, seem
destined to carry candles; these used to light up this tiara when the
bishop preached on feast-days. Instead of priests officiating, I saw
little birds hopping in that granite foliage; they were celebrating the
Word that gave them a voice and wings on the fifth day of the Creation.
The nave was deserted; in the apse of the church, two separate groups
of boys and girls were receiving religious instruction.
The Reformation, as I have already said, makes a mistake when it shows
itself in the Catholic monuments upon which it has encroached; it
cuts a mean and shameful figure there. Those tall porches call for a
numerous clergy, the pomp of the celebrations, the chants, pictures,
ornaments, silk veils, draperies, laces, gold, silver, lamps, flowers
and incense of the altars. Protestantism may say as much as it pleases
that it has returned to Primitive Christianity; the Gothic churches
reply that it has denied its fathers: the Christians who were the
architects of its wonders were other than the children of Luther and
Calvin.
19 _May_ 1833.
I had left Ulm at noon, on the 19th. At Dillingen, the horses were
wanting. I stayed an hour in the High Street, having as a recreation
the sight of a stork's nest, planted on a chimney as though on a
minaret at Athens; a number of sparrows had insolently made their nests
in the bed of the peaceful "queen with the long neck." Below the stork,
a lady, living on the first floor, looked at the passers-by in the
shade of a half-raised blind; below the lady was a wooden saint in a
niche. The saint will be thrown down to the pavement, the woman from
her window into the grave: and the stork? It will fly away: thus will
end the three storeys.
Between Dillingen and Donauwörth, you cross the battle-field of
Blenheim. The footsteps of the armies of Moreau over the same ground
have not obliterated those of the armies of Louis XIV.; the defeat of
the great King prevails in the country-side over the successes of the
great Emperor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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