The second is younger, and her beauty of a more earthly type. She wears
a halo, and is clad like the other, save that she has no mantle, and
her head is not shrouded in a veil. Her long hair falls in two plaits
over her shoulders, and the tight-drawn body of her garment reveals the
curves of her figure. Her expression is that of a rebellious, artful and
vindictive nature, and, if she is rightly supposed to be Queen Clotilde,
she is, as M. Huysmans[65] remarks, Clotilde before her repentance, the
Queen before the saint.
The last, the angelic mysterious queen with the sweet, ingenuous smile,
and the great deep eyes, is, according to local tradition, Bertha _aux
grands pieds_, mother of Charlemagne. Her right hand once lay open upon
her breast, and there it has left its impression. In the left hand she
carried a sceptre, terminating in an ornament that still remains. She is
clad in sumptuous raiment, most delicate in texture, and fringed with
lace. Her figure is elongated, so that she seems to be like some rare
lily swaying forward on its stalk. And thus, beneath her eyebrows
slightly raised, she smiles down upon the visitor in the childlike grace
of her chaste simplicity, _saintement gamine_.
Of the other statues that complete the company of Christ--martyrs,
prophets and patron saints of donors in the jambs of the doorways, or
between the other figures--I shall only call attention to the merchant
on the right pier of the _Porte Royale_, who is being robbed by the
earliest cut-purse in mediæval sculpture, and to the name Rogerus, cut
above the broken head of an adjacent butcher. Was this the architect
Roger who built the _Tour-Grise_ at Dreux, and who was then chosen by S.
Ives to build this western porch?
M. Bulteau suggests the question. But it cannot be answered.
Over the three doorways two pilasters with simple mouldings run up on
either side of the central window as far as the rose, terminating in
symbolic carvings--the northern one in the head of an ox, representative
of sacrifice, symbolising here, it is said, the abolition of Judaism,
with its sacrifices and cult; the southern one in that of a lion holding
a man’s head, which is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and here
symbolises Christ triumphant in the hearts of men.
The two towers, the old spire, and the western porch described, together
with the west front up to the rose-window, including, therefore, the
three enormous windows (34 feet by 13 feet, and 28 feet by 9 feet), and
their unrivalled treasure of twelfth-century glass, which, through
repeated dangers, has been preserved to us, are all that remain of the
Church of Fulbert, rebuilt by S. Ives.
For in 1194, when Regnault de Mouçon was bishop, and when they were
about to begin the spire of the Clocher Neuf, the Cathedral was
destroyed by fire. _Mirabili et miserabili incendio devastata_, says a
manuscript of the year 1210, now in the Vatican, and Jehan le Marchand
in his _Book of Miracles_ writes of this year:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account