Part 2 (2/2)
[Footnote 7: O Louis de Breze, Diana of Poitiers, afflicted by the death of her husband, has raised this monument to your memory, she was your inseparable companion, your very faithful spouse in the conjugal state, and will be equally so in the tomb.]
[Footnote 8: That is to say that the pope Julias IInd was of the house of Rovero (_Quercus_).]
[Footnote 9: The cathedral possesses also several other remarkable pictures; we distinguish amongst others, an _Annunciation_, by Letellier of Rouen, nephew of the celebrated Poussin: it is placed in the second chapel of the left aisle, on entering by the great portal. To the right and left of the choir, we find a _Samaritan_, by Charles Tardieu, and _The lying in the Sepulchre_, by Poisson.]
[Footnote 10: Mr Deville makes the dates between the years 1480 to 1482, according to the ma.n.u.script capitulary registers of the cathedral.]
[Footnote 11: We perceive two counterforts, which have been lately erected on each side of the portal, under the direction of Mr Alavoine, to consolidate the front of the edifice, which had caused some fear, as to its solidity.]
[Footnote 12: So called from the college of the same name founded by Pierre de Colmieu, archbishop of Rouen and cardinal of Albe.]
[Footnote 13: The whole of these pieces of iron were cast at the foundery at Conches, a small town, which is situated at about twelve leagues from Rouen, and the expense is valued at 500,000 francs.]
[Footnote 14: For the description of the archbishop's palace, see the chapter on the civil monuments.]
SAINT-OUEN.
The abbey of Saint-Ouen, is the most ancient, in Rouen and in the whole province of Normandy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Saint-Ouen]
Founded in 533, during the reign of Clothaire Ist and the episcopate of Flavius, the sixteenth archbishop of Rouen, (comprehending Saint-Nienise), this abbey flourished particularly under the ill.u.s.trious prelate, whose name it bears and who enriched it with his patrimony.
The 14th of may, in the year 841, the Normans landed at Rouen; the following day they burned the abbey of Saint-Ouen.
Rollo, having become a Christian, and a peaceable possessor of Normandy, ordered the abbey to be repaired, and had the relics restored which the monks had carried off to secure them from the profanation of the Normans.
The monastery soon took the name of Saint-Ouen; instead of that of Saint-Peter, by which it was previously known.
The dukes Richard I and Richard II followed the example of Rollo, and continued the restoration of the abbey.
Such was the reputation of this monastery, that the emperor Otho, who had laid siege to the town during the reign of Richard Ist, surnamed _Sans-Peur_, demanded a safe conduct to come and perform his devotions at Saint-Ouen.
Nicolas, son of Richard IIIrd, and the fourth abbot under William the conqueror, caused the edifice, which had subsisted until then, to be demolished, and laid the first stone of a new church in 1046. Nicolas died too soon to complete the work; it was not finished until the year 1226, by William Ballot, the sixth abbot, who caused it to be dedicated in the same year, on the 17th of october, by Geoffroy, archbishop of Rouen.
The cloister and other buildings necessary for the use of the monks were finished under Rainfroid, the seventh abbot; but, in 1236, only ten years after the completion of this church, the work of eighty years was destroyed by fire in one day.
Through the liberality of the empress Matilda and Henry IInd, her son, the monks of Saint-Ouen succeeded in rebuilding their monastery; but it was again completely destroyed by fire in 1248.
At last, the celebrated Jean (_John_) or _Roussel Marc d'argent_, the twenty-fourth abbot, was elected in 1303. Fifteen years later, he laid the first stone of the present magnificent church, which is so generally admired. In one and twenty years, during which the works of this edifice proceeded, the choir, the chapels, the pillars which support the tower, and the greater part of the transept were finished. These buildings cost 63,036 livres five sous tournois, or about 2,600,000 francs of the present money.
The edifice was not entirely completed until the beginning of the XVIth century; but, the tower existed before the end of the XVth. An english tourist[15] has expressed the following sentiments on this magnificent church:
You gaze, and are first-struck with its matchless window: call it rose, or marygold, as you please. I think, for delicacy and richness of ornament, this window is perfectly unrivalled. There is a play of line in the mullions, which, considering their size and strength, may be p.r.o.nounced quite a master-piece of art. You approach, regretting the neglected state of the lateral towers, and enter, through the large and completely-opened centre doors, the nave of the abbey. It was towards sun-set when we made our first entrance. The evening was beautiful; and the variegated tints of sunbeam, admitted through the stained gla.s.s of the window, just noticed, were perfectly enchanting. The window itself, as you look upwards, or rather as you fix your eye upon the centre of it, from the remote end of the abbey, or the Lady's chapel, was a perfect blaze of dazzling light: and nave, choir, and side aisles, seemed magically illumined. We declared instinctively that the abbey of Saint-Ouen could hardly have a rival; certainly no superior.
The grand western entrance presents you with the most perfect view of the choir, a magical circle, or rather oval, flanked by lofty and cl.u.s.tered pillars, and free from the surrounding obstruction of screens, etc. Nothing more airy and more captivating of the kind can be imagined.
The finish and delicacy of these pillars are quite surprising. Above, below, around, every thing is in the purest style of the XIVth and XVth centuries. On the whole, it is the absence of all obtrusive and unappropriate ornament which gives to the interior of this building that light, unenc.u.mbered, and faery-like effect which so peculiarly belongs to it, and which creates a sensation that I never remember to have felt within any other similar edifice.
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