XIX

NOTRE DAME DE GREn.o.bLE

It is an open question as to whether Gren.o.ble is not possessed of the most admirable and impressive situation of any cathedral city of France.

At all events it has the attribute of a unique background in the _ma.s.sif de la Chartreuse_, and the range of snow-clad Alps, which rise so abruptly as to directly screen and shelter the city from all other parts lying north and east. Furthermore this natural windbreak, coupled with the alt.i.tude of the city itself, makes for a bright and sunny, and withal bracing, atmosphere which many professed tourist and health resorts lack.

Gren.o.ble is in all respects "a most pleasant city," and one which contains much of interest for all sorts and conditions of pilgrims.

Anciently Gren.o.ble was a bishopric in the diocese of the Province of Vienne, to whose archbishop the see was at that time subordinate. Its foundation was during the third century, and its first prelate was one Domninus.

In the redistribution of dioceses Gren.o.ble became a suffragan of Lyon et Vienne, which is its status to-day.

As might naturally be inferred, in the case of so old a foundation, its present-day cathedral of Notre Dame partakes also of early origin.

This it does, to a small degree only, with respect to certain of the foundations of the choir. These date from the eleventh century, while succeeding eras, of a mixed and none too pure an architectural style, culminate in presenting a singularly unconvincing and cold church edifice.

The "pointed" tabernacle, which is the chief interior feature, is of the middle fifteenth century, and indeed the general effect is that of the late Middle Ages, if not actually suggestive of still later modernity.

The tomb of Archbishop Chisse, dating from 1407, is the cathedral's chief monumental shrine.

To the left of the cathedral is the ancient bishop's palace; still used as such. It occupies the site of an eleventh-century episcopal residence, but the structure itself is probably not earlier than the fifteenth century.

In the _eglise de St. Andre_, a thirteenth-century structure, is a tomb of more than usual sentimental and historical interest: that of Bayard.

It will be found in the transept.

No mention of Gren.o.ble could well ignore the famous monastery of _La Grande Chartreuse_.

Mostly, it is to be feared, the monastery is a.s.sociated in mundane minds with that subtle and luxurious _liqueur_ which has been brewed by the white-robed monks of St. Bruno for ages past; and was until quite recently, when the establishment was broken up by government decree and the real formula of this sparkling _liqueur_ departed with the migrating monks.

The opinion is ventured, however, that up to the time of their expulsion (in 1902), the monks of St. Bruno combined solitude, austerity, devotion, and charity of a most practical kind with a lucrative commerce in their distilled product after a successful manner not equalled by any religious community before or since.

[Ill.u.s.tration: S. Bruno]

The Order of St. Bruno has weathered many storms, and, during the Terror, was driven from its home and dispersed by brutal and riotous soldiery. In 1816 a remnant returned, escorted, it is said, by a throng of fifty thousand people.

The cardinal rule of the Carthusians is abstemiousness from all meat-eating; which, however, in consideration of their calm, regular life, and a diet in which fish plays an important part, is apparently conducive to that longevity which most of us desire.

It is related that a certain Dominican pope wished to diminish the severity of St. Bruno's regulations, but was met by a delegation of Carthusians, whose _doyen_ owned to one hundred and twenty years, and whose youngest member was of the ripe age of ninety. The amiable pontiff, not having, apparently, an argument left, accordingly withdrew his edict.

Of all these great Charterhouses spread throughout France, _La Grande Chartreuse_ was the most inspiring and interesting; not only from the structure itself, but by reason of its commanding and romantic situation amid the forest-clad heights of the Savoyan Alps.

The first establishment here was the foundation of St. Bruno (in 1084), which consisted merely of a modest chapel and a number of isolated cubicles.

This foundation only gave way--as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--to an enlarged structure more in accord with the demands and usage of this period.

The most distinctive feature of its architecture is the grand cloister, with its hundred and fifteen Gothic arches, out of which open the sixty cells of the sandalled and hooded white-robed monks, who, continuing St.

Bruno's regulation, live still in isolation. In these cells they spent all of their time outside the hours of work and worship, but were allowed the privilege of receiving one colleague at a time. Here, too, they ate their meals, with the exception of the princ.i.p.al meal on Sundays, when they all met together in the refectory.

The _eglise de la Grande Chartreuse_ itself is very simple, about the only distinctive or notable feature being the sixteenth-century choir-stalls. At the midnight service, or at _matins_, when the simple church is lit only by flaming torches, and the stalls filled with white-robed _Chartreux_, is presented a picture which for solemnity and impressiveness is as vivid as any which has come down from mediaeval times.

The chanting of the chorals, too, is unlike anything heard before; it has indeed been called, before now, angelic. Petrarch, whose brother was a member of the order, has put himself on record as having been enchanted by it.

As many as ten thousand visitors have pa.s.sed through the portals of _La Grande Chartreuse_ during the year, but now in the absence of the monks--temporary or permanent as is yet to be determined--conditions obtain which will not allow of entrance to the conventual buildings.

No one, however, who visits either Gren.o.ble or Chambery should fail to journey to St. Laurent du Pont--the gateway of the fastness which enfolds _La Grande Chartreuse_, and thence to beneath the shadow of the walls which for so long sheltered the parent house of this ancient and powerful order.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Belley_]

XX

BELLEY AND AOSTE

En route to Chambery, from Lyon, one pa.s.ses the little town of Belley.

It is an ancient place, most charmingly situated, and is a suffragan bishopric, strangely enough, of Besancon, which is not only Teutonic in its tendencies, but is actually of the north.

At all events, Belley, in spite of its clear and crisp mountain air, is not of the same climatic zone as the other dioceses in the archbishopric of Besancon.

Its cathedral is distinctly minor as to style, and is mainly Gothic of the fifteenth century; though not unmixed, nor even consistent, in its various parts. No inconsiderable portion is modern, as will be plainly seen.

One distinctly notable feature is a series of Romanesque columns in the nave, possibly taken from some pagan Roman structure. They are sufficiently of importance and value to be cla.s.sed as "_Monuments Historiques_," and as such are interesting.

Aoste (Aoste-St.-Genix) is on the site of the Roman colony of Augustum, of which to-day there are but a few fragmentary remains. It is perhaps a little more than a mile from the village of St. Genix, with which to-day its name is invariably coupled. As an ancient bishopric in the province of Tarentaise, it took form in the fourth century, with St. Eustache as its first bishop. To-day the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of all this region--the Val-de-Tarentaise--is held by Tarentaise.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XXI

ST. JEAN DE MAURIENNE

St. Jean de Maurienne is a tiny mountain city well within the advance-guard of the Alpine range. Of itself it savours no more of the picturesque than do the immediate surroundings. One can well understand that vegetation round about has grown scant merely because of the dearth of fructifying soil. The valleys and the ravines flourish, but the enfolding walls of rock are bare and sterile.

This is the somewhat abbreviated description of the _pagi_ garnered from an ancient source, and is, in the main, true enough to-day.

Not many casual travellers ever get to this mountain city of the Alps; they are mostly rushed through to Italy, and do not stop short of the frontier station of Modane, some thirty odd kilometres onward; from which point onward only do they know the "lie of the land" between Paris and Piedmont.

St. Jean de Maurienne is to-day, though a suffragan of Chambery, a bishopric in the old ecclesiastical province of Tarentaise. The first archbishop--as the dignity was then--was St. Jacques, in the fifth century.