Three Cathedrals in the French Countryside

The was no school the first week of May because the Netherlands has three holidays close together--first the Queen's Birthday, then a day to honor the War Dead, and finally Liberation Day, celebrating Holland's freedom from Nazi occupation.  On the Queen's Birthday I watched Queen Beatrix and the Royal Family visit the southern part of the Netherlands on T.V.  They also played clips from the Royal Wedding in London, and the contrast was unbelievable.  The Dutch Royal Family takes pictures with people in the crowd, samples local products, and tells jokes.  The English Royal Family, on the other hand, are removed and  aloof--"frigidly majestic."  During the week of holidays I also went on a road trip to Paris with a friend from Church who needed help picking up his mother-in-law's car and driving it back to Holland.  I was, of course, happy to help--especially when I found out that we could stop at several cathedrals in the countryside on the way!

We had to stop in Lille first, just over the French border with Belgium.  We only had an hour, but I made good use of the time.  The last time I was in Lille I went to the art museum, but they closed off the medieval collection before I had gotten a chance to see it.  I was really grateful to go again and finish looking at the Flemish sculptures and altarpieces.  After leaving Lille, we drove to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame d'Amiens.  Many of the finest Gothic cathedrals in the world are located in the cities surrounding Paris, and the Cathedral of Our Lady in Amiens is one of the most spectacular.

It is covered in a profusion of sculpture--images of Old Testament prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs, angels, the Virgin Mary, and the Lord stand on pedestals, look down from niches, and crown the peaks of gables.

Over the central entrance to the cathedral, the Lord lifts his hands in judgment as the Virgin Mary and John the Beloved plead for the dead who rise from their graves in the lower registers.  Think of all the people through the centuries how gazed at these carvings as they entered the church to pray or to hear mass.

Here is a row of apostles in the jambs near the main entrance.  I am studying a painting that was created for Amiens Cathedral, and seeing the arrangement of the statues at one of the other entrances gave me some new insights on the painting.

At the back of the cathedral, the buttresses are rimmed with gargoyles.

This is a beautiful statue of the Virgin and Child on the south transept entrance of the cathedral.  We get so used to thinking of Gothic architecture as monochromatic gray stone that we forget that medieval cathedrals were often brightly painted originally.  At Amiens many of the statues still have traces of color, like this one.  After seeing the cathedral, we ate gallettes, a French specialty.  They are like savory crêpes but more crispy.  I tried one filled with sausage from Brittany, Dijon mustard (with much more horseradish than the American version of Dijon mustard!), and cheese.  I also tried one with ham, egg, and Camembert cheese.

We got into Paris late that night, and I got to see the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe lit up as we drove into the city.  The next day we picked up the second car and started the drive back to Holland.  I was a little uneasy driving in Paris, and for good reason!  At least I didn't have to deal with unbelievably narrow medieval cobblestone streets like you have in many European cities.  Even in the center of Paris there's aren't many of those since Emperor Napoleon III bulldozed them in the nineteenth century.  Leaving Paris, we drove through little towns, past crops, fields of grass, and fields with yellow flowers, and then we stopped at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Soissons.

A friend of mine who is a doctoral student in French Gothic art and architecture specially recommended Soissons to me.  It is a beautiful cathedral, and, as she pointed out, the walls are made of some kind of stone that almost seems to glow in the sun.

The nineteenth-century Gothic-Revival author, Chateauxbriand, compared the soaring piers and colored light of French cathedrals to a deep forest.  When you enter one of these buildings, it does feel like you have stepped into the grandeur of a forest, especially with the purple and blue stained glass, like the evening light and shadows in the woods.

Vaulted side aisles.  After leaving the cathedral, we ate gallettes again and also a chocolate and almond crêpe.

Not far from Soissons is Laon.  The medieval heart of the city is tightly packed with stone buildings, narrow streets, city squares, and crooked alleyways--all winding their way up a hill to the massive Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Laon.  We walked around the back of the cathedral first.  Here are the heavy towers on the western front, near the entrance portals.

And here is the facade of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Laon.

I learned to tell Laon Cathedral from the other Gothic cathedrals by looking for the stone oxen that gaze down from the towers.  No one is completely sure why these oxen decorate the church.

The sculptures surrounding the entrance portals has been heavily restored--no traces of medieval paint here!  I think this is Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac, and holding him by the hair!

And here is a hippopotamus gargoyle!

As with most Gothic cathedrals, only a little of the original stained glass has survived.  As a result, the interior is well illuminated with white light.

I'm very proud of this picture.  It is the eighteenth-century altar screen cordoning off the choir from the rest of the church with the eastern rose window in the background.  The secret to getting great photographs is to take pictures in Gothic cathedrals!  You can't help but have fabulous photos!

The high altar.

The elevation of the side walls rises in four tiers.

The side aisles.

This is the cloister adjoining the cathedral.  The canons of Our Lady of Laon once walked this corridor on their way to the altar to pray the daily offices.

It was a good five hours from Laon back home.  I listened to the radio in French, then in Flemish, and finally in Dutch!  We stopped in the southern, French-speaking region of Belgium to walk around a little.  The gas station looked out on this field of cows.  I was so grateful that I didn't have a problem getting sleepy for the drive--at least not for most of it!  For the last half hour I had to open all the windows and turn the volume way up on the radio--blaring Baroque music on the Dutch highways late at night!