‘Heavy as nightmare, airy light as fern, Imagination’s very self in stone. Solemn the lift of high-embowered roof; Solemn the deepening vault.’
Something of the power of impressing which this Cathedral possesses is due, one begins to reflect, to the fortunate scarcity of side-chapels, and the complete absence of the tombs, which fill up the spaces, and therefore detract from the effect of so many churches. The reason for this happy freedom from monuments is given by the old writer, Rouillard. ‘This church has the special prerogative of being reputed the chamber or couch of the Virgin. As a sign thereof the soil of this church has always hitherto been preserved pure and undefiled, without ever having been dug or opened for any sepulture.’ But there was one exception. One military leader was interred there with all honours in 1568, within the precinct of the high altar itself. Much against their will, the canons had yielded to the pressure of the King and the Court, and consented at last to inter in the Choir the body of the Baron of Bourdeilles, the colonel of the Gascons, who had fallen in the defence of the breach against the Huguenots (_see_ p. 277). To the sound of tabourins and fifes the funeral _cortège_ wound its way through the town of mourning citizens, and the remains of the valiant D’Ardelay were regretfully lowered into a vault to the left of the high altar, which was not to prove their last resting-place. Rouillard, who saw the tomb of the gallant colonel in 1608, adds that many believed then that the body would not long remain where it was. And, indeed, fifty years afterwards, the reverend canons, resenting, on the part of their immaculate Patroness, this intrusion, reported that the corpse itself, ill at ease, had protested, lifting up its hands above the surface of the pavement, as if to beg interment elsewhere. This it easily obtained in the cemetery of S. Jerome.
The nave exceeds in width any in France or Germany. Its width, as also its length, which is short in comparison with the other parts of the Cathedral, was determined, as we have seen, by the position of the two towers. In height it falls short of the naves of Bourges and Amiens, and of Beauvais, which out-rivalled even its sisters, and fell in the moment of its mad success. But it is an unprofitable business, this comparison of cathedrals. One is not less beautiful because another is of larger dimensions, nor less perfect because another is more uniform. This nave has its own qualities, which I have feebly endeavoured to suggest, qualities different from, but not less valuable than the pure beauty of that of Amiens.