V

       ST. FRONT DE PÉRIGUEUX

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      The grandest and most notable tenth-century church yet remaining in France is unquestionably that of St. Front at Périgueux.

      From the records of its history and a study of its distinctive constructive elements has been traced the development of the transition period which ultimately produced the Gothic splendours of the Isle of France.

      It is more than reminiscent of St. Marc's at Venice, and is the most notable exponent of that type of roofing which employed the cupola in groups, to sustain the thrust and counterthrust, which was afterward accomplished by the ogival arch in conjunction with the flying buttress.

      Here are comparatively slight sustaining walls, and accordingly no great roofed-over chambers such as we get in the later Gothic, but the whole mass is, in spite of this, suggestive of a massiveness which many more heavily walled churches do not possess. Paradoxically, too, a view over its roof-top, with its ranges of egg-like domes, suggests a frailty which but for its scientifically disposed strains would doubtless have collapsed ere now.

      This ancient abbatial church succeeded an earlier basilique on the same site. Viollet-le-Duc says of it: "It is an importation from a foreign country; the most remarkable example of church-building in Gaul since the barbaric invasion."

      The plan of the cathedral follows not only the form of St. Marc's, but also approximates its dimensions. The remains of the ancient basilica are only to be remarked in the portion which precedes the foremost cupola.

      St. Front has the unusual attribute of an avant-porch—a sort of primitive narthen, as was a feature of tenth-century buildings (see plan and descriptions of a tenth-century church in appendix), behind which is a second porch—a vestibule beneath the tower—and finally the first of the group, of five central cupolas.

      The clocher or belfry of St. Front is accredited as being one of the most remarkable eleventh-century erections of its kind in any land. It is made up of square stages, each smaller than the other, and crowned finally by a conic cupola.

      Its early inception and erection here are supposed to account for the similarity of others—not so magnificent, but like to a marked degree—in the neighbouring provinces.

      Here is no trace of the piled-up tabouret style of later centuries, and it is far removed from the mosque-like minarets which were the undoubted prototypes of the mediæval clochers. So, too, it is different, quite, from the Italian campanile or the beffroi which crept into civic architecture in the north; but whose sole example in the south of France is believed to be that curious structure which still holds forth in the papal city of Avignon.

      Says Bourassé: "The cathedral of St. Front at Périgueux is unique." Its foundation dates with certitude from between 1010 and 1047, and is therefore contemporary with that of St. Marc's at Venice—which it so greatly resembles—which was rebuilt after a fire between 977 and 1071.

      The general effect of the interior is as impressive as it is unusual, with its lofty cupolas, its weighty and gross pillars, and its massive arches between the cupolas; all of which are purely constructive elements.

      There are few really ornamental details, and such as exist are of a severe and unprogressive type, being merely reminiscent of the antique.

      In its general plan, St. Front follows that of a Grecian cross, its twelve wall-faces crowned by continuous pediments. Eight massive pillars, whose functions are those of the later developed buttress, flank the extremities of the cross, and are crowned by pyramidal cupolas which, with the main roofing, combine to give that distinctive character to this unusual and "foreign" cathedral of mid-France.

      St. Front, from whom the cathedral takes its name, became the first bishop of Périgueux when the see was founded in the second century.

VI

       ST. PIERRE DE POITIERS

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      IN 1317 the diocese of Poitiers was divided, and parts apportioned to the newly founded bishoprics of Maillezais and Luçon. The first bishop of Poitiers was St. Nectaire, in the third century. By virtue of the Concordat of 1801 the diocese now comprehends the Departments of Vienne and Deux-Sèvres.

      The cathedral of St. Pierre de Poitiers has been baldly and tersely described as a "mere Lombard shell with a Gothic porch." This hardly does it justice, even as to preciseness. The easterly portion is Lombard, without question, and the nave is of the northern pointed variety; a not unusual admixture of feature, but one which can but suggest that still more, much more, is behind it.

      The pointed nave is of great beauty, and, in the westerly end, contains an elaborate rosace—an infrequent attribute in these parts.

      The aisles are of great breadth, and are quite as lofty in proportion. This produces an effect of great amplitude, nearly as much so as of the great halled churches at Albi or the aisleless St. André at Bordeaux, and contrasts forcibly in majesty with the usual Gothic conception of great height, as against extreme width.