The Spell of the Heart of France: The Towns, Villages and Chateaus about Paris by André Hallays Frank Roy Fraprie

Author:André Hallays, Frank Roy Fraprie [André Hallays, Frank Roy Fraprie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Travel, History
ISBN: 4064066249472
Publisher: Good Press
Published: 2019-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

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X. FROM MANTES TO LA ROCHE-GUYON

Table of Contents

Original

WHEN we leave Mantes and follow the valley of the Seine, we leave behind us the charming town so well named Mantes-la-Jolie. At each turn of the road the sleeping waters reflect a heaven of blue, and trembling verdure beneath: we dream of Corot. Through the gaps in the curtain formed by the poplars of the isles and the river banks, appears the white and smiling town, rising above its river, sweetly ordered below the towers of its fine and proud cathedral; we dream of the delicate, precise and finished grace of those landscapes which form the background of fifteenth-century miniatures.

Farther on, the aspect and the color of things change completely. Chalky escarpments close the horizon. Here commences the bluff, the abrupt bluff, which henceforth will overlook the bank of the Seine all the way to the channel, and which uninterruptedly will form the bastion of the Norman coast from Havre to Dieppe. The locality has already a sort of maritime flavor. On days of tempest, the clouds which flee from the northwest and rush across the great valley seem to be swept by the wind of the open sea, the river is covered with little short, foamy waves, the air has a salty tang; and when Vetheuil, at the entrance of a tiny ravine, presents its low houses, its lanes tumbling toward the river bank, the high terrace and the Norman tower of its church, we might swear it was a fishing village. …

This church of Vetheuil, which is said to have been commenced in the twelfth century, boasts of a fine belfry pierced with high lancet windows, which was built by Charles le Bel. It was recommenced and completed in the sixteenth century by the Grappins, architects of Gisors. This family enriched the Vexin with precious buildings. The church of Yetheuil is the masterpiece of the most celebrated artist of the dynasty, Jean Grappin the elder. The Renaissance gave France few religious edifices more seducing and more harmonious than this. Nowhere were the new decoration and the classic styles more ingeniously applied to the transformation of an old church. The façade of Gisors, which is also by Jean Grappin, seems to be less perfect in its art. Here the architectural effect is light and finely balanced. Niches, consoles, dais, balustrades, medallions, are charmingly invented. We still see the elegance and sobriety of the earliest Renaissance; and yet there already appear, under the little porch, the H and the crescent. The Grappins had remained faithful to the traditions of taste and restraint, which were beginning to be lost by their contemporaries.

Within, there are some pretty statues of earlier days, a fine Flemish altar screen with scenes from the Passion, and abominable colored statues of the most modern hideousness.

We stop before a singular chapel, shut off by a vilely daubed wooden grating: to look at the rags and strange accessories which hang on the walls, we might at first take it for the property room of a theater.

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