The church of Notre Dame de Thines in Ardèche
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The church of Notre Dame de Thines in Ardèche |
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The next day, the legend goes, when the workers climbed the mountain, they were greatly astonished to no longer find the stones and tools they had left there the day before. What could have become of them?... They searched for a long time without being able to discover anything, when one of them spotted them on the other side of the torrent that roared at the foot of the mountain, on the summit of a rock, at the place occupied today by the church and the village of Thines. This strange phenomenon occurred five times in a row, and the builders, tired of struggling against a supernatural power that played with their plans, came to build the church on the very site that the will of God, so clearly manifested, had indicated to them. This time they were no longer disturbed in their work, and in less than a year, in this rough and wild region like a landscape of that great painter named Salvator Rosa, appeared a religious edifice with elegant and harmonious proportions.
The church of Thines, on which, in a special report, I have called the attention and concern of Mr. Minister of the Interior, and which will, I am certain, soon be classified among the historical monuments, presents a character of unity and simultaneity that is rarely found to the same degree in medieval religious buildings. Generally, in the constructions of this kind that belong to this era, each century that has come has marked its seal on the various parts that compose them. Small but graceful in its entirety, this church was necessarily conceived by a single intelligence and executed by a single will. It seems as if it was cast all at once in a single and the same mold.
The 11th and 12th centuries are, in the south of France, the peak of religious architecture. The dread caused by the ominous approaches of the year 1000 had, if not completely stopped, at least slowed down the movement of art in the following century. Severe, dark, and bare, the Carolingian monuments were the faithful expression of the iron age during which they were built. A complete change in character and style distinguishes the later monuments. The relationships between the East and West, interrupted by the feudal barbarism of the successors of Charlemagne, were reborn more numerous and more frequent in the 11th century. The wars of the Normans in Sicily, Apulia, and Greece, and finally the Crusades, naturalized in Europe and especially in France the arts and literature of those beautiful and poetic Eastern regions, where the last rays of a dying civilization still shone. The work of regeneration, already so happily begun, develops, and with the first years of the 12th century, France sees its soil enchantedly covered with these magnificent Romanesque basilicas, which all the splendor of the Gothic period has never been able to erase in our southern provinces.
The church of Thines must obviously be claimed by Byzantine art. Only it has inspired, conceived, and raised it. In light of this opinion so clearly and categorically formulated, what becomes of the too lightly accepted and accredited tradition in the country, which attributes the foundation of this church to Pope Urban V?... This pope lived at a time when the Gothic style, having reached its highest point of perfection and renown, displayed everywhere the dazzling wonders of its architecture, and it is reasonable to think that if he had been the true founder of this church, he would have requested the plan and entrusted the execution to an architect trained in the new concepts of art?
Guillaume de Grimoard, born in Crisac, diocese of Mende, was elected pope under the name Urban V on September 27, 1362. A simple abbot of Saint-Victor in Marseille, when the votes of the conclave settled on him, he never forgot his dear abbey, as he called it. He had restored it to a flourishing state, and he continued to provide it with his high and all-powerful protection until his last hour. This pious memory, preserved in the places where the first years of his priesthood had peacefully passed, could to a certain extent have authorized those who benevolently believed that he had, before being abbot of Saint-Victor, fulfilled the humble functions of prior of Thines, to think that the church of that name was nothing more than a monument intended by Urban V to perpetuate the memory of the happy days he had spent in this priory.
Unfortunately, all probabilities converge to remove even the appearance of plausibility from this assumption. Guillaume de Grimoard belonged to one of the oldest and most illustrious families in Gévaudan, and at this time, when the clergy, then admirably composed, did not recruit from the poorest and most obscure ranks of the population in our countryside, and did not bring, as today, into the sanctuary, men full of virtue and evangelical zeal, no doubt, but too often, alas! deprived of that family education that is never replaced by the insufficient and incomplete teachings of the seminary, of that intimate knowledge of the world and that perfect tact so necessary for the priest who is in charge of souls, especially in the cities, a man with such a name would certainly not have begun his ecclesiastical career at the modest priory of Thines. Such subjects were reserved for the Roman purple, episcopal honors, or at least for the sweet and soft idleness of a wealthy abbey.
So, you will ask me, to whom should we attribute the foundation of this church? I could reply that your curiosity almost resembles indiscretion and thus extricate myself from embarrassment; but I prefer to candidly admit that I am unable to provide you with satisfactory explanations on this point. What is certain, however, is that such an edifice, in such a place, isolated and lost, could only have been constructed by a powerful will united with immense resources. Is it to a high baron restored to grace with the Church, or on the contrary, is it to a religious community that we owe it?... I would be all the more inclined to accept this last assumption, as around the church I have seen, extending to the edge of the precipice, remains of construction whose monastic destination does not seem doubtful to me for a single moment. There must have been a monastery rich enough to have a church built. But which order did this monastery belong to?... When did it cease to exist?... What causes led to its ruin?... A triple question to which tradition, which I have carefully questioned at the very locations, does not provide the slightest response.
The church of Thines is built in the shape of a basilica with a single nave. Its length in structure is twenty-five meters; its width is eight meters forty-two centimeters. The masonry is regular and of medium size but composed of stones of various natures. The friezes, the capitals, and generally all the worked parts of the edifice are made of very fine sandstone that had to be fetched from far away, as this variety of stone is not found in the area; the rest of the masonry is made of coarse sandstone; only the foundation borrowed its materials from the schistous stones, which are found in great abundance at the very location.
As in many churches of the same period, the door is located at the far end of the right side of the nave. Four slightly protruding buttresses, or rather four engaged pilasters, support each of the exterior side walls. At the upper part of these walls, between the buttresses, there is a small arcade whose arches are supported by sculpted modillions in the shape of animal snouts, balls, and various species of succulents. Above the arcade, a relief diamond cordon extends; finally, above the diamonds and immediately under the slopes of the roof, one notices a series of those figures that are so dear to the whim of Byzantine ornamentation. Each of the stones of the last course has received one of these figures: sometimes they are small cylinders, sticks, small flowers, double-egg shapes; sometimes parsley leaves or succulents, vases, and utensils of various shapes; sometimes finally domestic animals or grimacing figures. This triple sculpted band also surrounds the outer apse, where it takes more width by the interposition, between the arcade and the diamonds, of a double series of angular inclined planes, arranged in a checkerboard pattern. Between the falls of the arcade, one can see a half-moon in relief at the apse, half red and half white.
The full-arch portal, at the front of which stands, in the center of a small square, a column topped with the figure of the Virgin holding the child Jesus in her arms, which seems to indicate that this church has, from its origin, been placed under the invocation of the Mother of God, is raised on a stairway of eight steps. A prism-shaped column of gray marble supports a fine sandstone lintel, broken into three parts. This lintel is covered along its entire length with a bas-relief depicting the triumphant entry of our Lord Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, and the betrayal of Judas.
It is first Jesus Christ mounted on a donkey accompanied by its colt and followed by his disciples holding green palms in their hands. Under the gate of the holy city, which appears flanked by two round towers, at the top of one of which shines, as a reminder of the Crusades, a fleur-de-lis shield, sits, in front of a table, a man who, by all appearances, is none other (the bowl filled with coins, which is beside him on the table, seems at least to suggest it) than the one responsible for collecting the passage fee. Then comes the Last Supper. Jesus, standing in the midst of his disciples, whom he has gathered around him the evening before his passion, breaks the bread and institutes the sacrament of the Eucharist. The betrayal of Judas occupies the far end of the bas-relief. A group of soldiers, led by this unworthy disciple, seizes the Savior whom he points out to them with his finger. This bas-relief, which is treated with enough understanding and taste, stands out by certain qualities of disposition and drawing that the sculptural productions of this remote period do not offer to the same degree. A Latin inscription, in clear and regular capital letters, explains each episode of the bas-relief at the bottom where it is placed. This inscription, which develops over a single long line, but to which several letters are missing, the absence of which must necessarily be supplemented, is thus conceived:
DVO CENAT X PTS IVDAS SIBI PREPARATVS : ORE DATIS SIGNIS REX TRADITVR FILIVS HOMINIS : |
Four archivolts with square panels envelop the portal. Their fall rests on a projecting impost adorned with acanthus scrolls. Around the first archivolt reigns a flat band scattered with small rods, cylinders, and balls.
This portal, at a time that cannot be precisely determined, must have undergone a repair that was, moreover, made intelligently. The two statues adorned with a halo, which today are embedded in the tympanum, and the one that is placed in one of the corners of the portal, must have once served for the decoration of the choir and perhaps the old altar. The bas-relief that serves as a lintel must also have had the same purpose, for by adding to its current length that which is required to complete the meaning of the inscription, one easily notices that its original dimensions exceeded the length of the portal.
The placement of these three statues, although a bit constrained, does not have the Egyptian stiffness that characterizes most contemporary works. The embroidery and ornaments are not thrown over the garments with the usual profusion of bad Byzantine taste; the whole is not lacking in life, movement, or even grace and elegance. Evidently, these three statues were not alone. They were likely to number twelve and represent the twelve apostles.
To the left of the portal, on one of the lateral faces of the first buttress, one can distinguish a date, undoubtedly very interesting, but so crude that it is materially impossible to reconstruct the year. The sandstone unfortunately does not have the hardness of granite, and the impressions made by the worker's chisel do not resist eternally to the deadly action of time.
The bell tower does not even deserve a simple mention, so little it harmonizes with the rest of the building. It consists of a small wall raised above the roof and pierced with three arched openings, one of which was destroyed a few years ago by lightning. A poorly made staircase, constructed coarsely and afterward, leads there. The apse is externally adorned with four engaged columns, with historical capitals, resting immediately on four slender and slightly projecting pilasters, covered over their entire length with diamonds or tendrils of ivy. These pilasters have their point of departure at the narrow cornice of a base that, like them, offers little projection.
The right lateral wall is pierced, between the buttresses, with two arched windows. The apse has four. The keys are decorated with a hollow cord where animal snouts and small rods stand out in relief. All these windows have double angular archivolts or are torus-shaped. The central opening is long and narrow. The small columns that adorned them have partly disappeared. The interior of the church is simple but graceful. The vault, without ribs, is adorned with two double arches, resting directly on slender columns engaged in the pilasters that continue the double arches. The capitals of these columns, like those of the entire building, exhibit the distinctive characteristics of the Byzantine period, and are laden with bizarre figures, succulents, biblical characters, and fantastic animals. The bays are ornamented with large closed arches. No openings exist on the left side of the church. The choir itself lacks the fifth window which, at its left lateral end, would have been necessary for its regularity.
The choir is lower and narrower than the nave, of which it forms a slight retreat. At the corners rise two columns of the same style as those of the nave, but less developed. A cornice adorned with skulls, animal snouts, and small flowers runs circularly around the apse, at the height of the columns.
The dome vault of the apse presents, on its entire surface, wide concentric stripes regularly formed by alternating layers of red and white sandstone. This ornamentation appears in all parts of the building: it covers the shafts of the nave columns, rounds around the archivolts, radiates on the curved walls of the windows, adorns the half-moons of the arcature, and ascends on the columns and pillars of the apse. At the portal, it can still be found, but with less regularity than in the other parts of the church.
It is impossible not to see in this particular ornamentation a very vivid memory of Eastern architecture. As in the Late Empire, as in all the East, as in the part of Italy and even France, which particularly imitated the Late Empire in the Middle Ages, these two colors, red and white, are placed in the same manner as in the church of Thines, with the only difference that here the sumptuous marble is replaced by modest sandstone. The Byzantine monuments of Constantinople, the mosques of Cairo, the cathedrals of Como and Genoa, the theater of Mandeure in Franche-Comté, and some Romanesque monuments in southern France and especially in Auvergne testify to the correctness of our persistence.
There is no trace of a sacristy in the church of Thines. Those who deal with archaeology know that no sacristy has been established in churches, other than cathedrals, before the end of the 16th century.
The back of the building, opposite the choir, is illuminated by a small rose window or rather a niche carved into the roundabout of a closed arch in an elongated curve. Below this niche, in the direction of the portal, one can distinguish, sealed in the wall, the debris of two iron consoles, intended to support a seat, and between the lower end of the niche and the consoles, at support height, one can see a cylindrical hole, a sort of auditory conduit pierced in the thickness of the masonry, which communicated from the inside to the outside. Was this seat perhaps that of the prior who, from the depths of the apse, his usual place, would have been, by a strange whim that nothing could explain and even less motivate, moved and transported to this remote part of the church?... Or, on the contrary, does this seat placed beside this cylindrical hole, whose use has never been explained, indicate the place occupied by the priest receiving the confession of the excommunicated or of the leper?.... These are only suppositions, perhaps baseless suppositions that I only venture to make with trembling. However, the last one seems reasonable enough to be accepted without too much repugnance.
When excommunication struck a believer, he was immediately denounced to the true believers as an impure man from whom one should keep away, under penalty of incurring the church's censure and compromising the salvation of his soul forever. The sanctuary was ruthlessly closed to him, and he obtained the right to return only after having given numerous and public signs of his repentance and piety. The porch was the outer part of the church where he was allowed to stand while the faithful, gathered inside, attended the divine offices and fed on what is called, in mystical language, the word of God. It was there that the priest came to hear him in confession, where he received, in the presence of the assembled crowd, the reading of the papal brief that lifted him from the excommunication that had been imposed on him. Do we not find in the religious celebration of mixed marriages something that reminds us of this external reprobation that surrounded the unfortunate excommunicated?... Such marriages were only blessed at the door of the church, and even today, they are not celebrated at the foot of the altars, but in the sacristy. In some dioceses, including Lyon, the marriage is blessed, it is true, in the church, but the Catholic part of the two future spouses takes place alone in the choir, while the other, the Protestant one, remains in the nave.
The impurity of the body was, in the eyes of the Church, as horrible as that of the soul. The leper was ignominiously cast out of the temple, and any relation, if not spiritual, at least physical, was strictly forbidden to him with other men. Access to the porch was even denied to him. The foul exhalations that escaped from his always open wounds could have suddenly caused the contagion to burst forth among the crowd entering and exiting the church.
This way of communicating from the inside to the outside, through an opening made in the wall of a building, is, moreover, neither unusual nor new. I have seen in Venice, in the old ducal palace, this wonder conceived by three genius artists, Calendario, Bartholomeo, and Sansovino, along the walls of the dark dungeons that occupy the upper and lower parts of this colossal building, the lead (i piombi) and the wells (i pozzi); I have seen in Avignon, in the old papal palace, openings at eye level, in the prisons of the holy office, square holes through which the priest received the confession of the unfortunate who was to be struck by the sword of secular or religious justice.
In concluding this monograph, whose form has retained, despite myself, the dryness and aridity of an official archaeological report, I must point out that the wall of the apse of the church of Thines has bent under the weight of the vault and has cracked in two places. Significant repairs would soon be necessary if prompt action were not taken. At present, a well-executed repointing and consolidation of a few stones would probably suffice. I have urgently requested funds for this purpose, and I have every reason to hope that my request will be taken seriously by the distinguished man who presides with eminently artistic concern over the maintenance and restoration of our national monuments.
I have come all at once and without stopping from Saint-Laurent-lès-Bains to Thines; but it is unlikely that I will cross the distance that separates me from Chambonas, a charming village where I will unfortunately never again find the kind and benevolent man who always gave me the honor of his magnificent home with such frankness and cheerful cordiality. To reach the departmental road that runs along the peaks of the mountain, one must climb straight ahead for at least an hour, and although the hospitality found at the inn of Peyre is not very inviting, one willingly makes do with it, as the ascent is steep and difficult along this narrow path strewn with schist stones that break and slide underfoot, and carved with deep ruts caused by the torrential rains that ravage and desolate these picturesque and forgotten regions. by Ovide de Valgorge. Memories of Ardèche
Former holiday hotel with a garden along the Allier, L'Etoile Guest House is located in La Bastide-Puylaurent between Lozere, Ardeche, and the Cevennes in the mountains of Southern France. At the crossroads of GR®7, GR®70 Stevenson Path, GR®72, GR®700 Regordane Way, GR®470 Allier River springs and gorges, GRP® Cevenol, Ardechoise Mountains, Margeride. Numerous loop trails for hiking and one-day biking excursions. Ideal for a relaxing and hiking getaway.
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