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Notre-Dame de Reims

The Gothic cathedrals of Europe were very much the skyscrapers of their time both for their reach to the sky and their intent to demonstrate the stature of the cities and of the bishoprics (a Roman Catholic cathedral refers to the church that is the seat of the bishop) in which they were built.

In 469 Clovis, King of the Franks, was baptized in Reims by Bishop-cum-Saint Remi. That fundamental consecration of the marriage of Church and King in France, is shown on the façade of Notre-Dame de Reims as it is in many other cathedrals in France. (The marriage was formally dissolved during the French Revolution. There were attempts at national therapy to patch things up in the 19th century, but for over a hundred years now the marriage has been declared over, with the separation of assets clearly identified by the law of 1905.)

In memory of the baptism of Clovis, it became firm tradition as of the 9th century that a king of France should come to Reims, 80 miles northeast of Paris, to confirm his divinely-inspired power over his kingdom and the Church’s intimate role in that power. That confirmation required anointing by a holy ointment kept in a holy vial. By the time this Notre-Dame was begun, in 1211, the construction of a cathedral in keeping with Reims’s stature and role as the site of royal unction was long overdue.

Since the coronation of Louis VIII in 1223, all but three of the French kings were crowned in this cathedral. Those three are: Louis VI, who received unction in Orleans in 1108 because he felt it would be dangers to travel to Reims; Henri IV, who was crowned in Chartres in 1594 because Reims was in the hand of his enemies; Louis XVIII, who returned from exile in England to become king in 1814 and for whom no coronation ceremony was held in France.)

The historical events surrounding the 1429 coronation of Charles VII in the presence of Joan of Arc, who’d heard voices telling her that that the king must quit cowering in the Loire Valley and assume his god-given role in France, is celebrated each year in Reims over the first weekend of June in an annual Joan festival called les Fêtes Johanniques. The major event of the weekend is the Sunday afternoon reenactment of the procession to the cathedral from Saint Remi Basilica, Reims’ other important and impressive architectural monument.

Visitors arriving by car will find that the frontal approach leading to Rue Rockefeller and then the vast square in front of the cathedral is regal indeed. American industrialist John D. Rockefeller got the honors of a street named after him in thanks for the enormous funding he provided in the 1920s to rebuild the cathedral which had been heavily damaged by bombardment during WWI. (Another sizable donation by the American industrialist Andrew Carnegie allowed for the construction of the beautiful Art Deco public library that’s near the cathedral.)

There are lots of 20th-century windows here because of war damage, including the bright blue windows that draws your gaze the far end of the cathedral when you first enter were created by Marc Chagall in 1974.

Unlike Chartres, where the cathedral is the destination, Notre-Dame de Reims often plays second fiddle to the town’s main attraction: its champagne houses. After all, Reims along with Epernay, 18 miles south, are the main centers for champagne production, with many small producers nearby along the slopes between the two towns. Millions of bottles lie fermenting in tunnels north and east of the cathedral. Those bottles will eventually see the light of day—or night—dressed in the labels of Taittinger, Pommery, Mumm, Ruinart, Veuve-Cliquot, and other champagne houses.

There’s no escaping the influence of bubbly in Reims, even in the cathedral, where a series of stained glass windows donated by the region’s winemakers show it being made as though a scene from a regional bible.

But the most joyful symbol of the marriage of Church and champagne is the smiling angel on the façade of the cathedral that has come to represent the city itself. It wasn’t created with sparkling wine in mind, yet no visitor now admires the angel without associating the two.

Like Chartres and Amiens, Reims also had a labyrinth on its floor, but it was removed by the Church in 1779. Nevertheless, its image, taken from drawings made when the labyrinth was in place, is now the French Ministry of Culture’s logo designating historical monuments.

Notre-Dame d’Amiens

The final spoke in these radiating Notre-Dames leads north to the Cathedral of Amiens, 80 miles north of Paris, which has the largest interior of all the medieval mastodons of France, twice as voluminous as its elder sister Notre-Dame de Paris.

Amiens is perhaps the most harmonious of these cathedrals because, following the destruction of a previous cathedral destroyed by fire in 1218, it was built in a relatively short period of 50 years, from 1220 to 1270, making this the rare cathedral that an individual might see started and consecrated during his lifetime.

Along with its architectural prowess, the cathedral reveals a treasure chest of biblical, spiritual, political, and local anecdotes in stone, wood, and glass, all in tip-top condition thanks to cleaning and restoration in the 1990s. That work brought to light evidence of the extent to which the sculptures on the facade were painted in the Middle Ages. We often think of these medieval churches as being the color of the naked limestone, but in fact they were highly colored. An impressive 40-minute sound-and-light show (after nightfall in spring and summer and again in December) projects estimates of the original colors on the façade. Reims and Chartres also have sound-and-light shows against the façade of their cathedrals.

For the quality and drama of its sculptural works inside and out, Amiens is a remarkable monument to the talents of 13th century sculptors. Among its most celebrated details are the cartoon-like images of Hell on the central door, the crying angel behind the choir that came to be dear to soldiers visiting during the First World War, and the Golden Virgin which has been brought inside from its original pedestal on the southern entrance, where a copy now stands.

By the time Amiens’ cathedral was underway, the French style of architecture had gone mainstream and was spreading throughout Europe; Gothic cathedrals then sprouted up in surrounding kingdoms and empires until the 15th century. Then new winds of architectural and artistic change, those of the Renaissance, began to blow across the continent, this time set in motion by Italy. Follow those winds on another architectural trip abroad.

Practical information for visiting the five Notre-Dames

The Notre-Dames of Paris, Chartres, Laon, Reims and Amiens are all open daily and free for all visitors. These cathedrals are designated as national monuments; they are property of and largely maintained by the state, with the Catholic Church having permanent use of them for religious purposes. Visitors can enter at all times during the day except in the case of special events. Portions designated for religious service may be cordoned off for those attending service.

Church policy requests modest dress, such as covered shoulders and skirts or shorts that aren’t too short, and men should remove any hats upon entering. But authorities are fairly relaxed about it these days. In any case, visitors should respect the fact that the buildings do have a religious function along with their secular appeal as historical monuments.

If traveling in spring and summer consider attending a sound-and-light show after nightfall at the cathedrals of Chartres, Reims and Amiens (whose show also takes place in December).

While you can visit any of those outside of Paris by radiating out from the capital, Amiens, Laon (to which can be added the Gothic Saint-Quentin Basilica between Amiens and Laon) and Reims can be visited in a driving tour of the regions north and northeast of Paris. These can be combined with explorations of WWI sites in the countryside, making for a fascinating two or three or four days of historical touring, ending with a glass or three of champagne in and around Reims. The central tourist offices of those towns can provide information about WWI sites (including those with an American and Canadian presence) and specialized tours in the surrounding area.

Paris: The official website of the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau gives much practical information about visiting the city. The Catholic’s Church’s own information site about Notre-Dame provides details about the edifice as well as mass times, church-organized tours and concerts (the latter include free Sunday afternoon organ concerts which have been suspended during work on the instrument in 2012 and will resume in January 2013). Paris’s other great Gothic structure, the Saint Chapelle (Holy Chapel), the royal chapel of exquisite construction and mostly 13th-century glass, is just a few hundred yards from Notre-Dame in what was formerly a royal palace complex and is now the city’s judicial complex.

Saint-Denis: Saint-Denis Basilica, which is considered the first major structure built at the start of the Gothic era when reconstruction of its apse began in 1144, is located in the suburb/city of Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, and can be reached on metro (subway) line 13 at station Basilique de Saint-Denis. In 1966 it was also given the status of cathedral, so it is officially called the Basilica-Cathedral of Saint Denis. In addition to presenting extraordinary and luminous architecture, the basilica-cathedral contains dozens of royal tombs and funerary monuments since this was the traditional burial place of the royals of France. There is an entrance fee to visit the tombs and monuments. More information can be found here.

Chartres: 56 miles southwest of Paris; 1¼ hour by car; an hour by train departing from Paris Montparnasse Station; about $21 one way. In addition to its daytrip appeal, Chartres can be visited on the way to/from the Loire Valley or Brittany or as a detour to/from Normandy. Tourist information can be found here.  The church’s own website is here. A sound-and-light show takes place on the facade of the cathedral from April 20 to September 21.

Laon: 85 miles northeast of Paris; 2 hours by car; 1½-2 hours for direct trains departing every hour or two from Paris North (Nord) Station; about $30 one way. The Laon Tourist Office is beside the cathedral. Tourist officials have told me that few Canadians or Americans visit the town, so North Americans should stop into the tourist office while here and ask to be counted. Cathedral tours are worthwhile even when only in French because they give access to portions of the building that are otherwise inaccessible. Also see this photo reportage about Notre-Dame de Laon.

Reims: 80 miles northeast of Paris; 1¾ hours by car; 45-50 minutes by high-speed train (TGV) from Paris East (Est) Station; about $44. The tourist office is next to the cathedral and can provide information about visiting champagne house in the city. The church’s own website is here. A 25-minute sound-and-light show takes place at the cathedral certain evenings from June to September.

Amiens: 80 miles directly north of Paris; 1 ¾ hours by car; 70-100 minutes for direct trains leaving about every 1½ hours from Paris North (Nord) Station; about $29 one way. Amiens’ tourist information website is found here. Amiens projects a magnificent light show onto the façade of its cathedral. The last train back to Paris from Amiens leaves shortly after 8pm most days, though, so in summer you’ll have to miss either the show or the train. The 40-minute projection begins at 7pm during its December run, when Amiens’ Christmas market may add a bit of an attraction, so those willing to venture north at that time of year can catch part of the show before hurrying off to the station. Also see this article about Amiens.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Radiating from Paris: Our Glorious Ladies of Gothic Architecture (Part II: Reims, Amiens, Practical Tips) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

April 16, 2019. In the wake of the fire that destroyed the roof and steeple of Notre-Dame to Paris, we republish this article paying homage to five glorious ladies of Gothic architecture, written in 2012 as Paris prepared the jubilee celebration honoring the 850th anniversary of the start of construction of the “new” cathedral of Paris.

As Paris prepares the jubilee celebration honoring the 850th anniversary of the beginning of construction of Notre-Dame Cathedral in 1163, France Revisited pays homage to that great Gothic monument at the center of the capital and to four other Notre-Dame Cathedrals within 100 miles of Paris. This article, of special interest to the historical and architectural traveler, is divided into two parts. Part I below concerns Notre-Dames of Paris, Laon and Chartres. Part II concerns Notre-Dames of Reims and Amiens and includes practical tips for visiting all five.

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Think Notre-Dame and the great cathedral of Paris comes to mind. Notre-Dame (Our Lady) needs no last name; it refers first and foremost to the Gothic monument at the heart of the world’s most visited city.

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, to use its full name, is just one the great dames of Gothic architecture in northern France, the region at the hub of European religious architectural evolution in the 12th and 13th centuries and further restyling in the 14th and 15th centuries. Within a hundred miles of the French capital, four other Notre-Dame Cathedrals, each remarkable in its own way and each easily reached by train, offer the artful traveler their treasures of stone, sculpture and stained glass: Notre-Dame de Chartres, Notre-Dame de Laon, Notre-Dame de Reims and Notre-Dame d’Amiens.

Properties of the State, these monuments are now the heritage of secular France as much as they are of Catholic France. Indeed, the great benefit of France’s devotion to maintaining and restoring them is that we, as visitors, have access to their technological and artistic magnificence and their craftsmanship without being asked to accept the doctrine and the politics that gave rise to their construction. One can naturally pray, reflect and/or confess there, but while these cathedrals continue to function as Catholic prayer houses, they do not require practice or belief in order to be appreciated for they also function is historical monuments—and not solely of French history, but of European history and world history as well.

The five Roman Catholic cathedrals described here are among the magnificent mammoths of French Gothic architecture. “French” Gothic is actually somewhat redundant for these structures begun between 1163 and 1120 since France’s role in developing techniques to build higher and wider structures and then to embellish them was so prominent that what we now call Gothic architecture was long referred to as “French style” or “the French art.”

Notre-Dame de Paris

The term Gothic was invented by culture mavens of the 16th century, dominated by Italian influences, because they saw the prior generation of churches as passé, lacking harmony and refinement, barbaric like the Goths of the Dark Ages. But try convincing the 13-14 million people that visit Notre-Dame de Paris each year that they’ve come to see something crass.

In 1160 Bishop Maurice de Sully of Paris decided that his city’s cathedral—at the time a hodgepodge of older structures built over successive foundations going back to Roman times—needed to enter the modern era. In 1163 the foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid in the presence of Pope Alexander III. The 850th anniversary of that event is being celebrated at Notre-Dame from Dec. 12, 2012 to Dec. 11, 2013, with some events beyond that date.

The anniversary has been the occasion to the replace tired old bells for the towers, design of new interior lighting, restore the organ, and create a new museography in the treasury. Conferences, concerts and other religious celebrations honoring the jubilee will take place throughout the year.

Though the footprint of the Notre-Dames was set in place when construction was launched, evolving techniques and styles would lead to modifications of plans over the decades, even centuries, that it took to complete the project. The central potion and towers of Notre-Dame de Paris took about 77 years to complete, the great rose windows another 20 years, and the light-infused chapels surrounding the choir another 70.

Gothic architecture began with decades in structural development of rib vaults by trial and error, so there is no single inventor of this type of architecture. Glimpses of the evolution toward the rib vault had come from various horizons, including from Moorish and Arab arches. But Saint Denis Basilica, just north of Paris, set the tone for the next three centuries of religious architecture in France (and well beyond) when in 1144 Abbot Segur, the man who gets the most credit, launched the reconstruction of the abbey church that was then affirming its status as the final resting place of the kings of France.

The main features of Gothic architecture such as the ribbed vault, the pointed arch, lancet windows, flying buttresses, even its gargoyles, were solutions to technical problems rather than decorative tastes. Previous techniques (Romanesque vaulting and buttressing) had reached its limits in height and width without the structure collapsing from its own weight. The solution was a new kind of vault able to bear the weight though relatively narrow pillars, with the outward thrust supposed by other arches and eventually supported by flying buttresses. Height and width increased while the most remarkable feature of these new structures was that walls now relieved of the role of bearing the full weight of the structure’s upward reach could now be opened to allow in light through fanciful windows.

While the craft of making colored or semi-transparent glass and joining them together with lead strips existed before the Gothic period, the accomplishment of structural techniques allowing for large opening (lancet windows, rose windows and assorted tracery) led to an explosion of stained-glass making, allowing for a craft to develop into an art.

Using metal oxides, minerals or plants, stained glass makers developed reds, greens, blues and yellows that not only flooded these structures with light but allowed the church to illustrate scenes from the Bible, to speak of the lives of saints, and to represent local life, including that of noble donors and trade guilds that helped finance construction. At a time when the majority of the population was illiterate, being able to present stories in glass and in stone was an educational tool as well as a treat to the eye and a glorification of the subject.

Notre-Dame de Paris represents a feat of technical and artistic prowess for the time. Higher and wider cathedrals exist. Stunning windows can also be seen elsewhere. Yet even first-time 21st-century visitors to Notre-Dame, now accustomed to light-infused interiors, emit oohs and ahs of appreciation when standing with a view of the long, high nave. Imagine then how a visitor entering in the early 1300s, when the cathedral was nearing completion, must have felt. The scene from the Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy and her three traveling companions first enter the realm of the great wizard himself comes to mind.

Visitors today can take a tour or borrow an audio-guide or find an app to better understand the main features of Notre-Dame’s windows, sculptures, paintings, architecture and history. Or you can follow in-depth guidebooks to learn the vocabulary of Notre-Dame: ambulatory, apse, baldachin, bay, chancel, chevet, clerestory, façade, frieze, gargoyles, keystone, lancet windows, narthex, nave, portal, portico, radiating chapel, rose window, stained glass, transept, triforium, vaulting, etc..

Of course, not everyone is interested in all of those details. Still, the impression, the eye appeal, remains and may be sufficient to feel that one has discovered something special in seeing Our Lady of Paris. Even more special, it’s worth noting that Paris is graced with two extraordinary monuments representing major advancements in the evolution of construction over the past 900 years: Sully’s cathedral and Eiffel’s tower. Some may even see in the Eiffel Tower an echo of Notre-Dame’s spire, a 19th-century addition to the cathedral

The height and fame of the Eiffel Tower tends to make it the elevation of choice for visitors who want to see over the rooftops of Paris, but the Quasimodo view from atop Notre-Dame, 402 steps up (and a painful 1½-2½-hour wait in line at most times of year), is actually the city’s most telling view since the cathedral stands on an island at the geographical and historic center of the city.

Notre-Dame de Laon

Laon’s Notre-Dame, 85 miles northeast of Paris, is a luminous cathedral that dominates the surrounding town and countryside from atop the last outlier plateau of the northern edge of the Paris region. This is another first-generation or primitive Gothic structure, begun at about the same time as the cathedral of Paris. Few of the millions of visitors to Paris’s Notre-Dame come this way, primarily because from Paris Laon isn’t on the direct route to any major city or region. It’s well worth the detour and is gratifyingly off the beaten track.

Other medieval churches and cathedrals rightfully boast about their stained glass windows, but on a sunny day the clear windows in the lantern tower of Notre-Dame de Laon allows the naked stone inside to bathe in a seductive, uniform light.

While Laon can’t pride itself on its colored glass, it’s got gargoyles galore. And what would Gothic cathedrals be without their gargoyles? The short answer: infiltrated by water. Indeed, gargoyles, from the French word for gurgle, are firstly water spouts, designed to direct water away from the building. Their decorative aspect is secondary.

We generally think of gargoyles as representing devilish figures warding off evil along with rainwater. Yet gargoyles and other carved figures on the sides and tops of cathedrals aren’t all grotesques or chimeras. Along with the fabulous bestiary of water spouts on its outer walls, Laon has the particularity of presenting sculptures of oxen near the top of its towers, placed here in homage to their role in hauling stones to create the edifice.

Medieval architects, the masons, the craftsman, and the general population clearly had a different sense of time in launching such a massive project. In fact, the towers of many medieval cathedrals were never completed. Two of the seven towers originally planned for Laon were never built.

Guided tours take visitors up to the second-floor walkabout or tribune, giving a rare plunging view from inside a Gothic cathedral as well as the treat of seeing up close a collection of dismantled old gargoyles and weathered original sculptures—they truly are magnificent sight, a kind of medieval-cum-contemporary art that may even be more dramatic and telling now than when first created. Refashioned copies of these now adorn the cathedral outside.

From the second floor, the tour goes up to the towers, near the oxen, for a wonderful view of the cathedral’s heights, the old town below, and the surrounding countryside. Notre-Dame de Laon isn’t the highest of these cathedrals as measured from its base, but built on a plateau and has a wide view over the region. This Notre-Dame fully deserves its place among the great dames of France.

(More views of Notre-Dame de Laon can be found in the photo reportage here.)

Notre-Dame de Chartres

The French sculptor Auguste Rodin, a forward-looking artist who was never afraid to look back, called the Cathedral of Chartres “the Acropolis of France” for the way that it brought together the best that France had to offer in a building: rock for the walls, arches and sculptures; wood for the roof timbers; plants and minerals to color the stained glass, and the sun to stream through them.

Well, maybe not always sun here in northern France, but Chartres, 56 miles southwest of Paris, nevertheless stands out in any weather or season as one of the foremost jewels of Gothic art and architecture.

As all of these Notre-Dames, the cathedral seen today at Chartres stands on the remnants of a succession of religious buildings on its site. War, fire or a need to expand led to the construction of successive churches here. Some claim, without proof, that this site was already sacred to the Druids who led religious affairs for the Celtic tribe defeated during the Roman conquest of 52 BC. Pourquoi pas? The crypt of a 9th-century church that was destroyed by fire still lies under the current cathedral. Another fire in 1194 destroyed much of the 11th and 12th-century Romanesque basilica that replaced, though the western façade and its tower bases remain.

As for most of the rest, that 1194 fire coincided with a period of near mastery of Gothic architecture, and the builders, craftsman and artists involved with the relatively quick construction of Chartres took full advantage of that know-how. The cathedral was consecrated in 1260.

The silhouette of Notre-Dame de Chartres’ two uneven towers can be seen from miles away as you arrive by train or by car through the region’s wheat plains.

More than Notre-Dame de Paris, Chartres, a second-generation or classical Gothic construction, reveals the technological, artisanal and artistic prowess of the 13th century in part because it is exceptionally rich in stained glass from that time. That’s why so many travelers choose Chartres for their primary cathedral excursion from Paris. Though Amiens is a more entertaining town, Laon is more of an off-the-beaten-track discovery, and Reims offers more history plus champagne, Chartres Cathedral is rightfully deserving of its status as the ideal monument, for those willing to spend the time, for an in-depth understanding of Gothic art, craft and architecture.

Though most people now come to Chartres for the splendor of the cathedral rather than for prayer, it’s not uncommon to see some visitors following the 13th-century labyrinth inlaid on the floor beyond the entrance. Walked (or shuffled along on one’s knees) at a steady rhythm in silent prayer or meditation, movement along the labyrinth can symbolize a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the route to Christian redemption. It can also be seen simply as pleasant decoration. (An American company builds copies of the labyrinth for churches in the United States—choose your pavers.)

There are 4000 statues on the entranceways yet the cathedral is most celebrated for its stained glass windows, 28,000 square feet (or just over three-fifths of an acres) of them, mostly dating from 12th and 13th centuries. At a time when the majority of the population was illiterate, these representations in glass and in stone—of scenes from the Bible, of the lives of saints, of local life, and of noble donors and guilds that helped finance construction—were not simply decorative; they were an educational tool and a glorification of their subject.

Notre-Dame de Chartres is so rich in sculpture, stained glass and architectural details that having a guided tour or an audio-guide or book to point out some of the most significant ones can go a long way in helping you understand the cathedral’s hows and whys.

Click here to continue to Part 2 of this article covering Reims, Amiens and practical tips for visiting the five Notre-Dame Cathedrals.

The post Radiating from Paris: Our Glorious Ladies of Gothic Architecture (Part I: Paris, Laon, Chartres) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

You know the joke about the researchers and the elephants? A German, a Frenchman, and a Jew go to Africa to study elephants. After spending some time observing the elephants, the three researchers define their projects. The German decides it would be important to study the hierarchical organization within the elephant herd. The Frenchman thinks it would be interesting to study the sex lives of elephants. And the Jew wants to study the relationship between the elephants and the Jews.

I didn’t expect to encounter many elephants when choosing Amiens, capital of the Picardy region, for an easy daytrip from Paris. I simply looked forward to a small-city stroll, a mild aura of discovery, tidbits about a former local celebrity named Jules Verne, an impressed gaze at a colossal cathedral, a pause in a riverside café, and a bite of a local sweet. In short, a daytrip I might recommend to travelers looking for an accessible break from the big city.

So I made a few appointments, did some bedtime research, suffered the personal embarrassment of rereading a brief and banal passage from my own 1993 guide to France (“Amiens has little to offer of interest other than a Cathedral Notre-Dame, but what a cathedral it is…”), and in the morning took the 70-minute train ride to Amiens from Paris’s North Station.

Elephants in Jules Verne

Unguided, a visit to a writer’s home can be a holy bore for the all but the most passionate or studious fan, and the house where Jules Verne lived from 1882 to 1900 is no exception. In the company of an informed narrator, however, a writer’s walls, furnishings and paraphernalia reveal the writing life and the juxtaposition of call-me-when-dinner’s-ready and the mapping of extraordinary voyages of the mind.

The narrator for my visit was Rachel Visse, whose presentation of Jules Verne (1828-1905) flowed so captivatingly and conversationally that I almost felt that she was flirting with me, and vice versa. But perhaps that’s because Verne also appealed to the writer, the traveler, and the teenage map-dreamer in me—though not necessarily the reader in me.

Verne’s Extraordinary Voyages—Voyage to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days, etc.—were international best-sellers that made him a literary superstar by the time he moved to Amiens, his wife’s hometown, in 1871.

Nowadays, the scientific promise and fantasies of the latter half of the 19^th century are less likely to trigger the dreams of 10-15-year-old boys (Verne’s core market) and other armchair travelers; the integrated circuit has tempered the general public’s fascination with mechanics, steam engines, and flying vessels; maps themselves are now less likely to spark the imagination.

Nevertheless, as a pioneer of science fiction and the most translated French writer of all time, Verne remains the rare French author whom Americans not only have heard about but whose works focus on neither philosophy nor infidelity.

Born in Nantes, a city downstream the Loire that renovated its own Jules Verne Museum last year in honor of the centennial of its native son’s death, Verne went to Paris to study law but was soon drawn to the theater. At the completion of his studies he decided to not follow his father’s footsteps into the courthouse but instead devoted himself to writing and increasingly became engrossed in the novelties of science and in global explorations.

These interests first came together in Five Weeks in a Balloon, published to enormous success in 1863 by Pierre-Jules Hetzel. Reflecting the important role played by Verne’s publisher and persuasive editor, Hetzel’s office, library and files are also now presented here along with the numerous reformatted editions of Verne’s work that he published for an avid public.

Verne’s own office and adjoining rooms speak volumes (at least with Rachel as interpreter) about the author’s passion for applied science and technology, of his tremendous, contractual output that brought forth 32 novels while living in this house, and of the international appeal of his work. Posters displayed in the attic demonstrate that Verne’s extraordinary and sometimes visionary adventures, played out by simplistic, driven characters, have been a natural attraction for filmmakers since the early days of cinema.

In tune with Verne’s colonial times, elephants make an occasional, exotic appearance in the novels. Examining those and other beasts one finds a writer who tried to find his personal balance between a belief in democracy and a desire for order, a writer who was naturally discreet concerning the sex lives of his characters, and a writer able to use the anti-Semitic caricature of the ugly, miserly, cheating Jew who is swept along on the comet on which the novel Hector Servadac takes place. Indeed, the house itself affirms Verne’s attachment to the late 19^th-century bourgeoisie.

His celebrity status in Amiens and his sense of civic duty led him, among other things, to champion the construction of the metallic circus that can be seen down the road, which he inaugurated as the town’s celebrated citizen and as a member of the town council. I visited the circus but didn’t see any elephants there.

Elephants in the Cathedral

Nowadays Amiens (pop. 136,000) would be large enough to get lost in were it not for the fact that you need only look for the the Perret Tower, a 30-story blockhouse that was one of Europe’s first post-war skyscrapers, to find your way back to the train station or for the highest steeple to find your way to the cathedral and hence the historic center (and the tourist office).

A statue of Pierre l’Hermit/Peter the Hermit overlooks a parking lot behind the cathedral. He is posed as rabble-rouser inciting the Christians of Europe to drop the tools of the everyday and band together for a higher cause: wresting control of the Holy Land from the Muslims. Echoing Pope Urban II, he preached Dieu le Veux(Deus vult, God wills it) as he played the revivalist Pied Piper and led a growing group of paupers on a long march south. Urban II promoted a more organized campaign led by European (mostly French) feudal leaders, whose conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 would become known as the First Crusade. Roving bands and local leaders in the Rhineland had in the meantime perverted the argument in 1096 by carrying out Europe’s first massive slaughter of Jews.

The presence of the statue of Peter the Hermit could now be seen as inflammatory were it not so historical—Peter had been a priest in Amiens before he took to the road—and were it not for the fact that Christianity doesn’t have much public ambition in France these days. (Back home some fringe group would be petitioning to move the statue to the front of the courthouse before a compromise would be found and the good citizens of the state would unite to pass a constitutional amendment denying same-sex marriage.)

If the First Crusade managed to keep its primary focus on Jerusalem, the Fourth, which peaked with warfare from 1202 to 1204, became a free-for-all of spiritually-challenged destructive profiteering as the Crusaders mistook Constantinople for Jerusalem and confirmed the schism between the Latin and Orthodox Churches. When it comes to the use of force, it appears that Deus vult can also be translated as “Whatever it takes.”

Amiens indirectly benefited from that Crusade when a canon of the cathedral returned with what was said to be the front portion of the skull of Saint John the Baptist. A Romanesque cathedral stood here at the time, but its damage by fire in 1218 was the perfect excuse to join the spiritual arms race with the construction of a new, modern (i.e. Gothic) edifice. The saint’s skull played its part as a fund-raising tool since the presence of such a major relic meant major traffic of pilgrims.

Begun in 1220, Notre-Dame d’Amiens followed in the footsteps of the increasingly vast and high cathedrals then under construction, such as Our Ladies of Chartres (1195) and of Reims (1211). Amiens’ cathedral would eventually be able to boast the largest interior of all the medieval mastodons of France, twice as voluminous as Notre-Dame de Paris (begun 1163).

Its sheer size and the quality and drama of its sculptural work allow for an impressive visit even without a guide. Should your timing coincide with a guided tour, however, you should certainly join.

Along with its architectural prowess, the cathedral reveals a treasure chest of biblical, spiritual, political, and local anecdotes in stone, wood, and glass, all in tip-top condition thanks to restoration work of the 1990s. My guide for the afternoon, Marina Raby, a transplant from the south who has allowed her passion for local history to take root in Amiens, brought my attention to some of Our Lady’s most remarkable details, from the cartoon drama of Hell on the central door to the crying angel behind the choir by way of the central labyrinth, assorted tombs, and a gilded virgin. With Marina’s help, I read in the 16^th-century woodwork enclosing the north side of the choir the events surrounding the beheading of John the Baptist, a story that echoes woodwork on the south side recounting the beheading in 300 of Saint Firmin, Amiens’ first bishop.

The cathedral’s recent restoration brought to light the extent to which the sculptural work on the facade was painted in the Middle Ages. Bringing modern technology to old stones, a free sound-and-light show (after sunset from mid-June to mid-September and again in December) projects a semblance of the original colors onto the facade.

Since the last train back to Paris leaves at 8:09pm most days, in summer you’ll have to miss either the show or the train. The projection begins at 7pm during its December run, when Amiens’ Christmas market may add a bit of an attraction, so those willing to venture north at that time of year can catch part of the show before hurrying off to the station.

Elephants in Paradise

It began to sprinkle as Marina led me through the Saint Leu Quarter, where houses huddle along branches of the River Somme and crisscrossing canals. Former quarter of tanners, millers, dyers and other water-dependant trades of the medieval town, Saint Leu is now a kempt residential zone, significantly restored since I visited 15 years ago. Seen from along the riverbank, the cathedral spreads like a fortress on the hill above the old town. If I hadn’t been approaching the day so dutifully I would have suggested to Marina that we stop at one of the cafés along the river. But as I was late for my next appointment we hurried through a heavy drizzle past the cafés and over the bridge to Les Hortillonnages.

Les Hortillonnages is a zone of “floating” gardens split by narrow waterways and survey lines into a thousand parcels. For centuries the land was given over to crops to be brought to market. Now it is largely devoted to private pleasure gardens and family picnicking, and leisurely visitors are invited to tour the zone on a guided tour on flat-bottom boats.

I’d imagined this as the kind of site that a foreign journalist, intent on advising travelers to a scantly known town, will visit suspecting that it won’t be special enough to mention with much conviction. He sees it to have seen it, to cross it off his list, as he might in visiting the elephant-deprived circus building championed by Jules Verne or in tasting the town sweet, a honey-flour-almond paste macaroon that hits the sweet spot but that falls flat when just yesterday he enjoyed Paris’s delicate, flavored sandwich-cookie variety: I did it, you needn’t, now let’s move on.

The drizzle had turned into a downpour by the time we arrived, and I thought that it would do no harm for my scheduled boat ride to be rained out; I could then head back to those cafés by the river. But shortly the rain stopped, the darker clouds moved on, the boatmen wiped the seats of their flat-bottom boats, and a woman at the reception desk told me, “That’s Monsieur Pelossof out by the boat. He’s waiting for you.”

Nisso Pelossof is the founding president of the Association for the Protection and Safeguard of the Site and the Environment of the Hortillonnages. In case that doesn’t sound important enough, the association has printed a brochure in English declaring that “The Association is entirely responsible for the beaconing of the rieux.” That means that they alone have the authority over signage on the 55 narrow waterways that cut through the 740 acre site. And I was afraid that it also meant that instead of the peaceably dull ride I otherwise expected I would spend the next 45 minutes nodding in feigned interest at the honorable founding president’s lengthy official discourse about community service, historical significance, top soil, and inadequate subsidies.

Nisso Pelossof, a spry, tan, older gent with thick white hair, greeted me at the dock with an enthusiastic handshake. He wore white khakis, a checked blue short sleeve shirt, a sleeveless fisherman’s vest, and a blue watchband.

He introduced me to our young boatman and welcomed me aboard. No sooner did the young man, standing at the stern, push us off from the side than Nisso noticed that I’d glimpsed the crude Nazi numbers tattooed on his arm, and he said, “I went through hell, now I live in paradise.”

It was undoubtedly a well-oiled line, subtle as a herd of elephants, but it had the immediate effect of taking me directly from a daytrip to foreign encounter.

During the course of our 45-minute glide along the waterways, Nisso alternated the story of his own route with indications of flora and fauna, anecdotes about family planting, weeding, and picnicking, and comments on communal union and disunion.

There was his deportation from the Greek island of Rhodes in 1944 at the age of 23… and there was a parcel planted with wildflowers; there was the decimation of his family at Auschwitz… and there was a mallard; there was his transfer from Auschwitz to Mathausan and then to Ebenzee… and there was a man with a hoe beside a woman with a bucket; there was Nisso’s decision not to return “in shame” to Rhodes… and there were some irises; there was the convoy going to France, there were wily struggles of a former deportee in Paris in 1946, there was Nisso the young photographer… and there was a lettuce field; there was his marriage to a French Catholic girl and their move to Amiens to open a photographic studio… and there was the birthing of the association he founded in 1975; there were his daughter taking over the photography studio… and there was a crested grebe by the rushes; there was his son the philosophy professor… and there was the parcel of a man who wouldn’t join the association; there was the death of his wife… and there was a crested grebe by the rushes; there was the writing of his autobiography (to be published next year)… and there were subsidies to purchase the electric-powered engine for these boats; and rounding a bend, as Nisso held my wrist to prepare me, there was the cathedral, as it might have appeared to a 16^th-century traveler approaching the city.

Then the elephant looked me in the eye and said:

“I think that you and I have something in common.”

“I’m Jewish if that’s what you’re referring to.”

“Oh, are you?” he said. “No, I was referring to the fact that you seem to appreciate a good story.”

© 2006, Gary Lee Kraut

Post-note: Nisso Pelossof passed away in 2011 at the age of 90.

Practical Information

Amiens Tourist Office

6 bis rue Dusevel

80010 Amiens Cedex 1

Tel. 03 22 71 60 50

www.amiens.com/tourisme

Trains leave Paris’s Gare du Nord (North Station) about once an hour. A 9, 10, even 11am departure allows for a full day in the city with a return to Paris for dinner.

Maison de Jules Verne

2 rue Charles-Dubois

80000 Amiens

Tel. 03 22 45 45 75

www.amiens.com/julesverne

Open Oct. 15-April 14 Mon., Wed., Thurs., Fri. 10am-12:30pm and 2-6pm; Sat. and Sun. 2-6pm; closed Tues.

Open April 15-Oct. 14 Mon., Wed., Thurs., Fri. 10am-12:30pm and 2-6:30pm; Tues. 2-6:30pm; Sat. and Sun. 11am-6:30pm.

Les Hortillonnages

54 boulevard Beauvillé

80000 Amiens

Tel. 03 22 92 12 18

E-mail. aspsseh@wanadoo.fr

The boatmen give some indications about flora and fauna. An English-speaking boatman may be available. Request when purchasing your ticket.

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