Châlons-sur-Marne Travel Guide

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Unless one has a very detailed guide or is very knowledgeable about the development of stained glass technic, it is hard to date church windows. So adept are modern workers that perfect imitations of ancient styles can be produced. Only pigment colors and aging effects are clues for critics. The windows are 16C and quite fine, especially on the South side. Our illustrations cover windows dealing with the Compassion and Dormition of the Virgin and the Life of Christ. A fine example of 19C simulation of earlier style is the West Front (including the Rose; by Didron 1863).

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The interior is long and this is emphasized by a considerable height. The four levels give it that height which continues around the choir area. The elevation is of 4 levels as is typical of the Parisian type of early Gothic with a tall tribune gallery and a small blind triforium under the small clerestory windows. The arched bays are each quite large, with supporting large compound piers. The stonework filling the vaults is clearly visible. The builders incorporated all the recent innovations such as flying buttresses outside. Thus this structure is a good example of the transition from Romanesque to Gothic typical of the late 12C and thereafter

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The capitals in the museum show the same range of skill and expression as do the column statues. Most of the figures on them are deeply carved, some almost escaping from the block. The need to work from the corners has been overcome and real depth is achieved. Biblical scenes abound. There is also a damaged bas-relief Pieta at the foot of the cross that is exceptional.

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The Cloister of Notr-Dame-en-Vaux must ave been spectacular! Most of the supportive columns must have had acarved figure projecting from the surface: prophets and Biblical persons and maybe others. We have never seen anything like this in all of our travels. The figures are as tall as the double columns (about 4 feet) and attached. The paired columns have double capitals whose decorations range from foliated to detailed historiated with the four faces concerned with one story. Some columns are spiral carved like at Monreale where Cosmati-like tiles were inserted Above them a graceful set of arches extended connecting the columns, which stood upon a lower wall. The sculpture style ranges from rigid and stiff to almost free-standing and lively.

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Although very fine sculptors created the tympani in Chalons, the transepts did not far well during the Revolution. On the east side of each transept is a tower: Romanesque (north) and Gothic (south). On the South transept higher up tan the destructive ladders could reach, the protecting statues of saints-bishops survive but are still neglected as they serve their functions.

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The Cathedral has a mixed Classical and Baroque facade (built between 1628-34) that is a jarring disconnect from its strict Gothic reconstruction days. Those started after a destructive fire in 1230. The church has short transepts and a very short chancel. There are two towers east of the transepts. In spite of this cramping at that end, it is 100m long and has ingested the early Gothic style from Paris and contemporaries nearby with lots of flying buttresses and a sturdy vaulting (that would not burn again). By 1310 there was a working Gothic church; it retained only the North Romanesque Tower from the older church (compare with the Rayonnant Gothic South Tower). The short transepts each boast a Rose window. The facade also has a Rose but it is prettified by a chubby-faced Angel above it and it sits over a classic set of columns and a double doorway capped by a rectangular panel that is a sort of tympanum (displaying what we think is Heaven?). And they thought Gothic was ugly!

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Notre-Dame was a collegiate church with an attached cloister. The church was built in the 12C and the chevet was finished in the early 1200's. It has a Romanesque West front with corner towers capped with lead covered spires and a Rose Window below which are 3 large lancet windows. There are also Romanesque towers at the chevet beyond the transepts. On the South side is a Portal with mutilated column statues standing under a 15C porch. The cloister was destroyed by the church canons in 1759 to make room for teir own residences. (Do not miss the remains. See our Tip). The church also has a fine carillon that is sometimes heard.