Come stroll with me through Pont de l'Arche ...

 ... I'm picking up from where I left you in November last year (you can read that post Here).  We were at the corner of rue André Antoine and a little further down the street is the church … 

And yes, it looks stunning, doesn’t it?  Sitting as it does on the high ground above the river, it completely dominates the town, and it can be seen on the skyline for miles before you get here.  Its position and size lead you to believe, at first sight, that it must be a very important building.  But no, it really is just the local parish church.  Come inside, and I’ll share its history with you.

The church, Notre-Dame-des-Arts, has been in existence since the turn of the 15th century. Transcriptions of the parish accounts show that stone was bought in 1499-1500.  The building, as we see it today, was created very much as a piecemeal project.  In 1501 the first chapel began to be constructed.  The north nave was completed around 1509, the vaulting much later and probably sometime in the 1540s and the south nave was constructed, vaulted and completed towards the end of the following decade.

The design and ornamentation of this edifice are very typical of French Gothic.  But what makes this particular building so interesting is the overall plan.  Unlike most other churches on this scale and of this period, there is only one door in the south-west corner.  In addition, the nave is flanked by aisles on both the north and south sides.  There is no transept or the typically gothic west façade that can be found on any number of churches/cathedrals of the same era.  So, I can’t help but wonder what happened here.  Is this particular building just the result of its piecemeal construction?  Given that most buildings of this size would have taken a number of decades to complete, one would have expected to see many more as uniquely laid out as this one.  Perhaps the real conclusion and explanation is about money - the original plans exceeding the actual funds, and therefore compromises were constantly being made during building.  Whatever the truth, the church deserves more attention because it is, very probably, a bit of a one-off.

Bricks and mortar done with, the story doesn’t end there.  Look at the altarpiece.  It dominates the whole of the interior and is built into a polygonal chapel extending out from the end of the nave.  That’s not so different from many other religious buildings.  But this was added much later and is baroque in style and created during the seventeenth century.  The organ was a gift from Henry 4, who was King of Navarre from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610 when he died.  Henry 4 was the first of the Bourbon Kings.

Take a look at the windows whilst you are here.  They date from either the 16th or 17th centuries.  In particular, look at the two highly coloured windows to one side of the nave. These depict what was probably the major source of income for this sleepy little town with its vast church.  Men are loading and unloading boats at the river at the foot of the town.  After the Hundred Years War (1337-1453), most municipalities in northern France were verging on bankruptcy.  But the river, used for trade along the Seine and the Eure, may have been the reason for this town’s swift rise in prosperity following the end of hostilities.  Maybe that’s where the original income came from in 1499 to enable the purchase of the stone. Perhaps my contention above about the eccentricity of the church and the continuing availability of money is not so very far-fetched!

If you enjoyed reading this post, you might also like to take a stroll with me through Joinville or  Argentan