Some artworks or artefacts can take you by surprise and leave you jaw-droppingly stunned. That is to say, you might take a passing glance at something that appears mildly interesting and assume that you have it more-or-less figured out. For instance, the gargoyles of Reims with their molten-lead filled mouths…
The art of survival
So, you find yourself in the French city of Reims. Reading that previous sentence, your ‘internal voice’ might have pronounced the city’s name as something like ‘Reems.’ Take a lesson: the French pronounce the name of the city as something more like ‘Rrraants.’ It’s now time to adjust that internal voice of yours as you read on about… Reims. And more specifically about Notre-Dame de Reims, otherwise known as Our Lady of Reims or simply Reims Cathedral. (Got the triple-time hang of it now?).
Built in the soaring High Gothic style, the cathedral in Reims assumed its (more or less) current shape over the period 1211 – 1345. But a Catholic church of some kind has existed on the site since at least 496AD, being the year that the first French king, Clovis, was crowned there. From that time, all French coronations took place in Reims Cathedral: yes, all 31 of them, ending with King Charles X in 1825 – with various revolutions and republican outbreaks along the way.
The cathedral is immense and is topped by twin bell towers that climb 81 metres or 266 feet into the sky: the modern-day equivalent of a 26-storey building. Next time you’re in a city centre, take an elevator up to the twenty-sixth floor and make your way to a window that looks out and down. And then imagine the visual impact that Reims Cathedral must have had when it reached those giddy heights back in 1345.
A visually striking external design aspect of Gothic cathedrals are the typical abundance of stone grotesques and gargoyles projecting outwards from the walls. They might look pretty much the same to the casual observer, but fantastical grotesques are decorative, while gargoyles are actually cathedral roof drainage channels that cast rain water away from their open mouths. When viewed up close, those channels carved into the upper stone surfaces of gargoyles are quite obvious – but they cannot be seen be people looking upwards from the ground. When you see a gargoyle at work on a rainy day, the water cascading from the gargoyle’s open mouth seems to appear and fall as if by magic.
Here is where the gargoyle story takes an odd turn. During the First World War, Reims Cathedral suffered around 400 direct and deliberate hits from German artillery shells. A great fire broke out in September 1914, melting the lead sheeting and capping on the roof. On this occasion, the gargoyles drained rivers of molten lead instead of water. When the fire subsided, the gargoyle as pictured (among several others) was found in the rubble, with the molten lead now solidified in its channel and mouth.
When you see this artefact on display in the Tau Palace next to the cathedral, you might imagine that it is simply demonstrating how a gargoyle functions as an elevated water drainage channel. But no. You come to realise that the molten and now solid lead has been fixed in place since the fateful events of September 1914. It’s an immersive moment in your life that is utterly staggering.
After the devastation of the First World War, Reims Cathedral was painstakingly rebuilt in the High Gothic style. It was re-opened in 1938 – just in time for another German invasion in 1940. But the Second World War in France was a ‘blitzkrieg’ or ‘lightning war’ of rapid military mobility and this time the cathedral was spared any significant damage.
Reims styles itself as the ‘unofficial capital’ of the Champagne region. It’s a title that is hotly contested by the nearby city of Epernay. Truth is, both towns have their own fabulous charms and each is well worth your attention.
By Brad Allan, writer and wine tasting host in Melbourne, Australia and frequent visitor to France…
