The thirteenth-century Cathédrale Notre-Dame
(daily 7.30am-7.30pm) features prominently in French history: in 1429
Joan of Arc succeeded in getting the Dauphin crowned here as Charles
VII - an act of immense significance when France was more or less wiped
off the map by the English and their allies. In all, 26 kings of France
were crowned in the Gothic glory of this edifice.
The
lure of the cathedral's interior is the kaleidoscopic patterns in the
stained glass, with Marc Chagall designs in the east chapel and
champagne processes glorified in the south transept. But the greatest
appeal is outside: an inexplicable joke runs around the restored but
still badly mutilated statuary on the west front - the giggling angels
who seem to be responsible for disseminating the prank are a rare
delight. Not all the figures on the cathedral's west front are
originals - some have been removed to spare them further erosion and
are now at the former bishop's palace, the Palais du Tau. Between June and September the upper parts of the cathedral are open to the public ( 10-11.30am & 2-5.30pm;
guided tour every 30min; €3.81); as well as a walk round the transepts
and chevet, you get to see inside the framework of the cathedral roof.
At the Palais du Tau
(daily: mid-March to June & Sept to mid-Nov 9.30am-12.30pm &
2-6pm; July & Aug 9.30am-6.30pm; mid-Nov to mid-March 10am-noon
& 2-5pm; €4.88), next door to the cathedral, you can appreciate the
expressiveness of the statuary from close up - a view that would never
have been possible in their intended monumental positions on the
cathedral. Apart from the grinning angels, there are also some
friendly-looking gargoyles and a superb Eve, shiftily clutching the
monster of sin. As added narrative, embroidered tapestries of the Song of Songs
line the walls. The palace also preserves, in a state of unlikely
veneration, the paraphernalia of the arch-reactionary Charles X's
coronation in 1824, right down to the dauphin's hat box. In being
anointed here in purple pomp - after the Revolution, Robespierre and
Napoléon had tried to achieve a new France - Louis XVI's brother stated
his intention to return the country to the ancien régime . His attempt turned out to be short-lived, but the tradition he was calling upon dated back to 496 AD when Clovis, king of the Franks, was baptized in Reims.
Just west of the cathedral on rue Chanzy, the Musée des Beaux-Arts
(daily except Tues & public hols 10am-noon & 2-6pm; €1.52) is
the city's principal art museum, which, though ill suited to its
ancient building and very perse, effectively covers French art from
the Renaissance to the present. Few of the works are among the
particular artists' best, but the collection does contain one of
David's replicas of his famous Marat death scene, a set of 27 Corots,
two great Gauguin still lifes, some beautifully observed
sixteenth-century German portraits, and various interesting odds and
ends, including an old tabac sign from nineteenth-century Reims.
Five minutes away, there's another museum in the Hôtel de Vergeur
, 36 place du Forum (Tues-Sun 2-6pm; €3.05): it is a stuffed treasure
house of all kinds of beautiful objects, including two sets of Dürer
engravings - an Apocalypse and Passion of Christ - but
you have to go through a long guided tour of the whole works. By the
museum there's access to sections of the partly submerged arcades of
the crypto portique Gallo-Romain (mid-June to mid-Sept Tues-Sun 2-5pm; free), which date back to 200 AD. Reims' other Roman monument, the quadruple-arched Porte de Mars , on place de la République, belongs to the same era.
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