A Great Rock in a River

The Cathedral at Chartres is not just one of the greatest monuments to human thought and skill and faith in France, or in Europe, but in the world. Yet it is not really announced as such. It is surrounded, in winter at least, by a quiet, modest and not especially prosperous town. Not far from it, in rather drab surroundings, stands the haunting, almost desolate, freezing cold church of Saint Pierre which in any other place would be famous for its astonishing stained glass, but because of its nearby competitor, is comparatively neglected. It was so empty and seemingly forgotten when I visited it that it brought to mind the M.R. James ghost story "Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook," set in and around the echoing, shadowy, mysterious church of Saint Bertrand de Comminges (a real place close to the Pyrenees). Fortunately for me, I did not find in Chartres what Monty James’s hero found in Saint Bertrand.