Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

[The dead, wrapped in their shrouds, rise from every part of the dark and silent church, they are pale and sad but
calm, for the fires of Purgatory have no power over them on All Saints Day and the day after.] 157
It is the mixture of fact and fantasy ‘la fusion de ses attributions surnaturelles avec les
mystères d’un monde extérieur’ [the fusion of the supernatural with the mysteries of the outside
world] that gives Langlois the opportunity in his prose poem to create what he calls a ‘vignette
épouvantablement romantique’ [a terribly romantic vignette]. 158 It is a phrase that catches the
peculiarly self-mocking seriousness of the Hymne à la Cloche and much of his other work. Like
Hugo he weaves the recent past back into the history of the bell which has rung for victories
from Hastings to Austerlitz. In the introduction to the piece, which explains, in dialogue form,
how it came to be written, there are notes about the history of real bells including that of
Georges, Cardinal d’Amboise, the principal bell of Rouen cathedral, which was struck in 1500.
In 1786, as it was being rung for Louis XVI on his visit to the town, it cracked ‘comme pour
présager le sort de ce prince infortuné; elle fut mise en pieces en quatre-vingt-treize, et convertie
en canons’ [as if in premonition of the fate of that unhappy prince; it was broken in pieces in ’93
and made into canon]. 159
Langlois wrote on many subjects; architecture, calligraphy, stained glass and the stalls of
Rouen cathedral among them. He was certainly of the ‘manners and customs’ tendency within
antiquarianism and his classical training led him to look, like Sara Losh, for the Greek and
Roman origins of Christian iconography and customs. One of the most persistent themes in his
work, however, is an interest in sacred and profane rituals; carnivals, masquerades, the feast of
fools and most importantly the Dance of Death. While he was insistent that these ‘profanations et
… desguisemens grotesques ou hideux dont nous avons fait le principal objet de nos recherches’
[profanities and grotesque or hideous masqueradings which we have made the principal object of
our research] were in every way to be deplored there is no mistaking their fascination for him as
he recounts the wild dancing in the sanctuary of Notre Dame at the feast of St Etienne, a scene
that would have suited Hugo’s novel. 160 His study of the Dance of Death was a life-long project
157 Langlois, Hymne a la Cloche, p.10.
158 Langlois, Hymne a la Cloche, p. xiii.
159 Langlois, Hymne a la Cloche, p. xii.
160 Langlois, Les Stalles de Rouen, p.125.
151