Saving the Light at Chartres

by Victor A. Pollak

  Finally, Moulin again conceded. He abandoned his plan to ship the remaining crates to La Tour-Blanche and instead ordered the trucks to head back to the cathedral. German attacks intensified during the night. Only hours after the trucks departed from the railhead at Berchères-les-Pierres with all of the remaining crates, an attack hit the station at Berchères-les-Pierres. A train carrying munitions situated near the rail cars that had contained the crates burst into flames from an explosion and destroyed all nearby railcars, including the two that had contained the crates.

  For the time being, all of the windows had escaped damage, but all of the participants would have been terrified to learn that the half of the priceless collection of stained glass that had been left behind at Berchères-les-Pierres—and possibly all, if the first train had not departed when it did—could have been pulverized or burned into tens of millions of particles of blackened sand, no different from the medieval sand from which the ancient glass had been forged almost eight hundred years before.

  Sunlight view of north and west facades of Chartres Cathedral, from the northwest. COURTESY OF MICHAEL CLEMENT.

  Charlemagne Window, Chartres Cathedral. COURTESY OF SONIA HALLIDAY.

  Tree of Jesse Window, Chartres Cathedral. COURTESY OF SONIA HALLIDAY.

  Life of the Virgin Mary Window, Chartres Cathedral. COURTESY OF SONIA HALLIDAY.

  Assumption Window, Chartres Cathedral. COURTESY OF SONIA HALLIDAY.

  Incarnation Window, Chartres Cathedral. COURTESY OF SONIA HALLIDAY.

  West facade and towers, Chartres Cathedral in sunlight, view from the west. COURTESY OF MICHAEL CLEMENT.

  Apse of Chartres Cathedral with late-afternoon sunlight, view from the choir. COURTESY OF MICHAEL CLEMENT.

  Blue Virgin Window (Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière), detail, Chartres Cathedral. COURTESY OF PATRICK COINTEPOIX.

  South transept rose window and lancets, Chartres Cathedral. COURTESY OF PATRICK COINTEPOIX.

  Altar and windows of a radiating chapel, Chartres Cathedral. COURTESY OF PATRICK COINTEPOIX.

  Welborn B. Griffith Jr., circa 1919–1920, in cadet’s uniform, at Bryan Street High School or Texas A&M. COURTESY OF ALICE IRVING.

  Welborn B. Griffth Jr., 1925, West Point yearbook, The Howitzer. COURTESY OF KEVIN COFFEY.

  Welborn B. Griffith Jr., modeling infantry combat uniform, circa 1928–1929. COURTESY OF ALICE IRVING.

  Griffith family, circa 1931 (Welborn Jr., lower row, left; first wife, Alice, upper row, left). COURTESY OF GARY HENDRIX.

  Welborn B. Griffith Sr. (L) and his wife’s brother, Harrison (Tex) Smith. COURTESY OF GARY HENDRIX.

  Welborn B. Griffith Sr. COURTESY OF GARY HENDRIX.

  Custom scaffolding designed by Achille Carlier, used for the front second window of the choir, during removal tests conducted March 28, 1936, at Chartres Cathedral, as shown in Carlier’s “Supplement No. 2,” page 68 of the reprint. Achille Carlier (1903–1966), architect. J. Sorbets (20th century), photographer. Preventive measures that would make it possible to rescue the stained-glass windows of Chartres Cathedral in the event of a sudden attack. “Supplement No. 2” (1935). © MINISTÈRE DE LA CULTURE / MÉDIATHÈQUE DE L’ARCHITECTURE ET DU PATRIMOINE, DIST. RMN-GRAND PALAIS / ART RESOURCE, NY.

  Custom scaffolding designed by Achille Carlier, used for low windows in the east aisle of the north ambulatory during removal tests conducted March 28, 1936, at Chartres Cathedral, as shown in Carlier, “Supplement No. 2” (1935). © MINISTÈRE DE LA CULTURE / MÉDIATHÈQUE DE L’ARCHITECTURE ET DU PATRIMOINE, DIST. RMN-GRAND PALAIS / ART RESOURCE, NY.

  Faucheux telescoping cranes in 1936, in the nave of Chartres Cathedral, used to reach clere-story windows and lower windows during removal tests, March 1936. COURTESY OF LES ARCHIVES DÉPARTEMENTALES D’EURE-ET-LOIR.

  Jean Zay at first meeting of the council of Prime Minister Chautemps, at the Hôtel de Matignon, Paris, official residence of the prime minister, 1937. PHOTO: AGENCE MEURISSE.

  Jean Moulin, 1937. PHOTO: STUDIO HARCOURT 1937.

  Interior entrance to crypt of Chartres Cathedral in its present-day condition. COURTESY OF PATRICK COINTEPOIX.

  Large crypt of Chartres Cathedral in its present-day condition, filled with chairs arranged for services. COURTESY OF CORINNE HALL.

  View from north tower of Chartres Cathedral, showing rail yard, 2015. VICTOR A. POLLAK.

  View of Fongrenon Manor (Dordogne) and the cliff line sheltering its quarry. COURTESY OF THIERRY BARITAUD.

  West entrance to quarry at Fongrenon Manor (Dordogne). COURTESY OF THIERRY BARITAUD.

  Large entrance room of quarry at Fongrenon Manor (Dordogne) served by its west entrance. COURTESY OF THIERRY BARITAUD.

  Boxes containing the stained-glass windows of Chartres Cathedral, deposited in 1939, stored in the quarries of Château de Fongrenon in the municipality of Cercles (Périgord), 1940. Positive monochrome on paper. Inv. no. 16L12226. From photographic report of J. Tourvelot of window removal and concealment in quarry. © MINISTÈRE DE LA CULTURE / MÉDIATHÈQUE DE L’ARCHITECTURE ET DU PATRIMOINE, DIST. RMN-GRAND PALAIS / ART RESOURCE, NY.

  Welborn B. Griffith Jr., circa 1943, in street uniform and major’s overseas cap. COURTESY OF GARY HENDRIX.

  View of Chartres Cathedral from the southeast, vegetation in the foreground. COURTESY OF ROBERT LAILLET AND LES ARCHIVES DÉPARTEMENTALES D’EURE-ET-LOIR (ARCHIVE OF EURE-ET-LOIR).

  Welborn B. Griffith Jr. in G-3 tent, with deputy and clerk preparing orders, circa 1942–1943. COURTESY OF THOMAS N. GRIFFIN.

  Eugene G. Schulz as a young GI, wearing sergeant stripes during World War II. COURTESY OF EUGENE G. SCHULZ.

  Temporary burial of Colonel Welborn B. Griffith Jr. at Saint-Corneille, France, August 17, 1944. COURTESY OF EUGENE G. SCHULZ.

  Colonel Welborn B. Griffith Jr.’s body, covered by US flag and flowers, next to the street in Lèves, France, on which he was killed, with chairs on which villagers sat vigil all night, waiting for Americans to retrieve the body. COURTESY OF THOMAS N. GRIFFIN.

  Ceremony posthumously awarding the Distinguished Service Cross to Colonel Welborn B. Griffith Jr. by pinning medal onto the coat of his widow, Nell Griffith, at Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, New York, November 1944. COURTESY OF ALICE IRVING.

  Blown-out temporary replacement windows in Chartres Cathedral, 1944. Achille Carlier (1903–1966), architect. Photography from figure 21 in “Le drame des vitraux des Chartres pendant la guerre,” Les pierres de France 13 (April–June 1950). Window bays of the nave of Chartres Cathedral, after the complete removal of stained-glass windows in 1939. Inv. no. page 30 07R03701. © MINISTÈRE DE LA CULTURE / MÉDIATHÈQUE DE L’ARCHITECTURE ET DU PATRIMOINE, DIST. RMN-GRAND PALAIS / ART RESOURCE, NY.

  Wooden crates holding window panels in storage in 1946, one revealing water damage. Achille Carlier (1903–1966), architect. A copy of this image appeared as figure 23 in “Le drame des vitraux des Chartres pendant la guerre,” Les pierres de France 13 (April–June 1950), 31–35. Boxes containing the stained-glass windows of Chartres Cathedral, deposited in 1939, stored in the quarries of Château de Fongrenon in the municipality of Cercles (Périgord), 1940. Positive monochrome on paper. © MINISTÈRE DE LA CULTURE / MÉDIATHÈQUE DE L’ARCHITECTURE ET DU PATRIMOINE, DIST. RMN-GRAND PALAIS / ART RESOURCE, NY.

  Choir and altar of Chartres Cathedral in winter 1944–1945 and 1945–1946. COURTESY OF LES ARCHIVES DÉPARTEMENTALES D’EURE-ET-LOIR.

  Plaque honoring Colonel Griffith, mounted in Lèves, France, on the building in front of which he died. Translated into English, it reads, “Here was killed on August 16, 1944, the American colonel Welborn B. Griffith.” COURTESY OF EUGENE G. SCHULZ.

  Distinguished Service Cross. PHOTO: SHISCHKABOB.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  To Quarry or Back to Crypt, for a Long Wait: Fongrenon and Chartres, June 1940

  NEARING DUSK ON JUNE 8 AT THE RAILHEAD, AFTER CREWS ON THE ground had heaved and shoved their crates and the teams inside the second ca
r of the first pair of boxcars had drawn and hoisted the ropes, the last of the crates slid into place. The pleasure of accomplishment fell on the men like a warm cloak on a cold evening. Most had been hauling the crates since early that morning, but they knew the job was only half completed and that after a short break they’d need to shed that cloak, fight off the fatigue, and join the other two crews already at work loading other crates onto the remaining pair of boxcars. Anyone not hauling a crate kept his eyes aimed on the northern and eastern skies, searching for planes. Any noise in the sky brought fear that a German fighter would be diving to unleash a bomb load or let loose with an effusion of strafing on any rail activity below.

  Inside the tiny two-story Berchères-les-Pierres train station, the engineer, accompanied by his stoker, chattered by phone with dispatchers in Chartres to confirm the route and status of tracks and traffic in the coming hours on the route to Courville-sur-Eure, the first leg of their run, and to work through the uncertainties of the more than 360-mile route to La Tour-Blanche—where a small station and yard with cranes operated for the port of quarry stones—the closest railhead near Fongrenon where the rail cars could safely stop and be unloaded into trucks. The engineer and stoker wanted to get under way quickly, but the late-afternoon sun brought added danger. Luftwaffe pilots could take advantage of the low-lying sun and its longer shadows for their gunners and bombardiers to spot targets of opportunity—the silhouette of locomotive smoke or steam, the reflection off moving rail cars, the shine of the tracks. The engineer had to be cautious before nightfall. During daylight, the military guards would ride on the roofs of the boxcars to watch for danger, and on each train two representatives from the Fine Arts Administration per train would oversee the crates. Under darkness, the crew would need to eliminate all lights except those on their instrument panels. Sparks from the coal fire would be dangerous enough.

  The engineer walked back toward the locomotive from the station, lifting his cap to cool himself with some fresh air, revealing his silver hair as he wiped his brow with a sleeve.

  “Clear and locked yet?” he called.

  “Not yet. Almost,” the brakemen answered. He stood opposite the rearmost boxcar, squinting into the sunlight, and could see the engineer walking back from the station to the locomotive. The brakeman pulled off his faded red bandana that had been tied as a sunshield around his neck and wiped the sweat from his forehead and neck.

  In the locomotive, the engineer broke away from his conversation with the stoker, who had returned to climb back into the tender to take up his shoveling position in front of the furnace. The engineer held onto the safety handle mounted next to the cab’s open window and leaned out to look back alongside the train toward the attached boxcars, squinting to spot the brakeman. He told the stoker it was a good idea for the dispatchers to use a code name in their calls and telegrams from now on, in place of the names of Angoulême and La Tour-Blanche and Cercles, and not mention the name Fongrenon to anyone. The stoker nodded and pulled off his gloves in his coal-dust-blackened work clothes. In case anything happened to the engineer on this run, the stoker would be the one to have to step in to take over the controls.

  That phone call to the dispatchers back in Chartres would be only the latest of many such calls to be anticipated along the route that night. The uncertainties of the route far outweighed the knowns.

  The crates finally rested in the first two boxcars, loaded and secured with ropes, the cars locked except for a rear door on the last car for the train crew and guards and the overseers from the Fine Arts Administration to gain entrance. The two guards climbed onto the roofs of the boxcars, and the brakeman called the all clear, as the locomotive steam simmered. The engineer was about to release brakes, engage driveshaft, and press throttle when he remembered that Jean Moulin’s assistant had told him to make one last phone call to Jean Chadel’s office before leaving—to receive any last-minute instructions or changes in plans. So he told everyone to wait and hopped down to run to the station to make the call.

  Ten minutes later, he returned with the all clear and climbed into the cab of the locomotive and, with a release of steam, set the train in motion. The group of workmen and truckers looked up from their crates and ropes to wish him good luck, and as the train pulled out, each guard, sitting atop his boxcar, scanned the sky for planes. The sun began its descent in the western sky, a ball of diminishing orange lowering over the tops of the few clumps of trees scattered over the expanse of green wheat fields, with shadows of the few trees beginning to stretch toward the east and shadows of the countless neatly planted wheat stalks drawing intensifying lines, as if to suggest an incongruous sense of order in contrast to the frenzy of the workmen trying to load the remaining crates onto the two cars left behind.

  Minutes after the first train slipped away with half the crates, German planes struck rail targets around Paris and Chartres, which—rail managers within hours concluded—resulted in freezing all rail equipment for miles, the freeze trapping the second train a short distance under way from Berchères-les-Pierres and compelling it to return.

  The crew leaders reached out to Moulin for further orders. They had to react quickly, reasoning that because the number of remaining crates was down to a little over five hundred, it should be possible to load them all back into those of the remaining trucks still at the railhead, and, if not, then to chase down and stop any of the other empty trucks on their way back to the home base that had already left and order the drivers to return to the railhead. If Moulin and his team could find adequate petrol, and if the roads to the Dordogne were not yet bombed or clogged with refugees, it could be possible for the trucks to drive the balance of the crates most of the way to Fongrenon, to be met there by the crates that were already on the train. So they sent word back to the workmen at Berchères-les-Pierres to retransfer all remaining crates back onto the trucks, to be driven cross-country to the Dordogne.

  Meanwhile, Jean Moulin’s team set out to track down any trucks that had already left Berchères-les-Pierres and send them back to take their portions of the second half of the crates. They also made calls to line up a supply of petrol at refueling stops along the route, and they telephoned or cabled prefects, police, and military units to inquire whether roads were still passable, but the bleak news did not take long to arrive: by the time the crates could be reloaded, all roads surrounding Chartres—not to mention all from Paris—heading south and west, had become hopelessly choked with fleeing refugees in cars and on foot, many with pushcarts, pets, and livestock. So Moulin ordered loaded trucks to not make the long drive to the Dordogne but instead to somehow navigate their way through the blockages back to the cathedral, where teams must in some way hide the crates before daybreak. Now secrecy must eclipse speed. They must hide the crates so all citizens—and the Germans—will believe the windows have left Chartres.

  Back at Berchères-les-Pierres, the team of laborers worked into darkness to finish hauling each of the remaining crates back out of the second two boxcars and into the trucks. And Moulin’s team worked through the supervisors to contact departed empty trucks to return to the railhead to gather the remaining crates and establish a plan to get them back into the crypt; only this time, the work had to be done in the dark, quietly and secretly, and they needed to return all of the remaining crates to the crypt well before any congregants arrived for the first morning Mass.

  With the change of plans to rush the crates back, Moulin and his team—in almost an instant—probably had undergone a transformation, focusing now on an entirely new and more direct threat. Windows must be protected by secrecy against German threats—of theft or destruction. Everyone outside the teams now loading, driving, and emptying the trucks must be led to believe that all the windows had been shipped out by train. Word of the aborted second train must remain a secret from all except the priests and the cathedral’s curate, whose job it would be to maintain secrecy. Quickly after abandoning shipment of the remaining crates, the team would ope
rate within the existing small cell of men already at work.

  They contacted the curate and Michael Mastorakis. How could the 518 crates soon to arrive back at the cathedral in the convoy of trucks be hidden again in the cathedral—but this time secretly? The priest knew the crypt held the secret.

  The crypt consisted of two long galleries running in parallel from east to west—one on the north side beneath the nave, the other running parallel on the south. Between the two, beneath the choir of the cathedral, the walls of the galleries wrapped toward each other to join in forming a semicircular wall. Within it lay the oldest portion of the cathedral, the subterranean chamber known as the Crypt of Saint Lubin. It dated to the ninth century, the deepest crypt and one of the oldest visible vestiges of the cathedral, part of the original pagan shrine that was on the site from earliest times, which later became the crypt of the Carolingian church that predated the cathedral.