Saving the Light at Chartres

by Victor A. Pollak

  “Le Journal”: Anne Fouqueray, “Le plan de protection des vitraux de Chartres serat-il appliqué?” Le Journal, September 19, 1938, 7, text available online at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k76324332/f7.item.r=Chartres.

  “Two solutions”: Jean Trouvelot’s team described the dilemma in a later report to the Minister of National Education: the first of two alternatives would be to remove the windows quickly “in difficult conditions,” hoping to get them out of harm’s way to save the maximum number as quickly as possible in case of a quick attack, even though many of the windows were still installed with hard putty, caulked with flashing cement or gypsum cement, and attached to the stone window frames by deep holes in adjoining travertine stone and even though the glass of most of the windows was brittle and many were curved in shape, making packing them in crates a delicate operation.

  The second alternative would be to mount all available scaffolding and hoists, moving all packaging cases to be ready in place near their designated windows but deferring actual dismounting of the windows in order to first remove the windows’ flashings in situ and secure them with pins to make them ready for the rapid and easy removal of the greatest number of windows possible. Jean Trouvelot, “Passive Defense Works Executed at the Cathedral of Chartres [September 1938 until 24 August 1939],” 20–25, report dated February 22, 1940, to the Minister of National Education, appended to a report to the same minister, dated October 19, 1939, Archives départmentales de la Eure-et-Loir [4 NC Art. 83] (hereafter Trouvelot, “Passive Defense Report”).

  “Time for a decision”: The British and French representatives in Prague presented the Anglo-French proposal to allow the Sudetenland to be annexed, and their ambassadors informed Czechoslovakia’s president that his country would have to accept that plan or face Germany alone, following which the Czech government resigned, Jan Syrový became prime minister, and his government mobilized its military. France ordered partial mobilization of its military. In Berlin, Hitler made a speech threatening Czechoslovakia with war, and the French government was ready to announce that France would not enter a war purely over Czechoslovakia.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 8

  “The visit afforded . . . opportunities for talks”: Griff and his father would have discussed things Griff had mentioned in letters from the Philippines, such as Griff’s pondering whether it was still worth it to him to stay in the military, continuing to train, rather than do something else, such as join his father and brothers in the business, or perhaps head east to be nearer to his daughter and maybe start a career in business. Griff would have also told his dad about his adventures in Shanghai, Manila, and Japan.

  “He also loved dogs”: In Quanah, where Welborn Sr. had enjoyed hunting wolves, he owned wolfhounds, which he kept at the Good Ranch. He loved horses and always had his own, which he rode daily as long as he was able. In Temple, he rode his horse to work and back and to home and back for lunch. When the livery stables all closed, he built his own “stable” on a lot near the store. When he could no longer ride his last horse, he boarded it at a farm until its death. All his horses were called John in honor of his friend, John R. Good.

  “Parkinson’s disease”: Welborn had enjoyed swimming and had often gone with Lula to a large pool near Temple. He swam only on his back, with his long, thick feet sticking out of the water. Lula swam well but in “puppy” fashion. They talked to each other during their swims, unless others spoke to them. Many other swimmers greeted them, but their daughters ignored them. Welborn was devoted to has grandchildren, with infinite patience in answering his granddaughters’ questions, which usually began, “Why is . . . ?” In the years when he could no longer speak well enough to be easily understood, his granddaughter Dorothea said she enjoyed a companionship with him in which words were unnecessary.

  “Daughter of a major”: In the face of that risk, he would have had to contemplate leaving the Army. He went on long walks with his daughter and would vent his frustrations with the Army, generated by lack of funding and scarcity of opportunities for promotion. But he probably did not relish going back to Temple, and certainly not to Quanah to run grocery stores. Instead, he probably considered going into some other business, likely on the East Coast, where Tiny and his uncle Harrison were living.

  In my interview with Griff’s daughter in 2015, she told me that her mother, Alice, had turned out to be spoiled, sheltered by her snobbish parents who had always looked down on Griff and his family. Alice damaged the lives of a series of husbands, Griff being only the first. She would have five husbands in total. Her second would be killed in the war, and the next two marriages she would end in divorce, as she had her first. She was survived by her fifth husband.

  “Emory Land . . . a recently retired vice admiral”: He would soon oversee design and construction of the more than four thousand Liberty ships and Victory ships that would fly the US flag during World War II. Emory Scott Land, Winning the War with Ships: Land, Sea and Air—Mostly Land (New York: R. M. McBride, 1958).

  “Count’s assignment”: They sought clarification from the War Department in Washington regarding the meaning (and implications for their social and economic status) of an unexpected change that had been made in Count’s title—his original title of naval attaché having been changed without explanation to assistant to the naval attaché.

  “Drive from Paris to Chartres”: Along the way, their route having been delayed by a bicycle road race, they’d stopped for a memorable lunch, which she described as follows: “For approximately sixty cents each, we had the following: hors d’oeuvres of several varieties, ham with a delicious sauce, mushrooms creamed in a wine sauce and served on bread which had been soaked in grease (delicious), partridge broiled and served with minute shoestring potatoes and wonderful watercress; a perfect green salad with a French dressing, as only the French can make; fresh wild strawberries with sourcreme ice cream—wonderful!—and wine!” Letter from Tiny, September 19, 1939, 3.

  “A year of instruction”: “There was a facetious saying at one time in the army that the student body was made up of ‘aides, adjutants, and asses.’ If this in fact was a basis of selection, results have more than justified its worth.” Orville Z. Tyler Jr., The History of Forth Leavenworth, 1937–1951 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Command and General Staff College, 1951), available online at https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a437831.pdf, 4.

  By statute, a “qualified” recommendation on graduation from the college was a requirement for being added to the general staff corps.

  “A status and a conviction that they were important”: The school picked up and delivered the students’ baggage, directed each to quarters marked with his name, made and ready, and issued his equipment quickly. Students were fed in a large, polished dining room at ten-man tables and were provided transportation when walking was not desirable. Overall, the atmosphere made each student feel that the post and the school existed only to facilitate his primary mission—to graduate as a trained commander and general staff officer—and that he was the school’s only reason for being.

  “That sense of accomplishment and of fitting”: And that sense appears to have been somehow mirrored in Griff’s thoughts about his family. From Leavenworth, he wrote a letter to little Alice in which he told her of his Welsh ancestry. And he must have felt close to his family—or at least to his sister Tiny. Sometime soon after she left for Europe, he sent her copies of pictures he had taken at her send-off and also sent her a camera, for which she thanked him.

  Griff displayed his pride in December, when he participated as one of six groomsmen for Captain Douglas Valentine, a Leavenworth classmate, at Valentine’s wedding in Appleton, Wisconsin, attended by six hundred, in which all six groomsmen—in full ceremonial uniform, with swords—formed an arch of sabers under which the bride and groom and wedding party marched out to the two-hundred-person reception.

  “Amiens Cathedral”: Tiny called it a gem and wrote that it was considered the purest Gothic church i
n France, built at the same time as Chartres Cathedral and Notre-Dame de Paris, but that most of Amiens’ original glass windows had been destroyed and replaced, “so their beauty is very commonplace by comparison with Chartres, but nonetheless beautiful to me. . . . I can’t imagine the love, work, and awe of God that went into the building of such a magnificent structure. . . . Back in the cathedral . . . I slipped away [from the guide] and just sat and looked at the beautiful perspective of the interior as a whole.” Letter from Tiny, spring 1939.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 9

  “Plans to take over the lead”: Mastorakis, a twenty-seven-year-old from Paris, had been trained in historic-buildings architecture.

  “Sunday, September 25”: On that day, Tiny had attended the cathedral’s last Mass to be held for months.

  “Jean Chadel”: During World War II, he would become a recognized Resistance figure and at the time of liberation of Chartres would become prefect of Eure-et-Loire.

  “Cherry pickers”: This apparatus, designed for a different use by Mr. Faucheux, the eponymous founder of his Chartres construction firm, consists of a platform on which two men can stand. A system of telescopic tubes controlled by a motor makes it possible to raise this platform, either vertically or following on at variable angles, up to a height that can reach, depending on the apparatus, a maximum of nine, fifteen, or twenty-four meters, which has not yet been exceeded. When the machine, which is moved by means of a tractor, has arrived at the desired location, it takes only five minutes to get the platform to the desired level, which can then be raised and lowered in tiny increments. The prices, depending on the height at which the device allows access, varied from 10,500 francs (for twelve meters) to 11,750 (for fifteen meters), 13,500 (for eighteen meters), and 21,500 (for twenty-four meters). This is to say that this device would be three to five times more expensive than one of the scaffoldings proposed.

  Each unit, designed to be pulled by a truck and maneuvered by a team of men, was built on a metal platform about four feet square, with two automobile tires on an axle near its front, one right, the other left, holding the platform a foot and a half above the floor. Two small, six-inch swivel wheels supported the rear end, attached to vertical shafts that permitted 360-degree motion. A vertical triangular steel frame was affixed to the base platform by means of a swivel, having attached to it a tall steel telescopic shaft, some eight to ten inches in diameter at the base and six to eight inches in diameter at the top. The shaft was attached to the triangular frame together with adjustable supporting cables so as to be capable of being raised and lowered into various angles, as well as being extendable in length.

  Three sizes of the device were on hand, varying from thirty-two to eighty feet in height. Also attached to the base of the shaft at its rear was a large steel box into which varying quantities of counterweights were placed. The top of the shaft had affixed to it a horizontal platform, two to four feet in size, surrounded by a waist-high, fencelike rectangular guardrail forming a basket in which a worker could stand, albeit on its somewhat-tilted floor. The base was fitted with adjusting cranks and hand-powered cable winches. At each corner of the square base, adjustable-height vertical stabilizer shafts were attached, which would be set firmly on the floor to level and stabilize the unit before a worker climbed into the basket to be raised to a high level to perform the work.

  “Charles Lorin and eight of his men”: They included Messrs. Bourgeot, Delange, Menry, and Tournel, plus one other, together with two employees of Mr. Leglise.

  “The second of the two window-removal alternatives”: They determined that it would be futile to think that the windows could be removed in a few hours without major risk. As summarized by Jean Trouvelot, After action of this kind, little would be likely to remain of the ancient stained-glass windows, and serious restoration work would be required. It would be preferable in this case that the removal of the stained glass [be carried out in a reasonable manner].

  We believe that by making improvements in organization and equipment, the task could be simplified. [These may include [an] increase in the number of scaffolds, training and organization of volunteers, requisition of specialists, modification in the fashion of fixing the stained glass . . .]

  Note that the bracketed text above indicates illegible handwriting whose meaning the translator approximated. From Trouvelot, “Passive Defense Report.”

  “Longer than . . . would have dared to hope”: The period of extreme worry would not start even for another year. The period of the “Phony War” would last from September 3, 1939, to May 10, 1940.

  “Thousands of window panels”: Each window panel was about fifteen to forty inches in size.

  “Feuillards”: The strips (feuillards) of the ambulatory windows were modified as they were progressively restored and the fittings were repaired, consolidated, and sealed. The flashings and hardened putty of many of the windows that had been installed thirteen years before in 1925, composed of hydraulic lime and cement that had ensured perfect seal, were removed and replaced with new flashings with less lime and “lean” sands (soft putty and soft flashings), permitting easier and faster removal.

  The saddle bars and strips were restored, consolidated, and sealed to preserve them in place. In general, the type of frame selected needed to be capable of supporting stained glass weighing approximately four pounds per square foot and configured with mullions, allowing subdivision of larger areas into panels of approximately fourteen linear perimeter feet. In addition to the overall structural requirements, the frames or sash had to include a glazing rebate that measured three-eighths of an inch to a half inch wide by three-eighths of an inch to a half inch deep and allowed the panels of stained glass to engage into the frame or sash a minimum of one-quarter inch. An allowance of three thirty-seconds to one-eighth of an inch between the stained glass panel and the frame was typical.

  “Preparatory work on . . . other parts”: Jean Trouvelot continued in early 1939 to solicit bids for further work on the cathedral using the scaffolding that remained in place. On February 1, 1939, he received a proposal from Entrepose to supply equipment for scaffolding for use in the high nave and apse of the choir and for repairing a layer of paint using the scaffolding furnished for the windows of the high nave. Archives départmentales de la Eure-et-Loir, 4T NC Art. 83, 4T NC Art. 84. The Fine Arts Administration sought additional financing to accomplish this and other work.

  “Extraordinary service”: In his report to the HMC following the portion of the project between September 1938 and early September 1939, Jean Trouvelot wrote, We must pay tribute and express our gratitude to all those who helped us in this difficult task: to Mr. Chadel, secretary-general of the prefecture, to Mr. Gilbert, mayor of Chartres, to Bishop Harscouët, Bishop of Chartres, and to the cathedral curate who facilitated the accomplishment of our mission. To Mr. Grand, president of the volunteers of Chartres, who placed himself entirely at our disposition and who spared no effort, recruiting staff and facilitating the regulation of immediate expenditures. To the businesses of Chartres, heads of business and industry, to the volunteers of Chartres, a Mr. Germain, colleague of Mr. Maunoury, to the glassmakers/painters, to all the workers, to the military, all of whom were intelligently devoted and are above all praise. All have an enormous amount of good will and have worked hard to overcome any difficulties.

  Personally we extend our thanks to our two colleagues Louis Linzeler and Michael Mastorakis, who lead the maneuver under our direction and who worked diligently all the time they were on-site, smoothing out difficulties, providing guidance, leading the work, educating team leaders, managing the work. It was they who, under our direction, prepared and realised the coordination of the Passive Defence works, both at our offices in Paris and on-site. We extend to them our particular thanks and our profound gratitude.

  With what we have, despite the lack of resources and funds, all involved did their utmost considering the circumstances in which the work was performed.

  Trouvelo
t, “Passive Defense Works,” 25.

  “National petition”: The petition was signed by a number of prominent Frenchmen: the poets Paul Claudel and Paul Valéry; Raoul Dautry, managing director of railway fees; Léon Bérard, senator; René Johannet, writer; editorialists Paul-Emile Cadilhac (L’Illustration), André Pironneau (the Times), and Albert Mousset (Journal des débats); Louis Marin, former minister; and several members of the French Academy.

  The petition read in part, At 580 meters from the cathedral was gradually established an important base for military aviation. In case of war, the immediate attack of this base by the opponent would have the effect of annihilating the set of [glassworks] absolutely unique, universally famous, and that is one of the biggest titles of glory of France. This loss, consumed in an instant, would be forever irreparable. History has pilloried the Turks, who had installed a powder magazine in the Parthenon. The Chartres aviation camp is a monstrosity of the same order. The same state of weakness would be inflicted on us indelibly . . . if the disaster occurred. . . . Our country [is] threatened with a definitive and total loss . . . The honor of France, to whom . . . this deposit [is entrusted] [requires that we must account to] future French, as well as to the whole of Humanity.

  The matter was debated in the senate, pressed by Leon Bérard, senator and academician. It was opposed by Jean Valadier, senator of Eure-et-Loir, concerned about the impact of closing the base on the local economy and employment, calling Bérard “a maniac obsessed by an incoercible fear.” Minister of the Air Guy La Chambre claimed that the air base was not a target for the enemy but, on the contrary, a guarantee of security for the area. Carlier gave a radio interview to press his petition and campaign, which was unsuccessful. “Worry of the French Chartrains and ‘Intellectuals,’” Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres (web-site), accessed February 19, 2018, http://www.cathedrale-chartres.org/fichiers/hebdo-cathedrale/hebdo-2014/414-hebdo-280714-030814.pdf.