Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Meaux, la ville du cénacle et des Quatorze

Meaux

Meaux is the first name of the Reformation in France. In 1521, its bishop Guillaume Briçonnet called to his side Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, the translator of the New Testament into French (1523), and young clerics such as Guillaume Farel, to reform the diocese by preaching and by Scripture: this was the Meaux circle, which the Sorbonne silenced as early as 1525. The town itself did not fall silent. Twenty years later, a community of about four hundred faithful met there at the house of a wool carder, Étienne Mangin; discovered in September 1546, it was tried by the Parlement of Paris, and fourteen of its members were burnt at the beginning of October — on the 7th or the 8th, depending on the sources — on the place du Marché, in front of Mangin's house. The Huguenots pillaged the cathedral in 1562, and Meaux figures among the towns to which the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre spread, at the end of August 1572. The building is a Gothic of long duration: a choir begun around 1175–1180, a nave thirty-one metres high, a north tower of sixty metres completed in the first half of the 16th century and, opposite, a wooden south tower that remained provisional, the "black tower". In the choir, behind a grille, a slab of black marble covers Bossuet, bishop of Meaux from 1681 or 1682 to 1704, according to sources, the orator of the age of Louis XIV, whose neighbouring palace has become a museum. The place holds both ends of this history: the first evangelical sermon and the pulpit of the Counter-Reformation.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Meaux ↗

Getting there : From Paris, train on line P from the Gare de l'Est (about twenty-five minutes), then ten minutes on foot through the centre; by car, by the A 4, Meaux exit, parking in the old town. The cathedral is open every day, free entry. Next door, the former episcopal palace houses the Musée Bossuet and its garden, designed, it is said, by Le Nôtre. The place du Marché, where the Fourteen were burnt, is a few streets away. Allow an hour for the episcopal city.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

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