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One at the north-west corner of the north transept leads to the staircase in the angle turret there; another, on the other side of the transept, is the way to the Treasury, to the clerestory gallery, and, by the gallery, to the Indulgence Chamber. The third is the splendid chapter-house doorway in the south transept aisle. To this one a special section will presently be devoted.
This is covered with an open-timbered roof, and divided into nave and aisles by cut-wood posts, and lighted by a clerestory. These posts form the divisions of the divans, which are separated from one another by ornamented wood partitions worked in an Eastern manner. Connected by double doors with this apartment are the hot rooms.
And the support to these arches in the centre, is a group of shafts instead of only one column. The clerestory, however, offers a greater contrast to the earlier work in that the central arch, as well as the side ones, is lifted up much higher, the detached columns being lengthened to obtain the alteration. Each arch also, at this level, is now pointed.
The aisles and clerestory windows are of the later decorated period of Gothic, and present, whether viewed from without or from within, an exceedingly fine appearance. Probably the finest and most pleasing impression of the whole structure is that obtained of the interior, with its pillars of nave and choir, of the massive order made familiar in the Rhine churches.
A pair of pier-arches are grouped under a single arch containing a single clerestory window, and there is a barrel-vault above all. A church in the hands of Huguenots, called "La Salle des Conférences," seems to have a Romanesque shell and keeps three windows in a flat east end.
Besides the cathedral, the long main street of Coutances possesses the churches of St Nicholas and St Pierre. In St Nicholas one may see a somewhat unusual feature in the carved inscriptions dating from early in the seventeenth century which appear on the plain round columns. Here, as in the cathedral, the idea of the balustrade under the clerestory is carried out.
Those of Count Nicolò Mulla on the clerestory north wall show that it was finished to the cornice in 1491-1493. Those of Nicolò Navager, who died 1489, fastened with iron clamps in the same place, suggest that it was not completed at his death, though it was probably in course of construction.
The triforium, the clerestory, the vaulting of the roof and the western wall and doorway are all his work; and it must not be forgotten that he shortened the original nave by one entire bay. Walking to the west end, from which the best general view is to be obtained, one is impressed by the striking effect of the great Norman piers and arches and the gloom of the choir beyond.
The vaulted roof, with its quaintly carved angels, was for the most part dim and shadowy, but here and there a ray of sunshine, slanting in through the clerestory windows, changed the sombre tones to a golden splendor.
About sixty feet from the floor, a row of clerestory windows, unglazed, admitted arrows of sunlight through a golden fretwork; and these arrows, piercing the incense vapor, checkered intricate patterns on the enormous, deep-piled Persian rugs of rose, lilac, and misty blue.
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