St. Bavon Cathedral
St. Bavon Cathedral, the Gothic cathedral in Ghent, is the original home of the van Eyck altarpiece "The Adoration of the Lamb," one of the most celebrated works of early Netherlandish painting. Its significance in Albert Camus's The Fall derives entirely from the theft in 1934 of one of its panels, "The Just Judges," which depicts judges on horseback approaching the sacred animal. The panel was replaced by an excellent copy, but the original was never recovered—until Jean-Baptiste Clamence reveals that it has ended up in his possession in Amsterdam.
The Theft and Its Aftermath
The theft of "The Just Judges" occurred in 1934 from St. Bavon Cathedral. Clamence explains that a frequenter of the Mexico City bar—a man the reader glimpsed earlier—sold the panel to the ape-like proprietor for a bottle of gin one drunken evening. Clamence first advised the proprietor to hang it in a place of honor at Mexico City, where for a long time, while police searched throughout the world, the devout judges sat enthroned above the drunks and pimps. Later, at Clamence's request, the proprietor put the painting in custody in Clamence's room, balking a little but getting a fright when Clamence explained the matter. Above the bar at Mexico City, the empty rectangle where the painting had hung remains as a void.
Clamence's Reasons for Harboring the Panel
Clamence offers a series of justifications for keeping the stolen panel. First, he argues it belongs not to him but to the proprietor of Mexico City, who deserves it as much as the Archbishop of Ghent. Second, among all those who file by "The Adoration of the Lamb" in the cathedral, no one can distinguish the copy from the original, so no one is wronged by his misconduct. Third, by possessing the true panel while the world admires a false one, Clamence dominates: false judges are held up to the world's admiration while he alone knows the true ones. Fourth, harboring the painting gives him a chance of being sent to prison—an attractive idea. Fifth, he sees the clever rascal who stole the panel as an instrument of the unknown justice that one ought not to thwart. Finally, he declares that justice is now definitively separated from innocence—the latter on the cross and the former in the cupboard—leaving him the way clear to work according to his convictions.
The Panel as Symbol in Clamence's Philosophy
The stolen panel becomes the physical centerpiece of Clamence's judge-penitent profession. In his bare Amsterdam room, which he describes as clean and polished like a coffin, the painting of the just judges forms his sole company. He keeps it locked in a cupboard and asks his visitor to lock it up again after viewing it. The panel embodies Clamence's central insight: that the world has lost its innocence, that judgment and innocence are permanently separated, and that in this condition he can practice his profession with a clear conscience. The painting also represents his desire to be arrested—he hopes his interlocutor will be a policeman who will arrest him for the theft, leading to his decapitation and salvation, where above the gathered crowd his still warm head would be held up so that they could recognize themselves in it and he could again dominate as an exemplar.
Narrative Significance
St. Bavon Cathedral itself never appears as a setting in the novel; it exists only as the origin point of the stolen panel. Yet the cathedral's loss—the theft of its most famous panel—reverberates through Clamence's entire confession. The cathedral represents the institutional, public realm of justice and art, while the stolen panel, hidden in a private room in Amsterdam, represents Clamence's private, inverted version of judgment. The cathedral's altarpiece, "The Adoration of the Lamb," depicts the Lamb of God and the innocent, but Clamence insists there is no more lamb or innocence. The cathedral's loss becomes his gain: the separation of justice from innocence allows him to dominate as a false prophet, a judge-penitent who judges all while confessing his own crimes.
