It is a great advantage to me that I can address letters on architecture to a person for whose taste and judgment I have so much esteem, but who at the same time is not an architect. Being obliged to avoid a great many technical phrases and forms of speech, which often serve as a convenient shelter for ignorance or superficial knowledge, I shall find it necessary to study the subject myself more attentively on all those points which can interest a general observer, and to explain myself with more care and precision.

I shall not trouble you with any observations on English ground; and indeed, between London and Paris, the road is so well known, and so often travelled, that it seems almost an impertinence to detain you on it, except to examine the two magnificent cathedrals of Amiens and Beauvais; yet there are some particulars on this frequented track which strike an architect more than they would a general observer.

My bed-room at Calais, with its high ceiling and broad striped paper, was very different from what one finds on your side of the water. The bed is, almost every where in France, placed sideways against the wall. It has head and foot boards, and the square uprights which support them are terminated with a vase, or some such ornament, at least on that side of the bed towards the apartment. Above, a pin with an ornamented head, whose projection from the wall is equal to the width of the bed, supports a long curtain of white dimity, which falls in a pleasing curve over the head and foot boards, and being of a considerable width, may be drawn forward so as nearly to conceal the bed. This arrangement certainly leaves the room much more at liberty than ours, and looks better; and as it is not considered any impropriety to receive company in a bed-room, these circumstances are of more consequence here than in England; yet they are desirable every where, and the only disadvantage I perceive arises from the necessity of rolling out the bedstead in order to make the bed, an inconvenience apparently very trifling.

There are doubtless some peculiarities in the French towns, but on the whole fewer than I expected: the principal are, perhaps, that the houses are without parapets, and that they have dormer windows,^[1] the front of which is usually upright over the wall of the house, the eaves being sometimes continued across, and sometimes omitted. There is no flat paving for the footpaths, but the streets are not narrower, if so narrow, as in the country towns in England.

Every body knows that the road from Calais to Boulogne is not pleasant. About Boulogne the scenery is much more agreeable, as we pass along a valley adorned with trees and hedges. There is, I am told, a law that all proprietors shall plant the sides of the road which passes by or through their grounds: unfortunately there is no law which compels the trees to grow, and a green stake is thrust into the ground, which may either live or die; if the latter, it is very easy to thrust in another the succeeding year. After passing the town of Samer, about ten miles from Boulogne, we again ascended the chalk hills, and had a most beautiful view, coloured with uncommon richness and splendour, as the landscape faded under the shades of evening; but I believe the charm depended principally on this colouring. We continued our journey through the night, and the next morning at eleven reached Amiens.

You did not, I believe, when in France, see the cathedral of Amiens, but you have heard of it, and of the beauty of its nave. The French say, that to form a perfect cathedral you must unite the front of Rheims, the spire of Chartres, the nave of Amiens, and the choir of Beauvais. The parts would not combine very well, but I hope at a future time to conduct you to all these edifices. The cathedral of Amiens was founded by Bishop Everard, in order to provide a suitable depository for the head of St. John the Baptist and the body of St. Firmin. The former saint, according to Rivoire, (Description de l’Eglise Cathédrale d’Amiens, p. 160) was beheaded in the prisons of the castle of Macheronte, or of Sebaste, (i. e. of Samaria). The Emperor Valens endeavoured in vain to transfer the head to Rome. Theodosius, more fortunate, brought it from the village of Cosilaon in Siberia, to enrich Constantinople; but whereabouts this village is situated, or when, or why, or how any part of St. John the Baptist travelled into Siberia, I have not been able to learn. A gentleman of Picardy being present at the assault of Constantinople, on the 12th of April, 1204, found among the ruins of an old building, called the Palace of the Arsenal, two great dishes of silver, in one of which was this head of the Baptist, and in the other that of St. George, as was fully testified by their respective inscriptions. The dishes were large and heavy, and the discoverer was in want of money; he therefore sold them to pay his expenses, reserving, however, two smaller vessels which immediately contained the sacred relics. What became of the head of St. George we are not told, but that of St. John was transported to Amiens, where it arrived on the 17th of December, 1206, the clergy and people going out to receive it. The record of this event bears date in March, 1210. The skull is not entire, the back part being apparently deficient, and there is an oblong hole over the left eye, supposed to have been made by the knife of Herodias.

After such a long account of one relic it would be unfair not to make some mention of the other. The bones of St. Firmin had been discovered some time before the acquisition of the head of St. John the Baptist, by a miraculous ray of light which shone upon the spot where they were buried; and the authenticity of the relic was farther proved, not only by a delightful and healing odour which arose from them, but also by a supernatural warmth which dissolved the snow then upon the ground, made the grass grow, and the trees put forth their leaves, and, in short, turned winter into summer.

I have given you quite enough of these fables, let me now turn to facts better authenticated. An old cathedral was destroyed by fire in 1218. The foundations of the present edifice were laid in 1220, according to the designs of Robert de Lusarche. Bishop Everard, the founder, died in 1222. The pillars of the choir and nave were completed in 1223; the north transept was erected in 1236, Geoffry d’Eu being bishop. Robert de Lusarche had, probably, died in the interim, as the architects, at the latter period, were Thomas de Courmont, and Renault de Courmont, his son. The vaulting of the nave and side aisles was completed under Arnold, who governed the church of Amiens from 1236 to 1247; at the same time a magnificent stone tower was erected over the centre of the cross. This tower was entirely of open work, it was destroyed by lightning in 1527, and the wooden spire, which at present exists, was erected two years afterwards. The building, exclusive of the side chapels, was completed in 1288, according to an inscription formerly existing on the pavement, now no longer legible. The following dimensions are from Rivoire, (p. 24) reduced to English measure. They are, perhaps, not all of them perfectly exact, but I had not opportunity to examine them minutely, and am not apprehensive of any material error.

Having thus given you a sketch of the principal dates and dimensions of this magnificent edifice, I will endeavour to give you some idea of its present appearance. A detailed account of all the parts would require a residence of some weeks on the spot, but my object is rather to communicate the impression produced on the mind of the observer, and to point out the leading sources of that impression, than to enter into minutiæ. The distant view exhibits a great square mass of building, a little varied by the slightly superior elevation of one of the western towers, and by a very slender spire or pinnacle of wood rising from the centre to twice the general height. The ridge of the roof of York Minster is 112 feet from the pavement. That of Salisbury Cathedral, 115 feet; St. Paul’s at London, 112; Westminster Abbey, 140; the cathedral at Amiens, 208 feet. This comparison may help you to form some idea of the appearance of the last mentioned edifice, towering above the houses of a provincial city. What was the design of the original central spire of open work in stone, and what was its height, it would be curious to determine. Central towers of that date in England seem to have been low and heavy, and if that of Norwich Cathedral be cited to the contrary, still it does not at all help us to form a judgment of what a spire of open work would have been. The spire and the upper part of the tower at Salisbury are thought to be of a more modern date. The highest western tower is surmounted by one of those steep roofs which still seem to have something attractive to French eyes, but which to mine are absolute deformities. On approaching the edifice, the richness of the western front is very striking. There is a certain similarity in the disposition of this part in all the French churches of the thirteenth century. The cathedrals of Amiens, of Nôtre Dame at Paris, and at Rheims, are distinguished from our English buildings by nearly the same particulars, though they differ much from each other. They assume in this part more of a pyramidal form; the space between the western towers is proportionally smaller than with us. The doorways are much larger; a rose or marigold window is placed over the central opening, and above that is one or more ranges of niches, with statues nearly hiding the triangular gable end of the nave. Sometimes one, or even two ranges of niches occur below the marigold window, as is the case in the example before us. Sometimes the window is between two ranges of niches, and in some instances there are two rose windows. These windows and niches form the elements of the composition, but the arrangement varies in almost every edifice. The division immediately above the porch at Amiens is marked by a range of twenty-two niches, containing as many statues, which are supposed to represent the kings of France, from Charlemagne to Philip Augustus; the latter died in 1223, and this coincidence of his death with the æra of the building seems to have been used by the modern antiquaries in assigning names to the statues. The profusion of ornament in this front is not without its effect, but we endeavour in vain to trace any simple principle of arrangement, and a certain degree of confusion diminishes the pleasure which would otherwise be felt. This objection is applicable more or less to the external of all Gothic buildings, and the more the parts are multiplied the more obvious it becomes: yet it is not a style of architecture which can succeed without a considerable proportion of ornament, and perhaps even of intricacy. On the inside of a Gothic edifice of the best periods, although the parts are numerous, yet they all seem to arise from the mode of construction, and to follow each other so naturally, that the eye and mind are led from one to the other through the whole system. With the outside the case is otherwise; the form of no one part seems to depend on that below it, but each might as well be surmounted by something different as by that which really succeeds it. The ranges of arches in these fronts have the effect of dividing the height of the composition into horizontal bands, and there can be no doubt that in the pointed architecture, the perpendicular lines should prevail over the horizontal. I think that in the present instance these horizontal lines are less striking in the building than in the usual engravings, perhaps because in reality we have no point of view sufficiently distant to permit the eye to embrace the whole composition.

I have a few more words to say on the outside of this cathedral. The two towers are of unequal height; the seat of the archbishop alone, according to my usual guide, Rivoire,^[4] was distinguished by two equal towers, as is the case at Paris and at Rheims. In Turkey the privilege of more than one tower is still restricted to the royal mosques, but I believe it is altogether the fancy of this author that any similar regulation existed for the forms of Christian churches.

There are three doorways. This disposition, which is sometimes observable in our cathedrals, is very general in the larger religious edifices of France. The middle, says Rivoire, was for the clergy, that on the right for the men, that on the left for the women. The middle door at Amiens is called that of the Saviour, because his image adorns the pilaster at the meeting of the two leaves of the door, which here, and very commonly elsewhere in France, divides the doorway into two parts. The two sides, and the parts above, present a very elaborate composition, representing, as is supposed, the Last Judgment. Mr. Rigollot, a member of the Academy of Amiens, imagines that he traces in it the prevalence of the superstitions of Sabeism, and has given a description wherein he corrects some errors and inaccuracies of Rivoire; and a very ingenious, and I think in general satisfactory, elucidation of his own opinion. The right, or southern doorway is called that of the Mother of God, the image of the Virgin Mary being in a similar manner placed in the middle. That on the north is distinguished by the statue and name of St. Firmin, to whom the cathedral is dedicated. The latter doorway is farther remarkable by the twelve signs of the zodiac, which are sculptured on it, with the rural labours of the corresponding months of the year. It exhibits also fourteen figures of saints, of which St. Firmin and St. Dionysius are represented carrying their heads in their hands. Was it not St. Severinus who not only took his head in his hand after he had been decapitated, but actually walked with it to the altar, and participated in the holy communion?

On entering the church one is immediately struck by a fine appearance of space and airiness. This is partly owing to the great dimensions; the nave is 10 feet wider, and above 50 feet higher than that of Salisbury Cathedral. The side aisles at Salisbury are only 38 feet high. Those at Amiens are 64; and this I have no doubt also contributes greatly to the impression of superior magnificence. In length the French cathedrals are generally inferior to ours, but they are without screens, and the whole extent presents itself at once to the eye of the spectator. A range of side chapels, corresponding with the divisions of the side aisles, is also a noble feature which we have not in any English building, or have it only very imperfectly in Chichester Cathedral.

These dimensions and comparisons may perhaps assist your imagination in forming an idea of the building, but it is impossible to communicate the feelings produced by the first view of its interior. It not only far surpassed my expectations, but possessed a character and expression quite new to me. In our English cathedrals the eye is confined to one avenue, and the sublime effect is nearly limited to the view along it. Here the sight seems to penetrate in all directions, and to obtain a number of views, all indeed subordinate to the principal one, but all beautiful, and offering, by the different position of the parts with regard to the spectator, the greatest variety. I sat down for some time to enjoy this sublime scene, and then paced slowly up the nave, as far as the intersection of the cross, where my attention was arrested by the beautiful rose window at each end of the transept. Without seeing them one can form no idea of how much beauty a rose window is capable; the splendid colouring of the glass, glowing among the rich tracery, has a brilliancy and magnificence for which I can cite to you no parallel in England.

On the rise of the Italian school of architecture the preceding style, which then received the appellation of Gothic, was reproached as heavy, dark, gloomy, and void of simplicity. Nothing can be more unjust than this censure. In its interiors, on the contrary, it offers the greatest simplicity and harmony; not entirely free from defects, and occasionally exhibiting traces of the rude age in which it flourished, but bearing these as slight blemishes on a beautiful face. It is extremely light, as opposed to heavy, for no style of building performs, or appears to perform so much with so little material; and the blaze of daylight from its numerous and spacious windows is insufferable, when not corrected by the deeply coloured glass, and even by its coarse joinings. These rose windows, brilliant as they are when seen from below, I found, on nearer inspection, to be divided by very wide strips of lead, and these again had collected about them a quantity of dust, which still farther obscured the light, but all this was lost in the general splendour of the effect as seen from below. These two large roses of the transept open into a square space underneath them, so that, strictly speaking, they are not rose windows, but merely rose-headed. The circle, however, occupies so large a portion, and the remainder is comparatively so insignificant, that we must be permitted to call them rose windows. That of the nave comprises only the circle. The design of the tracery is, probably, somewhat later than that of the building; at least, in England we should attribute it nearly to the middle of the fourteenth century, here we know enough of the building to assign it with confidence to the thirteenth. Those of the transept I judge to be later still, chiefly on account of their union with the window below. The western rose has become internally the dial of the clock; the figures denoting the hours are more than seven feet apart, and the hour hand moves nearly an inch and a half in a minute. In that of the northern transept we find the pentalpha, a form to which some persons imagine a mysterious meaning to be attached. The same arrangement which prevails in the nave is continued in the choir, only the outer aisle being no longer divided into chapels, there is a double side aisle continued from the transept to the polygonal end of the building; to this part chapels are again attached, presenting five sides of an octagon. The ladies’ chapel, in the centre, is lengthened, but terminates in the same manner.

In the French Gothic there is no moulding along the ridges of the vault, except, and that rarely, in some of the latest edifices. This moulding, in drawings of English buildings, is generally represented as a straight line, but does, in fact, usually form a crooked one, descending to the direct arch, and rising to the intersection of the groins. In the French buildings this mode of construction is much more evident than with us, the intersection of the groins being always considerably higher than the point of the direct arch, and sometimes so much so, for instance, in the church of St. Germain des Près, in Paris, as to form almost a portion of a dome. In some of the late Gothic examples I think I have seen exactly the reverse take place, and the point of the direct arch made the highest in the vaulting.

It is totally impossible that any style of building should be peculiarly calculated for a particular set of opinions. Some Protestant writers attribute to Gothic architecture a mysterious connexion with the Roman Catholic religion, and, indeed, seem to think that all magnificent churches have a tendency to support that system. Such an opinion does not deserve consideration, but it is certainly true, that some buildings are calculated to excite emotions favourable to religious impressions, to produce a serious frame of mind, and one in which we are more inclined to acknowledge the present existence of superior power, and more ready to submit to the influence of this conviction. Such means of excitement are liable to abuse, and no person can remain long in these edifices, and observe what passes before him, without being made sensible of the power they possess by the degree to which it is abused. But as this abuse is by no means a necessary attendant on the use, it is not a fair argument against it. Mankind in general, at least in France and England, are dull and sluggish in the affairs of religion; they find it difficult to detach their thoughts sufficiently from worldly affairs. It is desirable, therefore, that every help should be given them, for in this, as in every other good object, human means are to be used, when they are put within our reach. A place of worship should, therefore, in the first place, possess in its style and decoration, a decidedly different appearance from a common dwelling-house: this tends to break the associations with the every day employments of life, and gradually to form new associations with the objects of religion, which become of considerable importance in the government of the attention. A merchant, on entering his counting-house, is more strongly led to think of ships and commerce, than on coming into a dining-room. Secondly, a place of worship should possess a decided character of power and sublimity: if from the conditions of our nature any style of building is calculated to induce serious feelings, that style is fitted for a church. In the third place, if any style be already connected in our imagination with the duties of religion, it is fitter for the purpose than one, which having equally the two former qualifications, is deficient in the latter. These considerations point out the Gothic architecture as preferable to every other, for the churches of our own country; but it would not be at all necessary, in the erection of new structures, to retain the awkward arrangement usually found in a parish church.

I have already observed that the chapels at Amiens are not coeval with the building, but some of them are very little posterior. They are said to have originated from the following circumstance. In the year 1244, Geoffroi de Milly, great bailiff of Amiens, hung five clerks, or scholars, without any legal process, because they were accused by his daughter of an assault on her person. It is uncertain whether they were really guilty, or whether, having surprised her in too close conference with her lover, she accused them in order to invalidate their testimony against herself. The bishop, indignant at this wanton abuse of power, after examining the circumstances, pronounced the following severe sentence, and though it must be confessed that the bailiff had fully merited it, yet it seems astonishing that so galling a penance could be strictly performed, which we are told was the fact. Geoffroi was to be conducted on the following Saturday after dinner and before vespers, i. e. between one and two o’clock, with his arms and feet naked, a halter round his neck, and his hands tied behind him, in the manner usually practised towards felons, from the place called Malmaison to the gallows; and after reposing there a little while he was to be reconducted as far as the church of St. Montau, at which place his hands being untied, the body of one of the said five clerks, with a cloth of fine linen, was to be delivered to him, and he was to carry it to the Mother Church, and thence to the burying ground of St. Dionysius, and afterwards, in the four following days to carry the other four bodies in the same manner, first to the Mother Church, and then to the Cemetery. Moreover, he was directed to appear at the cathedral at Rheims, at the other churches of the diocese, and at the churches of Rouen, Paris, and Orleans, and to attend the processions on one Sunday, or feast day, at each, with his arms and feet naked, his hands tied behind him, and without any thing to shelter him from being fully seen, and at each place, during the procession, the sentence of his condemnation was to be read. Moreover, he was to swear never to hold any office conveying jurisdiction, and to submit himself in all particulars to the sentence of the bishop, and to perform all that it enjoined within the time prescribed, and to bring back with him certificates from each place of his having done so. Moreover, he was to provide five basins of silver, each weighing five marks, in which were to be five wax candles, each weighing three pounds. These were to be kept constantly burning in the church at Amiens, and the criminal had to provide funds in perpetuity. Nor was this all; the day after the feast of “Monsieur St. Jean Baptiste,” he was enjoined to take a journey to the Holy Land, and never to return to Amiens, without the consent of the bishop and chapter. Not content with thus punishing the bailiff, the bishop issued a decree against the mayor and aldermen (echevins) of Amiens, for having permitted the bailiff to proceed to such extremities against the five clerks, condemning them, under penalty of a thousand marks of silver, to found six chapels, and to appoint to each a rent of twenty Parisian livres, and in consequence of this decree were founded the first chapels of this church. Before quitting the nave I must point out two monuments too interesting to pass unnoticed, though such objects do not come within my general plan, except as they afford examples of architecture. They are on the right and left of the western doorway, and represent, in brass figures of the size of life, bishop Everard, the founder of the church, and Bertrand D’Abbeville, who completed it. They were originally placed in the midst of the nave, but were transferred in 1762 to their present position. On the pavement of the church is a labyrinth, indicated by the arrangement of black and white stones which compose it. Such an ornament occurs in many French churches. I do not know if it had any mysterious meaning.

Finding myself very cold while making my sketches, I walked round the church, through the galleries, and in the roof. The latter is very well constructed, three braces resting at different heights on each side of the king-post, exemplifies the origin of an English word for that part, roof-tree.

The timbers are generally small, but they are well disposed and well put together. They are said to be of chesnut, a statement still more general in France than in England as to the timber of old buildings, but I have no proof that it is not oak. The rafters are laid flatwise; the laying them edgewise is an improvement of modern date in England, and has not yet got into general use in France. The tie-beam is placed several feet above the vaulting. The central spire is also said to be of chesnut. It is well built, but the ornaments, which look sharp, and accurately defined, from below, appear round and clumsy when close to the eye. One may walk also on the outside over the roofs of the side aisles and chapels, among the flying buttresses, and behind the statues of the front gallery.

I found a very fine point for an external view of the cathedral in the garden of the Palais de Justice, but the cold and snow interrupted me. The palace seems now to be a school. Soon after I entered the garden, the maid-servant came in, in order to drive out the boys. They were quite as untractable as English boys usually are under the same authority, but after some quarrelling she gave one as loud a box on the ear as I ever heard; it rung through the court, and echoed from the ruins of a neighbouring monastery. One of them hid himself behind a tree, and after the danger was over, came out to tell me that he was very fond of drawing, that they had a drawing-master in the school, that they did little but draw, and that the master would not let them use compasses, but sometimes allowed them to measure. I objected to the latter liberty. “Ah Monsieur, vous savez que quand on commence à dessiner, on ne peut pas juger des mesures.” “Mais pour vous,” I replied, “qui dessinez bien?” “Ah pour moi qui dessine bien, ce n’est pas permis, il me gronderoit bien s’il trouvoit que je mesurois quelque chose.”

I stayed at Amiens the whole of the 13th of April, dining at the table d’Hôte, and accustoming myself to French language and French manners. The salle-à-manger was ornamented with a paper which seems very common at the inns, representing the principal buildings of Paris, not badly executed. Although the room is about forty feet long, there is no repetition of the pattern; you may easily conceive that an immense number of blocks must have been used. Indeed, I was once told by a paper-hanger in London, that he had seen papers in England which were executed by means of 150 blocks, and that he used to think that a very great number; but going afterwards to Paris, he had there seen some which required two thousand five hundred. My landlady conducted me into another room, where she shewed me the representation of a chase, in which both the forms and the colouring were really very good, and into a third, which was adorned with the history of Cupid and Psyche. I do not say the execution was such as you would be satisfied with in a painting, but yet all the parts were expressed with a considerable degree of truth and accuracy, the groups were well disposed, and the light well managed.

About noon, on the fourteenth, I again found a place in the cabriolet of the diligence, and proceeded to Beauvais, snow falling almost all the time. It was dusk when we arrived there; and the high, black mass of the choir rising above the houses of the town, all covered with snow, did not prepossess me in favour of the building. During the night the thermometer sunk to 25° of Fahrenheit, and the next morning was excessively cold, with frequent showers. Before reaching the cathedral, I inquired at a bookseller’s shop for some account of it. He had no such work, but shewed me a history of the town, “publiée sur la demande de Monsieur le Maire de Beauvais, et aux frais de la ville.” On looking over it I found little to answer my purpose, and begged permission to copy a few lines which might perhaps be useful to me. He most politely begged me to take the book, and keep it as long as I wanted it. I observed an account of the church of St. Etienne, said to be of very high antiquity, and the bookseller pointed out to me the description of an image, which, he assured me, had been a pagan idol: “Et comment, monsieur,” said I, “peut on s’assurer de la grande antiquité de cette statue?” “Eh,” replied he, “vous le trouverez dans les commentaires de César.” This was said with the greatest air of science imaginable.

On approaching the cathedral I was surprised at the richness and beauty of the external decoration. Seen from the south-east, it is much superior in this respect to Amiens, because the ornaments and their disposition are more dependent on each other, and seem more connected with the construction of the building. There are two ranges of pinnacles on the buttresses of the choir. Those of the inner range are slender, and carried up nearly as high as the walls of the clerestory. The outer are lower, and of more solid proportion; both ranges are ornamented, and their effect is very rich and magnificent. The “portal,” using this word to include the end of the transept, is of late date, and very much ornamented. The entrances are, you know, at the ends of the transepts, the nave never having been erected; and here again, on entering the church, the great window, with its splendid rose, terminating the vista, displays all its beauties. Passing down the centre, the view of the choir is really sublime; and the slender columns, the triple range of windows, and the loftiness of the upper ones, have an appearance almost supernatural. It is considerably higher than that at Amiens; and to judge by the eye, I should say that the ridge of the vaulting does not fall short of a hundred and sixty feet, but I do not think it on that account to be preferred. The columns at Beauvais are too slender, the arches between them too narrow, and the vault too high. Every quality is carried to excess. If the nave were built, the height would not appear so disproportionate; but it would still be too great, and the want of proportionate width would be more conspicuous. Another important objection is in the groining of the roof, which is too complicated. In a common groin one vault crosses another at right angles: in this instance two smaller vaults cross the principal one obliquely; we have therefore three vaults crossing each other in the same point; or, perhaps it would be better to say, that six vaults meet in one point. There are dates on some of the arches of the transept of 1575, 1577, 1578, 1580. This mode of construction was certainly introduced much earlier, but I do not know precisely at what period. In England, I think we find a similar construction in part of Canterbury Cathedral; and it is represented, but not very clearly, in Britton’s work on that edifice, pl. 17. The pillars of the choir are alternately larger and smaller, which renders it probable that the disposition of the vaulting was contemplated at the time of the foundation of the church. It has been suspected that these intermediate piers are posterior to the design of the building, but this does not appear to me to be the case. Whittington says that this roof fell down in 1802; whence could have arisen such an error?

The transept is furnished with side aisles, which are not so high as those of the choir. The choir has at its commencement a double range of side aisles, an arrangement productive of great beauty. The pillars of the choir are formed by small shafts, attached to a circular pier. In those of the transept the smaller shafts are united by curved lines to the principal shaft, so that each pillar on the plan is bounded by an undulating line, without any angle. Even in the earlier part the bases are more capricious than at Amiens; the pillars themselves are more slender, the capitals less distinct: all of which are proofs of its erection posterior to that cathedral.

I have still to state a few dates of this building. The foundations were laid in 991, by Hervé, fortieth bishop of Beauvais, but nothing of this construction remains to give any character to the present work; the roof and vaults were burnt in 1225. In 1281 the great arches of the choir fell down, and mass could not be said for forty years; and this perhaps may give us the era of the present choir, i. e. about 1324. Yet there are fragments undoubtedly of an older edifice; as, for example, at each end of the aisles of the transept, where there is a small wheel window. The transept was not begun till 1500. It was finished, with a central tower which rose to the height of four hundred and seventy-five feet. If this account be correct, it appears rather remarkable that the transept should contain no trace of Roman architecture. The Chateau de Gaillon, in Paris, begun in 1490, and finished in 1500, contains ample evidence of the introduction of that style, though it still retains much of the Gothic in the ornaments and their arrangement. There are, however, I believe, other buildings in France of the early part of the sixteenth century, perfectly Gothic.

My observations in the cathedral were interrupted by the office, and, as it was the first opportunity I have had of witnessing these ceremonies, I stayed to see what was going forward, paying half a sol for my chair. Each individual crosses himself on entrance. This, the use of holy water, and the bowing to the altar, seem very ridiculous to a Protestant. The first and last may be thought to announce, for the moment at least, attention to sacred things, but it would be difficult to assign any rational motive for the introduction of the holy water. Historically, it may, perhaps, be deduced as a symbol of purification from sin, but in the actual practice such an application appears absurd. I saw some water prepared and consecrated at Amiens, but the ceremony is not very impressive; and neither there nor at Beauvais did the dress of the officiating priests appear to me either dignified or graceful. The kneeling of the congregation consists in this: that each person turns the back of the chair from him; and tipping it a little, places one or both knees against the seat. In one not previously seated, the change of position is hardly observable.

The oldest fragment in Beauvais is a part of the ancient church of Nôtre Dame de Basse Œuvre. The east end presents a pretty large circular-headed window, with a flat, broad reticulated ornament round it in low relief, and some imperfect figures above. A portion of cornice, with the billeted moulding, also remains, and a few of the side arches, the whole being but a portion of the ancient nave. A floor has been inserted internally, to make it suitable for a magazine of wood, and the whole strengthened with brick piers. I can readily believe it to have been erected early in the eleventh century, or perhaps in the tenth, before the full development of the Norman style of architecture; but there is too little of it, and it is in too damaged a condition, to be of great interest. The work already mentioned assures us that it was erected in the third century, and that one of the existing figures was a pagan idol, as proved by its nakedness.

The church of St. Stephen is also very ancient, and it is far more perfect than Nôtre Dame de Basse Œuvre. It is said to have been erected or restored by St. Firmin in 997, but I suspect that this is too early for any part of the present design. The western front presents fragments of about the year 1200, but sadly injured during the revolution. The sides are adorned with a range of very little arches, forming, not an arcade, but an ornament under the cornice; a few of them, however, rest on slender shafts. This, I apprehend, is somewhat more ancient. The northern end of the transept has three semicircular-headed windows: the southern has two, and over them a fine wheel window, with figures representing the wheel of fortune; the gable is ornamented with interlacing rods of stone. There is also a fine Norman doorway on the north side. Internally the nave appears to have undergone no considerable alteration since its erection. The pillars are formed of square piers, with four large semi-elipsoid shafts attached, and four smaller cylindrical ones, nearly detached. The bases are attic, but of a form which indicates the beginning of the Gothic taste in that particular; and perhaps we may say that the whole, both inside and out, announces an erection of about the middle of the twelfth century. There were, I apprehend, no pointed arches in the original edifice. The transept is of mixed architecture, and the choir is of a late style. Its vaulting bears date 1548, but the design of this part must be attributed to the fifteenth century.

There are several other fragments in Beauvais. Two ancient towers, at the entrance of the episcopal palace, with high French roofs, and two Norman towers behind. Four Saxon arches, opposite the flank of the palace, have belonged to some richly ornamented building; and there is some mixed construction in the ancient walls. Parts of these are said to be of the fourth century, but internal evidence of this is wanting.

The soil about Beauvais is chalky, divided by small, narrow valleys, with steep sides, which afford situations for the vines: the little hill of Ste. Symphorienne, just out of the town, presents a very good view of it. The stumps of the vines rise about a foot from the ground; the poles were disposed in conical heaps, much as our hop-poles are, but the vine-poles are shorter. In some of the orchards, which are abundant, there are gooseberry bushes among the larger fruit trees, and these are the only things which look green. In the evening I again found a seat in the cabriolet of the diligence, and arrived at Paris about nine o’clock this morning. I have established myself in a small room in the Hotel du Phôt, Rue du Phôt; for which I am to pay forty francs per month, and two francs per month to François, who makes the bed, cleans the room, blacks shoes, brushes coats, and, in short, performs the united services of valet and chambermaid. The situation is pleasant, but rather too much out of town.