“If I add to this that two of Jehan de Beauce’s colleagues have been traced:  Thomas Le Vasseur, who assisted him in the building of the new spire, and one Sieur Bernier, whose name occurs in ancient accounts; that from some old contracts, discovered by Monsieur Lecoq, we know that Jehan Soulas, image-maker, of Paris, carved the finest of the groups that are the glory of the choir-aisles, and can verify the names of other sculptors who succeeded this admirable artist, but who are less interesting, since with them pagan art reappears and mediocrity is evident:  Francois Marchant, image-maker, of Orleans, and Nicolas Guybert, of Chartres—­we have mentioned almost all the records worthy of preservation as to the great artists who laboured at Chartres from the twelfth till the close of the first half of the fifteenth century.”

“And after that period the names that have been handed down to us deserve nothing but execration.  Thomas Boudin, Legros, Jean de Dieu, Berruer, Tuby, Simon Mazieres—­these were the men that dared to carry on the work begun by Soulas!  Louis, the Duc d’Orleans’ architect, who debased and ravaged the choir, and the infamous Bridan, who, to the contemptible delight of some of the Canons, erected his blatant and wretched presentment of the Assumption!”

“Alas!” said the Abbe Gevresin, “and they were Canons who thought fit to break two ancient windows in the choir and fill them with white panes, the better to light that group of Bridan’s!”

“Will you eat nothing more?” asked Madame Bavoil, who, at a negative from the guests, cleared away the cheese and preserves, and brought in coffee.

“Since you are so much charmed by our Cathedral, I shall be most happy to take you over it and explain its details,” said the Abbe Plomb to Durtal.

“I shall accept with pleasure, Monsieur l’Abbe, for it fairly haunts me, it possesses me—­your Notre Dame!  You know, no doubt, Quicherat’s theories of Gothic art?”

“Yes, and I believe them to be correct.  Like him, I am convinced that if the essential character of the Romanesque is the substitution of the vaulted roof for the truss, the distinctive element and principle of the Gothic is the buttress, and not the pointed arch.

“I reserve my opinion, indeed, as to the accuracy of Quicherat’s declaration that ’the history of architecture in the middle ages is no more than the history of the struggle of architects against the thrust and weight of vaulting,’ for there is something in this art beyond material industry and a problem of practice; at the same time he is certainly right on almost every point.

“It may be added as a general principle, that in our use of the terms Ogee and Gothic, we are misapplying words which have lost their original meaning; since the Goths have nothing to do with the style of architecture which has taken their name, and the word ogee or ogyve, which strictly means the semicircular form, is inaccurate as applied to the arch with a double curve, which has for so long been regarded as the basis, nay, as the characteristic stamp of a style."[1]