The first glimpse that is caught, and the first that was meant to be caught, is that of the two spires.  With all the education that Normandy and the Ile de France can give, one is still ignorant.  The spire is the simplest part of the Romanesque or Gothic architecture, and needs least study in order to be felt.  It is a bit of sentiment almost pure of practical purpose.  It tells the whole of its story at a glance, and its story is the best that architecture had to tell, for it typified the aspirations of man at the moment when man’s aspirations were highest.  Yet nine persons out of ten—­perhaps ninety-nine in a hundred—­who come within sight of the two spires of Chartres will think it a jest if they are told that the smaller of the two, the simpler, the one that impresses them least, is the one which they are expected to recognize as the most perfect piece of architecture in the world.  Perhaps the French critics might deny that they make any such absolute claim; in that case you can ask them what their exact claim is; it will always be high enough to astonish the tourist.

Astonished or not, we have got to take this southern spire of the Chartres Cathedral as the object of serious study, and before taking it as art, must take it as history.  The foundations of this tower—­ always to be known as the “old tower”—­are supposed to have been laid in 1091, before the first crusade.  The fleche was probably half a century later (1145-70).  The foundations of the new tower, opposite, were laid not before 1110, when also the portal which stands between them, was begun with the three lancet windows above it, but not the rose.  For convenience, this old facade—­including the portal and the two towers, but not the fleches, and the three lancet windows, but not the rose—­may be dated as complete about 1150.

Originally the whole portal—­the three doors and the three lancets—­ stood nearly forty feet back, on the line of the interior foundation, or rear wall of the towers.  This arrangement threw the towers forward, free on three sides, as at Poitiers, and gave room for a parvis, before the portal,—­a porch, roofed over, to protect the pilgrims who always stopped there to pray before entering the church.  When the church was rebuilt after the great fire of 1194, and the architect was required to enlarge the interior, the old portal and lancets were moved bodily forward, to be flush with the front walls of the two towers, as you see the facade to-day; and the facade itself was heightened, to give room for the rose, and to cover the loftier pignon and vaulting behind.  Finally, the wooden roof, above the stone vault, was masked by the Arcade of Kings and its railing, completed in the taste of Philip the Hardy, who reigned from 1270 to 1285.