These changes have, of course, altered the values of all the parts.  The portal is injured by being thrown into a glare of light, when it was intended to stand in shadow, as you will see in the north and south porches over the transept portals.  The towers are hurt by losing relief and shadow; but the old fleche is obliged to suffer the cruellest wrong of all by having its right shoulder hunched up by half of a huge rose and the whole of a row of kings, when it was built to stand free, and to soar above the whole facade from the top of its second storey.  One can easily figure it so and replace the lost parts of the old facade, more or less at haphazard, from the front of Noyon.

What an outrage it was you can see by a single glance at the new fleche opposite.  The architect of 1500 has flatly refused to submit to such conditions, and has insisted, with very proper self-respect, on starting from the balustrade of the Arcade of Kings as his level.  Not even content with that, he has carried up his square tower another lofty storey before he would consent to touch the heart of his problem, the conversion of the square tower into the octagon fleche.  In doing this, he has sacrificed once more the old fleche; but his own tower stands free as it should.

At Vendome, when you go there, you will be in a way to appreciate still better what happened to the Chartres fleche; for the clocher at Vendome, which is of the same date,—­Viollet-le-Duc says earlier, and Enlart, “after 1130,”—­stood and still stands free, like an Italian campanile, which gives it a vast advantage.  The tower of Saint-Leu-d’Esserent, also after 1130, stands free, above the second storey.  Indeed, you will hardly find, in the long list of famous French spires, another which has been treated with so much indignity as this, the greatest and most famous of all; and perhaps the most annoying part of it is that you must be grateful to the architect of 1195 for doing no worse.  He has, on the contrary, done his best to show respect for the work of his predecessor, and has done so well that, handicapped as it is, the old tower still defies rivalry.  Nearly three hundred and fifty feet high, or, to be exact, 106.5 metres from the church floor, it is built up with an amount of intelligence and refinement that leaves to unprofessional visitors no chance to think a criticism—­much less to express one.  Perhaps—­ when we have seen more—­and feel less—­who knows?—­but certainly not now!

“The greatest and surely the most beautiful monument of this kind that we possess in France,” says Viollet-le-Duc; but although an ignorant spectator must accept the architect’s decision on a point of relative merit, no one is compelled to accept his reasons, as final.  “There is no need to dwell,” he continues, “upon the beauty and the grandeur of composition in which the artist has given proof of rare sobriety, where all the effects are obtained, not by ornaments, but by the just and