it is that the cathedrals are the first
visible basis of that French nationality into which the scattered
provinces of Gaul had expanded, the first germ of that creative genius
of French art which has not yet lost its right of place in Europe,
the first clear record of the national intellect. And the people were
not slow to recognise the meaning of the carvings that were placed
where all who ran might read, placed there by men of like passions
with themselves, copied often so directly from themselves, that the
cathedrals may be regarded as the great record of the ancestry of the
common people. The emblazoned tomb, or the herald's parchment, might
fitly chronicle the proud descent of the solitary feudal lord; but the
brothers and kinsmen of his dependents were carved in their habits as
they lived upon the church's walls, and there they work at their
appointed tasks, and laugh at their superiors, unto this day. So the
people filled their church with throngs of worshippers, with
merry-making crowds, with vast audiences of the great mediaeval Mystery
Plays, with riotous assemblages sometimes not too decent, whose rough
humour has been preserved for us in the thousand grotesque carvings of
the time.

I have been at this length in explaining the building of the
cathedrals, because it would be impossible for you, without some such
suggestion of their origin, to realise the meaning of the carvings
which cover the great north and south porches of the transept at
Rouen. I choose them first out of the mass of detail and construction
in this enormous and heterogeneous building, because they are most
typical of the feeling which gave it birth, and of the craftsmen who
worked upon it. It is well-nigh impossible to attempt any explanation
of the many styles, from the twelfth century to the sixteenth, which
are commingled, superimposed even, without any feeling in the mind of
the architect, for the time being, except that of the imperious need
for self-expression, regardless of the fashions of his predecessor. In
the great western facade this mingling of the styles is most
observable. The angle towers are absolutely unlike, the arches are
broken, the pinnacles are smashed short off, niches are mutilated,
and arabesques are worn away, yet in the healing rays of moonlight,
the whole composes into a mysterious beauty of its own that will not
bear the strict analysis of glaring day.

But the Portail aux Libraires which Jean Davi, the arc