ut citizens would seem even in their
church-building to have sought chiefly to please the eyes of those
occupied with mundane affairs and out of doors, for they have finished,
with abundant outlay, only the vast, useless portals of their parish
churches, of surprising height and lightness, in a kind of wildly
elegant Gothic-on-stilts, giving to the streets of Troyes a peculiar
air of the grotesque, as if in some quaint nightmare of the Middle Age.

At Sens, thirty miles away to the west, a place of far graver aspect,
the name of Jean [50] Cousin denotes a more chastened temper, even in
these sumptuous decorations. Here all is cool and composed, with an
almost English austerity. The first growth of the Pointed style in
England-the hard "early English" of Canterbury--is indeed the creation
of William, a master reared in the architectural school of Sens; and
the severity of his taste might seem to have acted as a restraining
power on all the subsequent changes of manner in this place--changes in
themselves for the most part towards luxuriance. In harmony with the
atmosphere of its great church is the cleanly quiet of the town, kept
fresh by little channels of clear water circulating through its
streets, derivatives of the rapid Vanne which falls just below into the
Yonne. The Yonne, bending gracefully, link after link, through a
never-ending rustle of poplar trees, beneath lowly vine-clad hills,
with relics of delicate woodland here and there, sometimes close at
hand, sometimes leaving an interval of broad meadow, has all the
lightsome characteristics of French river-side scenery on a smaller
scale than usual, and might pass for the child's fancy of a river, like
the rivers of the old miniature-painters, blue, and full to a fair
green margin. One notices along its course a greater proportion than
elsewhere of still untouched old seignorial residences, larger or
smaller. The range of old gibbous towns along its banks, expanding
their gay quays upon the water-side, [51] have a common
character--Joigny, Villeneuve, Saint Julien-du-Sault--yet tempt us to
tarry at each and examine its relics, old glass and the like, of the
Renaissance or the Middle Age, for the acquisition of real though minor
lessons on the various arts which have left themselves a central
monument at Auxerre.--Auxerre! A slight ascent in the winding road!
and you have before you the prettiest town in France--the broad
framework of vineyard sloping upwar