the very _first_ thing done _perfectly_ in its manner,
by Northern Christendom. In pages 323 and 327 of the sixth volume of
M. Viollet le Duc, you will find the exact history of the development
of these traceries through which the eastern light shines on you as
you stand, from the less perfect and tentative forms of Rheims: and so
momentary was the culmination of the exact rightness, that here, from
nave to transept--built only ten years later,--there is a little
change, not towards decline, but to a not quite necessary precision.
Where decline begins, one cannot, among the lovely fantasies that
succeeded, exactly say--but exactly, and indisputably, we know that
this apse of Amiens is the first virgin perfect work,--Parthenon also
in that sense,--of Gothic Architecture.

12. Who built it, shall we ask? God, and Man,--is the first and most
true answer. The stars in their courses built it, and the Nations.
Greek Athena labours here--and Roman Father Jove, and Guardian Mars.
The Gaul labours here, and the Frank: knightly Norman,--mighty
Ostrogoth,--and wasted anchorite of Idumea.

The actual Man who built it scarcely cared to tell you he did so; nor do
the historians brag of him. Any quantity of heraldries of knaves and
faineants you may find in what they call their 'history': but this is
probably the first time you ever read the name of Robert of Luzarches. I
say he 'scarcely cared'--we are not sure that he cared at all. He
signed his name nowhere, that I can hear of. You may perhaps find some
recent initials cut by English remarkable visitors desirous of
immortality, here and there about the edifice, but Robert the
builder--or at least the Master of building, cut _his_ on no stone of
it. Only when, after his death, the headstone had been brought forth
with shouting, Grace unto it, this following legend was written,
recording all who had part or lot in the labour, within the middle of
the labyrinth then inlaid in the pavement of the nave. You must read it
trippingly on the tongue: it was rhymed gaily for you by pure French
gaiety, not the least like that of the Theatre de Folies.

"En l'an de Grace mil deux cent
Et vingt, fu l'oeuvre de cheens
Premierement encomenchie.
A donc y ert de cheste evesquie
Evrart, eveque benis;
Et, Roy de France, Loys
Qui fut fils Phelippe le Sage.
Qui maistre y ert de l'oeuvre
Maistre Robert estoit nomes
Et de Luzarches surnomes.