ive west front, then, had become but
a wall of partition; and above its central portal, where the round
arched west windows had been, ran now a kind of broad, arcaded tribune,
in full view of the entire length of the church. In the midst of it
stood an altar; and here perhaps, the priest who officiated being
visible to the whole assembled multitude east and west, the early Mass
was said.

The great vestibule was finished about forty years after the completion
of the nave, towards the middle of the twelfth century. And here, in
the great pier-arches, and in the eastern bay of the vault, still with
the large masonry, the large, flat, unmoulded surfaces, and amid the
fantastic carvings of the Romanesque building about it, the Pointed
style, determined yet discreet, makes itself felt--makes itself felt by
appearing, if not for the first time, yet for the first time in the
organic or systematic development of French architecture. Not in the
unambitious facade of Saint-Denis, nor in the austere aisles of Sens,
but at Vezelay, in this grandiose fabric, so worthy of the event,
Viollet-le-Duc would [139] fain see the birthplace of the Pointed
style. Here at last, with no sense of contrast, but by way of
veritable "transition," and as if by its own matured strength, the
round arch breaks into the double curve, les arcs brises, with a
wonderful access of grace. And the imaginative effect is forthwith
enlarged. Beyond, far beyond, what is actually presented to the eye in
that peculiar curvature, its mysterious grace, and by the stateliness,
the elevation of the ogival method of vaulting, the imagination is
stirred to present one with what belongs properly to it alone. The
masonry, though large, is nicely fitted; a large light is admitted
through the now fully pronounced Gothic windows towards the west. At
Amiens we found the Gothic spirit, reigning there exclusively, to be a
restless one. At Vezelay, where it breathes for the first time amid
the heavy masses of the old imperial style, it breathes the very genius
of monastic repose. And then, whereas at Amiens, and still more at
Beauvais, at Saint-Quentin, you wonder how these monuments of the past
can have endured so long, in strictly monastic Vezelay you have a sense
of freshness, such as, in spite of their ruin, we perceive in the
buildings of Greece. We enjoy here not so much, as at Amiens, the
sentiment of antiquity, but that of eternal duration.

But let me place y