of practice; at the same time he is
certainly right on almost every point.

"It may be added as a general principle, that in our use of the terms
Ogee and Gothic, we are misapplying words which have lost their original
meaning; since the Goths have nothing to do with the style of
architecture which has taken their name, and the word ogee or ogyve,
which strictly means the semicircular form, is inaccurate as applied to
the arch with a double curve, which has for so long been regarded as the
basis, nay, as the characteristic stamp of a style."[1]

"After all," the Abbe went on, after a short silence, "how can we judge
of the works of a past age, but by such help as we may obtain from the
arcades pierced in shoring walls or from vaulting on round or pointed
arches? for they are all debased by centuries of repair, or left
unfinished. Look at Chartres; Notre Dame was to have had nine spires,
and it has but two! The cathedrals of Reims, of Paris, of Laon, and many
more, were to have had spires rising from their towers; and where are
they? We can form no exact idea of the effect their architects intended
to produce. And then, again, these churches were meant to be seen in a
setting which has been destroyed, an environment that has ceased to
exist; they were surrounded by houses of a character resembling their
own; they are now in the midst of barracks five stories high, gloomy,
ignoble penitentiaries!--and we constantly see the ground about them
cleared, when they were never intended to stand isolated on a square.
Look where you will, there is a total misapprehension of the conditions
in which they were placed, of the atmosphere in which they lived.
Certain details, which seem to us inexplicable in some of these
buildings, were, no doubt, imperatively required by the position and
needs of the surroundings. In fact, we stumble, we feel our way--but we
know nothing--nothing!"

"And at best," said Durtal, "archaeology and architecture have only done
a secondary work; they have simply set before us the material organism,
the body of the cathedrals; who shall show us the soul?"

"What do you mean by the word?" said the Abbe Gevresin.

"I am not speaking of the soul of the building at the moment when man by
Divine help had created it; we know nothing of that soul--not indeed as
regards Chartres, for some invaluable documents still reveal it; but of
the soul of other churches, the soul they still have, and which we help
to keep