; but no two agree. One
thing is certain, Gothic art is the art of the North; it made its way
into Normandy, and from thence into England. Then it spread to the Rhine
in the twelfth century, and to Spain by the beginning of the thirteenth.
Gothic churches in the South are but an importation, evidently
ill-assorted with the men and women who frequent them, and the merciless
blue sky which spoils them."

"And observe," said Durtal, "that in our country that aspect of
mysticism is discordant with the rest."

"How is that?"

"Well, you see, in the distribution of the sacred arts France received
architecture only. Consider the pre-Raphaelite painters. All the early
painters were Italians, Spaniards, Flemings, or Germans. Those whom some
writers try to represent as our fellow-countrymen are Flemings
transplanted to Burgundy, or docile Frenchmen whose imitative work bears
an unmistakable Flemish stamp. Look in the Louvre at our primitive
artists; look at Dijon, especially at what remains from the time when
northern art was introduced by Philippe le Hardi into his own province.
It is impossible to feel a doubt. Everything came from Flanders--Jean
Perreal, Bourdichon, even Fouquet are whatever you please, only not the
inventors of an original Gallic art.

"It is the same with the mystic writers. Of what use would it be to
mention the nationalities to which they belong? They too are Spanish,
Italian, German, Flemish--not one is French."

"I beg your pardon, our friend!" cried Madame Bavoil, "there was the
Venerable Jeanne de Matel, who was born at Roanne."

"Yes, but she was the daughter of an Italian father who was born at
Florence," said the Abbe Gevresin, who, hearing the bell ring for Nones,
now folded up his table napkin. They all stood up and said grace, and
Durtal made an appointment with the Abbe Plomb to visit the Cathedral.
Then he went home, meditating, as he walked, on this strange division of
art in the middle ages, and the supremacy given to France in
architecture, when as yet she was so inferior in every other art.

"And it must be owned," he concluded, "that she has now lost this
superiority; for it is long indeed since she produced an architect. The
men who assume the name are mere thieving bunglers, builders devoid of
all individuality and learning. They are not even able to pilfer
skilfully from their precursors. What are they nowadays? Patchers up of
chapels, church cobblers, botchers and blunderers!"