form in a region safely comprehended as lying within
the confines of northeastern France, the Netherlands, and the northern
Rhine Provinces. Much has been written on this debatable subject and
doubtless will continue to be, either as an arrow shot into the air by
some wary pedant, or an equally unconvincing statement, without proof,
of some mere follower in the footsteps of an illustrious, but behind the
times, expert. It matters not, as a mere detail, whether it was brought
from the East in imperfect form by the Crusaders, and only received its
development at the hands of some ingenious northerner, or not. Its
development was certainly rapid and sure in the great group which we
know to-day in northern France, and, if proof were wanted, the existing
records in stone ought to be sufficiently convincing to point out the
fact that here Mediaeval Gothic architecture received its first and most
perfect development. The _Primaire_: the development of the style
finding its best example at Paris. The _Secondaire_: the
Perfectionnement at Reims, and its Apogee at Amiens. The _Tertiaire_:
practically the beginning of the decadence, in St. Ouen at Rouen, only
a shade removed from the debasement which soon followed. As to the
merits or demerits of the contemporary structures of other nations, that
also would be obviously of comparative unimportance herein except so far
as a comparison might once and again be made to accentuate values.

The earliest art triumphs of the French may well be said to have been in
the development and _perfectionnement_ of Mediaeval (Gothic)
architecture. Its builders planned amply, wisely, and well, and in spite
of the interruptions of wars, of invasions, and of revolutions, there is
nowhere to be found upon the earth's surface so many characteristic
attributes of Mediaeval Gothic architecture as is to be observed in this
land, extending from the Romanesque types of Frejus, Perigueux and
Angouleme to that classical degeneration commonly called the
Renaissance, a more offensive example of which could hardly be found
than in the conglomerate structure of St. Etienne du Mont at Paris, or
the more modern and, if possible, even more ugly Cathedral Churches at
Arras, Cambrai, or Rennes in the north.

There may be attractive Italian types in existence out of Italy; but
the fact is that, unless they are undoubted copies of a thoroughly
consistent style to the very end, they impress one as being out of place
in