Architecture In France.

very deeply into it ; at least I , for one , never could ; and I shall , thei-efore , now confine myself almost to the thirteenth century , with a general glance only at the after work . The thirteenth century is the date of Philip Augustus and St . Louisof Philip the Bold ancl Philip le Bel—of the

conquest by the French of the English provinces , north and south—of Provence and Champagneof the Crusade in Languedoc , and the destruction of the great order of the Templars . It reached from our Jolm to our Edward I .- ^ -from Norwich cathedral to Salisbury , Wells , Lincoln , and Westminster—the nave of York and the Eleanor crosses .

In Germany , it gave us many of the Cologne churches , with part of the cathedral itself;—in l ' taly , _ the Baptistery at Parma , St . Francesco at Assisi , the Canrpo Santo and Baptistery at Pisa;—in Spain , the Alhambra . It is the great era which M . Yiollefc-le-Duc brings forward as the

age of prodigious activity in art—when the grandest of the French works were undertaken with the most marvellous power of design and richness of detail ; but done , he says , in a hurried way , so that _ both the construction and details were wanting in that perfect finish which characterised the

earlier works : and it is the time at which the purest Pointed architecture is to be found in Europe . Of this era are the chief parts of the great French churches of Amiens , Bayeux , Rheims , Ohartres , Le Mans , Strasburg , Tours , Poictiers , LimogesBordeauxToulouseand Albthe walls

, , , y , -of Carcasonne , and many another work that gives life and interest to the city or the landscape . Here again , as before , we find a difference , strongly marked , between the north and the south ; but the strength of the south had now died out , and all the en of desihad passed to the north

ergy gn . ¦ There is , indeed , much of great interest in the south : _ the great churches of a single plan , and of one aisle only—marvels of construction , and valuable for study for our Protestant service . So , too , there is much to be learned from the brink

architecture of Toulouse and its neighbourhooda style quite peculiar to it , and not much known . But , nevertheless , the great move in architecture and sculpture in the thirteenth century was in the north , and to their architects , I think , belongs the credit of the movement .

Ihe change , however , in France , was scarcely so great as with us , from the style preceding ; and it was , to a much greater degree than with nsj a mere refinement on the century before . We find the mouldings , to a great extent , very similar in both—the foliage to the capitals very much the

same ; so , also , the general contour of the buildings , the sculptured porches , the lofty spires . All had been shadowed out before very much more than with us , and though they had got the start of us in the twelfth century , I think we had overtaken and outstripped them in the thirteenth . To begin , now , with the details , the most

important point , although the most minute in any comparison of work and dates . No one studying the subject can fail to see at once that the change of details made in France is very much less than with us . The mouldings most in use continued with them to be almost the same ; and one finds the sections that were used at St . Denis , in the middle of the twelfth century uKfid still at Chartres in the middle of the

thirteenth , with very little change indeed . Yet that length of time is very similar to that between our St . Cross and Westminster—between the Norman section of the one and the elegant Pointed section of the other . So , too , with the foliage . From a very early period in the twelfth century to a later

period in the thirteenth , much of the foliage of the capitals was very similar throughout ; and though the later work was somewhat freer and less archaic than the earlier , yet the general form was still the same . Compare this , now , with the difference between the same buildings that I have

before named , or with the heavy work of Peterborough transepts and the Chapter-house of Salisbmy and York . This great adhesion to a settled type of work presents much greater difficulty to any student investigating the theory of dates in France than he meets with in Great Britain , and it is somewhat dangerous to speculate too closely upon French dates from such details . It is .

indeed , captivating- when we find , as we do when first we begin our studies in architecture , that the mere contour of a moulding , or the turn of a leaf , will sometimes fix a building's date within some twenty years ; and one is sorely tempted to theorise thereon somewhat too confidently in

settling to our minds a doubtful date . But a larger study will often show that a little knowledge here , as in many other things , is a dangerous thing—not to have , but to theorise upon and the actual facts of a given proved date , will often show how much we must assign of influence

to local types and peculiarities . Knowledge makes us modest in this as in all things else . In France , however , so far as I can see , study has taken a path quite different ; for details there seem to be studied by the French in quite a secondary way . I do not know a single French work which gives the detailed mouldings to any workable size .

This , however , is a digression . Compare such ofthe French mouldings as Ihave given , and which are perfectly fair specimens , with any of our works of the same date , and the difference will be found very striking in favour of the advancement in England .

As to the capitals , the magnificent series of drawings which Mr . Scott has been kind enough to lend me , and to ivhich I shall allude in conclusion , will show at a glance the various differences of form and foliage . But then there comes the tracery of the windows , and I am afraid that the French had clearl y