s of very hideous _diablerie_. It may well be believed that
these florid builders did not suffer the spire to arise serious and
serene from the midst of this delicious tangle of architecture. They
tricked it out with all the frostwork of Gothic genius. Not only did
they use in its decoration spire-lights, crockets, ribs and cinctures,
bands of gablets, and masses of reticulated relief, but, with wonderful
skill, they pierced each face from base to apex in foliated patterns
of great richness, so that the whole spire became a web of delicate
open-work, through which the light was sprinkled in beautiful shapes,
varying with every movement of the beholder. Their plainer spires of
wood they were fond of covering with glazed tiles of various tints
arranged in quaint taste. And they would vary the outline by making it
curve inward, giving a fine sweep thus from the base to an apex of great
slenderness. Sometimes they would give it, with exaggerated refinement,
the _entasis_ of the Greek column. There are instances of this last
treatment both in France and England.

But it was not only in exuberance of enrichment and quaintness of form
that these enthusiastic workmen uttered their inspirations. They built
their spires to a most amazing height. Indeed, the loftiest steeples in
the world arose in level tracts of country, where they could be seen at
immense distances, as not only in Belgium and thereabout, but on the
flat margins of the upper and lower Rhine, as at Strasburg and Cologne.
In these countries, and about the North of France, there was a generous
rivalry as to which city should lift up highest the cross of God. But as
soon as the sacred passion for spire-building was corrupted by this new
element of human emulation, some strange things happened. The people of
Beauvais, for instance, desiring to beat the people of Amiens, set to
work, we are told, to build a tower on their cathedral as high as they
possibly could. The same thing had been done once before on the plains
of Shinar. One foresees the result, of course; "it fell, for it was
founded upon the sand, and great was the fall thereof." And so with the
good people of Louvain. They built three spires to their cathedral, of
which the central one reached the unparalleled height of five hundred
and thirty-three feet, according to Hope, and the side-towers four
hundred and thirty feet. This tremendous group, however, fell, or,
threatening destruction, was taken down, in 16