pire springs with crocketted ribs at the angles, the lead
being arranged in a quaint herring-bone pattern; at the base of the spire
too is a crown of open-work and figures, making a third stage; finally,
near the top of the spire the crockets swell, till you come to the rose
that holds the great spire-cross of metal-work, such metal-work as the
French alone knew how to make; it is all beautiful, though so late.

From one of the streets leading out of the Place Royale you can see the
cathedral, and as you come nearer you see that it is clear enough of
houses or such like things; the great apse rises over you, with its belt
of eastern chapels; first the long slim windows of these chapels, which
are each of them little apses, the Lady Chapel projecting a good way
beyond the rest, and then, running under the cornice of the chapels and
outer aisles all round the church, a cornice of great noble leaves; then
the parapets in changing flamboyant patterns, then the conical roofs of
the chapels hiding the exterior tracery of the triforium, then the great
clerestory windows, very long, of four lights, and stilted, the tracery
beginning a long way below the springing of their arches; and the
buttresses are so thick, and their arms spread so here, that each of the
clerestory windows looks down its own space between them, as if between
walls: above the windows rise their canopies running through the parapet,
and above all the great mountainous roof, and all below it, and around
the windows and walls of the choir and apse, stand the mighty army of the
buttresses, holding up the weight of the stone roof within with their
strong arms for ever.

We go round under their shadows, past the sacristies, past the southern
transept, only glancing just now at the sculpture there, past the chapels
of the nave, and enter the church by the small door hard by the west
front, with that figure of huge St. Christopher quite close over our
heads; thereby we enter the church, as I said, and are in its western
bay. I think I felt inclined to shout when I first entered Amiens
cathedral; it is so free and vast and noble, I did not feel in the least
awe-struck, or humbled by its size and grandeur. I have not often felt
thus when looking on architecture, but have felt, at all events, at
first, intense exultation at the beauty of it; that, and a certain kind
of satisfaction in looking on the geometrical tracery of the windows, on
the sweeping of the huge arc