ost cases,
however, it is less easy to appreciate this than the stained glass,
for, as it is now to be seen, the colours are either faded and
darkened by time and smoke, or else restored, not always with the
exactness that could be desired.

_Construction and Design._

The construction of the great buildings of the middle ages in France
is an interesting subject of study, but necessarily a thoroughly
technical one. Great sagacity in designing the masonry, carpentry,
joinery, and metal-work; and trained skill in the carrying out the
designs, have left their traces everywhere; and while the construction
of the earlier castles and of the simple churches shows a solidity but
little inferior to that of the Romans themselves, the most elaborate
works, such for example as the choir at Beauvais (Fig. 38), can hardly
be surpassed as specimens of skill and daring, careful forethought,
and bold execution.

[Illustration: FIG. 38.--BEAUVAIS CATHEDRAL, INTERIOR. (1225-1537.)]

Design, in France, pursued the general principles of Gothic
architecture to their logical conclusions with the most uncompromising
consistency. Perhaps the most distinctive peculiarity in French
cathedrals is a love of abstract beauty, and a strong preference for
breadth, regularity, dignity, and symmetry wherever they come into
competition with picturesqueness and irregular grouping. There is, it
is true, plenty of the picturesque element in French mediaeval art; but
if we take the finest buildings, and those in which the greatest
effort would be made to secure the qualities which were considered the
greatest and most desirable, we shall find very strong evidences of a
conviction that beauty was to be attained by regularity and order,
rather than by unsymmetrical and irregular treatment.

BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS.

Belgium is a country rich in remains of Gothic architecture. Its art
was influenced so largely by its neighbourhood to France, that it will
not be necessary to attempt anything like a chronological arrangement
of its buildings. Fine churches exist in its principal cities, but
they cannot be said to form a series differing widely from the
churches of France, with which they were contemporary, and where they
differ the advantage is generally on the side of the French originals.

The principal cathedral of the Low Countries, that at Antwerp, is a
building remarkable for its great width (having seven aisles), and for
the wonderful pic