then, Diablintes, Naeodunum, whatever it is to be called, has a
special place among fallen Roman cities. Aquileia and Salona once ranked
among the great cities of the earth; their destruction is matter of
recorded history. The destruction of Uriconium is so far matter of
recorded history that a reference to it has been detected in the wail of
a British poet. The fall of Anderida was sung by our own gleemen and
recorded by our own chroniclers. But the fall of Calleva and the fall of
Naeodunum are alike matters of inference. Geography shows that Calleva
fell in the northern march of Cerdic, and the most speaking of all Roman
relics, the treasured and hidden eagle, abides as a witness of the day
when our fathers overthrew it.[62] Naeodunum seems to have undergone no
such overthrow as those wrought by the Hun, the Avar, and the Saxon. But
the evidence of buildings and of coins reveals to us a most important
and singular piece of the internal history of the Roman province of
Gaul. The city of the Diablintes itself may have been finally swept away
by Hasting or Rolf; but the greatest thing in Naeodunum, the Roman
fortress, must have been, perhaps broken down, certainly forsaken, by
the hands of men who called themselves Romans, while its bricks and
stones were still in their first freshness. Nowhere is the truth more
strongly brought home to us that there is another kind of evidence
besides chronicles, besides even written documents, the evidence of the
works of the men themselves who did deeds which no one took the trouble
to record with the pen or with the graving tool.

THE CHURCHES OF CHARTRES AND LE MANS

1868

It is sometimes curious to see how far the popular fame of buildings is
from answering either to their architectural merit or to their historic
interest. Take, for instance, the two cathedrals of Chartres and Le
Mans, two cities placed within no very great distance of one another, on
one of the great French lines of railway, that which leads from Paris to
Brest. Chartres is a name which is familiar to every one; its cathedral
is counted among the great churches of Christendom; men speak of it in
the same breath with Amiens and Ely. Le Mans, on the other hand, is
scarcely known; we suspect that many fairly informed persons hardly know
where the city itself is; the cathedral is hardly ever spoken of, and,
we believe, is scarcely at all known, except to professed architectural
students. Yet, except that Ch