d for nearly two
hundred years.

"The fourteenth century was torn by frightful disasters. It began with
the ignoble quarrels between Philippe le Bel and the Pope; it saw the
stake lighted for the Templars, made bonfires in Languedoc of the
_Begards_ and the _Fraticelli_, the lepers and the Jews; wallowed in
blood under the defeats of Crecy and Poitiers, the furious excesses of
the Jacquerie and of the Maillotins, and the ravages of the brigands
known as the _Tard-venus_; and finally, having run so wild, its madness
was reflected in the incurable insanity of the king.

"Thus it ended, as it had begun, writhing in the most horrible religious
convulsions. The Tiaras of Rome and Avignon clashed, and the Church,
standing unsupported on these ruins, tottered on its base, for the Great
Western Schism now shook it.

"The fifteenth century seemed to be born mad. Charles VI.'s insanity
seemed to be infectious; the English invasion was followed by the
pillage of France, the frenzied contest of the Bourguignons and the
Armagnacs, by plagues and famines, and the overthrow at Agincourt; then
came Charles VII., Joan of Arc, the deliverance and the healing of the
land by the energetic treatment of King Louis XI.

"All these events hindered the progress of the works in cathedrals.

"The fourteenth century on the whole restricted itself to carrying on
the structures begun during the previous century. We must wait till the
end of the fifteenth, when France drew breath, to see architecture start
into life once more.

"It must be added that frequent conflagrations at various times
destroyed a whole church, and that it had to be rebuilt from the
foundations; others, like Beauvais, fell down, and had to be
reconstructed, or, if money was lacking, simply strengthened and the
gaps repaired.

"With the exception of a very few--Saint Ouen at Rouen for one, a rare
example of a church almost entirely built during the fourteenth century
(excepting the western towers and front, which are quite modern), and
the Cathedral at Reims for another, which appears to have been
constructed without much interruption, on the original plans of Hugues
Libergier or Robert de Coucy--not one of our cathedrals was erected
throughout in accordance with the designs of the architect who began it,
nor has one remained untouched.

"Most of them, consequently, represent the combined efforts of
successive pious generations; still, this apparently improbable fact is