combination of Angevin and
Norman detail. The really distinctive southern influence is to be noted
in the Romano-Byzantine nave, the exterior of which, so far as the
western front is concerned, is far more notable in the rigidness and
austerity of its lines, than by any richness of ornamentation or
decoration. Nothing could be more simply plain than this portal, and the
wall and gable which surmount it. A large bare window, of the variety of
that at Angers, stands above the doorway, which, itself, lacks all
attempt at embellishment. What decoration the facade bears is after the
true Byzantine manner, of the nature of brickwork displayed and set into
the wall in geometrically angular fashion. What sculpture there is, two
grotesque animals on either of the buttresses which flank the facade, is
of minor account. This, then, is the extent of the detail of this severe
western facade, the grand portal of the usually accepted great church
being entirely lacking and evidently not thought of as a desirable
detail when this portion of the structure was erected. It has nothing of
the prodigious art expression of the frontispieces of the grand Gothic
churches of the north, or of the less poverty-stricken Byzantine
decoration of its own Meridional portal, which, in so far as the style
can be said to take on richness of form, shows the transition tendencies
of the early twelfth century. This doorway is surmounted by a tympanum,
ornamented by a figure of the Saviour surrounded by the four
Evangelists, a subject which has always proved itself a highly
successful and popular ecclesiastical symbol, and one which in this
case, as in most others, is well made use of. All the figures have
suffered considerably from the ravages of time, but retain much of their
interest and charm in spite of such mutilation. A tower of Romanesque
foundation, but of fifteenth and sixteenth century completion, flanks
this south transept.

The ranking portion of this interesting church is its choir, larger in
superficial area than the entire cathedrals of Noyon or Soissons. Both
from inside and out, it is all that one's imagination could possibly
invent. Its great proportions are as harmonious and graceful as the
lines of a willow-tree; in fact, as to general effect, it may be set
down as a thing of extraordinary grandeur, worthy to rank with Beauvais
or Amiens, and yet different from either, of a quality its very own. At
the commencement of the thirteenth cen