tury the canons obtained, from
Philip Augustus, permission to extend their church beyond the city walls
in an easterly direction, and then it was that this wonderful choir took
shape. The work was undertaken in 1217 and was completed soon after the
middle of the same century, and the body of St. Julien, the first
apostle to Le Mans, for whom the church was named, was placed therein by
Geoffroy de Loudon, then bishop, who decorated the windows of the choir
with the magnificent glass with which they are still set.

From a certain distance to the eastward the cathedral at Le Mans
presents a view of the choir, unique in all the world. Other greater
ones there are, if mere height be concerned, and others with more
perfect appendages; but none give the far-spreading effect of encircling
chapels, or are possessed of high springing buttresses of more grace or
beauty than are seen here. He was a rash man who ranked the flying
buttresses as a sign of defective construction, indicating structural
weakness, meaningless and undecorative ornament, and what not. Few have
agreed with this dictum, and few ever will after they have seen Paris,
Beauvais, and Le Mans.

The interior is one of great interest; the nave, even in its early
forms, is none the less attractive because of its austerity. It is, as a
matter of fact, far more interesting here than in its exterior, the
swarthy circular pillars holding aloft arches with just a suspicion of
the ogival style, with narrow, low, and disproportionately small
windows in the aisles, where are also a series of strengthening pillars
of black and white stone, presenting again a reminiscence of the
southern manner, or at least recalling the slate and stone of Angers. In
the choir, with its girdling chapels and double ambulatory, we come upon
the most impressive portion of all. Slightly orientated from the east
and west, it presents by itself, like Beauvais, nearly all of the
attributes of a great church. The columns, arcades, and windows
throughout are all of an unusual elegance and grace, the vaulting rising
with much daring to a remarkable height, which must approach one hundred
and ten or more feet, and the equal of certain other "popularly notable"
buildings.

The rose window of the south of the transept is a remarkable example of
these masterpieces of the French builder. The framing and the glass with
which it is set is of the richest quality, though it dates only from the
fifteenth centur