in conjunction with the modern Episcopal Palace,
forms an ensemble of stone and verdure not often to be seen as the
environment of a French cathedral. The gardens are quite open to the
public and are set forth with clipped hedges, trees, and monumental
stone work of no mean order.

Bourges is another of those ancient foundations of mid-France where
Romish influences died hard, and Gothic, as a perfected type, never, as
it were, attained its majority. Here, the mixture of style is notable;
pointed and rounded arches intermingled, apparently indiscriminately,
with thoroughly Gothic supports, mullions, and piers. These, with the
characteristically Renaissance north and south porches, with their
carven doorways, all go to complete a series of typically fashioned
details, each true to its own age. Such a combination of varying virtues
should give the student, or the seeker after new sensations, something
more to think about than a mere catalogue of consistent charms; for it
cannot be denied that this church, standing aloof from any other single
type, is a marvel of grandeur and impressiveness, whatever may be its
failings when dessicated by the theorist or the archaeologist.

It is unlikely that Saracen or even Moorish influences were ever at work
so far north as this; but there is an unquestionable tendency in much
of the debased decoration of this church to more than suggest a
similarity to both. It is, of course, not Gothic, as we know it, nor
Byzantine, _pur sang_, and it is certainly not Italian, but something
quite different. It is, perhaps, worthy of record that the inverted
horseshoe arch more nearly approximates what is commonly considered the
Moorish form; or, to give it a wider _locale_, Mediterranean, at least.
The polygonal turrets which flank the towers and the chapels of the
abside look, too, not unlike a sub-tropical feature, possibly Saracen.
Such details are markedly noticeable here, and it is because of features
such as these that one is minded to consider the church as something
quite different from anything seen elsewhere.

To carry the argument still farther, if these details are to be
considered in any sense Gothic, or any outgrowth thereof, it certainly
augurs much for the possibility of this style having come originally
from the East, or at least the Mediterranean countries. It has been
claimed before now by English and French writers alike, that it may have
developed from the arts of the Moors of