se magnificent
chateaux of the Loire, and the neighbourhood of Tours and Blois, ever a
subject for sentimental praise. One would not seek to pass condemnation
upon the application of revived classic features where they were but the
expression of an individual taste, as in a chateau whose owner so chose
to build and embellish it. Certainly no more splendid edifices of their
kind are known than the magnificent establishments at Blois, Chenonceau,
Chambord, or Chaumont. The style appears, however, out of place; an
admixture meaningless in itself and in its application when, with a
Gothic foundation bequeathed them, builders sought to incorporate into a
cathedral such palpable inconsistencies as was frequently done.

The building of the chateaux was perhaps the first anti-Gothic step in
France and proved to be an influence which spread not slowly, as to
decorative detail at least, and soon of itself established a decided
non-Gothic type.

It was but natural that the cathedral builders should have followed to
some extent this new influence. The Church was ever seeking to
strengthen its popularity, the bishops ensconced themselves in their
cathedral cities as snugly as did a feudal lord in his castle, and their
emulation of wealth outside of the Church was but an effort to keep
their status on a plane with that of the other power which also demanded
allegiance of the people. It is to be regretted that they did not pass
this manifestation by, or at least not encumbered an otherwise
consistent Gothic fabric with superimposed meaningless detail. Such
decorative embellishments as are represented by the tomb of Louis XII.
at St. Denis, and the tombs of the cardinals at Rouen, may be considered
characteristic, though they bear earlier dates by some twenty years than
the south portal of Beauvais, which is thoroughly the best of Gothic, or
St. Maclou at Rouen, which, though highly florid, is without a trace of
anti-Gothic. The extreme (though not a cathedral church) may be seen at
St. Etienne du Mont, wherein the effort is made to incorporate large
masses of pseudo-classical decoration with Gothic, and, alas, with sad
effect.

For the most part, the Gothic cathedrals of France, as such, while
closely related to each other in their design and arrangements, have
little to do with those which lie without the confines of the country,
either in general features or in detail. The type is distinctively one
which stands by its own perfect