l-nigh all
the contemporary events of their environment, as well as the greater
parts which they may have played in general affairs of state.

The best example of a part so played is that of the cathedral at Reims,
which saw the crowning within its walls of nearly every monarch of
France from the time of Philippe Augustus (1173) to that of Charles X.
(1823). The monarchs of France, a long and picturesque line, have ever
sought to ally the Church on their side, and right well they have been
served, not ignoring, of course, certain notable lapses. In the main,
however, the rulers and the people alike, whatever may have been the
periodical dissensions, combined the forces which made possible the
projection and erection of these noble examples of an art which, in the
Gothic forms at least, here came to its greatest and most interesting
phase.

Invasion, revolution, and the stress of weather and time, all played
their part in the general desecrations which sooner or later followed;
far the most serious of these visible damages reflected upon us to-day
being the malpractices occurring at the Revolution, whether at the hands
of a _sans culotte_ or of the most respectable of bourgeois, led away by
the excitement of revolt. The depredations were irreparable; they razed,
burned, or ruthlessly shattered shrines, statues, or even reliquaries,
as at Reims, where the Sainted Ampulla, which contained the miraculous
oil brought by a dove from heaven, now preserved in reconstructed
fragments in the sacristy, was dashed to pieces in a fury of
uncontrollable wrath.

The paucity of sculptured decoration in certain places only too plainly
designed for it is, too, frequently painfully apparent. Such sculptured
decoration and glass as were easily to hand met with perhaps the most
ready spoliation, while here and there, from some miraculous reason, a
gem was left entire, though likely enough in a bruised and shattered
setting.

This is what befell most of the great churches, and, for this reason,
any work treating of these architectural glories of France must make due
allowance in hazarding opinions as to the merit or lack of merit of any
particular example as it now exists, as compared with what it may have
been as it once was, or had it been completed in accordance with the
original design.

In local and cathedral archives much valuable and interesting
information exists, treating in this very manner such embellishments as
may to-day