at of the Isle of France with La Brie was originally
held by the Crown. The political divisions throughout France now number
eighty-seven departments, taking their names from the principal
topographical features, and replacing in 1790 the thirty-two mediaeval
provinces, each of which had their own characteristics of social and
political life, and of which each in turn progressed, stagnated, or fell
backward according to local or periodical conditions. Both the arts of
peace and of war have left an ineradicable impress. In the thirteenth
century the various provinces became welded together into one perfect
whole under Philippe Augustus and the sainted Louis, but retained to no
small extent, even as they do unto to-day, their distinctive local
characteristics.

Because of its cathedrals alone, the Isle of France stands preeminent
among the provinces for each of the thirteen provincial styles of
architecture which are allocated by the Societe des Monuments
Historiques. A comparatively small and unified province, it comprehends
within and contiguous to its borders more of the attributes and
principles of a consistent Mediaeval architectural style than is
elsewhere to be observed. From Rouen on the west to Reims on the east,
northward to Amiens and southwesterly to Chartres, are grouped the show
pieces of the world's Gothic architecture. Not alone with the respect to
the Grand Cathedrals is this region so richly endowed, but also because
of the smaller and less important, but no less attractive or interesting
examples of Noyon, Senlis, Laon, Soissons, with their one-time cathedral
churches and other varied ecclesiastical and secular edifices.

Beauvais, Gisors, Gourney, Cires-les-Mello, Creil, Royamont,
Nogent-les-Vierges, Villers-St.-Pol, indeed nearly every village and
town within the royal domain, present values and comparisons which place
nearly all of its contemporary structures, be they large or small, at a
grand height above those of other less prolific sections. Lest it be
thought that this statement is drawn largely, and that fineness and
balance of estimate are lacking, it suffices to state that it is not
alone from study and research, but from frequent personal intimacies
that the region has ever proved an inexhaustible store of architectural
values, and one which most well-known authorities, with one accord,
place in the very first rank.

Arthur Young, than whom no more perspicuous observer has ever chronicled