Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/207

 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCIIITECTUKE IN FRANCE. 119 certain points from those tlhat care so thickly clustered about Creil and Clermont, and of which I have named, I believe, only a small part. To mark the locality, I should mention that Clermont is about fifty miles from Paris by the line of the railroad, and St. Leu d'Essercnt nearer Paris by about fifteen miles ; and that none of the churches I have mentioned in that district are distant from the line of the rail more than seven or eight miles. As the country abounds in excellent building stone, much of which is still quarried and sent to a considerable distance, the masonry is generally very good, and the mouldings and details well cut ; the outlines are alva3's picturesque and varied, especially to an eye accustomed to the monotonous character which so much pervades an English district ; almost all the churches have at least parts that are vaulted, and the central tower is very common. I have not met with a western tower, that is, occupying the west end of the nave, though Woillez has engraved some examples. The nave piers are almost uniformly clustered ; while those in the churches near the Seine are, as at Champagne and Angers, very frequently plain cylinders, the vaulting shaft not making its appearance, in any shape, below the abacus of the pier. The towers on the Seine, too, have the shafted or semicylindrical buttresses noticed in the last-named churches ; those in the Clermont district have buttresses with a square section. The preva- lence of the pack-saddle belfry wdll have been observed. M. de Caumont considers those which occur in Normandy to belong uniformly to a period as late, at least, as the 14th century, and consequently to be additions whenever they appear as the finish of a work of the 12th or 13tli century. I do not agree wath him as to their w^ant of beauty, for in some churches they harmonise very well with the rest of the building, and they often form a pleasing variety in a group ; but that they are additions of a later period seems highly probable. Few of those I have named present any archi- tectural features whatever, having merely a square-headed opening. The gable at Angy, which has a circle of tracery, appears later than the tower. Perhaps an internal examina- tion of a few might set the question at rest. The frequent occurrence of the pointed arch, in Romanesque work, and even of pointed doorways, which are in other respects purely Romanesque, is worthy of remark, as in England the round- VOI.. IX. X