Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/674

 548 The Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal. [Mar., their accession to the throne, to renew the oath to observe the laws faithfully, and to govern for the happiness of the people. It was there that they carried the trophies of their victories ; and ad- dressed their prayers to Heaven, when any great calamity afflicted the country. As the churches of England, in the times of confiscation and plunder, those of France suffered from outbreaks with a like devastating effect ; and none more so than the beautiful Minster Notre Dame de Paris. Under the Conven- tion, Notre Dame, despoiled of its works of art, mutilated in every portion, and especially in the facade, was transformed into the Temple of Reason. Under the Directory, the theo-philanthropists cele- brated the worship of the Supreme Being in it; and, in 1801, a pretended Council, consisting of one hundred and twenty constitutional bishops, or priests, was held in it. On the 18th May, in the same year, a mass and a "Te Deum" were celebrated there, in the presence of the three Consuls, on the official re- establishment of Catholic worship. It was in the Cathedral of Notre Dame that Napoleon I. was crowned Emperor by Pope Pius VII., on the 2d December, 1804. The middle door of the grand portal of tlie church was disfigured under Louis XIV. ; but it has been restored. The great portal and the towers have also been repaired ; in the south part of the Cathedral, the archbishop's vestry has likewise been repaired ; its Gothic style of architecture is in perfect har- mony with that of the metropolitan basilica. " Notre Dame," says Victor Hugo, " is not what can be called a complete, defined, classic monument. It is not a Roman and still less a Gothic style ; it is not a type. Notre Dame de Paris has not, like the Abbey of Tounnes, the grave and massive character, the round and large vault, the icy nudity, the ma- jestic simplicity of edifices constructed on the system of semicircular arches. It has not, like the Cathedral of Bourges, the magnificent, light, multiform, efflor- escent character of the Gothic. It is impossible, also, to range it in the old class of dark, mysterious, low churches, which seem crushed by the Saxon arch, almost Egyptian, with the exception of the ceiling, more charged with orna- ments of lozenges and zig-zags than flowers, with flowers than animals, with animals than men ; a work of the archi- tect less than one of the bishop ; the first transformation of that school of art bearing the imprint of theocratic and militaiy discipline, which begins in the Lower Empires and ends at William the Conqueror. " It is, likewise," continues Victor Hugo, "impossible to place our Cathe- dral in that class of lofty, airy churches, rich in painted windows and sculptures, sharp in outline, bold in altitude ; com- munal and burgess-like, as political symbols ; free, capricious, extravagant as a work of art ; a second transforma- tion of architecture, no longer hierogly- phic, immutable and sacerdotal, but artistic, progressive and popular, which begins on the return from the Crusades, and ends at Louis XL " Notre Dame de Paris is not of the pure Roman stjde, like the first ; nor of pure Arab style, like the second. " It is an edifice of transition. The Saxon architect succeeded in planting the first pillars of the nave, when the pointed style came and planted itself, as a conqueror, on the large Roman capitals, which were intended for semi- circular arches. The Gothic henceforth took precedence, and the rest of the church was built in that style. How- ever, inexperienced and timid at the outset, it does not venture to displa} r itself in spires and pinnacles, as it will do subsequently, in many marvellous cathedrals. One would say, that it suf- fers from the neighborhood of the heavy Roman pillars. " These edifices of transition, from the Roman to the Gothic style, are not less