Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/478

 446 FRENCH ARCHITECTURE. Pabt H. Quissac, Gignac, in the valley of the Rhone, in situations that would seem to belong to Provence, and until their churches are examined it is impossible to say to which they belong. On the south Aquitania is bounded by the Pyrenees, on the west by the sea, and on the north by a line running nearly straight from the mouth of the Garonne to Langeac, near to Le Puy en Velay. The third is designated that of Anjou, or the Angiovine, from its most distingnished province. This includes the lower part of the Loire, and is bounded on the north-east by the Cher. Between it and the sea is a strip of land, including the Angouniois, Saintonge, and Vendee, which it is not easy to know where to place. It may belong, so far as we yet know, to either Aquitania or Anjou, or possibly may deserve a separate title altogetlier ; but in the map it is annexed for the ])resent to Poitou or the Angiovine provmce. In Brittany the two styles meet, and are so mixed together that it is imjiossible to se]iarate them. In that district there is neither pure Romance nor pure Frankish, but a style partaking of the peculiarities of each without belonging to either. Besides these, there is the small and secluded district of Auvergne, having a style peculiarly its own, which, though certainly belonging to tlie southern province, is easily distinguished from any of the neighboring styles, and is one of the most pleasing to be found of an early age in France. Beyond this to the eastward lies the great Burgundian proA'ince, liaving a well-defined and well-marked style of its own, influenced by or influencing all those around it. Its most marked characteristic is what may be called a mechanical mixture of the classical and mediaeval styles without any real fusion. Essentially and constructively the style is Gothic, but it retained the use of Corinthian pilasters and classical details till late in the Middle Ages : Burgundy was also in the Middle Ages the country of monasticism par excellence — a circum- stance which had considerable influence on her forms of art. Taking, then, a more general vicAV of the Southern province, it will be seen that if a line were drawn from Marseilles to Brest, it would pass nearly through the middle of it. At the south-eastern extremity of such a line we should find a style almost purely Romanesque, passing by slow and equal gradations into a Gothic form at its other terminal. On turning to the Frankish province the case is somewhat differ- ent. Paris is here the centre, from which everything radiates ; and though the Norman invasion, and other troubles of those times, with the rebuilding mania of the 13th century, have swept away nearly all traces of the early buildings, still it is easy to see how the Gothic style arose in the Isle of France, and how it spread from thence to all the neighboring provinces.