Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/538

 506 FRENCH AUCHITECTURE. Pabt II CHAPTER VI. FRANKISH PROVINCE. CONTENTS. Exceptional buildings — Basse CEuvre, Beauvais — Decoration. INTRODUCTORY. rpHE architecture of the Northern division of France is certainly -X the most interesting siihject in the whole history of the Mediaeval styles, inasmuch as it comprehends the origin and progress of that form of pointed architecture which in the 13th century extended from Paris as a centre to the remotest corners of Europe, pervading the whole of Germany, Britain, and even Spain and Italy. In these countries it generally oblitei'ated their own peculiar styles, and usurped their places, so that it became the Gothic style ^>«r eminence, and the only one oi;dinarily understood under that name. It has gained tliis distinction, not perhaps so much from any inherent merit of its own, as because it was the only one of all the Mediaeval styles which was carried beyond the simple i-adiments of the art, and enjoyed the advantage of being perfected by a powerful and united people who had advanced beyond the first elements of civilized society. It is needless now to inquire whether the other styles might not have been made as perfect, or more so, had the same amount of talent and of time been bestowed upon them. All we can say is, that no other style was so carried out, and it is impossible to attem])t it now ; the pointed Gothic had therefore the opportunity which the others were deprived of, and became the prevalent style in Europe during the Middle Ages. Its history is, therefore, that to which attention must always be principally directed, and from which all lessons and all satisfactory reasoning on the subject must be principally derived. The great divisions into which the early history of the style naturally divides itself have already been pointed out. The great central province I have ventured to call the Frank ish. It was there that the true Gothic pointed style was invented, and thence that it issued in the middle of the 12th century, first pervading the two great subordinate divisions of Normandy on the one hand, and Burgundy on the other. In Normandy, before this time^ a