Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/570

 538 FRENCH ARCHITECTURE. Part II. France. The mode in which the chureli exjiands as you approach the choir, and the general arrangement of the eastern part as shown in the plan (Woodcut No. 390), are equally excellent, and are sur- passed by no building of the Middle Ages. The piers are perhaps a little heavy, and their capitals wiint sim])licity; the triforiuni is if anything too plain ; and at the present day the effect of light in the church is in one respect reversed, inasmuch as the clerestory retains its painted glass, which in the side-aisles lias been almost totally 392. View of llie Kayade ot the Calhedral ul I'aris. (From Chapuy.) destroyed, making the building appear as though lighted from below — an arrangement highly destructive of architectural beauty. Not- withstanding all this, it far surpasses those buildings which preceded it, and is only equalled by Amiens and those completed afterwards. Their superiority, however, arose from the introduction just at the time of their erection of complicated window-tracery, enabling the builders to dispense almost wholly with solid walls, and to make their clerestories at least one blaze of gorgeous coloring. By the improvement in