Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/590

 558 FRENCH ARCHITECTURE. Part II. but for the opposition of some contumacious nuns, who had sufficient power and influence even in those days to thwart the designs of the Pope himself. Its great perfection is the beauty of its details, in which it is unsurpassed by anything in France or in Germany ; its worst defect is a certain exaggerated temerity of construction, which tends to show how fast, even wlien this church was designed, archi- tecture was passing from the hands of the true artist into those of the mason, whose attempts to astonish by wonders of construction then and ever afterwards completely marred the progress of the art which was thought to be thereby pro- moted. About seventy years after this we come to the cho'iv of St. Ouen, and to an- other beautiful little church, Ste. Marie de I'Epine (Woodcut No. 410), near Cha- lons surMarne, com- menced ajiparently about 1329, though not completed till long afterwards.! It is small — a minia- ture cathedral in fact — like our St. Mary Redcliffe, whicii in many respects it re- sembles, and is a perfect bijou of its class. One western spire remains — the other was destroyed to make room for a telegra])!! and 410. West Front of Ste. Marie I'Epme. (From Dusomerard.) 1 Mr. Beresford Hone, in his "Eng- lish Cathedral of the XlXth Century." contends that this church was only com- menced in 1419; and also maintains that the west front was completed by an Enir- lish architect named Patrick in 1429. If this were so, we must abandon all our chronology foimded on style. It is all a mistake if the east end is not a century earlier. I am. however, unwilling to go to school acain on the faith of a little pamphlet, pulilished by a French cur6 in a remote village.