Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/614

 582 FUENCIi ARCHITECTURE. Part II. for, Avithout affecting the extreme mtissiveness of Egyptian art, with its wonderful expression of power and durability, there is an opposite extreme far more prejudicial to true architectural effect in parading, as it were, mechanical contrivances of construction, so as to gain the utmost utilitarian effect with the least possible expenditure of means. This the Egyptians utterly desjjised and rejected, and heaped mass on mass, even at the expense of any convenience or use for which the building might have been designed. The French architects, on the other hand, made it their study to dispense with every ton of stone they could possibly lay aside. Tliis system they undoubtedly carried too far, for, without looking at such extreme examples as the nave of Beauvais or St. Ouen, everywhere in France'we find a degree of airy lightness and tenuity of parts destructive of many of the most important conditions of architectural excellence. Furniture of Churches. Little less thought and expense were probably bestowed u]-)on what we may call the furnishing of Gotliic churches than upon the fabrics themselves. Though the objects included in this denomination were altogether of a lower class of art, they were still essential parts of the whole design, and we cannot fairly judge of the buildings them- selves without at least endeavoring to supply their minor arrange- ments. It is not easy to do this in France, nor, indeed, in any part of Europe, as no one church or chapel displays at the present day all the Avealth and ornament which once belonged to it. There is scarcely a single church in France with its original altar, the most sacred and therefore generally the most richly adorned part of the whole. These have either been plundered by the Huguenots, rebuilt in the execrable taste of the age of Louis XIV., or destroyed during the Revolution. The cathedrals of Amiens and Uouen are among the few which retain their original stalls ; and the enclosure of the choir at Chartres is one of the most elaborate pieces of ornamental sculpture to be found. That at Alby has been before alluded to, and fragments of this feature still exist in many cathedrals. The Rood-screens, or Juhes, Avhich almost all French churches once possessed, are rarer than even the other parts of these enclosures. A good example of them is found in the church of the Madelaine at Troyes (Woodcut No. 435), which gives a favorable idea of the rich- ness of decoration that was sometimes lavished on these parts. Though late in ajj-e, and aiming at the false mode of construction which M'as prevalent at the time of its execution, it displays so much elegance as to disarm criticism. It makes us, too, regret the loss of the rood-screens