Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/624

592 least satisfactory part of the whole ; for though displaying a certain beauty of proportion, and the most undoubted daring of construction, its effect is frail and weak in the extreme. Still, if the tracery were restored to the windows, and these filled with painted glass, a great part of this defect might be removed. At the best, the chief merit of this choir is its clever and daring construction, but even in this the builder miscalculated his own strength, for it was found necessary

440. Plan of Cathedral at Tournay. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

to double the thickness of all the piers after they were first erected. This addition would have been an improvement if it had been part of the original design, but as it now is it appears only to betray the weakness which it was meant to conceal.

It is by no means clear that originally there were any entrances at the west front; at least there certainly was no central doorway; and probably the principal entrances were, as in most German churches, under lateral porches.

Externally, the west front had neither the flanking towers of the Norman church, nor the frontispiece usual in Germany, but terminated in a gable the height of the wooden roof of the nave. The original church was triapsal, and a large square tower adorned the intersection of the nave and transept, which was originally surrounded by six tall square towers, two belonging to each of the apses. Four of these still exist, and with the remaining part of the central tower form as noble a group as is to be found in any church of this province. In its triapsal state, its superior dimensions and the greater height of its towers must have rendered it a more striking building than even the Apostles' Church at Cologne, or indeed any other church of its age.

Besides the churches already described, there are a considerable