The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-07
NOTRE DAME AND THE ADVENT OF
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. --
From the Aaanttc Monthly.

filled their scars with the dust, and tinted their
old walls with the gray of all antique things.
tooth and rigor of the winds and rains
all the unchronicled vioences of time
have not altered the grandeur of their
they stand to-day over modern Ps-Is as they
stood yesterday over the pointed roofs a1d mar
row streets of the ancient city. They make us
know the Grand spirit and ancient v'gor OF
people who had none OF the things that are the
boast OF the modern man. They are the work
of people who were united and almost demo-
cratic without the newspaper and the railway
people who we're poets and artists without
critics, skilled workmeu without printed ency-
clop@dias, religious without tract societies and
BeCtarian journals.
begun IN the rich cities OF France in what was
called at the time the royal domain. During
the twelfth century the people exhibited an
extraordinary political movement for consollda.
tlol, and OF emancipation from local powers.
They ranged themselves under the large ideas
of religion and monarchy. Led by the bishops
stimulated by the monks, instructed by the
architects they erected the cathedrals as visible
types of something more mighty Than barons,
lords, and counts. They created in grand
effort of enthusiasm religious monuments and
national edihces II was from the union of all
the forces OF France of the twelfth century that
the cathedrals were projected. No human work
was ever more grandly nourished or more boldly
conceived.
To-day we have marvellous agents for the
rapid and sure communication OF peoples and Of
G0OugQtS; lQeu lneY Lnuue great sduCGudFle5 LOT
each stricken soul, aud visible proofs OF the
power of religious faith.
In the cathedrals that raised their grave aud
sculptured walls over the castles OF dukes and
barons to humble them over the houses OF the
poor to console them, all the facts, dreams, and
superstitions of their life in the Dark Ages were
embodied. The cathedral stones held the me-
MORALS of the awful years of suffering and gross
superstition that had afflicted populations after
the dissolution of Roman order. The grotesque
forms that seem to start out OF the very walls
and speak to the mind, are not caprcious aud
idle inventions. The very name they bear me-
morializes an old medieval superstition for
during the Middle Ages the dragons OF R0uen
and Metz were called ga, goultteS. Gdrg0ulHe Is
the French architectural term 10 day.
1t was ia that night OF ignorance, in those
years in which society was plunged into almost
historical oblivion, that those disordered and
debased ideas of natural life had full play. The
monkish workers in stone shared the supersu-
tion of the people, and they carved with gusto
the typical vices and beasts, from which faith
in religion alone could protect or deliver man.
Later the more beautiful forms of the sinless
flower and perfect Leaf, witch we find in the
pure and noble Gothic, took the place of the
beast and the dragon. The graceful vine, stone.
carved, twined tenderly in the arches, or climbed
the column, and the loWerpetal untolded IN the
capital, or under the gallery, or upon the altar.
The monk had been delivered by art, the people
had found an issue in the vigor of work and in
the unity OF faith.
The forms which like a petrifed population
look over Paris from the walls and towers of
Notre Dame are surprisingly vigorous and sim
Cere in character. They show an uncommon
knowledge OF natural structure, and rare in
Vention. Suppose you go with me to the summit
OF the towers of Notre Dame. Victor Hugo and
Theodore Gautler have gone before us, like
students and poets. To go to the summit you
enter the north tower through little door, and
ascend three hundred aud eighty-nne steps,
dimly lighted, worn down inte little hollo VS.,
made visible by long, thin cuts in the wall, such
as would serve for an arrow or a sunbeam. At
length you reach the light gallery, supported by
slender columns; about two hundred more
steps in perfect darkness take you to the sum-
init OF the tower. You are pedestalled
by centuries of human labor; you are
surrounded by dragons, cranes, dogs, and apes.
Dogs of q ferocious aspect; apes with the breasts
of women and the pow ,rtul hands OF men; q
bear, an elephant, goat; great muscular devils,
with backs like dragons, and the face termi-
mating in q snout or a beak, ears like swine, and
horns like bulls-a strange looking bird, half
parrot, half eagle, with cloth thrown over the
head like an old womanl They are posed on
the balustrade OF the gallery, and at each angie
OF the towers; at other places they serve as
water spouts, and are called gargoyles. All these
forms and faces are carved in the boldest and
largest scuipturesque style; the anatomy
is well based on nature; all the leading
forms truly and eXpressively rendered, though
entirely foreign to the Phldian idea OF form.
These figures, about the size of man, posed at
each corner of the gallery, or looking down
upon Paris or afar off over the humid Seine,
show dark against the sky, and are enormous
in character; in each an amazing muscular
energy has been eXpressed-never so much
ferocious force and so much variety of inven-
tion. The grotesque of the bright Greek
mind. is. chld's play next to these in
tensely horrible figures Some OF them
just touch the horrible, indecent, and OBJ
scene. All hold the horrible or stimulate the
curiosity Of the mind. On the towers, over the
fatalest and gayest cities OF the world, your SEN
tlnCls are monsters. You question which be
the most terrible, these frank gross demons
about you, carved by the old Gal'ic stone.
and heterogeneous, below you: The radiant
aspect of the city is deceptive like the fabled
smile of the Sphinx. AT the Morgue, every
morning, you will fud fresh victim who has
failed under the task it has imposed upon his
life.
It is difficult to resist the thoughts that reach
you at such height. The city, which changes
like the vesture of man, far below you; the
cathedral, which remains essentially the same
through all the centuries, about you. Under
meath, our great humanity dwelling in poor
little, suffering, foolish men: yet their hands
were enough to raise such a monument. From
their brain these inventions, from their hands
these forms
Strange exaltatiou and strange humiliation
for us! We have been in our unity great enough
TO create the long enduring; and in our indt
yidual lives we are mocked by the grandeur
we have made, and which is the memoria
of our past existence. Au ave of oul
ancestors steals over u.s. the. anclen
time takes awful proportions; we forget tn
actual Paris, with It's costly and monotonou
barracks, the new opera-house, the new wing O
the Tuileries With the deformed Quasimod
of Victor Hugo we can neither feel alone no
occupy ourselves with the actual city. The olC
sculptors had lett him the sanity figures ant
the grotesque dreams and breads of their imag
nation. Kings, bishops, martyrs saints
Around the ogival portals, the Last Judgmen
and its crowd OF holy and serene souls, its mo
Mt on sod an annn nt bninuG orr