The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-07

enipg the intelligence, and the instinct OF
brotherhood was moving the hearts oil popula-
tions fresh from the long marches and common
sentiment of the Cr1sades, warm from that
union for sacred idea, bringing back from the
Orient souvenirs Of an older and more opulent
life. In that burning land of color and light
they had seen vast and impressive forms, Pagan
temples, rich and beautiful. The impression
able mind and fervld heart OF the Frank was
amazed and delighted by the superb spectacle
of Constantinople. After his pilgrimages through
the wilderness and over the mountains, he
looked upon the proudest and most dazzling
city of the Orient. His rccollcc ons of France,
a dark and cloudy lacd compared with the East,
had nothing equal to what he saw at that mo-
ment. His native city, Paris or Orleans
OF Rheims or Troyes, was dark aud poor
tive types of building His own land
had nothing to equal the Greek and Oriental
temples, and gardens, and c.rcuses, and mos
ques; the groves, where the rose, the sycamore,
the cypress, mingled their forms and colors;
splendid union of the rich and barbsric of the
East with the simple and pure types OF Greece.
His religion, his faith, his God, his priesthood,
In the lowlands of his country, were represented
by grave, gloomy, formal style Of edi6ce. He
had left his cities, having the ieuda character OF
gim castles and Save moHasterics, to ind
cities full of temples aud mosques, decorated
with color and adorned with gold. He came
from the East with ideas and Inspirations. He
could not import the color or the atmos phere of
The Orient, but he had received his impulse;
his mind had been started out of tradition,
out OF monotony out OF the oppression of habit.
Notwithstanding the admirably reasoned pages
n which Renan proves the Gothic to have deVe-
oped naturally from the Roman style, we can
not resist the old conviction, that the experience
OF the East urged it into its development, and
accelerated its departure from the Norman
Roman.
The experience of the Crusades had put into
action the whole mind of the epoch, and iDi-
tiated the people into democratic, social life.
The isolated and brutal existence of the teudal
lord had been invaded; the serf, IN becoming
soldier aud q tradesman, had become
brother and democrat aud was fitted
to work on grand scale. Thought had dawned
with action. Travel had taught and liberated
the mOnastlc workers.
To emulate the spiendor of the cities he had
seen, to memorialize his faith, to enshrine his
religion in forms grander than all the preten'
sions to temporal power about him, he began to
build upon the ruins of Pagan temples, and to
enlarge the old basiicas which held his altar.
He began to graft upon grave Roman forms
new type.
He could not have the luminous ori-
ent for BACKGROUND to his spires and
pinnacles he could no. have the delicate miua-
ret that defined itself always against d deep
toned and clear sky. Under his humid and grey
clouds he must make the form more salient and
the decoration less delicate. He must not de.
pend upon the fine accentuation OF form, and
the clear note OF color, about portal. which
the Oriental could oppose to a broad fiat surface
for the sun TO make dazzling with light. He
must use shadows as the Oriental availed himself
of sunshine. So he cut his portals deeper; he
tered; he multiplied forms; he avoided Hat sur
faces-which the Greek, the Persian, ana the
Moor always avaied themselves OF, and with
which they produced such fine effects.
The Gothic architect pursued the opposite aim.
He made stones blossom into leaves and flowers,
and crowded inches and arches with images ofthe
animal life he recolleCted or imagined. There
fore, you see the Asiatic elephant aud hippopo-
tamus, when you expect only purely Occidental
forms and Christian symbols.
Soon his cathedral became his idoatry, his
artistic means; aud, before the fourteenth cen
tury, the priest had only the altar: the rest
| belonged to the people and to the artist.
%eGtmen a whS had been % train tr299d ID dHnder
| and execute. The heraldlc drauehtsmen and
| the illumnators of sacred writings were learned
and skilful; the Crusades had increased the
tn cir knowledge. Each nob!eman had to
carry upon his shield and breast the
| picture-sy hol of his origin, his exploits, his
loyalty; each trade imposed its sign of being
peculiar and powerful impulse to the arts OF
design and color aud forced them into full
action; just as to-day the needs of exchange of
thought and illustration of knowledge enlist
every form of printed expression.
Thus was prepared the means for those mar.
yellous cathedras which, in the short space of
fifty years, reached their full perfection; thus
was produced an art that was superbly illus
trated through three succeeding centuries, and
then perlshed. "Deyeloped with au incredible
rapdity," writes Viollet-Le ''tt (the Gothic)
| essays"
Tne truly historical epoch of Notre Dame
begins in the twelfth century. Anterior to that
time incomplete traditions merely suggest the
aspect OF the cradle OF the grand edidce which
has been connected with all the epochs OF the
history, aod associated with the most august
names, of France. Like most OF the cathedrals,
! 1t covers ground once dedicated to Pagan gods,
which fact should touch the imagination.
The founder OF Notre Dame, Maurice de Sully,
"Was of an obscure birth, and superior to his
age. He resolved to build upon new plan the
old basilica, which had formerly served the
Christian population of the island. The FIRST
stone of Notre Dame was laid in ll63 or ll65, by
| Pope Alexander III. e. From the fourteenth
to the fifteenth century the cathedral appears to
have retained intact its first physiognomy. But
q series OF changes and mutIlations have sue
ceeded, without interruption, to our day.
Piety, which pretends to regenerate the Church
by modern embellishments, was not less
fatal than the barbarism that later fell upon
it, The laoors undertaken ia the seven
robbed it by turn of its mouldings, its stone
vegetation, and its gargoyles. DOrng the
reign of Louis XIV uniform paving, in large
marble squares, replaced the old funeral
tablets which covered the soil of the church.
and showed the efhgles of a crowd of illustrious
persons. When the storm OF the first reyolu
ton burst, some men, and among them citizen
Chaumette, prevailed upon the Commune tc
spare the figures of the kings in the portals
He claimed, in the name OF arts and philosophy
some tolerance for the efiges."
TO what uses it has been putt In the twelfth
century, before its high altar the Count of Tou'
louse came, barefooted aud in his shirt, penitent
to be absolved by the Church and king. Tit
King ST.. Louis walked barefooted under Its hiet
, springng arches, carrying, it is said, the holl
crown OF thorns, which he bought from thu
Emperor of Constantinople. In the next cen
turY Henry vi of England was crowned q