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Not to consider here anything except the Christian architecture of Europe, that younger sister of the great masonries of the Orient, it appears to the eyes as an immense formation divided into three well-defined zones, which are superposed, the one upon the other: the Romanesque zone, the Gothic zone, the zone of the Renaissance, which ould gladly call the Greco-Roman zone The Roman layer, which is the most ancient and deepest, is occupied by the round arch, which reappears, supported by the Greek column, in the modern and upper layer of the Renaissance The pointed arch is found between the two The edifices which belong exclusively to any one of these three layers are perfectly distinct, unifores, there is the Cathedral of Reims, there is the Sainte-Croix of Orleans But the three zones es, like the colors in the solar spectruradation and transition One is Roman at the base, Gothic in the middle, Greco-Roman at the top It is because it was six hundred years in building This variety is rare The donjon keep of d'Etampes is a specimen of it But monuments of two formations are more frequent There is Notre-Dame de Paris, a pointed-arch edifice, which is ied the portal of Saint-Denis, and the nave of Saint-Ger, half-Gothic chapter-house of Bocherville, where the Roman layer extends half way up There is the cathedral of Rouen, which would be entirely Gothic if it did not bathe the tip of its central spire in the zone of the RenaissanceThis is the sa to locality, climate, and races, Lombard, Saxon, or Byzantine There are four sister and parallel architectures, each having its special character, but derived froin, the round arch

~Facies non omnibus una, No diversa tamen, qualem~, etc

Their faces not all alike, nor yet different, but such as the faces of sisters ought to be

This portion of the spire, which was of ork, is precisely that which was consu, in 1823

However, all these shades, all these differences, do not affect the surfaces of edifices only It is art which has changed its skin The very constitution of the Christian church is not attacked by it There is always the saement of parts Whatever may be the carved and embroidered envelope of a cathedral, one always finds beneath it--in the state of a germ, and of a rudiment at the least--the Roman basilica It is eternally developed upon the soil according to the same law There are, invariably, two naves, which intersect in a cross, and whose upper portion, rounded into an apse, forms the choir; there are always the side aisles, for interior processions, for chapels,--a sort of lateral walks or proh the spaces between the pillars That settled, the number of chapels, doors, bell towers, and pinnacles areto the fancy of the century, the people, and art The service of religion once assured and provided for, architecture does what she pleases Statues, stained glass, rose s, arabesques, denticulations, capitals, bas-reliefs,--she coeious exterior variety of these edifices, at whose foundation dwells so much order and unity The trunk of a tree is ie is capricious