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Nevertheless, there are to-day in the artistic youth so much life, power, and, so to speak, predestination, that in our schools of architecture in particular, at the present time, the professors, who are detestable, produce, not only unconsciously but even in spite of themselves, excellent pupils; quite the reverse of that potter mentioned by Horace, who dreamed amphorae and produced pots ~Currit rota, urcens exit~

But, in any case, whatever may be the future of architecture, in whateverarchitects may one day solve the question of their art, let us, while waiting for new monument, preserve the ancient monuments Let us, if possible, inspire the nation with a love for national architecture That, the author declares, is one of the principal aims of this book; it is one of the principal aims of his life

"Notre-Dame-de-Paris" has, perhaps opened soes, on that marvellous art which up to the present time has been unknown to some, and, what is worse,as accomplished, the task which he has voluntarily imposed on himself He has already pleaded on more than one occasion, the cause of our ancient architecture, he has already loudly denounced many profanations, roeary He has promised himself to recur frequently to this subject He will return to it He will be as indefatigable in defending our historical edifices as our iconoclasts of the schools and acade to see into what hands the architecture of the Middle Ages has fallen, and in what a manner the botchers of plaster of the present day treat the ruin of this grand art, it is even a shaenttheoes on in the provinces, but of what is done in Paris at our very doors, beneath our s, in the great city, in the lettered city, in the city of the press, of word, of thought We cannot resist the i this note, some of the acts of vandalisun, continued, and successfully completed under the eyes of the artistic public of Paris, face to face with criticism, which is disconcerted by so much audacity An archbishop's palace has just been dereat harm is done; but in a block with the archiepiscopal palace a bishop's palace has been de architect could not distinguish from the rest He has torn up the wheat with the tares; 'tis all the sa the admirable chapel of Vincennes, in order to make, with its stones, some fortification, which Daumesnil did not need, however While the Palais Bourbon, that wretched edifice, is being repaired at great expense, gusts of wind and equinoctial stornificent painted s of the Sainte-Chapelle For the last few days there has been a scaffolding on the tower of Saint Jacques de la Boucherie; and one of these s the pick will be laid to it A mason has been found to build a little white house between the venerable towers of the Palais de-Justice Another has been found willing to prune away Saint-Germain-des-Pres, the feudal abbey with three bell towers Another will be found, no doubt, capable of pulling down Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois All these masons claim to be architects, are paid by the prefecture or froreen coats All the harood taste, they accomplish While rite, deplorable spectacle! one of the Philibert Delorme a scar across the middle of his face; and it is not, assuredly, one of the least of the scandals of our time to see hat effrontery the heavy architecture of this gentle flattened over one of the most delicate façades of the Renaissance!