THE INTERIOR FROM THE WEST END.]
CHAPTER IV.
THE INTERIOR.—THE NAVE.
It is difficult accurately to state why a sense of disappointment is so often felt on entering the Cathedral of Paris. The unsatisfactory impression given by Notre Dame is one experienced by visitors of all kinds. The architectural critic, who looks upon a Gothic church as the result of certain clearly defined principles of construction and decoration, must inevitably find in it much to admire. But while it satisfies the specialist, and possibly impresses those who have little pretence to technical information, it lacks the qualities of mystery and of surprise which distinguish some buildings less ancient and less stately. Thus we find one writer complaining that it is heavy, another that it is cold, and a third that it is relatively unpicturesque. Most of those who have recorded their dissatisfaction with the interior of Notre Dame have sought to explain the causes thereof. The splendid promise of the exterior, it is suggested, discounts the remarkable beauties of the inside. Some feel that the regularity, the coherence which distinguish the church, produce an ensemble at once ponderous and monotonous. Others complain of the lack of colour; while on the other hand not a few protest against the intrusion of recent polychromatic decorations. It is possible that the secret lies in certain structural idiosyncrasies. The church is extremely broad in comparison with its length. The bays are so few as to give to the interior an air of undue severity. Fergusson, in his history of architecture, condemns the vaulting ribs as ineffective. The marble pavement is regarded on all hands as a misfortune: nothing could be more tedious or inappropriate. It is, however, to be observed that as one becomes familiar with the interior its shortcomings are forgotten and the dignity of its proportions and details are apprehended more fairly.
Dimensions.—The length of Notre Dame is 390 ft.; the width at the transepts, 144 ft.; the length of the nave, 225 ft.; and the width of the nave (without the aisles), 39 ft. The height of the vaulting is 102 ft. De Breul, in his Théâtre des Antiquités de Paris, mentions a copper tablet which formerly hung against one of the pillars of Notre Dame and gave the dimensions of the cathedral in the following verses:—
Si tu veux sçavoir comme est ample,
De Notre-Dame le grand temple,
Il y a, dans œuvre, pour le seur,
Dix et sept toises[10] de hauteur,
Sur la largeur de vingt-quatre,
Et soixante-cinq sans rebattre,