75. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. FLYING BUTTRESSES OF THE CHOIR (LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY). FROM A DRAWING BY THE AUTHOR
76. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. PLAN OF THE CHOIR ABOVE THE LOWER CHAPEL
77. ABBEY OF MONT ST. MICHEL. DETAILS OF THE APSE (LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY)
The decadence of Gothic architecture was manifest even at the close of the thirteenth century in such tours de force as the choir of St. Peter at Beauvais, and the Church of St. Urbain at Troyes. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries buildings or parts of buildings were constructed with remarkable skill, but the noble simplicity which was the strength of thirteenth-century architecture was no more. By the close of the fifteenth century a studied mannerism had taken its place. The western doorway of Alençon Cathedral is a typical example of this development, the defects of which were still further accentuated in the following century.
78. ALENÇON CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)
"The qualities of the architecture of the decadence must be sought not in the construction, but in the decoration of churches; here we may freely admire the happy detail and patient execution which mark the work of carvers and limners during the last two centuries of the Middle Ages."[24]
[24] Anthyme St. Paul, Histoire Monumentale de la France; Paris, 1884.