[128] Eph. ii:20-21.
[129] John Ruskin, The Bible of Amiens, vol. 33, Complete Works (London, Cook & Wedderburn, 1908). Illustrated; chap. iv, “Interpretations.”
[130] Abbeville, close by, also had its Puy, in whose competitions figured Froissart, the historian, as laureate. The magnificent portal decorations (1548) of the Flamboyant Gothic collegiate church of St. Wulfran were contributed in this way.
Émile Deliguières, L’église Saint-Vulfran à Abbeville (Abbeville, Paillart, 1898); Congrès Archéologique, 1893.
[131] Congrès Archéologique, 1849 and 1898; Amédée Boinet, La cathédrale de Bourges (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1911); ibid., “Les sculpteurs de la cathédrale de Bourges,” in Revue de l’art chrétien, 1912; also published by Champion (Paris, 1912); Gaston Congny, Bourges et Nevers; Buhot de Kersers, “Les chapelles absidioles de la cathédrale de Bourges,” in Bulletin Monumental, vol. 40, p. 417; ibid., Histoire et statistique monumentale du département du Cher (Bourges, 1875-98), 8 vols., 4to; Girardot et Durant, La cathédrale de Bourges (Moulins, 1849); G. Hardy et A. Gandillon, Bourges et les abbayes et châteaux de Berry (Collection, Villes d’art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens, 1912); Cahier et Martin (P. P.), Monographie de la cathédrale de Bourges; vitraux du XIIIe siècle; Des Méloizes, Les vitraux de Bourges postérieurs au XIIIe siècle (Lille, 1897), folio; ibid., Les vitraux de Bourges, 1901; ibid., “Note sur un très ancien vitrail de la cathédrale de Bourges,” in Mémoires de la Soc. des Antiquaires du Centre, 1873, vol. 4, p. 193; Champeaux et Gauchery, Les travaux d’art exécutés pour Jean de France, duc de Berry (Paris, Champion, 1894), folio; Buhot de Kersers, “Caractères de l’architecture religieuse en Berry à l’époque romane,” in Bul. archéol. du Comité des Travaux hist. et scientifiques, 1890, p. 25; F. Deshoulières, “Les églises romanes du Berry,” in Bulletin Monumental, 1909, p. 463; Raynal, Histoire de Berry; Vacher, Le Berry (Collection, Les régions de la France), (Paris, L. Cerf); Sauvageot, Palais, châteaux, hôtels et maisons de France; Sir Theodore Andreas Cook, Twenty-five Great Houses of France (London and New York, 1916).
[132] Rationale Divinorum officiorum, tr. by Neale and Webb of the Camden Society (Leeds, Green, 1843).
[133] Rodin should have placed his “Thinker” here: “Le Penseur aurait été au diapason dans cette crypt; cette ombre immense l’aurait fortifié!”
—Rodin, Les cathédrales de France.
[134] “There is a charming detail in this section. Beside the angel, on the left, where the wicked are the prey of demons, stands a little female figure, that of a child, who, with hands meekly folded and head gently raised, waits for the stern angel to decide upon her fate. In this fate, however, a dreadful big devil also takes a keen interest; he seems on the point of appropriating the tender creature; he has a face like a goat and an enormous hooked nose. But the angel gently lays a hand upon the shoulder of the little girl—the movement is full of dignity—as if to say, ‘No; she belongs to the other side.’ The frieze below represents the general Resurrection, with the good and the wicked emerging from their sepulchers. Nothing can be more quaint and charming than the difference shown in their way of responding to the final trump. The good get out of their tombs with a certain modest gayety, an alacrity tempered by respect; one of them kneels to pray as soon as he has disinterred himself. You may know the wicked, on the other hand, by their extreme shyness; they crawl out slowly and fearfully; they hang back.”—Henry James, A Little Tour in France (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1900), p. 105.
[135] The chief piers of Orléans Cathedral were mined by Théodore de Bèze and blown up on the night of March 23, 1567. The portal, part of the choir, and the apse chapel escaped. The XII-century nave had double aisles with tribunes; the frontispiece also was XII century. The choir, begun in 1287, was finished by 1297, and a new Gothic nave was in progress at the time of the civil wars of religion. Henry IV undertook to rebuild Orléans Cathedral, and with his bride, Marie de Medici, laid the first stone in 1601. But a bastard-Gothic edifice is not compensation for earlier work. H. Havard, éd., La France artistique et monumentale, vol. 6, p. 122, “Orléans,” G. Lefenestre; Congrès Archéologique, 1854 and 1892; G. Rigault, Orléans et le val de Loire (Collection, Villes d’art célèbres), (Paris, H. Laurens); E. Lèfevre-Pontalis et Eugène Garry, on Orléans Cathedral, in Bulletin Monumental, 1904, vol. 68, p. 309.