THE CHEVET BEFORE THE WAR
One of the finest 13th century Chevets.
All around the apse, between the windows of the radial chapels and on the main buttresses, are statues of angels, some of them of great beauty.
The 13th century clerestory gallery, which surrounds the upper portion of the apsidal chapels, was restored by Viollet-le-Duc. It was partially destroyed by the bombardments. On April 19, 1917, three large calibre shells, which burst on the chevet, destroyed forty to fifty feet of it. At the same time, the buttress jutting on the centre of the destroyed gallery lost its pinnacle, and behind, an arch of the flying-buttress. The buttresses between the above-mentioned one and the corner of the South Transept Tower lost either a colonnette or their pinnacle with angel statue.
The slender spire which, before the War, rose above the chevet, was known as the Angel Spire, on account of a bronze angel which surmounted it, and which was removed in 1860 as unsafe. This spire, the work of Colard le Moine, was built in 1485, after the fire of 1481. Its pierced base with balustrading was supported by eight leaden caryatids, some of which, in the popular costume of the Louis XI. period, became deformed in consequence of the rotting of their oaken core.
The fire of September 19, 1914, caused by the German shells, entirely destroyed the spire and its caryatids.
THE CHEVET IN 1919
The roof with the "Angel Spire" was destroyed.
The bombardments in the spring of the following year further damaged the gallery, also causing fresh mutilations to the flying buttresses and the pinnacles of the apse.
A plain stone gallery with blind arcading, which formerly ran round the chevet on a level with the springing of the roof, was replaced by Viollet-le-Duc, with pierced battlemented arcading. Part of the original gallery which surrounded the entire building, level with the roof, still exists on the northern side.