Along France's river of romance: . anne dArc to the the western fafade of this building is one ofthe saddest architectural failures that were everperpetrated! One Gabriel, an architect of Louis XVsreign, was responsible for this bastard Gothic eyesorewhich has of all things a Moorish touch, in the narrowpointed doorways. Between the two displeasing, three-storied towers you can see the central spire, rebuilt in1859. The original Gothic church, the third church onthe same site, was begun in 1287 by Bishop Gilles dePatay and burnt by the Huguenots in 1567, before it wasquite fin
Along France's river of romance: . anne dArc to the the western fafade of this building is one ofthe saddest architectural failures that were everperpetrated! One Gabriel, an architect of Louis XVsreign, was responsible for this bastard Gothic eyesorewhich has of all things a Moorish touch, in the narrowpointed doorways. Between the two displeasing, three-storied towers you can see the central spire, rebuilt in1859. The original Gothic church, the third church onthe same site, was begun in 1287 by Bishop Gilles dePatay and burnt by the Huguenots in 1567, before it wasquite finished. Eleven chapels of the apse and the sidewalls of the choir, the most interesting parts of thepresent building, were preserved from the flames. Thereconstruction of the church was begun by Henri IVin 1601 and finally completed after M. Gabriel haddone his worst, in the blessed year 1829. It is certainly ORLEANS 171 better inside than out; and the effect of the tall pillarswithout capitals and the great transept windows is im-. Orleans pressive^while some of the glass is good. The picturesand works of art in the cathedral are neither numerousnor valuable. The organ-case is interesting as having 172 THE LOIRE come from the abbey of St. Benoit; while somemagnificent rock-crystal lustres hung originally in thehuge eighteenth-century mansion of the Phelypeaux,whose ruins I visited at Chateauneuf. I did not climb either of the two towers, for I couldnot find an official to open the door for me. Perhaps if Ihad I should have been rewarded with the same interest-ing view, modernised in its details, that Young describesin his Travels. From the steeple of the cathedralat Orleans, he writes, the prospect is very fine. Thetown large, and its suburbs, of single streets, extendnear a league. The vast range of country, that spreadson every side, is an unbounded plain, through whichthe magnificent Loire bends his stately way in sight forfourteen leagues ; the whole scattered with richmead
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidalongfrances, bookyear1913
