were, with the hall mark of individuality. The historian is nowhere so
eloquent as when he can point to such examples as these. We may learn
from them (as we did at Pont Audemer) much of the method of working in
the 14th century, and, indeed, of the habits of the people, and the
secret of their great success.

It is evident enough that in those old times when men were very
ignorant, slavish, easily led, impulsive (childlike we might almost call
them), everything they undertook like the building of a house, was a
serious matter, a labour of love, and the work of many years; to be an
architect and a builder was the aspiration of their boyhood, the natural
growth of artistic instinct, guided by so much right as they could glean
from their elders. With few books or rules, they worked out their
designs for themselves, irrespective, it would seem, of time or cost.
And why should they consider either the one or the other, when time was
of no 'marketable value,' when the buildings were to last for ages; and
when there were no such things as estimates in those days? Like the
Moors in Spain, they did much as they pleased, and, like them also, they
had a great advantage over architects of our own day--they had little to
_unlearn_. They knew their materials, and had not to endeavour, after a
laborious and expensive education in one school, to modify and alter
their method of treatment to meet the exigencies of another. They were
not cramped for space, nor for money; they were not 'tied for time;' and
they had not to fight against, and make compromises with, the two great
enemies of modern architects--Economy and Iron.

At Lisieux, as at Pont Audemer, we cannot help being struck with the
extreme simplicity of the method of building, and with the
_possibilities_ of Gothic for domestic purposes. We see it here, in its
pure and natural development, as opposed to the rather unnatural