Coutances, but their weight broke down the vaulting beneath, and one
of them fell in 1300. In 1618 the whole facade began to give way,
and in 1776 not only the facade but also three of the seven spans of
the nave were pulled down. Of Abbot Hildebert's nave, only four
arches remain.

Still, the overmastering strength of the eleventh century is stamped
on a great scale here, not only in the four spans of the nave, and
in the transepts, but chiefly in the triumphal columns of the
croisee. No one is likely to forget what Norman architecture was,
who takes the trouble to pass once through this fragment of its
earliest bloom. The dimensions are not great, though greater than
safe construction warranted. Abbot Hildebert's whole church did not
exceed two hundred and thirty feet in length in the interior, and
the span of the triumphal arch was only about twenty-three feet, if
the books can be trusted. The nave of the Abbaye-aux-Dames appears
to have about the same width, and probably neither of them was meant
to be vaulted. The roof was of timber, and about sixty-three feet
high at its apex. Compared with the great churches of the thirteenth
century, this building is modest, but its size is not what matters
to us. Its style is the starting-point of all our future travels.
Here is your first eleventh-century church! How does it affect you?

Serious and simple to excess! is it not? Young people rarely enjoy
it. They prefer the Gothic, even as you see it here, looking at us
from the choir, through the great Norman arch. No doubt they are
right, since they are young: but men and women who have lived long
and are tired,--who want rest,--who have done with aspirations and
ambition,--whose life has been a broken arch,--feel this repose and
self-restraint as they feel nothing else. The quiet strength of