History is only a catalogue of the forgotten. The eleventh century
is no worse off than its neighbours. The twelfth is, in
architecture, rather better off than the nineteenth. These two
rooms, the Aquilon and promenoir, which mark the beginning of the
Transition, are, on the whole, more modern than Saint-Sulpice, or Il
Gesu at Rome. In the same situation, for the same purposes, any
architect would be proud to repeat them to-day.

The Aquilon, though a hall or gallery of importance in its day,
seems to be classed among crypts. M. Camille Enlart, in his "Manual
of French Archaeology" (p. 252) gives a list of Romanesque and
Transition crypts, about one hundred and twenty, to serve as
examples for the study. The Aquilon is not one of them, but the
crypt of Saint-Denis and that of Chartres Cathedral would serve to
teach any over-curious tourist all that he should want to know about
such matters.

Photographs such as those of the Monuments Historiques answer all
the just purposes of underground travel. The Aquilon is one's first
lesson in Transition architecture because it is dated (1112); and
the crypt of Saint-Denis serves almost equally well because the Abbe
Suger must have begun his plans for it about 1122. Both have the
same arcs doubleaux and arcs-formerets, though in opposite
arrangement. Both show the first heavy hint at the broken arch.
There are no nervures--no rib-vaulting,--and hardly a suggestion of
the Gothic as one sees it in the splendid crypt of the Gros Fillers
close at hand, except the elaborately intersecting vaults and the
heavy columns; but the promenoir above is an astonishing leap in
time and art. The promenoir has the same arrangement and columns as
the Aquilon, but the vaults are beautifully arched and pointed, with