low-studded churches, apparently crusht by the semicircular arch--almost
Egyptian, save for the ceiling; all hieroglyphic, all sacerdotal, all
symbolic, more loaded in their ornamentation with lozenges and zigzags
than with flowers, with flowers than with animals, with animals than with
men; less the work of the architect than of the bishop; the first
transformation of the art, bearing the deep impress of theocratic and
military discipline, taking root in the Lower Empire, and ceasing with
William the Conqueror. It is impossible to place our cathedral in that
other family of lofty, aerial churches, rich in stained glass and
sculpture; of pointed forms and daring attitudes; belonging to the
commoners and plain, citizens, as political symbols; free, capricious,
lawless, as works of art; the second transformation of architecture, no
longer hieroglyphic, unchangeable, sacerdotal, but artistic, progressive,
and popular, beginning with the close of the Crusades and ending with
Louis XI. Notre Dame at Paris is not of purely Roman race like the former,
nor of purely Arab breed like the latter.

It is a building of the transition period. The Saxon architect had just
reared the pillars of the nave, when the pointed arch, brought back from
the Crusades, planted itself as conqueror upon those broad Roman capitals
which were never meant to support anything but semicircular arches. The
pointed arch, thenceforth supreme, built the rest of the church. And
still, inexperienced and shy at first, it swelled, it widened, it
restrained itself, and dared not yet shoot up into spires and lancets, as
it did later on in so many marvelous cathedrals. It seemed sensible of the
close vicinity of the heavy Roman columns.

Moreover, these buildings of the transition from Roman to Gothic are no
less valuable studies than the pure types. They express a gradation of the
art which would otherwise be lost. They represent the ingrafting of the