pointed arch upon the semicircular.

Notre Dame at Paris, in particular, is a curious example of this variety.
Every face, every stone of the venerable monument is a page not only of
the history of the country, but also of the history of science and art.
Thus, to allude only to leading details, while the little Porte Rouge
attains the almost extreme limit of the Gothic refinement of the fifteenth
century, the pillars of the nave, in their size and gravity of style, go
back to the Carlovingian Abbey of Saint-Germain des Pres. One would say
that there was an interval of six centuries between that door and those
pillars. Even the Hermetics find among the symbols of the great door a
satisfactory epitome of their science, of which the Church of St. Jacques
de la Boucherie formed so complete a hieroglyph.

Thus, the Roman abbey, the philosopher's church, Gothic art, Saxon art,
the clumsy round pillar, which recalls Gregory VII., the hermetic
symbolism by which Nicholas Flamel paved the way for Luther, papal unity,
schism, Saint-Germain des Pres, Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, are all
confounded, combined and blended in Notre Dame. This central and
generative church is a kind of chimera among the old churches of Paris; it
has the head of one, the limbs of another, the trunk of a third, something
of all.

Considering here Christian European architecture only, that younger sister
of the grand piles of the Orient, we may say that it strikes the eye as a
vast formation divided into three very distinct zones or layers, one
resting upon the other; the Roman zone, (the same which is also known
according to place, climate, and species, as Lombard, Saxon, and
Byzantine. There are the four sister forms of architecture, each having
its peculiar character, but all springing from the same principle, the