who from the most humble condition of life rose by his virtues and rare merits to the episcopacy, conceived the project, about the year 1161, of entirely reconstructing the Cathedral of Notre Dame; and after having pulled down the ancient

A ROMAN CISTA.
(From the original in the York Museum.)

basilica built by Childebert, he laid the foundation of the magnificent pile which we see to-day. In 1163, the first stone of the new edifice was placed by Pope Alexander III., who having been driven from his States, had taken refuge in France. The great altar was consecrated A.D. 1182 by the Bishop Maurice, and Henri de Chateau, Marcey, Cardinal, Bishop of Albano, legate of the Holy See. A great portion of the choir was finished in 1185, and work was then commenced upon the exterior ornaments. But although much activity was employed to hasten these constructions yet Maurice de Sulley died in 1196, before having seen his great enterprise completed. His successor, Eudes de Sulley, continued the works until 1208. Ten years later, the old basilica Saint Etienne, which shaded the south side of the new structure, was torn down, and the mass of the edifice was finished in 1223; yet a still longer time was employed in completing the innumerable architectural details which were lavished here; the triple gallery of the façade, the portals, the great windows, the arabesques, indented work, colonnettes and statues, which make Notre Dame one of the most precious monuments of the power of the age. Wars, civil discord, and the lack of money frequently interrupted this immense work, which was only finished at the end of two centuries. The edifice was executed in accordance with a plan both imposing and sublime. There is a grand severity in the lines, and a simple majesty in the forms.

The grand portal which was completed in 1223, in the reign of Philip Augustus, is composed of two great square and symmetrical towers which

The façade

join the gable end of the nave. by its solidity and massive strength bears some analogy to the Lombard structures. It contains three great doors with arch stones, and walls covered with very curious sculptures. In the time of Louis XII. it was necessary to mount three steps to reach the façade. In the north tower is the famous bell called le Bourdon; it is only rung on occasions of great solemnity. It weighs thirty-two thousand pounds, and the hammer weighs one thousand pounds. It was cast in 1683, and recast in 1685, and at this epoch was baptized with much pomp and ceremony. Louis XIV. and Marie Therese became its godfather and godmother, and gave it the name Emanuel Louise Therese. Along the line of the front there are twenty-seven niches, where before the Revolution there were twenty-seven statues representing the succession of Kings of France from Childebert down to Philip Augustus. Above this range of niches is a round window, called the Rose. Each lateral face of the church contains such a window, of delicate workmanship. The Rose window of the south side was constructed by the Cardinal of Noailles at his own expense, and cost eighty thousand francs. Lastly, the height of the façade is decorated with a peristyle composed of thirty-four columns, which are remarkable for their length and tenuity. Each of the columns is formed of a single stone; they support a gallery with balustrade. Two lateral portals finish the extremity of the north and south cross aisles. The north aisle was erected about 1312 by Philip the Fair, who paid for its construction with the wealth which he

work of the roof, which is called the foret by reason of the multitude of pieces of chestnut wood of which it is composed.

The interior of Notre Dame forms a Latin Cross. A hundred and twenty pillars, each one different from another, sustain the arches and form a double inclosure around the choir and the nave. Twenty-seven chapels occupy the exterior traverses of the lower sides, above which circle spacious galleries and elegant tribunes. The most. of the minor ornaments are of modern style, and

first stone of this altar in 1699. But the group was not made until twenty-four years after. It represents a great white marble cross, upon which drapery has been thrown; below, the figure of the Virgin sits holding Jesus in her arms; at her side, and placed upon pedestals, are the figures of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. presenting him a crown. The statues of the king were forcibly carried away during the Revolution; but were reëstablished in 1816.

As a historical monument, Notre Dame de Paris

recalls to the world grand and solemn events. It is here that the ancient kings came, after their accession to the throne, to renew the vow to be faithful observers of the laws, and to govern for the happiness of the people; it is here that they brought the trophies of their victories, and here they addressed their petitions to heaven when some great public calamity weighed down upon the country. During the Revolution Notre Dame was desecrated, and the name changed to that of the Temple of Reason. Under the Directoire the theophilanthropists celebrated here the worship of the Supreme Being, and here was held in 1801 a

THE OLD CHAINED BIBLE AT YORK MINSTER.

council at which a hundred and twenty priests or constitutional bishops assisted. Long is the list of imposing ceremonies these walls have mutely witnessed. In 1802 the Catholic service was reestablished in the church of Notre Dame. December 2d, 1804, Napoleon I. was crowned Emperor by Pope Pius VII. Here the funeral of the Duke of Orleans took place in 1842; the marriage of Napoleon III. in 1853, and the baptism of the Prince Imperial June 15, 1857. This christening ceremony was very imposing; eighty bishops in vestments with mitres and crosses assisted. And yet, in the flush of his early manhood, this scion of royalty met death from the spears of wild Zulus, and lay naked and alone in the swamp where his captors had snared him!

This brief description, being merely historical, does not of course give the careful generalization and artistic consideration which will be found is other articles. Victor Hugo and Theophile Gautier have thrown around the venerable towers of Notre Dame the charm of fiction and the grace of poetry.

The Escurial at Madrid, which was commenced by Juan Bautista and completed by Herrera, is assuredly, with the exception of the Egyptian pyramids, the largest heap of granite that exists upon the face of the globe; it is called in Spain the eighth wonder of the world, making, as each country has its own eighth wonder, at least the thirty-eighth wonder now existing. The Escurial was built in consequence of a vow made by Philip II. at the siege of Saint Quentin, when he was obliged to cannonade a church dedicated to St. Lawrence. Philip promised the saint that he would make amends for the church of which he deprived him by one that should be more spacious and more beautiful; and he kept his word more faithfully than kings generally do. This edifice is arranged in the form of a gridiron, in honor of St. Lawrence. Four towers, or square pavilions, represent the feet of this instrument of torture; four masses of building connect the pavilions with each other, and form the frame-work, while other cross rows represent the bars; the palace and the church are situated in the handle. This strange notion, which must have hampered the architect very much, is not easily perceived by the eye, although it is very visible upon the printed plan.

The only line employed in the Escurial is the straight line, and the only order the Doric order, which to persons of taste in architecture is the most melancholy and poorest of any. One thing which immediately strikes the tourist very disa greeably is the yellow clayish color of the walls, which one would almost imagine to be built of mud, did not the joints of the stones, marked by lines of glaring white, prove that this was not the case. Nothing can be more monotonous to behold than all these buildings, six or seven stories high, without a moulding or pilaster, or a column, and with their small low windows, looking like the entrance to a beehive. The place is the very ideal of a hospital or of barracks. On the top is a heavy dwarfish cupola, which can be compared to nothing more aptly than the dome of the Val de Grâce, and which boasts of no other ornament:

than a multitude of granite balls. All around, in order that nothing may be wanting to the symmetry of the whole, are a number of buildings in the same style, with a quantity of small windows, and without the least ornament. These buildings are connected with each other by galleries in the form of bridges, thrown over the streets that lead to the village. All the approaches to the edifice are paved with granite flags, and its limits marked by little walls three feet high, ornamented with the inevitable balls at every angle and every opening. The façade, which does. not project in the least from the other portions of the building, fails to break the aridity of the general lines, and is hardly perceived, although it is of gigantic proportions.

The first place you enter is a vast court-yard, at the extremity of which is the portal of a church, presenting no remarkable feature except some colossal statues of prophets with gilt ornaments and figures painted rose-color. This court-yard is flagged, damp and cold, and the angles are generally overgrown with grass.

The interior of the church is far from pleasing. Immense mouse-gray pilasters formed of granite, with a large, micaceous grain, like coarse salt, ascend to the roof, which is painted in fresco, the blue, vapory tones of which are ill-suited to the cold, poor color of the architecture. The visitor is shown the place where for fourteen years the sombre Philip II., that king

when the priest is saying mass his feet are on the stone which forms the keystone of the vault. The staircase leading into it is formed of granite and colored marble, and closed by a handsome bronze

PORTAL OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS.

self.

Beneath the church is the Pantheon, the name given to the vault where the bodies of the kings of Spain are preserved. It is octagonal in form, thirty-six feet in diameter, and thirty-eight feet in height, directly under the high altar; so that

jasper, porphyry, and other stones no less precious. In the walls there are niches with antiqueformed cippi, destined to contain the bodies of those kings and queens who have left issue. A penetrating and deathlike coldness reigns through. out the vault, and the polished marble glitters an