There must no doubt have been buildings in the Romanesque style in this province, but they were few and insignificant compared with those we have been describing, either in the South or in Normandy and Burgundy. Even in Paris the great church of St. Germain des Prés, the burial-place of the earlier kings, and apparently the most splendid edifice of the capital, was not more than 50 ft. in width by 200 in length before the rebuilding of its chevet in the pointed style, and it possessed no remarkable features of architectural beauty. St. Geneviève was even smaller and less magnificent; and if there was a cathedral, it was so insignificant that it has not been mentioned by any contemporary historian. Several of the provincial capitals probably possessed cathedrals of some extent and magnificence. All these, however, were found so unsuited to the splendid tastes of the 12th and 13th centuries, that they were pulled down and rebuilt on a more extended scale; and it is only from little fragmentary portions of village churches that we learn that the round Gothic style was really at one time prevalent in the province, and possessed features according to its locality resembling more or less those of the neighbouring styles. So scanty indeed are such traces, that it is hardly worth while to recapitulate here the few observations that might occur on the round Gothic styles as found within the limits of the province.[33] This state of affairs continued down to the reign of Louis le Gros, 1108-1136, under whom the monarchy of France began to revive. This monarch, by his activity and intelligence, restored to a considerable extent the authority of the central power over the then independent vassals of the crown. This was carried still further under the reign of his successor, Louis le Jeune (1137-1179), though perhaps more was owing to the abilities of the Abbé Suger than to either of these monarchs. He seems to have been one of those great men who sometimes appear at a crisis in the history of their country, to guide and restore what otherwise might be left to blind chance and to perish for want of a master mind. Under Philip Augustus the country advanced with giant strides, till under St. Louis it arrived at the summit of its power. For a century after this it sustained itself by the impulse thus given to it, and with scarcely an external sign of that weakness which betrayed itself in the rapidity with which the whole power of the nation crumbled to pieces under the first rude shock sustained in 1346 at Crecy from the hand of Edward III.