Hardly less remarkable is the Third Part, which deals with a sort of clash of influences—that of Christianity on the Fine Arts, and that of the Fine Arts, Christianity, and Literature on each other. The wonderfully prophetic instinct of the writer is shown in what he says of the Gregorian chant, as well as of Gothic architecture, and he brings them very close to letters; but of course he comes closer still in dealing with History, Oratory, and the like. And he manages, in a surprising fashion, not to keep very far from it, even in his last part, that of “Worship.” [Sidenote: _Single points of excellence,_] These exercitations are diversified and illustrated by constant expressions and _aperçus_ of real critical power, showing, if, as we have said, necessarily not complete, yet very considerable, and for the time remarkable knowledge. Chateaubriand knows all about _Ossian_; and he corrects Madame de Staël’s amiable and ignorant enthusiasms with a politeness which must have been insufferable to the good lady. He has the right phrase exactly[210] for that singular failure of a genius the Père Lemoyne—a phrase which may not improbably have suggested Flaubert’s gorgeous _Tentation_, and which is, as it were, a keynote or _remarque_-index in relation to the critical imagination of modern times. He has not merely this altered tone in _excelsis_, but also in details:—as witness the very remarkable note at i. 260, on the effects of a particular vowel (whether “first discovered” or not does not matter). On the very same part his open-mindedness is shown in the warm and just praise given to André Chénier—dead and unpublished—and a little later in a delicate protest against the inconsistency of Rivarol’s translation of _Quel giorno piu non vi leggemmo avante_. The characters of the ancient historians are sketched with a masterly brevity in III. iii. 3, and there is an astonishing moderation and justice, as well as a sort of chivalry, in his frequent encounters with Voltaire. [Sidenote: _and general importance._]