sovereign declared himself a convert, and the bishop, "_extractis e manticâ forcipibus, primo regem tum cæteros optimates attondit_."[223] [Illustration: Plate 100. CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME, AT SÉEZ. _Elevation of the Nave._] The church of Séez may be compared in its architecture with those of Coutances and of Lisieux: they are unlike, indeed, but by no means different. The points of resemblance exceed those of a contrary description. "facies non omnibus una, Nec diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum." Severe simplicity characterizes Lisieux: Coutances is distinguished by elegance, abounding in decoration: Séez, at the same time that it unites the excellencies of both, can rival neither in those which are peculiarly its own. On the first view of the church, its mean and insignificant western tower strikes the spectator with an unfavorable impression, which, on a nearer approach, the mutilated and encumbered state of the western front is by no means calculated to remove. And yet this western front, all degraded as it is, cannot fail to derive importance from the great depth of the central door-way, which is no less than forty-seven feet,[224] a projection exceeding that of the galilee of Peterborough cathedral. It is in the interior that the beauty of the church of Séez is conspicuous. The noble lofty arches below; the moresque ornament, like those at Bayeux and at Coutances, in the spandrils; the double lancet arches of the triforium placed in triplets; and the larger pointed arches above, arranged two or three together, and encircled with arches of the Norman form, though not of the Norman style;--all these beauties, added to the enrichments of the sculptured walls and windows of the aisles, render the cathedral, if not the first of Norman religious buildings, at least in the number of those of the first class, "Extremi primorum, extremis usque priores." NOTES: [220] _Origines de Caen_, p. 5. [221] _Abrégé de la Vie des Evêques de Coutances_, p. 40. [222] _Etat Géographique de Normandie_, p. 304. [223] _Gallia Christiana_, XI. p. 684. [224] The following are the dimensions of the other parts of the building.