stone for stone a large portion of the original first-pointed edifice. The cloisters occupied the angle between the nave and south transept, but no trace remains of them save the corbels which supported their roof. A long range of old buildings still remains, south of the south transept. On the ground floor they consist of: first, a small groined room with a central column, and its groining and walls painted rudely with patterns in distemper; second, of a long building divided by a row of columns down the centre and entered by three open arches at the west end, which we may assume to have been the chapter room; third, another square room with a rude central column, also painted, and then another room of that same kind; all these rooms are groined, and above them, along the whole length of the building, extends a great hall with an old timber roof, of such great size that it is difficult to surmise its probable use unless it was that of a great dormitory arranged with cubicles down its sides.[12] [Illustration: THE AMBULATORY, CATHEDRAL OF TOURS] ARCHITECTURAL NOTES IN FRANCE (From the _Ecclesiologist_, 1858–59) I A short holiday among French churches has left so many pleasant recollections of new ideas received, new thoughts suggested, ancient memories revived afresh, that it is as impossible as it would be churlish to refuse to communicate some notes of what I have seen; and as they are asked for I proceed to give them, though they must be more slight and generalizing than I could wish; for I have a very profound conviction of the great grandeur of ancient French art, and a corresponding sense of the danger of so treating it as to convey too small a sense of its value to those who have not studied it for themselves, or of offending those who are so happy as to have realized that value to the fullest extent and from actual inspection of its remains. It is needless to say that as the France of the present day is an agglomeration of ancient and distinct provinces, so also in its ancient buildings we can trace, without any difficulty, a variety of different national or provincial styles: it would be strange indeed were it not so. Even in England we have most striking varieties in style confined, generally, within the boundaries of particular dioceses; so that to understand ancient art aright, it is necessary to have an exact acquaintance with the third-pointed work of Devonshire and Cornwall as well as that of Norfolk and Suffolk, and to be able to perceive all the difference between the first-pointed work of the Yorkshire abbeys and that of Wells and Salisbury.