The choir, then blessed for God's service, is one of the vast designs of Gothic architecture. "Words are powerless to paint the majesty of this sanctuary," wrote M. Gonse. Here, as at Bourges, is the note of dream beauty that haunts the memory, the something mysterious and superlatively picturesque. Were the church completed on the same scale it would rank with the supreme cathedrals of France. From the exterior the contrast between the XII-century nave and its towering neighbor is painfully abrupt. The nave's outer walls are stark and unadorned, the round arched windows insignificant in size. But who would be willing to forfeit the venerable monument built by the poet-theologians, Hildebert de Lavardin and Guillaume de Passavant, wherein history has been lived, and whose interior aspect is of so grave, white, and primeval a simplicity? Overawing in size is Le Mans' Gothic choir. The ground falls away to the cast of the church, and then opens out in the Place des Jacobins, whence can be obtained an unobstructed view of the stupendous edifice. Its numerous apse chapels are of exceptional length. The forked flying buttresses allowed the insertion of ambulatory windows. As at Bourges and Coutances, the inner aisle is sufficiently high to possess its own triforium and clearstory, but Le Mans improved on Bourges by omitting altogether the triforium of its middle choir in order not to dwarf its clearstory. Archæologists have traced the handiwork of three different men in Le Mans' choir. First, an architect of the Ile-de-France made the general plan, and built the thirteen radiating chapels. Then a Norman worked on the eastern curve, and it is thought he was Thomas Toustain, cited here as master-of-works, since Toustain is a Norman name. Perhaps he was the same genius who had already planned the high inner aisle at Coutances Cathedral. Very Norman are Le Mans' circular capitals, the sanctuary's twin-column piers, the carved band under the clearstory, the sharp-pointed arches beneath arches, and the foliate sculpture covering the spandrels of the aisle's triforium. The third master-of-works must have been a native of the Ile-de-France, for the upper choir and the two bays nearest the transept belong to that school.