Suger's subtle mind reached beyond the ascetic's maxim. Well he knew that both saint and art patron were needed, well he knew that Bernard of Clairvaux was as instrumental as himself in the formation of the cathedral builders. A living example of Christian perfection, Bernard fortified the faith of all Europe. He might advocate church simplicity, but it was not without cause that his apostolate preceded the most fecund creative period of mankind's art. His impassioned love of God warmed the imaginations of the men who began the big Gothic churches. What remains to-day of the XII-century abbatial built by Suger of St. Denis? Comparatively little. The lower parts of the west façade and the two first bays of the nave which form a narthex, or vestibule, are his work. In the choir, his beautiful ambulatory begins at the third bay of the double aisles. There are nine bays of Suger's processional path, and from them radiate seven apse chapels. The pillars that divide the lovely curving double passage are the very ones which the generous enthusiasm of the people dragged from Pontoise, and, in memory of the little abbot, some will touch those slender columns with reverential gesture. It was Suger who created the disposition of the _rond point_ found in its perfection at St. Denis and copied in the great cathedrals. The crypt also is his work, though its nucleus belonged to an underground shrine built by Abbot Hilduin in the XI century. When Abbot Suger had finished his choir, he proceeded to make a new Gothic transept and nave; but of them scarcely a vestige remains. Some sculpture at the north door of the transept is of the XII century. Whether the construction was faulty, or whether the monks desired a more ample church, there was a total reconstruction of St. Denis' abbatial, a hundred years after Suger's day. THE ST. DENIS OF ST. LOUIS Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense, With ill-matched aims, the architect who planned (Albeit laboring for a scanty band Of white-robbed scholars only) this immense And glorious work of fine intelligence. --WORDSWORTH. From 1231 to 1280, at St. Louis' own expense, the present nave and transept of St. Denis were built, and the first bay of the choir as well as the upper parts of the chevet were reconstructed. Inasmuch as the new nave was wider than the choir, a canted bay of the latter joined it to the transept.