Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847: Of Things and Persons Concerning the Church and EducationAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847: Of Things and Persons Concerning the Church and Education
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
France -- Church history -- 19th century; Italy -- Church history -- 19th century
chapels, struck me as decidedly inferior to Amiens. There is not,
indeed, generally the same impression of vastness and wondrous height
produced on the mind. The pillars are cylinders with four columns at
the corners, like Amiens, very simple and severe; but the strength is
not quite enough veiled. We went all round the galleries inside and
outside, up the centre belfry, which rises ninety-two steps over the
top of the vaulting, with an interval of about ten feet besides. It is
a forest of wood, and had once a spire of wood, which since the fire
has not been restored; this and the six towers have been covered
'provisoirement en ardoises,' as the guide told us, 'mais ce
provisoirement a duré long temps;' indeed, from 1491 to our time,
without much chance of being improved. We went up the great towers,
and could hardly admire enough the delicacy and boldness of the
four corner turrets in open work. The present towers are 240 or 250
feet high; they would, I think, equal or surpass Strasburg and
Antwerp, had they spires. The immense quantity of sculpture all over
this exterior cannot be conceived, nor the ingenuity with which it is
made to serve for decoration. A day is far too short a time to carry
off the impression of it. The mind is fatigued and exhausted during
many a visit, and is not at ease till it has sufficiently mastered the
whole, in order to fix itself for admiration and contemplation on some
particular part. It would be a week's good work to see it, and it
should be visited once a year by all those who talk of the darkness of
the Middle Ages, and the greatness of the nineteenth century, which is
sorely taxed to keep in repair what they constructed, and has not
sufficient piety to restore a part where the architect's design has
been left incomplete. Such parts remain, like the window of Aladdin's
palace, to show that a materialising philosophy, with all its improved
physical powers, remains at immeasurable distance behind the efforts
of faith and piety. M. Cousin should be sent to study truth on his
knees in Notre Dame of Amiens, or of Reims.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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