If you begin at Paris, as the great centre, you will find, amidst the Napoleonic modernisms of that centre of fashion, a very perfect series of typical Mediæval remains, over-restored and otherwise often sadly damaged, but nevertheless of the utmost value. I have mentioned most of them in my former lectures, but I will just enumerate them to refresh your memory, and roughly in chronological order. I know little of purely Romanesque date unless it be the eastern part of the abbey church of St. Martin. This is curious and worthy of attention. The earliest object, however, of paramount importance is the older part of the church of St. Denis. I have said a good deal about it before, and will now content myself with pressing its importance as the grand typical example of transition. The Byzantine foliage here displays itself in a most marked form. You will find it in the string-courses and other parts of the west end very finely developed.[79] The great portal of the north transept is a noble specimen of this early style. The foliated carving on it is of very high merit. The eastern chapels, both of the church and crypt, are well worthy of the closest study, and there are many fine remains both stowed away in the churchyard and preserved in a temporary museum close by. These, however, do not all belong to this church, some having been brought here, under what circumstances I do not know, from St. Germain des Près. I will just mention that you must get permission to sketch (so long as the works of restoration are going on) from M. Viollet le Duc, and, having obtained, pray use it to the utmost. [Illustration: Fig. 182.--Capitals, Montmartre.] Next in date, so far as I know, comes St. Germain des Près. Here you will find, especially in the choir and its aisles, a most noble series of studies of the Byzantinesque foliage. The architecture, too, is very excellent; but you will perceive that the present form of the triforium is altered from the original. Perhaps about the same age is the church of Montmartre. Here the Byzantinesque foliage is nearly all of the plain unraffled form, and is very curious and worthy of study. [Illustration: Fig. 183.--St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris. Plan of Choir.]