harmonising with, and adding the utmost beauty to, the features of the architecture to which they are applied. I exhibit specimens of this class of foliage in Nôtre Dame (Figs. 47, 48). I will also call attention to a drawing of one of the capitals from the apse of St. Leu, near Creil (said to have been executed a little after a great accession of wealth to the abbey in 1175, M. le Duc says about 1190), as a specimen of the same advance in foliaged carving, and to some of the capitals from the west front of Nôtre Dame (about 1220) as examples of its success just before the systematic introduction of natural foliage. [Illustration: Fig. 52.--Noyon. Capital from the apse.] [Illustration: Fig. 53.--Laon. Capital.] [Illustration: Fig. 54.--Sens.] [Illustration: Fig. 55.--Nôtre Dame.] At this point I ought to mention the introduction (though of somewhat earlier date) of what the French call the capital “_à crochet_.” I exhibit a sketch showing its origin from a plain unruffled leaf, which accompanied the Byzantine acanthus (Fig. 51). This plain leaf may be seen in a simple form in the apsidal columns at Noyon, in a more advanced state in the nave of the same church, and at Laon (which, however, is a good deal later), and pretty well developed at Sens, and at Montmartre. In Nôtre Dame the capital _à crochet_ assumes a considerable importance, and in the west front is used in its most perfect purely conventional form; while a little later, as at the Sainte Chapelle, it is decked and entwined with natural leaves in the most elegant manner imaginable. No feature which arose during the French transition is so universal in its influence on the architecture of other countries. In France its use is often carried to a vicious excess; but, used in moderation, it is a very valuable element in the _architecturalisation_ of foliage. [Illustration: Fig. 56.--Sainte Chapelle.] [Illustration: Fig. 57.--Sainte Chapelle.] [Illustration: Fig. 58.--St. Remi, Rheims, W.E.] I have to apologise, as well for the length to which I have prolonged my remarks on the French transition, as for the very meagre outline with which the limits of a lecture have compelled me to satisfy myself. I will reserve a few remarks suggested by what has passed so hastily in review till I have described some of the English examples. The English transition was so complete in itself, and all its stages so perfect and so consecutive, that were it not for our knowledge of that of France, and for the _interpolation_--if I may say so--of the almost purely French work at Canterbury, one would be loath to believe that it had been influenced by any other than the natural and spontaneous working out of the development of our own Romanesque. It may be divided into several stages, though they are often intermingled in the same work. [Illustration: Fig. 59.--Fountains Abbey. View across Nave.]