The vaulting and the rose of the south transept were repaired between the years 1725 and 1728 by Boffrand, the king’s architect, at the expense of Cardinal de Noailles. The pair of arches leading to the choir aisles with their elaborate crocketed canopies are somewhat feebly contrived in both transepts. The clustered shafts are clumsily arranged. The details on the north side differ from those on the south. On the east and west sides of both transepts there are two narrow bays of the triforium. The clerestory consists of short pointed windows with wheel windows beneath them. This is due to Viollet-le-Duc, and is intended to show us the arrangement which obtained throughout the church previous to the alterations which resulted from the fire in the thirteenth century.[12] [Footnote 12: In his “Paris” (London, Edward Arnold, 1900), Mr. Hilaire Belloc thus refers to the fire of 1218: “In 1218 a happy accident gave us the incomparable unity which the Cathedral alone possesses among mediæval monuments; for in that year, on the eve of the Assumption, four inspired thieves climbed into the roof-tree and warily let down ropes with slip-knots to lasso the silver candlesticks on the altar. These they snared, but as they pulled them up the lights set fire to the hangings that were stretched for the feasts, and the fire spread to the whole choir.” The writer gives no authority for this story.] [Illustration: _Photo_] [_Ed. Hautecœur, Paris._ THE NORTH TRANSEPT.]