We are obliged to come to the conclusion that the pointed arch was introduced in Germany, France and England by the Crusaders, who had seen it used in the East, and had considered it best fitted for buildings that enshrined the sublime mysteries of the Christian faith. It was in the pointed style, therefore, that the new cathedral of Rheims was built. The name of its architect is not known, but his plan shows that he must have been a man of profound genius. Archbishop Alberic Humbert laid the foundation stone in 1212. The whole province contributed liberally to the work, and in 1242 the building was sufficiently advanced for the celebration of divine service in the choir. The Church of Notre Dame of Rheims would require a volume to describe it completely. The front is perhaps the most elaborate to be found in France. The three vast portals, peopled with statues of colossal size, their arched vaulting covered with saintly and angelic figures, the mighty rose-windows, flanked with pointed openings, crowned with carved tabernacle work, and the great gallery of kings crossing the whole front, just below the peak of the gable, and above all, the two towers pierced by majestic windows and supported at each corner by niches with three open faces, give an impression of richness and brightness and grace, mingled with that indefinable majesty, which is due partly to the vast dimensions, partly to the harmonious proportions of the whole structure. The divisions of the front façade resemble somewhat the same part of the edifice at Amiens, excepting that it is far more florid, and less strict and severe in its main divisions. At Amiens the details are kept in strictest subservience to the structural lines of the edifice. At Rheims it is the magnificent wealth of details that crowds upon the view, the walls and arches are surcharged with statues, with niches, with brackets, pinnacles, tracery, foliage, finials and turrets. The sides of the entrances of the three portals are crowded with colossal statues, thirty-nine in number, representing patriarchs, prophets, kings, bishops, virgins and martyrs. On the trumeau of the central gate is a fine statue of the Virgin Mary; on the sides of this trumeau are bas-reliefs representing the Fall of Man, of whose restoration Mary should be the instrument.