A century sufficed to bring the Pointed style to its highest perfection. Notre-Dame (Fig. 307) and the Sainte-Chapelle, in Paris; Notre-Dame, Chartres; the cathedrals of Amiens (Fig. 308), Sens, Bourges, Coutances, in France; those of Strasbourg, Fribourg, Altenberg, and Cologne, in Germany, the dates of whose construction succeed each other at intervals from the first half of the twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth century, are so many admirable specimens or types of this art, which we may here call relatively new. To know to what marvellous variety of combinations and effects, by merely modifying it in height and breadth from its original type, this pointed arch, which, taken by itself, might appear the simplest of forms, can attain, one must have passed some time in dividing into the different parts of which it is composed, by an accurate examination of its _tout ensemble_, such an edifice as Notre-Dame, Paris, or as the Cathedral of Strasbourg; the first of which attracts attention by the sustained boldness of its lines, strong as they are graceful; the second, by its perfectly bold independence, seeming, as it does, to taper away as by enchantment, in order to bear to a surprising height the evidence of its incomprehensible temerity. We must rise in thought above the edifice to grasp the plan of its first conception; we must, from below, study it on all sides to perceive [Illustration: Fig. 307.--Notre-Dame, Paris (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries). View of the principal Façade before the restoration executed by Messrs. Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc.] [Illustration: Fig. 308.--Interior of Amiens Cathedral. (Thirteenth Century.)] with what art its various parts are arranged, grouped, placed at certain intervals from each other; we must seek to discover the contrivance by virtue of which the immense _évidage_ (sloping) of numerous buttresses, the height of the towers, the retiring of the laterals, and the curve of the apse are harmonised; we must enter the church and stand in its nave, with its interminable delicate ribs--how many clusters of small columns extend above the slender pillars!--we must contemplate the beautiful fancies of the rose-windows, which by their many-coloured glass sober down the glare of the light passing through them; we must gain the summit of those towers, those spires, and from them command the dizzy extent of aërial [Illustration: Fig. 309.--Capital of a Column in the Abbey of St. Geneviève (destroyed), Paris. (Eleventh Century.)] [Illustration: Fig. 310.--Capital of a Column in the Church of St. Julien the Poor (destroyed), Paris. (Twelfth Century.)]