The beautiful Lady Chapel was built in five years. The entire building, except the spire, which was not in the original plan, took only forty-six years to complete. It was consecrated in 1266. But when the spire was erected the architect in charge failed to strengthen the foundations sufficiently. The pillars and arches bulged; for they had never been intended to support such weight. In spite of arches walled up and buttresses built, the tower sagged nearly two feet toward the south, and has remained in that position ever since. Though simplicity and calmness are characteristic of the original Salisbury Cathedral, they have been emphasized to the point of bareness by the restoration of James Wyatt, who destroyed nearly all the stained glass windows, two chapels, and a belfry, and moved many of the tombs. There are niches in the cathedral for over a hundred statues, which for some reason were nearly empty at the middle of the last century. The statues now in place are almost all modern: sculptured, however, with a view to holding the original significance of the architecture. They are arranged to represent the Te Deum. [Illustration: CHATEAU DE CHAMBORD] _Château de Chambord_ FIVE In the park of the château, near the banks of the Loire, great ragged trees reach out across the sky, cutting off the faint light of the stars. It is midnight. Indistinctly from the direction of the château comes a baying of deerhounds. It passes overhead through the middle air, with trampling and the sound of horns, then dies away into the distance. The ghost of Tibault de Champagne, first hereditary Count Blois, a black hunter followed by black dogs, is chasing the stag. Each midnight, so the people of that country say, the grim old baron rides by with a full pack. Count Tibault had a castle there by the Loire, and for centuries his descendants used it as a hunting resort. In 1397 it passed into the hands of Louis d'Orléans. Francis I, a king of the house of Orléans, who knew the abandoned structure in his boyhood, developed in the country round this castle his well known passion for the chase, and that is why he chose the ruined feudal stronghold in the heart of a great forest for the site of his royal palace, when he might have built on any one of a hundred lovely spots not far away along the Loire. The king's taste did not please his courtiers, who were less found of hunting and solitude. They would have preferred a large city, or at least some fertile valley nearby. Chambord was a palace in the wilderness. It could not be seen from a distance, and the view from its windows was only a dreary wood. The building has been described as a dream from the Arabian Nights come true.