The church of Thourotte--it is of the twelfth century, but has lost much of its character--contains a fine altar screen of gilded wood, representing the different scenes of the Passion. It is said to be Flemish work; judging by the types of certain personages, this might be doubted; but the shutters which close upon the screen bear paintings whose origin is not in the least doubtful. Poor paintings, whose restoration was confided by a too-zealous curate to a pitiable dauber! Now, the Commission of Historic Monuments has fisted the beautiful sculptures and has put them under glass: the effect of this is abominable, but we live among barbarians and second-hand dealers, and we are actually forced to put our works of art under lock and key to defend them. As for the painted shutters, they are hung up on the wall: a few were spared by the dauber. In the same church we may still see two beautiful altars supported by torsos of the seventeenth century. How many beautiful works of art still remain in our little churches of France, in spite of revolutions and dealers in antiques! The Cistercian abbey of Ourscamp is now a cotton spinning mill. Behind a magnificent iron fence stretch vast buildings of the seventeenth century. In the center rises a grand pavilion. We pass through an open door between the high columns which support the balcony of the upper story, and suddenly discover that this immense construction is a mere veneer to hide the old church of the monastery. Of the nave there is no longer anything remaining; but a little farther on, in the midst of the park, the choir still lifts its arches of magnificently pure architecture. The roof has fallen, but the columns and the walls still stand. It is a picture like that of the church of Long-pont, in the forest of Villers-Cotterets. (There is also great similarity between the architecture of Longpont and that of Ourscamp.) It seems that the intimate beauty of Gothic art is better revealed to us when we thus discover the ruin of one of its masterpieces among the trunks and branches of trees; we then can better feel the living grace of its columns and the freedom of its arches.... There is so much truth in this admirable page from the _Génie du christianisme_: "The forests of the Gauls have passed in their turn into the temples of our fathers, and our forests of oak have thus maintained their sacred origin. These vaults carved into foliage, these jambs which support the walls and end suddenly like broken trunks, the coolness of the vaults, the darknesses of the sanctuary, the obscure wings, the secret passages, the lowly doorways, all retrace the labyrinths of the woods in the Gothic church: everything makes us feel in it religious horror, mysteries and divinity, etc...." The centuries have accomplished their work, and, in the ruins of the edifice, which is surrounded and invaded by the verdure of the forest, we recognize still better what art learns from nature. [13]