4 Bk. VI. Ch. III. EXTERNAL PROPORTIONS. 163 France. While Saxon common sense was gradually coming to the surface in this country and curbing every fancy for which a good economic reason could not be given, the Celtic fancy of our neighbors broke loose in all the playfvd vagaries of the flamboyant style. Their tracery became so delicate and so unconstructive that it is a wonder it ever stood, and no wonder that half the windows of that date are now without tracery at all. They were framed, too, with foliage so delicate that it ought to have been executed in metal and never attempted in stone — in wonderful contrast to the plain deep mouldings which surround most of our windows of that j^eriod. External Peopoktions. If the sobriety of proportion which characterized the design of English architects led to satisfactory results internally, its influence was still more favorable on the external appearance of their churches. An English cathedral is always a part of a great group of buildings — the most important and most dignified part, it is true, but always coinciding and harmonizing with its chapter-house, its cloister and conventual buildings, its bishop's palace or abbot's lodging. In France the cathedral is generally like a giant among pigmies — nothing can exist in its neighborhood. The town itself is dwarfed by the immense incubus that stands in its centre, and in almost no instance can the subordinate buildings be said to form part of the same design — both consequently suffering from their quasi-accidental juxtaposition. This effect is even more apparent when we come to examine the sky-line of the buildings. Their moderate internal dimensions en- abled the English architects to keep the roofs low so as to give full effect to the height of the towers, and to project their transepts so boldly as to vary in perspective the long lines of the roofs from what- ever point the building was viewed. Their greatest gain, however, was that they were able to place their tallest and most important feature in the centre of their buildings, and so to give a unity and harmony to the whole design which is generally wanting in Con- tinental examples. One of the few cases in which this feature is successfully carried out in France is the church of St. Sernin at Toulouse (Woodcut No. 344), but there the body of the building is low and long like the English type, and a tower of the same height as those of the fa9ade at Amiens sufiices to give dignity the vhole. That church, however, wants the western towers to complete the composition. In this respect it is the reverse of what generally happens in French cathedrals, where the western fa9ades are rich and beautifully proportioned in themselves, but too often overpowered by the building in the rear, and i;nsupported by any central object. In
