We should not omit to mention the beautiful church of St. Maclou at Rouen, and several others that are being preserved and restored with the utmost care.  The great delights of this city are its ecclesiastical monuments; for if Rouen has become of late years (as in fact it has) a busy, modern town; if its old houses and streets are being swept away, its churches and monuments remain.  And if, as we have said, the inhabitants are prone to imitate many English habits and customs, there is one custom of ours that they do not imitate—­they do not ‘religiously’ close nearly every church in the land for six days out of the seven; their places of worship are not shut up like dungeons, they are open to the breath of life, and partake of the atmosphere of the ‘work-a-day’ world.[46] In England we dust out our earthy little chapels on Saturdays, and we complete the process with silken trains on Sundays; we worship in an atmosphere more fit for the dead than the living, and in a few hours shut up the buildings again to the spiders and the flies!

We have little more to say to the reader about the churches in Normandy, and we should like to leave him best at the south-west corner of the square in front of the Cathedral (close to the spot from which M. Clerget has made his drawing), where he may take away with him an impression of the wealth and grandeur of the architecture of Normandy, pleasant to dwell upon.

If we do not examine too closely into ‘principles,’ or trouble our minds too much with ‘styles’ of architecture, the effect that we obtain here will be completely and artistically beautiful, and satisfying to the eye.  It is not easy to point out any modern building that fulfils these conditions; where, for instance, can we see anything like the work that was bestowed on the lower portion of this facade?  We may spend more money and effort, but we do not achieve anything which seems to the spectator more spontaneously beautiful (if we use the word aright); anything displaying more wealth of decoration, combined with grandeur of effect.  Severe, we might say austere, critics speak of the ’confusion of ornament,’ and tell us that the over-elaboration of carving on the exterior of this cathedral is a sign of decadence, and that the principles on which the architects of Caen and Bayeux worked were more noble and worthy; whilst architects will tell us that Gothic art was generally ‘debased’ at Rouen,—­debased from the time when people gave themselves up to the luxury of the Renaissance, and ’pride took the place of enthusiasm and faith, in art.’

We might, indeed, if we chose to make the comparison for a moment between Christian and Mahommedan art, see a higher principle at work in the construction of the mosques and palaces of the Moors, where simplicity, refinement, and truth are noticeable in every line; we might see it in mauresque work, in the absence of grotesque images, or the imitation of living things in ornament; but, above all, in the severe simplicity and grandeur of their exteriors, and in the decoration, colour, and gilding of their interior courts alone,—­carrying out, in short, the true meaning of the words that, the king’s daughter should be—­’all glorious within, her clothing of wrought gold.’