CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM A DRAWING BY A. BRUNET-DEBAINES

BY

ÉDOUARD CORROYER

ARCHITECT TO THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT AND INSPECTOR
OF DIOCESAN EDIFICES

EDITED BY

WALTER ARMSTRONG

DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND

With Two Hundred and Thirty-Six Illustrations

New York

MACMILLAN AND CO.

1893

The following pages, which have been translated under my supervisionby Miss Florence Simmonds, give such an account of the birth andevolution of Gothic Architecture as may be considered sufficient fora handbook. Mons. Corroyer writes, indeed, from a thoroughly Frenchstandpoint. He is apt to believe that everything admirable in Gothicarchitecture had a Gallic origin. Vexed questions of priority, such asthat attaching to the choir of Lincoln, he dismisses with a phrase,while the larger question of French influence generally in theseislands of ours, he solves by the simple process of referring everycreation which takes his fancy either to a French master or a Frenchexample, here coming, be it said, into occasional collision with hisown stock authority, the late Mons. Viollet-le-duc. The Chauvinistictone thus given to his pages may be regretted, but, when all issaid, it does not greatly affect their value as a picture of Gothicdevelopment. Mons. Corroyer confines himself in the main to broad[vi]principles. He travels along the line of evolution, pointing out howmaterial conditions and discoveries, and their consequent socialchanges, brought about one development after another in the formsand methods of the architect. In a treatise so conceived, the factthat the field of observation is practically restricted to France,the few excursions beyond her frontier being made rather with a viewto displaying the extent of her influence than with any desire forcatholicity of grasp, is of no great moment. The English reader forwhom this translation is intended, will get as clear a notion of howGothic, as he knows it, came into being, as he would from a moreuniversal survey, while he has the advantage of some echo, at least,of the vivacity, which inspires a Frenchman when his theme is "one ofthe Glories of France."

W. A.