It
Stands On The Top Of The Large But Not Lofty Eminence
Over Which Bourges Is Scattered, - A Very Good Position,
As French Cathedrals Go, For They Are Not All So Nobly
Situated As Chartres And Laon.
On the side on which
I approached it (the south) it is tolerably well ex-
posed, though the precinct is shabby; in front, it is
rather too much shut in.
These defects, however, it
makes up for on the north side and behind, where it
presents itself in the most admirable manner to the
garden of the Archeveche, which has been arranged
as a public walk, with the usual formal alleys of the
_jardin francais_. I must add that I appreciated these
points only on the following day. As I stood there in
the light of the stars, many of which had an autumnal
sharpness, while others were shooting over the heavens,
the huge, rugged vessel of the church overhung me in
very much the same way as the black hull of a ship
at sea would overhang a solitary swimmer. It seemed
colossal, stupendous, a dark leviathan.
The next morning, which was lovely, I lost no
time in going back to it, and found, with satisfaction,
that the daylight did it no injury. The cathedral of
Bourges is indeed magnificently huge; and if it is a
good deal wanting in lightness and grace it is perhaps
only the more imposing. I read in the excellent hand-
book of M. Joanne that it was projected "_des_ 1172,"
but commenced only in the first years of the thirteenth
century.
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