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Victor Hugo
Variety, Eternity, Proportion : Time was the architect - Europe was the builder

From: Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

Page 4

Notre Dame is neither pure Roman, like the first, nor pure Gothic, like the second; it is an edifice of the transition period. The Saxon architect had just finished erecting the first pillars of the nave when the pointed arch, brought back by the Crusaders, arrived and planted itself victorious on the broad Roman capitals which were intended only to support round arches. Master, henceforth, of the situation, the pointed arch determined the construction of the rest of the building. Inexperienced and timid at its commencement, it remains wide and low, restraining itself, as it were, not daring to soar up into the arrows and lancets of the marvellous cathedrals of the later period. It would almost seem that it was affected by the proximity of the heavy Roman pillars.

Not that these edifices showing the transition from Roman to Gothic are less worthy of study than the pure models. They express a gradation of the art which would else be lost. It is the grafting of the pointed arch on to the circular arch.

Notre Dame de Paris, in particular, is a curious specimen of this variety. Every surface, every stone of this venerable pile, is a page of the history not only of the country, but of science and of art. Thus--to mention here only a few of the chief details--whereas the small Porte Rouge almost touches the limits of fifteenth century Gothic delicacy, the pillars of the nave, by their massiveness and great girth, reach back to the Carlovingian Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. One would imagine that six centuries lay between that door and those pillars. Not even the Hermetics fail to find in the symbols of the grand doorway a satisfactory compendium of their science, of which the Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie was so complete a hieroglyph. Thus the Roman Abbey--the Church of the Mystics--Gothic art--Saxon art--the ponderous round pillar reminiscent of Gregory VII, the alchemistic symbolism by which Nicolas Flamel paved the way for Luther--papal unity--schism--Saint-Germain-des-Prés--Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie--all are blended, combined, amalgamated in Notre Dame. This generative Mother-Church is, among the other ancient churches of Paris, a sort of Chimera: she has the head of one, the limbs of another, the body of a third--something of all.

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    Cf.  Pictures of Notre Dame by Kostas Katsiyiannis. Cf. by V. Hugo: In a grand parliament of intelligence, My Revenge is Fraternity! (margin: the Enlargement of Civilization) * R. Scruton, Architecture needs a Grammar * Giannopoulos, The Greek line & the Greek color

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