624 MODERN ARCHITECTURE 



mistakes. It was still believed with all seriousness that all that was 

 necessary to do in order to imitate the Middle Ages was to make mis- 

 takes in composition and in drawing, just as children think that they 

 imitate a strange language when they make a jargon of discordant 

 sounds. Never was so much money so maladroitly expended. All 

 the ornaments of the fagades were robbed of their character. The 

 great bell-tower was in bad condition; the result of its rebuilding 

 was its immediate collapse. 



To the architect J. B. Antoine de Lassus belongs the honor of 

 having rediscovered the rules and the real spirit of Gothic art, and 

 of applying them in the restoration of the cathedral of Notre Dame 

 de Paris, which was completed by Viollet-le-Duc, and which is a real 

 masterpiece. At the same time Lassus published the Album of Villard 

 de Honnecourt. It is a matter of great regret that this learned and 

 artistic man should have worked so slowly and that his life was so 

 short. Viollet-le-Duc, who was his collaborator and afterwards his 

 successor, has eclipsed him; but although much more brilliant as a 

 writer and much more productive, his restorations were not always 

 so satisfactory as those of Lassus. 



While Victor Hugo was inflaming all imaginations with the art 

 of the Middle Ages, of which he himself had, by the way, a most 

 uncritical conception, there were other writers who were rendering 

 serious services to its history. 



In 1828 Baron Taylor and Charles Nodier joined forces to publish 

 the immense collection of the Voyages Pittoresques ct Romantiques 

 dans I'anciennc France, which contains some valuable information 

 and a great number of beautiful and often very accurate lithographic 

 drawings, precious to-day as witnesses of the condition of the great 

 works at that time. 



A very useful and reliable work was that of the Count Leon tie 

 Labord. In his researches relating to the history of the dukes of 

 Burgundy published in 1849-50, he has set an excellent example 

 the first of its kind by showing what may be done for the history 

 of art by a careful study of the earliest records. 



It was for two men, Viollet-le-Duc and Quicherat, respectively, to 

 establish standards of taste and intelligence with regard to the art 

 of the Middle Ages, and accurate ideas as to its history and a scholarly 

 method for its study. Quicherat delivered erudite professorial lectures 

 at 1'Kcole des Chartes to a picked body of experts. Viollet-le-Duc. 

 on the other hand, won the favor of the entire public by the 

 magic of his expositions and deductions and the charm with which 

 he was aide to present his ideas. He maintained with inimitable 

 eloquence that, however different might be Greek art, Gothic art 

 is in no way inferior, either in structure or in beauty, and that it is 

 far superior to Roman art, which is neither original nor delicate. 



