626 MODERN ARCHITECTURE 



to his Alphabet of Archaeology, constantly reissued and revised from 

 1830 to 1870, the archaeology of the Middle Ages had no longer 

 any mysteries for the French cure or the chemist of the provincial 

 town. It became the harmless pastime of the college student on his 

 vacation; and, thanks to the foundation of the French Society of 

 Archaeology, with its organ, the Bulletin Monumental, with its annual 

 congresses and the reports presented at them, all the readers of the 

 Alphabet came into touch with each other and were enabled to receive 

 constantly, more or less regular instruction. Thus they learned to 

 examine and pass judgment upon the architectural monuments in 

 their neighborhood. When the congress came to them, caretakers and 

 cures were happy and proud to appear for the occasion as learned 

 men and to do the honors of their manor-houses or their churches; 

 the buildings glittering with stained glass and coats of arms recently 

 renovated and considerably embellished in the process. The work of 

 De Caumont spread over a considerable surface, because it had prac- 

 tically no depth; his book is essentially the work of a provincial, it 

 was made from a study of the Norman monuments; and his horizon 

 is limited in every direction. Never in all his life did a general idea, 

 a philosophical conception, or a logical train of reasoning come to 

 him. His work consists of a series of statements, sufficiently great in 

 number to make possible the formulating of chronological rules. 



The matter was spread out with great regularity, and was then 

 cut up just as one makes caramels. The divisions follow regular 

 lines, the arbitrary limits of the centuries; as in geology, each period 

 has a name. The definitions, like the names, are based upon acci- 

 dents of form without real bearing, and not upon principles, or 

 upon forms that are really generic and essential. 



Another popularizer, more intelligent than De Caumont, but an 

 illogical thinker, was Didron. This man accomplished a great deal 

 of work, and, in his Archaeological Annals, has left a monument of 

 permanent value. He was an artist of taste, a painter on glass and 

 a designer of bronzes; a merchant \vho was not averse to advertise- 

 ment, but, at the same time, a man of considerable scholarship. His 

 temperament was ardent and controversial; lie was an eloquent 

 denunciator of vandalism and a militant Catholic. While render- 

 ing great services to medieval archaeology, he made three serious 

 mistakes. Justly indignant as lie was at certain restorations, but 

 immoderate in his criticisms and not entirely free from prejudice 1 , 

 he did his share in bringing about the antagonism between archaeo- 

 logists and architects, an antagonism which is still a misfortune to 

 both. and. above all. a misfortune to the monuments themselves. 



Didron was right in seeing in the art of the Middle Ages the expres- 

 sion of Christian fivili/ation, but he exaggerated this point of view 

 to the extent of seeinir nothing; but heresvin the art of the Renaissance 



