H ouse and Garden 
est to the Halles Cen¬ 
trales and therefore 
the most important. 
There was in the 
Place de Greve, 
moreover, a building 
which could be used 
by the city, the Mat- 
son aux Piliers , so- 
called from the open 
colonnade which 
formed its first storey. 
In 1357 this build¬ 
ing, which occupied 
the entire eastern side 
of the Place de Greve, 
and was then royal 
property, was secured 
from the Dauphin, 
afterwards Charles V., 
by the adroit man¬ 
agement of Etienne 
Marcel. The later 
Hotel de Ville was 
erected on the site of 
the Maison aux Fil¬ 
lers. 
THE ILE DE LA CITE 
AND ITS MONUMENTS 
The artistic charac¬ 
ter of a medieval city 
was determined by 
the necessary murs d ’ 
enceinte. There could be little civic life be¬ 
yond the walls. The ever growing popula¬ 
tion was forced to bestow itself as compactly 
as possible. The streets were narrow and 
crooked and the buildings closely crowded to¬ 
gether. All available space was used. Even 
bridges were built upon. This arrangement, 
or lack of arrangement, with all its draw¬ 
backs, undoubtedly had a charm of its own, 
which one may still enjoy, no longer in Paris, 
but in many other European towns. Medi¬ 
eval architecture was moreover entirely adapted 
to its fortuitous placing, and in its most per¬ 
fectly developed state, the Gothic style of the 
thirteenth century was beautiful in a logical 
and sensitive way which has never elsewhere 
been possible. 
In the creation of the cathedral, archi¬ 
tecture gave expression to the largest social, 
moral and religious consciousness of medi¬ 
eval life, and to its 
definite apprehension 
of civilization in the 
broadest sense. The 
cathedral was the 
bishop’s church, cer¬ 
tainly ; but with the 
breadth of sympathy 
which was the saving 
virtue of the medieval 
clergy, the bishop 
threw it open to the 
people for their most 
important uses. It 
was the house of the 
people and towered 
over their individual 
dwellings as the life 
of the commune at 
large over that of its 
component units. 
The first church of 
Notre-Dame on the 
lie de la Cite was 
built by Childebert. 
Its ruins were discov¬ 
ered in excavations 
made in 1897 in the 
parvis Notre-Dame, 
and fragments col¬ 
lected in the museums 
of the H otel Carnava- 
let and the Hotel de 
Cluny give an impression of considerable 
beauty and importance. This building was 
still in use when the present cathedral was 
begun in 1161, Maurice de Sully being 
bishop and Louis VII. (1137—1180) king. 
The greater part of the new church was 
built in the reign of Philippe-Auguste. 
The choir was finished in 1190, and, at 
the death of the king, the facade was 
completed to the great arcade crossing the 
bases of the towers. The southern door is 
later, and bears the signature of Jean de 
Chelles, master mason, and the date February 
12, 1257. 
Notre-Dame is always lovely, dark and 
gray as it is. How much more beautiful must 
it have been when the stone was fresh and 
white from the Clos de Lias. South of the 
Cathedral was the eveche or bishop’s palace, 
of the same date as the church, and an im- 
THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 
A longitudinal section from the monograph of Decloux and Doury 
