cathedral during the period of its finishing, and in repeated
examination of the old tapestried designs, the story shaped itself at
last.

Towards the middle of the thirteenth century [55] the cathedral of
Saint Etienne was complete in its main outlines: what remained was
the building of the great tower, and all that various labour of final
decoration which it would take more than one generation to
accomplish. Certain circumstances, however, not wholly explained,
led to a somewhat rapid finishing, as it were out of hand, yet with a
marvellous fulness at once and grace. Of the result much has
perished, or been transferred elsewhere; a portion is still visible
in sumptuous relics of stained windows, and, above all, in the
reliefs which adorn the western portals, very delicately carved in a
fine, firm stone from Tonnerre, of which time has only browned the
surface, and which, for early mastery in art, may be compared with
the contemporary work of Italy. They come nearer than the art of
that age was used to do to the expression of life; with a feeling for
reality, in no ignoble form, caught, it might seem, from the ardent
and full-veined existence then current in these actual streets and
houses.

Just then Auxerre had its turn in that political movement which broke
out sympathetically, first in one, then in another of the towns of
France, turning their narrow, feudal institutions into a free,
communistic life--a movement of which those great centres of popular
devotion, the French cathedrals, are in many instances the monument.
Closely connected always with the assertion of individual freedom,
alike in [56] mind and manners, at Auxerre this political stir was
associated also, as cause or effect, with the figure and character of