From, Beautiful Buildings in France & Belgium, Including many which have been destroyed during the war. Reproductions in Colour and Monochrome from rare old Prints and Drawings, by and after Prout, Boys, Coney, W. Callow, David Roberts, C. Wild and others, with descriptive notes, by C. Harrison Townsend, F.R.I.B.A.; New York: The Hubbell Publishing Co., 1916; pp. 168-171.
RHEIMS : CATHEDRAL, WEST FRONT
(G. Simonau)
N September 19th, 1914, the Cathedral of Notre Dame at Rheims began to suffer that persistent and cruel bombardment, which has left it a shell-torn ruin. There is not the least doubt that this was an act of vandalism deliberately conceived and directed, in the spirit of “frightfulness,” against this beautiful building, for the heavy-gun attack left other parts of the town practically untouched.
The unimportant houses shown in Simonau’s careful and sympathetic sketch have long since made room for the Place du Parvis and for modern public buildings — 170 the Palais de Justice and the Theatre. In the centre of this square rose the Cathedral, “perhaps the most beautiful structure produced in the Middle Ages.” Its wonderful porches, with their statues and carving, were amongst its chief glories. As regards the interior, it owes its dignity and simplicity to the fact that it had escaped restoration more successfully than many other Cathedrals.
“Nothing,” says Fergusson, “can exceed the majesty of its deeply-recessed portals, the beauty of the rose window that surmounts them, or the elegance of the gallery that completes the façade and serves as a basement to the light and graceful towers that crown the composition.”
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