It began with the ignoble quarrels between Philippe le Bel and the Pope; it saw the stake lighted for the Templars, made bonfires in Languedoc of the _Begards_ and the _Fraticelli_, the lepers and the Jews; wallowed in blood under the defeats of Crecy and Poitiers, the furious excesses of the Jacquerie and of the Maillotins, and the ravages of the brigands known as the _Tard-venus_; and finally, having run so wild, its madness was reflected in the incurable insanity of the king.
"Thus it ended, as it had begun, writhing in the most horrible religious convulsions.

The Tiaras of Rome and Avignon clashed, and the Church, standing unsupported on these ruins, tottered on its base, for the Great Western Schism now shook it.
"The fifteenth century seemed to be born mad.

Charles VI.'s insanity seemed to be infectious; the English invasion was followed by the pillage of France, the frenzied contest of the Bourguignons and the Armagnacs, by plagues and famines, and the overthrow at Agincourt; then came Charles VII., Joan of Arc, the deliverance and the healing of the land by the energetic treatment of King Louis XI.
"All these events hindered the progress of the works in cathedrals.
"The fourteenth century on the whole restricted itself to carrying on the structures begun during the previous century.

We must wait till the end of the fifteenth, when France drew breath, to see architecture start into life once more.
"It must be added that frequent conflagrations at various times destroyed a whole church, and that it had to be rebuilt from the foundations; others, like Beauvais, fell down, and had to be reconstructed, or, if money was lacking, simply strengthened and the gaps repaired.
"With the exception of a very few--Saint Ouen at Rouen for one, a rare example of a church almost entirely built during the fourteenth century (excepting the western towers and front, which are quite modern), and the Cathedral at Reims for another, which appears to have been constructed without much interruption, on the original plans of Hugues Libergier or Robert de Coucy--not one of our cathedrals was erected throughout in accordance with the designs of the architect who began it, nor has one remained untouched.
"Most of them, consequently, represent the combined efforts of successive pious generations; still, this apparently improbable fact is true: until the dawn of the Renaissance the genius of successive builders was singularly well matched.

If they made any alterations in their predecessors' plans, they were able to introduce some touch of individuality, inventions of exquisite beauty that did not clash with the whole.