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Moreover, instead of sinking his facade modestly a little, eighteen inches would have been enough he has carried the face of his niggling little buttresses flush with the massive walls of the great towers. I wished I could have had M. Viollet-le-Duc there by both his ears and knocked his head against the abomination he has created. He had a splendid opportunity, and through incapacity he lost it.
Thirty-one years later, having passed into the hands of the King of France, it was again besieged by the young Raymond de Trincavel, the last of the viscounts of Béziers; and of this siege M. Viollet-le-Duc gives a long and minute account, which the visitor who has a head for such things may follow, with the brochure in hand, on the fortifications themselves.
The process of converting the place from an irresponsible old town into a conscious "specimen" has of course been attended with eliminations; the population has, as a general thing, been restored away. I should lose no time in saying that restoration is the great mark of the Cité. M. Viollet-le-Duc has worked his will upon it, put it into perfect order, revived the fortifications in every detail.
This has been set forth with more authority than I can pretend to, by Viollet-le-Duc, the architect who has written best on his own art; his description sums up the subject and makes everything clear.
A new gate, the Porte Petrarque, now the Porte de la Republique, was erected by Viollet-le-Duc when the walls were pierced for the new street; the Porte St. Dominique is also new. Luckily the intervention of a public-spirited Prefect of Vaucluse proved successful, and they were again rescued from the housewrecker's pick. No visitor to Avignon should omit to walk or drive round the famous ramparts.
"To think that she could visit really historic buildings with me, who have spent ten years in the study of architecture, who am constantly bombarded, by people who really count, to take them over Beauvais or Saint-Loup-de-Naud, and refuse to take anyone but her; and instead of that she trundles off with the lowest, the most brutally degraded of creatures, to go into ecstasies over the petrified excretions of Louis-Philippe and Viollet-le-Duc!
I may remark, however, that Viollet-le-Duc and Fergusson do not understand the subject of Russian architecture, and that their few observations on the matter are nearly all as erroneous as they well can be. I believe that very few Russians even know much scientifically about the development of their national architecture from the Byzantine style.
Thirty-one years later, having passed into the hands of the King of France, it was again besieged by the young Raymond de Trincavel, the last of the viscounts of Béziers; and of this siege M. Viollet-le-Duc gives a long and minute account, which the visitor who has a head for such things may follow, with the brochure in hand, on the fortifications themselves.
These facts I derived from a source no more recondite than a pamphlet by M. Viollet-le-Duc a very luminous description of the fortifications, which you may buy from the accomplished custodian.
Viollet-le-Duc, in summing up this much discussed question, has written that "in the Romanesque art of the West, side by side with persistent Latin traditions, a Byzantine influence is almost always found, evidenced by the introduction of the cupola."
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