The proportion of those that struck the cathedral or houses within a
hundred yards of it to those falling on other buildings was about six to
one. So what damage the cathedral suffered was from blows
delivered not by accident but with intent. As the priests put it, firing on
the church was "expres."
The cathedral dominates not only the city but the countryside. It rises
from the plain as Gibraltar rises from the sea, as the pyramids rise
from the desert. And at a distance of six miles, as you approach from
Paris along the valley of the Marne, it has more the appearance of a
fortress than a church. But when you stand in the square beneath
and look up, it is entirely ecclesiastic, of noble and magnificent
proportions, in design inspired, much too sublime for the kings it has
crowned, and almost worthy of the king in whose honor, seven
hundred years ago, it was reared. It has been called "perhaps the
most beautiful structure produced in the Middle Ages." On the west
facade, rising tier upon tier, are five hundred and sixty statues and
carvings. The statues are of angels, martyrs, patriarchs, apostles, the
vices and virtues, the Virgin and Child.
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