Chartres

. . . Could she ever die? I could never believe it. She awaits unborn generations worthy of understanding her.--Auguste Rodin.

The most celebrated Gothic monument in Christendom had survived four years of German conquest and, last week, the even greater dangers of liberation. After six German snipers had been driven from its north tower, Chartres Cathedral was found to be almost untouched by war.

Allied inspectors reported a gargoyle missing, one statue broken, one arch destroyed. The battle with the snipers had left little mark on the taller Gothic north tower, because the U.S. troops were careful to attack only with small arms. The plainer Romanesque south tower likewise showed only a little bullet chipping. Priests who ushered an A.P. correspondent around pointed out the slight damage to the interior--a few windows broken in the south transept, a few supports shattered behind the high altar. The glorious blue glass of Chartres was nowhere to be seen. But, said a priest: "At the start of the war we removed all the colored glass and stored it in the cellar."

The Cathedral's survival was all to the good. But even if Chartres had been pulverized to dust, it could probably be rebuilt exactly, down to the remotest crocket and mullion. For Chartres has been one of the most measured, drawn, painted, photographed and modeled buildings in the world. Even if all European records were lost, it could be closely reproduced from U.S. data alone.

In France, a detailed study of Chartres was made by the late great 19th-Century architectural historian, Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, whose Dictionary of French is a classic. Viollet-le-Duc made plaster casts of some of the Cathedral's lyrical sculpture. But the surest source of data are French Government records, if they are intact. The Third Republic maintained bureaus which filed detailed descriptions of every important historic building in the country. There was also for Chartres a state-supported architect in residence, whose office knew every stone of the building.

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