But it was not only in exuberance of enrichment and quaintness of form
that these enthusiastic workmen uttered their inspirations. They built
their spires to a most amazing height. Indeed, the loftiest steeples in
the world arose in level tracts of country, where they could be seen at
immense distances, as not only in Belgium and thereabout, but on the
flat margins of the upper and lower Rhine, as at Strasburg and Cologne.
In these countries, and about the North of France, there was a generous
rivalry as to which city should lift up highest the cross of God. But as
soon as the sacred passion for spire-building was corrupted by this new
element of human emulation, some strange things happened. The people of
Beauvais, for instance, desiring to beat the people of Amiens, set to
work, we are told, to build a tower on their cathedral as high as they
possibly could. The same thing had been done once before on the plains
of Shinar. One foresees the result, of course; "it fell, for it was
founded upon the sand, and great was the fall thereof." And so with the
good people of Louvain. They built three spires to their cathedral, of
which the central one reached the unparalleled height of five hundred
and thirty-three feet, according to Hope, and the side-towers four
hundred and thirty feet.
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