The clerestory is composed of pairs of tall lancet windows, with a rose window above them, which fill the whole available space in each bay. Of the glass we have spoken in the previous chapter.
The _Flamboyant_ period is represented in the Cathedral by the spire of Jehan de Beauce and the _Chapelle Vendôme_, next to the south transept. It was founded in 1413 by Louis de Bourbon, and dedicated to the Annunciation. It has recently been restored. The style is incongruous with this massive transitional nave, but serves perhaps to accentuate the beauty of its masculine grandeur and reserve. The remains of S. Piat and S. Taurin are preserved here; the one is invoked for fair weather, the other for rain by the farmers of La Beauce.
The influence of the _Renaissance_ is to be traced in the clock tower at the foot of the _Clocher Neuf_, in the later portions of the _Clôture du Chœur_ and, in its most fatal form, in the alterations that were made in the eighteenth century within the choir.[80] The Chapter, about 1750, was composed of men with much taste, all of it bad. A terrible mania for ugliness had seized mankind. Men like Bossuet, Fénelon, Montesquieu and Racine, enamoured of the classical style, declared the Gothic barbarous. At that inopportune crisis of taste the Chapter began to ‘decorate’ the choir. The result is simply nauseating.
The jubé, the beautiful screen which had come down from the century of S. Louis, required repair. The excuse was welcomed, and it was destroyed. A few fragments only remain in the Chapel of S. Martin in the crypt. The pillar upon which the Vierge Noire (Notre-Dame du Pilier) was then set is said to have been part of the _débris_ of this screen. The present grille replaced in 1866 the pretentious iron-work of the eighteenth century.
This achievement of the Chapter seems to have whetted rather than satisfied their shameless appetite for the hideous. ‘Sans doute,’ wrote Victor Hugo, ‘C’est encore aujourd’hui un majestueux et sublime édifice que Notre-Dame de Chartres. Mais si belle qu’elle se soit conservée en vieillissant, il est difficile de ne pas soupirer, de ne pas s’indigner devant les dégradations, les mutilations sans nombre que simultanément le temps et les hommes ont fait subir au vénérable monument.’