Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

“ In the modern pastiches that one made of the Gothic buildings, it is extremely rare to see gargoyles which bind fortunately to architecture: they or are badly placed, or heavy, or too hails, or soft of form, the poor of invention, without character; they do not have this so remarkable real aspect in the old examples; they are impossible, ridiculous beings often, coarse caricatures deprived of style. Certain limestones of the basin of the Seine, like hard limestone-cliquard, marvelously lent themselves to the sculpture these long pieces of projecting stone on constructions. ”

“ À la Sainte-Chapelle du Palais à Paris, les gargouilles sont plus élancées, plus développées: ce ne sont plus seulement des bustes d'animaux, mais des animaux entiers attachés par leurs pattes aux larmiers supérieurs; leurs têtes se détournent pour jeter les eaux le plus loin possible des angles des contre-forts (4) . Quelques-unes de ces gargouilles sont évidemment sculptées par des artistes consommés. ”

“ These beings stick skilfully to the drips, are welded with architecture and give to the silhouettes buildings a particular character, marking their projecting points, showing the heads of the buttresses, putting forward the vertical lines. One can judge skill of the architects and sculptors in the combination and the execution of these launchers by the difficulty which one tests to combine them and to make them carry out. ”