Perhaps the most perfect of all is the cathedral of Chartres, which, by a succession of miraculous escapes and the protection afforded by intense local pride, has preserved its twin spires, its sculpture and its stained glass almost unharmed from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Chartres Cathedral is a hymn to the glory of God and of the Mother of God, the shrine of whose tunic it was built to protect (so far, successfully). It rides its hill over the plains of northern France with no rival on the horizon, visible to its pilgrims further even than the bounds of the diocese ruled by its
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