Blind arcades on the ground floor—These kinds of blind arcades are generally placed, in French architecture, inside, under the supports of the low windows, and form a series of small blind arcades between the ground and these supports. The large rooms, the low sides of the churches, the vaults, are almost always papered in their bases by a succession of blind arcades not very projecting ranges by detached pilasters or posts resting on a bench or continuous base of stone. We give like first example of this kind of decoration an interior span on the low sides of the nave of cathedral of Mans (fig. 1).
In this example which is of the XIth century, the construction of masonry seems to justify the use of the blind arcade; the walls are built in blocks faced in small cubes, like certain Gallo-Roman constructions. The blind arcade, by its larger apparatus, the firmness of its jambs monoliths, gives solidity to this base by decorating it, it accompanies and crowns this bench which reigns all along the low side. Generally even at that time, the blind arcades are supported by posts isolated decorated from bases and carved capitals; we
