Note 31

The experiments in the seventh and ninth pair of nave piers in the Cathedral of Laon had no appreciable effect upon the subsequent development; and the piers of Soissons, cylinders with only one colonnette facing the nave, are in my opinion a reduction of the full-fledged Chartres pilier cantonné with colonnettes on all four sides. Perfunctorily imitated in Notre-Dame-de-Paris (second pair of piers from the west), this type is chiefly important for its influence upon provincial structures erected after the middle of the thirteenth century (cf. note 61), and upon the supports in the rond-point—and in the rond-point only —of Reims and Beauvais Cathedrals. For the development of the pilier cantonné see pp. 79 ff.