Amiens Cathedral, choir, axial chapel

We are still just inside the garden of the bishop's palace looking east and almost aligned with the body of the cathedral.
Jutting out toward us is the axial chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and used by the parishioners of the parish of Notre Dame. The chapel which was known as Notre-Dame de la Drapière projects more deeply than the others: to the right of the axial chapel is the chapel of Saint Augustine of Canterbury and to the left the chapel of Saint James.
The angles of each of the polygonal chapels are stiffened by flat-sided buttresses whose steep front surfaces are articulated with little drip moldings to throw off rainwater: the minor buttresses of the chapels match the major buttresses supporting the flyers. Note the window tracery of the chapels: three little trefoils cluster at the top, a pattern closely matched by the windows of the famous Sainte-Chapelle--King Louis IX's palace chapel in Paris. Construction up to the roofline of the Amiens chapels was directed by Master Thomas of Cormont in the 1240s into the 1250s: the much more delicately-wrought work of the upper superstructure belongs to the 1250s and 1260s and was directed by Master Renaud de Cormont.