FLECHE

in French architecture, any spire; in English it is an architectural term for a small slender spire placed on the ridge of a church roof. The flche is usually built of a wood framework covered with lead or occasionally copper and is generally of rich, light, delicate design, in which tracery, miniature buttresses, and crockets have important parts. Flches are frequently of great height, that of Notre-Dame, Paris, being nearly 100 feet (30 metres) and that of Amiens 148 feet (45 metres). The flche is usually placed at the intersection of the nave and transepts.