J. K. Huysmans

THE CATHEDRAL

Translated by Clara Bell

_Publishing History_First published in France in 1898First English edition in 1898

THE CATHEDRAL. 

CHAPTER I. 

At Chartres, as you turn out of the little market-place, which is sweptin all weathers by the surly wind from the flats, a mild air as of acellar, made heavy by a soft, almost smothered scent of oil, puffs inyour face on entering the solemn gloom of the sheltering forest. 

Durtal knew it well, and the delightful moment when he could takebreath, still half-stunned by the sudden change from a stinging northwind to a velvety airy caress. At five every morning he left his rooms, and to reach the covert of that strange forest he had to cross thesquare; the same figures were always to be seen at the turnings from thesame streets; nuns with bowed heads, leaning forward, the borders oftheir caps blown back and flapping like wings, the wind whirling intheir skirts, which they could hardly hold down; and shrunken women, ingarments they hugged round them, struggling forward with bent shoulderslashed by the gusts. 

Never at that hour had he seen anybody walking boldly upright, withoutstraining her neck and bowing her head; and these scattered womengathered by degrees into two long lines, one of them turning to theleft, to vanish under a lighted porch opening to a lower level than thesquare; the other going straight on, to be swallowed up in the darknessby an invisible wall. 

Closing the procession came a few belated priests, hurrying on, with onehand gathering up the gown that ballooned behind them, and with theother clutching their hats, or snatching at the breviary that wasslipping from under one arm, their faces hidden on their breast, toplough through the wind with the back of their neck; with red ears, eyesblinded with tears, clinging desperately, when it rained, to umbrellasthat swayed above them, threatening to lift them from the ground anddragging them in every direction. 

The passage had been more than usually stormy this morning; the squallsthat tear across the district of La Beauce, where nothing can checkthem, had been bellowing for hours; there had been rain, and the puddlessplashed under foot. It was difficult to see, and Durtal had begun tothink that he should never succeed in getting past the dim mass of thewall that shut in the square, by pushing open the door behind which laythat weird forest, redolent of the night-lamp and the tomb, andprotected from the gale. 

He sighed with satisfaction, and followed the wide path that led throughthe gloom. Though he knew his way, he walked cautiously in this alley, bordered by enormous trunks, their crowns lost in shadow. He could havefancied himself in a hothouse roofed with black glass, for there wereflagstones under foot, and no sky could be seen, no breeze could stiroverhead. The few stars whose glimmer twinkled from afar belonged to ourfirmament; they quivered almost on the ground, and were, in fact, earth-born. 

In this obscurity nothing was to be heard but the fall of quiet feet, nothing to be seen but silent shades visible against the twilight likeshapes of deeper darkness. 

Durtal presently turned into another wide walk crossing that he hadleft. There he found a bench backed by the trunk of a tree, and on thishe leaned, waiting till the Mother should awake, and the sweet interviewinterrupted yesterday by the close of the day should begin again. 

He thought of the Virgin, whose watchful care had so often preserved himfrom unexpected risk, easy slips, or greater falls. Was not She thebottomless Well of goodness, the Bestower of the gifts of good Patience, the Opener of dry and obdurate hearts? Was She not, above all, theliving and thrice Blessed Mother?

Bending for ever over the squalid bed of the soul, she washed the sores, dressed the wounds, strengthened the fainting weakness of converts. Through all the ages She was the eternal supplicant, eternallyentreated; at once merciful and thankful; merciful to the woes Shealleviated, and thankful to them too. She was indeed our debtor for oursins, since, but for the wickedness of man, Jesus would never have beenborn under the corrupt semblance of our image, and She would not havebeen the immaculate Mother of God. Thus our woe was the first cause ofHer joy; and this supremest good resulting from the very excess of Evil, this touching though superfluous bond, linking us to Her, was indeed themost bewildering of mysteries; for Her gratitude would seem unneeded, since Her inexhaustible mercy was enough to attach Her to us for ever. 

Thenceforth, in Her immense humility, She had at various timescondescended to the masses; She had appeared in the most remote spots, sometimes seeming to rise from the earth, sometimes floating over theabyss, descending on solitary mountain peaks, bringing multitudes to Herfeet, and working cures; then, as if weary of wandering to be adored, She wished--so it had seemed--to fix the worship in one place, and haddeserted Her ancient haunts in favour of Lourdes. 

That town was the second stage of Her progress through France in thenineteenth century. Her first visit was to La Salette. 

This was years ago. On the 19th of September, 1846, the Virgin hadappeared to two children on a hill; it was a Saturday, the day dedicatedto Her, which, that year, was a fast day by reason of the Ember week. Byanother coincidence, this Saturday was the eve of the Festival of OurLady of Seven Dolours, and the first vespers were being chanted whenMary appeared as from a shell of glory just above the ground. 

And she appeared as Our Lady of Tears in that desert landscape ofstubborn rocks and dismal hills. Weeping bitterly, She had utteredreproofs and threats; and a spring, which never in the memory of man hadflowed excepting at the melting of the snows, had never since been driedup. 

The fame of this event spread far and wide; frantic thousands scrambledup fearful paths to a spot so high that trees could not grow there. Caravans of the sick and dying were conveyed, God knows how, acrossravines to drink the water; and maimed limbs recovered, and tumoursmelted away to the chanting of canticles. 

Then, by degrees, after the sordid debates of a contemptible lawsuit, the reputation of La Salette dwindled to nothing; pilgrims were few, miracles were less often proclaimed. The Virgin, it would seem, wasgone; She had ceased to care for this spring of piety and thesemountains. 

At the present day few persons climb to La Salette but the natives ofDauphiné, tourists wandering through the Alps, or invalids following thecure at the neighbouring mineral springs of La Mothe. Conversions andspiritual graces still abound there, but bodily healing there is next tonone. 

"In fact, " said Durtal to himself, "the vision at La Salette becamefamous without its ever being known exactly why. It may be supposed tohave grown up as follows: the report, confined at first to the villageof Corps at the foot of the mountain, spread first throughout thedepartment, was taken up by the adjacent provinces, filtered over allFrance, overflowed the frontier, trickled through Europe, and at lastcrossed the seas to land in the New World which, in its turn, felt thethrob, and also came to this wilderness to hail the Virgin. 

"And the circumstances attending these pilgrimages were such as mighthave daunted the determination of the most persevering. To reach thelittle inn, perched on high near the church, the lazy rumbling of slowtrains must be endured for hours, and constant changes at stations; daysmust be spent in the diligence, and nights in breeding-places of fleasat country inns; and after flaying your back on the carding-combs ofimpossible beds, you must rise at daybreak to start on a giddy climb, onfoot or riding a mule, up zig-zag bridle-paths above precipices; and atlast, when you are there, there are no fir trees, no beeches, nopastures, no torrents; nothing--nothing but total solitude, and silenceunbroken even by the cry of a bird, for at that height no bird is to befound. 

"What a scene!" thought Durtal, calling up the memories of a journey hehad made with the Abbé Gévresin and his housekeeper, since leaving LaTrappe. He remembered the horrors of a spot he had passed between SaintGeorges de Commiers and La Mure, and his alarm in the carriage as thetrain slowly travelled across the abyss. Beneath was darkness increasingin spirals down to the vasty deeps; above, as far as the eye couldreach, piles of mountains invaded the sky. 

The train toiled up, snorting and turning round and round like a top;then, going into a tunnel, was swallowed by the earth; it seemed to bepushing the light of day away in front, till it suddenly came out into aclearing full of sunshine; presently, as if it were retracing its road, it rushed into another burrow, and emerged with the strident yell of asteam whistle and deafening clatter of wheels, to fly up the windingribbon of road cut in the living rock. 

Suddenly the peaks parted, a wide opening brought the train out intobroad daylight; the scene lay clear before them, terrible on all sides. 

"Le Drac!" exclaimed the Abbé Gévresin, pointing to a sort of liquidserpent at the bottom of the precipice, writhing and tossing betweenrocks in the very jaws of the pit. 

For now and again the reptile flung itself up on points of stone thatrent it as it passed; the waters changed as though poisoned by thesefangs; they lost their steely hue, and whitened with foam like a branbath; then the Drac hurried on faster, faster, flinging itself into theshadowy gorge; lingered again on gravelly reaches, wallowing in the sun;presently it gathered up its scattered rivulets and went on its way, scaly with scum like the iridescent dross on boiling lead, till, faraway, the rippling rings spread and vanished, skinned and leaving behindthem on the banks a white granulated cuticle of pebbles, a hide of drysand. 

Durtal, as he leaned out of the carriage window, looked straight downinto the gulf; on this narrow way with only one line of rails, the trainon one side was close to the towering hewn rock, and on the other wasthe void. Great God! if it should run off the rails! "What a hash!"thought he. 

And what was not less overwhelming than the appalling depth of the abysswas, as he looked up, the sight of the furious, frenzied assault of thepeaks. Thus, in that carriage, he was literally between the earth andsky, and the ground over which it was moving was invisible, beingcovered for its whole width by the body of the train. 

On they went, suspended in mid-air at a giddy height, along interminablebalconies without parapets; and below, the cliffs droppedavalanche-like, fell straight, bare, without a patch of vegetation or atree. In places they looked as if they had been split down by the blowsof an axe--huge growths of petrified wood; in others they seemed sawnthrough shaley layers of slate. 

And all round lay a wide amphitheatre of endless mountains, hiding theheavens, piled one above another, barring the way to the travellingclouds, stopping the onward march of the sky. 

Some made a good show with their jagged grey crests, huge masses ofoyster shells; others, with scorched summits, like burnt pyramids ofcoke, were green half-way up. These bristled with pine woods to the veryedge of the precipices, and they were scarred too with whitecrosses--the high roads, dotted in places with Nuremberg dogs, red-roofed hamlets, sheepfolds that seemed on the verge of tumblingheadlong, clinging on--how, it was impossible to guess, and flung hereand there on patches of green carpet glued on to the steep hill-sides;while other peaks towered higher still, like vast calcined hay-cocks, with doubtfully dead craters still brooding internal fires, and trailingsmoky clouds which, as they blew off, really seemed to be coming out oftheir summits. 

The landscape was ominous; the sight of it was strangely discomfiting;perhaps because it impugned the sense of the infinite that lurks withinus. The firmament was no more than a detail, cast aside like needlessrubbish on the desert peaks of the hills. The abyss was theall-important fact; it made the sky look small and trivial, substitutingthe magnificence of its depths for the grandeur of eternal space. 

The eye, in fact, turned away with disappointment from the sky, whichhad lost its infinitude of depth, its immeasurable breadth, for themountains seemed to touch it, pierce it, and uphold it; they cut it up, sawing it with the jagged teeth of their pinnacles, showing meretattered skirts of blue and rags of cloud. 

The eye was involuntarily attracted to the ravines, and the head swam atthe sight of those, vast pits of blackness. This immensity in the wrongplace, stolen from above and cast into the depths, was horrible. 

The Abbé had said that the Drac was one of the most formidable torrentsin France; at the moment it was dormant, almost dry; but when theseason of snows and storms comes it wakes up and flashes like a tide ofsilver, hisses and tosses, foams and leaps, and can in an instantswallow up villages and dams. 

"It is hideous, " thought Durtal. "That bilious flood must carry feverswith it; it is accursed and rotten with its soapy foam-flakes, itsmetallic hues, its scrap of rainbow-colour stranded in the mud. "

Durtal now thought over all these details; as he closed his eyes hecould see the Drac and La Salette. 

"Ah!" thought he, "they may well be proud of the pilgrims who venture tothose desolate regions to pray where the vision actually appeared, forwhen once they are there they are packed on a little plot of ground nobigger than the Place Saint Sulpice, hemmed in on one side by a churchof rough stone daubed with cement of the colour of Valbonnais mustard, and on the other by a graveyard. The horizon is a circle of cones, ofdry scoriæ, like pumice, or covered with short grass; above them, theglassy slope of perpetual ice and snow; to walk on, a scanty growth ofgrass moth-eaten by sand. In two words, to sum up the scene, it wasnature's scab, the leprosy of the earth. 

"From the artistic point of view, on this microscopic grand parade, close to the spring whose waters are caught in pipes with taps, threebronze statues stand in different spots. One, a Virgin, in the mostpreposterous garments, her headgear a sort of pastry-mould, a Mohican'sbonnet, is on her knees weeping, with her face hidden in her hands. Thenthe same Woman, standing up, her hands ecclesiastically shrouded in hersleeves, looks at the two children to whom she is speaking; Maximin, with hair curled like a poodle, twirling a cap like a raised pie, in hishand; Mélanie buried in a cap with deep frills and accompanied by a doglike a paper-weight--all in bronze. Finally the same Person, once morealone, standing on tip-toe, her eyes raised to heaven with amelodramatic expression. 

"Never has the frightful appetite for the hideous that disgraces theChurch in our day been so resolutely displayed as on this spot; and ifthe soul suffered in the presence of the obtrusive outrage of thisdegrading work--perpetrated by one Barrême of Angers and cast in thesteam foundries of Le Creusot--the body too had something to endure onthis plateau under the crushing mass of hills that shut in the view. 

"And yet it was hither that thousands of sick creatures had hadthemselves hauled up to face the cruel climate, where in summer the sunburns you to a cinder while, two yards away, in the shade of the church, you are frozen. 

"The first and greatest miracle accomplished at La Salette was that ofbringing such an invasion to this precipitous spot in the Alps, foreverything combines to forbid it. 

"But crowds came there year after year, till Lourdes took possession ofthem; for it is since the apparition of the Virgin there that La Salettehas fallen into disrepute. 

"Twelve years after the vision at La Salette, the Virgin showed herselfagain, not in Dauphiné this time, but in the depths of Gascony. Afterthe Mother of Tears, Our Lady of Seven Dolours, it was Our Lady ofSmiles, of the Immaculate Conception, the Sovereign Lady of Joy inGlory, who appeared; and here again it was to a shepherdess that sherevealed the existence of a spring that healed diseases. 

"And here it is that consternation begins. Lourdes may be described asthe exact opposite to La Salette; the scenery is magnificent, the hillsin the foreground are covered with verdure, the tamed mountains permitaccess to their heights; on all sides there are shady avenues, finetrees, living waters, gentle slopes, broad roads devoid of danger andaccessible to all; instead of a wilderness, a town, where everyrequirement of the sick is provided for. Lourdes may be reached withoutadventures in warrens of vermin, without enduring nights in countryinns, or days of jolting in wretched vehicles, without creeping alongthe face of a precipice; and the traveller is at his destination when hegets out of the train. 

"This town then was so admirably chosen for the resort of crowds, thatit did not seem necessary that Providence should intervene with suchstrong measures to attract them. 

"But God, who forced La Salette on the world without availing Himself ofthe means of fashionable notoriety, now changed His tactics; withLourdes, advertisement appeared on the scene. 

"This it is that confounds the mind: Jesus condescending to make use ofthe wretched arts of human commerce; adopting the repulsive tricks whichwe employ to float a manufacture or a business. 

"And we wonder whether this may not be the sternest lesson in humilityever given to man, as well as the most vehement reproof hurled at theAmerican abominations of our day--God reduced to lowering Himself oncemore to our level, to speaking our language, to using our own devicesthat He may make Himself heard and obeyed; God no longer even trying tomake us understand His purpose through Himself, or to uplift us to thatheight. 

"In point of fact, the way in which the Lord set to work to promulgatethe mercies peculiar to Lourdes is astounding. To make them known He isno longer content to spread the report of its miracles by word of mouth;no, and it might be supposed that in His eyes Lourdes is harder tomagnify than La Salette--He adopted strong measures from the first. Heraised up a man whose book, translated into every language, carried thenews of the vision to the most distant lands, and certified the truth ofthe cures effected at Lourdes. 

"To the end that this work should stir up the masses, it was necessarythat the writer destined to the task should be a clever organizer, andat the same time a man devoid of individuality of style and of any novelideas. In a word, what was needed was a man devoid of talent; and thatis quite intelligible, since from the point of view of appreciating artthe Catholic public is still a hundred feet beneath the profane public. And our Lord did the thing well; he selected Henri Lasserre. 

"Consequently the mine exploded as required, rending souls and bringingcrowds out on to the road to Lourdes. 

"Years went by. The fame of the sanctuary is an established fact. Indisputable cures are effected by supernatural means and certified byclinical authorities, whose good faith and scientific skill are abovesuspicion. Lourdes has its fill; and yet, little by little, in the longrun, though pilgrims do not cease to flow thither, the commotion aboutthe Grotto is diminishing. It is dying out, if not in the religiousworld, at any rate in the wider world of the careless or the doubting, who must be convinced. And our Lord thinks it desirable to reviveattention to the benefits dispensed by His Mother. 

"Lasserre was not such an instrument as could renew the half-exhaustedvogue enjoyed by Lourdes. The public was soaked in his book; it hadswallowed it in every vehicle and in every form; the end was achieved;this budding-knife of miracles was a tool that might now be laid aside. 

"What was now wanted was a book entirely unlike his; a book that wouldinfluence the vaster public, whom his homely prosiness would neverreach. Lourdes must make its way through denser and less malleablestrata, to a public of higher class, and harder to please. It wasrequisite, therefore, that this new book should be written by a man oftalent, whose style nevertheless should not be so transcendental as toscare folks. And it was an advantage that the writer should be very wellknown, so that his enormous editions might counterpoise those ofLasserre. 

"Now in all the realm of literature there was but one man who couldfulfil these imperative conditions: Émile Zola. In vain should we seekanother. He alone with his battering push, his enormous sale, hisblatant advertisement, could launch Lourdes once more. 

"It mattered little that he would deny supernatural agency and endeavourto explain inexplicable cures by the meanest hypotheses; it matteredlittle that he mixed mortar of the medical muck of a Charcot to make hiswretched theory hold together; the great thing was that noisy debatesshould arise about the book of which more than a hundred and fiftythousand copies proclaimed the name of Lourdes throughout the world. 

"And then the very disorder of his arguments, the poor resort to a'breath that heals the people, ' invented in contradiction to all thedata of positive science on which he prided himself, with the purpose ofmaking these extraordinary cures intelligible--cures which he had seen, and of which he dared not deny the reality or the frequency--wereadmirable means of persuading unprejudiced and candid inquirers of theauthenticity of the recoveries effected year after year at Lourdes. 

"This avowed testimony to such amazing facts was enough to give a freshimpetus to the masses. It must be remarked, too, that the book betraysno hostility to the Virgin, of whom it speaks only in respectful termson the whole; so is it not very credible that the scandal to which thiswork gave rise was profitable?

"To sum up: it may be asserted that Lasserre and Zola were both usefulinstruments; one devoid of talent, and for that very reason penetratingto the very lowest strata of the Catholic methodists; the other, on thecontrary, making himself welcome to a more intelligent and cultivatedpublic, by those splendid passages where the flaming multitude ofprocessions moves on, and amid a cyclone of anguish, the triumphantfaith of the white ranks is exultant. 

"Oh, yes! She is fond of Her Lourdes, is Our Lady, and pets it. Sheseems to have centred all Her powers there, all Her favours; Her othersanctuaries are perishing that this one may live!

"Why?

"Why, above all, have created La Salette and then sacrificed it, as itwere?

"That She should have appeared there is quite intelligible, " thoughtDurtal, answering himself. "The Virgin is more highly venerated inDauphiné than in any other province; chapels dedicated to Her worshipswarm in those parts, and She meant perhaps to reward their zeal by Hergracious presence. 

"On the other hand, She appeared there with a special and very definiteend in view: to preach repentance to mankind, and especially to priests. She ratified by certain miracles the evidence of this mission which Sheconfided to Mélanie, and then, that being accomplished, She could desertthe spot where She had, no doubt, never intended to remain. 

"And after all, " he went on, after a moment's reflection, "may we notadmit an even simpler solution, namely, this:--

"Mary vouchsafes to appear under various aspects to satisfy the tastesand cravings of each soul. At La Salette, where She descended in adistressful spot, all in tears, She revealed Herself no doubt to certainpersons, more especially to the souls in love with sorrow, the mysticalsouls that delight in reviving the anguish of the Passion and followingthe Mother in Her heart-breaking way to the Cross. She would thus seemless attractive to the vulgar who do not love woe or weeping; it may beadded that they still less love reproof and threats. The Virgin of LaSalette could not become popular, by reason of Her aspect and address, while She of Lourdes, who appeared smiling, and prophesied nocatastrophes, was easy of access to the hopes and gladness of the crowd. 

"She was, in short, in that sanctuary, the Virgin of the world at large, not the Virgin of mystics and artists, the Virgin of the few, as at LaSalette. 

"What a mystery is this direct intervention of the Christ's Mother onearth!" thought Durtal. 

And he went on: "It is clear, on reflection, that the churches foundedby Her may be classed in two very distinct groups. 

"One group where She has revealed Herself to certain persons, wherewaters spring and bodily ills are healed: La Salette and Lourdes. 

"The other, where She has never been gazed on by human beings, or whereHer appearance occurred in immemorial times, in forgotten centuries, thedead ages. In those chapels prayer alone is in force, and Mary answersit without the help of any waters. Indeed, She effects more moral thanphysical cures. Notre Dame de Fourvières at Lyon, Notre Dame deSous-Terre at Chartres, Notre Dame des Victoires at Paris, to mentiononly three. 

"Wherefore this difference? None can understand, and probably none willever know. At most may we suppose that in compassion for the everlastingcraving of our hapless souls wearied with prayer without sight, Shewould fain confirm our faith and help to gather in the flock by showingHerself. 

"In all this obscurity, " Durtal went on, "is it at least possible todiscern some dim landmarks, some vague law?

"As we gaze into the darkness, two spots of light appear, " he replied tohimself. 

"In the first place, this: She appears to none but the poor and humble;She addresses the simple souls who have in a way handed down theprimitive occupation, the biblical function of the Patriarchs; Sheunveils herself to the children of the soil, to the shepherds, to girlsas they watch the flock. Both at La Salette and at Lourdes She choselittle pastors for Her confidants, and this is intelligible, since, byacting thus, she confirms the known will of Her Son; the first to beholdthe infant Jesus in the manger at Bethlehem were in fact shepherds, andit was from among men of the lowest class that Christ chose Hisapostles. 

"And is not the water that serves as a medium of cure prefigured in theSacred Books--in the Old Testament by the River Jordan, which cleansedNaaman of his leprosy; and in the New by the probationary pool stirredby an angel?

"Another law seems no less probable. The Virgin is, as far as possible, considerate of the temperament and individual character of the personsShe appears to. She places Herself on the level of their intellect, isincarnate in the only material form that they can conceive of. Sheassumes the simple aspect these poor creatures love, accepting the blueand white robes, the crown and wreaths of roses, the trinkets andgarlands and frippery of a first Communion, the ugliest garb. 

"There is not indeed a single case where the shepherd maids who saw Herdescribed Her otherwise than as a 'beautiful lady' with the features ofthe Virgin of a village altar, a Madonna of the Saint-Sulpice shops, astreet-corner Queen. 

"These two rules are more or less universal, " said Durtal to himself. "As to the Son, it would seem that He never now will reveal Himself inhuman form to the masses. Since His appearance to the Blessed MaryMargaret, whom He employed as a mouthpiece to address the people, He hasbeen silent. He keeps in the background, giving precedence to HisMother. 

"He, it is true, reserves for Himself a dwelling in the secret places, the hidden regions, the strongholds of the soul, as Saint Theresa callsthem; but His presence is unseen and His words spoken within us, andgenerally not apprehended by means of the senses. "

Durtal ceased speaking, confessing to himself how inane were thesereflections, how powerless the human reason to investigate theinconceivable purposes of the Almighty; and again his thoughts turned tothat journey to Dauphiné which haunted his memory. 

"Ah! but the chain of the High Alps and the peaks of La Salette, " saidhe to himself; "that huge white hotel, that church coloured with dirtyyellow lime-wash, vaguely Byzantine and vaguely Romanesque in itsarchitecture, and that little cell with the plaster Christ nailed to aflat black wooden Cross--that tiny Sanctuary plainly white-washed, andso small that one could step across it in any direction--they werepregnant with her presence, all the same!"

"Surely She revisited that spot, in spite of Her apparent desertion, tocomfort all comers; She seemed so close at hand, so attentive and sogrieving, in the evening as one sat alone by the light of a candle, thatthe soul seemed to burst open like a pod shedding the fruit of sin, theseeds of evil deeds; and repentance, that had been so tardily evolved, and sometimes so indefinite, became so suddenly despotic andunmistakable that the penitent dropped on his knees by the bed, andburied his head sobbing in the sheets. Ah, those were evenings of mortaldulness and yet sweetly sad! The soul was rent, its very fibres laidbare, but was not the Virgin at hand, so pitiful, so motherly, thatafter, the worst was over She took the bleeding soul in her arms androcked it to sleep like a sick child. 

"Then, during the day, the church afforded a refuge from the frenzy ofgiddiness that came over one; the eye, bewildered by the precipices onevery side, distracted by the sight of the clouds that suddenly gatheredbelow and steamed off in white fleece from the sides of the rocks, foundrest under the shelter of those walls. 

"And finally, to make up for the horrors of the scene and of thestatues, to mitigate the grotesqueness of the inn-servants, who hadbeards like sappers and clothes like little boys--the caps, and hollandblouses with belts, and shiny black breeches, like cast iron, of thechildren at the Saint Nicolas school in Paris--extraordinary characters, souls of divine simplicity expanded there. "

And Durtal recollected the admirable scene he had watched there onemorning. 

He was sitting on the little plateau, in the icy shade of the church, gazing before him at the graveyard and the motionless swell of mountaintops. Far away, in the very sky, a string of beads moved on, one by one, on the ribbon of path that edged the precipice. And by degrees thesespecks, at first merely dark, assumed the bright hues of dresses, assumed the form of coloured bells surmounted by white knobs, and atlast took shape as a line of peasant women wearing white caps. 

And still in single file they came down the square. 

After crossing themselves as they passed the cemetery, they went each todrink a cup of water at the spring and then turned round; and Durtal, who was watching them, saw this:

At their head walked an old woman of at least a hundred, very tall andstill upright, her head covered by a sort of hood from which her stiff, wavy hair escaped in tangled grey locks like iron wire. Her face wasshrivelled like the peel of an onion, and so thin that, looking at herin profile, daylight could be seen through her skin. 

She knelt down at the foot of the first statue, and behind her, hercompanions, girls of about eighteen for the most part, clasped theirhands and shut their eyes; and slowly a change came over them. 

Under the breath of prayer, the soul, buried under the ashes of worldlycares, flamed up, and the air that fanned it made it glow like an inwardfire, lighting up the thick cheeks, the stolid, heavy features. Itsmoothed out the crackled surface of wrinkles, softened in the youngerwomen the vulgarity of chapped red lips, gave colour to the dull brownflesh, overflowed in the smile on lips half parted in silent prayer, intimid kisses offered with simple good faith, and returned no doubt in anineffable thrill by the Holy Child they had cherished from His birth, who, since the martyrdom of Calvary, had grown to be the Spouse ofSorrows. 

They felt, perhaps, something of the raptures of the Blessed Virgin whois Mother and Wife and at the same time the beatified Handmaid of God. 

And in the silence a voice as from the remotest ages arose, and theancestress said, "_Pater Noster_, " and they all repeated the prayer, andthen dragged themselves on their knees up the steps of the way ofcrosses, where the fourteen upright posts, each with its cast metalbas-relief, bordered a serpentine path, dividing the statues from thegroups. Thus they went forward, stopping long enough to recite an _Ave_on each step they climbed, and then, helping themselves with theirhands, they mounted to the next. And when the rosary was ended the oldwoman rose, and they solemnly followed her into the church, where theyall prayed a long time, prostrate before the altar; and the grandmotherstood up, gave each holy water at the door, led her flock to the springwhere they all drank again, and then they went away, without speaking aword, one after another up the narrow path, ending as black specks justas they had come, and vanishing on the horizon. 

"Those women have been two days and two nights crossing the mountains, "said a priest, coming up to Durtal. "They started from the depths ofSavoy, and have travelled almost without rest to spend a few minuteshere; they will sleep to night in a cow-house or a cave, as chance maydirect, and to-morrow by daybreak they will start again on theirweariful way. "

Durtal was overpowered by the radiant splendour of such faith. 

It was possible, then, to find souls ever young, souls ever new, soulsas of undying children, watching where absolute solitude was not, outside cloister walls, in the waste places of these peaks and gorges, and amid this race of stern and rugged peasants. Here were women who, without knowing it even, lived the contemplative life in union with God, while they dug the barren slopes of a little plot at some prodigiouselevation. They were Leah and Rachel, Martha and Mary in one; and thesewomen believed guilelessly, entirely, as man believed in the middleages. These beings, with their rough-hewn feelings, their shapelessideas, hardly able to express themselves, hardly knowing how to read, wept with love in the presence of the Inaccessible, whom they compelledby their humility and single-heartedness to appear, to become actual totheir mind. 

"Yes, it was but just that the Virgin should cherish them and choosethem above all others to be Her vessels of election. 

"Yes. For they are unburdened with the dreadful weight of doubt, theyare endowed with almost total ignorance of evil. 

"And yet are there not some souls too experienced, alas! in the cultureof wrong-doing, who nevertheless find mercy at Her feet? Has not theVirgin other sanctuaries less frequented, less well known, which yethave outlived the wear of time, the various caprice of the ages; veryancient churches where She welcomes you if you love Her in solitude andsilence?"

And Durtal, coming back to Chartres once more, looked about him at thepersons who were waiting in the warm shade of the indefinite forest tillthe Virgin should awake, to worship Her. 

With dawn, now beginning to break, this forest of the church under whoseshade he was sitting became absolutely unintelligible. The shapes, faintly sketched, were transformed in the gloom which blurred everyoutline as it slowly faded. Below, in the vanishing mist, rose theimmemorial trunks of fabulous white trees, planted as it seemed in wellsthat held them tightly in the rigid circle of their margin; and thenight, now almost diaphanous on the level of the ground, was thicker asit rose, cutting them off at the spring of the branches, which werestill invisible. 

Durtal, as he raised his head, gazed into deep obscurity unlighted bymoon or star. 

Looking up still, but straight before him, he saw in the air, throughthe hazy twilight, sword-blades already bright, gigantic blades withouthilts or handles, thinner towards the point; and these blades, standingon end at an immense height, appeared in the gloom they cut, to bepatterned with vague intaglios or in ill-defined relief. 

As he peered into space to the right and left, he was aware of agigantic panoply on each side at a vast height, resting on blocks ofdarkness, and consisting of a colossal shield riddled with holes, hanging above five broader swords, without hilts, but damascened ontheir flat blades with indefinite designs of bewildering niello. 

Little by little the tentative sun of a doubtful winter's day piercedthe fog, which vanished in blueness; the shield that hung to the left ofDurtal, the north, was the first to come to life; rosy fires and thelurid flames of punch gleamed in its hollows, while below, in the middleblade, there started forth in the steel-grey arch, the gigantic image ofa negress robed in green with a brown mantle. Her head, wrapped in ablue kerchief, was set in a golden glory, and she stared out, hieraticand wild-looking, with white, wide-open eyes. 

And this engimatical Ethiop had on her knees a black infant whose eyes, in the same way, stood out like snowballs from the dusky face. 

All about her, very gradually, the other swords, still so dim, began toglow, blood rippling from their crimsoned points as if from recentslaughter; and this trickling red formed a setting for the shapes ofbeings come, no doubt, from the distant shores of Ganges: on one side aking playing on a golden harp; on the other a monarch wielding a sceptreending in the turquoise-blue petals of a fabulous lily. 

Then, to the left of the royal musician there was another man, bearded, with a walnut-stained face, the eye-sockets vacant and covered by roundspectacles; on his head were a diadem and a tiara, in his hands achalice and a paten, a censer and a loaf; while to the right of theother sovereign who held the sceptre, a still more harassing shape cameforth against the blue background of the sword--a sort of orientalbrigand, escaped perhaps from the prison cells of Persepolis or Susa, abandit as it seemed, wearing a little scarlet cap edged with yellow, inshape like an inverted jam-pot, and a tan-coloured gown with whitestripes on the skirt; and this clumsy and ferocious personage bore agreen palm and a book. 

Durtal turned away to sound the depths of darkness, and before him, at agiddy height on the horizon, more sword-blades gleamed. The scrawlswhich might have been mistaken in the darkness for patterns embossed orincised on the surface of the steel, developed into figures draped inlong, straight, pleated robes; and at the highest point of the firmamentthere hovered amid a sparkle of rubies and sapphires a woman crowned, pale of face, dressed like the Moorish mother of the northern side inCarmelite-brown and green; and she too held an infant, a child, likeherself, of the white race, clasping a globe in one hand, and extendingthe other in benediction. 

Last of all, the still dark side, the late side, to Durtal's right handand further south, till now wrapped in the half-dispelled morning haze, was lighted up; the shield opposite to that on the north caught theblaze, and below it, against the polished metal of the broad bladefacing that which presented the negress queen, appeared a woman ofsomewhat olive hue, in raiment like the others, of myrtle-green andbrown, holding a sceptre, and with her, too, there was a child. Andround her again emerged images of men piled up one above the other, shouldering each other in the narrow field they filled. 

For a quarter of an hour nothing was clearly defined; then the realthings asserted themselves. In the middle of the swords, which were infact mosaic of glass, the figures stood out in broad daylight. In thefield of each window with its pointed arch bearded faces took form, motionless in the midst of fire; and on all sides, in the thicket offlames, as it were the burning bush of Horeb where God showed His gloryto Moses, the Virgin was seen in an unchangeable attitude of imperioussweetness and pensive grace, mute and still, and crowned with gold. 

She was, indeed, many; She came down from the empyrean to lower levels, to be closer to Her flock, and at last found a place where they mightalmost kiss Her feet, at the corner of an aisle that was always ingloom; but there She wore a different aspect. 

She stood forth in the middle of a window, like a tall, blue plant, andthe garnet-red foliage was supported by black iron rods. 

Her colour was slightly coppery, almost Chinese, with a long nose andrather narrow eyes; on the head there was a black coif, and She lookedsteadily before Her, while the lower part of the face with its shortchin, the mouth rather drawn by two grave lines, gave it an expressionof suffering that was even a little morose. And here again, under theimmemorial name of Notre Dame de la belle Verrière, she held an infantin a dress of raisin-purple, a child barely visible in the mixture ofdark hues all about it. 

In short, She to whom all appealed was there; everywhere under theforest roof of this cathedral the Virgin was present. She seemed to havecome from all the ends of the earth, under the semblance of every raceknown in the Middle Ages: black as an African, tawny as a Mongolian, pale coffee colour as a half-caste, and white as an European, thusdeclaring that, as mediator for the whole human race, She was everythingto each, everything to all; and promising by the presence of Her Son, whose features bore the character of each race, that the Messiah hadcome to redeem all men without distinction. 

And it seemed as though the sun, as it mounted higher, followed thegrowth of the Virgin, taking its birth in the window where She was stilla babe in that northern transept where Saint Anne, her mother, of theblack face, sat between David, the king of the golden harp, and Solomon, the bearer of the blue-lilied sceptre, each against a background ofpurple, to prefigure the royal birth of the Son; between Melchizedec, the mitred patriarch, holding the censer, and Aaron, in the curious redcap bordered with lemon yellow, representing prophetically thePriesthood of Christ. 

And at the end of the apse, quite high up, there was anotherMary--triumphant, looking down the sacred grove, supported by figuresfrom the Old Testament and by Saint Peter. It was She again who in thesouth transept faced Saint Anne, She, now a woman and herself a mother, amid four enormous men bearing pick-a-back on their shoulders foursmaller figures; these were the four Greater Prophets who had foretoldthe coming of the Messiah--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel, bearing the four Evangelists, and thus artlessly expressing theparallelism of the Old and New Testaments, and the support given by theOld Covenant to the New. 

And then, as though Her presence were not fully ubiquitous, as thoughShe desired that, turn where they might, Her worshippers should ever seeHer, the Virgin was to be found on a smaller scale in less importantpositions; enthroned in the centre of the shields, in the heart of thegreat rose-windows, and finally, ceasing to appear as a mere picture, took shape, materialized as a statue of black wood standing on apedestal in a full hooped skirt like a silver bell. 

The sheltering forest had vanished with the darkness; the tree-trunksremained, but rose with giddy flight from the ground, unbroken pillarsto the sky, meeting at a vast height under the groined vault; the forestwas seen as an immense church blossoming with roses of fire, piercedwith glowing glass, crowded with Virgins and apostles, patriarchs andsaints. 

The genius of the middle ages had devised the skilful and pious lightingof this edifice, and harmonized the ascending march of day to someextent with its windows. The walls and the aisles were very dark, thedaylight creeping, mysteriously subdued, along the body of the church. It was lost in the stained glass, checked by dark bishops, and opaquesaints completely filling the dusky-bordered windows with the dead huesof a Persian rug; the panes absorbed the sun's rays, refracting none, arrested the powdered gold of the sunbeams in the dull violet of purpleegg-fruit, the tawny browns of tinder or tan, the too-blue greens, andthe wine-coloured red stained with soot, like the thick juice ofmulberries. 

As it reached the chancel, the light came in through brighter andclearer colours, through the blue of translucent sapphires, through palerubies, brilliant yellow, and crystalline white. The gloom was relievedbeyond the transepts near the altar. Even in the centre of the cross thesun pierced clearer glass, less storied with figures, and bordered withalmost colourless panes that admitted it freely. 

At last, in the apse, forming the top of the cross, it poured in, symbolical of the light that flooded the world from the top of the Tree;and the pictures were diaphanous, just lightly covered with flowinglines and aerial tints, to frame in a sheaf of coloured sparks the imageof a Madonna, less hieratic and barbaric than the others, and a fairerInfant, blessing the earth with uplifted hand. 

By this time the Cathedral of Chartres was alive with the clatter ofwooden shoes, the rustle of petticoats, and the tinkle of mass-bells. 

Durtal left the corner of the transept where he had been sitting withhis back to a pillar, and turned to the left, towards a bay where therewas a framework ablaze with lighted tapers before the statue of theVirgin. 

And schools of little girls under the guidance of Sisters, troops ofpeasant women and countrymen, poured out of every aisle, knelt in frontof the image, and then came up to kiss the pedestal. 

The appearance of these folks suggested to Durtal that their prayerswere not like those that are sobbed out at evening twilight, thesupplications of women worn and dismayed by the weary hours of day. These peasant souls prayed less as complaining than as loving; thesepeople, kneeling on the flags, had come for Her sake rather than fortheir own. There was here and now a pause from grieving, a sort ofreprieve from tears; and this attitude was in harmony with the specialaspect adopted by Mary in this cathedral; She was seen there, in fact, under the form of a child and of a young mother; She was the Virgin ofthe Nativity, rather than our Lady of Dolour. The old artists of theMiddle Ages seemed to have feared to sadden Her by reminding Her ofmemories too painful, to have striven to prove by this delicate reserve, their gratitude to Her who in this sanctuary had ever shown Herself tobe the Dispenser of Mercies, the Lady Bountiful of Grace. 

Durtal felt in himself an answering thrill, the echo of the prayerschanted all round him by these loving souls; and he let himself meltaway in the soothing sweetness of the hymns, asking for nothing, silencing his ungratified desires, smothering his secret repining, thinking only of bidding an affectionate good-morning to the Mother towhom he had returned after such distant wanderings in the land of sin, after such a long absence. 

And now that he had seen Her, that he had spoken to Her, he withdrew, making room for others who came in greater numbers as the day grew. Hewent home to get some food; and as he cast a last sweeping glance at thebeautiful church, remembering the warlike imagery of its details, thebuckler-shape of the rose-windows, the sword-blades of the lower lights, the casque and helmet forms of the ogee, the resemblance of somegrisaille glass with its network of lead to a warrior's shirt of mascledmail; as, outside, he gazed at one of the two belfries carved intoscales like a pine cone--like scale-armour--he said to himself that the"Builders for God" must have borrowed their ideas from the militarypanoply of the knights; that thus they had endeavoured to perpetuate thememory of their exploits by representing the magnified image of thearmour with which the Crusaders girt themselves when they sailed to winback the Holy Sepulchre. 

And the interior of the church seemed, as a whole, to impress the sameidea and complete the symbolical images of the details by its vaultednave, of which the groined roof was so like the reversed hull of avessel, suggesting the graceful form of the ships that made sail forPalestine. 

Only, in the present day, such memories of heroic times were vain. Inthis city of Chartres, where Saint Bernard preached the second crusade, the vessel was stranded for ever, her hull overset, her anchor out. 

And looking down on the unthinking city, the Cathedral kept watch alone, beseeching pardon for the inappetency for suffering, for the inertia offaith that her sons displayed, uplifting her towers to the sky like twoarms, while the spires mimicked the shape of joined hands, the tenfingers all meeting and upright one against another, in the positionwhich the image-makers of old gave to the dead saints and warriors theycarved upon tombs. 

CHAPTER II. 

Durtal had already been living at Chartres for three months. 

On his return to Paris from La Trappe he had fallen into a fearful stateof spiritual anemia. His soul kept its room, rarely rose, lounged on acouch, was torpid with the tepid langour still lulled by the sleepymutter of mere lip-service, and prayers reeled off as by a worn-outmachine of which the spring releases itself, so that it works all alonewith no result, and without a touch to start it. 

Sometimes, however, in a rebellious mood he managed to check himself, tostop the ill-regulated clockwork of his prayers, and then he would tryto examine himself, to get above himself, and to see in a comprehensiveglance the puzzling perspective of his nature. 

And facing these chambers of the soul, dim with mist, he was struck by astrange association of the Revelations of Saint Theresa and a tale byEdgar Poe. 

Those chambers of the inner man were empty and cold, and like the hallsof the House of Usher, surrounded by a moat whence the fog rose, forcingits way in at last and cracking the worn shell of wall. Alone anduneasy, he prowled about the ruined cells, with closed doors thatrefused ever to open again; thus his walks about his own mind were verylimited, and the panorama he could see was strangely narrowed, shrunkclose and near to him, almost nothing. And he knew full well that theruins surrounding the central cell, the Master's Room, were bolted andfastened with rivets that could not be unscrewed, and triplebars--inaccessible. So he restricted himself to wandering in the hallsand passages. 

At Notre Dame de l'Atre he had ventured further; he had gone into theenclosure round about the abode of Christ; he had seen in the distancethe frontiers of Mysticism, and, too weak to go on his road, he hadfallen; and now this was to be lamented, for, as Saint Theresa trulyremarks, "in the spiritual life, if we do not go forward, we go back. "He had, in fact, retraced his steps, and lay half paralyzed, no longereven in the vestibule of his mansion, but in the outer court. 

Till this time the phenomena described by the matchless Abbess had beenexactly repeated. In Durtal, the Chambers of the Soul were deserted asafter a long mourning; but in the rooms that had remained open, phantomsof sins confessed, of buried evil-doing, wandered like the sister of thetormented Usher. 

Durtal, like Edgar Poe's unhappy sufferer, listened with horror to therustle of steps on the stairs, the piteous weeping behind the doors. 

And yet these ghosts of departed crimes were no more than indefiniteshapes; they never consolidated nor took a definite form. The mostpersistent miscreant of them all, which had tormented him so long, thesin of the flesh, at last was silenced, and left him in peace. La Trappehad rooted up the stock of those debaucheries. The memory of them, indeed, haunted him still, on his most distressing, most ignoble side;but he could see them pass, his heart in his mouth, wondering that hecould so long have been the dupe of such foul delusions, no longerunderstanding the power of those mirages, the illusions of those carnaloases as he met them in the desert of a life shut up in seclusion, insolitude, and in books. 

His imagination could still put him on the rack; still, without merit, without a struggle, by the help of divine grace, he had escaped a fallever since his return from the monastery. 

On the other hand, though he had, to some extent, emasculated himself, though he was exempt from his chief torment, he discerned, flourishingwithin him, another crop of tares, of which the spread had till now beenhidden behind the sturdier growth of other vices. In the first instance, he had believed himself to be less enslaved by sin, less utterly vile;and he was nevertheless as closely bound to evil as ever, only thenature and character of the bonds were different, and no longer thesame. 

Besides that dryness of the heart which made him feel as soon as heentered a church or knelt down in his room, that a cold grip froze hisprayers and chilled his soul, he detected the covert attacks, the muteassaults of ridiculous pride. 

In vain did he keep watch; he was constantly taken by surprise withouthaving time even to look round him. 

It began under the most temperate guise, the most benign reflections. 

Supposing, for instance, that he had done his neighbour a service atsome inconvenience to himself, or that he had refrained from retaliatingon anybody against whom he believed he had a grievance, or for whom hehad no liking, a certain self-satisfaction stole, sneaked into his mind, a certain vain-glory, ending in the senseless conclusion that he wassuperior to many another man; and then, on this feeling of petty vanity, pride was engrafted--the pride of a virtue he had not even struggled toacquire, the arrogance of chastity, so insidious that most of those whoindulge it do not even suspect themselves. 

And he was never aware of the end of these assaults till too late, whenthey had become definite, and he had forgotten himself and succumbed;and he was in despair at finding that he constantly fell into the samesnare, telling himself that the little good he could do must be wipedout of the balance of his life by the outrageous extravagance of thisvice. 

He was frenzied, he reasoned with the old mad arguments, and cried outat his wits' end, --

"La Trappe crushed me! It cured me of sensuality, but only to load mewith disorders of which I knew nothing before I submitted to thattreatment! It is humble itself, but it puffed up my vanity and increasedmy pride tenfold--then it set me free, but so weak, so wearied, that Ihave never since been able to conquer that inanition, never have beenfit to enjoy the Mystical Nourishment which I nevertheless must have ifI am not to die to God!"

And for the hundredth time he asked himself, --

"Am I happier than I was before I was converted?"

And to be truthful to himself he was bound to answer "Yes. " He lived onthe whole a Christian life, prayed but badly, but at any rate prayedwithout ceasing; only--only--Alas! How worm-eaten, how arid were thepoor recesses of his soul! He wondered, with anguish, whether they wouldnot end like the Manor in Edgar Poe's tale, by crumbling suddenly, onefatal day, into the dark waters of the pool of sin which was underminingthe walls. 

Having reached this stage of his round of meditations, he was compelledto throw himself on the Abbé Gévresin, who required him, in spite of hiscoldness, to take the Communion. Since his return from Notre Dame del'Atre his friendship with the Abbé had become much closer, altogetherintimate. 

He knew now the inner man of this priest, who, in the midst of modernsurroundings, led a purely mediæval life. Formerly, when he rang at hisbell, he had paid no heed to the housekeeper, an old woman, who curtsiedto him without a word when she opened the door. 

Now he was quite friendly with this singular and loving creature. 

Their first conversation had arisen one day when he called to see theAbbé, who was ill. Seated by the bedside, with spectacles on the alertat the tip of her nose, she was kissing, one by one, the pious printsthat illustrated a book wrapped in black cloth. She begged him to beseated, and then, closing the volume, and replacing her spectacles, shehad joined in the conversation; and he had left the room quite amazed bythis woman, who addressed the Abbé as "Father, " and spoke quite simplyof her intercourse with Jesus and the Saints as if it were a naturalthing. She seemed to live in perfect friendship with them, and spoke ofthem as of companions with whom she chatted without any embarrassment. 

Then the countenance of this woman, whom the priest introduced to him asMadame Céleste Bavoil, was, strange to say, the least of it. She wasthin and upright, but short. In profile, with her strong Roman nose andset lips, she had the fleshless mask of a dead Cæsar; but, seen infront, the sternness of the features was softened into a familiarpeasant's face, and melted into the kindliness of an old nun, quite outof keeping with the solemn strength of her features. 

It seemed as though with that clean-cut, imperious nose, small whiteteeth, and black eyes sparkling with light, busy and inquisitive asthose of a mouse, under fine long lashes, the woman ought, notwithstanding her age, to have been handsome; it seemed at least asthough the combination of these details would have given the face astamp of distinction. Not so; the conclusion was false to the premises;the whole betrayed the combined effect of the details. 

"This contradiction, " thought he, "evidently is the result of otherpeculiarities which nullify the harmony of the more important features;in the first place the thinness of the cheeks and their hue of old wooddotted here and there with freckles, calm stains of the colour of stalebran; then the flat braids of white hair drawn smooth under a frilledcap, and finally the modest dress, a black dress clumsily made, draggingacross the bosom, and showing the lines of her stays stamped in reliefon the back. 

"And perhaps, in her, it is not so much incongruity of features, as acrying contrast between the dress and the face, the head and the body, "thought he. 

Altogether, as he summed her up, she was equally suggestive of thechapel and the fields. Thus she had something of the Sister andsomething of the peasant. 

"Yes, " he went on to himself, "that is very near the mark; but that isnot all, for she is both less dignified and less common, inferior andyet more worthy. Seen from behind she is more like a woman who hires outthe chairs in church than like a nun; seen in front she is conspicuouslysuperior to the natives of the soil. Also it may be noted that when shespeaks of the saints she is loftier, quite different; she soars up in aflame of the spirit. But all these hypotheses are in vain, " heconcluded, "for I cannot judge of her from one brief impression, onerapid view. What is quite certain is that, though she is not in theleast like the Abbé, she too is in two halves--two persons in one. He, with the innocent gaze, the pure eyes of a girl at her first Communion, has the sometimes bitter mouth of an old man; she is proud of featureand humble of heart; they both, though by different outward signs andacts, achieve the same result, an identical semblance of paternalindulgence and mature goodness. "

And Durtal had gone again and again to see them. His reception wasalways the same; Madame Bavoil greeted him with the invariable formula:"Here is our friend, " while the priest's eyes smiled as he grasped hishand. Whenever he saw Madame Bavoil she was praying: over her stove, when she sat mending, while she was dusting the furniture, as she openedthe door, she was always telling her rosary, without pause. 

The chief delight of this rather silent woman consisted in talking ofthe Virgin to whom she had vowed worship; on the other hand she couldquote by memory long passages from a mystic and somewhat eccentricwriter of the end of the sixteenth century: Jeanne Chézard de Matel, thefoundress of the Order of the Incarnate Word, an Institution of whichthe Sisters display a conspicuous costume--a white dress held round thewaist by a belt of scarlet leather, a red cloak and a blood-colouredscapulary on which the name of Jesus is embroidered in blue silk, with acrown of thorns, a heart pierced with three nails, and the words _AmorMeus_. 

At first Durtal thought Madame Bavoil slightly crazy, and while shepoured out a passage by Jeanne de Matel on Saint Joseph, he looked atthe priest--who gave no sign. 

"Then Madame Bavoil is a saint?" he asked one morning when they werealone. 

"My dear Madame Bavoil is a pillar of prayer, " replied the Abbé gravely. 

And one afternoon, when Gévresin was away in his turn, Durtal questionedthe woman. 

She gave him an account of her long pilgrimages across Europe, pilgrimages that she had spent years in making on foot, begging her wayby the roadside. 

Wherever the Virgin had a sanctuary, thither she went, a bundle ofclothing in one hand, an umbrella in the other, an iron Crucifix on herbreast, a rosary at her waist. By a reckoning which she had kept fromday to day she had thus travelled ten thousand five hundred leagues onfoot. 

Then old age had come on, and she had "lost her old powers, " as shesaid; Heaven had formerly guided her by inward voices, fixing the datesof these expeditions; but journeying was no longer required of her. Shehad been sent to live with the Abbé that she might rest; but her mannerof life had been laid down for her once for all: her bed a strawmattress on wooden planks; her food such rustic and monastic fare asbeseemed her, milk, honey and bread, and at seasons of penance she wasto substitute water for milk. 

"And you never take any other nourishment?"

"Never. " And then she would add, --

"Aha! our friend, you see I am in disgrace up there!" and she wouldlaugh cheerfully at herself and her appearance "If you had but seen mewhen I came back from Spain, where I went to visit Our Lady of thePillar at Saragoza! I was a negress. With my large Crucifix on mybreast, my gown looking like a nun's--every one asked: 'What can thatwoman be?' I looked like a charcoal-burner out for a holiday; no whiteto be seen but my cap, collar and cuffs; all the rest--face, hands andpetticoats--quite black. "

"But you must have been very dull travelling about alone?"

"Not at all, our friend, the Saints kept me company on the way; theytold me at which house I should find a lodging for the night, and I wassure of being well received. "

"And you never were refused hospitality?"

"Never. To be sure I did not ask for much; when I was wandering I onlybegged for a piece of bread and a glass of water, and to rest on a trussof straw in the cow-house. "

"And Father Gévresin--how did you first know him?"

"That is quite a long story. Fancy! Heaven, as a punishment, deprived meof the Communion for a year and three months to a day. When I confessedto a priest, I owned to my intercourse with Our Saviour, and the Virginand the Angels; then he at once treated me as a mad woman, unless heaccused me of being possessed by the devil; to conclude, he refused meabsolution, and I thought myself happy if he did not slam the littlewicket of the confessional roughly in my face at my very first words. 

"I believe I should have died of grief if the Lord had not at last hadpity on me. One Saturday, when I was in Paris, He sent me to Notre Damedes Victoires, where the Father was in the confessional. He listened tome, he put me through long and severe tests, and then he granted meCommunion. I often went to him again as a penitent, and then the niecewho kept house for him retired into a convent, and I took her place;and I have been his housekeeper near on ten years now--"

She told her story with many breaks. Since she had ceased to wanderabout the country, she followed the pilgrimages in Paris in honour ofthe Blessed Virgin, and she had a list of the most popular sanctuaries:Notre-Dame des Victoires, Notre-Dame de Paris; Our Lady of Good Hope atSaint-Séverin, of Ever-present Help at L'Abbaye au Bois, of Peace at theconvent in the Rue Picpus, of the Sick at the church of Saint-Laurent, of Happy Deliverance--a black Virgin from the church of Saint-Etiennedes Grès--in the care of the Sisters of Saint-Thomas de Villeneuve, Ruede Sèvres; and outside Paris the shrines in the suburbs: Our Lady ofMiracles at Saint-Maur, of the Angels at Bondy, of the Virtues atAubervilliers, of Good Keeping at Long Pont, and those of Notre-Dame atSpire, at Pontoise, &c. 

On another occasion, as he seemed suspicious of the severity of the ruleimposed on her by Christ, she replied, --

"Remember, our friend, what happened to an illustrious handmaid of theLord, Maria d'Agreda; being very ill, she yielded to the wishes of herdaughters in the faith and sucked a mouthful of chicken, but she wasforthwith reproved by Jesus, who said to her: 'I will not have mySpouses dainty. '

"Well, and I should run the risk of a similar reproof, if I attempted totouch a morsel of meat or to drink a drop of coffee or wine. "

"And yet, " said Durtal to himself as he came away, "it is quite evidentthat the woman is not mad. She has nothing the matter with her, eitherhysterical or mental: she is fragile and very thin, but she is scarcelynervous, and in spite of the laconic character of her meals she is invery good health, indeed is never ailing; nay more, she is a woman ofgood sense and an admirable manager. Up by daybreak, after Communion shesoaps and washes all the linen herself, makes the sheets and shirts, mends the Abbé's gowns, and lives with amazing economy, while takingcare that her master wants for nothing. Such a sagacious apprehension ofthe conduct of life has no connection with lunacy or delirium. "

He knew too that she would never take any wages. It is true that in thesight of a world which gives its whole mind to legalized larceny thiswoman's disinterestedness might be enough to prove her insanity; butDurtal, in contradiction to received ideas, did not think that acontempt for money was necessarily allied with madness, and the more hethought of it the more was he convinced that she was a saint, and not astrait-laced saint, but indulgent and cheerful. 

What he could positively assert was that she was very good to him; eversince his return from La Trappe she had helped him in every way, encouraging his spirits when she saw him depressed, and going, in spiteof his protesting, to look over his wardrobe when she suspected thatthere might be sutures to operate upon, and buttons to replace. 

This intimacy had become even closer since their life in common, allthree together, on the occasion of Durtal's accompanying them, at theirentreaty, to La Salette. And then suddenly their affectionatefamiliarity was endangered, for the Abbé Gévresin left Paris. 

The Bishop of Chartres died, and his successor was one of Gévresin'soldest friends. On the very day when the Abbé Le Tilloy des Mofflaineswas promoted to the episcopal throne, he begged Gévresin to accompanyhim to Chartres. There was an anxious struggle in the old priest's mind. He was ailing, weary, good for nothing, and at the bottom of his heartlonged only never to move; but on the other hand he had not the courageto refuse his poor support to Monseigneur des Mofflaines. He tried tomollify the prelate by his advanced age, but the Bishop would notlisten; all he would concede was that, instead of being appointedVicar-general, the Abbé should be no more than a Canon. Still Gévresinmildly shook his head. Finally the prelate had his way, appealing to hisfriend's charity, and declaring that he ought to accept the post, in thelast resort as a mortification and penance. 

And when his departure was decided on, it became the Abbé's turn tocircumvent Durtal and persuade him to leave Paris and come to settlenear him at Chartres. 

Although he was deeply grieved at this move, which he had done hisutmost to hinder, Durtal was refractory, and refused to bury himself ina country town. 

"But why, our friend, " said Madame Bavoil, "I wonder why you are soobstinately bent on remaining here; you live in perfect solitude at homewith your books. You can do the same if you come with us. "

And when, his arguments exhausted, after a vehement diatribe againstprovincial life, Durtal ended by saying, --

"Then at Paris there are the quays, Saint Séverin, Notre Dame; there aredelightful convents--"

"You would find equally good things at Chartres, " answered the Abbé. "You will have one of the finest cathedrals in the world, monasteriessuch as you love, and as for books, your library is so well furnishedthat I can hardly think that you can add to it by wandering along thequays. Besides, as you know even better than I, no work of the class youseek is ever to be disinterred from the boxes of second-hand books. Their titles figure only in the catalogues of sales, and there isnothing to hinder their being sent to you at Chartres. "

"I do not deny it--but there are other things on the quays besides oldbooks; there are curiosities to be seen, and the Seine--a landscape--"

"Well, if you are homesick for that particular walk, you have only totake a train, and spend a whole afternoon lounging by the parapet overthe river; it is easy to get from Chartres to Paris; there are expresstrains morning and evening which make the journey in less than twohours. "

"And besides, " cried Madame Bavoil, "what does all that matter? Thegreat thing is that you leave a town just like any other town, toinhabit the very home of the Virgin. Just think! Notre Dame deSous-Terre is the most ancient chapel to Mary in all France; think! youwill live near Her, with Her, and She will load you with mercies!"

"And after all, " the Abbé went on, "this exile cannot interfere with anyof your schemes in art. You talk of writing the Lives of Saints; willyou not work at them far better in the silence of the country than inthe uproar of Paris?"

"The country--the provinces! The mere idea overpowers me, " exclaimedDurtal. "If you could but imagine the impression it suggests to me, thesort of atmosphere, the kind of smell it presents to my brain. You knowthe huge cupboards you find in old houses, with double doors, and linedwithin with blue paper that is always damp. Well, at the mere name ofthe provinces I feel as if one of these were opened in my face, and Igot a full blast of the stuffiness that comes out of it!--And to put thefinishing touch to the vision by combining taste and smell, I have onlyto bite one of the biscuits they make nowadays of Lord knows what, reeking the moment you taste them, of fish glue and plaster that hasbeen rained upon, I have only to eat that cold, insipid paste and sniffat a musty closet, and at once the lugubrious picture rises before me ofsome Godforsaken place!--Your Chartres will no doubt smell likethat--Pah!"

"Oh, oh!" cried Madame Bavoil. "But you cannot know much about it, sinceyou have never been to the place. "

"Let him be!" said the Abbé, laughing. "He will get over hisprejudices. " And he went on, --

"Just explain this inconsistency: here is a Parisian who likes his cityso little that he seeks out the most deserted nook to live in, thequietest, the least frequented, the spot that is most like a provincialretreat. He has a horror of the Boulevards, of public promenades, and oftheatres; he buries himself in a hole, and stops his ears that he maynot hear the noises around him; but, when he has a chance of improvingon this scheme of existence, of ripening in real silence far from thecrowd, when he can invert the conditions of life, and, instead of beinga provincial Parisian, can become a Parisian of the provinces, he shiesand kicks!"

"It is a fact, " Durtal admitted when he was alone, "a positive factthat the capital is unprofitable to me. I never see anybody now, andshall be reduced to still more utter solitude when these friends aregone. I shall, for all purposes, be quite as well off at Chartres;I can study at my ease amid peaceful surroundings, within reach ofa cathedral of far greater interest than Notre Dame de Paris. Andbesides--besides--there is another question of which the Abbé Gévresinsays nothing, but which disturbs me greatly. If I remain here, alone, Ishall have to find a new confessor, to wander through the churches, justas I wander through work-a-day life in search of dining-places andtables d'hôte. No, no; I have had enough at last of this day-by-daydiet, spiritual and material! I have found a boarding-house for my soulwhere it is content, and it may stay there!

"And there is yet another argument. I can live more inexpensively atChartres, and, without spending more than I spend here, I can settlemyself once for all, dine with my feet on my own fender, and be waitedon!"

So he had ended by deciding to follow his two friends, and had securedfairly spacious rooms facing the Cathedral; and then he, who had alwayslived cramped in tiny apartments, at last understood the provincialcomfort of vast spaces and books ranged against the walls, with ampleelbow-room. 

Madame Bavoil had found him a servant, familiar and voluble indeed, buta good and pious woman. And he had begun his new existence lost inconstant amazement at that wonderful Cathedral, the only one he hadnever before seen, probably because it was so near Paris, and, like allParisians, he never took the trouble to set out on any but longerjourneys. The town itself seemed to him devoid of interest, having butone secluded walk, a little embankment where, below the suburbs and nearthe old Guillaume Gate, washerwomen sang while they soaped the linen ina stream that blossomed, as they rubbed, with flecks of iridescentbubbles. 

Hence he determined to walk out only very early in the morning or in theevening; then he could dream alone in the town, which by the afternoonwas already half dead. 

The Abbé and his housekeeper were lodged in the episcopal palace, underthe shadow of the Cathedral apse. They occupied a first floor, withnothing over it, above some empty stables; a row of cold, tiled roomswhich the Bishop had had redecorated. 

Some time after their arrival at Chartres the Abbé had replied toDurtal, who had remarked that he was anxious, --

"Yes, I am certainly going through a difficult time; I have had to livedown certain prejudices--but indeed I was prepared for them. And thatwas another reason why I did not wish to leave Paris. But the BlessedVirgin is good! Everything is coming right--"

And when Durtal persisted, --

"As you may suppose, " said the priest, "the appointment of a Canon fromanother diocese was not looked upon with indifferent eyes by the clergyof Chartres. Such suspicions with regard to an unknown priest brought bya new Bishop are not after all unnatural; it is inevitably feared thathe may play the part of a ruler without a robe; each one is on hisguard, and they sift his least word and pick over his least action. "

"And then, " said Durtal, "is it not another mouth to feed out of thewretched pittance allowed by the State?"

"So far as that goes, no. I draw no stipend, and damage no man'sinterest; in fact I would not accept it. The only pecuniary advantage Iderive from being about the Bishop's person is that I have no rent topay, since I am lodged for nothing in the episcopal building. 

"I could not in any case have drawn a stipend, for the allowance grantedto Canons by the Government has ceased to be given, since a measure waspassed, on March 22nd, 1885, decreeing the suppression of suchemoluments as the incumbents died off. Hence only those who held suchbenefices before the passing of the law now draw on the funds devoted tothe maintenance of the Church; and they are dying off one by one, sothat the time is fast approaching when there will not be a single Canonleft who is salaried by the State. In some dioceses these lapsedbenefices are compensated for by the revenues from some religiousfoundation, or, as you may call it, a prebend. But there are none atChartres. The Chapter has at the utmost the use of a varying incomewhich it divides among those who have no benefice, giving them, goodyears with bad, a sum of about three hundred francs each, and that isall. "

"And the Canons have no perquisites?"

"None whatever. "

"Then I wonder how they live. "

"If they have no private fortune they live more penuriously than thepoorest labourers in Chartres. Most of them simply vegetate; someperform Mass for Sisterhoods, or are convent chaplains, but that bringsin very little, two hundred or two hundred and fifty francs perhaps. Another holds the post of secretary to the diocese, by which he getsrooms and as much, perhaps, as six hundred francs. Yet another conductsthe services of the holy week known as the Voice of Our Lady ofChartres, and acts as precentor; and some find employment as theBishop's officials. Each one, in short, has a struggle to earn his foodand lodging. "

"What exactly is a Canon; what are his functions, and the origin of hisoffice?"

"The origin? It is lost in the night of ages. It is supposed thatColleges of Canons existed in the time of Pépin le Bref; it is at anyrate certain that during his reign Saint Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, assembled the clerks of his cathedral and obliged them to live together, in a house in common, as though it were a convent, under a rule of whichCharlemagne makes mention in his Capitularies. --A Canon's functions?They consist in the solemn celebration of the Canonical services, andthe direction of all processions. As a matter of conscience every Canonis required in the first place to reside in the town where the church issituated to whose service he is attached; then to be present at theCanonical hours when Mass is said; finally to sit on the meetings of theChapter on certain fixed days. But to tell the truth, their part hasalmost fallen into desuetude. The Council of Trent speaks of them as the'_Senatus Ecclesiæ_, ' the Senate of the Church, and they then formed thenecessary Council of the Bishop. In these days the prelates do not evenconsult them. 

"They only exercise a small part of their lost prerogatives when the Seeis vacant. At that time the Chapter acts in the place of the Bishop, andeven then its rights are greatly restricted. As it has not EpiscopalOrders, it can exercise none of the powers inherent in them. It cannotconsequently ordain or confirm. "

"And if the See remains long vacant?"

"Then the Chapter requests the Bishop of a neighbouring diocese toordain its seminarists, and confirm the children it presents to him. Inshort, as you see, a Canon is not a very important gentleman. 

"I am not speaking, of course, of Honorary Canons, or Titular Canons. They have no duties to fulfil; they merely enjoy an honorary title whichallows them to wear the Canon's hood, by permission of their own Bishopwhen, as frequently happens, they belong to another diocese. 

"The Chapter of this Cathedral of Chartres is said to have been foundedin the sixth century by Saint Lubin. It then consisted of seventy-twoCanons, and the number was added to, for when the Revolution broke outit amounted to seventy-six, and included seventeen dignitaries: theDean, the sub-Dean, the Precentor, the sub-Precentor, the chiefArchdeacon of Chartres, the Archdeacons of Beauce-en-Dunois, of Dreux, of Le Pincerais, of Vendôme, and of Blois; the gatekeeper, theChancellor, the Provosts of Normandy, of Mézangey, of Ingré, and ofAuvers; and the Chancel Warden. These priests, most of them men offamily and wealth, were a nursery ground of Bishops; they owned all thehouses round the Cathedral and lived independently in their cloister, devoting themselves to history, theology, and the Canon law--they arenow indeed fallen!"

The Abbé was silent, shaking his head. Then he went on, --

"To return to my subject--I was naturally somewhat hurt by the coldnessI met with on my arrival at Chartres. As I told you, I had to allay manyapprehensions. But I think I have succeeded. And I thank God, too, forhaving given me a valuable supporter in the person of a subordinatepriest of the Cathedral, who has done me invaluable service with mycolleagues--the Abbé Plomb; do you know him?"

"No. "

"He is a highly intelligent priest, very learned, a passionate mystic, thoroughly acquainted with the Cathedral, of which he has examined everycorner. "

"Ah ha! I am interested in that priest! Perhaps he is one of those Ihave already noticed. What is he like?"

"Short, young, pale, slightly marked with the small-pox, with spectaclesthat you may recognize by this peculiarity: the arch which rests on thenose is shaped like a loop, or, if you choose to say so, like ahorseman's legs astride in the saddle. "

"That man!"--and Durtal, left to himself, thought about the priest whomhe had repeatedly seen in the church or the square. 

"Certainly, " said he to himself, "there is always the risk of a mistakewhen we judge of people by appearances; but how startling is the truthof that commonplace remark when applied to the clergy! This Abbé Plomblooks like a scared sacristan; he goes about gaping at invisible crows, and he seems so ill at ease, so loutish, so awkward--and this is ourlearned man and devoted mystic, in love with his Cathedral! Certainly itis not safe to judge of an Abbé from appearances. Now that it is to bemy fate to live in this clerical world, I must begin by throwingprejudice overboard, and wait till I know all the priests of thediocese, before allowing myself to form an opinion of them. "

CHAPTER III. 

"In point of fact, " said Durtal to himself as he stood dreaming on themarket-place, "no one exactly knows what was the origin of the Gothicforms of a cathedral. Archæologists and architects have exhaustedhypotheses and systems in vain; they seem to agree in attributing theRomanesque to Oriental parentage, and that in fact maybe proven. Thatthe Romanesque should be an offshoot of the Latin and Byzantine styles, and be, as Quicherat defines it, 'the style which has ceased to be Romanand is not yet Gothic, though it already has something of the Gothic, ' Iam ready to admit; and indeed, on examining the capitals, and studyingtheir outline and drawing, we perceive that they are Assyrian or Persianrather than Roman or Byzantine and Gothic; but as to discovering thepaternity even of the pointed and flamboyant styles, that is quiteanother thing. Some writers assert that the pointed arch based on anequilateral triangle existed in Egypt, Syria, and Persia; others regardit as descended from Saracen and Arab art; nothing certainly isprovable. 

"Again, it must be clearly stated that the pointed equilateral arch, which some persons still suppose to be the distinctive characteristic ofan era in architecture, is not so in fact, as Quicherat has very clearlydemonstrated, and, since him, Lecoy de la Marche. The study of archiveshas, on this point, completely overset the hobbies of architects, anddemolished the twaddle of the Bonzes. Besides, there is abundantevidence of the employment of the pointed arch side by side with theround arch in a perfectly systematic design, in the construction of manyRomanesque churches; in the Cathedrals of Avignon and Fréjus, in NotreDame at Aries, in Saint Front at Périgueux, at Saint Martin d'Ainay, atLyon, in Saint Martin des Champs in Paris, in Saint Etienne at Beauvais, in the Cathedral of Le Mans; and in Burgundy, at Vézelay, at Beaune, inSaint Philibert at Dijon, at La Charité-sur-Loire, in Saint Ladre atAutun, and in most of the basilicas erected by the monastic school ofCluny. 

"Still, all this throws no light on the lineage of the Gothic, whichremains obscure--possibly because it is perfectly clear; setting asidethe theory which restricts itself to discerning in this question amerely material and technical problem of stability and resistance, solved by monks who discovered one fine day that the strength of theirroofs would be increased by the adoption of the mitre-shaped vaulting ofthe pointed arch instead of the semicircular arch, would it not seemthat the romantic hypothesis--Chateaubriand's explanation--which was somuch laughed at, and which is nevertheless the simplest and the mostnatural, may really be the most obvious and the true one?

"To me, " thought Durtal, "it is almost certain that it was in the forestthat man found the prototype of the nave and the pointed arch. The mostamazing cathedral constructed by Nature herself, with lavish outlay ofthe pointed aisle of branches, is at Jumièges. There, close to thesplendid ruins of the Abbey, where the two towers are still intact, while the roofless nave, carpeted with flowers, ends in a chancel offoliage shut in by an apse of trees, three vast aisles of centenaryboles extend in parallel lines; one in the middle, very wide, the twoothers, one on each side, somewhat narrower; they exactly represent achurch nave with its two side aisles, upheld by black columns and roofedwith verdure. The ribs of the arches are accurately represented by thebranches which meet above, as the columns which support them aresimulated by the great shafts. It must be seen in winter, with thegroining outlined and powdered with snow, and the pillars as white asthe trunks of birch-trees, to understand the primitive idea, the seed ofart which could give rise in the mind of an architect to the conceptionof similar arcades, and lead to the gradual refining of the Romanesquetill the pointed arch had entirely superseded the round. 

"And there is not a park, whether older or more recent than the grovesof Jumièges, which does not exhibit the same forms with equalexactitude; but what Nature could not give was the prodigious art, thedeep symbolical knowledge, the over-strung but tranquil mysticism of thebelievers who erected cathedrals. But for them the church in itsrough-hewn state, as Nature had formed it, was but a soulless thing, asketch, rudimentary; the embryo only of a basilica, varying with theseasons and the days, at once living and inert, awaking only to theroaring organ of the wind, the swaying roof of boughs wrung with theslightest breath; it was lax and often sullen; the yielding victim ofthe breeze, the resigned slave of the rain; it was lighted only by thesunshine that filtered between the diamond and heart-shaped leaves, asif through the meshes of a green network. Man's genius collected thescattered gleams, condensed them in roses and broad blades, to pour itinto his avenues of white shafts; and even in the darkest weather theglass was splendid, catching the very last rays of sunset, dressingChrist and the Virgin in the most fabulous magnificence, and almostrealizing on earth the only attire that beseems the glorified Body, arobe of mingled flame. 

"Really, when you come to think of it, a cathedral is a superhumanthing!

"Starting in our lands from the old Roman crypt, from the vault, crushedlike the soul by humility and fear, and bowed before the infiniteMajesty whose praise they hardly dared to sing, the churches graduallywaxed bolder; they gave an upward spring to the semicircular arch, lengthening it to an almond shape, leaping from the earth, upliftingroofs, heightening naves, breaking out into a thousand sculptured formsall round the choir, and flinging heavenward, like prayers, theirrapturous piles of stones! They symbolized the loving tenderness oforisons; they became more trusting, more playful, more daring in thesight of God. 

"Each and all seemed to smile, as soon as they gave up their dismalskeleton and strove upwards. 

"The Romanesque, I fancy, must have been born old, " Durtal went on aftera pause. "At any rate it has always remained gloomy and timid. 

"Although at Jumièges, for instance, it has attained grandiosedimensions with its enormous span opening like a vast portal to the sky, it still is depressing. The semicircular arch, in fact, bends to theearth, for it has not the point, soaring upwards, of the lancet arch. 

"Oh! to think of the tears, the dolorous murmurs of those thickpartitions, those smoky vaults, those arches resting on squat pillars, those almost speechless blocks of stone, those sober ornamentsexpressing their symbolism so curtly! The Romanesque is the La Trappe ofarchitecture; we find it sheltering the austerest Orders, the sternestBrotherhoods, kneeling in ashes, and chanting in an undertone with bowedheads none but penitential Psalms. These massive cellars speak of thefear of sin, but also of the dread of a God whose wrath could only beappeased by the Advent of the Son. The Romanesque seems to havepreserved from its Oriental origin an element antedating the Birth ofChrist; prayer seems to rise there to the implacable Adonaï rather thanto the pitying Infant, the gentle Mother. The Gothic, on the contrary, is less timid, more captivated by the two other Persons and the Virgin;it is the home of less rigorous and more artistic Orders. Bowedshoulders are straightened, downcast eyes are raised, sepulchral voicesbecome seraphic. It is, in fact, the expansion of the spirit, while theRomanesque symbolizes its repression. At least, to me, that is theinterpretation of these styles, " Durtal repeated to himself. 

"Nor is that all, " he went on. "Yet another distinction may be deducedfrom these observations. 

"The Romanesque is allegorical of the Old Testament, as the Gothic is ofthe New. 

"The parallel, when you consider it, is exact. Is not the Bible--theinflexible Book of Jehovah, the awful Code of the Father, well expressedby the stern and penitential Romanesque; and the consoling, tenderGospel by the Gothic, full of effusiveness and invitation, full ofhumble hope?

"If the symbols are these, it would seem that time very often plays thepart of man's purpose in evolving the completed idea and uniting the twostyles, as, in Holy Scripture, the two Books are united; thus certaincathedrals present a very curious result. Some, austere at their birth, are cheerful and even smiling as they are completed. All that is leftof the old Abbey church of Cluny is from this point of view a typicalinstance. This, next to that of Paray-le-Monial, which remains entire, is undoubtedly one of the most magnificent examples of the BurgundianRomanesque, which, with its fluted pilasters, unfortunately betrays thedistressing tradition of Greek art imported into France by the Romans. Still, allowing that these basilicas--which may have been built betweenthe eleventh and thirteenth centuries--are purely Romanesque, asQuicherat opines, mentioning them as examples, their structure isalready of a mingled type, and the joyousness of the vaulted arch isalready to be seen there. 

"Nor have we here, as at Notre Dame la Grande at Poitiers, a Romanesquefaçade, minutely elaborate, flanked at each wing by a low towersupporting a heavy stone spire cut into facets, like a pine-apple. AtParay there is none of the puerile ornament and heavy richness that wesee at Poitiers. The barbaric dress of the little toy church of NotreDame la Grande gives way to the winding-sheet of a flat wall, but theexterior is none the less remarkably impressive with its solemnsimplicity of outline. And those two square towers, pierced with narrowwindows and overlooked by a round tower resting so calmly, so firmly onan open arcade of columns joined by round arches, are a belfry at oncedignified and rustic, spirited and strong. 

"And the august simplicity of the exterior is repeated in the interiorof the church. 

"Here, however, the Romanesque has already lost its crushed, crypt-likecharacter, its obscure aspect as of a Persian cellar. The strongstructural lines are the same; the capitals still display theinflorescence of Mussulman involutions, the fabulous entanglements ofAssyrian patterns, reminiscences of Asiatic art transplanted to oursoil; but we already see the union of dissimilar bays; columns struggleupwards, pillars are taller, the wide arches are less rigid, and have alighter and longer trajectory; and the plain walls, enormous but alreadylight, are pierced at prodigious heights with holes admitting the day. 

"At Paray the round arch is to be seen in harmony with the pointed archwhich appears in the higher summits of the structure, announcing theadvent of a less plaintive phase of the soul, a tenderer and less harshidea of Christ, who is preparing, and already revealing, the Mother'sindulgent smile. 

"But then, " said Durtal, suddenly, to himself, "if my theories arecorrect, the architecture which could, by itself alone, symbolizeCatholicism as a whole, and represent the complete Bible in bothTestaments, must be either Romanesque with the pointed arch, or atransition style, half Romanesque and half Gothic. 

"The deuce!" thought he, thus led to an unforeseen conclusion. "To besure, it is not necessary perhaps that the church itself should offer socomplete a parallel, or that the Old and New Testaments should be boundup in one volume; here, indeed, at Chartres the work, though integral, is in two separate volumes, since the crypt on which the Gothic churchrests is Romanesque. Nay, it is thus even more symbolical, and itemphasizes the idea of the windows in which the prophets bear on theirshoulders the four Evangelists; once more the Old Testament appears asthe base, the foundation of the New. 

"What a fulcrum for dreams is this Romanesque!" Durtal went on. "Is itnot also the smoke-stained shrine, the gloomy retreat, constructed forblack Virgins? This seems all the less doubtful because all theMauresque Virgins are thick-set and heavy; they are not sylphs, like thefair Virgins of Gothic art. The Byzantine School conceived of Mary asswarthy, 'of the hue of polished brown ebony, ' as the old historianssay; only, in opposition to the text in Canticles, it painted or carvedHer as black, indeed, but not comely. Thus figured, She is truly agloomy Virgin, eternally sorrowing, in harmony with the Romanesquecatacombs. Her presence naturally beseems the crypt of Chartres; but inthe Cathedral itself, on the pillar where She stands to this day, doesShe not appear strange? For She is not in Her true home under thesoaring white vault. "

"Well, our friend, you are dreaming!"

Durtal started like a man roused from sleep. 

"Ah! It is you, Madame Bavoil?"

"To be sure. I am going home from market, and from your lodgings. "

"From my lodgings?"

"Yes, to invite you to breakfast. The Abbé Plomb's housekeeper is to beout this afternoon, so he is coming to take his morning meal with us;and the Father thought it would be a good opportunity to make youacquainted. "

"I am much obliged to him; but I must go home and tell Mother Mesurat, that she may not cook my cutlet. "

"You need not do that, as I have just come from her; not finding you, Ileft word and told Madame Mesurat. Are you still satisfied with her?"

"Once upon a time, " said he, laughing, "I had, to manage my house inParis, one Sieur Rateau, a drunkard of the first class, who turnedeverything upside down, and led the furniture a life! Now I have thisworthy woman, who sets to work on a different system, but the resultsare identically the same. She works by persuasion and gentle means; shedoes not overthrow the furniture, or bellow as she turns the mattress, or rush at the wall with a broom as if she were charging with fixedbayonet; no, she quietly collects the dust and stirs it round and endsby piling it in little heaps that she hides in the corners of the rooms;she does not rummage the bed, but restricts herself to patting it withthe tip of her fingers, stroking the creases out of the sheets, puffingup the pillows and coaxing them out of their hollows. The man turnedeverything topsy-turvy; she moves nothing. "

"Well, well; but she is a good woman!"

"Yes, and in spite of it all, I am glad to have her. "

As they talked they had reached the entrance to the Bishop's residence. They went through a little gate by the lodge into a large forecourtstrewn with small river pebbles, in front of a vast building of theseventeenth century. There were no flowers of stone-work, no sculpture, no decorative doorways--nothing but a frontage of shabby brick andstone, a bare, uninviting structure evidently neglected, with tallwindows, behind which the shutters could be seen, painted grey. Theentrance was on the level of the first floor; double outside steps ledup to the door, and under the landing, in the arch below, there was aglass door, through which, framed in the square, could be seen thetrunks of trees beyond. 

This courtyard was bordered with tall poplars, which the late Bishop, who had frequented the Tuileries, used to speak of with a smile as hishundred guards. 

Madame Bavoil and Durtal crossed this forecourt, sloping to the lefttowards a wing of the building, roofed with slate. 

There, on the first floor, with only a loft above lighted by rounddormers, lived the Abbé Gévresin. 

They went up a narrow staircase with a rusty iron balustrade. The wallswere trickling with damp, they secreted drops, distilled spots likeblack coffee; the steps were worn hollow, and thin at the ends likespoons; they led up to a door smeared yellow, with a cast-iron knob asblack as ink. A copper ring swung in the wind at the end of a bell-rope, knocking the chipped plaster of the wall. An indescribable smell ofstale apples and stagnant water came up the middle of the staircase fromthe little outer hall below, which was paved with rows of bricks set onedge, eaten into patterns like madrepores, while the ceiling looked likea map, furrowed with seas that were traced in yellow by the soakingthrough of the rain. 

And the Abbé's little apartment, lately "done up" with a vilered-checked paper, reeked of the tomb. It was evident that under theshadow of the Cathedral that overhung this wing no sunshine ever driedthe walls, of which the skirting boards were rotting into powder likebrown sugar, crumbling slowly, on the icy cold polish of the floor. 

"How sad to see an old man, a victim to rheumatism, housed here!"thought Durtal. 

When he went into the Abbé's room, he found the chill somewhat taken offby a large coke fire; the priest was reading his breviary, wrapped in awadded gown, close to the window, of which he had drawn back the blindto see a little better. 

This room was furnished with a small iron bedstead hung with whitecotton curtains looped back by bands of red cretonne; opposite the bedwere a table covered with a cloth, and on it a desk, and a prie-dieubelow a Crucifix nailed to the wall; the remainder of the room wasfitted with bookshelves up to the ceiling. Three arm-chairs, such as arenowhere to be seen nowadays but in religious houses or seminaries, madeof walnut wood with straw bottoms like church chairs, were set round thetable, and two more, with round rush mats for the feet, stood one oneach side of the fireplace. On the chimney-shelf was an Empire clockbetween two vases, and from these rose the faded stems of some driedgrasses stuck upright into sand. 

"Come to the fire, " said the Abbé, "for in spite of the brazier it isfearfully cold. "

And in answer to Durtal, who spoke of his rheumatism, he resignedlyshrugged his shoulders. 

"All the residence is the same, " said he. "Monseigneur, who is almost acripple, could not find a single dry room in the whole palace. Heavenforgive me, but I believe his rooms are even damper than mine. In pointof fact there ought to be hot-air pipes all over the place, and it willnever be done for lack of money. "

"But at any rate Monseigneur might have stoves put into the rooms, hereand there. "

"He!" cried the Abbé, laughing, "but he has no private means whatever. He draws a stipend of ten thousand francs a year and not another penny;for there is no endowment at Chartres, and the revenue from the fees onthe ecclesiastical Acts is nothing. In this rich, but irreligious townhe can hope for no assistance; the gardener and porter are paid by him;he is obliged for economy's sake to employ Sisters from a convent ascook and linen-keeper. Add to that his inability to keep a carriage, sothat he has to hire a conveyance for his pastoral rounds. And how muchthen do you suppose he has left to live on, if you deduct his charities?Why, he is poorer than you or I!"

"But then Chartres is the fag end of Church preferment, a mere raft forthe shipwrecked and starving. "

"Thou hast said! Bishop, canons, priests, everybody here ispoverty-stricken. "

The bell rang, and Madame Bavoil showed in the Abbé Plomb. Durtalrecognized him. He looked even more scared than usual; he bowed, backingaway, and did not know what to do with his hands, which he buried in hissleeves. 

By the end of half an hour, when he was more at his ease, he expandedinto smiles, and at last he talked; Durtal, much surprised, saw that theAbbé Gévresin was right. This priest was highly intelligent andwell-informed, and what made the man even more attractive was hisperfect freedom from the want of breeding, the narrow ideas, the goodynonsense which make intercourse so difficult with the ecclesiastics inliterary circles. 

They had settled themselves in the dining-room, as dismal a room as therest, but warmer, for an earthenware stove was roaring and puffing hotgusts from its open ventilators. 

When they had eaten their boiled eggs, the conversation, hithertodiscursive as to subject, turned on the Cathedral. 

"It is the fifth erection over a Druidical cave, " said the Abbé Plomb. "It has a strange history. 

"The first, built at the time of the Apostles by Bishop Aventinus, wasrazed to the ground. Rebuilt by another Bishop named Castor, it waspartly burnt down by Hunaldus Duke of Aquitaine, then restored byGodessaldus; again injured by fire, by Hastings, the Norman chief;repaired once more by Gislebert, and finally destroyed utterly byRichard Duke of Normandy when he sacked the city after the siege. 

"We have no very authentic records of these two basilicas; at most arewe certain that the Roman Governor of the land of Chartres completelydestroyed the first and at the same time slaughtered a great number ofChristians, among them his own daughter Modesta, throwing the corpsesinto a well dug near the cave, and thence known as _le Puits des SaintsForts_. 

"A third fabric, built by Bishop Vulphardus, was burnt down in 1020, when Fulbert was Bishop, and he founded the fourth Cathedral. This wasblasted by lightning in 1194; nothing remained but the two belfries andthe crypt. 

"The fifth structure, finally, built in the reign of Philippe Auguste, when Régnault de Mouçon was Bishop of Chartres, is that we still see; itwas consecrated on the 17th of October, 1260, in the presence of SaintLouis. This again has passed through the fire. In 1506 the northernspire was struck by lightning; the structure was of wood covered withlead; a terrific storm raged from six in the evening till four in themorning, fanning the fire to such violence that the six bells weremelted like cakes of wax. The flames were, however kept within limits, and the church was refitted. But the scourge returned many times; in1539, in 1573, and in 1589 lightning fell on the new belfry. Then acentury elapsed before the visitation was repeated; in 1701 the samespire was struck again. 

"It then stood uninjured till 1825, when a thunder-bolt fell and shookit severely on Whit Monday while the _Magnificat_ was being chanted atVespers. 

"Finally, on the 4th of June, 1836, a tremendous fire broke out, causedby the carelessness of two plumbers working under the roof. It lastedeleven hours, and destroyed all the timbers, the whole forest thatsupported the roof; it was by a miracle that the church was not entirelyconsumed in this fury of fire. "

"You must allow, Monsieur, that there is something strange in thisdisaster without respite. "

"Yes, and what is still more strange, " said the Abbé Gévresin, "Is thepersistency of fire from heaven, bent on destroying it. "

"How do you account for that?" asked Durtal. 

"Sébastien Rouillard, the author of _Parthénie_, believes that thesevisitations were permitted as a punishment for certain sins, and heinsinuates that the conflagration of the third Cathedral was justifiedby the misconduct of some pilgrims who at that time slept in the nave, men and women together. Others believe that the Devil, who can commandthe lightning, was bent on suppressing this sanctuary at any cost. "

"But why, then, did not the Virgin protect Her particular church moreeffectually?"

"You may observe that She has several times preserved it from beingutterly reduced to cinders; however, it is, all the same, very strangewhen we remember that Chartres is the first place where the Virgin wasworshipped in France. It goes back to Messianic times, for, long beforeJoachim's daughter was born, the Druids had erected, in the cave whichhas become our crypt, an altar to the Virgin who should bear achild--_Virgini Pariturae_. They, by a sort of grace, had intuitiveforeknowledge of a Saviour whose Mother should be spotless; thus itwould seem that at Chartres, above all places, there are very ancientbonds of affection with Mary. This makes it very natural that Satanshould be bent on breaking them. "

"Do you know, " said Durtal, "that this grotto is prefigured in the OldTestament by a human structure of almost official character? In her"Life of Our Lord, " that exquisite visionary, Catherine Emmerich, tellsus that there was, hard by Mount Carmel, a grotto with a well, nearwhich Elias saw a Virgin; and it was to this spot, she says, that theJews who expected the Advent of the Redeemer made pilgrimages many timesa year. 

"Is not this the prototype of the cave of Chartres and the well of theStrong Saints?

"Observe, too, on the other hand, the tendency of the thunder to fall, not on the old belfry, but on the new one. No meteorological reason, Isuppose, can account for this preference; but on carefully consideringthe two spires, I am struck by the delicate foliage, the slenderlacework of the new spire, the elegant and coquettish grace of the wholeof that side. The other, on the contrary, has no ornament, no carvedtracery; it is simply carved in scallops like scale armour; it is sober, stern, stalwart and strong. It might really almost be thought that oneis female and the other of the male sex. And then might we not concludethat the first is symbolical of the Virgin and the second of Her Son? Inthat case my inference would be akin to that offered to us by Monsieurl'Abbé: the fires are to be ascribed to Satan, who would wreak himselfon the image of Her who has the power to crush his head. "

"Pray have a slice of beef, our friend, " said Madame Bavoil, coming inwith a bottle in her hands. 

"No, thank you. "

"And you, Monsieur l'Abbé?"

The Abbé Plomb bowed, but declined. 

"Why, you eat nothing!"

"What! I? I may even confess that I am rather ashamed of having eaten soheartily, after reading this morning the life of Saint Laurence ofDublin, who, by way of food, was content to dip his bread in the waterclothes had been washed in. "

"Why?"

"Well, in order to be able to say with the Prophet-King that he fed onashes--since ashes are used for lye; that is a penitential banquet whichis very unlike that we have just consumed, " he added, laughing. 

"Well, my dear Madame Bavoil, that puts even you to shame, " said theAbbé Gévresin. "You are not yet covetous of so meagre a feast; you arereally quite dainty! You must have milk or water to dip your sop in!"

"Dear me, " said Durtal, "by way of high feeding I can improve on that. Iremember reading in an old book the story of the Blessed Catherine ofCardona, who, without using her hands, cropped the grass, on her knees, among the asses. "

It had not struck Madame Bavoil that the friends were speaking in fun, and she replied quite humbly, --

"God Almighty has never yet required me to strew my bread with ashes orto graze the field--if He should give me the order, I should certainlyobey it. --But it does not matter. "

And she was so far from enthusiastic that they all laughed. 

"Then the Cathedral as a whole, " said the Abbé Gévresin after a shortsilence, "dates from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, excepting, ofcourse, the new spire and numerous details. "

"Yes. "

"And the names of the architects are unknown?"

"As are those of almost all the builders of great churches, " replied theAbbé Plomb. "It may, however, be safely assumed that during the twelfthand thirteenth centuries the Benedictines of the Abbey of Tiron directedthe building of our church, for that monastery had established a Houseat Chartres in 1117; we also know that this convent contained more thanfive hundred Brothers practising all the arts, and that sculptors, image-makers, stone-cutters, or workers in pierced stone, were numerous. It would therefore seem very natural that these monks sent to live atChartres were the men who drew the plans of Notre Dame, and employed thehorde of artists whom we see represented in one of the old windows ofthe apse--men in furred caps shaped like a jelly bag, who are busilycarving and polishing the statues of kings. 

"Their work was finished at the beginning of the sixteenth century byJehan Le Texier, known as Jehan de Beauce, who erected the northernbelfry, called the New Belfry, and the decorative work inside thechurch, forming the niches for the groups on the walls of thechoir-aisles or ambulatory. "

"And has no one ever been able to discover the name of any one of theoriginal architects, sculptors, or glass-makers of this Cathedral?"

"It has been the subject of much research, and I, personally, may saythat I have grudged neither time nor trouble, but all in vain. 

"This much we know: At the top of the southern belfry, the Old Belfry asit is called, near the window-bay looking towards the New Belfry, thisname was deciphered: 'Harman, 1164. ' Is it that of an architect, of aworkman, or of a night watchman on the look-out at that time in thetower? We can but wonder. Didron, again, discovered on the pilaster ofthe eastern porch, above the head of a butcher slaughtering an ox, theword 'Rogerus' in twelfth century characters. Was he the architect, thesculptor, the donor of this porch--or the butcher? Another signature, 'Robir, ' is to be seen on the pedestal of a statue in the north porch. Who was Robir? None can say. 

"Langlois, too, mentions a glass-worker of the thirteenth century, Clément of Chartres, whose signature he found on a window of theCathedral at Rouen--_Clement Vitrearius Carnutensis_; but it is a wideleap to infer, as some would do, that merely because this Clément was anative of Chartres, he must have painted one or more of the glasspictures in Notre Dame here. And at any rate we have no information asto his life or his works in this city. It may also be remarked that on apane in our church we read _Petrus Bal ... ;_ is this the name, completeor defaced, of a donor or of a painter? Once more we must confessourselves ignorant. 

"If I add to this that two of Jehan de Beauce's colleagues have beentraced: Thomas Le Vasseur, who assisted him in the building of the newspire, and one Sieur Bernier, whose name occurs in ancient accounts;that from some old contracts, discovered by Monsieur Lecoq, we know thatJehan Soulas, image-maker, of Paris, carved the finest of the groupsthat are the glory of the choir-aisles, and can verify the names ofother sculptors who succeeded this admirable artist, but who are lessinteresting, since with them pagan art reappears and mediocrity isevident: François Marchant, image-maker, of Orleans, and NicolasGuybert, of Chartres--we have mentioned almost all the records worthy ofpreservation as to the great artists who laboured at Chartres from thetwelfth till the close of the first half of the fifteenth century. "

"And after that period the names that have been handed down to usdeserve nothing but execration. Thomas Boudin, Legros, Jean de Dieu, Berruer, Tuby, Simon Mazières--these were the men that dared to carry onthe work begun by Soulas! Louis, the Duc d'Orléans' architect, whodebased and ravaged the choir, and the infamous Bridan, who, to thecontemptible delight of some of the Canons, erected his blatant andwretched presentment of the Assumption!"

"Alas!" said the Abbé Gévresin, "and they were Canons who thought fit tobreak two ancient windows in the choir and fill them with white panes, the better to light that group of Bridan's!"

"Will you eat nothing more?" asked Madame Bavoil, who, at a negativefrom the guests, cleared away the cheese and preserves, and brought incoffee. 

"Since you are so much charmed by our Cathedral, I shall be most happyto take you over it and explain its details, " said the Abbé Plomb toDurtal. 

"I shall accept with pleasure, Monsieur l'Abbé, for it fairly haunts me, it possesses me--your Notre Dame! You know, no doubt, Quicherat'stheories of Gothic art?"

"Yes, and I believe them to be correct. Like him, I am convinced that ifthe essential character of the Romanesque is the substitution of thevaulted roof for the truss, the distinctive element and principle of theGothic is the buttress, and not the pointed arch. 

"I reserve my opinion, indeed, as to the accuracy of Quicherat'sdeclaration that 'the history of architecture in the middle ages is nomore than the history of the struggle of architects against the thrustand weight of vaulting, ' for there is something in this art beyondmaterial industry and a problem of practice; at the same time he iscertainly right on almost every point. 

"It may be added as a general principle, that in our use of the termsOgee and Gothic, we are misapplying words which have lost their originalmeaning; since the Goths have nothing to do with the style ofarchitecture which has taken their name, and the word ogee or ogyve, which strictly means the semicircular form, is inaccurate as applied tothe arch with a double curve, which has for so long been regarded as thebasis, nay, as the characteristic stamp of a style. "[1]

"After all, " the Abbé went on, after a short silence, "how can we judgeof the works of a past age, but by such help as we may obtain from thearcades pierced in shoring walls or from vaulting on round or pointedarches? for they are all debased by centuries of repair, or leftunfinished. Look at Chartres; Notre Dame was to have had nine spires, and it has but two! The cathedrals of Reims, of Paris, of Laon, and manymore, were to have had spires rising from their towers; and where arethey? We can form no exact idea of the effect their architects intendedto produce. And then, again, these churches were meant to be seen in asetting which has been destroyed, an environment that has ceased toexist; they were surrounded by houses of a character resembling theirown; they are now in the midst of barracks five stories high, gloomy, ignoble penitentiaries!--and we constantly see the ground about themcleared, when they were never intended to stand isolated on a square. Look where you will, there is a total misapprehension of the conditionsin which they were placed, of the atmosphere in which they lived. Certain details, which seem to us inexplicable in some of thesebuildings, were, no doubt, imperatively required by the position andneeds of the surroundings. In fact, we stumble, we feel our way--but weknow nothing--nothing!"

"And at best, " said Durtal, "archæology and architecture have only donea secondary work; they have simply set before us the material organism, the body of the cathedrals; who shall show us the soul?"

"What do you mean by the word?" said the Abbé Gévresin. 

"I am not speaking of the soul of the building at the moment when man byDivine help had created it; we know nothing of that soul--not indeed asregards Chartres, for some invaluable documents still reveal it; but ofthe soul of other churches, the soul they still have, and which we helpto keep alive by our more or less regular presence, our more or lessfrequent communion, our more or less fervent prayers. 

"For instance, take Notre Dame at Paris; I know that it has beenrestored and patched from end to end, that its sculpture is mended whereit is not quite new; in spite of Hugo's rhetoric it is second-rate, butit has its nave and its wondrous transept; it is even endowed with anancient statue of the Virgin before which Monsieur Olier had knelt, andvery often. Well, an attempt was made to revive there the worship of OurLady, to incite a spirit of pilgrimage thither; but all is dead! ThatCathedral no longer has a soul; it is an inert corpse of stone; tryattending Mass there, try to approach the Holy Table--you will feel anicy cloak fall on you and crush you. Is it the result of its emptiness, of its torpid services, of the froth of runs and trills they send upthere, of its being closed in a hurry in the evening and never open tillso late in the morning, long after daybreak? Or has it something to dowith the permitted rush of tourists, of London gapers that I have seenthere talking at the top of their voice, sitting staring at the altarwhen the Holy Elements were being consecrated just in front of them? Iknow not--but of one thing I am certain, the Virgin does not inhabitthere day and night and always, as she does Chartres. 

"Look at Amiens, again, with its colourless windows and crude daylight, its chapels enclosed behind tall railings, its silence rarely broken byprayer, its solitude. There too is emptiness; and why I know not, but tome the place exhales a stale odour of Jansenism. I am not at largethere, and prayer is difficult; and yet the nave is magnificent, and thesculptures in the ambulatory, finer even than those of Chartres, may bepronounced unique. 

"But here, too, the soul is absent. 

"It is the same with the Cathedral of Laon--bare, ice-bound, dead pasthope; while some are in an intermediate state, dying, but not yet cold:Reims, Rouen, Dijon, Tours, and Le Mans for instance; even in thesethere is some refreshment; and Bourges, with its five porches opening ona long perspective of aisles, and its vast deserted spaces; or Beauvais, a melancholy fragment, having no more than a head and arms flung out indespair like an appeal for ever ignored by Heaven, have still preservedsome of the aroma of olden days. Meditation is possible there; butnowhere, nowhere is there such comfort as there is here, nowhere isprayer so fervent as at Chartres!"

"Those are heaven-sent words!" cried Madame Bavoil. "And you shall havea glass of old black currant liqueur for your pains! Yes, indeed, he isquite right--our friend is right, " she went on, addressing the priests, who laughed. "Everywhere else, excepting at Notre Dame des Victoires inParis and, more especially, Notre Dame de Fourvière at Lyon, when you goto meet Her, you wait and wait; and often enough She does not come. Whereas in our Cathedral She receives you at once, just as She is. And Ihave told him, told our friend, that he should attend the first morningMass in the crypt, and he will see what a welcome our Mother gives hervisitors. "

"Chartres is a marvellous place, " said the Abbé Gévresin, "with its twoblack Madonnas--Notre Dame of the Pillar, above in the body of thechurch, and Notre Dame de Sous-Terre below, in the vault over which thebasilica is built. No other sanctuary, I believe, possesses themiraculous images of Mary, to say nothing of the antique relic known asthe Shift or Tunic of the Virgin. "

"And what in your opinion constitutes the soul of Chartres?" asked theAbbé Plomb. 

"Certainly not the souls of the citizens' wives and the church servantsthat are poured out there, " replied Durtal. "No, its vitality comes fromthe Sisterhoods, the peasant women, the pious schools, the pupils of theSeminary, and perhaps more especially from the children of the choir, who crowd to kiss the Pillar and kneel before the Black Virgin. As forthe devotion of the respectable classes! It would scare away theangels!"

"With a few rare exceptions the fine flower of female Pharisaism is nodoubt the outcome of that class, " said the Abbé Plomb, and he added in ahalf jesting, half sorrowful tone, --

"And I, here at Chartres, am the distressful gardener of these souls!"

"To return to our starting point, " said the Abbé Gévresin: "what was thebirthplace of the Gothic?"

"France: so Lecoy de la Marche emphatically asserts. 'The buttress madeits appearance as the essential basis of a style in the early years ofLouis le Gros, in the district lying between the Seine and the Aisne. 'In his opinion the first practice of this form was in the Cathedral ofLaon; other authorities regard it as merely supplementary to earlierbasilicas, instancing Saint-Front at Périgueux, Vézelay, Saint-Denis, Noyon, and the ancient college chapel at Poissy; but no two agree. Onething is certain, Gothic art is the art of the North; it made its wayinto Normandy, and from thence into England. Then it spread to the Rhinein the twelfth century, and to Spain by the beginning of the thirteenth. Gothic churches in the South are but an importation, evidentlyill-assorted with the men and women who frequent them, and the mercilessblue sky which spoils them. "

"And observe, " said Durtal, "that in our country that aspect ofmysticism is discordant with the rest. "

"How is that?"

"Well, you see, in the distribution of the sacred arts France receivedarchitecture only. Consider the pre-Raphaelite painters. All the earlypainters were Italians, Spaniards, Flemings, or Germans. Those whom somewriters try to represent as our fellow-countrymen are Flemingstransplanted to Burgundy, or docile Frenchmen whose imitative work bearsan unmistakable Flemish stamp. Look in the Louvre at our primitiveartists; look at Dijon, especially at what remains from the time whennorthern art was introduced by Philippe le Hardi into his own province. It is impossible to feel a doubt. Everything came from Flanders--JeanPerréal, Bourdichon, even Fouquet are whatever you please, only not theinventors of an original Gallic art. 

"It is the same with the mystic writers. Of what use would it be tomention the nationalities to which they belong? They too are Spanish, Italian, German, Flemish--not one is French. "

"I beg your pardon, our friend!" cried Madame Bavoil, "there was theVenerable Jeanne de Matel, who was born at Roanne. "

"Yes, but she was the daughter of an Italian father who was born atFlorence, " said the Abbé Gévresin, who, hearing the bell ring for Nones, now folded up his table napkin. They all stood up and said grace, andDurtal made an appointment with the Abbé Plomb to visit the Cathedral. Then he went home, meditating, as he walked, on this strange division ofart in the middle ages, and the supremacy given to France inarchitecture, when as yet she was so inferior in every other art. 

"And it must be owned, " he concluded, "that she has now lost thissuperiority; for it is long indeed since she produced an architect. Themen who assume the name are mere thieving bunglers, builders devoid ofall individuality and learning. They are not even able to pilferskilfully from their precursors. What are they nowadays? Patchers up ofchapels, church cobblers, botchers and blunderers!"

 [1] The English use of the word Ogee is thus defined: "An arch or moulding which displays sectionally contrasted curves similar to that of the _cyma reversa_. " FAIRHOLT, "Dict. Of Terms used in Art;" and PARKER, "A Concise Glossary of Terms used in Architecture. "--[_Translator_. ]

CHAPTER IV. 

Madame Bavoil was right; to understand the welcome the Virgin couldbestow on Her visitors, the early Mass in the crypt must be attended;above all, the Communion should be received. 

Durtal made the experiment; one day when the Abbé Gévresin enjoined onhim to approach the Table, he followed the housekeeper's advice and wentto the crypt at early dawn. 

The way down was by a cellar-stair lighted by a small lamp with asputtering wick darkening the chimney with smoke; having safely reachedthe bottom, he turned to the left in the darkness; here and there, at anangle, a floating wick threw a ruddy light on the circuit which he madein alternate light and shade, till at last he had some notion of thegeneral outline of the crypt. Its plan would be fairly represented bythe nave of a wheel whence the spokes radiated in every direction, joining the outer circle or tyre. From the circular path in which hefound himself passages diverged like the sticks of a fan, and at the endlittle fogged glass windows were visible, looking almost bright in theopaque blackness of the walls. 

And by following the curve of the corridor, Durtal came to a green baizedoor which he pushed open. He found himself in the side aisle of a naveending in a semicircle, where there was a high altar. To the right andleft two little recesses formed the arms or transept of a small cross. The centre aisle, forming a low nave, had chairs on either side, leavinga narrow space to give access to the altar. 

It was scarcely possible to see; the sanctuary was lighted only by tinylamps from the roof in little saucers of lurid orange or dull gold. Anextraordinarily mild atmosphere prevailed in this underground structure, which was also full of a singular perfume in which a musty odour of hotwax mingled with a suggestion of damp earth. But this was only thebackground, the canvas, so to speak, of the perfume, and was lost underthe embroidery of fragrance which covered it, the faded gold, as itwere, of oil in which long kept aromatic herbs had been steeped, andold, old incense powder dissolved. It was a weird and mysterious vapour, as strange as the crypt itself, which, with its furtive lights andbreadths of shadow, was at once penitential and soothing. 

Durtal went up the broader aisle to the left arm of the cross and satdown; the tiny transept had its little altar, with a Greek cross inrelief against a purple disk. Overhead the enormous curve of thevaulting hung heavy, and so low that a man could touch it by stretchingan arm; it was as black as the mouth of a chimney, and scorched by thefires that had consumed the cathedrals built above it. 

Presently the clap-clap of sabots became audible, and then the smotheredfootfall of nuns; there was silence but for sneezing and nose-blowingstifled by pocket-handkerchiefs, and then all was still. 

A sacristan came in through a little door opening into the othertransept, and lighted the tapers on the high altar; then strings ofsilver-gilt hearts became visible in the semicircle all along the walls, reflecting the blaze of flames, and forming a glory for a statue of theVirgin sitting, stiff and dark, with a Child on Her knees. This was thefamous Virgin of the Cavern, or rather a copy of it, for the originalwas burnt in 1793 in front of the great porch of the Cathedral, amid thedelirious raving of _sans-culottes_. 

A choir-boy came in, followed by an old priest; and then, for the firsttime, Durtal saw the Mass really as a service, and understood thewonderful beauty that lies inherent in a devout commemoration of theSacrifice. 

The boy on his knees, his soul aspiring and his hands clasped, spokealoud and slowly, rehearsing the responses of the Psalm with such deepattention and respect, that the meaning of this noble liturgy, which hasceased to amaze us, because we are so used to hearing it stammered outin hot haste, was suddenly revealed to Durtal. 

And the priest himself, unconsciously, whether he would or no, took upthe child's tone, imitating him, speaking slowly, not merely trippingthe verses off the tip of his tongue, but absorbed in the words he hadto repeat; and he seemed overwhelmed, as though it were his first Mass, by the grandeur of the rite of which he was to be the instrument. 

In fact, Durtal heard the celebrant's voice tremble when standing beforethe altar in the presence of the Father, like the Son Himself whom herepresented, and imploring forgiveness for all the sins of the worldwhich He bore on His shoulders, supported in his grief and hope by theinnocence of the child whose loving care was less mature and less livelythan the man's. 

And as he spoke the despairing words, "My God, my God, wherefore is myspirit heavy, and why dost Thou afflict me?" the priest was indeed theimage of Jesus suffering on the hill of Calvary, but the man remained inthe celebrant--the man, conscious of himself, and himself experiencing, in behoof of his personal sins and his own shortcomings, the impressionsof sorrow contained in the inspired text. 

Meanwhile his little acolyte had words of comfort, bid him hope; andafter repeating the _Confiteor_ in the face of the congregation, who ontheir part purified their souls by the same ablution of confession, thepriest with revived assurance went up the altar steps and began theMass. 

Positively, in this atmosphere of prayers crushed in by the heavy roof, Durtal, in the midst of kneeling Sisters and women, was struck with asense as of some early Christian rite buried in the catacombs. Here werethe same ecstatic tenderness, the same faith; and it was possible evento imagine some apprehension of surprise, and some eagerness to professthe faith in the face of danger. And thus, as in a vague image, thissacred cellar held the dim picture of the neophytes assembled so longsince in the underground caverns of Rome. 

The service proceeded before Durtal's eyes, and he was amazed to watchthe boy, who, with half closed eyes and the reserve of timid emotion, kissed the flagons of wine and of water before presenting them to thepriest. 

Durtal would look no more; he tried to concentrate his mind while thepriest was wiping his hands, for the only prayers he could honestlyoffer up to God were verses and texts repeated in an undertone. 

This only had he in his favour, but this he had: that he passionatelyloved mysticism and the liturgy, plain-song and cathedrals. Withoutfalsehood or self-delusion, he could in all truth exclaim, "Lord, I haveloved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honourdwelleth. " This was all he had to offer to the Father in expiation ofhis contumely and refractoriness, his errors and his falls. 

"Oh!" thought he, "how could I dare to pour out the ready-made collectsof which the prayer-books are full, how say to God, while addressing Himas 'Lovely Jesus, ' that He is the beloved of my heart, that I solemnlyvow never to love anything but Him, that I would die rather than everdisplease Him?

"Love none but Him!--If I were a monk and alone, possibly; but living inthe world!--And then who but the Saints would prefer death to thesmallest sin? Why then humbug Him with these feints and grimaces?

"No, " said Durtal, "apart from the personal outpourings, the secretintimacy in which we are bold to tell Him everything that comes into ourhead, the prayers of the liturgy alone can be uttered with impunity byany man, for it is the peculiarity of these inspirations that they adaptthemselves in all ages to every state of the mind and every phase oflife. And with the exception of the time-honoured prayers of certainSaints, which are as a rule either supplications for pity or for help, appeals to God's mercy or laments, all other prayers sent forth from thecold insipid sacristies of the seventeenth century, or, worse still, composed in our own day by the piety-mongers who insert in our books ofprayer the pious cant of the Rue Bonaparte--all these inflated andpretentious petitions should be avoided by sinners who, in default ofevery other virtue, at least wish to be sincere. 

"Only that wonderful child could thus address the Lord withouthypocrisy, " he went on, looking at the little acolyte, and understandingtruly for the first time what innocent childhood meant--the littlesinless soul, purely white. 

"The Church, which tries to find beings absolutely ingenuous andimmaculate to wait upon the altar, had succeeded at Chartres in mouldingsouls and transforming ordinary boys on their admission to the sanctuaryinto exquisite angels. There must certainly be, above and besides theirspecial training, some blessing and goodwill from Our Lady, to mouldthese little rogues to the service, to make them so unlike others, andendow them in the middle of the nineteenth century with the fire ofchastity and primitive fervour of the middle age. "

The service proceeded slowly, soaking into the abject silence of theworshippers, and the child, more reverent and attentive than ever, rangthe bell; it was like a shower of sparks tinkling under the smoky vault, and the silence seemed deeper than ever behind the kneeling boy, upholding with one hand the chasuble of the celebrant, who bowed overthe altar. The Host was elevated amid the shower of silver sound; andthen, above the prostrate heads, in the clear sparkle of bells, thegolden tulip of a chalice flashed out till, to a final hurried peal, thegilded flower was lowered, and the prostrate worshippers looked up. 

And Durtal was thinking, --

"If only He to whom we refused shelter when the Mother who bore Him wasin travail, could find a loving refuge in our souls to-day! But alas!apart from these nuns, these children, these priests, and these peasantwomen who cherish Him so truly, how many here present are, like me, embarrassed by His presence, and at all times incapable of making readythe chamber He requires, of receiving Him in a room swept and garnished?

"Alas! to think that things are always the same, always going back tothe beginning! Our souls are still the crafty synagogues who betrayedHim, and the vile Caiaphas that lurks within us rises up at the verymoment when we fain would be humble and love Him while we pray! My God!My God! Would it not be better to depart than to drag myself thus, withsuch a bad grace, into Thy presence? For, after all, it is all very wellfor the Abbé Gévresin to insist that I should communicate, he is notI--he is not in me; he does not know the wild doings in my hidden lairs, or the turmoil in my ruins. He believes it to be mere nervelessness, indolence. Alas! That is not all. There is a dryness, a coldness, whichare not altogether free from a certain amount of irritation andrebelliousness against the rules he insists on. "

The moment of Communion was at hand. The little boy had gently thrownthe white napkin back on the table; the nuns and poor women and peasantswent forward, all with clasped hands and bowed heads, and the child tooka taper and passed in front of the priest, his eyes almost shut for fearof seeing the Host. 

There was in this little creature such a glow of love and reverence thatDurtal gazed with admiration and trembled with awe. Without in the leastknowing why, in the midst of the darkness that fell on his soul, of theimpotent and wavering feeling that thrilled it without there being anyword to describe them, he felt a tide bearing him to the Saviour, andthen a recoil. 

The comparison was inevitably forced upon him between that child's souland his own. "Why, it is he, not I, who should take the Sacrament!"cried he to himself; and he crouched there inert, his hands folded, notknowing how to decide, in a frame at once beseeching and terrified, whenhe felt himself gently drawn to the table and received the Sacrament. And meanwhile he was trying to collect himself, and to pray, and at thesame time, at the same instant, was in the discomfort of the shudderingfears that surge up within us, and that find expression physically in acraving for air, and in that peculiar condition when the head feels asif it were empty, as if the brain had ceased to act, and all vitalitywas driven back on the heart, which swells to choking; when it seems, inthe spiritual sense, that as energy returns so far as to allow ofself-command once more, of introspection, we peer down in appallingsilence into a black void. 

He painfully rose and returned to his place, not without stumbling. Never, not even at Chartres, had he been able to hinder the torpor thatoverpowered him at the moment of receiving the Sacrament. His powerswere benumbed, his faculties arrested. 

In Paris, at the core of his soul, which seemed rolled up in itself likea chrysalis, there had always been a sort of restraint, an awkwardnessin waiting, and in approaching Christ, and then an apathy which nothingcould shake off. And this state was prolonged in a sort of cold, enveloping mist, or rather in a vacuum all round the soul, deserted andswooning on its couch. 

At Chartres this state of collapse was still present, but some indulgenttenderness presently enwrapped and warmed the spirit. The soul as itrecovered was no longer alone; it was encouraged and perceptibly helpedby the Virgin, who revived it. And this impression, peculiar to thiscrypt, permeated the body too; it was no longer a feeling of suffocationfor lack of air; on the contrary, it was the oppression of inflation, ofover-fulness, which would be mitigated by degrees, allowing of easybreathing at last. 

Durtal, comforted and relieved, rose to go. By this time the crypt hadbecome a little lighter from the growing dawn; the passages, ending inaltars backing against the windows, were still dark, as a result of theground plan, but in the perspective of each a moving gold cross was tobe seen almost distinctly, rising and falling with a priest's back, between two pale stars twinkling one on each side above the tabernacle;while a third, lower and with redder flame, lighted up the book and thewhite napery. 

Durtal wandered away to meditate in the Bishop's garden, where he hadpermission to walk whenever he pleased. 

The garden was perfectly still, with tomb-like avenues, pollard poplars, and trampled lawns--half dead. There was not a flower, for the Cathedralkilled everything under its shadow. Its vast deserted apse, without astatue, rose amid a flight of buttresses flung out like huge ribs, inflated as it were by the breath of incessant prayer within; shade anddamp always clung round the spot; in this funereal Close, where thetrees were green only in proportion as they were distant from thechurch, lay two microscopic ponds like the mouths of two wells; onecovered to the brim with yellow-green duck-weed, the other full ofbrackish water of inky blackness, in which three goldfish lay as inpickle. 

Durtal was fond of this neglected spot, with its reek of the grave andthe salt marsh, and the mouldy smell, that earthy scent that comes upfrom a rotting soil of wet leaves. 

He paced the alleys, where the Bishop never came, and where the childrenof the household, rushing about at play, destroyed the fragments ofgrass-plots spared by the Cathedral. Slates cracked underfoot, flungdown from the roofs by the wind, and the jackdaws croaked in answer toeach other across the silent park. 

Durtal came out on a terrace overlooking the city, and he rested hiselbows on a parapet of grey time-eaten stone, as dry as pumice andpatterned with orange and sulphur-coloured lichens. 

Beneath him spread a valley crowded with smoking chimneys and roofs, veiling this upper part of the town in a tangle of blue. Further downall was still and lifeless; the houses were asleep, not so far awakeeven as to show the transient flash of glass when a window is thrownopen, nor was there such a spot of red as is often seen in a countrystreet when an eider-down quilt hangs out to air across the bar of abalcony; everything was closed and dull and soundless; there was noteven the hive-like hum that hangs over inhabited places. But for thedistant rumble of a cart, the crack of a whip, the bark of a dog, allwas still: it was a town asleep, a land of the dead. 

And beyond the valley, on the further bank, the scene was still moresullen and silent; the plains of La Beauce stretched away as far as theeye could reach, mute and melancholy, without a smile, under a heartlesssky divided by an ignoble barrack facing the Cathedral. 

The dreariness of these plains, an endless level without a mound, without a tree! And you felt that even beyond the horizon they stillstretched away as flat as ever; only the monotony of the landscape wasemphasized by the raging fury of the tempestuous winds, sweeping thehillside, levelling the tree-tops, and wreaking themselves on thisbasilica, which, perched on high, had for centuries defied theirefforts. To uproot it the lightning had been needed to help, firing itstowers, and even the combined attacks of the hurricane and the flameshad been unable to destroy the original stock, which, replanted aftereach disaster, had always sprouted in fresh verdure with reinvigoratedgrowth. 

That morning, in the dawn of a rainy autumn day, lashed by a bitternorth wind, Durtal, shivering and ill at ease, left the terrace and tookrefuge in the more sheltered walks, going down presently into agarden-slope where the brushwood afforded some little protection fromthe wind; these shrubberies wandered at random down the hill, and aninextricable tangle of blackberries clung with the cat's-claws of theirlong shoots to the saplings that were scattered about. 

It was evident that since some immemorial time the Bishops, for lack offunds, had neglected these grounds. Of all the old kitchen garden, overgrown by brambles, only one plot was more or less weeded, and rowsof spinach and carrots alternated with the frosted balls of cabbages. 

Durtal sat down on a stump that had once supported a bench, and tried tolook into his own soul; but he found within, look where he might, only aspiritual Beauce; it seemed to him to mirror the cold and monotonouslandscape; only it was not a mighty wind that blew through his being;but a sharp, drying little blast. He knew that he was cross-grained andcould not make his observations calmly; his conscience harassed him andinsisted on vexatious argument. 

"Pride! Ah, how is it to be kept under till the day shall come when itshall be quelled? It insinuates itself so stealthily, so noiselessly, that it has ensnared and bound me before I can suspect its presence; andmy case too is somewhat peculiar, and hard to cure by the religioustreatment commonly prescribed in such cases. For in fact, " said he tohimself, "my pride is not of the artless and overweening kind, elated, audacious, boldly displaying, and proclaiming itself to the world; no, mine is in a latent state, what was called vain-glory in the simplicityof the Middle Ages, an essence of pride diluted with vanity andevaporating within me in transient thoughts and unexpressed conceit. Ihave not even the opportunity afforded by swaggering pride for being onmy guard and compelling myself to keep silence. Yes, that is very true;talk leads to specious boasting and invites subtle praise; one ispresently aware of it, and then, with patience and determination, it isin one's power to check and muzzle oneself. But my vice of pride iswordless and underground; it does not come forth. I neither see nor hearit. It wriggles and creeps in without a sound, and clutches me withoutmy having heard its approach!

"And the good Abbé answers: 'Be watchful and pray;' well, I am more thanwilling, but the remedy is ineffectual, for aridity and outsideinfluences deprive it of its efficacy!

"As for outside suggestions--they never seem to come to me but inprayer. It is enough that I kneel down and try to collect my thoughts, they are at once dissipated. The mere purpose of prayer is like a stoneflung into a pool; everything is stirred up and comes to the top!

"And people who have not habits of religious practice fancy that thereis nothing easier than prayer. I should like to see them try. They couldthen bear witness that profane imaginings, which leave them in peace atall other times, always surge up unexpectedly, during prayer. 

"Besides, what use is therein disputing the fact? Merely looking at asleeping vice is enough to wake it. "

And his thoughts went back to that warm crypt. "Yes, no doubt, like allthe buildings of the Romanesque period, it is symbolical of the OldTestament; but it is not simply gloomy and sad, for it is enveloping andcomforting, warm and tender! Admitting even that it is the figure instone of the older Dispensation, would it not seem that it symbolizes itless as a whole, than as embodying more especially a select group of theHoly Women who prefigured the Virgin in the earlier Scriptures? Is itnot the expression in stone of those passages in which the illustriouswomen of the Bible are most conspicuous, who were, in a way, propheticincarnations of the New Eve?

"Hence this crypt would reproduce the most consoling and the most heroicpassages of the Sacred Book, for the Virgin is supreme in thisunderground sanctuary; it is Hers rather than the terrible Adonaï's, ifone may dare say so. 

"And again, She is a very singular Virgin, who has inevitably remainedin harmony with Her surroundings: a Virgin black and rugged, andstunted, like the rough-hewn shrine She inhabits. 

"She is therefore, no doubt, the outcome of the same idea that conceivedof Christ as black and ugly because He had assumed the burthen of allthe sins of the world, the Christ of the first ages of the Church, whoin His humility put on the vilest aspect. In that case Mary would haveconceived Her Son in Her own image; She too had chosen to be ugly andobscure, out of humility and loving-kindness, that She might the betterconsole the disfigured and despised creatures whose image She hadborrowed. "

And Durtal went on:--

"What a crypt is this where, in the course of so many centuries, kingsand queens have come to worship!

"Philip Augustus and Isabella of Hainault, Blanche of Castille and SaintLouis, Philippe de Valois, Jean le Bon, Charles V. , Charles VI. , CharlesVII. , Charles VIII. And Anne de Bretagne; then François I. , Henri III. And Louise de Vaudemont, Catherine de' Medici; Henri IV. , who wascrowned in this Cathedral, Anne of Austria, Louis XIV. , Maria Leczinska, and so many others--all the nobility of France; and Ferdinand of Spain, and Léon de Lusignan, the last King of Armenia, and Pierre de Courtenay, Emperor of Constantinople--all kneeling like the poor folks of to-day, and like them beseeching Notre Dame de Sous-Terre. "

And what was more interesting still was that the Virgin had wrought manymiracles on this spot. She had saved children who had fallen into thewell of the Strong Saints, had preserved the guardians who had charge ofthe relic of Her garment when the edifice was blazing above them, andhad cured crowds, half maddened by the Burning plague in the MiddleAges, shedding Her benefits with a lavish hand. 

Times were changed indeed, but fervent worshippers had knelt before theImage, had relinked the bonds broken in the course of years, had, so tospeak, recaptured the Virgin in a net of prayer; and so, instead ofdeparting, as She had done elsewhere, She had remained at Chartres. 

By some incredible effect of clemency She had endured the insult of thetenth-day festivals and the outrage of seeing the Goddess of Reasoninstalled in her place on the altar, had suffered the infamous liturgyof obscene canticles rising with the thundering incense of gunpowder. And She had forgiven it all, no doubt for the sake of the love shown Herby preceding generations, and the awed, but real affection of the humblebelievers who had come back to Her when the storm was over. 

This cavern was crowded with memories. The coating of those walls hadbeen formed of the vapours of the soul, of the exhalations ofaccumulated desires and regrets, even more than of the smoke of tapers;how foolish it was then to have painted this crypt in squalid imitationof the catacombs, to have defaced the glorious darkness of these stoneswith colours which were indeed fast vanishing, leaving only traces as ofpalette scrapings in the consecrated soot on the roof!

Durtal was expatiating on these reflections as he went out of thegarden, when he met the Abbé Gévresin walking along and reading hisbreviary. He asked whether Durtal had taken the Sacrament. Andperceiving that his penitent always came back to his shame of the inertand torpid grief that came over him in contemplation of the HolySacrament, the old priest said to him, --

"That is no concern of yours; all you have to do is to pray to the bestof your power. The rest is my concern--if the far from triumphant stateof your soul only makes you a little humble, that is all I ask of you. "

"Humble! I am like a water cooler; my vanity sweats out at every pore asthe water oozes from the clay. "

"It is some consolation to me that you perceive it, " said the Abbé, smiling. "It would be far worse if you did not know yourself, if youwere so proud as to believe that you had no pride. "

"But how then am I to set to work? You advise me to pray; but teach meat least how not to dissipate myself in every direction, for as soon asI try to collect myself I go to pieces; I live in a perpetual state ofdissolution. It is like a thing arranged on purpose; as soon as I try toshut the cage all my thoughts fly off--they deafen me with theirchirping. "

The Abbé was thinking. 

"I know, " said he; "nothing is more difficult than to free the spiritfrom the images that take possession of it. Still, and in spite of all, you may achieve concentration of mind if you observe these three rules:

"In the first place you must humble yourself, by owning the frailty ofyour mind, unable to preserve itself from wandering in the presence ofGod; next you must not be impatient or restless, for that would onlystir up the dregs and bring other objects of frivolity to the surface;finally, it is well not to investigate the nature of the distractionsthat trouble your prayers till they are over. This only prolongs thedisturbance, and in a way recognizes its existence. You thus run therisk, in virtue of the law of association of ideas, of inviting newdiversions, and there would be no way of escape. 

"After prayer you may examine yourself with benefit; follow my advice, and you will find the advantage of it. "

"That is all very fine, " thought Durtal, "but when it comes to puttingthe advice into practice it is quite another thing. Are not these mereold women's remedies, precious ointments, quack medicines, for which thepious and virtuous have a weakness?"

They walked on in silence across the forecourt of the palace to thepriest's rooms. As they went in, they found Madame Bavoil at the foot ofthe stairs, her arms in a tub full of soap-suds. As she rubbed theclothes, she turned to look at Durtal, and, as if she could read histhoughts, she mildly asked, --

"Why, our friend, wear such a graveyard face when you took the Sacramentthis morning?"

"So you heard I had been to Communion?"

"Yes, I went into the crypt while Mass was going forward, and saw you goup to the Holy Table. Well, shall I tell you the truth? You do not knowhow to address our Holy Mother. "

"Indeed!"

"No. You are shy when She is doing her best to put you at your ease; youcreep close to the wall when you ought to walk boldly up the middleaisle to face Her. That is not the way to approach Her!"

"But if I have nothing to say to Her?"

"Then you simply chatter to Her like a child; some pretty speech, andShe is satisfied. Oh, these men! How little they know how to pay theircourt, how greatly they lack little coaxing ways, and even honestartfulness! If you can invent nothing on your own part, borrow fromanother. Repeat after the Venerable Jeanne de Matel:

"'Holy Virgin, this abyss of iniquity and vileness invokes the abyss ofstrength and splendour to praise Thy preeminent Glory. ' Well, is thatpretty well expressed, our friend? Try; recite that to Our Lady and Shewill unbind you; then prayer will come of itself. Such little ways arepermitted by Her, and we must be humble enough not to presume to dowithout them. "

Durtal could not help laughing. 

"You want me to become a trickster, a sneak in spiritual life!" said he. 

"Well, where would be the harm? Does not the Lord know when we meanwell? Does not He take note of our intentions? Would you, yourself, repulse anyone who paid you a compliment, however clumsily, if youthought he meant to please you by it? No, of course not. "

"Here is another thing, " said the Abbé, laughing. "Madame Bavoil, I sawMonseigneur this morning; he grants your petition and authorizes you todig in as many parts of the garden as you choose. "

"Aha!" and amused by Durtal's surprise she went on: "You must have seenfor yourself that excepting a little plot of ground where the gardenerplants a few carrots and cabbages for the Bishop's table, the whole ofthe garden is left to run wild; it is sheer waste and of no use toanybody. Now instead of buying vegetables, I mean to grow some, sinceMonseigneur gives me leave to turn over his ground, and by the sametoken I will give some to your housekeeper. "

"Thank you. Then do you understand gardening?"

"I? Why, am I not a peasant? I have lived in the country all my life, and a kitchen garden is just my business! Besides, if I were indifficulties, would not my Friends Above come to advise me?"

"You are a wonderful woman, Madame Bavoil, " said Durtal, somewhatdisconcerted in spite of himself by the answers of a cook who so calmlyasserted that she was on intimate terms with the divine Beyond. 

CHAPTER V. 

It rained without ceasing. Durtal breakfasted under the assiduouswatchfulness of his servant, Madame Mesurat. She was one of those womenwhose stalwart build and masculine presence would allow of theirdressing in men's clothes without attracting attention. She had apear-shaped head, cheeks that hung flabby as if they had been emptied ofair, a pompous nose that drooped till it very nearly touched aprojecting underlip like a bracket, giving her an expression ofdetermined contempt which she very certainly had never felt. In short, she suggested the absurd idea of a solemn, gawky Marlborough disguisedas a cook. 

She served unvarying meats with inglorious sauces; and as soon as thedish was on the table she stood at attention, waiting to know whether itwas good. She was imposing and devoted--quite insufferable. Durtal, onedge with irritation, found it all he could do not to dismiss her to thekitchen, and finally buried his nose in a book that he might not have toanswer her, might not see her. 

This day, provoked by his silence, Madame Mesurat lifted the windowcurtain, and for the sake of saying something, exclaimed, --

"Good heavens! What weather! Impossible!"

And in fact the sky offered no hope of consolation. It was all in tears. The rain fell in uninterrupted streams, unwinding endless skeins ofwater. The Cathedral was standing in a pool of mud lashed into leapingdrops by the falling torrent, and the two spires looked drawn together, almost close, linked by loose threads of water. This indeed was theprevailing impression--a briny atmosphere full of strings holding thesky and earth together as if tacked with long stitches, but they wouldnot hold; a gust of wind snapped all these endless threads, which werewhirled in every direction. 

"My arrangement to meet the Abbé Plomb to go over the Cathedral isevidently at an end, " said Durtal to himself. "The Abbé will certainlynot turn out in such weather. "

He went into his study; this was his usual place of refuge. He had hisdivan there, his pictures, the old furniture he had brought from Paris;and against the walls, shelves, painted black, held thousands of books. There he lived, looking out on the towers, hearing nothing but thecawing of the rooks and the strokes of the hours as they fell one by oneon the silence of the deserted square. He had placed his table in frontof a window, and there he sat dreaming, praying, meditating, makingnotes. 

The balance of his personal account was struck by internal damage andmental disputations; if the soul was bruised and ice-bound, the mind wasno less afflicted, no less fagged. It seemed to have grown dull sincehis residence at Chartres. The biographies of Saints which Durtal hadintended to write, remained in the stage of charcoal sketches; they blewoff before he could fix them. In reality he had ceased to care foranything but the Cathedral; it had taken possession of him. 

And besides, the lives of the Saints as they were written by theinferior Bollandists were enough to disgust anybody with saintliness. Offered to publisher after publisher, carted from the Paris libraries tothe provincial workshops, this barrow of books had at first been hauledby a single nag, Father Giry; then a second horse had been added, theAbbé Guérin, and, harnessed to the same shafts, these two men pulledtheir heavy truck over the broken road of souls. 

He had only to open a bale of this prosy dulness, taking down a volumeat random, to light on sentences of this quality:

"Such an one was born of parents not less remarkable for their rank thanfor their piety;" or, on the other hand, "His parents were not ofillustrious birth, but in them might be seen the distinction of all thevirtues which are so far above rank. "

And then the dreadful style of the Pont Neuf: "His historian does nothesitate to say he would have been mistaken for an angel if the maladieswith which God afflicted him had not shown that he was a man. "--"TheDevil, not enduring to see him advancing by rapid leaps on the way ofperfection, adopted various means of hindering him in the happy progressof his career. "

And on turning over to a fresh page he came upon a passage in the lifeof one of the Elect who was mourning for his mother, excusing him inthis solemn rigmarole: "After granting to the feelings of nature suchrelief as grace cannot forbid on these occasions--"

Or again, here and there were such pompous and ridiculous definitions asthis, which occurs in the life of César de Bus: "After a visit to Paris, which is not less the throne of vice than the capital of the kingdom--"And this went on in meagre language through twelve to fifteen volumes, ending by the erection of a row of uniform virtue, a barrack of piousidiotcy. Now and again the two poor nags seemed to wake up and trot fora little space, though gasping for breath, when they had some detail torecord which no doubt moved them to rapture; they expatiatedcomplacently on the virtues of Catherine of Sweden or Robert de laChaise-Dieu, who as soon as they were born cried for sinless wet-nurses, and would suck none but pious breasts; or they spoke with ravishment ofthe chastity of Jean the Taciturn, who never took a bath, that he mightnot shock "his modest eyes, " as the text says, by seeing himself; andthe bashful purity of San Luis de Gonzagua, who had such a terror ofwomen that he dared not look at his mother for fear of evil thoughts!

In consternation at the poverty of these distressing non-sequiturs, Durtal turned to the less familiar biographies of the Blessed Women; buthere again, what a farrago of the commonplace, what glutinous unction, what a hash by way of style! There was certainly some curse from Heavenon the old women of the Sacristy who dared take up a pen. Their ink atonce turned to stickiness, to bird-lime, to pitch, which smeared all ittouched. Oh, the poor Saints! the hapless Blessed Women!

His meditations were interrupted by a ring at the bell:

"Why, has the Abbé Plomb really come out in spite of the gale?"

It was indeed the priest that Madame Mesurat showed in. 

"Oh, " said he to Durtal, who lamented over the rain, "the weather willclear up all in good time; at any rate, as you had not put me off I wasdetermined not to keep you waiting. "

They sat chatting by the fire; and the room took the Abbé's fancy, nodoubt, for he settled himself at his ease. He threw himself back in anarm-chair, tucking his hands into his cincture. And when, in answer tohis question as to whether Durtal were not too dull at Chartres, theParisian replied, "It seems to me that I live more slowly, and yet amnot such a burthen to myself, " the Abbé went on, --

"What you must feel painfully is the lack of intellectual society; you, who in Paris lived in the world of letters--how can you endure theatmosphere of this provincial town?"

Durtal laughed. 

"The world of letters! No, Monsieur l'Abbé, I should not be likely toregret that, for I had given it up many years before I came to livehere; and besides, I assure you it is impossible to be intimate withthose train-bands of literature and remain decent. A man mustchoose--them or honest folks; slander or silence; for their specialityis to eliminate every charitable idea, and above all to cure a man offriendship in the winking of an eye. "

"Really?"

"Yes, by adopting a homoeopathic pharmacopoeia which still makes useof the foulest matter--the extract of wood-lice, the venom of snakes, the poison of the cockchafer, the secretions of the skunk and the matterfrom pustules, all disguised in sugar of milk to conceal their taste andappearance; the world of letters, in the same way, triturates the mostdisgusting things to get them swallowed without raising your gorge. There is an incessant manipulation of neighbours' gossip and play-boxtittle-tattle, all wrapped up in perfidious good taste to mask theirflavour and smell. 

"These pills of foulness, exhibited in the required doses, act likedetergents on the soul, which they almost immediately purge of alltrustfulness. I had enough of this regimen, which acted on me only toosuccessfully, and I thought it well to escape from it. "

"But the pious world, too, is not absolutely free from gossip, " said theAbbé, smiling. 

"No doubt, and I am well aware that devotion does not always sweeten themind, but--

"The truth is, " said he after reflection, "that the assiduous practiceof religion generally results in some intense effects on the soul. Onlythey may be of two kinds. Either it develops the soul's taint andevolves in it the final ferments which putrefy it once for all, or itpurifies the spirit and makes it clean and clear and exquisite. It mayproduce hypocrites or good and saintly people; there is really nomedium. 

"But when such divine husbandry has completely cleansed souls, howguileless and how pure they may be! Nor am I speaking of the Elect, suchas I saw at La Trappe--merely of young novices, little priestlings whomI have known. They had eyes like clear glass, undimmed by the haze of asingle sin; and, looking into them, behind those eyes you would haveseen their open soul burning like a soaring crown of fire framing thesmiling face in a halo of white name. 

"In fact, Jesus simply fills up all the room in their soul. Do not youthink, Monsieur l'Abbé, that these youths occupy their bodies justenough for suffering and to expiate the sins of others? Without knowingit, they have been sent into the world to be safe tenements of the Lord, the resting-place where Jesus finds a home after wandering over thefrozen steppes of other souls. "

"Yes, " said the Abbé, taking off his spectacles to wipe them on hisbandana, "but to acquire so fine a strain of being, how muchmortification, penance, and prayer have been needed in the generationsthat have ended by giving them birth! The spirits of whom you speak arethe flower of a stem long nourished in a pious soil. The Spirit, ofcourse, bloweth where it listeth, and may find a saint in the heart of alistless family; but this mode of operation must always be an exception. The novices you have known must certainly have had grandmothers andmothers who frequently incited them to kneel and pray by their side. "

"I do not know--I knew nothing of the origin of these lads--but I feelthat you are right. It is obvious, indeed, that children, slowly broughtup from their earliest years, and sheltered from the world under theshadow of such a sanctuary as this at Chartres, must end in theblossoming of an unique flower. "

And when Durtal told him of the impression made on him by the angelicservice of the Mass, the Abbé smiled. 

"Though our boys are not unique, they are no doubt rare. Here, theVirgin Herself trains them, and note, the little lad you saw is neithermore diligent nor more conscientious than his fellows; they are allalike. Dedicated to the priesthood from the time when they can firstunderstand, they learn quite naturally to lead a spiritual life fromtheir constant intimacy with the services. "

"What then is the system of this Institution?"

"The Foundation of the Clerks of Our Lady dates from 1853, or rather itwas reconstituted in that year--for it existed in the Middle Ages--bythe Abbé Ychard. Its purpose is to increase the number of priests byadmitting poor boys to begin their studies. It receives intelligent andpious children of every nationality, if they are supposed to show anyvocation for Holy Orders. They remain in the choir school till they arein the third class, and are then transferred to the Seminary. 

"Its funds?--are, humanly speaking, nothing, based on trust inProvidence, for it has altogether, for the maintenance of eighty pupils, nothing but the pay earned by these children for various duties in theCathedral, and the profits from a little monthly magazine called 'TheVoice of the Virgin, ' and finally and chiefly the charity of thefaithful. All this does not amount to a very substantial income; andyet, to this day, money has never been lacking. "

The Abbé rose and went to the window. 

"Oh, the rain will not cease, " said Durtal. "I am very much afraid, Monsieur l'Abbé, that we cannot examine the Cathedral porches to-day. "

"There is no hurry. Before going into the details of Notre Dame, wouldit not be well to contemplate it as a whole, and let its general purposesoak into the mind before studying each page of its parts?

"Everything lies contained in that building, " he went on, waving hishand to designate the church; "the scriptures, theology, the history ofthe human race, set forth in broad outline. Thanks to the science ofsymbolism a pile of stones may be a macrocosm. 

"I repeat it, everything exists within this structure, even our materialand moral life, our virtues and our vices. The architect takes us up atthe creation of Adam to carry us on to the end of time. Notre Dame ofChartres is the most colossal depository existing of heaven and earth, of God and man. Each of its images is a word; all those groups arephrases--the difficulty is to read them. "

"But it can be done?"

"Undoubtedly. That there may be some contradictions in ourinterpretations I admit, but still the palimpsest can be deciphered. Thekey needed is a knowledge of symbolism. "

And seeing that Durtal was listening to him with interest, the Abbé cameback to his seat, and said, --

"What is a symbol? According to Littré it is a 'figure or image used asa sign of something else;' and we Catholics narrow the definition bysaying with Hugues de Saint Victor that a symbol is an allegoricalrepresentation of a Christian principle under a tangible image. 

"Now symbolism has existed ever since the beginning of the world. Everyreligion adopted it, and in ours it came into being with the Tree of theKnowledge of Good and Evil in the first chapter of Genesis, while itstill is in full splendour in the last chapter of the Apocalypse. 

"The Old Testament is an anticipatory figure of all the New Testamenttells us. The Mosaic dispensation contains, as in an allegory, what theChristian religion shows us in reality; the history of the People ofGod, its principal personages, its sayings and doings, the veryaccessories round about it, are a series of images; everything came tothe Hebrews under a figure, Saint Paul tells us. Our Lord took thetrouble to remind His disciples of this on various occasions, and HeHimself, when addressing the multitude, almost always spoke in parablesas a means of conveying one thing by an illustration from another. 

"Symbols, then, have a divine origin; it may be added that from thehuman point of view this form of teaching answers to one of the leastdisputable cravings of the human mind. Man feels a certain enjoyment ingiving proof of his intelligence, in guessing the riddle thus presentedto him, and likewise in preserving the hidden truth summed up in avisible formula, a perdurable form. Saint Augustine expressly says:'Anything that is set forth in an allegory is certainly more emphatic, more pleasing, more impressive, than when it is formulated in technicalwords. '"

"That is Mallarmé's idea too, " thought Durtal, "and this coincidence inthe views of the saint and the poet, on grounds at once analogous anddifferent, is whimsical, to say the least. "

"Thus in all ages, " the Abbé went on, "men have taken inanimate objects, or animals and plants, to typify the soul and its attributes, its joysand sorrows, its virtues and its vices; thought has been materialized tofix it more securely in the memory, to make it less fugitive, more nearto us, more real, almost tangible. 

"Hence the emblems of cruelty and craft, of courtesy and charity, embodied by certain creatures, personified by certain plants; hence thespiritual meanings attributed to precious stones, and to colours. And itmay be added that in times of persecution, in the early Christian times, this hidden language enabled the initiated to hold communication, togive each other some token of kinship, some password which the enemycould not interpret. Thus, in the paintings discovered in catacombs, theLamb, the Pelican, the Lion, the Shepherd, all meant the Son; the Fish_Ichthys_, of which the characters express the Greek formula: 'Jesus, Son of God, Saviour, ' figures, in a secondary sense, the believer, therescued soul, fished out from the sea of Paganism; the Redeemer havingtold two of His Apostles that they should be fishers of men. 

"And of course the period when human beings lived in closest intercoursewith God--the Middle Ages--was certain to follow the revealed traditionof Christ, and express itself in symbolical language, especially inspeaking of that Spirit, that essence, that incomprehensible andnameless Being who to us is God. At the same time it had at its commanda practical means of making itself understood. It wrote a book, as itwere, intelligible to the humblest, superseding the text by images, andso instructing the ignorant. This indeed was the idea put into words bythe Synod of Arras in 1025: 'That which the illiterate cannot apprehendfrom writing shall be shown to them in pictures. '

"The Middle Ages, in short, translated the Bible and Theology, thelives of the Saints, the apocryphal and legendary Gospels into carved orpainted images, bringing them within reach of all, and epitomizing themin figures which remained as the permanent marrow, the concentratedextract of all its teaching. "

"It taught the grown-up children the catechism by means of the stonesentences of the porches, " exclaimed Durtal. 

"Yes, it did that too. But now, " the Abbé went on, after a pause, "before entering on the subject of architectural symbolism, we mustfirst establish a distinct notion of what Our Lord Himself did increating it, when, in the second chapter of the Gospel according toSaint John, He speaks of the Temple at Jerusalem, and says that if theJews destroy it He will rebuild it in three days, expressly prefiguringby that parable His own Body. This set forth to all generations the formwhich the new temples were thenceforth to take after His death on theCross. 

"This sufficiently accounts for the cruciform plan of our churches. Butwe will study the inside of the church later; for the present we mustconsider the meanings of the external parts of a cathedral. 

"The towers and belfries, according to the theory of Durand, Archbishopof Mende in the thirteenth century, are to be regarded as preachers andprelates, and the lofty spire is symbolical of the perfection to whichtheir souls strive to rise. According to other interpreters of the sameperiod, such as Saint Melito, Bishop of Sardis, and Cardinal Pietro ofCapua, the towers represent the Virgin Mary, or the Church watching overthe salvation of the Flock. 

"It is a certain fact, " the Abbé went on, "that the position of thetowers was never rigidly laid down once for all in mediæval times; thusdifferent interpretations are admissible according to their position inthe structure. Still, perhaps the most ingeniously refined, the mostexquisite idea is that which occurred to the architects of Saint Maclouat Rouen, of Notre Dame at Dijon, and of the Cathedral at Laon, forexample, who built rising from the centre of the transepts--that isabove the very spot where, on the Cross, the breast of Christ would lie, a lantern higher than the rest of the roof, often finishing outside in atall and slender spire, starting as it were from the Heart of Christ toleap with one spring to the Father, to soar as if shot up from the bowof the vaulting in a sharp dart to reach the sky. 

"The towers, like the buildings they overshadow, are almost alwaysplaced on a height that commands the town, and they shed around themlike seed into the soil of the soul, the swarming notes of their bells, reminding all Christians by this aerial proclamation, this bead-tellingof sound, of the prayers they are commanded to use and the duties theymust fulfil; nay, at need, they may atone before God for man's apathy bytestifying that at least they have not forgotten Him, beseeching Himwith uplifted arms and brazen tongues, taking the place as best they mayof so many human prayers, more vocal perhaps than they. "

"With its ship-like character, " said Durtal, who had thoughtfullyapproached the window, "this Cathedral strikes me as amazingly like amotionless vessel with spires for masts and the clouds for sails, spreador furled by the wind as the weather changes; it remains the eternalimage of Peter's boat which Jesus guided through the storm. "

"And likewise of Noah's Ark--the Ark outside which there is no safety, "added the Abbé. 

"Now consider the church in all its parts. Its roof is the symbol ofCharity, which covereth a multitude of sins; its slates or tiles are thesoldiers and knights who defend the sanctuary against the heathen, represented by the storm, its stones, all joined, are, according toSaint Nilus, emblematic of the union of souls, or, as the _Rationale_ ofDurand of Mende has it, of the multitude of the faithful; the strongerstones figuring the souls that are most advanced in the way ofperfection and hinder the weaker brethren, represented by the smallerstones, from slipping and falling. However, to Hugues de Saint Victor, amonk of the abbey of that name in the twelfth century, this collectionof stones is merely the mingled assembly of the clerks and the laity. 

"Again, these blocks of stone of various shapes are bound and heldtogether by mortar, of which Durand of Mende will tell you the meaning. 'Mortar, ' saith he, 'is compounded of lime and sand and water; lime isthe burning quality of charity, and it combines by the aid of water, which is the Spirit, with the sand, of the earth earthy. '

"Thus these united stones form the four walls of the church, whichPrudentius of Troyes tells us are the four evangelists; or, accordingto other interpreters, they represent in stone the cardinal virtues ofreligion: Justice, Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance, alreadyprefigured by the walls of the City of God in the Apocalypse. 

"Thus you see each part may be regarded as having more than one meaning, but all included in one general idea common to all. "

"And the windows?" asked Durtal. 

"I am coming to them; they are emblematic of our senses, which are to beclosed to the vanities of the world and open to the gifts of Heaven;they are also provided with glass, giving passage to the beams of thetrue Sun, which is God. But Dom Villette has most clearly set forththeir symbolical meaning: 'They are, ' says he, 'the Scriptures, whichreceive the glory of the sun and keep out the wind, the hail and thesnow, the images of false doctrine and heresies. '

"As to the buttresses, they symbolize the moral force that sustains usagainst temptation; they are likewise the hope which upholds the souland strengthens it; others see in them the image of the temporal powerswho are called upon to defend the power of the Church; and others again, regarding more especially the flying buttresses which resist the thrustof the span, say that they are imploring arms clinging to thesafe-keeping of the Ark in time of danger. 

"The principal entrance, the great portal of so many churches, such asthose of Vézelay, Paray-le-Monial and Saint German l'Auxerrois, inParis, was approached through a covered vestibule, often very deep andintentionally dark, called the Narthex. The baptismal pool was in thisporch. It was a place for probation and forgiveness, emblematical ofPurgatory, an ante-room to Heaven, where, before being permitted accessto the sanctuary, penitents and neophytes had their place. 

"Such, briefly, is the allegorical meaning of the parts. If we nowregard it again as a whole, we may observe that the cathedral, builtover a crypt symbolical of the contemplative life, and also of the tombin which Christ was laid, was naturally obliged to have its apse towardsthat point of the heavens where the sun rises at the equinox, so as toconvey, says the Bishop of Mende, that it is the Church's mission toshow moderation in its triumphs as in its reverses. All the liturgicalcommentators are agreed that the high altar must be placed at theeastern end, so that the worshippers, as they pray, may turn their eyestowards the cradle of the Faith; and this rule was held absolute, and sowell approved by God that He confirmed it by a miracle. The Bollandistsin fact have a legend that Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, seeing achurch that had been built on another axis, made it turn to the East bya push with his shoulder, thus placing it in its right position. 

"The church has generally three doors, in honour of the Holy Trinity;and the portal in the middle, called the Royal Porch, is divided by apier and a pillar surmounted by a statue of Our Lord, who says ofHimself in the Gospel, 'I am the door, ' or of the Virgin, if the Churchis consecrated to Her, or even of the patron Saint in whose name it isdedicated. The door, thus divided, typifies the two roads which man isfree to follow. Indeed, in most cathedrals this symbol is emphasized bya representation of the Last Judgment placed above the entrance. 

"This is the case in Paris, at Amiens, and at Bourges. At Chartres, onthe contrary, the Judgment of Souls is relegated, as at Reims, to thetympanum of the northern porch; but here it is to be seen in therose-window over the western portal, in contradiction to the systemusual in the Middle Ages of treating in the windows above the doors thesubject carved in the porch; thus presenting on the same side arepetition of the same symbols, in glass as seen from within, and instone without. "

"Good; but how then can you account, by the ternary rule so universallyadopted, for that marvellous cathedral at Bourges, where, instead ofthree porches and three aisles, we find five?"

"Nothing can be simpler--we cannot account for it. At most can wesuppose that the architect of Bourges intended by those five doors tofigure the five wounds of Christ. Even then we should be left to wonderwhy he placed all the wounds in a single line; for that church has notransept, no arms at the end of which the holes in the hands may besymbolized by doors, which is the usual course. "

"And the cathedral at Antwerp, which has two more aisles?"

"They no doubt typify the seven avenues, the seven gifts of theParaclete. This question of number leads me to speak of theologicalenumeration, a peculiar element which plays a part in the varied subjectof symbolism, " the Abbé went on. "The allegorical science of numbers isa very old one. Saint Isidor of Seville, and Saint Augustine studied it. Michelet, who talks nonsense as soon as he has to do with a cathedral, is hard on the mediæval architects for their belief in the meaning offigures. He accuses them of having observed mystic rules in thearrangement of certain parts of the buildings; of having, for instance, restricted the number of windows, or arranged pillars and bays inaccordance with some arithmetical combination. Not understanding thateach detail of a church had a meaning and was a symbol, he could notunderstand that it was important to calculate each, since its meaningmight be modified or even completely altered. Thus a pillar by itselfmay not necessarily typify an Apostle, but if there should be twelve, they evidently show the meaning attributed to them by the builder, sincethey recall the exact number of Christ's disciples. Sometimes, indeed, to prevent any mistake, the answer is supplied with the problem; as inan old church at Étampes, where I read, inscribed on the twelveRomanesque shafts, the names of the Apostles in relief, in thetraditional setting of a Greek cross. 

"At Chartres they had adopted a still better plan: statues of the twelveApostles were placed in front of the pillars of the nave: but theRevolution took offence at these figures, overthrew and destroyed them. 

"In considering the system of symbolism it is necessary to study thesignificance of numbers. The secrets of church building can only bediscerned by recognizing the mysterious idea of the unity of the figureI. , which is the image of God Himself. The suggestion of II. , whichfigures the two natures of the Son, the two dispensations, and, according to Saint Gregory the Great, the two-fold law of love of Godand man. Three is the number of the Persons of the Trinity, and of thetheological virtues. Four typifies the cardinal virtues, the fourGreater Prophets, the Gospels and the elements. Five is the number ofChrist's wounds, and of our senses, whose sins He expiated by acorresponding number of wounds. Six records the days devoted by God tothe creation, determines the number of the Commandments promulgated bythe Church, and, according to Saint Melito, symbolizes the perfection ofthe active life. Seven is the sacred number of the Mosaic law; it is thenumber of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, of the Sacraments, of the wordsof Jesus on the Cross, of the canonical hours, and of the successiveorders of priesthood. Eight, says Saint Ambrose, is the symbol ofregeneration, Saint Augustine says of the Resurrection, and it recallsthe idea of the eight Beatitudes. Nine is the number of the angelichierarchy, of the special gifts of the Spirit as enumerated by SaintPaul; and it was at the ninth hour that Christ died. Ten is the numberof laws given by Jehovah, the law of fear; but Saint Augustine explainsit otherwise, saying that it includes the knowledge of God, since it maybe decomposed into three, the symbol of a triune God, and seven, figuring the day of rest after the Creation. Eleven, the same saintexplains as an image of transgressing the law and an emblem of sin; andTwelve is the great mystic number, the tale of the patriarchs and theApostles, of the tribes, the minor prophets, the virtues, the fruits ofthe Holy Ghost, and the articles of faith embodied in the _Credo_. Andthis might be repeated to infinity. Hence it is quite evident that theartists of the Middle Ages added to the meaning they assigned to certaincreatures and certain things, that of quantity, supporting one by theother, emphasizing or moderating a suggestion by this added-means, working back sometimes on a former idea, and expressing this duplicationin a different form or concentrating it in the energetic conciseness ofa cipher. They thus produced a whole at once speaking to the eye and, atthe same time, giving synthetical expression to the complete text of adogma in a compact allegory. "

"But what hermetic concentration!" exclaimed Durtal. 

"Very true; these various meanings of persons and objects, resultingfrom numerical differences, are at first very puzzling. "

"And do you suppose that, on the whole, the height, breadth, and lengthof a cathedral reveal a specialized idea, a particular purpose on thepart of the architect?"

"Yes; but I must at once confess that the key to these religiouscalculations is lost. Those archæologists who have racked their brainsto find it have vainly added together the measurements of naves andclerestories; they have not yet succeeded in formulating the idea theyexpected to see emerge from the sums total. 

"In this matter we must confess ourselves ignorant. Besides, have notthe standards of measurement been different at different times? As withthe value of coins in the Middle Ages, we know nothing about them. So, in spite of some very interesting investigations carried out from thispoint of view by the Abbé Crosnier at the Priory of Saint Gilles, andthe Abbé Devoucoux at the Cathedral of Autun, I remain sceptical as totheir conclusions, which I regard as very ingenious, but far fromtrustworthy. 

"The method of numbers is to be seen in perfection only in the details, such as the pillars of which I spoke just now; it is no less evidentwhen we find the same number prevailing throughout the edifice, as forinstance at Paray-le-Monial, where all things are in threes. There thedesigner has not been content to reproduce the sacred number in thegeneral scheme of the structure; he has applied it in every part. Thechurch has, in fact, three aisles; each aisle has three compartments;each compartment is formed by three arches surmounted by three windows. In short, it is the principle of the Trinity, the primary Three, appliedto every part. "

"Well, but do you not think, Monsieur l'Abbé, that, apart from suchinstances of indisputable meaning, there are in such symbolism some veryfine-drawn and obscure similitudes?"

The Abbé smiled. 

"Do you know, " said he, "the theories of Honorius of Autun as to thesymbolism of the censer?"

"No. "

"Well, then, after having pointed out the natural and very properinterpretation that may be applied to this vessel, as representing theBody of Our Lord, while the incense signifies His Divinity, and the fireis the Holy Spirit within Him; and after having defined the variousinterpretations of the metal of which it is made--if of gold, it answersto the perfection of His Divinity; if of silver, to the matchlessexcellence of His Humility; if of copper, to the frailty of the flesh Heassumed for our salvation; if of iron, to the Resurrection of that Bodywhich conquered death--the scholiast comes to the chains. 

"And then, indeed, his elucidation becomes somewhat thin and fine-drawn. 

"If there are four chains, he says, they represent the four cardinalvirtues of the Lord, and the chain by which the cover is lifted from thevessel answers to the Soul of Christ quitting His Body. If, on the otherhand, there are but three chains, it is because the Person of theSaviour includes three elements: a human organism, a soul, and theGodhead of the Word. And Honorius adds: 'the ring through which thechains run represents the Infinite in which all these things areincluded. '"

"That is subtle, with a vengeance!"

"Less so than Durand de Mende when he speaks of the snuffers, " repliedthe Abbé; "after that, we will kick away that ladder. 

"The snuffers for trimming the lamps are, he asserts, 'the divine wordsoff which we cut the letter of the law, and by so doing reveal theSpirit which giveth light. ' And he adds, 'the pots in which the snuff isextinguished are the hearts of the faithful who observe the lawliterally. '"

"It is the very madness of Symbolism!" cried Durtal. 

"At least, it is a too curious excess of it; but if this interpretationof the snuffers is certainly grotesque, if even the theory of the censerseems beaten somewhat thin on the whole, you must admit that it isfascinating and exact so far as it is applied to the chain which liftsthe upper part of the vessel in a cloud of fragrance, and thussymbolizes the ascent of Our Lord into Heaven. 

"That certain exaggerations should creep in through this use of parableswas difficult to prevent; but, on the other hand, what marvels ofanalogy, and what purely mystical notions are revealed through themeanings given by the liturgy to certain objects used in the services. 

"To the tapers, for instance, when Pierre d'Esquilin explains thepurport of the three component parts: the wax, which is the spotlessBody of the Saviour born of a Virgin; the wick, which, enclosed in thewax, is His most Holy Soul hidden in the veil of the flesh; and thelight, which is emblematic of His Godhead. 

"Or, again, take the substances used by the Church in certainceremonies: water, wine, ashes, salt, oil, balsam, incense. Incense, besides representing the divinity of the Son, is likewise the symbol ofprayer, '_thus devotio orationis_' as it is described by Raban Maur, Archbishop of Mayence in the ninth century. I happen to remember also, _à propos_ of this resin and the censer in which it is burnt, a verse Iread long since in the 'Monastic Distinctions' of the anonymous Englishwriter of the thirteenth century, which sums up their signification moreneatly than I can:

 '_vas notatur, Mens pia; thure preces; igne supernus amor. _'

The vase is the spirit of piety; the incense, prayer; the fire, divinelove. 

"As to water, wine, ashes, and salt, they are used in compounding aprecious ointment used by the bishop when consecrating a church. Theyare mingled to sign the altar with the cross, and to sprinkle theaisles: the water and wine symbolize the two natures united in Our Lord;the salt is divine wisdom; the ashes are in memory of His Passion. 

"Balsam, as you know, is emblematical of virtue and good repute, and iscombined with oil, signifying peace and wisdom, to compose thesacramental ointment. 

"Think, too, " the priest went on, "of the pyx, in which thetransubstantiated elements are preserved, the consecrated oblations, andnote that in the Middle Ages these little cases were formed in thefigure of a dove and contained the Host in the very image of theParaclete and the Virgin; this was well done, but here is somethingbetter. The jewellers of the time carved ivory and gave these littleshrines the form of a tower. Is not the sentiment exquisite of our Lorddwelling in the heart of the Virgin, the Ivory Tower of the Canticles?Is not ivory indeed the most admirable material to serve as a sanctumfor the most pure white flesh of the Sacrament?"

"It is certainly mystical, and far more appropriate than the vessels ofevery form, the _ciboria_ of silver-gilt, of aluminum, of silver ofthese days. "

"And need I remind you that the liturgy assigns a meaning to eachvestment, each ornament of the Church, according to its use and form?

"Thus, for instance, the surplice and alb signify innocence; the cordthat serves as a girdle is an emblem of chastity and modesty; the amice, of purity of heart and body--the helmet of salvation mentioned by SaintPaul. The maniple, of good works, vigilance, and the tears and sweatpoured out by the priest to win and save souls; the stole, of obedience, the clothing on of immortality given to us in baptism; the dalmatic, ofjustice, of which we must give proof in our ministrations; the chasuble, of the unity of the faith, and also of the yoke of Christ. 

"But the rain has not ceased, and I must nevertheless be gone, for Ihave a penitent waiting for me, " exclaimed the Abbé, looking at hiswatch. "Will you come the day after to-morrow at about two o'clock? Wewill hope it may be fine enough to examine the outside of theCathedral. "

"And if it still rains?"

"Come all the same. But I must fly. "

He pressed Durtal's hand and was gone. 

CHAPTER VI. 

"Yes, I know when I confessed in her presence that I did not yet know ofwhich Saint I might write the history, Madame Bavoil--dear MadameBavoil, as the Abbé Gévresin calls her--exclaimed: 'The life of Jeannede Matel! Why not?'

"But it is a biography that is not easy to deal with or that can belightly handled, " said Durtal to himself, as he arranged the notes hehad collected by degrees as bearing on this Venerable woman. 

And he sat meditating. 

"What is quite unintelligible, " said he to himself, "is thedisproportion between the promises made to her by Jesus and the resultsachieved. Never, I really believe, have so many tribulations andhindrances, or so much ill-fortune attended the founding of a new Order. Jeanne spent her days on the high roads, running from one monastery toanother, and toil as she would to dig up the conventual soil, nothingwould grow. She could not even assume the habit of her Institution, orat any rate only a few minutes before her death, for, in order to travelwith greater ease all over France, she wore the livery of a world sheabominated, and to which she appealed in vain in the name of the Lord totake an interest in the formation of her cloister. Unhappy woman! Shewent to Court--as her confessor Father de Gibalin bears witness, whilehe testifies that he had never known a humbler soul--as others go to thestake. 

"And yet the Lord certainly commanded her to found this Order of theIncarnate Word. He sketched the scheme, laid down the rule, andprescribed the costume, explaining its symbolism, declaring that thewhite robe of its maidens would do honour to that with which He wasmockingly invested in Herod's palace; that their red cloak would keepin memory that which was cast over Him in the house of Pilate; thattheir crimson scapulary and girdle would preserve the remembrance of thestake and the cords dyed in His blood. And He seems to have mocked her. 

"He solemnly assured her that after sorrowful trials the seed she hadsown should bring forth an abundant harvest of nuns. He expressly toldher that she would rank as the sister of Saint Theresa and Saint Clare;those holy women appeared to ratify these promises by their presence, and when nothing would come of it, nothing would work, when, quite wornout, she burst into tears, the Lord calmly bade her be still and takepatience. 

"Meanwhile, she was living amid a howling storm of recrimination andthreats. The clergy persecute her, the Archbishop of Lyon, the Cardinalde Richelieu, aims only at hindering the completion of her abbeys on hislands; she cannot even manage her Sisterhood, since we find herwandering in search of a protector or an assistant; they are torn bydivisions, and their insubordination is such that at length she iscompelled to return in hot haste, and, with many tears, expel thecontumacious sisters from the cloister. 

"It really seems as though no sooner had she built up a monastic wallthan it split and fell; nothing would hold. In short, the Order of theIncarnate Word was born rickety and died a dwarf. It lingered in themidst of universal apathy, and survived till 1790, when it was buried. In 1811 one Abbé Denis revived it at Azérables in la Creuse, and sincethen it has struggled on for better for worse, scattered through aboutfifteen houses, one of these at Texas in the New World. 

"There is no doubt of it, " Durtal concluded; "we are far enough from thestrong sap which Saint Theresa and Saint Clare could infuse into thecentennial growth of their mighty trees!

"To say nothing of the fact that Jeanne de Matel, who has never beencanonized like her two sisters, and whose name remains unknown to mostCatholics, intended to found an order of men as well as women; she didnot succeed, and the attempts since made in our day by the Abbé Combalotto carry her plan into effect have been equally vain!

"Now, what is the reason? Is it because there are too many and variouscommunities in the Church? Why, new foundations are set on foot andflourish every day! Is it by reason of the poverty of the monasteries?Nay, for indigence is the great test of success, and experience showsthat God only blesses the most destitute convents and abandons theothers! Is it, then, the austerity of the rule? But this was very mild;it was that of Saint Augustine, which yields to every compromise, and atneed accepts every shade of practice. The sisters rose at five in themorning; the diet was not restricted to Lenten fare excepting at thePaschal season, but one fast day was enjoined in the week, and even thatwas compulsory only to the Sisters who were strong enough to bear it. Thus there is nothing to account for such persistent failure. 

"And Jeanne de Matel was a saint endowed with remarkable energy andreally moulded by the Saviour! In her writings she is an eloquent andsubtle theologian, an ardent and rapturous mystic, dealing in metaphorsand hyperbole, in tangible parallels, passionate questionings, andapostrophes; she resembles both Saint Denys the Areopagite and SaintMaddalena dei Pazzi; Saint Denys in matter, Saint Maddalena in manner. As a writer, no doubt she is not supreme, and the poverty of herborrowed style is sometimes painful; still, considering that she livedin the seventeenth century, she was at any rate not a mere scribbler ofvapid aspirations, like most of the prosy pietists of the time. 

"And her works have met with the same fate as her foundations. Theyremain for the most part unpublished. Hello, who was familiar with them, only extracted a very mediocre _cento_; some others, as Prince Galitzinand the Abbé Penaud, have explored her writings with better results andprinted some loftier and more impassioned passages. 

"And this Abbess wrote some of genuine inspiration. 

"Yes, but all this does not alter the fact that I do not see the book Icould write about her, " muttered Durtal. "In spite of my wish to beagreeable to dear Madame Bavoil, no--I have no inclination to undertakethe task. 

"All things considered, if I did not so heartily hate a move, if I hadenergy enough to go back to Holland, I would try to do honour in lovingand respectful terms to the worshipful Lidwina, who is of all thefemale saints one whose life I should best love to write; but merely toattempt to reconstruct the surroundings amid which she lived, I shouldhave to settle in the town where she dwelt, _Schiedam_. 

"If God grants me life, no doubt I shall one day do this; but the planis not yet ripe. Put that aside, then, and since on the other handJeanne de Matel does not captivate me, perhaps I had better think ofanother abbess even less known, and whose career was one of moretranquil endurance, less wandering and more concentrated, and at anyrate more attractive. 

"Besides, her life can now only be found in an octavo volume by ananonymous writer, whose incoherent chapters, in language as clogging asa linseed poultice, will for ever hinder the world from knowing her. Soit will be interesting to work it up and make it readable. "

As he turned over his papers he was thinking of one Mother VanValckenissen, in religion Mary Margaret of the Angels, foundress of thePriory of Carmelite Sisters at Oirschot in Dutch Brabant. 

This pious lady was the daughter of a noble house, born on the 26th ofMay, 1605, at Antwerp, during the wars which devastated Flanders, and atthe very time when Prince Maurice of Nassau was besieging the town. Assoon as she could read, her parents sent her to school in a convent ofDominican nuns near Brussels. Her father dying, her mother removed herfrom that convent and placed her with the White Ursulines of Louvain;then she too died, and at fifteen the girl was an orphan. 

Her guardian again removed her to the House of the Carmelite Sisters atMechlin; but the struggle between the Spaniards and the Flemings cameclose to the district watered by the Dyle, and Marie Marguerite was oncemore taken from her convent to find refuge with the canonesses ofNivelles. Thus her whole childhood was spent in rushing from one conventto another. 

She was happy in these retreats, especially with the Carmelites, adopting the hair shirt and submitting to the severest discipline; butnow, on coming forth from the most rigid cloistered life, she foundherself in the midst of a gay world. This Chapter of Canonesses, whichought to have inculcated the mystic life, was one of those hybridinstitutions not altogether white nor quite black, a cross betweenprofane piety and pious laity. This Chapter, filled up exclusively fromthe ranks of rich and high-born women, while the Abbess, nominated bythe Sovereign, assumed the title of Princess of Nivelles, led a devoutand frivolous life, passing strange. Not only might these semi-nuns goout walking whenever they thought fit, they had a right to live at homefor a certain part of their time, and might even marry after obtainingthe consent of the Abbess. 

In the morning those who chose to reside in the Abbey put on a monastichabit during the services; then their religious duties ended; theydoffed the convent livery, dressed in splendid attire, the hoops andbows and farthingales and ruffs that were then the fashion, and sat inthe parlour where visitors poured in. 

The unhappy Marie loathed the dissipation of a life which hindered herfrom ever being alone with her God. Bewildered by the gossip and ashamedof wearing clothes that were offensive to her, compelled to steal awaybefore daylight, disguised as a waiting-woman, to pray in a desertedchurch far from all this turmoil, she at last pined away with sorrow, and was dying of grief at Nivelles. 

At this juncture a certain Father Bernard de Montgaillard, Abbot ofOrval, of the Cistercian Order, came to the town. She flew to him, andbesought him to rescue her; and this monk, enlightened by a truly divinespirit, understood that she was born to be a victim of expiation, toatone for the insults offered to the Holy Eucharist in churches. He gaveher comfort, and announced to her her vocation as a Carmelite. She setout for Antwerp to visit the Mother Anne de Saint Barthélemy, a saintlywoman, who, warned of her coming by a vision of Saint Theresa, consentedto receive her into the Carmel of which she was the Superior. 

Then obstacles arose, the work of the Devil. Having returned to herguardian, pending her reception at the convent, she suddenly fellparalyzed, losing all at once her hearing, speech, and sight. Shenevertheless succeeded in making it understood that they were to carryher, as she was, to the convent, where she was left half dead. There shefell at the feet of Mother Anne, who blessed her, and raised her upcured. 

Then her novitiate began. 

In spite of her delicate frame, she endured the most terrible fasts, themost violent scourging; she bound her body in chains with points on thelinks, fed on the parings thrown out on plates, drank dirty water toquench her thirst, and was so cold one winter that her legs froze. 

Her body was one wound, but her soul was glorious; she lived in God, wholoaded her with mercies and communed with her sweetly; her probation wasnear its end, and again, just when she became a postulant, she felldangerously sick. There were doubts as to her being admitted to theOrder, and again Saint Theresa intervened and commanded the Abbess toreceive her. 

She took the habit, and then fell a prey to the temptation of despair, which has assailed some Saints; after this came a sense of dryness anddesertion, which lasted for three years. She held out; she endured allthe tortures of the Mystical Substitution, bearing the most painful andrepulsive diseases to save souls. The Lord vouchsafed at last tointermit the penitential task of suffering. He allowed her to breathe, and the Devil took advantage of this lull to come upon the scene. 

He appeared to her under the most hostile and monstrous form, breakingeverything, and vanishing in a trail of pestilential vapours. Meanwhilea good man, one Sylvester Lindermans, had determined to found a Carmelon an estate he possessed at Oirschot, in Holland. As is ever the casewhen a convent is to be established, tribulations abounded. It seemed, in fact, that the time was ill-chosen for transferring the Sisters to atown in arms against the Catholics, across a country infested by bandsof armed Protestants. When the Mother Superior selected Marie Margueriteto go forth and found this new House, she entreated to be left to prayin peace in her little nook; but Jesus interposed; commanding her todepart. She obeyed; exhausted, sick, and worn out, she dragged herselfalong the roads, and at last arrived, with the Sisters accompanying her, at Oirschot, where she organized the Convent as best she might in ahouse which had never been intended to serve as a nunnery. 

She was made Vicar-Prioress, and at once revealed a marvellous power ofinfluencing souls. Living the austere life of a Carmelite, which sheaggravated for herself by fearful mortifications, she was alwaystolerant to others, and although she was known to murmur, so great wereher bodily sufferings, "Till the Day of Judgment, none can ever knowwhat I endure!" she was always gay, and preached cheerfulness to herdaughters in these words: "It is all very well for those who sin to besad; but we ought to have twice as much joy as the angels, since we, like them, fulfil the will of God, and we, in addition, can suffer forHis glory, which they can never do. "

She was the most indulgent and considerate of Abbesses. For fear ofgiving offence to her flock by exerting her authority, she never gave anorder in an imperative form; never said, "Do this or that, " but only, "Let us do it. " And if at any time she found herself obliged to punish anun in the refectory, she would forthwith kiss the feet of the others, and entreat them to buffet her to humble her. 

But it would have been too perfect if she and the angelic flock overwhich she ruled could have lived the inward life in peace, and sunktheir soul in God. The Curé of Oirschot hated her, and, why no one knew, he defamed her throughout the town. The Devil too, on his part, returnedto the charge; he appeared, in the midst of an uproar that shook thewalls and made the roof tremble, in the form of an Ethiopian giant, blewout all the lights, and tried to strangle the nuns. Most of them almostdied of fear; but in compensation for their sufferings Heaven grantedthem the comfort of incessant miracles. 

The Mother enabled them to prove in her person the authenticity of theincredible tales they had read during meals, of the Lives of the Saints. She had the gift of bilocation, appearing in several places at the sametime, shedding a trail of delicious fragrance wherever she passed, curing the sick by the Sign of the Cross, scenting out and discerninghidden sins as a hunting dog puts up game, and reading souls. 

And her daughters adored her, wept to see her lead a life which now wasone long torment. As a result of the intense cold, she became a victimto acute rheumatism; for the Rule of Saint Theresa, which prohibits thelighting of a fire anywhere but in the kitchens, if it is endurable inSpain, is simply murderous in the frozen climate of Flanders. 

"After all, " said Durtal to himself, "this life so far is not veryunlike that experienced by many another cloistered nun; but towards theapproach of death the amazing beauty of this spirit was revealed in sospecial a manner, and in wishes so remarkable, that it remains unique inthe records of the Monastic Houses. "

Her health grew worse and worse. Added to the rheumatism, which crippledher, she had pains in the stomach, which nothing could relieve. Sciaticawas presently engrafted on this flourishing stock of torments, anddropsy, a common disease in cloisters of austere rule, supervened. 

Her legs swelled and refused to carry her; she lay helpless on her bed. The Sisters who nursed her now discovered a secret which she had alwayskept, out of humility; they perceived that her hands were pierced withred holes surrounded by a blue halo, and that her feet, also pierced, lay of their own accord, unless they were held down, one above theother, in the position of Christ's feet on the cross. At last sheconfessed that many years before Jesus had marked her with the stigmataof the Passion, and that the wounds burnt night and day like red hotiron. 

Her sufferings constantly increased. Feeling that this time she wasdying, she grieved over the pitiless macerations she had used, and withtouching artlessness begged forgiveness of her poor body for havingexhausted its strength, and so having perhaps hindered it from living tosuffer longer. 

And she then put up the most strangely fragrant, the most wildlyextravagant prayer that ever a Saint can have addressed to God. 

She had so loved the Holy Eucharist, she had so longed to kneel at Hisfeet and atone for the outrages inflicted on Him by the sins of mankind, that she waxed faint at the thought that after her death what wouldremain of her could no longer worship Him. 

The idea that her body would rot in uselessness, that the last handfulsof her miserable flesh would decay without having served to honour theSaviour, broke her heart; and then it was that she besought Him tosuffer her to melt away, to liquefy into an oil which might be burntbefore the tabernacle in the lamp of the sanctuary. 

And Jesus vouchsafed to her this excessive privilege, such as the likeis unknown in the history of the Saints; and at the moment when she diedshe enjoined her daughters to leave her body exposed in the chapel, andunburied for some weeks. 

On this point there is abundant authentic evidence. More or less minuteinquiries were made, and the reports of medical experts are so precisethat we can follow from day to day the state of the corpse until it hadturned to oil and could be preserved in phials, from which, by herdesire, a spoonful was poured every morning to feed the wick of a lamphanging near the altar. 

When she died--then aged fifty-two, having lived as a nun forthirty-three years, and fourteen as Superior of Oirschot--her face wastransfigured, and in spite of the cold of a winter when the Scheldtcould be crossed in a carriage, her body remained soft and pliable; butit swelled. Surgeons examined it and opened it in the presence ofwitnesses. They expected to find the stomach filled with water, butscarcely half a pint was removed, and the body did not collapse. 

This autopsy led to the incomprehensible discovery in the gall-bladderof three nails with black heads, angular and polished, of an unknownmetal; two weighed as much as half a French gold crown, within sevengrains; the third, which was as large as a nutmeg, weighed five grainsmore. 

The operators then filled up the intestines with tow soaked in wormwood, and sewed the body up again with a needle and thread. And during andafter these proceedings not only did the dead nun give out no smell ofputrefaction, but, as in her lifetime, she diffused an ineffable andexquisite perfume. 

Nearly three weeks elapsed; boils formed and broke, giving out blood andwater for more than a month; then the skin showed patches of yellow;exudation ceased and oil came out, at first white, limpid, and fragrant, afterwards darker and of about the colour of amber. It filled more thana hundred phials, each containing two ounces, several of them beingstill preserved in the Carmels of Belgium; and her remains when buriedwere not decomposed, but had assumed the golden brown colour of a date. 

"A book might really be written on the life of this admirable woman, "thought Durtal. "And then what a group of wonderful nuns were thoseabout her! The convents of Antwerp, Mechlin, and Oirschot swarmed withsaintly nuns. In the time of Charles V. The Order of Carmelites renewedin Flanders the mystical prodigies which, four centuries before, in theMiddle Ages, the Dominicans had accomplished in the Monastery ofUnterlinden at Colmar. 

"How such women as these carry one away and throw one, as it were! Whatstrength of soul we see in this Marie Marguerite! What grace must havesustained her, that she could thus shed all the natural frenzy of thesenses, and endure so cheerfully and bravely the most overwhelmingsufferings!

"Well, now, shall I harness myself to a history of this venerableAbbess? But then I must procure the volume by Joseph de Loignac, herfirst biographer, the notice by the Recluse of Marlaigne, the pamphletby Monseigneur de Ram, the narrative by Papebröch; above all I must haveat hand the translation, made by the Carmelites of Louvain, of theFlemish manuscript written while the Mother was still alive, by herdaughters. Where can I unearth that? In any case the search must be along one. No, I must set aside that scheme, which for the present isimpracticable. 

"What I ought to do I know very well; I ought to put the article intoshape on Angelico's picture in the Louvre. I promised the paper at leastfour months ago to the magazine which clamours for it every morning byletter. It is disgraceful! Since I left Paris I have ceased to work; andI have no excuse, for the subject interests me, since it affords me anopportunity for studying the complete system of the symbolism of colourin the Middle Ages. 'The Early Painters, and Prayer in Colour as seen intheir Works. ' What a subject for thought! However, that is not theimmediate matter. I must not sit dreaming, but go to join the AbbéPlomb; and the weather is clouding over again! I certainly have noluck. "

As he crossed the square he was lost again in meditations, captivatedonce more by the haunting thought of the Cathedral, and saying tohimself as he looked up at the spires, --

"How many varieties there are in the immense family of the Gothic; andwhat dissimilarities. No two churches are alike. "

The towers and belfries of those he knew rose before him as in thosediagrams on which, irrespective of distance, the buildings are placedall close together at the same point of view to show their relativeheight. 

"It is quite true, " thought he, "the towers vary like the basilicas. Those of Notre Dame de Paris are thick-set and gloomy, almostelephantine; cleft almost from top to bottom by deep bays, they seem tomount slowly and with difficulty, and stop short, crushed as it were bythe burden of sins, dragged down to earth by the wickedness of the city;we feel the effort with which they rise, and we are saddened as wecontemplate those captive masses, all the more depressing by reason ofthe dismal hue of the louvre-boards. At Reims, on the contrary, they areopen from top to bottom, pierced as with needles' eyes, long narrowwindows of which the opening seems filled with a herring-bone ofenormous size, or a gigantic comb with teeth on each side. They springinto the air, as light as filigree; and the sky gets into the mouldings, plays between the mullions, peeps through the tracery and theinnumerable lancets, in strips of blue, is focussed and reflected in thelittle carved trefoils above. These towers are mighty, expansive, immense, and yet light. They are as speaking, as much alive, as those inParis are stern and mute. 

"At Laon they are more especially strange. With their light columns, here thrust forward and there standing back, they suggest a series ofshelves piled up in a hurry, crowned merely by a platform, over whichlowing oxen look down. 

"The two towers at Amiens, built, like those of the Cathedrals at Rouenand at Bourges, at different periods, do not match. They are ofdifferent heights, lame against the sky; another that is reallymagnificent in its solitude, and putting to shame the mediocrity of thetwo belfries lately erected on each side of the west front, is theNorman tower of Saint Ouen, its summit encircled by a crown. This is thepatrician tower among so many that preserve a peasant air, with bareheads, or coifs made narrow and square at the top, sloped somewhat likethe mouthpiece of a whistle, such as that of Saint Romain at Rouen, orrustic, pointed caps like that worn by the church of Saint Bénigne atDijon, or the queer sort of awning which shades the Cathedral of SaintJean at Lyon. 

"And in any case a tower without a tapering spire never soars to heaven. It always rises heavily, pants on the way, and falls asleep exhausted. It is, as it were, an arm without a hand, a wrist without palm andfingers, a stump; or, again, a pencil uncut, having no point wherewithto write up beyond the clouds the prayers from below; in short, it isfor ever inert. 

"We must turn to the steeple, to the stone spire, to find the truesymbol of prayers shot up to pierce the sky and reach the Heart of theFather, which is their target. 

"And in this family of arrows what a variety we see; no two darts arealike!

"Some are set in a collar of turrets at their base, held in a circle ofpinnacles, like the points of a Magian king's diadem; this we see in thebell-tower of Senlis. 

"Others seem to have about them the children born in their image, littlespires, all round them; some are covered with bosses, knobs, andblisters; others pierced like colanders and strainers, in patterns oftrefoils and quaterfoils that seem to have been punched out; here wefind some that are covered with ornament, with teeth like a rasp, ridgesof notches, or bristling with spines; others are imbricated with scaleslike a fish, as we see in the older spire at Chartres; and others again, like that at Caudebec, display the emblem of the Roman Church, thetriple crown of the Pope. 

"Out of this general outline, which was almost forced upon them, andwhich they hardly ever tried to avoid, this pyramid or pepper-caster, jelly-bag or extinguisher, the architects of the Middle Ages evolved themost ingenious combinations and varied their designs to infinity. 

"How mysterious for the most part is the origin of our cathedrals! Mostof the artists who built them are unknown; nay, the age of the stones israrely a matter of certainty, for the greater part of them have beenwrought upon by the alluvium of ages. 

"They almost all cover intervals of two, three, or four centuries each;they extend from the beginning, of the thirteenth century till the firstyears of the sixteenth. 

"And on reflection that is very intelligible. 

"It has been accurately remarked that the thirteenth century was thegreat period of cathedral-building. It gave birth to almost every one ofthem; and then, being created, their growth was checked for nearly twohundred years. 

"The fourteenth century was torn by frightful disasters. It began withthe ignoble quarrels between Philippe le Bel and the Pope; it saw thestake lighted for the Templars, made bonfires in Languedoc of the_Bégards_ and the _Fraticelli_, the lepers and the Jews; wallowed inblood under the defeats of Crécy and Poitiers, the furious excesses ofthe Jacquerie and of the Maillotins, and the ravages of the brigandsknown as the _Tard-venus_; and finally, having run so wild, its madnesswas reflected in the incurable insanity of the king. 

"Thus it ended, as it had begun, writhing in the most horrible religiousconvulsions. The Tiaras of Rome and Avignon clashed, and the Church, standing unsupported on these ruins, tottered on its base, for the GreatWestern Schism now shook it. 

"The fifteenth century seemed to be born mad. Charles VI. 's insanityseemed to be infectious; the English invasion was followed by thepillage of France, the frenzied contest of the Bourguignons and theArmagnacs, by plagues and famines, and the overthrow at Agincourt; thencame Charles VII. , Joan of Arc, the deliverance and the healing of theland by the energetic treatment of King Louis XI. 

"All these events hindered the progress of the works in cathedrals. 

"The fourteenth century on the whole restricted itself to carrying onthe structures begun during the previous century. We must wait till theend of the fifteenth, when France drew breath, to see architecture startinto life once more. 

"It must be added that frequent conflagrations at various timesdestroyed a whole church, and that it had to be rebuilt from thefoundations; others, like Beauvais, fell down, and had to bereconstructed, or, if money was lacking, simply strengthened and thegaps repaired. 

"With the exception of a very few--Saint Ouen at Rouen for one, a rareexample of a church almost entirely built during the fourteenth century(excepting the western towers and front, which are quite modern), andthe Cathedral at Reims for another, which appears to have beenconstructed without much interruption, on the original plans of HuguesLibergier or Robert de Coucy--not one of our cathedrals was erectedthroughout in accordance with the designs of the architect who began it, nor has one remained untouched. 

"Most of them, consequently, represent the combined efforts ofsuccessive pious generations; still, this apparently improbable fact istrue: until the dawn of the Renaissance the genius of successivebuilders was singularly well matched. If they made any alterations intheir predecessors' plans, they were able to introduce some touch ofindividuality, inventions of exquisite beauty that did not clash withthe whole. They engrafted their genius on that of their first masters;there was the perpetuated tradition of an admirable conception, aperennial breath of the Holy Spirit. It was the interloper, the periodof false and farcical Pagan art, that extinguished that pure flame, andannihilated the luminous truthfulness of the Mediæval past, when God haddwelt intimately, at home, in souls; it substituted a merely earthlyform of art for one that was divine. 

"As soon as the sensuality of the Renaissance revealed itself, theParaclete fled; the mortal sin of stone could display itself at will. Itcontaminated the buildings that were finished, defiled the churches, debasing their purity of form; this, with the gross license of sculptureand painting, was the great stupration of the cathedrals. 

"And this time the Spirit of Prayer was quite dead; everything went topieces. The Renaissance, so lauded afterwards by Michelet and thehistorians, was the death of the Mystical soul of monumental theology, of religious art--all the great art of France. 

"Bless me! where am I?" Durtal suddenly asked himself, finding himselfin the ill-paved alleys which lead from the Cathedral square to thelower town. He saw that, dreaming as he walked, he had passed the Abbé'slodgings. 

He turned up the street again, stopped in front of an old house andrang. A brass wicket was opened and closed, and a housekeeper, shufflingup in old shoes, half opened the door. Durtal was met by the Abbé Plomb, who was watching for him, and who led him into a room full of statues;there were carved images in every spot--on the chimney-shelf, on achest of drawers, on a side table, and in the middle of the room. 

"Do not look at them, " said the Abbé, "do not heed them; I have no partin the selection of this horrible bazaar. I have to endure it in spiteof myself; these are offerings from my penitents. "

Durtal laughed, though somewhat scared by the extraordinary specimens ofreligious art that crowded the room. 

There was every kind of work: black frames with brass flats, and in themengravings of Virgins by Bouguereau and Signol, Guido's _Ecce Homo_, Pietàs, Saint Philomenas--and then the assembly of polychrome statues:Mary painted with the crude green of angelica and the acrid pinks ofEnglish pear-drops; Madonnas gazing in rapture at their own feet, withextended hands whence proceeded fans of yellow rays; Joan of Arcsquatting like a hen on her eggs, with eyes raised to heaven like whitemarbles, and pressing a standard to her bosom in its plaster cuirass;Saint Anthonys of Padua, clean and snug, as neat as two pins; SaintJosephs, not enough the carpenter and too little the Saint; Magdalensweeping silver pills; a whole mob of semi-divinities, best quality, ofthe class known as "The Munich Article" in the Rue Madame. 

"Oh, Monsieur l'Abbé, the donors are certainly terrible people--butcould you not, quite by accident, drop one of these objects every day--"

The priest gave a shrug of despair. 

"They would only bring me more, " cried he. "But if you are willing, wewill be off at once, for I am afraid of being caught here if I linger. "

And as they walked, talking of the Cathedral, Durtal exclaimed, --

"Is it not a monstrous thing that in the splendour of this Cathedral ofChartres it is impossible to hear any genuine plain-song? I am reducedto frequenting the sanctuary only at hours when there is no high servicegoing on. Above all I avoid being present at High Mass on Sundays; themusic that is tolerated infuriates me! Is there no way of having theorganist dismissed, and a clean sweep made of the precentor and theteachers in the choir-school, of packing off the basses with theirvinous voices to the taverns? Ugh! And the gassy effervescence thatrises from the thin pipes of the little boys! and the street tuneseructed in a hiccough, like the run of a lamp-chain when you pull it up, mingling with the noisy bellow of the basses! What a disgrace, what ashame! How is it that the Bishop, the priests, the Canons do notprohibit such treason?

"Monseigneur, I know, is old and ill; but those Canons!--They look soweary, to be sure! As I see them droning out the Psalms in their stalls, I wonder whether they know where they are and what they are doing; theyalways seem to me in a half unconscious state--"

"The high winds of la Beauce induce lethargy, " said the Abbé, laughing. "But allow me to assure you that though the Cathedral scorns Gregorianchants, here, at Chartres, at the little Seminary, at the church ofNotre Dame de la Brèche, and at the convent of the Sisters of SaintPaul, they are sung after the Use of Solesmes, so that you canalternately attend that church and those chapels and the Cathedral, since perfection is to be found in neither. "

"Of course. Still, is it not horrible to think that the Hottentot tasteof a few bawling old men can pursue the Virgin even in Her sanctuarywith such musical insults? Ah, there is the rain again, " said Durtalwith vexation, after a short silence. 

"Well, here we are. We can take shelter in the church, and study theinterior at our leisure. "

They knelt before the Black Virgin of the Pillar; then they sat down inthe deserted nave, and the Abbé said in an undertone, --

"I explained to you the other day the symbolism of the outside of thebuilding. Would you like me now to inform you in a few words as to theallegories set forth in the aisles?"

And on seeing Durtal agree by a nod, the priest went on, --

"You are, of course, aware that almost all our cathedrals are cruciform. In the primitive Church, it is true, you will find that some wereconstructed of a circular form and surmounted by a dome. But most ofthese were not built by our forefathers; they are ancient temples of theheathen adapted by the Catholics, with more or less alteration, to theirown use, or imitated from such temples before the Romanesque style wasrecognized. 

"We need then seek in these no liturgical meaning, since that form wasnot a Christian invention. At the same time Durand of Mende, in his_Rationale_, asserts that a building of rounded form symbolizes theextension of the Church over the whole circle of the universe. Othersexplain the dome as being the crown of the Crucified King, and thesmaller cupolas which occasionally support it as the huge heads of theNails. But we may set aside these explanations, which are but based onexisting facts, and study the cruciform plan shown here, as in othercathedrals, in the arrangement of the nave and transepts. 

"It may be noted that in a few churches, as, for instance, the abbeychurch of Cluny, the interior, instead of showing a Latin Cross, wasplanned on the lines of the Cross of Lorraine, two _crosslets_ beingadded to the arms. --Now, behold the whole scheme!" the priest said, witha gesture that comprehended the whole of the interior of the basilica ofChartres. 

"Jesus is dead; His head is at the altar; His outstretched arms are thetwo transepts; His pierced hands are the doors; His legs are the navewhere we are standing; His pierced feet are the door by which we havecome in. Now consider the systematic deviation of the axis of thebuilding; it imitates the attitude of a body bent over from the uprighttree of sacrifice, and in some cathedrals--for instance, at Reims--thenarrowness, the strangulation, so to speak, of the choir in proportionto the nave represents all the more closely the head and neck of a man, drooping over his shoulder when he has given up the ghost. 

"This twist in the church is to be seen almost everywhere--in Saint Ouenand in the Cathedral at Rouen, in Saint Jean at Poitiers, at Tours andat Reims. Sometimes, indeed--but this statement needs verification--thearchitect had substituted for the body of the Saviour that of the Saintin whose name the church was dedicated, and the curved axis of SaintSavin, for instance, has been supposed to represent the bend of thewheel which was the instrument of that Saint's martyrdom. 

"But all this is evidently familiar to you. 

"This is less well known: So far we have studied the image of Christmotionless, and dead, in our churches. I will now tell you of a singularinstance of a church which, instead of reproducing the attitude of theDivine Corpse, represents that of His still living Body, a church whichseems to have a suggestion of movement as if bending like Christ on theCross. 

"In fact it seems to be certain that some architects strove to representin the plan of their building the motion of the human frame, to imitatethe action of a drooping figure; in short, to give life to stones. 

"Such an attempt was made in the abbey church of Preuilly-sur-Claise inTouraine. The plan and photographs of this basilica are to be found inan interesting volume that I can lend you; the author, the AbbéPicardat, is the Curé of the church. You will from them readily perceivethat the curve of the plan is that of a body leaning on one side, drawnout and bending over. 

"And the movement of the body is represented by the curve of the axis, beginning at the very first bay and continued along the nave, the choir, and the apse to the end, which bends aside to imitate the droop of thehead. 

"Thus, even better than at Chartres, at Reims, and at Rouen, this humblesanctuary, built by Benedictine monks whose names are unknown, represents in its serpentine line, in the perspective of its aisles andthe obliquity of its vaulting, the allegorical presentment of our Lordon the Cross. In all other churches the architects have to some extentimitated the cadaverous rigidity of the head fallen in death; atPreuilly the monks have perpetuated the never-to-be-forgotten instantthat elapsed between the '_Sitio_' (I thirst) and the '_Consummatumest_' (It is finished), as recorded in the Gospel of Saint John. Thusthe old Touraine church is in the image of Christ Crucified, but stillliving. 

"Now, to look at home once more, we will consider the inward parts ofour sanctuaries. It may be noted incidentally that the length of thecathedral figures the long-suffering of the Church in adversity; itsbreadth symbolizes charity, which expands the souls of men; its height, the hope of future reward; and we can then proceed to details. 

"The choir and sanctuary symbolize Heaven; the nave is the emblem of theearth; as the gulf that divides the two worlds can only be passed by thehelp of the Cross, it was formerly the custom, now, alas, fallen intodesuetude, to erect an enormous Crucifix over the grand arch betweenthe nave and the choir. Hence the name of triumphal arch was given tothe vast space in front of the High altar. It may also be remarked thata railing or screen marks the limits of these two parts of thecathedral. Saint Gregory Nazianzen regards this as the border linetraced between the two parts--that of God, and that of man. 

"There is, however, a different explanation given by Richard de SaintVictor, as to the sanctuary, the choir, and the nave. According to him, the first symbolizes the Virgins, the second the chaste souls, and thethird the married hearts. As to the altar, or, as old liturgical writerscall it, the _Cancel_ (chancel), it is Christ Himself, the spot whereonHis Head rests, the Table of the Last Supper, the Stake whereon He shedHis blood, the Sepulchre that held His body; and again, it is theSpiritual Church, and its four angles the four corners of the earth overwhich it shall reign. 

"Now behind this altar we find the apse, assuming in most cathedrals theform of a semicircle. There are exceptions; to mention three: atPoitiers, at Laon, and in Notre Dame du Fort at Étampes the wall issquare, as in the ancient civic basilicas, and does not describe thesort of half-moon, of which the significance is one of the mostbeautiful inventions of symbolism. 

"This semicircular end, this apsidal shell, with the chapels thatsurround the choir, simulates the Crown of Thorns on the Head of Christ. Excepting in Sanctuaries which are wholly dedicated to Our Lady--thisone, Notre Dame de Paris, and some others--one of these chapels, that inthe centre and the largest, is dedicated to the Virgin, to show by theplace that it occupies at the end of the church that Mary is the lastrefuge of sinners. 

"She, in person, is again symbolized by the Sacristy, whence the priestcomes forth as Christ's representative after putting on his sacerdotalvestments, as Jesus came forth from His Mother's womb after clothingHimself in flesh. 

"It must constantly be repeated; every part of a church and everymaterial object used in divine worship is representative of sometheological truth. In the script of architecture everything is areminiscence, an echo, a reflection, and every part is connected to forma whole. 

"For instance, the altar, which is the Image of Our Lord, must bedraped with white linen in memory of the winding-sheet in which Josephof Arimathea wrapped His body--and that linen must be woven of purethread, of hemp or flax. The chalice, which according to the textsadduced by the _Spicilegium_ of Solesmes, is to be taken now as a symbolof glory, and now as a sign of opprobrium, may be regarded, by the mostgenerally received theory, as the figure of the sacred Tomb; then thepaten appears as the stone which served to close it, while the corporalis the shroud itself. 

"When I tell you further, " added the Abbé, "that according to SaintNilus, the columns signify the divine dogmas, or, according to Durand ofMende, the Bishops and the Doctors of the Church, that the capitals arethe words of Scripture, that the pavement of the church is thefoundation of faith and humility, that the ambos and rood-loft, almosteverywhere destroyed, figure the pulpit of the gospel, the mountain onwhich Christ preached; again, that the seven lamps burning before thealtar are the seven gifts of the Spirit, that the steps to the altar arethe steps to perfection; that the alternating choirs represent on theone side the angels, and on the other the righteous, combining to dohomage with their voices to the glory of the Most High, I have prettywell explained to you the general meaning and detailed symbolism of theinterior of the cathedral, and more particularly that of Chartres. 

"Now you must observe a peculiarity which is also to be seen in theCathedral at Le Mans; the side aisles of the nave in which we aresitting are single, but they are double round the choir--"

But Durtal was not listening; far away from this architectural exegesis, he was admiring the amazing structure without even trying to analyze it. 

Wrapped in the mystery of its own shadow thick with the haze of rain, itsoared up lighter and lighter as it rose in the skyey whiteness of itsarcades, aspiring like a soul purifying itself with increasing light asit toils up the ways of the mystic life. 

The clustered columns sprang in slender sheaves, their groups so lightthat they looked as if they might bend at a breath; yet it was not tillthey had reached a giddy height that these stems curved over, flyingfrom one side of the Cathedral to the other to meet above the void, mingling their sap and blossoming at last, like a basket of flowers, inthe once gilt pendants from the roof. 

This church appeared as a supreme effort of matter striving forlightness, rejecting, as though it were a burden, the diminished weightof its walls and substituting a less ponderous and more lucent matter, replacing the opacity of stone by the diaphanous texture of glass. 

It grew more spiritual--wholly spiritual, purely prayer, as it sprangtowards the Lord to meet Him; light and slender, as it wereimponderable, it remained the most glorious expression of Beautyescaping from its earthly dross, Beauty become seraphic. 

It was as slender and colourless as Roger Van der Weyden's Virgins, whoare so fragile, so ethereal, that they might blow away were they notheld down to earth by the weight of their brocades and trains. Here wasthe same mystical conception of a long-drawn body and an ardent soul, which, unable to free itself completely from that body, strove to purifyit by reducing it, refining it, almost distilling it to a fluid. 

The building bewildered him with the giddy flight of its vault, thedazzling splendour of its windows. The weather was gloomy, and yet afurnace of gems flamed in the lancets of the windows and the blazingwheels of the roses. 

Up there, high in air, as they might be salamanders, human beings withfaces ablaze and robes on fire dwelt in a firmament of glory; but theseconflagrations were enclosed and limited by an incombustible frame ofdarker glass which set off the youthful and radiant joy of the flames bythe contrast of melancholy, the suggestion of the more serious and agedaspect presented by gloomy colouring. The bugle cry of red, the limpidconfidence of white, the repeated Hallelujahs of yellow, the virginalglory of blue, all the quivering crucible of glass was dimmed as it gotnearer to this border dyed with rusty red, the tawny hues of sauces, theharsh purples of sandstone, bottle-green, tinder-brown, fuliginousblacks, and ashy greys. 

As at Bourges, where the glass is of the same period, Oriental influencewas visible in these windows at Chartres. Not only had the figures thehieratic appearance, the sumptuous and barbarous dignity of Asiaticpersonages, but the borders, in their design and the arrangement oftheir colours, were an evident reminiscence of the Persian carpets whichundoubtedly served as models to the painters; since it is known from the_Livre des Métiers_ that in the thirteenth century hangings copied fromthose which the Crusaders brought from the Levant were manufactured inFrance, and in Paris itself. 

But, apart from the question of subjects or borders, the various coloursof these pictures were, so to speak, but an accessory crowd, handmaidenswhose part it was to set off another colour, namely blue--a glorious, indescribable blue, a vivid sapphire hue of excessive transparency, palebut piercing and sparkling throughout, glittering like the broken glassof a kaleidoscope--in the top-lights, in the roses of the transepts, andin the great west window, where it burned like the blue flame ofsulphur, among the lead-lines and black iron bars. 

Taken for all in all, with the tones of its stone-work and its windows, Notre Dame de Chartres was fair with blue eyes. He personified Her as asort of white fairy, a tall and slender virgin, with large blue eyesunder lids of translucent rose. This was the Mother of a Christ of theNorth, the Christ of a Pre-Raphaelite Flemish painter. She sat enthronedin a Heaven of ultramarine, surrounded by these Oriental hangings ofglass--a pathetic reminder of the Crusades. 

And these transparent hangings were like flowers, redolent of sandal andpepper, fragrant with the subtle spices of the Magian kings; a perfumedflower-bed of hues culled at the cost of so much blood in the fields ofPalestine; and here offered by the West, under the cold sky of Chartres, to the Virgin Mother in remembrance of the sunny lands where She dweltand where Her Son chose to be born. 

"Where could you find a grander shrine or a more sublime dwelling forOur Mother?" said the Abbé as he pointed to the nave. 

This exclamation roused Durtal from his reflections, and he listened asthe priest went on, --

"Though this cathedral is unique as regards its width, in spite of itsenormous height it cannot compare with the extravagant elevation ofBourges, Amiens, and more especially of Beauvais, where the vault of theroof rises to forty-eight metres from the ground. That cathedral, it istrue, was bent on outstripping its sisters. 

"Springing into the air at one flight, when it reached the upper spacesit tottered and fell. You know the portions which survived the wreck ofthat mad attempt?"

"Yes, Monsieur l'Abbé; and that sanctuary and that apse, so narrow andrestricted, with columns so close together, and the iridescent light, like filmy soap bubbles, from walls which seem made of glass, disturband bewilder you; on first entering it gives the impression ofindescribable uneasiness, a sort of anxious and distressed anticipation. And in truth it is neither quite healthy nor sound; it seems only tolive by dint of aids and expedients; it struggles to be free and is not;it is long drawn and not ethereal; it has--how shall I expressit?--large bones. You remember the pillars? They are like the smoothmuscular trunks of beech trees, which have also the angular edges ofreeds. How different from the harp-strings which form the aerialskeleton of Chartres! No, in spite of all, Beauvais, like Reims, andlike Paris, is a fleshy cathedral; it has not the elegant leanness, theperennial youthfulness of form, the Patrician stamp of Amiens, and moreespecially of Chartres!

"And have you not been struck, Monsieur l'Abbé, by the way in which thegenius of man has constantly borrowed from Nature in the construction ofhis basilicas? It is almost certain that the arcades of the forest werethe starting-point for the mystic avenues of our aisles. And again, lookat the pillars. I was speaking of those at Beauvais as suggesting thebeech and the reed; if you think of the columns at Laon, they have nodesall up their stems, resembling the regular swelling of bamboos, to thepoint of imitation. Note also the stone flora of the capitals and thependants of the vault, terminating the long ribs of the arches. Here theanimal kingdom seems to have inspired the architect. Might we notconceive of a fabulous spider, of which the key-stone is the body andthe ribs stretching under the vaults are the legs? The image is soaccurate as to be irresistible. And then what a marvel is the giganticArachne, wrought like a jewel and heightened with gold, which might havespun the web of those three flaming rose windows!"

"By the way, " said the Abbé, when they had left the church and werewalking down the street, "I forgot to point out to you the Number whichis everywhere stamped on Chartres; it is identical with Paray-le-Monial. Here, again, everything is in threes. Thus there are three aisles, andthree entrances each with three doors; if you count the pillars of thenave, you will count twice three on each side. The transept aisles againhave each three bays and three pillars, the windows are in threes underthe three great roses. So, you see, Notre Dame is full of the Trinity. "

"And it is also the great store-house of Mediæval painting andsculpture. "

"Yes, and like other Gothic cathedrals, it is the completest and mosttrustworthy collection of symbolism; for the allegories we fancy we caninterpret in Romanesque churches are on the whole but artificial anddoubtful--and that is quite conceivable. The Romanesque is a convert, apagan turned monk. It was not born Catholic as the pointed arch was; itonly became so by baptism conferred by the Church. Christianitydiscovered it in the Roman _basilica_, and utilized while modifying it;thus its origin is pagan, and it was only as it grew up that it couldlearn the language and use the forms of our emblems. "

"And yet, to me, as a whole, it seems to be a symbol, for it is theimage in stone of the Old Testament, a figure of contrition and fear. "

"And yet more of the soul's peace, " replied the Abbé. "Believe me, really to understand that style we must go back to the fountain-head, tothe earliest times of Monasticism, of which it is a perfect expression;back, in fact, to the Fathers of the Church, the monks of the Desert. 

"Now, what is the very special character of the mysticism of the East?It is the calmness of faith, love feeding on itself, ecstasy withoutdisplay, ardent but reserved, internal. 

"In the books of the Egyptian Recluses you will never find the vehemenceof a Maddalena de' Pazzi or a Catherine of Siena, the passionateejaculations of a Saint Angela. Nothing of the kind, no amorousaddresses, no trepidations, no laments. They look upon the Redeemer lessas the Victim to be wept over than as the Mediator, the Friend, theElder Brother. To them He was, to quote Origen's words, 'The Bridgebetween us and the Father. '

"These tendencies, transplanted from Africa to Europe, were preserved bythe first monks of the West, who followed the example of theirpredecessors, and modified and built their churches on the same pattern. 

"That repentance, contrition, and awe dwell under these dark vaults, among these heavy pillars, in this fortress, as it were, where the electshut themselves in to resist the assaults of the world, is quitecertain--but this mystical Romanseque also suggests the notion of asturdy faith, of manly patience, and stalwart piety--like its walls. 

"It has not the flaming raptures of the mystical Gothic, which findsutterance in all these soaring shafts of stone; the Romanesque livesself-centred, in reserved fervour, brooding in the depths of the soul. It may be summed up in this saying of Saint Isaac's: _In mansuetudine etin tranquillitate, simplifica animam tuam_. '"

"You will confess, Monsieur l'Abbé, that you have a weakness for thestyle. "

"Perhaps I have, in so far as that it is less petted, more humble, lessfeminine, and more claustral than the Gothic. "

"On the whole, " the priest concluded, as he shook hands with Durtal athis own door, "it is the symbol of the inner life, the image of themonastic life; in a word, the true architecture of the cloister. "

"On condition, nevertheless, " said Durtal to himself, "that it is notlike that of Notre Dame de Poitiers, where the interior is gaudy withchildish colouring and raw tones; for there, instead of expressingregret and tranquillity, it rouses a suggestion of the childish glee ofan old savage in his second childhood, who laughs when his tattoo marksare renewed, and his skin rough-cast with crude ochres. "

CHAPTER VII. 

"How many worshippers can the Cathedral contain? Well, nearly 18, 000, "said the Abbé Plomb. "But I need hardly tell you, I suppose, that it isnever full; that even during the season for pilgrimages the vast crowdsof Mediæval times never assemble here. Ah, no! Chartres is not exactlywhat you would call a pious town!"

"It strikes me as indifferent to religion, to say the least, if notactually hostile, " said the Abbé Gévresin. 

"The citizen of Chartres is money-getting, apathetic, and salacious, "replied the Abbé Plomb. "Above all, greedy of money, for the passion forlucre is fierce here, under an inert surface. Really, from my ownexperience, I pity the young priest who is sent as a beginner toevangelize la Beauce. 

"He arrives full of illusions, dreaming of Apostolic triumphs, burningto devote himself--and he drops into silence and the void. If he werebut persecuted he would feel himself alive; but he is met, not withabuse, but with a smile, which is far worse; and at once he becomesaware of the futility of all he can do, of the aimlessness of hisefforts, and he is discouraged. 

"The clergy here are, it may be said, admirable, composed of good andsaintly priests; but they vegetate, torpid with inaction; they neitherread nor work; their joints become ankylose; they die of weariness inthis provincial spot. "

"You do not!" exclaimed Durtal, laughing; "for you make work. Did younot tell me that you especially devote yourself to ladies who can stillcondescend to take an interest in Our Lord in this town?"

"Your satire is scathing, " replied the Abbé. "I can assure you that if Ihad serving-women and the peasant girls to deal with, I should notcomplain; for in simple souls there are qualities and virtues and aresponsive spring, but not in the commercial or the richer classes! Youcannot imagine what those women are. If only they attend Mass on Sundayand perform their Easter duties they think they may do anything andeverything; and thenceforth their one idea is not so much to avoidoffending the Saviour as to disarm Him by mean subterfuges. They speakill of their neighbour, injuring him cruelly, refusing him all help andpity, and they make excuses for themselves as though these were merevenial faults; but as to eating meat on a Friday! That is quite anotherthing; they are persuaded that this is the unpardonable sin. To themtheir stomach is the Holy Ghost; consequently, the great point is totack and veer round that particular sin, never to commit it, while onlyjust avoiding it, and not depriving themselves in the least. Whateloquence they will pour out on me to convince me of the penitentialquality of water-fowl. 

"During Lent they are possessed with the idea of giving dinners, andrack their brains to provide a lenten meal in which there is no meat, though it would be supposed that there was; and then come interminablediscussions as to teal, wild duck, and cold-blooded birds. They shouldconsult a naturalist and not a priest on such cases of conscience. 

"As to Holy Week, that is another affair; the mania for water-birdsgives way to a hankering for the _Charlotte Russe_. May they, withoutoffence to God, enjoy a _Charlotte_? There are eggs in it, to be sure, but so whipped and scourged that the dish is almost ascetic; culinaryexplanations are poured into my ear, the confessional becomes a kitchen, and the priest might be a master-cook. 

"But as to the general sin of greediness, they hardly admit that theyare guilty of it. Is it not so, my dear colleague?"

The Abbé Gévresin nodded assent. "They are indeed hollow souls, " saidhe, "and what is more, impenetrable. They are sealed against everygenerous idea, regarding the intercourse they hold with the Redeemer asbeseeming their rank and in good style; but they never seek to know Himmore nearly, and restrict themselves, of deliberate purpose, to calls ofpoliteness. "

"Such visits as we pay to an aged parent on New Year's Day, " saidDurtal. 

"No, at Easter, " corrected Madame Bavoil. 

"And among these Fair Penitents, " the Abbé Plomb went on, "we have thatterrible variety, the wife of the Député who votes on the wrong side, and to his wife's objurgations retorts: 'Why, I am at heart a betterChristian than you are!'

"Invariably and every time, she repeats the list of her husband'sprivate virtues, and deplores his conduct as a public man; and thishistory, which is never ending, always leads up to the praises sheawards herself, almost to requiring us to apologize for all theannoyance the Church occasions her. "

The Abbé Gévresin smiled, and said, --

"When I was in Paris, attached to one of the parishes on the left bankof the Seine, in which there is a huge draper's and fancy shop, I had todeal with a very curious class of women. Especially on days when therewas a great show of cotton and linen goods, or a sale of bankrupt stock, there was a perfect rush of well-dressed women to the confessional. These people lived on the other side of the water; they had come to thatpart of the town to buy bargains, and finding the departments of theshop too full, no doubt, they meant to wait till the crowd should bethinner, to make their selection in comfort; so then, not knowing whatto be doing, they took refuge in the church, and, tortured by the needfor speech, they asked for the priest whose turn it was to attend, andto justify themselves, chattered in the confessional as if it had been adrawing-room, merely to kill time. "

"Not being able to go to a _café_ like a man, they go to church, " saidDurtal. 

"Unless it is, " said Madame Bavoil, "that they would rather confide toan unknown priest the sins it would pain them to confess to their owndirector. "

"At any rate, this is a new light on things: the influence of big shopson the tribunal of penance!" exclaimed Durtal. 

"And of railway stations, " added the Abbé Gévresin. 

"How of railway stations?"

"Yes, I assure you that churches situated near railway stations have aspecial following of women on their journeys. There it is that our dearMadame Bavoil's shrewd remark finds justification. Many a country-womanwho has the Curé of her own parish to dinner dares not tell him the taleof her adultery, because he could too easily guess the name of herlover, and because the propinquity of a priest living on intimate termsin her house would be inconvenient; so she takes advantage of anexcursion to Paris to open her heart to another confessor who does notknow her. As a general rule, when a woman speaks ill of her Curé, andbegins the tale of her confession by explaining that he is dull, uneducated, unsympathetic in understanding and guiding souls, you may becertain that a confession is coming of sin against the sixth (seventh)Commandment. "

"Well, well; the people who flutter around the Lord are cool hands!"exclaimed Madame Bavoil. 

"They are unhappy creatures, who try to strike a balance between theirduties and their vices. 

"But enough of this; let us turn to something more immediate. Have youbrought us the article on the Angelico, as you promised? Read it to us. "

Durtal brought out of his pocket the manuscript he had finished, whichwas to be posted that evening to Paris. 

He seated himself in one of the straw-bottomed arm-chairs in the middleof the room where they were sitting with the Abbé Gévresin, and began:--

 THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. By Fra Angelico. In the Louvre. 

The general arrangement of this picture reminds the spectator of thetree of Jesse, of which the branches, supporting a human figure on everytwig, spread fan-like as they rise on each side of a throne, while atthe top, on a single stem, the radiant beauty of a Virgin is thecrowning blossom. 

In Fra Angelico's 'Coronation of the Virgin, ' to the right and left ofthe isolated knoll on which Christ sits under a carved stone canopy, placing the crown He holds with both hands on His Mother's bowed head, we see a perfect espalier of Apostles, Saints, and Patriarchs, rising inclose and crowded ramification at the lower part of the panel, to burstinto a luxuriant blossoming of angels relieved against the blue sky, their heads in a sunshine of glories. 

The arrangement of the persons represented is as follows:--

At the foot of the throne, under the gothic canopy--to the left, SaintNicholas of Myra kneels in prayer, wearing his mitre and clasping hiscrozier, from which the maniple hangs like a folded banner; Saint Louisthe King with a crown of fleurs de lys; the monastic saints; St. Antony, St. Benedict, St. Francis, St. Thomas, who holds an open book in whichwe read the first lines of the _Te Deum_, St. Dominic holding a lily, St. Augustine with a pen. Then, going upwards, St. Mark and St. Johncarrying their gospels, St. Bartholomew showing the knife with which hewas flayed; and higher still the lawgiver Moses, ending in the serriedranks of angels against the azure firmament, each head circled with agolden nimbus. 

On the right, below, by the side of a monk whose back only isseen--possibly St. Bernard--Mary Magdalene is on her knees with a vaseof spices by her side, robed in vermilion; behind her come St. Cecilia, crowned with roses, St. Clara or St. Catherine of Sienna, in a bluehood, patterned with stars, St. Catherine of Alexandria, leaning on herwheel of martyrdom, St. Agnes, cherishing a lamb in her arms, St. Ursulaflinging an arrow, and others whose names are unknown; all femalesaints, facing the Bishop, the King, the Recluses, and the founders ofOrders. By the steps of the throne are St. Stephen, with the green palmof martyrdom, St. Lawrence, with his gridiron, St. George, wearing abreastplate, and on his head a helmet, St. Peter the Dominicanrecognizable by his split skull; and yet further up St. Matthew, St. Philip, St. James the Greater, St. Jude, St. Paul, St. Matthias, andKing David. Finally, opposite the angels on the left a group of angels, whose faces, set in gold discs, are relieved against the pureultramarine background. 

In spite of injury from the restorations it has endured, this panel, with its stamped and diapered gold, is splendid in the freshness of itscolours, laid on with white of egg. 

As a whole, it represented, so to speak, a stairway for the eye, acircular stair of two flights, in steps of glorious blue hung with gold. 

The lowest to the left is seen in the blue mantle of Saint Louis, andothers lead up through a glimpse of blue drapery, the robe of St. John, and then, higher still before reaching the blue expanse of the sky, therobe of the first angel. 

The first on the right is the mantle of St. Cecilia; others are thebodice of St. Agnes, St. Stephen's robe, a prophet's tunic; and abovethese, before reaching the lapis-lazuli border of sky, the robe of thefirst angel. 

Thus blue, which is the predominating colour in the whole, is regularlypiled up in steps and spaced almost identically on the opposite sides ofthe throne. This azure hue of the draperies, their folds faintlyindicated with white, is extraordinarily serene, indescribably innocent. This it is which gives the work its soul of colour--this blue, helpedout by the gold which gleams round the heads, runs or twines on theblack robes of the monks; in Y's on those of St. Thomas; in suns, orrather in radiating chrysanthemums, on those of St. Antony and St. Benedict; in stars on St. Clara's hood; in filagree embroidery in theletters of their names, in brooches and medallions on the bodices of theother female saints. 

At the very bottom of the picture a splash of gorgeous red--theMagdalen's robe--that finds an echo in the flame-colour of one of thesteps of the throne, and reappears here and there, but softened infragmentary glimpses of drapery, or smothered under a running pattern ofgold (as in St. Augustine's cope) serves as a spring-board, as it were, to start the whole stupendous harmony. 

The other colours seem to fill no part, but that of necessary stop-gaps, indispensable supports. They are too, for the most part, common and uglyto a degree that is most puzzling. Look at the greens: they range fromboiled endive to olive, ending in the absolute hideousness of two stepsof the throne which lie across the picture--two bars, two streaks ofspinach dipped in tawny mud. The only tolerable green of them all isthat of St. Agnes' mantle, a Parmigiano green, rich in yellow, and madestill richer by the lining which affords the pleasing adjunct of orange. 

On the other hand, consider this blue which Angelico uses so sumptuouslyin his celestial tones; when he makes it darker it loses its fulness, and looks almost dull; we see this in St. Clara's hood. 

But what is yet more amazing is that this painter, so eloquent in blue, is but a stammerer when he makes use of the other angelichue--rose-pink. In his hands it is neither subtle nor ingenuous; it isopaque, of the colour of blood thinned with water, or of pinksticking-plaister, excepting when it trends on the hue of wine-lees, like that of the Saviour's sleeves. 

And it is heaviest of all in the saints' cheeks. It looks glazed, likethe surface of pie-crust; it has the quality of raspberry syrup drownedin white of egg. 

These are in the main the only colours used by Angelico. A magnificentblue for the sky and another vile blue, white, brilliant red, melancholypinks, a light green, dark greens, and gold. No bright yellow likeeverlastings, no luminous straw-colour; at most a heavy opaque yellowfor the hair of his female saints; no truly bold orange, no violet, either tender or strong, unless in the half-hidden lining of a cloak orin the scarcely visible robe of a saint, cut off by the frame; no brownthat does not lurk in the background. His palette, as may be seen, isvery limited. 

And it is symbolical, if we consider it. He has undoubtedly done in hishues what he has done in the arrangement of the work. His picture is ahymn to Chastity, and round the central group of Christ and His Motherhe has placed in ranks the Saints who best concentrated this virtue onearth. St. John the Baptist, beheaded for the bounding impurity of anHerodias; St. George, who saved a virgin from the emblematic Dragon;such saints as St. Agnes, St. Clara, and St. Ursula; the heads of theOrders--St. Benedict and St. Francis; a king like St. Louis, and abishop like St. Nicholas of Myra, who hindered the prostitution of threeyoung girls whom a starving father was fain to sell. Everything, down tothe smallest details, from the attributes of the persons represented tothe steps of the throne, of which the number is nine--that of the choirsof angels--everything in this picture is symbolical. 

It is permissible therefore to assume that he selected his colours fortheir allegorical signification. 

White: the symbol of the Supreme Being, and of absolute Truth, andemployed by the Church in its adornments for the festival of our Lordand the Virgin because it signifies Goodness, Virginity, Charity, and isthe splendour, the emblem of Divine Wisdom when it is enhanced to thepure radiance of silver. 

Blue: because it symbolizes Chastity, Innocence, and Guilelessness. 

Red: which is the colour adopted for the offices of the Holy Ghost andof the Passion; the garb of Charity, Suffering and Love. 

Rose-pink; the Love of Eternal Wisdom, and, as Saint Mechtildis teaches, the anguish and torments of Christ. 

Green: used liturgically at Seasons of Pilgrimage, and which seems to bethe colour preferred by the Benedictine Sisterhood, interpreting it asmeaning freshness of soul and perennial sap; the green which, in thehermeneutics of colour, expresses the hopes of the regenerated creature, the yearning for final repose, and which is likewise the mark ofhumility, according to the Anonymous English writer of the thirteenthcentury, and of contemplation, according to Durand of Mende. 

On the other hand, Angelico has intentionally refrained from introducingthe hues which are emblematic of vices, excepting of course thoseadopted for the garb of the Monastic Orders, which altogether changestheir meaning. 

Black: the colour of error and the void, the seal of death, and, according to Sister Emmerich, the image of profaned and wasted gifts. 

Brown: which, as the same Sister tells us, is synonymous with agitation, barrenness and dryness of the spirit, and neglect of duty; brown; whichbeing composed of black and red--smoke darkening the sacred fire--isSatanic. 

Grey: the ashes of penance, the symbol of tribulation, according to theBishop of Mende, the sign of half-mourning formerly used in the Parisritual instead of violet in Lent. The mingling of white and black, ofvirtue and vice, of joy and grief, the mirror of the soul that isneither good nor evil, the medium being, the lukewarm creature that Godspueth out, grey can only rise by the infusion of a little purity, alittle blue; but can, when thus converted to pearl grey, become a pioushue, and attempt a step towards Heaven, an advance in the lower paths ofMysticism. 

Yellow: considered by Sister Emmerich as the colour of idleness, of ahorror of suffering, and often given to Judas in mediæval times, issignificant of treason and envy. Orange: of which Frédéric Portalspeaks as the revelation of Divine Love, the communion of God with man, mingling the blood of Love to the sinful hue of yellow, may be taken tobear a worse meaning with the idea of falsehood and torment; and, especially when it verges on red, expresses the defeat of a soulover-ridden by its sins, hatred of Love, contempt of Grace, the end ofall things. 

Dead leaf colour: speaking of moral degradation, spiritual death, thehopefulness of green for ever extinct. 

Finally, violet: adopted by the Church for the Sundays in Advent and inLent, and for penitential services. It was the colour of themortuary-shroud of the kings of France; during the Middle Ages it wasthe attribute of mourning, and it is at all times the melancholy garb ofthe exorcist. 

What is certainly far less easy to explain is the limited variety ofcountenance the painter has chosen to adopt. Here symbolism is of nouse. Look, for instance, at the men. The Patriarchs with their beardedfaces do not show us the almost translucent texture, as of thesacramental wafer, in which the bones show through the dry anddiaphanous parchment-like skin, or like the seeds of the cruciferousflower called _Monnaie du Pape_ (honesty); they have all regular andpleasant faces, are all healthy, full-blooded personages, attentive anddevout. His monks too have round faces and rosy cheeks; not one of hisSaints looks like a Recluse of the Desert overcome by fasting, or hasthe exhausted emaciation of an ascetic; they are all vaguely alike, withthe same solidity and the same complexion. In fact, as we see them inthis picture, they are a contented colony of excellent people. 

At least, so they appear at a first glance. 

The women, too, are all of one family; sisters more or less exactlyalike; all fair and rosy, with light snuff-coloured eyes, heavy eyelids, and round faces; they form a train of rather an insipid type round theVirgin with her long nose and bird-like head kneeling at the feet ofChrist. 

Altogether, among all these figures we find scarcely four distincttypes, if we take into consideration their more or less advanced yearsand the modifications resulting from the arrangement of their hair, their being bearded or shaven, and the pose of the head, front face orprofile, which distinguishes them. 

The only groups which are not of an almost uniform stamp are the angels, sexless youths for ever charming. They are of matchless purity, of amore than human innocence in their blue and rose-pink and green robessprigged with gold, with their yellow or red hair, at once aerial andheavy, their chastely downcast eyes, and flesh as white as pith. Grave, but in ecstasy, they play on the harp or the theorbo, on the Viold'Amore or the rebeck, singing the eternal glory of the most HolyMother. 

Thus, on the whole, the types used by Angelico are not less restrictedthan his colours. 

But then, in spite of the exquisite array of angels, is this picturemonotonous and dull? Is this much-talked-of work over-praised?

No, for this Coronation of the Virgin is a masterpiece, and superior toall that enthusiasm can say about it; indeed, it outstrips painting andsoars through realms which the mystics of the brush had neverpenetrated. 

Here we have not a mere manual effort, however admirable; this is notmerely a spiritual and truly religious picture such as Roger van derWeyden and Quentin Matsys could create; it is quite another thing. WithAngelico an unknown being appears on the scene, the soul of a mysticthat has entered on the contemplative life, and breathes it on thecanvas as on a perfect mirror. It is the soul of a marvellous monk thatwe see, of a saint, embodied on this coloured mirror, exhaled in apainted creation. And we can measure how far that soul had advanced onthe path of perfection from the work that reflects it. 

He carries his angels and his saints up to the Unifying Life, thesupreme height of Mysticism. There the weariness of their dolorousascent is no more; there is the plenitude of tranquil joy, the peace ofman made one with God. Angelico is the painter of the soul immersed inGod, the painter of his own spirit. 

None but a monk could attempt such paintings. Matsys, Memling, DierckBouts, Roger van der Weyden were no doubt sincere and pious worthies. They gave their work a reflection of Heaven; they too reflected theirown soul in the faces they depicted; but though they gave them awonderful stamp of art, they could only infuse into them the semblanceof the soul beginning the practice of Christian asceticism; they couldonly represent men still detained, like themselves, in the outerchambers of those Castles of the Soul of which Saint Theresa speaks, andnot in the Hall where, in the centre, Christ sits and sheds His glory. 

They were, in my opinion, greater and keener observers, more learned andmore skilful, even better painters than Angelico; but their heart was intheir craft, they lived in the world, they often could not resist givingtheir Virgins fine-lady airs, they were hampered by earthlyreminiscences, they could not rise in their work above the trammels ofdaily life; in short, they were and remained men. They were admirable;they gave utterance to the promptings of ardent faith; but they had nothad the specific culture which is practised only in the silence andpeace of the cloister. Hence they could not cross the threshold of theseraphic realm where roamed the guileless being who never opened hiseyes, closed in prayer, excepting to paint--the monk who had neverlooked out on the world, who had seen only within himself. 

And what we know of his life is worthy of this work. He was a humble andtender recluse, who always prayed or ever he took up his brush, andcould not draw the Crucifixion without melting into tears. 

Through the veil of his tears his angelic vision poured itself out inthe light of ecstasy, and he created beings that had but the semblanceof human creatures, the earthly husk of our existence, beings whosesouls soared already far from their prison of flesh. Study his pictureattentively, and see how the incomprehensible miracle works of such asublimated state of mind. 

The types chosen for the Apostles and Saints are, as we have said, quiteordinary. But gaze firmly at the countenances of these men, and you willsee how little they really take in of the scene before them. Whateverattitude the painter may have given them, they are all absorbed intothemselves; they behold the scene, not with the eyes of the body, butwith the eyes of the soul. Each is looking into himself. Jesus dwells inthem, and they can gaze on Him better in their inmost heart than on Histhrone. 

It is the same with his female Saints. I have said that they areinsignificant looking, and it is true; but how their features, too, aretransfigured and effaced under the Divine touch! They are drowned inadoration, and spring buoyant, though motionless, to meet the HeavenlySpouse. Only one remains but half escaped from her material shell: SaintCatherine of Alexandria, who, with upturned eyes of a brackish green, isneither as simple nor as innocent as her sisters; she still sees theform of man in Christ; she still is a woman; she is, if one may so, thesin of the work. 

Still, all these spiritual degrees clothed in human figures are but theaccessories of this picture. They are placed there, in the augustassumption of gold and the chaste ascending scale of blue, to lead by astair of pure joy to the sublime platform whereon we see the group ofthe Saviour and the Virgin. 

And here, in the presence of the Mother and Son, the ecstatic painteroverflows. One could imagine that the Lord had merged into him, andtransported him beyond the life of sense, love and chastity are soperfectly personified in the group above all the means of expression atthe command of man. 

No words could express the reverent tenderness, the anxious affection, the filial and paternal love of the Christ, who smiles as He crowns HisMother; and She is yet more incomparable. Here the words of adulationare too weak; the invisible is made visible by the sacramental use ofcolour and line. A feeling of infinite deference, of intense butreserved adoration, flows and spreads about this Virgin, who, with Herarms crossed over Her bosom, bends Her little dove-like head, withdowncast eyes and a rather long nose, under a veil. She resembles theApostle St. John who is just behind her, and might be his daughter; andshe is enigmatic; for that soft, delicate face, which in the hands ofany other painter would be merely charming and trivial, breathes out thepurest innocence. She is not even flesh and blood; the material thatclothes Her swells softly with the breath of the fluid that shapes it. Mary is a living but a volatilized and glorious body. 

We can understand certain ideas of the Abbess of Agréda who declaresthat She was exempt from the defilements inflicted on women; we see whatSt. Thomas meant who asserted that Her beauty purified instead ofagitating the senses. 

Her age is indeterminate; She is not a woman, yet She is no longer achild. It is hard to say even that She is grown up, just marriageable, agirl-child, so entirely is She refined above all humanity, beyond theworld, so exquisitely pure and for ever chaste. 

She remains incomparable, unapproached in painting. By Her, otherMadonnas are vulgar; they are in every case women; She alone is thewhite stem of the divine Ear of corn, the Wheat of the Eucharist. Shealone is indeed the Immaculate, the _Regina Virginum_ of the hymns; andShe is so youthful, so guileless, that the Son seems to be crowning HisMother before She can have conceived Him. 

It is in this that we see the glory of the gentle Friar's superhumangenius. He painted as others have spoken, inspired by Grace; he paintedwhat he saw within him just as St. Angela of Foligno related what sheheard within her. Both one and the other were mystics absorbed into God;thus this picture by Angelico is at the same time a picture by the HolyGhost, bolted through a purified sieve of art. 

If we consider it, this soul is that of a female saint rather than of amonk. Turn to his other pictures; those, for instance, in which hestrove to depict Christ's Passion; we are not looking at the stormyscene represented by Matsys or Grünewald; he has none of their harshmanliness, nor their gloomy energy, nor their tragic turbulence; he onlyweeps with the uncomforted grief of a woman. He is a Sister rather thana Friar-artist; and it is from this loving sensibility, which in themystic vocation is more generally peculiar to women, that he has drawnthe pathetic orisons and tender lamentation of his works. 

And was it not also in this spiritual nature, so womanly in itscomplexion, that he found, under the impulse of the Spirit, the whollyangelical gladness, the really glorious apotheosis of Our Lord and HisMother, as he has painted them in this Coronation of the Virgin, which, after being revered for centuries in the Dominican Church at Fiesole, has now found shelter and admiration in the little gallery devoted tothe Italian School at the Louvre. 

 * * * * *

"Your article is very good, " said the Abbé Plomb. "But can theprinciples of a ritual of colour which you have discerned in Angelicobe verified with equal strictness in other painters?"

"No, if we look for colour as Angelico received it from his monasticforefathers, the illuminators of Missals, or as he applied it in itsstrictest and most usual acceptation. Yes, if we admit the law ofantagonism, the rules of inversion, and if we know that symbolismauthorizes the system of contraries, allowing the use of the hues whichare appropriated to certain virtues to indicate the vices opposed tothem. "

"In a word, an innocent colour may be interpreted in an evil sense, andvice versâ, " said the Abbé Gévresin. 

"Precisely. In fact, artists who, though pious, were laymen, spoke adifferent language from the monks. On emerging from the cloister theliturgical meaning of colours was weakened; it lost its originalrigidity and became pliant. Angelico followed the traditions of hisOrder to the letter, and he was not less scrupulous in his respect forthe observances of religious art which prevailed in his day. Not foranything on earth would he have infringed them, for he regarded them asa liturgical duty, a fixed rule of service. But as soon as profanepainters had emancipated the domain of painting, they gave us morepuzzling versions, more complicated meanings; and the symbolism ofcolour, which is so simple in Angelico, became singularlyabstruse--supposing that they even were constantly faithful to it intheir works--and almost impossible to interpret. 

"For instance, to select an example: the Antwerp gallery possesses atryptich, by Roger van der Werden, known as 'The Sacraments. ' In thecentre panel, devoted to the Eucharist, the Sacrifice of the Redeemer isshown under two aspects, the bleeding form of the Crucifixion and themystic form of the pure oblation on the altar; behind the Cross, at thefoot of which we see the weeping Mary, Saint John and the Holy Women, apriest is celebrating Mass and elevating the Host in the midst of acathedral which forms the background of the picture. 

"On the left-hand shutter, the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation andPenance are shown, in small detached scenes; and on the right-handshutter those of Ordination, Marriage and Extreme Unction. 

"This picture, a work of marvellous beauty, with the 'Descent from theCross' by Quentin Matsys, are the inestimable glory of the Belgiumgallery; but I will not linger over a full description of this work; Iwill omit any reflection suggested by the supreme art of the painter, and restrict myself to recording that part of the work which bears onthe symbolism of colour. "

"But are you sure that Roger van der Weyden intended to ascribe suchmeanings to the colours?"

"It is impossible to doubt it, for he has assigned a different hue toeach Sacrament, by introducing above the scenes he depicts, an angelwhose robe is in each instance different in accordance with the ceremonyset forth. His meaning therefore is beyond question; and these are thecolours he affects to the means of Grace consecrated by the Saviour:

"To the Eucharist, green; to Baptism, white; to Confirmation, yellow; toPenance, red; to Ordination, purple; to Marriage blue; to ExtremeUnction, a violet so deep as to be almost black. 

"Well, you will admit that the interpretation of this sacred scheme ofcolour is not altogether easy. 

"The pictorial imagery of Baptism, Extreme Unction, and Ordination isquite clear; Marriage even as symbolized by blue may be intelligible tosimple souls; that Communion should blazon its coat with _vert_, is evenmore appropriate, since green represents sap and humility, and isemblematical of the regenerative power. But ought not Confession todisplay violet rather than red; and how, in any case, are we to accountfor Confirmation being figured in yellow?"

"The colour of the Holy Ghost is certainly red, " remarked the AbbéPlomb. 

"Thus there are differences of interpretation between Angelico and Rogervan der Weyden, though they lived at the same time. Still, the monkseems to me the more trustworthy authority. "

"For my part, " said the Abbé Gévresin, "I cannot but think of the rightside of the lining of which you were speaking just now. "

"This rule of contraries is not peculiar to the ritual of colour; it isto be seen in almost every part of the science of symbolism. Look atthe emblems derived from the animal world; the eagle alternatelyfiguring Christ and the Devil; the snake which, while it is one of themost familiar symbols of the Demon, may nevertheless, as in the brazenserpent of Moses, prefigure the Saviour. "

"The anticipatory symbol of Christian symbolism was the double-facedJanus of the heathen world, " said the Abbé Plomb, laughing. 

"Indeed, these allegories of the palette turn completely to theright-about, " said Durtal. "Take red, for instance: we have seen that inthe general acceptation it is to be interpreted as meaning charity, endurance, and love. This is the right side out; the wrong side, according to Sister Emmerich, is dulness, and clinging to this world'sgoods. 

"Grey, the emblem of repentance and sorrow, and at the same time theimage of a lukewarm soul, is also, according to another interpretation, symbolical of the Resurrection--white, piercing through blackness--lightentering into the Tomb and coming out as a new hue--grey, a mixed colourstill heavy with the gloom of death, but reviving as it gets light bydegrees from the whiteness of day. 

"Green, to which the mystics gave favourable meanings, also acquires adisastrous sense in some cases; it then represents moral degradation anddespair; it borrows melancholy significance from dead leaves, is thecolour given to the bodies of the devils in Stephan Lochner's LastJudgment, and in the infernal scenes depicted in the glass windows andpictures of the earliest artists. 

"Black and brown, with their inimical suggestions of death and hell, change their meaning as soon as the founders of religious Orders adoptthem for the garb of the cloister. Black then symbolizes renunciation, repentance, the mortification of the flesh, according to Durand deMende; and brown and even grey suggest poverty and humility. 

"Yellow again, so misprized in the formulas of symbolism, becomessignificant of charity; and if we accept the teaching of the Englishmonk who wrote in about 1220, yellow is enhanced when it changes togold, rising to be the symbol of divine Love, the radiant allegory ofeternal Wisdom. 

"Violet, finally, when it appears as the distinctive colour ofprelates, divests itself of its usual meaning of self-accusation andmourning, to assume a certain dignity and simulate a certain pomp. 

"On the whole, I find only white and blue which never change. "

"In the Middle Ages, according to Yves de Chartres, " said the AbbéPlomb, "blue took the place of violet in the vestments of bishops, toshow them that they should give their minds rather to the things ofHeaven than to the things of earth. "

"And how is it, " asked Madame Bavoil, "that this colour, which is allinnocence, all purity, the colour of Our Mother Herself, has disappearedfrom among the liturgical hues?"

"Blue was used in the Middle Ages for all the services to the Virgin, and it has only fallen into desuetude since the eighteenth century, "replied the Abbé Plomb; "and that only in the Latin Church, for theorthodox Churches of the East still wear it. "

"And why this neglect?"

"I do not know, any more than I know why so many colours formerly usedin our services have been forgotten. Where are the colours of theancient Paris use: saffron yellow, reserved for the festival of AllAngels; salmon pink, sometimes worn instead of red; ashen grey, whichtook the place of violet; and bistre instead of black on certain days. 

"Then there was a charming hue which still holds its place in the scaleof colour used in the Roman ritual, though most of the Churches overlookit--the shade called 'old rose, ' a medium between violet and crimson, between grief and joy, a sort of compromise, a diminished tone, whichthe Church adopted for the third Sunday in Advent and the fourth Sundayin Lent. It thus gave promise, in the penitential season that wasending, of a beginning of gladness, for the festivals of Christmas andEaster were at hand. 

"It was the idea of the spiritual dawn rising on the night of the soul, a special impression which violet, now used on those days, could notgive. "

"Yes, it is to be regretted that blue and rose-colour have disappearedfrom the Churches of the West, " said the Abbé Gévresin. "But to returnto the monastic dress which delivered brown, grey, and black from theirmelancholy significance, does it not strike you that from the point ofview of emblematic language, that of the Order of the Annunciation wasthe most eloquent? Those sisters were habited in grey, white, and red, the colours of the Passion, and they also wore a blue cape and a blackveil in memory of Our Mother's mourning. "

"The image of a perpetual Holy Week!" exclaimed Durtal. 

"Here is another question, " the Abbé Plomb went on. "In the earliestreligious pictures the cloaks in which the Virgin, the Apostles, and theSaints are draped almost always show the hue of their lining iningeniously contrived folds. It is of course different from that of theouter side, as you yourself observed just now with regard to the mantleof Saint Agnes in Angelico's work. Now, do you suppose that, apart fromcontrast of colour selected for technical purposes, the monk meant toexpress any particular idea by the juxtaposition of the two colours?"

"In accordance with the symbolism of the palette the outer colour wouldrepresent the material creature, and the lining colour the spiritualbeing. "

"Well, but then what is the significance of Saint Agnes' mantle of greenlined with orange?"

"Obviously, " replied Durtal, "green denoting freshness of feeling, theessence of good, hope; and orange, in its better meaning, being regardedas representing the act by which God unites Himself to man, we mightconclude from these data that Saint Agnes had attained the life ofunion, the possession of the Saviour, by virtue of her innocence and thefervour of her aspirations. She would thus be the image of virtueyearning and fulfilled, of hope rewarded, in short. 

"But now I must confess that there are many gaps, many obscurities inthis allegorical lore of colours. In the picture in the Louvre, forinstance, the steps of the throne, which are intended to play the partof veined marble, remain unintelligible. Splashed with dull red, acridgreen, and bilious yellow, what do these steps express, suggesting asthey do by their number the nine choirs of angels?"

"It seems to me difficult to allow that the monk intended to figure thecelestial hierarchies by smears with a dirty brush and these crudestreaks. "

"But has the colour of a step ever represented an idea in the science ofsymbolism?" asked the Abbé Gévresin. 

"Saint Mechtildis says so. When speaking of the three steps in front ofthe altar, she propounds that the first should be of gold, to show thatit is impossible to go to God save by charity; the second blue, tosignify meditation on things divine; the third green, to show eager hopeand praise of Heavenly things. "

"Bless me!" cried Madame Bavoil, who was getting somewhat scared by thisdiscussion, "I never saw it in that light. I know that red means fire, as everybody knows; blue, the air; green, water; and black, the earth. And this I understand, because each element is shown in its true colour;but I should never have dreamed that it was so complicated, never havesupposed that there was so much meaning in painters' pictures. "

"In some painters'!" cried Durtal. "For since the Middle Ages thedoctrine of emblematic colouring is extinct. At the present day thosepainters who attempt religious subjects are ignorant of the firstelements of the symbolism of colours, just as modern architects areignorant of the first principles of mystical theology as embodied inbuildings. "

"Precious gems are lavishly introduced in the works of the primitivepainters, " observed the Abbé Plomb. "They are set in the borders ofdresses, in the necklets and rings of the female saints, and are piledin triangles of flame on the diadems with which painters of yore werewont to crown the Virgin. Logically, I believe we ought to seek ameaning in every gem as well as in the hues of the dresses. "

"No doubt, " said Durtal, "but the symbolism of gems is much confused. The reasons which led to the choice of certain stones to be the emblems, by their colour, water, and brilliancy, of special virtues, are sofar-fetched and so little proven, that one gem might be substituted foranother without greatly modifying the interpretation of the allegorythey present. They form a series of synonyms, each replacing the otherwith scarcely a shade of difference. 

"In the treasury of the Apocalypse, however, they seem to have beenselected, if not with stricter meaning, with a more impressive breadthof application, for expositors regard them as coincident with a virtue, and likewise with the person endowed with it. Nay, these jewellers ofthe Bible have gone further; they have given every gem a doublesymbolism, making each embody a figure from the Old Testament and onefrom the New. They carry out the parallel of the two Books by selectingin each case a Patriarch and an Apostle, symbolizing them by thecharacter more especially marked in both. 

"Thus, the amethyst, the mirror of humility and almost childlikesimplicity, is applied in the Bible to Zebulon, a man obedient anddevoid of pride, and in the Gospel to St. Matthias, who also was gentleand guileless; the chalcedony, as an emblem of charity, was ascribed toJoseph, who was so merciful and pitiful to his brethren, and to St. James the Great, the first of the Apostles to suffer martyrdom for thelove of Christ; the jasper, emblematical of faith and eternity, was theattribute of Gad and of St. Peter; the sard, meaning faith andmartyrdom, was given to Reuben and St. Bartholomew; the sapphire, forhope and contemplation, to Naphtali and St. Andrew, and sometimes, according to Aretas, to St. Paul; the beryl, meaning sound doctrine, learning, and long-suffering, to Benjamin and to St. Thomas, and soforth. There is, indeed, a table of the harmony of gems and theirapplication to patriarchs, apostles, and virtues, drawn up by MadameFélicie d'Ayzac, who has written an elaborate paper on the figurativemeaning of gems. "

"The avatar of some other Scriptural personages might be equally wellcarried out by these emblematical minerals, " observed the Abbé Gévresin. 

"Obviously; and as I warned you, the analogies are very far-fetched. Thehermeneutics of gems are uncertain, and founded on mere fancifulresemblances, on the harmonies of ideas hard to assimilate. In mediævaltimes this science was principally cultivated by poets. "

"Against whom we must be on our guard, " said the Abbé Plomb, "sincetheir interpretations are for the most part heathenish. Marbode, forexample, though he was a Bishop, has left us but a very paganinterpretation of the language of gems. "

"These mystical lapidaries have on the whole chiefly applied, theiringenuity to explaining the stones of the breastplate of Aaron, andthose that shine in the foundations of the New Jerusalem, as describedby St. John; indeed, the walls of Sion are set with the same jewels asthe High Priest's pectoral, with the exception of the carbuncle, theligure, agate, and onyx, which are named in Exodus, and replaced in theBook of Revelation by chalcedony, sardonyx, chrysoprase, and jacinth. "

"Yes, and the symbolist goldsmiths wrought diadems, setting them withprecious stones, to crown Our Lady's brow; but their poems showed littlevariety, for they were all borrowed from the _Libellus Corona Virginis_, an apocryphal work ascribed to St. Ildefonso, and formerly famous inconvents. "

The Abbé Gévresin rose and took an old book from the shelf. 

"That brings to my mind, " said he, "a hymn in honour of the Virgincomposed in rhyme by Conrad of Haimburg, a German monk in the fourteenthcentury. Imagine, " he continued, as he turned over the pages, "a litanyof gems, each verse symbolizing one of Our Mother's virtues. 

"This prayer in minerals opens with a human greeting. The good monk, kneeling down, begins:--

"'Hail, noble Virgin, meet to become the Bride of the Supreme King!Accept this ring in pledge of that betrothal, O Mary!'

"And he shows Her the ring, turning it slowly in his fingers, explainingto Our Lady the meaning of each stone that shines in the gold setting;beginning with green jasper, symbolical of the faith which led theVirgin to receive the message of the angelic visitant; then comes thechalcedony, signifying the fire of charity that fills Her heart; theemerald, whose transparency signifies Her purity; the sardonyx, with itspale flame, like the placidity of Her virginal life; the red sard-stone, one with the Heart that bled on Calvary; the chrysolite, sparkling withgreenish gold, reminding us of Her numberless miracles and Her Wisdom;the beryl, figurative of Her humility; the topaz, of Her deepmeditations; the chrysoprase of Her fervency; the jacinth of Hercharity; the amethyst, mingling rose and purple, of the love bestowed onHer by God and men; the pearl, of which the meaning remains vague, notrepresenting any special virtue; the agate, signifying Her modesty; theonyx, showing the many perfections of Her grace; the diamond, forpatience and fortitude in sorrow; while the carbuncle, like an eye thatshines in the night, everywhere proclaims that Her glory is eternal. 

"Finally the donor points out to the Virgin the interpretation ofcertain other matters set in the ring, which in the Middle Ages wereregarded as precious: crystal, emblematic of chastity of body and soul;ligurite, resembling amber, more especially figurative of the quality oftemperance; lodestone, which attracts iron, as She touches the chords ofrepentant hearts with the bow of her loving-kindness. 

"And the monk ends his petition by saying: 'This little ring, set withgems, which we offer Thee as at this time, accept, glorious Bride, inThy benevolence. Amen. '"

"It would no doubt be possible, " said the Abbé Plomb, "to reproducealmost exactly the invocations of these Litanies by each stone thusinterpreted. " And he reopened the book his friend the priest had justclosed. 

"See, " he went on, "how close is the concordance between the epithets inthe sentences and the quality assigned to the gems. 

"Does not the emerald, which in this sequence is emblematical ofincorruptible purity, reflect in the sparkling mirror of its water the_Mater Purissima_ of the Litanies to the Virgin? Is not the chrysolite, the symbol of wisdom, a very exact image of the _Sedes Sapientiae_? Thejacinth, attribute of charity and succour vouchsafed to sinners, isappropriate to the _Auxilium Christianorum_ and the _refugiumpeccatorum_ of the prayers. Is not the diamond, which means strength andpatience, the _Virgo potens_?--the carbuncle, meaning fame, the _Virgopraedicanda_?--the chrysoprase, for fervour, the _Vas insignedevotionis_?

"And it is probable, " said the Abbé, in conclusion, as he laid the bookdown, "that if we took the trouble we could rediscover one by one, inthis rosary of stones, the whole rosary of praise which we tell inhonour of Our Mother. "

"Above all, " remarked Durtal, "if we did not restrict ourselves to thenarrow limits of this poem, for Conrad's manual is brief, and hisdictionary of analogies small; if we accepted the interpretations ofother symbolists, we could produce a ring similar to his and yet quitedifferent, for the language of the gems would not be the same. Thus toSt. Bruno of Asti, the venerable Abbot of Monte Cassino, the jaspersymbolizes Our Lord, because it is immutably green, eternal withoutpossibility of change; and for the same reason the emerald is the imageof the life of the righteous; the chrysoprase means good works; thediamond, infrangible souls; the sardonyx, which resembles theblood-stained seed of a pomegranate, is charity; the jacinth, with itsvarying blue, is the prudence of the saints; the beryl, whose hue isthat of water running in the sunshine, figures the Scriptures elucidatedby Christ; the chrysolite, attention and patience, because it has thecolour of the gold that mingles in it and lends it its meaning; theamethyst, the choir of children and virgins, because the blue mixed init with rose pink suggests the idea of innocence and modesty. 

"Or, again, if we borrow from Pope Innocent III. His ideas as to themystical meanings of gems, we find that chalcedony, which is pale in thelight and sparkles in the dark, is synonymous with humility; the topazwith chastity and the merit of good works, while the chrysoprase, thequeen of minerals, implies wisdom and watchfulness. 

"If we do not go quite so far back into past ages, but stop at the endof the sixteenth century, we find some new interpretations in aCommentary on the Book of Exodus by Corneille de la Pierre; for heascribes truth to the onyx and carbuncle, heroism to the beryl, and tothe ligure, with its delicate and sparkling violet hue, scorn of thethings of earth, and love of heavenly things. "

"And then St. Ambrose regards this stone as emblematical of Eucharist, "the Abbé Gévresin put in. 

"Yes; but what is the ligure or ligurite?" asked Durtal. "Conrad ofHaimburg speaks of it as resembling amber; Corneille de la Pierrebelieves it to be violet-tinted, and St. Jerome gives us to understandthat it is not identifiable; in fact, that it is but another name forthe jacinth, the image of prudence, with its water of blue like the skyand changing tints. How are we to make sure?"

"As to blue stones, we must not forget that St. Mechtildis regarded thesapphire as the very heart of the Virgin, " observed the Abbé Plomb. 

"We may also add, " Durtal went on, "that a new set of variations on thesubject of gems was executed in the seventeenth century by a celebratedSpanish Abbess, Maria d'Agreda, who applies to Our Mother the virtues ofthe precious stones spoken of by St. John in the twenty-first chapter ofthe Apocalypse. According to her, the sapphire figures the serenity ofMary; the chrysolite shows forth Her love for the Church Militant, andespecially for the Law of Grace; the amethyst, Her power against thehordes of hell; the jasper, Her invincible fortitude; the pearl, Herinestimable dignity--"

"The pearl, " interrupted the Abbé Plomb, "is regarded by St. Eucher asemblematic of perfection, chastity, and the evangelical doctrine. "

"And all this time you are forgetting the meaning of other well-knowngems, " cried Madame Bavoil. "The ruby, the garnet, the aqua-marine; arethey speechless?"

"No, " replied Durtal. "The ruby speaks of tranquility and patience; thegarnet, Innocent III. Tells us, symbolizes charity. St. Bruno and St. Rupert say that the aqua-marine concentrates in its pale green fire alltheological science. There yet remain two gems, the turquoise and theopal. The former, little esteemed by the mystics, is to promote joy. Asto the second, of which the name does not occur in treatises on gems, itmay be identified with chalcedony, which is described as a sort of agateof an opaque quality, dimmed with clouds and flashing fires in theshadows. 

"To have done with this emblematical jewelry, we may add that the seriesof stones serves to symbolize the hierarchies of the angels. But here, again, the meanings commonly received are derived from more or lessforced comparisons and a tissue of notions more or less flimsy andloose. However, it is so far established that the sard-stone suggeststhe Seraphim, the topaz the Cherubim, the jasper means the Thrones, thechrysolite figures the Dominions, the sapphire the Virtues, the onyx thePowers, the beryl the Principalities, the ruby the Archangels, and theemerald the Angels. "

"And it is a curious fact, " said the Abbé Plomb, "that while beasts, colours, and flowers are accepted by that symbolists sometimes with agood meaning and sometimes with an evil one, gems alone never change;they always express good qualities, and never vices. "

"Why is that?"

"St. Hildegarde perhaps affords a clue to this stability when, in thefourth book, of her treatise on Physics, she says that the Devil hatesthem, abhors and scorns them, because he remembers that their splendourshone in him before his fall, and that some of them are the product ofthe fire that is his torment. 

"And the saint added, 'God, who deprived him of them, would not that thestones should lose their virtues; He desired, on the contrary, that theyshould ever be held in honour, and used in medicine to the end thatsickness should be cured and ills driven out. ' And, in fact, in theMiddle Ages they were highly esteemed and used to effect cures. "

"To return to those early pictures, " said the Abbé Gévresin, "in whichthe Virgin emerges like a flower from amid the gorgeous assemblage ofgems, it may be said as a general thing, that the glow of jewelsdeclares by visible signs the merits of Her who wears them; but it wouldbe difficult to say what the painter's purpose may have been when, inthe decoration of a crown or a dress, he placed any particular stone inone spot rather than another. It is, as a rule, a question of taste orharmony, and has nothing, or very little, to do with symbolism. "

"Of that there can be no doubt, " said Durtal, who rose and took leave, as Madame Bavoil, hearing the cathedral clock strike, handed to the twopriests their hats and breviaries. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The somewhat dolefully calm frame of mind in which Durtal had beenliving since settling at Chartres came to a sudden end. One day _ennui_made him its prey, the black possession which would allow him neither towork, nor to read, nor to pray; so overwhelming that he knew not whitherto turn nor what to do. 

After spending dark and futile days in lounging round his library, taking down a volume and shutting it up again, opening another of whichhe failed to master a single page, he tried to escape from the wearinessof the hours by taking walks, and he determined finally to study thetown of Chartres. 

He found a number of blind alleys and break-neck steeps, such as theroad down the knoll of St. Nicolas, which tumbles from the top of thetown to the bottom in a precipitous flight of steps; and then theBoulevard des Filles-Dieu, so lonely with its walks planted with trees, was worthy of his notice. Starting from the Place Drouaise, he came to alittle bridge where the waters meet of the two branches of the Eure; tothe right, above the eddying current and the buildings on the shore, hecould see the pile of the old town shouldering up the cathedral; to theleft, all along the quay, and looking out on the tall poplars thatfanned the water-mills, were saw-mills and timber-yards, the washingplaces where laundresses knelt on straw in troughs, and the water foamedbefore them in widening inky circles splashed into white bubbles by thedip of a bird's wing. 

This arm of the river diverted into the moat of the old ramparts, encircled Chartres, bordered on one side by the trees of the alleys, andon the other by cottages with terraced gardens down to the level of thestream, the two banks joined by foot-bridges of planks or cast ironarches. 

Near where the Porte Guillaume uplifted its crenelated towers likeraised pies, there were houses that looked as if they had been gutted, displaying, as in the vanished _cagnards_ or vaults of the Hotel Dieu atParis, cellars open on the level of the water, paved basements in whosedepths of prison twilight stone steps could be seen; and on going outthrough the Porte Guillaume across a little humpbacked bridge, under thearchway still showing the groove in which the portcullis had workedwhich was let down of yore to defend this side of the town, he came uponyet another arm of the river washing the feet of more houses, playing athide and seek in the courts, musing between walls; and at once he washaunted by the recollection of another river just like this, with itsdecoction of walnut hulls frothed with bubbles; and to contribute to thesuggestion, the more clearly to evoke a vision of the dismal Bièvre, therank, acrid, pungent smell of tan, steeped, as it were, in vinegar, cameup in fumes from this broth of medlar juice brought down by the Eure. 

The Bièvre, a prisoner now in the sewers of Paris, seemed to haveescaped from its dungeon and to have taken refuge at Chartres that itmight live in the light of day; winding by the Rues de la Foulerie, dela Tannerie, du Massacre, the quarters invaded by the leather-dressers, the skinners and tan-peat makers. 

But the Parisian environment, so pathetic in its aspect of silentsuffering, was absent from this town; these streets suggested merely adeclining hamlet, a poverty-stricken village. He felt something lackingin this second Bièvre, the fascination of exhaustion, the grace of thewoman of Paris faded and smirched by misery; it lacked the charmcompounded of pity and regret, of a fallen creature. 

Such as they were, however, these streets, traced with a sort ofdescending twist round the hill on which the cathedral stood exalted, were the only curious by-ways of Chartres worth wandering through. 

Here Durtal often succeeded in getting out of himself, in dreaming overthe distressful weariness of these streams, and in ceasing to meditateon his own qualms, till he presently was tired of constant excursions inthe same quarter of the town, and then he tramped through it in everydirection, trying to find an interest in the sight of time-wornspots--the grace of Queen Berthe's tower, of Claude Huvé's house andother buildings that have survived the shock of ages; but the enthusiasmhe threw into the study of these relics, spoilt by the foregoneeulogiums of the guides, could not last, and he then fell back on thechurches. 

Although the cathedral crushed everything near it, Saint-Pierre, theancient Abbey church of a Benedictine monastery, now used as barracks, deserved a lingering visit for the sake of its splendid windows, thedwelling-place of Abbots and Bishops who look down with stern eyes, holding up their croziers. And these windows, damaged by time, were verysingular. Upright, in each lancet-shaped setting of white glass, rose asword-blade bereft of its point; and in these square-tipped blades SaintBenedict and Saint Maur stood lost in thought, with Apostles and Popes, Prelates and Saints, standing out in robes of flame against the luminouswhiteness of the borders. 

Certainly Chartres could show the finest glass windows in the world; andeach century had left its noblest stamp on its sanctuaries: the twelfth, thirteenth, and even the fifteenth, on the cathedral; the fourteenth onSaint Pierre; and a few examples--unfortunately broken up and used in amedley mosaic--of painted glass of the sixteenth century in SaintAignan, another church where the vaulted roof had been washed of thecolour of gingerbread speckled with anise-seed, by painters of our ownday. 

Durtal got through a few afternoons in these churches; then the charm ofthis prolonged study was at an end, and gloom took possession of him, even worse than before. 

The Abbé Plomb, to divert his mind, took him for walks in the country, but La Beauce was so flat, so monotonous, that any variety of landscapewas impossible to find. Then the Abbé took him through other parts ofthe town. Some of the buildings claimed their attention, as, forinstance, the House of Detention, in the Rue-Sainte-Thérèse near thePalais de Justice. The edifices themselves were not, indeed, veryimpressive, but the history of their origin made them available as thefulcrum for old dreams. There was something in the prison walls, intheir height and austerity, in their look of order and precision, whichmade the cloister wall of a Carmel look small. They had, in fact, ofold, sheltered a Sisterhood of that Order, and a few steps further on, in a blind alley, was the entrance to the ancient convent of theJacobins, the Mother-House of the great Sisterhood of Chartres: theNursing Sisters of Saint Paul. 

The Abbé Plomb took him to visit this house, and he retained a cheerfulimpression of the walk in the fresh air on the old ramparts. The Sistershad kept up the sentry's walk, which followed a long and narrow avenuewith a statue of the Virgin at each end, one representing the ImmaculateConception, the other the Virgin Mother. And this walk, strewn withriver-pebbles and edged with flowers, shut in on one side by the Abbeyand the novices' schools, on the left overlooked a precipice down to theButte des Charbonniers, and below that again, the Rue de la Couronne;while beyond lay the grass lawns of the Clos Saint Jean, the line of therailroad, labourers' hovels, and convent buildings. 

"There you see, " said the Abbé, "behind the embankment of the WesternRailway stands the Convent of the Sisters of Our Lady and of theCarmelites; here, nearer to the town on this side of the line, are theLittle Sisters of the Poor. "

And indeed the place swarmed with convents: Sisters of the Visitation, Sisters of Providence, Sisters of Good Comfort, Ladies of the SacredHeart, all lived in hives close round Chartres. Prayer hummed up onevery side, rising as the fragrant breath of souls above a city where, by way of divine service, nothing was chanted but the price-current ofgrain and the higher and lower cost of horses in the fairs which, oncertain days, brought all the copers of La Perche together in the_cafés_ on the Place. 

Besides this walk on the old ramparts, the Convent of the Sisters ofSaint Paul was attractive by reason of its quiet and cleanliness. Downsilent passages the backs of the good women might be seen crossed by thetriangular fold of linen, and the click could be heard of their heavyblack rosaries on links of copper, as they rattled on their skirtsagainst the hanging bunch of keys. Their chapel was redolent of LouisXIV. , at once childish and pompous, too much bedizened with gold, andthe floor too shiny with wax; but there was an interesting detail: atthe entrance large panes of glass had been substituted for the walls, sothat in winter the sick, sitting in a warm room, could look through theglass partition and follow the services and hear the plain song ofSolesmes which the Sisters had the good taste to use. 

This visit revived Durtal's spirit; but he inevitably compared thepeaceful hours told out in that retreat with others, and his disgust wasincreased for this town, and its inhabitants, and its avenues, and itsboasted Place des Epars, aping a little Versailles, with its surroundingblatant mansions, and its ridiculous statue of Marceau in the middle. 

And then the limpness of the place, hardly awake by sunrise and asleepagain by dusk!

Once only did Durtal see it really awake, and that was on the day whenMonseigneur Le Tilloy des Mofflaines was enthroned as Bishop. 

Then suddenly the city was galvanized; projects were made, the variousbodies corporate sat in committee, and men came forth who had livedwithin doors for years. 

Scaffold poles were brought out from the masons' yards; blue and yellowflags were hoisted on them, and these masts were linked together bygarlands of ivy-leaves sewn one over the other with white cotton. 

Then Chartres was exhausted, and paused for breath. 

Durtal, startled by these unexpected preparations and such an assumptionof life, had gone out to meet the Bishop, as far as to the Rue SaintMichel. There, on the open square, a gymnastic apparatus had beenerected, the swing bars and rings having been removed, and the polesgarnished with pine branches and gilt paper rosettes, and surmounted bya trophy of tricolour flags arranged in a fan behind a painted cardboardshield. This was an arch of triumph, and under this the Brethren of theChristian Schools were to escort the canopy. 

The procession, which had gone forth to fetch the Bishop from theHospice of Saint Brice, where, in obedience to time-honoured custom, hehad slept the night before entering his See, had made its way thitherunder a fine rain of chanted canticles, broken by heavier showers ofbrass sounding a pious flourish of trumpets. Slowly, with measuredsteps, the train wound along between two hedges of people crowded on thesidewalks, and all the way the windows, hung with drapery, displayedbunches of faces and leaning bodies, cut across the middle by thebalcony bar. 

At the head of the procession, behind the gaudy uniforms of theponderous beadles, came the girls of the Congregational Schools, dressedin crude blue with white veils, in two ranks, filling up the roadway;then followed delegates of nuns from every Order that has a House in thediocese; Sisters of the Visitation from Dreux, Ladies of the SacredHeart from Châteaudun, Sisters of the Immaculate Conception from Nogentle Rotrou, the uncloistered Sisters of the Cloistered Orders ofChartres, Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul and Poor Clares, whose dressesof blueish grey and peat-brown contrasted with the black robes of theothers. 

What was most odd was the various shapes of their coifs. Some had softflapping blinkers, others wore them goffered and stiffened with starch;these hid their face at the bottom of a deep white tunnel; others, onthe contrary, showed their countenance set in an oval frame of pleatedcambric, prolonged behind into conical wings of starched linen lustrousfrom heavy irons. As he looked over this expanse of caps, Durtal wasreminded of the Paris landscape of roofs, in shapes resembling thefunnels worn by these nuns and the cocked hats of the beadles. 

Then, behind these long files of sober-coloured garments, the scarletvestments of the choirs came like the blare of trumpets. The little onesmarched with downcast eyes, their arms crossed under their red capesedged with ermine, and behind them, a little in advance of the nextgroup, walked two white cowls, that of a Brother of Picpus, and that ofa Trappist who represented the Trappist Sisterhood of La Cour Peytral, to which he was chaplain. 

Finally the Seminarists came on in a black crowd; those of the GreatSeminary of Chartres and of the Little Seminary of Saint Chéronpreceding the priests, and behind them, under a purple velvet canopyembroidered in gold with wheat ears and grapes, and decorated at eachcorner with bunches of snow-white feathers, with his mitre on his headand holding his crozier, came Monseigneur Le Tilloy des Mofflaines. 

As he passed, in the act of blessing the street, many an unknown Lazarusrose up, the forgotten dead come back to life; His Reverence seemed tomultiply the Miracles of the Lord. Effete old men, huddled in theirchairs in the doorways or at the windows, revived for a second, andfound strength enough to cross themselves. Persons who had beensupposed dead for years managed almost to smile. The vacant eyes of old, old children gazed at the violet cross outlined in the air by thePrelate's gloved hand. Chartres, that city of the dead, had changed to avast nursery; in the extravagance of its joy the town was in its secondchildhood. 

But as soon as the Bishop was past the scene changed. Durtal wasstartled, and he tittered. 

A whole "Court of Miracles" seemed to follow in the Prelate's train, strutting but tottering; a procession of old wrecks, dressed out in suchgarments as are sold from the dead-house, staggered along holding eachother's arms, propped one against another. Every reach-me-down that hadbeen hanging these twenty years flapped about their limbs, hinderingtheir progress. Trousers with baggy ankles or with gaiter tops, balloon-shaped or close-fitting, made of loose-woven stuff or so shrunkthat they would not meet the boot, displaying feet where the elasticsides wriggled like living vermin, and ankles covered with vermicellidipped in ink; then the most impossibly threadbare and discolouredcoats, made, as it seemed, of old billiard cloths, of tarpaulin worn tothe canvas, of cast-off awnings; overcoats of cast iron, the surfaceworn off the back-seam and sleeves--glaucous waistcoats, sprigged withflowers and furnished with buttons of dry brawn-parings; and all thiswas as nothing; what was prodigious, beyond the bounds of belief, fabulous, positively insane, was the collection of hats that crownedthese costumes. 

The specimens of extinct headgear, lost in the night of ages, that werecollected here! The veterans wore muff-boxes and gas-pipes; some hadtall white hats, for all the world like toilet-pails turned upsidedown, or huge spigots with a hole for the head; others had donned felthats like sponges, shaggy, long-haired Bolivars, melons on flat brimsjust like a tart on a dish; others, again, had crush-hats, which swayedand played the accordion on their own account, their ribs showingthrough the stuff. 

The craziness of the gibus hats beats description. Some were very tall, the shaft crowned with a platform larger than the head, like the shakoof an Imperial Lancer; others very low, ending in an inverted cone--themouth of a blunderbuss or a Polish schapska. 

And under this Sanhedrim of drunken hats were the mopping, wrinkledfaces of very old men, with whiskers like white rabbits' paws, andbristles like tooth-brushes in their nostrils. 

Durtal shook with inextinguishable laughter at this carnival ofantiquities; but his mirth was soon over; he saw two Little Sisters ofthe Poor who were in charge of this school of fossils, and heunderstood. These poor creatures were dressed in clothes that had beenbegged, the rummage of wardrobes, for which the owners had no furtheruse. Then the queerness of their outfit was pathetic; the Little Sistersmust have been at infinite trouble to utilize these leavings of charity;and the old children, recking little of fashion, plumed themselves withpride at being so fine. 

Durtal followed to the cathedral. When he reached the little square, theprocession, caught by a gale of wind, was struggling and clinging to thebanners, which bellied like the sails of a ship, carrying on the men whoclutched the poles. At last, more or less easily, all the people wereswallowed up in the basilica. The _Te Deum_ was pouring out in a torrentfrom the organ. At this moment it really seemed as though, under theimpulsion of this glorious hymn, the church, springing heavenward in arapturous flight, were rising higher and higher; the echo resounded downthe ages, repeating the hymn of triumph which had so often been sungunder that roof; and for once the music was in harmony with thebuilding, and spoke the language which the cathedral had learnt in itsinfancy. 

Durtal was exultant. It seemed to him that Our Lady smiled down fromthose glowing windows, that She was touched by these accents, created bythe saints she had loved, to embody for ever, in a definite melody, andin unique words, the scattered praise of the faithful, the unformulatedrejoicing of the multitude. 

Suddenly his exalted mood was sobered. The _Te Deum_ was ended; a rollof drums and a clarion flourish rang out from the transept. And whilethe brass band of Chartres cannonaded the old walls with the balista ofmere noise, he fled to breathe away from the crowd, which, however, didnot nearly fill the church; and then, after the ceremony, he went to seethe parade of representatives of the various institutions in the town, who came to pay their respects to the new Bishop in his palace. 

There he could laugh and not be ashamed. The forecourt was packed fullof priests. All the superiors of the different Archdeaconries--Chartres, Châteaudun, Nogent le Rotrou, and Dreux--had left there, within thegreat gate, their following of parish priests and curés, who were pacinground and round the green circus of a grass plot. 

The big-wigs of the town, not at all less ridiculous than the pensionersof the Little Sisters of the Poor, crowded in, driving the ecclesiasticsinto the garden walks. Teratology seemed to have emptied out itsspecimen bottles; it was a seething swarm of human larvæ, of strangeheads--bullet-shaped, egg-shaped, faces as seen through a bottle or in adistorting mirror, or escaped from one of Redon's grotesque albums; aperfect museum of monsters on the move. The stagnation of monotonoustoil, handed down for generations from father to son in a city of thedead, was stamped on every face, and the Sunday-best festivity of theday added a touch of the absurd to hereditary ugliness. 

Every black coat in Chartres had come out to take the air. Some datedfrom the days of the Directory, swallowed up the wearer's neck, climbedup high behind the nape, muffled the ears and padded the shoulders;others had shrunk by lying in the drawer, and their sleeves, much tooshort, cut the wearer round the armholes so that he dared not move. 

A miasma of benzine and camphor exhaled from these groups. The clothes, only that morning taken out of pickle to be aired by the good wife, werepestilential. The stove-pipe hats were to match. Left to themselves onwardrobe shelves, they had surely grown taller; they towered immense, displaying on their mill-board column a thin covering of hairs. 

This assembly of worthies admired and congratulated each other; claspedhands encased in white gloves--gloves scoured with paraffin, cleanedwith indiarubber or breadcrumb. Presently a retiring wave cleared aspace in the crowd of priests and laymen, who shrank back hat in hand tomake way for an old hearse of a landau, drawn by a consumptive horse anddriven by a sort of Moudjik, a coachman with a puffy face behind athicket of hair sprouting on his cheeks and his mouth, in his ears andnose. This vehicle came to an anchor before the front steps, and out ofit stepped a fat man, blown out like a bladder and buttoned up in anuniform with silver lace; after him came a thinner personage in a coatwith facings of dark and light blue, and everybody bowed to the Préfetattended by one of his three Councillors. 

They had lifted their plumed cocked hats, distributed a dole ofhand-shaking, and vanished into the vestibule when the army made itsappearance, represented by a Colonel of Cuirassiers, some officers ofthe Artillery and the Commissariat, a few subalterns of Infantry, andone gendarme. 

This was all. 

Within an hour of this reception the exhausted town was asleep again, not having energy enough even to remove the poles; Lazarus had gone backto his sepulchre, the resuscitated antiquities had relapsed into death;the streets were empty; reaction had ensued; Chartres would be exhaustedfor months by this outbreak. 

"What a sty it is! What a hole!" cried Durtal to himself. 

On certain days, tired of spending his afternoons shut up with his booksor of attending service in the cathedral, hearing the canons languidlyplaying rackets from side to side of the choir with the Psalms, of whichthey tossed the verses to and fro in a mumbling tone, he would go downafter dinner and smoke cigarettes in the little Place. At Chartres, eight o'clock in the evening was as three in the morning in any othertown; every light was out, every house closed. 

The priesthood, eager for bed, had shut up shop. No prayers to theVirgin, no Benediction, nothing in this cathedral! At such an hour, kneeling in the dark, you feel as if the Mother were more immediatelypresent, nearer, more intimately your own; but these moments ofconfidence, when it is easier to tell Her all your trivial woes, wereunknown at Notre Dame. No one was worn out by midnight prayer in thatchurch!

But though he could not go in, Durtal could prowl round and about it. And then, scarcely seen by the light of the poverty-stricken lampsstanding here and there on the square, the cathedral assumed strangeaspects. The portals yawned as caverns full of blackness, and the outershape of the body of the building, from the towers to the apse, withits abutments and buttresses merely guessed at in the dark, stood uplike a cliff worn away by invisible waves. It might have been amountain, its summit jagged by storms, eaten into deep caverns at thefoot by a vanished ocean; and on going nearer he could in the gloomimagine ill-defined paths steeply running up the cliff, or winding onshelves at the edge of a rock; and, occasionally, midway on one of thesedark paths, some white statue of a Bishop would start forth under amoonbeam, like a ghost haunting the ruins, and blessing all comers withuplifted fingers of stone. 

These wanderings in the precincts of the cathedral, which by daylightwas so light and slender, and in the dark seemed so ponderous andthreatening, were ill-adapted to cure Durtal of his melancholy. 

This illusion of rocks riven by the lightning, of caverns deserted bythe waves, plunged him into fresh reveries, and at last threw him backon himself, ending, after many divagations of mind, in the contemplationof the ruin within him. Then once more he sounded his soul, and tried toreduce his thoughts to some sort of order. 

"I am simply bored to death, " said he to himself, "and why?" And by dintof analyzing his condition he came to this conclusion: "My state ofboredom is not simple but two-fold; or, if it is indeed all of a piece, it may be divided into two very distinct phases: I am bored by myself, independently of place, of home, of books; and I am also bored byprovincial life--the special form of boredom inherent in Chartres. 

"Bored by myself--ah, yes, most heartily! How tired I am of watchingmyself, of trying to detect the secret of my disgust andcontentiousness. When I contemplate my life I could sum it up thus: thepast has been horrible; the present seems to me feeble and desolate; thefuture--is appalling. "

He paused, and then went on, --

"During my first days here I was happy in the dream suggested by thiscathedral. I believed it would re-act on my life, that it would peoplethe solitude I felt within me, that it would, in a word, be a help to mein this provincial atmosphere. But I beguiled myself. In fact, it stillweighs on me, it still holds me wrapped in the mild gloom of its crypt;but I can now reason about it, I can scrutinize its details, I try totalk to it of art, and in these inquiries I have lost the unreasoningsense of its environment, the silent fascination of the whole. 

"I am less conscious now of its soul than of its body. I tried to studyarchæology, that contemptible anatomy of building, and I have fallenhumanly in love with its beauty; the spiritual aspect has vanished, toleave nothing behind but the earthly part. Alas! I was determined tosee, and I have wrecked trust; it is the eternal allegory of Psyche overagain!

"And besides--besides--is not the weariness that is crushing me to someextent the fault of the Abbé Gévresin? By compelling me to muchrepetition he has exhausted in me the soothing and, at the same time, subversive virtue of the Sacrament; and the most evident result of thistreatment is that my soul has collapsed and has no spirit toreinvigorate it. 

"No, no, " he went on presently. "Here I am working back on my perennialpresumption, my incessant round of cares; and once more I am unjust tothe Abbé. But it is certainly no fault of his if frequent Communionmakes me cold. I look for sensations; but the very first thing should beto convince myself that such cravings are contemptible, and next, tounderstand clearly that it is precisely because Communion is so frigidthat it is the more meritorious and virtuous, yes, that is very easy tosay; but where is the Catholic who prefers such coldness to a glow? Thesaints may, no doubt; but even they suffer under it! It is so natural toentreat God for a little joy, to look forward to an Union consummated bya loving word, a sign--a mere nothing that may show that He is present. 

"Say what they may, we cannot help being pained by a dead absorption ofthat living bread! And it is very hard to admit that Our Lord is wisewhen He keeps us in ignorance of the ills from which it preserves us andthe progress it enables us to make, since, but for that, we might bedefenceless against the attacks of self-conceit and the assaults ofvanity--helpless against ourselves. 

"In short, whatever the reason, I am no better off at Chartres than inParis, " was his conclusion. And when these reflections beset him, especially on Sundays, he regretted having accompanied the Abbé Gévresininto the country. 

In Paris, in old days, he at any rate got through the hours at theservices. He could attend Mass in the morning at the Benedictine chapelor at Saint Séverin, and go to Saint Sulpice for vespers or compline. 

Here there was nothing; and yet where were there more promisingconditions for the performance of Gregorian music than at Chartres?

Setting aside a few antiquated basses who could only bark, and whom itwould be necessary to dismiss, there was a whole sheaf of rich youngvoices, a school of nearly a hundred boys who could have rolled out inclear, sweet tones the broad melodies of the old plain-song. 

But in this ill-starred cathedral an inept precentor gave out, by way ofliturgical canticles, a perfect menagerie of outlandish tunes, which, let loose on Sunday, seemed to scamper like marmosets up the pillars andunder the roof. And the artless voices of the choir-boys were drilled tothese musical monkey-tricks. At Chartres it was impossible to attendHigh Mass in the cathedral with any decent devotion. 

The other services were not much better; indeed, Durtal was reduced toattending vespers at Notre Dame de la Brèche, in the lower town, achapel where the priest, a friend of the Abbé Plomb, had introduced theuse of Solesmes, and patiently trained a little choir composed offaithful working-men and pious boys. 

The voices, especially the trebles, were not first-rate; but the priest, being a skilled musician, had contrived to train and soften them, andhad, in fact, succeeded in getting the Benedictine art accepted in hischurch. 

Unfortunately it was so ugly, so painfully adorned with images, thatonly by shutting his eyes could Durtal endure to remain in Notre Dame dela Brèche. 

In the midst of this surge of reflections on his soul, on Paris, on theEucharist, on music, on Chartres, Durtal was at last quite bewildered, not knowing where he was. Now and then, however, he recovered sometranquillity, and then he was astonished at himself, he could notunderstand himself. 

"Why regret Paris--why, indeed?" he would ask himself. "Was the life Iled there unlike that I lead here? Were not the churches there--NotreDame de Paris, to name but one--just as much to be execrated forsacrilegious _bravuras_ as Notre Dame de Chartres? On the other hand, Inever went out there to lounge in the tiresome streets; I saw nobody butthe Abbé Gévresin and Madame Bavoil, and I see them still, and oftener, in this town. I have even gained a friend by the move, a learned andagreeable companion, in the Abbé Plomb. So why?"

And then one morning, unexpectedly, every thing was plain to him. He sawquite clearly that he was on the wrong track, and without even seekingfor it he found the right one. 

To discover the unknown source of his flaccid longing for he knew notwhat, and his inexplicable dissatisfaction, he had only to look back alittle way and pause at La Trappe. He saw now everything had begunthere. Having reached that culminating point of his retrospect, hecould, as it were, stand on a height and command a view of the decliningyears since he had left the monastery; and now, gazing at thatdescending panorama of his life, he discerned this:--

That from the time of his return to Paris a craving for the cloister hadbeen incessantly permeating his being; he had unremittingly cherishedthe dream of retiring from the world, of living peacefully as a reclusenear to God. 

He had, to be sure, only thought of it definitely in the form ofimpossible longings and regrets, for he knew full well that neither washis body strong enough nor his soul staunch enough for him to buryhimself as a Trappist. Still, once started from that spring-board, hisimagination flew off at a tangent, overleaped every obstacle, floated indiscursive reveries where he saw himself as a Friar in some easy-goingconvent under the rule of a merciful Order, devoted to liturgies andadoring art. 

He could but shrug his shoulders, indeed, when he came back to himself, and smile at these dreams of the future which he indulged in hours ofvacuous idleness; but this self-contempt of a man who catches himself inthe very act of flagrant nonsense was nevertheless succeeded by the hopeof not losing all the advantages of an honest delusion; and he couldremount on a chimera which he thought less wild, as leading to a _viamedia_, a compromise, fancying that by moderating his ideal he shouldfind it more attainable. 

He assured himself that, in default of a really conventual life, hemight perhaps achieve an illusory imitation of it by avoiding theturmoil of Paris and burying himself in a hole. And he now saw that hehad completely cheated himself when, on discussing the question as towhether he should leave Paris and go to settle at Chartres, he hadbelieved that he was yielding to the Abbé Gévresin's arguments andMadame Bavoil's urgency. 

Certainly, without admitting it, without accounting for it, he hadreally acted on the prompting of this cherished dream. Would notChartres be a sort of monastic haven, of open cloister, where he couldenjoy his liberty and not have to give up his comforts? Would it not, atany rate, for lack of an unattainable hermitage, be a sop thrown to hisdesires; and supposing he could succeed in reducing his too exorbitantdemands, give him the final repose and peace for which he had yearnedever since his return from La Trappe?

And nothing of all this had been realized. The unsettled feeling he hadexperienced in Paris had pursued him to Chartres. He was, as it were, onthe march, or perched on a bough; he could not feel at home, but as aman lingering on in furnished rooms, whence he must presently depart. 

In short, he had deluded himself when he had fancied that a man mightmake a cell of a solitary room in silent surroundings; the religiousjog-trot in a provincial atmosphere had no resemblance to the life of amonastery. There was no illusion or suggestion of the convent. 

This check, when he recognized it, added to the ardour or his regrets;and the distress which in Paris had lurked latent and ill-defined, developed at Chartres clear and unmistakable. 

Then began an unremitting struggle with himself. 

The Abbé Gévresin, whom he consulted, would only smile and treat him asin a novices' school or a seminary a youthful postulant is treated whoconfesses to deep melancholy and persistent weariness. His malady is nottaken seriously; he is told that all his companions suffer the sametemptations, the same qualms; he is sent away comforted, while hissuperiors seem to be laughing at him. 

But at the end of a little time this method no longer succeeded. Thenthe Abbé was firm with Durtal, and one day, when his penitent wasbemoaning himself, he replied, --

"It is an attack you must get over, " and then he added lightly after asilence, "And it will not be the last or the worst. "

At this Durtal turned restive; the Abbé, however, drove him to bay, wanting to make him confess how senseless his struggles were. 

"The idea of the cloister haunts you, " said he. "Well, then, what isthere to hinder you? Why do you not retire to a Trappist convent?"

"You know very well that I am not strong enough to endure the rule. "

"Then become an oblate; go to join Monsieur Bruno at Notre Dame del'Atre. "

"No, indeed, not that, at any rate. To be an oblate at La Trappe is thesame thing as remaining at Chartres! It is a mere half-measure. MonsieurBruno will always remain a boarder; he will never be a monk. He gets allthe disadvantages of the cloister, and none of the benefits. "

"But there are other monasteries besides those of La Trappe, " repliedthe Abbé. "Be a Benedictine Father or oblate, a black Friar. Their ruleseems to be mild; you will live in a world of learned men and writers;what more would you have?"

"I do not say--but--"

"But what?"

"I know nothing of them--"

"Nothing can be easier than to get to know them. The Abbé Plomb is awelcome friend at Solesmes. He can give all the introductions you canwish to that convent. "

"Good; that is worth thinking about. I will consult the Abbé, " saidDurtal, rising to take leave of the old priest. 

"The Black Dog is troubling you, our friend, " observed Madame Bavoil, who had overheard the two men's conversation from the next room, thedoor between being open; and she came in, her breviary in her hand. 

"Ah, ha!" she went on, looking at him over her spectacles, "do yousuppose that by moving your soul from place to place you can change it?Your trouble is neither in the air nor outside you, but within you. Onmy word, to hear you talk, one might fancy that by travelling from onespot to another every discord could be avoided, that a man could escapefrom himself! Nothing can be more false. Ask the Father--"

And when Durtal, smiling awkwardly, was gone, Madame Bavoil questionedher master. 

"What is really the matter with him?"

"He is being broken by the ordeal of dryness, " replied the priest. "Heis enduring a painful but not dangerous operation. So long as hepreserves a love of prayer, and neglects none of his religiousexercises, all will be well. That is the touchstone which enables us todiscern whether such an attack is sent from Heaven. "

"But, Father, he must at any rate be comforted. "

"I can do nothing but pray for him. "

"Another question: our friend is possessed by the notion of a monasticlife; perhaps you ought to send him to a convent. "

The Abbé gave an evasive shrug. 

"Dryness of spirit and the dreams to which it gives rise are not thesign of a vocation, " said he. "I might even say that they have a greaterchance of thriving than of diminishing in the cloister. From that pointof view conventual life might be bad for him. Still, that is not theonly question to be considered--there is something else--and besides, who knows?" He was silent, and presently added: "Much may be possible. Give me my hat, Madame Bavoil. I will go and talk over Durtal with theAbbé Plomb. "

CHAPTER IX. 

This discussion had been of use to Durtal; it took him out of thegeneralities over which he had persistently mused since his arrival atChartres. The Abbé had, in fact, shown him his bearings, and pointed outa navigable channel leading to a definite end, a haven familiar to all. The monastery which had lingered in Durtal's fancy as a mere confusedpicture, apart from time, without place or date, deriving nothing fromhis memories of La Trappe but the sense of discipline, and on to whichhe had at once engrafted the fancy of an abbey of a more literary andartistic stamp, governed by a conciliatory rule, in a milderatmosphere--that ideal retreat, half borrowed from reality and half thefabric of a dream--was taking shape. By speaking of an Order thatexisted, mentioning it by name and actually specifying a House under itsrule, the Abbé had given Durtal substantial food instead of theargumentative wordiness of a mania; he had afforded him something betterto chew than the empty air on which he had fed so long. 

The state of uncertainty and indecision he had been living in was atend; his choice now lay between remaining at Chartres or retiring toSolesmes; and at once, without delay, he set to work to read andreconsider the works of Saint Benedict. 

This rule, summed up more particularly in a series of paternalinjunctions and affectionate advice, was a marvel of gentleness andtactfulness. Every craving of the soul was described, every misery ofthe body foreseen. It knew so precisely how to ask much and yet not toexact too much, that it had yielded without breaking, satisfied themovements of different ages, and remained, in the nineteenth centurywhat it had been in mediæval times. 

Then how merciful, how wise it was when addressing itself to the feebleand infirm. "The sick shall be served as though they were Christ inperson, " says Saint Benedict; and his anxiety for his sons, his urgentrecommendations to the Superiors to love and visit the younger brethren, to neglect nothing that may assuage their ills, reveals a maternal carethat is truly touching on the patriarch's part. 

"Yes, yes, " muttered Durtal, "but there are in this rule other articleswhich seem less acceptable to miscreants of my stamp. This, forinstance: 'No man shall dare to give or to receive anything without theAbbot's permission, or to have or hold anything as his own--absolutelynothing, neither book, nor tablets, nor pointer--in a word, nothingwhatever, inasmuch as they are not allowed to call even their body ortheir will their own. '

"This is a terrible sentence of abnegation and obedience, " he sighed, "only, is this law, which is binding on the Fathers and the ServingBrothers, equally strict for the Oblates, the ægrotant members of theBenedictine army, who are not mentioned in the text? This remains to beseen. It will be well too to ascertain how far it is applied, for therule is on the whole so skilful, so elastic, so broad that it can bemade at option very austere or very mild. 

"With the Trappists the ordinances are so closely drawn that they arestifling; with the Benedictines, on the contrary, they would be lightand airy enough to allow the soul to breathe easily. One Fraternityclings scrupulously to the letter; the other, on the contrary, drawsinspiration from the Spirit of the Saint. 

"Before goading myself along this road I must consult the Abbé Plomb, "was Durtal's conclusion. He went to call on the priest; but he wasabsent for some days. 

As a precaution against indolence, a measure of spiritual discipline, hethrew himself on the cathedral once more, and tried, now that he wasless overpowered by speculation, to read its meaning. 

The stone text which he was bent on understanding was puzzling, if notdifficult to decipher, in consequence of the interpolated passages, repetitions, and parts eliminated or abridged; in fact, to say thetruth, as the result of a certain incoherence, accounted for no doubt bythe circumstance that the work had been carried on, altered or extendedby successive artists during a lapse of two hundred years. 

The image-makers of the thirteenth century had not always taken intoaccount the ideas expressed by their precursors; they had repeated them, expressing them from their own point of view in their personal tongue;thus, for instance, they had introduced a second version of the signs ofthe seasons and of the zodiac. The sculptors of the twelfth century hadmade a calendar in stone on the western front; those of the thirteenthdid the same in the right-hand doorway of the north porch, justifyingthis reduplication of the subject on the same church by the fact thatthe zodiac and the seasons may in symbolism have severalinterpretations. 

According to Tertullian the death and new birth of the circling yearsafforded an image of the Resurrection at the end of the world. Accordingto others the Sun, surrounded by the twelve Signs, was emblematic of theSun of Justice surrounded by his twelve Apostles. The Abbé Bulteau seesin these stony calendars a rendering of the passage in which St. Pauldeclares to the Hebrews that "Jesus is the same yesterday, to-day, andfor ever, " while the Abbé Clerval gives this simple interpretation: thatall times belong to Christ, and are bound to glorify Him. 

"But this is a mere detail, " said Durtal to himself. "In the wholestructure of the cathedral itself we can trace two-fold purposes. 

"The architectural mass of Notre Dame de Chartres as a whole may bedivided, externally, into three great parts, as indicated by the threegrand porches. The western or royal portal, which is the ceremonialentrance to the sanctuary, between the two towers; the north porch onthe side next the bishop's palace, beyond the new spire; the southporch, flanked by the old spire. 

"Now, the subjects represented on the royal front and in the south porchare identical. Each glorifies the Triumph of the Incarnate Word, withthis difference: that on the south porch Our Lord is not exalted aloneas He is on the west front, but in the person also of the Elect and ofHis Saints. If to these two subjects, which may be considered asone--the Saviour glorified in Himself and in His Saints--we add thepraises of the Virgin set forth in the north front we find this result:a poem in praise of the Mother and the Son as declaring the final causeof the Church itself. 

"By studying the variations between the south and west fronts weperceive that, though in both Jesus is shown in the same act of blessingthe earth, and though both are almost exclusively restricted toillustrating the Gospel, leaving the scenes of the Old Testament to thearches on the north, they differ greatly from each other, and are noless unlike the portals of all other cathedrals. 

"In total disagreement with the mystic rituals observed almosteverywhere else--at Notre Dame de Paris, at Bourges, at Amiens, to namebut three churches--the Last Judgment, which is seen on the mainentrance of those basilicas, is at Chartres relegated to the southporch. 

"And in the same way the Tree of Jesse, which at Amiens and Reims andthe cathedral at Rouen, is displayed on the royal porch, is at Chartreson the north side of the building; and many more similar changes mightbe noted, " said Durtal to himself. "But, which is yet more strange, theparallel so commonly to be observed between the subjects treated on theinner and outer surface of the same wall, in sculptured stone withoutand painted glass within, does not constantly exist at Chartres. This, for instance, is the case with regard to the genealogical Tree ofChrist, which is seen inside in glass on the upper wall of the westfront, and is carved outside on the north porch. At the same time, whenthe subjects do not entirely coincide on the front and back of the page, they are often complementary, or carry out the same idea. Thus the LastJudgment, which is not to be found on the outside of the north front, blazes out, within, from the great rose window above on the same side. This, then, is not cumulative but appropriate development--history begunin one dialect and finished in another. 

"In short, it is the ruling idea of the poem which governs all thesedifferences and harmonies; which comes out like a refrain after each ofthese three strophes in stone; the idea that this church belongs to OurMother. The cathedral is faithful to its name, loyal to its dedication. The Virgin is Lady over all. She fills the whole interior, and appearsoutside even on the western and southern portals, which are notespecially Hers, above a door, on a capital, high in air on a pediment. The angelic salutation of art has been repeated without intermission bythe painters and sculptors of every age. The cathedral of Chartres istruly the Virgin's fief. 

"And on the whole, " thought Durtal, "in spite of the discrepancies insome of its texts, the cathedral is legible. 

"It contains a rendering of the Old and New Testaments; it also engraftson the sacred Scriptures the Apocryphal traditions relating to theVirgin and St. Joseph, the lives of the saints preserved in the GoldenLegend of Jacopo da Voragine and the special biographies of the aspiringrecluses of the diocese of Chartres. It is a vast encyclopædia ofmediæval learning as concerning God, the Virgin, and the Elect. 

"Didron is almost justified in saying that it is a compendium of thosegreat encyclopædias composed in the thirteenth century; only the theorythat he bases on this truthful observation wanders off and becomesfaulty as soon as he tries to work it out. 

"He concludes, in fact, by conceiving of this cathedral as no more thana rendering of the _Speculum Universale_, the _Mirror of the World_ ofVincent of Beauvais; above all, like that work, as an epitome ofpractical life and a record of the human race throughout the ages. Inpoint of fact, " said Durtal to himself, as he took the _ChristianIconography_ of that writer down from the shelf, "in point of fact, according to him, our stone pages ought to follow in such successionthat, beginning with the opening chapter on the north, they would endwith the paragraphs on the south. Then we should find the narrative inthe following order: First of all the genesis, the Biblical cosmogony, the creation of man and woman and Eden; and then, after the expulsion ofthe first pair, the tale of man's redemption by suffering. 

"'Whereby, ' says he, 'the sculptor took occasion to teach the hinds ofLa Beauce how to work with their hands and their head. Here, to theright of Adam's Fall, he carves under the eyes and for the perpetualedification of all men, a calendar of stone with all the labours of thefield, and then a catechism of industry, showing the works done in thetown; finally, for the labours of the mind, a manual of the liberalarts. "

"Then, thus instructed, man lives on from generation to generation, until the end of the world, set forth in the images on the south side. 

"This treasury of sculpture would thus include a compendium of thehistory of nature and of science, a glossary of morality and art, abiography of humanity, a panorama of the whole world. Thus it would veryreally represent the _Mirror of the World_, and be an edition in stoneof Vincent of Beauvais' book. 

"There is only one difficulty. The Dominican's _Speculum Universale_dates from many years later than the erection of this cathedral; also, in developing his theory, Didron does not take into account theperspective and relations of the statuary. He assigns equal importanceto a small figure half hidden in the moulding of an arch and to thelarge statues in the foreground supporting the picture in relief of OurLord and His Mother. Indeed, it might be said that these are the veryfigures he overlooks; and, in the same way, he takes no account of thewestern doors, which he could not force into his scheme. 

"This archæologist's ideas, in fact, cannot be maintained. Hesubordinates leading features to accessory details, and ends in a kindof rationalism entirely opposed to the mysticism of the period. Heinvestigates the Middle Ages by levelling down the divine idea to thelowest earthly meaning, and referring to man what is intended to applyto God. The prayer of sculpture, chanted by the ages of faith, becomes, in the introduction to his work, nothing more than an encyclopædia ofindustrial and moral teaching. 

"Let us look closer at all this, " Durtal went on, and he went out tosmoke a cigarette on the Place. "That royal doorway, " thought he, as hewalked on, "is the entrance to the great front by which kings wereadmitted. It is likewise the first chapter of the book, and it sums upthe whole of the building. 

"But certainly these conclusions forestalling the premisses are verystrange; this recapitulation, placed at the very beginning of the work, when it ought, in fact, to be placed at the end, in the apse!

"And yet, " he reflected, "putting this aside, the _façade_ thus workedout fills the position in this basilica which the second of theSapiential Books holds in the Bible. It answers to the Book of Psalms, which is in a certain sense an epitome of all the Books of the OldTestament, and consequently, at the same time, a prophetic memento ofthe whole of revealed religion. 

"The western side of the cathedral is similar; only, it is a compendiumnot of the older but of the newer Scriptures; an epitome of the Gospels, an abridgment of the books of St. John and the synoptical Gospels. 

"In building this, the twelfth century did more. It added more detailsto this glorification of Christ, following Him from before His birth, through the Bible story, till after His Death and to His Apotheosis asdescribed in the Apocalypse; it completed the Scriptures by theApocryphal writings, telling the tale of Saint Joachim and Saint Anna, recording many episodes of the marriage of the Virgin and Joseph derivedfrom the Gospel of the Nativity of the Virgin and _pseudo_-Gospel of St. James the Less. 

"But, indeed, in every early sanctuary such use was made of theselegends, and no church is really intelligible when they are ignored. 

"Nor is there anything to surprise us in this mixture of the authenticGospels and mere fables. When the Church refused to recognize bycanonical authority the divine origin of the Gospels of the Childhood, of the Nativity, the writings of St. Thomas the Israelite, of Nicodemus, of St. James the Less, and the History of Joseph, it had no intention ofrejecting them altogether, and consigning them to the limbo ofinventions and lies. In spite of certain anecdotes which are, to say theleast of it, ridiculous, there may be found in these texts some accuratedetails and authentic narratives which the Evangelists, cautiouslyreticent, did not think proper to record. The Middle Ages by no meanslent themselves to heresy when they ascribed to these purely humanScriptures the value of probable legend and the interest of piousreminiscence. 

"As a whole, " thought Durtal, who was now standing in front of the doorsbetween the two towers, the royal western front, "as a whole, this vastpalimpsest, with its 719 figures, is easy to decipher if we availourselves of the key applied by the Abbé Bulteau in his monograph onthis cathedral. 

"Starting from the new belfry and working across the western front tothe old belfry, we follow the history of Christ embodied in nearly twohundred statues lost in the capitals. It starts with Christ's ancestors, beginning with the story of Anna and Joachim, and giving the legend inminute images. Out of deference perhaps to the Inspired Books, thishistory creeps along the wall, making itself small so as to beinconspicuous, and narrates, as if in secret, by artless mimicry, poorJoachim's despair when a scribe of the Temple named Reuben reproves himfor being childless, and rejects his offerings in the name of the Lordwho has not blessed him; then Joachim, in sorrow, separates from hiswife and goes away to bewail the curse that has lighted on him, till anangel appears to him and comforts him, and bids him return to his wife, who shall bear a daughter of his begetting. 

"Then we see Anna, weeping alone over her barrenness and her widowhood;and the angel comes to her and bids her go forth to meet her husband, and she finds him at the golden gate. And they fall on each other's neckand go home together. And Anna brings forth Mary, whom they dedicate tothe Lord. 

"Years then pass, till the time comes when the Virgin is to bebetrothed. The High Priest bids all of the children of the House ofDavid who are of age, and not yet married, to come to the altar with arod in their hand; and to discern which of these shall be chosen tomarry the Virgin, Abiathar, the High Priest, inquires of the Most High, who repeats the prophecy of Isaiah which declares that a flower shallcome out of Jesse on which the Holy Spirit shall rest. 

"And immediately the rod blossoms of one of those present, Joseph theCarpenter, and a dove descends from heaven to settle on it. 

"So Mary is given to Joseph, and the marriage takes place; Messiah isborn, and Herod massacres the Innocents; and there the gospel of theNativity ends, and the story is taken up by the Holy Scriptures, whichfollow the Life of Jesus to the hour of His last appearance on earthafter His death. 

"These scenes, set forth in small simple imagery, serve as a border atthe bottom of the vast presentment which extends from tower to towerover all three doors. 

"Here the scenes are placed which are intended to attract the crowd byplainer and more visible images; here we see the general theme of thisportal in all its splendour, recapitulating the Gospels and achievingthe purpose of the Church itself. 

"On the left we see the Ascension of Our Lord, soaring triumphant onclouds rendered by a waving scroll held on each side, in the Byzantinemanner, by two angels; while below, the Apostles with uplifted faces, gaze at this ascension pointed out to them by other angels who havedescended and hover over them, their fingers extended towards the sky. 

"The hollow moulding of the arch is filled up with a calendar and zodiacof stone. 

"The right-hand side shows the Assumption of Our Lady, seated on athrone, sceptre in hand, and holding the Infant, who blesses the world. Beneath are the episodes of Her life: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the homage of the shepherds, and the presentation of Jesusto the High Priest; and the bend of the arch, rising to a point like amitre above the Mother, has the mouldings enriched with two lines offigures, one of archangels bearing censers, with wings closelyimbricated as if with tiles, the other of personifications of the sevenliberal arts, each represented by two figures--one allegorical, and theother the presentment of the inventor, or of the paragon of that art inantiquity. This is the same scheme of expression as we see in thecathedral at Laon; the paraphrase in sculpture of scholastic theology, and a rendering in images of the text of Albertus Magnus, who, afterrehearsing the perfections of the Virgin, declares that She possessed aperfect knowledge of the seven arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music--all the lore of the MiddleAges. 

"Finally, in the middle, the great doorway illustrates the subject roundwhich the storied carving of the other doors all centres: theGlorification of Our Lord, as Saint John beheld it at Patmos; theApocalypse, the last book of the Bible, spread open on the forefront ofthe basilica, above the grand entrance to the church. 

"Jesus is seated, on His head the cruciform nimbus, robed in the linentalaris and draped in a mantle which hangs in a fall of close pleats;His bare feet rest on a stool, emblematical of the earth, according toIsaiah. With one hand He blesses the world; in the other He holds theBook with the seven Seals. About him, in the oval glory or _Vesica_, wesee the Tetramorph--the four evangelical emblems with closely frettedwings: the winged cherub, the lion, the eagle, and the ox, figuring St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. John, and St. Luke. Above are the twelve Apostlesholding scrolls and books. 

"And to complete the Apocalyptic vision, in the hollow mouldings of thearch are the twelve Angels and four and twenty Elders described by St. John, in white raiment and crowned with gold, playing on musicalinstruments, and singing in the perpetual adoration which some fewsouls, dwelling isolated in the midst of the indifference of this age, still carry on. They magnify the glory of the Most High, throwingthemselves on their faces when the Evangelical Beasts, responding to thefervent and solemn prayers that go up from the earth, utter, in a voicethat resounds above the roar of thunder, the word which in its fourletters, its two syllables, sums up every duty of man to God--thehumble, loving, obedient _Amen_. 

"The text has been very closely followed by the image-maker, exceptingwith regard to the Beasts, for one detail is omitted; they are notrepresented with the eyes of which the prophet tells us they were 'fullwithin. '

"Thus, regarding this whole front as a triptych, we find that in theleft doorway we have the Ascension framed in the signs of the zodiac; inthe middle, the triumph of Jesus as described by the Seer; on the right, the triumph of Mary, surrounded by certain of Her attributes. The wholeconstitutes the scheme to be carried out by the architect: theGlorification of the Incarnate Word. 

"In fact, as the Abbé Clerval says in his important work on thecathedral of Chartres, 'we have the scenes of His life which preparedthe way for His glory; we have this actual entrance into glory; and thenHis eternal glorification by the Angels, the Saints, and the BlessedVirgin. '

"From the point of view of artistic execution the work in the grandsubject is crisp and splendid; the smaller figures are obscure andmutilated. The panel representing the Virgin Mary has suffered severely, and both it and that representing the Ascension are strangely rough andbarbarous, quite inferior to the central tympanum, which contains themost living, the most haunting, of many figures of Christ. 

"Nowhere, indeed, in mediæval sculpture does the Redeemer appear as moresaddened or more pitiful, or under a more solemn aspect. Seen inprofile, His hair flowing over His shoulders, smooth in front anddivided down the middle, with a nose slightly turned up and a heavymouth under a thick moustache, with a short, curling beard and a longneck, He suggests not so much a Byzantine Christ, such as the artists ofthat time were wont to paint and carve, but a pre-Raphaelite Christdesigned by a Fleming, or even derived from the Dutch, showing indeedthat slightly earthy taint which reappeared at a later time with a lesspure type of head, at the end of the fifteenth century, in the pictureby Cornelis Van Oostzaanen, in the gallery at Cassel. 

"He rises enthroned, almost sorrowful in His triumph, unamazed as Heblesses, with pathetic resignation, the generations of sinners who forseven centuries have gazed up at Him with inquisitive, unloving eyes asthey cross the square; and all turn their back on Him, caring littleenough for this Saviour unlike the head familiar to them, recognizingHim only with sheep-like features and a pleasing expression; such, inshort, as the foppish image at the cathedral at Amiens before which thelovers of a softer type go into ecstasies. 

"Above this Christ are the three windows invisible from outside, andover them again the huge dead rose window, looking like a blind eye, andlighting up, like the windows, only when seen from within, when theyglow with clear flame and pale sapphires set in stone; then, higher yet, above the rose, is the gallery of French kings, under the greattriangular gable between the towers. 

"And the two belfries fling up their spires; the old one carved in softlimestone, imbricated with scales, rising in one bold flight to end in apoint, and send up a vapour of prayer among the clouds; the new one, pierced like lace, chiselled like a jewel, wreathed with foliage andcrockets of vine, rises with coquettish dalliance, trying to make up forlack of the inspired flight and humble entreaty of its senior bybabbling prayer and ingratiating smiles; to persuade the Father bychildlike lisping. 

"But to return to the west portal, " Durtal went on, "in spite of theimportance of its grand decoration, displaying the Eternal Triumph ofthe Word, the interest of artists is irresistibly attracted to theground storey of the building, where nineteen colossal stone statuesstand in the space that extends from tower to tower; part against thewall, and part in the recesses of the door-bays. 

"The finest sculpture in the world is certainly that we find here. Thereare seven kings, seven saints or prophets, and five queens. There wereoriginally twenty-four of these statues, but five have disappeared andleft no trace. 

"They all wear glories excepting the three first, nearest to the newbelfry, and all stand under canopies of pierced work, representing roofsor tabernacles, palaces, bridges--a whole town in little, Sion forchildren, a dwarfed New Jerusalem. 

"They all are standing, each on a column with a guilloche pattern; onplinths carved over with lozenges, diamond points, fir-cone scales, withchain patterns, fretwork, billets, chequers like a chess-board of whichthe alternate squares are hollowed out; and paved with a sort of mosaic, inlaid patterns which, like the borders of the church windows, suggest areminiscence of Mussulman goldsmith's work, and show the origin of thestyle brought from the East by the Crusaders. 

"The three first statues in the recess to the left, nearest the newspire, do not stand on any pattern borrowed from the heathen; they aretrampling on indescribable monsters. One, a king whose head having beenlost, has been fitted with the head of a queen, treads on a manentangled by serpents; another king stands on a woman who holds areptile by the tail with one hand, and with the other strokes the plaitof her own hair; the third, a queen, her head crowned with a plain goldfillet and her shape that of a woman with child, while her face issmiling but commonplace, has at her feet two dragons, a monkey, a toad, a dog, and a snake with an ape's head. What is the meaning of theseenigmas? No one knows--no more, indeed, than we know the names of thesixteen other statues placed along the porch. 

"Some believe that they represent the ancestry of the Messiah, but thisassertion has no evidence to support it; others find here a mixedassemblage of the heroes of the Old Testament and the benefactors to theChurch, but this hypothesis is no less illusory. The truth is that, though all these personages have had sceptres in their hands, scrolls, ribands, and breviaries, not one of them displays the attributes whichwould serve to identify them in accordance with the religious symbolismof the Middle Ages. At most might we venture to give the name of Danielto a headless figure because a formless dragon writhes under his feet, emblematical of the Devil conquered by the prophet at Babylon. 

"The most striking and the strangest of these figures are the queens. 

"The first, the royal virago with the prominent stomach, is ordinaryenough; the last, opposite to this princess at the furthest end of thefront near the old tower, has lost half her face, and the remainingportion is not attractive; but the three others, standing in theprincipal doorway, are matchless. 

"The first, tall, slender, and very straight, wears a crown on her brow, a veil, hair banded on each side of a middle parting, and falling inplaits on her shoulders; her nose turns up a little, is somewhat common;her lips firm and judicious; her chin square. The face is not veryyoung. The body is swathed, and rigid, in a large cloak with widesleeves, and the richly-jewelled sheath of a gown that betrays nofeminine outline of figure. She is upright, sexless, shapeless; herwaist slight and bound with a girdle of cord, like a Franciscan Sister. She stands looking, with her head slightly bent, attentive to one knowsnot what, seeing nothing. Has she attained to the perfect negation ofall things? Is she living the life of Union with God beyond the worlds, where time is no more? It might be thought so, since it is noteworthythat, in spite of her royal insignia and the magnificence of hercostume, she has the self-centred look, the austere demeanour of a nun. She seems more of the cloister than of the Court. Then we wonder who canhave placed her on guard by this door, and why, faithful to a chargeknown to none but herself, she watches, day and night, with her far-awaygaze across the square, waiting motionless for some one who for sevenhundred years has failed to come. 

"She might be an embodiment of Advent, stooping a little to listen tothe woeful supplications of man as they rise from earth; in that case, she must be an Old Testament queen, dead long before the birth of theMessiah she perhaps may have prophesied. 

"As she holds a book, the Abbé Bulteau thinks it may be a full-lengthstatue of Saint Radegonde. But other princesses have been canonized, and, like her, hold books. At the same time, the monastic aspect of thisqueen, her emaciated figure, her eye vaguely fixed on the region ofinternal dreams, would well befit Clotaire's wife, who retired to acloister. 

"But for what can she be watching? The dreaded arrival of the king benton tearing her from her Abbey at Poitiers to replace her on the throne?For lack of any information every conjecture must be futile. 

"The second statue again represents a king's wife holding a book. She isyounger; she wears neither cloak nor veil; her bosom is full and closelyfitted in a clinging dress, tightly drawn over the bust like wet linen;a bodice resembling the Carlovingian _rokette_, fastened on one side. Her hair lies flat in two bands on her forehead, covering her ears andfalling in long tresses plaited with ribbon, and ending in loose tufts. 

"Her face is wilful and alert, and rather haughty. She is looking out ofherself; her beauty is of a more human type, and she knows it. SaintClotilde, is the Abbé Bulteau's guess. 

"It is very certain that this Elect lady was not always a pattern ofamiability--not what could be called easy to get on with. Before beingreproved and chastened we see her in history, as vindictive, unrelentingto pity, eager for retaliation. She would be Clotilde before herrepentance--the Queen, before she became a saint. 

"But is it really she? The name was given her because a statue of thesame period and very like this, which was formerly at Notre Dame deCorbeil, was dubbed with this name. It was, however, subsequentlyadmitted that it represented the Queen of Sheba. Are we then in thepresence of that sovereign? And why, if her name is not in the Book ofLife, has she a glory?

"It is highly probable that she is neither the wife of Clovis, norSolomon's friend--this strange princess who stands before us, at once soearthly and yet more spectral than her sisters; for time has marred herfeatures, injured her skin, dotted her chin with hail-specks, vulgarizedher mouth, injured her nose, making it look like the ace of clubs, andput the stamp of death on that living countenance. 

"As to the third, she is tall and slender, a fragile spindle, a slim, sylph-like creature, suggesting a taper with the lower portionpatterned, embossed, brocaded in the wax itself; she standsmagnificently arrayed in a stiff-pleated robe channelled lengthwise, like a stick of celery. The bodice is richly trimmed and stitched; belowher waist hangs a cord with loose jewelled knots; on her head is acrown. Both arms are broken; one hand rested on her bosom; in the othershe held a sceptre, of which a small portion remains. 

"This queen is smiling, artless, and engaging--quite charming. She looksdown on all comers with wide open eyes under high-arched brows. Never, at any period, has a more expressive face been formed by the genius ofman; it is a masterpiece of childlike grace and saintly innocence. 

"Here, amid the pensive architecture of the twelfth century, one of acrowd of devout statues, symbolical to some extent of simple love in anage when men were in perpetual dread of everlasting hell, she seems tostand at the Gate of the Lord as the exorable image of forgiveness. Tothe terrified souls of habitual sinners who after perseverance in guiltno longer dare cross the threshold of the Sanctuary, she stands kindlyreproving such reticence, conquering regrets and soothing terrors by herfamiliar smile. 

"She is the elder sister of the prodigal son, of whom St. Luke indeedmakes no mention, but who, if she ever existed, would have pleaded forthe absent wanderer, and have insisted with her father on the killing ofthe fatted calf when the son returned. 

"Chartres, to be sure, does not see her in this indulgent aspect; localtradition names her Berthe of the broad foot; but while there is noargument to support this hypothesis, it is in fact quite absurd, as thestatue is graced with a nimbus. This mark of holiness would not havebeen given to Charlemagne's mother, whose name is not on the list of thesaints of the Church Triumphant. 

"According to the notions of those archæologists who believe that thesculptured dignitaries of this porch represent the ancestry of Christ, she must be a queen of the Old Testament. But which? As Hello very trulyremarks, tears abound in the Scriptures, but laughter is so rare thatSarah's, when she could not help mocking at the angel who announced thatshe should bear a son in her old age, has remained on record. So it isin vain that we inquire to what personage of the ancient books thisqueen's innocent joy may be ascribed. 

"The truth is that she must remain a perennial mystery; she is anangelic, limpid creature, who has attained, no doubt, to the purest joyin the Lord; and withal so attractive, so helpful, that she leaves in usan impression of a healing gesture, the illusion of a blessing madevisible to all who crave it. Her right arm indeed is broken at thewrist, and her hand is gone; but we can fancy it there still when welook for it; as a shade, a reflection; it is very plainly seen in theslight fulness of the bosom, as though it were the palm; in the folds ofthe bodice, which distinctly show the four taper fingers and raisedthumb to make the sign of the cross over us. 

"How exquisite a forerunner of the Blessed Mother is this royal guardianof the threshold, this sovereign, inviting wanderers to come back to theChurch, to enter the door over which She keeps watch, and which isitself one of the symbols of Her Son!" exclaimed Durtal, as he glancedat the opposite figures--such different women! one a nun rather than aqueen, her head a little bowed; another, every inch a queen, holdinghers aloft; the third saucy, though saintly, her neck neither bent norassertive, holding herself in a natural attitude, and moderating theaugust mien of a sovereign by the humble, smiling expression of a saint. 

"And perhaps, " said he to himself, "we may see in the first an image ofthe contemplative life, and in the second the embodied idea of theactive life; while the third, like Ruth in the Scriptures, symbolizesboth!"

As to the other statues--prophets wearing the Jewish cap with ears, andkings holding missals or sceptres, they too are impossible to identify. One in the middle arch, divided from the so-called Berthe by a king, wasmore especially interesting to Durtal because it was like Verlaine. Thestatue had indeed thicker hair, but just as strange a head, a skull withcurious bumps, a flattish face, a curling beard, and the same common butkindly look. 

Tradition gives this statue the name of St. Jude, and this resemblanceis suggestive between the saint whom Christians most neglected, and whofor several centuries found so few devotees that suddenly, one day, onthe theory that he, less than the others, would have exhausted hiscredit with God, people took to imploring him for desperate cases, lostsouls, and the poet so utterly ignored or so stupidly condemned by thevery Catholics to whom he has given the only mystical verses producedsince the Middle Ages. 

"They were ill-starred, one as a saint and the other as a poet, " Durtalconcluded, as he drew back to get a better view of the front. 

It was indeed incredible, with the chasing of silvery flowers wrought onthe panes by frost; with its church-drapery, its lace rochets, its finepierced work, as light as gossamer, running up to the level of thesecond storey, and forming a fretted frame for the great stone-carvingsof the porch. And above that it rose in hermit-like sobriety, unadorned, Cyclopean, with the colossal eye of its dull rose-window between the twotowers, one full of windows and richly wrought like the doorway, theother as bare as the façade above the porch. 

But after all, what absorbed and possessed Durtal's mind was still thosestatues of queens. 

He finally thought no more of the rest, listened to nothing but thedivine eloquence of their lean slenderness, regarding them only underthe semblance of tall flower-stems deep in carved stone tubes andexpanding into faces of ingenuous fragrance, of innocent perfume, whileChrist, touched and saddened, blessing the world, seemed to bend fromHis throne above them to inhale the delicate aroma that rose from theseup-soaring chalices full of soul. Durtal was wondering--what potentnecromancer could evoke the spirits of these royal doorkeepers, compelthem to speak, and enable us to overhear the colloquy they perhaps holdwhen in the evening they seem to withdraw behind the curtain of shadow?

What have they to say to each other--they who have seen Saint Bernard, Saint Louis, Saint Ferdinand, Saint Fulbert, Saint Yves, Blanche ofCastille--so many of the Elect walking past on their way into the starrygloom of the nave? Did they cause the death of their companions, thefive other statues that have vanished for ever from the little assembly?Do they listen, through the closed doors, to the wailing breath ofheart-broken psalms, and the roaring tide of the organ? Can they hearthe inane exclamations of the tourists who laugh to see them so stiffand so lengthy? Do they, as many saints have done, smell the fetor ofsin, the foul reek of evil in the souls that pass by them? Why, then, who would dare to look at them?

And still Durtal looked at them, for he could not tear himself away;they held him fast by the undying fascination of their mystery; inshort, he concluded, they are supra-terrestrial under the semblance ofhumanity. They have no bodies; it is the soul alone that dwells in thewrought sheath of their raiment; they are in perfect harmony with thecathedral, which, divesting itself of its stones, soars in ecstaticflight above the earth. 

The crowning achievement of mystical architecture and statuary are here, at Chartres; the most rapturous, the most superhuman art which everflourished in the flat plains of La Beauce. 

And now, having contemplated the whole effect of this façade, he wentclose to it again to examine its minutest accessories and details, tostudy more closely the robes of these sovereigns; then he observed thatno two were alike in their drapery. Some flowed without any brokenfolds, in ridge and furrow like the fall of rippling water; others hungclosely gathered in parallel flutings like the ribs on stems ofangelica, and the stern material lent itself to the needs of thedressers, was soft in the figured crape and fustian and fine linen, heavy in the brocade and gold tissue. Every texture was distinct; thenecklaces were chased bead by bead; the knots of the girdles might beuntied, so naturally were the strands entwined; the bracelets and crownswere pierced and hammered and adorned with gems, each in its setting, asif by practised goldsmiths. 

And in many cases the pedestal, the statue, and the canopy were allcarved out of one block, in one piece. What were the men who executedsuch work?

It is probable that they lived in convents, for art was not at that timecultivated or practised but in the precincts of God. And just then theywere in their glory in the Ile de France, the Orleans country, theprovinces of Maine, Anjou, and Berry, for we find statues of this typein all; still, it must be said that they are not equal to these atChartres. 

At Bourges, for instance, analogous prophets and very similar queensstand meditative in, one of the extraordinary side bays where the Arabtrefoil is so conspicuous. At Angers the statues are weather-beaten, almost ruined, but it can be seen that they were less stately, merelyhuman; they are no longer chastely slender, fit for Heaven, but earthlyqueens. At Le Mans, where they are in better preservation, they vainlystrive to soar above their narrow weed; they lack spring, they arenerveless, feeble, almost common. 

Nowhere do we find a soul clothed in stone as at Chartres; and if at LeMans we study the front, of which the scheme is the same as at Chartres, with Christ enthroned and benedictory between the winged beasts of theTetramorph, what a descent we note in the divine ideal! Everything ispinched and airless. The Christ, too roughly wrought, looks savage. Thepupils only of the supreme masters of Chartres evidently adorned theseportals. 

Was there a guild, a brotherhood of these image-makers, devoted to theholy work, who went from place to place to be employed by monks ashelpers of the masons and labourers, builders for God? Did they firstcome from the Benedictine Abbey of Tiron founded at Chartres near themarket, by that Abbot Saint Bernard whose name figures on the list ofbenefactors to the church, in the necrology of the cathedral? None mayknow. They worked humbly, anonymously. 

And what souls these artists had! For this we know: they laboured onlyin a state of grace. To raise this glorious temple, purity was requiredeven of the workmen. 

This would seem incredible if it were not proved by authentic documentsand undoubted evidence. 

We possess letters of the period preserved in the Benedictine annals, aletter from an Abbot of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive, found by Monsieur LéopoldDelisle, in MS. 929 of the French collection in the BibliothèqueNationale, and a Latin volume of the Miracles of Our Lady, discovered inthe Vatican Library, and translated into French by Jehan le Marchant, apoet of the thirteenth century. And these all relate the way in whichthe Sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin was rebuilt after destruction byfire. 

What then occurred was indeed sublime. This was a crusade, if ever therewas one. It was here no question of snatching the Holy Sepulchre fromthe power of the infidels, of meeting armies on the field of battle, andfighting with men; the Lord Himself was to be attacked in Hisentrenchments, Heaven was besieged, and conquered by love andrepentance! And Heaven confessed itself beaten; the angels smiled andyielded; God capitulated, and in the gladness of defeat He threw openthe treasury of His grace to be plundered of men. 

Then, under the guidance of the Spirit, came a battle in every workshopwith brute matter, the struggle of a nation vowing, cost what it might, to save a Virgin, homeless now as on the day when Her Son was born. 

The manger of Bethlehem was a mere heap of cinders. Mary would be leftto wander, lashed by bitter winds, across the icy plains of La Beauce. Should the same tale be repeated, twelve hundred years later, ofpitiless households, inhospitable inns, and crowded rooms?

Madonna was loved then in France--loved as a natural parent, a realmother. On hearing that she was turned adrift by fire, seeking woefullyfor a home, everyone grieved and wept; and that, not only in the countryabout Chartres; in the Orleans country, in Normandy, Brittany, the Ilede France, in the far north, whole populations stopped their regularwork, left their homes to fly to Her help, the rich giving money andjewels, and helping the poor to drag their barrows and carry corn andoil, wine, wood and lime, everything that could serve to feed labouringmen or help in building a church. 

It was a constant stream of immigration, the spontaneous exodus of apeople. Every road was crowded with pilgrims, all, men and women alike, dragging whole trees, pushing loads of sawn beams, and cartfuls of themoaning sick and aged forming the sacred phalanx, the veterans ofsuffering, the unconquerable legions of sorrow, all to help in the siegeof the heavenly Jerusalem, forming the outer guard to support the attackby the reinforcement of prayer. 

Nothing--neither sloughs, nor bogs, nor pathless forests, nor fordlessrivers, could check the advancing tide of the marching throng; and onemorning, from every point of the compass, lo! they took possession ofChartres. 

The investment began; while the sick opened the first parallels ofprayer, the sound pitched the tents; the camp extended for leagues onall sides; tapers were kept burning on the carts, and at night La Beaucewas a champaign of stars. 

What still seems incredible, and is nevertheless attested by everychronicle of the time, is that this horde of old folks and children, ofwomen and men, were at once amenable to discipline; and yet theybelonged to every class of society, for there were among them knightsand ladies of high degree; but divine love was so powerful that itannihilated distinctions and abolished caste; the nobles harnessedthemselves with the villeins to drag the trucks, piously fulfillingtheir task as beasts of burthen; patrician dames helped the peasantwomen to stir the mortar, and to cook the food; all lived together in anundreamed surrender of prejudice; all were alike ready to be merelabourers, machines, loins and arms, and to toil without a murmur underthe orders of the architects who had come out of the cloister to directthe work. 

Nothing was ever more simply or more efficiently organized; the conventcellarers, forming a sort of commissariat for this army, superintendedthe distribution of food, and saw to the sanitation of the huts and thehealth of the camp. Men and women were no more than docile instrumentsin the hands of the chiefs they themselves had chosen, and who in theirturn obeyed gangs of monks. These again were under the orders of thewonderful man, the nameless genius, who, after conceiving the plan ofthis cathedral, directed the whole work. 

To achieve such results the spirit of the multitude must really havebeen admirable, for the humble and laborious work of plasterers andbarrow-men was accepted by all, noble or base-born, as an act ofmortification and penance, and at the same time as an honour; and no manwas so audacious as to lay hand on the materials belonging to the Virgintill he had made peace with his enemies and confessed his sins. Thosewho were reluctant to repair the ill they had done, or to frequent theSacraments, were dismissed from the traces, rejected as reprobates bytheir comrades, and even by their own families. 

At daybreak every morning the work decided on by the foremen was begun. Some dug the foundations, cleared away the ruins, carried off therubbish; others, going in parties to the quarries of Berchère-l'Evêque, at about five miles from Chartres, cut out enormous blocks of stone, soheavy that in some cases a thousand workmen were not many enough tohoist them from their bed to the top of the hill where the church waspresently to rise. 

And when these silent toilers paused, exhausted and broken, the soundwent up of prayers and psalms; some would groan over their sins, imploring Our Lady's mercy, beating their breast and sobbing in the armsof priests who bade them be comforted. 

On Sundays long processions formed with banners at their head, and theshout of canticles filled the streets that blazed from afar with tapers;the canonical services were attended by a whole people on their knees;relics were carried with much pomp to visit the sick. 

And all the time the walls of the Celestial City were being shaken bybattering-rams of supplication, catapults of prayer; the living forcesof the whole army combining to make a breach and take the place bystorm. 

Then it was that Jesus surrendered at discretion, conquered by so muchhumility and so much love; He placed His powers in His Mother's hands, and miracles began to abound. 

All the tribe of the sick and crippled are on their feet; the blind see, the dropsical dry up, the lame walk, the weak-hearted run. 

The tale of these miracles, which were repeated day after day, sometimesbeing produced even before the pilgrim had reached Chartres, has beenpreserved in the Latin manuscript in the Vatican. 

The natives of Château Landon are dragging a cart-load of wheat. Onreaching Chantereine they discover that the food they had taken for thejourney is all gone, and they beg for bread from some unhappy creatureswho are themselves in the greatest want. The Virgin intercedes for themand the bread of the poor is multiplied. Again, some men set out fromthe Gâtinais with a load of stone. Ready to drop, they pause near LePuiset, and some villagers coming out to meet them, invite them to restwhile they themselves take a turn at the load; but this they refuse. Then the natives of Le Puiset offer them a cask of wine, and pour itinto a barrel hoisted on to the truck. This the pilgrims accept, and, feeling less weary, they go on their way. But they are called back tosee that the empty vat has refilled itself with excellent wine. Of thisall drink, and it heals the sick. 

Again, a man of Corbeville-sur-Eure employed in loading a cart withtimber has three fingers chopped across by an axe and shrieks in agony. His comrades advise him to have the fingers completely severed, as theyhold only by a strip of flesh, but the priest who is conducting them toChartres disapproves. They all pray to Mary, and the wound vanishes, thehand is whole as before. 

Some men of Brittany have lost their way at night in the open country, and are suddenly guided aright by flames of fire; it is the Virgin inperson descending that Saturday after Complines into Her church when itis almost finished, and filling it with dazzling glory. 

And there are pages and pages of such incidents. 

"Ah, it is easy to understand, " thought Durtal, "why this Sanctuary isso full of Her. Her gratitude for the love of our forefathers is stillfelt here--even now She is fain not to seem too much disgusted, not tolook too closely. 

"Well, well! we build sanctuaries in another way nowadays. When I thinkof the Sacred Heart in Paris, that gloomy, ponderous erection raised bymen who have written their names in red on every stone! How can Godconsent to dwell in a church of which the walls are blocks of vanityjoined by a cement of pride; walls where you may read the names ofwell-known tradesmen exhibited in a good place, as if they were anadvertisement? It would have been so easy to build a less magnificentand less hideous church, and not to lodge the Redeemer in a monument ofsin! Think of the throng of good souls who so long ago dragged theirload of stones, praying as they went! It would never have occurred tothem to turn their love to account and make it serve their craving fordisplay, their hunger for lucre. "

An arm was laid on his, and Durtal recognized the Abbé Gévresin, whohad come up while he stood dreaming in front of the cathedral. 

"I am going on at once, they are waiting for me, " said the priest. "Ionly took advantage of our meeting to tell you that I had a letter thismorning from the Abbé Plomb. "

"Indeed! And where is he?"

"At Solesmes; but he comes home the day after to-morrow. Our friendseems greatly taken with the Benedictine life. "

And the Abbé smiled, while Durtal, a little startled, watched him turnthe corner by the new belfry. 

CHAPTER X. 

One morning Durtal went out to seek the Abbé Plomb. He could not findhim in his own house, nor in the cathedral; but at last, directed by thebeadle, he made his way to the house at the corner of the Rue del'Acacia, where the choir-school was lodged. 

He went in by a gate that stood half open, into a yard littered withbroken pails and other rubbish. The house, beyond this courtyard, wassuffering from the cutaneous disease that affects plaster, eaten withleprosy and spotted with blisters, with zig-zag rifts from top tobottom, and a crackled surface like the glaze of an old jar. The deadstock of a vine stretched its gnarled black arms along the wall. 

Durtal, looking in at a window, saw a dormitory with rows of white beds, and he was amused, for never had he seen beds so tiny. 

A lad was in the room, whom he called, by tapping on the pane, and askedwhether the Abbé Plomb were still about the place. The boy nodded anaffirmative, and showed Durtal into a waiting-room. 

This room was like the office of an exceedingly inferior and pioushotel. The furniture consisted of a mahogany table of a sort of salmonpink colour, on which stood a pot-stand bereft of flowers; arm-chairswith circular backs fit for a gatekeeper's room, a chimney-piece adornedwith statues of saints much fly-bitten, and a chimney board covered withpaper representing the Vision of Lourdes. On the walls hung a blackboard with rows of numbered keys; opposite, a chromo-lithograph ofChrist, displaying, with an amiable smile, an underdone heart bleedingamid streams of yellow sauce. 

But what was chiefly characteristic of this bedizened porter's lodgewas a horribly sickening smell, the smell of lukewarm castor oil. 

Durtal, nauseated by this odour, was on the point of making his escape, when the Abbé Plomb came in and took his arm. They went out together. 

"Then you have just come back from Solesmes?" said Durtal. 

"As you see. "

"And were you satisfied with your visit?"

"Enchanted, " and the Abbé smiled at the impatience he could detect inDurtal's accents. 

"What do you think of the monastery?"

"I think it most interesting to visit, both from the monastic and fromthe artistic point of view. Solesmes is a great convent, the parentHouse of the Benedictine Order in France, and it has a flourishingschool of novices. What is it that you want to know, exactly?"

"Why, everything you can tell me. "

"Well, then, I may tell you that ecclesiastical art, brought to its veryhighest expression, is fascinating in that monastery. No one canconceive of the magnificence of the liturgy and of plain-song who hasnot heard them at Solesmes. If Notre Dame des Arts had a specialsanctuary, it undoubtedly would be there. "

"Is the chapel ancient?"

"A part of the old church remains, and the famous Solesmes sculpture, dating from the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, there are some quitedisastrous windows in the apse: the Virgin between Saint Peter and SaintPaul; modern glass in its most piercing atrocity. But, then, where isdecent glass to be had?"

"Nowhere. We have only to look at the transparent pictures let into thewalls of our new churches to appreciate the incurable idiocy of painterswho insist on treating window panes from cartoons, as they do subjectpictures--and such subjects! and such pictures! All turned out by thegross from cheap glass melters, whose thin material dots the pavement ofthe church with spots like confetti, strewing lollipops of colourwherever the light falls. 

"Would it not be far better to accept the colourless scheme ofwindow-glass used at Citeaux, where a decorative effect was produced bya design in the lead lines; or to imitate the fine grisailles, iridescent from age, which may still be seen at Bourges, at Reims, andeven here, in our cathedral?"

"Certainly, " said the Abbé. "But to return to our monastery. Nowhere, Irepeat, are the services performed with so much pomp. You should see iton the occasion of some high festival! Picture to yourself above thealtar, where commonly the tabernacle shines, a Dove suspended from agolden crozier, its wings outspread amid clouds of incense; then a wholearmy of monks deploying in a solemn rhythmic march, and the Abbotstanding, on his brow a mitre thickly set with jewels, his green andwhite ivory crozier in his hand, his train carried by a lay-brother whenhe moves, while the gold of many copes blazes in the light of thetapers, and a torrent of sound from the organ bears the voices up, carrying to the very vault the cry of repentance or the joy of thePsalms. 

"It is glorious. It is not the penitential austerity of the liturgy asit is used by the Franciscans or at La Trappe: it is luxury offered toGod, the beauty He created dedicated to His service, and in itselfpraise and prayer. But if you wish to hear the music of the Church inits utmost perfection you must go to the neighbouring Abbey: that of theSisters of Saint Cecilia. "

The Abbé paused, whispering to himself, thinking over his reminiscences;and then he slowly spoke again, --

"Wherever you go, the voice of a nun preserves, merely by reason of hersex, a sort of emotion, a tendency to the cooing tone, and, it must beowned, a certain satisfaction in hearing herself when she knows thatothers can hear her; so that the Gregorian chant is never perfectlyexecuted by nuns. 

"But with the Benedictine Sisters of Sainte-Cecile all the graces ofearthly sentimentality have vanished. These nuns have ceased to havewomen's voices; the quality is at once seraphic and manly. In theirchurch you are either thrown back I know not how far into the depth ofpast ages, or shot forward into time to come, as they sing. They haveoutpourings of soul and tragical pauses, pathetic murmurs and ecstasiesof passion, and sometimes they seem to rush to the assault, and stormcertain Psalms at the bayonet's point. And they do assuredly achievethe most vehement leap that can be imagined from this world into theinfinite. "

"Then it is a very different thing from the Benedictine service of nunsin the Rue Monsieur in Paris?"

"No comparison is possible. Without wishing to reflect on the musicalsincerity of those good Sisters, who sing quite suitably but humanly, aswomen, it may be asserted that they have neither such knowledge, norsuch soul-felt aspiration, nor such voices. As a monk remarked, 'whenyou have heard the Sisters of Solesmes, those of Paris soundprovincial. '"

"And you saw the Abbess of Saint Cecilia. Why, when I think of it, isnot she the writer of a Treatise on Prayer (_Traité de l'Oraison_) whichI read when I was at La Trappe, and which was not, I believe, regardedwith favour at the Vatican?"

"Yes, she it is. But you are making the greatest mistake in imaginingthat her book was not approved at Rome. It was examined there, likeevery book of the kind, through a magnifying glass, strained through asieve, picked over line by line, turned inside out and upside down; butthe theologians employed in this pious custom-house service acknowledgedand certified that this work, based on the soundest principles ofmysticism, was learnedly, impeccably, desperately orthodox. 

"I may add that the volume was printed privately by the Abbess herself, helped by some of the nuns, in a little hand-press belonging to theconvent, and has never been in circulation. It is, in fact, an epitomeof doctrine, the essential extract of her teaching, and was moreespecially intended for those of her daughters who are unable to havethe benefit of her instruction and lectures, because they live away fromSolesmes, in other convents that she has founded. 

"Why in these days, when for ten years past the Benedictine Sisters havemade a study of Latin, when many of them translate from Hebrew and Greekand are skilled in exegesis, when others draw and paint the pages ofmissals, reviving the art of the illuminators of the Middle Ages, whenothers again--as, for instance, Mother Hildegarde--are organists of thehighest attainment, you may easily understand that the woman whodirects them all, the woman who has created in her Sisterhoods a schoolof practical mysticism and of religious art, is a very remarkableperson; nay, in these days of frivolous devotions and ignorant piety, quite unique. "

"Why, she is one of the great Abbesses of the Middle Ages, " criedDurtal. 

"She is the crowning work of Dom Guéranger, who took her in hand almostas a child and kneaded and mollified her soul with long patience; thenhe transplanted her into a special greenhouse, watching her growth inthe Lord day after day; and you see the result of this forcing and highculture. "

"Yes, and even this does not hinder some persons from regarding conventsas the homes of idleness and reservoirs of folly. When you think thatobscure idiots write to the papers to say that nuns know nothing of theLatin they repeat! It would be well for them if they knew as much Latinas those women!"

The Abbé smiled. 

"And the secret of the Gregorian chant dwells with them, " he went on. "It is necessary not only to understand the language of the Psalms asthey are sung, but to appreciate meanings which are often doubtful inthe Vulgate, in order to express them properly. Without fervent feelingand knowledge, the voice is nothing. 

"It may be beautiful in secular music, but it is null and void when itattempts the venerable sequences of plain-song. "

"And how are the Fathers employed?"

"They also began by restoring the liturgy and Church singing; then theydiscovered certain lost texts of the subtle symbolists and learnedsaints, and collected them in a _Spicilegium_ and _Analectae_. Now theyare editing and printing a musical Palæography, one of the most learnedand abstruse of modern publications. 

"Still, I would not have you believe that the whole mission of theBenedictine Order consists in overhauling ancient manuscripts andreproducing ancient Antiphonals and curious chronicles. The Brother whohas a talent for any art devotes himself to it, no doubt, if theSuperior permits; on this point the rule knows no exception; but thereal and true aim of the Son of Saint Benedict is to sing Psalms andpraise the Lord, to serve his apprenticeship here for his task inHeaven: namely, to glorify the Redeemer in words inspired by Himself, and in the language He spoke by the voice of David and the Prophets. 

"Seven times a day the Benedictines do the homage required of the Eldersin Heaven, as described by Saint John in the Apocalypse, and representedby sculptors as playing on instruments here at Chartres. 

"In point of fact, their particular function is not at all to burythemselves under the accumulated dust of ages, nor even to accept insubstitution the sins and woes of others as the Orders of puremortification do--the Carmelites and the Poor Clares. Their vocation isto fill the office of the Angels; it is a task of joy and peace, ananticipation of their inheritance of gladness beyond the grave; in fact, the work which is nearest to that of purified spirits, the highest onearth. 

"To fulfil their duty fittingly, besides ardent piety, a thoroughknowledge of the Scriptures is required, and a refined feeling for art. Thus a true Benedictine must be at once a saint, a learned man, and anartist. "

"And what is the daily life of Solesmes?" asked Durtal. 

"Very methodical and very simple: Matins and Lauds at four in themorning; at nine o'clock tierce, mass for the brethren, and sext; atnoon dinner; at four nones and vespers; at seven supper; at half-pasteight compline and deep silence. As you see, there is time formeditation and work in the intervals between the canonical hours andmeals. "

"And the oblates?"

"What oblates? I saw none at Solesmes. "

"Indeed--then if there are any, do they lead the same life as theFathers?"

"Evidently; excepting, perhaps, some dispensations depending on theAbbot's favour. I can tell you this much: that in some other BenedictineHouses that I have visited the general system is that the oblate shallfollow as much of the rule as he is able for. "

"Still, he is, I suppose, free to come and go--his actions are free?"

"When once he has taken the oath of obedience to his Superior, and, after his term of probation, has adopted the monastic habit, he is asmuch a monk as the rest, and consequently can do nothing without theFather Superior's leave. "

"The deuce!" muttered Durtal. "Of course, if the ridiculous metaphor sofamiliar to the world were accurate, if the cloister were rightlycompared to a tomb, the condition of the oblate would also be tomb-like, only its walls would be less air-tight, and the stone, a little tilted, would admit a ray of daylight. "

"If you like!" said the Abbé, laughing. 

As they walked, they had reached the Bishop's palace. 

They went into the forecourt, and saw the Abbé Gévresin making his wayto the gardens; they joined him, and the old priest asked them to gowith him to the kitchen garden, where, to oblige his housekeeper, he wasto inspect the seeds she had sown. 

"Aye, and I too promised long ago to look at the vegetables, " exclaimedDurtal. 

They went down the ancient paths and reached the orchard on the slope;and as soon as Madame Bavoil caught sight of them she grounded arms, soto speak, setting her foot in gardener fashion on the spade she hadstuck into the soil. 

She proudly pointed to her rows of cabbages and carrots, onions andpeas, announced that she intended to make an attempt on the gourd tribe, expatiated on cucumbers and pumpkins, and to conclude, declared that atthe bottom of the kitchen garden she meant to have a flower-bed. 

Then they sat down on a mound that formed a sort of seat. 

The Abbé Plomb, in a mood for teasing, gave his spectacles a push, settling the arch above his nose, and rubbing his hands, remarked, veryseriously, --

"Madame Bavoil, flowers and vegetables are but of trivial importancefrom the decorative and culinary point of view; the only rule thatshould guide you in your selection is the symbolical meaning, thevirtues and vices ascribed to plants. Now, I am sorry to observe thatyour favourites are for the most part of evil augury. "

"I do not understand you, Monsieur l'Abbé. "

"Why, you have only to consider that these vegetables which you takesuch care of mean many evil things. Lentils, for instance--you growlentils?"

"Yes. "

"Well, the seeds of the lentils are very cunning and mysterious. Artemidorus, in his 'Interpretation of Dreams, ' tells us that if wedream of them it is a sign of mourning; it is the same with lettuce andonion: they forecast misfortune. Peas are less ill-famed; but, aboveall, beware of coriander, with its leaves smelling like bugs, for itgives rise to all manner of evils. 

"Thyme, on the contrary, according to Macer Floridus, cures snake-bites, fennel is a stimulant wholesome for women, and garlic taken fasting is apreservative against the ills we may contract from drinking strangewaters, or changing from place to place. So plant whole fields ofgarlic, Madame Bavoil. "

"The Father does not like it!"

"And then, " the Abbé Plomb added, very seriously, "you must fill yourmind from the books of Albertus Magnus, the Master of Saint ThomasAquinas, who in the treatises ascribed to him on the Virtues of Herbs, the Wonders of the World, and the Secrets of Women, puts forth certainideas, which, as I may hope, will not have been written in vain. 

"He tells us that the plantain-root is a cure for headache and forulcers; that mistletoe grown on an oak opens all locks; that celandinelaid on a sick man's head sings if he will die; that the juice of thehouse-leek will enable you to hold a hot iron without being burnt; thatleaves of myrtle twisted into a ring will reduce an abscess; that lilypowdered and eaten by a young maiden is an effectual test of hervirginity, for if she should not be innocent it takes instantaneouseffect as a diuretic!"

"I did not know of that property in the lily, " said Durtal, laughing, "but I knew that Albertus Magnus assigned the same peculiarity to themallow; only the patient need not swallow the plant; she has only tostoop over it. "

"What nonsense!" exclaimed the old priest. 

His housekeeper, quite scared, stood looking at the ground. 

"Do not listen to him, Madame Bavoil, " cried Durtal. "I have a lessmedical, and more religious, idea: cultivate a liturgical garden andemblematic vegetables; make a kitchen and flower garden that may setforth the glory of God and carry up our prayers in their language; and, in short, imitate the purpose of the Song of the Three Holy Children inthe fiery furnace, when they called on all Nature, from the breath ofthe storm to the seed buried in the field, to Bless the Lord!"

"Very good!" exclaimed the Abbé Plomb; "but you must have a wide spaceat your disposal, for not less than one hundred and thirty plants arementioned in the Scriptures; and the number of those to which mediævalwriters give a meaning is immense. "

"To say nothing of the fact, " observed the Abbé Gévresin, "that a gardendependent on our cathedral ought also to reproduce the botany of itsarchitecture. "

"Is it known?"

"A list has not indeed been written for Chartres as it has been forReims of its sculptured flora: the botany in stone of the church ofNotre Dame there, has been carefully classified and labelled by MonsieurSaubinet; still, you will observe that the posies of the capitals aremuch the same everywhere. In all the churches of the thirteenth centuryyou will find the leaves of the vine, the oak, the rose-tree, the ivy, the willow, the laurel, and the bracken, with strawberry and buttercupleaves. Indeed, as a rule, the image-makers selected native plantscharacteristic of the region where they were employed. "

"Did they intend to express any particular idea by the capitals andcorbels of the columns?--At Amiens, for instance, there is a wreath offlowers and foliage forming the string-course above the arches of thenave for its whole length and continued over the cornice of the pillars. Apart from the probable purpose of dividing the height into two equalparts in order to rest the eye, has this string-course any othermeaning? Does it embody any particular idea? Is it the expression ofsome phrase relating to the Virgin, in whose name the cathedral isdedicated?"

"I do not think so, " said the Abbé. "I believe that the artist whocarved those wreaths simply aimed at a decorative effect, and made noattempt to give us in symbolical language a compendium of our Mother'svirtues. 

"Moreover, if we admit that the sculptors of the thirteenth centuryintroduced the acanthus on account of its emollient qualities, the oakbecause it is emblematic of strength, and the water-lily because itsbroad leaves are accepted as a figure of charity, we ought no less toconclude that at the end of the fifteenth century, when the mystery ofsymbolism was not as yet altogether lost, the toothed bunches of curledcabbage, of thistles and other deeply-cut leaves mingling withtrue-love-knots, as in the church at Brou, might have had some meaning. But it is perfectly certain that these vegetable forms were chosen onlyfor their elaborately elegant growth, and the fragile and mannered graceof their outline. Otherwise we might assert that this later ornament hasa different tale to tell from that set forth in the flora of Reims andAmiens, Rouen and Chartres. 

"In point of fact, the natural form which most frequently occurs in thecapitals of our cathedral--by no means a remarkably flowery one--is theepiscopal crozier as seen in the young shoots of the fern. "

"No doubt. But does not the fern bear a symbolical meaning?"

"In a general sense, it is emblematic of humility, evidently in allusionto its habit of growing as much as possible far from the high road, inthe depths of woods. But by consulting the Treatise of St. Hildegarde welearn that the plant she calls _Fern_, or bracken, has magicalproperties. 

"Just as sunshine disperses darkness, says the Abbess of Rupertsberg, the _Fern_ puts nightmares to flight. The devil hates and flees from it, and thunder and hail rarely fall on spots where it takes shelter; alsothe man who wears it about him escapes witchcraft and spells. "

"Then St. Hildegarde made a study of natural history in its relations tomedicine and magic?"

"Yes; but the book remains unknown because it has never yet beentranslated. 

"She sometimes assigns very singular talismanic virtues to certainflowers. Would you like some instances?

"According to her, the plantain cures anyone who has eaten or drunkpoison, and the pimpernel has the same virtue when hung round the neck. Myrrh must be warmed against the body till it is quite soft, and then itnullifies the wizard's malignant arts, delivers the mind from phantoms, and is an antidote to philtres. It also puts to flight all lasciviousdreaming, if worn on the breast or the stomach; only, as it eliminatesevery carnal suggestion it depresses the spirit and makes it 'arid'; andfor this reason, adds the saint, it should never be eaten but undergreat necessity. 

"It is true that as a remedy against the dejection caused by myrrh wemay apply the 'hymelsloszel' (Himmelschlüssel), which is--or appears tobe--_Primula officinalis_, the cowslip, whose bunches of fragrant yellowblossoms are to be seen in moist woods and meadows. This plant is'warm, ' and imbibes its qualities from the light. Hence it can driveaway melancholy, which, says St. Hildegarde, spoils men's good manners, making them utter speech contrary to God, on hearing which words thespirits of the air gather about him who has spoken them, and finallydrive him mad. 

"I may also tell you of the mandragora, a plant 'warm and watery, ' thatmay symbolize the human being it resembles; and it is more susceptiblethan all other plants to the suggestion of the devil; but I would ratherquote a recipe that you might perhaps think useful. 

"Here is our Abbess's prescription _à propos_ to the iris or lily: Takethe tip of the root, bruise it in rancid fat, heat this ointment and rubit on any who are afflicted with red or white leprosy, and they willsoon be healed. 

"But enough of these old-world recipes and counter-charms; we will studythe symbolism of plants. 

"Flowers in general are emblematic of what is good. According to Durandof Mende, both flowers and trees represent good works, of which thevirtues are the roots; according to Honorius, the hermit, green herbsare for wisdom; those in flower are for progress; those in fruit are theperfect souls; finally, we are told by old treatises on symbolicaltheology that all plants embody the allegory of the Resurrection, whilethe idea of eternity attaches more particularly to the vine, the cedarand the palm. "

"And you may add, " the Abbé Gévresin put in, "that in the Psalms thepalm figures the righteous man, while according to the interpretation ofGregory the Great its rugged bark and the golden strings of dates areemblematical of the wood of the Cross, hard to the touch, but bearingfruit that is sweet to those who are worthy to taste them. "

"Well, " said Durtal, "but supposing that Madame Bavoil should wish toplant a liturgical garden, what should she select for it?

"Can we, to begin with, compose a dictionary of plants representing thecapital sins and their antithetical virtues, sketch a basis ofoperations, and pick out by certain rules the materials at the commandof the mystic gardener?"

"I do not know, " said the Abbé Plomb. "At the same time, I should thinkit might be possible; only we should have to remember the names of theplants more or less exactly symbolizing those qualities and defects. Inshort, what you need is a sort of language of flowers as applied to thecatechism. Let us try. 

"For pride we have the pumpkin, which was worshipped of old as adivinity in Sicyon. It bears indifferently the character of pride or offertility; of fertility by reason of its multitude of seeds and itsrapid growth, of which the monk Walafrid Strabo wrote in noblehexameters a whole chapter of his poem; and of pride by reason of itshuge hollow head and its bulk; and then we also have the cedar, whichPeter of Capua and Saint Melito agree in accusing of pride. 

"Avarice? I confess I know of no plant which represents it; we will comeback to that. "

"I beg your pardon, " said the Abbé Gévresin; "Saint Eucher and RabanMaur speak of thorns as emblematical of riches which accumulate to thedetriment of the soul; and Saint Melito says that the sycamore meansgreed of money. "

"The poor sycamore!" cried the younger priest. "It has been served withevery sauce! Raban Maur and the Anonymous monk of Clairvaux also call ita misbelieving Jew; Peter of Capua compares it to the Cross; SaintEucher calls it wisdom, and there are other meanings. But meanwhile Iforget how far we had gone. Oh! lasciviousness; we here have amplechoice. Besides certain trees there is cyclamen, or sow-bread, which, according to an ancient dictum of Theophrastus, is symbolical of thissin because it was used in the preparation of love-philtres; the nettle, which Peter of Capua says is emblematic of the unruly instincts of theflesh; and the tuberose, a more modern introduction, but known as farback as the sixteenth century, when a Minorite Father brought it toFrance. Its heady perfume, which disturbs the nerves, also, it is said, excites the senses. 

"For envy there are the bramble and the aconite, which, to be sure, ismore exactly assigned to calumny and scandal; and, again, the nettle, which, however, is also interpreted by Albertus Magnus as figuringcourage and expelling fear. 

"Greediness?" The Abbé paused to think. "Carnivorous plants, perhaps, asthe fly-trap and the bog sundew. "

"And why not the humbler _cuscuta_, the dodder, the cuttlefish of thevegetable kingdom, which shoots out the antennæ of its stems as fine asthread, attaching itself to other plants by tiny suckers and feedinggreedily on their juices?" asked the Abbé Gévresin. 

"Anger, " the Abbé Plomb went on, "is symbolized by a shrub with pinkishflowers, a kind of bitter-sweet, as it is popularly called, and by HerbBasil, which ever since the Middle Ages has had the same characterascribed to it of cruelty and rage as to its namesake, the basilisk, inthe animal world. "

"Oh!" cried Madame Bavoil, "and we use it to season dishes and flavourcertain sauces. "

"That is a serious culinary error and a spiritual danger, " said thepriest, smiling. He then went on:--

"Anger may also be figured by the balsam, which especially symbolizesimpatience by reason of the irritability of its seed-vessels, which flyat a touch and explode, sending them to some distance.... 

"Sloth finally has the whole tribe of poppies, which give sleep. 

"As to the opposite virtues, the explanation they need is childish. Forhumility you have the bracken, the hyssop, the knotweed, and the violet, which, says Peter of Capua, is, by that same token, emblematical ofChrist. "

"And likewise, according to Saint Melito, of the Confessors; or, according to Saint Mechtildis, of widows, " added the Abbé Gévresin. 

"For indifference to the things of this world we find the lichensymbolizing solitude; for chastity, the orange-flower and the lily; forcharity, the water-lily, the rose, and the saffron flower--so say RabanMaur and the Anonymous monk of Clairvaux; for temperance, the lettuce, which also stands for fasting; for meekness, mignonette; forwatchfulness, the elder, signifying zeal; and thyme, which, with itssharp, pungent aroma, symbolizes activity. 

"You may dispense with the sins, which have no place in the precincts ofOur Lady, and lay out your plots with the devout flowers. "

"How is that to be done?" asked the Abbé Gévresin. 

"Why, " said Durtal, "there are two plans. One would be to sketch theplan of a real church and supply the place of its statues with plants, which would be the better way from the point of view of art; or else tocompose a whole sanctuary with trees and shrubs. "

He rose, and went to pick up a stick that was lying in the field. 

"There, " said he, tracing the cruciform outline of a church on theground, "there you have the plan of our cathedral. Supposing now webuild it, beginning at the end, the apse; there we naturally place theLady chapel, as we find it in most cathedrals. 

"Plants emblematic of Our Lady's attributes are abundant. "

"The mystical rose of the Litanies!" exclaimed Madame Bavoil. 

"H'm!" said Durtal; "the rose has been much bedraggled. Not only was itthe erotic blossom of Paganism, but in the Middle Ages Jews andprostitutes were compelled in many places to wear a rose as adistinctive mark of infamy. "

"True, " said the Abbé Plomb, "and yet Peter of Capua uses it, with aninterpretation of love and charity, to figure the Virgin; SaintMechtildis, again, says that roses are symbolical of martyrs, and inanother passage of her work on 'Specific Grace, ' she compares thisflower to the virtue of patience. "

"Walafrid Strabo, in his '_Hortulus_, ' also speaks of the rose as theblood of the martyred saints, " the Abbé Gévresin murmured. 

"'_Rosae martyres, rubore sanguinis_, ' according to the key of SaintMelito, " the other priest added, in confirmation. 

"We will admit that shrub, " cried Durtal. "Now for the lily--"

"Here I must interrupt you, " exclaimed the Abbé Plomb, "for it must beat once understood that the lily of the Scriptures has nothing to dowith the flower we know by that name. 

"The common white lily which grows in Europe, and which even before theMiddle Ages was regarded by the Church as emblematic of virginity, doesnot seem to have existed in Palestine; and when, in the Song of Songs, the mouth of the Beloved is compared to a lily, it is evidently not inpraise of white, but of red lips. The plant spoken of in the Bible asthe lily of the valleys, or the lily of the fields, is neither more norless than the anemone. 

"This is proved by the Abbé Vigouroux. It abounds in Syria, roundJerusalem, in Galilee, on the Mount of Olives; rising from a tuft ofdeeply-cut, alternate leaves of a rich, dull green, the flower cup islike a delicate and refined poppy; it has the air of a patrician amongflowers, of a little Infanta, fresh and innocent in her gorgeousattire. "

"It is certainly the fact, " observed Durtal, "that the innocence of thelily is far from obvious, for its scent, when you think of it, isanything rather than chaste. It is a mingling of honey and pepper, atonce acrid and mawkish, pallid but piercing; it is suggestive rather ofthe aphrodisiac conserves of the East and the erotic sweetmeats of theIndies. "

"But, after all, " said the Abbé Gévresin, "granting that there neverwere lilies in the Holy Land--but is it so?--it is none the less certainthat a whole series of symbols were derived from this plant both by theancients and in mediæval times. 

"Look, for instance, at Origen; to him the lily is Christ, for Our Lordalluded to Himself when He said, 'I am the flower of the field and thelily of the valley;' and in these words, the field, meaning tilled land, represents the Hebrew people, taught by God Himself, while the valleysor fallow land are the ignorant, or, in other words, the heathen. 

"Again, turn to Peter Cantor. According to him, the lily is the Virgin, by reason of its whiteness, of its perfume delectable above all others, of its healing virtues; and finally, because it grows in uncultivatedground, as the Virgin was born of Jewish parents. "

"As regards the therapeutic virtues mentioned by Petrus Cantor, " saidthe Abbé Plomb, "I may add that the Anonymous English writer of thethirteenth century tells us that the lily is a sovereign remedy forburns, and for this cause is an image of the Virgin, who heals sinnersof their burns--that is to say, of their vices. "

"You may further consult Saint Methodus, Saint Mechtildis, Peter ofCapua, and the English monk of whom you spoke, and you will find thatthe lily is the attribute, not only of the Virgin Mary, but of virginityin general and of all virgins. 

"And here is a posy of meanings culled from Saint Eucher, who comparesthe whiteness of the lily to the purity of the angels; from SaintGregory the Great, who says its fragrance is like the works of thesaints; and again from Raban Maur, who speaks of the lily as emblematicof celestial beatitude, of the beauty of holiness, of the Church, ofperfection, of chastity in the flesh. "

"Not to forget that, according to the translation of Origen, the Lilyamong Thorns is the Church in the midst of its enemies, " the Abbé Plombput in. 

"Then it is Jesus, His Mother, the Angels, the Church, the Virgins, everything at once!" exclaimed Durtal. "We cannot but wonder how thesemystic gardeners could discern so many meanings in one and the sameplant!"

"Why, you can see: the symbolists not only considered the analogies andresemblances they discovered between the form, scent, and colour of aflower and the being with whom they compared it; they also studied theBible, especially the passages wherein a tree or flower was named, andthey then ascribed to it such qualities as were mentioned or could beinferred from the text. They did the same with regard to animals, colours, gems, everything to which they could attribute a meaning. It issimple enough. "

"It is complicated enough!" said Durtal. "And now where was I?"

"In the Lady chapel, planting roses and anemones. Now add to these ashrub which is the emblem of Mary according to the Anonymous monk ofClairvaux, or of the Incarnation according to the Anonymous writer ofTroyes, the walnut, of which the fruit is interpreted in the same senseby the Bishop of Sardis. "

"And also mignonette, " cried Durtal, "for Sister Emmerich speaks of itfrequently and with much mystery. She says that this flower is verydear to Mary, who planted it and made much use of it. 

"Then there is another plant which seems to me no less appropriate: thebracken--not by reason of the qualities ascribed to it by SaintHildegarde, but because it symbolizes the most secret and retiringhumility. Take one of the stoutest stems and cut it aslant, like themouthpiece of a whistle, and you will find very distinctly imprinted inblack the form of a heraldic _fleur de lys_, as if stamped with a hotiron. The scent being absent, we may here accept it as the symbol ofhumility--a humility so perfect that it is undiscoverable but in death. "

"Aha! our friend is not so ignorant of country lore as I had fancied, "exclaimed Madame Bavoil. 

"Oh, I wandered in the woods a little, as a child. "

"For the choir no discussion is possible, I believe, " said the AbbéGévresin. "The eucharistic plants, the vine and corn are self-evidentlyappropriate. 

"The vine, of which the Lord said '_Ego vitis sum_, ' is also the emblemof communion and the image of the eighth beatitude; corn, which, as theSacramental element, was the object of peculiar care and respect in theMiddle Ages. 

"You have only to recall the solemn ceremonial observed in certainconvents when the wafer was to be prepared. 

"At Saint Etienne, Caen, the monks washed their face and hands, andkneeling before the altar of Saint Benedict, said Lauds, the sevenpenitential Psalms, and the Litanies of the Saints. Then a lay brotherpresented the mould in which the wafers were to be baked, two at a time;and on the day when this unleavened bread was prepared those who hadtaken part in the ceremony dined together, and their table was servedexactly like the Abbot's. 

"At Cluny, again, three priests or three deacons, fasting after theabove-mentioned services of prayer, put on albs and invited the aid ofcertain lay brethren. They mixed the flour of wheat that had been siftedby the novices, grain by grain, with a due quantity of water; and a monkwearing gloves baked the wafers one by one over a large fire ofbrushwood, in an iron mould stamped with the proper symbols. "

"That reminds me, " said Durtal, as he lighted a cigarette, "of the millfor grinding the wheat for the offering. "

"I am familiar with the mystical wine-press which was often representedby the glass-workers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, " said theAbbé Gévresin. "That was practically a paraphrase of Isaiah's propheticverse: 'I have trodden the wine-press alone, and there was no man withme'; but the mystic mill is, I own, unknown to me. "

"I have seen it once at Berne, in a window of the fifteenth century, "said the Abbé Plomb. 

"I also saw it in the cathedral at Erfurt, painted, not on glass, but ona panel. The picture is by no known painter, and dated 1534. I can seeit now: Above, God the Father, a good old man with a snowy beard, solemnand thoughtful; and the mill, like a coffee mill, fixed on the edge of atable, with the drawer open below. The evangelical beasts are emptyinginto the hopper, skins full of scrolls on which are written theeffective Sacramental words. These scrolls are swallowed in the body ofthe machine, and come out into the drawer, thence falling into a chaliceheld by a Cardinal and Bishop kneeling at the table. 

"And the texts are changed into a little Child in the act of blessingwhile the four Evangelists turn a long silver crank in the right-handcorner of the panel. "

"What seems strange, " remarked the Abbé Gévresin, "is that it should bethe formula of Transubstantiation and not the substance that is changed, and that the Evangelists, twice represented--under their animal andtheir human aspect--pour into the mill and grind. And also that thesacred oblation should be represented by the living flesh. 

"Still, it is correct; since the consecrating words are uttered, thebread has ceased to be. This scheme of implied meaning, though somewhatstrange, in a literal presentment, a scene of actual grinding--the wheatin the grain, in flour, and in the Host--this obvious intention ofignoring the species, the appearances, and substituting the realitywhich is invisible to sense, must have been adopted by the painter inorder to appeal to the masses, to bear witness to the certainty of theMiracle and to make the mystery evident to the people. But let us returnto the construction of our church. Where were we?"

"Here, " said Durtal, pointing with his stick to the side aisles astraced in the sand. "Now, to represent the side chapels we have achoice. One we shall dedicate, of course, to Saint John the Baptist. Todistinguish it from the others we have the gilliflower and theground-ivy to which he has given his name, and more especially the St. John's wort, which if gathered on the eve of his festival and placed ina room, destroys malignant spells and charms, is a protection againstthunder, and hinders the walking of ghosts. 

"It may be added that this plant, famous in the Middle Ages, was used asa remedy for epilepsy and St. Vitus' dance, two maladies for which theintercession of the Precursor is most efficacious. 

"We will dedicate another to Saint Peter. On his altar we may lay a posyof the herbs dedicated to his service by our forefathers: the primrose, the wild honeysuckle, the gentian and soap-wort, pellitory and bindweed, with others whose names escape me. 

"But, first, will it not be our bounden duty to erect a tower for OurLady of the Seven Dolours, such as we find in many churches?

"The flower obviously indicated is the passion-flower; that uniqueblossom, of a purplish blue, its seed-vessel simulating the Cross, itsstyles and stigma the Nails; its stamens mimicking the Hammer, itsthread-like fringe the Crown of thorns--in short, it represents all theinstruments of the Passion. Add to this, if you will, a bunch of hyssop, plant a cypress, of which Saint Melito speaks as emblematical of theSaviour, and which Monsieur Olier regards as symbolical of death; amyrtle, signifying compassion, according to a passage by Saint Gregorythe Great; and, above all, do not omit the buckthorn, or _Rhamnus_--forof that shrub the Jews twined the stems that formed Christ's crown--andyour chapel is complete. "

"The buckthorn, " said the Abbé Gévresin; "yes, Rohant de Fleury saysthat its thorny branches were used to crown the Son's head; but thisleaves us wondering, when we remember that in the Old Testament, in theninth chapter of the Book of Judges, all the tall trees of Judæa bowdown before the Royalty prophetically prefigured by this humble shrub. "

"Very true, " replied the Abbé Plomb. "But what is most curious is thenumber of absolutely dissimilar senses which the oldest symbolistsattribute to the buckthorn. Saint Methodus uses it for virginity;Theodoret for sin; Saint Jerome ascribes it to the devil; and SaintBernard takes it as symbolizing humility. Again, in the '_TheologiaSymbolica_' of Maximilian Sandaeus, this shrub is made to signify theworldly prelacy, while the olive, vine, and fig, with which the authorcontrasts it, are the contemplative Orders. In this, no doubt, we maysee an allusion to the thorns which Bishops were not always unready tothrust on the long-suffering Heads of monasteries. 

"You have forgotten, too, in the blazonry of your chapel, the reed whichformed the sceptre of mockery forced into the Son's hands. But the reed, like the buckthorn, is a sort of Jack-of-all-trades. Saint Melitodefines it as the Incarnation and the Scriptures; Raban Maur as thePreacher, the hypocrite, and the Gentiles; Saint Eucher as the sinner;the Anonymous monk of Clairvaux as Christ; and others which I haveforgotten. "

"These are many meanings for a single plant, " observed Durtal. "But nowif we want to specialize some chapels as dedicated to saints, nothingcan be easier; at any rate, for such as have lent their names to plants. 

"For instance, the Valerian, known as Herb Saint George, the whiteflower with a hollow stem, which grows in moist, places, and its popularname is quite intelligible since it was used in treating nervousdiseases, for which the saint's intercession was invoked. 

"Then we have the plant or plants dedicated to Saint Roch: thepennyroyal, and two species of _Inula_, one with bright yellow flowers, a purgative that cures the itch. Formerly on Saint Roch's day branchesof this herb were blessed and hung in the cow-houses to preserve thecattle from epidemics. 

"Saint Anne's wort, a humble creeper, the samphire--an emblem ofpoverty. 

"Herb Barbara, the winter-cress, a cruciferous plant, anti-scorbutic--apoverty-stricken flower, creeping along the wayside like a beggar. 

"To Saint Fiacre is dedicated the mullein, with its emollient leaves;boiled to make a poultice, it relieves colic, which this saint has areputation for curing. 

"Saint Stephen's wort is the enchanter's nightshade, a beneficent plantwith red berries on a hairy stem. And there are many others. 

"For the crypt, supposing we dig one out, it must certainly be filledwith the trees mentioned in the Old Testament, of which this portion ofthe building is itself an allegory. In spite of climate we must grow thevine and the palm, emblems of eternity; the cedar, which by reason ofits incorruptible wood is sometimes thought to symbolize the angels; theolive and the fig, emblems of the Holy Trinity and of the Word;frankincense, cassia and _balsamodendron Myrrha_, a symbol of theperfect humanity of Our Lord; the terebinth--meaning exactly what?"

"According to Peter of Capua, the Cross and the Church; but Saint Melitosays the saints. According to the monk of Clairvaux, it is the falsedoctrine of the Jews and heretics; and as to the drops of resin, theyare Christ's tears, if we may believe Saint Ambrose, " replied the AbbéPlomb. 

"And even so, our cathedral remains incomplete. We are but feeling ourway, without logical sequence. I admit that at the entrance we mustplant the purifying hyssop in the place of the holy-water vessel; butwith what can we build the walls unless we accept the alternative of areal church having walls but unfinished?"

"Take the figurative sense of the walls and translate that; the greatwalls are representative of the four Evangelists, Can you find plantsfor them?"

Durtal shook his head. "The Evangelists are, of course, symbolized inthe fauna of mysticism by the animals of the Tetramorph; the twelveapostles have their synonyms in the category of gems, and two of theEvangelists are naturally to be found there: Saint John is associatedwith the emerald, the emblem of purity and faith; Saint Matthew with thechrysolite, the emblem of wisdom and watchfulness; but none, so far as Iknow, has found a representative among either trees or flowers. And yet, to be sure, Saint John has the sun-flower, signifying divineinspiration; for he is represented in a window in the church of SaintRémy at Reims, his head crowned with a nimbus surmounted by two of theseflowers. "

"Saint Mark, too, has a plant--the tansy, so named in the Middle Ages. "

"The tansy?"

"Yes; a bitter, aromatic plant with yellow flowers, which grows in stonyground, and is used in medicine as an anti-spasmodic. Like SaintGeorge's herb, it is used in nervous maladies, the intercession ofSaint Mark being, it would seem, of sovereign efficacy. 

"As to Saint Luke, he may be represented by clumps of mignonette, forSister Emmerich tells us that while he was a physician it was hisfavourite remedy. He macerated mignonette in palm oil, and afterblessing it, applied the unction in the form of a cross on the brow andmouth of his patients; in other cases he used the dried plant in aninfusion. 

"Only Saint Matthew remains; but here I give in, for I know of novegetable species that can reasonably be assigned to him. "

"Nay, do not think it hopeless, " cried the Abbé Plomb. "A mediævallegend tells us that balms exuded from his tomb; hence he wasrepresented as holding a branch of cinnamon, symbolical of the fragranceof virtue, says Saint Melito. "

"Well, it would be better to accept the real walls of a church, makinguse of the structure, and limiting ourselves to completing the idea bydetails borrowed from the symbolism of flowers. "

"And the sacristy?" suggested the Abbé Gévresin. 

"Since, according to the _Rationale_ of Durand of Mende, the sacristy isthe very bosom of the Virgin, we will represent it by virginal plantssuch as the anemone, and trees such as the cedar, which Saint Ildefonsocompares to Our Mother. And now, if we are to furnish the instruments ofworship, we shall find in the ritual of the liturgy and in the very formof certain plants almost precise guidance. Thus, flax, of which thecornice and altar napery is to be woven, is indispensable; the olive andthe _balsamum_, from which oil and balm are extracted, and frankincense, which sheds the drops of gum for the incense, are no less indicated. Forthe chalice we may choose from among the flowers which goldsmiths takeas their models: the white convolvulus, the frail campanula, and eventhe tulip, though, having some repute as connected with magic, thatflower is in ill odour. For the shape of the monstrance there is thesun-flower. "

"Yes, " interrupted the Abbé Plomb, wiping his spectacles, "but these arefancies borrowed simply from superficial resemblance; it is modernsymbolism, which is really not symbolism at all. And is not this thecase to a great extent with the various interpretations that you acceptfrom Sister Emmerich? She died in 1824. "

"What does that matter?" said Durtal. "Sister Emmerich was a primitivesaint, a seer, whose body indeed lived in our day, but whose soul wasfar away; she dwelt more in the Middle Ages than in ours. It might besaid indeed that she was more ancient still, for, in fact, she wascontemporary with Christ, whose life she follows step by step throughher pages. 

"Hence her ideas of symbolism cannot be set aside. To me they are ofequal authority with those of Saint Mechtildis, who was born in theearly part of the thirteenth century. 

"In point of fact, the source whence they both alike derived them is thesame. And what is time, or past or present, when we speak of God?

"These women were the sieves through which His grace was poured, andwhat need I care whether the instruments were of yesterday or to-day?The word of the Lord is supreme over the ages; His inspiration blowswhen and where it lists. Is not that true?"

"I quite agree. "

"And all this time, " said the housekeeper, "you do not think of makinguse in your building of the iris, which my good Jeanne de Matel regardsas an emblem of peace. "

"Oh, we will find a place for it, Madame Bavoil, never fear. And thereis yet another plant which we must not omit; the trefoil, for sculptorshave strewn it broadcast in their stony gardens, and the trefoil, likethe fruit of the almond tree, which shows the elongated nimbus, is anemblem of the Holy Trinity. 

"Suppose we recapitulate:

"At the end of the nave, in the shell of the apse, in front of asemicircle of tall bracken turned brown by autumn, we see a flamingassumption of climbing roses hedging a bed of red and white anemones, edged with the sober green of mignonette. And to give variety by addingsymbols of humility--the knotweed, the violet, and the hyssop--we mayform a posy of which the meaning will represent the perfect virtues ofOur Mother. 

"Now, " said he, pointing with his stick to the plan of the nave he hadtraced, "here is the altar, overgrown with red-leaved vines, purple orpearly grapes, sheaves of golden corn. Ah! but we must have a cross overthe altar. "

"That will not be difficult, " replied the Abbé Gévresin. "From the grainof mustard seed, which all the symbolists accept in a figurative senseas representing Christ, to the sycamore and the terebinth, you have awide range; you can at pleasure have a tiny cross, a mere nothing, or agigantic crucifix. "

"Here, " Durtal went on, "along the bays where trefoils flourish, different flowers rise from the ground, corresponding to the saints oftheir ascription; here is the chapel of Our Lady of the Seven Dolours, recognizable by the passion-flower full blown on its creeping stem, withits many tendrils; and the background is a hedge of reeds and rhamnus, full of sad meaning, mitigated by the compassionate myrtle. 

"Here, again, is the sacristy, where smiles the soft blue flax on itslight stem, the abundant flowers of the convolvulus and campanula, tallsun-flowers, and, if you choose, a palm, for I recollect that SisterEmmerich speaks of this tree as a paragon of chastity, because, shesays, the male and female flowers are separate, and both kept modestlyhidden. Another interpretation to the credit of the palm!"

"But after all, you are absurd, our friend!" cried Madame Bavoil. "Allthis will not hold together. Your plants are the growth of differentclimates, and in any case they could not all be in bloom at the sametime; consequently, by the time you have planted this, that will bedead. You can never grow them side by side. "

"That is symbolical of many unfinished cathedrals, where the building iscarried across from century to century, " said Durtal, snapping hisstick. "But listen, fancy apart, there is something which may be done, and has not been done, for celestial botany and pious posies. 

"That is, to make a liturgical garden, a true Benedictine garden, whereflowers may be grown in succession for the sake of their relations tothe Scriptures and hagiology. Would it not be delightful to follow outthe liturgy of prayer with that of plants, to place them side by side inthe sanctuary, to deck the altars with flowers all having their meaningsaccording to the days and festivals; in short, to associate nature inits most exquisite manifestation--that is, its flowers--with theceremonies of divine worship?"

"Yes, indeed!" exclaimed both the priests with one accord. 

"Meanwhile, till these fine things are accomplished, I will be contentto dig in my little kitchen garden with an eye to the savoury stews inwhich you shall share, " said Madame Bavoil. "There I am in my element; Ido not lose my footing as I do in your imitation churches. "

"And I, on my part, will meditate on the symbolism of eatables, " saidDurtal, taking out his watch. "It is near breakfast time. "

As he was going off, the Abbé Plomb called him back and said, laughing, --

"In your future cathedral you have forgotten to reserve a nook for SaintColumba, if, indeed, we can find some ascetic plant native, or at anyrate common, to Ireland, the land where this Father was born. "

"The thistle, figurative of mortification and penance and a memento ofasceticism, is conspicuous as the badge of Scotland, " replied Durtal. "But why Saint Columba?"

"Because of all saints he is the most neglected, the least invoked bythose of our contemporaries who ought to be most assiduous; since he isregarded in the attributions of special virtues as the patron saint ofidiots. "

"Pooh!" cried the Abbé Gévresin. "Why, if ever a man revealed amagnificent comprehension of things human and divine, it was that greatAbbot and founder of monasteries!"

"Oh! there is no suggestion implied that Saint Columba was feeble ofbrain; and as to why the mission was trusted to him rather than anotherof protecting the greater part of the human race, I do not know. "

"Perhaps he may have cured lunatics and healed those possessed?" theAbbé Gévresin suggested. 

"At any rate, " said Durtal, "it would be vain to erect a chapel to him, since it would always be empty; no one would come to entreat him, poorsaint! for the essential mark of an idiot is not to think himself one!"

"A saint out of work!" remarked Madame Bavoil. 

"And who is not likely to find any, " said Durtal, as he left them. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Durtal had begged his housekeeper, Madame Mesurat, to serve his coffeein his study. He thus hoped to escape having her constantly standing infront of him, as she did all through his meal, asking him if hismutton-cutlet were good. 

And though that meat had a taste of flannel, Durtal had nodded a sketchyaffirmative, knowing full well that if he ventured on the least commenthe would have to endure an incoherent harangue on all the butchers inthe town. 

As soon as this woman, at once servile, despotic, and obsequious, hadplaced his cup on the table, he buried his nose in a book, and by hisrepellent attitude compelled her to fly. 

He knew the book he was turning over almost by heart, for he had oftenread it between the hours of service at the cathedral. It was soentirely sympathetic to him, with its artless faith and ingenuousenthusiasm, that it was to him like the familiar speech of the Churchitself. 

The little volume contained the prayers composed in the fourteenthcentury by Gaston Phoebus, Comte de Foix. Durtal had it in two editions, one printed in the original form of his authentic words and antiquatedspelling, by the Abbé de Madaune; the other modernized, but with greatskill and taste, by Monsieur de la Brière. 

Durtal, as he turned the pages, came on such lamentable and humbleprayers as these: "Thou who hast shapened me in my mother's womb, let menot perish.... Lord, I confess my poverty.... My conscience gnaws me andshows me the secrets of my heart. Avarice constrains me, concupiscencebefouls me, gluttony disgraces me, anger torments me, inconstancycrushes me, indolence oppresses me, hypocrisy beguiles me.... And these, Lord, are the companions with whom I have spent my youth, these are thefriends I have known, these are the masters I have served. " And furtheron he exclaims, "Sin have I heaped upon sin, and the sins which I couldnot commit in very deed yet have I committed by evil desire. "

Durtal closed the volume, regretting that it should be so entirelyunknown to Catholics. They were all busy chewing the cud of the old hayleft at the heading or end of the "Christian's Day" or "The Eucologia, "or meditating on the pompous prayers elaborated in the ponderousphraseology of the seventeenth century, in which there is no accent ofsincerity to be found--nothing, not an appeal that comes from the heart, not even a pious cry!

How far were these rhapsodies all cast in the same mould from thispenitent and simple language, from this easy and candid communion of thesoul with God?

Then Durtal dipped again here and there, and read:--

"My God and my Mercy, I am ashamed to pray to Thee for very shame of myevil conscience; give a fountain of tears to my eyes, and my handslargess of alms and charity; give me a seemly faith, and hope, andabiding charity. Lord, Thou holdest no man in horror save the fool thatdenies Thee. Oh, my God, the Giver of My Redemption and Receiver of mysoul, I have sinned and Thou hast suffered me!"

Then, turning over a few more pages, he came at the end of the volume toa few passages collected by Monsieur de la Brière, among them thesereflections on the Eucharist culled from a manuscript of the fifteenthcentury:--

"Not every man can assimilate this meat; some there be who eat it not, but swallow it down in haste. It should be chewed as much as possiblewith the teeth of the understanding, to the end that the sweet of itssavour be pressed out of it, and may come forth from it. Ye have heardit said that in nature, that which is most crushed is most nourishing;now the crushing of the teeth is our deep and keen meditation on theSacrament itself. "

Then, after having elucidated the individual use of each tooth, theauthor adds, in speaking of the fifteenth, "the Sacrament on the altaris not merely as meat to fill and refill us; but, which is more, to makeus divine. "

"Lord!" murmured Durtal, laying down the book. "O Lord! If we allowedourselves nowadays to use such materialistic comparisons and make use ofsuch homely terms in speaking of Thy supremely adorable Body, what aclamour would arise from the 'respectable' among the worshippers and theblessed legion of the good women who have comfortable praying-chairs andreserved places near the altar--like front seats in a theatre--in theHouse where all are equal. "

And Durtal pondered over these reflections which assailed him every timehe happened to take up a clerical journal or one of the Manualsintroduced by some prelate's note of approval, like a clean bill ofhealth. 

He could never get over his amazement at the incredible ignorance, theinstinctive aversion for art, the type of ideas, the terror of words, peculiar to Catholics. Why was this? For after all there was no reasonwhy believers should be more ignorant and stupid than any other folks. Indeed, the contrary ought to be the truth. 

Whence did this inferiority proceed? And Durtal could answer himself. Itwas due to the system of education, to the training in intellectualtimidity, to the lessons in fear, given in a cellar, far from a vitalatmosphere and the light of day. It really seemed as if there were someintention of emasculating souls by nourishing them on dried-upfragments, literary white-meat; some set purpose of destroying allindependence and initiative in the disciples by levelling them, crushingthem all under the same roller, and restricting the sphere of thought bymaintaining a deliberate ignorance of art and literature. 

And all merely to avert the temptation of forbidden fruit, of which theidea was suggested under the pretext of inspiring dread of it. By thismethod curiosity with regard to the veiled unknown tormented their youngbrains and excited their senses, for it was always in the background, and in a form all the more dangerous because it had the effect of a moreor less transparent gauze. The imagination could not fail to exasperateitself by cogitating its desire to know and its fear of knowing, and itwas ready to fly off at the least word. 

Under these circumstances the most anodyne book was a source of dangerfrom the simple fact that love was alluded to, and woman depicted as anattractive creature; and this was enough to account for all--for theinherent ignorance of Catholics, since it was proclaimed as thepreventive cure for temptations--for the instinctive horror of art, since to these craven souls every written and studied work was in itsnature a vehicle of sin and an incitement to fall. 

Would it not really be far more sensible and judicious to open thewindows, to air the rooms, to treat these souls as manly beings, toteach them not to be so much afraid of their own flesh, to inculcate thefirmness and courage needed for resistance? For really it is rather likea dog which barks at your heels and snaps at your legs if you are afraidof him, but who beats a retreat if you turn on him boldly and drive himoff. 

The fact remains that these schemes of education have resulted, on theone hand, in the triumph of the flesh in the greater number of men whohave been thus brought up and then thrown into a worldly life, and onthe other, in a wide diffusion of folly and fear, an abandonment of thepossessions of the intellect and the capitulation of the Catholic armysurrendering without a blow to the inroads of profane literature, whichtakes possession of territory that it has not even had the trouble ofconquering. 

This really was madness! The Church had created art, had cherished itfor centuries; and now by the effeteness of her sons she was cast into acorner. All the great movements of our day, one after theother--romanticism, naturalism--had been effected independently of her, or even against her will. 

If a book were not restricted to the simplest tales, or pleasing fictionending in virtue rewarded and vice punished, that was enough; thepropriety of beadledom was at once ready to bray. 

As soon as the most modern form of art, the most malleable and thebroadest--the Novel--touched on scenes of real life, depicted passion, became a psychological study, an effort of analysis, the army of bigotsfell back all along the line. The Catholic force, which might have beenthought better prepared than any others to contest the ground whichtheology had long since explored, retired in good order, satisfied tocover its retreat by firing from a safe distance, with its old-fashionedmatch-lock blunderbusses, on works it had neither inspired nor written. 

The Church party, centuries behind the time, and having made no attemptto follow the evolution of style in the course of ages, now turned tothe rustic who can scarcely read; it did not understand more than halfof the words used by modern writers, and had become, it must be said, acamp of the illiterate. Incapable of distinguishing the good from thebad, it included in one condemnation the filth of pornography and realworks of art; in short, it ended by emitting such folly and talking suchpreposterous nonsense, that it fell into utter discredit and ceased tocount at all. 

And it would have been so easy for it to work on a little way, to try tokeep up with the times, and to understand, to convince itself whether inany given work the author was writing up the Flesh, glorifying it, praising it, and nothing more, or whether, on the contrary, he depictedit merely to buffet it--hating it. And, again, it would have done wellto convince itself that there is a chaste as well as a prurient nude, and that it should not cry shame on every picture in which the nude isshown. Above all, it ought to have recognized that vices may well bedepicted and studied with a view to exciting disgust of them and showingtheir horrors. 

For, after all, this was the great theory of the Middle Ages, thetheological method in sculpture, the literary dogma of the monks of thattime; and this is the meaning and purpose of certain groups which evennow shock the propriety of our methodistical purists. These unseemlysubjects and images of indecency are very numerous at Saint Benoît onthe Loire, in the cathedral of Reims, at le Mans, in the crypt atBourges, everywhere in our churches; for in those where they do notoccur, it is because the prudery which was most rife in the most immoraltimes, broke them by stoning them in the name of a morality very unlikethat which was inculcated by the mediæval saints. 

These subjects have for many years been the delight of Freethinkers andthe despair of Catholics; those see in them a scathing satire on themanners of the monks and bishops, these lament that such turpitudeshould ever have fouled the walls of the Temple. And yet it would havebeen so easy to explain the purpose of these scenes; far from seeking toapologize for the tolerance of the Church that allowed them, her honestyand breadth should have been held up to admiration. By acting thus, theChurch manifested her determination to inure her sons by showing themthe ridiculous side of the temptations which assail them. It was, so tospeak, an object lesson or demonstration, and at the same time a biddingto self-examination before venturing into the sanctuary which was thusprefaced by a catalogue of sins as a reminder to confession. 

This was part of her plan of education, for she aimed at moulding manlysouls and not crippled creatures such as are turned out by the spiritualorthopedists of our day; she dragged out vice and lashed it wherever itlurked, and did not hesitate to preach the equality of men before God, insisting that bishops and monks should, when guilty, be placed in thepillory of its doorways; nay, she gibbeted them more willingly thanothers, to set an example. 

These scenes were practically a comment of the Sixth (Seventh)Commandment, a sculptured paraphrase of the Catechism; the Church'saccusation and teaching plainly expressed so as to be understood of allmen. 

And Our Mother did not restrict herself to one mode only of expressingHer warnings and reproofs; to reiterate them she borrowed the languageof other arts. Literature and the pulpit were inevitably theinterpreters that she employed to vituperate the sins of the people. 

And they were not a whit more prudish or less audacious than sculpture. We have only to open the books of the Church to convince ourselves ofthe violent language in which she was wont to lash the sins of theflesh. Beginning with the Scriptures, the Bible itself--which no onedares read now but in mawkish French versions--what priest, forinstance, would venture to recommend to the nerveless spirit of hisflock the study of the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel or of the Song ofSongs, that Epithalamium of Jesus and the Soul--down to the Fathers andthe Doctors?

How our modern Pharisees would reprove the uncompromising language ofSaint Gregory the Great when he exclaims, "Speak the truth! A scandal isbetter than a lie;" or Saint Epiphanius' plain speaking in discussingthe Gnostics and describing in detail the abominations of that sect, quietly adding in the face of the congregation, "Why should I shrinkfrom speaking of the things you do not fear to do? By speaking thus, Ihope to fill you with horror of the turpitude you commit. "

Or what would they think of Saint Bernard expatiating in his thirdmeditation on horrible physiological details to demonstrate the basenessof our carnal ambition and the foulness of our pleasures? Or of SaintHildegarde, who placidly discusses the various factors of suchpleasures, Saint Vincent Ferrier freely dealing in his sermons with thesins of Onan and of Sodom, using the simplest language, and comparingconfession to a purgative, and asserting that the priest, like a doctor, should examine the excreta of the soul and prescribe for it?

What reprobation would be poured on the splendid passage by Odo of Clunyquoted by Rémy de Gourmont in his "Latin Mystique, " the passage wherethat terrible monk analyzes the attractions of woman, turns them over, eviscerates them, and flings them aside like a drawn rabbit on abutcher's stall; and again on Clement of Alexandria, who sums the wholematter up in two sentences:--

"I am not ashamed to name the parts of the body wherein the foetus isformed and nourished; and why indeed should I be, since God was notashamed to create them?"

None of the great writers of the Church were prudish. This mock-modestywhich has so long stultified us dates actually from the ages of impiety, the period of paganism, the return on threadbare classicism which wasknown as the Renaissance; and see how it has developed since! Itshot-bed and nursery ground lay in the lewd and gorgeous years of theso-called _Grand-siècle_; the virus of Jansenism, the old Protestanttaint mingled with the blood of Catholics, and pollutes it still. 

"It is very true! And pretty results have come of this infection ofdecency!" Durtal burst out laughing as he thought of the cathedral atChartres. 

"Here, " said he to himself, "we reach the climax; pious imbecility cango no further. Among the subjects in sculpture in the ambulatory of thechoir there is a group representing the Circumcision, Saint Josephholding the Infant while the Virgin has a napkin ready and the HighPriest is preparing to operate. And there has been a priest so modest, adivine so decorous as to regard this scene as licentious and to paste apiece of paper over the Child's nakedness!

"The indecency of God, the obscenity of a new-born Babe is too much!

"Bah!" said he. "The time has slipped away in all this meditation, andthe Abbé will be waiting. "

He ran quickly downstairs and hurried across to the cathedral, where theAbbé Plomb was pacing to and fro in front of the northern porch, reciting his Breviary. 

"The side where sinners and demons are figured is especially that of theVirgin, who saves those and crushes these, " said the Abbé. "The northernporch of a church is usually the most lively of all; here, however, theSatanic incidents are on the southern side, because they form part ofthe Last Judgment represented over the south door. Otherwise Chartres, unlike her sister cathedrals, would have no scenes of that kind. "

"Then the rule in the thirteenth century was to place the Virgin in thenorthern portion?"

"Yes. To the men of that time the north meant the gloom of winter, thedejection of darkness, the misery of cold; the ice-bound chant of thewinds was to them the very blast of evil; to the north was the home ofthe devil, the hell of nature, as the south was its Eden. "

"But that is absurd!" cried Durtal, "the greatest blunder everintroduced into the symbolism of the elements. The medieval sages weremistaken, for snow is pure and cold is chastity. It is the sun, on thecontrary, that is the active agent in developing the germs ofrottenness, the ferment of vice!

"They forget that the third Psalm of Compline speaks of the hot hour ofnoon as the most harassing and dangerous of all; they must haveoverlooked the horrors of sweat and unwholesome heat, the risks ofrelaxed nerves, of loosened dresses, all the abominations of leadenclouds and hard blue skies!

"There are diabolical effluvia in the storm, and in weather when the airstirs like the vapours from a furnace, rousing evil instincts andbringing about us the raging swarm of evil angels. "

"But remember the passages in which Isaiah and Jeremiah speak of Luciferas dwelling in the blast of the north wind; and recollect that the greatcathedrals did not originate in the south but in the middle and north ofFrance; consequently, after having adopted this symbolism of seasons andweather, the pious architects dreamed of the horror of men buried insnow, and longing for a gleam of sunshine and a bright day. Naturallythey thought of the east as the region of the original Paradise, and ofthose lands as milder and less inclement than their own. "

"That does not hinder the fact that this theory was controverted by OurLord Himself. "

"Where do you find that?" asked the Abbé Plomb. 

"On Calvary; Jesus died" turning His back to the south, which hadcrucified Him, and extending His arms on the Cross to bless and embracethe north. He seemed to be withdrawing His favours from the east, 'tobestow them on the west. Hence, if any region is accurst and inhabitedby Satan, it is the south and not the north. "

"You abominate the south and its races, that is evident, " said the Abbé, laughing. 

"I do not love them. Their scenery, vulgarized by crude daylight, theirdusty trees standing out against a sky of washerwoman's blue, have nocharm for me; as to the natives, hairy and noisy, with a blue bar undertheir nostrils if they shave, I flee from them!"

"Here, in short, we are face to face with a fact which no discussionscan alter. This side of the church is dedicated to the Virgin. Shall wenow examine it, first as a whole, and then in detail?

"This portal, brought forward like an open porch, a sort of verandah infront of the doors, is an allegory of the Saviour showing the way intothe heavenly Jerusalem. It was begun in the year 1215 under PhilipAugustus, and finished by about 1275, under Philip the Bold; thus it wasnearly sixty years in building, the greater part of the thirteenthcentury. It is divided into three parts, corresponding to the threedoors behind it; there are more than seven hundred statues grouped here, large and small, representing, for the most part, personages from theOld Testament. 

"It forms, in fact, three deep bays or gulfs. 

"The central portal, before which we are standing, and which leads tothe middle door, has for its subject the Glorification of the Virgin. 

"The left-hand bay contains the life and virtues of the Virgin. 

"The right-hand bay is devoted to images of Mary Herself. 

"According to another interpretation, put forward by Canon Davin, thisporch, which was built at the time when Saint Dominic instituted theRosary, is a reproduction in images of its mysteries. "

"On that theory, the left-hand arch, containing the scenes of theAnnunciation, the Visitation, and the Nativity, answers to the JoyfulMysteries; the central bay, containing the Assumption and Coronation ofthe Virgin, to the Glorious Mysteries; and that to the right, where wefind a presentment of Job, precursor of the Crucifixion under theancient law, to the Sorrowful Mysteries. "

"There is a third interpretation, " said Durtal, "but it is ridiculous. That of Didron, who regards this front as the first page of the Book ofChartres. He opens it at this porch, and asserts that the sculptorsbegan to render the Encyclopedia of Vincent de Beauvais by representingthe creation of the world. But if so, where are those wonderfulrepresentations of Genesis hidden?"

"There, " said the Abbé, pointing to a row of statuettes lost in a hollowmoulding at the very edge of the porch. 

"But to ascribe so much importance to tiny figures which, after all, arethere merely to fill up, as stop-gaps--it is preposterous!" criedDurtal. 

"No doubt. But now let us examine the work. 

"You will observe in the first place that, in opposition to the ritualobserved in most of the great churches of the time--those of Amiens, Reims, and Paris, to name but three--it is not the Virgin who stands onthe pillar between the two halves of the door, but Her Mother, SaintAnne; and inside, in the windows, we find the same thing: Saint Anne, asa negress, her head bound in a blue kerchief, holds Mary in her arms, asbrown as a half-caste. "

"Why is this?"

"No doubt because the Emperor Beaudouin, after the sack ofConstantinople, bestowed that Saint's head on this cathedral. 

"The ten colossal statues placed on each side of Her in the niches ofthe porch are familiar to you, for they attend Our Lady in everysanctuary of the thirteenth century--in Paris, at Amiens, at Rouen, Reims, Bourges, and Sens. The five to the left are a series figurativeof the Son; the five on the right symbolize Our Lord Himself. Theystand in chronological order: the prototypes of the Messiah, or theProphets who foretold His birth, death, resurrection, and everlastingpriesthood. 

"To the left, Melchizedec, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, and David; to theright, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Simeon, Saint John the Baptist, and SaintPeter. "

"But why, " remarked Durtal, "is the son of Jonas in the midst of the OldTestament? His place is not there, but in the Gospels. "

"Yes, but you will observe that Saint Peter here stands next to SaintJohn the Baptist; the two statues are side by side and touch each other. Then do you not perceive the meaning of this juxtaposition? One was thePrecursor and the other the Successor of Christ; the first anticipatedHim, the second carried out His mission. It was quite natural to placethem together, and that the Chief of the Apostles should figure as theconclusion to the premisses set forth by the other statues of thisportal. 

"Finally, in addition to this series of patriarchs and prophets, you maysee there, in the hollow between the pilasters, a pair of statues, oneon each side of the door: Elijah the Tishbite, and Elisha his disciple. 

"The first prefigures the Saviour's Ascension by his being carried upalive to Heaven in a chariot of fire; the second typifies Jesus savingand preserving mankind in the person of the Shunammite's son. 

"Argument is vain, " murmured Durtal, who was meditative. "The Messianicprophecies are irresistible. All the logic of the Rabbins, theProtestants, the Freethinkers, all the ingenuity of the Germans, havefailed to find a crack or to undermine the old rock of the Church. Thereis such a body of evidence, such certainty, such demonstration of thetruth, such an indestructible foundation, that a man must be strickenwith spiritual blindness to dare deny it. "

"Yes: and to the end that there should be no mistake, no possibility ofalleging that the inspired Scriptures were written subsequent to thearrival of the Messiah they prophesy, to prove that they were neitherinvented nor added to after the event, it was God's pleasure that theyshould be translated into Greek in the Septuagint version and known tothe whole world more than two hundred and fifty years before the birthof Christ. "

"To imagine the impossible--supposing the Gospels were to beannihilated, they could, I suppose, be restored, and a brief historywritten of the Saviour's life as they relate it merely by studying theMessianic announcements in the books of the Prophets?"

"No doubt; for, after all, and it cannot be too often repeated, the OldTestament is the story before the event of the Son of Man and thefounding of His Church; as Saint Augustine bears witness, 'the wholehistory of the Jewish people was a perpetual prophecy of the expectedKing. '

"You will see, apart from personages prefiguring the Redeemer which youmay find in every page of the Bible: Isaac, Joseph, Moses, David, Jonah, to name five taken at random; apart, too, from the animals and objectsthat symbolized Him under the Old Laws, as, for instance, the PaschalLamb, the Manna, the Brazen Serpent, and others, we can, if you please, simply by quoting the Prophets, trace the broad outlines of Emmanuel'slife and epitomize the Gospels in a few words. Listen!"

The Abbé paused for thought, his hand over his eyes. 

"That he should be born of a Virgin is foretold by Isaiah, Jeremiah, andEzekiel--that this Advent should be preceded by a special messenger, Saint John, is noted by Malachi, whom Isaiah confirms, adding forgreater certainty that he should be as 'the voice of one crying in theWilderness. '

"The place of His birth, Bethlehem, is mentioned by Micah; the adorationof the Magi, offering gold, myrrh and frankincense, is announced byIsaiah and the Psalm ascribed to Solomon. 

"His youth and His calling are clearly suggested by Ezekiel, who speaksof Him as seeking the lost sheep, and by Isaiah, who tells beforehand ofthe miracles He would perform on the blind and the deaf and dumb, andwho finally declares that He will be 'a stone of stumbling' to the Jews. 

"But it is when they speak of His Passion and Death that the propheciesbecome mathematically exact, incredibly precise. The offering of palmbranches, the betrayal by Judas, and the price of thirty pieces ofsilver appear in Zechariah; and Isaiah takes up the parable to describethe rejection and opprobrium of Calvary: 'He was wounded for ourtransgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.... The Lord hath laidon Him the iniquity of us all.... He was despised and rejected of men; aman of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.... He was brought as a lambto the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb. '

"David expatiates on the dreadful scene: 'He was a worm and no man, avery scorn of men and the outcast of the people. '

"Details are multiplied. The wounds in His hands are spoken of byZechariah; David enumerates the circumstances of the Passion, word forword: the pierced hands, the division of His raiment, casting lots forthe robe. The hooting of the Jews, bidding Him to save Himself if He bethe Son of God, is mentioned in chapter ii. Of the Book of Wisdom, andagain by David; the gall and the vinegar offered Him on the Cross andthe very words of Jesus giving up the ghost are to be found in thePsalms. 

"Nor is this the last of the prophecies to be found in the OldTestament. 

"Its prophetic mission is carried out to the end. The establishment ofthe Church in the place of the Synagogue is foretold by Ezekiel, Isaiah, Joel, and Micah; and the Mass, the Eucharistic Sacrament, is plainlyadumbrated by Malachi, who declared that for the offerings of the OldLaw offered only in the Temple at Jerusalem shall be substituted 'a pureoffering to be offered in every place and by all nations'--by priestschosen from among all people, Isaiah adds, and David says after theorder of Melchizedec. 

"Pascal very truly remarks that 'the fulfilment of the prophecies is aperpetual miracle, and that no other proof is needed to show the divineorigin of the Christian Religion. '"

Durtal had gone closer to the statues, standing by Saint Anne, and waslooking at one on the left wearing a pointed cap, a sort of papal tiarawith a crown round the edge, robed in an alb girt round the middle withknotted cord, and a large cope with a fringe; the features were grave, almost anxious, and the eye fixed with an absorbed gaze into thedistance. This figure held a censer in one hand, and in the other achalice covered with a paten on which there was a loaf; and this imageof Melchizedec, the King of Salem, threw Durtal into a deep reverie. 

He was, in fact, one of the most mysterious types of the HolyScriptures--this monarch mentioned in Genesis as the Priest of the MostHigh God. He consummates the sacrifice of bread and wine, blesses Abram, receives tithes from him, and then vanishes into the darkness ofhistory. And suddenly his name is found in a psalm of David's, whodeclares that the Messiah is a priest for ever after the order ofMelchizedec, and again he is lost without leaving a trace. 

Then quite unexpectedly he reappears in the New Testament, and whatSaint Paul says of him in the Epistle to the Hebrews makes him moreenigmatical than ever. The apostle speaks of him as "without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days norend of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abiding a priestcontinually. " Saint Paul is explicit to show how great a person hewas--and the dim light he casts on this figure goes out. 

"You must confess that this King of Salem is a puzzle. What do thecommentators think of him?" asked Durtal. 

"They say but little. Only Saint Jerome observes that when Saint Paulspeaks of him as without parents, without descent, without beginning, and without end, he does not mean to convey that Melchizedec came downfrom Heaven or was created _ab initio_ like the first man, by theAncient of Days. The phrase simply means that he is introduced into thehistory of Abraham without our knowing whence he came, who he was, whenhe was born, or at what time he died. 

"In fact, the inscrutable part played by this prototype of Jesus in thecanonical Scriptures has led to the most grotesque legends and heresies. 

"Some have asserted that he was Shem, the son of Noah; others havethought that he was Ham. Simon Logothetes considers him an Egyptian;Suidas believes him to have belonged to the accursed race of Canaanites, and that this is why the Bible says nothing of his ancestry. 

"The gnostics revered him as an Eon superior to Jesus; and in the thirdcentury Theodore le Changeur also asserted that he was not a man, but avirtue transcending Christ, because Christ's priesthood was but a copyof Melchizedec's. 

"According to another sect, he was neither more nor less than theParaclete. But come, in the absence of early Scriptures what do theseers say? Does Sister Emmerich speak of him?"

"She tells us nothing precise, " replied Durtal. "To her he was a sort ofpriestly angel charged with the preparation for the great Act ofRedemption. "

"That is very much the view held by Origen and Didymus, who alsoascribed to him the angelic nature. "

"Thus she perceives him long before the advent of Abram in variousdesert spots of Palestine; he unlocks the springs of Jordan, and inanother passage of the life of Christ she adds that it was he who taughtthe Hebrews the culture of wheat and of the vine. In fact, she throws nolight on this insoluble enigma. "

"From the artist's point of view, " Durtal went on, "Melchizedec is oneof the best statues in this porch. But what a strange face is that ofhis neighbour Abraham, seen only three-quarters full, with hair likerolled grass, a beard like a river god, and a long nose straight fromthe forehead, coming down between the eyes without a bridge, like theproboscis of a tapir, with cheeks that seem swollen with cold, and alook--how shall I describe it?--of a conjuror who has made away with hisson's head. "

"In point of fact, he is listening to the commands of the angel, whom hecannot see; observe, below on the pedestal the ram caught in thethicket, and the symbolism is evident. 

"This is the Father sacrificing his Son, and Isaac is the very image ofthe Son--Isaac bearing the wood to fire the altar, as Jesus bore theCross; then the ram becomes figurative of the Saviour, and the bush inwhich he is caught by the horns is symbolical of the Crown of Thorns. 

"To do full justice to this subject and to the teaching by figures thatit contains, we ought also to have had the Patriarch's two wives carvedon the supporting pillar or plinth, and his other son Ishmael. For, asyou know, these two women are emblems, Hagar of the Old Dispensation, and Sarah of the New; the former disappears to make way for the second, the Old Law being merely the preparation for the New; and the two sonsborn of these two mothers are by analogy the children of the Books, andthus Ishmael represents the Israelites, and Isaac the Christians. 

"Next to Abraham, the father of believers, stands Moses, as a symbol ofChrist; for the deliverance of Israel is an image of the Redemption ofMan snatched by the Saviour from the devil, just as the passage of theRed Sea is an image of Baptism. He holds the Table of the Law and thestaff round which the Brazen Serpent is twined. Then comes Samuel, inmany ways typical of Christ, the founder of the Royal Priesthood and ofPontifical Kingship; and last of all, David holding the Lamb and Crownof Calvary. 

"I need hardly remind you that this Prophet-King, more than any otherpersonage, prefigured the sorrows of the Messiah, and that he too, tomake the resemblance more perfect, had his Judas in the person ofAchitophel, who, like the later traitor, hanged himself. "

"You must admit, " said Durtal, "that these statues, before which thehistorians of this cathedral go into ecstasies, declaring in chorus theyare the highest achievement of thirteenth-century sculpture, are farinferior to those of the twelfth century that adorn the great northporch. How evident is the lowering of the divine standard! Their actionis freer, no doubt, and the play of drapery is broader. The rhubarb-stemplaits of the robes are fuller, and have some movement, but where is thegrace as of a sculptured soul that we see in the royal porch? All thesestatues, with their massive heads, are thick-set and mute, devoid ofcommunicative life. This is pious work--fine work, if you will--butdevoid of the 'beyond'; here is art indeed, but it has ceased to bemysticism. 

"Look at St. Anne with her gloomy expression, either cross orsuffering--how far she is from the so-called Radegonde and Berthe!

"With the exception of two, St. John and St. Joseph over there in theinnermost part of the arch, these are familiar figures. They also occurat Reims and at Amiens. And do you remember the Simeon, the Virgin, andthe St. Anne at Reims? The Virgin so guilelessly charming, soexquisitely chaste, holding out the Infant to Simeon, who stands mildand devout in his solemn garb as High Priest. St. Anne--a head of thesame type as St. Joseph's, and as those of two angels on the samefrontal, standing by St. Nicasius, with his head cut off at thebrows--St. Anne with a smiling, arch expression and yet elderly--a sharplittle chin, large eyes, a thin, long, pointed nose, the look of ayouthful dueña, kindly but knowing. 

"But, indeed, those image-makers excelled in creating these singular, indefinable countenances. Do you recall Our Lady of Paris, later, Ibelieve, by a century? She is scarcely pretty, but so expressive, withthe smile of happiness parting such melancholy lips. Seen from one sideShe is smiling at Jesus, watchful, almost sportive; it would seem asthough she were waiting for the Child to say some merry word beforelaughing out; She is a girl-mother, not yet accustomed to her Child'scaress. Seen from another angle, this smile, apparently in the bud, hasvanished. The mouth is puckered in sorrow, and promises tears. 

"Perhaps when he succeeded in stamping on the face of Our Lady two suchopposite expressions of peace and of fear, the sculptor intended tosuggest at once the joy of the Nativity and the anticipated anguish ofCalvary. Thus he has portrayed in one and the same image, the Mother ofSorrows and the Mother of Joy--has, without knowing it, embodied theprototypes of the Virgin of La Salette and the Virgin of Lourdes. 

"And yet all this is inferior to the living and dignified art, so fullof individuality and mystery, that we see in the royal porch ofChartres!"

"I will not contradict you, " said the Abbé Plomb. "Now that we havestudied the series of types placed on St. Anne's left hand, let usconsider the prophetic series on her right. 

"First we see Isaiah; the pedestal on which he stands represents Jessesleeping. The familiar stem, rooted in him, passes between the prophet'sfeet, and the branches of the Virgin's ancestry according to the fleshand the spirit, as they rise, fill the four courses of moulding in thecentral arch. By his side is Jeremiah, who, meditating on the Passion ofChrist, wrote this lamentable passage which is read in the fifth lessonof the second Nocturn on Easter Eve: 'All ye that pass by, behold andsee if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. ' Next Simeon holding theInfant whose Birth he had foreseen, at the same time with the sorrows ofthe Virgin and the anguish of Golgotha; Saint John the Baptist, andfinally Saint Peter, whose dress is an interesting study since it iscopied from that of the thirteenth-century Popes. 

"With what care is every detail wrought! Admire the treatment of thesandals, the gloves, the broidered amice, the alb, the maniple, thedalmatic, the pallium marked with six crosses, the triple crown, theconical tiara of brocaded silk, the pontifical breastplate, everythingis chiselled, pierced, and patterned as if by a goldsmith. "

"Very true. But how superior altogether is the Saint John to his fellowson this front. What mastery we discern in that hollow, emaciated face, as expressive as the others are dull. He is apart from the conventionaland hackneyed type. He stands upright, savage but mild, with his beardin curling prongs, his lean frame, his raiment of camel-skin; we canhear him speaking as he points to the Lamb carrying the hastate crosssurrounded by a nimbus, pressing it to his bosom with both hands. Thatstatue is sublime, and it is most certainly not by the same hand thatcarved the Abraham, nor even his immediate neighbour, Samuel. Thisprophet appears to be offering to David, who cares not, a lamb he isfeeling, head downwards. He is a butcher pricing his goods, weighing themeat, inviting you to feel it, and hesitating to sell till he gets thebest price. How different from the Saint John!"

"The tympanum of the door will have no charm for us, " the Abbé went on. "The death of the Virgin, Her assumption and coronation are more curiousto read of in the Golden Legend than to study in those has-reliefs whichare but an epitome. 

"We will proceed to the left-hand doorway. 

"It is much mutilated, in a lamentable state of ruin. Most of the largestatues have disappeared. There were once, it would seem, as on theroyal porch of Notre Dame at Paris and the southern porch at Reims, thefigures of the Synagogue and the Church; also Leah and Rachel, typifyingthe active and the contemplative life, of which we shall decipher thedetails recorded in the archivolt. 

"Of the large figures that remain, three are regarded as masterpieces:the Virgin, Saint Elizabeth, and Daniel. 

"That is saying a great deal, " cried Durtal. "They are stupid-lookingand the drapery is cold; the arrangement of their robes recalls theGreek peplum; they have a prophetic savour of the Renaissance. "

"I will not contradict you; but what is really attractive is the schemeof ideas expressed by the figures in the hollow mouldings of the archof this portal, based on an equilateral triangle. As to the tympanum, which displays the Nativity, the calling of the Shepherds of Bethlehem, the dream and adoration of the Kings, it is marred and worn by time; noris it in a style of art that can move us deeply. 

"Study the mouldings of the arch with the four rows of images that adornthem. First the inner one, with its ten torch-bearing angels; thesecond, illustrating the parable of the wise and foolish virgins; thethird, representing the _Psychomachia_, or struggle between the Virtuesand the Vices; the fourth, a row of twelve queens embodying the twelvefruits of the Spirit; and linger over the enchanting series of statuesin the moulding at the very edge of the archway of the porch, representing the occupations of the active and the contemplative life. 

"The active life, on the left, is imagined in accordance with thepicture of the virtuous woman in the last chapter of Proverbs. She isseen washing wool in a bowl, carding it, stripping the flax, beating it, spinning it on a distaff, and winding it into hanks. 

"On the right is seen the contemplative life; a woman praying, holding aclosed book, opening it, reading it; she shuts it to meditate on it, teaches others, and falls into an ecstasy. 

"Finally, in the outermost hollow of the moulding of the arch, thenearest to us and the most visible, there are fourteen statues ofqueens, leaning on shields with coats-of-arms, and formerly holdingbanners. The meaning of these statuettes has been much discussed, especially of the second figure on the left, which is named '_Libertas_'the word being carved in the stone. Didron believed them to representthe domestic and social virtues; but the question has been finally anddefinitively settled by the most erudite and clearsighted symbolist ofour day, Madame Félicie d'Ayzac, who, in a very edifying pamphletpublished in 1843 on these statues and on the animals of the Tetramorph, has proved to demonstration that these fourteen queens are none elsethan the fourteen heavenly Beatitudes as enumerated by Saint Anselm:Beauty, Liberty, Honour, Joy, Pleasure, Agility, Strength, Concord, Friendship, Length of Days, Power, Health, Safety, and Wisdom. 

"Is not this porch, as a whole, so closely set with imagery, one of themost ingenious and interesting doorways known, from the points of viewof theology and of mysticism alike?"

"And no less from the point of view of art. You are perfectly right;these toiling and meditative women are so delicate and so loving, thatwe can but regret that they should be hidden in the shadow of a cavern. What artists must those have been who worked thus for the glory of Godand for their own satisfaction, creating marvels while knowing that noman would see them!"

"And they had not even the vanity to sign them; they were alwaysanonymous. "

"Ah! they were men of a different mould from us. Prouder souls, andhumbler. "

"And holier, " added the Abbé. "Shall we now inquire into the iconographyof the right-hand portal? It has suffered less, and may be explained ina few words. 

"This sculptured vault is, as you know, dedicated to types of Mary; butwe might more accurately say that it is devoted to prototypes of Christ, for in this doorway, as in the other two, indeed, the image-makers ofthe thirteenth century have made it their task to identity the Son withthe Mother. "

"In fact, most of the personages we have already studied relate moreespecially to Christ. What, then, are those in the Old Testament, whichare more essentially proper to the daughter of Joachim, and transferredin images of stone to be deciphered here?"

"The allegories of the Virgin in the Scriptures are numberless. Wholebooks, as the Song of Songs and the Book of Wisdom, allude in everyverse to Her beauty and wisdom. As to the non-human emblems that may beapplied to Her, you know them well: Noah's Ark, in which the Redeemerdwells; the Dove, the Rainbow, as a sign of alliance between the Lordand the earth; the burning bush whence came out the name of God; thecloud of fire guiding Israel in the desert; the Rod of Aaron which aloneblossomed of those of the twelve tribes taken by Moses; the Ark of theCovenant; Gideon's fleece; and a whole series, if possible, moreobviously representative; David's tower; Solomon's throne; the gardenenclosed and the fountain sealed of the Canticle; the dial of Ahaz;Elijah's saving cloud; Ezekiel's doorway--and I mention none but thoseof which the interpretation has received the seal and sanction of theFathers and Doctors of the Church. 

"As to the living beings that prefigured Her on earth, instances abound;the greater part of the famous women of the Old Testament are butanticipatory images of Her graces. Sarah, to whom an angel foretells thebirth of a son who is himself a type of the Son; Miriam, the sister ofMoses, who, by saving her brother from the river, freed the Jews;Jephthah's daughter; Deborah, the prophetess; Jael, who, like theVirgin, was called Blessed among women; Hannah, the mother of Samuel, whose song of praise seems like a forecast of the _Magnificat_;Jehosheba preserving Joash from the fury of Athaliah, as the Virginafterwards saved Jesus from the wrath of Herod; Ruth personifying boththe contemplative and the active life; Rebecca, Rachel, Abigail, Solomon's mother, the mother of the Maccabees, who witnessed the deathof her sons; and again those whose names are inscribed under thesearches; Judith and Esther, the first representative of courageouschastity, and the second of mercy and justice. "

"However, to avoid confusion, we will follow the statues in order asthey stand in this porch, three on each side. 

"On the left Balaam, the Queen of Sheba and Solomon. 

"On the right, Jesus the son of Sirach, Judith or Esther, and Joseph. "

"Balaam is this statue of a worthy peasant, smug and friendly, smilingin his beard, a stick in his hand and a hat like a pie-dish; and theQueen of Sheba, the woman who bends forward a little, looking as if shewere cross-questioning and arguing over some deed she condemned. Butwhat have these two persons to do with the life of the Virgin?"

"Balaam is a type of the Messiah. It was he who prophesied that a starshould come out of Jacob and a sceptre rise out of Israel. As to theQueen of Sheba, according to the teaching of the Fathers, she is animage of the Church; Solomon's spouse, as the Church is the spouse ofChrist. "

"Well, well, " muttered Durtal to himself. "The thirteenth century couldnot give a fitting presentment of that queen, whom we picture toourselves as dressed with foolish magnificence, rocking on a camelacross the desert at the head of a caravan under the blazing sky acrossthe furnace of sand. Her charms have appealed to writers, and not thesmallest of them; Flaubert for one--this Queen Balkis, Mékida orNicaule. But in the '_Tentation de Saint Antoine_' she has failed toassume any form but that of a puerile and flimsy creature, a skippingand lisping puppet. In fact, no one but Gustave Moreau, the painter ofSalome, could represent the woman, a virgin and a courtesan, a casuistand a coquette. He only could give life, under the flowered panoply ofdress and the blazing gorget of jewels, to the crowned foreign face, with its smile as of an artless sphinx, come from so far to ask enigmas. Such a woman is too complicated for the spirit and the ingenuous art ofthe Middle Ages. 

"Indeed, the sculptured image is neither mysterious nor suggestive. Sheis hardly pretty, and stands in the obsequious attitude of an advocate. Solomon looks like a jovial good fellow. The two effigies on the otherside of the door might perhaps invite attention if they were not socompletely crushed by the third. Again a question. By what right doesthe author of that admirable book 'Ecclesiastes' find a place in theseranks of honour?"

"Jesus the son of Sirach prefigures the Messiah as a Prophet and aDoctor. As to the figure next to him, it may equally well be Judith orEsther: her identity is doubtful; there is nothing that can help us todetermine it. 

"At any rate, as I told you but now, each is a harbinger of the Virgin. As to Joseph persecuted and sold, a slave raised almost to the throne, the merciful protector of his people, he is the prototype of Christ. "

Durtal paused to gaze up at the beardless face, with curling hair cutclose round. The youth wore a tunic under a surcoat embroidered roundthe neck, and he stood motionless, a sceptre in his hand. He might be avery young monk, humble, simple, and so far advanced in the mystic roadthat he was unconscious of it. This statue was undoubtedly a portrait, and it seemed certain that some refined and innocent novice had servedas a model to the artist. It was the work of a chastened and happy soulsuperior to the crowd. "This one, even more than the St. John, is aperfect dream, " said Durtal to the Abbé, who assented with a nod, andwent on, --

"The sculptures over the arches are practically invisible, for you mustdislocate your neck to see them. Nor is the art they display exciting. Only the subjects are interesting. Besides a row of angels bearing starsand torches, they represent the achievements of Gideon; the story ofSamson, who, when a prisoner, rose in the night, and carrying away thegates of Gaza, escaped from the town, as Christ broke the gates ofdeath, and escaped alive from His sepulchre; the history of Tobit, as adivine paragon of mercy and patience; and finally, in the corner we finda replica of the grand porch, the signs of the zodiac, and a calendar insculptured stone. 

"The tympanum, as you see, is divided into two portions. 

"In the upper part we see the Judgment of Solomon, as figuring the Sunof Justice, Christ Himself. 

"In the lower half Job lies stretched on his dunghill, and the Messiah, of whom he is a prototype, comes, supported by two angels, to give him apalm-branch. 

"To complete the elucidation of the symbolism of these doorways, it nowonly remains to glance at the three arches of the porch that precedesthem. Here we see chiefly the benefactors of the cathedral and thesaints of the See; also, mingled with these, certain prophets for whomthere was not room in the arches of the doors. This vestibule is, so tospeak, a postscript, a supplement added to the work. 

"Here, where we stand in the right-hand arch are Saint Potentien, thefirst apostle of Chartres, and Saint Modesta, the daughter of Quirinus, the Governor of the city, who killed her because she would not denyChrist. Here you see Ferdinand of Castille. He presented certain windowsdistinguished by his arms, _gules, three castles or_, side by side withthe azure shield and fleur-de-lys of France, in the principal window ofthis front. Next to him that shrewd and severe face is probably that ofBaruch, the judge, and here, barefoot and burthened with a penitent'ssatchel, you see Saint Louis, who loaded the cathedral with gifts andinaugurated its use. 

"Under the porch of the middle door are two vacant pedestals, on whichformerly stood the effigies of Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur deLion, two of the most liberal donors to the church. On the other plinthsstand the Comte and Comtesse de Boulogne, a buxom dame with masculinefeatures, wearing a biretta; a prophet who is nameless, but no doubtEzekiel, for he is missing from the series in this porch; Louis VIII. , Saint Louis' father; and, finally, that king's sister Isabella, whofounded the Abbey of Longchamps under the rule of Saint Clare. She isdressed as a nun, and next her in the shadow is a personage of the OldDispensation carrying a censer, like Melchizedec. Remark, too, the firmand solemn mien of that priest, Zacharias, the father of John theBaptist, whose canticle '_Benedictus_' foretells the blessings ofChrist. 

"Thus ends our review of this wonderful text-book of the Old Testamenttypes, and the historical memorial of those benefactors whose giftsendowed the church with this sculptured imagery of the Ancient Word. "

Durtal lighted a cigarette, and they walked up and down in front of thepalace railing. 

"Setting aside the question of art, " said Durtal, "in this long array ofChrist's ancestors there is one--David--who really confounds me, for heis the most complex of all; at once so august and so small! he is quitepuzzling!"

"Why?"

"Well, only think of the life of the man who was by turns shepherd, warrior, and outlaw chief, an omnipotent king and a fugitive withouteither hearth or home; who was a wonderful poet and an exact prophet andseer! And is not the monarch's character even more enigmatical than hiscareer?

"He was mild and indulgent, devoid of rancour and hatred, and yet he wasferocious. Remember the punishments he inflicted on the Ammonites; hisvengeance was appalling. He had them sawn asunder, cut them with harrowsof iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln. 

"He was loyal, wholly devoted to the Lord, and just; but he committedthe crime of adultery, and ordered the death of the husband he hadbetrayed. What contradictions!"

"To understand David, " said the Abbé Plomb, "you must not think of himapart from his surroundings, nor take him out of the age in which helived, otherwise you measure him by the ideas of our own time, and thatis absurd. In the Asiatic conception of royalty, adultery was almostpermitted to a being whom his subjects regarded as superior to thecommon run of humanity; besides, women were then as a species of cattlebelonging almost absolutely to him as the despot and supreme master. Itwas but the exercise of his regal power, as has been plainly shown byMonsieur Dieulafoy in his study of that king. And, on the other hand, ifhe is accused of tortures and bloodshed, why, the whole of the OldTestament is full of them! Jehovah Himself pours out blood like water, and exterminates men as if they were flies. It is well not to forgetthat the world then still lived under the Law of Fear. So it is not verysurprising that, with a view to terrifying his enemies, whose mannersand customs were not indeed any milder than his own, he should havetortured the inhabitants of Rabbah and baked the Ammonites. 

"But in contrast to these acts of violence and the sins which heexpiated, see how generous he was to Saul, and admire the magnanimityand charity of the man whom the followers of Renan would have us regardas a bandit chief and outlaw. Remember, too, that he taught the world, as yet ignorant, the virtues which at a later time Christ was topreach--humility in its most touching form, and repentance in itsbitterest shape. When the prophet Nathan reproved him for the murder ofUriah, he confessed his sin with tears, fell on his face before God, bravely accepted the most terrible punishment: incest and murder in hisfamily, the rebellion and death of his son, treason, misery, and adesperate flight in the woods; and with what urgency he implores forpardon in the '_Miserere_, ' with what love and contrition he cries tothe God he had offended!

"He was a man whose vices were small and few if compared with those ofthe kings of his time--of admirable and exceptional virtues if comparedwith those of sovereigns of any time of every age. Why, then, fail tounderstand that God should have chosen him as a precursor? Besides, Jesus came to ransom sinners, He took upon Himself the sins of the wholeworld. Was it not natural, then, that He should take to prefigure Him, aman who, like others, had sinned?"

"Yes; that is true, no doubt. "

And that evening, when he was away from the Abbé Plomb, from whom heparted on the church steps, as Durtal stretched himself on his bed, herecapitulated in his memory this theory of the Old Testament personagesand the sculpture in the porch. 

"To epitomize this north front, " said he to himself, "it must beregarded as an abridged history of the Redemption prepared so longbeforehand, a table of sacred history, a compendium of the Mosaic Law, and at the same time foreshadowing the Christian law. 

"The vocation of the Jewish nation is set forth in these three doorways, their whole mission from Abraham to Moses; from Moses to the BabylonianCaptivity; from the Captivity till the death of Christ, comprehendingthree phases of its history: the making of Israel, its independentexistence, its life among the Gentiles. 

"And how slowly, with what difficulty, was this fusion of tribesachieved! With what waste and what ejection of dross! What massacreswere needed to discipline those rapacious wanderers, to quell the greedand licentiousness of the race!"

And in a succession of bewildering images he beheld the irruption intoJudæa of the headlong and indignant prophets, hurling imprecationsagainst the crimes of the kings and the atrocities of that unstable raceperpetually tempted by the voluptuous worships of Asia, always rebellingand complaining, and ready to break the iron bit with which Moses hadsubdued them. 

And prominent in this group of declaiming judges, towering above themasses, he saw Samuel, the man of contradictions, going whither the Lorddrove him, achieving work which he was destined to overthrow, creatingthe monarchy which he reprobated, consecrating a fanatic king--a sort ofmadman, who passes across behind the transparent sheet of history withfrantic and threatening gestures; and then Samuel has to overwhelm thisextraordinary Saul under the burthen of his curses, to anoint Davidking--David, whom another prophet is to accuse of his crimes. And theseinspired men succeed each other, continuing from year to year their taskof guardians of the public soul, watching over the consciences of judgesand kings, expectant of the Divine word, and ready to proclaim it overthe head of the crowd; announcing disasters, ending often as martyrs, prominent from beginning to end of the sacred annals till they disappearin John beheaded by an Herodias!

Then came Elijah, cursing the worship of Baal, contending with thedreadful Jezebel; Elijah founding the first society of monks, the onlyman of the Old Testament history except Enoch who did not die; andElisha, his disciple; the greater prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel, and the groups of minor prophets announcing the advent ofthe Son, rising up in commination or lamentation, threatening orcomforting the people. 

The whole history of Israel flowed along in a torrent of curses, riversof blood, oceans of tears!

This dismal procession at last oppressed Durtal. With closed eyes hesuddenly beheld a patriarch who stood before him, and he recognized withawe that this was Moses, an old man with a beard like a cataract, hairsweeping his shoulders, a master workman whose powerful hands hadkneaded those rough Hebrews and coagulated their medley hordes. He wasindeed father and lawgiver to this people. 

Facing the scene on Calvary there rose before him the scene on Sinai, the close and the opening of the great chronicle of the nation that wasdispersed by its own crime, enclosing the whole purpose of its existencein the space between those two hills. 

A terrific spectacle! Moses alone on the smoking height, whilelightnings rend the clouds and the mountain trembles at the sound of theinvisible trumpet. Below, the awe-stricken people fly; and Moses, unmoved amid the roar of thunder and the repeated fires of lightning, listens to Him who Is, and who dictates the terms of His protection ofIsrael; and then Moses, with shining face, descends from the Mount, which, according to St. John Damascene, is the type of the Virgin'sWomb, as the smoke that rises from it is that of the desires and flamesof the Holy Spirit. 

Suddenly this picture vanished; the Patriarch remained, and by his sideappeared the first High Priest of the worship of Jehovah, whom thesculptors had omitted to represent on the exterior of the porch, butwhose image the glass-workers have portrayed in a window of the samefront; Aaron, the great Pontiff, anointed by Moses. 

And this ceremony, during which Moses conferred the order of priesthoodon the person and the descendants of his elder brother, arose beforeDurtal's fancy as a terrific scene. The details he had formerly read ofthis ordination, the ceremonies lasting seven days, recurred to hismind. After ablution and the anointing with oil, the holocaust ofvictims began. Flesh sputtered on the walls, mingling the black stenchof burnt fat with the blue vapour of incense; the Patriarch anointed theright ear and thumb and foot of Aaron and his sons with blood; then, taking up the flesh of the sacrifice, he placed them in the hands of thenew-made priests, who rocked first on one foot and then on the other, thus waving the offerings above the altar. 

Then all bowed their heads under a shower of oil mingled with blood withwhich the Consecrator inundated them. They looked like slaughterers fromthe shambles and lamp trimmers, all sprinkled as they were with clots ofred mire, on which glistened yellow eyes. 

And then, as in the swift change of magic-lantern slides, this savagescene, this worn-out symbol of a splendid and subtle liturgy, stammeredout in a hoarse voice, disappeared, giving way to the solemn array ofLevites and priests marching in procession under the guidance of Aaron, resplendent in his turban with the crown of gold above it, in his purplerobe, on its hem the open pomegranates of scarlet and blue, withtinkling bells of gold; and he wore the linen ephod, girt with a girdle, blue and purple and scarlet, and kept in its place by shoulder-piecesfastened with onyx stones, his breastplate in a blaze, flashing sparksthat lighted up as he moved in the twelve gems of the breastplate. 

Again the scene changed. He beheld an amazing palace; under the shade ofits domes of giddy height, tropical trees and flowers were planted bytepid pools; monkeys sported there, hanging in bunches to the boughs, while long-drawn, insinuating melodies were scraped on stringedinstruments, and the rattle of tambourines made the eyed plumes quiverin the peacocks' outspread tails. 

In this strange hot-bed, filled with clumps of flowers and of women, this immense harem where his seven hundred princesses and his threehundred concubines disported themselves, Solomon watched the whirl ofdances, gazed at the living hedge of women, seen against the backgroundof gold-plated walls, their bodies clothed only in the transparent veilof vapour rising from resins burning on tripods. 

He appeared as a typical Eastern monarch, a sort of Khalif or Sultan, orfairy-tale Rajah--the prodigious king at once polygamous, unbridled, insatiable by luxury, and learned, artistic, peace-loving, the wisestamong men. In advance of the ideas of his time, he was the great builderin Israel, and the commerce of the country was of his making. He leftsuch a reputation for wisdom and justice that he came at last to beregarded as an enchanter and wizard. Even Josephus tells us that hewrote a book of Magic, of incantations for laying evil spirits; in theMiddle Ages he was said to have owned a magic ring, charms, forms ofevocation, secrets for exorcism; and in all these legends the image ofthe king becomes confused. 

And he would remain to this day a figure out of the Thousand and OneNights, were it not that in the decline of his glory we see him as agrandiose image of the mournfulness of life, the vanity of joy, thenothingness of man. 

His old age was melancholy. Exhausted and governed by women, he deniedGod and sacrificed to idols. We discern in him wide gaps, vast clearingsin the soul. Weary of everything, sick of enjoyment, and drunken withsin, he wrote some admirable reflections and anticipated the blackestpessimism of our day, summing up the misery of him who endures thecondemnation of living, in phrases that are its final expression. Whatdistress is that of the Preacher: All the days of man are sorrow, andhis travail grief; better is the day of death than the day of birth; allis vanity and vexation of spirit. 

After his death, too, the old king remains a mystery. Had he expiatedhis apostacy and his fall? Was he, like his fathers, received intoAbraham's bosom? And the greatest writers of the Church have not agreedabout it. 

According to St. Irenæus, St. Hilary, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ambrose, and St. Jerome, his penance was accomplished, and he is saved. 

According to Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory theGreat, he did not repent to amendment, and so he is damned. 

Durtal turned over in his bed and tried to lose consciousness. Everything was in confusion in his brain, and at last he fell intodisturbed slumbers mingled with hideous nightmares, in which he sawMadame Mesurat standing in the place of the queen on a pedestal in theporch; and Durtal fumed at her ugliness, raging against the Canons, towhom he vainly appealed to remove his housekeeper and replace the queen. 

CHAPTER XII. 

This church symbolism, this psychology of the cathedral, this study ofthe soul of the sanctuary, so entirely overlooked since mediæval timesby those professors of monumental physiology called archæologists andarchitects, so much interested Durtal that he was able by its help toforget for some hours the turmoil and struggles of his soul; but themoment he ceased to ponder on the inner sense of things seen, he was asbad as ever. 

The sort of requisition he had laid before the Abbé Gévresin, to put anend to his tossing and decide for him one way or the other, wasdistracting while it terrified him. 

The cloister! He must reflect a long time before making up his mind toimprison himself. And the _pros_ and _cons_ tormented him in endlessalternation. 

"Here I am just where I was before I set out for La Trappe!" said he tohimself, "and the decision to be taken is even more serious; for NotreDame de l'Atre was but a temporary refuge. I knew when I went there thatI should not stay; it was a painful time to be endured, but it was onlya short time; whereas at this moment I have to come to a determinationfrom which there is no turning back, to go to a place where, if I onceshut myself in, I must stay till I die. It is imprisonment for life, with no mitigation of the penalty, no pardon and release; and the Abbétalks as if it were the simplest thing!

"What am I to do? Renounce all freedom, be nothing but a machine, achattel, in the hands of a man I do not know--God knows I am willing!But there are other and more pressing questions from my point of view;in the first place, this matter of literature--to write no more, to giveup what has been the occupation and aim of my life; that would bepainful; still, it is a sacrifice I could make. But to write and thensee my language stripped and washed in pump-water, all the colour takenout by another man, who may be a learned man or a saint, but have nomore idea of art than St. John of the Cross! That is too hard. Thatone's ideas should be picked over and weeded, from the theological pointof view, I quite understand, nothing could be more just; but one'sstyle! And in a monastery, so far as I can learn, nothing is printedtill the Prior has read it; and he has the right to revise everything, alter it--suppress it if he chooses. It would evidently be better not towrite at all, but this again is not a matter of choice, since under therule of obedience each one must submit to orders, and treat of anysubject in any way the Abbot commands. 

"And unless the master were very exceptional, what a stone of stumbling!

"And then, besides this, which is to me the most important question ofall, there are others worth considering. From the little I have beentold by my two priests, the blessed silence of the Cistercians is notthe rule with the black-frocked Orders. Now, however perfect thesecenobites may be, they remain none the less men; or, to express itotherwise, sympathy and antipathy live in constant and compulsoryfriction; with very restricted subjects of discussion, living incomplete ignorance of all that is going on outside, conversation mustdegenerate into chatter; at last the only interest of life centres intrivialities, in petty questions which in such an atmosphere assume theimportance of events. 

"A man becomes an old maid, and how infinitely wearisome must this talkbe, unvaried by the unforeseen. 

"Finally, there is the question of health. In the convent nothing butstews and salads! A disordered stomach before long, broken sleep, crushing fatigue in an ill-treated frame--ah, all that is neitherattractive nor amusing! Who knows whether, after a few months of thismental and physical rule, I should not have sunk into bottomlessdejection, whether the sloth of those monastic gaols would not havecrushed me and left me absolutely incapable of thought or action?"

And he concluded:--

"It is madness to think of a cloistered life; I should do better toremain at Chartres. "

But hardly had he made up his mind not to move, when the reverse of themedal forced itself upon him. 

A convent! Why, it was the only logical existence, the only right life!All these fears he suggested to himself were imaginary. In the firstplace, as to his health. Had he forgotten La Trappe, where the food wasfar more innutritious and the rule far stricter? Why be alarmedbeforehand?

And, on the other hand, could he fail to perceive the need forconversation, the wisdom of speech, relieving the solitude of thecloister just when weariness might supervene? It was a remedy againstconstant introspection, and exercise taken with others secured health tothe soul and gave tone to the body; and as for saying that thesemonastic dialogues would be trivial, were the conversations he mighthear in any other society more edifying? In short, was not the companyof the Brethren far superior to that of men of any profession, condition, or sort, whom he would be obliged to meet in the worldoutside?

And what, after all, were these trifles, these minor details in thesplendid completeness of the cloister? What were these pettymatters--mere nothings--in the scale as against peace, the cheerfulnessof the soul in the joy of the services and the fulfilment of the task ofpraise? Would not the tide of worship cleanse everything, and wash awaythe small defects of men, like straws in a stream? Was it not the caseof the mote and the beam, with the parts reversed--imperfectionsdiscerned in others, when he was so far their inferior?

"Constantly, at the end of every argument, I find my own lack ofhumility, " said he to himself. "What efforts are needed to remove themire of my sins! In a convent perhaps I might rub the rust off, " and hedreamed of a purer life, a soul soaked in prayer, expanding in communionwith Christ, who might perhaps, without too much soiling Himself, comedown to dwell in him. "It is the only life desirable, " cried he. "It issettled!"

But then, like a douche of cold water, a reflection overwhelmed him. Itwould in any case be the life in common, school-life, which would beginagain for him; it would be the garrison-rule of a convent!

This floored him. Then he tried to fight against it, and lost patience. 

"Come, come!" he growled, "a man does not shut himself up in an abbey totake his ease there; a convent is not a pious Sainte-Périne; he retiresthere, I suppose, to expiate his sins and prepare for death. What, then, is the use of expatiating on the kind of punishments to be endured? Adetermination to accept them is all, to endure them and be strong!"

Did he, then, sincerely long for suffering and penance? He dared notanswer himself. In the depth of his soul a hesitating "Yes" rose up, smothered at once by the clamour of cowardice and fear. Why then go?

He was only bewildering himself, and when the worst of this turmoil wasover he thought of a respite, or of some half-measure, some mildmortification quite endurable, some repentance so slight as to be noneat all. 

"I am an idiot, " he concluded; "I am fighting with the air; I ampuzzling myself with words, about habits of which I have no knowledge. The first thing to be done is to visit some Benedictine monastery--nay, several--to compare them, and to see for myself what the life is that isled there. Then the matter as to the oblates must be cleared up; if theAbbé Plomb is well informed, their fate depends on the caprice of theAbbot, who can tighten or loosen the halter according to his more orless domineering character. But is that quite certain? There were alwaysoblates throughout the Middle Ages; consequently they are controlled bythe secular law!

"And all this is so human, so vile! For it is not a matter of disputingtexts and more or less accommodating clauses. It is a case of subjectionwithout reserve, of leaping boldly into the water; of giving oneself upentirely to God. Any other view of the cloister is to regard it as acitizen's home, and that is absurd. My apprehensions, my antagonism, mycompromises, are disgraceful!

"Yes; but where can I find the necessary strength to brush myself cleanfrom this dust of the soul?"

And at last, when he felt himself bruised by these alternating desiresand fears, he took refuge with Notre Dame de Sous-Terre. 

The crypt was closed in the afternoon, but he found his way in by asmall door in the sacristy inside the cathedral, and descended intoutter darkness. 

Having reached the crypt in front of the altar, he round once more thedoubtful but soothing odour of that vault, smoked by burning tapers, andwent forward in the soft, warm atmosphere of frankincense and a cellar. It was even darker than in the early morning, for the lamps were out;floating wicks only, shining through what looked like very thinorange-peel, threw gleams of tarnished gold on the sooty walls. 

As he turned, with his back to the altar, he could see the low aisle inretreating perspective, and at the end, as in a tunnel, the light ofday--unluckily, for it allowed him to discern certain hideous paintingsof scenes commemorating the ecclesiastical glories of Chartres: thevisit paid to the cathedral by Mary de' Medici and Henri IV. ; LouisXIII. And his mother; Monsieur Olier offering to the Virgin the keys ofthe Seminary of Saint Sulpice with a dress of gold brocade; Louis XIV. At the feet of Notre Dame de Sous-Terre; by the grace of heaven, theremaining frescoes seemed extinct; at any rate, they lay in shadow. 

What was really blissful was to be alone with the Virgin, who lookeddown, her dark face gleaming dimly in the gloom when a wick happened toflicker with short flashes of brighter light. 

Durtal, kneeling before Her, determined to address Her, to say to Her, --

"I am afraid of the future and of its cloudy sky, and I am afraid ofmyself, for I am wasting in depression and bewilderment. Thou hasthitherto led me by the hand. Do not desert me; finish Thy work. I knowthat it is folly thus to take care for the future, for Thy Son has said, 'Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof. ' Still, that depends ontemperament. What is easy to some is so hard for others. Mine is arestless spirit, always astir, always on the alert. Do what I will, itwanders, feeling its way about the world, and gets lost! Bring it home, keep it near Thee in a leash, kind Mother, and after so much weariness, grant me to find rest!

"Oh! to be no longer thus torn in sunder, to be of one mind! Oh! to havea soul so quenched that it should know no sorrows, no joys, but those ofthe liturgy, that it might only be claimed, day by day, by Jesus or byThee, and follow Your lives as they are unfolded in the annual cycle ofthe Church services! To rejoice at the Nativity, to laugh on PalmSunday, to weep in Holy Week, and be indifferent to all else, to ceaseto hold oneself as of any account, to care not at all for one'sindividual self! What a dream! How easy it then would be to take refugein a cloister!

"But is this possible to any but a saint? What a stripping of the soulit presupposes; what an emptying out of every profane idea, of everyearthly image; what a taming of the subjugated imagination, neverventuring forth but on one track, instead of wandering haphazard as minedoes!

"And yet how foolish is every other care--for all that does not tend toHeaven is vain on earth. Aye, but as soon as I try to put these thoughtsinto, practice, my jade of a soul plunges and rears; do what I will, itonly bucks and makes no advance. 

"Alas! Blessed Virgin, I do not seek to excuse myself and my sins. Andstill I dare confess to Thee that it is discouraging, heart-breaking, tounderstand nothing and see nothing! Is this Chartres where I amvegetating a waiting-place, a halting-place between two monasteries, abridge leading from Notre Dame de l'Atre to Solesmes or some otherAbbey? Or is it, on the contrary, the final stage where it is Thy willthat I should remain fixed? But then my life has no further meaning! Itis purposeless, built and overthrown with the shifting of sands. To whatend, if this be the case, are these monastic yearnings, these calls toanother life, this all but conviction that I have stopped at a station, and am not yet at the place whither I am to travel?

"If only it might be now, as on other occasions when I have felt Theenear me, when in response to my questions Thou hast answered me, if onlyit might be here as at La Trappe, much as I suffered there! But no. Ihear Thee not--Thou dost not heed me. "

Durtal was silent. Then he went on, --

"I am wrong to address Thee thus, " he said. "Thou dost not carry us inThine arms unless we be unable to walk; Thou hast care and caresses forthe poor soul born anew by conversion; but when it can stand it is setdown on the ground, and Thou lookest on while it makes trial of itsstrength. 

"This is meet and right; but it does alter the fact that the memory ofthose celestial alleviations, those first, lost joys is crushing to thesoul. 

"O Holy Virgin, Holy Virgin, have pity on the rickety souls thatstruggle on so painfully when they are no longer upheld by Thee! Havepity on the bruised souls to whom every effort is painful; on the soulswhom nothing can console, to whom everything is affliction! Take pity onthe homeless, outcast souls, the wandering souls, unable to settle anddwell with their kind, the tender, budding souls! Take pity on all soulssuch as mine! Have pity on me!"

And before quitting the Mother he would often visit Her in those depthswhere, since the Middle Ages, the faithful no longer seek her; he wouldlight an end of taper, and, turning aside from the nave of the crypt, follow the curved line of the wall along the entrance passage as far asthe sacristy of this underground church, where in the ponderousstone-work was a door strengthened with iron-work. 

Through and down a little flight of steps, he reached a cellar which wasthe ancient martyrium where, of old, in time of war the ciborium wasconcealed. An altar stood in the middle of this well, dedicated in thename of Saint Lubin. In the crypt the distant hum of the bells, thesounds of life in the cathedral above, could still be heard; here, nothing! It was like being in the tomb. Unfortunately, some squalid, square columns whitened with lime-wash, built on the altar to givesupport to Bridan's group in the choir above, spoilt the barbaricsimplicity of this _oubliette_, forgotten, lost in the night of ages, and underground. 

He went up again comforted nevertheless, accusing himself ofingratitude, and asking himself how he could dream of leaving Chartresand going away from the Virgin, with whom he could thus so easilyconverse in solitude whenever he would. 

On other days, when it was fine, he would take for the object of hiswalk a convent whose existence had been revealed to him by MadameBavoil. One afternoon he had met her in the square, and she had said tohim, --

"I am going to see the little Jesus of Prague at the Carmelite conventhere. Will you come with me, our friend?"

Durtal had no liking for these petty pilgrimages made by good women; butthe idea of going to the Carmelite chapel, which was unknown to him, tempted him to accompany her, and she led the way to the Rue desJubelines, behind the railway line and beyond the station. They had tocross a bridge that groaned under the weight of rolling trains, andturned to the right down a path winding between the embankment on oneside, and on the other thatched huts, and old sheds, and other housesless poverty-stricken, indeed, but closed and impenetrable afterdaybreak. Madame Bavoil led him to where this alley ended under the archof another bridge. Overhead was a siding, with its signals round andsquare, red and yellow, and posts with cast-iron ladders; and therealways in the same place an engine was being fired, or, with shrillwhistling, was moving out backwards. 

Madame Bavoil stopped at a door under a round arch in an immense wall, which not far off ran against the embankment, forming an impassableangle; it was built of millstone grit of the colour of burnt almonds, like that used for the Paris reservoirs; here dwelt the nuns of SaintTheresa. 

Madame Bavoil, as being used to convent ways, pushed open the door whichstood ajar, and Durtal saw before him a paved walk between strips ofriver pebbles, dividing a garden stocked with fruit-trees and geraniums. Two yews, clipped into spheres, with a cross on the top of each, gavethis priestly close a graveyard flavour. 

The path led upwards, cut into steps. When they reached the top Durtalsaw a building of brick and plaster pierced with windows guarded by ironbars, and a grey door with a wicket bearing these words painted inwhite, "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who put our trust inThee. "

He looked about him, surprised at seeing nobody, hearing nothing; butMadame Bavoil beckoned to him, made her way round the house, and led theway into a sort of vestibule along which clambered a vine wrapped inswathing, and she turned into a little chapel, where she knelt down onthe flagstones. 

Durtal, amazed, seemed to breathe the melancholy that weighed on thisnaked sanctuary. 

He was in a building of the end of the eighteenth century; in themiddle, raised on eight steps, stood an altar of wax-polished wood inthe shape of a tomb; above it was a shrine covered with a curtain ofwhite brocade and surmounted by a picture of the Annunciation, a washypainting mounted in a gilt frame. To the right and left were twomedallions in relief, on one side Saint Joseph and on the other SaintTheresa, and above the picture, close to the ceiling, were the arms ofthe Carmelites, also in relief: a shield with a cross and stars beneatha marquis's coronet, from which an arm emerges wielding a sword. Thiswas held up by fat little angels, the swollen infants of the sculptorsof that period, and floating in the air was a scroll bearing the mottoof the order: "_Zelo, zelatus sum, pro Domino Deo Exercituum_. "

Finally, to the right of the altar, the iron grating of the nunnery wasseen in an arch in the wall; and on the steps of the altar, inside therailing for the communicants, an annoying statue was emerging from undera gilt canopy--the Infant Christ holding a globe in one hand, andraising the other as if to command attention; a statue of paintedplaster as of some precocious mountebank, with homage offered in thisdeserted chapel, of two pots of hydrangea and a floating wick in acrimson glass. 

"How cold and dismal is such _rococo_!" thought Durtal. He knelt down ona chair, and by degrees his impressions underwent a change. This holyplace, saturated with prayer, seemed to let its ice melt and grow balmy. It was as though visions percolated through the gate of the cloister andshed warm puffs of air in the place. A sense of warmth of soul stoleover him, of being at home in this solitude. 

The only astonishing thing was to hear, in such remote seclusion, thewhistling of trains and the rumbling of engines. 

Durtal went out before Madame Bavoil had finished the rosary. Standingin the doorway, he saw, just opposite, the cathedral in profile, butwith only one spire, the old belfry being hidden by the new. Under acloudy sky it stood massively solid, green and grey, with its roof ofoxidized copper, and the pumice-stone hue of the tower. 

"It is stupendous!" said Durtal to himself, recalling the variousaspects it could assume according to the season and the hour, as thecolour of its complexion varied. "The whole effect under a clear sky issilvery grey, and if the sun lights it up it turns pale golden yellow;seen from near, its skin is like a nibbled biscuit, a siliceouslimestone eaten into holes; at other times, when the sun is setting, itturns crimson and appears like some vast and exquisite shrine, all rosecolour and green; and in the twilight it is blue, and seems toevaporate into violet. 

"And those porches!" he went on. "That of the royal front is the leastvariable; it remains of a cinnamon-brown half-way up, of a dullpumice-grey as it rises; that on the south side, more eaten into bylichens, is wearing green, while the arches on the north, with theirstones like concrete full of shells, suggest to the fancy a sea-grottoleft high and dry. "

"Well, our friend, are you dreaming?" said Madame Bavoil, tapping him onthe shoulder. 

"This Carmelite convent you see is a very austere house, " said she, "andas you may suppose, grace abounds;" and when Durtal murmured, --

"What a contrast between this dead spot and the railway that runs pastit, always in a stir!" she exclaimed, --

"Do you suppose that anywhere else you will find, side by side, such animage of the contemplative life and the active life?"

"And what must the nuns think as they hear these continual departuresfor the outer world? Those who have grown old in the convent would, ofcourse, despise these calls, these invitations to live; the quietude oftheir spirits must increase as they find themselves protected for everfrom the perils which the noisy rush of the trains must bring beforethem every hour of the day and night; they will feel more drawn to pray, for those whom the chances of life carry away to Paris, or bring back tothe country, outcasts from the city. But the postulants--the novices? Inthe hours of desertion, of doubt as to their vocation, which must comeover them, is it not appalling to think of the constantly revivedmemories of home, of friends, of all that they have left to shutthemselves up for ever in a convent?

"As each asks herself whether she can endure watching and fasting, mustit not be a permanent temptation to rebel against being buried alive ina tomb?

"And I cannot help thinking of the appearance as of a reservoir that thestyle of building gives to this Carmel. The image is precise, for theconvent is indeed a reservoir into which God dips to draw forth the goodworks of love and tears, and restore the balance of the scales in whichthe sins of the world are so heavy!"

Madame Bavoil smiled. 

"A very old Carmelite nun, " said she, "who had gone into this Housebefore railways were invented, died here hardly three months ago. Shehad never been outside the walls, and never saw an engine or a railwaycarriage. Under what form could she picture to herself the trains sheheard thundering and shrieking?"

"As some diabolical invention, no doubt, since these conveyances carryus to the wicked but delightful sins of towns, " replied Durtal, smiling. "But it is a curious case, nevertheless. "

He was silent; then, changing the subject, he said, --

"And do you still hold communion with Heaven, Madame Bavoil?"

"No, " she answered, sadly. "I no longer have any converse or anyvisions. I am deaf and blind. God is silent to me. "

She shook her head, and, after a pause, she added, speaking toherself, --

"Such a little thing is enough to displease Him. If He detects a traceof vanity in the soul on which He shines, He departs. And as the Fathertells me, the mere fact of having spoken of the special gracesvouchsafed to me by Jesus, proves that I am not humble. In short, Hiswill be done!--And you, our friend, do you still think of taking shelterin a cloister?"

"I--my spirit still craves a truce; my soul is but shifting ballast. "

"Because, no doubt, you are not honest in your dealings. You behave asif you meant to strike a bargain with Him; that is not the way to set towork. "

"What would you do in my place?"

"I should be generous; I should say to Him, 'Here I am, do with me asThou wilt. I give myself unconditionally to Thee. I ask but one thing:Help me to love Thee. '"

"And do you suppose that I have not blamed myself for my cowardice ofheart?"

They walked on in silence. When they reached the cathedral, MadameBavoil proposed that they should pay a visit to Notre Dame du Pilier. 

They seated themselves in the gloom of the side aisle of the choir, where the dark-toned windows were still further obscured by a poorlyexecuted wooden niche, in which the Virgin, as dark as her namesake inthe crypt, Notre Dame de Sous-Terre, stood on a pillar, hung round withbunches of metal hearts and little lamps on coronas, from the roof. Frames of tapers on each side shot up little tongues of flame, andprostrate women were praying, their faces hidden in their hands orupturned to the dark countenance, on which the light did not fall. 

It struck Durtal that the woes repressed in the morning hours werepoured out in the twilight; the faithful did not now come for Her alone, but for themselves; each one brought a load of sorrows and opened itbefore Her. What anguish of soul was poured out on the stones by thesewomen, leaning prostrate against the railing that protected the pillarwhich each kissed as she rose. 

And the swarthy image, carved in the early part of the sixteenthcentury, had listened, Her face invisible, to the same sighs, the samecomplaints, from succeeding generations, had heard the same cries, echoing down the ages, for ever lamenting the bitterness of life, forever expressing the desire, all the same, for length of days!

Durtal looked at Madame Bavoil. She was praying with closed eyes, kneeling on the stones and sitting on her heels, her arms hanging, herhands clasped. How happy was she to be able thus to abstract herself. 

And he tried to force himself to say a prayer, quite a short one, in thehope that he might succeed in getting to the end without letting hismind wander. He began "_Sub tuum_"--"Under Thy protection do we takerefuge; Holy Mother of God, despise not us. " What it was reallyindispensable that he should obtain from the Father Superior waspermission to take his books with him into the monastery, and to have atleast a few pious toys in his cell. Ah--but how could he explain thatany profane literature was necessary in a convent, that, from anartist's point of view, it was requisite to refresh one's memory of theprose of Hugo, of Baudelaire, of Flaubert--"I am at sea again!" saidDurtal suddenly to himself. 

He tried to brush away these distractions, and went on: "Despise not theprayers we put up to Thee in our needs--" And he was off again at agallop in his dreams--"Even supposing that no difficulty were made aboutthis request, the question would still remain as to submittingmanuscripts for revision, obtaining the _imprimatur_; and how would thatbe arranged?"

Madame Bavoil interrupted his wanderings by rising from her knees. Recalled to himself, he hastily finished his prayer--"but deliver usfrom all perils, glorious and blessed Virgin; Amen. " And he parted fromthe housekeeper on the steps of the church, going home much vexed by hisdissipation of mind. 

He there found a note from the Editor of the _Review_, which hadpublished his paper on the Fra Angelico in the Louvre, asking him foranother article. 

This diversion made him glad; he thought that this task might perhapspreserve him from vain thoughts of his discomfiture at Chartres and hisfancy for the cloister. 

"What can I send to the _Review_?" said he to himself. "Since what theychiefly ask for is criticism of religious art, I might write some shortstudy of the early German painters. I have ample notes, made on the spotin the galleries there; let us see!"

He turned them over, lingering to read a note-book containing hisimpressions of travel. A summing up of his remarks on the School ofCologne arrested his attention. 

At every page he gave vent to his surprise in more and more vehementexclamations, at the false ideas and absurd theories put forward for somany years with regard to these pictures. 

Every writer, without exception, had expatiated, each moreenthusiastically than the last, on the pure and religious art of theseearly painters, speaking of them as seraphic artists who had depictedsuperhuman beauty, white and sylph-like Virgins all soul, standing outlike celestial visions, against backgrounds of gold. 

Durtal, prejudiced by the unanimity of this universal praise, expectedto find almost impalpably fair angels, Flemish Madonnas, etherealized insome sort, having shed their husk of flesh, rapturous Memlings with eyesfull of heaven, and bodies that had almost ceased to be--and heremembered his dismay on entering the galleries of the Cologne Museum. 

In point of fact his disenchantment had begun as soon as he stepped outof the train. Carried in the course of a night from Paris to that city, he had made his way through narrow streets where every basement windowexhaled the fragrance of _sauerkraut_, and he had reached the cathedralsquare, beautified by Farina's shop-signs, where in front of the famousDom he had been obliged to confess that this façade, this exterior, wasa huge piece of patchwork--a delusion. Every part of it was furbishedup, and the church sheltered no sculpture under its portals; it wassymmetrical, built by peg and line; its rigid forms, its hard outlineswere an offence. 

The interior was better, in spite of the vulgar blaze, the cheapfireworks, of ignoble modern glass. And there, in a chapel near thechoir, might be seen, for a consideration, the most famous picture ofthe German school, the _Dombild_, by Stephan Lochner, a triptychrepresenting the Adoration of the Magi on the centre panel, with St. Ursula on the left hand shutter and St. Gereon on the right. 

Durtal's consternation had risen to the highest pitch. The work was thusarranged. Against a gold background, a Virgin, crowned, red-haired, bullet-headed, dressed in blue, held on her knees an Infant blessing theKings, two kneeling on each side of the throne. One, an old fellow witha short beard like a retired officer, and hair curled like shavings overhis ears, was sumptuously arrayed in crimson velvet brocaded with gold, his hands clasped; the other, a dandy with long hair and a large beard, dressed in green shot with gold and trimmed with fur, held up a goldencup. And behind each, other figures were standing, flourishing theirswords and standards, in cavalier attitudes, and posing for the public, thinking much more of the visitors than of the Virgin. 

This, then, was the type of Madonna, of the supersensual and sublimatedVirgins of Cologne! This one was puffy, redundant, chubby; she had theneck of a heifer, and flesh like cream, or hasty pudding, that quiverswhen it is touched. Jesus, whose expression was the only interestingfeature of the picture, a certain manly gravity that was shown withoutany disfigurement of the character of childhood, was also round andwell-fed, and the scene took place on a lawn strewn withflowers--primroses, violets, and strawberries painted in fine stipplewith the touch of a miniaturist. 

You might call this picture what you pleased, the execution, smooth andwavy, and cold in spite of the brilliant colours, was a finished pieceof work, brilliant, dexterous--but not religious; it betrayed adecadence; the work was laboured, complicated, pretty, but it was in nosense that of an early master. 

This common, squat Virgin, fat and pudgy, was simply a good German girl, well-dressed and squarely seated, but she could never have been theecstatic Mother of God! Then these kneeling and standing men were not inprayer; there was no devotion in this picture; the personages were allthinking of something else, folding their hands and looking round at thepainter who was depicting them. As to the wings, it were better to saynothing about them. What was to be thought of the Saint Ursula with aprominent forehead like a cupping-glass and a burly stomach, surroundedby other creatures as shapeless as herself, their squab noses poking outof the bladders of lard that did duty for their faces?

And Durtal found the same impression of insensibility to mysticism inthe picture gallery. There he could study Stephan Lochner's precursor, Master Wilhelm--the first early German painter whose name is known--andin this again he found the look of elaborate chubbiness as in theDombild. Wilhelm's Virgin was indeed less vulgar than the Virgin of thecathedral; but in feeling she was equally insipid, over-finished, andeven more simperingly pretty. She was the triumph of delicate pertness, and had the look of a stage chamber-maid with her hair crimped over herforehead. And the child, twisted into an unnatural attitude, while hecaressed his Mother's chin, turned his face round to be the better seen. 

In short, this Virgin was neither human nor divine; she had not even thetoo realistic touch of Lochner, and could, no more than the other, havebeen the chosen Mother of God. 

It is indeed strange that these very early painters should have begunwhere painting as an art ends, in mere finish and smoothness; men whofrom the first put sugar in their new wine and betray their lack ofenergy, of enthusiasm, of simplicity, while no faith projects itselffrom their work. They are the very converse of every other school; foreverywhere else, in Italy, Flanders, Holland, Burgundy, pictures beganby being clumsy and unfinished, barbarous and hard, but at least ardentand pious!

As he studied the other pictures in this collection, the mass ofanonymous work, the paintings ascribed to the Master of the LyversbergPassion, and the Master of the Saint Bartholomew, Durtal came to theconclusion that the School of Cologne had known nothing of mysticismtill it had felt the influence of the Flemish painters. It had needed aVan Eyck, and the yet more exquisite Roger van der Weyden, to breathethe air of Heaven into these craftsmen. They thus had changed theirmanner, had imitated the ascetic innocence of the Flemings, hadassimilated their tender piety and simplicity, and, in their turn, hadsung the glory of the Mother and mourned over the sufferings of the Sonin ingenuous hymns. 

"This school may be thus summed up, " said Durtal. "It is the triumph ofpadding and puffing, the apotheosis of fatness and sheen, and this hasnothing to do with Christian art in the true sense of the word. 

"If we want to understand the whole personal character of Germanreligious painting, we must study other schools than this, the only oneever spoken of, and always with praise. We must turn to the lessfamiliar schools of Franconia and Swabia; there we find the veryopposite. As art it is savage and rough, but it lives--it weeps, nay itcries aloud, but it prays. We must look at the works of these unkemptgeniuses, such as Grünewald, whose Christs, rebellious and wrathful, grind their teeth; or Zeitblom, whose 'Veronica's veil, ' in the BerlinMuseum, is unpleasant, no doubt; the angels have black leather crosseson their breasts, and the Saviour's head is terrible, horrible; stillthere is such energy in the work, such decision, such crudity, that thevery sincerity of its ugliness is impressive. 

"Certainly, " Durtal went on, "even setting apart such daring painters asGrünewald, I prefer many an unknown artist whose work is strange ratherthan beautiful, but at any rate mystical, to the honey and lard ofCologne; for instance, an anonymous painter who is to be found in theGrand Duke's collection at Gotha, as the author of one of those curiousMass-scenes which in the Middle Ages were called the 'Mass of SaintGregory, ' wherefore, we know not. "

Durtal turned over his note-book and read through the description he hadrecorded of this work, which he remembered as an instance of a sort ofpious brutality. 

The picture was set out on a gold background. A little above the altar, but scarcely higher, a wooden sarcophagus, a sort of square bath, wasseen, with a board over it from end to end. On this plank-bridge sat theChrist, His legs hidden in this tomb, holding a cross. His face washaggard and hollow, He was crowned with green thorns, and His emaciatedbody was spotted all over by the ends of the scourges as if the woundswere flea-bites. Over Him, in the air, floated the instruments of thePassion: the nails, the sponge, a hammer and a spear; to the left, on avery small scale, were the busts of Jesus and of Judas, near a pedestalon which lay three rows of pieces of silver. 

In front of this altar, adoring this truly hideous Saviour painted inaccordance with the prophetic descriptions of Isaiah and David, werePope Gregory on his knees, his hands clasped, a grave Cardinal, whosehands were hidden under his robe, and a rough-looking Bishop, standing, in a dark green cloak embroidered with gold; he held a cross. 

It was enigmatical and it was sinister, but those austere and commandingfaces were alive. There was a stamp of faith, indomitable and resolute, in those countenances. It was harsh to the palate, the roughest wine ofmysticism; but at least it was not the mawkish syrup of the earlyCologne painters. 

"Ah! that mystical breath by which the soul of the artist becomesincorporate in the colour on a canvas, in the lines of carved stone, inwritten words, and speaks to the souls of those who can understand! Howfew have had it!" thought Durtal, closing his notes of travel. InGermany it may be seen in the very bunglers among painters; in Italy, setting aside Angelico, whose works reveal his saintly spirit and arethe coloured image of his secret soul, and his pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, the last of the Mediæval painters; if we also except his precursors:Cimabue, the survivors of the rigid Byzantines, Giotto--who thawed thosefixed and puzzling figures, Orcagna, Simone di Martino, TaddeoGaddi--all the very early painters--how much dexterous trickery do wefind among the great painters, mimicking the religious note, andproducing a deceptive imitation by sheer sham. 

"The Italians of the Renaissance, above all others, excelled in thisspurious piety, and those are comparatively rare who, like Botticelli, were honest enough to confess that their Virgins were Venuses and theirVenuses Virgins. 

"The Berlin gallery, where he is to be seen in some exquisite andtriumphant examples, shows this very plainly; we see the two versions ofthe type side by side. 

"First we have a wonderful Venus, nude, with pure gold hair broughtround her body by one hand, standing out in her white flesh against ablack background, gazing with limpid grey eyes, liquid with the colourof stagnant water, and edged with lids like a young rabbit's--pink lids;she must have wept much, and her disconsolate look, her droopingattitude, suggest some far-away thought of the unsatisfied weariness ofthe senses and the intolerable unrest of horrible desires that nothingcan satisfy. 

"And not far away is a Virgin, very like her--indeed her very self, withher sensitive, slightly upturned nose, her lips like a foldedclover-leaf, her brackish eyes, her pink lids, her golden hair, hergreenish complexion, her strongly-moulded frame and large hands. Thecountenance is the same, fretful and weary; it is evident that the samemodel sat for both. They are both purely pagan. For the Venus, well andgood! But the Virgin!

"It may be added that in this picture a row of torch-bearing angelsmakes the result, if possible, even less Christian, for these delightfulcreatures, with their ambiguous smiles and supple grace, have all thedangerous attraction of wicked angels. They are Ganymedes, borrowed frommythology, not from the Bible. 

"How far we are from God with this paganism of Botticelli's!" saidDurtal to himself. "What a difference between this painter and thatRoger van der Weyden whose Nativity is the glory of one of the adjoiningrooms in that magnificent Old Museum of Berlin!"

Ay, that Nativity!--He had only to turn to his notes to see it plainlybefore him. 

Painted as a triptych, on the right wing was an old man in front of somewondering bystanders, burning incense to the Virgin, who is visiblethrough an open window above a landscape in distant perspective withavenues undulating to the horizon; while a woman, her head dressed in amuffler that is almost a turban, touches the old man's shoulder with onehand and raises the other with an indescribable gesture of surprise andjoy, her face expressive of ecstasy. On the left wing kneel the threeKings, their hands uplifted, their eyes raised to Heaven, contemplatingan Infant beaming from the heart of a star; nothing can be morebeautiful than these three transfigured faces; and these are prayingwith all their heart, never troubling themselves about us. 

Still, these two divisions are but accessory to the central subjectwhich they complement, and which is thus arranged:

In the middle, in front of a sort of ruined palace or columnar cow-shedwithout a roof, the Virgin kneels in prayer before the Babe; to theright the donor, the Chevalier Bladelin, is seen, also kneeling, and onthe left Saint Joseph, holding a lighted taper, gazes down on Jesus. There are besides six little angels, three below at the door of thestable and three above in the air. This is the whole scene. 

It is noteworthy that the goldsmith's work, the mingled splendour ofOriental hangings, the brocades hemmed with fur and strewn with gems ofwhich Van Eyck and Memling made such free use to array their figures ofthe Virgin and the donors, are not to be seen in this panel. Thetextures are rich and heavy, but have none of the gorgeous colouring ofthe silks of Bruges or the carpets of Persia. Roger van der Weyden seemsintentionally to have reduced the whole setting of the scene to itssimplest expression, and yet, while using an unaffectedly sober key ofcolour, he has produced a masterpiece of pure and lucid harmony. 

Mary, with no diadem, no jewelled band, not a bracelet or a gem, herhead simply crowned by a few golden rays, is seen in a white dress, closed to the throat, and a blue cloak of which the ample folds lie onthe ground; the sleeves of her under dress, fastened at the wrists, areof a rich blue violet, more nearly black than red. 

Her face is indescribable; of superhuman loveliness, with long red-goldhair; the brow high, the nose straight, the lips full, the chin small;but words are of no avail; what cannot be described is the expression ofcandour and sadness, the tide of love that rises to those downcast eyesas she looks down on the tiny, helpless Babe, round whose head there isa rosy nimbus starred with gold. 

Never was there a more unearthly and yet more living Virgin. Neither VanEyck, with his rather vulgar and never beautiful heads, norMemling--more tender and refined, no doubt, but limited to his ideal ofa woman with a round forehead and a face shaped like a kite, wide aboveand pointed below--ever achieved the elegance of form or the purity of awoman made divine by love, a being who, even apart from her surroundingsand bereft of the attributes by which she is recognizable, could be noneother than the Mother of God. 

By her side the Chevalier Bladelin, dressed all in black, with hisequine type of face, his shaven cheeks, his dignity, at once priestlyand princely, is lost in contemplation, far away from the world; he ispraying in good earnest. And Saint Joseph, opposite to him, representedas a bald old man, with a short beard, and wearing a red cloak, comesforward as if amazed at his happiness, and scarce daring to believe thatthe moment has come when he may adore the Messiah born at last; hesmiles, deferentially, mildly stepping with the almost clumsy care of anold man who would fain be serviceable but fears to intrude. 

To make the whole thing more than perfect, above the figure of PierreBladelin extends a wondrous landscape, cut across by the High Street ofMiddelburg, the town founded by this nobleman, a street bordered bycastellated houses with battlements and church towers, and vanishing ina country scene lighted up by a clear sky, a blue spring day; aboveSaint Joseph a meadow and woods, sheep and shepherds, and threeexquisite angels in robes, one of pinkish yellow, one of purple like acampanula, and one of greenish citron hue; three really ethereal beings, having no relationship with the pertly innocent pages invented by theRenaissance. 

If we sum up the whole impression produced by this work, we are led tothe conclusion that mystical art, still dwelling on earth, and notrestricted to scenes in Heaven, as Angelico had chosen to limit it inhis "Coronation of the Virgin, " has produced in Roger van der Weyden'striptych the purest effluence of prayer to be found in painting. Neverhas the Nativity been so gloriously set forth, nor, it may be said, moreartlessly and simply expressed. The masterpiece of the Christmasfestival is at Berlin, just as the masterpiece of the Deposition is atAntwerp, in the agonized and magnificent work of Quentin Matsys. 

"The early Flemish painters were the greatest that ever lived!" saidDurtal to himself, "and this Roger Van der Weyden, or Roger de laPasture as he is sometimes called, crushed between the fame of van Eyckand of Memling--as Gherard David was later, and Hugo van der Goes, Justus of Ghent, and Dierck Bouts--was in my opinion superior to themall. 

"And after them what a falling away! Theatrical Crucifixions, the fleshycoarseness of Rubens which Vandyck tried to mitigate by making itleaner. We must leap into Holland to find the mystic accent once more, and it reveals itself in the soul of a Judaizing Protestant, under anaspect so mysterious and eccentric that at first sight we hesitate, feeling ourselves, as it were, to make sure that we are not mistaken inregarding this as religious art. 

"Nor need we go to Amsterdam to verify the truth of this impression. Itis enough to go to see the 'Disciples at Emmaus, ' in the Louvre. "

Durtal, started on this theme, fell into a reverie over Rembrandt'sstrange conception of Christian æsthetics. It is evident that in hismode of depicting Gospel scenes this painter still exhales a breath ofthe Old Testament; his church, even if he had meant to paint it as itwas in his day, would still be a synagogue, so strong is the odour ofthe Jew in all his work; he is possessed by the imagery, the prophecies, all the solemn and barbarous side of the East. And this we canunderstand when we know that he was the companion of Rabbis, whoseportraits he has left us, and the friend of Manasseh ben Israel, one ofthe most learned men of his age. On the other hand, we may admit thatthis Protestant Dutchman engrafted on this stock of cabalistic learningand Mosaic ceremonial an attentive and assiduous study of the OldTestament, for he possessed a Bible, which was sold by auction with hisfurniture to pay his debts. 

This would be enough to justify his choice of subjects and thecomposition of his pictures; but the riddle remains unsolved of theresults achieved by an artist whom we cannot conceive of, after all, aspraying before he would paint: like Angelico and Roger van der Weyden. 

Be this as it may, he, with the eye of a visionary, with his serious butfervid art, his genius for concentration, for getting a spot of theessence of sunlight into the heart of darkness, has accomplished greatresults; and in his Biblical scenes has spoken a language which no onebefore him had even attempted to lisp. 

Is not this picture of the Pilgrims to Emmaus a typical instance ofthis? Pull the work to pieces; it ought to seem dull, monotonous, voiceless. As a composition it is utterly common: we see a sort ofcellar of stone-work, a table facing us, behind which sits Jesus, Hisfeet bare, His lips colourless, His complexion muddy, His raiment of apinkish grey; He is breaking the bread, while, to His right, an apostle, clutching his napkin, looks at Him, fancies he recognizes Him, and onthe left another disciple, quite sure that he knows Him, clasps hishands--and this one utters a cry of joy that we can hear! A fourthfigure, with an intelligent profile, sees nothing, but, attentive to hisduties, waits on the guests. 

It is a meal of humble folk in a prison; the colours are limited to akey of sad greys and browns, excepting in the case of the man who twistshis napkin, whose sleeves are thick with a vermilion like redsealing-wax, while the others might be painted with dust and pitch. 

These are the literal facts; but they are not the truth, for everythingis transfigured. The head of Christ is luminous merely by the way Helooks up; a pale radiance fills the room. This Jesus, ugly as He is, with lips like death, asserts Himself by a gesture, a look of ineffablebeauty, as the murdered Son of a God!

We stand dumfounded, not even trying to understand; for this work, stamped with transcendent naturalism, is beyond and apart from painting;no one can copy or reproduce it. 

"After Rembrandt, " Durtal went on, "there is an irremediable decay ofreligious feeling in painting. The seventeenth century has not left asingle picture in which there is a genuine stamp of manly devotion;excepting, indeed, in Spain at the time when Saint Theresa and SaintJohn of the Cross flourished there; then the mystical realism of itspainters produced some fiercely fervid works;" and Durtal recalled apicture by Zurbaran he had seen and admired in the Gallery at Lyons, Saint Francis of Assisi standing upright in a habit of grey serge, thecowl over his head, his hands hidden in his sleeves. 

The face looked as if it had been moulded or chiselled out of cinders;the mouth was open, livid, below ecstatic eyes as white as if they hadbeen blinded. It was a wonder how this corpse, of which nothing was leftbut the bones, could hold itself up; and terror came over the beholderas he thought of the excessive maceration and overwhelming penances thatmust have exhausted that frame and seamed that face. 

This painting was the evident outcome of the relentless and terriblemysticism of Saint John of the Cross, the art of the rack, the _deliriumtremens_ of divine intoxication here on earth; aye, but what a passionof adoration, what a voice of love stifled by anguish found utterance inthis canvas. 

As to the eighteenth century, it was not worth a thought; that centurywas the age of the belly and the bath-room; as soon as art tried totouch the Church it only made a washing-basin into a holy-water stoup. 

In our own time, again, there is nothing to note. 

Overbeck, Ingres, Flandrin--all sorry jades harnessed willy-nilly toreligious tasks by commissions from the pious. In the church of SaintSulpice Delacroix extinguishes all the feeble art that surrounds him, but his sense of Catholic art is null. 

In truth, faith is now dormant, and without that no mystical work ispossible!

At the present moment Signol is dead, but Olivier Merson is left;vacuity all along the line. We need not take into account the got-upabsurdities and paintings to puzzle Rosicrucian simpletons; nor, again, the feeble imagery of the wealthy idlers or the worthy youths who fancythat if they paint a woman larger than life, that makes her mystical. Silence would befit the subject, only that, unluckily, a well-meaningpublisher was struck by the idea of mobilizing the clerical forces tohail James Tissot as an evangelical painter. His Life of Christ is oneof the least religious works conceivable, for, in fact, it might beregarded as a hesitating paraphrase of the Life of Jesus as narrated bythat cheerful apostate and terrible jester, Renan. 

The firm of Mame has completed this artist's treason by the issue ofthese melancholy chromo-lithographs. Under the pretext of realism, ofinformation acquired on the spot, of authenticated costumes--allextremely doubtful, since we should be forced to conclude that nothinghas changed in Palestine in the course of nineteen centuries--MonsieurTissot has given us the basest masquerade that anyone has yet daredpresent as an illustration of the Scriptures. Look at that disreputabletrull, a street slut tired of shouting "This way to the boats!" till shefalls fainting. This is the _Magnificat_, the Blessed Virgin. Thatepileptic boy with outstretched arms is Jesus in the Temple. Look at theBaptism, the Pharisee and the Publican, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Saint Peter walking on the Sea, the Magdalen at the feet of Jesus, the ridiculous _Consummatum est_--look at them all: these prints arematchless for platitude, effeteness, poverty of spirit. They might havebeen designed by the first-comer, and are painted with muck, wine-sauce, mud!

Certainly the hapless Catholics have no luck when once they try tomeddle with what they do not understand; their incurable lack ofartistic sense is once more displayed in this attempt over which thewhole world of art and letters is laughing in their sleeve. 

"Then is there nothing, absolutely nothing, to the credit side for theChurch?" exclaimed Durtal. "And yet some attempts at ascetic art havebeen made in this century. A few years since, the Benedictine House atBeuron, in Bavaria, tried to revive ecclesiastical art"; and Durtalremembered having looked through some reproductions of mural frescoespainted by these monks in a tower at Monte Cassino. 

These frescoes had gone back to the types of Assyria and Egypt, withtheir crowned gods, their sphynx-headed angels having fan-shaped wingsbehind their heads, their old men with plaited beards playing onstringed instruments; and then the Friars of Beuron had given up thishieratic style, in which, it must be owned, they succeeded but ill, andin certain later works--especially in a volume of the Way of the Cross, published at Freiburg in Breisgau--they had adopted a strange medley ofother styles. 

The Roman soldiers who figured in those pages were huge firemen, abequest from the schools of Guérin and David; and then, unexpectedly, incertain plates where the Magdalen and the Holy women appeared, a youngerspirit seemed to prevail among the commonplace groups--Greek femaletypes derived from the Renaissance, pretty and elegant, evidentlyimported from the works of the pre-Raphaelites, and strongly recallingWalter Crane's illustrations. 

Thus the ideal at Beuron had developed into an alloy of the French artof the First Empire and contemporary English work. 

Some of these compositions were all but laughable, that of the NinthStation, to mention one: Christ lying at full length on His face, andbeing pulled up by a rope tied to His bound hands; it looked as if Hewere learning to swim. Still, but for feeble and vulgar incidents, clumsy and obvious details, what strange scenes suddenly rose before hismind, distinct from the mass: Veronica on her knees before Jesus, wasreally distracted with grief, really fine; the borrowed or copiedfigures of the other persons represented disappeared; even in the leastoriginal of these compositions the coarse, unsatisfactory utterances ofthese monks spoke an almost eloquent language; and this because intensefaith and fervour lurked in the work. A breath had passed over thosefaces, and they were alive; the emotion, the voice of prayer, was feltin the silence of this conventional crowd. This Way of the Cross wasmatchless from this point of view: Monastic piety had introduced anunexpected element, giving evidence of the mysterious power it has atits command, infusing a personal emotion, a peculiar aroma, into a workwhich, without it, would never indeed have existed. These Benedictineshad suggested the sensation of kneeling worship and the very fragranceof the Gospel, as artists of wider scope had failed in doing. 

Their attempt, however, had begotten no following, and at this day theschool is almost dead, producing nothing but feeble prints for old womendesigned by the lay-brothers. 

How, indeed, could it have been anything but still-born? The idea ofdoing for the West what Manuel Pauselinos did for the East, ofeliminating study from nature, imposing an uniform ritual of colour andline, of compelling every artistic temperament to squeeze itself intothe same mould, shows an absolute misapprehension of art in the mind ofthe man who attempted it. The system was bound to end in ankylosis, inthe paralysis of painting, and this, in fact, was the result. 

At about the same time with these Religious an unknown artist, living inthe country, and never exhibiting in Paris, was painting pictures forchurches and convents, working for the glory of God and refusing allremuneration from priests or monks. Durtal knew his pictures, and theyhad suggested much the same reflections as those aroused by theBenedictine paintings of Beuron. 

At first sight Paul Borel's work is neither cheerful nor attractive; thephrases he used might often have made a partisan of the modern smile;and besides, to judge his work fairly it is indispensable to get rid ofpart of it, to refuse to see anything but that which has evaded thetoo-familiar formulas of commonplace unction; and then what a spirit ofmanly fervency, of ardent piety, filled and upheld it. 

His most important paintings are buried in the chapel of the Dominicanschool at Oullins, in a remote corner of the suburbs of Lyons. Among theten subjects that decorate the nave, we find Moses Striking the Rock, the Disciples at Emmaus, the Healing of One Possessed, of One BornBlind, and of Tobit; but in spite of the calm energy shown in thesefrescoes, they are disappointing by reason of their general heavinessand of the sleepy and unwonted effect of colour. Not till we reach thechoir, beyond the communion railing, do we find works of a quitedifferent kind of art, above some magnificent figures of saints of theOrder of Friars Preacher, amazing in the power of prayer, the essence ofsaintliness that they diffuse. 

There, too, Durtal had found two large compositions: one of the Virginbestowing the Rosary on Saint Dominic, and the other of Saint ThomasAquinas kneeling before an altar on which stands a Crucifix radiatinglight. Never since the Middle Ages had monks been so understood and sopainted; never had a more impetuous fount of soul been revealed under sostern a casing of features. Borel was the painter of the MonasticSaints; his art, by nature rather torpid, soared up with them as soon ashe tried to paint them. 

At Versailles, again, even better perhaps than in the chapel of theOullins seminary, the sincere and deeply religious work of Borel mightbe studied. At the entrance to the chapel of the Augustine Sisters inthat town, of which Borel had painted the nave and the choir, therestood a figure of an Abbess of the fourteenth century, Saint Clare ofMontefalcone, in the black robes of an Augustinian Nun, against thestone walls of her cell, an open book on one side of the figure and abrass lamp on the other, somewhat behind her on a table. 

In that face, bent over the Crucifix she was pressing to her lips, inthat countenance, at once sweet and hungering, in the movement of thearms closely folded over her bosom, raised to her face, and themselvesforming a cross, he had seen the complete absorption of a bride, therapt, ecstatic joy of the purest love, and at the same time something ofthe anxious affection of a mother cherishing the Christ she kissed, andseemed to shelter in her bosom like a suffering child. 

And this was all set forth without any theatrical attitude or forcedgestures, with perfect simplicity. This Saint Clare has no ravings, nooutcries, like Saint Magdalen of Pazzi; she does not soar with theflight of divine intoxication. The mystic possession manifests itself ina mute rapture; her transports are controlled, and her inebriety isgrave; she does not diffuse herself, but opens her soul, and Jesus, asHe enters in, stamps her with His likeness, impresses her with the imageof the Crucifix she holds, and of which the impress was found graven onher heart when it was examined after her death. 

This was the most remarkable religious painting of our time, and it wasachieved with no borrowing from the Early painters, no trickery ofawkward attitudes supported by iron bars, no affectations, no artifice. And what a devout Catholic, what an emotionally pious artist must theman be who could produce such a work!

After him the rest was silence. Among the religious youth of to-day noone is to be found equal to the presentment of Church subjects. "Onlyone, " said Durtal, thinking it over, "gave any hope of such powers, forhe stands apart from the rest, and, at any rate, has talent. "

He rose and went to turn over his portfolios, picking out thelithographs by Charles Dulac. 

This artist had begun with a series of landscapes, idealizing nature, atfirst with a timid hand--extravagantly large pools, and trees withleaves that looked like wild wigs tossed by the wind; then he hadproduced a rendering in black and white of a Canticle of the Sun, or ofCreation, and had poured out in nine plates, printed in different statesof tone, that effluence of mystical feeling which in his first set wasstill latent and undecided. 

The rather hackneyed dictum that "a landscape is a state of mind, " wasstrictly appropriate to this work; the artist had stamped his faith onthese views, studied, no doubt, from nature, but seen, it was evident, not by the eyes alone, but by a captivated spirit singing in the openair Daniel's hymn and David's psalm, as interpreted by Saint Francis, and repeating after them the thought that all the Elements shall sing tothe glory of Him who created them. 

Among these plates two were genuinely inspiring: that with the title, _Stella Matutina_, and the other with the words, _Spiritus Sancte Deus_;but another, the broadest, the most decisive, and the simplest of themall, bearing the title _Sol Justitiæ_, seemed best of all to set forththe individual sympathies of the artist. 

It was thus composed: A light, remote, translucent distance was lost ininfinitude--a peninsula, a desert waste of waters with ribs of shore, tongues of land planted with trees repeated in the mirror of the lake;on the horizon the sun, half set, cast its beams reflected by the sheetof waters; that was all, but amazing placidity and calm, a sense offulness was shed over all. The idea of justice, to which that of mercyanswers as its inevitable echo, was symbolized in the serene solemnityof this expanse lighted up by the glow of a kindly season and mildatmosphere. 

Durtal drew back to get a more complete view of the work as a whole. 

"There is no denying it, " said he; "this artist has the instinct, thesubtle sense of aerial space, of expanse; he understands the soul ofcalm waters flowing under a vast sky! And then, this print diffusesemanations as from a Catholic, which steal into us, slowly soak into ourheart. 

"And by this time, " said he, closing the portfolio, "I am far enoughaway from the original matter, and none the nearer to any article I canwrite for the _Review_. A paper on the primitive German painters would, indeed, be quite in its line; yes, but what an undertaking! I shouldhave to work up my notes, and after dealing with Meister Wilhelm, Stephan Lochner, and Zeitblom, to speak of Bernhardt Strigel, an almostunknown painter, of Albert Dürer, Holbein, Martin Schongauer, HansBalding, Burgkmayer, and I know not how many more. I should have toaccount for whatever may have survived of orthodoxy in Germany after theReformation; to mention, at any rate, from the Lutheran point of view, that extraordinary painter, Cranach, whose Adams are bearded Apollos ofthe complexion of a Red Indian, and his Eves slender, chubby-facedcourtesans, with bullet heads, little shrimps' eyes, lips moulded out ofred pomatum, breasts like apples close under the neck, long, slim legs, elegantly formed, with the calf high up, and large, flat feet with thickankles. 

"Such a treatise would carry me too far. It is amusing to dream over, but not to write. I should do better to seek a less panoramic, acompacter subject. But what?--Well, I will see later, " he concluded, getting up, for Madame Mesurat jovially announced that dinner was ready. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

To change his weariness of the place, Durtal one sunny afternoon went tothe further end of Chartres, to visit the ancient church of Saint Martindu Val. It dated from the tenth century, and had served as the chapel byturns of a Benedictine House and of a Capuchin convent. Restored withoutany too flagrant heresies, it was now included in the precincts of anAsylum, and was reached by crossing a yard where blind folk in whitecotton caps sat nodding on benches in the shade of a few trees. 

Its small, squat doorway and three little belfries, as if it had beenbuilt for a village of dwarfs, attested its Romanesque origin; and, asat Saint Radegonde at Poitiers and Notre Dame de la Couture at le Mans, the interior opened, under an altar very much raised above the ground, into a crypt lighted by loopholes borrowing their light from theambulatory of the choir. The capitals of the columns, coarsely carved, resembled the idols of Oceania; under the pavement and in the tombs laymany of the Bishops of Chartres, and newly-consecrated prelates weresupposed to spend the first night of their arrival at the See in prayerbefore these tombs, so as to imbue themselves with the virtues of theirpredecessors and enlist their support. 

"The Manes of these Bishops might very well have whispered to theirpresent successor, Monseigneur des Mofflaines, some plan for purifyingthe House of the Virgin by turning out the vile musician who degradesthe Sanctuary on Sundays to the level of a music hall!" sighed Durtal. 'But, alas! nothing disturbs the inertia of that aged, and invalidshepherd, who is, indeed, never to be seen either in his garden, in thecathedral, or in the town. 

"Ah! But this is something better than all the vocal flourishes of thechoristers!" said Durtal to himself as he listened to the bells arousedfrom silence to shed the blessed drops of sound over the city. 

He called to mind the meanings ascribed to bells by the earlysymbolists. Durand of Mende compares the hardness of the metal to thepower of the preacher, and thinks that the blows of the tongue againstthe side, aim at showing the orator that he should punish himself andcorrect his own vices before he blames those of others. The woodencrossbeam to which the bell is suspended resembles in form the Cross ofChrist, and the rope pulled by the ringer to set the bell going isallegorical of the knowledge of the Scripture which depends on the Crossitself. 

According to Hugh of Saint Victor, the tongue of the bell is thesacerdotal tongue, which, striking on both sides of the body, declaresthe truth of both Testaments. Finally, to others the bell itself is themouth of the Liturgy, and the tongue its tongue. 

"In fact, the bell is the Church's herald, its outer voice, as thepriest is its inward voice, " Durtal concluded. 

While meditating in this wise, he had reached the cathedral, and for thehundredth time stood to admire those powerful abutments throwing out, with the strong curve of a projectile, flying buttresses like spokedwheels, and, as usual, he was amazed by the flight of the parabola, thegrace of the trajectory, the sober strength of those curved supports. "Still, " said he to himself, as he studied the parapet raised abovethem, bordering the roof of the nave, "the architect who was content tostamp out those trefoil arches, as if they were punched in that stoneparapet, was less happily inspired than certain other master-masons orstone-workers who enclosed the little gutter-path they made round churchroofs with scriptural or symbolical images. Such an one was he who builtthe cathedral at Troyes, where the top parapet is carved alternatelyinto fleur de lys and Saint Peter's keys; and he who at Caudebecsculptured the edge into gothic letters of a delightfully decorativecharacter, spelling a hymn to the Virgin, thus crowning the church witha garland of prayer, wreathing its head with a white chaplet ofaspiration. "

Durtal left the north side of the cathedral, went past the royal doorand round the corner of the old tower. With one hand he held on his hat, and with the other grasped the skirts of his coat, which flapped abouthis legs. The storm blew permanently on this spot. There might be not abreath of air anywhere else in the town, but here, at this corner, winter and summer, there was always a blast that caught cloaks andskirts and lashed the face with icy thongs. 

"That perhaps is the reason why the statues of the neighbouring northdoor, which are so incessantly scourged by the wind, stand in suchshivering attitudes with narrow and tightly-drawn raiment, their armsand legs held close, " thought Durtal, with a smile. "And is it not thesame with that strange figure dwelling in companionship with a sowspinning--though it is not in fact a sow, but a hog--and an ass playingon a hurdy-gurdy on the storm-beaten wall of the old tower?"

These two animals, whose careless herd he seems to be, represent intheir merry guise the old popular sayings: _Ne sus Minerveum_, and_Asinus ad lyram_, which may be freely rendered by "Every man to histrade, " and "Never force a talent;" for we should but be as inept as apig trying to be wise or an ass trying to strike the lyre. 

But this angel with a nimbus, standing barefoot under a canopy, supporting a sun-dial against his breast, what does he mean, what is hedoing?

A descendant of the royal women of the north porch, for he is like themin his slender shape, sheathed in a clinging robe with string-likepleats, he looks over our heads, and we wonder whether he is very impureor very chaste. 

The upper part of the face is innocent, the hair cropped round the head;the face is beardless and the expression monastic, but between the noseand mouth there is a broad slope, and the lips, parting in a straightgash, wear a smile, which as we look seems just a little impudent, justa little vulgar, and we wonder what manner of angel this may be. 

There is in this figure something of the recalcitrant seminarist, andalso something of the virtuous postulant. If the sculptor took a youngBrother for his model, he certainly did not choose a docile novice, suchas he who no doubt served for the study of Joseph standing under thenorth door; he must have worked from one of the religious _Gyrovagoi_who so tormented St. Benedict. A strange figure is this angel, who has afather at Laon, behind the cathedral, and who anticipated by manycenturies the puzzling seraphic types of the Renaissance. 

"What a wind!" muttered Durtal, hastening back to the west front, wherehe went up the steps and pushed the door open. 

The entrance to this immense and obscure church is always coercive; weinstinctively bend the head and advance cautiously under the oppressivemajesty of its vault. Durtal stopped when he had gone a few steps, dazzled by the illumination of the choir in contrast with the dark alleyof the nave, which only gained a little light where it joined thetransepts. The Christ had the legs and feet in shadow, the body insubdued light, and the head bathed in a torrent of glory; Durtal gazedup in the air at the motionless ranks of Patriarchs, and Apostles, andBishops, and Saints in a glow as of dying fires, dimly lighted glass, guarding the Sacred Body at their feet, below them; they stood in rowsalong the upper storey in huge pointed settings, with wheels above them, showing to Jesus, nailed to earth, His army of faithful soldiers, Hislegions as enumerated in the Scriptures, the Legends, the Martyrology;Durtal could identify in the armed throng of the painted windows St. Laurence, St. Stephen, St. Giles, St. Nicholas of Myra, St. Martin, St. George of Cappadocia, St. Symphorian, St. Philip, St. Foix, St. Laumer, and how many more whose names he could not recollect--and paused inadmiration near the transept, in front of a figure of Abraham fixed forever in a threatening gesture, holding a sword over a crouching Isaac, the blade shining brightly against the infinite blue. 

He stood admiring the conceptions and the craftsmanship of thosethirteenth century glass-workers, their emphatic language, necessary atsuch great heights, the way in which they had made the pictures legiblefrom a distance by introducing a single figure in each, whenever thatwas possible, and painting it in massive outline, with contrastingcolours, so as to be easily taken in at a glance when seen from below. 

But the triumph of this art was neither in the choir, nor in thetransepts of the church, nor in the nave; it was at the entrance, on theinner side of the wall, where on the outside stood the statues of thenameless queens. Durtal delighted in this glorious show, but he alwayspostponed it a little to excite himself by expectancy, and revel in theleap of joy it gave him, repetition of the sensation not having yetavailed to weaken it. 

On this particular day, under a sunny sky, these three windows of thetwelfth century blazed with splendour with their broad short blades, theblade of a claymore, flat wide panels of glass under the rose that heldthe most prominent place over the west door. 

It was a twinkling sheet of cornflowers and sparks, a shifting maze ofblue flames--a paler blue than that in which Abraham, at the end of thenave, brandished his knife; this pale, limpid blue resembled the flamesof burning punch and of the ignited powder of sulphur, and the lightningflash of sapphires, but of quite young sapphires, as it were, stillinfantine and tremulous. And in the right hand pointed window he coulddistinguish in burning red the Stem of Jesse--figures piled up espalierfashion, in the blue fire of the sky; while to the left and in themiddle, scenes were shown from the Life of Jesus--the Annunciation, PalmSunday, the Transfiguration, the Last Supper, and the Supper at Emmaus;and above these three windows Christ hurled thunder from the heart ofthe great rose, the dead emerged from their graves at the trumpet-call, and St. Michael weighed souls. 

"How did the glass-makers discover and compound that twelfth centuryblue?" wondered Durtal. "And why have their successors so long lost it, as well as their red?

"In the twelfth century glass-painters made use chiefly of threecolours; first, blue--that ineffable, uncertain sky-blue which is theglory of the Chartres windows; then red--a purplish red, full andimportant; and green--inferior in quality to the two others. For whitethey preferred a greenish tinge. 

"In the following century the palette is more extensive, but the stainis darker; the glass, too, is thicker. And yet, what a glowing blue ofpure, bold sapphire tone the artists of the furnace had at theircommand, and what a fine red they used, the colour of fresh blood!Yellow, of which they were less lavish, was, if I may judge from therobe of a king near the Abraham, in a window by the transept, a daringhue of bright lemon. But apart from these three colours, which have asort of resonance, and burst forth like songs of joy in thesetransparent pictures, others grow more sober; the violets are likeOrleans plums or purple egg-fruit, the browns are of the hue of burntsugar, the chive-coloured greens turn dark. 

"But what masterpieces of colour they achieved by the harmony andcontrast of these tones, and with what skill did they handle thelead-lines, emphasizing certain details, punctuating and dividing theseparagraphs of flame as if with lines of ink. 

"And another thing which is amazing is the perfect agreement of allthese various crafts, practised side by side, treating the samesubjects, or supplementing each other--each, by its own mode ofexpression, under one guiding mind, contributing to the whole; with whata sense of fitness, with what skill were the posts distributed, theplaces assigned to each as beseemed the purpose of his craft, therequirements of his art. 

"Architecture having finished the lower portion of the edifice, retiresinto the background to make way for Sculpture, giving it the fineopportunity of the doorways; and Sculpture, hitherto invisible atexcessive heights, as a mere accessory, suddenly finds itself supreme. With due sense of justice it now comes forward where it can be seen, andthe sister art retires, leaving it to address the multitude, giving itthe noblest framework in those arched doorways, imitating a deeperperspective by their concentric arches, diminishing and retreating tothe door-frames. 

"In other instances Architecture does not give everything to one art, but divides the bounty of her great _façade_ between sculpture andpainting; reserving to the former the hollows and nooks where statuesmay find niches, and giving to glass-painters the tympanum of the greatdoor, where at Chartres the image-maker has displayed the Triumph ofChrist. This we see in the great west doors of Tours and of Reims. 

"This plan of substituting glass for bas-reliefs had its disadvantages;seen from outside--their wrong side--these diaphanous pictures look likespiders' nets on an enormous scale and thick with dust. With the lighton them the windows are, in fact, grey or black; it is only by goinginside and looking back that their fire can be seen flashing; theoutside is here sacrificed to the inside. Why?

"Perhaps, " said Durtal, answering himself, "it is symbolical of the soulhaving light inwardly, an allegory of the spiritual life--"

He took in all the windows of the nave with a rapid glance, and itstruck him that their effect was a combination of the prison and thegrave, with their coals of fire burning behind iron bars, some crossedlike the windows of a gaol, and others twisting like black twigs andbranches. Is not glass painting of all arts that in which God does mostto help the artist, the art which man, unaided, can never make perfect, since the sky alone can give life to the colours by a beam of sunshine, and lend movement to the lines? In short, man fashions the form, prepares the body, and must wait till God infuses the soul. 

"It is to-day a high-day of light and the Sun of Justice is visiting HisMother, " he went on, as he walked to where the pillared thicket of thechoir ended at the south transept, to look at the window known as NotreDame de la belle Verrière, the figure, in blue, relieved against amingled background of dead-leaf olive, brown, iris violet, plum-green;She gazed out with her sad and pensive pout--a pout very cleverlyrestored by a modern glass-painter; and Durtal remembered that peoplehad come to pray to Her, as he now went to pray to the Virgin of thePillar and Notre Dame de Sous Terre. 

Such devotion was a thing of the past; the men of our time need, itwould seem, a more tangible, a more material Virgin than this slender, fragile image, hardly visible in dark weather; nevertheless, a fewpeasants still kept up the habit of kneeling and offering a taper beforeHer, and Durtal, who loved these old neglected Madonnas, joined them andinvoked Her too. 

Two other windows also appealed to him by the singularity of thefigures, perched very high up, in the depths of the apse, and serving asattendant pages, at a distance, to the Virgin holding Her Son in thecentre light commanding the whole perspective of the cathedral; theseeach contained in a light-toned lancet, a barbarous and grotesqueseraph, with sharply-marked features, white wings full of eyes, androbes with jagged, strap-like edges of a pale green colour; their legswere bare, and they were represented as floating. These two angels hadjujube yellow aureoles tilted to the back like sailors' hats; and thisragged attire, the feathers folded over the breast, the hat of glory, with their general expression of refractory wilfulness, suggested theidea that these beings were at once paupers, Apaches or Mohicans, andseamen. 

As to the remaining windows, especially those which included severalfigures and were divided into several pictures, it would have needed atelescope and have taken many days of study only to make out the storythey told, and discover the details; and months would not have sufficedfor the task, since the glass had been in many cases repaired and oftenreplaced without regard to order, so that it was especially difficult todecipher it. 

An attempt had been made to count the number of figures represented inthe cathedral windows; they were as many as 3889; in the mediæval timeseverybody had been eager to present a glass picture to the Virgin. Notcardinals only, kings, bishops and princes, canons and nobles, but thecorporations of the town also had contributed these panels of fire; therichest, such as the Guilds of Drapers and Furriers, of Goldsmiths andMoney-changers, had each presented five to Our Lady, while the poorercompanies of the Master Scavengers and Water-carriers, the Porters andRag-pickers, each gave one. 

Pondering on these things, Durtal wandered round the ambulatory andpaused in front of a small stone Virgin ensconced at the foot of thestairs leading up to the chapel of Saint Piat, constructed in thefourteenth century as a sort of outbuilding behind the apse. ThisVirgin, dating from the same period, had shrunk into the shade, effacingHerself, deferentially leaving the more important places to the seniorMadonnas. 

She carried an Infant playing with a bird, in allusion, no doubt, to thepassage in the apocryphal Gospels of the Infancy, and of Thomas theIsraelite, which shows us the Child Jesus amusing Himself by modellingbirds out of clay, and giving them life by breathing upon them. 

Then Durtal continued his walk through the chapels; stopping only tolook at one which contained relics of opposite utility and doublepurpose: the shrines of Saint Piat and Saint Taurinus. The bones of theformer saint were displayed to secure dry weather in times of rain, andthose of the second to invoke rain in times of drought. But what wasfar less comforting and more irritating even than this array ofside-chapels, with their wretched adornment--with names that had beenchanged since their first dedication so that the tutelary protectionearned by centuries of service had ceased to exist--was the choir, battered, dirty, degraded as if on purpose. 

In 1763 the old Chapter had thought fit to deface the Gothic columns, and to have them colour-washed by a Milanese lime-washer, of a yellowishpink speckled with grey; then they had abandoned to the town-museum somemagnificent pieces of Flemish tapestry that screened the inner circuitof the choir aisles, and had put in their place bas-reliefs in marbleexecuted by the dreadful bungler who had crushed the altar under thegigantic group of the Virgin. And mischance had helped. In 1789 theSansculottes were intending to destroy this mountainous Assumption, andsome ill-starred idiot saved it by placing a cap of liberty on theVirgin's head!

To think that some beautiful windows were knocked out in order to get abetter light for this mass of lard! If only there were the slightesthope of ever getting rid of it; but alas! all such hopes are vain. Someyears ago, when Monseigneur Régnault was Bishop, the idea was indeedsuggested--not of making away with this petrified lump of tallow, but atleast of getting rid of the bas-reliefs. 

Then the prelate--who stuffed his ears with cotton for fear of takingcold--set his face against it; and for reasons of equal importance, nodoubt, the sacrilegious hideousness of this Assumption must be for everendured, and the marble screens as well. 

But though the interior of this choir was a disgrace, the groups roundthe ambulatory of the apse and the outer wall of the choir were wellworth lingering over. 

These figures under canopies and tabernacles carved by Jehan de Beaucebegan on the right by the south transept, went round the horse-shoebehind the altar, and ended at the north transept where the Black Virginof the Pillar stands. 

The subjects were the same as those treated in the small capitals of theroyal doorway, outside the church, above the panegyric of the kings, saints, and queens. They were taken from the Apocryphal legends, theGospel of the Childhood of Mary, and the Protoevangelist James the Less. 

The first of these groups was executed by an artist named Jehan Soulas. The contract, dated January 2nd, 1518, between this sculptor and thedelegates of the authorities conducting the works of the church, stillexisted. It set forth that Jehan Soulas, a master image-maker, dwellingin Paris at the cemetery of Saint Jehan in the parish of Saint Jehan enGrève, pledged himself to execute in good stone of the Tonnerre quarry, and better than the images that are round about the choir of Notre Damede Paris, the four first groups, of which the subjects were prescribedand explained; in consideration of the sum of two hundred and eighty_livres Tournois_, which the Chapter of Chartres undertook to pay him ashe might require. 

Soulas, who had undoubtedly learned his craft from some Flemish artist, produced certain little _genre_ pictures well adapted, by their spiritand liveliness, to cheer the soul that the solemnity of the windowsmight have depressed; for in this aisle they really seemed to let thelight filter through Indian shawl-stuff, admitting only a few dullsparks and smoky gleams. 

The second group, representing Saint Anna receiving from an unseen angelan order to go to meet Joachim at the Golden Gate, was a marvel of graceand subtle observation; the saint stood listening attentive in front ofher fald-stool, by which lay a little dog; and a waiting-maid, seen inprofile, carrying an empty pitcher, smiled with a knowing air and a winkin her eye. And in the next scene, where the husband and wife wereembracing each other with the trepidation of a worthy old couple, stammering with joy and clasping trembling hands, the same woman, seenfull-face this time, was so delighted at their happiness that she couldnot keep still, but, holding up her skirts, was almost in the act ofdancing. 

A little further on, the image-maker had represented the birth of Mary, a thoroughly Flemish scene: in the background, a bed with curtains, onwhich Saint Anna reclined, watched by a maid, while the midwife and herattendant washed the infant in a basin. 

But another of these bas-reliefs, close to the Renaissance clock, whichinterrupts the series of this history told in the choir-aisle, was evenmore astonishing. In this Mary was sewing at baby-clothes while reading, and Saint Joseph, asleep in a chair, his head resting on his hand, wasinstructed in a dream of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. And henot only had his eyes shut, he was sleeping so soundly, so really, thatone could see him breathe, one felt his body stretching, relaxing, inthe perfect abandonment of his whole being. And how diligently the youngmother stitched while she was absorbed in prayers, her nose in her book!Never, certainly, was life more closely apprehended, or expressed withgreater certainty and truth to life caught in the act, at the instant, ere it moved. 

Next to this domestic scene, and the Adoration of the Shepherds andAngels, came the Circumcision of Jesus, with a white paper apron pastedon by some low jester; then the Adoration of the Magi; and Jehan deSoulas and the pupils of his studio had finished the work on their side. They were succeeded by inferior craftsmen, François Marchant of Orleans, and Nicolas Guybert of Chartres; and after them art went on sinkinglower and lower, down to one Sieur Boudin, who had dared to sign hismiserable puppets, down to the stupid conventionality of Jean de Dieu, Legros, Tuby, and Mazières, to the cold and pagan work of theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But there was an improvement inthe eight last groups opposite the Virgin of the Pillar--some simplefigures carved by the pupils of Soulas; these, however, were to someextent wasted, since they stood in the shadow, and it was almostimpossible to judge of them in that half-dead light. 

In reviewing this ambulatory, in parts so pleasing and in others sounseemly, Durtal could not help recalling the details of a similar butmore complete work--one that had not been wrought in succeeding ages anddisfigured by discrepancies of talent and date. This work was at Amiens, and it, likewise, was the decoration of the outer aisle of a cathedralchoir. 

This story of the life of Saint Firmin, the first Bishop and patronsaint of the city, and of the discovery and translation of his relics bySaint Salvo, was told in a series of groups that had been gilt andpainted; then, to complete the circuit of the sanctuary, the life of thesecond patron of Amiens had been added, Saint John the Baptist; and inthe scene of the Baptism of Christ a fair-haired angel was representedholding a napkin, an ingenuous and arch being, one of the most adorableseraphic faces ever carved or painted by Flemish art in France. 

This legend of Saint Firmin was set forth, like that of the Birth of theVirgin at Chartres, in separate chapters of stone, surmounted in thesame way with gothic canopies or tabernacles; and in the compartmentwhere Saint Salvo, surrounded by the multitude, discerns the beams whichradiate from a cloud to indicate the spot where the lost body of theMartyr had been buried, a man on his knees with clasped hands, seems topant, uplifted in prayer, burning, projected by the leap of his soul, his face transfigured, turning a mere rustic into a saint in ecstasy, already dwelling in God far above the earth. 

This worshipper was the masterpiece of the ambulatory at Amiens, as thesleeping Saint Joseph was of the bas-reliefs at Chartres. 

"Take it for all in all, " said Durtal to himself, "that work in thePicardy Cathedral is more explicit, more complete, more various, moreeloquent even than that of the church in La Beauce. Irrespective of thefact that the unknown image-maker who created it was as highly gifted asSoulas with acute observation, and persuasive and decidedsimple-mindedness and spirit, he had besides a peculiar and more noblevein of feeling. And then his subjects were not restricted to thepresentment of two or three personages; he frequently grouped a swarmingcrowd, in which each man, woman, or child differed in individualcharacter and feature from every other, and was conspicuously marked bythat unlikeness, so clear and living was the realism of each smallfigure!

"After all, " thought Durtal, looking once more at the choir aisles as heturned away, "though Soulas maybe inferior to the sculptor of Amiens, heis none the less a delightful artist and a true master, and his groupsmay console us for the ignominious work of Bridan and the atrociousdecoration of the choir. "

He then went to kneel before the Black Virgin, and returning to theNorth transept near which She stands, he gazed once more in amazement atthe incandescent flowers of the windows; again he was captivated andmoved by the five pointed windows under the rose, in which, on each sideof the Mauresque Saint Anna, stood David and Solomon, a forbidding pair, in a furnace of purple, and Melchizedec and Aaron with tawny complexionsand hairy faces, with enormous colourless eyes standing out passionlessin a blaze of daylight. 

The radiating rose-window above them was not of the vast diameter ofthose in Notre Dame de Paris, nor of the incomparable elegance of thestar-patterned rose at Amiens. It was smaller and heavier, sparklingwith flowers like saxifrages of flame, opening in the pierced wall. 

Durtal turned on his heel to look at the South transept, where fivegreat windows faced those on the North. There he saw, blazing liketorches on each side of the Virgin placed exactly opposite Saint Anna, the four Evangelists borne on the shoulders of the four greaterProphets--Saint Matthew on Isaiah, Saint Luke on Jeremiah, Saint John onEzekiel, Saint Mark on Daniel--each stranger than the other, with theireyes like the lenses of opera-glasses, their hair in ripples, theirbeards like the up-torn roots of trees; excepting Saint John, who wasalways represented as a beardless youth in the Latin Mediæval Church, tosymbolize his virginity; but the most grotesque of these giants' wasperhaps Saint Luke, who, perched on Jeremiah's back, gently scratchesthe prophet's head, as if he were a parrot, while turning woeful, meditative eyes up to Heaven. 

Durtal went down the nave, darker than the choir; the pavement slopedgently to the door, for in the Middle Ages it was washed every morningafter the departure of the crowds who slept on it; and he looked down, in the middle, on the labyrinth marked out on the ground in lines ofwhite stone and ribbons of blue stone, twisting in a spiral, like awatch-spring. This path our fathers devoutly paced, repeating specialprayers during the hour they spent in doing so, and thus performing animaginary pilgrimage to the Holy Land to earn indulgences. 

When he was out in the square once more, he turned back to take in thesplendid effect of the whole before going home. 

He felt at once happy and awe-stricken, carried out of himself by thetremendous and yet beautiful aspect of the church. 

How grandiose and how aerial was this cathedral, sprung like a jet fromthe soul of a man who had formed it in his own image, to record hisascent in mystic paths, up and up by degrees in the light; passingthrough the contemplative life in the transept, soaring in the choirinto the full glory of the unitive life, far away now from thepurgatorial life, the dark passage of the nave. 

And this assumption of a soul was attended, supported, by the bands ofangels, the apostles, the prophets, and the righteous, all arrayed intheir glorified bodies of flame, an escort of honour to the Cross lyinglow on the stones, and the image of the Mother enthroned in all the highplaces of this vast reliquary, opening the walls, as it seemed, topresent to Her, as for a perpetual festival, their posies of gems thathad blossomed in the fiery heat of the glass windows. 

Nowhere else was the Virgin so well cared for, so cherished, soemphatically proclaimed the absolute mistress of the realm thus offeredto Her; and one detail proved this. In every other cathedral kings, saints, bishops, and benefactors lay buried in the depths of the soil;not so at Chartres. Not a body had ever been buried there; this churchhad never been made a sarcophagus, because, as one of itshistorians--old Rouillard--says, "it has the preeminent distinction ofbeing the couch or bed of the Virgin. "

Thus it was Her home; here She was supreme amid the court of Her Elect, watching over the sacramental Body of Her Son in the sanctuary of theinmost chapel, where lamps were ever burning, guarding Him as She haddone in His infancy; holding Him on Her knee in every carving, everypainted window; seen in every storey of the building, between the ranksof saints, and sitting at last on a pillar, revealing herself to thepoof and lowly, under the humble aspect of a sunburnt woman, scorched bythe dog-days, tanned by wind and rain. Nay, She went lower still, downto the cellars of Her palace, waiting in the crypt to give audience tothe waverers, the timid souls who were abashed by the sunlit splendourof Her Court. 

How completely does this sanctuary--where the sweet and awful presenceis ever felt of the Child who never leaves His Mother--lift the spiritabove all realities, into the secret rapture of pure beauty!

"And how good must They both be, " Durtal said to himself, as he lookedround and found himself alone, "never to abandon this desert, never toweary of waiting for worshippers! But for the honest country folk whocome at all hours to kiss the pillar, what a solitude it would be, evenon Sunday, for this cathedral is never full. However, to be just, at thenine o'clock mass on Sundays the lower end of the nave is thronged, " andhe smiled, remembering that end of the church packed with little girlsbrought in schools by Sisters, and with peasant women who, not beingable to see there to read their prayers, would light ends of taper andcrowd together closely, several looking over one book. 

This familiarity, this childlike simplicity of piety, which the dreadfulsacristans of Paris would never endure in a church, were' so natural atChartres, so thoroughly in harmony with the homely and unceremoniouswelcome of Our Lady!

"A thing to be ascertained, " said Durtal, starting on a new line ofthought, "is whether this church has preserved its surface uninjured, orwhether it may not have been coloured in the thirteenth century. Somewriters assert that, in Mediæval times, the interiors of cathedrals werealways painted. Is that the fact? Or, admitting that the statement iscorrect as to all Romanesque churches, is it equally so with regard toGothic churches?

"For my part, I like to believe that the sanctuary of Chartres was neverbefooled with gaudiness, such as we have to endure at Saint Germain desPrès, in Paris, and Notre Dame la Grande at Poitiers. In fact suchcolour can only be conceived of--if at all--as used in small chapels;why stain the walls of a cathedral with motley? For this tattooing, soto speak, reduces the sense of space, brings down the roof, and makesthe pillars clumsy; in short, it eliminates the mysterious soul of thenave, and destroys the sober majesty of the aisle with its feebly vulgarfret or guilloche, lozenges or crosses, scattered over the pillars andwalls, in a paste of treacly yellow, endive-green, vinous purple, lavadrab, brick red--a whole range of dull and dirty colours; to say nothingof the horror of a vault dotted with stars that look as if they had beencut out of gilt paper and stuck against a smalt background, a sky ofwashing-blue!

"It is endurable--if it must be--in the Sainte-Chapelle, because it isvery small, an oratory, a shrine; it might even be intelligible in thatwonderful church at Brou, which is a boudoir; its vaulting and pendantsare in polychrome and gold, and the ground has been paved with enamelledtiles, of which visible traces remain round the tombs. This gaudiness ofthe roof and floor was in harmony with the filagree tracery of thewalls, the heraldic glass, and the clear windows, the profusion oflace-like carving and coats of arms in the stone-work, blossoming withbunches of daisies mingling with labels, mottoes, monograms, SaintFrancis' girdles and knots. The colouring was in keeping with thealabaster retables, the black marble tombs, the pinnacled tabernacleswith their crockets of curled and dentate foliage. We can then quiteeasily imagine the columns and walls painted, the ribs and bosses washedwith gold, and making a harmonious whole of this _bonbonnière_, whichindeed is a piece of jewelry rather than of architecture. 

"This building at Brou was the last effort of mediæval times, the lastrocket flung up by the flamboyant Gothic style--a Gothic which thoughfallen from its glory struggled against death, fought against returningpaganism and the invading Renaissance. The era of the great cathedralsended in the production of this exquisite abortion, which was in its waya masterpiece, a gem of prettiness, of ingenuity, of tormented andcoquettish taste. 

"It was emblematic of the soul of the sixteenth century, already devoidof reserve; the sanctuary, too brightly lighted, was secularized; wehere see it fully blown, and it never folded up or veiled itself again. We discern in this a lady's bower, all paint and gold; the littlechapels (or pews) with chimney-places where Margaret of Austria couldwarm herself as she heard Mass, furnished with scented cushions, provided with sweetmeats and toys and dogs. 

"Brou is a fine lady's drawing-room, not the house for all comers. Then, naturally, with its screen-work, and the carving of the rood-loftstretching like a lace portal across the entrance to the choir, itinvites, it almost requires some skilful tinting of the details, thetouches of colour that complete it, and harmonize it finally with theelegance of the founder, the Princess Marguerite, whose presence is farmore conspicuous in this little church than is that of the Virgin. 

"Even then it would be satisfactory to know whether the walls andpillars at Brou ever were really painted; the contrary seems proven. Butin any case, though a touch of _rouge_ might not ill beseem this curioussanctum, it would not be so at Chartres, for the only suitable hue isthe shining, greasy patina, grey turning to silver, stone-colour turningbuff--the colouring given by age, by time helped by accumulated vapoursof prayer and the fumes of incense and tapers!"

And Durtal, arguing over his own reflections, ended by reverting, as healways did, to his own person, saying to himself, --

"Who knows that I may not some day bitterly regret this cathedral andall the sweet meditations it suggests; for, after all, I shall have nomore opportunities for such long loitering, such relaxation of mind, since I shall be subject to the discipline of bells ringing forconventual drill if I suffer myself to be locked up in a cloister!

"Who knows whether, in the silence of a cell, I should not miss even thefoolish cawing of those black jackdaws that croak without pause, " hewent on, looking up with a smile at the cloud of birds that settled onthe towers; and he recalled a legend which tells that since the fire in1836 these birds quit the cathedral every evening at the very hour whenthe conflagration began, and do not return till dawn, after spending thenight in a wood at three leagues from Chartres. 

This tale is as absurd as another, also dear to the old wives of thecity, and which tells that if you spit on a certain square of stone, setwith black cement into the pavement behind the choir, blood will exude. 

"Hah, it is you, Madame Bavoil. "

"Yes, our friend, I myself. I have just been on an errand for theFather, and am going home again to make the soup. And you, are youpacking your trunks?"

"My trunks?"

"Why, are not you going off to a convent?" said she, laughing. 

"Would not you like to see it?" exclaimed Durtal. "Catch me at that!Enlisting as a private subject to a pious drill, one of a poor squad, whose every movement must mark time, and who, though he is not expectedto keep his hands over the seam of his trowsers, is required to hidethem under his scapulary--"

"Ta, ta, ta, " interrupted the housekeeper, "I tell you once more, youare grudging, bargaining with God--"

"But before coming to so serious a decision it is quite necessary that Ishould argue all the pros and cons; in such a case some mentallitigation is clearly permissible. "

She shrugged her shoulders; and there was such peace in her face, such aglow of flame lurked behind the liquid blackness of her eyes, thatDurtal stood looking at her, admiring the honesty and purity of a soulwhich could thus rise to the threshold of her eyes and come forth in herlook. 

"How happy you are!" he exclaimed. 

A cloud dimmed her eyes, and she looked down. 

"Envy no one, our friend, " said she, "for each has his own struggles andgriefs. "

And when he had parted from her, Durtal, as he went home, thought of thedisasters she had confessed, the cessation of her intercourse withHeaven, the fall of a soul that had been wont to soar above the clouds. How she must suffer!

"No, no, " he said, "the service of the Lord is not all roses. If westudy the lives of the Saints we see these Elect tormented by dreadfulmaladies, and the most painful trials. No, holiness on earth is nochild's play, life is not amusement. To Saints, indeed, even on earthexcessive suffering finds compensation in excessive joys; but to otherChristians, such small fry as we are, what distress and trouble! Wequestion the everlasting silence and none answers; we wait and nonecomes. In vain do we proclaim Him as Illimitable, Incomprehensible, Unthinkable, and confess that every effort of our reason is vain, wecannot cease to wonder, and still less cease to suffer! And yet--and yetif we consider, the darkness about us is not absolutely impenetrable, there is light in places and we can discern some truths, such as this:

"God treats us as He treats plants. He is, in a certain sense, thesoul's year; but a year in which the order of the seasons is reversed;for the spiritual seasons begin with spring, followed by winter, andthen autumn comes, followed by summer. 

"The moment of conversion is the spring, the soul is joyful and Christsows the good seed; then comes the cold and all is dark, theterror-stricken soul believes itself forsaken and bewails itself; butwithout its feeling it during the trials of the purgatorial life, theseed germinates in the contemplative peace of autumn and flourishes inthe summer life of Union. 

"Aye; but each one must be the helping gardener of his own soul, listening to the instructions of the Master who plans the task anddirects the work. Alas, we are no more the humble labourers of theMiddle Ages, who toiled, giving God thanks, who submitted withoutdiscussion to the Master's orders. We, by our little faith, haveexhausted the value of prayer, the panacea of aspirations; consequentlymany things seem to us unjust and cruel, and we rebel, we ask forpledges; we hesitate to begin our task, we want to be paid in advance, and our distrust makes us vile!--O Lord, give us grace to pray, andnever dream of demanding an earnest of Thy favours! Give us grace toobey and be silent!

"And I may add, " said Durtal to himself as he smiled on Madame Mesurat, who opened the door in answer to his ring, "Grant me, Lord, the gracenot to be too much irritated by the buzzing of this great fly, theinexhaustible flow of this good woman's tongue!"

CHAPTER XIV. 

"What a fearful muddle, what a sea of ink is this menagerie of good andevil emblems!" exclaimed Durtal, laying down his pen. 

He had harnessed himself that morning to the task of investigating thesymbolical fauna of the Middle Ages. At first sight the subject hadstruck him as newer and less arduous, and certainly as less lengthy, than the article he had thought of writing on the Primitive GermanPainters. But he now sat dismayed before his books and notes, seeking aclue to guide him through the mass of contradictory evidence that laybefore him. 

"I must take things in their order, " said he to himself, "if indeed anyprinciple of selection is possible in such confusion. "

The Beast-books of Mediæval times knew all the monsters ofpaganism--Satyrs, Fauns, Sphinxes, Harpies, Centaurs, Hydras, Pygmies, and Sirens; these were all regarded as various aspects of the EvilSpirit, so no research is needed as to their meaning; they are but aresiduum of Antiquity. The true source of mystic zoology is not inmythology, but in the Bible, which classifies beasts as clean andunclean, makes them symbolize virtues and vices, some species beingallegorical of heavenly personages, and other embodying the Devil. 

Starting from this base, it may be observed that the liturgicalinterpreters of the animal world distinguished beasts from animals, including under the former head wild and untamable creatures, and underthe second gentle and timid creatures and domestic animals. 

The ornithologists of the Church, furthermore, represent birds as beingthe righteous, while Boëtius, on the other hand, often quoted byMediæval writers, credited them with inconstancy, and Melito comparesthem in turn to Christ, to the Devil, and to the Jewish nation. It maybe added that Richard of Saint Victor, disregarding these views, sees inwinged fowl a symbol of the life of the soul, as in the four-footedbeast he sees the life of the body--"And that gets us no further!"sighed Durtal. 

"This is beside the mark. We must find some other symbolism, closer andclearer. 

"Here the classification of naturalists would be useless, for a bipedand a reptile not unfrequently bear the same interpretation as emblems. The simplest plan will be to divide the Church menagerie into two largeclasses, real beasts and monsters; there is no creature that we may notinclude in one or the other category. "

Durtal paused to reflect:

"Nevertheless to arrive at a clearer notion and better appreciate theimportance of certain families in Catholic Mythography, we had betterfirst take out all those animals which symbolize God, the Virgin, andthe Devil, setting them aside to be referred to when they may elucidateother figures; and at the same time weed out those which apply to theEvangelists and are combined in the figures of the Tetramorph. 

"The surface thus being removed, we may investigate the remainder, thefigurative language of ordinary or monstrous beings. 

"The animal emblems of God are numerous; the Scriptures are filled withcreatures emblematic of the Saviour. David compares Him, by comparinghimself, to the pelican in the wilderness, to the owl in its nest, to asparrow alone on the house-top, to the dove, to a thirsting hart; thePsalms are a treasury of analogies with His qualities and His names. 

"Saint Isidor of Seville--Monseigneur Sainct Ysidore, as the naturalistsof old are wont to call him--figures Jesus as a lamb by reason of hisinnocence, as a ram because He is the head of the Flock, even as ahe-goat because the Redeemer was subject to the flesh of iniquity. 

"Some took as His image the ox, the sheep, and the calf, as beasts meetfor sacrifice, and others those animals that symbolize the elements: thelion, the eagle, the dolphin, the salamander--the kings of the earth, air, water, and fire. Some again, as Saint Melito, saw Him in the kid, the deer, and even in the camel, which, however, according to anotherpassage of the same author, personifies a love of flattery and of vainpraise. Others again find Him in the scarabæus, as Saint Euchre does inthe bee; still, the bee is regarded by Raban Maur as the unclean sinner. Christ's Resurrection is, to yet other writers, symbolized by thePhoenix and the cock, and His wrath and power by the rhinoceros and thebuffalo. 

"The iconography of the Virgin is less puzzling; She may be symbolizedby any chaste and gentle creature. The Anonymous Englishman in his_Monastic Distinctions_, compares Her to the bee, which we have seen sovilified by the Archbishop of Mayence, but the Virgin was mostespecially represented by the dove, the bird of all others whose Churchfunctions are most onerous. 

"All authorities agree in taking the dove as the image at once of theVirgin and of the Paraclete. According to Saint Mechtildis, it is thesimplicity of the heart of Jesus; with others it signifies thepreachers, the active religious life, as contrasted with the turtledove, which personifies the contemplative life, since the ring-doveflies and coos in company, whereas the turtle dove rejoices apart andalone. 

"To Bruno of Asti the dove is also an image of patience, a figure of theprophets. 

"As to the beasts symbolizing Hell and evil, they are almost withoutnumber; the whole creation of monsters is to be found there. Then amongreal animals we find: the serpent--the aspic of Scripture, the scorpion, the wolf as mentioned by Jesus Himself, the leopard noted by SaintMelito as being allied to Antichrist, the she-tiger representing thesins of arrogance, the hyena, the jackal, the bear, the wild-boar, which, in the Psalms, is said to destroy the vineyard of the Lord, thefox, described as a hypocritical persecutor by Peter of Capua and as apromoter of heresy by Raban Maur. All beasts of prey; and the hog, thetoad--the instrument of witchcraft, the he-goat--the image of Satanhimself, the dog, the cat, the ass--under whose form the Devil is seenin trials for witchcraft in the Middle Ages, the leech, on which theanonymous writer of Clairvaux casts contumely; the raven that went forthfrom the ark and did not return--it represents malice, and the dovewhich came back is virtue, Saint Ambrose tells us; and the partridgewhich, according to the same writer, steals and hatches eggs she did notlay. 

"If we may believe Saint Theobald, the Devil is also symbolized by thespider, for it dreads the sun as much as the Evil One dreads the Church, and is more apt to weave its net by night than by day, thus imitatingSatan, who attacks man when he knows him to be sleeping and powerless todefend himself. 

"The Prince of Darkness is also to be seen as the lion and the eagleinterpreted in an evil sense. 

"This, " reflected Durtal, "is the same fact as we find in the expressivesymbolism of colours and flowers; constantly a double meaning. The twoantagonistic interpretations are almost invariably met with in the loreof hieroglyphics, excepting only in that of gems. 

"Thus it is that the lion, defined by Saint Hildegarde as the image ofzeal for God, the lion, figuring the Son Himself, becomes to Hugh ofSaint Victor the emblem of cruelty. Basing their argument on a text inthe Psalms, certain writers identify it with Lucifer. He is in fact thelion who seeks whom he may devour, the lion who rushes on his victim. David speaks of him with the dragon to be trodden under foot, and SaintPeter in his first Epistle describes him as roaring in quest of aChristian to devour. 

"It is the same with the eagle, which Hugh of Saint Victor calls thestandard of Pride. Chosen by Bruno of Asti, Saint Isidor and SaintAnselm to represent the Saviour, the Fisher of Men, because he pouncesfrom the highest sky on fish swimming on the surface of the water andcarries them up, the eagle, classed in Leviticus and Deuteronomy withthe unclean beasts, is transformed, as being a bird of prey, into apersonification of the Devil snatching away souls to gnaw and tear them. 

"Thus every ferocious beast or bird and every reptile is a manifestationof the Evil One, " Durtal concluded. 

To pass to the Tetramorph. The evangelistic animals are well known:--

Saint Matthew, who expatiates on the subject of the Incarnation and setsforth the human genealogy of the Messiah, is symbolized by a man. 

Saint Mark, who more especially devotes his book to the miracles of theSon, saying less about His doctrine than about His acts and Hisresurrection, has the Lion for his attribute. 

Saint Luke, who writes more especially of the virtues of Jesus, of Hispatience, meekness, and mercy, and who dwells at length on Hissacrifice, is distinguished by the Ox or Calf. 

Saint John, who preaches above all else the Divinity of the Word, isrepresented by the Eagle. 

And the meaning assigned to the ox, the lion, and the eagle, is inperfect accordance with the character and personal aim of each Gospel. 

The lion, emblematical of Omnipotence, is also the apt allegory of theResurrection. All the primitive naturalists, Saint Epiphanius, SaintAnselm, Saint Yves of Chartres, Saint Bruno of Asti, Saint Isidor, Adamantius, all accept the legend that the lion-cub after its birthremains lifeless for three days; then on the fourth day it awakes as ithears its father's roar and springs full of life out of the den. ThusChrist, rising at the end of three days, escapes from the tomb at thecall of His Father. 

The belief still prevailed that the lion sleeps with its eyes open;hence it became the emblem of vigilance, and Saint Hilary and SaintAugustine read in this manner of taking repose an allusion to the Divinenature, which was not extinguished even in the sepulchre, though thehuman nature of the Redeemer was in truth dead. 

Finally, as it was considered certain that this animal effaced thetraces of its steps in the sand of the desert with its tail, Raban Maur, Saint Epiphanius, and Saint Isidor regarded it as signifying the Saviourveiling His Godhead under the forms of the flesh. 

"Not an ordinary beast--the lion!" exclaimed Durtal. "Well, " he went on, consulting his notes, "the ox is less pretentious! It is the paragon ofstrength with humility; according to Saint Paul it is emblematical ofthe priesthood; of the preacher, according to Raban Maur; of the Bishop, according to Peter Cantor, because, says this writer, the prelate wearsa mitre of which the two horns resemble those of an ox, and he usesthese horns, which are the wisdom of the Two Testaments, to rip upheretics. Still, in spite of these more or less ingeniousinterpretations, the ox is in fact the beast of immolation andsacrifice. 

"Turning to the eagle, it is, as we have seen, the Messiah pouncing onsouls to catch them; but other meanings are ascribed to it by SaintIsidor and by Vincent of Beauvais. If we believe them, the eagle thatdesires to test the prowess of his eaglets takes them in his talons andcarries them out into the sun, compelling them to look with their eyesas they begin to open, on the blazing orb. The eagle which is dazzled bythe fire is dropped and cast away by the parent bird. Thus doth Godreject the soul which cannot gaze on him with the contemplative eye oflove!

"The eagle, again, is typical of the Resurrection; Saint Epiphanius andSaint Isidor explain it thus: The eagle in old age flies up so near tothe sun that its feathers catch fire; revived by the flames, it dropsinto the nearest spring, bathes in it three times and comes outregenerate: is not this indeed the paraphrase of the Psalmist's verse, "Thy youth shall be renewed as the eagle's"? Saint Madalene of Pazzi, however, regards it differently, and takes it to typify faith leaning oncharity. 

"I shall have to find a place for all these documents in my article, "sighed Durtal, placing these notes in a separate wrapper. 

Now for the chimerical fauna introduced from the East, imported intoEurope by the Crusaders, and travestied by the illuminators of missalsand by image-makers. 

Foremost, the dragon, which we already find rampant and busy inmythology and in the Bible. 

Durtal rose and went into his library to find a book, "Traditionstératologiques, " by Berger de Xivrey. It contained long extracts fromthe "Romance of Alexander, " which was the delight of the grown-upchildren of the Middle Ages. 

"Dragons, " says this narrative, "are larger than all other serpents, andlonger.... They fly through the air, which is darkened by the disgorgingof their stench and venom ... This venom is so deadly that if a manshould be touched by it or come nigh it, it would seem to him a burningfire, and would raise his skin in great blisters, as though he had beenscalded. " And the author adds: "The sea is swollen up by their venom. "

Dragons have a crest, sharp talons, and a hissing throat, and are almostunconquerable. Albertus Magnus tells us, however, that magicians, whenthey wish to subdue them, beat as loudly as they can on drums, and thatthe dragon, imagining that it is the roll of thunder, which they greatlydread, let themselves be handled quietly and are taken. 

The enemy of this winged reptile is the elephant, which sometimessucceeds in crushing it by falling on it with all its weight; but mosttimes it is killed by the dragon, which feeds on its blood, of which thefreshness allays the intolerable burning caused by its own venom. 

Next to this monster comes the gryphon, a combination of the quadrupedand the bird, for it has the body of the lion and the head and talons ofthe eagle. Then the basilisk, regarded as the king of serpents; it isfour feet long, and has a tail as thick as a tree, and spotted withwhite. Its head bears a tuft in shape like a crown; it has a stridentvoice, and its eye is murderous, "A look, " says the "Romance ofAlexander, " "so piercing, that it is pestilential and deadly to allbeasts, whether venomous or no. " Its breath is no less fetid, nor lessdangerous, for, "by its breath are all things infected, and when it isdying it is fain to disgorge it; it stinks so that all other beasts fleefrom it. "

Its most formidable foe is the weasel, which bites its throat, "thoughit be a beast no bigger than a rat, " for "God hath made nothing withoutreason and remedy, " the pious Mediæval writer concludes. 

Why the weasel? There is nothing to show; nor was this little creature, who did such good service, honoured by our forefathers as having afavourable meaning. 

It is symbolical of dissimulation and depravity, and taken to typify thedegrading life of the mountebank. It may also be remembered that thiscarnivorous beast, which was supposed to carry its young in the mouthand give birth to them through the ear, is numbered among the uncleananimals in the Bible. 

"This zoological homoeopathy is rather inconsistent, " observed Durtal, "unless the similar interpretation given to these two creatures, hatingeach other, may signify that the Devil devours himself. "

Next we have the phoenix, "a bird of very fine plumage resembling thepeacock; it is very solitary, and feeds on the seeds of the ash;" itscolour, moreover, is of purple overshot with gold; and because it issaid to rise again from its ashes, it is always typical of theResurrection of Christ. 

The unicorn was one of the most amazing creatures in mystical naturalhistory. 

"It is a very cruel beast, with a great and thick body after the fashionof a horse; it hath for a weapon a great horn, half a fathom in length, so sharp and so hard that there is nothing it cannot pierce.... When menneed to take it they bring a virgin maid to the place where they knowthat it has its abode. When the unicorn sees her and knows that she is avirgin, it lieth down to sleep in her lap, doing her no harm; then comethe hunters and kill it.... Likewise, if she be not a pure maid theunicorn will not sleep, but killeth the damsel who is not pure. "

Whence we conclude that the unicorn is one of the emblems of chastity, as also is another very strange beast of which Saint Isidor speaks: theporphyrion. 

This has one foot like that of the partridge, and the other webbed likethat of a goose, its peculiarity consists in mourning over adultery, andloving its master so faithfully that it dies of pity in his arms when itlearns that his wife has deceived him. So that this species was soonextinct!

"There must be some more fabulous beasts to be included, " murmuredDurtal, again turning over his papers. 

He found the wyvern, a sort of Melusina, half woman and half serpent; avery cruel beast, full of malice and devoid of pity, Saint Ambrose tellsus; the manicoris, with the face of a man, the tawny eyes and crimsonmane of a lion, a scorpion's tail, and the flight of an eagle; this sortis insatiable by human flesh. The leoncerote, offspring of the malehyena and the lioness, having the body of an ass, the legs of a deer, the breast of a wild beast, a camel's head, and armed with terriblefangs; the tharanda, which, according to Hugh of Saint Victor, has theshape of the ox, the profile of the stag, the fur of the bear, and whichchanges colour like the cameleon; finally, the sea-monk, the mostpuzzling of all, since Vincent of Beauvais describes it as having itsbody covered with scales, and it is furnished, in lieu of arms, withfins all over claws, besides having a monk's shaven head ending in thesnout of a carp. 

Others were also invented, as for instance the gargoyles, hybridmonsters, signifying the vomiting forth of sin ejected from thesanctuary; reminding the passer-by who sees them pouring forth the waterfrom the gutter, that when seen outside the church, they are thevoidance of the spirit, the cloaca of the soul!

"But, " said Durtal to himself, "that seems to me enough of the matter. From the point of view of symbolism this menagerie is not particularlyinteresting since these monsters--the wyvern, the manicoris, theleoncerote, the tharanda and sea-monk--all mean the same thing, and allembody the Spirit of Evil. "

He took out his watch. 

"Come, " said he, "I have still time enough before dinner to go throughthe list of real animals. "

And he turned over his notes on birds. 

"The cock, " said he, "is prayer, watchfulness, the preacher, theResurrection, since it is the first to wake at daybreak; the peacock, that has, as an old writer says, "the voice of a devil and the feathersof an angel, " is a mass of contradictory symbols: it typifies pride, and, according to Saint Antony of Padua, immortality, as well asvigilance by reason of the eyes in its tail. The pelican is the image ofcontemplation and of charity; of love, too, according to Saint Madaleneof Pazzi; the sparrow symbolizes penitential solitude; the swallow, sin;the swan, pride, according to Raban Maur; diligence and solicitudeaccording to Thomas de Catimpré; the nightingale is mentioned by SaintMechtildis as meaning the tender soul; and the same saint compares thelark to persons who do good works with cheerfulness; it is to be notedtoo that in the windows of Bourges the lark means charity to the sick. 

"Here are others specified by Hugh of Saint Victor. To him the vulturemeans idleness; the kite, rapacity; the raven, detraction; the whiteowl, hypochondria; the common owl, ignorance; the magpie, chatteringtalk; and the hoopoe, sluttishness and evil report. 

"This is all a sorry medley!" said Durtal, "and I fear it will be thesame with the mammalia and other beasts!"

He compared a few passages. The ox, the lamb, the sheep, we have seen. The sheep is the type of timidity and meekness, and Saint Pacomiusembodies in him the monk who lives punctual and obedient, and loving hisbrethren. Saint Melito on his part ascribes hypocrisy to the ostrich, temporal power to the rhinoceros, human frailty to the spider; we mayalso mention among the crustacea, the crab as symbolizing heresy and thesynagogue, because it walks backwards and away from the path ofrighteousness. Among fish, the whale is the emblem of the tomb, just asJonas, who came out of it after three days, is typical of Jesus risenfrom the dead. Among rodents the beaver is the image of Christianprudence, because, says the legend, when he is pursued by hunters hetears with his teeth the pouch containing castoreum and flings it at thefoe. For this reason it is likewise the animal representative of thetext in the Gospel which declares that a man must cut off the offendingmember which is an occasion of sin. 

Let us pause before the den of wild beasts. 

According to Hugh of Saint Victor the wolf is avarice; the fox iscunning; Adamantius says that the wild boar represents blind rage; theleopard wrath, ambush and daring; the tiger, and the hyena, which canchange its sex at will and imitate the voice of man, signifieshypocrisy; while Saint Hildegarde shows that the panther, by reason ofthe beauty of its spots, is typical of vain-glory. 

We need not dwell on the bull, the bison and the buffalo; the symbolistsregard them as emblems of brute force and pride; while the goat andboar-pig are vessels of lust and filth. 

They divide this honour with the toad, an unclean reptile; thehabitation of the Devil, who assumes its form to show himself to thefemale saints--for instance to Saint Theresa. As to the hapless frog itis equally defamed because of its likeness to the toad. 

The stag is in better odour. Saint Jerome and Cassiodorus say itexemplifies the Christian who overcomes sin by the sacrament of penance, or by martyrdom. Representing God in the Psalms, it is also taken as theheathen desiring baptism; a legend attributes to it so vehement a horrorof the Serpent, in other words of the Devil, that whenever it can itattacks and devours him, but if it subsequently goes for three hourswithout drinking, it dies; hence after that meal it runs to and fro inthe forest seeking a spring of which, if it finds one, it drinks, and isthen many years younger. The she-goat is sometimes held in ill-fame asbeing akin to the he-goat, but it more often is regarded as theWell-Beloved, to which the Bride in Canticles compares it. The hedgehog, hiding in crannies, is interpreted by Saint Melito as the sinner, byPeter of Capua as the penitent. As to the horse, as a creature of vanityand pride, it is opposed by Peter Cantor and Adamantius to the ox, whichis all gravity and simplicity. It is well, however, to observe that toconfuse the matter, by presenting the horse under another aspect, SaintEucher compares it to a saint, and the Anonymous Monk of Clairvauxidentifies the Devil with the ox. The poor ass is no better treated byHugh of Saint Victor, who accuses it of stupidity, by Saint Gregory theGreat, who taxes it with laziness, and Peter of Capua, who speaks of itslust. It must, however; be observed that Saint Melito compares it withChrist for its humility, and that the exegetists explain the ass's foalridden by Christ on Palm Sunday as an image of the Gentiles, as theyinterpret the she-ass that threw Him to mean the Jews. 

Finally, two domestic animals dear to man, the cat and the dog, aregenerally contemned by the mystics. The dog, typical of sin, says PeterCantor, and the most quarrelsome of beasts, adds Hugh of Saint Victor, is the creature that returns to his vomit; it also prefigures thereprobates of whom the Apocalypse speaks, who are to be driven out ofthe heavenly Jerusalem; Saint Melito speaks of it as the apostate, andSaint Pacomius as the rapacious monk, but Raban Maur redeems it a littlefrom this condemnation by specifying it as emblematic of confessors. 

The cat, which is but once mentioned in the Bible--in the Book ofBaruch--is invariably abhorred by the primitive naturalists, who accuseit of embodying treachery and hypocrisy, and of lending its skin to theDevil, to enable him to appear in its shape to sorcerers. 

Durtal turned over a few more pages, discovering that the hare typifiedtimidity and cowardice, and the snail laziness; noting the opinion ofAdamantius, who ascribes levity and a mocking spirit to the monkey; thatof Peter of Capua and of the Anonymous writer of Clairvaux, that thelizard, which crawls and hides in cracks in the walls, is, as well asthe serpent, an emblem of evil; and he recorded the special ascriptionof ingratitude by Christ Himself to the viper, for He gives the name tothe Jewish race. Durtal then hastily dressed, fearing to be late, as hewas dining with the Abbé Gévresin and the Abbé Plomb. Pursued by MadameMesurat, who insisted on dealing him one more blow with theclothes-brush, he rushed downstairs, and was soon at his friend's door. 

Madame Bavoil, who opened it, appeared in a cap all askew and hairloose, up-turned sleeves and scorched arms, with cheeks crimson from thekitchen fire. She confessed to the concoction of a dish of beef _à lamode_ softened by calf's foot jelly and strengthened by a dash ofbrandy, and fled, alarmed by the impatient call of a saucepan, of whichthe contents were boiling over on the hot plates of the stove, with anoise like cats swearing. 

Durtal found the old Abbé tormented by rheumatism, but as ever, patientand cheerful. They talked a little while; then, seeing that Durtal waslooking at some little lumps of gum lying on his writing table, the Abbésaid, --

"That is incense from the Carmel of Chartres. "

"Indeed!"

"Yes, the Carmelites are accustomed to burn none but genuine trueincense. So I begged them to trust me with a specimen that I mightprocure the same quality for our cathedral. "

"It is everywhere adulterated, I suppose?"

"Yes. This substance is found in commerce under three forms: maleincense, which is the best if unadulterated; female incense, which ismixed with reddish fragments and dry grains called _marrons_; finallyincense in powder, which is for the most part a mixture of inferiorresin and benzoin. "

"And what have you there?"

"This is male incense; do you see those oblong tears, those almosttransparent drops of faded amber? how different from that which they useat Notre Dame; it is earthy, broken, full of scraps, and it is safe towager that those knobs are crystals of carbonate of lime and not beadsof pure resin. "

"Why, " said Durtal, "this substance suggests to me the idea of asymbolism of odours; has it ever been worked out?"

"I doubt it; but in any case it would be very simple. The aromaticsubstances used in the Liturgy are reduced to three, frankincense, myrrh, and balm. 

"Their meaning is known to you. Incense is the Divinity of the Son, andour prayers which rise up like vapours in the presence of the Most High, as the Psalmist says. Myrrh is repentance, the sufferings of Jesus, Hisdeath, the martyrs, and also, according to Monsieur Olier, the type ofthe Virgin who heals the souls of sinners as myrrh cauterizes thefestering of wounds; balm is another word for virtue. 

"But though there are few Liturgical savours, it is not so with regardto mystical effluences which vary infinitely. We have, however, butlittle information on the subject. 

"We merely know that the odour of sanctity is antithetical to that ofthe Devil; that many of the Elect have diffused, during their lifetimeand after their death, an exquisite fragrance which cannot be analyzed;such were Madalene of Pazzi, Saint Etienne de Muret, Saint Philip Neri, Saint Paternianus, Saint Omer, the Venerable Francis Olympus, Jeanne deMatel and many more. 

"We know too that our sins stink, each according to its nature; and theproof of this is that the saints could detect the state of men'sconsciences merely by the smell of their bodies. Do you remember howSaint Joseph of Cupertino exclaimed to a sinner whom he met: 'My friend, you smell very badly; go and wash. '

"To return to the odour of sanctity: in certain persons it has beenknown to assume a natural character almost identical with certainfamiliar scents. Saint Treverius exhaled a fragrance compounded ofroses, lilies, balm, and incense; Saint Rose of Viterbo smelt of roses;Saint Cajetan of orange-blossom; Saint Catherine of Ricci of violets;Saint Theresa by turns of lily, jasmine and violet; Saint Thomas Aquinasof incense; Saint Francis of Paul of musk;--I mention these at random asthey occur to me. 

"Yes, and Saint Lydwine, when so ill, diffused a fragrance which alsoimparted a flavour. Her wounds exhaled a cheerful savour of spice andthe very essence of Flemish home cooking--a refined extract ofcinnamon. "

"On the other hand, " the Abbé went on, "the stench of wizards andwitches was notorious in the Middle Ages. On this point all exorcistsand writers on Demonology are agreed; and it is almost invariablyrecorded that after an apparition of the devil a foul odour of sulphurwas left in the cells, even when the Saints had succeeded in dislodginghim. 

"But the essential odour of the devil is amply recorded in the life ofChristina of Stumbela. You are not ignorant, I suppose, of the exploitsin which Satan indulged against that saint?"

"Indeed, I am, Monsieur l'Abbé. "

"Then I may tell you that the narrative of these assaults has beenpreserved by the Bollandists, who have included the life of this piouswoman in their biographies. It was written by Peter of Dacia, aDominican, and her confessor. 

"Christina was born early in the thirteenth century--1242, I believe--atStumbela, near Cologne. 

"She was persecuted by the devil from her infancy. He exhausted thearmoury of his arts against her, appeared to her under the form of acock, a bull, an apostle; covered her with lice, filled her bed withvermin, poisoned her blood, and as he could not make her deny God, heinvented fresh torments. 

"He turned the food she put into her mouth into a toad, a snake, aspider, and disgusted her so effectually with all food, that she wasdying for want of it. She spent her days in vomiting, and prayer to Godto rescue her, but He was silent. 

"Still, to sustain her in such trials, the Sacrament was left to her. Satan, knowing this, determined to deprive her of this sustenance, andappeared in the form of these creatures even in the host when shereceived it. Finally, to conquer her, he took the form of a huge toad, and established himself in her bosom. At first Christina fainted withfright, but then God intervened; by His order she wrapped her hand inher sleeve, slipped it between her body and the belly of the reptile, tore away the toad, and flung it on the stones. 

"It was dashed to pieces, with a noise, said the saint, like an oldshoe. 

"These persecutions continued till Advent in 1268; and from that timethe plague of filth began. 

"Peter of Dacia relates that one evening Christina's father came tofetch him from his convent in Cologne, and begged him to go with him tohis daughter, tormented by the devil. He and another Dominican, BrotherWipert, set out, and on arriving at Stumbela they found in the hauntedhut the Priest of the district, the Reverend Father Godefried, Prior ofthe Benedictines of Brunwilre, and Cellarer of that convent. As theystood warming themselves they discoursed of the pestilential incursionsof the devil, when suddenly the performance was repeated. They were allbespattered with filth, Christina being caked with it, to use theFriar's expression; and 'strange to say, ' adds Peter of Dacia, 'thismatter, which was but warm, burned Christina, raising blisters on herskin. '

"This continued for three days. At length, one evening, Friar Wipert, quite exasperated, began to recite the prayers for exorcism; but aterrific uproar shook the room, the candles went out, and he was hit inthe eye by something so hard that he exclaimed, 'Woe is me! I am blindof an eye!'

"He was led, feeling his way, into an adjoining room, where the garmentsthey changed were dried, and where water was constantly heated for theirablutions; he was cleansed, and his eye washed. It had suffered noserious injury, and he returned to the other room to say Matins with thetwo Benedictines and Peter of Dacia. But before chanting the service hewent up to the patient's bed and clasped his hands in amazement. 

"She was covered with filth indeed, but all was changed. The smell, which had been supernaturally foul, was changed to angelic fragrance;Christina's saintly resignation had routed the tempter of souls; andthey all joined in praising God. What do you say to that narrative?"

"It is astounding, certainly; but is this the only instance of suchinfernal filth?"

"No; in the next century analogous circumstances haunted Elizabeth deReute, and likewise the Blessed Bétha. Here again Satan allowed himselfsuch filthy sport. It may also be noted that in modern times acts of thesame kind were observed in the house of the Curé d'Ars. "

"But in all this I see nothing to illustrate the symbolism of perfumes, "remarked Durtal. "At any rate, the subject would seem to be narrow orill-defined, and the number of odours that can be named is small. 

"There are certain essences mentioned in the Old Testament prefiguringthe Virgin. Some of them are interpreted in other senses, as spikenard, cassia, and cinnamon. The first represents strength of soul; the second, sound doctrine; and the third, the sweet savour of virtue. Then thereis the essence of cedar, which in the thirteenth century symbolized theDoctors of the Church; and there are three specifically liturgicalperfumes: incense, balm, and myrrh; besides the odour of sanctity, whichin the case of some saints could be analyzed; and the demoniacal stench, from a mere animal smell to the horrible nastiness of rotten eggs andsulphur. 

"We must now inquire whether the personal fragrance of the Elect is inharmony with the qualities or acts of which each was, on earth, theexample or the doer; and it would seem to have been so, when we remarkthat Saint Thomas Aquinas, who composed the admirable sequence on theHoly Sacrament, exhaled a perfume of incense, and that Saint Catherineof Ricci, who was a model of humility, smelt of violets, the emblem ofthat virtue, but--"

The Abbé Plomb now came in, and being informed by Durtal of the subjectunder discussion, he said, --

"But you have omitted from your diabolical flavours the mostconspicuous. "

"How is that, Monsieur l'Abbé?"

"Certainly, for you have taken no account of the false fragrance whichSatan can diffuse. In fact, his baleful effluvia are of two kinds: onecharacterized by the stench of sulphurous waters and drains; the otherby a false odour of sanctity, delicious gusts of sweetness andtemptation. This is how the Evil One tried to seduce Dominico de Gusman;he bathed him in delicious vapours, hoping thus to inspire him withnotions of vain-glory; thus, too, did he to Jourdain of Saxony, whoexhaled a sweet odour when saying Mass. God showed him that thisphenomenon was of infernal origin, and it then ceased. 

"And I recollect a singular anecdote told by Quercetanus concerning amistress of Charlemagne's who died. The king, who worshipped her, couldnot bear to have her body interred, though it was decomposing, exhaling, however, a perfume of violets and roses. The body was examined, and inits mouth a ring was found, which was removed. The demoniacalenchantment forthwith ceased, the body became foul, and Charlemagneallowed it to be buried. 

"We may add to this diabolical odour of seduction another, which is, onthe contrary, fetid, and is used to annoy the believer, to hinder him inprayer, to estrange him from his fellows, and drive him, if possible, to despair; still, this smell with which the devil infects a being maybe included in the category of the smells of temptation--not, indeed, topride, but to weakness and fear. 

"Meanwhile, I have something else for you, " said the Abbé, addressingDurtal. "Here are the titles I have collected for you of some works onthe symbolical animals of the Middle Ages. You have read '_De Bestiis etaliis rebus_, ' by Hugh of Saint Victor?"

"Yes. "

"Very good; you may further consult Albertus Magnus, Bartholomew deGlanville, and Pierre de Bressuire. I have noted on this paper a seriesof such beast-books: those of Hildebert, Philippe de Thann, Guillaume deNormandie, Gautier de Metz, and Richard de Fournival. Only you wouldhave to go to Paris to procure them in the public libraries. "

"And that would not help me much, " replied Durtal. "I have, ere now, looked through many of these works, and they contain no information thatcan be of use from the point of view of symbolism. They are merefabulous descriptions of animals, legends as to their origin and habits. The _Spicilegium Solesmense_ and the _Analectae_ of Dom Pitra are farmore instructive. By his help, with that of Saint Isidor, SaintEpiphanius, and Hugh of Saint Victor, we can decipher the figurativemeaning of monsters. 

"They are all alike; there has been no complete or serious work producedon symbolism since the Middle Ages, for the Abbé Auber's work on thesubject is a delusion. In vain will you seek for a treatise on flowerswhich even alludes to the Catholic significance of plants. I do not, ofcourse, mean those silly books compiled for lovers, and called theLanguage of Flowers, which you may find on the bookstalls with oldcookery-books and dream-books. It is the same with regard to colours;nothing proven or authentic has been written concerning infernal orcelestial hues; for in fact the treatise by Frédéric Portal isworthless. To explain Angelico's work I had to hunt here and therethrough the Mystics, to discover where I might the meanings they ascribeto colours; and I see plainly that I must do the same for my article onthe emblematical fauna. There is, on the whole, nothing to be found intechnical works; it is in the Bible and in the Liturgy, thefountain-head of symbolical lore, that I must cast my net. By the way, Monsieur l'Abbé, had you not some remarks to communicate on the zoologyof the Scriptures?"

"Yes, we will go--"

"To dinner, if you please, " said Madame Bavoil. 

The Abbé Gévresin said grace, and when they had eaten the soup thehousekeeper served the beef. 

It was strengthening, tender, savoury to its inmost fibre, penetrated bythe rich and highly-flavoured sauce. 

"You don't get the like at La Trappe, our friend, eh?" said MadameBavoil. 

"Nor will he get anything so good at any other religious retreat, " saidthe Abbé Plomb. 

"Do not discourage me beforehand, " said Durtal, laughing; "let me enjoythis without a pang--there is a time for all things. "

"Then you are fully determined, " said the Abbé Gévresin, "to write apaper for your _Review_ on allegorical beasts?"

"Yes, Monsieur l'Abbé. "

"I have made a list for you from the works of Fillion and of Lesêtre ofthe blunders made by the translators of the Bible when they disguisedreal beasts under chimerical names, " said the Abbé Plomb. "This, in afew words, is the upshot of my researches. 

"There was never any mythological fauna in the Sacred Books. The Hebrewtext was misread by those who translated it into Greek and Latin, andthe strange zoology that we find in certain chapters of Isaiah and Jobis easily reduced to the nomenclature of well-known creatures. 

"Thus the onocentaurs and sirens, spoken of by the Prophet, are neithermore nor less than jackals, if we examine the Hebrew original. Thelamia, a vampire, half woman and half serpent like the wyvern, is anight bird, the white or the screech owl; the satyrs and fauns, thehairy beasts spoken of in the Vulgate, are, after all, no more than wildgoats--'schirim, ' as they are called in the Mosaic original. 

"The reptile so frequently mentioned in the Bible under the name of'dragon' is indicated in the original by various words, which sometimesmean the serpent or the crocodile, sometimes the jackal, and sometimesthe whale; and the famous unicorn of the Scriptures is merely theprimæval bull or auroch, which is to be seen on the Assyrianbas-reliefs--a race now dying out, lingering only in the remotest partsof Lithuania and the Caucasus. "

"And Behemoth and Leviathan, spoken of by Job?"

"The word Behemoth is a plural form in Hebrew meaning Excellence. Itdesignates a prodigious and enormous beast--the rhinoceros, perhaps, orthe hippopotamus. As to Leviathan, it was a huge reptile, a giganticpython. "

"That is a pity, " said Durtal. "Imaginary zoology was far moreamusing!--Why, what is this vegetable?" he inquired, as he tasted acurious stew of greens. 

"Dandelions cut up and boiled with shreds of bacon, " replied MadameBavoil. "Do you like the dish, our friend?"

"Indeed I do. Your dandelions are to garden spinach and chicory what thewild duck is to the tame, or the hare to the rabbit. And it is a factthat garden plants are generally poor and tasteless, while those thatgrow wild have a certain astringency and pleasant bitter flavour. It isthe venison of vegetables that you have given us, Madame Bavoil!"

"I fancy, " said the Abbé Plomb, who had been thoughtful, "that just aswe tried to compile a mystic flora the other day, we might make a listof the deadly sins as represented by animals. "

"Obviously, and with very little trouble. Pride is embodied in the bull, the peacock, the lion, the eagle, the horse, the swan, and the wildass--according to Vincent de Beauvais. Avarice by the wolf, and, saysSaint Theobald, by the spider; for lust, we have the he-goat, the boar, the toad, the ass, and the fly, which, Saint Gregory the Great tells, typifies the turbulent cravings of the senses; for envy, thesparrow-hawk, the owl, and screech-owl; for greediness, the hog and thedog; for anger, the lion and wild boar, and, according to Adamantius, the leopard; for sloth, the vulture, the snail, the she-ass, and, RabanMaur says, the mule. 

"As to the virtues antithetical to these vices, humility may be typifiedby the ox and the ass; indifference to worldly possessions by thepelican, the emblem of the contemplative life; chastity by the dove andthe elephant, though it is true that this interpretation of Peter ofCapua is contradicted by other mystics, who accuse the elephant ofpride, and speak of him as an 'enormous sinner'; charity by the lark andthe pelican; temperance by the camel, which, taken in another sense, typifies under the name of _gamal_ extravagant fury; vigilance by thelion, the peacock, the ant--quoted by the Abbess Herrade and theAnonymous monk of Clairvaux--and especially by the cock, to which SaintEucher attributes this virtue in common with all other symbolists. 

"I may add that the dove alone epitomizes all these qualities and is thesynthesis of all virtue. "

"Yes, and she alone is never spoken of as having any evil significance. "

"A distinction she shares with white and blue, the only colours whichare exempt from the law of antithesis and are never ascribed to anyvice, " said Durtal. 

"The dove!" cried Madame Bavoil, who was changing the plates; "she playsa beautiful part in the story of Noah's Ark. Ah! our friend, you shouldhear what Mother Jeanne de Matel says of her. "

"What does she say, Madame Bavoil?"

"The admirable Jeanne begins by saying that original sin produced inhuman nature the deluge of sin from which the Virgin alone was exemptedby the Father, who chose Her to be His one Dove. 

"Then she relates how Lucifer, represented by the raven, escaped fromthe ark through the window of free will; then God, to whom Mary hadbelonged from all eternity, opened the window of the Will of HisProvidence, and from His own bosom, from the heavenly Ark, He sent theoriginal dove on the earth where she gathered a spray of the olive ofHis mercy, took her flight back to the Ark of Heaven, and offered thisbranch for the whole human race; She then implored Divine grace to abatethe deluge of sin, and besought the Heavenly Noah to descend from thathigh Ark; then, without quitting the bosom of the Father from whom He isinseparable, He came down. "

"_Et Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis_, " the Abbé Gévresinadded, in conclusion. 

"This prefiguration of the Word by Noah is certainly curious, " remarkedDurtal. 

"Animals are also introduced in the iconography of the saints, " theAbbé Plomb resumed. "So far as I can recollect, the ass is the attributeof Saint Marcellus, of Saint John Chrysostom, of Saint Germain, of SaintAubert, of Saint Frances of Rome, and of some others; the stag of SaintHubert and Saint Rieul; the cock of Saint Landry and Saint Vitus; theraven of Saint Benedict, Saint Apollinarius, Saint Vincent, Saint Ida, Saint Expeditus; the deer of Saint Henry; the wolf of Saint Waast, SaintNorbert, Saint Remaclus, and Saint Arnold; the spider betokens SaintConrad and Saint Felix of Nola; the dog accompanies Saint Godfrey, SaintBernard, Saint Roch, Saint Margaret of Cortona, and Saint Dominic, whenit bears a burning torch in its mouth; the doe is the badge of SaintGiles, Saint Leu, Saint Geneviève of Brabant, and Saint Maximus; the pigof Saint Anthony; the dolphin of Saint Adrian, of Saint Lucian, andSaint Basil; the swan of Saint Cuthbert and Saint Hugh; the rat is seenwith Saint Goutran and Saint Gertrude; the ox with Saint Cornelius, Saint Eustachius, Saint Honorius, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Lucy, Saint Blandina, Saint Bridget, Saint Sylvester, Saint Sebaldus, SaintSaturninus; the dove belongs to Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Remi, Saint Ambrose, Saint Hilary, Saint Ursula, Saint Aldegonde, and SaintScholastica, whose soul flew up to Heaven under that form. 

"And the list might be indefinitely extended. Shall you mention in yourarticle these accompaniments to the saints?"

"In point of fact, " replied Durtal, "most of these attributes are basedon history or legend, and not on symbolism; so I shall not devote anyparticular attention to them. "

There was a silence. 

Then, abruptly, the Abbé Plomb, looking at his brother priest, said toDurtal, --

"I am going to Solesmes again a week hence, and I told the ReverendFather Abbot that I should take you with me. "

Then, seeing Durtal's amazement, he smiled. "But I will not leave youthere, " he went on, "unless you wish not to return to Chartres. I onlypropose that you should pay a visit there, just long enough to breathethe atmosphere of the convent, to make acquaintance with the BenedictineFathers, and try their life. "

Durtal was silent, somewhat scared; for this proposal, simple enough asit was, that he should go to live for some days in a cloister, hadstartled him into a strange, a grotesque notion that if he shouldaccept, it would be playing away his last card, risking a decisive step, taking a sort of pledge before God to settle there and end his days inHis immediate presence. 

But what was most strange was that this idea, so imperative andoverpowering that it excluded all possible reflection, bereft him of allhis powers of self-protection, left him disarmed at the mercy of he knewnot what--this idea, which nothing justified, was not centred, not fixedon Solesmes; whither he should retreat was for the moment of smallimportance; that was not the question; the only point to settle waswhether he meant to yield at all to a vague impulse, to obeyunformulated orders which were nevertheless positive, and give anearnest to God, Who seemed to be harassing him without any sufficientexplanation. 

He felt himself inexorably condemned, tacitly compelled to pronounce hisdecision then and there. 

He tried to struggle, to reason, to recover his self-possession; but thevery effort was fatal. He felt a sort of inward syncope, as though, while his body was still upright, his soul was fainting within him withfatigue and terror. 

"But this is madness!" he cried. "Madness!"

"Why, what is the matter?" cried the two priests. 

"I beg your pardon. Nothing. "

"Are you in pain?"

"No, it is nothing. "

There was an awkward pause which he was determined to break. 

"Did you ever take laughing gas?" said he; "the gas which sends you tosleep and is used in surgery for short operations? No? Well, you feel abuzzing in your brain, and just as you hear a great noise of fallingwaters you lose consciousness. That is what I am feeling; only theexperience is not in my brain, but in my soul, which is giddy andhelpless, on the point of fainting away. "

"I should like to think, " said the Abbé Plomb, "that it is not thethought of a visit to Solesmes that has thus upset you. "

Durtal had not courage enough to own the truth; he was afraid ofseeming ridiculous if he confessed to such a panic; so to avoid a directanswer he vaguely shook his head. 

"And I cannot help wondering why you should hesitate, for you will bewelcomed with open arms. The Father Abbot is a man of the highest merit, and, moreover, no enemy to art. Besides--and this I hope will suffice toreassure you--he is a most simple and kind-hearted monk. "

"But I have to finish my article. "

The two priests laughed. 

"You have a week before you to write your article in. "

"And then, to get any benefit from a monastery, I ought not be in thestate of dryness and diffusion in which I find myself vegetating, "Durtal went on with difficulty. 

"The saints themselves are not free from distractions, " replied the AbbéGévresin. "For instance, think of the monk of whom Tauler speaks, who, on quitting his cell in the month of May, would cover his face with hishood, that he might not see the country, and so be hindered fromcontemplating his soul. "

"Oh, our friend, must that gentle Jesus, as the Venerable Jeanne says, be for ever the poor man pining for admittance at the door of our heart?Come, just a little goodwill--open yours to Him, " cried Madame Bavoil. 

And Durtal, finally driven into his last intrenchments, by a nodsignified acquiescence in the wish of all his friends. But he did itwith deep reluctance, for he could not rid himself of a distracting ideathat this concession implied a vow on his part to God!

CHAPTER XV. 

This idea, which had taken firm possession of him for a few minutes, seemed to fade away, and by the morrow there only remained a startledexcitement which nothing could account for; he now shrugged hisshoulders, but still, at the bottom of his soul a vague sense of dreadwould surge up. 

Was not the very absurdity of it a proof that this notion was one of thepresentiments that we sometimes feel without understanding it? Was itnot, again, for lack of a command plainly given by some inward voice, awarning, a direct and secret hint, that he should be on his guard not tothink of this visit to a cloister as a mere pleasure trip?

"But this is monstrous!" Durtal exclaimed at last. "When I went to LaTrappe for my great purification, I was not harassed by apprehensions ofthis kind; when I have gone there again several times since, it neveroccurred to me that I should really bury myself in a monastery; and nowthat it is a matter merely of a short visit to a Benedictine monastery, I am trembling and recalcitrant. 

"Such a commotion is quite childish! And yet no, not so very childish, "he suddenly told himself. "When I have been to Notre-Dame de l'Atre Ihave been sure that I should not remain, since I knew that I could notendure more than a month of their austere Rule; so there was nothing tofear; whereas in a Benedictine Abbey, where the Rule is lighter, I amnot certain that I could not stay. 

"In that case--well, well, so much the better! for after all sooner orlater I must decide, I must make up my mind as to what I really mean;have some definite notion of the value of my promissory notes, of thegreater or less strength of my energy, my fitness, my limitations. 

"A few months ago I longed for the monastic life, that is beyonddoubt--and now I am wavering. I have abortive gushes of feeling, ineffectual projects, inclinations which fail, wishes which comeshort--I will and I will not. Still it is needful to understand oneself;but of what use is it for me to try to sound the well of my own soul? IfI go down into it, I find everything dark and cold and empty. 

"I am beginning to think that by dint of staring into that darkness I ambecoming like a child that fixes its eyes on the blackness of night; Iend by creating phantoms and inventing terrors. That is certainly thecase as regards this excursion to Solesmes, for there is nothing, absolutely nothing to justify my alarms. 

"How silly this all is; how much simpler it would be to allow myself tolive, and, above all, to be led!"

"I have hit it, " he went on after a moment's reflection. "The cause ofthis turmoil is evident. It is my lack of self-abandonment, my want ofconfidence in God--yes, and my little love, my dryness of spirit, whichhave brought me to this state. 

"In the lapse of time this disorder has brought on the malady from whichI am suffering, an utter anæmia of the soul, aggravated by the patient'sterrors, since he, unaware of the nature of the complaint, exaggeratesits importance. 

"Thus stands my balance-sheet since I came to Chartres. 

"The position is very different from what it was in Paris. For the phaseI am going through is the very contrary to that in which I previouslylived; in Paris my soul was not dry and friable, but dank and soft; itwas saponaceous; the foot sank in it. In short, I was melting away, in astate of langour, more painful perhaps than this state of drought whichis toughening me to horniness. Still on close examination, though thesymptoms have changed, the evil persists; softness or dryness, theresults are identical. 

"At the same time it seems strange that this spiritual anæmia should nowexhibit such opposite symptoms. On one hand I am conscious of weariness, indifference, and torpor in prayer; it seems to me, bitter, vain, andhollow, so badly do I pray; I am inclined to let everything go, to ceasethe attempt, to wait for a glow of fervour which I cannot hope for; onthe other hand, I am at the same time conscious of a persistent andobstinate yearning, an invisible touch, a craving for prayer, aconstant invitation from God keeping me alert. And there are times, too, when, though I can prove to myself that I am not stirring, I fancy I amtrembling and shall be swept away by a tide. 

"That is very much of what I feel. In this frame of mind, halfstay-at-home, half gipsy-like, if I take up a book of the highermysticism--Saint Theresa or Saint Angela--that subtle touch gainsdefiniteness, I am aware of shocks running through me; I fancy that mysoul is convalescent, that it is young again, and breathes once more;but if I try to take advantage of this lucid moment to collect myselfand to pray, it is all over--I flee from myself--nothing will work. Whatmisery, and how pitiable!

"The Abbé Gévresin has guided me so far, but how?

"He has trusted chiefly to the method of expectancy, restricting himselfto combating my generally flaccid state, and invigorating me rather thancontending with details. He has prescribed the heroic remedies of thesoul, desiring me to communicate when he found me weak. But, if I am notmistaken, he is now turning his batteries. Either he is giving up a lineof attack which has failed, or else, on the contrary, he is improvingit, his treatment having produced, without my being aware of it, theeffects he was aiming at; in either case, to promote or complete thecure, he wants to send me to a convent. 

"The plan seems to be, indeed, part of his system, for he did the samething when he was helping in my conversion. He sent me off to a healthresort for the soul--and the waters were powerful indeed and terrible;now he thinks I no longer need have so severe a treatment inflicted onme, and he is persuading me to stay in a more restful place, a lessbracing air--is that it?

"Even his way of coming up unexpectedly and hurling his opinion at me isnot quite the same as it was. This time, it was, indeed, not he whoundertook to crystallize my irresolution by announcing my departure forSolesmes; but it comes to the same thing. For, after all, there issomething not quite above board in this affair. Why did the Abbé Plombpromise the Benedictines that he would take me with him?

"He certainly acted on the request of the Abbé Gévresin. There can havebeen no other reason for his talking of me to the Fathers. I have, indeed, spoken to him of my distress of mind, of my vague craving forretirement, and my love for monasteries. But I certainly did not suggestthat he should thus take the lead, and hurry matters on so!

"Here I am, as usual, imagining plots and schemes, looking for thingsthat never existed, and discerning motives where perhaps there are none. And even if there were! Is it not for my benefit that these good friendsare laying their heads together?

"I have only to hear and obey. Now to have done with this and return tothe Bestiary; for I want to finish this work before I go. " And postinghimself in front of the cathedral, he studied the south porch, which hadmost of zoological mysticism and devilries. 

But he did not find the monstrosities of his fancy. At Chartres theVices and Virtues were not symbolized by more or less chimericalcreatures, but by human faces. After careful search he discovered onsome of the pillars of the middle doorway the Vices embodied in smallcarved groups: Lust, as a woman fondling a young man; Drunkenness as aboor about to hit a bishop; Discord by a husband quarrelling with hiswife, while an empty bottle and a broken distaff lie near them. 

By way of infernal monsters, the utmost he could discern, --and that bydislocating his neck--were two dragons in the right-hand bay, oneexorcised by a monk and the other bridled by a Saint with his stole. 

Of divine beasts he could distinguish in the row of Virtues certainfemale figures with symbolical creatures by their side: Docilityaccompanied by an ox; Chastity by a phoenix; Charity by a sheep;Meekness by a lamb; Fortitude by a lion; Temperance by a camel. Whyshould the phoenix here typify Chastity, for it is not used generally inthat sense in the Bird-books of the Middle Ages?

Somewhat disconcerted by the poverty of the fauna of Chartres, hecomforted himself by a study of this southern porch; it was a match forthat on the north, and repeated, with a variant, the subject of the westfront--the glorification of Christ, but in His function as the SupremeJudge, and in the person of His Saints. 

This front, begun in the time of Philip Augustus, and built at the costof the Comte de Dreux and his wife Alice of Brittany, was not completedtill the time of Philippe le Bel. It was divided, like the other two, into three portions: a central door with a tympanum in a pointed archbearing the presentment of the Last Judgment; one on the left devoted tothe Martyrs, and one on the right dedicated to the Confessors. 

The central bay suggested the form of a boat set on end, its prow in theair; its deeply spreading sides contained in their niches six Apostleson each, and in the middle, between the doors, stood a single statue ofChrist. 

This statue, like that at Amiens, was famous; every guidebook sings thepraises of the regular features, the calm expression of the face; inreality the countenance is particularly fatuous and cold, beautiful butlifeless. How inferior to that of the twelfth century, the expressiveand living God seated between the symbols of the Tetramorph in thetympanum of the royal front. 

The Apostles were perhaps rather more refined, rather less squat thanthe patriarchs and prophets supporting Saint Anne under the north porch, but their quality as works of art was less striking. They resembled theChrist, Whom they escorted with decent duty: it was honest work, phlegmatic sculpture, so to speak. 

They held the instruments of their death with placid propriety, likesoldiers presenting arms. 

On the right hand stood Saint Peter, holding the cross on which he wasbound head downwards; Saint Andrew, with a Latin cross, however, and notthe X-shaped cross to which he was nailed; then Saint Philip, SaintThomas, Saint Matthew, Saint Simon, all armed with the sword, thoughSaint Philip was crucified and stoned, Saint Thomas pierced with alance, and Saint Simon sawn asunder. 

To the left were Saint Paul, substituted for Saint Matthias, chosen tosucceed Judas; he carried a sword; Saint John, bearing his Gospel; SaintJames the Great, with a sword; Saint James the Less, with a fuller'sclub; Saint Bartholomew, with the knife that served to flay him, andSaint Jude with a book. 

Perched on twisted columns, they trampled under their feet--bare, intoken of their apostleship--the executioners of their martyrdom. Theyhad long flowing hair, and forked beards cut into two points, exceptingSaint John, who was beardless, and Saint Paul, who, tradition says, wasbald; and they were all dressed alike in cloaks hanging in formalcurves. Saint James the Great was alone distinguished by a tunicsprinkled with shells, like that of the pilgrims who were wont to visithim at Compostella in one of the huge sanctuaries erected in his honourin Mediæval times. 

He was the patron Saint of Spain; but did he really ever preach in thoselands, as Saint Jerome and Saint Isidor assert, and the Toledo Breviary?Some doubt it. At any rate his story, as related by Durand of Mende, inthe thirteenth century, was as follows: Being sent into Spain to convertthe idolaters, he failed, and returned to Jerusalem, where he wasbeheaded by Herod. His body was subsequently carried to Spain, and hisremains performed such miracles as he had never wrought in his lifetime. 

"Indeed, " reflected Durtal, "we have singularly little information withregard to the Apostles. They appear, for the most part, onlyincidentally in the Gospels; and excepting a few--Saint Peter, SaintJohn, and Saint Paul--whose figures are more or less definite, theyfloat past like shades, lost, veiled as it were, in the halo of gloryshed about Him by Jesus Christ. And after His death they vanish intothin air, and their very existence is only sketched in a few vaguelegends. 

"Take Saint Thomas, the Treasure of God, as Saint Bridget calls him:where was he born? We are not told. What were the circumstances andreasons of his call? None knows. In what lands did he preach the newfaith? Here disputes begin. Some report him among the Medes, theParthians, the Persians, in Ethiopia, in Hindustan. He is commonlyrepresented with a cubit-measure and a square, for it is said that hebuilt a church at Meliapore; for which reason he was taken in the MiddleAges as the patron Saint of architects and masons. 

"According to the Roman Breviary he was killed at Calamine by aspear-thrust; according to the Golden Legend he was killed with thesword in an uncertainly described place; the Portuguese assert that theyhave his relics at Goa, the chief of their Indian possessions. 

"In the thirteenth century this saint was regarded as the type ofperverse disbelief. Not satisfied with having failed to believe inChrist until he had seen and put his finger into His wounds, he wasequally incredulous, if our forefathers are to be believed, when he wastold of the Assumption of the Virgin, and Mary was fain to show Herselfto him and throw down Her girdle to convince him. 

"Saint Bartholomew is even more obscure, lost in the thick shade of theages. He was the best educated of the Apostles, says Sister Emmerich, for the others, particularly Peter and Andrew, had preserved roughmanners and a clumsy exterior from their humble origin. 

"It is supposed that his name was Bartholomew. The Synoptical Gospelsnumber him among the Apostles, but Saint John omits him, and mentions inhis place one Nathanael, of whom the other three Evangelists do notspeak. 

"It seems tolerably certain that these two were identical, and SaintBernard supposed that this Bartholomew or Nathanael was the bridegroomof the marriage at Cana. 

"He is said to have preached in Arabia, in Persia, in Abyssinia, to havebaptized among the Iberi, the races of the Caucasus, and, like SaintThomas, in India, but there is no authentic evidence to show this. According to some writers he was decapitated; others say he was flayedalive and then crucified, near the frontiers of Armenia. 

"This last view was adopted by the Roman Breviary and prevailed; hencehe was chosen as the patron Saint of fleshers, who skin beasts, ofleather-dressers and skinners, shoemakers and binders, who use leather, and even of tailors, for the early painters represent him with half hisbody flayed and carrying his skin over his arm like a coat. 

"Stranger and still more puzzling is Saint Jude. He was also calledThaddæus and Lebbæus, and was the son of Cleophas and of Mary theVirgin's sister; he is said to have married and had children. 

"He is scarcely mentioned in the Gospels, but they point out that he isnot to be confounded with Judas--which, however, was done, actually byreason of the similarity of name, during the Middle Ages; Christiansrejected him and sorcerers appealed to him. 

"He never speaks in the course of the Sacred Narrative but when hebreaks silence at the scene of the Last Supper to ask the Lord aquestion as to predestination; and Christ replies beside the mark, orrather does not answer him at all. He was also the author of a CanonicalEpistle, in which he seems to have been inspired by the Second Epistleof Saint Peter; and, according to Saint Augustine, it was he whointroduced the dogma of the Resurrection of the flesh into the _Credo_. 

"In legend he is associated with Saint Simon; according to the Breviary, he is said to have evangelized Mesopotamia and to have sufferedmartyrdom with his companion Saint in Persia. The Bollandists, on theother hand, assert that he was the Apostle to Arabia and Idumea, whilethe Greek Menology relates that he was shot to death with arrows by theinfidels in Armenia. 

"In fact all these accounts differ; and iconography adds to theconfusion by representing Jude with the most various attributes. Sometimes, as at Amiens, he holds a palm, or, as at Chartres, a book. Heis also seen with a cross, a square, a boat, a wand, an axe, a sword, and a spear. 

"But in spite of the unfortunate reputation earned for him by hisnamesake Judas, the symbolists of the Middle Ages regard him as a man ofcharity and zeal, and attribute to him the splendour of the purple andgold fires of the chrysoprase, regarded as emblematical of good works. 

"All this is but incoherent, " thought Durtal, "and what also strikes meas strange is that this Saint, so rarely invoked by our forefathers--whofor long never dedicated any altar to him, is twice represented ineffigy at Chartres--supposing the Verlaine of the royal porch torepresent Saint Jude; but then that seems improbable. "

"What I should now like to know, " he went on, "is why the historians ofthis cathedral pronounce the scene of the last Judgment represented onthe tympanum of the door as the most remarkable of its kind in France. This is utterly false, for it is vulgar, and certainly inferior to manyothers. 

"The demoniacal half is far less vigorous, more supine, less crowdedthan in other churches of the same period. At Chartres, it is true, thedevils with wolves' muzzles and asses' ears, trampling down bishops andkings, laymen and monks, and driving them into the maw of a dragonspouting flames--the demons with goats' beards and crescent-shaped jawsseizing hapless sinners who have wandered to the mouldings of the arch, are all very skilfully arranged, in well composed groups round theprincipal figure; but the Satanic vineyard lacks breadth and its fruitis insipid. The preying demons are not ferocious enough, they almostlook as if they were monks and were doing it for fun, while the damnedtake it very calmly. 

"How far more desperate is the devil's festival at Dijon!" Durtalrecalled to mind the church of Notre Dame in that city, so strange aspecimen of thirteenth-century gothic of the Burgundian stamp. Thechurch was of almost elementary simplicity; above its three porches rosea straight wall with two storeys of columns forming arcades andsurmounted by grotesque figures. To the right of this front was a smalltower with a pointed roof; and on the roof a "Jacquemart" of irontracery, with three puppets that strike the hours; behind, rising fromthe transept, was a small tower with four little glazed belfries. 

This building, small as compared with great cathedrals, was stamped withthe Flemish hall-mark; it had the homespun peasant expression, thecheerful faith of the race. It was a domestic sanctuary, very native tothe soil; the folks would hold converse with the Black Virgin standingthere on an altar, tell her all their little concerns, make themselvesat home there in confidential gossiping prayer, quite without ceremony. 

But it was not well to trust too much to the benign and genial aspect ofthis building, for the long rows of grotesque figures that were rangedabove the doorways and the arcades belied the jovial security of therest. 

There they were, in high relief, in close array, grinning and jibing; amotley crowd of demented nuns and mad monks, of bewildered rustics andoutlandish women; hobgoblins writhing with laughter, and hilariousdevils; and in the midst of this mob of the reprobate a figure of a realwoman, held by two demons tormenting her, stood out, leaning forward asif she wanted to throw herself down. With haggard, dilated eye, andclasped hands, in terror she beseeches the passer-by, shows him theplace of refuge, and cries to him to enter. Involuntarily he pauses inamazement to look at that face, distorted with fear, pinched withanguish, struggling amid this pack of monsters, this vision of frenziednightmare. At once fierce and pitying, she threatens and entreats; andthis image of one for ever excommunicate, cast out of the temple andleft to all eternity on the threshold, is as haunting as the memory ofsuffering, as a nightmare of terror. 

Nowhere, certainly, in the satanic menagerie of La Beauce, is there astatue of such startling and assertive art. 

From another point of view--that of the picture as a whole, and of thebroad view taken of the subject, the Judgment of Souls at Notre Dame deChartres is for beneath that of the cathedral at Bourges. 

"That, indeed, is, I think, the most wonderful of all, " said Durtal tohimself. "The similar scenes at Reims and at Paris, with the gangs ofsinners held in chains tugged by demons, and those of the same kind atAmiens, have none of them such breadth of scope. "

At Bourges, as in all works of this class in the Middle Ages, the deadare escaping from their sepulchres, and on the uppermost frieze, below afigure of Christ, with whom the Virgin and Saint John are interceding, Saint Michael is weighing souls; to the left devils are dragging awaythe wicked, and to the right angels are conducting the blessed. 

The resurrection of the dead, as it is represented by the image-maker ofLe Berry, is enough to set the noisy prudery of the Catholics neighing, for the figures are nude, and certain reticences, usually observed atany rate in the female form, are here omitted. Men and women push up thelid of the tomb, stride across the edge, leap up, roll over pell mell, one above another; some ecstatically clasping their hands in prayer, their eyes fixed on heaven; others anxiously looking about them on allsides; others praying with terror, throwing up their arms; others, again, in dejected attitudes, beating their breasts in lamentableself-accusation; and yet others who are dazzled by the abrupt changefrom darkness to light, shaking their numbed limbs and trying to move. 

The mad confusion of all these human beings, suddenly awakened, andbrought like owls into the light of day, trembling with fear or with joyas they see and understand that the day of Judgment is come, is allexpressed with a fulness, a spirit, a certainty of observation whichleave the petty accuracy and mild energy of the Chartres sculptor farbehind them. 

In the upper division, again, the weighing of souls goes on in amagnificent composition; Saint Michael with wide-spread wings holds alarge pair of scales and smiles as he caresses a little child withfolded hands, while a goat-headed devil watches eagerly to seize him ifthe Archangel should turn away; and behind this lingering demon beginsthe dolorous procession of the outcast. Nor have we here the infernalcourtliness of the scene as represented at Chartres, the doubtfulconsideration of an evil spirit gently driving in a nun; it is brutalityin all its horror, the lowest violence; the sometimes comic side ofthese struggles is not to be seen here. At Bourges the myrmidons of thedeep work and hit with a will. A devil with a wild beast's muzzle and adrunkard's face in the middle of his fat stomach, is hammering the skullof a wretch who struggles, grinding his teeth, while the devil bites hislegs with the end of his tail that bears a serpent's head. Anothermonster, with a crushed face and pendant breasts, a man's face in hisstomach and wings springing from his loins, has clasped a priest in hisarms and is pitching him head foremost into a cauldron boiling over theflames from a dragon's mouth blown up with bellows by two of the devil'sslaves. And in this cauldron sit two figures symbolical of slander andlust, a monk and a woman writhing and weeping, for enormous toads aregnawing at the tongue of one and at the heart of the other. 

On the other side of Saint Michael the scene is different; a chubby, smiling angel is playing with a child whom he has perched on one of hisfellow-angels' shoulders, and the infant delightedly waves a bough;behind him slowly marches a representative group of saints--a woman, aking, a cenobite, conducted by Saint Peter towards a doorway leading toa sanctum where sits Abraham, an old man with a cloth spread over hisknees full of little heads all rejoicing--the souls that are saved. 

And Durtal, as he recalled the features of Saint Michael and his angels, perceived that they were the brethren in art of the Saint Anne, SaintJoseph, and the angel of the great portal at Reims. They were all of thesame peculiar type--a young and yet old countenance, a long sharp noseand pointed chin; only here, perhaps, a little rounder, a little lessangular than at Reims. 

This sort of family likeness gave support to a theory that the samesculptors or their pupils had worked on the carvings of those twocathedrals, but not at Chartres, where no similar type is to be seen;though a certain striking resemblance exists between other statues inthe north porch and some figures, of a different class however, on thefaçade at Reims. 

"Anyone of these hypotheses may be correct, though there is no chance ofproving their truth, for we can discover no information with regard tothe schools of art of the period, " said Durtal to himself, as he turnedhis attention to the left-hand bay of the south porch, dedicated to themartyrs. 

There, in the archway of the door, dwelt, side by side, Saint Vincentthe deacon, of Spain; Saint Denys the bishop; Saint Piat the priest; andSaint George the warrior; all four victims of the ingenious cruelty ofthe infidels. 

Saint Vincent in his long gown hung a contrite head over his shoulder. 

"He, " thought Durtal, "was literally butchered and cooked, for we aretold in the legend according to Voragine that his body was torn withsharp combs of brass till his bowels fell out, and that after thisforetaste, this _hors d'oeuvre_ of torture, he was broiled on agridiron, larded with nails, and basted with the sauce of his own blood. He lay calm, praying while he was being toasted. He remained unmoved, grilling and praying. When he was dead, Dacian, his persecutor, orderedthat his body should be cast out on a field to be devoured by beasts;but a raven came to settle by him, and drove away a wolf by pecking atit. Then a millstone was tied about his neck and he was thrown into thesea, but his body came to land near some pious women who buried it. 

"Saint Denys, the first Bishop of Paris, was thrown to the lions, whoretreated before him; he was then beheaded at Montmartre, with SaintEleutherius and Saint Rusticus. The image-maker had not here representedhim, as usual, carrying his head, but had shown him standing with hiscrozier and mitre. And he was not humble and pitiable, like hisneighbour, the Spanish Deacon, but upright and imperious, with his handuplifted, in the attitude rather of admonishing the faithful than ofblessing them, and Durtal stood lost in thought before this writer, whose brief book holds so important a place in the series of mysticalwritings. 

"He, more than any other, and first among the contemplative authors, had overstepped the threshold of Heaven and brought down to men somedetails of what happens there. The knowledge of the angelic ranks datesfrom him, for it was he who revealed the organization of the heavenlyhost as an order, a hierarchy copied by human beings and parodied inhell. He was a sort of messenger between Heaven and earth, and was theexplorer of our celestial heritage, as Saint Catherine of Genoa at alater date was the explorer of purgatory. 

"A less interesting personage was Saint Piat, a priest of Tournai, beheaded by a Roman proconsul. In this assembly of famous saints he wasrather the poor country-cousin, a mere provincial Saint. He figured herebecause his relics repose in the cathedral, for historians record thetranslation of his remains to Chartres in the ninth century. By his sidewas Saint George, arrayed as a knight of the time of Saint Louis, hishead bare with an iron fillet, armed with a lance and shield; standingas if on guard on a pedestal, showing the wheel which was the instrumentof his martyrdom. 

"The companion statue, on the opposite side of the door, was that ofSaint Theodore of Heraclea, wearing a coat of mail, and a surcoat, andalso holding a shield and spear. 

"Next to this saint, who was subsequently roasted to death by a slowfire, in the town of Amasea, were Saint Stephen, Saint Clement, andSaint Laurence. 

"Above this double rank of martyrs the tympanum represented the story ofSaint Stephen disputing with the Doctors and stoned by the Jews; and onall sides, on the square pillars that supported the roof of the porch, was carved stone-work representing the tortured bodies of the righteous:Saint Leger, Saint Laurence, Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Saint Bacchus, Saint Quentin, and many more; a whole procession of the Blessed, beingblinded, burnt, cut in pieces, flogged with vigorous energy, andbeheaded. But it was all in melancholy decay. The _sans-culottes_, byamputating more of their limbs in their tempest of fury, had crowned themartyrdom of these Saints. 

"The doorway to the right, dedicated to the Confessors, was a vast hullset on end; on the sloping side to the left of the door stood SaintNicholas, Archbishop of Myra, holding up a gloved hand, and tramplingunder foot the cruel host killing the children whose death became atheme for so many laments; Saint Ambrose, Doctor of the Church andBishop of Milan, wearing a singular peaked mitre, like an extinguisher;Saint Leo, the Pope who defied Attila; and finally Saint Laumer, one ofthe glories of the Chartres district. 

"He, like Saint Piat in the left-hand bay, is somewhat of a strangerdragged into this illustrious company. He was of old highly venerated inLa Beauce, having, in his lifetime, had a career which may be brieflysummed up. During his childhood he had kept sheep; he had then beencellarer to the cathedral; had become first an anchorite, then a monk, and finally Abbot of the Monastery of Corbion in the forests of theOrne. 

"The opposite slope of the bay sheltered Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours, Saint Jerome, as a Doctor of the Church, Saint Gregory, Pope and Doctor, and Saint Avitus. 

"What is curious in this door, " thought Durtal, "is the parallel ofpersonages. On one side, to the right, Saint Nicholas, the greatmiracle-worker of the East; on the other side, to the left, SaintMartin, the great miracle-worker of the West. Then, as companionfigures, Saint Ambrose and Saint Jerome;--the first often redundant andpompous in second-rate prose, but ingenious and delightful in his hymns;the second who, in the Vulgate, really created the language of Churchuse, purifying and airing the Latin of Pagan literature, foul withlascivious meaning, reeking at once of an old goat and of essence ofroses. Again, face to face, two Popes, Saint Leo and Saint Gregory, andtwo Abbots of Monasteries, Saint Laumer and Saint Avitus, who was Priorof a House founded in the forests of Le Perche. "

These two last statues had been added later; their style and costumebetrayed a date subsequent to the thirteenth century; had they, then, taken the place of others representing the same Monks, or differentSaints?

The tympanum again expressed the same purpose of parallelism, evidentlyintended by the master of the work. This was also devoted to two miracleworkers, to a correspondence in this respect of the north and the south. It represented episodes in the lives of Saint Nicholas and Saint Martin:Saint Nicholas furnishing a dowry for the daughters of a gentleman whowas dying of hunger, and about to sell their honour, and the sepulchreof this archbishop exuding an oil of sovereign efficacy in the cure ofdiseases; Saint Martin giving half of his cloak to a beggar, and thenbeholding Christ wearing the garment. 

The remainder of this porch was of secondary interest. In the mouldingsof the arches and in the pillars of the bays the ranks of the Confessorsappeared again, the nine choirs of Angels, the parable of the wise andfoolish Virgins, a replica of the four-and-twenty elders on the royalfront, the Prophets of the Old Testament, the Virtues, the Vices, theChristian Virgins, and small statues of the Apostles, all more or lessinjured and more or less invisible. 

This south porch, with its seven hundred and eighty-three statues andstatuettes, spoken of by the guide-books as the most attractive of all, was to artists, on the contrary, the least absorbing; for, with theexception of the noble effigies of Saint Theodore and Saint George, theglorification of the others who dwell there was on the whole, from theartistic point of view, very inferior in interest to the sculpture onthe twelfth-century west front, or even to that of the north porch--thatcomplete embodiment of the Two Testaments--where the sculpture, if morebarbarous, was less placid and cold. 

And Durtal came to this conclusion: "The exterior of the cathedral ofChartres may be summed up in three words: _Latvia_, _hyperdulia_, and_dulia_. _Latria_, the worship of Our Lord, on the west front;_Hyperdulia_, the worship of the Blessed Virgin, in the north porch;_Dulia_, the worship of the Saints, in the south porch. 

"For although the Redeemer is magnified in this south portal in Hischaracter of Supreme Judge, He seems to make way for the Saints. Andthis is quite intelligible, since He is enthroned there for twopurposes, and His true palace, His real throne, is in the triumphaltympanum of the royal doorway in the west front. "

Before quitting this side of the building, as he glanced once more atthe ranks of the Elect, Durtal stopped in front of Saint Clement andSaint Gregory. 

Saint Clement, whose extraordinary death almost casts his life intooblivion--a life exclusively occupied in harrowing souls. Durtalrecalled the narrative of Voragine. After being exiled to theChersonesus, in the reign of Trajan, Clement was cast into the sea withan anchor tied to his neck, while the assembled Christians kneeling onthe strand besought Heaven to restore his body. Then the sea withdrewthree miles, and the faithful went dry-shod to a chapel which the angelshad just erected beneath the waters, where the body of the saint wasfound reposing, lying on a tomb; and for many centuries the sea retiredevery year for a week, to allow pilgrims to visit his remains. 

Saint Gregory, the first Benedictine to be elected Pope, was the creatorof the Liturgy, the master of plain-song. He was alike devoted tojustice and to charity, and a passionate patron of art; and thisadmirable Pope, with his broad and comprehensive spirit, regarded it asa temptation of the Devil that made the bigots, the Pharisees of hisday, proclaim their determination not to read profane literature; for, said he, it helps us to understand that which is sacred. 

Made Pope against his will, he led a life of anguish, mourning for thelost peace of his cloister; but he fought none the less with incredibleenergy against the inroads of the Barbarians, the heresies of Africa, the intrigues of Byzantium, and the Simony of his own priests. 

He stands out in a dark age, amid a witches' sabbath of shriekingschisms; he is seen in the midst of these storms, protecting the poorfrom the rapacity of the rich, feeding them with his own hands, kissingtheir feet, every day; and in spite of this overworked life without amoment's respite, or a minute for rest, he succeeded in restoringmonastic discipline, and sowing wherever he might the Benedictine seed, saving the headlong world by the vigilance of his Order. 

Though he was not a martyr like Saint Clement, he died nevertheless forChrist, of exhaustion and fatigue, after living in the constantsuffering of a frame undermined by disease, and weakened by voluntarymaceration and fasting. 

"This, no doubt, is the reason why the face of his statue is so sad andthoughtful, " said Durtal to himself. "And yet he is listening to thedove, the symbol of inspiration which is speaking in his ear, dictatingto him, the legend says, the antiphonal melodies, and undoubtedlywhispering his dialogues, his homilies, his commentaries on the Book ofJob, his pastoral letter--all the works which made him so immenselyfamous in the Middle Ages. "

As he made his way home, Durtal, still reflecting on this array of theRighteous, suddenly was struck by this idea: "There is no portrait inChartres of a Saint whose present help was of yore desired above allothers: Saint Christopher, whose effigy was usually to be found at theentrance to a cathedral, standing alone in a spot apart. 

"It stood thus, formerly, at the door of Notre-Dame de Paris, and isstill to be seen in one corner of the principal front at Amiens; but inmost places the iconoclasts overthrew it, and the churches where thestatue of Christopher is now to be seen may be easily counted. It mustonce have existed at Chartres--but where? The monographs on thiscathedral never allude to it. "

Thus, as he walked on, he dreamed of the Saint whose popularity iseasily accounted for, since our forefathers believed that they had onlyto look at his image, whether painted or carved, to be protected for awhole day from disaster, and especially from violent death. 

So he was always placed outside in a prominent spot, and very large, sothat he might easily be seen by the wayfarer, even from afar. In somecases his effigy was found on a gigantic scale, inside the church. Thushe is represented in the Dom at Erfurt, in a fresco of the fifteenthcentury, too much restored. 

This colossal figure, five storeys high, extends from the pavement ofthe church to the roof. Christopher has a beard which flows in a stream, and legs as thick as the pillars of the nave. Bending and adoring, hebears on his shoulders a Child with a round face, as white as the chalkof a clown, blessing all comers with a smile. The Saint is wadingbarefoot through a pool full of little reeds, and imps, and hornedfishes and strange flowers--all represented on a minute scale toemphasize the mighty stature of the Saint. 

"That good friend, " thought Durtal, "though venerated by the poor, wassomewhat coldly treated by the Church, for he, with Saint George andsome other martyrs, was among those whose existence remains open todoubt. 

"In Mediæval times Saint Christopher was invoked for the cure of weaklychildren, and also as a protector against blindness and the plague. 

"But indeed the Saints were the chief healers of that time. Everydisease which the leeches and apothecaries could not alleviate wasbrought to the Saints. Some indeed were reputed specialists, and theills they cured were known by their names. The gout was known as SaintMaurus' evil, leprosy as Job's evil, cancer was Saint Giles', choreaSaint Guy's, colds were Saint Aventinus' ill, a bloody flux SaintFiacre's--and I forget the rest. 

"Others again remained noted for delivering sufferers from certainaffections they were reputed to heal: Saint Geneviève for the burningsickness and ophthalmia, Saint Catherine of Alexandria for headache, Saint Bartholomew for convulsions, Saint Firmin for cramp, SaintBenedict for erysipelas and the stone, Saint Lupus for pains in thestomach, Saint Hubert for madness, Saint Appolina, whose statue, standing in the chapel of the Hospital of Saint John at Bruges, isgraced by way of _ex votos_ with strings of teeth and wax stumps, forneuralgia and toothache--and how many more. 

"And granting, " said Durtal, "that medical science is at this day agreater delusion than ever, I cannot see why we should not revert to thespecific of prayer and the mystical panaceas of the past. If theinterceding Saints should, in certain cases, refuse to cure us, at anyrate they will make us no worse by a mistaken diagnosis and theexhibition of dangerous remedies. Though after all, even if our modernpractitioners were not ignoramuses, of what use would that be, since themedicines they prescribe are adulterated?"

CHAPTER XVI. 

The day had come for Durtal to strap his portmanteau and set out withthe Abbé Plomb. 

He became fidgety with waiting as the hours went by. At last, unable tosit still, he went out to kill the time, but a drizzling rain drove himfor shelter into the cathedral. 

After offering his devotions to the Virgin of the Pillar, he seatedhimself amid a camp of vacant chairs to meditate. 

"Before interrupting the quiet monotony of my life at Chartres by thisjourney, shall I not do well to look into myself, if only for a minute, and take stock of what I have gained before and since settling in thistown?

"The gain to my soul? Alas! it consists less in acquisitions than inexchanges; I have merely found aridity in the place of indolence; andthe results of the exchange I know only too well; of what use is it togo through them once more? The gains to my mind seem to me lessdistressing and more genuine, and I can make a brief catalogue of themunder three heads: Past, Present, and Future. 

"In the Past. --When I least expected it, in Paris, God suddenly seizedme and drew me back to the Church, taking advantage of my love of Art, of mysticism, of the Liturgy, and of plain-song. 

"Still, during the travail of this conversion, I could not studymysticism anywhere but in books; I knew it only in theory and not inpractice. On the other hand, in Paris, I never heard any but dull, lifeless music, watered down, as it were, in women's throats, or utterlydisfigured by the choir schools. In most of the churches I found only acolourless ceremonial, a meagre form of service. 

"This was the situation when I set out for La Trappe: under that strictrule I found mysticism not only in its simplest expression, written outand set forth in a body of doctrine, but mysticism as a personalexperience, in action, simply an element of life to those monks. I couldconvince myself that the science of the soul's perfection was nodelusion, that the assertions of Saint Teresa and Saint John of theCross were strictly true, and in that cloister it was also vouchsafed tome to be familiar with the enjoyment of an authentic ritual and genuineplain-song. 

"In the Present. --At Chartres I have entered on new exercises, I havefollowed other traces. Haunted by the matchless grandeur of thiscathedral, under the guidance of a very intelligent and cultivatedpriest I have studied religious symbolism, worked up that great scienceof the Middle Ages which is in fact a language peculiar to the Church, expressing by images and signs what the Liturgy expresses in words. 

"Or, to be more exact, it would be better to say that part of theLiturgy which is more particularly concerned with prayer; for that partof it which relates to forms, and injunctions as to worship, is itselfsymbolism, symbolism is the soul of it. In fact, the limit-line of thetwo branches is not always easy to trace, so often are they graftedtogether; they inspire each other, intertwine, and at last are almostone. 

"In the Future. --By going to Solesmes I shall complete my education; Ishall see and hear the most perfect expression of that Liturgy and thatGregorian chant of which the little convent of Notre Dame de l'Atre, byreason of the limited number of the Brethren, could only afford areduced copy--very faithful, it is true, but yet reduced. 

"By adding to this my own studies of the religious paintings removed nowfrom the sanctuaries and collected in museums, and supplementing them bymy remarks on the various cathedrals I may explore, I shall havetravelled round the whole cycle of mysticism, have extracted the essenceof the Middle Ages, have combined in a sort of sheaf these separatebranches, scattered now for so many centuries, and have investigatedmore thoroughly one especially--Symbolism namely, of which certainelements are almost lost from sheer neglect. 

"Yes. Symbolism has lent the principal charm to my life at Chartres; itoccupied and comforted me when I was suffering from finding my soul soimportunate and yet so low. "

And he tried to recapitulate the science, to view it as a whole. 

He saw it as a thickly branched tree, the root deep set in the very soilof the Bible; from thence, in fact, it drew its substance and itsnourishment: the trunk was the Symbolism of the Scriptures, the OldTestament prefiguring the Gospels; the branches were the allegoricalpurport of architecture, of colours, gems, flowers, and animals; thehieroglyphics of numbers; the emblematical meaning of the vessels andvestments of Church use. A small bough represented Liturgical perfumes, and a mere twig, dried up from the first and almost dead, representeddancing. 

"For religious dancing once existed, " Durtal went on. "In ancient timesit was a recognized offering of adoration, a tithe of light-heartedness. David leaping before the Ark shows this. 

"And in the earliest Christian times the faithful and the priesthoodshook themselves in honour of the Redeemer, and fancied that by choricmotion they were imitating the joy of the Blessed, the glee of theAngels described by Saint Basil as executing figures in the radiantassemblies of Heaven. 

"One is soon accustomed to endure Masses of the kind called at Toledo_Mussarabes_, during which the congregation dance and gambol in thecathedral; but these capers presently lose the pious character that theyare supposed to bear; they become an incentive to the revelry of thesenses, and several Councils have prohibited them. 

"In the seventeenth century sacred dances still survived in someprovinces; we hear of them at Limoges, where the Curé of St. Leonard andhis parishioners pirouetted in the choir of the church. In theeighteenth century their traces are found in Roussillon, and at thepresent day religious dancing still survives; but the tradition of thissaintly frisking is chiefly preserved in Spain. 

"Not long since, on the day of Corpus Christi at Compostella, theprocession was led through the streets by a tall man who danced carryinganother on his shoulders. And to this day, at Seville, on the festivalof the Holy Sacrament, the choir-children turn in a sort of slow waltzas they sing hymns before the high altar of the cathedral. In othertowns, on the festivals of the Virgin, a saraband is slowly danced roundHer statue, with striking of sticks, and the rattle of castanets; and toclose the ceremony by way of Amen the people fire off squibs. 

"All this, however, is of no great interest, and I cannot help wonderingwhat meaning can have been attributed to cutting capers and spinninground. I find it difficult to believe that _farandoles_ and _boleros_could ever represent prayer; I can hardly persuade myself that it can bean act of thanksgiving to trample peppers under foot or appearing togrind at an imaginary coffee-mill with one's arms. 

"In point of fact no one knows anything about the symbolism of dancing;no record has come down to us of the meanings ascribed to it of old. Church dancing is really no more than a gross form of rejoicing amongSouthern races. We need mention it merely as noteworthy, and that isall. 

"Now, from a practical point of view, what has the influence ofsymbolism been on souls?"

Durtal could answer himself. 

"The Middle Ages, knowing that everything on earth is a sign and afigure, that the only value of things visible is in so far as theycorrespond to things invisible--the Middle Ages, when consequently menwere not, as we are, the dupes of appearances--made a profound study ofthis science, and made it the nursing mother and the handmaid ofmysticism. 

"Convinced that the only aim that it was incumbent on man to follow, theonly end he could really need, was to place himself in directcommunication with Heaven, and to out-strip death by merging himself, unifying himself to the utmost, with God, it tempted souls, subjectingthem to a moderate claustral course, purged them of their earthlyinterests, their fleshly aims, and led them back again and again to thesame purpose of renunciation and repentance, the same ideas of justiceand love; and then to retain them, to preserve them from themselves, itenclosed them in a fence, placed God all about them, as it were, underevery form and aspect. "

Jesus was seen in everything--in the fauna, the flora, the structure ofbuildings, in every decoration, in the use of colour. Whichever way mancould turn, he still saw Him. 

And at the same time he saw his own soul as in a mirror that reflectedit; in certain animals, certain colours, and certain plants he coulddiscern the qualities which it was his duty to acquire, the vicesagainst which he had to defend himself. 

And he had other examples before his eyes, for the symbolists did notrestrict themselves to turning botany, mineralogy, natural history, andother sciences to the uses of a catechism; some of them, and amongothers Saint Melito, ended by applying the process to the interpretationof every object that came in their way. A cithara was to them the breastof the devout man; the members of the human frame became emblematical:the head was Christ, the hairs were the saints, the nose meantdiscretion, the nostrils the spirit of faith, the eye contemplation, themouth symbolized temptation, the saliva was the sweetness of the innerlife, the ears figured obedience, the arms the love of Jesus, the handsstood for good works, the knees for the sacrament of penance, the legsfor the Apostles, the shoulders for the yoke of Christ, the breast forevangelical doctrine, the belly for avarice, the bowels for themysterious precepts of the Lord, the body and loins for suggestions oflust, the bones typified hardness of heart, and the marrow compunction, the sinews were evil members of Anti-Christ. And these writers extendedthis method of interpretation to the commonest objects of daily use, even to tools and vessels within reach of all. 

Thus there was an uninterrupted course of pious teaching. Yves deChartres tells us that priests instructed the people in symbolism, andfrom the researches of Dom Pitra we know that in the Middle Ages SaintMelito's treatise was popular and known to all. Thus the peasant learntthat his plough was an image of the Cross, that the furrows it made werelike the hearts of saints freshly tilled; he knew that sheaves were thefruit of repentance, flour the multitude of the faithful, the granarythe Kingdom of Heaven; and it was the same with many pursuits. In short, this method of analogies was a bidding to everybody to watch and praybetter. 

Thus utilized, symbolism became a break to check the forward march ofsin, and at the same time a sort of lever to uplift souls and help themto overleap the stages of the mystical life. 

This science, translated into so many languages, was no doubtintelligible only in broad outline to the masses, and sometimes, when itpercolated through the labyrinthine maze of such minds as that of theworthy Bishop of Mende, it appeared overwrought, full of contradictions, and of double meanings. It seems then as if the symbolist were splittinga hair with embroidery scissors. But, in spite of the extravagance ittolerated and smiled at, the Church succeeded, nevertheless, by thesetactics of repetition, in saving souls and carrying out on a large scalethe production of saints. 

Then came the Renaissance, and symbolism was wrecked at the same time aschurch architecture. 

Mysticism in the stricter sense of the word, more fortunate than itshandmaidens, survived that period of festive dishonour; for it may besafely asserted that, though it was unproductive while living throughthat period, it flourished anew in Spain, producing its noblest blossomsin Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa. 

Since then doctrinal mysticism seems dried up at the source. Not so, however, as regards personal mysticism, which still dwells acclimatizedand flourishing in convents. 

As to the Liturgy and plain-song, they too have gone through veryvarious phases. After being dissected and filtered in the numberlessprovincial Uses, the Liturgy was brought back to the standard of Rome bythe efforts of Dom Guéranger, and it may be hoped that the Benedictinesat last will also bring all the churches back to the strict use ofplain-song. 

"And this church above all!" sighed Durtal. 

He looked at his cathedral, loving it better than ever now that he wasto part from it for a few days. To impress it the better on his memoryhe tried to sum it up, to concentrate it, saying to himself, --

"It is the epitome of Heaven and Earth; of Heaven by showing us theserried phalanx of its inhabitants--Prophets, Patriarchs, Angels andSaints, lighting up the interior of the church by their transparentfigures; by singing to the glory of the Mother and the Son. Of Earth, for it connotes the elation of the soul, the ascension of man; itpoints out quite clearly to Christian souls the path of the perfectlife. They, to apprehend its symbolism, should enter by the Royaldoorway, and pass up the nave, the transept and the choir--the threesuccessive phases of Asceticism; reach the top of the Cross where, surrounded by the chapels of the apse as by a Crown, the head of theSaviour lies, His neck bent, as we see them symbolized by the altar andthe deflected axis of the church. 

"There the pilgrim has reached the united ways, close to the Virgin, whomourns no more as she does in the agonizing scene on Calvary, at thefoot of the Tree, but, under the figure of the Sacristy, remains veiledby the side of Her Son's countenance, getting closer to Him the betterto comfort and to see Him. 

"And this allegory of the mystical life as set forth by the interior ofthe cathedral, is carried out by the exterior, in the suppliant effectof the whole building. 

"The Soul, distraught by the joy of union, heart-broken at having stillto live, only aspires now to escape for ever from the Gehenna of theflesh; thus it beseeches the Bridegroom with the uplifted arms of itstowers, to take pity on it, to come to fetch it, to take it by theclasped hands of its spires and snatch it from earth, to carry it upwith Him into Heaven. 

"In short, this church is the finest expression of art bequeathed to usby the Middle Ages. The great front has neither the awful majesty ofthat of Reims, pierced as it is with tracery, nor the dull melancholy ofNotre Dame de Paris, nor the gigantic grace of Amiens, nor the massivesolemnity of Bourges; but it is full of imposing simplicity, alightness, a spring, which no other cathedral has attained to. 

"The nave of Amiens alone grows beautifully less as it rises with aseager a spring from the earth; but the body of the Amiens church islight and uncomforting, and that of Chartres is mysterious and hushed;of all cathedrals it is that which best suggests the idea of a delicate, saintly woman, emaciated by prayer, and almost transparent by fasting. 

"And then its windows are matchless, superior even to those of Bourges, where, again, the sanctuary blossoms with glorious clumps of holypersons. And finally, the sculpture of the west front, the Royal Portal, is the most beautiful, the most superterrestrial statuary ever wroughtby the hand of man. 

"And it is almost unique in having none of the woeful and threateningsolemnity of its noble sisters. Scarce a demon is to be seen watchingand grinning on its walls to torture souls; in a few small figures itshows indeed the variety of penance, but that is all; and within, theVirgin is above all else the Mother of Bethlehem. Jesus, too, is more orless Her Child; He yields to Her when she entreats Him. 

"It proclaims the plenitude of Her patience and charity by the length ofthe crypt and the breadth of the nave, which are greater than those ofother churches. 

"In fact, it is the mystical cathedral--that where the Madonna is mostgraciously ready to receive the sinner. 

"Now, " said Durtal, looking at his watch, "the Abbé Gévresin must havefinished his breakfast. It is time to take leave of him before joiningthe Abbé Plomb at the station. "

He crossed the forecourt of the palace and rang at the priest's door. 

"So you are sure you are going!" said Madame Bavoil, who opened thedoor, and admitted him to her master. 

"Well, yes--"

"I envy you, " sighed the Abbé, "for you will be present at wonderfulservices and hear admirable music. "

"I hope so. And if only that could relieve the tension, could release mea little from this incoherent frame of mind in which I wander, and allowme to feel at home once more in my own soul and not in a strange placeopen to all the winds!--"

"Ah, your soul wants locks and latches, " said Madame Bavoil, laughing. 

"It is a public mart where every distraction meets to chatter. I amconstantly driven out, and when I want to go home again they are inpossession. "

"Oh, I quite understand that. You know the proverb, 'Who goes huntingloses his seat by the hearth. '"

"That is all very well to say, but--"

"But, our friend, the Lord foresaw your case, when, with reference tosuch distractions which flutter about the soul like this, He replied tothe Venerable Jeanne de Matel, who complained of such annoyances, thatshe should imitate the hunter, who, when he misses the big game he isseeking, seizes the smaller prey he may find. "

"Ay, but even then he must find it!"

"Go and live in peace, then, " said the Abbé. "Do not fret yourself withwondering whether your soul is enclosed or no; and take this piece ofadvice: You are accustomed--are you not?--to repeat prayers that youknow by heart, and it is especially under those circumstances thatwandering supervenes. Well, then, set those prayers aside, and restrictyourself to following, very regularly, the prayers of the services inthe convent-chapel. You are less familiar with them, and merely tofollow them you will be obliged to read them with care. Thus you will beless likely to have a divided mind. "

"No doubt, " replied Durtal. "But when I have not repeated the prayers Iam wont to say, I feel as though I had not prayed at all. I know thatthis is absurd; still, there is no faithful soul who does not know thefeeling when the text of his prayers is altered. "

The Abbé smiled. 

"The best prayers, " said he, "are those of the Liturgy, those which GodHimself has taught us, those alone which are expressed in languageworthy of Him--in His own language. They are complete, and supreme; forall our desires, all our regrets, all our wailing are contained in thePsalms. The prophet foresaw and said everything; leave him, then, tospeak for you, and thus, as your interpreter before God, give you hishelp. 

"As to the prayers you may feel moved to address to God apart from thehours devoted to the purpose, let them be short. Imitate the Recluses ofEgypt, the Fathers in the Desert, who were masters in the art ofsupplication. This is what old Isaac said to Cassian: 'Pray briefly andoften, lest, if your orisons be long, the enemy will come to disturbthem. Follow these two rules, they will save you from secret upheaval. 

"So, go in peace; and if any trouble should overtake you, do nothesitate to consult the Abbé Plomb. "

"Eh, our friend, " cried Madame Bavoil, laughing, "and you might alsocure yourself of wandering thoughts by the method employed by the Abbessof Sainte-Aure when she chanted the Psalter: she sat in a chair of whichthe back was garnished with a hundred long nails, and when she feltherself wandering she pressed her shoulder firmly against the points;there is nothing better, I can tell you, for bringing folks back toreality and recalling their wandering attention. "

"Thank you, indeed!"

"There is another thing, " she went on, not laughing now. "You ought topostpone your departure for a day or two; for the day after to-morrow isa festival of the Virgin. They expect pilgrims from Paris, and theshrine containing our Mother's veil will be carried in processionthrough the streets. "

"Oh no!" cried Durtal, "I have no love for worship in common. When ourLady holds these solemn assizes to gel out of the way. I wait till Sheis alone before I visit her. Hosts of people shouting canticles witheyes straight to Heaven or looking for Jesus on the ground by way ofunction are too much for me. I am all for the forlorn Queens, for thedeserted churches and dark chapels. I am of the opinion of Saint John ofthe Cross, who confesses that he does not love the pilgrimage of crowdsbecause one comes back more distracted than when one started. 

"No. What it is really a grief to me to leave in quitting Chartres isthat very silence, that solitude in the cathedral, those interviews withthe Virgin in the gloom of the crypt and the twilight of the nave. Ah, here alone can one feel near Her, and see Her!

"In fact, " he went on after a moment's reflection, "one does see Her inthe strictest sense of the word--or at least, can fancy that She isthere. If there is a spot where I can call up Her face, Her attitude--inshort Her portrait--it is at Chartres. "

"And how is that?"

"Well, Monsieur l'Abbé, we have no trustworthy information as to ourMother's face or figure. Her features are unknown--intentionally, I feelsure, in order that each one may contemplate Her under the aspect thatbest pleases him, and incarnate Her in the ideal beauty of his dreams. 

"For instance, Saint Epiphanius describes her as tall, with olive eyesarched and very black eyebrows, an aquiline nose a rosy mouth, and agolden-toned skin. This is the vision of an oriental. 

"Take Maria d'Agreda, on the other hand. She thinks of the Virgin asslender, with black hair and eyebrows, eyes dark and greenish, astraight nose, scarlet lips, and a brown skin. You recognize here theSpanish ideal of beauty imagined by the Abbess. 

"Again in, turn to Sister Emmerich. According to her, Mary wasfair-haired, with large eyes, a rather long nose, a narrow-pointed chin, a clear skin, and not very tall. Here we have the description given by aGerman who does not admire dark beauty:

"And yet both of these women were real Seers, to whom the Madonnaappeared, assuming in each case the only aspect that could fascinatethem; just as she was seen to be the model of mere prettiness--the onlytype they could understand--by Mélanie at La Salette and Bernadette atLourdes". 

"Well, I, who am no visionary, and who must appeal to my imagination topicture Her at all, I fancy I discern Her under the forms andexpressions of the cathedral itself; the features are a little confusedin the pale splendour of the great rose window that blazes behind Herhead like a nimbus. She smiles, and Her eyes, all light, have theincomparable effulgence of those pure sapphires which light up theentrance to the nave. Her slight form is diffused in a clear robe offlame, striped and ribbed like the drapery of the so-called Berthe. Herface is white like mother-of-pearl, and her hair, a circular tissue ofsunshine, radiates in threads of gold. She is the Bride of Canticles. _Pulchra ut Luna, electa ut Sol_. 

"The church which is Her dwelling-place, and one with Her, is luminouswith Her grace; the gems of the windows sing to Her praise; the slendercolumns shooting upwards, from the pavement to the roof, symbolize Heraspirations and desires; the floor tells of Her humility; the vaulting, meeting to form a canopy over Her, speaks of Her charity; the stones andglass echo hymns to Her. There is nothing, down to the military aspectof certain details of the sanctuary, the chivalrous touch which is areminiscence of the Crusades--the sword-blades and shields of the lancetwindows and the roses, the helm-shaped arches, the coat of mail thatclothes the older spire, the iron trellis-pattern of some of thepanes--nothing that does not arouse a memory of the passage at Prime andthe hymn at Lauds in the minor office of the Virgin, and typify the_terribilis ut castrorum acies ordonata_, the privilege She possesseswhen She chooses to use it, of being 'terrible as an army arrayed forbattle. '

"But She does not often choose to exert here, I believe; this cathedralmirrors rather Her inexhaustible sweetness, Her indivisible glory. "

"Ah! Much shall be forgiven you because you have loved much, " criedMadame Bavoil. 

And Durtal having risen to say good-bye, she kissed him affectionately, maternally, and said, --

"We will pray with all our might, our friend, that God may enlighten youand show you your path, may lead you Himself into the way you ought togo. "

"I hope, Monsieur l'Abbé, that during my absence your rheumatism willgrant you a little respite, " said Durtal, pressing the old priest'shand. 

"Oh, I must not wish to have no sufferings at all, for there is no crossso heavy as having none, " replied the Abbé. "So do as I do, or rather, do better than I, for I still repine; put a cheerful face on youraridity, and your trials. --Goodbye, God bless you!"

"And may the great Mother of Madonnas of France, the sweet Lady ofChartres, protect you!" added Madame Bavoil. 

And when the door was shut, she added with a sigh, --

"Certainly, I should be very grieved if he left our town for ever, forthat friend is almost like a child of our own! At the same time I shouldbe very, very happy to think of him as a true monk!"

Then she began to laugh. 

"Father, " said she, "will they cut his moustache off if he enters thecloister?"

"Undoubtedly. "

She tried to imagine Durtal clean-shaven, and she concluded with alaugh, --

"I do not think it will improve his beauty. "

"Oh, these women!" said the Abbé, shrugging his shoulders. 

"And what, in short, " asked she, "may we hope for from this journey?"

"It is not of me that you should ask that, Madame Bavoil. "

"Very true, " said she, and clasping her hands she murmured, --

"It depends on Thee! Help him in his poverty, remember that he can donothing without Thine aid, Holy Temptress of men, Our Lady of thePillar, Virgin of the Crypt. "

THE END.