The Cathedral

Durtal had begged his housekeeper, Madame Mesurat, to serve his coffee in his study. He thus hoped to escape having her constantly standing in front of him, as she did all throu...

This church symbolism, this psychology of the cathedral, this study of the soul of the sanctuary, so entirely overlooked since mediæval times by those professors of monumental p...

"Yes, I know when I confessed in her presence that I did not yet know of which Saint I might write the history, Madame Bavoil--dear Madame Bavoil, as the Abbé Gévresin calls her...

"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 is never full; that even during the s...

One morning Durtal went out to seek the Abbé Plomb. He could not find him in his own house, nor in the cathedral; but at last, directed by the beadle, he made his way to the hou...

This discussion had been of use to Durtal; it took him out of the generalities over which he had persistently mused since his arrival at Chartres. The Abbé had, in fact, shown h...

He had harnessed himself that morning to the task of investigating the symbolical fauna of the Middle Ages. At first sight the subject had struck him as newer and less arduous,...

At Chartres, as you turn out of the little market-place, which is swept in all weathers by the surly wind from the flats, a mild air as of a cellar, made heavy by a soft, almost...

"In point of fact," said Durtal to himself as he stood dreaming on the market-place, "no one exactly knows what was the origin of the Gothic forms of a cathedral. Archæologists...

To change his weariness of the place, Durtal one sunny afternoon went to the further end of Chartres, to visit the ancient church of Saint Martin du Val. It dated from the tenth...

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 startled excitement which nothing could account...

It rained without ceasing. Durtal breakfasted under the assiduous watchfulness of his servant, Madame Mesurat. She was one of those women whose stalwart build and masculine pres...

The somewhat dolefully calm frame of mind in which Durtal had been living since settling at Chartres came to a sudden end. One day _ennui_ made him its prey, the black possessio...

On his return to Paris from La Trappe he had fallen into a fearful state of spiritual anemia. His soul kept its room, rarely rose, lounged on a couch, was torpid with the tepid...

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

He became fidgety with waiting as the hours went by. At last, unable to sit still, he went out to kill the time, but a drizzling rain drove him for shelter into the cathedral.