“There you see,” said the Abbe, “behind the embankment of the Western Railway stands the Convent of the Sisters of Our Lady and of the Carmelites; here, nearer to the town on this side of the line, are the Little 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 Sacred Heart, all lived in hives close round Chartres.  Prayer hummed up on every side, rising as the fragrant breath of souls above a city where, by way of divine service, nothing was chanted but the price-current of grain and the higher and lower cost of horses in the fairs which, on certain days, brought all the copers of La Perche together in the cafes on the Place.

Besides this walk on the old ramparts, the Convent of the Sisters of Saint Paul was attractive by reason of its quiet and cleanliness.  Down silent passages the backs of the good women might be seen crossed by the triangular fold of linen, and the click could be heard of their heavy black rosaries on links of copper, as they rattled on their skirts against the hanging bunch of keys.  Their chapel was redolent of Louis XIV., at once childish and pompous, too much bedizened with gold, and the floor too shiny with wax; but there was an interesting detail:  at the entrance large panes of glass had been substituted for the walls, so that in winter the sick, sitting in a warm room, could look through the glass partition and follow the services and hear the plain song of Solesmes which the Sisters had the good taste to use.

This visit revived Durtal’s spirit; but he inevitably compared the peaceful hours told out in that retreat with others, and his disgust was increased for this town, and its inhabitants, and its avenues, and its boasted Place des Epars, aping a little Versailles, with its surrounding blatant mansions, and its ridiculous statue of Marceau in the middle.

And then the limpness of the place, hardly awake by sunrise and asleep again by dusk!

Once only did Durtal see it really awake, and that was on the day when Monseigneur Le Tilloy des Mofflaines was enthroned as Bishop.

Then suddenly the city was galvanized; projects were made, the various bodies corporate sat in committee, and men came forth who had lived within doors for years.

Scaffold poles were brought out from the masons’ yards; blue and yellow flags were hoisted on them, and these masts were linked together by garlands 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 assumption of life, had gone out to meet the Bishop, as far as to the Rue Saint Michel.  There, on the open square, a gymnastic apparatus had been erected, the swing bars and rings having been removed, and the poles garnished with pine branches and gilt paper rosettes, and surmounted by a trophy of tricolour flags arranged in a fan behind a painted cardboard shield.  This was an arch of triumph, and under this the Brethren of the Christian Schools were to escort the canopy.