“You must admit,” said Durtal, “that these statues, before which the historians of this cathedral go into ecstasies, declaring in chorus they are the highest achievement of thirteenth-century sculpture, are far inferior to those of the twelfth century that adorn the great north porch.  How evident is the lowering of the divine standard!  Their action is freer, no doubt, and the play of drapery is broader.  The rhubarb-stem plaits of the robes are fuller, and have some movement, but where is the grace as of a sculptured soul that we see in the royal porch?  All these statues, with their massive heads, are thick-set and mute, devoid of communicative life.  This is pious work—­fine work, if you will—­but devoid of the ‘beyond’; here is art indeed, but it has ceased to be mysticism.

“Look at St. Anne with her gloomy expression, either cross or suffering—­how far she is from the so-called Radegonde and Berthe!

“With the exception of two, St. John and St. Joseph over there in the innermost part of the arch, these are familiar figures.  They also occur at Reims and at Amiens.  And do you remember the Simeon, the Virgin, and the St. Anne at Reims?  The Virgin so guilelessly charming, so exquisitely chaste, holding out the Infant to Simeon, who stands mild and devout in his solemn garb as High Priest.  St. Anne—­a head of the same type as St. Joseph’s, and as those of two angels on the same frontal, standing by St. Nicasius, with his head cut off at the brows—­St. Anne with a smiling, arch expression and yet elderly—­a sharp little chin, large eyes, a thin, long, pointed nose, the look of a youthful duena, kindly but knowing.

“But, indeed, those image-makers excelled in creating these singular, indefinable countenances.  Do you recall Our Lady of Paris, later, I believe, by a century?  She is scarcely pretty, but so expressive, with the smile of happiness parting such melancholy lips.  Seen from one side She is smiling at Jesus, watchful, almost sportive; it would seem as though she were waiting for the Child to say some merry word before laughing out; She is a girl-mother, not yet accustomed to her Child’s caress.  Seen from another angle, this smile, apparently in the bud, has vanished.  The mouth is puckered in sorrow, and promises tears.

“Perhaps when he succeeded in stamping on the face of Our Lady two such opposite expressions of peace and of fear, the sculptor intended to suggest at once the joy of the Nativity and the anticipated anguish of Calvary.  Thus he has portrayed in one and the same image, the Mother of Sorrows and the Mother of Joy—­has, without knowing it, embodied the prototypes of the Virgin of La Salette and the Virgin of Lourdes.

“And yet all this is inferior to the living and dignified art, so full of individuality and mystery, that we see in the royal porch of Chartres!”

“I will not contradict you,” said the Abbe Plomb.  “Now that we have studied the series of types placed on St. Anne’s left hand, let us consider the prophetic series on her right.