“First we see Isaiah; the pedestal on which he stands represents Jesse sleeping.  The familiar stem, rooted in him, passes between the prophet’s feet, and the branches of the Virgin’s ancestry according to the flesh and the spirit, as they rise, fill the four courses of moulding in the central arch.  By his side is Jeremiah, who, meditating on the Passion of Christ, wrote this lamentable passage which is read in the fifth lesson of the second Nocturn on Easter Eve:  ’All ye that pass by, behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.’  Next Simeon holding the Infant whose Birth he had foreseen, at the same time with the sorrows of the Virgin and the anguish of Golgotha; Saint John the Baptist, and finally Saint Peter, whose dress is an interesting study since it is copied from that of the thirteenth-century Popes.

“With what care is every detail wrought!  Admire the treatment of the sandals, the gloves, the broidered amice, the alb, the maniple, the dalmatic, the pallium marked with six crosses, the triple crown, the conical tiara of brocaded silk, the pontifical breastplate, everything is chiselled, pierced, and patterned as if by a goldsmith.”

“Very true.  But how superior altogether is the Saint John to his fellows on this front.  What mastery we discern in that hollow, emaciated face, as expressive as the others are dull.  He is apart from the conventional and hackneyed type.  He stands upright, savage but mild, with his beard in curling prongs, his lean frame, his raiment of camel-skin; we can hear him speaking as he points to the Lamb carrying the hastate cross surrounded by a nimbus, pressing it to his bosom with both hands.  That statue is sublime, and it is most certainly not by the same hand that carved the Abraham, nor even his immediate neighbour, Samuel.  This prophet appears to be offering to David, who cares not, a lamb he is feeling, head downwards.  He is a butcher pricing his goods, weighing the meat, inviting you to feel it, and hesitating to sell till he gets the best price.  How different from the Saint John!”

“The tympanum of the door will have no charm for us,” the Abbe went on.  “The death of the Virgin, Her assumption and coronation are more curious to read of in the Golden Legend than to study in those has-reliefs which are but an epitome.

“We will proceed to the left-hand doorway.

“It is much mutilated, in a lamentable state of ruin.  Most of the large statues have disappeared.  There were once, it would seem, as on the royal porch of Notre Dame at Paris and the southern porch at Reims, the figures of the Synagogue and the Church; also Leah and Rachel, typifying the active and the contemplative life, of which we shall decipher the details 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-looking and the drapery is cold; the arrangement of their robes recalls the Greek peplum; they have a prophetic savour of the Renaissance.”