“He was a man whose vices were small and few if compared with those of the kings of his time—­of admirable and exceptional virtues if compared with those of sovereigns of any time of every age.  Why, then, fail to understand that God should have chosen him as a precursor?  Besides, Jesus came to ransom sinners, He took upon Himself the sins of the whole world.  Was it not natural, then, that He should take to prefigure Him, a man who, like others, had sinned?”

“Yes; that is true, no doubt.”

And that evening, when he was away from the Abbe Plomb, from whom he parted on the church steps, as Durtal stretched himself on his bed, he recapitulated in his memory this theory of the Old Testament personages and the sculpture in the porch.

“To epitomize this north front,” said he to himself, “it must be regarded as an abridged history of the Redemption prepared so long beforehand, 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 Babylonian Captivity; from the Captivity till the death of Christ, comprehending three phases of its history:  the making of Israel, its independent existence, its life among the Gentiles.

“And how slowly, with what difficulty, was this fusion of tribes achieved!  With what waste and what ejection of dross!  What massacres were needed to discipline those rapacious wanderers, to quell the greed and licentiousness of the race!”

And in a succession of bewildering images he beheld the irruption into Judaea of the headlong and indignant prophets, hurling imprecations against the crimes of the kings and the atrocities of that unstable race perpetually tempted by the voluptuous worships of Asia, always rebelling and complaining, and ready to break the iron bit with which Moses had subdued them.

And prominent in this group of declaiming judges, towering above the masses, he saw Samuel, the man of contradictions, going whither the Lord drove him, achieving work which he was destined to overthrow, creating the monarchy which he reprobated, consecrating a fanatic king—­a sort of madman, who passes across behind the transparent sheet of history with frantic and threatening gestures; and then Samuel has to overwhelm this extraordinary Saul under the burthen of his curses, to anoint David king—­David, whom another prophet is to accuse of his crimes.  And these inspired men succeed each other, continuing from year to year their task of guardians of the public soul, watching over the consciences of judges and kings, expectant of the Divine word, and ready to proclaim it over the head of the crowd; announcing disasters, ending often as martyrs, prominent from beginning to end of the sacred annals till they disappear in John beheaded by an Herodias!

Then came Elijah, cursing the worship of Baal, contending with the dreadful Jezebel; Elijah founding the first society of monks, the only man of the Old Testament history except Enoch who did not die; and Elisha, his disciple; the greater prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel, and the groups of minor prophets announcing the advent of the Son, rising up in commination or lamentation, threatening or comforting the people.