“Jesus is dead; His head is at the altar; His outstretched arms are the two transepts; His pierced hands are the doors; His legs are the nave where we are standing; His pierced feet are the door by which we have come in.  Now consider the systematic deviation of the axis of the building; it imitates the attitude of a body bent over from the upright tree of sacrifice, and in some cathedrals—­for instance, at Reims—­the narrowness, the strangulation, so to speak, of the choir in proportion to the nave represents all the more closely the head and neck of a man, drooping over his shoulder when he has given up the ghost.

“This twist in the church is to be seen almost everywhere—­in Saint Ouen and in the Cathedral at Rouen, in Saint Jean at Poitiers, at Tours and at Reims.  Sometimes, indeed—­but this statement needs verification—­the architect had substituted for the body of the Saviour that of the Saint in whose name the church was dedicated, and the curved axis of Saint Savin, for instance, has been supposed to represent the bend of the wheel which was the instrument of that Saint’s martyrdom.

“But all this is evidently familiar to you.

“This is less well known:  So far we have studied the image of Christ motionless, and dead, in our churches.  I will now tell you of a singular instance of a church which, instead of reproducing the attitude of the Divine Corpse, represents that of His still living Body, a church which seems to have a suggestion of movement as if bending like Christ on the Cross.

“In fact it seems to be certain that some architects strove to represent in the plan of their building the motion of the human frame, to imitate the action of a drooping figure; in short, to give life to stones.

“Such an attempt was made in the abbey church of Preuilly-sur-Claise in Touraine.  The plan and photographs of this basilica are to be found in an interesting volume that I can lend you; the author, the Abbe Picardat, is the Cure of the church.  You will from them readily perceive that the curve of the plan is that of a body leaning on one side, drawn out and bending over.

“And the movement of the body is represented by the curve of the axis, beginning at the very first bay and continued along the nave, the choir, and the apse to the end, which bends aside to imitate the droop of the head.

“Thus, even better than at Chartres, at Reims, and at Rouen, this humble sanctuary, built by Benedictine monks whose names are unknown, represents in its serpentine line, in the perspective of its aisles and the obliquity of its vaulting, the allegorical presentment of our Lord on the Cross.  In all other churches the architects have to some extent imitated the cadaverous rigidity of the head fallen in death; at Preuilly the monks have perpetuated the never-to-be-forgotten instant that elapsed between the ‘Sitio’ (I thirst) and the ’Consummatum est’ (It is finished), as recorded in the Gospel of Saint John.  Thus the old Touraine church is in the image of Christ Crucified, but still living.