“You will confess, Monsieur l’Abbe, that you have a weakness for the style.”

“Perhaps I have, in so far as that it is less petted, more humble, less feminine, and more claustral than the Gothic.”

“On the whole,” the priest concluded, as he shook hands with Durtal at his own door, “it is the symbol of the inner life, the image of the monastic life; in a word, the true architecture of the cloister.”

“On condition, nevertheless,” said Durtal to himself, “that it is not like that of Notre Dame de Poitiers, where the interior is gaudy with childish colouring and raw tones; for there, instead of expressing regret and tranquillity, it rouses a suggestion of the childish glee of an old savage in his second childhood, who laughs when his tattoo marks are renewed, and his skin rough-cast with crude ochres.”

CHAPTER VII.

“How many worshippers can the Cathedral contain?  Well, nearly 18,000,” said the Abbe Plomb.  “But I need hardly tell you, I suppose, that it is never full; that even during the season for pilgrimages the vast crowds of Mediaeval times never assemble here.  Ah, no!  Chartres is not exactly what you would call a pious town!”

“It strikes me as indifferent to religion, to say the least, if not actually hostile,” said the Abbe Gevresin.

“The citizen of Chartres is money-getting, apathetic, and salacious,” replied the Abbe Plomb.  “Above all, greedy of money, for the passion for lucre is fierce here, under an inert surface.  Really, from my own experience, I pity the young priest who is sent as a beginner to evangelize la Beauce.

“He arrives full of illusions, dreaming of Apostolic triumphs, burning to devote himself—­and he drops into silence and the void.  If he were but persecuted he would feel himself alive; but he is met, not with abuse, but with a smile, which is far worse; and at once he becomes aware of the futility of all he can do, of the aimlessness of his efforts, and he is discouraged.

“The clergy here are, it may be said, admirable, composed of good and saintly priests; but they vegetate, torpid with inaction; they neither read nor work; their joints become ankylose; they die of weariness in this provincial spot.”

“You do not!” exclaimed Durtal, laughing; “for you make work.  Did you not tell me that you especially devote yourself to ladies who can still condescend to take an interest in Our Lord in this town?”

“Your satire is scathing,” replied the Abbe.  “I can assure you that if I had serving-women and the peasant girls to deal with, I should not complain; for in simple souls there are qualities and virtues and a responsive spring, but not in the commercial or the richer classes!  You cannot imagine what those women are.  If only they attend Mass on Sunday and perform their Easter duties they think they may do anything and everything; and thenceforth their