r especial church and adjoining colleges bears out
the statement. Like the other churches of this most Catholic city, it is
not complete, the towers having yet to be continued into spires. It is
much frequented for the fine music and admired for its beautiful
interior. It is in the Florentine Renaissance style, which is the one
usually favoured by this Order. The frescoes are unusually pleasing,
being in soft tones of monochrome, the work of eminent Roman artists,
and are reproductions of the modern German School of Biblical scenes and
from the history of the Jesuits. There are in addition some fine
paintings by the Gagliardi brothers at Rome and others.

In the Eastern part of the city, commonly called the French quarter, so
purely French are the people, with temperaments as gay and volatile as
in _Le Beau Paris_ itself, is a gem of architecture in the church of
"Our Lady of Lourdes." This chapel, reared as a visible expression of
the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, is of the Byzantine and
Renaissance type, a style frequently to be seen reflected from the
lagoons of Venice.

"The choir and transepts terminate in a circular domed apsis, and a
large central dome rises at the intersection of the latter. The statue
over the altar, and which immediately strikes the eye, is symbolic of
the doctrine illustrated. The Virgin is represented in the attitude
usually shown in the Spanish School of Painters, with hands crossed upon
the breast, standing on a cloud with the words: 'A woman clothed with
the sun and the moon under her feet.'" A singularly beautiful light,
thrown down from an unseen source, casts a kind of heavenly radiance
around the figure with fine effect.

"Some of the painting is exceedingly good. The decoration of the church,
in gold and colours, arabesque and fifteenth century ornament, is very
beautiful and harmonious. This building is interesting as being the only
one of the kind in America."

By descending a narrow stairway, which winds beneath the floor, is found
a shrine fitted up in imitation of the grotto near Lourdes, in France,
in which it is said the Virgin appeared to a young girl, Bernadette
Souberous, at which time a miracle-working fountain is said to have
gushed out of the rock, and still continues its wonderful cures. A
goblet of the water stands on the altar, and is said to have powers of
healing. This underground shrine, lighted only by dim, coloured lamps,
gives a sensation of peculiar w