Purgatory, an ante-room to Heaven, where, before being permitted access
to the sanctuary, penitents and neophytes had their place.

"Such, briefly, is the allegorical meaning of the parts. If we now
regard it again as a whole, we may observe that the cathedral, built
over a crypt symbolical of the contemplative life, and also of the tomb
in which Christ was laid, was naturally obliged to have its apse towards
that point of the heavens where the sun rises at the equinox, so as to
convey, says the Bishop of Mende, that it is the Church's mission to
show moderation in its triumphs as in its reverses. All the liturgical
commentators are agreed that the high altar must be placed at the
eastern end, so that the worshippers, as they pray, may turn their eyes
towards the cradle of the Faith; and this rule was held absolute, and so
well approved by God that He confirmed it by a miracle. The Bollandists
in fact have a legend that Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, seeing a
church that had been built on another axis, made it turn to the East by
a push with his shoulder, thus placing it in its right position.

"The church has generally three doors, in honour of the Holy Trinity;
and the portal in the middle, called the Royal Porch, is divided by a
pier and a pillar surmounted by a statue of Our Lord, who says of
Himself in the Gospel, 'I am the door,' or of the Virgin, if the Church
is consecrated to Her, or even of the patron Saint in whose name it is
dedicated. The door, thus divided, typifies the two roads which man is
free to follow. Indeed, in most cathedrals this symbol is emphasized by
a representation of the Last Judgment placed above the entrance.

"This is the case in Paris, at Amiens, and at Bourges. At Chartres, on
the contrary, the Judgment of Souls is relegated, as at Reims, to the
tympanum of the northern porch; but here it is to be seen in the
rose-window over the western portal, in contradiction to the system
usual in the Middle Ages of treating in the windows above the doors the
subject carved in the porch; thus presenting on the same side a
repetition of the same symbols, in glass as seen from within, and in
stone without."

"Good; but how then can you account, by the ternary rule so universally
adopted, for that marvellous cathedral at Bourges, where, instead of
three porches and three aisles, we find five?"

"Nothing can be simpler--we cannot account for it. At most can we
suppose that the architect of Bo