ls, would have no scenes of that kind."

"Then the rule in the thirteenth century was to place the Virgin in the
northern portion?"

"Yes. To the men of that time the north meant the gloom of winter, the
dejection of darkness, the misery of cold; the ice-bound chant of the
winds was to them the very blast of evil; to the north was the home of
the devil, the hell of nature, as the south was its Eden."

"But that is absurd!" cried Durtal, "the greatest blunder ever
introduced into the symbolism of the elements. The medieval sages were
mistaken, for snow is pure and cold is chastity. It is the sun, on the
contrary, that is the active agent in developing the germs of
rottenness, the ferment of vice!

"They forget that the third Psalm of Compline speaks of the hot hour of
noon as the most harassing and dangerous of all; they must have
overlooked the horrors of sweat and unwholesome heat, the risks of
relaxed nerves, of loosened dresses, all the abominations of leaden
clouds and hard blue skies!

"There are diabolical effluvia in the storm, and in weather when the air
stirs like the vapours from a furnace, rousing evil instincts and
bringing about us the raging swarm of evil angels."

"But remember the passages in which Isaiah and Jeremiah speak of Lucifer
as dwelling in the blast of the north wind; and recollect that the great
cathedrals did not originate in the south but in the middle and north of
France; consequently, after having adopted this symbolism of seasons and
weather, the pious architects dreamed of the horror of men buried in
snow, and longing for a gleam of sunshine and a bright day. Naturally
they thought of the east as the region of the original Paradise, and of
those lands as milder and less inclement than their own."

"That does not hinder the fact that this theory was controverted by Our
Lord Himself."

"Where do you find that?" asked the Abbe Plomb.

"On Calvary; Jesus died" turning His back to the south, which had
crucified Him, and extending His arms on the Cross to bless and embrace
the north. He seemed to be withdrawing His favours from the east, 'to
bestow them on the west. Hence, if any region is accurst and inhabited
by Satan, it is the south and not the north."

"You abominate the south and its races, that is evident," said the Abbe,
laughing.

"I do not love them. Their scenery, vulgarized by crude daylight, their
dusty trees standing out against a sky of washerwoman's blue, have no