llar. The strong
structural lines are the same; the capitals still display the
inflorescence of Mussulman involutions, the fabulous entanglements of
Assyrian patterns, reminiscences of Asiatic art transplanted to our
soil; but we already see the union of dissimilar bays; columns struggle
upwards, pillars are taller, the wide arches are less rigid, and have a
lighter and longer trajectory; and the plain walls, enormous but already
light, are pierced at prodigious heights with holes admitting the day.

"At Paray the round arch is to be seen in harmony with the pointed arch
which appears in the higher summits of the structure, announcing the
advent of a less plaintive phase of the soul, a tenderer and less harsh
idea of Christ, who is preparing, and already revealing, the Mother's
indulgent smile.

"But then," said Durtal, suddenly, to himself, "if my theories are
correct, the architecture which could, by itself alone, symbolize
Catholicism as a whole, and represent the complete Bible in both
Testaments, must be either Romanesque with the pointed arch, or a
transition style, half Romanesque and half Gothic.

"The deuce!" thought he, thus led to an unforeseen conclusion. "To be
sure, it is not necessary perhaps that the church itself should offer so
complete a parallel, or that the Old and New Testaments should be bound
up in one volume; here, indeed, at Chartres the work, though integral,
is in two separate volumes, since the crypt on which the Gothic church
rests is Romanesque. Nay, it is thus even more symbolical, and it
emphasizes the idea of the windows in which the prophets bear on their
shoulders the four Evangelists; once more the Old Testament appears as
the base, the foundation of the New.

"What a fulcrum for dreams is this Romanesque!" Durtal went on. "Is it
not also the smoke-stained shrine, the gloomy retreat, constructed for
black Virgins? This seems all the less doubtful because all the
Mauresque Virgins are thick-set and heavy; they are not sylphs, like the
fair Virgins of Gothic art. The Byzantine School conceived of Mary as
swarthy, 'of the hue of polished brown ebony,' as the old historians
say; only, in opposition to the text in Canticles, it painted or carved
Her as black, indeed, but not comely. Thus figured, She is truly a
gloomy Virgin, eternally sorrowing, in harmony with the Romanesque
catacombs. Her presence naturally beseems the crypt of Chartres; but in
the Cathedral itself, on the pillar w