ething strange in this
disaster without respite."

"Yes, and what is still more strange," said the Abbe Gevresin, "Is the
persistency of fire from heaven, bent on destroying it."

"How do you account for that?" asked Durtal.

"Sebastien Rouillard, the author of _Parthenie_, believes that these
visitations were permitted as a punishment for certain sins, and he
insinuates that the conflagration of the third Cathedral was justified
by the misconduct of some pilgrims who at that time slept in the nave,
men and women together. Others believe that the Devil, who can command
the lightning, was bent on suppressing this sanctuary at any cost."

"But why, then, did not the Virgin protect Her particular church more
effectually?"

"You may observe that She has several times preserved it from being
utterly reduced to cinders; however, it is, all the same, very strange
when we remember that Chartres is the first place where the Virgin was
worshipped in France. It goes back to Messianic times, for, long before
Joachim's daughter was born, the Druids had erected, in the cave which
has become our crypt, an altar to the Virgin who should bear a
child--_Virgini Pariturae_. They, by a sort of grace, had intuitive
foreknowledge of a Saviour whose Mother should be spotless; thus it
would seem that at Chartres, above all places, there are very ancient
bonds of affection with Mary. This makes it very natural that Satan
should be bent on breaking them."

"Do you know," said Durtal, "that this grotto is prefigured in the Old
Testament by a human structure of almost official character? In her
"Life of Our Lord," that exquisite visionary, Catherine Emmerich, tells
us that there was, hard by Mount Carmel, a grotto with a well, near
which Elias saw a Virgin; and it was to this spot, she says, that the
Jews who expected the Advent of the Redeemer made pilgrimages many times
a year.

"Is not this the prototype of the cave of Chartres and the well of the
Strong Saints?

"Observe, too, on the other hand, the tendency of the thunder to fall,
not on the old belfry, but on the new one. No meteorological reason, I
suppose, can account for this preference; but on carefully considering
the two spires, I am struck by the delicate foliage, the slender
lacework of the new spire, the elegant and coquettish grace of the whole
of that side. The other, on the contrary, has no ornament, no carved
tracery; it is simply carved in scallops like scale armour;