of food, and saw to the sanitation of the huts and the
health of the camp. Men and women were no more than docile instruments
in the hands of the chiefs they themselves had chosen, and who in their
turn obeyed gangs of monks. These again were under the orders of the
wonderful man, the nameless genius, who, after conceiving the plan of
this cathedral, directed the whole work.

To achieve such results the spirit of the multitude must really have
been admirable, for the humble and laborious work of plasterers and
barrow-men was accepted by all, noble or base-born, as an act of
mortification and penance, and at the same time as an honour; and no man
was so audacious as to lay hand on the materials belonging to the Virgin
till he had made peace with his enemies and confessed his sins. Those
who were reluctant to repair the ill they had done, or to frequent the
Sacraments, were dismissed from the traces, rejected as reprobates by
their comrades, and even by their own families.

At daybreak every morning the work decided on by the foremen was begun.
Some dug the foundations, cleared away the ruins, carried off the
rubbish; others, going in parties to the quarries of Berchere-l'Eveque,
at about five miles from Chartres, cut out enormous blocks of stone, so
heavy that in some cases a thousand workmen were not many enough to
hoist them from their bed to the top of the hill where the church was
presently to rise.

And when these silent toilers paused, exhausted and broken, the sound
went up of prayers and psalms; some would groan over their sins,
imploring Our Lady's mercy, beating their breast and sobbing in the arms
of priests who bade them be comforted.

On Sundays long processions formed with banners at their head, and the
shout of canticles filled the streets that blazed from afar with tapers;
the canonical services were attended by a whole people on their knees;
relics were carried with much pomp to visit the sick.

And all the time the walls of the Celestial City were being shaken by
battering-rams of supplication, catapults of prayer; the living forces
of the whole army combining to make a breach and take the place by
storm.

Then it was that Jesus surrendered at discretion, conquered by so much
humility and so much love; He placed His powers in His Mother's hands,
and miracles began to abound.

All the tribe of the sick and crippled are on their feet; the blind see,
the dropsical dry up, the lame walk, the weak-h