but
more complete work--one that had not been wrought in succeeding ages and
disfigured by discrepancies of talent and date. This work was at Amiens,
and it, likewise, was the decoration of the outer aisle of a cathedral
choir.

This story of the life of Saint Firmin, the first Bishop and patron
saint of the city, and of the discovery and translation of his relics by
Saint Salvo, was told in a series of groups that had been gilt and
painted; then, to complete the circuit of the sanctuary, the life of the
second patron of Amiens had been added, Saint John the Baptist; and in
the scene of the Baptism of Christ a fair-haired angel was represented
holding a napkin, an ingenuous and arch being, one of the most adorable
seraphic faces ever carved or painted by Flemish art in France.

This legend of Saint Firmin was set forth, like that of the Birth of the
Virgin at Chartres, in separate chapters of stone, surmounted in the
same way with gothic canopies or tabernacles; and in the compartment
where Saint Salvo, surrounded by the multitude, discerns the beams which
radiate from a cloud to indicate the spot where the lost body of the
Martyr had been buried, a man on his knees with clasped hands, seems to
pant, uplifted in prayer, burning, projected by the leap of his soul,
his face transfigured, turning a mere rustic into a saint in ecstasy,
already dwelling in God far above the earth.

This worshipper was the masterpiece of the ambulatory at Amiens, as the
sleeping Saint Joseph was of the bas-reliefs at Chartres.

"Take it for all in all," said Durtal to himself, "that work in the
Picardy Cathedral is more explicit, more complete, more various, more
eloquent even than that of the church in La Beauce. Irrespective of the
fact that the unknown image-maker who created it was as highly gifted as
Soulas with acute observation, and persuasive and decided
simple-mindedness and spirit, he had besides a peculiar and more noble
vein of feeling. And then his subjects were not restricted to the
presentment of two or three personages; he frequently grouped a swarming
crowd, in which each man, woman, or child differed in individual
character and feature from every other, and was conspicuously marked by
that unlikeness, so clear and living was the realism of each small
figure!

"After all," thought Durtal, looking once more at the choir aisles as he
turned away, "though Soulas maybe inferior to the sculptor of Amiens, he
is none the less