ic of the Burgundian stamp. The
church was of almost elementary simplicity; above its three porches rose
a straight wall with two storeys of columns forming arcades and
surmounted by grotesque figures. To the right of this front was a small
tower with a pointed roof; and on the roof a "Jacquemart" of iron
tracery, with three puppets that strike the hours; behind, rising from
the transept, was a small tower with four little glazed belfries.

This building, small as compared with great cathedrals, was stamped with
the Flemish hall-mark; it had the homespun peasant expression, the
cheerful faith of the race. It was a domestic sanctuary, very native to
the soil; the folks would hold converse with the Black Virgin standing
there on an altar, tell her all their little concerns, make themselves
at home there in confidential gossiping prayer, quite without ceremony.

But it was not well to trust too much to the benign and genial aspect of
this building, for the long rows of grotesque figures that were ranged
above the doorways and the arcades belied the jovial security of the
rest.

There they were, in high relief, in close array, grinning and jibing; a
motley crowd of demented nuns and mad monks, of bewildered rustics and
outlandish women; hobgoblins writhing with laughter, and hilarious
devils; and in the midst of this mob of the reprobate a figure of a real
woman, held by two demons tormenting her, stood out, leaning forward as
if she wanted to throw herself down. With haggard, dilated eye, and
clasped hands, in terror she beseeches the passer-by, shows him the
place of refuge, and cries to him to enter. Involuntarily he pauses in
amazement to look at that face, distorted with fear, pinched with
anguish, struggling amid this pack of monsters, this vision of frenzied
nightmare. At once fierce and pitying, she threatens and entreats; and
this image of one for ever excommunicate, cast out of the temple and
left to all eternity on the threshold, is as haunting as the memory of
suffering, as a nightmare of terror.

Nowhere, certainly, in the satanic menagerie of La Beauce, is there a
statue of such startling and assertive art.

From another point of view--that of the picture as a whole, and of the
broad view taken of the subject, the Judgment of Souls at Notre Dame de
Chartres is for beneath that of the cathedral at Bourges.

"That, indeed, is, I think, the most wonderful of all," said Durtal to
himself. "The similar scenes