contrite head over his shoulder.

"He," thought Durtal, "was literally butchered and cooked, for we are
told in the legend according to Voragine that his body was torn with
sharp combs of brass till his bowels fell out, and that after this
foretaste, this _hors d'oeuvre_ of torture, he was broiled on a
gridiron, larded with nails, and basted with the sauce of his own blood.
He lay calm, praying while he was being toasted. He remained unmoved,
grilling and praying. When he was dead, Dacian, his persecutor, ordered
that his body should be cast out on a field to be devoured by beasts;
but a raven came to settle by him, and drove away a wolf by pecking at
it. Then a millstone was tied about his neck and he was thrown into the
sea, but his body came to land near some pious women who buried it.

"Saint Denys, the first Bishop of Paris, was thrown to the lions, who
retreated before him; he was then beheaded at Montmartre, with Saint
Eleutherius and Saint Rusticus. The image-maker had not here represented
him, as usual, carrying his head, but had shown him standing with his
crozier and mitre. And he was not humble and pitiable, like his
neighbour, the Spanish Deacon, but upright and imperious, with his hand
uplifted, in the attitude rather of admonishing the faithful than of
blessing them, and Durtal stood lost in thought before this writer,
whose brief book holds so important a place in the series of mystical
writings.

"He, more than any other, and first among the contemplative authors,
had overstepped the threshold of Heaven and brought down to men some
details of what happens there. The knowledge of the angelic ranks dates
from him, for it was he who revealed the organization of the heavenly
host as an order, a hierarchy copied by human beings and parodied in
hell. He was a sort of messenger between Heaven and earth, and was the
explorer of our celestial heritage, as Saint Catherine of Genoa at a
later date was the explorer of purgatory.

"A less interesting personage was Saint Piat, a priest of Tournai,
beheaded by a Roman proconsul. In this assembly of famous saints he was
rather the poor country-cousin, a mere provincial Saint. He figured here
because his relics repose in the cathedral, for historians record the
translation of his remains to Chartres in the ninth century. By his side
was Saint George, arrayed as a knight of the time of Saint Louis, his
head bare with an iron fillet, armed with a lance and shield; sta