, and of
Auvers; and the Chancel Warden. These priests, most of them men of
family and wealth, were a nursery ground of Bishops; they owned all the
houses round the Cathedral and lived independently in their cloister,
devoting themselves to history, theology, and the Canon law--they are
now indeed fallen!"

The Abbe was silent, shaking his head. Then he went on,--

"To return to my subject--I was naturally somewhat hurt by the coldness
I met with on my arrival at Chartres. As I told you, I had to allay many
apprehensions. But I think I have succeeded. And I thank God, too, for
having given me a valuable supporter in the person of a subordinate
priest of the Cathedral, who has done me invaluable service with my
colleagues--the Abbe Plomb; do you know him?"

"No."

"He is a highly intelligent priest, very learned, a passionate mystic,
thoroughly acquainted with the Cathedral, of which he has examined every
corner."

"Ah ha! I am interested in that priest! Perhaps he is one of those I
have already noticed. What is he like?"

"Short, young, pale, slightly marked with the small-pox, with spectacles
that you may recognize by this peculiarity: the arch which rests on the
nose is shaped like a loop, or, if you choose to say so, like a
horseman's legs astride in the saddle."

"That man!"--and Durtal, left to himself, thought about the priest whom
he had repeatedly seen in the church or the square.

"Certainly," said he to himself, "there is always the risk of a mistake
when we judge of people by appearances; but how startling is the truth
of that commonplace remark when applied to the clergy! This Abbe Plomb
looks like a scared sacristan; he goes about gaping at invisible crows,
and he seems so ill at ease, so loutish, so awkward--and this is our
learned man and devoted mystic, in love with his Cathedral! Certainly it
is not safe to judge of an Abbe from appearances. Now that it is to be
my fate to live in this clerical world, I must begin by throwing
prejudice overboard, and wait till I know all the priests of the
diocese, before allowing myself to form an opinion of them."

CHAPTER III.

"In point of fact," said Durtal to himself as he stood dreaming on the
market-place, "no one exactly knows what was the origin of the Gothic
forms of a cathedral. Archaeologists and architects have exhausted
hypotheses and systems in vain; they seem to agree in attributing the
Romanesque to Oriental parentage, and that in