n Gabriel told him that many
were shoemakers from London or shopkeepers from Paris, who during
their holidays treated themselves to a trip through the ancient
country of the Moors.

Five canons in their choir surplices advanced up the nave, each one
holding a key in his hand; these were the guardians of the treasure.
Each one opened the lock confided to his custody, the door swung
heavily, and the chapel, with its antique treasures, was opened. In
large glass cases, like a museum, was displayed the ancient opulence
of the Cathedral: statues of chiselled silver, large globes crowned
by graceful little figures all of precious metal, ivory caskets of
complicated work, custodias and viriles[1] of gold, enormous gilt
dishes, embossed with mythological subjects reviving the joy of
paganism in that sordid and dusty corner of the Christian Church, and
precious stones spread their varied colours over pectorals, mitres and
mantles for the Virgin. There were diamonds so immense as to make one
doubt their being genuine, emeralds the size of pebbles, amethysts,
topaz, and pearls--very many pearls, strewn by the hundreds and
thousands on the Virgin's garments. The foreigners were amazed at all
this wealth and dazzled by the quantity, while Gabriel, who had become
accustomed to see it daily, looked at it carelessly. The Treasury
presented a deplorable spectacle of neglect: the riches had aged with
the Cathedral, the diamonds did not flash, the gold seemed tarnished
and dusty, the silver was blackened, the pearls were opaque and sick,
the smoke from the wax tapers and the damp atmosphere of the church
had sadly dulled everything.

[Footnote 1: _Virile_--small box with double glass in which the Host
is exhibited.]

"The Church," said Gabriel to himself, "ages everything she touches.
The treasures lose their brilliancy in her hands, like jewels that
fall into the power of usurers. The diamond becomes dulled in the
bosom of the great miser, and the most beautiful picture becomes
blackened on her altars."

After the visit to the Treasury came the exhibition of the Ochavo, the
octagonal chapel of dark marbles, that pantheon of relics where
the most repulsive human remains--skulls with their ghastly grin,
mummified arms and worn-eaten vertebras--were shown in gold or silver
shrines. The gross and credulous piety of former days displayed
itself in the full tide of unbelief, so that even Don Antolin, so
uncompromising when he spoke of th