"They forget that the third Psalm of Compline speaks of the hot hour of noon as the most harassing and dangerous of all; they must have overlooked the horrors of sweat and unwholesome heat, the risks of relaxed nerves, of loosened dresses, all the abominations of leaden clouds and hard blue skies!
"There are diabolical effluvia in the storm, and in weather when the air stirs like the vapours from a furnace, rousing evil instincts and bringing about us the raging swarm of evil angels."
"But remember the passages in which Isaiah and Jeremiah speak of Lucifer as dwelling in the blast of the north wind; and recollect that the great cathedrals did not originate in the south but in the middle and north of France; consequently, after having adopted this symbolism of seasons and weather, the pious architects dreamed of the
horror of men buried in snow, and longing for a gleam of sunshine and a bright day. Naturally they thought of the east as the region of the original Paradise, and of those lands as milder and less inclement than their own."
"That does not hinder the fact that this theory was controverted by Our Lord Himself."
"Where do you find that?" asked the Abbé Plomb.
"On Calvary; Jesus died" turning His back to the south, which had crucified Him, and extending His arms on the Cross to bless and embrace the north. He seemed to be withdrawing His favours from the east, 'to bestow them on the west. Hence, if any region is accurst and inhabited by Satan, it is the south and not the north."
"You abominate the south and its races, that is evident," said the Abbé, laughing.
"I do not love them. Their scenery, vulgarized by crude daylight, their dusty trees standing out against a sky of washerwoman's blue, have no charm for me; as to the natives, hairy and noisy, with a blue bar under their nostrils if they shave, I flee from them!"
"Here, in short, we are face to face with a fact which no discussions can alter. This side of the church is dedicated to the Virgin. Shall we now examine it, first as a whole, and then in detail?