"Look at St. Anne with her gloomy expression, either cross or suffering—how far she is from the so-called Radegonde and Berthe!
"With the exception of two, St. John and St. Joseph over there in the innermost part of the arch, these are familiar figures. They also occur at Reims and at Amiens. And do you remember the Simeon, the Virgin, and the St. Anne at Reims? The Virgin so guilelessly charming, so exquisitely chaste, holding out the Infant to Simeon, who stands mild and devout in his solemn garb as High Priest. St. Anne—a head of the same type as St. Joseph's, and as those of two angels on the same frontal, standing by St. Nicasius, with his head cut off at the brows—St. Anne with a smiling, arch expression and yet elderly—a sharp little chin, large eyes, a thin, long, pointed nose, the look of a youthful dueña, kindly but knowing.
"
But, indeed, those image-makers excelled in creating these singular, indefinable countenances. Do you recall Our Lady of Paris, later, I believe, by a century? She is scarcely pretty, but so expressive, with the smile of happiness parting such melancholy lips. Seen from one side She is smiling at Jesus, watchful, almost sportive; it would seem as though she were waiting for the Child to say some merry word before laughing out; She is a girl-mother, not yet accustomed to her Child's caress. Seen from another angle, this smile, apparently in the bud, has vanished. The mouth is puckered in sorrow, and promises tears.
"Perhaps when he succeeded in stamping on the face of Our Lady two such opposite expressions of peace and of fear, the sculptor intended to suggest at once the joy of the Nativity and the anticipated anguish of Calvary. Thus he has portrayed in one and the same image, the Mother of Sorrows and the Mother of Joy—has, without knowing it, embodied the prototypes of the Virgin of La Salette and the Virgin of Lourdes.
"And yet all this is inferior to the living and dignified art, so full of individuality and mystery, that we see in the royal porch of Chartres!"
"I will not contradict you," said the Abbé Plomb. "Now that we have studied the series of types placed on St. Anne's left hand, let us consider the prophetic series on her right.
"First we see Isaiah; the pedestal on which he stands represents Jesse sleeping. The familiar stem, rooted in him, passes between the prophet's feet, and the branches of the Virgin's ancestry according to the flesh and the spirit, as they rise, fill the four courses of moulding in the central arch. By his side is Jeremiah, who, meditating on the Passion of Christ, wrote this lamentable passage which is read in the fifth lesson of the second Nocturn on Easter Eve: 'All ye that pass by, behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.' Next Simeon holding the Infant whose Birth he had foreseen, at the same time with the sorrows of the Virgin and the anguish of Golgotha; Saint John the Baptist, and finally Saint Peter, whose dress is an interesting study since it is copied from that of the thirteenth-century Popes.
"With what care is every detail wrought! Admire the
treatment of the sandals, the gloves, the broidered amice, the alb, the maniple, the dalmatic, the pallium marked with six crosses, the triple crown, the conical tiara of brocaded silk, the pontifical breastplate, everything is chiselled, pierced, and patterned as if by a goldsmith."