"On the right is seen the contemplative life; a woman praying, holding a closed book, opening it, reading it; she shuts it to meditate on it, teaches others, and falls into an ecstasy.
"Finally, in the outermost hollow of the moulding of the arch, the nearest to us and the most visible, there are fourteen statues of queens, leaning on shields with coats-of-arms, and formerly holding banners. The meaning of these statuettes has been much discussed, especially of the second figure on the left, which is named 'Libertas' the word being carved in the stone. Didron believed them to represent the domestic and social virtues; but the question has been finally and definitively settled by the most erudite and clearsighted symbolist of our day, Madame Félicie d'Ayzac, who, in a very edifying pamphlet published in 1843 on these statues and on the animals of the Tetramorph, has proved to demonstration that these fourteen queens are none else than the fourteen heavenly Beatitudes as enumerated by Saint Anselm: Beauty, Liberty, Honour, Joy, Pleasure, Agility, Strength, Concord, Friendship, Length of Days, Power, Health, Safety, and Wisdom.
"Is not this porch, as a whole, so closely set with
imagery, one of the most ingenious and interesting doorways known, from the points of view of theology and of mysticism alike?"
"And no less from the point of view of art. You are perfectly right; these toiling and meditative women are so delicate and so loving, that we can but regret that they should be hidden in the shadow of a cavern. What artists must those have been who worked thus for the glory of God and for their own satisfaction, creating marvels while knowing that no man would see them!"
"And they had not even the vanity to sign them; they were always anonymous."
"Ah! they were men of a different mould from us. Prouder souls, and humbler."
"And holier," added the Abbé. "Shall we now inquire into the iconography of the right-hand portal? It has suffered less, and may be explained in a few words.
"This sculptured vault is, as you know, dedicated to types of Mary; but we might more accurately say that it is devoted to prototypes of Christ, for in this doorway, as in the other two, indeed, the image-makers of the thirteenth century have made it their task to identity the Son with the Mother."
"In fact, most of the personages we have already studied relate more especially to Christ. What, then, are those in the Old Testament, which are more essentially proper to the daughter of Joachim, and transferred in images of stone to be deciphered here?"