"How beautiful she is, the Holy Virgin, with the twelve stars which form her crown.
"Each with his harp in his hand, I see the angels and the archangels, singing the praises of God.
"And the virgins of all ages, and the saints of all conditions, and the holy women, and the widows crowned by God!
"I see radiant in glory and beauty, my father and my mother; I see my brothers and my countrymen.
"Choirs of little angels flying on their light wings, so rosy and so fair, fly around their heads, as a harmonious swarm of bees, honey-laden in a field of flowers.
"O happiness without parallel! the more I contemplate you, the more I long for you!"
The heavens did not close again until the canticle was finished, as if they had taken pleasure in the song of the predestined son of Hyvarnion and Rivanone, who heard him with smiles and called him to them.
VII.
Before the Revolution there was preserved in the treasury of the Cathedral of Nantes a silver shrine, enriched with precious stones, a present from an ancient Breton chief. In great judicial cases it was carried in procession to the judges to receive the solemn vows which they afterward made upon the book of the Evangelists. A king of France and a duke of Brittany, after long wars, united under this shrine their reconciled hands and swore to live in peace.
At the same time there was seen, in the depths of lower Brittany, in the sacristy of a little country church, an oaken cradle, with nothing about it remarkable unless its age. The inhabitants of the parish, however, venerated it as much as the silver shrine. The mendicant singers, above all, have [{826}] for it an especial affection. They love to touch it with their great musical instruments, their traveller's goods, their rosaries, their staffs, all that they have which is most precious. Kneeling before this cradle, they kiss it with respect, and arriving sad, they depart joyous.