Three ogival windows in the chancel throw on the pavement the warm gules of an escutcheon emblazoned on the glass. They diffuse not too strong a light—only enough for a glow around the tabernacle, leaving the rest of the chapel in a shade that disposes the heart to contemplation and prayer. In the morning, at mass, the rising sun streams through, mingling with the light of the tapers, like that of nature and grace in the hearts of the worshippers. Over the altar, in a niche, is a statue of Mary Most Pure, with the divine Babe in her arms—as I love to see all her statues, that the remembrance of the Blessed Virgin may never be disconnected from that of the Incarnation. "The Madonna and Child—a subject so consecrated by antiquity," says Mrs. Jameson, "so hallowed by its profound significance, so endeared by its associations with the softest and deepest of our human sympathies, that the mind has never wearied of its repetition, nor the eye become satiated with its beauty. Those who refuse to give it the honor due to a religious representation yet regard it with a tender, half-unwilling homage, and when the glorified type of what is purest, loftiest, holiest, in womanhood stands before us, arrayed in all the majesty that accomplished art, inspired by faith and love, could lend her, and bearing her divine Son, rather enthroned than sustained, on her maternal bosom,'we look, and the heart is in heaven!' and it is difficult, very difficult, to refrain from an 'Ora pro nobis!'"
In this chapel Mary has been honored for ages. The chronicles of the priory tell us that in the days of the monks of St. Benedict crowds of the faithful filled, as now, this chapel on the eighth of December, its patronal féte. The deep-toned voices that then chanted the praises of Mary have died away, but the notes have been caught up and continued in softer, sweeter tones by the lips of the spouses of Christ.
I can never enter this chapel without a thrill. I love to linger beneath its vault of stone, the arches of which spring from corbells quaintly sculptured, and form, at their intersection, medallions of Jesus and Mary, who look benignly down on the suppliant beneath. Prostrate on the pavement which holy knees have worn, and breathing an air perfumed by the prayers of centuries, my mind goes back to former times, and I think of the cowled monks who once bowed in prayer before the same altar, and murmured the same prayers I so love to repeat:
"Their book they read and their beads they told,
To human softness dead and cold,
And all life's vanity."
I must tell you something of St. Mary's Cathedral, which is the glory of this place. You should see it from our garden, crowning this city built upon a hill, with its towers and pinnacles. It is perfectly majestic. There, on the same spot, before the Incarnation, stood a temple of Venus. Christianity, which always loved to sanctify these high places, made the lascivious Venus yield to the Mother of pure love. Toward the end of the third century, St. Taurin brought a venerated statue of our Lady from Eauze, and erected a chapel here in her honor. It was not till about the year 800 that a cathedral was erected in the same place. It has been four times demolished, and as often rebuilt. In 1793, it was preserved with great difficulty. During that time it served as a prison for many of the noblesse, and was stripped of many of its most precious ornaments. The holy image of Mary was superseded by the Goddess of Reason, and horses were stabled in its chapels. But one does not love to linger over such profanation.
This cathedral is particularly remarkable for the carvings of the choir and for the fine stained-glass windows of the Renaissance. Wishing to examine it minutely, I obtained permission to visit it at those hours when it is closed—that is, from noon till three o'clock. Accompanied by a servant, I was there precisely at twelve. The Angelus bell pealed forth just as I entered the church, and
"Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop
Sprinkles the congregation and scatters blessings upon them."
The Suisse, who was an old soldier under Napoleon I., and was in the Russian campaign, locked us in, free to wander at will and unremarked in this vast cathedral, with the excellent Monographie by the learned Abbé Canéto in hand. At the very portal we passed over the tomb of an old archbishop, who wished through humility to be buried under the pavement of the principal entrance to the church, that he might be trodden under foot by all men. Perhaps there was something of natural instinct in this choice. I know not whether I should prefer some quiet and shady nook for my grave, or a great thoroughfare like this, with the almost constant ring of human feet above my head. This prelate has lain there about two centuries, "awaiting," as the inscription says, "the resurrection of the dead."
We entered the church beneath the tribune of the organ, a fine instrument—the master-piece of Joyeuse, a famous organ-maker of the time of Louis XIV. On its front panels are beautifully carved, en relief, St. Cecilia and the Royal Harper.