You may close your eyes and imagine that you are present at a Mass of old days--a Mass of the dead--a silent Mass, at which no sound escapes from the lips of the praying, and no tinkle comes from the bell that is vainly shaken. Kings do penance before the sacred altar, knights in chain armour kneel and take the sign of the cross; noble lords, clad in velvet and brocade, with plumes in their hats and swords at their sides, carry in their hands tall canes, with golden knobs, and bow to great dames with powdered hair, who hide behind their fans lovely faces powdered, painted, patched. And in the aisles a crowd of youthful artisans, in brown jerkins, dimity breeches, and hose of blue, stand beside young women with rosy cheeks and downcast eyes. Elsewhere peasant women, in their old skirts and laced bodices, sit tranquil, whilst upright, behind them, their young lovers shift their legs and twist their hats in their fingers, gazing open-eyed.
They seem to follow with their silent lips the noiseless priests as they perform that ritual order of Notre-Dame de Chartres, which rejoiced the Gothic soul of Gaston de Latour; a year-long dramatic action, in which everyone had and knew his part--the drama or mystery of redemption, to the necessities of which the great church had shaped itself. For all those various ‘offices’ which, in pontifical, missal and breviary, devout imagination had elaborated from age to age with such a range of spiritual colour and light and shade, with so much poetic tact in quotation, such a depth of insight into the Christian soul, had been joined harmoniously together, one office ending only where another began, in the perpetual worship of this mother of churches. And Notre-Dame had also its own picturesque peculiarities of ‘use,’ and was proud of its maternal privilege therein.[77]
You notice the rich tones of the masonry, made richer by the jewelled lights of those rare windows; you notice in the centre of the nave the mysterious maze traced upon the pavement, the scene in old times of much devotional exercise,--la Lieue, it is vulgarly termed, for the miniature pilgrimages, along the line of white stones, with prayers at stated intervals, as once at Reims, Amiens, Arras, and Bayeux, earned many indulgences, and took the place of a journey to Jerusalem. This, with the exception of that at S. Quentin, is the only remaining instance of a labyrinth in the French churches. Above you, around you, tower the piers and vaulting of the nave--