The next morning, which was lovely, I lost no
time in going back to it, and found, with satisfaction,
that the daylight did it no injury.
The cathedral of
Bourges is indeed magnificently huge; and if it is a
good deal wanting in lightness and grace it is perhaps
only the more imposing. I read in the excellent hand-
book of M. Joanne that it was projected "_des_ 1172,"
but commenced only in the first years of the thirteenth
century. "The nave" the writer adds, "was finished
_tant bien que mal, faute de ressources;_ the facade is of
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in its lower
part, and of the fourteenth in its upper." The allusion
to the nave means the omission of the transepts. The
west front consists of two vast but imperfect towers;
one of which (the south) is immensely buttressed, so
that its outline slopes forward, like that of a pyramid,
being the taller of the two. If they had spires, these
towers would be prodigious; as it is, given the rest
of the church, they are wanting in elevation. There
are five deeply recessed portals, all in a row, each
surmounted with a gable; the gable over the central
door being exceptionally high. Above the porches,
which give the measure of its width, the front rears
itself, piles itself, on a great scale, carried up by gal-
leries, arches, windows, sculptures, and supported by
the extraordinarily thick buttresses of which I have
spoken, and which, though they embellish it with deep
shadows thrown sidewise, do not improve its style.
The portals, especially the middle one, are extremely
interesting; they are covered with curious early sculp-
tures. The middle one, however, I must describe
alone. It has no less than six rows of figures, - the
others have four, - some of which, notably the upper
one, are still in their places. The arch at the top has
three tiers of elaborate imagery. The upper of these
is divided by the figure of Christ in judgment, of great
size, stiff and terrible, with outstretched arms. On
either side of him are ranged three or four angels,
with the instruments of the Passion. Beneath him, in
the second frieze, stands the angel of justice, with his
scales; and on either side of him is the vision of the
last judgment. The good prepare, with infinite titilla-
tion and complacency, to ascend to the skies; while
the bad are dragged, pushed, hurled, stuffed, crammed,
into pits and caldrons of fire. There is a charming
detail in this section. Beside the angel, on, the right,
where the wicked are the prey of demons, stands a
little female figure, that of a child, who, with hands
meekly folded and head gently raised, waits for the
stern angel to decide upon her fate. In this fate, how-
ever, a dreadful, big devil also takes a keen interest;
he seems on the point of appropriating the tender
creature; he has a face like a goat and an enormous
hooked nose.
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