Roman Catholic places of worship--to their honor--it is, and ever was,
unusual. Each of them performed her devotions in a kind of inclosed
bench or solitary pew. By most of these the occupant was concealed
only to the waist when she stood up at the reading of the Gospel; some
allowed only their heads to appear; and others of the fair owners were
at once so devout, so cruel, and so self-denying as to shut out the
eyes of the world entirely and at all times. But instances of this
remorseless mortification of the flesh, seem to have been exceedingly
rare. Queer enough these structures were, and sufficiently gratifying
to the pride and provocative of the envy which the beauties of Bâle
(avowedly) went to churches in which there was no marble to mortify. For
they were of different heights, according to the rank of the occupant.
A simple burgher's wife took but a step toward heaven when she went to
pray; a magistrate's of the lower house, we must suppose, took two; a
magistrate's of the upper house, three; a lady, four; a baroness, five;
a countess, six; and what a duchess, if one ever appeared there, did to
maintain her dignity in the eyes of God and man, unless she mounted into
the pulpit, it is quite impossible to conjecture. Aeneas Sylvius gives
it as his opinion that these things were used as a protection against
the cold, which to his Italian blood seemed very great. But that notion
was surely instilled into the courtly churchman by some fair, demure
Bâloise; for had it been well-founded, the sentry-boxes would have risen
and fallen with the thermometer, and not with the rank of the occupant.

The walls of the churches were hung around with the emblazoned shields
of knights and noblemen, and the roofs were richly painted in various
colors, and glowed with splendor when the rays of the sun fell upon
them. Storks built their nests upon these roofs, and hatched their young
there unmolested; for the Bâlois believed, that, if the birds were
disturbed, they would fire the houses.