The existence of Peoples has no more solemn scenes, no moments more
majestic. To mankind in the mass, movement is needed to make it
poetical; but in these hours of religious thought, when human riches
unite themselves with celestial grandeur, incredible sublimities are
felt in the silence; there is fear in the bended knee, hope in the
clasping hands. The concert of feelings in which all souls are rising
heavenward produces an inexplicable phenomenon of spirituality. The
mystical exaltation of the faithful reacts upon each of them; the
feebler are no doubt borne upward by the waves of this ocean of faith
and love. Prayer, a power electrical, draws our nature above itself.
This involuntary union of all wills, equally prostrate on the earth,
equally risen into heaven, contains, no doubt, the secret of the magic
influences wielded by the chants of the priests, the harmonies of the
organ, the perfumes and the pomps of the altar, the voices of the
crowd and its silent contemplations. Consequently, we need not be
surprised to see in the middle-ages so many tender passions begun in
churches after long ecstasies,--passions ending often in little
sanctity, and for which women, as usual, were the ones to do penance.
Religious sentiment certainly had, in those days, an affinity with
love; it was either the motive or the end of it. Love was still a
religion, with its fine fanaticism, its naive superstitions, its
sublime devotions, which sympathized with those of Christianity.

The manners of that period will also serve to explain this alliance
between religion and love. In the first place society had no
meeting-place except before the altar. Lords and vassals, men and
women were equals nowhere else. There alone could lovers see each
other and communicate. The festivals of the Church were the theatre of
former times; the soul of woman was more keenly stirred in a cathedral