charge and conducted me all over the church. The stones
were dark, the statues dismal, the altar mysterious. No
lamps competed with the sun. The latter threw upon the
sepulchral stones in the pavement the long white silhouettes
of the windows, which through the melancholy obscurity
of the rest of the church looked like phantoms lying
upon these tombs. No one was in the church. Not a
whisper, not a footfall could be heard.

This solitude saddened the heart and enraptured the soul.
There were in it abandonment, neglect, oblivion, exile, and
sublimity. Gone the whirl of 1825. The church had resumed
its dignity and its calmness. Not a piece of finery,
not a vestment, not anything. It was bare and beautiful.
The lofty vault no longer supported a canopy. Ceremonies
of the palace arc not suited to these severe places; a
coronation ceremony is merely tolerated; these noble ruins are
not made to be courtiers. To rid it of the throne and
withdraw the king from the presence of God increases the
majesty of a temple. Louis XIV. hides Jehovah from sight.

Withdraw the priest as well. All that eclipsed it having
been taken away, you will see the light of day direct.
Orisons, rites, bibles, formulas, refract and decompose the
sacred light. A dogma is a dark chamber. Through a
religion you see the solar spectre of God, but not God.
Desuetude and crumbling enhance the grandeur of a temple.
As human religion retires from this mysterious and
jealous edifice, divine religion enters it. Let solitude reign
in it and you will feel heaven there. A sanctuary deserted