undertaking was extreme, he could not help being impressed by the
grandeur of the sight presented by the catacomb thus illuminated. The
uneven niches reserved for the dead, asleep in the peace of the Lord for
so many centuries, made recesses in the corridors and gave them a solemn
and tragical aspect. Inscriptions were to be seen there, traced on the
stone, and all spoke of the great hope which those first Christians had
cherished, the same which believers of our day cherish.

Julien knew enough of symbols to understand the significance of the
images between which the persecuted of the primitive church had laid
their fathers. They are so touching and so simple! The anchor
represents safety in the storm; the gentle dove and the ewe, symbols of
the soul, which flies away and seeks its shepherd; the phoenix, whose
wings announce the resurrection. Then there were the bread and the wine,
the branches of the olive and the palm. The silent cemetery was filled
with a faint aroma of incense, noticed by Dorsenne on entering. High
mass, celebrated in the morning, left the sacred perfume diffused among
those bones, once the forms of human beings who kneeled there amid the
same holy aroma. The contrast was strong between that spot, where
everything spoke of things eternal, and the drama of passion, worldly and
culpable, the progress of which agitated even Dorsenne. At that moment
he appeared to himself in the light of a profaner, although he was
obeying generous and humane instincts. He experienced a sense of relief
when, at a bend in one of the corridors which he had selected from among
many others, he found himself face to face with a priest, who held in his
hand a basket filled with the petals of flowers, destined, no doubt, for
the procession. Dorsenne inquired of him the way to the Basilica in
Italian, while the reply was given in perfect French.

"Perhaps you know the Marquis de Montfanon, father?" asked the novelist.