equal height open from the nave to the side aisles; and at the end of the
nave is another great arch, rising, with a vaulted half-dome, over the
high altar. The pillars supporting these arches are Corinthian, with
richly sculptured capitals; and wherever gilding might adorn the church,
it is lavished like sunshine; and within the sweeps of the arches there
are fresco paintings of sacred subjects, and a beautiful picture covers
the hollow of the vault over the altar; all this, besides much sculpture;
and especially a group above and around the high altar, representing the
Magdalen smiling down upon angels and archangels, some of whom are
kneeling, and shadowing themselves with their heavy marble wings.

There is no such thing as making my page glow with the most distant idea
of the magnificence of this church, in its details and in its whole. It
was founded a hundred or two hundred years ago; then Bonaparte
contemplated transforming it into a Temple of Victory, or building it anew
as one. The restored Bourbon remade it into a church; but it still has a
heathenish look, and will never lose it.

When we entered we saw a crowd of people, all pressing forward toward the
high altar, before which burned a hundred wax lights, some of which were
six or seven feet high; and, altogether, they shone like a galaxy of
stars. In the middle of the nave, moreover, there was another galaxy of
wax candles burning around an immense pall of black velvet, embroidered
with silver, which seemed to cover, not only a coffin, but a sarcophagus,
or something still more huge.

The organ was rumbling forth a deep, lugubrious bass, accompanied with
heavy chanting of priests, out of which sometimes rose the clear, young
voices of choristers, like light flashing out of the gloom. The church,
between the arches, along the nave, and round the altar, was hung with