she gave herself up to the mystic flight of the giant, whose coming into
existence had demanded three centuries of time, and where were placed
one above the other the faith and the belief of generations. At the
foundation, it was kneeling as if crushed by prayer, with the Romanesque
chapels of the nave, and with the round arched windows, plain,
unornamented, except by slender columns under the archivolts. Then it
seemed to rise, lifting its face and hands towards heaven, with the
pointed windows of its nave, built eighty years later; high, delicate
windows, divided by mullions on which were broken bows and roses. Then
again it sprung from the earth as if in ecstasy, erect, with the piers
and flying buttresses of the choir finished and ornamented two centuries
after in the fullest flamboyant Gothic, charged with its bell-turrets,
spires, and pinnacles. A balustrade had been added, ornamented with
trefoils, bordering the terrace on the chapels of the apse. Gargoyles at
the foot of the flying buttresses carried off the water from the roofs.
The top was also decorated with flowery emblems. The whole edifice
seemed to burst into blossom in proportion as it approached the sky in
a continual upward flight, as if, relieved at being delivered from the
ancient sacerdotal terror, it was about to lose itself in the bosom of a
God of pardon and of love. It seemed to have a physical sensation which
permeated it, made it light and happy, like a sacred hymn it had just
heard sung, very pure and holy, as it passed into the upper air.

Moreover, the Cathedral was alive. Hundreds of swallows had constructed
their nests under the borders of trefoil, and even in the hollows of the
bell-turrets and the pinnacles, and they were continually brushing their
wings against the flying buttresses and the piers which they inhabited.
There were also the wood-pigeons of the elms in the Bishop's garden, who
held themselves up proudly on the borders of the terraces, going slowly,
as if walking merely to show themselves off. Sometimes, half lost in