"And then," the Abbe Plomb added, very seriously, "you must fill your mind from the books of Albertus Magnus, the Master of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who in the treatises ascribed to him on the Virtues of Herbs, the Wonders of the World, and the Secrets of Women, puts forth certain ideas, which, as I may hope, will not have been written in vain. "He tells us that the plantain-root is a cure for headache and for ulcers; that mistletoe grown on an oak opens all locks; that celandine laid on a sick man's head sings if he will die; that the juice of the house-leek will enable you to hold a hot iron without being burnt; that leaves of myrtle twisted into a ring will reduce an abscess; that lily powdered and eaten by a young maiden is an effectual test of her virginity, for if she should not be innocent it takes instantaneous effect as a diuretic!" "I did not know of that property in the lily," said Durtal, laughing, "but I knew that Albertus Magnus assigned the same peculiarity to the mallow; only the patient need not swallow the plant; she has only to stoop over it." "What nonsense!" exclaimed the old priest. His housekeeper, quite scared, stood looking at the ground. "Do not listen to him, Madame Bavoil," cried Durtal. "I have a less medical, and more religious, idea: cultivate a liturgical garden and emblematic vegetables; make a kitchen and flower garden that may set forth the glory of God and carry up our prayers in their language; and, in short, imitate the purpose of the Song of the Three Holy Children in the fiery furnace, when they called on all Nature, from the breath of the storm to the seed buried in the field, to Bless the Lord!" "Very good!" exclaimed the Abbe Plomb; "but you must have a wide space at your disposal, for not less than one hundred and thirty plants are mentioned in the Scriptures; and the number of those to which mediaeval writers give a meaning is immense." "To say nothing of the fact," observed the Abbe Gevresin, "that a garden dependent on our cathedral ought also to reproduce the botany of its architecture." "Is it known?" "A list has not indeed been written for Chartres as it has been for Reims of its sculptured flora: the botany in stone of the church of Notre Dame there, has been carefully classified and labelled by Monsieur Saubinet; still, you will observe that the posies of the capitals are much the same everywhere. In all the churches of the thirteenth century you will find the leaves of the vine, the oak, the rose-tree, the ivy, the willow, the laurel, and the bracken, with strawberry and buttercup leaves. Indeed, as a rule, the image-makers selected native plants characteristic of the region where they were employed."