"The doorway to the right, dedicated to the Confessors, was a vast hull
set on end; on the sloping side to the left of the door stood Saint
Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra, holding up a gloved hand, and trampling
under foot the cruel host killing the children whose death became a
theme for so many laments; Saint Ambrose, Doctor of the Church and
Bishop of Milan, wearing a singular peaked mitre, like an extinguisher;
Saint Leo, the Pope who defied Attila; and finally Saint Laumer, one of
the glories of the Chartres district.
"He, like Saint Piat in the left-hand bay, is somewhat of a stranger
dragged into this illustrious company. He was of old highly venerated in
La Beauce, having, in his lifetime, had a career which may be briefly
summed up. During his childhood he had kept sheep; he had then been
cellarer to the cathedral; had become first an anchorite, then a monk,
and finally Abbot of the Monastery of Corbion in the forests of the
Orne.
"The opposite slope of the bay sheltered Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours,
Saint Jerome, as a Doctor of the Church, Saint Gregory, Pope and Doctor,
and Saint Avitus.
"What is curious in this door," thought Durtal, "is the parallel of
personages. On one side, to the right, Saint Nicholas, the great
miracle-worker of the East; on the other side, to the left, Saint
Martin, the great miracle-worker of the West. Then, as companion
figures, Saint Ambrose and Saint Jerome;--the first often redundant and
pompous in second-rate prose, but ingenious and delightful in his hymns;
the second who, in the Vulgate, really created the language of Church
use, purifying and airing the Latin of Pagan literature, foul with
lascivious meaning, reeking at once of an old goat and of essence of
roses. Again, face to face, two Popes, Saint Leo and Saint Gregory, and
two Abbots of Monasteries, Saint Laumer and Saint Avitus, who was Prior
of a House founded in the forests of Le Perche."
These two last statues had been added later; their style and costume
betrayed a date subsequent to the thirteenth century; had they, then,
taken the place of others representing the same Monks, or different
Saints?
The tympanum again expressed the same purpose of parallelism, evidently
intended by the master of the work. This was also devoted to two miracle
workers, to a correspondence in this respect of the north and the south.
It represented episodes in the lives of Saint Nicholas and Saint Martin:
Saint Nicholas furnishing a dowry for the daughters of a gentleman who
was dying of hunger, and about to sell their honour, and the sepulchre
of this archbishop exuding an oil of sovereign efficacy in the cure of
diseases; Saint Martin giving half of his cloak to a beggar, and then
beholding Christ wearing the garment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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