From this refulgent and living whole, a single door rises on the side, high and naked; no sculpture, no ornament; the stones sweat their dampness; the bricks, that have assumed a blackened tint, separated by their white cement, present a lugubrious aspect; a great mourning veil seems spread before the eyes--this is the gate of death. You open, and you pause enchanted. Before you lies the cemetery. At your right, at your left, monument upon monument breaks upon your gaze. Under the porch where you stand are the statues in line of the twelve apostles; and opposite you, a large gate with three arches, the gate of the cemetery, in its imposing style, an arch of triumph, as if the Bretons, passing under it the perishable body, had typified the life eternal, the glory and the joy of the imperishable soul. At the right, a mortuary chapel of the style of the Louvre of Henry IV. is erected, its sculpture from the bottom to the top, an immense _châsse_ pictured in granite; at your left is the calvary, one of those complicated calvaries, found only in Brittany, a whole people of statues; eighty or a hundred personages in the most natural and simple attitudes--disciples, prophets, holy women, thieves on their crosses, guards on horseback, and, towering over all this crowd, the tree of the cross, colossal in its structure, of several stones, cross upon cross, and holding on its branches statues of the Virgin, Saint John, the guards, and others, and, in immensity of size and above all, the Christ himself, with his arms extended over the world, and his eyes uplifted to heaven. Angels are there, too, suspended in the air, and collecting in their chalices the precious blood from his hands. [Footnote 24] [Footnote 24: The calvaries of Plougastel and Pleyben--towns so remarkable for their beautiful churches are more complicated and grand, perhaps, but not so striking, as this one.] {125} And this is not all: enter the crypt of the mortuary chapel, and there you will find yourself face to face with another _chef-d'oeuvre_--the entombing of Christ, the scene which has ever inspired the greatest artists, and in colossal proportions. These are painted statues, and the painting adds to the impression, giving to the deeply moved personages the appearance of life. You hear them cry, you see their tears course down their pallid faces; the Virgin-Mother with her pressed lips on the livid feet of her divine Son, the Magdalen overwhelmed with grief and still beautiful in the midst of her sorrow. Can you fail to become an actor in this impassioned scene? You are rooted to the spot; the terrible blow that made them surfer becomes your reality, and, grieved to the depths of your soul, you feel your own tears flow; the lapse of ages is forgotten, and you are living in that Calvary scene.