The Cathedral is truly a Bible in stone. And just as in the sculptured porches the mediæval masons carved in a symbolic type, which the illiterate could read, the story of the Pentateuch and the Gospels; just as in their jewelled windows the monkish glaziers told again the same Bible story for all to see and understand, so it would seem that here in Chartres, the architects also, but by fortune rather than design, have symbolised in stone the Old Testament and the New. In that amazing window of the south transept the prophets of the former dispensation are portrayed carrying on their shoulders the naïve evangelists. Similarly the builders have made the Romanesque crypt to carry the Gothic upper church, and the old tower, eloquent of Byzantine art, massive and superb, confronts the joyous, soaring sister who has sprung up, from like foundations, at his side, the last effort, or rather the last amusement, of that Gothic art which is typical of aspirations that are justified, of a faith that is fulfilled. The Clocher Vieux combines to the highest degree grandeur with harmonious unity of proportion. From the bottommost stone to the highest there is never a break in the perfect line; and the plain massive base of enormous quarried stones, some of which, they say, measure ten feet by three, passes into the light octagonal spire, covered with its curious coat of mail or fishes’ scales, by imperceptible and inevitable gradations. It is a triumph of sheer beauty of proportion unaided by the art of ornament. The transition from the square tower to the tapering _flèche_ is, in spite of this simplicity, so exquisitely treated that it cannot be distinguished. It is a perfect masterpiece of masonic skill. Two terrible fires and more than 700 winters have left it with not one stone displaced.[57] The mere size of the enormous blocks of stone of which the base is built will fill the most casual visitor with astonishment. It has been suggested that they formed part of those city walls described by the monk Paul which once ran close to the Cathedral, and which were at this period being dismantled in order to admit of the enlargement of _enceinte_ of the town. But we know, from independent contemporary sources, how the labour required to quarry and fetch these huge masses of material was supplied. It was supplied by popular enthusiasm, inspired by religious fervour. For though the work of building, impeded by plague and famine, and a terrible fire which destroyed the town in 1134, went on slowly at first, in 1144 a great outburst of devotion occurred throughout the land. Whole populations arose and came to Chartres to labour at the work of God’s house. A noble rivalry urged every man to toil, and women even took their share in a burden which their faith rendered light, in a task which their devotion made both pleasant and honourable.