But later he will begin to realise that the sculpture which had pleased his eye and inspired his dreams is not a mere ornament of the building. Each part of the Cathedral, like the Cathedral as a whole, is the superb product of the intimate alliance of nameless architects, nameless sculptors, nameless painters of glass, working with the one object of setting forth the glory of God and His Son and the Virgin to the multitude, of illustrating for all unreading eyes the Word of the Lord. The Cathedral is a Bible in stone, and the porches a gospel in relief, a sculptured catechism, a preface and a _résumé_ of the book. Each stone, thus understood, is seen to be a page of a great drama. This drama is the history of humanity from the creation of the world to the day of the Last Judgment. Within, the same story is repeated. The jewelled windows are there not only for the sake of the holiness of their beauty, not merely to provide the pilgrim with the dim religious light suitable to his mood, or that the placid sunshine of La Beauce may be transformed into imperious angry fire. The five thousand figures in those legendary lights are the commentary and the repetition of the sculptured text without. Who conceived, the question arises again and again, this admirable plan, this marvellous whole? Who were the artists of Notre-Dame? We are in great ignorance of the matter, and the question cannot be definitely answered. The cloister we know was the only refuge of art; the monasteries the sole asylums for those who would study science. And to those peaceable retreats painters, sculptors, artists perforce retired to practise, to invent, to teach the secrets of their trade; secrets, alas! of colour among them, which have been irretrievably lost to this scientific generation. We know, for instance, that in the Monastery of Tiron, which S. Bernard founded on lands given to him for that purpose by S. Ives, more than five hundred artists of one sort or another were to be found. S. Bernard insisted on the observance of that point in the Benedictine rule which recommends that ‘if there be artists in the monastery they shall with all humility practise their arts.’ These monks, we also know, established a branch at Chartres, ‘near the market-place.’ Perhaps, therefore, S. Bernard paid his debt to S. Ives and the Chapter of Notre-Dame by furnishing the hands which carved the statues and the storied capitals of the three bays of the western façade.