You will move gladly into the porch to study its beautiful twelfth-century sculpture, for whilst you have been looking at this angel you will have learnt that round the south-west corner of the Cathedral, as about the Abbey in Old Palace Yard in Westminster, the wind never ceases to blow, and often blows a hurricane. Before the Hôtel-Dieu, which was quite close to the Clocher Vieux, was destroyed, the gusts of wind were so violent that the passage called _L’Âne qui vielle_ had the reputation of being impassable. One Canon Brillon, a hundred years ago, wrote a poem in which he related that ‘On a time Wind and Discord were travelling over the plains of La Beauce and suddenly turned in the direction of the Cathedral. Arrived at the foot of the towers, Discord left his companion, asking him to wait near _L’Âne qui vielle_ whilst he went into the Chapter-house. Contentious business detained him there so long that the Wind is still waiting, waiting for him outside; Le Vent dehors l’attend encore!’ As I struggle through Old Palace Yard I often wonder whether it is in the House of Commons or in the Chapter-house of the Abbey that Discord is so busily engaged, for the wind here, as in Chartres and at Kill-Cannon Corner at Lincoln, is always waiting outside, a truly Gothic draught![62] The western porch is composed of three large bays, of which the middle one was, as always in Christian churches, known as the Porte Royale. This name was given it because in the tympanum Christ was always represented triumphant, the King of Kings. Nor, as you gaze at the wealth of statuary and ornamentation upon which, as upon the architecture, the artists have lavished all their resources and all their skill in their endeavour to illustrate the Story of the Triumph of Our Lord, will you grudge this entrance its other names of Porta Speciosa and Porta Triumphalis. The sculptured figures are of every size. Once the whole porch was a blaze of colour. Of this colour and gold you may still see a few traces left. Begun about 1110, under S. Ives, this typical example of early Gothic work was not completed till nearly 1150, and among those who wrought the images which people it were, some think, the artists who had worked at the Porch of S. Sermin at Toulouse, and knew that of S. Trophimus at Arles.