Otherwise Chartres, unlike her sister cathedrals, would have no scenes of that kind." "Then the rule in the thirteenth century was to place the Virgin in the northern portion ?" "Yes.

To the men of that time the north meant the gloom of winter, the dejection of darkness, the misery of cold; the ice-bound chant of the winds was to them the very blast of evil; to the north was the home of the devil, the hell of nature, as the south was its Eden." "But that is absurd!" cried Durtal, "the greatest blunder ever introduced into the symbolism of the elements.

The medieval sages were mistaken, for snow is pure and cold is chastity.

It is the sun, on the contrary, that is the active agent in developing the germs of rottenness, the ferment of vice! "They forget that the third Psalm of Compline speaks of the hot hour of noon as the most harassing and dangerous of all; they must have overlooked the horrors of sweat and unwholesome heat, the risks of relaxed nerves, of loosened dresses, all the abominations of leaden clouds and hard blue skies! "There are diabolical effluvia in the storm, and in weather when the air stirs like the vapours from a furnace, rousing evil instincts and bringing about us the raging swarm of evil angels." "But remember the passages in which Isaiah and Jeremiah speak of Lucifer as dwelling in the blast of the north wind; and recollect that the great cathedrals did not originate in the south but in the middle and north of France; consequently, after having adopted this symbolism of seasons and weather, the pious architects dreamed of the horror of men buried in snow, and longing for a gleam of sunshine and a bright day.

Naturally they thought of the east as the region of the original Paradise, and of those lands as milder and less inclement than their own." "That does not hinder the fact that this theory was controverted by Our Lord Himself." "Where do you find that ?" asked the Abbe Plomb.
"On Calvary; Jesus died" turning His back to the south, which had crucified Him, and extending His arms on the Cross to bless and embrace the north.