"And you shall have a glass of old black currant liqueur for your pains! Yes, indeed, he is quite right--our friend is right," she went on, addressing the priests, who laughed.

"Everywhere else, excepting at Notre Dame des Victoires in Paris and, more especially, Notre Dame de Fourviere at Lyon, when you go to meet Her, you wait and wait; and often enough She does not come.
Whereas in our Cathedral She receives you at once, just as She is.

And I have told him, told our friend, that he should attend the first morning Mass in the crypt, and he will see what a welcome our Mother gives her visitors." "Chartres is a marvellous place," said the Abbe Gevresin, "with its two black Madonnas--Notre Dame of the Pillar, above in the body of the church, and Notre Dame de Sous-Terre below, in the vault over which the basilica is built.

No other sanctuary, I believe, possesses the miraculous images of Mary, to say nothing of the antique relic known as the Shift or Tunic of the Virgin." "And what in your opinion constitutes the soul of Chartres ?" asked the Abbe Plomb.
"Certainly not the souls of the citizens' wives and the church servants that are poured out there," replied Durtal.

"No, its vitality comes from the Sisterhoods, the peasant women, the pious schools, the pupils of the Seminary, and perhaps more especially from the children of the choir, who crowd to kiss the Pillar and kneel before the Black Virgin.