They engrafted their genius on that of their first masters; there was the perpetuated tradition of an admirable conception, a perennial breath of the Holy Spirit.

It was the interloper, the period of false and farcical Pagan art, that extinguished that pure flame, and annihilated the luminous truthfulness of the Mediaeval past, when God had dwelt intimately, at home, in souls; it substituted a merely earthly form of art for one that was divine.
"As soon as the sensuality of the Renaissance revealed itself, the Paraclete fled; the mortal sin of stone could display itself at will.

It contaminated the buildings that were finished, defiled the churches, debasing their purity of form; this, with the gross license of sculpture and painting, was the great stupration of the cathedrals.
"And this time the Spirit of Prayer was quite dead; everything went to pieces.

The Renaissance, so lauded afterwards by Michelet and the historians, was the death of the Mystical soul of monumental theology, of religious art--all the great art of France.
"Bless me! where am I ?" Durtal suddenly asked himself, finding himself in the ill-paved alleys which lead from the Cathedral square to the lower town.

He saw that, dreaming as he walked, he had passed the Abbe's lodgings.
He turned up the street again, stopped in front of an old house and rang.