The plan and photographs of this basilica are to be found in an interesting volume that I can lend you; the author, the Abbe Picardat, is the Cure of the church.

You will from them readily perceive that the curve of the plan is that of a body leaning on one side, drawn out and bending over.
"And the movement of the body is represented by the curve of the axis, beginning at the very first bay and continued along the nave, the choir, and the apse to the end, which bends aside to imitate the droop of the head.
"Thus, even better than at Chartres, at Reims, and at Rouen, this humble sanctuary, built by Benedictine monks whose names are unknown, represents in its serpentine line, in the perspective of its aisles and the obliquity of its vaulting, the allegorical presentment of our Lord on the Cross.

In all other churches the architects have to some extent imitated the cadaverous rigidity of the head fallen in death; at Preuilly the monks have perpetuated the never-to-be-forgotten instant that elapsed between the '_Sitio_' (I thirst) and the '_Consummatum est_' (It is finished), as recorded in the Gospel of Saint John.

Thus the old Touraine church is in the image of Christ Crucified, but still living.
"Now, to look at home once more, we will consider the inward parts of our sanctuaries.

It may be noted incidentally that the length of the cathedral figures the long-suffering of the Church in adversity; its breadth symbolizes charity, which expands the souls of men; its height, the hope of future reward; and we can then proceed to details.
"The choir and sanctuary symbolize Heaven; the nave is the emblem of the earth; as the gulf that divides the two worlds can only be passed by the help of the Cross, it was formerly the custom, now, alas, fallen into desuetude, to erect an enormous Crucifix over the grand arch between the nave and the choir.