第86章

The church,which is not of great size,is in the last and most flamboyant phase of Gothic,and in admirable preservation;the west front,before which a quaint old sundial is laid out on the ground,a circle of numbers marked in stone,like those on a clock face,let into the earth,is covered with delicate ornament.

The great feature,however (the nave is perfectly bare and wonderfully newlooking,though the warden,a stolid yet sharp old peasant,in a blouse,who looked more as if his line were chaffering over turnips than showing off works of art,told me that it has never been touched,and that its freshness is simply the quality of the stone),the great feature is the admirable choir,in the midst of which the three monuments have bloomed under the chisel,like exotic plants in a conservatory.I saw the place to small advantage,for the stained glass of the windows,which are fine,was under repair,and much of it was masked with planks.

In the centre lies PhilibertleBel,a figure of white marble on a great slab of black,in his robes and his armor,with two boyangels holding a tablet at his head,and two more at his feet.On either side of him is another cherub:one guarding his helmet,the other his stiff gauntlets.The attitudes of these charming children,whose faces are all bent upon him in pity,have the prettiest tenderness and respect.The table on which he lies is supported by elaborate columns,adorned with niches containing little images,and with every other imaginable elegance;and beneath it he is represented in that other form,so common in the tombs of the Renaissance,a man naked and dying,with none of the state and splendor of the image above.One of these figures embodies the duke the other simply the mortal;and there is something very strange and striking in the effect of the latter,seen dimly and with difficulty through the intervals of the rich supports of the upper slab.The monument of Margaret herself is on the left,all in white merble,tormented into a multitude of exquisite patterns,the last extravagance of a Gothic which had gone so far that nothing was left it but to return upon itself.Unlike her husband,who has only the high roof of the church above him,she lies under a canopy supported and covered by a wilderness of embroidery,flowers,devices,initials,arabesques,statuettes.