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That statuette, modelled after one of the Theological Virtues of Notre- Dame de Brou, always so ingenuously graceful in its natural condition, is now making contortions and putting out its tongue at me. And that beautiful miniature in which one of the most skilful pupils of Jehan Fouquet depicted himself, girdled with the cord-girdle of the Sons of St.
"This building at Brou was the last effort of mediæval times, the last rocket flung up by the flamboyant Gothic style a Gothic which though fallen from its glory struggled against death, fought against returning paganism and the invading Renaissance.
"Those of a strong mind and of a great genius, an inflexible will which has irritated power against him, and a profound passion which has driven his heart and him to commit the only mortal sin with which I believe he can be reproached; and it was only by violating the sanctity of his private papers, which they tore from Jeanne d'Estievre, his mother, an old woman of eighty, that they discovered his love for the beautiful Madeleine de Brou.
They on their side did not forget that they had their own revenge to take. Roland had informed them of the subterranean passage that led from the church of Brou to the grotto of Ceyzeriat.
You can always find at Strasburg, Cologne, or Milan churches or cathedrals to equal the chapel of Brou; but where will you find an administration idiotic enough to destroy such a masterpiece, and a mayor clever enough to turn it into a barn? A thousand thanks, captain. Here are your keys."
Thence we went to the Church of Brou, near Lyons exquisitely beautiful, and filled with monuments even more inspiring than the church itself. But it was entirely evident, from a look at the church and its surroundings, that Matthew Arnold had written his charming poem without ever visiting the place.
Those who have seen the charming little chapel of Brou know that it is known as one of the hundred marvels of the Renaissance; those who have not seen it must have often heard it said.
The visitor to-day cannot help wondering why the beautiful building, with its splendid works of art, is dropped down in that particular spot, which looks so accidental and arbitrary. But there are reasons for most things, and there were reasons why the church of Brou should be at Brou, which is a vague little suburb of a vague little town.
He himself, setting the example, slept like a man whose brain has solved a problem of the utmost importance which has long harassed it. The thought had just flashed through his mind that the Companions of Jehu had abandoned the Chartreuse of Seillon for the grottoes of Ceyzeriat; and at the same time he recalled the subterranean passage leading from these grottoes to the church of Brou.
"Moreover, if we admit that the sculptors of the thirteenth century introduced the acanthus on account of its emollient qualities, the oak because it is emblematic of strength, and the water-lily because its broad leaves are accepted as a figure of charity, we ought no less to conclude that at the end of the fifteenth century, when the mystery of symbolism was not as yet altogether lost, the toothed bunches of curled cabbage, of thistles and other deeply-cut leaves mingling with true-love-knots, as in the church at Brou, might have had some meaning.
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