It was gratifying to find the cathedral in such
good condition, without any traces of recent repair; and it is perhaps a
mark of difference between French and English character, that the
Revolution in the former country, though all religious worship disappears
before it, does not seem to have caused such violence to ecclesiastical
monuments, as the Reformation and the reign of Puritanism in the latter.
I did not see a mutilated shrine, or even a broken-nosed image, in the
whole cathedral. But, probably, the very rage of the English fanatics
against idolatrous tokens, and their smashing blows at them, were
symptoms of sincerer religious faith than the French were capable of.
These last did not care enough about their Saviour to beat down his
crucified image; and they preserved the works of sacred art, for the sake
only of what beauty there was in them.
While we were in the cathedral, we saw several persons kneeling at their
devotions on the steps of the chancel and elsewhere. One dipped his
fingers in the holy water at the entrance: by the by, I looked into the
stone basin that held it, and saw it full of ice.
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