第42章

Not far from it,in a lonely corner which was animated for the moment by the vociferations of several old,women who were selling tapers,presumably for the occasion of a particular devotion,is the graceful romanesque church erected in the twelfth century to Saint Radegonde,a lady who found means to be a saint even in the capacity of a Merovingian queen.

It bears a general resemblance to Notre Dame la Grande,and,as I remember it,is corrugated in somewhat the same manner with porouslooking carvings;but I confess that what I chiefly recollect is the row of old women sitting in front of it,each with a tray of waxen tapers in her lap,and upbraiding me for my neglect of the opportunity to offer such a tribute to the saint.I know not whether this privilege is occasional or constant;within the church there was no appearance of a festival,and I see that the nameday of Saint Radegonde occurs in August,so that the importunate old women sit there always,perhaps,and deprive of its propriety the epithet I just applied to this provincial corner.In spite of the old women,however,I suspect that the place is lonely;and indeed it is perhaps the old women that have made the desolation.

The lion of Poitiers,in the eyes of the natives,is doubtless the Palais de Justice,in the shadow of which the statueguarded hotel,just mentioned,erects itself;and the gem of the courthouse,which has a prosy modern front,with pillars and a high flight of steps,is the curious salle des pas perdus,or central hall,out of which the different tribunals open.This is a feature of every French courthouse,and seems the result of a conviction that a palace of justice the French deal in much finer names than we should be in some degree palatial.The great hall at Poitiers has a long pedigree,as its walls date back to the twelfth century,and its open wooden roof,as well as the remarkable trio of chimneypieces at the right end of the room as you enter,to the fifteenth.The three tall fireplaces,side by side,with a delicate gallery running along the top of them,constitute the originality of this ancient chamber,and make one think of the groups that must formerly have gathered there,of all the wet bootsoles,the trickling doublets,the stiffened fingers,the rheumatic shanks,that must have been presented to such an incomparable focus of heat.Today,I am afraid,these mighty hearts are forever cold;justice it probably administered with the aid of a modern calorifere,and the walls of the palace are perforated with regurgitating tubes.Behind and above the gallery that surmounts the three fireplaces are high Gothic windows,the tracery of which masks,in some sort,the chimneys;and in each angle of this and of the room to the right and left of the trio of chimneys,is all openwork spiral staircase,ascending to I forget where;perhaps to the roof of the edifice.