And one must own that it
is an exhilarating and moving sight to behold such a woman
pretending to confess her sins, with the full delight of them
written on her face, and the avowed intention of committing them all
over again manifesting itself in every turn of her head, every grin
of her rouged lips, and every flash of her painted eyes! For these
sections out of the French "Inferno," Notre Dame de Lorette is a
good place to play penitence and feign prayer;--the Madeleine is too
classic and serene and sombre in its interior to suggest anything
but a museum, from which the proper custodian is absent,--Notre Dame
de Paris reeks too much with the blood of slain Archbishops to be
altogether comfortable,--St. Roch in its "fashionable" congregation,
numbers too many little girls who innocently go to hear the music,
and who have not yet begun to paint their faces, to suit those whose
lives are all paint and masquerade,--and the "Lorette" is just the
happy medium of a church where, Sham being written on its walls, one
is scarcely surprised to see Sham in the general aspect of its
worshippers. Among the ugly columns, and against the heavy ceiling
divided into huge raised lumps of paint and gilding, Abbe
Vergniaud's voice had often resounded,--and his sermons were looked
forward to as a kind of witty entertainment.
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