"Never has a sight comparable to such a giant mirror of knowledge, of the soul, and of history been presented to man's eyes and understanding...This artistic accomplishment -- the most complete ever, since all of the arts collaborated in it -- of the greatest dream to which humanity ever rose; this mansion is grand enough for us all to find a place in it. The cathedral, which shelters so many saints, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, kings, confessors, and martyrs that whole generations huddle in supplication and anxiety all the way to the porch entrances and, trembling, raise the edifice as a long groan under heaven while the angels smilingly lean over from the top of the galleries which, in the evening's blue and rose incense and the morning's blinding gold, do seem to be 'heaven's balconies' -- the cathedral, in its vastness, can grant asylum both to the man of letters and to the man of faith, to the vague dreamer as well as to the archeologist. All that matters is that it remains alive and that France should not find herself transformed overnight into a dried-up shore on which giant chiselled shells seem marooned, emptied of the life that once lived in them, and no longer able even to give to an ear leaning in on them a distant rumor from long ago -- mere museum pieces and icy museums themselves...Things keep their beauty and their life only by continuously carrying out the task for which they were intended...Oh! all of you in your stained glass windows in Chartres, in Tours, in Bourges, in Sens, in Auxerre, in Troyes, in Clermont-Ferrand, in Toulouse, ye coopers, furriers, grocers, pilgrims, laborers, armorers, weavers, stonemasons, butchers, basket weavers, cobblers, money changers, O ye, great silent democracy, ye faithful obstinately wanting to hear the Office, who are not dematerialized but more beautiful than in your living days now in the glory of Heaven and the blood that is your precious glass: no longer will you hear the Mass you had guaranteed for yourselves by donating the best part of your pennies to building this church. As the profound saying goes, the dead no longer govern the living. And the forgetful living stop fulfilling the wishes of the dead."