Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-09-24
The Weather-Cock.
Translated by Prof. Edouard Ballot.

I
| by the Premontres, who had there their
mother convent. and who, during many
years, had appropriated to this work one
| half Of their immense income.
The order was then in all the splendor of
its power and opulence, and the monks, to
exalt as high as the clouds their enthusiastic
piety and the glory of st. Augustine, their
patron, decided that the steeple of their
church should soar above all the spires of
Burgundy.
The Steeple, carved throughout like all the
rest of the monument shoots up straight to a
height of 300 feet, to a terrace surrounded by
| baluster of wrought iron, from which arises
! a spiTe 100 feet high, surmounted by cross.
| The spire is octagonal, with a ledge of stone
along each arriS. The architects of this
building seem to have had no idea
that it might ever become neces-
sary to repair it, and as they wished TO re-
| serve its summit for the birds or the angels,
| provided no access to it. Above the plat
| form, there is no staircase and no ladder in
| the interior; outside the smooth and polished
roof, without any other relief than the pro
| jecting stone Of each arris and the rounded
facing of the slabs which form the covering.
The steeple of Saint Vrain seems destined
to justify for years, and perhaps for cen-
| turtles to come, the blind faith that its con-
structors had in its eternity. 1t has been
standing for four centuries, and neither rain
nor sun, nor wind nor lightning have sue
ceededi in wrenching from it a stone or even
a grain Of cement. People begin to believe
that it is indestructible, and whisper to one
another that oftentimeS, after a stormy night
at the dawn of day, before the inhabitants of
SaiQt-Vrain are awake invisible hands have
come to repair it.
1t must be ACKNOWLEDGED that, in coun-
try somewhat superstltious, the aspect and
the shape of this steeple favor singularly the
numerous legends of which it is the sub
ject. Its prodigious height seems to be
doubled by the smallness Of the dwellings en-
sconced below it; and one can see that, if it
happens to fall, it would annihilate the town
at one blow. The citizens of .Saint-YTain
are inwaflly in dread Of it. It IS So bold, So
slight, that it is difficult to conceive how it
can stand. The beil-ringers say that, during
the heavy gales, it sways to and fro like a
poplar, and that more than once they have
been terrified at feeling themselves thus
rocked between its stones.
Its profles, though vigorously true to the
purest and most exquisite principles of
Gothic art, shoot forth SO boldly as to make
the flesh creep and the head turn giddy.
With the exception of the ringers, who never
go higher than the part Of the tower where
the bells hang, and the surveyor of historical
monuments, who pretends he has done it, no
one has ever dared to ascend to the platform.
This platform, jutting out in the shape of
basket, is the more appalling from the fact
that on three of its sides it hangs straight
over the parvise Of the entrance paved with
large white fag-stones which glitter in the
sunlight. The baluster, scarcely knee-high,
is so near the wall, that there is just space
enough to creep along, and anyone moving
sideways to go round the balcony, pa1ticu-
larly when passing the angles, feels as if the
wall pushed him into the void.
He who possessed GOODNESS enough to eX-
anime the carvings of this part of the tower,
could not consider without agitation
the fantastic ornaments and the truly
demoniacal faces writing and sneer-
ing in every corner and on every ledge. An
old tradition relates that a stranger who as
cendad to the platform, more than hundred
years ago, went stark mad in consequence of
having stared at the figure of a demon squat
ting down with his fists under his chin.
However, as, after all, poor humanity al
ways manages to secure at any cost, small
share of happiness in the midstof its fears
and its sorrows, the citizens of Saint Vrain
lived in peace with their steeple, though look
ing at it occasionally with scared and doubt
I'll look, for in fact, with the exception of
the stranger who had gone mad, the Oldest
inhabitant could not remember that it had
caused any disaster. The harmony between
the humble parish and the formidable steeple
would have continued to this very time, had
not an unexpected accident, caused moreover
by power worthy of so colossal an opponent,
impaired the majesty of the monument by
destroying its most sublime ornament.
Lightning had struck the weather-cock of
the steeple, and there remained Of it nothing
but fragments.
This event disturbed every soul in the vii
lage. Superstitious people saw in it fatal
omen for the church, for the town, for the
harvest; the enlightened parishioners were
grieved by it as by an irrepairable accident,
depriving them of the only vane to be relied
on. There had always been weather-cocb
on the steeple of the church, and now there
would be none. They were used to it and
they loved it; they loved it all the more that
they had lost it, and with no chance of hay
ing it replaced, as, in everybody's opinion,
it was held impossible to reach the summit Of
the spire.
As is often the case when some great dis
aster is brewing, sinister shadow of the
supernatural had thrown a mystery on this
event. By constantly looking at the ro-
mains of the thunder-struck bird, still hang
ing motionless at the top of the cross,
people discovered with terror that, seen from
the door of this presbytery, this shapeless
object etched out on the sky the silhouette of
the evil one, and so perfect was the likeness
that it was possible to see in that fact the
premonition of more than ordinary casualty
Now everybody was acquainted with the
very strange legend of how the blessed Pan
Grace, prior of the Premontres, being one day
praying and at the same time thinking too
much Of the future greatness of his church,
then in course of construction, the devil had
wickedly thrown under his hood a sentiment
of pride; the holy man, while hurrying over
an act Of contrition, had slyly drawn his beads
from his waist and had thrown them around
the devils neck. Then after dragging the
rogue several times about his cell, sprinkling
holy water over him at the same time, he had
forced him to promise to keep in perfect re-
pair the church from the foundations to the
summit of the cross, usque ad consumma-
tionem sRculorum-