An
ancient table answered all his purposes. It was coated with moist,
powdered chalk, upon which he drew his designs in red, and where he
cut the panes with heated irons, disdaining the modern use of a diamond
point. The muffle, a little furnace made after the fashion of an old
model, was just now quite heated; the baking of some picture was going
on, which was to be used in repairing another stained window in the
Cathedral; and in cases on every side were glasses of all colours which
he had ordered to be made expressly for him, in blue, yellow, green, and
red, in many lighter tints, marbled, smoked, shaded, pearl-coloured, and
black. But the walls of the room were hung with admirable stuffs, and
the working materials disappeared in the midst of a marvellous luxury
of furniture. In one corner, on an old tabernacle which served as a
pedestal, a great gilded statue of the Blessed Virgin seemed to smile
upon them.
"So you can work--you really can work," repeated Angelique with childish
joy.
She was very much amused with the little furnace, and insisted upon it
that he should explain to her everything connected with his labour.
Why he contented himself with the examples of the old masters, who used
glass coloured in the making, which he shaded simply with black; the
reason he limited himself to little, distinct figures, to the gestures
and draperies of which he gave a decided character; his ideas upon the
art of the glass-workers, which in reality declined as soon as they
began to design better, to paint, and to enamel it; and his final
opinion that a stained-glass window should be simply a transparent
mosaic, in which the brightest colours should be arranged in the most
harmonious order, so as to make a delicate, shaded bouquet.
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