The preying demons are not ferocious enough, they almost look as if they were monks and were doing it for fun, while the damned take it very calmly.
"How far more desperate is the devil's festival at Dijon!" Durtal recalled to mind the church of Notre Dame in that city, so strange a specimen of thirteenth-century gothic of the Burgundian stamp.

The church was of almost elementary simplicity; above its three porches rose a straight wall with two storeys of columns forming arcades and surmounted by grotesque figures.

To the right of this front was a small tower with a pointed roof; and on the roof a "Jacquemart" of iron tracery, with three puppets that strike the hours; behind, rising from the transept, was a small tower with four little glazed belfries.
This building, small as compared with great cathedrals, was stamped with the Flemish hall-mark; it had the homespun peasant expression, the cheerful faith of the race.

It was a domestic sanctuary, very native to the soil; the folks would hold converse with the Black Virgin standing there on an altar, tell her all their little concerns, make themselves at home there in confidential gossiping prayer, quite without ceremony.
But it was not well to trust too much to the benign and genial aspect of this building, for the long rows of grotesque figures that were ranged above the doorways and the arcades belied the jovial security of the rest.
There they were, in high relief, in close array, grinning and jibing; a motley crowd of demented nuns and mad monks, of bewildered rustics and outlandish women; hobgoblins writhing with laughter, and hilarious devils; and in the midst of this mob of the reprobate a figure of a real woman, held by two demons tormenting her, stood out, leaning forward as if she wanted to throw herself down.

With haggard, dilated eye, and clasped hands, in terror she beseeches the passer-by, shows him the place of refuge, and cries to him to enter.