Notre Dame of Chartres is the most colossal depository existing of heaven and earth, of God and man.

Each of its images is a word; all those groups are phrases--the difficulty is to read them." "But it can be done ?" "Undoubtedly.

That there may be some contradictions in our interpretations I admit, but still the palimpsest can be deciphered.

The key needed is a knowledge of symbolism." And seeing that Durtal was listening to him with interest, the Abbe came back to his seat, and said,-- "What is a symbol?
According to Littre it is a 'figure or image used as a sign of something else;' and we Catholics narrow the definition by saying with Hugues de Saint Victor that a symbol is an allegorical representation of a Christian principle under a tangible image.
"Now symbolism has existed ever since the beginning of the world.

Every religion adopted it, and in ours it came into being with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the first chapter of Genesis, while it still is in full splendour in the last chapter of the Apocalypse.
"The Old Testament is an anticipatory figure of all the New Testament tells us.