‘Ah,’ he (Durtal) cried, ‘the true proof of Catholicism is its art.’ And that art was a unity, a marvellous blend of music, architecture, sculpture, painting, all held together in one unique cluster of thoughts, all serving the same end. Plainchant itself was a kind of architecture now curving in upon itself like sombre Romanesque arches, now mounting skyward in the soaring lines of the Gothic, breaking into flowery tendrils and tracery as fine as lace. What music could compare with the tenderness of the ‘De Profundis’ chanted in unison, the solemnity of the ‘Magnificat’, the warmth and splendour of the ‘Laude Sion’, the enthusiasm of the ‘Salve Regina’, the sorrow of the ‘Miserere’ and the ‘Stabat Mater’, the majestic omnipotence of the ‘Te Deum’?

‘The First Decadant: J.K. Huysmans’ the biography detailing the novel ‘En Route’ written by James Laver