"You are a good man, Ambrose," said the Archbishop, "but persistent. Now let me tell you finally what my purpose is. It is not a village church I wish to see builded, but a Cathedral that will outshine Imperial Rome herself. Therefore it is not a village architect I am on the outlook for, but one who will prove the modern brother of the builder of the Parthenon in Athens."
"I know not who built the Parthenon, my Lord," said the monk, with the dogged pertinacity of the North German, "but it may have been a village architect, despised by the great of Greece."
"It may indeed be so. Whence comes this architect of yours?"
"From Riehl, indeed! You might at least have given us a town the size of Bonn. From Riehl!" The Archbishop threw back his head and laughed.
"'Can any good come out of Nazareth,' quoth they of old," said the monk, solemnly. The Archbishop became instantly serious.
"Ambrose, that smacks strongly of the sacrilegious."
"I may put it thus then--'A prophet is not without honour but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house,'" said the monk, giving the quotation in Latin.
"Then I will give him a commission, but it shall not be the building of a Cathedral. I have made compact with my brother of Treves, Arnold von Isenberg, too long estranged from me. We are more like to find ourselves engaged in tearing down than in building up. Let your architect then design for me a large tent, one that will hold a hundred men while seated at dinner, or five hundred, with tables removed, to hear Mass. Let the tent be well proportioned, for in that lies architectural skill. Its ornamentation will give little scope to a dull man and much to one who is ingenious. Draw what money is needed from the Treasury for its construction, and see that the sum be ample, so that your architect may have fair recompense, and that I may not be ashamed of my tent, for within it shall the Archbishop of Treves meet me in conference. Have the tent made ready as soon as possible, for I know not the day I may need it, and in the building of it let your fellow remember that the beauty of a tent is that it bears transportation well, being not over bulky, and that it is erected quickly and stands firmly in a storm."