well-known symbol. Spell them out if possible. Beneath the windows, in the quatrefoils of the arcade, are enamelled glass mosaics representing the martyrdoms of the saints—followers of Christ, each wearing his own crown of thorns: a pretty conceit wholly in accord with St. Louis’s ecstatic type of piety. Conspicuous among them are St. Denis carrying his head, St. Sebastian pierced with arrows, St. Stephen stoned, St. Lawrence on his gridiron, etc. Examine and identify each separately. The apse (formerly separated from the body of the building by a rood-screen, now destroyed) contains the vacant base of the high altar, behind which stands an arcaded tabernacle, now empty, in whose shrine were once preserved the Crown of Thorns, the fragment of the True Cross, and other relics. Amongst them in later times was included the skull of St. Louis himself in a golden reliquary. Two angels at the summit of the large centre arch of the arcade bear a representation of the Crown of Thorns in their hands. Above the tabernacle rises a canopy or baldacchino, approached by two spiral staircases; from its platform St. Louis and his successors, the kings of France, were in the habit of exhibiting with their own hands the actual relics themselves once a year to the faithful. The golden reliquary in which the sacred objects were contained was melted down in the Revolution. The small window with bars to your R, as you face the high altar, was placed there by the superstitious and timid Louis XI, in order that he might behold the elevation of the Host and the sacred relics without being exposed to the danger of assassination. The visitor should also notice the inlaid stone pavement, with its frequent repetition of the fleur-de-lis and the three castles. The whole breathes the mysticism of St. Louis: the lightness of the architecture, the height of the apparently unsupported roof, and the magnificence of the decoration, render this the most perfect ecclesiastical building in Paris.

In returning from the chapel, notice on the outside, from the court to the S., the apparently empty and useless porch, supporting a small room, which is the one through whose grated window Louis XI used to watch the elevation.

I would recommend the visitor on his way home from this excursion to walk round the remainder of the Île de la Cité in the direction of Notre-Dame, so as to gain a clear idea of the extent of the island, without, however, endeavouring to examine the cathedral in detail on this occasion.

Vary your artistic investigations by afternoons in the Bois de Boulogne, Champs Elysées, etc.

B. NOTRE-DAME