Part 31

[108] This slab is now in the Renaissance Museum of the Louvre. It is dated 1303, and bears the following inscription: "Maitre Pierre de Fayet, chanoine de Paris, a donné deux cens livres parisis pour aider à faire ces histoires et pour les nouvelles verrières qui sont sur le choeur de céans." In the account of the church in 1763, the slab is thus described: "Avant la construction du nouveau choeur (par le roi Louis XIV.) on voyait autour de l'ancien choeur et en dedans les histoires de l'Evangile et des Actes des Apôtres en statues de pierre isolées avec des inscriptions au bas, et au-dessous l'histoire de la Génèse en bas-relief. A côté était un chanoine à genoux, dont la mort arriva en 1303, aussi ce bas-relief avait cette inscription derrière lui: 'Messire Pierre Fayet'.... Mais depuis la construction du nouveau choeur, on a mis sa statue à la porte collaterale, vis-à-vis la porte rouge."

[109] _Théâtre des Antiquités de Paris._

[110] Carlyle.

[111] Exhibited at the Exhibition of Documents relating to the Revolution, held at the Tuileries in 1889.

[112] The twelve Virtues, according to Hermas, are Faith, Temperance, Patience, Magnanimity, Simplicity, Innocence, Peace, Charity, Discipline, Chastity, Truth, and Prudence. The counting of twelve Virtues lasted a long time, for we find in 1454 at a _fête_ given at Lille by the Duc de Bourgogne, Philippe le Bon, that twelve Virtues dressed in crimson satin danced at the ball with the many knights who were present. They were the great ladies of the town; and perhaps the knights personated the Vices, as they were not improbably able to do with a considerable amount of truth.

[113] _Annales archéologiques._

[114] For a detailed account of the cathedral see Viollet-le-Duc's _Dictionnaire raisonné d'Architecture_.

[115] This passed through miraculous adventures at the Revolution and was restored to the cathedral by M. de Quélen.

[116] Its preservation is said to have been in this wise. Louis XVI. sent it to S. Denis to be in safe keeping, and in 1793 it was offered by the Convention to the municipality. Thence it passed into the hands of M. Bonvoisin in 1804, and in 1808 it was placed in its present crystal reliquary by Cardinal de Belloy.

[117] Jean de Montaigu, beheaded in 1409, was a councillor, grand master of the palace, and brother of Gérard, 95th bishop of Paris.

[118] Dibden.

[119] Carlyle.

[120] Dibden.

[121] _American in Paris._

End of Project Gutenberg's The Churches of Paris, by S. Sophia Beale