d now
one of the most important art-teaching centres in Europe. We turn S.
by the Rue Bonaparte, and soon find the entrance, on the R., to the
first courtyard, in which we note, on our R., the fine Portal of the
Chateau of Anet, built for Diana of Poitiers by Delorme and Goujon
(1548): opposite the entrance, giving access to the second courtyard,
is placed a facade, transitional in style, from the Chateau of
Gaillon. An hour may profitably be spent on Sundays strolling through
the rooms viewing the interesting collection of casts and
reproductions of masterpieces of painting by the pupils of the school.
Delaroche's famous Hemicycle, representing the great artists of every
age, seventy-five figures larger than life, will be found in the
theatre of the Musee des Antiquites entered from the second courtyard.

We continue along the Rue Bonaparte past the new Academie de Medecine
and on our L. soon sight the grey pile of the old Abbey Church of St.
Germain des Pres, once refulgent in colour and gold. A part of the
great tower is said to have resisted the Norman conflagrations, but
the church as we now behold it, is that rebuilt 1000-1163; enlarged in
1237 and restored at various periods in the first half of the
nineteenth century. Of the great fortress-monastery, with its immense
domains of land; its cloisters, walls and towers; its prison and
pillory, over which the puissant abbots once held sway, only a memory
remains. The fortifications were razed in the seventeenth century and
gave place to artizans' houses. The famous Fair of St. Germain has
long been suppressed, where Henry IV. on the royal entry of Marie de'
Medici, after promising the merchants that they should grow rich,
since his queen had _de l'argent frais_, disappointed them all by
chaffering much and buying nothing. Over the entrance of the church
within the W. porch is a well-preserved Romanesque relief of the Last
Supper. Some bases and capitals of the triforium date from the twelfth
century, but the heavy Romanesque capitals of the eleventh century
nave are restorations, and the beautiful early Gothic choir has also
been much modified at various epochs. The interest of the interior is
enhanced to the lover of French art by Flandrin's admirable frescoes
(p. 391), illustrating scenes from the Old and New Testaments.
Unhappily, they are seen with difficulty, and a bright, sunny day is
necessary to appreciate the masterly art, the noble and reverent
spirit that