of which act
Pepin handed over to his sons the right and title to his dominions.

Upon the advice of the Abbot Suger, Louis VI. adopted the _Oriflamme_,
or standard of St. Denis, as the banner of the Kings of France, and, for
long after, its red and gold colourings hung above the altar,--only to
be removed when the king should take the field in person.

Abelard, of famed romance, was a monk of the abbey in the twelfth
century; and, in the absence of the sovereign (Louis VII.) in the Holy
Land during the mid-century, the Abbe Suger administered full well the
affairs of the kingdom. This renowned abbot and true lover of art died
in 1151 at St. Denis.

In 1429 "the Maid of Orleans" here delivered up her arms; and a century
and a half later that sturdy Protestant, Henry, abjured the faith to
which he had hitherto so tenaciously clung. In this church, too, the
great Napoleon married Marie Louise in 1810; and his later namesake,
some fifty years after, erected a mausoleum in the crypt, known as the
_Caveau Imperial_, the burial vault of his dynasty, which, however, has
never been so used.

Such in brief is the record of some of the more important affairs of
church and state, which are identified with this fine old cathedral. The
usual books of reference give lengthy lists of the various tombs and
monuments which exist. It is a pity, however, that, in spite of the
laudable ambition of preserving here, in a sort of kingly Valhalla, the
memory of the rulers of a past age, it has degenerated, in turn, to a
mere show-place, with little enough of the real sentiment remaining to
satisfy the seriously inclined, who perforce would wish to be reminded
in some more subtle way than by a mere "rush around the exhibits," which
is about all the half-hourly, personally conducted excursions, with
appropriate fees to be delivered up here and there, amounts to. But for
this, there would still be some of the charm and reverence which such a
noble memorial should inspire, in spite of the fact that revolution and
desecration have played more than a usual share in the general
derangement of the original plans.

Up to the time of Henry IV., the monarchs were mostly interred in
separate tombs, but, following him, his immediate successors were buried
in a common vault. During the Revolution, the Convention decreed that
the royal tombs should be destroyed, and so they mostly were,--the
bodies dug up and interred, if so the process can be called, i