y. The organ case is here found in the south transept,
an unusual arrangement in a French church, where it is usually placed
over the western doorway. The vaulting, too, is much loftier here than
in the nave. The aisles of this remarkable choir have the further
unusual attribute of three ranges of openings, while the clerestory,
only, rises above, but with great and imposing beauty. There are a few
funeral monuments of more than ordinary interest, including that of
Queen Berengaria, wife of Richard, the Lion-Hearted, brought from the
Abbey de l'Epau in 1821; a sarcophagus and statue in white marble of
Charles of Anjou, Count of Maine, King of Jerusalem and Sicily (d.
1472), and the mausoleum of Langey du Bellay. In the north aisle are a
number of fifteenth or sixteenth century tapestries. The former bishop's
palace was burned by the Germans in 1871.

[Illustration: _Notre Dame de Chartres._]

VIII

NOTRE DAME DE CHARTRES

Aside from their wonderful, though non-similar, cathedrals, Chartres and
Le Mans, its neighbour, have much in common. Both have been possessed of
a brilliant array of counts and prelates, both grew from a Celtic
village to their present grand proportions through a series of
vicissitudes, wars, and conquests, until to-day each is preeminent
within its own sphere, and has become not only a centre of
ecclesiastical affairs, but of civil life as well.

The Counts of Chartres and of Blois, in the middle ages, were a powerful
race of men, and should ever be associated with profound respect in
English minds by the fact that here was the birthplace of Adela, the
mother of King Stephen of Blois, and of Henry, Bishop of Winchester.

As for local conditions to-day, Chartres, while having grown to the
state which it now occupies through events which have made it a city of
mark, remains a somnolescent, sparsely built town, with little
suggestion of the progress of modernity. More frequently mentioned in
the note-books of the traveller than Le Mans, it offers perhaps no
greater charms. To be sure, its cathedral, by reason of its open
situation and the charming quality and effect produced by its spires and
its one hundred and thirty windows of coloured glass, at once places it
at the very head amongst the great "show pieces" of France; but it is in
connection with Le Mans, scarcely eighty miles away and so little known,
that it ought really to be studied and considered; which as a matter of
fact it sel