olumns.

A fine sculptured altarpiece, "The Adoration of the Shepherds," is in
the Chapelle de la Creche, entered from the cloister.

The present Hotel-de-Ville was formerly the bishop's palace.

[Illustration: _North Portal Cathedral Chalons-sur-Marne_]

VII

ST. ETIENNE, CHALONS-SUR-MARNE

Chalons is perhaps first of all famed as the scene of Attila's great
defeat in the fifth century, one of the world's fifteen decisive
battles.

The Cathedral of St. Etienne is not usually considered to be a
remarkable structure; but it is thoroughly typical and characteristic of
a _locale_, which stamps it at once with a mark of genuineness and
sincerity. Of early primitive Gothic in the main, it shares interest
to-day with the four other churches of the city, not overlooking Notre
Dame de l'Epine, some five miles distant to the northward, one of the
most perfectly designed and appointed late Gothic churches which the
world has ever known. It has been called a "miniature cathedral," using
the term, it may be supposed, in the sense of referring only to a
magnificently ornate church. It is indeed worth a pilgrimage thither to
see this true gem of architecture in a wholly undefiled countrified
setting.

The Cathedral at Chalons-sur-Marne follows somewhat the traditions of
the German manner of building, at least so far as a certain plainness
and lack of ornate decoration in the main body of the church is
concerned; likewise in the arrangement of its towers, which lie to the
eastward of the transepts; and further with respect to its decidedly
Teutonic arrangement of the rounded columns, or, more properly, pillars,
of its nave.

In general this thirteenth-century church is in the best style of its
era; but the west front presents an incongruous seventeenth-century
addition in the whilom classical style of that day, bad as to its art,
and apparently badly welded into conjunction with the older portion. The
aisles and clerestory windows are of the later decorated period of
Gothic, and present, whether viewed from without or from within, an
exceedingly fine appearance.

Probably the finest and most pleasing impression of the whole structure
is that obtained of the interior, with its pillars of nave and choir, of
the massive order made familiar in the Rhine churches. A reasonable
share of twelfth to sixteenth century glass is still left as its
portion, and the general arrangement of the choir, prolonged, as it is,
well i