nto the nave, gives a certain majesty to this portion of the
church which is perhaps not warranted when we take into consideration
that it must perforce dwarf the nave itself. The arrangement, though not
common, is by no means an unusual one, and it is recalled also, that it
is so employed at Reims.

Situated near the frontier, Chalons-sur-Marne has ever been subject to
that inquietude which usually befalls a border city. German influences
have ever been noticeable, and, even to-day, the significant fact is to
be noted that a cure will hear confessions in German, and that services
are held in that tongue on "Saturdays in St. Joseph's Chapel."

The Episcopal Palace, behind the cathedral, contains a collection of
some sixty paintings, the gift, in 1864, of the Abbe Joannes.

[Illustration: _S. DIE_]

VIII

ST. DIE

St. Die gets its name, by the corruption of Dieudonne, from St.
Deodatus, who founded a monastery here in the seventh century. It was
built, as was many another great cathedral, in accordance with the
custom of erecting a church over the body or relic of a saint whom it
was especially desired to honour; usually one of local importance, a
patron or a devotee.

The town is perhaps the most inaccessible and "out-of-the-way" place
which harbours a cathedral in all northern France. We might perhaps
except St. Pol-de-Leon and Treguier in Brittany, neither of which is on
a railway, whereas St. Die is, but at the very end. When you get there
and want to go on, not back, you simply journey on foot, or awheel if
you can find a conveyance, and take up with another "loose end" of
railway some fifteen miles away, which will take you southward, should
you be going that way. If not, there appears to be nothing for it, but
to retrace your steps whence you came.

The cathedral (locally "La Grande Eglise," it only having been made a
cathedral so recently as 1777) has a fine Romanesque nave of the
eleventh century, with choir and aisles of good Gothic, after the
accepted Rhine manner of building.

The portal, of red sandstone, is of inferior thirteenth-century
workmanship, with statues of Faith and Charity on either side. The
facade is flanked by two square towers.

The interior is curiously arranged with a cordon of sculpture, high in
the vaulting. The capitals of the pillars are likewise ornamented with
highly interesting and ornately sculptured capitals. The choir, as is
most usual, is the masterpiece of t