if the clergy had not been sufficiently capable to
defend it. It was hidden in the depositories of the cathedral until
the storm was over.

It seems there was no treasure in Europe unknown to Napoleon. He
commanded in 1803 that the Bayeux tapestry, of which he had heard so
much, be brought to the National Museum for his inspection. The
playwrights of Paris seized on the pictured cloth as material for
their imagination, and, refusing to take seriously the crude figures,
wrote humorously of Matilda eternally at work over her ridiculous
task, surrounded with simple ladies equally blind to art and nature.
It is only too easy to let humour play about the ill-drawn figures.
They must be taken grandly serious, or ridicule will thrust tongue in
cheek. It is to these French plays of 1804 that we owe the firmness
of the tradition that Queen Matilda in 1066 worked the embroidery.

[Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066]

Napoleon returned the cloth to Bayeux, not to the church, but to the
Hotel de Ville, in which manner it became the property of the civil
authorities, instead of the ecclesiastic. It was rolled on cylinders,
that by an easy mechanism it might be seen by visitors. But the fabric
suffered much by the handling of a curious public. Even the most
enlightened and considerate hands can break threads which time has
played with for eight centuries.

It was decided, therefore, to give the ancient _toile fatiguee_ a
quiet, permanent home. For this purpose a museum was built, and about
1835 the great Bayeux tapestry was carefully installed behind glass,
its full length extended on the walls for all to see who journey
thither and who ring the guardian's bell at the courtyard's handsome
portico.

Once since then, once only, has the venerable fabric left its cabinet.
This was at the time of the Prussians when, in 1871, France trembled
for even her most intimate and special treasures.

The tapestry was taken from its case, rolled with care and placed in a
zinc cylinder, hermetically sealed. Then it was placed far from harm;
but exactly where, is a secret that the guardians of the tapestry do
well to conserve. There might be another trouble, and asylum needed
for the treasure in the future.

The pictures of the great embroidery are such as a child might draw,
for crudeness; but the archeologist knows how to read into them a
thousand vital points. History helps out, too, with the story of
Harold, moustached like t