egree of perfection which
has never been surpassed.

[Illustration: SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST, WITH ARMORIAL SHIELDS

Flemish Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Institute of Art, Chicago]

[Illustration: HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN

Angers Cathedral]

We have a very clear idea of what use to make of tapestries in these
days--to hang them in a part of the house where they will be much seen
and much protected, on an important wall-space where their figures
become the friend of daily life, or the bosky shades of their
verdure invite to revery. They are extended flat against the wall, or
even framed, that not one stroke of the artist's pencil or one flash
of the weaver's shuttle be hid. But, many were their uses and grand
were their purposes in the days when high-warp and low-warp weaving
was the important industry of whole provinces. Palaces and castles
were hung with them, but apart from this was the sumptuous use of a
reserve of hangings for outdoor fetes and celebrations of all sorts.
These were the great opportunities for all to exhibit their
possessions and to make a street look almost as elegant and habitable
as the grandest chamber of the king.

On the occasion of the entry of a certain queen into Paris, all the
way from Porte St. Denis to the Cathedral of Notre Dame was hung with
such specimens of the weaver's art as would make the heart of the
modern amateur throb wildly. They were hung from windows, draped
across the fronts of the houses, and fluttered their bright colours in
the face of an illuminating sun that yet had no power to fade the
conscientious work of the craftsman. The high lights of silk in the
weave, and the enrichment of gold and silver in the pattern caught and
held the sunbeams. In all the cavalcade of mounted knights and ladies,
there was the flashing of arms, the gleam of jewelled bridles, the
flaunting of rich stuffs, all with a background of unsurpassed
blending of colour and texture. The bridge over the Seine leading to
Notre Dame, its ramparts were entirely concealed, its asperities
softened, by the tapestries which hung over its sides, making the
passage over the river like the approach to a throne, the luxury of
kings combined with the beauty of the flowing river, the blue sky, the
tender green of the trees.

Indeed, it was so lovely a sight that the king himself was not content
to see it from his honoured but restricted post, but needs must doff
his crown--monarchs wore the