nerate the relics unobserved.

We step out from the west door of the upper chapel to examine the more
richly decorated upper portal. The carvings are all modern and, except
such as were suggested by traces of the old work, are copied from the
west front of Notre Dame and other churches. Many a solemn and many a
strange scene have been enacted in this royal oratory; the strangest
of all perhaps when Charles V. of France, the Holy Roman Emperor
Charles IV., and his son Wenceslaus, king of the Romans, in the _role_
of the three Holy Kings, came to venerate the relics and laid
oblations before the shrine.

Before we turn away from the building we should observe on the west
facade above the rose window wherein the architect has literally
sported with the difficulties of construction in stone a charming
design of fleurs-de-lys framed by quatrefoils along the balustrade;
the central design is an R. (rex), crowned by two angels. The present
spire is a fourth erection. The second, which replaced the original
spire in 1383, was one of the wonders of Paris, and fell a victim to
fire in 1630. A third, erected by Louis XIII., was demolished in 1791,
and in 1853 Lassus, Viollet le Duc's principal colleague in the
restoration of the chapel, designed the graceful fleche we see to-day.

We return to the Cour du Mai: on the R., before we ascend the great
stairway, we look down on the nine steps leading from the Vestibule
(now a Cafe Restaurant) of the Conciergerie, up which those doomed to
the guillotine ascended to the fatal tumbrils awaiting them in the
courtyard. We ascend to the Galerie Marchande: the stairway, rebuilt
after the fire of 1776, replaced the old flight of stairs at whose
feet heralds proclaimed treaties of peace and tournaments, criminals
were branded, and books condemned by the Parlement, burned. Here
Pantagruel loved to stand and cut the stirrup-straps of the fat
councillors' mules, and see the _gros sufle de conseiller_ fall flat
when he tried to mount; and here the clercs of the Basoche planted the
annual May-tree, brought from the forest of Bondy, with much playing
of drums and trumpets and elaborate ceremony.

The Galerie Marchande, formerly known as the Galerie Merciere, was
once a busy and fashionable bazaar, where lines of shops displayed
fans, shoes, slippers and other dainty articles of feminine artillery.
The further galleries were also invaded by the traders, who were only
finally evicted in 1842. We tu