roduce keys of
exquisite craftsmanship and design. Another kind of interest attaches
to the key (No. 5962 in the case on the L. as we enter) which was made
by Louis XVI. The following room contains specimens of the goldsmith's
art. 5104 is a curious sixteenth-century model of a ship in gilded
bronze, with figures of Charles V. and his court on the deck: it has
an ingenious mechanism for discharging toy cannon. 5299, is a set of
chessmen in rock crystal; 4988, the face of an altar, rich gold
repousse work, was given by the Emperor, Henry II., to Bale Cathedral.
The glass case in the centre holds nine golden Visigothic crowns found
near Toledo in 1860, the largest is that of King Reccesvinthus who
reigned in the latter half of the seventh century; 5044 is a
fourteenth-century Italian processional cross of great beauty. We
retrace our steps to the Hall of Francis I., turn R. and enter the
private chapel. Opposite the charming little apse are placed some
admirably preserved fourteenth-century reliefs in stone from the Abbey
of St. Denis. On leaving, we turn R. along the passage, hung with
armour and weapons, to the stairway, descend to Room VI., ground
floor, open a door at its W. end, and in the twinkling of an eye are
swept back nigh two thousand years along the stream of the ages, for
the frigidarium of the Baths of the Palace of the Caesars is before us,
a fabric of imperial architecture, spoiled of its decorations but yet
massive and strong, as of elemental strength, defiant of time, the
imperishable mark of Rome. We descend and find in the centre the altar
(p. 17), bearing the inscription of the _Nautae_. A statue of the
Emperor Julian; some thirteenth and fourteenth-century statues are
also exhibited. We may enter and rest in the garden where a
twelfth-century cloister portal from the Benedictine Abbey of
Argenteuil, a fourteenth-century portal from the Abbey of St. Denis,
and other fragments of architecture are placed.

[Illustration: ARCHES IN THE COURTYARD OF THE HOTEL CLUNY.]

We return to the Rue des Ecoles which we cross to the imposing new
University buildings. The vestibule, grand staircase and amphitheatre
are of noble and stately proportions and adorned with mural paintings,
among which Puvis de Chavannes' great composition, The Sacred Grove,
in the amphitheatre, is of chief interest.[192] We continue along the
Rue de la Sorbonne and soon reach the old chapel, all that remains of
Richelieu's Sorbonne, con