baye de la
Chaise-Dieu."

The Chaise-Dieu tapestries are fourteen in number, three of them are
ten feet square, and the others are six feet high by eighteen long,
excepting one which measures nearly twenty-six feet. Twelve are hung
on the carved wood-work of the choir of the great church, and thus
cover an immense space. Further off is the ancient choir of the monks,
of which the wood-work of sculptured oak is surprisingly rich. Not
even the cathedral of Rheims, of which the wood-work has long been
regarded as the most beautiful in the kingdom, contains so great a
number. Unhappily in times of intestine commotion this chef d'oeuvre
has been horribly mutilated by the axes of modern iconoclasts, more
ferocious than the barbarians of old. The two other tapestries are
placed in the Church of the Penitents, an ancient refectory of the
monks which now forms a dependent chapel to the great temple.

These magnificent hangings are woven of wool and silk, and one yet
perceives almost throughout, golden and silver threads which time has
spared. When the artist prepared to copy them for the work we are
quoting, no one dreamt of the richness buried beneath the accumulated
dust and dirt of centuries. They were carefully cleaned, and then,
says the artist, "Je suis ebloui de cette magnificence que nous ne
soupconnions plus. C'est admirable. Les Gobelins ne produisent pas
aujourd'hui de tissus plus riches et plus eclatans. Imaginez-vous que
les robes des femmes, les ornemens, les colonnettes sont emailles,
ruisselants de milliers de pierres fines et de perles," &c.

It would be tedious to attempt to describe individually the subjects
of these tapestries. They interweave the histories of the Old and New
Testaments; the centre of the work generally representing some passage
in the life of our Saviour, whilst on each side is some correspondent
typical incident from the Old Testament. Above are rhymed quatrains,
either legendary or scriptural; and below and around are sentences
drawn from the prophets or the psalms.

These tapestries appear to have been the production of the close of
the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, denoting
in the architecture and costumes _more_ the reigns of Charles VIII.
and Louis XI., than of Louis XII. and Francis I. Such pieces were
probably long in the loom, since the tapestry of Dijon, composed of a
single _lai_ of twenty-one feet, required not less, according to a
competent judge,