fs.

Then the prelate--who stuffed his ears with cotton for fear of taking
cold--set his face against it; and for reasons of equal importance, no
doubt, the sacrilegious hideousness of this Assumption must be for ever
endured, and the marble screens as well.

But though the interior of this choir was a disgrace, the groups round
the ambulatory of the apse and the outer wall of the choir were well
worth lingering over.

These figures under canopies and tabernacles carved by Jehan de Beauce
began on the right by the south transept, went round the horse-shoe
behind the altar, and ended at the north transept where the Black Virgin
of the Pillar stands.

The subjects were the same as those treated in the small capitals of the
royal doorway, outside the church, above the panegyric of the kings,
saints, and queens. They were taken from the Apocryphal legends, the
Gospel of the Childhood of Mary, and the Protoevangelist James the Less.

The first of these groups was executed by an artist named Jehan Soulas.
The contract, dated January 2nd, 1518, between this sculptor and the
delegates of the authorities conducting the works of the church, still
existed. It set forth that Jehan Soulas, a master image-maker, dwelling
in Paris at the cemetery of Saint Jehan in the parish of Saint Jehan en
Greve, pledged himself to execute in good stone of the Tonnerre quarry,
and better than the images that are round about the choir of Notre Dame
de Paris, the four first groups, of which the subjects were prescribed
and explained; in consideration of the sum of two hundred and eighty
_livres Tournois_, which the Chapter of Chartres undertook to pay him as
he might require.

Soulas, who had undoubtedly learned his craft from some Flemish artist,
produced certain little _genre_ pictures well adapted, by their spirit
and liveliness, to cheer the soul that the solemnity of the windows
might have depressed; for in this aisle they really seemed to let the
light filter through Indian shawl-stuff, admitting only a few dull
sparks and smoky gleams.

The second group, representing Saint Anna receiving from an unseen angel
an order to go to meet Joachim at the Golden Gate, was a marvel of grace
and subtle observation; the saint stood listening attentive in front of
her fald-stool, by which lay a little dog; and a waiting-maid, seen in
profile, carrying an empty pitcher, smiled with a knowing air and a wink
in her eye. And in the next scene, where the