dvantage, for the stained glass of the windows, which are fine, was
under repair, and much of it was masked with planks.

In the centre lies Philibert-le-Bel, a figure of white marble on a great
slab of black, in his robes and his armour, with two boy-angels holding
a tablet at his head, and two more at his feet. On either side of him is
another cherub; one guarding his helmet, the other his stiff gauntlets.
The attitudes of these charming children, whose faces are all bent upon
him in pity, have the prettiest tenderness and respect. The table on
which he lies is supported by elaborate columns adorned with niches
containing little images and with every other imaginable elegance; and
beneath it he is represented in that other form so common in the tombs
of the Renaissance--a man naked and dying, with none of the state and
splendour of the image above. One of these figures embodies the duke,
the other simply the mortal; and there is something very strange and
striking in the effect of the latter, seen dimly and with difficulty
through the intervals of the rich supports of the upper slab. The
monument of Margaret herself is on the left, all in white marble
tormented into a multitude of exquisite patterns, the last extravagance
of a gothic which had gone so far that nothing was left it but to return
upon itself. Unlike her husband, who has only the high roof of the
church above him, she lies under a canopy supported and covered by a
wilderness of embroidery--flowers, devices, initials, arabesques,
statuettes. Watched over by cherubs, she is also in her robes and
ermine, with a greyhound sleeping at her feet (her husband, at his, has
a waking lion); and the artist has not, it is to be presumed,
represented her as more beautiful than she was. She looks indeed like
the regent of a turbulent realm. Beneath her couch is stretched another
figure--a less brilliant Margaret, wrapped in her shroud, with her long
hair over her shoulders. Round the tomb is the battered iron railing
placed there originally, with the mysterious motto of the duchess worked
into the top--_fortune infortune fort une_. The other two monuments are
protected by barriers of the same pattern. That of Margaret of Bourbon,
Philibert's mother, stands on the right of the choir; and I suppose its
greatest distinction is that it should have been erected to a
mother-in-law. It is but little less florid and sumptuous than the
others; it has, however, no second recumbent