stop to the vandalism of his disciples here, and that we owe to him the
preservation of the magnificent groups which still exist of statues
representing scenes in the life of the Virgin Mary. The groups above the
head of the Virgin on the double lintel had already been dashed to
pieces when he was appealed to. The groups below, still unharmed, afford
unanswerable proof that the sculptors of this part of Europe in the
thirteenth century must have been familiar with the best traditions of
their art. If Robespierre preserved these, we may forgive him not only
for sending his dear Camille Desmoulins and his detested Danton to the
guillotine, but even for replacing the shattered groups of the Nativity,
the Presentation, and the Death of the Virgin with this inscription of
his own devising: 'The French people believe in the existence of God and
in the immortality of the soul!' Under the First Consul this inscription
gave place to the Latin dedication now visible.

Pillaging he did not prevent, perhaps could not. One wizened old
reprobate, Ruhl, got himself great Republican _kudos_ by persistently
putting about a legend that he had successfully stolen the sacred
ampulla, from which St.-Remi had anointed Clovis King of France, and had
dashed it to pieces in public. That he did indeed dash in pieces
publicly a flask of glass is, I am assured, indubitable. But not less
indubitable is it that he did not dash in pieces the sacred ampulla.
Ruhl was a bit of a scholar, and his legend was obviously suggested to
him by the traditional story of the Frankish warrior who smashed a
sacred vase at Soissons, and whose own head the stalwart King Clovis
afterwards clove in twain with his battle-axe on the Champ de Mars in
requital of the deed. Curiously enough, it was written that the head of
Ruhl should likewise in the end be smashed, as it was by himself with a
pistol at Paris, May 20, 1795, to save it from the guillotine!

All the churches of Reims did not escape so well as the Cathedral.
St.-Nicaise, 'the jewel of Reims' and the masterpiece of a famous
architect of the thirteenth century, Hues Libergiers, whose name is
preserved in that of one of the chief streets of Reims, was pillaged and
then pulled down, the materials and the site being sold at a 'mock
auction' to Santerre, the enterprising brewer, who 'pulled the wires' of
all the patriotic emotions of the Faubourg St.-Antoine from the outset
of the Revolution, got himself thereby mad