Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/258

240 the seventeenth century by alterations intended for improvements; and during the Revolution the church was exposed to destruction by worse enemies than the Normans, for the republican Commune turned it into a depôt for saltpetre and other chemical products, and an accidental fire caused great damage to it. The edifice was, however, repaired after the Restoration, and is now about to undergo a farther and a more scientific restoration than it has ever yet received.

The nave is exceedingly plain, consisting of simple arcades with a clerestory above, and with round piers capped with rudely executed capitals. The ornaments on these capitals are generally allegorical representations of men and animals; but the original capitals are no longer in situ: they were so much dilapidated as to render the execution of new fac-similes indispensable, a task performed in a creditable manner. The ancient capitals are kept in the National Archæological Museum of the Palais des Thermes; all the arches are circular, perfectly plain. The choir possesses a triforium, with square-headed openings extending the width of each bay, but divided by a small shaft in the middle, and above are pointed equilateral windows. The capitals are here decorated in the most sumptuous variety of medieval taste, comprising every variety of beautifully executed foliage, birds, human heads amidst the leaves, and other devices, affording one of the richest specimens extant of the late Romane or rather earliest pointed style. Here the circular arch mixes freely with the pointed, and it is evidently a specimen of the transition from one system of curves to the other. The church was exceedingly rich in tombs of every description:—but few now remain,—and none of the medieval epochs. This is in many respects the most interesting church of Paris: and the most ample archæological information concerning it is to be found in Dom. Bouillard's History of the abbey, A.D. 1733.

—This church, although outside the municipal walls of Paris, has always been so intimately connected with the capital that it may be considered as part of it, and more especially now that the military lines have included the hill of Montmartre within their circuit. The precise date of the earliest portion of the existing edifice is not clearly ascertained. It has been built over the spot where St. Denis was said to have been martyred, and it is known that a conventual establishment, with probably a chapel on the site of the