Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/259

Rh edifice, existed there in the time of Louis le Gros. This monarch removed the monks to the church of St. Denis de la Chartre, and then founded a new convent for an abbess and sixty nuns in A.D. 1134. Pope Eugenius III, assisted by St. Bernard and Peter the Venerable, dedicated the new church in A.D. 1147, and this date tallies well with nearly all the portions of the church now standing: a few alterations in the vaulting of the nave were made in the fifteenth century. The abbatial buildings have nearly all been destroyed: the church itself consists of a nave and side aisles, and a small circular choir at the east end. The aisles also terminate in circular chapels. The oldest portions of the edifice are four Roman columns of fine marble, with capitals of the Debased style common to the Lower Empire, which were probably removed hither from a neighbouring temple of Mars that stood on the hill: two of these columns are at the west end of the church, and two at the entrance of the choir. On the capital of one at the west end, a cross has been cut. The nave possesses a triforium, until lately blocked up with human skulls and bones, and a mutilated clerestory above, the triforium and the capitals of the piers resembling closely those of St. Germain des Prés. The choir is of the purest early pointed style, but the capitals of the shafts in this and in the other parts of the building retain a character of an earlier period than that of their presumed execution. The whole of this edifice is to be thoroughly restored. Although its annals are sufficiently interesting in an ecclesiastical point of view, its monumental history seems always to have been rather poor.

—This small church stands within the enclosure of the Hôtel Dieu, and dates from the early part of the twelfth century, though the precise year of its dedication is not known. Gregory of Tours speaks of a basilica as standing on this spot, but no traces of any building of so early a date as the sixth century are now to be met with. It consists of a central and single side aisles, all terminating in circular apses, with a clerestory continued above all the arcades of the central aisle and apse. The arches of the main piers are circular, and the capitals are of the same style as those of Nôtre Dame and St. Germain des Prés; the clerestory windows are pointed, and of much wider proportions than were usual in England at that period. At the east end of the church is a holy well.