Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/71

Rh the latter class greatly predominate, and the drawings, hastily sketched, suffice to give a striking notion of the artistic skill and singular variety of enrichments which these sepulchral slabs displayed.

The attention of French antiquaries has in recent times been attracted to these engraved stones, and a few examples have been published, amongst which must be cited the "Dalle funéraire," at Chalons-sur-Marne, an exquisite specimen of this kind of art in the fourteenth century, bearing date 1313. It represents a mother with her two daughters. This noble slab has been given by Mons. Didron in his valuable "Annales Archéologiques," tom. iii., p. 283. He states that the entailles, or incised parts, had been filled up with composition of deep red, brown, and yellow colours. Some notion of the prevalence of such tombs may be derived from the statement, that in the church of Notre Dame, at Chalons, there exist 526 sepulchral slabs, of which 251 are in fine preservation. In the cathedral also, where the dalle above mentioned is to be seen, a very large number has been preserved. The cathedrals of Noyon and Laon, St. Urbain at Troyes, and some other churches, are literally paved with incised slabs, of which some are as ancient as the thirteenth century. Many other specimens of interest might be cited, such as the beautiful slab at the Palais des Beaux Arts, at Paris, admirably reproduced by Mr. Shaw, in his "Dresses and Decorations;" the memorials existing at Rouen, especially those of the architects of St. Ouen, one of which, hitherto unpublished, was lately shown at a meeting of the Institute, and many others. But slabs of as early a date as the period stated by Mons. Didron are of excessive rarity.

Amongst the collections of French monumental art, rescued from destruction by Alexandre Lenoir, amidst the fearful scenes of the Revolution in 1793, there were two incised slabs of the thirteenth century of considerable interest, of which accurate representations accompany this notice. They were removed from the abbey church of St. Denis, and deposited in the Musée des Monumens Français, at the suppressed monastery of the Petits Augustins, at Paris. In the course of the "Restoration," commenced in the times