Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/72

50 of the Empire, and prosecuted after the return of the Bourbons, when Lenoir's Museum was dispersed, these interesting sepulchral portraitures were reconveyed to St. Denis, and ultimately placed in the "Chœur d'hiver," a chapel newly built on the south side of the nave.

No account has hitherto been given, by recent French writers, of the original position of these curious slabs, and no contemporary inscription is now to be seen to designate the persons whom they served to commemorate. Lenoir distinctly asserts that one of these effigies marked the burial place of Adam, Abbot of St. Denis, the favourite and counsellor of Louis VI., the predecessor of Suger, and better known as the severe oppressor of Abelard. He died Feb. 19, 1123. The second is attributed to Abbot Pierre d'Auteuil, who died Feb. 6, 1227. Lenoir gives as authority for assigning the first to Adam, the inscription which he found on the verge of the tomb,—"On lit autour l'inscription suivante: HIC JACET ADAM ABBAS." The Baron de Guilhermy, in his recent monograph of the church and tombs of St. Denis, is disposed to reject discourteously the evidence of Lenoir, and the appropriation of these memorials. His hasty conclusion appears to rest on the omission of any notice of Adam and Pierre d'Auteuil in the detailed account of the tombs at St. Denis, preserved by Felibien, and on the absence of any inscription. It is true that an earlier writer, the Père Doublet (in 1625), has likewise omitted to mention any such inscription, but the probability that it existed may seem affirmed by the fact that the tombs of both these abbots were distinctly known to that writer, as also to Dom Germain Millet, whose "Tresor Sacré" was published in 1638. Their original position, which M. de Guilhermy has neglected to ascertain, appears to have been near the tomb of Francis I., on the south side of the choir, and they were placed near together. The former writer, relating the decease of Pierre d'Auteuil, makes the following statement,—"Son tombeau est joignant celuy de l'Abbé Adam, près le Mausole du grand Roi Francois." This is confirmed by Dom Millet, who says of the burial of the same abbot,—"Il fut ensepulturé auprés de l'Abbé Adam, centre le gros mur de l'Eglise, proche la