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Rh sepulture du Roi Francois I." Although positive evidence may be wanting to prove that the tombs, now brought under the notice of this Institute, are identical with those thus distinguished in the seventeenth century as the memorials of the Abbots Adam and Peter, there appears no cause to question the statement of Lenoir, or regard the inscriptions (which he describes) as fictitious, according to the ungenerous insinuation of M. de Guilhermy. One of these monumental portraitures, it must be observed, is undeniably not contemporary with the decease of the Abbot whom it is supposed to represent; and it may be questioned whether that attributed to Peter d'Auteuil may not have been executed some years subsequently to his times. Lenoir states that they both were placed by Abbot Mathieu de Vendosme, in 1259, in accordance with the directions of Blanche of Castillo, mother of St. Louis; and thus explains the occurrence of the castles, allusive to her paternal blazonry, found with the fleurs-de-lis of France in the decoration of the field, on these interesting slabs. To the period of the rebuilding of the Abbey church, commenced by Abbot Eudes de Clement, in 1231, with liberal encouragement by St. Louis and the Queen Mother, and terminated, in 1281, by Mathieu de Vendosme, the Confessor of that Prince, and Regent of the realm during his absence on the second crusade, the date of these effigies may with confidence be assigned. To that Abbot, St. Louis had moreover assigned the charge of a new arrangement of the royal tombs, placing on one side the descendants of Charlemagne, and on the other those of the Capets, the paternal ancestors of St. Louis. The long series of commemorative statues, commencing with Clovis II., and still seen in the catacombs at St. Denis, were sculptured at this period.

In the course of the works attributed to Abbot Mathieu, we are informed that he caused the remains of the six abbots,