ABBAYE DE FONTENELLE, OR S. WANDRILLE.
"The original jubé was destroyed by the fall of the great central tower, on the night of the 21st of December, 1631. A new screen was commenced in 1670, and completed in 1672, by Emmanuel Boynet, architect. It was supported by four marble pillars, with two altars on each side the choir door."—Essai sur l'Abbaye de Fontenelle, par E. Hyacinthe Langlois: Paris, 1827.
CONVENTUAL CHURCH OF THE GRANDS AUGUSTINES, PARIS.
"The jubé, which separates the choir from the nave, is of a very ordinary design, and built in the year 1665. It is supported by ten Corinthian pillars, in Dorian marble, between the clusters of which are two altars, one dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the other to S. Nicholas of Tolentino."—Antiquités Nationales, par Aubin Louis Millin: Paris, l'an second de la liberté, 1791, page 57, vol. iii.
CHURCH OF THE MATHURINS, PARIS.
"The choir is separated from the nave by six Ionic columns of Flemish marble, supporting an entablature of stone, supporting a large image of our Lord crucified, and several images of angels bearing emblems of the passion: the spaces between the pillars are filled with rich iron-work. The whole was completed about 1640."—Ibid. vol. iii. p. 14.
RHEIMS.
The rood loft was constructed in 1420; it was twenty-nine feet in height, forty-two wide, and thirteen deep, ascended by two staircases of open tracery, and provided, as usual, with two altars. This exquisite monument of mediæval art, covered with imagery and sculpture, was demolished in 1747, to be replaced by a heavy and lofty iron railing, in the Rococo style of that debased period.
Mons. de Jolimont, in his notice on Rheims cathedral, writes in the following manner on this destruction: "Le chœur était anciennement entouré d'une clôture en pierre, et l'entrée fermée par un magnifique jubé, monument curieux du quinzième siècle, orné d'autels, de statues, de colonnes, d'escaliers en spirale, et de sculptures les plus délicates; il fut détruit, comme tant d'autres, à une époque où le mauvais goût faisait une guerre à outrance au Gothique, ou pour satisfaire la vanité des gens opulens qui croyaient bien mériter de la posterité, en substituant à grands frais, à ces respectables antiquités, de prétendus embellissemens de mode, que les motifs les plus puériles semblaient rendre nécessaires; on doit déplorer, dans l'église de Reims, plus d'un exemple de cette espèce d'attentat officieux."—Chapuy, Cathédrales Françaises.