The plinths and abaci of the last bay of this gallery betray the fact that it was added in the twelfth century, when the old south-western tower (Clocher Vieux), with which a flight of steps connects it, was built. The walls of this gallery, like that of the northern one, are decorated with modern mural paintings illustrative of events in the history of Chartres, or of the saints who have been connected with the diocese. They are already in a bad state, and even at their best they must always have displayed more science than art.

Turning now and retracing our steps we pass the staircase by which we descended and make our way round the horse-shoe curve of the apse. On our right we perceive the seven apsidal chapels, of which the first, third, fifth and seventh are the Chapels of S. Mary Magdalene, S. Ives (see pp. 91 ff.), S. Fulbert (see pp. 69 ff.), and the Sacristy. They were added in 1194; whilst the second, fourth and sixth are the Chapels of S. Anne, S. John the Baptist, and S. Joseph, and they date from 1020. The window of the Chapel of S. Anne should be noted. S. Anne is represented carrying the Blessed Mary. When we examine the upper church we shall be struck by the importance of the position allotted to S. Anne in glass and statuary—as, for instance, in the great window of the north transept. The explanation is that Louis, Count of Chartres, who died on the fourth Crusade, sent to the Chapter from Constantinople the head of that saint.

Opposite the Sacristy is the entrance to the Martyrium or Chapel of S. Lubin (see p. 36), which is immediately under the sanctuary. Of this chapel enough has been or will be said.[13] At this point it will suffice to call attention to the architectural features which serve to illustrate its history. First, the fact that you descend into it by a modern entrance, which has replaced the old staircase and doorway; and secondly, the depth of the base of the round column on the right, indicating the original level of the primitive church floor; thirdly, the hiding place for the treasure; next, the fourth-century wall, with its layers of thin horizontal Roman bricks; and lastly, the circular wall and the ninth and tenth-century piers. The Gallo-Roman wall on the west is probably a portion of the old enceinte of the town.

Going westwards on leaving the martyrium, we pass a staircase on our right and the Puits des Saints Forts on the left, behind the wall of the altar of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre. When this wall was built and the well concealed in the seventeenth century, the circular passage by which the chapel could be approached had also to be made, and the masonry was so treated as to suggest the natural rocks of the old Druidical ‘grotto.’

The chapel is at the end of the northern gallery (eleventh and twelfth century), which runs from the base of the Clocher Neuf. It is lit by two long rows of pendant lamps. Here, then, is that mysterious shrine which Boutrais has so well described. Here is that famous statue which for a thousand years has drawn countless myriads of pilgrims from all parts of the earth.[14] Kings and commons, rich and poor, scholars and Crusaders, sinners and saints unnumbered have knelt at this shrine since the day when Fulbert, having completed his crypt, left, it is said, the ‘Statue of the Druids’ in the same place as that in which the Gallic priests had held their assemblies in finibus Carnutum, on Carnutan territory. That statue was held in honour till the year 1793, when it was burnt by the Revolutionists before the Porche Royal. The present Madonna was made on the model of the old, and erected in 1857, after the crypt, which for sixty years had been used as a cooper’s warehouse, was restored to its sacred uses. On the north wall may be seen the traces of three twelfth-century windows, which were blocked when the north porch was built; on the south wall traces of twelfth-century frescoes. Other frescoes in the chapel are recent symbolic work by M. Paul Durand. The vaulting was painted in the seventeenth century.

Whether the statue which was destroyed in 1793 was older than the eleventh century is a doubtful point. Some suppose that the previous Druidical statue ‘Virgini Parituræ’ was burnt in the fire of 1020, and that Fulbert had a new one carved and set up then. Others, arguing from the colour of the wood, believe that it dated from the days of the Druids. For the face of the Madonna was ‘black, but comely,’[15] like that of the Vierge Noire, Notre-Dame-du-Pilier, in the Cathedral proper. But whether this blackness arose from the action of time upon the wood, or whether it was another instance of that tendency to represent Eastern types and colouring and design, which seems to me very noticeable in the glass and statuary of the Cathedral, cannot be definitely decided.

One other curious point remains to be noted. We are told that the eyes of the Child were open, but those of the Mother who held Him on her knees were shut. The Druids, it is said, intended by this device to signify that faith was still in darkness, and that she whom they worshipped was not yet born. But the eyes of the Child, whom she in the fulness of time should supernaturally conceive and bear, were open; for He was without beginning and without end, the Spectator of all time and all existence.

CHAPTER II
Saints and Barbarians

THE early Christians of Chartres were scattered and their churches destroyed during the final persecution under Diocletian. When, therefore, the disciples of S. Denis, S. Chéron and S. Martin came preaching the Gospel through the valley of the Loire, they found but few faithful among the descendants of those who had been converted by the first missionaries. The evangelisation of the Province by S. Martin, the great Bishop of Tours, was commemorated in the title of the church, ‘S. Martin rendant la vie,’ in reference to one of his miracles, and in that of the Monastery S. Martin-au-Val, as also in the window in the clerestory of the nave of the Cathedral (north) and of the choir. Soldier, hermit, bishop and saint, he established the monasteries of Gaul. Two thousand of his disciples followed him to the grave, and his eloquent historian, Sulpicius Severus, challenges the desert of Thebais to produce, in a more favourable climate, a champion of equal virtue. S. Chéron, after completing his work at Chartres, turned his steps towards Paris, but was assassinated on his way at a place since named S. Chéron-du-Chemin. His martyrdom is represented in a bas-relief of the south porch of the Cathedral.

Then Castor, Bishop of Chartres, profiting by the protection of Constantine, built a second basilica, larger than the first, erecting upon the old site a chapel to the ‘Virgin who shall bear a son,’ and, above it, the main church and the principal altar.