During the war, a fine picture by Rubens (1635), painted for the Franciscan Fathers in return for their having nursed him through an illness contracted at Soissons, was removed from the north arm of the transept to a place of safety. This picture, which represents the Adoration of the Shepherds, has a fine frame of carved and gilded wood of the Regency period.
The bombardments did little damage to the north arm of the transept and to the intersection of the transepts. The worst injury was the falling in of one of the vaults of the north arm, and the breaking of the arch-band uniting two of the large pillars of the transept.
The art treasures.
In addition to the works of art preserved in the choir and transept, the Cathedral possesses a fragment of a 16th century tapestry, all that remains of a large piece devoted to the legend of Saint-Gervais and Saint-Protais, which, before the War, hung in the north aisle of the nave.
WOODWORK IN THE SOUTHERN AISLE.
Before the War, at the entrance to the nave on each side of the main portal, were memorial statues of two abbesses of the ancient abbey of Notre-Dame, represented kneeling, with folded hands, in the costume of the period: Henriette de Lorraine d’Elbeuf, abbess from 1660 to 1669, and Gabrielle-Marie de la Rochefoucauld (1683–1693).
Photographs of these two statues are given below.
In the sacristy are preserved fragments of flamboyant style woodwork, a 17th century chalice of finely chased gilt silver, a magnificent Crucifix by Girardon and a fine reliquary in gilt copper (1560), representing the plan of Soissons with its battlemented walls and churches of the period. (See p. [3]).
