As we have seen on p. [198], fifteen centuries later the same scene was enacted. In September, 1914, Mgr. Tissier, Saint Alpin's successor in the bishopric of Châlons, was obliged to plead for his town with the invaders.
The Church of Saint Alpin was reconstructed and enlarged in the twelfth century. From this period date the west front (see above), the nave and its side aisles. The north branch of the transept belongs to the fourteenth century, the south branch to the sixteenth.
The apse goes back to the sixteenth century, as does the tower surmounting the middle of the transept, also the chapels of the side aisles. At the same period, doors leading into each aisle were pierced on either side of the doorway of the West Front.
The church was subjected to important repairs in the nineteenth century, and statues of Saint Andrew and Saint Alpin, its two patrons, were installed in niches on either side of the central doorway.
LIFE OF THE VIRGIN (sixteenth century stained glass)
In the interior we find a fine collection of sixteenth century stained glass in the windows of the south aisle and of the ambulatory. As in the other churches in Châlons, the war caused them to be removed to a place of safety. We reproduce two of them: Saint Alpin before Attila (see p. [206]), and the life of the Virgin (photo opposite).
In the latter the top of the right hand light represents the birth of the Virgin; the lower portion of the middle light, the Presentation in the Temple. Saint Anne and Saint Joachim, bringing the sacrificial lambs and doves, lead Mary to the high priest. The upper portion of this light depicts the glorification of the Virgin. On the left of the window is Saint Martha, in a rich Renaissance costume, holding in her hand the vessel of holy water and the sprinkler which she used to subdue the "Tarasque" (see p. [205]).
Mortuary stones are also to be seen here; and let into the wall of the ambulatory is a beautiful sixteenth century bas-relief of the Virgin and Child; two donors and their patrons. On one of the southern pillars of the transept is a fine "Ecce homo" on a background of gold, also of the sixteenth century.