The Grand Gueule, a horrible beast, discovered in the caverns of the abbey of Sainte Croix, who had eaten up several nuns, was probably found out by the smell of sulphur which pervaded his den, and brought forth to punishment by the holy men who were guided to his retreat by this means,--their instrument being a criminal condemned to death, who combated the beast, and killed him. The dragon was usually carried in processions, following the precious relic of a piece of the true cross which had vanquished him; and his effigy in wood, with the inscription, _Gargot fecit_, 1677, exists still, though it has ceased to be used. CHAPTER VII. NOTRE DAME--THE KEYS--THE MIRACLE--PROCESSION--ST. RADEGONDE--TOMB OF THE SAINT--FOOT-PRINT--LITTLE LOUBETTE--THE COUNT OUTWITTED--THE CORDELIER--LATE JUSTICE--THE TEMPLARS. POITIERS is one of the largest towns in France, but is very thinly inhabited; immense gardens, orchards, and fields, extend between the streets; the spaces are vast, but there is no beauty whatever in the architecture or the disposition of the buildings. The squares are wide and open, but surrounded by irregular, slovenly-looking houses, without an approach to beauty or elegance; the pavement is rugged, and cleanliness is not a characteristic of the place. The churches are extremely curious, although, in general, so battered and worn as to present the aspect of a heap of ruins at first sight. This is particularly the case with Notre Dame, so revered by Richard Coeur de Lion, in the great _place_, before which a market is held. I never saw a church whose appearance was so striking, not from its beauty or grace, but from the singularly devastated, ruined state in which it towers above the buildings round, as if it belonged to another world. Nothing about it has the least resemblance to anything else: its heaps of encrusted figures, arches within arches, niches, turrets covered with rugged scales, round towers with countless pillars, ornaments, saints, canopies, and medallions, confuse the mind and the eye. All polish is worn from the surface, and so crumbling does it look, that it would seem impossible that the rough and disjointed mass of stones, piled one on the other, could keep together; yet, when you examine it closely, you find that all is solid and firm, and that it would require the joint efforts of time and violence to throw it down, even now. The peculiar colour of the stone of which it is built, assists the strangeness of its effect; for it has an ancient, ivory hue, and all its elaborate carving is not unlike that on some old ivory cabinet grown yellow with age. A long series of scriptural histories, from the scene in Eden, upwards, are represented on this wonderful façade; besides much which has not yet been explained. Its original construction has been attributed to Constantine, whose equestrian statue once figured above one of the portals.