Two papal councils were held at Rheims, in the days when the Gallican Church was rising to its highest power, though it had not yet gone so far as to resent the yoke of the Papacy. Pope Leo IX. in 1049 entered the city in full state to consecrate for Abbot Heremas his newly-built monastery of Saint Remi, and followed up the consecration by convoking a vast synod composed of nearly every prelate in Europe, archbishops, bishops, abbots, clergy, and laity from every quarter, who sat at Rheims for six days; but their business seems to have been connected only with the usual canonical laws. The later council, which took place in 1119 and was presided over by Calixtus, appears to have occupied itself chiefly with quarrels between Henry of England and Louis of France on matters not even ecclesiastical. It further confirmed the Truce of God which had been imposed at Caen sixty years before, and patched up a peace between the two kings, after an interview between Henry and Calixtus at Gisors, in which the English king took care to make his case good before the Pope and to represent that all his incursions upon the territory of Louis had been made solely from religious motives. Rheims boasts as one of its early bishops the saint Remigius, who in the fifth century baptised Clovis here with great pomp, and who received from heaven, as the legend has it, a flask of oil wherewith to anoint his king before admitting him into the Church, with the stern injunction, “Burn now that which thou hast worshipped and worship that which thou hast burnt.” This flask was preserved as one of the Church’s most precious relics until the general devastation at the time of the Revolution, when it was broken to pieces by a fanatic. At the time of the consecration of Charles X. it reappeared in a mysterious fashion, and is now shown in the Trésor of the cathedral with various other relics. It is a sad fact to record that the most beautiful cathedral façade ever built is now almost entirely hidden by scaffolding necessary for the restoration of the building; and, judging by the appearance of the timbering and the paucity of workmen, it is not yesterday that the work was commenced, nor is it by to-morrow that it will be completed. [Illustration: LÂON FROM THE BOULEVARDS]