We mentioned before that the largest portion of the cross, as well as the smallest (the _Crux Triumphalis_), were preserved in the great shrine, together with the sacred crown; but the intermediate one, designated _aliam magnam partem_, being the portion exposed, from time to time, for the veneration of the faithful, was deposited in the sacristy. All at once, on the 10th of May, 1575, it was found that this piece had disappeared, together with the reliquary that contained it. Great was the general grief and consternation. No pains were spared in the search for it, and large rewards were offered to any persons who should discover any trace of the robbers: all in vain, although public prayers and processions were made to obtain the recovery of the lost relic. But the guilty person was one whom no one thought of suspecting. Grave historians have nevertheless affirmed that the robber was none other than the king himself, Henry III., who, under the seal of secrecy, had, for a very large sum of money, given back this portion into the hands of the Venetians. A true cross, however, must be had for the solemn expositions customary at the _Sainte Chapelle_. In September of the same year Henry III. caused the great shrine to be opened, and cut from the _Crucem Sanctam_ a piece which was thenceforth to take the place of that which was missing, and which he caused to be similarly shaped and arranged. A reliquary was also to be made like the former one, the decoration of which furnished the unblushing monarch with a fresh opportunity of enriching himself at the expense of the treasures of the _Sainte Chapelle_, from which he managed to abstract five splendid rubies of the value of 260,000 crowns, and which his successor, Henry IV., was unable to recover from the hands of the usurers to whom they had been pledged. About thirty years later the church narrowly escaped destruction by a fire which, owing to the carelessness of some workmen, broke out upon the roof; but although the timber-work was burnt and the sheets of lead that covered it melted, yet the lower roof resisted, and even the windows were uninjured. The beautiful spire was consumed, and replaced by one so poor and ill constructed that a century and a half later it was found necessary to take it down. But where the fire had spared man destroyed. A devotion to the straight line led certain builders to commit, in 1776, an act of unjustifiable vandalism. The northern _façade_ of the _Palais de Justice_ was to be lengthened; and as the exquisite sacristy which Pierre de Montereau had placed by the _Sainte Chapelle_, like a rosebud by the side of the expanded flower, was found to be within the line of the projected additions, these eighteenth-century architects hesitated not: the lovely fabric was swept away to make room for heavy and unsightly buildings which well-nigh hid the _Sainte Chapelle_ and took from its windows half their light.