And yet this poor flower, so rudely broken by the tempest, had tried to lift her head, as it were, and recover something of the past, when the dawn of a brighter day shed some of its first rays on her. In the year 1800, while Notre Dame, still given up to schismatic ministers, was utterly deserted, two courageous priests, the Abbé Borderies, since Bishop of Versailles, and the Abbé Lalande, afterwards Bishop of Rodez, first gathered together the faithful within the walls of the _Sainte Chapelle_ for holy Mass, and also for catechisings which were long afterwards remembered. In 1802 these good priests held there a ceremony which for years past had been unknown in France――the First Communion of a large number of children and young persons, whom they had carefully watched over and prepared. This earliest ray of light after the darkness soon shone upon all the sanctuaries of the land. When the churches were opened again, priests were needed for them, and of these there remained, alas! but too few. The _Sainte Chapelle_ had to be left without any, and it was then put to the use we have described. A few years later, when an endeavor was about to be made to have it employed for its original purposes, it was found to require so much repairing that the question arose whether it would not be advisable to pull it down rather than attempt to restore it. Happily, neither course was then taken. The architects of the Empire and of the Restoration were alike incapable of touching unless irremediably to spoil so delicate a mediæval gem. Its state was, however, so ruinous that after the Revolution it was impossible to think of replacing the sacred relics in a building no longer capable of affording them a safe shelter; they were therefore, in 1804, at the request of Cardinal Belloy, Archbishop of Paris, given into the hands of the vicar-general of the diocese, the Abbé d’Astros, by M. de Portalis, then Minister of Public Worship. The holy crown, of which the identity was established beyond all doubt, was at first carried to the archbishop’s palace, where it remained two years, during which time a fitting reliquary was prepared for its reception, and on the 10th of August it was transferred to Notre Dame and solemnly exposed for veneration.