In the first years of the fourteenth century several hundreds of _hôtels dieu_, hospitals, and lazar-houses received help from the King of France. St. Louis founded the _Hospice des Quinze-Vingts_ for the blind, and in many towns hospitals were erected for the insane, the old, and the infirm, in addition to the usual lazar-houses. Special hospitals had already been established for women in labour, and a chapel was founded for their benefit in the crypt of the _Ste. Chapelle_ of Paris, dedicated to Our Lady of Travail, of Tombelaine, in Normandy.[70] [69] "Eighteen beds have been in use, and from the first day of August 1368 to the feast of SS. James and Christopher following (July 25, 1369) this hospital has lodged and sheltered 16,690 pilgrims journeying to or from St. Michael's Mount, besides others. And it has further given shelter each night to some thirty-six to forty poor pilgrims and other needy persons, whereby the poor hospital is heavily burdened and in sore straits for lack of beds, sheets, and blankets."--Ed. Corroyer, _Description de l'Abbaye du Mont St. Michel et de ses Abords_; Paris, 1877. [70] _Idem._ [Illustration: 207. HOSPITAL AT TONNERRE. SECTION OF THE GREAT HALL] Several hospitals of the Gothic period still exist. That of St. John at Angers is one of the most remarkable. It comprises a great hall, divided into three aisles, and vaulted on intersecting arches, and a chapel dating from the close of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century. The fine barn at Angers is of the same period; the plan and details of construction are very curious, and resemble those of the barns and granaries already described. The _Hôtel Dieu_ of Chartres dates from about the same period. The hospital of Ourscamps, near Noyon, is very similar as to the scheme of construction which seems to have been one generally adopted by the religious architects of the twelfth, and more notably of the thirteenth century. The grandiose proportions of the vast building recall the great vaulted halls of contemporary abbeys, such as those of St. Jean des Vignes at Soissons, and of the _merveille_ at Mont St. Michel. Certain individual features characterise it as a hospice specially designed for the sick, the poor, and pilgrims. The Hospice of Tonnerre appears to have been rebuilt in the fourteenth century. The vast design is very impressively carried out. The great hall, over 60 feet wide by some 300 long, is covered with an open timber roof, boarded in so as to form a semi-circular vault, which is singularly effective. The internal arrangements are very ingenious. A wooden gallery in the half-story commanded a view into each unceiled cubicle, by means of which it was possible to keep constant watch over the patients without disturbing them.