The use of private chapels dates from the earliest days of Christianity; great personages who had embraced the new faith followed the example of the Romans who constructed private basilicas in their palaces. The custom was perpetuated, and the splendid Palatine Chapel of Aix is one of the most magnificent of its results. In later times kings and great nobles built themselves sanctuaries within their castles. In the time of Charles V. the Louvre owned an important chapel; the feudal castles of Coucy and Pierrefonds, among others, contained large chapels, the arrangement of which is very curious. Archæologists cite as of special beauty among seignorial chapels the ancient oratory of the Dukes of Bourbon at Moulins, the Chapels of Chenonceaux, Chambord, and Chaumont, and the Chapel of Jacques Cœur's _hôtel_ at Bourges. Many episcopal palaces have very remarkable chapels, such as that of the archbishop's palace at Rheims. Refuges, hospitals, madhouses, and prisons also had chapels more or less important. The term _Sainte Chapelle_[34] was applied in the Middle Ages to buildings raised over spots sanctified by the martyrdom of a saint, or destined to enshrine relics of peculiar holiness. The most famous was the royal oratory, built by Pierre de Montereau between 1242 and 1248 on the south side of the royal palace, now the _Palais de Justice_, Paris, to receive the Crown of Thorns, the pieces of the true Cross, and other relics brought by the royal founder, St. Louis, from the Holy Land. [34] The plans and elevations of these chapels are so well known, and have been so frequently published, that we abstain from reproducing them in the present work. The distinguishing feature of the _Ste. Chapelle_ of Paris is its division into two stories--the upper chapel, which communicated with the royal apartments, and the lower chapel on the ground floor, which may have been open to the public. Its construction is remarkable no less for the happy boldness with which the whole of the spaces between the buttresses were utilised for the introduction of immense painted windows, than for the perfection of execution and the beauty of the sculptures, and this in spite of the rapidity with which the work was carried out. An annexe, which has now disappeared, adjoined the apse on the north, and consisted of three stories serving as sacristies and muniment rooms. The spire, a wooden structure cased in lead, dating from the time of Charles VII., was destroyed by fire in 1630; it was shortly restored, only to be again demolished at the close of the eighteenth century, and was finally replaced by the architect Lassus, who restored the building.