The reliquary figured No. 130 is also a work of the Limousin enamellers. The methods employed are identical, but the carving of the figures is less delicate, indeed almost rudimentary, the modelling being replaced by hasty strokes of the graver. The lower panel of this reliquary represents the martyrdom of Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, the upper part his apotheosis. It is crowned by a ridge roof of two sides. [Illustration: 130. ENAMEL OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. RELIQUARY SHRINE OF ST. THOMAS À BECKET] As is well known, Thomas à Becket was canonised two years after his tragic death, which had aroused general reprobation throughout Christendom. The universal feeling expressed itself at Limoges by the manufacture of a great number of reliquaries destined to receive relics of the sainted martyr. In the details of the draperies and hands of those portions of Fig. 129 which are carved in low relief, we may trace the germs of those low-relief enamels known as translucent, or to be more exact, transparent enamels. This process originated in Italy, and was commonly employed in France, and even in Germany throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, more especially the latter. These enamels could only be executed on gold and silver. The method consisted in modelling the design in very low relief on the face of the plate, which was then covered with a transparent enamel of few colours. The process was a slow and difficult one; the pieces were consequently very costly, and the demand for them proportionately restricted. [Illustration: 131. ENAMEL OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. OUR LADY OF SORROWS] The enamellers of the sixteenth century, especially those who flourished at its beginning, were evidently inspired by these low-relief enamels to seek the same brilliant opalescence of effect by more scientific and less costly methods. But the simplification of the process degenerated into vulgarisation, and its original qualities gradually faded out. Fig. 131, representing Our Lady of Sorrows, and signed I. C. (Jehan Courteys or Courtois), gives some idea of the design, at least, of the painted enamels executed by the Limousin artists of the early sixteenth century. Gothic architecture, more especially in its religious manifestations from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, made its prolific influence felt, not only by the structural qualities of its vast and numerous buildings, but by those various arts created, perfected, or at least developed, for their decoration. We have traced a bare outline of its activities, regretting that space fails us to make an exhaustive study of their various manifestations. The priceless fragments which illustrate these offshoots of an art essentially French are now the chief ornaments not only of French, but of all European museums. They take rank as factors of the first importance in art education, pointing the way to fresh masterpieces of French genius. PART II