The ancient _Chartreuse_ of Villefranche de Rouergue, either built or reconstructed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, still preserves some remarkable features. The plan, and the bird's-eye view (Figs. 145 and 146) from _L'Encyclopédie de l'Architecture et de la Construction_, gives an exact idea of the monastery. Some of the cells are still intact, also the refectory, and certain other portions of the primitive structure. [Illustration: 145. CHARTREUSE OF VILLEFRANCHE DE ROUERGUE. PLAN] In spite of the rigidity of the _Rule_ of St. Bruno certain foundations of his order became famous, notably the monastery established by the Carthusians on the invitation of St. Louis in the celebrated castle of Vauvert, beyond the walls of Paris, near the _Route d'Issy_. The castle was regarded with terror by the Parisians, who declared it to be haunted by the devil, whence the popular expression: _aller au diable Vauvert_, which later was corrupted into _aller au diable au vert_. The Carthusians, nevertheless, took up their quarters in the stronghold, and enriched it with a splendid church built by Pierre de Montereau, the foundation stone of which was laid by St. Louis in 1260. The _Chartreuse_ of Vauvert developed greatly, and became one of the most famous of the order. It was in the lesser cloister of this monastery that the artist Eustache Le Sueur painted his famous frescoes from the life of St. Bruno in the beginning of the seventeenth century. [Illustration: 146. CHARTREUSE OF VILLEFRANCHE DE ROUERGUE. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW] [Illustration: 147. GRANDE CHARTREUSE. THE GREAT CLOISTER] The most famous Carthusian monasteries of Italy are those of Florence, which dates from the middle of the fourteenth century, and is attributed in part to Orcagna, and of Pavia, founded at the close of the fourteenth century by Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti. [Illustration: 148. GRANDE CHARTREUSE. GENERAL VIEW] The French Carthusian monasteries of greatest interest after Vauvert, which had the special advantage of royal protection, are those of Clermont, in Auvergne, Villefranche de Rouergue (Figs. 145 and 146), Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, and Montrieux, in Var. The _Chartreuse_ of Dijon is one of the most ancient, not only as to its buildings, which are the work of the Duke of Burgundy's architects, but in respect of its famous sculptures of the tomb of Philip the Bold, and his wife, Margaret of Flanders, and those of the _Well of Moses_, carved by the Burgundian brothers, Claux Suter, who flourished at the close of the fourteenth century, and had much to do with the revival of art at that period.[51] [51] See Part I., "Sculpture." But the most imposing of all, and the most famous, if not the most beautiful, is that in the mountains near Grenoble, universally known as _La Grande Chartreuse_.