Another Glagolitic manuscript of some interest may be mentioned here. It was generally known, that the kings of France were accustomed, at their coronation at Kheiras, to take the oath on a large book, called _Texte du Sacre_, bound in gold or gilding, and covered with unwrought precious stones, which contained the Gospels written in some unknown hieroglyphic language. When in 1717 Tzar Peter I. visited Rheims, this book was shown to him among other curiosities, and he exclaimed at once: "This is my own Slavonic!" This view was soon spread among Slavic scholars. But the precious parchment was written in two columns, and in two languages. What idiom could the other be? The French, it is said, took it for Greek: more probably for Coptic. In 1789, a learned English traveller, Thomas Ford Hill, was shown some Glagolitic manuscripts in the imperial library at Vienna; whereupon he declared without hesitation, that this was the mysterious writing of the Rheims manuscript. Before the Vienna scholars, Dobner and Alter, then at the head of Slavic matters, had time to investigate the matter further, the revolution broke out, and the precious document disappeared. No trace was left of it; and for half a century the patriotic Slavic scholars supposed they had cause to lament the loss of a document of the very highest antiquity. It was conjectured that the book had originally been brought to France by some Slavic princess; for instance, by a princess of Kief, who is said to have been sent for by Henry I., son of Hugh Capet and king of France in the beginning of the eleventh century. Application was made on the subject to Sylvestre de Sacy; whose report gave some hope, that the precious relic might still be preserved. Search was made by Kopitar in Italy and at Paris, but all in vain. At last it was again found at Rheims by the Russian scholar Stroyef;[20] who, however, seems not to have been acquainted with the Glagolitic writing, and therefore laid little stress on it. The volume was stripped of its costly ornaments, and had therefore been the more easily recovered during the reign of Napoleon; who endeavoured, as much as was in his power, to restore the spoils of the revolution, while he himself filled Paris with the spoils of all other nations.