_Impleta sunt quæ concinit_ _David fideli carmine,_ _Dicendo nationibus_ _Regnavit a ligno Deus._ That which the prophet-king of old Hath in mysterious verse foretold Is now accomplished whilst we see God ruling nations from a Tree. --FORTUNATUS, bishop of Poitiers (599-607).[197] The noblest Gothic monument due to Henry Plantagenet and Aliénor of Aquitaine is the cathedral church at Poitiers, founded by them in 1162 about the same time that, in Paris, Louis VII witnessed the laying of the corner stone for a new chief church in his capital. Never were contemporary edifices more unlike in their form and their informing spirit. In Notre Dame of Paris breathes the struggle of human existence and that Christian resignation voiced by the XIII-century Franciscan in the _Dies Iræ_. St. Peter's Cathedral at Poitiers rings with Christian joy, with the triumphal strains of the hymn composed by its VI-century bishop for the arrival from Constantinople of the True Cross relic. From the hour that the ancient ecclesiastical city marched forth with banners flying to meet the Cross, Poitiers has held it to be a tree of royal honor, not of pathetic agony. Her greatest bishop, St. Hilary, was western Christendom's champion for the Son's divinity when the Arian heresy attacked it. Clovis defeated the Arian Visigoths at Poitiers in 508; Charles Martel checked the Mohammedans at Poitiers in 732. A city's spiritual history speaks by its monuments. In the high place of honor in Poitiers' cathedral of St. Peter, hangs a gleaming canticle of translucent mosaic, a window which many hold to be the finest in the world. It celebrates God ruling nations from a tree. It is a passion and a triumph, an agony and an apotheosis. Eight centuries divide the inspiration of the Crucifixion window from St. Hilary's struggle with Arianism, six centuries from the canticle of Bishop Venantius Fortunatus, but Hilary's affirmation and the rejoicing of Fortunatus live in it, and through it have been passed on to us. Poitiers Cathedral is a spacious hall-church illuminated by large lancets that seem to be chanting Alleluias, yet whose piety is plain and robust. It is a church loyal to indigenous art traditions, yet blending those sober Romanesque inheritances of Poitou with the delicate grace of Plantagenet Gothic. Its loveliness is severe, its slenderness is sturdy. St. Peter's both imposes and allures.