Sometimes the pattern was incised on the lead in deep broad lines, and these, when filled with black mastic, traced the pattern without any tinning. An example of this method is found in a ridge and finial sketched at Bourges--the hearts and scallop shell were badges of Jacques Cœur. Other portions of the lead work at this house are decorated by patterns in lamp-black painted on the lead. See the ridge and examples of flashings drawn in Figures 36 and 37. A ridge designed for St. Vincent’s Church at Rouen, of which a drawing is preserved, is a beautiful instance of this treatment; it is divided into lengths in which branches with leaves and flowers alternate with a stiffer pattern. The spire before spoken of, at Chalons-sur-Marne, furnishes the finest example of these methods used in combination. See drawings in _Builder_, 1856, and in the sketch book of the Architectural Association for 1883, both by Burges. This decoration is of the fourteenth century and is thus described by Viollet-le-Duc:--“The sheets of lead were engraved in outlines and filled in with black material, of which traces may yet be seen. Painting and gilding illuminated the spaces between these black lines, and we must observe that nearly all the leadwork of the middle ages was thus decorated by paintings applied to the metal by means of an energetic mordant. The plumber’s art of the middle ages is wrought out like colossal goldsmith’s work, and we have found striking correspondence between the two arts as well in the methods of application as in the forms admitted: gilding and applied colour here replace enamel.” The design is of tabernacle work with figures and the whole was clearly intended to recall a shrine of goldsmith’s work. Large engraved patterns filled with black used alone on the silvery lead become great _niellos_, exactly parallel to the method of treating silver. [Illustration: FIG. 36.--Painted Decoration, Bourges.] [Illustration: FIG. 37.--Flashings, Bourges.] The flèche called “the golden” at Amiens retains traces of arabesque patterns on grounds of bright blue and vermilion. Repoussé by hammering, another method most appropriate to the material, was more used in France than with us, where casting has been throughout the chief means for obtaining relief decoration. In France the finials were mostly formed in this way. “Recalling the best goldsmith’s work of the epoch,” withal so easily and carelessly wrought that it is plain that they were done at once without pattern and yet with ample knowledge of the ultimate form desired; so a leaf cut out of a sheet is hammered and twisted till it cups and curls itself into living grace. [Illustration: FIG. 38.--A Valance.]