and so on through a variety of amusing sobriquets. These butchers are richer to-day, if anything, than they were in Henry's time, and there is no impecunious monarch to levy on them now. They have their own place of worship too, a little chapel dedicated to St. Aurelien, and standing modestly aside in a court at the foot of their narrow street. It is scarcely larger than the vestibule of an ordinary church, and its exterior is as plain as that of any country barn. But step quietly in, and as soon as your eyes are accustomed to the gloom look about you. What a surprise! Frescoes, stained glass, paintings, statuary, tapestries and vessels of gold and silver are crowded together with lavish profuseness in that little sanctuary. A monolith cross dating from the fifteenth century stands just outside the portal, bearing exquisitely-carved representations of Christ, the Virgin and the apostles--a gem of sculpture rearing itself unexpectedly in the midst of a muddy and squalid neighborhood. The history of Limoges, like that of most European cities, is closely interwoven with that of its churches. St. Michael of the Lions, familiarly known as the Church of the Boule d'Or from a large gilded ball which adorns its tapering spire, stands upon one of the highest points in the city. About its base, in the niches between its projecting abutments, cobblers and dealers in old clothes and bric-à-brac have, with the sanction of time, reared unopposed their rickety shanties, so that the church-walls, with their ancient carvings and quaint designs, seem to spring up incongruously out of a medley of combustible rubbish. On the steps at the main doorway, in careless disorder, are to be seen the three life-size stone lions which gave the church its name. They date from the twelfth century, and are so worn by time that only the outlines of their features are still discernible. St. Michael's spire, which is one hundred and sixty-five feet high and ascended by an iron ladder on the exterior, was completed in 1383. The interior of the church is richly adorned, though somewhat defaced during the Revolutionary days of '93, when it was reared into a temple of Reason and witnessed many a saturnalian orgy, during one of which one of its finest windows was broken to fragments.