It was restored in 1827 by “the pious and august” Ferdinand VII. after it had been rifled and damaged by the French. The reliquaries in the sanctuary contain ten entire bodies of saints, 144 heads, and 306 entire arms and legs. Among these relics is the thigh of Saint Lawrence, showing the roasted flesh and the holes made by the skewers. The sceptical foreigner will probably be more interested by the statues above the oratorios or royal tribunes surrounding the altar. We see Charles V. with his wife, daughters and sisters, Philip II. with all his wives, except Mary Tudor, and his son, the miserable Infante Carlos. It was not altogether a happy idea to represent a Christian prince attended at the _same time_ by his three wives. All these statues are faithful portraits. The oratorio on the Epistle side adjoins the bare, narrow chamber in which the devout king breathed his last, quitting without regret a world with which he had no sympathy and in which he moved as a melancholy exile. The church contains forty-eight side chapels and altars, adorned by the paintings of Coello, Navarrete, and others of less note. The best pictures are to be seen in the Sacristia. Here there are several works of Titian, Tintoretto, El Greco, Zurbaran, and Ribera. The most interesting canvas is the “Santa Forma” by Claudio Coello. The heads are portraits of Charles II. and his ministers. The incident depicted is the ceremony of the Veneration of the Sacred Wafer, which being trodden upon and defiled by Protestants at Gorinchem in Holland, is said to have exuded blood. It is preserved behind the picture and exhibited twice a year. Immediately under the high altar is the Pantheon, the last resting-place of the kings and queens of Spain. It is an octagonal chamber, lined with precious marbles, which also in the dreadfully sensible presence of death, seem to be decaying. No such rich chamber was desired by Philip. It dates from 1554.