[Illustration: Fig. 357.--Tomb erected in the Church of the Dominicans, at Puy-en-Velay, to the memory of Du Guesclin, by Marshal de Sancerre, his friend.--This tomb dates from the close of the Fourteenth Century.] Archæologists have endeavoured to discover the meaning of the recumbent figures--some in full dress, others without clothing--which were placed upon the tombs of Christians, and they think that this usage is but an instinctive return to the customs of the ancient Etruscans, who represented upon the top of the tomb the body of the deceased, either bent double or in a sitting position, or stretched at full length or leaning upon his elbows, according as he had been laid in his grave. The early funeral sculptors, as unskilful as they were ignorant, copying only some particular model set before them, fashioned merely an imperfect and roughly executed figure, with scarcely any approach to bas-relief. In process of time the statue became better defined, and, in the reign of Louis VII., was altogether in alto relievo. The monks of the Abbey of St. Germain des Prés did for their benefactor, King Childebert, what Suger had done for the illustrious dead who had for several centuries been interred in the basilica of St. Denis, and erected a cenotaph with a life-like figure of the monarch, the artist hollowing out the upper part of the tomb in the shape of a basin, so as to make the features stand out. The king is represented holding in one hand a model of the small church which he had founded, and in the other his sceptre. With the advent of Gothic architecture, towards the middle of the twelfth century, the tombs were decorated with vaulted arches in the shape of quarter-foils, and these arches were afterwards made to serve as a framework within which the bas-reliefs were placed. Within the pointed arch of one is represented a monk mourner, one of those who were hired to assist at the funeral ceremonies. The figure lying upon the table was called the _gisant_, as is proved by old account-books containing the following item: “So much to a certain person for having carved the figure of a gisant.” The essentially French art of funeral architecture and sculpture reached its apogee in the fifteenth century, and nothing can be more perfect or beautiful than the tombs of the dukes of Burgundy at Dijon, and of the dukes of Berri at Bourges. After the thirteenth century, one or two lions, or a dog, were placed at the feet of the gisant; and the war ballads relate that these symbolic animals were termed _cagnets_ or _cagnons_--the lion being the emblem of force, and the dog of fidelity (_léauté_).