Five circular radiating chapels open out on the vast ambulatory. The plan of the latter, like that of Nôtre-Dame-de-Châlons, evokes all that is most original in the Gothic architecture of Champagne. The bays with their alternations of square-ogival and triangular vaulting do not correspond with the breadth of the radiating chapels, which are connected to one another by three arcades resting on light columns. In the lower nave, from the curiously large number of points of support, it would seem that the builders had doubts as to the strength of the pointed style and, by way of precaution, greatly increased the number of points of support inside the church and of the exterior buttresses. The tribunes rising above the arcades are surmounted with a triforium lighted by high windows, which still retain their beautiful early 18th century stained-glass. The somewhat stiff figures stand out on a uniformly blue ground. In the upper part, apostles, evangelists, and the sixteen greater prophets are grouped around a stately Virgin. In the lower part, the principal archbishops of Rheims on thrones are seated round St. Remi who occupies the place of honour below the Virgin. In the two last windows are effigies of Archbishops Samson (_deceased in 1161_) and Henry of France, during whose episcopate Pierre de Celle caused the apse to be built. [Illustration: FRAGMENT OF PASCHAL CHANDELIER DESTROYED BY THE BOMBARDMENTS OF 1914] The choir is surrounded by a Renaissance railing which is out of harmony with the general scheme. It was erected between 1656 and 1669, at the joint expense of the widow of the famous barrister Omer Talon, the Town Council, the Duke of Longueville, and the Grand Prior of St. Remi. The sculptor François Jacques seems to have co-operated therewith. The great _crown of light_ hanging at the entrance to the choir was an imitation of the original crown, destroyed in 1793, and which was garnished with ninety-six candles, symbolizing the ninety-six years of St. Remi's life (_see p. 108_). The 18th century high-altar of red marble which, like the cross and the six chandeliers, came from the church of the Minims, was crushed beneath the falling vaulting. At the time of the Revolution (1792) the chandelier (masterpiece of the old Rheims metal-founders), which adorned the centre of the Sanctuary, was broken and melted down, with the exception of a portion of one of the feet. This fragment (_photo above_), preserved in the Archæological Museum, was destroyed by the bombardment of 1914. =The Tomb and Reliquary of St. Remi= [Illustration: TOMB AND RELIQUARY OF ST. REMI] The present tomb, erected in 1847, is only a memorial of the sumptuous mausoleum, profusely decorated with gold medals, diamonds and sapphires, which was destroyed at the time of the Revolution.