The portal comprises twin doors surmounted with a broad flamboyant recess. The doors have been partially mutilated. Above the window runs a balcony, the Gothic balustrade of which, known as the _Gloria Gallery_, was modern. This balustrade was destroyed by the bombardments, which also brought down the steeple. [Illustration: G.C. 32 ROAD ON LEAVING CORMICY (_See Itinerary, p. 134._)] The west front has two Gothic doors with 16th century iron-work, at the extremity of the aisles. The tympana of these doors, formerly lighted, have been bricked up. The lintels have three consoles ornamented with fantastic animals and banderoles. The three statues which carried the consoles have long since disappeared. In the south transept, on the left, behind the altar, is an interesting small door surmounted with a square lintel of the 11th or 12th century. Two figures of winged monsters with heads of a man and a woman and fish tails, stand out in high relief, framed and separated by a belt, on which are carved _florets_ mingled with fantastic figures. The three remarkable 18th century marble altars of the choir and transept chapels come from the Church of the Nuns of Longueau, the abbey of which, in the Rue du Jard at Rheims, was sold in 1790. The high-altar occupies nearly the whole of the chancel. Over the tomb, six columns of grey Dinant marble, crowned with Corinthian capitals, support an oval marble cornice with richly carved and gilt consoles of wood. The very large, white and gilt tabernacle is a fine example of 17th or 18th century woodwork. Its door, decorated with symbolic attributes, is surrounded by statuettes depicting, _in the lower part_, St. John the Evangelist and a holy woman wearing crowns; _above each of these figures_, an angel; _at the top_, The Resurrection of Christ. The sixteen carved oak stalls of the choir, as well as the wrought-iron reading-desk on a marble pedestal, also came from the former Abbey of Longueau. Near the choir, on a pillar of the nave, is an inscription to the effect that the chronicler _Flodoard_, who died in 966, was _Curé_ of Cormicy. The modern =Town Hall=, built by the Rheims architect, Gosset the elder, which faced the church, was entirely destroyed. [Illustration (Map)] All the places visited since leaving Merfy, _i.e._ St. Thierry, Thil, Villers-Franqueux, Hermonville and Cormicy, border the St. Thierry Heights. The latter are commanded by the fort of the same name and the Chenay Redoubt, with altitudes of about 670 and 620 feet respectively. They were recaptured from the Germans after the Battle of the Marne on September 11, 1914, by the French 3rd Corps. After the loss of the Chemin-des-Dames and the Aisne Canal on May 27, 1918, this position, which with its guns commands the road and railway from Rheims to Soissons and the road from Rheims to Laon, remained the sole protection of Rheims to the north-west.