In the catacomb of St. Agnes one end of a passage is given up to form a museum of the objects found in the tombs of the early Christians, and among these are some very similar dolls, taken out of the graves of Christian children. It was very natural that the parents, whether Pagan or Christian, should put the toys of their dear ones into the last resting-place with them, not with the idea that they would want them to play with in the world beyond the veil, but because the sight of these dolls would rouse painful thoughts, and bring tears into the eyes of the mourners whenever come across in some old cupboard or on some shelf. Of the greatest interest to the student of mankind are the deposits some 40 ft. deep at La Laugerie on the banks of the Vézère in Dordogne. Here at the close of the glacial period lived the primeval inhabitants of France, at the time of the cave lion, reindeer, and mammoth. That race knew nothing of the potter’s art. The reindeer hunter was, however, rarely endowed with the artistic faculty, and numerous sketches by him on ivory and bone remain to testify to his appreciation of beauty of animal form. One day a workman turned up a doll carved in ivory beside one of the hearths of this primeval man. He secreted and sold it, being under a bond to deliver all such finds to the proprietor of the land. A fellow-workman betrayed him, and he was obliged to pay back the money he had received and take the doll to M. de Vibraye, to whom it was due. In a rage he said, “Anyhow, he shall not have it perfect,” and he knocked off the head. In the accompanying sketch the head is conjecturally restored. The arms were broken off when discovered, if there ever had been arms, which is uncertain. [Illustration: _Fig. 34._--DOLL OF IVORY FROM LAUGERIE HAUTE. (The head restored.)] Was this a child’s toy or an idol of adults? Probably the former. On some of the engraved bones of the reindeer have been found sketches of singular objects which bear more resemblance to fetishes, or the images made and venerated by Ostjaks and Samojeds, than any thing else. With the savage, as with the child, that doll receives most regard which is most inartistic, for it allows greater scope for the imagination to play about it. The favourite miraculous images are invariably the rudest. In one of the Bruges churches is a beautiful Virgin and Child in white marble, one of the few refined and beautiful things that Michael Angelo’s hand turned out. But this lovely group does not attract worshippers, who will be found clustered about, offering their candles, hanging up silver hearts about a little monstrosity with a black face, and neither shape nor limbs.