[Illustration: Fig. 86.--Votive Crown of Suintila, King of the Visigoths from 621 to 631. (Armoury Real, Madrid.)] “Five of the crowns so fortunately discovered at Guarrazar,” says M. de Lasteyrie, “have crosses. These, attached by a chain to the same circular top, were evidently intended to remain suspended across the circle of the crown.” The cross belonging to the crown of Recesvinthe is by far the richest; eight large pearls and six sapphires, all mounted in open-work, adorn the front. The four other crosses are of the form which in heraldry is called _croix patée_; but they differ in size and in the ornaments with which they are enriched. We have already stated that the kings and grandees of the Merovingian period displayed in their plate and in some of their state-furniture a richness of gold-work the profuseness of which was ordinarily opposed to good taste. We have seen at his work the celebrated Saint Eloi, bishop-goldsmith; and we have mentioned not only his remarkable productions, but also the enduring influence he exercised over a whole historical period of art. Finally, we have observed that Charlemagne--whose object seems to have been not only to imitate Constantine, but to surpass him--endowed the churches magnificently with works of art, without prejudice to the numberless splendours which his palaces contained. [Illustration: Fig. 87.--The Sword of Charlemagne. Preserved in the Imperial Treasury at Vienna.] According to a tradition, the loss of most of the beautiful objects of gold-work belonging to that monarch may have been owing to the circumstance that they were disposed around him in the sepulchral chamber where the body was deposited after death; and the emperors of Germany, his successors, may not have scrupled to appropriate those riches, of which some rare specimens, particularly his diadem and sword, are still preserved in the Museum of Vienna (Figs. 87 and 88). Ecclesiastical display, notably extinct during the period of trouble and suffering through which the Church passed in the seventh and eighth centuries, and to which the power of Charlemagne was to put an end, manifested itself in an extraordinary degree from that time. For example, it was calculated that under Leo III., who occupied the pontifical chair from 795 to 816, the weight of the plate which the Pope gave to enrich the churches, amounted to not less than 1,075 pounds of gold and 24,744 pounds of silver! [Illustration: Fig. 88.--Diadem of Charlemagne. Preserved in the Imperial Treasury at Vienna.]