The life-size statues of all three recesses are held aloft by pedestals, on pillars of twisted and of spiralled trunks, a formation reviled by Ruskin, but producing an effect much more pleasing than some galleries of effigies we have seen, where the figures appear as if hung up by the hair of their heads, or are clinging to the walls by invisible spurs at their heels, or, as is not infrequently the case, are standing or hung on nothing, as though they were graven of some bewitched magnetic stone. Here for the first time is seen, in the sculptured figures of the three great portals, the plastic forms which were to add so greatly to the Gothic architecture: male and female saints, Evangelists, and Apostles in great array, all somewhat more than life-size. Only one adverse impression is cast: that of petrifaction. The figures, almost without exception, appear as integral parts of the architectural fabric, rather than as added ornament. They are most ungainly, tall, stiff, and column-like, much more so than similar works at Reims, or at Amiens, where the sculpture has something of the vigour and warmth of life. The south porch, erected in the reign of Henry I. by Jean Cormier, partly from donations of Matilda, queen of the Norman Conqueror, contains a series of _basso relievos_,--seen also in the arches of the choir,--manifestly not of good Gothic principle, and one which is the very antithesis of the northern spirit, as the name itself implies. The earliest portion of the existing church, the crypt, is that of a timber-roofed structure burned in 1020. It was erected early in the eleventh century by Fulbert, the famous Bishop of Chartres, also remembered--possibly revered--as being the prolific letter-writer of his time. John of Salisbury was bishop in the next century, and under him were built the lower stages of the western facade and towers. In this church Edward III. called for the help of Heaven to aid his plans, and here Henry of Navarre was crowned King of France, a change of venue from Reims, where so many previous and subsequent coronations were held. The interior gives a deal of the thrill for which one should always be prepared. The gloom, so apparent at first, slowly brightens as the eye becomes accustomed to the finely filtered light, which penetrates through the gorgeous coloured glass, a feature which ranks with the spires as a vivid impression to be carried away. Nearly all of this glass is of equal worth and attractiveness, being, with the exception of three windows of a late date, and a few uncoloured ones, all of the gorgeous thirteenth-century variety. The whole mass of the clerestory throughout gives the effect of windows heavily hung with tapestries through which the outside light pierces in minute rays. This comparison is made advisedly, inasmuch as, regardless of the quality and value of the glass, it is composed mainly of those minute and fragmentary particles often more rich in colour than design.