There is little doubt but that the result of the deep rich blue, claret, and orange gives a first effect of insufficient lighting which would try an artist or photographer sorely, though not a detracting element in churches which would often appear cold and unconvincing were such an attribute lacking. There are also three magnificent rose windows of great size (thirty to forty feet), containing equally good glass. A double ambulatory surrounds the seven-chapeled choir, which is further enclosed by a magnificent sculptured stone screen begun in the sixteenth century by Texier, who designed the marvellous north spire. The _Vierge du Pilier_ of the north choir aisle, a fifteenth-century shrine, is the subject of great local veneration. The treasury contains a _relique_ in the form of the veil of the Virgin, supposed to have been presented by Charlemagne to Princess Irene. Other interior details of note are an eleventh-century font; the large crypt beneath the choir; the unequal level of the pavement of nave and choir; and the maze, which still exists in the nave. This last feature is a winding circular path some forty odd feet in diameter, and, in all, perhaps a thousand feet long. As a penance in place of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, "the journey of the maze" was performed by the penitent on his knees--taking perhaps an hour or more, according to the size and length of the path, which varied with different churches where they formerly existed. The other most notable example in France is at St. Quentin, northeast of Paris. IX NOTRE DAME DE REIMS The very ancient city of Reims, now the capital of the Department of the Marne, was a large centre of population when it first fell under the sway of the Romans. During Caesar's occupation it was known as Duroctorum, in the Praefecture of the Gauls. A powerful metropolis and a faithful adherent of the Romans, the city early attained prominence as a centre of Christianity. St. Sixte preached the word here shortly after the first bishopric was founded, after capture by the Vandals in 406 A. D. The city was practically razed by Attila, who afterward met defeat at Chalons. During the Roman Empire it was the most important town of the Province of Belgica Secunda, later becoming known as the capital of the Remi, the name given to the people inhabiting the country round about. [Illustration: NOTRE DAME _de REIMS_ ...] In 508 A. D. the Franks under Childeric captured the city, and in 720 A. D. Charles Martel captured it from Bishop Rigobert. Here, too, Pope Stephen had his famous interview with Pepin, and attended the crowning of Louis le Debonnaire in 816 A. D. In 744 it was made an archbishop's see, with suffragans at Amiens, Beauvais, Chalons, and Soissons. It is to-day the ecclesiastical capital of France--the Archbishop of Reims being the metropolitan prelate.