function has lately been abolished, and the keeper now impresses upon visitors (rather eagerly and unnecessarily), the permission to keep on their hats. "_Mais couvrez vous, messieurs, ce n'est plus une chapelle, ce n'est qu'un monument_"! [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL.] The celebration of the _Fête des Fous_ was one of the customs of the Middle Ages which was very tenacious of life. Although forbidden by the legate in 1198, it flourished for another 250 years. The Council of Paris, held in 1212, endeavoured to put it down; but it was only in 1435 that the Council of Basle succeeded in suppressing it, together with stage plays and other profanities. It was the custom at the Sainte-Chapelle, upon the Holy Innocents' day, for the boy acolytes[4] to deck themselves in the canons' copes and vestments, and to sit in their stalls, one boy bearing the mace carried by the precentor as an attribute of his dignity. They were also exempted, during a certain time, from doing homage to anyone. A curious custom prevailed at Easter. At three o'clock in the morning, the clergy, carrying the Host, went in procession round the interior of the palace; and by reason of a foundation of one of the canons, Eustache Picot, under-master of music during the reigns of Louis XIII. and XIV., only his own compositions could be sung on the occasion. On Easter day a chronological table of the principal events and festivals connected with the chapel, with the date and the age of the King, was attached to the Paschal candle. Other customs were peculiar to the chapel, as, for instance, on Whit Sunday, when, during mass, while the Gospel was chanted, an Angel descended from the vault, holding a silver cruet, from which he poured water upon the hands of the celebrant. Flowers, roses, wafers, a white pigeon, a quantity of small birds, and flax for burning, had to be provided by the Chevecier[5] in memory of the tongues of fire which descended upon the apostles at Pentecost.