The chapel of the Blessed Virgin is a little church in itself, with stalls, organ, pulpit, screen and altar, all richly decorated. The reredos is the tree of Jesse which surrounds the Virgin with its branches. This is in stone, of the 14th century, and comes from a church in Champagne. Some restorations in 1838 brought to light a curious 16th century wall painting, representing a cemetery with the graves giving up their dead to the sound of the Angels' trumpets. Three statues were also found of the same date as the chapel, and serve as the retable of the altar: they represent the Blessed Virgin sitting, and S. Germain and S. Vincent (who are united in all the decorations of this church), standing on each side of her. The _banc-d'œuvre_ was executed in 1648 by Mercier, from drawings by Lebrun. It is handsome in its way, and excellently carved, but utterly out of keeping with the rest of the church. It is composed of Ionic columns supporting a huge baldachino; and probably looked its best when it was filled with royal personages on high festivals and state occasions. Another exquisite example of wood carving may be seen in the chapel of Notre-Dame de Compassion, forming the retable. It belongs to the latest Gothic period, and is covered with a multitude of figures, representing the Genealogy and History of the Virgin, and the Life and Death of Christ. This came from a Belgian church. The organ, pulpit, and stalls are part of the old furniture, but are not remarkable in any way. S. Germain was formerly a museum of tombs of the 16th and 17th centuries; but the only remaining ones are the recumbent marble figures by Laurent Magnier, of Etienne d'Aligre, and his sons, both chancellors of France, who died respectively in 1635 and 1677; two statues and several marble busts which belonged to the mausoleums of the house of Rostaing, formerly situated in S. Germain, and in a chapel of the monastery of the Feuillants; and an epitaph of a lady of Mortemart, Duchess of Lesdiguières, who died in 1740.[83] Under the church is a crypt full of bones, symmetrically arranged as in the catacombs: it was excavated in 1746-7 as a burial place for the parishioners.