The choir was the first part of S. Germain which was decorated, and it is the most successful, the nave pictures being somewhat flat, and faded in colour; but without the use of gold it was impossible to make the subjects effective with the bright polychrome surroundings, and Flandrin justly considered that the nave should be subordinate in splendour to the choir and sanctuary. On the right and left of the commencement of the choir are two large compositions: Christ entering into Jerusalem, and The Way of the Cross, both upon gold grounds. Above these are the twelve Apostles clothed in white, and the allegorical Virtues; and higher still are the founders of the church, Childebert and S. Germain, with the patron S. Vincent, Queen Ultrogothe, and abbot Morard. All these works are full of intense feeling, and the group of the Blessed Virgin and S. John have rarely been surpassed, from the pathetic point of view, by any religious painter. There is a certain modernness about them; the figures seem to emphasize the human element in our Lord's person, the sympathy, the love, and the sorrow; there is no weak sentimentality depicted--and yet the treatment adheres to the conventional traditions. The richness of the gold around, too, enhances the beauty of the compositions, and makes them almost as gorgeous as mosaics. The frescoes of the nave occupy the space between the arches and the clerestory windows--in all, twenty compositions. The subjects are taken from the history of our Lord, and the corresponding Old Testament types. The two pictures forming one subject in each architectural division, show how perfectly the arts of painting and architecture may be made to harmonize, to be welded together as it were, although seven centuries separate the builder from the decorator. Except for a certain modernness of style, Flandrin might have lived and worked with the original architect, for his plan is that so often seen in the works of the Mediævalists, as for instance in the _Biblia Pauperum_. In the first arcade on the left, on entering the church, we see The Annunciation and the Burning Bush, and under the window the text: "_Domine mitte quem missures es_" (Exodus iv. 13). The characteristic of the first of these pictures is the simplicity of the Virgin's expression, as she hears the Angels' message. Next comes The Nativity and its type, The Fall, with the legend, _Per hominem mors, per hominem resurrectio_ (1 Corinthians xv. 21). The figures of Adam and Eve are excellent examples of the purity of form so commonly found in Flandrin's work. The Nativity is treated in the conventional manner, except that three Angels watch the child and its mother (who lie upon a rustic bed); while behind them, a Seraph bears a banner upon which is written: "_Gloria in, Excelsis Deo._"