Tradition gives Pierre de Montereau as the architect of the refectory, which is a _chef-d'œuvre_ of the 13th century. It is an oblong building with seven tall, elegant, single-shaft pillars down the centre, dividing it into two equal parts longitudinally. Upon the side walls are an equal number of columns reaching about half-way down, and supported by foliated corbels to match the capitals; the vault, springing from these and the pillars, divide the length into eight bays. The windows consist of two lights surmounted by a rose; but upon one side they have been blocked up. The reading pulpit, which is built into the wall, is a beautiful specimen of its kind. It is lighted from the back by three little windows, and approached by a staircase in the wall, with open arcading to give light upon the refectory side. The building has been decorated with colour, and a painting representing S. Martin dividing his cloak, mediævalized by M. Steinheil--the whole sufficiently harmonious. [Illustration: THE REFECTORY.] The rest of the buildings are modern, or have been modernized; most of the destruction having been perpetrated by the monks, who, like all authoritative Paris of the last century, had Classicism on the brain. At S. Martin, as at S. Nicolas des Champs, S. Germain l'Auxerrois, and S. Séverin (not to mention other churches), Doric columns have taken the place of the old work--they must have been sculptured by the hundred. The chapel of the Virgin, the chapter-house, the old cloister, which, according to Piganiol de la Force, had not the like in Paris, and the statues of divers Kings and Saints, were all swept away to make room for modern improvements; but the refectory was left intact, and having been used as the library, the transformation of the convent into a museum has affected it less than the chapel. As we pass into it from the outer world of trams and omnibuses, with all the _va-et-vient_ of a great city, we seem to be suddenly transported into the olden time--into a world which, if not a better, was certainly a more artistic and a quieter one. SAINT-MÉDARD. The French S. Swithin shares with his brethren on the opposite bank of the Seine, _les frères Gervais et Protais_, a predilection for drenching us on and after his _fête_ day; so that, what with S. Médard's 8th of June, S. Gervais' and S. Protais' 19th June, and S. Swithin's 15th July, we who live upon our respective sides of the ditch may reckon upon a good three weeks of wet, over and above the forty days, if unhappily it rains upon the earlier of those unlucky festivals. S'il pleut le jour de Saint-Médard, Il pleut quarante jours plus tard; S'il pleut le jour de Saint Gervais et de Saint Protais, Il pleut quarante jours après.