M. de Sommerard attributes this mosaic to David Ghirlandajo. SAINT-NICOLAS DES CHAMPS. [Illustration: PORCH OF SAINT-NICOLAS.] The patron saint of children, of schoolboys, of poor maidens and travellers, of merchants, and, above all, of pawnbrokers, was popular in Paris as elsewhere, and thus we find three churches dedicated to him. S. Nicolas was a performer of stupendous miracles. Thus it happened that during a time of famine, while he was visiting his flock, he discovered that a certain disciple of the Evil One murdered little children, and, cannibal-like, feasted on them. And so audacious was this fiend in human shape, that he impudently served up the dismembered limbs of a young babe for the good bishop; who, seeing this wickedness, went to the tub where the children's remains were being salted down, and making the sign of the cross over them, the babes all stood up. This is a favourite subject in art; and not the least beautiful of all the saints and martyrs in the processional frieze in S. Vincent de Paul is Flandrin's conception of S. Nicholas.[105] Why the Saint's three balls, which seem to have been purses given to three poor maidens, should have become the sign of pawnbrokers, seems doubtful. Perhaps simply as being emblems of gold lent by merchants to impecunious customers. The story of the children is probably an allegory of the conversion of sinners, the tub being the baptismal font and the wicked host, the evil state in which all men are born. S. Nicholas is also the guardian of property, and in that form figures upon the windows of the cathedral of Chartres. The Saint's image was stolen by a Jew, and placed in guardianship over his treasures. Then came robbers, who carried off the property, which, the Jew discovering, led to the chastisement of the bishop's effigy. But S. Nicholas was equal to the occasion, and reproving the Jew, ordered the robbers to restore what they had stolen; and when the Hebrew saw the miracle, he became converted, he and his whole house. This, too, may be the reason for S. Nicholas' patronage of pawnbrokers, who are many of them, indeed most of them, Jews. In the 12th century S. Nicolas des Champs was but a chapel built upon the domain of the priory of S. Martin. Two centuries later it was rebuilt; but in the 16th century, being too small for its parishioners, it was widened by turning the chapels of the nave into an aisle, and erecting fresh chapels outside it. Later on it was again enlarged, until it has become one of the longest of the Paris churches.