Listen to Victor Hugo once more: "Il est difficile de ne pas soupirer, de ne pas s'indigner devant les dégradations, les mutilations sans nombre, que simultanément le temps et les hommes ont fait subir au vénérable monument, sans respect pour Charlemagne, qui en avait posé la première pierre, pour Philippe-Auguste, qui en avait posé la dernière. Sur la face de cette vieille reine de nos cathédrales, à côté d'un vide on trouve toujours une cicatrice. _Tempus edax homo edacior_: le temps est aveugle, l'homme est stupide." Sixty years have passed since this was written, but the great poet lived to see a restoration which he probably sighed over as much as over the mutilations of former times. Viollet-le-Duc did his work better than most restorers; but of the old church nothing remains but the shell--even the surface of the stone has been scraped and scrubbed, giving the building as new an appearance as that of the churches of S. Augustin and La Trinité. Hugo's words in 1832, directed against the architects of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., apply equally to those of our time: "Si nous avions le loisir d'examiner une à une avec le lecteur les diverses traces de destruction imprimée à l'antique église, la part du temps serait la moindre, la pire celles des hommes, surtout des hommes de l'art." The great destruction occurred between 1699 and 1753. Louis XIV., the great destroyer of men and of their works, in order to carry out the "_Vœu de Louis XIII._", made away with the old carved stalls, the _jubé_, the cloisters, the high altar with its numerous _châsses_ and reliquaries, its bronze columns and silver and gold statuettes, the tombs, and the stained glass. In 1771, the statues above the great west doors disappeared when Soufflot began his evil work of widening them. Another great loss to the church was the destruction of the statue of S. Christopher, a huge colossal figure as celebrated in the Middle Ages as the relics of the Sainte-Chapelle. It stood at the entrance of the nave, and was the work of Messire Antoine des Essarts in 1443, in gratitude to the saintly giant for having saved him from the Burgundians. Miracle-working Virgins, Philippe-Auguste posing as S. Simon Stylites, and two bishops of Paris, likewise upon columns, were amongst some of the former treasures. Whether three great figures in wax of Gregory XI., his niece, and nephew, which tumbled into decay in 1599, are equally to be regretted, is doubtful; but the description of an equestrian statue which stood in the nave, the man in armour, and the horse in emblazoned trappings, sounds fascinating. It was a Louis VI., or a Philippe le Bel--who knows? Perhaps the latter, erected as a thank offering to Our Lady for the victory at Mons, for Philippe founded solemn commemorations of that battle at Notre-Dame, at Chartres, and at S. Denis. But in spite of this evidence, Père Montfaucon pronounced in favour of Philippe de Valois, who rode into the church equipped and armed to give thanks for