The Porte S. Anne is the oldest of the three portals, and the sculptures being the most ancient of the church, it has been assumed that they were brought from an older edifice. The central figure is _S. Marcel_, ninth bishop of Paris, who died in 436. He is here seen standing upon a strange and venomous beast with a tail ending serpent-wise, issuing from a winding sheet--the vestment of an unfortunate rich and wicked woman whom the beast had consumed in punishment for her vices. Marcel, in spite of this just retribution, seems to have pitied the poor soul, and went forth to the forest to reprove the dragon; who, listening to the holy man's words, became repentant and showed his contrition by bending his head and flopping after the Saint for the space of three miles, wagging his tail like a dog. But S. Marcel could not forgive him. "Go forth," said the Saint, "and inhabit the deserts, or plunge thyself into the sea"; which he seems to have done, for no more was ever heard of the monster from that day forth. The tympanum is ornamented with the _History of Joachim and Anna_, the _Marriage of the Virgin_ and the _Budding of S. Joseph's staff_. Angels and a kneeling king complete the composition; the latter probably being Louis VII., the friend of Suger and the father of Philippe-Auguste, as he is presenting a charter of donations and privileges. On the other side is a bishop, bearded, mitred, and vested, but unlike the king, the prelate stands; he is probably the builder, Maurice de Sully. The older part of this doorway is similar in some respects to the _façade_ of S. Denis. Abbot Suger, its builder, had only been dead about ten years when Maurice de Sully reconstructed the cathedral; and we see in the figures upon the Porte S. Anne the same Romanesque character as at S. Denis.