Behind the choir is the chapel of the Virgin, with the Crucifixion lighted up after the manner of that terrible tomb at Windsor erected to the memory of the Princess Charlotte; but they vie with each other in popularity from the many sightseers who pass by. There is also an entombment which, on Good Friday, is visited by thousands of people; and in the chapel of the S. Sacrament, a reproduction of the Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat and the Cherubim--about the most interesting part of the church; it is I believe, used as the tabernacle. "S. Roche is doubtless a very fine building, with a well proportioned front and a noble flight of steps; but the interior is too plain and severe for my taste. The walls are decorated with unfluted pilasters, with capitals scarcely conformable to any one order of architecture. The choir, however, is lofty, and behind it, in Our Lady's chapel, if I remember accurately, there is a striking piece of sculpture of the Crucifixion, sunk into a rock, which receives the light from an invisible aperture, as at S. Sulpice. To the right, or rather behind this chapel, there is another--called the _Chapel of Calvary_--in which you observe a celebrated piece of sculpture, of rather colossal dimensions, of the entombment of Christ. The dead Saviour is borne to the sepulchre by Joseph of Arimathea, St. John, and the three Maries. The name of the sculptor is _Deseine_. Certainly you cannot but be struck with the effect of such representations--which accounts for these two chapels being a great deal more attended in general than the choir or the nave of the church. It is, right, however, to add, that the pictures here are preferable to those of S. Sulpice, and the series of bas-reliefs, descriptive of the principal events in the life of Christ, is among the very best specimens of art, of that species, which Paris can boast of."[120]