At the time of the Revolution Notre Dame was dismantled--the pavement was torn up, the stained-glass windows were broken, and every kind of havoc was made, but the bare walls were left standing, and presently, when more tranquil times came, the old church was restored to public worship. As the beautiful flamboyant stalls which had once lined the choir had ere this been sold and carried away, it is said to England, it became necessary to procure new ones. It so happened that just before the French came, the monks of Eeckhout had ordered a new set of stalls for their abbey church. These, owing to the fact that they had not yet been erected, had escaped destruction, and by Napoleon's orders they were set up in Notre Dame. The wood-carver, however, who had made them, had not received payment, and protested that the stalls were his, and by way of asserting his right, every Sunday and feast day, at High Mass and Vespers, until the day of his death some years after, he persisted in seating himself in the choir stalls at Notre Dame. Matter of little moment; after the Revolution there were no canons to occupy them. From an artistic point of view there is nothing very remarkable about the stalls in question. They are sufficiently mediocre work of the period, but the hand of time has mellowed them, and their associations make them interesting. The carving of some of the _miserere_ seats is very quaint, and is certainly ancient. Whether these formed part of the lost stalls of Notre Dame, or whether the redoubtable wood-carver employed some of the old Eeckhout work for his new stalls, it would be difficult to say. CHAPTER VIII _William Cliton_ William of Löo, as we have seen, was the legitimate heir to the throne of Flanders, and if, when Charles fell, he had acted with energy and determination, there can be no doubt that he would have been able to grasp the prize he so much coveted, and retain it in spite of his enemies.