At last, after having mounted 377 steps, we reach the seventh storey, where hangs the ‘Tocsin’ bell, ‘in accordance with which,’ says an old writer, ‘all the people of Chartres order and conduct themselves.’[75] It weighs 5000 kilos., and was cast on the 23rd September, 1520, by Pierre Sayvet, as the inscription tells us, ‘Petrus Sayvet me fecit.’ Another and longer inscription, in beautiful Gothic characters, runs round the bell in two lines. The bell, speaking in Latin verses, tells us that it has been raised ‘to the lofty summit of this mighty building to announce the eclipses of the sun and the moon.’ And it fixes its date as 1520, with a reference to the great event of that year, the meeting of Henry VIII. and François I., near Calais, on the field of the Cloth of Gold, ‘when the Frenchmen met the English and lay down together in everlasting goodwill.’ ‘Facta ad signandos solis luneque labores Evehor ad tante culmina celsa domus Annus erat Christi millesimus adde priori Quingentos numero bis quoque junge decem Illo quippe anno quo francus convenit anglum Perpetuaque simul discubuere fide.’ The arms of the Chapter, the chemisette of Notre-Dame, and the escutcheon of a dauphin will be noticed at the end of the last line. You reach the old tower from the new by way of the Gallery of Kings or by crossing, within, the vaulting of the nave, beneath the copper roof which has taken the place of the old wooden roof destroyed in the fire of 1836. The old roof was an immense and elaborate construction of timber known to the people as The Forest, because, one old chronicler explains, had the trees of which it was composed still been growing they would constitute a large forest by themselves; because, says another, the sight of it recalled to the people the sacred groves of the ancient Druids, who once performed their rites upon this spot. The magnificent woodwork of the belfry of the old tower was consumed in the same fire, and the huge bells that were once its boast--Mary and Gabriel--were melted down in 1793 to supply the men of reason with bullets. The great bell of the old tower (Marie) had been re-made in 1723 and carried the inscription-- ‘Marie-Anne je m’appèle Et trente mille je pèse, Celui qui bien me pèsera 34,000 trouvera.’