The group of the Assumption was preserved by the presence of mind of an architect, by name Morin, who placed a red cap of liberty on the Virgin’s head and a lance in her hand. It might have been more reasonable to destroy it. For anything more detestably out of place than this soulless mass of Carrara marble in the old Gothic sanctuary it is impossible to discover without going to Westminster Abbey. It is the work of Antoine Bridan, the King’s sculptor, and the Chapter were so pleased with it that they settled a pension on him and his wife, and cheerfully destroyed more windows in order to throw more light upon the monument. Vandals, alas, are of all time and of all countries. Even the beautiful Clôture, the great horse-shoe wall [Illustration: Ambulatory, Chartres Cathedral. _Facing Page_ 203; ] which, chiselled like a silver bowl, encloses the choir, has been and continues to be horribly defaced and defiled by the ignorant vandalism of impious idiots and pious pilgrims, whose zeal has eaten them up and moves them to write or scratch their names upon the walls of this exquisite though unequal work. More beautiful than the fourteenth-century screen of Notre-Dame de Paris, but inferior in unity and nobility of feeling to the _Pourtoir_ of Amiens, this Clôture, although executed at various periods, is one in design. The plan of forty groups, representing the principal scenes in the life of the Virgin and the Gospel story was drawn up by the Chancellor of the Chapter, Mainterne, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The work was begun in 1514 under Jehan de Beauce. It was continued in 1611 by Boudin. It was finished by various sculptors at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the style naturally varies from late Gothic to Renaissance. The earliest work is the best.