In the tympanum of the doorway we have the Death, the Resurrection and the Crowning of the Blessed Mary, a subject which has received its most perfect treatment at Reims. It will be noticed that the Virgin is represented as quite young, for, as Michelangelo finely explained, when he had painted his Lady of the Seven Sorrows, virtue confers an eternal youth. Above are angels censing. The figures have been sadly mutilated. In the splay of the vaulting the first row contains a multitude of angels with halos, bearing censers, torches, books and palms, witnesses of the triumph of the Virgin. The next four rows exhibit the ancestors of Mary according to the flesh and according to the spirit--the prophets, that is, who announced her. Together they form a tree of Jesse growing from between the feet of Jesse below on the left. Compare it with the tree in the twelfth-century Jesse window of the Porte Royale and you will see that, though it follows the same order, the stone tree is even more complete. It includes the greater and minor prophets, with Judith, Esther and Deborah, and, beginning from the fourth row, the twenty-eight ancestors of the Virgin, mostly as described in the first chapter of the Gospel of S. Matthew. The last two rows translate into stone the first chapter of Genesis, giving the story of the Creation of the World and of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in a series of admirable tableaux which explain themselves sufficiently. In the gable is Christ surrounded by angels. Large statues of benefactors of the Cathedral and of the prophets Jephthah and Zachariah adorn the piers in front. The first two on the left are Philippe Hurepel, Count of Boulogne, and his wife Mahaut. The statue of the latter is particularly beautiful, the expression full of life and grace, the costume of striking simplicity. Next to these two there used to be, before the Revolution, statues of Philippe-Auguste, King of France, and Richard Cœur-de-Lion, rivals in the field but united here in their generous devotion to Notre-Dame de Chartres. The decoration of the plinths of these two piers is different from that of the others; it is Anglo-Norman in character, and the name RŌBIR cut hereon is probably that of the Norman sculptor who made them under the patronage of Richard in Normandy. The brackets of these four statues are storied with incidents from the life of David--(1) a group representing the young shepherd being anointed by Saul, (2) David chasing away the melancholy of Saul, (3) David armed before Saul, (4) David and Goliath, (5) David triumphing over Goliath. The armour of Goliath is extremely curious. On the right is a prophet in the Jewish Schimla, who may be Jephthah or perhaps Ezekiel, and next to him Louis VIII. and Isabella, his daughter, pious Sister of S. Louis. She is habited as a nun, for she founded the Convent of Longchamps, and died there, its abbess.