So closed that day of solemn pomp and of ceremonies not meaningless. For they impressed upon the people the reality of a conversion which was politically of almost as much importance to France as the conversion to Christianity of Clovis and his followers. The report of the consecration of the King at Chartres was followed almost immediately by the surrender of Paris, and Henri became in fact what he had so long been in name only, King of France. I have endeavoured to illustrate each stage of this story of a French ecclesiastical town by the mention or description of some building, and to illumine each notable building by some historic episode connected with it or with the period at which it was constructed. There is little left of the walls and gates which he bombarded to remind us of the taking of the town by Henri Quatre. But if we go to the Municipal Museum and Library we shall find pictures of this siege[98] and of the unsuccessful siege laid by Condé, besides numerous old maps and plans which show us, with varying degrees of accuracy, the town as it was in those days of storm and stress. The Hôtel de Ville,[99] in which the museum is lodged, is a fine building of red brick and stone, composed of three sections and a very handsome gateway. It is itself connected with the period under review; for, when Henri was besieging the place nearly half the town was in correspondence with the besiegers, and, among the rest, was the important family of Montescot. Montescot was a good courtier, and he was rewarded with a canon’s stall in Notre-Dame. But he was also a good citizen, and he acted as intermediary between Chartres and the King in the matter of the pecuniary contributions levied from the town. He it was who built,[100] as a mansion for himself, the present _Hôtel de Ville_ (1614), and in his character of good courtier he inscribed those words, ‘HENRICO MAGNO,’ over the principal entrance. The bust of Marie de Médici figures on the doorway of the right wing, the bust of Louis XIII. on that of the left. The old _Parloir aux Bourgeois_, or site of municipal administration, which had been in the hôtel known as the _Perron des Trois-Rois_ in the _Rue des Changes_ since 1571, was moved here in 1792. One wing of the building abuts on the _Place des Halles_, or market-place, at the corner of which is the Librairie Selleret (Petrot-Garnier), the booksellers and publishers whose name is honourably connected with most of the publications of Chartres.