The municipal rooms, hung with tapestry, are on the ground floor; the library and museum above. The library is of exceptional interest, and it is admirably arranged. Unfortunately it is only open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 12 to 3.30 p.m. But, if the hours are short, the visitor who may wish to study the extremely rich collection of books and manuscripts, which were removed here from the surrounding monasteries during the Revolution, will find every encouragement to do so. Without credentials or explanation I have read there myself many days, and it is with grateful pleasure that I take this opportunity of acknowledging the polite attention and the ready help proffered to me, a stranger, by the Librarian and his assistants. The collection includes over 100,000 volumes, and among the thousand manuscripts six hundred are earlier than the sixteenth century, and many beautifully illuminated. The Museum, the entrance to which faces that of the Library, is open to the public on Thursdays and Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. (gratuity). Catalogue, 1 franc, 50 centimes. I have referred already, in the course of my story, to most of the interesting things to [Illustration: Place de l’Hôtel de Ville] be seen there. I have mentioned some of the Roman antiquities--the coins and pottery found in the neighbourhood--the armour of Philippe-le-Bel, and of Charles V., his son, offered to Notre-Dame after the battle of Mons-en-Puelle; and among the pictures, the numerous maps and pictures and portraits that relate to the history of Chartres. It remains to call attention to the Layé collection of arms, armour, porcelain and medals, and, in the room above, what should on no account be missed, the magnificent pieces of Flemish tapestry (sixteenth century) which were brought here from the choir of the Cathedral. Five out of the original ten are to be seen in the Hôtel de Ville. The borders are rich and the work exquisite. They were presented originally to the church by that Bishop de Thou of whom we have spoken above. The designs of the five panels are based on those of the cartoons made by Raphael for the Vatican, and they represent incidents from the life of Moses. A beautiful example of fourteenth-century French needlework should be noted in a triptych here. CHAPTER XII _The Revolution--S. Père_