Turning now and retracing our steps we pass the staircase by which we
descended and make our way round the horse-shoe curve of the apse. On
our right we perceive the seven apsidal chapels, of which the first,
third, fifth and seventh are the Chapels of S. Mary Magdalene, S. Ives
(_see_ pp. 91 _ff._), S. Fulbert (_see_ pp. 69 _ff._), and the Sacristy.
They were added in 1194; whilst the second, fourth and sixth are the
Chapels of S. Anne, S. John the Baptist, and S. Joseph, and they date
from 1020. The window of the Chapel of S. Anne should be noted. S. Anne
is represented carrying the Blessed Mary. When we examine the upper
church we shall be struck by the importance of the position allotted to
S. Anne in glass and statuary--as, for instance, in the great window of
the north transept. The explanation is that Louis, Count of Chartres,
who died on the fourth Crusade, sent to the Chapter from Constantinople
the head of that saint.
Opposite the Sacristy is the entrance to the _Martyrium_ or Chapel of S.
Lubin (_see_ p. 36), which is immediately under the sanctuary. Of this
chapel enough has been or will be said.[13] At this point it will
suffice to call attention to the architectural features which serve to
illustrate its history. First, the fact that you descend into it by a
modern entrance, which has replaced the old staircase and doorway; and
secondly, the depth of the base of the round column on the right,
indicating the original level of the primitive church floor; thirdly,
the hiding place for the treasure; next, the fourth-century wall, with
its layers of thin horizontal Roman bricks; and lastly, the circular
wall and the ninth and tenth-century piers. The Gallo-Roman wall on the
west is probably a portion of the old _enceinte_ of the town.
Going westwards on leaving the martyrium, we pass a staircase on our
right and the Puits des Saints Forts on the left, behind the wall of the
altar of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre. When this wall was built and the well
concealed in the seventeenth century, the circular passage by which the
chapel could be approached had also to be made, and the masonry was so
treated as to suggest the natural rocks of the old Druidical ‘grotto.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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