And mischance had helped.

In 1789 the Sansculottes were intending to destroy this mountainous Assumption, and some ill-starred idiot saved it by placing a cap of liberty on the Virgin's head! To think that some beautiful windows were knocked out in order to get a better light for this mass of lard! If only there were the slightest hope of ever getting rid of it; but alas! all such hopes are vain.

Some years ago, when Monseigneur Regnault was Bishop, the idea was indeed suggested--not of making away with this petrified lump of tallow, but at least of getting rid of the bas-reliefs.
Then the prelate--who stuffed his ears with cotton for fear of taking cold--set his face against it; and for reasons of equal importance, no doubt, the sacrilegious hideousness of this Assumption must be for ever endured, and the marble screens as well.
But though the interior of this choir was a disgrace, the groups round the ambulatory of the apse and the outer wall of the choir were well worth lingering over.
These figures under canopies and tabernacles carved by Jehan de Beauce began on the right by the south transept, went round the horse-shoe behind the altar, and ended at the north transept where the Black Virgin of the Pillar stands.
The subjects were the same as those treated in the small capitals of the royal doorway, outside the church, above the panegyric of the kings, saints, and queens.

They were taken from the Apocryphal legends, the Gospel of the Childhood of Mary, and the Protoevangelist James the Less.
The first of these groups was executed by an artist named Jehan Soulas.
The contract, dated January 2nd, 1518, between this sculptor and the delegates of the authorities conducting the works of the church, still existed.

It set forth that Jehan Soulas, a master image-maker, dwelling in Paris at the cemetery of Saint Jehan in the parish of Saint Jehan en Greve, pledged himself to execute in good stone of the Tonnerre quarry, and better than the images that are round about the choir of Notre Dame de Paris, the four first groups, of which the subjects were prescribed and explained; in consideration of the sum of two hundred and eighty _livres Tournois_, which the Chapter of Chartres undertook to pay him as he might require.
Soulas, who had undoubtedly learned his craft from some Flemish artist, produced certain little _genre_ pictures well adapted, by their spirit and liveliness, to cheer the soul that the solemnity of the windows might have depressed; for in this aisle they really seemed to let the light filter through Indian shawl-stuff, admitting only a few dull sparks and smoky gleams.
The second group, representing Saint Anna receiving from an unseen angel an order to go to meet Joachim at the Golden Gate, was a marvel of grace and subtle observation; the saint stood listening attentive in front of her fald-stool, by which lay a little dog; and a waiting-maid, seen in profile, carrying an empty pitcher, smiled with a knowing air and a wink in her eye.