PASTOR ERAM CLERI, POPULI PATER, AUREA SESE
     LILIA SUBDEBANT QUERCUS[84] ET IPSA MIHI. 
     MORTUUS EN JACEO, MORTE EXTINGUUNTUR HONORES;
     AT VIRTUS MORTIS NESGIA MORTE VIRET.

Immediately behind the cardinals are figures of patron saints; a centre tablet represents St. George and the Dragon; above are the apostles; below, the seven cardinal virtues.  The execution of these is particularly admired, especially that of the figure of Prudence; but a row of still smaller figures, in devotional attitudes, carved upon the pilasters between the virtues, are in higher taste.  Various arabesques in basso-relievo, of great beauty, and completely in the style of the Loggie of Raphael, adorn the other parts of this sumptuous tomb.—­As a whole it is unquestionably grand, and it is yet farther valuable as an illustration of the gorgeous taste that prevailed at the end of the fifteenth century; but the mixture of black and white marble and gilding has by no means a good effect, and every part is overloaded with ornaments[85].  These, however, are the faults of the times:  its merits are its own.

On the north side of the chapel is entombed the Duke of Breze, once Grand Seneschal of Normandy; his tomb is chaste and simple, forming a pleasing contrast to the elaborate memorial of the cardinals.  The statue of the seneschal himself, represented stretched as a corpse, upon a black marble sarcophagus, is admirable for its execution.  The rigid expression of death is visible, not only in the countenance, but extends through every limb.  Diana of Poitiers, a beauty who enjoys more celebrity than good fame, erected the monument; and she caused her statue to be placed on the tomb, where she is seen kneeling and contemplating.  In the following inscription she promises to be as faithful and united to him after his death as she was while they both lived:  and she truly kept her word; for, during his life-time, she was grievously suspected of infidelity[86], and she subsequently lived in an open state of concubinage with Henry IInd, and was at last buried at her own celebrated residence at Anet, twenty leagues from her husband.—­

     HOC, LODOICE, TIBI POSUI, BREZAEE, SEPULCHRUM,
     PICTONIS AMISSO MOESTA DIANA VIRO;
     INDIVULSA TIBI QUONDAM ET FIDISSIMA CONJUX,
     UT FUIT IN THALAMO, SIC ERIT IN TUMULO.

A second female figure on the tomb, with a child in her arms, has been supposed intended to represent the nurse of the duke; as if the design of the sculptor had been to read a lesson to mortality, by exhibiting the warrior in the helplessness of infancy, in the vigor of manhood, and as a breathless corpse.  Some persons, however, consider it as a personification of Charity; others suppose that it represents the Virgin Mary.  In the midst was originally an erect statue of De Breze, decorated with the various symbols of his dignities; but this sinned beyond the hope of redemption against the doctrines of liberty and equality,