and it was accordingly removed at the time of the revolution, together with two inscriptions.  One of them, which detailed his honors, with the addition that he died July twenty-third, 1531, has recently been recovered by the care of M. Riaux, and is restored to its place.  The other inscription and the effigy, it is feared, are irrevocably lost.  An equestrian statue in the upper part of the monument was suffered to remain, and, as a record of the military costume of the sixteenth century, I annex a sketch of it.  The armorial hearings upon the horse and armor are nearly obliterated.—­The pile is surmounted a figure of Temperance; the bridle in whose mouth shews how absurd is allegory, when “submitted to the faithful eye.”

[Illustration:  Equestrian Figure of the Seneschal de Breze, in Rouen Cathedral]

Lenoir, who, in his work on the Musee des Monumens Francais, has treated much at large of the history of Diana of Poitiers, and has figured her own beautiful mausoleum, which he had the merit of rescuing from destruction, pronounces[87] this monument to be from the hand of Jean Cousin, one of the most able sculptors of the French school.

Over the altar in the Lady-Chapel is the only good painting in the cathedral, the Adoration of the Shepherds, by Philip de Champagne, a solid, well-colored, and well-grouped picture.  Two cherubs in the air are excellently conceived and drawn:  the whole is lighted from the infant Christ in the cradle, a concetto, which has been almost universally adopted, since the time when Corregio painted his celebrated Notte, now at Dresden.

There is no great quantity of painted glass in the church, but much of it is of good quality.  The windows of the choir, on either side of the Lady-Chapel, are as rich as a profusion of brilliant colors can make them; but the figures are so small, and so crowded, that the subjects cannot be traced.  They are said to be the work of the thirteenth century.  The painted windows in St. Stephen’s chapel, of the sixteenth century, are generally considered the best in the cathedral.  I own, however, that I should give the preference to those in the chapel of St. Romain, in the south transept.  One of them is filled with allegorical representations of the virtues of the archbishop; another with his miracles:  every part is distinct and clear, and executed with great force and great minuteness.  The vestments of the saint have all the delicacy of miniature-painting.

The library of the cathedral, formerly one of the richest in France, disappeared during the revolution; but the noble room which contained it, one hundred feet long, by twenty-five feet wide, still remains uninjured; as does the door which led into it from the northern transept, and which continues to this day to bear the inscription, Bibliotheca.  The staircase, communicating with this door, is delicate and beautiful.  The balustrades are of the most elegant filagree; and it has all the boldness and lightness which peculiarly characterise the French Gothic.  Its date being well ascertained, we may note it as an architectural standard.  It was erected by the archbishop, Cardinal d’Etouteville, about the year 1460, thirty or forty years subsequently to the building of the room.