If the learned Baronius thought himself required to show shame for all the legends that pass as history, he must have suffered cruelly during his laborious life, and his sufferings would not have been confined to the annals of the Church; but the historical accuracy of the glass windows is not our affair, nor are historians especially concerned in the events of the Virgin’s life, whether recorded or legendary.  Religion is, or ought to be, a feeling, and the thirteenth-century windows are original documents, much more historical than any recorded in the Bible, since their inspiration is a different thing from their authority.  The true life of Saint James or Saint Jude or any other of the apostles, did not, in the opinion of the ladies in the Court of France, furnish subjects agreeable enough to decorate the palace of the Queen of Heaven; and that they were right, any one must feel, who compares these two windows with subjects of dogma.  Saint James, better known as Santiago of Compostella, was a compliment to the young Dauphine—­ before Dauphines existed—­the Princess Blanche of Castile, whose arms, or castles, are on the grisaille window next to it.  Perhaps she chose him to stand there.  Certainly her hand is seen plainly enough throughout the church to warrant suspecting it here.  As a nephew, Saint James was dear to the Virgin, but, as a friend to Spain, still more dear to Blanche, and it is not likely that pure accident caused three adjacent windows to take a Spanish tone.

The Saint James in whom the thirteenth century delighted, and whose windows one sees at Bourges, Tours, and wherever the scallop-shell tells of the pilgrim, belongs not to the Bible but to the “Golden Legend.”  This window was given by the Merchant Tailors whose signature appears at the bottom, in the corners, in two pictures that paint the tailor’s shop of Chartres in the first quarter of the thirteenth century.  The shop-boy takes cloth from chests for his master to show to customers, and to measure off by his ell.  The story of Saint James begins in the lower panel, where he receives his mission from Christ, Above, on the right, he seems to be preaching.  On the left appears a figure which tells the reason for the popularity of the story.  It is Almogenes, or in the Latin, Hermogenes, a famous magician in great credit among the Pharisees, who has the command of demons, as you see, for behind his shoulder, standing, a little demon is perched, while he orders his pupil Filetus to convert James.  Next, James is shown in discussion with a group of listeners.  Filetus gives him a volume of false doctrine.  Almogenes then further instructs Filetus.  James is led away by a rope, curing a paralytic as he goes.  He sends his cloak to Filetus to drive away the demon.  Filetus receives the cloak, and the droll little demon departs in tears.  Almogenes, losing his temper, sends two demons, with horns on their heads and clubs in their hands, to reason with James; who sends them