The most elaborate account of this window can be found in Male’s “Art Religieux” (pp. 444-50).  Its feeling or motive is quite another matter, as it is with the statuary on the north porch.  The Furriers or Fur Merchants paid for the Charlemagne window, and their signature stands at the bottom, where a merchant shows a fur-lined cloak to his customer.  That Mary was personally interested in furs, no authority seems to affirm, but that Blanche and Isabel and every lady of the Court, as well as every king and every count, in that day, took keen interest in the subject, is proved by the prices they paid, and the quantities they wore.  Not even the Merchant Tailors had a better standing at Court than the Furriers, which may account for their standing so near the Virgin.  Whatever the cause, the Furriers were allowed to put their signature here, side by side with the Tailors, and next to the Princess Blanche.  Their gift warranted it.  Above the signature, in the first panel, the Emperor Constantine is seen, asleep, in Constantinople, on an elaborate bed, while an angel is giving him the order to seek aid from Charlemagne against the Saracens.  Charlemagne appears, in full armour of the year 1200, on horseback.  Then Charlemagne, sainted, wearing his halo, converses with two bishops on the subject of a crusade for the rescue of Constantine.  In the next scene, he arrives at the gates of Constantinople where Constantine receives him.  The fifth picture is most interesting; Charlemagne has advanced with his knights and attacks the Saracens; the Franks wear coats-of-mail, and carry long, pointed shields; the infidels carry round shields; Charlemagne, wearing a crown, strikes off with one blow of his sword the head of a Saracen emir; but the battle is desperate; the chargers are at full gallop, and a Saracen is striking at Charlemagne with his battle-axe.  After the victory has been won, the Emperor Constantine rewards Charlemagne by the priceless gift of three chasses or reliquaries, containing a piece of the true Cross; the Suaire or grave-cloth of the Saviour; and a tunic of the Virgin.  Charlemagne then returns to France, and in the next medallion presents the three chasses and the crown of the Saracen king to the church at Aix, which to a French audience meant the Abbey of Saint-Denis.  This scene closes the first volume of the story.

The second part opens on Charlemagne, seated between two persons, looking up to heaven at the Milky Way, called then the Way of Saint James, which directs him to the grave of Saint James in Spain.  Saint James himself appears to Charlemagne in a dream, and orders him to redeem the tomb from the infidels.  Then Charlemagne sets out, with Archbishop Turpin of Rheims and knights.  In presence of his army he dismounts and implores the aid of God.  Then he arrives before Pampeluna and transfixes with his lance the Saracen chief as he flies into the city.  Mounted, he directs workmen to construct a church in honour of Saint James; a little cloud figures the