and the only serious piece of evidence that this artist was a Greek is given by his biographer who unconsciously shows that the artist cheated him:  “He sought carefully for makers of windows and workmen in glass of exquisite quality, especially in that made of sapphires in great abundance that were pulverized and melted up in the glass to give it the blue colour which he delighted to admire.”  The “materia saphirorum” was evidently something precious,—­as precious as crude sapphires would have been,—­and the words imply beyond question that the artist asked for sapphires and that Suger paid for them; yet all specialists agree that the stone known as sapphire, if ground, could not produce translucent colour at all.  The blue which Suger loved, and which is probably the same as that of these Chartres windows, cannot be made out of sapphires.  Probably the “materia saphirorum” means cobalt only, but whatever it was, the glassmakers seem to agree that this glass of 1140-50 is the best ever made.  M. Paul Durand in his official report of 1881 said that these windows, both artistically and mechanically, were of the highest class:  “I will also call attention to the fact that the glass and the execution of the painting are, materially speaking, of a quality much superior to windows of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.  Having passed several months in contact with these precious works when I copied them, I was able to convince myself of their superiority in every particular, especially in the upper parts of the three windows.”  He said that they were perfect and irreproachable.  The true enthusiast in glass would in the depths of his heart like to say outright that these three windows are worth more than all that the French have since done in colour, from that day to this; but the matter concerns us chiefly because it shows how French the experiment was, and how Suger’s taste and wealth made it possible.

Certain it is, too, that the southern window—­the Passion—­was made on the spot, or near by, and fitted for the particular space with care proportionate to its cost.  All are marked by the hand of the Chartres Virgin.  They are executed not merely for her, but by her.  At Saint-Denis the Abbe Suger appeared,—­it is true that he was prostrate at her feet, but still he appeared.  At Chartres no one—­no suggestion of a human agency—­was allowed to appear; the Virgin permitted no one to approach her, even to adore.  She is enthroned above, as Queen and Empress and Mother, with the symbols of exclusive and universal power.  Below her, she permitted the world to see the glories of her earthly life;—­the Annunciation, Visitation, and Nativity; the Magi; King Herod; the Journey to Egypt; and the single medallion, which shows the gods of Egypt falling from their pedestals at her coming, is more entertaining than a whole picture-gallery of oil paintings.