608 M E A U X. 
having been the part of the town which the Ruffians 
(1814) feigned to attack, in order to let the French troops 
defile by the north of the town, for the purpofe of placing 
them in the niofi dangerous fituation. It was at that 
time alfo, that, unable to defend the town, the French 
regiment deferted it, and committed one of the moll raf- 
cally deeds that can be conceived; for they fet fire to a 
powder-magazine not three hundred yards diftant from 
the town, at one o’clock in the morning, without pre¬ 
vious notice, and thereby caufed more mifchief than the 
citizens ever could have expended from the Coffacks, their 
fnoft inveterate enemies. The explofion was tremendous : 
feverak peaceable folks were killed with fright; not a 
pane of glafs remained unbroken in the weftern part of 
the town ; that venerable pile, the cathedral, fliook upon 
its foundations; and the mullions of feveral windows 
were dafhed to pieces. This magazine, however, was fo 
fituated, that, had the barrels been placed at the gate, 
they would have rolled of their own accord into the river 
that flows a few yards dillant from it. See the lower 
part of the Plate. The gate of Cornillon was anciently 
defended by a drawbridge and a portcullis; and is upon 
a canal which was contrived a century or two ago in or¬ 
der to avoid the horfefhoe winding of the river Marne, 
and thus to fhorten the way for velfels anti craft going 
down the river. The annexed views were taken on the 
iff of November, 1814; and are very exatff. 
In September 1567, Charles IX. being at Meaux, the 
Caivinilis, commanded by admiral Coligny, advanced to¬ 
wards the town to feize upon the perfon of the king; in 
which attempt they certainly w'ould have fucceeded, had 
they not been prevented by the arrival of fix thoufand Swifs, 
who placed the king in the centre of their battalions, 
and thus marched to Paris unmolefted by the Calvinifts, 
who did not dare to attack their formidable fquare. 
Henry II. eredted this city into an earldom, and made 
a prefent of it to the queen for her life. 
The cathedral is dedicated to St. Stephen the proto- 
jtiartyr; and the commemoration of this ceremony takes 
place on the day of the tranflation of the body of the 
holy deacon, the 3d of Auguft according to the calendar. 
_ It was built in the middle of the 15th century, at that 
period of time when the Englifli were makers of the 
town ; and indeed it fhows proofs of having been the 
work of mafterly hands. The great entrance at the welt 
has a folemn appearance, being elevated upon a parvis of 
ten Heps of freeftor.e, bulily trodden of old by holy feet, 
but now adorned with the tell-tale grafs of unfrequency. 
The main door is, as ufual, divided 1 by a middle poll, 
againll which was a ftatue of—we might have laid—the 
Virgin Mary, had not the iconoclaftic rage of the i6ch 
century maimed all the (latues which adorned the folemn 
portal. Only the fhnpelefs trunks of images have efcaped 
the furious axe and levelling hammer of infuriated mobs 
at various points of time, and remain fad memorials of 
blind zeal and religious madnefs. Some heads are left to 
deplore the iofs of their hands; Come hands riling to lup- 
port heads that are loll; and a few mutilated feet, the 
only remains of Hatties which are gone. The lateral 
• gates, leading to the aides, were likewife adorned with a 
great quantity of (it we may be allowed to judge from 
the trulls and remaining fragments) not ill-diaped figures 
or angels and faints, kings and worthies, the names of 
whom, according to general cultom, were left to puzzle 
the tormented minds of zealous antiquaries. But, as the 
intention of the architect was only to adorn, he cared 
little to inftruff. The nave of the church is of a folemn 
call, and the cluttered pillars which lupport the roof are 
elegantly grouped ; that is to fay, a faicis of four large 
columns, and four fin all ones, with their intermediate 
ogres. Some of the (halts are unexpectedly interrupted 
by the crawling of mcnflrous btalis (the meaning of 
which has been explained in our delcription of London, 
vol. xiii.) The Mb!dean vulgar believe to this moment 
that theie whimiica! figures were Hack up there as a lul- 
len memento of hard times, when the board of works wag 
fo deftitute of call:, that the labourers could not be paid. 
The entrance into the choir is modern, and has been 
fubftituted for the ancient jube or fereen, which was re¬ 
moved about a century ago. Two chapels, each anciently 
adorned with a decent paintibg by artifts of the 17th 
century, flank the rail-door of the choir: one of them 
was by Refiout, but is there no longer. The chancel is 
the molt remarkable part of this building. The columns 
are Angle, and rife to a great height. Their fhaft is plain, 
except in two of them, oppofite to each other, where a 
fmall reed,of about four inches in diameter fprings from the 
ground, and, climbing along the fhaft, pafles unimpeded 
through the capital, bends gently towards the key-ltone, 
and lofes itfelf in the central rofe of the vault, a fort of 
ornament elegantly conceived and beautifully executed. 
This has been, and ought to be, admired by all the lovers 
of claffical gothic architecture, for its fimplicity and bold- 
nefs; for it is hardly poflible to conceive how the whole 
could be made, with all its weight, to reft fo imperturba¬ 
bly for three centuries and a half upon fuch flender props 
and fupporters. The ealtern central chapel is, according 
to ancient and uninterrupted tifage, dedicated to the 
Virgin Mary; over for altar a which is niched in folemn 
folitude, the lubftitute for the ancient beautiful fhrine, 
containing the relics of Sr. Fiacre. The old one was of 
filver gilt, reprefenting a beautiful cathedral with elegant 
buttrelfes, pinnacles, innumerable tracings and carvings of 
fuch nice and wonderful execution, that the workman- 
fliip was attributed to St. Eloy, the St. Dunltan of France. 
This chajje , or fhrine, was brought down in hard times to 
(top peitilence, lay the fpirit ot ltorms, and to recall the 
bleffing of the Almighty upon Meldean finners ; but in 
1790 it came down to be melted, as a voluntary contri¬ 
bution for the fupport of the new order of things, and to 
re-eftablifh the finking credit of the nation. This is the 
laft miracle it was called upon to perform ; and the only 
one, will the Meldean people fay, in which it failed. The 
antiquarian obferver will remark an uncommon fpecimen 
of whimficality in the nunneries, or fmall galleries, above 
the nave and. tranlept, which are divided into as many 
portions as the intercolumniations direfted, and are all of 
a different defign, though all of claffical compofition. The 
tower is (for two were intended, but the fouthern one 
was never finilhetl) elegantly decorated, and reaches the 
height 0(231 feet, with four pinnacles,anciently drefled up 
with their crockets and finials, but now rebuilt, and plain. 
The fouth entrance, called “ la Porte aux Lions,” on .ac¬ 
count of two llately lions carved in Itone, fet on pedeftals 
on each fide of this portal, is as much disfigured as the 
weftern front, if not more fo. On the pediment at top, 
flood anciently a huge figure of St. Michael the archangel, 
in Hone, the wings curioully wrought in iron ; but Time, 
calling to his afliitance the demon of winds and tempefts, 
who is always at his polt in the neighbourhood of lofty 
edifices, laid proltrate, one ftormy morning, the mighty 
figure and part of the pediment upon which it Hood. The 
buttrefles around the outlide of the body of the church 
are remarkably peopled with (wallows, martins, fparrows, 
and owls ; the latter in particular have been the inmates 
of crevices and chinks there for fo many years, that a vifi- 
tor, the writer of this, who had been abfent for more 
than twenty years, thought, when he palled at night by 
the cathedral, that his old friends hailed his return ; for 
- they faluted him with the fame hootings and boarfe fighs 
as when he was young. He alfo fighed, but it was at the 
idea of having grown old. 
The main altar, being as it is ufually called “ a la Ro- 
maine,” that is to fay, infulated and without an altar- 
piece of fculpture or painting, is fo fituated, that the 
pride Handing there can lee every one of the circumjacent 
altars in the furrounding chapels; and that, vice verjd , 
every one, kneeling in the chapels to hear in a Is at the 
main altar, can follow all the motions of the prieft in. tha 
folemn duties of the euchariltical mylteries. Joan countefs 
4 of 
