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A smaller pair for use stood on the credence-table. The gold chalice and paten, veiled, stood on the altar-table itself, and above them, behind, rose the cross and two vases of hot-house lilies. Suggesting one of the great shields of beaten gold that King Solomon had made for the Temple of Jerusalem, an alms-dish stood on edge, and leant against the retable to the right of the veiled chalice.
W.H. Foster of Witley, Surrey, though his name, at his own wish, remained undisclosed during his lifetime. The action is now controlled by electricity. There are 68 speaking stops and 4,453 pipes as follows: =The Canopied Reredos= or =Baldachino= was given by the eight surviving children of Dean Saunders as a memorial of their parents. The retable was given by the Old Boys of the King's School.
The stone of the chancel, flecked with colour, had a quiet dignity, and even the altar, ecclesiastically ludicrous, had a grace of its own. There was to be a celebration after Matins. The historic gold plate was therefore arranged on the retable with something of the effect of show pieces at Mappin and Webb's. Peter noticed three flagons, and between them two patens of great size.
The sacristan will show you also the retable of the miraculous wafer, which bled when trampled on by Protestant heels at Gorcum in 1525. This has always been one of the chief treasures of the Spanish crown. The devil-haunted idiot Charles II. made a sort of idol of it, building it this superb altar, consecrated "in this miracle of earth to the miracle of heaven."
And then we see Alexander the Great, Demetrius, and Ptolomy, famous kings, together with many other princes, who readily boast of understanding it; and amongst the Cæsars, Augustus the divine Cæsar, Octavian Augustus, M. Agrippa, Claudius, and Caligula and Nero, in this alone virtuous, likewise Vespasian and Titus, as was shown in the famous retable of the Temple of Peace, which he built after having vanquished the Jews and their Jerusalem.
To this building the retable of the high-altar, dedicated in 1469 and now in the north aisle, belongs, still called La Madonna del Coro.
Adjoining the Abbey is the Church, which possesses at least one chef-d'oeuvre in its retable. This altar-piece of wood appears to belong to the fifteenth century, and is in the form of a triptych, the wings being enriched within and without by paintings in excellent preservation.
But there is something in the blue and vapory pictures which shows that even the unabashed Luca was not free from the impressive influence of the Escorial. A flight of veined marble steps leads to the beautiful retable of the high altar. The screen, over ninety feet high, cost the Milanese Trezzo seven years of labor. The pictures illustrative of the life of our Lord are by Tibaldi and Zuccaro.
In the silence of the great gray old church I labored over the exquisite Gothic detail, all unmindful of the passing time, when all at once I became conscious that a small green door beside the right hand low retable was moving outward.
In the ancient Abbey Church are two masterpieces, a retable in carved wood and a tomb ornamented with exquisite statuettes. It is a pleasant six hours' journey from Dijon via Chalindrey to Nancy. We pass the little village of Gemeaux, in which amongst French friends I have spent so many happy days.
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