CHARTREUSE
636
CHARTREUSE
nand and Queen Blanche of Castile. The porches
and windows represent in magnificent symbolism the
glorification of Mary. The choir enclosure with its
beautifully sculptured groups dates from the six-
teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.
Among the pilgrims who came to Chartres history mentions St. Louis who, in order to reach there, travelled seven leagues on foot; Philip the Fair; Charles the Fair; Philip of Valois; John the Good who went there three times and left his pilgrim's staff, which has become the bdton cantoral of the Chapter; Charles V (of France) who went thither twice bare- footed; Louis XI; Henry III who made eighteen pil- grimages; Henry IV who was crowned there 27 Feb- ruary, 1594; Louis XIV and Popes Pascal II, Inno- cent II, and Alexander III. The object of this yet
of the schools and the sick: the Sisters of Providence
(founded in Chartres, 1654); the Sisters of St. Paul of
Chartres (founded 1690), who have 123 establish-
ments in the French colonies and others in the coun-
tries of the extreme East; the Sisters of the Bon-Se-
cours (founded 1736); the Sisters of the Immaculate
Conception of Nogent-le-Rotrou (founded 180S), and
the Sisters of Our Lady of Chartres (founded 1853).
In 1900 the diocese had the following religious insti-
tutions: 1 foundling asylum, 17 infant schools, 1
school for deaf-mutes, 17 orphanages, 21 hospitals and
hospices, and 2 houses of religious nurses. At the end
of 1905 (the close of the Concordat period) the popu-
lation was 275,433, and there were 25 pastorates, 351
succursals, or second-class parishes, and 15 curacies
then remunerated bv the State.
very popular pilgrimage is threefold: to venerate (1)
the statue of Notre-Dame-sous-Terre, inaugurated in
1857, and modelled alter the old statue burned in
1793, being therefore a reproduction of the figure
honoured by the Druids. Devotions are held in the
crypt which is the largest in France; ('_') the " Vierge
Noire de Notre-Dame-du-Pilier" (Black Virgin: in
the upper church; (3) the "Voile de la Vierge" (Veil
of the Blessed Virgin), given to Charlemagne by
Constantine Porphyrogenitus and Irene, transferred
about 876 by Charles the Bald from Aachen to
Chartres, ami raised as a standard in 911 by Gan- telme, the bishop, to put to flight l he Norman Ftollo. In L360 Edward II! ol England, and in 1591 Henry IV of France, passed reverently beneath the reliquary
Containing I his veil, which, until the end of the eight-
eentli century, was considered a chemise, and "chemi- settes", emblematic of this veil, were worn on the breast. The church of Saint-Pierre of Chartres of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries has some very beau- tiful fourteenth-century windows; it was dependent upon a Benedictine abbey founded in the sixth cen- tury.
Several local congregations of women take charge
GalMa Christiana . e. 1 nova. 1744\ VIII, W89-120S and
instrunu-nta. 287—110; Fisquet, La France pontificate (Char-
tres, Paris, 1873t; Henault, Oriainea chrttienna dela Gaule
. Recherch- r. historigues sur la fondation dr TEghse de
Chartres et des Eglises de Paris, de Trams et a" Orleans (Paris.
1SS4I; m:J1ei.v, ie tresor de Charlies (Paris. ISSli); Bultf.au
and Bhou, Monographic de la catliedrale de Chartres (Chartres,
1887-92); Clf.rvai.. Chartres, sa cathidrale, ses manumfnts
(Chartres, Hill.")'; Huysmans. I .a cathidrale (Paris, 1902);
M i«h, The City of Chartres, its Cathedral and Churchu (London,
1900); Chevalier, Topo-bM., 601-04
Georges Goi \r.
Chartreuse, La Gkanoe. — The mother-house of the Carthusian Order lies in a high valley of the Alps of Dauphine. at an altitude of 4268 feet, fourteen miles north of Grenoble. Medieval writers were awe- struck by (lie desolation of the spot, and Martcnc. who visited it in 1760, writes: •One cannot com rive how it could enter into the mind of man. to establish a community in a spot so horrible and SO barren
as this." Modern writers praise its picturesqueness, but some, like Kuskin, find the mountains around, "the simplest commonplace of Savoy cliff, with no peaks, no glaciers, no cascades, nor even any slopes of pine in extent of majesty". The monastery lies in an open pasture. On the east the ridge of the
