'we have many names in France that do for both sexes, and she belonged
to your own country.'

I did not feel in a position to contradict the statement, but no matter
to what country she belonged, St. Maxime has secured double
immortality--first, in the saints' calendar; secondly, in the mausoleum
of Auxerre. Alike these tombs and frescoes, with the sepulchres of the
Pharaohs, seem able to defy the encroachments of Time.

During the Revolution, great consternation prevailed concerning the
precious relics. The bones of the saintly bishop were disinterred and
hidden elsewhere for safety, and in the after-confusion were never
replaced, but buried elsewhere.

The huge sarcophagus in the wall is a cenotaph.

No similar panic is likely to create a second disturbance of the sacred
relics in this subterranean abbey church. And who can say? Centuries
hence, devout Catholics, dark-skinned descendants of races only just
emerging from cannibalism, may make a solemn pilgrimage hither and find
the pictured story of St. Maxime still intact on the walls! Be this as
it may, no travellers within reach of Auxerre should fail to visit its
two beautiful and perfect churches, the one with its majestic front and
single tower rising airily above the level landscape, its noble
proportions standing out in the bright sunshine, radiant and lightsome
alike within and without; the other, hidden in the bowels of the earth,
giving no visible evidence of its existence, aisle, vaulted roofs,
vistas of delicate columns, only to be realized in the glimmer of a
semi-twilight.