The roof of the choir
remained imperfect till ninety years afterwards, whilst that of the
transept is as recent as 1628[5]. The most ancient work is discernible
in the transepts, but the lines are obscured by later additions. A
cloister gallery fronted by delicate mullions runs round the nave and
choir, and the extent and arrangement of the exterior would induce a
stranger, unacquainted with the history of the building, to suppose that
he was entering a conventual or cathedral church. The parts long most
generally admired by the French, though they have always been miserable
judges of gothic architecture, were the vaulted roof, and the pendants
of the Lady-Chapel. The latter were originally ornamented with female
figures, representing the Sibyls, made of colored terra cotta, and of
such excellent workmanship, that Cardinal Barberini, when he visited
this chapel in 1647, declared he had seen nothing of the kind, not even
in Italy, superior to them for the beauty and delicacy of their
execution; but they are now gone, and, according to Noel[6], were
destroyed at the time of the bombardment.
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