belt are in this case white. When discovered it was twisted out of recognition and sewn up in a ball of leather (Fig. 111).
Of the two swords supposed to have belonged to Charlemagne, probably that in the Louvre has prior claim to our attention, inasmuch as it has figured in many of the portraits which have been painted of the kings of France attired in their coronation robes, and has been used, so we are informed, at the crowning of these Princes since the time of Philip the Bold (1270-1285). It is also more "European" than the so-called Charlemagne sword in the Imperial Treasury of Vienna. The Louvre sword of this Emperor (so called) is now to be seen in the Galerie d'Apollon (Fig. 112).
The monks of St. Denis believed themselves to possess the royal insignia of Charlemagne. As the ceremony of the coronation of the kings of France took place at Reims, the custody of the Royal insignia belonged to the abbey of St. Denis and was a privilege jealously prized. Among the regalia was supposed to be the sword in question and the spurs referred to on page 106. The provenance of these general ensigns of royalty does not here matter, as it is only the sword that now concerns us. That erudite scholar, Sir Martin Conway, writing in "Archaeologia" (February 4, 1915) on "The Abbey of Saint-Denis and its Ancient Treasures," puts forth his theory that certain parts of the sword might be of the age reputed, though it has been subjected in the process of time to many restorations and repairs. It appears that from the shape of the pommel Sir Martin forms this conclusion, as he goes on to say "the pommel finds no corresponding neighbours so far as I can discover amongst objects of the twelfth century," but, with all due deference, the present writer ventures to suggest that, in a simpler form, the pommel seen upon the hilt of the "St. Maurice" sword of the Vienna Treasury (see page 97, fig. 119) is the counterpart of that on the Louvre sword, and that the length of quillon is precisely the same, which certainly goes to prove that the hilts of these two swords are of corresponding date, namely, the first quarter of the XIIIth century, at which period we have satisfactorily established the manufacture of the Vienna example. Sir Martin is certainly reinforced in his view as to the age of the hilt of the Louvre sword by the opinion of Monsieur Dieulafoy expressed in his L'Art antique de la Perse (vol. v, p. 164). Monsieur Dieulafoy calls attention to the ornamentation on the pommel on which are a pair of attached wings and the ornament rising above them, and points out how they reproduce in their form, their disposition, their style, and their most minute details the emblematic wings
