largely in the Norman Gothic style of the 13th and early 14th centuries. The west front has a projecting portico and two towers 180 ft. high with granite spires. Within the church there are beautifully carved stalls of the 16th century and other works of art. On the right of the high altar is a wooden shrine containing the bell of St Pol de Léon, which was said to cure headache and diseases of the ear, and at the side of the main entrance is a huge baptismal font, popularly regarded as the stone coffin of Conan Mériadec, king of the Bretons. Notre Dame de Kreizker, dating mainly from the second half of the 147th century, has a celebrated spire, 252 ft. high, which crowns the central tower. The north porch is a fine specimen of the flamboyant style. In the cemetery, which has a chapel of the 15th century, there are ossuaries of the year 1500.
In the 6th century a Welsh monk, Paul, became bishop of the small town of Léon, and lord of the domain in its vicinity, which passed to his successors and was increased by them. In 1793 the town was the centre of a serious but unsuccessful rising provoked by the recruiting measures of the Convention.
SAINT PRIEST, FRANÇOIS EMMANUEL GUIGNARD, CHEVALIER, then COMTE DE (1735–1821), French statesman, was born at Grenoble on the 12th of March 1735. He was admitted a knight (chevalier) of the Order of Malta at five years of age, and at fifteen entered the army. He left active service in 1763 with the grade of colonel, and for the next four years represented the court of France at Lisbon. He was sent in 1768 to Constantinople, where he' remained with one short interval till 1785, and married Wilhelmina von Ludolf, daughter of the Neapolitan ambassador. His Mémoires sur Vambassade de France en Turquie et le commerce des Français dans le Levant, prepared during a visit to France, were only published in 1877, when they were edited by C. Schefer. After a few months spent at the court of the Hague, he joined the ministry of Necker as minister without a portfolio, and in Necker's second cabinet in 1789 was secretary of the royal household and minister of the interior. He became a special object of the popular hatred because he was alleged to have replied to women begging for bread, " You had enough while you had only one king; demand bread of your twelve hundred sovereigns." Nevertheless he held office until December 1790. Shortly after his resignation he went to Stockholm, where his brother-in-law was Austrian ambassador. In 1795 he joined the comte de Provence at Verona as minister of the household. He accompanied the exiled court to Blankenburg and Mittau, retiring in 1808 to Switzerland. After vainly seeking permission to return to France he was expelled from Switzerland, and wandered about Europe until the Restoration. Besides the memoirs already mentioned he wrote an Examen des assemblées provinciales (1787).
His eldest son, Guillaume Emmanuel.(1776–1814), became major general in the Russian service, and served in the campaigns of Alexander I. against Napoleon. He died at Laon in 1814. The second, Armand Emmanuel Charles (1782–1853), became civil governor of Odessa, and married Princess Sophie Galitzin. The third, Emmanuel Louis Marie Guignard, vicomte de Saint Priest (1789–1881), was a godson of Marie Antoinette. Like his elder brother he took part in the invasion of France in 1814. At the Restoration he was attached to the service of the duke of Angouleme, and during the Hundred Days tried to raise Dauphiné in the royal cause. He served with distinction in Spain in 1823, when he was romoted lieutenant-general. After two years at Berlin he became French ambassador at Madrid, where he negotiated in 1828 the settlement of the Spanish debt. When the revolution of July compelled his retirement, Frederick VII. made him a grandee of Spain, with the title of duke of Almazan, in recognition of his services. He then oined the circle of the duchess of Berry at Naples, and arranged her escapade in Provence in 1832. Saint Priest was arrested, and was only released after ten months' imprisonment. Having arranged for an asylum in Austria for the duchess, he returned to Paris, where he was one of the leaders of legitimise society until his death, which occurred at Saint Priest, near Lyons, on the 26th of February 1881.
Alexis Guignard, comte de Saint Priest (1805–1851), was the son of Armand de Saint Priest and Princess Galitzin. Educated in Russia, he returned to France with his father in 1822, and soon made his mark in literary circles. His most important works were Histoire de la royauté considérée dans ses origiines jusqu'à la formation des principal es monarchies de l'Europe (2 vols., 1842); Histoire de la chute des Jésuites (1844); Histoire de la conquête de Naples (4 vols., 1847–1848). He was elected to the Academy in January 1849. Meanwhile he had departed from the legitimist tradition of his family to become a warm friend to the Orleans monarchy, which he served between 1833 and 1838 as ambassador in Brazil, at Lisbon and at Copenhagen. He died, while on a visit to Moscow, on the 29th of September 1851.
SAINT PRIVAT, a village of Lorraine, 7 m. N.W. of Metz. The village and the slopes to the west played a great part in the battle of Gravelotte (August 18, 1870). (See Metz and Franco-German War.) At St Privat occurred the famous repulse of the Prussian Guard by Marshal Canrobert's corps.
ST QUENTIN, a manufacturing town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Aisne, 32 m. N.N.W. of Laon by rail. Pop. (1906) 49,305. The town stands on the right bank of the Somme, at its junction with the St Quentin Canal (which unites the Somme with the Scheldt) and the Crozat Canal (which unites it with the Oise). The port carries on an active trade in building materials, coal, timber, iron, sugar and agricultural produce. Built on a slope, with a southern exposure, the town is dominated by the collegiate church of St Quentin, one of the finest Gothic buildings in the north of France, erected during the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. The church, which has no west façade, terminates at that end in a tower and portal of Romanesque architecture; it has double transepts. Its length is 436 ft. and the height of the nave 124 ft. The choir (13th century) has a great resemblance to that of Reims; like the Chapels of the apse it is decorated with polychromic paintings. There are remains of a choir-screen of the 14th century. Under the choir is a crypt of the 11th century, rebuilt in the 13th century, and containing the tombs of St Quentin (Quintin) and his fellow-martyrs Victoricus and Gentianus. The Champs Élysées, an extensive promenade, lies east of the cathedral. The hôtel-de-ville of St Quentin is a splendid building of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, with a flamboyant façade, adorned with curious sculptures. The council-room is a fine hall with a double wooden ceiling and a huge chimney piece, partly Gothic partly Renaissance. A monument commemorates the siege of 1557 (see below), and another close to the river the part, played by the town in 1870 and 1871. A building of the 20th century is appropriated to the law court, the learned societies, the museum and the library. St Quentin is the seat of a sub-prefect, of tribunals of first instance and of commerce, and of a board of trade-arbitration, and has an exchange, a chamber of commerce and lycées for both sexes. The town is the centre of an industrial district which manufactures cotton and woollen fabrics. St Quentin produces chiefly piqué and window-curtains, and carries on the spinning and preliminary processes and the bleaching and finishing. Other industries are the making of embroideries by machinery and by hand, and the manufacture of iron goods and machinery. Trade is in grain, flax, cotton and wool.
St Quentin (anc. Augusta Veromanduorum) stood at the meeting-place of five military roads. In the 3rd century it was the scene of the martyrdom of Gaius Quintinus, who had come thither from Italy as a preacher of Christianity. The date of the foundation of the bishopric is uncertain, but about, 532 it was transferred to Noyon. Towards the middle of the 7th century St Eloi (Eligius), bishop of Noyon, established a collegiate chapter at St Quentin's tomb, which became a famous place of pilgrimage. The town thus gained an importance which was increased during the middle ages by the rise of its cloth manufacture. After it had been thrice ravaged by the Normans, the town was surrounded by walls in 883. It became under Pippin, grandson of Charlemagne, one of the principal domains of the counts of Vermandois, and in 1080 received from Count Herbert IV. a charter which was extended in 1103 and is the earliest of those freely granted to the towns of northern France. From 1420 to 1471 St Quentin was occupied by the Burgundians. In 1557 it was taken by the Spaniards (see below). Philip commemorated the victory over the relieving force under the Constable Montmorency by the foundation of the Escurial. Two years later the town was restored to the French, and in 1560 it was assigned as the dowry of Mary Stuart. The
