In the Louvre, in the Museum of Modern Sculpture, all this change can be traced, and the traveller in France may see such monuments as we refer to in all the cathedrals and most of the churches all over the country. Many of them cannot be traced to any one master. A fine specimen is the Amboise Monument in Rouen Cathedral, which is said to have been the work of one Roulland de Roux and his assistants.
JEAN JUSTE of Tours was one of the best French artists of his day. In the Cathedral of Tours is a monument to two young children of Charles VIII., which proves him to have had much delicacy and tenderness of execution. The sarcophagus is covered with graceful designs, and on the lid lie the two babies, for the eldest was but three years old. The whole work is exquisite, and gives one a feeling of satisfaction.
About 1530 Juste erected the splendid monument to Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany in the Church of St. Denis. While the general form of the monument is much like that of the Visconti in the Certosa at Pavia, the figures of the dead couple are quite different from the Italian manner. Below on a bier the two nude bodies are stretched in all the realism possible, and the heads are noble and touching in expression. Above, on the upper part of the monument, where in Italy the patron saint or some other figure usually is placed, the king and queen again appear; they are kneeling, with full drapery about them, while the faces are characteristic and very expressive. This monument, taken all in all, is in the perfection of the French art of the time. Another work by Juste now in the Louvre is the monument to Louis de Poncher, one of the ministers of Francis I., and his wife, Roberta. These statues are in alabaster, and were formerly in the Church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, which was built by Poncher.
PIERRE BONTEMPS must have been a famous sculptor, as he was chosen to erect the monument to Francis I., his wife Claude and their three children. This is also at St. Denis, and is even more grand than that to Louis XII. On the upper platform the five figures are kneeling; they are noble and simple, with an air of great repose. These examples serve to give an idea of the religious sculpture of the time.