_Skirt the Cathedral on the left, passing in front of the North Façade (see photo below), to reach the Northern Transept._
[Illustration: THE NORTHERN TRANSEPT IN 1919]
The transept is pierced with broad bays, whose completion, as in all the windows of the Cathedral, consists of two twin arches surmounted by a six-leaved rose. The niches in the buttresses are ornamented with statues believed by some to represent Kings of France. At any rate, that of the buttress on the western front of the north-west tower greatly resembles the figure of St. Louis carved on the doorway of the church of St. Vincent at Carcassonne.
The carvings of the lower windows were either destroyed or damaged on September 19, 1914, at the same time as the stained-glass. The two towers which flank the crossings were left unfinished.
Before the fire of 1481, there was a lantern over the intersection of the transept.
[Illustration: CENTRAL DOOR OF THE NORTHERN TRANSEPT]
=The Central Door of the Northern Transept=
The sculptural decoration, while rich, is more sober than that of the doorway of the western façade. It is commemorative of the glory of the Archbishops of Rheims.
The statue of the Pontiff with a tiara, backing up to the dividing-pillar, is supposed to be that of St. Sixtus, first Bishop of Rheims. In the splaying, on the left, is St. Nicaise holding his head in his hands, between St. Eutropia, an angel and a figure improbably said to be Clovis.
The pediment was pierced by a shell and scarred with splinters. It is divided into five tiers, and represent the life of St. Remi and St. Nicaise.
Beginning at the bottom, the figures represent: _on the first tier_, the beheading of St. Nicaise by the Vandals and the Baptism of Clovis by St. Remi; _on the second_, St. Remi, as a child, restores sight to Montanus and, as a man, exorcises the demons who had set fire to Rheims; _on the third_, the story of Job; _on the fourth_, the restoring to life of a young Toulouse girl, and the miracle of the cask filled with wine by St. Remi; _on the fifth_, Christ between two angels.
[Illustration: LEFT-HAND DOOR OF THE NORTHERN TRANSEPT: THE LAST JUDGMENT _The dead rise from their graves._]
=The Left-Hand Door of the Northern Transept=