The great white eyes of these figures seem to stare across at the rose of the south transept opposite, which represents the fulfilment of all that they had foreshadowed--the _Glorification of Christ_. The story is repeated by the statuary of the south porch without. This window was founded by Pierre Mauclerc, Count of Dreux and Duke of Bretagne, who figures therefore with his wife and family and arms in the lower portions of the windows below the rose.
The arms of Dreux and Bretagne also appear with fine effect in the twelve quatrefoils of the rose, which correspond to the rectangular panels of the windows opposite. In the centre of the rose Christ enthroned blesses the world and holds in His left hand a large chalice. The surrounding medallions contain eight angels censing the four beasts and twenty-four elders before the throne, referred to in the Book of Revelations.
As in the north transept, five large pointed windows beneath complete the subject. The central figure is that of Christ presented to the faithful in the Virgin’s arms, whilst on either side are the four evangelists carried on the shoulders of the four great prophets; S. Matthew seated on Isaiah, S. Luke on Jeremiah, S. John (beardless, as always in mediæval portraiture, to typify his virginity) on Ezekiel, and S. Mark on David. The strange position of these naïve evangelists is intended to symbolise the fact that the new dispensation rests upon the old, even as the Christian Gothic of the upper church is built upon the Pagan Romanesque of the old basilica, the crypt beneath.
To the east, in the apse, seven great windows repeat the motive of the Glorification of Mary, and the artists, who, throughout this Cathedral of Notre-Dame, are never weary of portraying its patroness in every guise and every form, at every age, and almost as of every clime, represent her as receiving homage from the personages of the Old Testament, and even of S. Peter.
Not the least famous, not the least fascinating of these innumerable Madonnas, though candles are no longer burnt to her as they were of yore, is the window--the second in the south aisle of the choir after leaving the transept--which is known as the Notre-Dame de la belle Verrière. She is clad in bright vestments of azure, and, like the Virgin who appeared to the peasant girl at Lourdes, she has about her head an aureole of blue. Deep tones of red and brown form the background of the window from which the figure of the Madonna stands out, so that you might almost believe that she is about to step through into the dark aisles of the Cathedral that is hers.