The veil, together with the casket in which it had lain for nearly 800 years, was seized during the Revolution. The casket and jewels were sold. The veil, though rent in twain, was recovered, but not in its entirety (3¼ yards by 6 feet). It is kept now in two coffers of cedar wood, covered with silver gilt. Beneath the veil is another known as the Veil of the Empress Irene, which is made of embroidered Byzantine stuff of the eighth century. The visitor to Chartres should on no account omit to see these curious relics, and the extremely rich enamelled triptich of the School of Limoges (thirteenth century, but in part eighteenth century restoration). For the rest, though the Casket of Teudon, which was valued in 1562 at £8980, without counting the diamonds and rubies, enamels and pearls which adorned it, has disappeared; though the head and the slipper of S. Anne are gone and the relics of many another saint; though the golden eagles of S. Eloi, the sapphires of King Robert, and the gems of Henry III. of England; though cameos and crucifixes of emerald or agate, crystal or ivory, have, like the tapestries of Queen Bertha and the golden girdle of Anne of Brittany, with its fifteen rubies, ten sapphires and sixty-four pearls, and the flagon which contained the blood of Thomas-à-Becket, all been seized and sold by sacrilegious hands, yet there remain to be seen the delicate incense-boat, given by Miles d’Illiers, Bishop of Luçon, in 1540, the graceful chalice of Henry III. (1582), and the green marble altar of the English, dedicated by them in 1420, when Chartres was in their hands.
You will also notice a medal, which was struck to commemorate the outbreak of cholera in 1832 and the part played by the _Sainte Chemise_ at that time. For not once only, or only in the mediæval days, has the veil of the Virgin played a part in the history of Chartres. It was taken at the height of the plague, in obedience to the clamour of the people, in solemn procession through the streets, and from that moment, it is said, the plague was stayed, and all who were ill, save two, who had mocked at this act of piety, recovered.
Nor should it be forgotten that it was the possession of this veil which, when Fulbert’s Cathedral had been burnt down in 1194, stimulated the desire and provided the means to build a still larger and more beautiful cathedral, worthy to contain it, and to be, in the words of the chroniclers, ‘the very couch and chamber of Our Lady.’[32]