It has been supposed that this group represents the benefactors of the Cathedral, William the Conqueror, Henry the First and Queen Matilda. But this explanation, like that of the last-named group as representing the Deadly Sins, is mere conjecture. Nor can we do more than name as kings, prophets and queens the remaining sixteen statues which line the porch. The fourth and fifth, counting from the Clocher Neuf, are prophets, Isaiah and Daniel perhaps, according to the suggestions of M. l’Abbé Bulteau: the eighth, ninth and tenth, Ezekiel, James-the-Less and Thaddæus; the eleventh, thirteenth and fourteenth, kings with missals and sceptres in their hands, may be Edward the Confessor, Charlemagne and Cnut; the fifteenth, S. Paul; the sixteenth, a haloed, virgin king, beardless, and full of the holy charm and freshness of youth, S. Henry (1024); the seventeenth, S. Peter; the eighteenth, S. Constantine; the last, a queen, much defaced, like several of the others, Pulcheria, beloved of the Byzantines.
[Illustration: PILASTER OF THE ROYAL PORCH.]
There yet remains the sixth, seventh and twelfth of the statues, the absorbing, seductive, inexpressible queens of the central bay. Her sexless shape, the book in her hands, her expectant gaze, rapt as it were in a vision of the ages, proclaim the first to be a nun rather than a queen, albeit she is clad in royal raiment;--S. Radegonde, Queen of France (582), Bulteau suggests.
The second is younger, and her beauty of a more earthly type. She wears a halo, and is clad like the other, save that she has no mantle, and her head is not shrouded in a veil. Her long hair falls in two plaits over her shoulders, and the tight-drawn body of her garment reveals the curves of her figure. Her expression is that of a rebellious, artful and vindictive nature, and, if she is rightly supposed to be Queen Clotilde, she is, as M. Huysmans[65] remarks, Clotilde before her repentance, the Queen before the saint.
The last, the angelic mysterious queen with the sweet, ingenuous smile, and the great deep eyes, is, according to local tradition, Bertha _aux grands pieds_, mother of Charlemagne. Her right hand once lay open upon her breast, and there it has left its impression. In the left hand she carried a sceptre, terminating in an ornament that still remains. She is clad in sumptuous raiment, most delicate in texture, and fringed with lace. Her figure is elongated, so that she seems to be like some rare lily swaying forward on its stalk. And thus, beneath her eyebrows slightly raised, she smiles down upon the visitor in the childlike grace of her chaste simplicity, _saintement gamine_.
