with most of their opinions, by reading a remonstrance written long ago against any general use of stucco, as well as against the crude and brilliant colouring of the capitals and of the vaulting of the nave, and any wish to hide the fresco in the north transept. The congrès however declined to pronounce a formal judgment as to the merit of the work, and M. M. de Roisin and De Lassaulx requested that their opinions should be printed only as the opinions of private individuals.
At the general meeting on the eighth and last day, under the presidency of the Prefét, M. Dumortier exhibited a silver processional flambeau-holder lately found in the cathedral at Tournay. It is a hollow cylinder in two parts, each about four feet long, and covered with small armorial shields in relief; the upper part being terminated with the Tournay arms, viz. a tower and fleurs-de-lys. On its lower part is engraved the date of 1528; but M. Dumortier imagines that the upper part is as old as 1280; many of its arms appertaining, he said, to families then flourishing, but which had become extinct before 1528. Dr. Leglay, however, and the Viscount de Melun, thought that no part was older than 1528, and that the arms of its upper part were placed there merely in memory of the founders of the fraternity to which the instrument had belonged; and Dr. Bromet remarked on the improbability of the date of 1280 assigned to its Upper part, because several of the bearings thereon are quartered, a mode of blazoning not known (in England at least) before the middle of the fourteenth century. But M. de Lambron seemed to think that in France quartering may have been used as a "brisure familique" even in the thirteenth century.
M. Kuhlmann of Lille then communicated a mode of hardening soft calcareous stone, which was considered so easily applicable to its purpose, and so likely to be useful in the preservation, not only of delicate sculpture, but also of the surfaces of buildings liable to atmospherical deterioration, that he was requested to furnish an account of his process sufficiently detailed for publication in the Volume of Transactions. A memoir was afterwards presented, explanatory of certain verses in a language not hitherto translateable, which having been referred to the Committee for deciding as to the propriety of publishing it; the Director begged to observe on the long approved expediency of such a measure on any papers sent to the Society containing only portions, and others nothing, fit for publication. He then exhibited a plan and estimate for erecting a memorial of the battle at Bouvines, in the vicinity, which was adopted with the proviso that the date of the battle should be the only inscription on it. The Secretary General announced the names of those to whom medals had been decreed, and a committee was appointed to superintend the printing of the Historical portion of their transactions, (according to a bye-law of the Society,) in their place of annual meeting. The President then thanked the several foreigners who had so kindly assisted at the congrès, and hoping that the seeds sown by it would have due effect in the surrounding districts, closed the sittings by announcing that the next year's general meeting would take place at Metz and Trèves.
