Note 55 — FAUTEUIL—BERGÈRE—ARM-CHAIR—EPISCOPAL SEAT.

The chair of the good King Dagobert is, perhaps, one of the oldest and most curious articles of furniture of the Christian era. In form, it resembles the curule chair of the Romans. The legs are more ancient, and of better workmanship, than the upper part; but tradition assigns its fabrication to the holy hands of St. Eloi. It was preserved for centuries in the treasury of the Abbey of St. Denis, and was regilt in the time of the Abbot Suger. In August, 1804, it was transported to Boulogne, for the distribution of the crosses of the Legion of Honour; and a medal, struck on that occasion, represents the modern Charlemagne, seated in this relic of le bon Roi Dagobert. It now takes its place, with other antiquities, in la Bibliothèque du Roi, at Paris.