The Tetramorphus

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Photo: F.Charon

To the bedhead of the sarcophagus of Saint - Agilbert, you can admire a magnificent Tétramorphus, representation of a Christ in glory surrounded with the four evangelists: Mathieu under the shape of the winged man, Marc under the one of the lion, Jean in eagle, and finally Luc in bull. The sculptors of the VIIth century fixed here the picture of a young, hairless Christ, figuration close to a Byzantine fashionable representation. The interest of this piece resides in its extraordinary conservation. Indeed this bas-relief of near a meter of quoted appears in its original stat , without having undergone the least change. It is to this title that one can speak of it like a treasure of the merovingian heritage.

The shackless Marquee

Photo: F.Charon

The Saint-Paul crypt shelters magnificent marquees, sculpted in the years 660, and whose conservation astonishes again today. Achieved in a white marble extracted of Pyrenean careers (those of Saint-Beatific and of Saint-Bertrand of Comminge), these marquees reveal a very clean Roman influence. Indeed, you can recover, in the very composition, the Corinthian marquee tradition, sometimes adapted, as on this marquee to shackles, to the acanthus of the more worked.

Lateral face of the Cenotaph of Saint-Telchilde

      
Photo: F.Charon

The partitions of the cenotaph raised on the sarcophagus of Saint-Telchilde present an epitaph to the exceptional engraving. Probably achieved at the beginning of the VIIIth century, this cenotaph offers, in alternation, motives of shells and a text that do homage to the role so particular played by Telchilde, first abbess of Jouarre. Or should speak ourselves Téodlecheldis, name that she carried during her living, rather and that represents very clearly in the epitaph. Telchilde was in a way the light of this monastery, so the epitaph mentions you it celebrates it parabola of the gospel: The one of the prudent virgins going to the Christ's front in the night while lightening of their lamps to oils.