The interior is quite without beauty; but what is worthy of note is its fine Roman tower, and a portal of great singularity.

The latter is ornamented with medallions of the rudest workmanship; one capital represents Daniel and the prophet Habakkuk, with lions of a strange shape; but, in order that no mistake may arise as to their identity, besides the inscription which surrounds the medallion, _Hic Daniel Domino vincit coetum leonum_, the artist has engraved, in conspicuous letters, between the animals, the word _Leones_.
The church of St.Hilaire--a great saint in Poitiers--has been so much altered as to leave little very interesting of its original construction.

This saint was much distinguished for the miracles he performed; the memory of one is still preserved by a pyramid, with mutilated bas-reliefs, recording the facts thus related by the annalist of Aquitaine:-- "When St.Hilaire visited the churches of the city, as he went through the streets he was followed by so many people that he could hardly be seen, for he was on foot.

A woman, who lived in a house now situated before the _Grands Escolles_, knowing that he was passing her dwelling, while she was bathing her infant, seized with an ardent desire to behold the saint, left it in the bath, and ran out; when she returned she found her child drowned.

Whereupon she called out, 'Oh, my God! shall I lose my child for having done that which was praiseworthy!' and in a rage of grief took her little dead child in her arms, covered with a piece of linen, and carried it to St.Hilaire, to whom she declared the case and the accident, praying him, in great faith and hope, to entreat of God that her child might be restored to life.
"St.Hilaire, seeing the grief of the poor mother, who had but this only child, and also her great reliance, and considering that the infant had died in consequence of the mother's great desire to see him, set himself to pray, prostrating himself on the earth with great humility and tears, where he remained a long time.