And in memory of this, no one can be matriculated in the said University of Poitiers who has not drunk at the cabalistic fountain of Croustelles, been to Passe-Lourdin, and mounted on La Pierre Levee." Bouchet's opinion is, that the stone was placed by Alienor d'Aquitaine, about 1150, to be used at a fair which was held in the field where it stands.
It is, no doubt, one of the Dolmen, whose strange and mysterious appearance may well have puzzled both the learned and unlearned in every age since they were first erected.
One of the most interesting monuments in Poitiers is the museum; for it is a Roman structure--a temple or a tomb--almost entire, and less injured than might have been expected, serving as a receptacle for all the antiquities which have been collected together at different periods, in order to form a _musee_.

They are appropriately placed in this building, and are seen with much more effect in its singular walls than if looked at on the comfortable shelves of a boarded and white-washed chamber.
As is usual in those cases, disputes run high respecting the original founder and the destination of this building, unique in its kind.

Some insist that it is a tomb erected to Claudia Varenilla, by her husband, Marcus Censor Pavius; others see in it a pagan temple, transformed into a place of early Christian worship; others, the _first cathedral_ of Poitiers.
It has undergone numerous changes of destination, at all events, having been used as a church, as a bell-foundry, as a depot for _economical soup_, and as a manufactory.

The Society of Antiquaries have at length gained possession of it, and it is to be hoped that it will know no further vicissitudes.
In this temple may be seen numerous treasures of Gaulic and Roman and Middle-age art of great interest: sepulchral stones inscribed with the names of Claudia Varenilla, Sabinus, and Lepida; Roman altars, military boundary-stones, amphorae, vases, capitals, and pottery, all found in the neighbourhood of Poitiers: a good deal of beautiful carving from the destroyed castle of Bonnivet, fine specimens of the Renaissance, and numerous relics of ruined churches.
Among the treasures is a block of stone, said to be one on which the Maid of Orleans rested her foot when she mounted her horse, in full armour, to accompany Charles VII.

on his coronation.