Riez was the Albece Reiorum Apollinarium in the Colonia Julia Reiorum of the Romans, but there are very few traces of the city with this high-sounding name. The whole atmosphere of the little town is XII century. Two of its old gates, part of the wall, and the crenellated tower still stand, with ruined convents and monasteries of Capuchins, Cordeliers, and Ursulines; and it may be inferred from the remains of the Bishop's Palace and the broad promenade which was one of its avenues, and from the episcopal chateau at Montagnac, that ecclesiastical state was not less worthily upheld at Riez than in the other Sees of the South of France.

Many difficulties, however, had beset the Cathedral-building prelates. Their first church, Notre-Dame-du-Siege, dating partly from the foundation of the See in the IV century, partly from the X and XII centuries, was destroyed by storm and flood, and its site near the treacherous little river being considered too perilous, a new Cathedral of Notre-Dame-du-Siege and Saint-Maxime was begun; and it was then that the Bishops celebrated temporarily at Saint-Maxime's on the hill.

During the Revolution the See was suppressed; the church has been much re-built and changed; so that only a tower which is part of the present Notre-Dame-du-Siege, and the traces of the earliest foundation near the little Colostre, remain to tell of the different Cathedrals of Riez.



Near the site of the oldest church is one of the few monuments of a very early Christianity which have escaped the perils of time. It is of unknown date, and although it is said to have been part of the Cathedral which stood between it and the river, it appears to have been always an independent and separate building. The peasants say that in the memory of their forefathers it was used as a chapel, they call it indefinitely "the Pantheon," "the Temple," or "the Chapel of Saint-Clair," but it was almost certainly a baptistery of that curious and beautiful type which was abandoned so early in the evolution of Christian architecture.



Following the road which his innkeeper pointed out, the traveller became so absorbed in the busy movement of the communal threshing-ground, the arrival of the yellow grain, the women who were wielding pitchforks, and the horses moving in circles, with solemn rhythm, that he nearly passed a low building, the object of his search. Nothing could be more quaintly old and modest than the baptistery of Riez. It is a small square building of rough cemented stone whose stucco has worn away. The roof is tiled, and from out a flattened dome, blades of grass sprout sparsely. A tiny bell-turret and an arch in the front wall complete the ornamentation of this humble, diminutive bit of architecture, and except that it is different from the usual Provencal manner of construction, one would pass many times without noticing it.



Walking down the steps which mark the differences that time has made in the levels of the ground and entering a small octagonal hall, one of the most interesting interiors of Provence meets the eye. "Each of its four sides," writes Jules de Lauriere, "which correspond to the angles of the outer square, has a semicircular apse built in the walls themselves. The eight columns, placed in a circle about the centre of the edifice, divide it into a circular nave and a central rotunda, and support eight arches which, in turn, support an octagonal drum, and above this is the dome." This room is of simple and charming architectural conception, and even in melancholy ruin, it has much beauty. It gains in comparison with the re-constructed baptisteries of Provence, for something of a primitive character has been preserved to which such modern altars and XVII century trappings as those of Aix and Frejus are fatal. Under the heavy dust there is visible an unhappy coating of whitewash, traces of a fire still blacken the walls, fragments of Roman sculpture are scattered about, and between the columns a pagan altar has been placed for safe-keeping. The columns themselves are of pagan construction, and as they differ somewhat in size and capitals, it is not improbable that they came from the ruins of several of the great public buildings of Riez. At the time of the baptistery's construction, the barbaric invasion had begun, and these Roman monuments may have been in ruins; but in any case, it was a pious and justifiable custom of Christians to take from pagan structures, standing or fallen, stones and pillars that would serve for building churches to the "one, true God." The pillars procured for this laudable purpose at Riez, with their beautiful, carved capitals, gave the little baptistery its one decoration, and far from disturbing the simplicity of its style, they add a slenderness and height and harmony to a room which, without them, would be too stiffly bare. In the rotunda which they form, excavations have brought to light a baptismal pool, and conduits which brought to it sufficient quantities of water for the immersion—whole or partial—that was part of the baptismal service of the early Church. But the archaeological work has abruptly ceased, and it is to be deeply regretted that here, in this deserted place, where the Church desires no present restorations in accordance with particular rites or modern styles of architecture, there should not be a complete rehabilitation, a baptistery restored to the actual state of its own era.



Wandering across the fields, with the re-constructive mania strong upon him, the traveller came across the beautiful granite columns which with their capitals, bases, and architraves of marble, are the last standing monument of Riez's Roman greatness. Fragments of sculpture, bits of stone set in her walls, exist in numbers; but they are too isolated, too vague, to suggest the lost beauty and grandeur which these lonely columns express. He gazed at them in wonder. Was he stepping where once had been a grand and busy Forum, was he looking at the Temple of some great Roman god? The voices of the threshers sounded cheerily, the Provencal sun shone bright and warm, but one of the greatest of mysteries was before him,—the silent mystery of a dead past that had once been a living present. He sat by the river, and tossed pebbles into its shallow waters; the slanting rays of the sun gave the columns delicate tints, old yellows and greys and violets, and at length, as evening fell, they seemed to grow higher and whiter in the paler light, until they looked like lonely funereal shafts, recalling to the memory of forgetful man, Riez's long-dead greatness.

[Sidenote: Senez.]

In the comfortable civilisation of France, the stage-coach usually begins where the railroad ends; and however remote a destination or tedious a journey, an ultimate and safe arrival is reasonably certain. This was the reflection which cheered the traveller when he began to search for Senez, an ancient city of the Romans which was christianised in the early centuries and enjoyed the rank of Bishopric until the Revolution of '89. In spite of this dignified rank and the tenacity of an ancient foundation, it lies so far from modern ken that even worthies who live fifty miles away could only say that "Senez is not much of a place, but it doubtless may be found ten—perhaps fifteen—or even twenty kilometres behind the railroad."

"If Monsieur alighted at Barreme, probably the mail for Senez would be left there too. And where letters go, some man or beast must carry them, and one could always follow."

With these vague directions, the traveller set gaily out for Barreme, where a greater than he had spent one bleak March night on the anxious journey from Elba to Paris. The town shows no trace of Napoleon's hurried visit. It looks a mere sleepy hamlet, and when the traveller left the train he had already decided to push his journey onward.

"To Senez?" A man stepped up in answer to his inquiry. "Certainly there was a way to get there, the mail-coach started in an hour. And a hotel? A very good hotel—not Parisian perhaps, but hot food, a bottle of good wine, and a clean bed. Could one desire more on this earth?"

The traveller thought not, and left the station—to stand transfixed before the most melancholy conveyance that ever bore the high-sounding name of "mail-coach." A little wagon in whose interior six thin persons might have crowded, old windows shaking in their frames, the remains of a coat of yellow paint, and in front a seat which a projecting bit of roof protected from the sun,—this was the mail-coach of Senez, drawn by a dejected, small brown mule, ragged with age, and a gaunt white horse who towered above him. To complete the equipage, this melancholy pair were hitched with ropes.

In due course of time the driver came, hooked an ancient tin box marked "Lettres" to the dash-board, threw in a sacking-bag, and cap in hand, invited the traveller to mount with him "where there was air." The long whip cracked authoritatively, the postilion, a beautiful black dog, jumped to the roof, and the mail-coach of Senez, with rattle and creak, started on its scheduled run.

"Houp-la, thou bag of lazy bones done up in a brown skin! Ho-la, thou whited sepulchre, thinkest thou I will get out and carry thee? Take this and that."



On either side the whip hit the road ferociously, but the old beasts of burden shook their philosophic heads and slowly jogged on, knowing well they would not be touched.

The hot sun of Provence, which "drinks a river as man drinks a glass of wine," shone on the long, white "route nationale" that stretched out in well-kept monotony through a valley which might well have been named "Desolation." On either hand rose mountains that were great masses of bare, seared rocks, showing the ravages of forgotten glaciers; the soil that once covered them lay at their feet. Scarcely a shrub pushed out from the crevices, and even along the road, the few thin poplars found the poorest of nourishment.

Crossing a small bridge, there came into view an ancient village, a mere handful of clustered wooden roofs, irregular, broken, and decayed.

"It was a city in the days when we were Romans," said the Courier, "and they say that there are treasures underneath our soil. But who can tell when people talk so much? And certainly two sous earned above ground buy hotter soup than one can gain in many a search for twenty francs below."

He whipped up for a suitable and striking entry into town, turned into a lane, and with much show of difficulty in reining up, stood before the "hotel."

The traveller, having descended, entered a room that might have been the subject of a quaint Dutch canvas. He saw a low ceiling, smoky walls, long rows of benches, a sanded floor, and pine-board tables that stretched back to an open door; and through the open door, the pot swinging above the embers of the kitchen fire. The mistress of the inn, a strong white-haired woman of seventy, came hurrying in to greet her guest. "It was late," she said, and quickly put a basin full of water, a new piece of soap, and a fresh towel on a chair near the kitchen door; and as the traveller prepared himself for dinner he heard the crackling of fresh boughs upon the fire and the cheerful singing of the pot. Little lamps were lighted, and when he came to his table's end, he found good country wine and a steaming cabbage-soup. Others came in to dine and smoke and talk, and later from his bed-room window, he saw their ghostly figures moving up and down the unlighted streets and heard them say good-night. The inn-door was noisily and safely barred, and when the retreating footsteps and the voices had died away, the quiet of the dark remained unbroken until a watchman, with flickering lantern, passed, and cried aloud "All's well."



Next morning the sun shone brightly on Senez, and the traveller hurried to the open square. A horse, carrying a farmer's boy, meandered slowly by, a chicken picked here and there, and water trickled slowly from the tiny faucet of the village fountain.



In this quiet spot, near the lonely desolation of the hills, is the Cathedral. The Palace of its prelates, which is opposite, is now a farm-house where hay-ricks stand in the front yard, and windows have been walled up because Provencal winds are cold and glass is dear.



Looking at this residence, one would think that the last Bishops of Senez were insignificant priests, steeped in country wine and country stagnancy. But such a supposition is very far from true. For we know that in the XVIII century, Jean Soannen, Bishop of the city, was called before a Council at Embrun to answer a charge of resistance to the far-famed Bull "Unigenitus," and so strong were his convictions and so great his loyalty to his conscience, that he resisted the Council as well as the Bull, and was deprived of his See as a Jansenist and recalcitrant, and exiled to the Abbey of La-Chaise-Dieu. In quiet Senez there must always have been time for reflection, and one can imagine the bitter struggle of this brave man as he walked the rooms of the Palace, as he crossed and re-crossed the small square to the Cathedral. One can imagine his wrestling with God and his conscience every time that he celebrated a Mass for the people before the Cathedral's altar. One can understand the bitter fight between two high ideals, irreconcilable in his life,—that of work in God's vineyard or of doctrinal purity as he saw it. He had to choose between them, this Bishop of Senez, and when he left the town to answer the summons of the Council at Embrun, his heart must have been sore within him, he must have said farewell to many things. Few decisions can be more serious than the renunciation of family and home for the service of God, few more solemn than the struggles between the flesh and the spirit; but no more pathetic picture can exist than that sad figure of Jean Soannen; for he had renounced family and the world, and for the sake of "accepted truth" which was false to him, endured helpless, solitary insignificance under the espionage of suspicious and unfriendly monks. The traveller remembered his tomb, that tomb in a small chapel near the foot of the stair-case in the famous Abbey far-away, and sighing, hoped that in his mournful exile, the Bishop may have realised that "they also serve who only stand and wait."

The Bull Unigenitus, which caused his downfall, is believed to have caused, during the last years of Louis XIV's bigotry, the persecution of thirty thousand respectable, intelligent, and orderly Frenchmen. De Noailles, several Bishops, and the Parliament of Paris refused to accept it, though they stopped short of open rebellion, and even Fenelon "submitted" rather than acceded to it. This famous and vexatious document was an unhappy emanation of Pope Clement XIII. Hard pressed by his faithful supporters, the Jesuits, he promulgated it in 1713, and it condemns with great explicitness one hundred and one propositions which are taken from Quesnel's Jansenistic "Reflexions morales sur le Nouveau Testament." The Jesuits held the Jansenists in a horror which the Jansenists reciprocated; the Pope owed almost too heavy a debt of gratitude to the order of Saint Ignatius and was constrained to repay. But the Bull, instead of procuring peace, brought the greatest affliction and desolation of mind to His Holiness, and when later, the French envoy asked him why he had condemned such an odd number of propositions, the Pope seizing his arm burst into tears.

"Ah Monsieur Amelot! Monsieur Amelot! What would you have me do? I strove hard to curtail the list, but Pere Le Tellier"—Louis XIV's last confessor and a devoted Jesuit—"had pledged his word to the King that the book contained more than one hundred errors, and with his foot on my neck, he compelled me to prove him right. I condemned only one more!"

The Cathedral of Senez is an humble village church where frank and simple poverty exists with the remains of ancient splendour. It is small, as are all churches of its style, and although it does not lack a homely dignity, it is a modest work of XII century Romanesque, and the sonorous title of its consecration in 1242, "the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary," suggests an impressiveness which the Cathedral never had.

Two heavy buttresses that support the facade wall are reminiscent of the more majestic Notre-Dame-du-Bourg of Digne, and on them rest the ends of a pointed gable-roof. Between these buttresses, the wall is pierced by a long and graceful round-arched window, and below the window is the single, pointed portal whose columns are gone and whose delicate foliated carvings and mouldings are sadly worn away. A sun-dial painted on the wall tells the time of day, and at the gable's sharpest point a saucy little angel with a trumpet in his mouth blows with the wind.



Entering the little portal, the traveller saw the poor wooden benches of the congregation massed together, and beyond them, the stalls of long-departed Canons. In front of these old stalls, stood the church's latest luxury, a melodeon, and above them hung the tapestries of its richer past. Tapestries also beautify the choir-walls, and on either side, are the narrow transepts and the apses of a good old style. There are also poor and tawdry altars which stand in strange, pitiable contrast with the old walls and the fine tunnel vaulting, the dignified architecture of the past.



Leaving the interior, where a solitary peasant knelt in prayer, the traveller saw side-walls bare as the mountains round about, the squat tower that rises just above the roof, and coming to the apse-end he found the presbytery garden. From the garden, beyond the fallen gate, he saw the church as the Cure saw it, the three round apses with their little columns, the smaller decorative arches of the cornices, the pointed roof, and between branches full of apple blossoms, the softened lines of the low square tower. Here, trespassing, the Cure found him. And after they had walked about the town, and talked the whole day long of the great world which lay so far beyond, they went into the little garden as the sun was going down, and fell to musing over coffee cups. The priest was first to speak.

"Perhaps, buried under those old church walls, lie proofs of our early history, the stones of some old Temple, or statues of its gods; for we were once Sanitium, a Roman city in a country of six Roman roads. Perhaps all around us were great monuments of pagan wealth, a Mausoleum near these bare old rocks like that which stands in loneliness near Saint-Remy, Villas, Baths, or Triumphal Arches."

The keen eyes softened, as he continued in gentle irony, "Down in this little valley of the Asse de Blieux, our town seems far away from any scene in which the great ones of earth took part. Although I know that it is true, it often seems to me a legend that the gay and gallant Francis I, rushing to a mad war, stopped on his way to injure us; and that four hundred years ago a band of Huguenots raved around our old Cathedral, and tried to pull it to the ground."

"And do you think it can be true," the traveller asked, "that Bishops held mysterious prisoners in that tower for most dreary lengths of time?"



The Cure smiled, and shook his white head. "That is a story which the peasants tell,—an old tradition of the land. It may be true, since priests are mortal men and doubtless dealt with sinners." He smiled indulgently. "Through the many years I have been here, I have often wondered about all these things, but it is seldom I can speak my thoughts. Sometimes when I am here alone, I lose the sense of present things and seem to see the phantoms of the past. Then the dusk comes on, as it is coming now; the night blots Senez from my sight as fate has blotted out its record from history,—and I realise that our human memory is in vain."

[Sidenote: Aix.]

The old Cathedral of Saint-Sauveur at Aix is not one of those rarely beautiful churches where a complete and restful homogeneity delights the eye, nor is it a church of crude and shocking transitions. It is rather a well-arranged museum of ecclesiastical architecture, where, in sufficient historical continuity and harmony, many Provencal conceptions are found, and the evolution of Provencal architecture may be very completely followed. As in all collections, the beauty of Saint-Sauveur is not in a general view or in any glance into a long perspective, but in a close and loving study of the details it encloses; and so charming, so really beautiful are many of the diverse little treasures of Aix, that such study is better repaid here than in any other Provencal Cathedral. For this is one of the largest Cathedrals of the province, and the buildings which form the ecclesiastical group are most complete. With its baptistery, Cloister, church, and arch-episcopal Palace, it is not only of many epochs and styles, but of many historical uncertainties, and the hypotheses of its construction are enough to daze the most hardened archaeologist.



The oldest part of the Cathedral is the baptistery, and the date of its origin is unknown. Much of its character was lost in a restoration of the XVII century, but its old round form, the magnificent Roman columns of granite and green marble said to have been part of the Temple to Apollo, give it an atmosphere of dignity and an ancient charm that even the XVII century—so potent in architectural evil—was unable to destroy.



In 1060, after the destructive vicissitudes of the early centuries, Archbishop Rostaing d'Hyeres issued a pastoral letter appealing to the Faithful to aid him in the re-building of a new Cathedral; and it may be reasonably supposed that the nave which is at present the south aisle, the baptistery, and the Cloisters were the buildings that were dedicated less than fifty years later. They are the only portions of the church which can be ascribed to so early a period, and with the low door of entrance, the single nave and the adjoining cloister-walk, they constitute the usual plan of XI century Romanesque. Considering this as the early church, in almost original form, it will be seen that the portal is a very interesting example of the Provencal use not only of Roman suggestion, but of the actual fragments of Roman art which had escaped the invader; that the south aisle, in itself a completed interior, bears a close resemblance to Avignon; and that the Cloister, although now very worn and even defaced, must have been one of the quaintest and most delicate, as it is one of the tiniest, in Provence. Three sides of its arcades support plain buildings of a later date; the fourth stands free, as if in ruin. Little coupled columns, some slenderly circular, some twisted, and some polygonal, rest on a low wall; piers, very finely and differently carved, are at each of the arcade angles; the little capitals of the columns were once beautifully cut, and even the surfaces of the arches have small foliated disks and rosettes and are finished in roll and hollow. Unfortunately, a very large part of this detail-work is so defaced that its subjects are barely suggested, some are so eaten away that they are as desolate of beauty as the barren little quadrangle; and the whole Cloister seems to have reached the brink of that pathetic old age which Shakespeare has described, and that another step in the march of time would leave it "sans everything."



About two hundred years later, in 1285, the Archbishop of Aix found the Cathedral too unpretending for the rank and dignity of the See, and he began the Gothic additions. Like many another prelate his ambitions were larger than his means; and the history of Saint-Sauveur from the XIII to the XIX century, is that oft-told tale of new indulgences offered for new contributions, halts and delays in construction, emptied treasuries, and again, appeals and fresh efforts. The beginnings of the enlarged Cathedral were architecturally abrupt. The old nave, becoming the south aisle, was connected with the new by two small openings; it retained much of its separateness and in spite of added chapels much actual isolation. The Gothic nave, the north aisle and its many chapels, the apse, and the transepts, whose building and re-construction stretched over the long period between the XIII and XVII centuries, are comparatively regular, uniform, and uninteresting. The most ambitious view is that of the central nave, whose whole length is so little broken by entrances to the side aisles, that it seems almost solidly enclosed by its massive walls. Here in Gothic bays, are found those rounded, longitudinal arches which belong to the Romanesque and to some structure whose identity is buried in the mysterious past. The choir, with its long, narrow windows, and clusters of columnettes, is very pleasing, and its seven sides, foreign to Provence, remind one of Italian and Spanish constructive forms and take one's memory on strange jaunts, to the far-away Frari in Venice and the colder Abbey of London. From the choir of Saint-Sauveur two chapels open; and one of them is a charming bit of architecture, a replica in miniature of the mother-apse itself. The paintings of this mother-apse are neutral, its glass has no claim to sumptuousness, and the stalls are very unpretending; but above them hang tapestries ascribed to Matsys, splendid hangings of the Flemish school that were once in old Saint Paul's.

With these beautiful details the rich treasure-trove of the interior is exhausted, and one passes out to study the details of the exterior. The Cathedral's single tower, which rises behind the facade line, was one of the parts that was longest neglected,—perhaps because a tower is less essential to the ritual than any other portion of an ecclesiastical building. Begun in 1323, the work dragged along with many periods of absolute idleness, until 1880, when a balustrade with pinnacles at each angle was added to the upper octagonal stage, and the building of the tower was thus ended. The octagon with its narrow windows rests on a plain, square base that is massively buttressed. It is a pleasant, rather than a remarkable tower, and one's eye wanders to the more beautiful facade. Here, encased by severely plain supports, is one of the most charming portals of Provencal Gothic. Decorated buttresses stand on either side of a large, shallow recess which has a high and pointed arch, and in the centre, a slim pier divides the entrance-way into two parts, pre-figuring the final division of the Just and the Unjust. A multitude of finely sculptured statues were formerly hidden in niches, under graceful canopies, and in the hundred little nooks and corners which lurk about true Gothic portals. Standing Apostles and seated Patriarchs, baby cherubs peering out, and the more dramatic composition of the tympanum—the Transfiguration,—all lent a dignity and wealth to Saint-Sauveur. Unfortunately many of these sculptures were torn from their crannies in the great Revolution; and it is only a few of the heavenly hosts,—the gracious Madonna, Saint Michael, and the Prophets,—that remain as types of those that were so wantonly destroyed. The low, empty gables that sheltered lost statues, their slender, tapering turrets, and the delicate outer curve of the arch, are of admirable, if not imposing, composition. The portal's wooden doors, protected by plain casings, abound in carvings partly Renaissance, partly Gothic. The Sibyls and Prophets stand under canopies, surrounded by foliage, fruits, and flowers, or isolated from each other by little buttresses or pilasters. This Gothic portal quite outshines, in its graceful elaboration, the smaller door which stands near it, in the simpler and not less potent charm of the Romanesque. And side by side, these portals offer a curiously interesting comparison of the essential differences and qualities of their two great styles. If the Romanesque of Saint-Sauveur is far surpassed at Arles and Digne and Sisteron, nowhere in Provence has Gothic richer details; and if the noblest of Provencal creations must be sought in other little cities, the lover of architectural comparisons, of details, of the many lesser things rather than of the harmony of a single whole, will linger long in Aix.



The old city itself shows scarcely a trace of the many historic dramas of which it has been the scene,—the lowering tragedy of the Vaudois time,—the bright, gay comedy of good king Rene's Court,—the shorter scenes of Charles V's occupation,—the Parliament's struggle with Richelieu and Mazarin,—the day of the fiery Mirabeau,—the grim melodrama of the Revolution,—all have passed, and time has destroyed their monuments almost as completely as the Saracens destroyed those of the earlier Roman days. Only a few, unformed fragments of the great Temple of Apollo remain in the walls of Saint-Sauveur. The earliest Cathedral, Sainte-Marie-de-la-Seds, has entirely disappeared, the old thermal springs are enclosed by modern buildings, and only the statue of "the good King Rene" and the Church of the Knights of Malta give to Aix a faint atmosphere of its past distinction. Who would dream that here were the homes of the elegant and lettered courtiers of King Rene's brilliant capital, who would think that this town was the earliest Roman settlement in Gaul, the Aquae Sextiae of Baths, Temples, Theatres, and great wealth? Aix is a stately town, a provincial capital which Balzac might well have described—with old, quiet streets that are a little dreary, with a fine avenue shaded by great trees in whose shadows a few fountains trickle, with lines of little stages that come each day from the country,—a city whose life is as far in spirit from the near-by modernity of Marseilles as it is from that of Paris, as quaintly and delightfully provincial as that other little Provencal city, the Tarascon of King Rene and of Tartarin.



Languedoc.



I.

CATHEDRALS OF THE CITIES.

[Sidenote: Nimes.]

Entering Languedoc from the valley of the Rhone, the Cathedral-lover is doomed to disappointment in the city of Nimes. All that intense, intra-mural life of the Middle Ages seems to have passed this city by, and its traces, which he is so eager to find, prove to be neither notable nor beautiful.



The great past of Nimes is of a more remote antiquity than the Cathedral Building Ages. A small but exquisite Temple, a Nymphaeum, Baths, parts of a fine Portal, Roman walls, and an Amphitheatre which rivals the art of the Coliseum,—these are the ruins of Nimean greatness. She was essentially a city of the Romans, and that, even to-day, she has not lost the memory of her glorious antiquity was well illustrated in 1874, when the Nimois, with much pomp and civic pride, unveiled a statue to "their fellow-countryman," the Emperor Antoninus Pius. These are the memories in which Nimes delights. Yet her history of later times, if not glorious, is full of strange and curious interest. Like all the ancient cities of the South, she fell into the hands of many a wild and alien foe, and at length in 737, Charles Martel arrived at her gates. Grossly ignorant of art, no thing of beauty that stood in his path escaped fire and axe; and smoke-marks along the arena walls show to-day how narrowly they escaped the irreparable destruction which had wiped out the Forum, the Capitol, the Temple, the Baths, and all the magnificence of Roman Narbonne. To both the early and the later Middle Ages, Roman remains had scarcely more meaning than they had for the Franks. The delicate Temple of Trajan's wife, scorned for its pagan associations, was used as a stable, a store-house, and, purified by proper ceremonials, it even became a Christian church. The Amphitheatre has had a still stranger destiny. To a mediaeval Viscount, it was naturally inconceivable as a place of amusement, and as naturally, he saw in its walls a stronghold where he could live as securely as ever lord in castle. As a fortress which successfully defied Charles Martel, it was a place of no mean strength, and in 1100 it had become "a veritable hornets' nest, buzzing with warriors."

A few years before, Pope Urban II had landed at Maguelonne and ridden to Clermont to preach the First Crusade. On his return he stopped at Nimes and held a Council for the same holy purpose. Raymond de Saint-Gilles, Count of Toulouse and overlord of Nimes, travelled there to meet the Sovereign Pontiff, and amid the wonderful ferment of enthusiasm which the "Holy War" had aroused, the South was pledged anew to this romantic and war-like phase of the cause of Christ. Trencavel, Viscount of Nimes, loyal to God and his Suzerain, followed Raymond to Palestine. Its natural protectors gone, the city formed a defensive association called the "Chevaliers of the Arena." As its name implies, this curious fraternity was composed of the soldiers of the ancient amphitheatre. Like many others of the time it was semi-military, semi-religious, its members bound by many solemn oaths and ceremonies, and thus, by the eccentricity of fate, this old pagan playground became a fortress consecrated to Christian defence, the scene of many a solemn Mass.

The divisions in the Christian faith, which followed so closely the fervours of the Crusades, were most disastrous to Nimes. From the XIII until the XVII centuries, wars of religion were interrupted by suspicious and unheeded truces, and these in turn were broken by fresh outbursts of embittered contest. An ally of the new "Crusaders" in Simon de Montfort's day, Nimes became largely Protestant in the XVI century; and in 1567, as if to avenge the injuries their ancestors had formerly inflicted on the Albigenses, the Nimois sacked their Bishop's Palace and threw all the Catholics they could find down the wells of the town. This celebration of Saint Michael's Day was repaid at the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. The wise Edict of Nantes brought a truce to these hostilities,—its revocation, new persecutions and flights. A hundred years later the Huguenots were again in force, and, aided by the unrest of the Revolution, successfully massacred the Catholics of the city; and during the "White Terror" of 1815 the Catholics arose and avenged themselves with equal vigour. When it is remembered that this savage and vindictive spirit has characterised the Nimois of the last six hundred years, it is scarcely surprising that they should prefer to dwell on the remote antiquity of their city rather than on the unedifying episodes of her Christian history.

Between the glories of her paganism and the disputes of Christians, the Faith has struggled and survived; but in the Cathedral-building era, religious enthusiasm was so often expended in mutual fury and reprisals that neither time nor thought was left for that common and gentle expression of mediaeval fervour, ecclesiastical architecture. And the Church of Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Castor, which would seem to have suffered from the neglect and ignorance of both patrons and builders, is one of the least interesting Cathedrals in Languedoc.

A graceful gallery of the nave, which also surrounds the choir, is the notable part of the interior, and the insignificance of the exterior is relieved only by a frieze of the XI and XII centuries. On this frieze is sculptured, in much interesting detail, the Biblical stories of the early years of mankind; but it is unfortunately placed so high on the front wall that it seems badly proportioned to the facade, and as a carved detail it is almost indistinguishable. As has been finely said the whole church is "gaunt" and unbeautiful; it is a depressing mixture of styles, Roman, Romano-Byzantine, and Gothic; and in studying its one fine detail, a photograph or a drawing is much more satisfactory than an hour's tantalising effort to see the original.

[Sidenote: Montpellier.]

Montpellier is "an agreeable city, clean, well-built, intersected by open squares with wide-spread horizons, and fine, broad boulevards, a city whose distinctive characteristics would appear to be wealth, and a taste for art, leisure, and study." The "taste" and the "art" are principally those of the pseudo-classic style, an imitation of "ancient Greece and imperial Rome," which the French of the XVIII century carried to such unpleasant excess. The general characteristics of the imitation, size and bombast, are well epitomised in the principal statue of Montpellier's fine Champ de Mars, which represents the high-heeled and luxurious Louis XIV in the unfitting armour of a Roman Imperator, mounted on a huge and restive charger. Such affectation in architectural subjects is the death-blow to all real beauty and originality, and Montpellier has gained little from its Bourbon patrons except a series of fine broad vistas. No city could offer greater contrast to the ancient and dignified classicism of Nimes.

If the mediaeval origin of Montpellier were not well known, one would believe it the creation of the Renaissance, and the few narrow, tortuous streets of the older days recall little of its intense past, when the city grew as never before nor since, when scholars of the genius of Petrarch and the wit of Rabelais sought her out, when she belonged to Aragon or Navarre and not to the King of France. This is the interesting Montpellier.

In the XIII century, she had a University which the Pope formally sanctioned, and a school of medicine founded by Arabian physicians which rivalled that of Paris. More significant still to Languedoc, her prosperity had begun to overshadow that of the neighbouring Bishopric of Maguelonne, and a bitter rivalry sprang up between the two cities. From the first Maguelonne was doomed. She had no schools that could rival those of Montpellier; she ceased to grow as the younger city increased in fame and size, till even history passed her by, and the stirring events of the times took place in the streets of her larger and more prosperous neighbour. Finally she was deserted by her Bishops, and no longer upheld by their episcopal dignity, her fall was so overwhelming that to-day her mediaeval walls have crumbled to the last stone and only a lonely old Cathedral remains to mark her greatness. In 1536 my Lord Bishop, with much appropriate pomp and ceremony, rode out of her gates and entered those of Montpellier as titular Bishop for the first time.

He did not find the townsmen so elated by the new dignity of the city as to have broken ground for a new Cathedral, nor did he himself seem ambitious, as his predecessors of Maguelonne had been, to build a church worthy of his rank. However, as a Bishop must have a Cathedral-church, the chapel of the Benedictine monastery was chosen for this honour and solemnly consecrated the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre of Montpellier. This chapel had been built in the XIV century, and at the time of these episcopal changes, only the nave was finished. It was, however, Gothic; and as this style had become much favoured by the South at this late period, the Bishop must have believed that he had the beginning of a very fine and admirable Cathedral. In the religious wars which followed 1536, succeeding prelates found much to distract them from any further building; the Cathedral itself was so injured that such attention as could be spared from heretics to mere architectural details was devoted to necessary restorations and reconstructions, and the finished Saint-Pierre of to-day is an edifice of surprising modernity.

In the interior, the nave and aisles are partially of old construction, but the beautiful choir is the XIX century building of Revoil. Of the exterior, the entire apse is his also, and as the portal of the south wall was built in 1884 and the northern side of the Cathedral is incorporated in that of the Bishop's Palace, only the tower and the facade are mediaeval.



None of the towers have much architectural significance, either of beauty or originality. In comparison with the decoration of the facade they make but little impression. This decoration has more original incongruity than any detail ever applied to facade, Gothic or Romanesque, and is an extreme example of the license which southern builders allowed themselves in their adaptation of the northern style. It is a vagary, and has appealed to some Anglo-Saxon travellers, but French authorities, almost without dissent, allude to it apologetically as "unpardonable." Its general effect is somewhat that of a porte-cochere, whose roofing, directly attached to the front wall, is gothically pointed, and supported by two immense pillars. The pillars end in cones that resemble nothing in the world so much as sugar-loaves, and the whole structure is marvellously unique. Yet strange to say, the effect of the facade, with the smoothness and roundness of its pillars and the uncompromising squareness of its towers, while altogether bad, is not altogether unpleasing. Standing before it the traveller was both bewildered and fascinated as he saw that even in the extravagance of their combinations, the builders, with true southern finesse, had avoided both the grotesque and the monstrous.



As a whole, Saint-Pierre is a fine Cathedral; through many stages of building, enlarging, and re-constructing, its style has remained consonant; but the general impression is not altogether harmonious. The perspective of the western front, which should be imposing, is destroyed by a hill which slopes sharply up before the very portal. The facade is attached to the immense, unbroken wall of the old episcopal Palace, and the majesty, which is a Cathedral's by very virtue of its height alone, is entirely destroyed by a seemingly interminable breadth of wall. Reversing the natural order of things, the finest view is that of the apse. And this modern part is, in reality, the chief architectural glory of this comparatively new Cathedral and its comparatively modern town.

[Sidenote: Beziers.]

"You have only to look from a distance at any old-fashioned Cathedral-city and you will see in a moment the mediaeval relations between Church and State. The Cathedral is the city. The first object you catch sight of as you approach is the spire tapering into the sky, or the huge towers holding possession of the centre of the landscape—majestically beautiful—imposing by mere size. As you go nearer, the pinnacles are glittering in the tints of the sunset, when down below among the streets and lanes twilight is darkening. And even now, when the towns are thrice their ancient size, ... the Cathedral is still the governing force in the picture, the one object which possesses the imagination, and refuses to be eclipsed." These words are the description of Beziers as it is best and most impressively seen. From the distance, the Cathedral and its ramparts rise in imposing mass, a fine example of the strength, pride, and supremacy of the Church.

As we approach, the Cathedral grows much less imposing, and its facade gives the impression of an unpleasant conglomeration of styles. It is not a fortress church, yet it was evidently built for defence; it is Gothic, yet the lightness and grace of that art are sacrificed to the massiveness and resistive strength, imperatively required by southern Cathedrals in times of wars and bellicose heretics. The whole building seems a compromise between necessity and art.

It is, however, a notable example of the Gothic of the South, and of the modifications which that style invariably underwent, through the artistic caprice of its builders, or the political fore-sight of their patrons, the Bishops.

The facade of Saint-Nazaire of Beziers has a Gothic portal of good but not notable proportions, and a large and beautiful rose-window. As if to protect these weaker and decorative attempts, the builder flanked them with two square towers, whose crenellated tops and solid, heavy walls could serve as strongholds. Perhaps to reconcile the irreconcilable, crenellations joining the towers were placed over the rose-window, and at either end of the portal, a few inches of Gothic carving were cut in the tower-wall. The result is frank incongruity. And the traveller left without regret, to look at the apse. It cannot be denied that the clock-tower which comes into view is very square and thick; but in spite of that it has a simple dignity, and as the apse itself is not florid, this proved to be the really pleasing detailed view of the Cathedral. The open square behind the church is tiny, and there one can best see the curious grilled iron-work, which in the times of mediaeval outbreaks protected the fine windows of the choir and preserved them for future generations of worshippers and admirers. It was after noon when the traveller finished his investigations of Saint-Nazaire; and as the southern churches close between twelve and two, he took dejeuner at a little cafe near-by and patiently waited for the hour of re-opening. Had there been nothing but the interior to explore, he could not have spent two hours in such contented waiting. But there was a Cloister,—and on the stroke of two he and the sacristan met before the portal.



In describing their "monuments," French guide-books confine themselves to facts, and the adjectives "fine" and "remarkable"; they are almost always strictly impersonal, and the traveller who uses them as a cicerone, has a sense of unexpected discovery, a peculiar elation, in finding a monument of rare beauty; but he is never subjected to that disappointed irritation which comes when one stands before the "monument" and feels that one's expectations have been unduly stimulated. The Cloister of Beziers is a "fine monument," but as he walked about it, the traveller felt no sense of elation. He found a small Cloister, Gothic like the Cathedral, with clustered columns and little ornamentation. It was not very completely restored, and had a sad, melancholy charm, like a solitary sprig of lavender in an old press, or a rose-leaf between the pages of a worn and forgotten Missal. In the Cloister-close, stands a Gothic fountain; but the days when its waters dropped and tinkled in the stillness, when their sound mingled with the murmured prayers and slow steps of the priests,—those days are long forgotten. The quaint and pretty fountain is now dry and dust-covered; while about it trees and plants and weeds grow as they may, and bits of the Cloister columns have fallen off, and niches are without their guarding Saints.



By contrast, the Cathedral itself seems full of life. Its interior is an aisle-less Gothic room, whose fine height and emptiness of column or detail give it an appearance of vast and well-conceived proportions. Except the really beautiful windows of the choir, which are a study in themselves, there is very little in this interior to hold the mind; one is lost in a pleasant sense of general symmetry. As the traveller was sitting in the nave, a few priests filed into the choir, and began, in quavering voices, to intone their prayers, and in the peacefulness of the church, in the trembling monotony of the weak, old voices, his thoughts wandered to the stirring history which had been lived about the Cathedral, and within its very walls. For Beziers was and had always been a hot-bed of heretics. Here in the IV century, long before the building of the Cathedral, the Emperor Constantius II forced the unwilling Catholic Bishops of Gaul to join their heretical Aryan brethren in Council; here the equally heretical Visigoths gave new strength to the dissenters; and here, again, after centuries of orthodoxy which Clovis had imposed, a new centre of religious storm was formed. It was about this period, the XII and XIV centuries, that the Cathedral was built; and it is perhaps because of the strength of those French protestants against the Church of Rome, the Albigenses, that its essentially Gothic style was so confused by military additions. At the beginning of the troublous times of which these towers are reminders, Raymond-Roger of Trencavel, the gallant and romantic Lord of Carcassonne, was also Viscount of Beziers; and contrary to the fanatical enthusiasm of his day, was much disposed toward religious toleration; therefore in the early wars of Catholics and Protestants the city of Beziers became the refuge not only for the terrified Faithful of the surrounding country, but for many hunted Protestants. In the XIII century, the zeal of the Catholic party, reinforced by the political interests of its members, grew most hot and dangerous. Saint Dominic had come into the South; and in his fearful, fiery sermons, he not only prophesied that the Albigenses would swell the number of the damned at the Day of Judgment, but also advocated that, living, they should know the hell of Inquisition. Partisans of the Catholic Faith were solemnly consecrated "Crusaders" by Pope Innocent III, and wore the cross in these Wars of Extermination as they had worn it in the Holy Wars of Palestine. In 1209 their army advanced against Beziers, and from out their Councils the leaders sent the Bishop of the city to admonish his flock.

All the inhabitants were summoned to meet him, and they gathered in the choir and transepts of the Cathedral,—the only parts which were finished at that time. One can imagine the anxious citizens crowding into the church, the coming of the angered prelate, whose state and frown were well calculated to intimidate the wavering, and the tense silence as he passed, with grave blessing, to the altar. In a few words, he advised them of their peril, spiritual and material; he told them he knew well who was true and who false to the Church, that he had, in written list, the very names of the heretics they seemed to harbour. Then he begged them to deliver those traitors into his hands, and their city to the Legate of the Holy Father. In fewer words came their answer; "Venerable Father, all that are here are Christians, and we see amongst us only our brethren." Such words were a refusal, a heinous sin, and dread must have been written on every face, as without a word or sign of blessing, the outraged Bishop swept from the church and returned to the camp of their enemy.

The Crusaders' Councils were stormy; for some of the nobles wished to save the Catholics, others cried out for the extermination of the whole rebellious place, and finally the choleric Legate, Armand-Amaury, Abbot of Citeaux, could stand it no longer, and cried out fiercely, "Kill them all! God will know His own." The words of their Legate were final, the army attacked the city, and—as Henri Martin finely writes,—"neither funeral tollings nor bell-ringings, nor Canons in all their priestly robes could avail, all were put to the sword; not one was saved, and it was the saddest pity ever seen or heard." The city was pillaged, was fired, was devastated and burned "till no living thing remained."

"No living thing remained" to tell the awful tale, and yet with time and industry, a new and forgetful Beziers has risen to all its old prestige and many times its former size; the Cathedral alone was left, and its most memorable tale to our day is not that of the abiding peace of the Faith, but that of the terrible travesty of religion of the twenty-second of July, hundreds of years ago.

[Sidenote: Narbonne.]

"Narbonne is still mighty and healthful, if one is to judge from the activities of the present day; is picturesque and pleasing, and far more comfortably disposed than many cities with a more magnificently imposing situation." These words, which were running in the traveller's mind, grew more and more derisive, more and more ironical, as he walked about Narbonne. Not in all the South of France had he seen a city so depressing. Her decline has been continuous for the long five hundred years since the Roman dykes gave way and she was cut off from the sea. Agde, almost as old, displays the decline of a dignified, retired old age; Saint-Gilles-du-Gard was as dirty, but not a whit as pretentious; Nimes was majestically antique; Narbonne, simply sordid.

It is sad to think that over two thousand years ago she was a second Marseilles, that she was the first of Rome's transalpine colonies, and that under Tiberius her schools rivalled those of the Capital of the world. It is sadder to think that all the magnificence of Roman luxury, of sculptured marble—a Forum, Capitol, Temples, Baths, Triumphal Arches,—stood where dreary rows of semi-modern houses now stand. It is almost impossible to believe in the lost grandeur of this city, and that it was veritably under the tutelage of so great and superb a god as Mars.

The eventful Christian period of Narbonne was very noted but not very long. Her melancholy decay began as early as the XIV century. Of her great antiquity nothing is left but a few hacked and mutilated carvings; of her ambitious Mediaevalism, nothing but an unfinished group of ecclesiastical buildings. Long gone is the lordly "Narbo" dedicated to Mars, gone the city of the Latin poet, whose words repeated to-day in her streets are a bitter mockery, and gone the stronghold of mediaeval times. There remains a rare phenomenon for cleanly France,—a dirty city, whose older sections are reminiscent of unbeautiful old age, decrepit and unwashed; and whose newly projected boulevards are distinguished by tawdry and pretentious youth.

In the midst of this city, stands a group of mediaeval churchly buildings, the Palace of the prelate, his Cathedral, and an adjoining Cloister. They are all either neglected, unfinished, or re-built; but are of so noble a plan that the traveller feels a "divine wrath" that they should never have reached their full grandeur of completion, that this great architectural work should have been begun so near the close of the city's prosperity, and that in spite of several efforts it has never been half completed. It is as if a fatality hung over the whole place, and as if all the greatness Narbonne had conceived was predestined to destruction or incompletion.



Of the three structures, the least interesting is the former Palace of the Archbishops. This is now the Hotel-de-Ville, and as all the body of the structure between the towers of the XII century was built in our day by Viollet-le-Duc, very little of the old Palace can properly be said to exist. Besides its two principal towers, a smaller one, a gate, and a chapel remain. Viollet-le-Duc has constructed the Hotel-de-Ville after the perfectly appropriate style of the XIII century, but its stone is so new and its atmosphere so modern and republican that the traveller left it without regret and made his way up the dark, steep, badly-paved alley-way which leads to the door of the Cloister.

This Cloister, which separated the Palace from the Cathedral, is now dreary and desolate and neglected. Like the Cathedral, it is Gothic, with sadly decaying traces of graceful ornament. The little plot of enclosed ground, which should be planted in grass or with a few flowers, is a mere dirt court, tramped over by the few worshippers who enter the Cathedral this way. Two or three trees grow as they will, gnarled or straight. The sense of peaceful melancholy which the traveller had felt in the Cloister of Beziers is wanting here. This is a place of deserted solitude; and with a sigh for the beauty that might have been, the traveller crossed the enclosure and entered the church by the cloister-door.



Architecturally dissimilar, the fate of this Cathedral is not unlike that of Beauvais. Each was destined to have a completed choir, and each to remain without a nave. At Beauvais the addition of transepts adds very materially to the beauty of the Cathedral. At Narbonne no transepts exist. There is simply a choir, which makes a very singular disposition of the church both religious and architectural. Entering the gates which lead from the ambulatory to the choir, the traveller found that Benediction had just begun. On his immediate right, before the altar all aglow with lights, were the officiating priests and the altar-boys; on his left, in the choir, was the congregation in the Canons' stalls; and at the back, as at the end of a nave, rose the organ.

The traveller walked about the ambulatory, and leaning against the farthest wall, tried to view the church, only to be baffled. There was no perspective. The ambulatory is very narrow and the choir-screen very high. The impressions he formed were partly imaginative, partly inductive; and the clearest one was that of sheer height, straight, superhuman height that is one of the unmatchable glories of French Gothic. Here the traveller thought again of Beauvais, and wished as he had so often wished in the northern Cathedral and with something of the same intensity, that this freedom and majesty of height might have been gloriously continued and completed in the nave. Such a church as his imagination pictured would have been worthy of a place with the best of northern Gothic. Now it is a suggestion, a beginning of greatness; and its chief glory lies in the simplicity and directness of its height. Clustered columns rise plainly to the pointed Gothic roof. There is so marked an absence of carving that it seems as if ornamentation would have been weakening and trammelling. It is not bareness, but beautiful firmness, which refreshes and uplifts the heart of man as the sight of some island mountain rising sheer from the sea.

The exterior of the Cathedral, imposing from a distance, is rather complicated in its unfinished compromise of detail. In the XV century, two towers were built which flank the western end as towers usually flank a facade; and this gives the church a foreshortened effect. Of real facade there is none, and the front wall which protects the choir is plainly temporary. In front of this wall there are portions of the unfinished nave, stones and other building materials, a scaffolding, and a board fence; and the only pleasure the traveller could find in this confusion was the fancy that he had discovered the old-time appearance of a Cathedral in the making.

The apse is practically completed, and one has the curious sensation that it is a building without portals. Having no facade, it has none of the great front entrances common to the Gothic style; neither has it the usual lateral door. The choir is entered by the temporary doors of the pseudo-facade; the ambulatory is entered through the Cloister, or a pretty little Gothic door-way which if it were not the chief entrance of the church, would properly seem to have been built for the clergy rather than for the people who now use it. If these portals are strangely unimportant, their insignificance does not detract materially from the stateliness of the apse, which is created by its great height—one hundred and thirty feet in the interior measurement—and the magnificent flying-buttresses.

These flying-buttresses give to the exterior its most curious and beautiful effect. They are a form of Gothic seldom attempted in the South, and exist here in a rather exceptional construction. Over the chapels which surround the apse rise a series of double-arched supports, the outer ones ending in little turrets with surmounting crenellations. On these supports, after a splendid outward sweep, rest the abutments of the flying arches. These have a fine sure grace and withal a lightness that relieves the heaviness imposed on the church by the towers and the immense strength of the body of the apse. They are the chief as well as the most salient glory of the exterior, and give to the Cathedral its peculiar individuality.



Apart from its buttresses, Saint-Just has little decorative style. Its crenellations and turrets are military and forceful, not ornate. For the church had its defensive as truly as its religious purpose, and formerly was united on the North with the fortifications of the Palace, and contributed to the protection of its prelates as well as to their arch-episcopal prestige.

In spite of the fostering care of the French government, the Palace, the Cloister, and the Cathedral seem in the hands of strangers. The traveller who had longed to see them in their finished magnificence realised the futility of this wish, but he turned away with another as vain, that he might have known them even in incompletion, when they were in the hands of the Church, when the Archbishop still ruled in his Palace, when the Canons prayed in the Cloister, and the Cathedral was still a-building.

[Sidenote: Perpignan.]

Perpignan, like Elne, is in Rousillon. The period of her most brilliant prosperity was that of the Majorcan dominion in the XII century. Later she reverted to Aragon, and was still so fine a city that for two hundred years France coveted and sought her, until she finally yielded to the greedy astuteness of Richelieu and became formally annexed to the kingdom of Louis XIII. Perpignan is a gay little town, much affected by the genius and indolence of the Spanish race. Morning is work-time, noon-tide is siesta, but afternoon and evening were made for pleasure; and every bright day, when the sun begins to cast shadows, people fill the narrow, shady streets and walk along the promenade by the shallow river, under the beautiful plane-trees. The pavements in front of the cafes are filled with little round tables, and here and there small groups of men idle cheerfully over tiny glasses of liqueur and cups of cool, black coffee; perhaps they talk a little business, certainly they gossip a great deal. Noisy little teams filled with merry people run down from the Promenade to the sea-shore; and after an hour's dip, almost in the shadow of the tall Pyrenees, the same merry people return, laughing, to a cooler Perpignan. In the evening, they seek the bright cafes and the waiters run busily to and fro among the crowded little tables; the narrow streets, imperfectly lighted, are full of moving shadows, and through the open church-doors, candles waver in the fitful draught, and quiet worshippers pass from altar to altar in penance or in supplication.

All the old buildings of the city are of Spanish origin. The prison is the brick, battlemented castle of a Majorcan Sancho, the Citadel is as old, and the Aragonese Bourse is divided between the town-hall and the city's most popular cafe.

The Cathedral of Saint-Jean, which faces a desolate, little square, was also begun in Majorcan days and under that Sancho who ruled in 1324. At first it was merely a church; for Elne had always been the seat of the Bishopric of Rousillon, and although the town had suffered from many wars and had long been declining, it was not shorn of its episcopal glory until there was sufficient political reason for the act. This arose in 1692, and was based on the old-time French and Spanish claims to the same county to which these two cities belonged.



Over a hundred years before Charles VIII had plenarily ceded to Ferdinand and Isabella all power in Rousillon, even that shadowy feudal Suzerainty with which, in default of actual possession, many a former French king had consoled himself and irritated a royal Spanish brother. Ferdinand and Isabella promptly visited their new possessions, and made solemn entry into Perpignan. Unfortunately the Inquisition came in their train, and the unbounded zeal of the Holy Office brought the Spanish rule which protected it into ever-increasing disfavour. In vain Philip III again bestowed on Perpignan the title of "faithful city," which she had first received from John of Aragon for her loyal resistance to Louis XI; in vain he ennobled several of her inhabitants and transferred to her, from Elne, the episcopal power. The city was ready for new and kinder masters than the Most Catholic Kings, and in 1642 the French were received as liberators.

During all these years the Cathedral had grown very slowly. Commenced in 1324, over a century elapsed before the choir was finished and the building of the nave was not begun until a hundred years later. The High Altar, a Porch, and the iron cage of the tower were added with equal deliberation, and even to-day it is still unfinished. The most beautiful part is the strongly buttressed apse; the poorest, the unfinished facade, which has been very fitly described as "plain and mean." Looking disconsolately at it from the deserted square, scarcely tempted to go nearer, the traveller was astounded at the thought that for several centuries this unsightly wall had stared on generations of worshippers without goading them into any frenzy of action,—either destructive or constructive. His only comfort lay in the scaffolding which was building around it, and which seemed to promise better things.



The interior of the Cathedral is very large and lofty. It is without aisles and the chapels are discreetly hidden between the piers. Far above one's head curves the ribbed Gothic vaulting, and all around is unbroken space that ends in darkness or the vague outline of an altar, dimly lighted by a flickering candle. The walls are painted in rich, sombre colours, and the light comes very gently through the good old stained-glass windows. It is a southern church, dark, cool, and somewhat mysterious; quite foreign to the glare and heat of reality. People are lost in its solemn vastness, and even with many worshippers it is a solitude where most holy vigils could be kept, a mystic place where the southern imagination might well lose itself in such sacred ardours as Saint Theresa felt. The traveller liked to linger here; in the day-time when he peered vainly at the re-redos of Soler de Barcelona, at Mass-time, when the lighted altar-candles glimmered over its fine old marble, but best of all he liked to come at night. Those summer nights in Rousillon were hot and full of the murmur of voices. The Cathedral was the only silent place; more full than ever of the mysterious—the felt and the unseen. As one entered, the sanctuary light shone as a star out of a night of darkness; in a near-by chapel, a candle sputtered itself away, and a woman—whether old or young one could not see—lighted a fresh taper. Sometimes a man knelt and told his beads, sometimes two women entered and separated for their differing needs and prayers. Sometimes one sat in meditation, or knelt, unmoving, for a space of time; once a child brought a new candle to Saint Antony; always some one came or some one went, until the hour of closing. Then, the bell was rung, the door shut by a hand but dimly seen, and the last few watchers went out—across the little square, down this street or that, until they were lost in the darkness of the summer's night.



[Sidenote: Carcassonne.]

The train puffed into the station at Carcassonne, and the impatient traveller, throwing his bags into an hotel omnibus, asked for the Cathedral and walked eagerly on that he might the more quickly "see in line the city on the hill," "the castle walls as grand as those of Babylon," and "gaze at last on Carcassonne." His mind was full of the poem, and faithfully following directions, he hurried through clean, narrow streets until he came at length, not upon a poetic vision of battlemented walls and towers, but on the most prosaic of boulevards and the Church of Saint-Michel which has been the Cathedral since 1803, a large, uncouth building with a big, unfinished tower. There is no facade portal, and a small door-way in the north side leads into the great vaulted hall, one of the most usual and commonplace forms of the Gothic interior of the South. This room, which is painted, receives light from a beautiful rose-window at the West, and a series of small roses, like miniatures of the greater one, are cut in the upper walls of the nave; and little chapels, characterised by the same heavy monotony which hangs like a pall over the whole Cathedral, are lost in the church's capacious flanks.



Having lost much of his enthusiasm, the traveller asked for the old—he had almost said the "real"—Cathedral, and with new directions, he started afresh. Leaving the well-built, agreeable, commonplace "Lower city" of the plain, he came to the bridge, and there, sitting on its parapet, near the ancient Cross, he feasted his longing eyes on that perfect vision of Mediaevalism. The high, arid, and almost isolated hill of the Cite stood before him, and at the top rose battlements and flanking towers in double range, bristling, war-like, and strong; yet beautiful in their mass of uneven, peaked tower-roofs and crenellations. He climbed wearily up the stony street of the hillside, and as he passed through the open gate, he realised that Hunnewell had written truly when he said "Carcassonne is a romance of travel." For he went into a town so quiet, into streets so still, so weed-grown, and lonely, and yet so well built, that he felt as a "fairy prince" who has penetrated into some enchanted castle, and it seemed as if the inhabitants were asleep in the upper rooms, behind those bowed windows, and as if, when the mysterious word of disenchantment should be uttered, all would come trooping forth, men-at-arms hurrying to clean their rusty swords, old women trudging along to fill their dusty pitchers at the well, and younger women staring from doors and windows to see the stranger within their streets.

The Cadets de Gascogne knew the city before the evil spell of modern times was cast about it. They know and miss it now. And although they may no longer wear the plumed hat and clanking sword of their ancestors, the spirit beneath their more conventional garb is as gay and daring as that of Cadets more picturesque. They have conceived a plan as exciting as any old adventure, an idea which they present to the world, not as Cyrano, their most famous member, was wont to convey his thoughts at the end of a sword, but none the less dexterously and delightfully. This plan, like the magic word of the traveller's fancy, is to make the old Carcassonne live again, not as the traveller had timidly imagined, in time of peace, but in the stirring times of war and battle, and its magic word is "the siege of Carcassonne." Truly it is but a matter of bengal lights, blank cartridges, and fire-crackers, though for the matter of that, Cinderella's coach was but a pumpkin, yet the effect was none the less real.



On the evening of "the siege," a rare, great fete, the forces of the Cadets with their lights and ammunition are in the "upper town", and long before dark, their friends and every inhabitant of the country for miles around have gathered in the houses which face the Cite, on the bridges, and along the banks of the little Aude. As the sunlight fades and the shadows creep along, a strange feeling of expectancy comes over everybody, a hush, almost a dread of danger. The towers on the hill-top loom dark against the sky and the battlements bristle in the moonlight, no sound comes from the Cite, and it seems to lay in unconcerned security. Memories of besieging armies which have vainly encamped in this valley return to the traveller's mind, memories of the treacheries of Simon de Montfort, and he wonders if any "crusading" sentinel ever paced where he now stands watching along the Aude, if any spy or even the terrible Simon himself had ever crept so near the walls to reconnoitre. Suddenly every one is startled by the sound of distant shots, which are repeated nearer the walls. Every one peers into the darkness. There is no sign of life on wall or tower, the attacking force must still be climbing the hill, out of range of the stones and burning oil of the defenders. More shots are fired, and now there are answering shots from the besieged; and so naturally does the din increase, that one can follow, by listening, the progress of the attack and the slow, sure gain of the invader. Some of the illusion of the anxiety and mental tension which war brings, steals over the watching crowd, and they breathlessly await the outcome of the struggle. The attacking party is now seen under the walls—now on them—they throw wads of burning cotton, which are at first extinguished. They still gain—they fire the walls in several places; and the defenders, who can be seen in the flashes of light, run frantically to the danger spots; but they are gradually overcome, beaten back by the intensity of the heat. Flames now burst forth from a tower; there is an explosion, and the fire curls and creeps along the walls unchecked. Another explosion follows, another burst of flames which soar higher and higher. The men of the Cite seem still more frantic and powerless. All the towers now stand out in bold relief,—as if they were just about to crumble into the seething mass below. Roofs within the walls are on fire, and finally a red tongue licks the turret of the Cathedral. In a few seconds its walls are hideously aglow, and the people in the valley—although they know the truth—groan aloud, so real is the illusion. The nave lines of the Cathedral are silhouetted as it burns, the fires along the walls growing brighter, spread gradually at first,—then rapidly, and the whole Cite is the prey of great, waving clouds of flame and smoke. Men and women, as if fascinated by this lurid and magnificent destruction, press forward to get the last view of the Cathedral's lovely rose, or the peaked roof of some tower which is dear to them. But slowly the deep red flames are growing paler, less strong, and less high. Then the glare, too, begins to die away; the fire turns to smoke and the light becomes grey and misty. "It is all over," some one whispers, and with backward glances at the charred, smoldering hill-top, they turn silently towards home.

A few, sitting on the stone parapet of the bridge, remain to talk of the evening's magic, of the inspiration of the Cadets de Gascogne, and other scenes which their memory suggests, of wars and rumours of other wars. And when at length they turn to go, they see the moonlight on the glimmering Aude, the peaceful lower city, and above, Carcassonne—the Invincible—rising from her ashes.



The Cathedral of the Cite is worthy of great protecting walls and there are few churches whose destruction would have been so sad a blow to the architecture of the Midi. Saint-Nazaire is typical at once of the originality of the southern builders, of their idealism, and their joyous freedom from conventional thrall. The facade, straight, and massive, has the frowning severity of an old donjon wall. Its towers are solid masses of heavy stone; instead of spires, there are crenellations; instead of graceful flying-buttresses at the sides, there are solid, upright supports on the firm, plain side-walls. This is the true old Romanesque. A few steps further, and the apse appears, as great a contrast to the body of the church as a bit of Mechlin lace to a coat-of-mail. A little tower with gargoyles, another with a fine-carved turret, windows whose delicate traceries could be broken by a blow, and an upper balustrade which would have been as easily crushed as an egg-shell in the hands of the lusty Huguenots,—these are the ornaments of its wall, as true XIV century Gothic as the nave is XII century Romanesque. It is sadly disappointing to find the Cloisters in uninteresting ruin, but the church within is so full of great beauty that all other things are unimportant. The windows glow in the glory of their glass, and the tombs, especially those of the lower Chapel of the Bishop, are wonderfully carved. The first burial place of de Montfort, terrible persecutor of his Church's foes, lies near the High Altar, and in the wall, there is a rude bas-relief representing his siege of Toulouse. All these admirable details are puny in comparison with the interior which contains them. It is to be feared that often, too little time is spent upon the nave. Even in mid-day, lighted by the southern sun, its beautiful, severe lines are mellowed but little, and one turns too instinctively to the Gothic, the greater lightness beyond. Yet it is a nave of exceedingly fine, rugged strength, and to pass on lightly, to belittle it in comparison with its brighter choir, is to wantonly miss in the great round columns, the heavy piers, and the dark tunnel vaulting, the conception of generations of men who had ever before their mind—and literally believed—"A mighty fortress is our God." The choir is of the XIV century, a day when the "beauty of holiness" seems to have been the Cathedral architect's ideal. Delicate, clustered columns from which Saints look down, long windows beautifully veined, a glorious rose at each transept's end, and high vault arches springing with a slender pointed grace, all these are of exquisite proportions; and the brilliant stained-glass adds a softening warmth of colour, but not too great a glow, to the cold fragility of the shafts of stone. Nothing in the Gothic art of the South, little of Gothic elsewhere, is more thoughtfully and lovingly wrought than this choir of Saint-Nazaire, and few churches in the Romanesque form are more finely constructed than its nave. On the exterior, the Gothic choir and the Romanesque nave are so different in style it seems they must be, perforce, antagonistic, that the grace of the Gothic must make Romanesque plainness appear dull, or that the noble simplicity of the rounded arch must cause the Gothic arches, here so particularly tall and slender, to seem almost fragile and undignified. In reality, this juxtaposition of the styles has justified itself; and passing from one to the other, the traveller is more impressed by the subtle analogies they suggest than by the differences of their architectural forms. On week-days, when the church is empty, they seem to prefigure the two ideals of the religion which they serve—the stern, self-conquering asceticism of a Saint Dominic, and the exquisite, radiant visions which Saint Cecelia saw when heavenly music was vouchsafed her. Or, if one has time to fancy further, the nave is the epic of its great religion; the choir, a song which is the expression of most delicate aspiration, most tender worship. On Sunday, when to this beauty of the godly habitation is added all the beauty of worship, the music of the oldest organs in France, slow-moving priests in gorgeous vestments, sweet smelling incense, chants, and prayers of a most majestic ritual, one is tempted to read into these stones symbolical meanings,—as if the heavy nave, where the dim praying figures kneel, were typical of their life of struggle—and their glances altarward, where all is light and beauty, presaged their final coming into the presence and glory of God.



Hunnewell has finely written, that "while the passions and the terrors of a fierce, rude age made unendurable the pleasant land where we may travel now so peacefully, ... and while Religion, grown political, forgot the mercy of its Lord and ruled supreme, ... an earnest faith and consecrated genius were creating some of the noblest tributes man has offered to his Creator," and it may be truly said that of these one of the noblest is the church begun in that most cruel age of Saint Dominic and de Montfort, in the very heart of the country they laid waste, in the city which one conquered by ruse and the other tortured by inquisition, the old Cathedral of Saint-Nazaire in Carcassonne.

[Sidenote: Castres.]

In the VII century Castres, which had been the site of a Roman camp, became that of a Benedictine Abbey; and around this foundation, as about so many others, a town grew through the Middle Ages, and came safely to prosperity and importance. Untrue to its early protectors and in opposition to the fervent orthodoxy of the neighbouring city of Albi, Castres became a Protestant stronghold, and its fortunes rose and fell with the chances of religious wars. It was, perhaps, one of the most intrepid and obstinate of all the centres of heresy, and the centuries of struggle seem only to have strengthened the fierceness of its faith. In 1525, when the Duke de Rohan was absent and a royal army again summoned it to submission and conversion, the Duchess had herself carried from a sick bed to the gate of the city which was threatened, and it is related that the inhabitants of all classes, men, women, and children, without distinction of sex or age, armed themselves and rushed victoriously to her aid. Thirty-five years later, their children sacked churches, destroyed altars and images, and drove out monks and nuns.

Bellicose incidents make history a thrilling story, but they are accompanied by such material destruction that they too often rob a city of its greatest treasures, and leave it, as far as architectural interest is concerned, an arid waste. Such a place is Castres, prosperous, industrial, historically dramatic, but actually commonplace. Old houses, picturesque and mouldy, with irregular, overhanging eaves, lean along the banks of the little river as they are wont to line the banks of every old stream of the Midi, and they are nearly all the remains of Castres' Mediaevalism. For her streets are well-paved, trolleys pass to and fro, department stores are frequent, and that most modern of vehicles, the automobile, does not seem anachronistic. No building could be more in harmony with the city's atmosphere of uninteresting prosperity than its Cathedral, and he who enters in search of beauty and repose, is doomed to miserable disappointment.

Confronted in the XIV century by a growing heresy, John XXII devised, among other less Christian methods of combat, that of the creations of Sees, whose power and dignity of rank should check the progress of the enemies of the Church; and in 1317, that year which saw the beginning of so many of these new Sees, the old Benedictine Abbey of Castres, lying in the very centre of Protestantism, was created a Bishopric. The century, if unpropitious to Catholicism, was favourable to architecture, the Abbey was of ancient foundation, and from either of these facts, a fine Cathedral might reasonably be hoped for,—a dim Abbey-church whose rounded arches are lost in the gloom of its vaulting, or a bit of southern Gothic which the newly consecrated prelate might have ambitiously planned. But the Cathedral of Saint-Benoit is neither of these, for it was re-constructed in the XVII century, the XVII century in all its confusion of ideas, all its lack of taste, all its travesty of styles. There is the usual multitude of detail, the usual unworthiness. Portals which have no beauty, an expanse of unfinished facade, dark, ugly walls whose bareness is not sufficiently hidden by the surrounding houses, heavy buttresses, ridiculously topped off by globes of stone,—such are the salient features of the exterior of Saint-Benoit.

The "spaciousness" of the interior has given room, if not for an impartial representation, at least for a reminder of all the styles of architecture to which the XVII century was heir. There is the Renaissance conception of the antique in the ornamental columns; in the rose-window, there is a tribute to the Gothic; the tradition of the South is maintained by a coat of colours—many, if subdued; and the ground plan of nave and side-chapels might be called Romanesque. Although the vaulting is high and the room large, there is no simplicity, no beauty, no artistic virtue in this interior.

Opposite the church is the episcopal Palace which Mansart built, a large construction that serves admirably as a City Hall. Behind it, along the river, are the charming gardens designed by Le Notre, where Bishops walked and meditated, looking upon their not too faithful city of Castres. Upon this very ground was the ancient Abbey and close of the Benedictines; and as if in memory of these monkish predecessors, Bishop and builder of the XVII century left in an angle of the Palace the old Abbey-tower. This is the treasure of Castres' past, a Romanesque belfry with the pointed roofing of the campanile of Italy, heavy in comparison with their grace, and stout and strong.

[Sidenote: Toulouse.]

Toulouse is one of the most charming cities of the South of France. It is also one of the largest; but in spite of its size, it is neither noisy nor stupidly conventional; it is, on the contrary, an ideal provincial "capital," where everything, even the climate, corresponds to our preconceived and somewhat romantic ideal of the southern type. When the wind blows from the desert it comes with fierce and sudden passion, the sun shines hot, and under the awnings of the open square, men fan themselves lazily during a long lunch hour. Under this appearance of semi-tropical languor, there is the persistent energy of the great southern peoples, an energy none the less real because it is broken by the long siestas, the leisurely meal-times, and the day-time idling, which seem so shiftless and so strange to northern minds. This is the energy, however, which has made Toulouse a rich, opulent city,—a city with broad boulevards, open squares, and fine buildings, and a city of the gay Renaissance rather than of the stern Middle Ages. Yet for Toulouse the Middle Ages were a dark time. What could be gotten by the sword was taken by the sword, and even the mind of man, in that gross age, was forced and controlled by the agony of his body. It is a time whose most peaceful outward signs, the churches, have been preserved to Toulouse, and the war-signs, towers, walls, and fortifications, dungeons, and the torture-irons of inquisition, are now—and wisely—hidden or destroyed. Of the fierce tragedies which were played in Toulouse, even to the days of the great Revolution, few traces remain,—the stern, orthodox figure of Simon de Montfort, and of Count Raymond, his too politic foe, and the anguish of the Crusaders' siege, the bent form of Jean Calas and the shrewd, keen face of Voltaire, who vindicated him from afar, these memories seem dimmed; and those which live are of light-hearted troubadours and gaily dressed ladies of the city of the gay, insouciant Renaissance to whom an auto-da-fe was a gala between the blithesome robing of the morning and the serenade in the moonlight. Fierce and steadfast, sentimentally languishing, dying for a difference of faith, or dying as violently to avenge the insult of a frown or a lifted eye-brow, such are the Languedocians whom Toulouse evokes, near to the Gascons and akin to them. Here is the Academie des Jeux-Floreaux, the "College of Gay Wit" which was founded in the XIV century, and still distributes on the third of every May prizes of gold and silver flowers to poets, and writers of fine prose; and here are many "hotels" of the Renaissance, rich and beautiful homes of the old Toulousan nobility whose courts are all too silent. Here is the Hotel du Vieux-Raisin, the Maison de Pierre, and the Hotel d'Assezat where Jeanne d'Albret lived; and near-by is a statue of her son, the strongest, sanest, and most debonnaire of all the great South-men, Henry of Navarre. Here in Toulouse is indeed material for a thousand fancies.



And here the Cathedral-seeker, who had usually had the proud task of finding the finest building in every city he visited, was doomed to disappointment. In vain he tried to console himself with the fact that Toulouse had had two Cathedrals. Of one there was no trace; in the other, confusion; and he was met with the axiom, true in architecture as in other things, that two indifferent objects do not make one good one. The "Dalbade," formerly the place of worship of the Knights of Malta, has a more elegant tower; the Church of the Jacobins a more interesting one; the portal of the old Chartreuse is more beautiful; the Church of the Bull, more curious; and the Basilica of Saint-Sernin so interesting and truly glorious that the Cathedral pales in colourless insignificance.

THE END