Chapter XII: Introduction (8)

If any feature of remark exists to excite undue criticism, it is that of a certain incongruity or mixture of style, which, while not widely separated in point of time, has great variation as to excellence.

In spite of this there is, in the general _ensemble_, an imposing picturesqueness to which distance lends the proverbial degree of enchantment.

The warm mouse-coloured cathedral and its archbishop's palace, when seen in conjunction with the modern ornamental gardens and _escalier_ at the rear, produces an effect more nearly akin to an Italian composition than anything of a like nature in France.

It is an _ensemble_ most interesting and pleasing, but as a worthy artistic effort it does perhaps fall short of the ideal.

The westerly towers are curious heavy works after the "French Classical" manner in vogue during the reign of Louis XIV. They are not beautiful of themselves, and quite unexpressive of the sanctity which should surround a great church.

The portal is richly decorated, and contains statues of St. Roche and St. Austinde. It has been called an "imitation of the portal of St. Peter's at Rome," but this is an opinion wholly unwarranted by a personal acquaintance therewith. The two bear no resemblance except that they are both very inferior to the magnificent Gothic portals of the north.

The interior embellishments are as mixed as to style, and of as varied worth, as those of the exterior.

The painted glass (by a Gascon artist, Arnaud de Moles, 1573) is usually reckoned as of great beauty. This it hardly is, though of great value and importance as showing the development of the art which produced it. The colour is rich,--which it seldom is in modern glass,--but the design is coarse and crude, a distinction that most modern glass has as well. _Ergo_, we have not advanced greatly in this art.

The chief feature of artistic merit is the series of one hundred and thirteen choir-stalls, richly and wonderfully carved in wood. If not the superior to any others in France, these remarkable examples of Renaissance woodwork are the equal of any, and demonstrate, once again, that it was in wood-carving, rather than sculptures in stone, that Renaissance art achieved its greatest success.

A distinct feature is the disposition made of the accessories of the fine choir. It is surrounded by an elaborate screen, surmounted by sculpture of a richness quite uncommon in any but the grander and more wealthy churches.

Under the reign of St. Louis many of the grand cathedrals and the larger monastic churches were grandly favoured with this accessory, notably at Amiens and Beauvais, at Burgos in Spain, and at Canterbury.

Here the elaborate screen was designed to protect the ranges of stalls and their canopied _dossiers_, and give a certain seclusion to the chapter and officiants.

Elsewhere--out of regard for the people it is to be presumed--this feature was in many known instances done away with, and the material of which it was constructed--often of great richness--made use of in chapels subsequently erected in the walls of the apside or in the side aisles of the nave. This is to be remarked at Rodez particularly, where the reërected _clôture_ is still the show-piece of the cathedral.

The organ _buffet_ is, as usual (in the minds of the local resident), a remarkably fine piece of cabinet-work and nothing more. One always qualifies this by venturing the opinion that no one ever really does admire these overpowering and ungainly accessories.

What triforium there is is squat and ugly, with ungraceful openings, and the high-altar is a modern work in the pseudo-classic style, quite unworthy as a work of art.

The five apsidal chapels are brilliant with coloured glass, but otherwise are not remarkable.

In spite of all incongruity, Ste. Marie d'Auch is one of those fascinating churches in and about which one loves to linger. It is hard to explain the reason for this, except that its environment provides the atmosphere which is the one necessary ingredient to a full realization of the appealing qualities of a stately church.

The archiepiscopal palace adjoins the cathedral in the rear, and has a noble _donjon_ of the fourteenth century. Its career of the past must have been quite uneventful, as history records no very bloody or riotous events which have taken place within or before its walls.

Fénelon was a student at the College of Auch, and his statue adorns the Promenade du Fossé.

XIII

ST. ETIENNE DE TOULOUSE

The provincialism of Toulouse has been the theme of many a French writer of ability,--offensively provincial, it would seem from a consensus of these written opinions.

"Life and movement in abundance, but what a life!" ... "The native is saved from coarseness by his birth, but after a quarter of an hour the substratum shows itself." ... "The working girl is graceful and has the vivacity of a bird, but there is nothing in her cackle." ... "How much more beautiful are the stars that mirror themselves in the gutter of the Rue du Bac." ... "There is a yelp in the accents of the people of the town."

Contrariwise we may learn also that "the water is fine," "the quays are fine," and "fine large buildings glow in the setting sun in bright and softened hues," and "in the far distance lies the chain of the Pyrenees, like a white bed of watery clouds," and "the river, dressed always in smiling verdure, gracefully skirts the city."

These pessimistic and optimistic views of others found the contributors to this book in somewhat of a quandary as to the manner of mood and spirit in which they should approach this provincial capital.

They had heard marvels of its Romanesque church of St. Saturnin, perhaps the most perfect and elaborate of any of its kind in all France; of the curious amalgamated edifice, now the cathedral of St. Etienne, wherein two distinct church bodies are joined by an unseemly ligature; of the church of the Jacobins; and of the "seventy-seven religious establishments" enumerated by Taine.

All these, or less, were enough to induce one to cast suspicion aside and descend upon the city with an open mind.

Two things one must admit: Toulouse does somewhat approach the gaiety of a capital, and it _is_ provincial.

Its list of attractions for the visitor is great, and its churches numerous and splendid, so why carp at the "ape-like manners" of the corner loafers, who, when all is said, are vastly less in number here than in many a northern centre of population.

The Musée is charming, both as to the disposition of its parts and its contents. It was once a convent, and has a square courtyard or promenade surrounded by an arcade. The courtyard is set about with green shrubs, and a lofty brick tower, pierced with little arched windows and mullioned with tiny columns, rises skyward in true conventual fashion.

Altogether the Musée, in the attractiveness of its fabric and the size and importance of its collections, must rank, for interest to the tourist, at the very head of those outside Paris itself.

As for the churches, there are many, the three greatest of which are the cathedral of St. Etienne, St. Saturnin, and the Église des Jacobins; in all is to be observed the universal application or adoption of _des matériaux du pays_--bricks.

In the cathedral tower, and in that of the Église des Jacobins, a Gothic scheme is worked out in these warm-toned bricks, and forms, in contrast with the usual execution of a Gothic design, a most extraordinary effect; not wholly to the detriment of the style, but certainly not in keeping with the original conception and development of "pointed" architecture.

In 1863 Viollet-le-Duc thoroughly and creditably restored St. Saturnin at great expense, and by this treatment it remains to-day as the most perfectly preserved work extant of its class.

It is vast, curious, and in a rather mixed style, though thoroughly Latin in motive.

It is on the border-line of two styles; of the Italian, with respect to the full semicircular arches and vaulting of the nave and aisles; the square pillars destitute of all ornament, except another column standing out in flat relief--an intimation of the quiet and placid force of their functions.

With the transition comes a change in the flowered capitals, from the acanthus to tracery and grotesque animals.

There are five domes covering the five aisles, each with a semicircular vault. The walls, with their infrequent windows, are very thick.

The delightful belfry--of five octagonal stages--which rises from the crossing of the transepts, presents, from the outside, a fine and imposing arrangement. So, too, the chapelled choir, with its apse of rounded vaults rising in imposing tiers. This fine church is in direct descent from the Roman manner; built and developed as a simple idea, and, like all antique and classical work,--approaching purity,--is a living thing, in spite of the fact that it depicts the sentiment of a dead and gone past.

It might not be so successfully duplicated to-day, but, considering that St. Saturnin dates from the eleventh century, its commencement was sufficiently in the remote past to allow of its having been promulgated under a direct and vigorous Roman influence.

The brick construction of St. Saturnin and of the cathedral is not of that justly admired quality seen in the ancient Convent of the Jacobins, which dates from the thirteenth century. Here is made perhaps the most beautiful use of this style of mediæval building. It is earlier than the Pont de Montauban, the churches at Moissac or Lombez, and even the cathedral at Albi, but much later than the true Romanesque brickwork, which alternated rows of brick with other materials.

The builders of Gallo-Romain and Merovingian times favoured this earlier method, but work in this style is seldom met with of a later date than the ninth century.

The Église of St. Saturnin shows, in parts, brickwork of a century earlier than the Église des Jacobins, but, as before said, it is not so beautiful.

When the Renaissance came to deal with _brique_, it did not do so badly. Certainly the domestic and civil establishments of Touraine in this style--to particularize only one section--are very beautiful. Why the revival was productive of so much thorough badness when it dealt with stone is one of the things which the expert has not as yet attempted to explain; at least, not convincingly.

The contrasting blend of the northern and southern motive in the hybrid cathedral at Toulouse will not remain unnoticed for long after the first sensation of surprise at its curious ground-plan passes off.

Here are seen a flamboyant northern choir and aisles in strange juxtaposition with a thirteenth-century single vaulted nave, after the purely indigenous southern manner.

This nave nearly equals in immensity those in the cathedrals of Albi and Bordeaux. It has the great span of sixty-two feet, necessitating the employment of huge buttresses, which would be remarkable anywhere, in order to take the thrust. The unobstructed flooring of this splendid nave lends an added dignity of vastness. Near the vaulted roof are the only apertures in the walls. Windows, as one knows them elsewhere, are practically absent.

The congregations which assemble in this great aisleless nave present a curiously animated effect by reason of the fact that they scatter themselves about in knots or groups rather than crowding against either the altar-rail or pulpit, occasionally even overflowing into the adjoining choir. The nave is entirely unobstructed by decorations, such as screens, pillars, or tombs. It is a mere shell, _sans_ gallery, _sans_ aisles, and _sans_ triforium.

The development of the structure from the individual members of nave and choir is readily traced, and though these parts show not the slightest kind of relationship one to the other, it is from these two fragmentary churches that the completed, if imperfect, whole has been made.

The west front, to-day more than ever, shows how badly the cathedral has been put together; the uncovered bricks creep out here and there, and buildings to the left, which formerly covered the incongruous joint between the nave and choir, are now razed, making the patchwork even more apparent. The square tower which flanks the portal to the north is not unpleasing, and dates from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The portal is not particularly beautiful, and is bare of decorations of note. It appears to have been remodelled at some past time with a view to conserving the western rose window.

There are no transepts or collateral chapels, which tends to make the ground-plan the more unusual and lacking in symmetry.

The choir (1275-1502) is really very beautiful, taken by itself, far more so than the nave, from which it is extended on a different axis.

It was restored after a seventeenth-century fire, and is supposed to be less beautiful to-day than formerly.

There are seventeen chapels in this choir, with much coloured glass of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, all with weird polychromatic decorations in decidedly bad taste.

Toulouse became a bishopric in the third century, with St. Saturnin as its first bishop. It was raised to the rank of archiepiscopal dignity in 1327, a distinction which it enjoys to-day in company with Narbonne. Six former suffragan bishoprics, Pamiers, Rieux, Mirepoix, Saint-Papoul, Lombez, and Lavaur were suppressed at the Revolution.

In the magnificent Musée of the city is _un petit monument_, without an inscription, but bearing a cross _gammée_ or _Swastika_, and a palm-leaf, symbols of the divine Apollo and Artemis. It seems curious that this tiny record in stone should have been found, as it was, in the mountains which separate the sources of the Garonne and the Adour, as the _Swastika_ is a symbol supposedly indigenous to the fire and sun-worshippers of the East, where it figures in a great number of their monuments.

It is called, by the local antiquary, a Pyrenean altar. If this is so, it is of course of pagan origin, and is in no way connected with Christian art.

XIV

ST. NAZAIRE DE CARCASSONNE

With old and new Carcassonne one finds a contrast, if not as great as between the hyphenated Hungarian cities of Buda and Pest, at least as marked in detail.

In most European settlements, where an old municipality adjoins a modern one, walls have been razed, moats filled, and much general modernization has been undertaken.

With Carcassonne this is not so; its winding ways, its _culs-de-sacs_, narrow alleys, and towering walls remain much as they always were, and the great stronghold of the Middle Ages, vulnerable--as history tells--from but one point, remains to-day, after its admirable restoration of roof and capstone, much as it was in the days when modern Carcassonne was but a scattering hamlet beneath the walls of the older fortification.

One thing will always be recalled, and that is that a part of the _enceinte_ of the ancient _Cité_ was a construction of the sixth century--the days of the Visigoths--and that its subsequent development into an almost invulnerable fortress was but the endorsement which later centuries gave to the work and forethought of a people who were supposed to possess no arts, and very little of ingenuity.

This should suggest a line of investigation to one so minded; while for us, who regard the ancient walls merely as a boundary which sheltered and protected a charming Gothic church, it is perhaps sufficient to recall the inconsistency in many previous estimates as to what great abilities, if any, the Goths possessed.

If it is true that the Visigoths merely followed Roman tradition, so much the more creditable to them that they preserved these ancient walls to the glory of those who came after, and but added to the general plan.

Old and new Carcassonne, as one might call them, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had each their own magistrates and a separate government. The _Cité_, elevated above the _ville_, held also the garrison, the _presidial_ seat, and the first seneschalship of the province.

The bishopric of the _Cité_ is not so ancient as the _ville_ itself; for the first prelate there whose name is found upon record was one Sergius, "who subscribed to a 'Council' held at Narbonne in 590."

St. Hilaire, who founded the abbey at Poitiers, came perhaps before Sergius, but his tenure is obscure as to its exact date.

The cathedral of St. Michel, in the lower town, has been, since 1803, the seat of the bishop's throne.

It is a work unique, perhaps, in its design, but entirely unfeeling and preposterous in its overelaborate decorations. It has a long parallelogram-like nave, "_entièrement peinte_," as the custodian refers to it. It has, to be sure, a grand vault, strong and broad, but there are no aisles, and the chapels which flank this gross nave are mere painted boxes.

Episcopal dignity demanded that some show of importance should be given to the cathedral, and it was placed in the hands of Viollet-le-Duc in 1849 for restoration. Whatever his labours may have been, he doubtless was not much in sympathy with this clumsy fabric, and merely "restored" it in some measure approaching its twelfth-century form.

It is with St. Nazaire de Carcassonne, the tiny _église_ of the old _Cité_ and the _ci-devant_ cathedral that we have to do.

This most fascinating church, fascinating for itself none the less than its unique environment, is, in spite of the extended centuries of its growth, almost the equal in the purity of its Gothic to that of St. Urbain at Troyes. And this, in spite of evidences of rather bad joining up of certain warring constructive elements.

The structure readily composes itself into two distinct parts: that of the Romanesque (round arch and barrel vault) era and that of the Gothic of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

No consideration of St. Nazaire de Carcassonne is possible without first coming to a realization of the construction and the functions of the splendidly picturesque and effective ramparts which enclosed the ancient _Cité_, its cathedral, châteaux, and various civil and domestic establishments.

In brief, its history and chronology commences with the Visigoth foundation, extending from the fifth to the eighth centuries to the time (1356) when it successfully resisted the Black Prince in his bloody ravage, by sword and fire, of all of Languedoc.

Legend has it that in Charlemagne's time, after that monarch had besieged the town for many years and was about to raise the siege in despair, a certain tower,--which flanked the château,--defended only by a _Gauloise_ known as _Carcaso_, suddenly gave way and opened a breach by which the army was at last able to enter.

A rude figure perpetuating the fame of this _Madame Carcaso_--a veritable Amazon, it would seem--is still seen, rudely carved, over the Porte Narbonnaise.

It is the inner line of ramparts which dates from the earliest period. The château, the postern-gate, and most of the interior construction are of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, while the outer fortification is of the time of St. Louis, the latter part of the thirteenth century.

The Saracens successfully attacked and occupied the city from 713 to 759, but were routed by Pepin-le-Bref. In 1090 was first founded the strong _vicomtale_ dynasty of the Trencavels. In 1210 the Crusaders, under Simon de Montfort and the implacable Abbot of Citeaux, laid siege to the _Cité_, an act which resulted in the final massacre, fifty of the besieged--who surrendered--being hanged, and four hundred burned alive.

In addition to the walls and ramparts were fifty circular protecting towers. The extreme length of the inner enclosure is perhaps three-quarters of a mile, and of the outer nearly a full mile.

It is impossible to describe the magnitude and splendour of these city walls, which, up to the time of their restoration by Viollet-le-Duc, had scarcely crumbled at all. The upper ranges of the towers, roof-tops, ramparts, etc., had become broken, of course, and the sky-line had become serrated, but the walls, their foundations, and their outline plan had endured as few works of such magnitude have before or since.

Carcassonne, its history, its romance, and its picturesque qualities, has ever appealed to the poet, painter, and historian alike.

Something of the halo of sentiment which surrounds this marvellous fortified city will be gathered from the following praiseful admiration by Gustave Nadaud:

CARCASSONNE

"'I'm growing old, I've sixty years;
I've laboured all my life in vain;
In all that time of hopes and fears
I've failed my dearest wish to gain;
I see full well that here below
Bliss unalloyed there is for none.
My prayer will ne'er fulfilment know;
I never have seen Carcassonne,
I never have seen Carcassonne!

"'You see the city from the hill--
It lies beyond the mountains blue,
And yet to reach it one must still
Five long and weary leagues pursue,
And, to return, as many more!
Ah! had the vintage plenteous grown,
The grape withheld its yellow store!
I shall not look on Carcassonne,
I shall not look on Carcassonne!

"'They tell me every day is there
Not more nor less than Sunday gay;
In shining robes and garments fair
The people walk upon their way.
One gazes there on castle walls
As grand as those of Babylon,
A bishop and two generals!
I do not know fair Carcassonne,
I do not know fair Carcassonne!

"'The curé's right; he says that we
Are ever wayward, weak, and blind;
He tells us in his homily
Ambition ruins all mankind;
Yet could I there two days have spent,
While the autumn sweetly shone,
Ah, me! I might have died content
When I had looked on Carcassonne,
When I had looked on Carcassonne!

"'Thy pardon, Father, I beseech,
In this my prayer if I offend;
One something sees beyond his reach
From childhood to his journey's end.
My wife, our little boy, Aignan,
Have travelled even to Narbonne,
My grandchild has seen Perpignan,
And I have not seen Carcassonne,
And I have not seen Carcassonne!'

"So crooned one day, close by Limoux,
A peasant double bent with age,
'Rise up, my friend,' said I, 'with you
I'll go upon this pilgrimage.'
We left next morning his abode,
But (Heaven forgive him) half way on
The old man died upon the road;
He never gazed on Carcassonne,
Each mortal has his Carcassonne!"

St. Nazaire is possessed of a Romanesque nave which dates from 1096, but the choir and transepts are of the most acceptable Gothic forms of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

This choir is readily accounted as a masterwork of elegance, is purely northern in style and treatment, and possesses also those other attributes of the _perfectionnement_ of the style--fine glass, delicate fenestration, and superlative grace throughout, as contrasted with the heavier and more cold details of the Romanesque variety.

The nave was dedicated by Urbain II., and was doubtless intended for defence, if its square, firmly bedded towers and piers are suggestive of that quality. The principal _porte_--it does not rise to the grandeur of a _portail_--is a thorough Roman example. The interior, with its great piers, its rough barrel-vault, and its general lack of grace and elegance, bespeaks its functions as a stronghold. A Romanesque tower in its original form stands on the side which adjoins the ramparts.

With the choir comes the contrast, both inside and out.

The apside, the transepts, the eleven gorgeous windows, and the extreme grace of its piers and vaulting, all combine in the fullest expression of the architectural art of its time.

This admirable Gothic addition was the work of Bishop Pierre de Rochefort in 1321. The transept chapels and the apse are framed with light soaring arches, and the great easterly windows are set with brilliant glass.

In a side chapel is the former tomb of Simon de Montfort, whose remains were buried here in 1218. At a subsequent time they were removed to Montfort l'Amaury in the Isle of France. Another remarkable tomb is that of Bishop Radulph (1266). It shows an unusually elaborate sculptured treatment for its time, and is most ornate and beautiful.

In the choir are many fine fourteenth-century statues; a tomb with a sleeping figure, thought to be that of Bishop du Puy of Carcassonne; statues of the Virgin, St. Nazaire, and the twelve apostles; an elaborate high-altar; and a pair of magnificent candlesticks, bearing the arms of Bishop Martin (1522).

An eleventh-century crypt lies beneath the choir. The sacristy, as it is to-day, was formerly a thirteenth-century chapel.

The organ is commonly supposed to be the most ancient in France. It is not of ranking greatness as a work of art, but it is interesting to know that it has some redeeming quality, aside from its conventional ugliness.

The _tour carrée_, which is set in the inner rampart just in front of the cathedral, is known as the Bishop's Tower. It is a tower of many stages, and contains some beautifully vaulted chambers.

The celebrated _tour des Visigoths_, which is near by, is the most ancient of all.

The entrance to the old _Cité_ is _via_ the Pont Vieux, which is itself a mediæval twelfth or thirteenth century architectural monument of rare beauty. In the middle of this old bridge is a very ancient iron cross.

XV

CATHÉDRALE DE PAMIERS

"Une _petite ville sur la rive droite de l'Ariège, siege d'un évêche_." These few words, with perhaps seven accompanying lines, usually dismiss this charming little Pyrenean city, so far as information for the traveller is concerned.

It is, however, one of these neglected tourist points which the traveller has ever passed by in his wild rush "across country."

To be sure, it is considerably off the beaten track; so too are its neighbouring ancient bishoprics of Mirepoix and St. Bertrand de Comminges, and for that reason they are comparatively unspoiled.

The great and charming attraction of Pamiers is its view of the serrated ridge of the Pyrenees from the _promenade de Castellat_, just beyond the cathedral.

For the rest, the cathedral, the fortified _Église de Notre Dame du Camp_, the ancient _Église de Cordeliers_, the many old houses, and the general sub-tropical aspect of the country round about, all combine to present attractions far more edifying and gratifying than the allurements of certain of the Pyrenean "watering-places."

The cathedral itself is not a great work; its charm, as before said, lies in its environments.

Its chief feature--and one of real distinction--is its octagonal _clocher_, in brick, dating from the fourteenth century. It is a singularly graceful tower, built after the local manner of the _Midi_ of France, of which St. Saturnin and the Église des Jacobins at Toulouse are the most notable.

Its base is a broad square machicolated foundation with no openings, and suggests, as truly as does the tower at Albi, a churchly stronghold unlikely to give way before any ordinary attack.

In the main, the church is a rebuilt, rather than a restored edifice. The nave, and indeed nearly all of the structure, except its dominant octagonal tower, is of the seventeenth century. This work was undertaken and consummated by Mansart after the manner of that period, and is far more acceptable than the effect produced by most "restored churches."

The eleventh-century abbey of St. Antoine formed originally the seat of the throne of the first bishop of Pamiers, Bernard Saisset, in 1297.

XVI

ST. BERTRAND DE COMMINGES

To-day St. Bertrand de Comminges, the ancient _Lugdunum Convenarum_ (through which one traces its communistic foundation), is possessed of something less than six hundred inhabitants. Remains of the Roman ramparts are yet to be seen, and its _ci-devant_ cathedral,--of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries--suppressed in 1790, still dominates the town from its heights. Arthur Young, writing in the eighteenth century, describes its situation thus: "The mountains rise proudly around and give their rough frame to this exquisite little picture."

The diocese grew out of the monkish community which had settled here in the sixth century, when the prelate Suavis became its first bishop. To-day the nearest bishop's seat is at Tarbes, in the archbishopric of Auch.

As to architectural style, the cathedral presents what might ordinarily be called an undesirable mixture, though it is in no way uninteresting or even unpleasing.

The west front has a curious Romanesque doorway, and there is a massiveness of wall and buttress which the rather diminutive proportions of the general plan of the church make notably apparent. Otherwise the effect, from a not too near view-point, is one of a solidity and firmness of building only to be seen in some of the neighbouring fortress-churches.

A tower of rather heavy proportions is to-day capped with a pyramidal slate or timbered apex after the manner of the western towers at Rodez. From a distance, this feature has the suggestion of the development of what may perhaps be a local type of _clocher_. Closer inspections, when its temporary nature is made plain, disabuses this idea entirely. It is inside the walls that the great charm of this church lies. It is elaborately planned, profuse in ornament,--without being in any degree redundant,--and has a warmth and brilliancy which in most Romanesque interiors is wanting.

This interior is representative, on a small scale, of that class of structure whose distinctive feature is what the French architect calls a _nef unique_, meaning, in this instance, one of those great single-chambered churches without aisles, such as are found at Perpignan, new Carcassonne, Lodève, and in a still more amplified form at Albi.

There are of course no aisles; and for a length of something over two hundred feet, and a breadth of fifty-five, the bold vault--in the early pointed style--roofs one of the most attractive and pleasing church interiors it is possible to conceive.

Of the artistic accessories it is impossible to be too enthusiastic. There are sixty-six choir-stalls, most elaborately carved in wood--perhaps mahogany--of a deep rich colouring seldom seen. Numerous other sculptured details in wood and stone set off with unusual effect the great and well-nigh windowless side walls.

The organ _buffet_ of Renaissance workmanship--as will naturally be inferred--is a remarkably elaborate work, much more to be admired than many of its contemporaries.

Among the other decorative features are an elaborately conceived "tree of Jesse," an unusually massive rood-loft or _jube_, and a high-altar of much magnificence.

The choir is surrounded by eleven chapels, showing in some instances the pure pointed style, and in the latter ones that of the Renaissance.

A fourteenth-century funeral monument of Bishop Hugh de Castillione is an elaborate work in white marble; while a series of paintings on the choir walls,--illustrating the miracles of St. Bertrand,--though of a certain crudity, tend to heighten the interest without giving that effect of the over-elaboration of irrelative details not unfrequently seen in some larger churches.

At St. Bertrand de Comminges and the cathedrals at Arles, Cavaillon, and Aix-en-Provence, Elne-en-Roussillon, and Le Puy-en-Velay are conserved--in a more or less perfect state of preservation--a series of delightful twelfth-century cloisters. These churches possess this feature in common with the purely monastic houses, whose builders so frequently lavished much thought and care on these enclosed and cloistered courtyards.

As a mere detail--or accessory, if you will,--an ample cloister is expressive of much that is wanting in a great church which lacks this contributory feature.

Frequently this part was the first to succumb to the destroying influence of time, and leave a void for which no amount of latter-day improvement could make up. Even here, while the cloister ranks as one of the most beautiful yet to be seen, it is part in a ruinous condition.

XVII

ST. JEAN-BAPTISTE D'AIRE

This city of the Landes, that wild, bleak region of sand-dunes and shepherds, abuts upon the more prosperous and fertile territory of the valley of the Adour. By reason of this juxtaposition, its daily life presents a series of contrasting elements as quaint and as interesting as those of the bordering Franco-Spanish cities of Perpignan and Bayonne.

From travellers in general, and lovers of architecture in particular, it has ever received but scant consideration, though it is by no means the desert place that early Victorian writers would have us believe. It is in reality a well-built mediæval town, with no very lurid events of the past to its discredit, and, truthfully, with no very marvellous attributes beyond a certain subtle charm and quaintness which is perhaps the more interesting because of its unobtrusiveness.

It has been a centre of Christian activity since the days of the fifth century, when its first bishop, Marcel, was appointed to the diocese by the mother-see of Auch.

The cathedral of St. Jean-Baptiste belongs to the minor class of present-day cathedrals, and is of a decidedly conglomerate architectural style, with no imposing dimensions, and no really vivid or lively details of ornamentation. It was begun in the thirteenth century, and the work of rebuilding and restoration has been carried on well up to the present time.

XVIII

STS. BENOIT ET VINCENT DE CASTRES

Castres will ever rank in the mind of the wayfarer along the byways of the south of France as a marvellous bit of stage scenery, rather than as a collection of profound, or even highly interesting, architectural types.

It is one of those spots into which a traveller drops quite unconsciously _en route_ to somewhere else; and lingers a much longer time than circumstances would seem to justify.

This is perhaps inexplicable, but it is a fact, which is only in a measure accounted for by reason of the "local colour"--whatever that vague term of the popular novelist may mean--and customs which weave an entanglement about one which is difficult to resist.

The river Agout is as weird a stream as its name implies, and divides this haphazard little city of the Tarn into two distinct, and quite characteristically different, parts.

Intercourse between Castres and its faubourg, Villegondom, is carried on by two stone bridges; and from either bank of the river, or from either of the bridges, there is always in a view a ravishingly picturesque _ensemble_ of decrepit walls and billowy roof-tops, that will make the artist of brush and pencil angry with fleeting time.

The former cathedral is not an entrancingly beautiful structure; indeed, it is not after the accepted "good form" of any distinct architectural style. It is a poor battered thing which has suffered hardly in the past; notably at the hands of the Huguenots in 1567. As it stands to-day, it is practically a seventeenth-century construction, though it is yet unfinished and lacks its western façade.

The vaulting of the choir, and the chapels are the only constructive elements which warrant remark. There are a few paintings in the choir, four rather attractive life-size statues, and a series of severe but elegant choir-stalls.

The former _évêché_ is to-day the Hôtel de Ville, but was built by Mansart in 1666, and has a fine _escalier_ in sculptured stone.

As a centre of Christianity, Castres is very ancient. In 647 there was a Benedictine abbey here. The bishopric, however, did not come into being until 1317, and was suppressed in 1790.

XIX

NOTRE DAME DE RODEZ

The cathedral at Rodez, whose diocese dates from the fifth century and whose first bishop was St. Amand, is, in a way, reminiscent--in its majesty of outline and dominant situation--of that at Albi.

It is not, however, after the same manner, but resembles it more particularly with respect to its west façade, which is unpierced in its lower stages by either doorway or window.

Here, too, the entrance is midway in its length, and its front presents that sheer flank of walled barrier which is suggestive of nothing but a fortification.

This great church--for it is truly great, pure and simple--makes up in width what it lacks in length. Its nave and aisles are just covered by a span of one hundred and twenty feet,--a greater dimension than is possessed by Chartres or Rouen, and nearly as great as Paris or Amiens.

Altogether Notre Dame de Rodez is a most pleasing church, though conglomerate as to its architecture, and as bad, with respect to the Renaissance gable of its façade, as any contemporary work in the same style.

Rodez lacks, however, the great enfolding tower central of Albi.

This mellow and warm-toned cathedral, from its beginnings in the latter years of the thirteenth century to the time when the Renaissance cast its dastardly spell over the genius who inspired its original plan, was the result of the persevering though intermittent work of three centuries, and even then the two western towers were left incomplete.

This perhaps was fortunate; otherwise they might have been topped with such an excrescence as looms up over the doorless west façade.

The Gascon compares the pyramidal roofs which cap either tower--and with some justness, too--to the pyramids of Egypt, and for that reason the towers are, to him, the most wonderful in the universe. Subtle humour this, and the observer will have little difficulty in tracing the analogy.

Still, they really are preferable, as a decorative feature, to the tomb-like headboard which surmounts the central gable which they flank. The ground-plan is singularly uniform, with transepts scarcely defined--except in the interior arrangements--and yet not wholly absent.

The elaborate tower, called often and with some justification the _beffroi_, which flanks, or rather indicates, the northerly transept, is hardly pure as to its Gothic details, but it is a magnificent work nevertheless.

It dates from 1510, is two hundred and sixty-five feet high, and is typical of most of the late pointed work of its era. The final stage is octagonal and is surmounted by a statue of the Virgin surrounded by the Evangelists. This statue may or may not be a worthy work of art; it is too elevated, however, for one to decide.

The decorations of the west front, except for the tombstone-like Renaissance gable, are mainly of the same period as the north transept tower, and while perhaps ultra-florid, certainly make a fine appearance when viewed across the _Place d'Armes_.

This west front, moreover, possesses that unusual attribute of a southern church, an elaborate Gothic rose window; and, though it does not equal in size or design such magnificent examples as are seen in the north, at Reims, Amiens, or Chartres, is, after all, a notable detail of its kind.

The choir, chevet, and apside are of massive building, though not lacking grace, in spite of the absence of the _arcs-boutants_ of the best Gothic.

Numerous grotesque gargoyles dot the eaves and gables, though whether of the spout variety or mere symbols of superstition one can hardly tell with accuracy when viewed from the ground level.

The north and south portals of the transepts are of a florid nature, after the manner of most of the decorations throughout the structure, and are acceptable evidence of the ingenious craft of the stone-carver, if nothing more.

The workmanship of these details, however, does not rise to the heights achieved by the architect who outlined the plan and foundation upon which they were latterly imposed. They are, too, sadly disfigured, the tympanum in the north portal having been disgracefully ravished.

The interior arrangements are doubly impressive, not only from the effect of great size, but from the novel colour effect--a sort of dull, glowing pink which seems to pervade the very atmosphere, an effect which contrasts strangely with the colder atmosphere of the Gothic churches of the north. A curious feature to be noted here is that the sustaining walls of the vault rest directly on piers _sans_ capitals; as effective, no doubt, as the conventional manner, but in this case hardly as pleasing.

Two altars, one at either end of nave and choir, duplicate the arrangement seen at Albi.

The organ _buffet_, too, is of the same massiveness and elaborateness, and is consequently an object of supreme pride to the local authorities.

It seems difficult to make these useful and necessary adjuncts to a church interior of the quality of beauty shared by most other accessories, such as screens, altars, and choir-stalls, which, though often of the contemporary Renaissance period, are generally beautiful in themselves. The organ-case, however, seems to run either to size, heaviness, or grotesqueness, or a combination of all. This is true in this case, where its great size, and plentifully besprinkled _rococo_ ornament, and unpleasantly dull and dingy "pipes" are of no æsthetic value whatever. The organ, moreover, occupies the unusual position--in a French church--of being over the western doorway.

The nave is of extreme height, one hundred and ten feet, and is of unusual width, as are also the aisles.

The rose window, before remarked, shows well from the inside, though its glass is not notable.

A series of badly arched lancets in the choir are ungraceful and not in keeping with the other constructive details. The delicately sculptured and foliaged screen or _jubé_ at the crossing is a late fifteenth-century work.

In one of the chapels is now to be seen, in mutilated fragments, the ancient sixteenth-century _clôture du choeur_. It was a remarkable and elaborate work of _bizarre_ stone-carving, which to-day has been reconstructed in some measure approaching its former completeness by the use of still other fragments taken from the episcopal palace. The chief feature as to completeness and perfection is the doorway, which bears two lengthy inscriptions in Latin. The facing of the _clôture_ throughout is covered with a range of pilasters in Arabesque, but the niches between are to-day bare of their statues, if they ever really possessed them.

The choir-stalls and bishop's throne in carved wood are excellent, as also an elaborately carved wooden _grille_ of a mixed Arabesque and Gothic design.

There are four other chapel or alcove screens very nearly as elaborate; all of which features, taken in conjunction one with the other, form an extensive series of embellishments such as is seldom met with.

Two fourteenth-century monuments to former prelates are situated in adjoining chapels, and a still more luxurious work of the same period--the tomb of Gilbert de Cantobre--is beneath an extensive altar which has supposedly Byzantine ornament of the tenth century.

Rodez was the seat of a bishop (St. Amand) as early as the fifth century.

Then, as now, the diocese was a suffragan of Albi, whose first bishop, St. Clair, came to the mother-see in the century previous.

XX

STE. CÉCILE D'ALBI

The cathedral of Ste. Cécile d'Albi is one of the most interesting, as well as one of the most curious, in all France. It possesses a quality, rare among churches, which gives it at once the aspect of both a church and a fortress.

As the representative of a type, it stands at the very head of the splendid fortress-churches of feudal times. The remarkable disposition of its plan is somewhat reflected in the neighbouring cathedral at Rodez and in the church at Esnades, in the Department of the Charente-Inférieure.

In the severe and aggressive lines of the easterly, or choir, end, it also resembles the famous church of St. Francis at Assisi, and the ruined church of Sainte Sophie at Famagousta in the Island of Cyprus.

It has been likened by the imaginative French--and it needs not so very great a stretch of the imagination, either--to an immense vessel. Certainly its lines and proportions somewhat approach such a form; as much so as those of Notre Dame de Noyon, which Stevenson likened to an old-time craft with a high poop. A less æsthetic comparison has been made with a locomotive of gigantic size, and, truth to tell, it is not unlike that, either, with its advancing tower.

The extreme width of the great nave of this church is nearly ninety feet, and its body is constructed, after an unusual manner, of a warm, rosy-coloured brick. In fact the only considerable portions of the structure not so done are the _clôture_ of the choir, the window-mullions, and the flamboyant Gothic porch of the south side.

By reason of its uncommon constructive elements,--though by no means is it the sole representative of its kind in the south of France,--Ste. Cécile stands forth as the most considerable edifice of its kind among those which were constructed after this manner of Roman antiquity.

Brickwork of this nature, as is well known, is very enduring, and it therefore makes much for the lasting qualities of a structure so built; much more so, in fact, than the crumbling soft stone which is often used, and which crumbles before the march of time like lead in a furnace.

Ste. Cécile was begun in 1282, on the ruins of the ancient church of St. Croix. It came to its completion during the latter years of the fourteenth century, when it stood much as it does to-day, grim and strong, but very beautiful.

The only exterior addition of a later time is the before-remarked florid south porch. This _baldaquin_ is very charmingly worked in a light brown stone, and, while flamboyant to an ultra degree, is more graceful in design and execution than most works of a contemporary era which are welded to a stone fabric whose constructive and decorative details are of quite a distinctly different species. In other words, it composes and adds a graceful beauty to the brick fabric of this great church; but likely enough it would offend exceedingly were it brought into juxtaposition with the more slim lines of early Gothic. Its detail here is the very culmination of the height to which Gothic rose before its final debasement, and, in its spirited non-contemporaneous admixture with the firmly planted brick walls which form its background, may be reckoned as a _baroque_ in art rather than as a thing _outré_ or misplaced.

In further explanation of the peculiar fortress-like qualities possessed by Ste. Cécile, it may be mentioned here that it was the outcome of a desire for the safety of the church and its adherents which caused it to take this form. It was the direct result of the terrible wars of the Albigenses, and the political and social conditions of the age in which it was built,--the days when the Church was truly militant.

Here, too, to a more impressive extent than elsewhere, if we except the papal palace at Avignon, the episcopal residence as well takes on an aspect which is not far different from that possessed by some of the secular châteaux of feudal times. It closely adjoins the cathedral, which should perhaps dispute this. In reality, however, it does not, and its walls and foundations look far more worldly than they do devout. As to impressiveness, this stronghold of a bishop's palace is thoroughly in keeping with the cathedral itself, and the frowning battlement of its veritable _donjon_ and walls and ramparts suggests a deal more than the mere name by which it is known would justify. Such use as it was previously put to was well served, and the history of the troublous times of the mediæval ages, when the wars of the Protestants, "the cursed Albigenses," and the natural political and social dissensions, form a chapter around which one could weave much of the history of this majestic cathedral and its walled and fortified environment.

The interior of the cathedral will appeal first of all by its very grand proportions, and next by the curious ill-mannered decorations with which the walls are entirely covered. There is a certain gloom in this interior, induced by the fact that the windows are mere elongated slits in the walls. There are no aisles, no triforium, and no clerestory; nothing but a vast expanse of wall with bizarre decorations and these unusual window piercings. The arrangement of the openings in the tower are even more remarkable--what there are of them, for in truth it is here that the greatest likeness to a fortification is seen. In the lower stages of the tower there are no openings whatever, while above they are practically nothing but loopholes.

The fine choir-screen, in stone, is considered one of the most beautiful and magnificent in France, and to see it is to believe the statement. The entire _clôture_ of the choir is a wonderful piece of stonework, and the hundred and twenty stalls, which are within its walls, form of themselves an excess of elaboration which perhaps in a more garish light would be oppressive.

The wall-paintings or frescoes are decidedly not beautiful, being for the most part crudely coloured geometrical designs scattered about with no relation one to another. They date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and are doubtless Italian as to their workmanship, but they betray no great skill on the part of those unknowns who are responsible for them.

The pulpit is an unusually ornate work for a French church, but is hardly beautiful as a work of art. No more is the organ-case, which, as if in keeping with the vast interior, spreads itself over a great extent of wall space.

Taken all in all, the accessories of the cathedral at Albi, none the less than the unique plan and execution thereof, the south porch, the massive tower, the _jube_ and _clôture_ of the choir, the vast unobstructed interior, and the _outré_ wall decorations, place it as one of the most consistently and thoroughly completed edifices of its rank in France. Nothing apparently is wanting, and though possessed of no great wealth of accessory--if one excepts the choir enclosure alone--it is one of those shrines which, by reason of its very individuality, will live long in the memory. It has been said, moreover, to stand alone as to the extensive and complete exemplification of "_l'art decoratif_" in France; that is, as being distinctively French throughout.

The evolution of these component elements took but the comparatively small space of time covered by two centuries--from the fourteenth to the sixteenth. The culmination resulted in what is still to be seen in all its pristine glory to-day, for Ste. Cécile has not suffered the depredation of many another shrine.

The general plan is distinctly and indigenously French; French to the very core--born of the soil of the _Midi_, and bears no resemblance whatever to any exotic from another land.

With the decorative elements the case may be somewhat qualified. The _baldaquin_--like the choir-screen--more than equals in delicacy and grace the portals of such masterworks as Notre Dame de Rouen, St. Maclou, or even the cathedral at Troyes, though of less magnitude than any of these examples. On the other hand, it was undoubtedly inspired by northern precept, as also were the ornamental sculptures in wood and stone which are to be seen in the interior.

Albi was a bishopric as early as the fourth century, with St. Clair as its first bishop. At the time the present cathedral was begun it became an archbishopric, and as such it has endured until to-day, with suffragans at Rodez, Cahors, Mende, and Perpignan.

XXI

ST. PIERRE DE MENDE

In the heart of the Gévaudan, Mende is the most picturesque, mountain-locked little city imaginable, with no very remarkable features surrounding it, nor any very grand artificial ones contained within it.

The mountains here, unlike the more fruitful plains of the lower Gévaudan, are covered with snow all of the winter. It is said that the inhabitants of the mountainous upper Gévaudan used to "go into Spain every winter to get a livelihood." Why, it is difficult to understand. The mountain and valley towns around Mende look no less prosperous than those of Switzerland, though to be sure the inhabitants have never here had, and perhaps never will have, the influx of tourists "to live off of," as in the latter region.

During an invasion of the _Alemanni_ into Gaul, in the third century, the principal city of Gévaudan was plundered and ruined. The bishop, St. Privat, fled into the Cavern of Memate or Mende, whither the Germans followed and killed him.

The holy man was interred in the neighbouring village of Mende, and the veneration which people had for his memory caused them to develop it into a considerable place. Such is the popular legend, at any rate.

The city had no bishop of its own, however, until the middle of the tenth century. Previously the bishops were known as Bishops of Gévaudan. At last, however, the prelates fixed their seat at Mende, and "great numbers of people resorted thither by reason of the sepulchre of St. Privat."

By virtue of an agreement with Philippe-le-Bel, in 1306, the bishop became Count of Gévaudan. He claimed also the right of administering the laws and the coining of specie.

Mende is worth visiting for itself alone and for its cathedral. It is difficult to say which will interest the absolute stranger the more.

The spired St. Pierre de Mende is but a fourteenth-century church, with restorations of the seventeenth, but there is a certain grimness and primitiveness about its fabric which would otherwise seem to place it as of a much earlier date.

The seventeenth-century restorations amounted practically to a reconstruction, as the Calvinists had partly destroyed the fabric. The two fine towers of the century before were left standing, but without their spires.

The city itself lies at a height of over seven hundred kilometres, and the _pic_ rises another three hundred kilometres above. The surrounding "green basin of hillsides" encloses the city in a circular depression, which, with its cathedral as the hub, radiates in long, straight roadways to the bases of these verdure-clad hills.