Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1

III.

RIVER-SIDE CATHEDRALS.

Avignon.

Everything which surrounds the Cathedral of Avignon, its situation, its city, its history, is so full of romance and glamour that it is only after very sober second thought one realises that the church itself is the least of the papal buildings which majestically overtower the Rhone, or of those royal ruins which face them as proudly on the opposite bank of the river. Yet no church in Provence is richer in tradition, and in history more romantic than tradition.

The foundation of this church goes back to the first Avignon, a small colony of river-fishermen which gave way before the Romans, who established a city, Avernio, on the great rocky hill two hundred feet above the Rhone. Some hundreds of years later the first Christian missionaries to Gaul landed near the mouth of this river,—Mary the mother of James, Saint Sara the patron of gypsies, Lazarus, his sister Martha, and Saint Maximin. Before these storm-tossed Saints lay the fair and pagan country of Provence, the scene of their future mission; and if tradition is to be further believed, each went his way, to work mightily for the sacred cause. Maximin lived in the town that bears his name, Lazarus became the first Bishop of Marseilles, and Saint Martha ascended the Rhone as far as Avignon and built near the site of the present Cathedral an oratory in honour of the Virgin “then living on the earth.” Two early churches, of which this chapel was perhaps a part, were destroyed in the Saracenic sieges of the VIII century; an inscription in the porch of the present Cathedral records the very interesting mediÆval account of its re-building and re-consecration nearly a hundred years later. It was, so runs the tale, the habit of a devout woman to pray in the church every night; and after the Cathedral had been finished by the generous aid of Charlemagne, she happened there at midnight, and witnessed the descent of Christ in wondrous, shining light. There at the High Altar, surrounded by ministering angels, he dedicated the Cathedral to His Mother, Our Lady of Cathedrals; and so it has been called to the present day. If it is an impossible and ungrateful task to disprove that the re-construction, or at least the re-founding of this Cathedral was the work of Charlemagne, so munificent a patron and dutiful a son of the Church, to prove it is equally impossible. A martyrology of the XI century speaks of a dedication in 1069, but as this ceremony had been preceded by another extensive re-building, and was followed by many other changes, the oldest portions of the present church are to be most accurately ascribed to the XI, XII, and XIV centuries. The additions of the centuries following the papal return to Rome have greatly changed the appearance of the church. A large chapel, built in 1506, gives almost a northern nave. In 1671, Archbishop Ariosto thought the interior would be gracefully improved by a Renaissance gallery which should encircle the entire nave from one end of the choir to the other. To accomplish this new work, the old main piers below the gallery were cut away, the wall arches were changed, and columns and piers, almost entirely new, arose to support a shallow, gracefully balustraded balcony and its bases of massive carving. Nine years later a new Archbishop added to the north side a square XVII century chapel, richly ornamental in itself, but entirely out of harmony with the fundamental style of the church. Other chapels, less distinguished, which have been added from time to time, line the nave both north and south, and all are excrescent to the original plan. Of the exterior, only the faÇade retains its primitive character. The side-walls, “entirely featureless,” as has been well said, “reflect only the various periods of the chapels which have been added to the Cathedral,” and the apse was re-built in 1671, in a heavy, uninteresting form.

These additions, superimposed ornamentations, and rebuildings, together with the very substantial substructure of the primitive Cathedral, form to-day a small church of unimpressive, conglomerate style, and except for its history, unnoteworthy. It is therefore a church whose interest is almost wholly of the past; and the traveller goes back in imagination, century after century, to the era of Papal residency, when the Cathedral was not only ecclesiastically important, but architecturally in its best and purest form. This church, which Clement V found on his removal to Avignon, and which may still be easily traced, was of the simple, primitive ProvenÇal style. No dates of that period are sufficiently accurate to rely upon; but its interest lies not so much in chronology as in its portrayal of the general type. The interior is the usual little hall church of the XI century, with its aisle-less nave of five bays, and plain piers supporting a tunnelled roof, with double vault arches. Beyond the last bay, over the choir, is the Cathedral's octagonal dome, and from the rounded windows of its lantern comes much of the light of the interior, which is sombre and without other windows of importance.

The faÇade is architecturally one of the most significant parts of the church. Above the portal the wall is supported on either side by plain heavy buttresses, and directly continued by the solid bulk of the tower. In 1431 this tower replaced the original one which fell in the earthquake of 1405. It is conjecturally similar, a heavy rectangle which quite overweighs the church; plain, with its stiff pilasters and two stories of rounded windows; without grace or proper proportion, but pleasing by the unblemished severity of its lines. Above the balustrade with which the tower may be properly said to terminate, the religious art of the XIX century has erected as its contribution to the Cathedral a series of steps, an octagon, and a colossal, mal-proportioned statue of the Virgin. These additions are inharmonious; and the finest part of the faÇade is the porch, so classic in detail that it was formerly supposed to be Roman, a work of the Emperor Constantine. Like the rest of the church, its general structure is plain and somewhat severe, with small, richly carved details, in this instance closely Corinthian. The rounded portal of entrance is an entablature, enclosed as it were by two supporting columns; and above, in the pointed pediment, is a circular opening curiously foreshadowing that magnificent development of the North—the rose-window. Passing through the vestibule, whose tunnel-vault supports the tower, the minor portal appears, almost a replica of the outer door, and the whole forms an unusual mode of entrance, graceful in detail, ponderous in general effect. Far behind the tower of the faÇade rises the last significant feature of the exterior, the little lantern. It is an octagon with Doric and Corinthian motifs, continuing the essential characteristics of the interior, and exceedingly typical of Provence.

“THE PORCH SO CLASSIC IN DETAIL.”—AVIGNON.
From an old print [To List]

Into this church, with its few, unusually classic details, its ProvenÇal simplicity, its very modest size and plainness, the munificence of papal pomp was introduced. This was in 1308, an era of papal storm and stress. Not ten years before, Boniface VIII, with the tradition of Canossa spurring his haughty ambitions, had launched a bull against Philip III, whom he knew to be a bad king and whom he was to find an equally bad, rebellious Christian. “God,” said the Prelate, from Rome, “has constituted us, though unworthy, above kings and kingdoms, to seize, destroy, disperse, build, and plant in His name and by His doctrine. Therefore, do not persuade thyself that thou hast no superior, and that thou art not subject to the head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy; he who thinks thus is insensate, he who maintains it is infidel.”

Past indeed was the time of Henry of Germany, long past the proud day when a Pope received an Emperor who knelt and waited in the snow. Philip burned the Bull; and to prevent other like fulminations, sent an agent into Italy. Gathering a band, he found the aged Pontiff at Anagni, his birthplace, seated on a throne, crowned with the triple crown, the Cross in one hand and in the other Saint Peter's Keys, the terrible Keys of Heaven and Hell. They called on him to abdicate, but Boniface thought of Christ his Lord, and cried out in defiant answer, “Here is my neck, here is my head. Betrayed like Jesus Christ, if I must die like him, I will at least die Pope.” For reply, Sciarra Colonna, one of his own Roman Counts, struck him in the face. Buffeted by a noble, and openly defied by a king, Boniface died “of shame and anger.” A month later, this same king rejoiced, if nothing more, at the death of the Pope's successor; and in the dark forests of Saint-Jean-d'AngÉly, Philip bargained and sold the great Tiara to a Gascon Archbishop who, if Villani speaks truly, “threw himself at the royal feet, saying, 'It is for thee to command and for me to obey; such will ever be my disposition!'” As was not unnatural, the will of the French king was that the Pope should remain within the zone of royal influence. So Clement lived at Bordeaux and at Poitiers, and finally retired to the County of Venaissin which the Holy See possessed by right, and established the pontifical court at Avignon.

This transfer of the papal residence to Avignon has left many and deep traces on the history of French Catholicism. The Holy See was no longer far remote; the French ecclesiastic desirous of promotion had no dangerous mountains to traverse, no strange city to enter, no foreign Pontiff to besiege, ignorant or indifferent to his claims. The next successor of Saint Peter would logically be a Frenchman, and there was not only a possibility, but a probability for every man of note, that he might be either the occupant of the Sacred Chair or its favoured supporter. So Avignon became a city of priests as Rome had been before her; and as France was the richest country in Europe and the Church regally wealthy, splendour, luxury, and constant religious spectacles rejoiced the city, and Bishop, Archbishop, and Abbot, brazenly neglecting the duties of their Sees, lived here and were seldom “in residence.” Every one had a secret ambition. Of such a situation, the Popes were not slow to reap the benefits. Difference of wealth, which brought difference of position, counted much and was keenly felt. Abbots of smaller monasteries found themselves inferior to Bishops, especially in freedom from papal interference; while from the inherent wealth and power of their foundations, the heads of the great monasteries ranked sometimes with Archbishops, sometimes even with Cardinals. The Pope had the right to elevate an Abbey or a Priory into a Bishopric, and those who could offer the “gratification” or the “provocative,” might reasonably hope for the desired elevation which at once increased their local importance, belittled a neighbouring diocese, and freed them to some extent from the direct intermeddling of the Pope. The applications for such an increase of power became numerous, and by 1320 a number of Benedictine Abbeys had been made Bishoprics. Their creation greatly decreased the direct and intimate power of the Papacy, but temporarily increased the papal treasury; and John XXII, who left ten million pieces of silver and fifteen million in gold with his Florentine bankers, seems to have thought philosophically, “After us, the deluge.”

NOTRE-DAME-DES-DOMS.—AVIGNON [To List]

Another favourite diplomatic and financial device, which was invented by these famous Popes of Avignon, was the system of the “Commende,” which enabled relatives of nobles and all those whom it was desirable to placate, not alone ecclesiastics, but mere laymen and bloody barons, to become “Commendatory Abbots” or “Commendatory Priors,” and to receive at least one-third of the monastery's revenues, without being in any way responsible for the monastery's welfare. This care was left to a Prior or a Sub-prior, a sort of clerical administrator who, crippled in means and in influence, was sometimes unable, sometimes unwilling, to carry out the duties and beneficences of past ages, and who was always the victim of a great injustice. The depths of uselessness to which this infamous practice reduced monastic establishments may be inferred, when it is remembered that before the XVIII century the famous Abbey of La Baume had had thirteen Commendatory Abbots, and that the bastards of Louis XIV were Commendatory Priors in their infancy.

The Popes found the Commende useful, not only as a means of income, but as a method—at once secure and lucrative—of gaining to their cause the great feudal lords of France, and making the power of these lords an added buffer, as it were, between Avignon and the grasping might of the French Kings. For although the Popes were under “the special protection” of the Kings, it was as sheep under the special protection of a shearer, and they found that they must protect themselves against a too “special” and royal fleecing. For they did not always agree that—

“'Tis as goodly a match as match can be
To marry the Church and the fleur-de-lis
Should either mate a-straying go,
Then each—too late—will own 'twas so.'”

“THE TOWER OF PHILIP THE FAIR.”—VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON. [To List]

Haunted by the humiliation of their heaven-sent power, caged in “Babylonish captivity,” it is conceivable that the Popes were too occupied or, perhaps too distracted, to object to the unsuitable modesty of Notre-Dame-des-Doms. When a Pope swept forth from his Cathedral, new-crowned, to give “urbis et orbi” his first pontifical benediction, his eye glanced, it is true, on the crowds prostrate before him, before the church, awed and breathless; but it fell lingeringly—it was irresistibly drawn—across the swift Rhone to the town of the kings who had defied his power, to the royal city of Villeneuve, and to the strong tower of Philip the Fair, standing proudly in the sunlight. Would it be thought strange if their thoughts wandered, or if the portraits of the “French Popes” which hang about the Cathedral walls at Avignon, show more worldly preoccupation than is becoming to the successors of Saint Peter and Vicars of Christ?

Little indeed in the days of their residency did the Popes add to Notre-Dame-des-Doms. A fragile, slender marvel of Gothic architecture, the tomb of John XXII, was placed in the nave before the altar; and a monument to Benedict XII was raised in the church. But their Holinesses incited others in Avignon to good works so successfully that Rabelais laughingly called it the “Ringing city” of churches, convents, and monasteries. The bells of Saint-Pierre, Saint-Symphorien, Saint-Agricol, Sainte-Claire, and Saint-Didier chimed with those of chapels and religious foundations; the Grey Penitents, Black Penitents, and White Penitents, priests, and nuns walked the streets, and Avignon grew truly papal. Clement V and his successors proceeded to the safeguarding of their temporal welfare in truly noble fashion; and scarcely fifty years later they had become so well pleased with their new residence that the magnificent Clement VI refused to leave in spite of the supplications of Petrarch and Rienzi and a whole deputation of Romans.

During the reign of this Pontiff, the Papal Court became one of the gayest in Christendom. Clement was frankly, joyously voluptuous; and his life seems one moving pageant in which luxurious banquets, beautiful women, and ecclesiastical pomps succeeded each other. The lovely Countess of Turenne sold his preferments and benefices, the immense treasure of John XXII was his, and he showered such benefits on a grateful family that of the five Cardinals who accompanied his corpse from Avignon, one was his brother, one his cousin, and three his nephews; and that the Huguenots who violated his tomb at La-Chaise-Dieu, should have used his skull as a wine-cup, seems an horrible, but not an unfitting mockery. It was in vain that Petrarch hotly wrote, “the Pope keeps the Church of Jesus Christ in shameful exile.” The desire for return to Rome had passed.

Avignon was not an original nor a plenary possession of the Holy Fathers, but “the fairest inheritance of the BÉrengers,” and it was from that family that half of the city had to be wrested—or obtained. Now the lords of Provence were Kings of Naples and Sicily, and therefore vassals of the Holy See. For when the Normans took these Southern states from the Greeks and thereby incurred the jealousy of all Italy, they had warily placed themselves under the protection of the Pope and agreed to hold their new possessions as a papal investiture. It happened at this time that the vassal of the Pope in Naples and in Sicily was the beauteous “Reino Joanno,” the heiress of Provence. What she was no writer could describe in better words than these, “with extreme beauty, with youth that does not fade, red hair that holds the sunlight in its tangles, a sweet voice, poetic gifts, regal peremptoriness, a Gallic wit, genuine magnanimity, and rhapsodical piety, with strange indecorum and bluntness of feeling under the extremes of splendour and misery, just such a lovely, perverse, bewildering woman was she, great granddaughter of Raymond-BÉrenger, fourth Count of Provence,—the pupil of Boccaccio, the friend of Petrarch, the enemy of Saint Catherine of Siena, the most dangerous and most dazzling woman of the XIV century. So typically ProvenÇal was this Queen's nature, that had she lived some centuries later, she might have been Mirabeau's sister. The same 'terrible gift of familiarity,' the same talent of finding favour and swaying popular assemblages, the same sensuousness, bold courage, and great generosity were found in this early orphaned, thrice widowed heiress of Provence. To this day, the memory of the Reino Joanno lives in her native land, associated with numbers of towers and fortresses, the style of whose architecture attests their origin under her reign. It says much for her personal fascinations that far from being either cursed or blamed she is still remembered and praised. The ruins of Gremaud, Tour Drainmont, of Guillaumes, and a castle near Roccaspervera, all bear her name: at Draguignan and Flagose, they tell you her canal has supplied the town with water for generations: in the Esterels, the peasants who got free grants of land, still invoke their benefactress. At Saint-Vallier, she is blessed because she protected the hamlet near the Siagne from the oppression of the Chapters of Grasse and LÉrins. At Aix and Avignon her fame is undying because she dispelled some robber-bands; at Marseilles she is popular because she modified and settled the jurisdiction of Viscounts and Bishops. Go up to Grasse and in the big square where the trees throw a flickering shadow over the street-traders, you will see built in a vaulted passage a flight of stone steps, steps which every barefoot child will tell you belong to the palace of 'La Reino Joanno.' Walls have been altered, gates have disappeared, but down those time-worn steps once paced the liege lady of Provence, the incomparable 'fair mischief' whose guilt ... must ever remain one of the enigmas of history.” This “enigma” has strange analogies to one which has puzzled and impassioned the writers of many generations, the mystery of that other “fair mischief” of a later century, Mary Queen of Scots. Like Mary, Jeanne was accused of the murder of her young husband, and being pressed by the vengeance of his brother—no less a person than the King of Hungary,—she decided to retreat to her native Provence and appeal to the Pope, her gallant and not over-scrupulous suzerain. “Jeanne landed at Ponchettes,” continues the writer who has so happily described her, “and the consuls came to assure her of their devotion. 'I come,' replied the heiress, whose wit always suggested a happy phrase, 'to ask for your hearts and nothing but your hearts.' As she did not allude to her debts, the populace threw up their caps; the Prince de Monaco, just cured of his wound at CrÉcy, placed his sword at her service; and the Baron de BÉnil, red-handed from a cruel murder, besought her patronage which, perhaps from a fellow-feeling, she promised with great alacrity. At Grasse she won all hearts and made many more promises, and finally, arriving at Avignon, she found Clement covetous of the city and well-disposed to her. Yet morality obliged him to ask an explanation of her recent change of husbands, and before three Cardinals, whom he appointed to be her judges, the Queen pleaded her own cause. Not a blush tinged her cheek, no tremor altered her melodious voice as she stood before the red-robed Princes of the Church and narrated, in fluent Latin, the story of the assassination of Andrew, the death of her child, and her marriage with the murderer, Louis of Tarento, who stood by her side. The wily Pope noted behind her the proud ProvenÇal nobles, the Villeneuves and d'Agoults, the de Baux and the Lescaris, who brought the fealty of the hill-country, and who did not know that, having already sold her jewels to the Jews, their fair Queen was covenanting with the Pope for Avignon. The formal trial ended, the Pontiff solemnly declared the Queen to be guiltless,—and she granted him the city for eighty thousand pieces of gold.”

“THE GREAT PALACE.”—AVIGNON. [To List]

Clement enjoyed ownership in the same agreeable manner as his predecessors, “without the untying of purse-strings.” Perhaps he used the purse's contents for the more pressing claim of the great Palace of which he built so large a part; perhaps he handed it, still filled, to Innocent VI who built the famous fortifications of Avignon and protected himself against the marauding “White Companies,” perhaps it was still untouched when Bertrand du Guesclin and his Grand Company stood before the gate and demanded “benediction, absolution, and two hundred thousand pounds.” “What!” the Pope is said to have cried, “must we give absolution, which here in Avignon is paid for, and then give money too—it is contrary to reason!” Du Guesclin replied to the bearer of these words, “Here are many who care little for absolution, and much for money,”—and Urban yielded.

Gregory XI, the last of the “French Popes,” returned to Rome, and at his death the “Great Schism” followed;—Clement VII, in Avignon, was recognised by France, Spain, Scotland, Sicily, and Cyprus; Urban VI, in Rome, by Italy, Austria, and England. The County Venaissin was ravaged by wars and the pests that come in their train. At length the Avignonnais, who had not enjoyed greater peace under their anointed rulers than under worldling Counts, rose against Pierre de Luna, the “Anti-pope” Benedict XIII, who fled. From that time no Pontiff entered the gates, and the city was administered by papal legates. In later days, in spite of the sacred character of its rulers and his own undoubted orthodoxy, Louis XIV seized Avignon several times; and Louis XV, in unfilial vengeance for the excommunication of the Duke of Parma, took possession of the city. But it was not until after the beginning of the French Revolution, in 1791, that the Avignonnais themselves arose, chased the Vice-Legate of the Pope from the city, and appealed for union with France; and it was at this period that the Chapel of Sainte-Marthe, the Cloister, and the Chapter House were swept away. Thus ended the temporal power of the Papacy in France, planned for worldly profit and carried out with many sordid compromises;—a residency unnoted for great deeds or noble intentions and whose close marked the “Great Schism.”

To-day papal Avignon is become French Avignon, a pleasant city where the ProvenÇal sun is hot and where the Mistral whistles merrily. Above the banks of the Rhone the simple Cathedral stands, with its priests still garbed in papal red, its Host still carried under the white papal panoply. Here also is the great Palace of the Popes, “which is indeed,” says Froissart, “the strongest and most magnificent house in the world.” And yet its grim walls suggest neither peace nor rest; and to him who recalls, this great, impressive pile tells neither of glories nor of triumphs. Bands of unbelieving Pastoureaux marched toward it; soldiers of the “White Companies” and soldiers of du Guesclin gazed mockingly at it; it was the prison of Rienzi, and the home of the harassed Popes who had ever before them, just across the river, the menacing tower of that “fair king” who had led them into “Babylonish captivity.”

Vaison.

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On the banks of a pleasant little river among the ProvenÇal hills is Vaison, one of the ancient Gallic towns which became entirely romanised; and many illustrious families of the Empire had summer villas there as at Arles and Orange. Barbarians of one epoch or another have devastated Vaison of all her antique treasures, except the remains of an Amphitheatre on the Puymin Hill. Germanic tribes who swooped down in early centuries destroyed her villas and her greater buildings; and vandals of a later day have scattered her sculptures and her tablets here and there. Some are in the galleries of Avignon; a Belus, the only one found in France, was sent to the Museum of Saint-Germain; and in the multitude of treasures in the British Museum, the most beautiful of all her statues, a Diadumenus, is artistically lost. In the days when it still adorned the city, during the reign of the Emperor Gallienus, Vaison was christianised by Saint Ruf, her Bishopric was founded, and in 337 the first General Council of the Church held in Gaul assembled here. Another Council in the V century, and still another in the VI, are proof of her continued importance.

“ON THE BANKS OF A PLEASANT LITTLE RIVER IS VAISON.” [To List]

“THE RUINED CASTLE OF THE COUNTS OF TOULOUSE.”—VAISON. [To List]

Among the first of Gallo-Roman cities, she was also among the first to suffer. Chrocus and his horde who sacked Orange, seized her Bishop and murdered him; and Alains, Vandals, and Burgundians, following in their wake, brought disaster after disaster to the cities lying near the Rhone. Vaison, by miracle, did not lose her prestige. In the X and XI centuries she built her fine Cathedral with its Cloisters, and in 1179 she was still great enough to excite the covetousness of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse. This magnificent and ambitious prince built a castle on a height above the city, and as he had before terrorised my Lord Bishop of Carpentras, so now he seized the anointed person of BÉrenger de Reilhane, who was not only Vaison's Bishop, but her temporal prince as well. BÉrenger was a sufficiently powerful personage to make an outcry which re-echoed throughout Christendom; the Pope and the Emperor came to his aid; and in the Abbey Church of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, Raymond VI did solemn penance, and, before receiving absolution, was publicly struck by the Papal Legate with a bundle of birch rods. Above the Bishop's Palace the great castle still loomed in menace, but on that day BÉrenger de Reilhane triumphed and Vaison was at peace.

It was a peace which presaged her quiet, uneventful downfall. For other interests were growing stronger in the country, other cities grew where she stood still, and in the XIV century, when Avignon became the seat of papal power, Vaison had passed from the world's history. Her Bishopric endured till 1801, but her doings are worthy only of provincial chronicles and to-day she is but a little country town, served by the stage-coach. She still lies on both banks of the river; the “high city,” with long rows of deserted houses, climbs the side of the steep hill and is dominated by the ruins of the great castle, which Richelieu destroyed. The “lower city,” which is the busier of the two, lies on the opposite bank; and on its outskirts, in a little garden-close, almost surrounded by the fields, is the Cathedral,—solitary, lonely, and old.

“THE WHOLE APSE-END.”—VAISON. [To List]

The decoration of the exterior is slight, a dentiled cornice and a graceful foliated frieze extend along the top of the side-walls, which although most plainly built, are far from being severely angular or gaunt and have a quaint and pleasing harmony of line. The west front is so featureless that it scarcely deserves the title of faÇade. The south wall, which is clearly seen from the road, has a small portal and plain buttresses that slope at the top. The central apse is rectangular and heavy, the little southern apse is short and round, and that of the north is tall and thin as a pepper-box. Behind them rise the pointed roof of the nave and the heavy tower. The whole apse-end is constructed in most picturesque irregularity, and the new red of the roof-tiles and sombre grey of the old stone add greatly to its charm.

“THE SOUTH WALL WHICH IS CLEARLY SEEN FROM THE ROAD.”—VAISON. [To List]

Unlike many churches of its period Notre-Dame of Vaison is three-aisled. Slender, narrow naves, whose tunnel vaults are not extremely lofty, end in small circular apses. The nave is a short one of three irregular bays, and over the last, which precedes the choir, is the little eight-sided dome, which instead of projecting above the roof is curiously placed a little lower than the tunnel vaulting of the other bays. The High Altar, which originally belonged to an older church, is well placed in the simple choir; for it belongs in style, if not in actual fact, to the first centuries of the Faith; and in the semi-darkness behind the altar, the old episcopal throne still stands against the apse's wall, in memory of the custom of the Church's early days. The low arches of the aisles, the dim lighting of the church, its simple ornaments of classic bands and little capitals, its slight irregularities of form and carvings, make an interior of fine and strong antique simplicity.

A little door in the north wall leads to the Cloisters, which are happily in a state of complete restoration, and not as a modern writer has described them, “practically a ruin.” The wall which overlooks them has an inscription that adjures the Canons to “bear with patience the north aspect of their cells.” The short walks have tunnel vaults with cross-vaults in the corners and in parts of the north aisle. Great piers and small, firm columns support the outer arches; and on the exterior of the Cloister the little arches of the columns are enclosed in a large round arch. Many of the capitals are uncarved, some of the piers have applied columns, but many are ornamented in straight cut lines. On one side, two bays open to the ground, forming an entrance-way into the pretty close, where the bushy tops of a few tall trees cast flickering shadows on the surrounding walls and the little grassy square.

“TWO BAYS OPEN TO THE GROUND.”—VAISON. [To List]

The Cloister is small and simple in its rather heavy grace. Noise and unrest seem far from it, and underneath its solid rounded vault is peace and shelter from the world. And in its firm solidity of architecture there is the spirit of a perfect quiet, a tranquil charm which must insensibly have calmed many a restless spirit that chafed beneath the churchly frock, and fled within its walls for refuge and for helpful meditation.

“THE GREAT PIERS AND SMALL FIRM COLUMNS.”—VAISON. [To List]

Few ProvenÇal Cathedrals have the interest of Vaison and its Cloister. Lying in the forgotten valley of the OuvÈze, in an old-fashioned town, all its surroundings speak of the past and its atmosphere is quite unspoiled. The church itself has been spared degenerating restorations; and although it has no sumptuousness as at Marseilles, no grandeur as at Arles, no stirring history as the churches that lay near the sea, although it is one of the smallest and most venerable of them all, no Cathedral of the Southland has so great an architectural dignity and merit with so ancient and so quaint a charm.

Arles.

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In the midst of the wealth of antique ruins, near the Theatre, the Coliseum, and the Forum of this “little Rome of the Gauls,” stands a noble monument of the ruder ages of Christianity, the Cathedral, Saint-Trophime. Here Saint Augustine, apostle to England, was consecrated; here three General Councils of the Church were held, here the Donatists were doomed to everlasting fire, and here the Emperor Constantine, from his summer palace on the Rhone, must have come to “assist” at Mass. The building in which these solemn scenes of the early Church were enacted soon disappeared and was replaced by the present one whose older walls RÉvoil attributes to the IX century. The present Cathedral's first documentary date is 1152, in the era of the Republic of Arles. The name of Saint-Etienne was changed, and the body of Saint-Trophime, carried in state from the ruined Church of the Aliscamps, was buried under a new altar and he was solemnly proclaimed the Patron of the richest and most majestic church in all Provence.

“IN THE MIDST OF THE WEALTH OF ANTIQUE RUINS.”—ARLES. [To List]

Nearly eight hundred years later a traveller stood before the portal of this church. In the midst of his delighted study he suddenly felt the attraction of a pair of watchful eyes, and turned to find a peasant woman gazing fixedly at him. In her strange fascination she had placed beside her, on the ground, two huge melons and a mammoth cabbage, and her wizened hands were folded before her, Sunday-fashion. She was a little witch of a woman, old and bent and brown.

“THE FAÇADE OF SAINT-TROPHIME”.—ARLES. [To List]

“Yes, my good gentleman,” she said, “I have been looking at you,—five whole minutes of the clock, and much good it has done me. In these days of books and such fine learning there is not enough time spent before our door; and I who pass by it every day, year in, year out, I have watched well, and only two except yourself have ever studied it. The foreigners come with red books and look at them more than at the door itself,—they stay perhaps three minutes, and go off, shaking their wise heads. Our people, passing every day, see but a door, a place for going in and coming out.” She paused for breath.

“And what do you see?” asked the traveller.

“You ask me?” She smiled wisely. “But you know, since you are standing here and looking too. Listen!” And her old eyes began to gleam. “I'll tell you of a time before you were born. I was a child then; and we marched here every Sunday, other little girls and myself, and we stood before this door. And the nuns—it was often Sister Mary Dolorosa—told us the stories of these stones. See! Here is Our Lord Who loves all mankind, but has to judge us too;—and there is Saint-Trophime. But I cannot read, Monsieur. An old peasant woman has no time for such fine things, and you will laugh at me for telling you what you have in your books,—but I have them all here, here in my heart, and many a time I too come to refresh my old memory, and to pray. Those pictures tell great lessons to those that have eyes to see them. Well, well-a-day, I must pick up my melons and begone, for I have taken up your time and said too much. But you will excuse it in an old woman who is good for little else than talking now.”

They parted in true French fashion, with “expressions of mutual esteem,” and the traveller turned to the portal which was still fulfilling its ancient mission of teaching and of making beautiful the House of God. Applied to a severe faÇade typical of the plainness of ProvenÇal outer walls, this is one of the noblest works of MediÆvalism, the richest and most beautiful portal of the South of France; and no others in the Midi, except those of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard and Moissac, are worthy of comparison with it. In boldness and intellectuality of conception it excels many of the northern works and equals the finest of them. For the builder of the northern portal seems to have held closely to one architectural form, the beautiful convention of the Gothic style; and within that door he placed, in a more or less usual way, the subjects which the Church had sanctioned. In nearly every case the treatment of the subject is subordinated to the general architectural plan and symmetry. At Saint-Trophime there was the limit of space, the axiom that a door must be a door, and doubtless many allowable subjects. But within these necessary bounds the unknown sculptor recognised few conventionalities. The usual place for the portrayal of the Last Judgment, the tympanum, was too small for his conception of the scene; the pier that divides his door-way was not built to support the statue of the church's patron saint; he had a multitude of fancies, and instead of curbing them in some beautiful conventionality of form, as one feels great northern builders often did, this artist made a frame within which his ideas found free play, and, forcing conventionality to its will, his genius justified itself. For not only is the portal as a whole, full of dignity and true symmetry, but its details are thoughtfully worked out. They show, with the old scholastic form of his Faith, the grasp of the unknown master's mind, the intellectuality of his symbolism, and few portals grow in fascination as this one, few have so interesting an originality.

“RIGHT DETAIL, PORTAL.”—ARLES. [To List]

In design it is simple, in execution incomparably rich. The principal theme of the Last Judgment has Christ seated on a throne as the central figure, and about him are the symbols of the four Evangelists. This is the treatment of the tympanum. Underneath, Patriarchs, Saints, Just, and Condemned form the beautiful frieze. The Apostles are seated; and to their left is an angel guarding the gates of Paradise against two Bishops and a crowd of laymen who have yet to fully expiate their sins in Purgatory. Behind them, naked, with their feet in the flames, are those condemned to everlasting Hell; and still beyond is a lower depth where souls are already half-consumed in hideous fires. On the Apostles' extreme right is the beginning of our human history, the Temptation of Adam and Eve; and marching toward the holy men, on this same side, is the long procession of those Redeemed from Adam's fall, clothed in righteousness. An angel goes before them, and hands a small child—a ransomed soul—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The end panels treat the last phases of the dominant theme;—a mammoth angel in the one weighs the souls of the dead; and an equally awe-inspiring devil in the other is preparing to cast two of the Lost into a sea of fire.

The remainder of the portal tells of many subjects, and represents much of the theological symbolism of its time. Light, graceful columns, with delicately foliated capitals and bases rich with meaning sculptures, divide the lower spaces into niches, and in these niches stand statues of Apostles and of Saints, each having his story, each his peculiar attributes; and about these chief figures are carved rich designs, strange animals, and numberless short stories of the Bible. Above there is a small, subsidiary frieze; below, the pedestals which tell the tale of those who stand upon them. The figures have life and meaning, if not a true plasticity; and in this portal there is instruction, variety, and majesty, wealth of allegory and subtle symbols for those who love religious mysteries, and splendour of sculpture for those who come in search of Art.

There are those to whom a simple beauty does not appeal. After the richness of the portal's carving, the interior of Saint-Trophime is to them “far too plain;” in futile comparison with the Cloister's grace, it is found “too severe;” and one author has written that only “when the refulgence of a Mediterranean sun glances through a series of long lances, ... then and then only does the Cathedral of Saint-Trophime offer any inducement to linger within its non-impressive walls.”

It may not be denied that, together with nearly all the Cathedrals of Provence, this interior has suffered from the addition of inharmonious styles. The most serious of these is its Gothic choir of the XV century, which a certain Cardinal Louis Allemand applied to the narrower Romanesque naves. With irregular ambulatory, chapels of various sizes, and a general incongruity of plan, this construction has no architectural importance except that of a prominent place in the church's worship. The remaining excrescences, Gothic chapels, Ionic pilasters, elliptical tribune, and the like, are happily hidden along the side aisles or in the transepts; and during the restoration of RÉvoil the naves were relieved of the disfiguring “improvements” of the XVII century, and stand to-day in much of their fine old simplicity. Beyond the fifth bay, and rising in the tower, is the dome of dignified ProvenÇal form that rests on the lower arches of the crossing. Small clerestory windows cast sheets of pale light on the plain piers, rectangular and heavy, that rise to support a tunnel vault and divide the church into three naves of great and slender height.

The stern, ascetic style of the XI and XII centuries has given the nave piers mere small, plain bands as capitals, and for churchly decoration has allowed only a moulding of acanthus leaves placed high and unnoticed at the vaulting's base. There is no pleasing detail and no charming fancy; but a fine, exquisite loftiness, a faultless balance of proportion, are in this severe interior, and its solemn and majestic beauty is not surpassed in the Southern Romanesque.

“LEFT DETAIL, PORTAL.”—ARLES. [To List]

Beyond the south transept, a short passage and a few steps lead to the Cloisters, the most famous of Provence, perhaps of France. Large, graceful, and magnificent in wealth of carving, they have yet none of the poetic charms that linger around many a smaller Cloister. The vaultings are not more beautiful than other vaults less known; although they have the help of the great piers, the little, slender columns seem too light to support so much expanse of roof, and even the church's tower, square and high, looks dwarfed when seen across the close. The very spaciousness is solitary, and the long vista of the walks conduces to vague wonderings rather than to peaceful hours of thought. It has not the dreamy solitude of Vaison, nor the bright beauty of Elne's little close, nor any of the sunny cheerfulness that brightens the decaying walls of Cahors.

“THROUGH THE
CLOISTER-ARCHES.”—ARLES. [To List]

The marvel of these Cloisters is the sculptured decorations of their piers and columns. Those of the XII century are the richest, but each of the later builders seems to have vied as best he might, in wealth of conception and in lavishness of detail, with those who went before, and, even in enforced re-building, the addition of the Gothic to the Romanesque has not destroyed the harmony of the effect. In all the sculptors' schemes, the outer of the double columns were given foliated patterns or a few, simple symbols, and the outer of the piers were channelled and conventionally cut; and although the fancy of the sculptor is marvellously subtle and full of grace, his greatest art was reserved for the capitals of the inner columns and the inner faces of the piers, which meditating priests would see and study. The symbolism authorised by Holy Church, the history of precursors of Our Lord, the incidents of His life and the more dramatic doings of the Saints, all these are carved with greatest love of detail and of art; and in them the least arduous priest could find themes for a whole year of meditation, the least enthusiastic of travellers, a thousand quaint and interesting fancies and imaginations. It is not so much the beauty of the whole effect that is entrancing in these Cloisters, nor that most subtle influence, the good or evil spirit of a past which lingers round so many ancient spots, as that mediÆval thought and mediÆval genius that found expression in these myriad fine examples of the sculptor's art.

“A NAVE OF GREAT AND SLENDER HEIGHT.”—ARLES. [To List]

Alexandre Dumas has written of Arles: "Roman monuments form the soil; and about them, at their feet, in their shadow, in their crevasses, a second Gothic city has sprung—one knows not how—by the vegetative force of the religious civilisation of Saint Louis. Arles is the Mecca of archÆologists.” It is also the Mecca of those who love to study people and customs, for, in spite of the railroad, and the consequent influx of “foreign French,” it has preserved the old grÆco-roman-saracenic type which has made its beautiful women so justly famous, and, underneath its ProvenÇal gaieties, their classic origins may easily be traced. One should see the Roman Theatre, the solitary Aliscamps, by moonlight, the busy market in the early day, the Cathedral at a Mass, and a fÊte at any time,—for

“When the fÊte-days come, farewell the swath and labour,
And welcome revels underneath the trees,
And orgies in the vaulted hostelries,
Bull-baitings, never-ending dances, and sweet pleasures.”

Entrevaux.

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The most celebrated fortified town in France is the CitÉ of Carcassonne, yet, even in the days of its practical strength, it was scarcely a type. It was rather a marvel, a wonder,—the “fairest Maid of Languedoc,” “the Invincible.” And now the citadel is almost deserted. The inhabitants are so few that weeds grow in their streets, and one who walks there in the still mid-day feels that all this completion of architecture, these walls, perfect in every stone, may be an enchanted vision, a mirage; he more than half believes that the cool of the sunset will dispel the illusion, and he will find himself on a pleasant little hill of Languedoc, looking down upon the commonplace “Lower City” of Carcassonne.

At Entrevaux there is no suggestion of illusion. This is not a show-place that once was real; it is one of a hundred little agglomerations of the French Middle Ages. They had no great name to uphold; no riches to expend in impregnable walls and towers. They clung fearfully together for self-preservation, built ramparts that were as strong as might be, and dared not laugh at the “fortunes of war.” Except that there is safety outside the walls, and a tiny post and telegraph office within, they are now as they were in those dangerous days. The fortress of Carcassonne is dead; but in the back country of Provence, Entrevaux is living, and scarcely a jot or tittle of its MediÆvalism is lost. Among high rocks that close around it on every side, where, according to the season, the Chalvagne trickles or plunges into the river Var, and dominated by a fort that perches on a sharp peak, is the strangest of old ProvenÇal towns.

“THE GOTHIC WALK, CLOISTER.”—ARLES. [To List]

The founding of the tiny episcopal city was after this wise. Toward the close of the XIV century, in a time of plagues, Jewish persecutions, the growth of heresies, and the uncurbed ravages of free-booters, the city of GlandÈves, seat of an ancient Bishopric, was destroyed. The living remnant abandoned its desolate ruins. Searching for a stronger, safer home, they chose a site on the left bank of the Var, and commenced the building of Entrevaux. The Bishop accompanied his flock, and although he retained the old title of GlandÈves, in memory of the antiquity of the See and its lost city, the Cathedral-church was established at Entrevaux.

“THIS INTERIOR.”—ENTREVAUX. [To List]

The first edifice, Saint-Martin's, built shortly after the founding of the town, has long been destroyed; and the second, begun in 1610, to the honour of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, held episcopal rank until the See was disestablished by the great Concordat. Although this Cathedral was built in the XVII century, a date perilously near that of decadence in French ecclesiastical architecture, it was situated in so obscure a corner of Provence that its plan was unaffected by innovating ideas; it is of the old native type, a building of stout walls and heavy buttresses, a single tower, square and straight, and a tunnel-vaulted room, the place of congregation. This interior, with no beautiful details that may not be found in other churches, has as many of the defects of the Italian school as the treasury could afford,—marble columns, frescoes, gilding, and other rococo decorations which show that the people of Entrevaux had no higher and no better tastes than those of Nice; and that the old, simple purity of the church's form was rather a matter of ignorance or necessity than of choice. The attraction of the episcopal church pales before the quaint delight of the episcopal city, and it is as part of the general civic defence that it shares in the interest of Entrevaux.

“THE ROMANESQUE WALK, CLOISTER.”—ARLES. [To List]

Leaving the train at the nearest railroad station, the traveller followed the winding Var, and he had scarcely walked four miles when he saw, across the river, the sharp peak with its fort, and the long lines of walls that zigzag down the hillside till they reach the crowded roofs that are clustered closely, in charming irregularity, near the bank.

“ONE OF THREE SMALL
DRAWBRIDGES.”—ENTREVAUX. [To List]

Along the water's edge, the only part of the town that is not protected by rocks and hills, there is another line of stout walls and two heavy, jutting bastions. From a mediÆval point of view Entrevaux looks strong indeed. The only means of entrance, now as in those olden days, is by one of three small drawbridges, and so narrow is every street of the town that no wagon is allowed to cross, for if it made the passage of the bridge it would be caught hard and fast between the houses. As the traveller put foot on the drawbridge he felt as though he were a petty trader or wandering minstrel, or some other figure of the Middle Ages, entering for a few hours' traffic or a noon-day's rest, and when he paused under the low arch of the portcullis-gate, people stared at him as they do at a stranger in little far-off towns.

“THE PORTCULLIS.”—ENTREVAUX. [To List]

Once inside, he turned into a street, and was immediately obliged to step into a door-way, for a man leading a horse was approaching, and they needed all its breadth. Houses, several stories high, bordered these incredibly dark, narrow ways, and some of the upper windows had the diminutive balconies so dear to the South. It was a bright, hot day, but the sun seldom peeped into these streets; and in the shops the light was dull at mid-day. As he thought of the men and women of MediÆvalism, who did not dare to wander in the fields beyond the town, because their safety lay within its ramparts, suddenly, the little public squares of walled towns appeared in all the real significance of their light and breadth and sunshine.

“A FORT THAT PERCHES ON A SHARP PEAK.”—ENTREVAUX. [To List]

Space is precious in Entrevaux, and open places are few. There is one where the hotels and cafÉs are found, another across the drawbridge behind the Cathedral-tower, and a tiny one before the church itself. This is the most curious of them all; for, far from being a “Place de la CathÉdrale,” it is a true “Place d'Armes.” Near the portals, on whose wooden doors the mitre and insignia of papal favour are carved, a few steps lead to a narrow ledge where archers could stand and shoot from the loop-holes in the walls. As the traveller sat on this ledge and wondered what scenes had been enacted here, how many deadly shots had sped from out the holes, what crowds of excited townsfolk had gathered in the church, what grave words of exhortation and of blessing had been spoken from the altar or the threshold by anxious prelate, robed and mitred for the Mass of Supplication to a God of Battles, an humble funeral appeared,—a priest, a peasant bearing a black wooden Cross with the name of the deceased painted on it, a rope-bound coffin carried by hot and sorrowing women, and a little procession of friends. The pomps and vanities of the past disappeared as a mist from the traveller's mind, and he saw Entrevaux as it really is, without the comforts of this world's goods, without the greatness of a Bishopric, a small ProvenÇal village whose perfection of quaintness—so charming to him who passes on—means hardship and discomfort to those who have been born and must live and die there.

“A TRUE PLACE D'ARMES.”—ENTREVAUX. [To List]

And yet so potent is that charm, when the traveller re-crossed the drawbridge and looked up at the sharp teeth of the portcullis that may still fall and bite, when he had passed out on the high-road and turned again and again to watch the fading sunlight on the tangled mass of roofs, the illusion had returned. The bastions stood out in bold relief, the church tower with its crenellated top stood out against the rocky peaks, the sun fell suddenly behind the hill, and the traveller felt himself again a minstrel wandering in a mediÆval night.

“THE LONG LINES OF WALLS THAT ZIGZAG DOWN THE HILLSIDE.”—ENTREVAUX. [To List]

Sisteron.

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The traveller is curious,—frankly curious. Almost every time that he enters a Cathedral, his memory recalls the words of Renan, “these splendid marvels are almost always the blossoming of some little deceit,” and after he has feasted his eye, he thinks of history and of details, and of Renan, prejudiced but well-informed, and wonders what was here the “little deceit.” At Grasse, he had longed for the papers a certain lawyer has, which tell much of the city's life a hundred and fifty years ago, and at Sisteron, he sat by the Durance, wondering how he could induce a kind and good old lady of a remote corner of Provence to lend him an ancient manuscript, which even the gentle CurÉ said she “obstinately” refused to “impart.” Blessed are they who can be satisfied with guide-books, as his friends who had visited Avignon and Arles, Tarascon and the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, and had seen Provence to their entire edification while he was merely peering about Notre-Dame-des-Doms and the Fort Saint-AndrÉ. Of a more indolent and leisurely turn of mind, he suffers—and perhaps justly—the penalty of his joyous idleness, for even lawyers and good ladies with hidden papers are rare. Revolutionary sieges, fires, and a wise discretion have led to the destroying of many a fine old page, and it is often in vain one goes to these decaying cities of Provence. “We see,” he said, gesticulating dejectedly, “we see their towers and their walls, but if we say we know that place, how many times do we deceive ourselves. It is too often as though we claimed to know the life and thought and passions of a man from looking on his grave.”

But—to consider what we may know. Sisteron is an old Roman city, most strongly and picturesquely built in a narrow defile of the Durance. On one side the river is the high, bare rock of La Baume; on the other, a higher rock where houses, supporting each other by outstretched buttresses, seem to cling to the sheer hillside as shrubs in mountain crevasses, and are dominated and protected by a large and formidable fortress-castle that crowns the very top of the peak. The town walls are almost gone; the fortress is abandoned; since the Revolution there are no longer Bishops in Sisteron; but the old town has lost little of its war-like and romantic atmosphere of days when it commanded an important pass, and when the way across the Durance was guarded by a drawbridge, and a big portcullis that now stands in rusty idleness.

“THE CHURCH TOWER STOOD OUT AGAINST THE ROCKY PEAKS.”—ENTREVAUX. [To List]

It is claimed that the Bishopric of this stronghold was founded in the IV century, and grew and flourished mightily, until the Bishop dwelt securely on his rock, his Brother of Gap had a “box” on the opposite bank, the Convent of the little Dominican Sisters was further up the river, and, besides this busy ecclesiastical life, there was the world of burghers in the town and its Convent of Ursulines. Here came once upon a time a sprightly lady who added a thousand lively interests. This was Louise de Cabris, sister of the great Mirabeau, “who, when a mere girl, had been married to the Marquis de Cabris. Part knave, part fool, the vices of de Cabris sometimes ended in attacks of insanity. His marriage with one who united the violence of the Mirabeaus to the license of the Vassans was unfortunate; ... and after Louise began to reign in the big dark house of the Cours of Grasse, life never lacked for incidents.” Matters were not mended by the arrival of her brother, twenty-four and wild, and supposed to be living under a “lettre de cachet” in the sleepy little town of Manosque. The two were soon embroiled in so outrageous a scandal that their father, who loved a quarrel for its own sake, sided with the prosecution; and declaring that “no children like his had ever been seen under the sun,” took out a “lettre de cachet” for Louise, who was sent up to Sisteron, where he requested her to “repent of her sins at leisure in the Convent of the Ursulines.” Inheriting a brilliant, restless wit and unbridled morals, her life with the stupid, vicious Marquis had not improved her natural disposition, and she soon set Sisteron agog. On pretence of business all the lawyers flocked to see her; and with no pretence at all the garrison flocked in their train. When the Ursulines ventured to remonstrate, she diverted them with such anecdotes of gay adventure as were never found between the pages of their prayer-books. Finally the whole town was divided into two camps; her foes called her “a viper,” and many an eye peered into the dark streets, many a head was judiciously hidden behind bowed shutters, to see who went toward the Convent; till by wit and scheming and after some months of most surprising incident, Louise carried her point, left the good Ursulines to a well-merited repose, and returned to the Castle of Mirabeau,—to laugh at the townsfolk of Sisteron.

“THE CATHEDRAL IS NEAR THE HEAVY, ROUND TOWERS OF THE OUTER RAMPARTS.”—SISTERON. [To List]

“THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE DURANCE.”—SISTERON. [To List]

When in the city, the prelates occupied their Castle of the Citadel with the high lookouts and defences, far from their Cathedral, which is in the lower town near the heavy, round towers of the ramparts. This church, which has been very slightly and very judiciously restored, is of unknown date, probably of the XII century, it is faithful to the native architectural tradition, and in some details more interesting than many of the ProvenÇal Cathedrals. Its exterior is small and low. There are the familiar, friendly little apses of the Romanesque; near them, above the east end of the north aisle, the squat tower with a modest, modern spire; and at its side, above the roof-line, is the octagon that stands over the dome. All this structure is unaffectedly simple. The walls and buttresses which enclose the aisles are plain, and it is only by comparison with this architectural Puritanism that the faÇade may be considered ornate. Near the top of its wall, which is supported by sturdy piers, are three round windows, with deep, splayed frames. The largest of them is directly above the high, slender portal that is somewhat reminiscent of the Italian influence, so elaborately marked further up the valley, at Embrun. The rounded arch of the door-way and its pointed gable are repeated, on either side, in a half-arch and half-gable. An allegorical animal, in relief, stands above the central arch, and a few columns with delicate capitals complete the adornment of the entrance-way, which, in spite of being the most decorative part of the church, is most discreet.

“ENTRANCES TO TWO
NARROW STREETS.”—SISTERON. [To List]

Nine steps lead down into an interior that is small, very usually planned, and much defaced by XVII century gilt—yet is essentially dignified and impressive. Eliminate the tawdry altars, take away the stucco Saints and painted Virgins, let the chapels be mere shadowy corners in the dark perspective, and the little church appears like the meeting-place of the Faithful of an early Christianity. Its nave and each of the narrow side aisles rise to round tunnel-vaults; there are but five bays, and the last is covered by a small, octagonal dome. The whole church is built of a dark stone that is almost black, its lighting is very dim, and centres in the little apses where the holiest statues stand and the most sacred rites are celebrated; and the worshippers, shrouded in twilight, have more of the atmosphere of mystery than is usual in the Cathedrals of Provence, the subtle influence of quiet shadowy darkness that is so potent in the churches of the Spanish borderland.

Many will pass through Sisteron and enjoy its rugged strength, its sun-lit days, its narrow streets, and the peaks that stand out in solemn sternness against the dark blue sky at night. Notre-Dame-de-Pomeriis has none of the salient beauty of any of these, and to appreciate its ancient charm, it must not be forgotten that the ProvenÇal Cathedral has not the distinction of size or the elaboration of the greater Cathedrals of Gascony, that it is far removed from the fine originalities of Languedoc, that it is conventional, and, as it were, clannish, and that its highest dignity is in a simple quiet that is never awe-full. There is, in truth, more than one church of this country that needs the embellishment of its history to make it truly interesting. But Notre-Dame of Sisteron is not of these. It is not the big, empty shell of Carpentras, nor the little rough Cathedral of Orange. It is the smaller, more perfect one, of finer inspiration, which the many will pass by, the few enjoy.

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