mselves with equal vigour. When it is remembered that this savage and
vindictive spirit has characterised the Nimois of the last six hundred
years, it is scarcely surprising that they should prefer to dwell on the
remote antiquity of their city rather than on the unedifying episodes of
her Christian history.

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

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

[Sidenote: Montpellier.]

Montpellier is "an agreeable city, clean, well-built, intersected by
open squares with wide-spread horizons, and fine, broad boulevards, a
city whose distinctive characteristics would appear to be wealth, and a
taste for art, leisure, and study." The "taste" and the "art" are
principally those of the pseudo-classic style, an imitation of "ancient
Greece and imperial Rome," which the French of the XVIII century carried
to such unpleasant excess. The general characteristics of the imitation,
size and bombast, are well epitomised in the principal statue of
Montpellier's fine Champ de Mars, which represents the high-heeled and
luxurious Louis XIV in the unfitting armour of a Roman Imperator,
mounted on a huge and restive charger. Such affectation in architectural
subjects is the death-blow to all real beauty and orig