1536, succeeding prelates found much to distract them from any further
building; the Cathedral itself was so injured that such attention as
could be spared from heretics to mere architectural details was devoted
to necessary restorations and reconstructions, and the finished
Saint-Pierre of to-day is an edifice of surprising modernity.

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

[Illustration: "ITS GENERAL EFFECT IS SOMEWHAT THAT OF A
PORTE-COCHERE."--MONTPELLIER.]

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

[Illustration: "THE FINEST VIEW IS THAT OF THE APSE."--MONTPELLIER.]

As a whole, Saint-Pierre is a fine Cathedral; through many stages of
building, enlarging, and re-constructing, its style has remained
consonant; but the general impression is not altogether harmonious. The
perspective of the western front, which should be imposing, is destroyed
by a hill which slopes s