ve vanished, and are, as usual, marked by boulevards. That on
the north side still keeps the character of a rampart, and is a good
place for studying the most visible ornaments of the town.

Verneuil has much to show both in churches and houses. Of the latter,
besides a good many of timber and brick, which are always pleasant to
see, there are two which are more remarkable. One is a singularly good
bit of late Gothic with windows and a graceful _tourelle_. The other has
a _tourelle_ of the same kind, but it runs off into _Renaissance_. Both
have a curious kind of masonry, squares alternately of brick and stone.
The greatest church is that of Saint Mary Magdalen, in the great open
place in the upper part of the town. Here is the grand tower, built
between 1506 and 1530, a noble design, and carried out without any
infection of foreign detail. It is practically detached, standing at the
south-west corner of a low nave. If the nave had ever been rebuilt, as
was doubtless designed, to match the later and loftier choir, the
effect of the tower would have suffered a good deal. As it is, from some
points, where the nave is not seen at all, it reminded one a little of
Limoges Cathedral, as it stood before the rebuilding of the nave was
begun. It rises by two tall stages above the church; then the square
tower changes to an octagon, a very small octagon supporting one still
smaller. It would have been far better to have given the octagon more
importance, as in most of the other great examples, French and English,
starting with Boston stump. It is further complained, and the complaint
is true, that the upper part of the square tower looks top-heavy. It was
just the same with the other Magdalen tower at Taunton till its
rebuilding. Since then, strange to say, though no difference of detail
can be seen in the rebuilt tower, the effect of top-heaviness is gone.
In both cases that effect was, doubtless, due to the piling of stage
upon stage, without making them gradually increase in lightness and
richness towards the top, as at Bishops Lydeard. But it is not a case to
find fault; the vast height, the grandeur of design, the purity of
detail at so late a time, all mark this tower as one of the noblest
works of the late French Gothic. A little way to the west is another
tower, attached to a now desecrated church, we believe of Saint John,
which was clearly built as a rival to the Magdalen tower. It is rather
smaller, and in its lower sta