m of
"Burgundian opulence." Its termination opens with an amplitude often
wanting in even a larger building, the piers being wide apart, without
screening, which heightens still more its generous proportions.

The two picturesque cardinal's hats, with cord and tassels, have long
been pendant from the vault of the choir, and are now dimmed in colour
and thick deep with dust, seemingly destined to fall of sheer old age
and decrepitude. Further particulars concerning this picturesque detail
are wanting only from the lack of any one in attendance from whom one
might get this information,--perhaps some reader of these lines may be
more fortunate.

On the pavement of the nave is a brass rule, inlaid diagonally from the
north to the south wall. Its original use appears to be clothed in some
obscurity, one informative person stating that it is the line of
departmental division, and another that it marks the meridian of Paris,
which is shown on all French navigation charts. Its real purpose is
evidently topographical rather than of religious or symbolical
significance.

An ardent French writer deplores the fact that there is no monument
here to show respect for Louis XI., who was born at Bourges and baptized
in the cathedral; a pity, perhaps, and certainly a subject worthy of the
consideration of "the powers that be."

[Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. CYR & Ste. JULIETTE NEVERS_]

III

ST. CYR AND ST. JULIETTE DE NEVERS

A unique experience is one's first contemplation of the "gay little city
of Nevers" from the Pont du Loire, with the none too large Cathedral of
St. Cyr and St. Juliette crowning, as it were, the apex of a series of
steep rises from the Loire, which, even at this distance from the sea,
still retains its ample breadth. Said Arthur Young in his plain and bald
phraseology, "Nevers makes a fine appearance." Here, on the very
threshold of the southland, it is something of a shock to be brought at
once into intimate association with Italian influences and types of
architecture; for, be it recalled, Nevers has been truly "an Italian
stronghold in the midst of France," with little to remind one, but its
speech, that it is merely a provincial French market-town. Nevers was
the seat of the Italian Dukes and Counts of Nievre, who built the ducal
palace, the _ci-devant_ chateau, now the Palace of Justice. Here, later,
dwelt the nephew of the great Mazarin, who said his king "had a heart
more French than his