owns founded
by Edward I. This flourishing commercial town was the ruin of its
neighbor, St. Emilion, which affords a fine field for the antiquary,
nearly the whole town consisting of buildings of the Middle Ages. A
considerable part of the town wall of the twelfth century remains,
with the ditch, now turned into vineyards, and at one corner is a fine
house of the same period, which is called the Palace of the Cardinal
de la Mothe, who may perhaps have resided in it; but it is at least a
century older than his time, and can hardly be later than 1200, as
will at once be seen by the details. The French antiquaries say that
it was built by the Cardinal in 1302, and speak of it as a remarkable
synchronism in art; but the fact appears to me simply incredible. The
most remarkable feature of St. Emilion is the monolithic church, which
is probably one of the most curious of its class. It is cut entirely
out of the solid rock, and is of early Romanesque character. The
precise date is uncertain, but it appears most probable that the work
was commenced in the eleventh century, and carried on through the
whole of the twelfth. St. Emilion is said to have lived in the eighth
century. A fragment of an inscription remains, the characters of which
agree with the eleventh century; but some of the French antiquaries
attribute it to the ninth. Others consider it as merely the crypt of
the church above on the top of the rock; but that church is of much
later character, and it is much more probable that the subterranean
church was first made, and the other built long afterwards, when the
country was in a more settled state. This church is 115 feet long by
80 wide. It consists of three parallel aisles, or rather a nave and
two aisles, with plain barrel-shaped vaults, if they can be so called,
with transverse vaults or openings, and round arches on massive square
piers; the imposts are of the plain early Norman character, merely a
square projection chamfered off on the under side, but one of them is
enriched with the billet ornament. There are recesses for tombs down
the sides, and a fourth aisle or passage has been cut out on the south
side, apparently for tombs only, as it has recesses on both sides to
receive the stone coffins. Still farther to the south, but connected
by a passage, is a circular chamber in an unfinished state, with a
domical vault, and an opening in the centre to a shaft which is
carried up to the surface. Whether this was