The seventeenth-century restorations amounted practically to a reconstruction, as the Calvinists had partly destroyed the fabric. The two fine towers of the century before were left standing, but without their spires.
The city itself lies at a height of over seven hundred kilometres, and the _pic_ rises another three hundred kilometres above. The surrounding "green basin of hillsides" encloses the city in a circular depression, which, with its cathedral as the hub, radiates in long, straight roadways to the bases of these verdure-clad hills.
It is not possible to have a general view of the cathedral without its imposing background of mountain or hilltops, and for this reason, while the entire city may appear dwarfed, and its cathedral likewise diminished in size, they both show in reality the strong contrasting effect of nature and art.
The cathedral towers, built by Bishop de la Rovere, are of st.u.r.dy though not great proportions, and the half-suggested spires rise skyward in as piercing a manner as if they were continued another hundred feet.
As a matter of fact one rises to a height of two hundred and three feet, and the other to two hundred and seventy-six feet, so at least, they are not diminutive. The taller of these pleasing towers is really a remarkable work.
The general plan of the cathedral is the conventional Gothic conception, which was not changed in the seventeenth-century reconstruction.
The nave is flanked with the usual aisles, which in turn are ab.u.t.ted with ten chapels on either side.
Just within the left portal is preserved the old _bourdon_ called _la Non-Pareille_, a curiosity which seems in questionable taste for inclusion within a cathedral.
The rose window of the portal shows in the interior with considerable effect, though it is of not great elegance or magnificence of itself.
In the _Chapelle des Catechismes_, immediately beneath the tower, is an unusual "a.s.sumption." As a work of art its rank is not high, and its artist is unknown, but in its conception it is unique and wonderful.
There are some excellent wood-carvings in the _Chapelle du Baptistere_, a description which applies as well to the stalls of the choir.
Around the sanctuary hang seven tapestries, ancient, it is said, but of no great beauty in themselves.
In a chapel on the north side of the choir is a "miraculous statue" of _la Vierge Noir_.
The organ _buffet_ dates from 1640, and is of the ridiculous overpowering bulk of most works of its cla.s.s.
The bishopric, founded by St. Severein in the third century at Civitas Gabalorum, was reestablished at Mende in the year 1000.
The Ermitage de St. Privat, the holy shrine of the former habitation of the holy man whose name it bears, is situated a few kilometres away on the side of Mont Mimat. It is a favourite place of pilgrimage, and from the platform of the chapel is to be had a fine view of the city and its cathedral.
XXII
OTHER OLD-TIME CATHEDRALS IN AND ABOUT THE BASIN OF THE GARONNE
_Dax_
At Dax, an ancient thermal station of the Romans, is a small cathedral, mainly modern, with a portal of the thirteenth century.
It was reconstructed from these thirteenth-century remains in the seventeenth century, and exhibits no marks of beauty which would have established its ranking greatness even at that time.
Dax was a bishopric in the province of Auch in the third century, but the see was suppressed in 1802.
_Eauze_
Eauze was an archbishopric in the third century, when St. Paterne was its first dignitary. Subsequently--in the following century--the archbishopric was transferred to Auch.
As _Elusa_ it was an important place in the time of Caesar, but was completely destroyed in the early part of the tenth century. Eauze, therefore, has no church edifice which ever ranked as a cathedral, but there is a fine Gothic church of the late fifteenth century which is, in every way, an architectural monument worthy of remark.
_Lombez_
The bishopric of Lombez, in the ancient ecclesiastical province of Toulouse, endured from 1328 (a tenth-century Benedictine abbey foundation).
Its first bishop was one Roger de Comminges, a monk who came from the monastic community of St. Bertrand de Comminges.
The see was suppressed in 1790.
_St. Papoul_
St. Papoul was a bishopric from 1317 until 1790. Its cathedral is in many respects a really fine work. It was an ancient abbatial church in the Romanesque style, and has an attractive cloister built after the same manner.
_Rieux_
Rieux is perhaps the tiniest _ville_ of France which has ever possessed episcopal dignity. It is situated on a mere rivulet--a branch of the Arize, which itself is not much more, but which in turn goes to swell the flood of La Garonne. Its one-time cathedral is perhaps not remarkable in any way, though it has a fine fifteenth-century tower in _brique_. The bishopric was founded in 1370 under Guillaume de Brutia, and was suppressed in 1790.
_Lavaur_
Lavaur was a bishopric, in the ecclesiastical province of Toulouse, from 1317 to 1790.
Its cathedral of brick is of the fourteenth century, with a _clocher_ dating from 1515, and a smaller tower, embracing a _jacquemart_, of the sixteenth century.
In the interior is a fine sixteenth-century painting, but there are no other artistic treasures or details of note.
_Oloron_
Oloron was a bishopric under St. Gratus in the sixth century; it ceased its functions as the head of a diocese at the suppression of 1790.
The former cathedral of Ste. Marie is a fine Romanic-Ogivale edifice of the eleventh century, though its constructive era may be said to extend well toward the fifteenth before it reached completion. There is a remarkably beautiful Romanesque sculptured portal. The nave is doubled, as to its aisles, and is one hundred and fifty feet or more in length and one hundred and six wide, an astonishing breadth when one comes to think of it, and a dimension which is not equalled by any minor cathedral.
There are no other notable features beyond the general attractiveness of its charming environment.
The ancient _eveche_ has a fine Romanesque tower, and the cathedral itself is reckoned, by a paternal government, as a "_monument historique_," and as such is cared for at public expense.
_Vabres_
Vabres was a bishopric which came into being as an aftergrowth of a Benedictine foundation of the ninth century, though its episcopal functions only began in 1318, and ceased with the Revolutionary suppression. It was a suffragan in the archiepiscopal diocese of Albi.