the L'Isle, and the Dronne. Again, the scenery of Périgord, hilly rather than mountainous, is varied by castles and towers, lone and fast falling to decay, which once were the homes of haughty robber barons. Their ruins may be descried from time to time, covering some projecting ledge of rock, or now in the hollow of a valley, in the heart of a forest, in the centre of a desolate plain, or now dominating towns and villages. In a word, these round towers, quadrangular keeps, and machicolated parapets, with here and there the remains of a moat, form one of the characteristics of the province. To this changing landscape of hill and dale, stream and plain, forest and moor, dotted over at intervals with the vestiges of feudal strongholds, must be added many a church venerable from its early date and an exceptional order of architecture, to which we shall presently invite attention. are these latter for the most part yet deprived of all individuality by the cold touch of the 'restorer,' who, busy enough even in France, has not however, as with us, made his refrigerating presence felt in the remotest nook and corner of the land. Worse even than the restorer, the fell hand of the reconstructor is cancelling in too appreciable a degree the architectural character of Oxford itself, and wiping out the stamp of antiquity, together with

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Nor

the charm of unsymmetrical singularity, from not a few rural churches in every county of England.

The province or duchy of Guienne is divided into four principal parts, besides some smaller divisions, of which for the present we need not take account. On the extreme west is Bordelais (the country about Bordeaux), and, extending successively eastwards, Périgord, Quercy, and Rouergue. Thus Périgord and Quercy may be grouped together as Central Guienne, which will form the subject of this and the following chapter.

Périgueux, capital of Périgord, is a considerable town, and well placed as a convenient, if sparsely used, halting-place for travellers on their way to the Pyrenees or the Peninsula. The old city is pleasantly situated on the river L'Isle, and encircled by low verdant hills. A saunter through its narrow streets soon takes one to the fruit-market, looking like an ideal picture in a gallery cut from the canvas and transferred bodily into everyday life. There is the irregular outline, the open space strewn at this season of the year with grape-heaps, teeming baskets of melons, figs, pomegranates. As you survey the scene, the usual cheapening goes briskly on betwixt buyers and sellers, many of them oddly dressed, especially as regards the provincial headpiece, which in Périgord, as elsewhere in France, seems to hold its own, even when other local

costumes tend to disappear. To complete the picture, the little 'marché aux herbes' is overshadowed by an outlandish-looking structure, yet withal vast and grandiose. This is the Cathedral of St.-Front. Its Byzantine architecture, indicated by a central cupola and several domical turrets in combination with the curved arch, stands out in strong contrast to the prevailing Pointed Gothic. The cupola, large and lofty, gives character and dignity to the whole. But the turrets, dotted over the roof with a liberal hand, seem open to criticism, as more conical than dome-shaped, being tall and narrow, besides redundant in number; presenting, altogether, a remarkable likeness to the famous 'pepper-boxes' in Trafalgar Square, of which they may possibly have been the prototypes. The approach is by a portico coextensive in width with the west front. Crossing this, you pass within the interior. Here are a series of circular arcades and massive piers, which, together with a luxurious sense of space and freedom derived from the large, unencumbered area of nave and aisles, produce an excellent impression of size and proportion.

At the opposite extremity of the town is another huge unadorned church of the same domed or Byzantine type, that of St.-Etienne de la Cité. It is marked by a certain majesty of scale in union with rude simplicity of detail characteristic of most

churches of early date, no matter what may be their style. With regard to the Byzantine or Oriental type of this and other churches of Périgord, may it be permitted us to see in it the reflex action upon Christian architecture of Saracenic art, the Saracens having overrun Spain to the Pyrenees, and made not only their ravages felt, but possibly also their artistic genius, far into the southern provinces of France? At any rate, however it may be accounted for, this prevalence, so far northwest as Périgord, of the Eastern cupola together with arches that gravitate towards the horse-shoe form, is a fact of some importance. Nor will the interest naturally attaching to so exoteric an architectural feature be diminished when we find it confronting us in the rural village no less than in the populous city.

Descending from St.-Etienne towards the valley of the L'Isle, in quest of the Tower of Veizon, a noble vestige of the Roman dominion, the present writer having wandered somewhat out of the way, was hurrying through a quiet suburban street, and past what looked like a college or convent chapel that lay 'end on,' as sailors say, to the thoroughfare. It occupied one side of a courtyard, separated from the roadway by tall railings. The sound of psalmody breaking on the ear, an open gate was availed of to step for curiosity's sake within the

chapel walls. Here, standing in a minority of one inside the tiny nave, the stranger hearkened to a sisterhood of the Sacré Cœur (if his memory serves him) rehearsing from behind a screen the finishing strophes of their evening song. In a few moments it was over the silence of solitude succeeded to the resonance of many feminine voices: and as the nuns withdrew into the inner recesses of their cloister the momentary auditor of their choral recitation was once more on the track of the pagan Tour de Veizon. This, which stands apart, solitary, outside the town amid fields, is built of fine Roman brick of a reddish tint, and describes a circle of bold sweep embracing a considerable area within its circumference. Though partially ruined, it still exhibits, after so many centuries, at least half its original mass in good preservation. Near at hand. flows the stream, spanned by more than one bridge of stone. On the quay facing the principal of these bridges (that nearest to St.-Front) is a rare example of a dwelling-house of the Middle Ages, displaying richly carved doors and windows, a row of gables not unlike an embattlement, and hanging storeys of sculptured woodwork successively overlapping each other. This curious survival of fifteenth-century domestic art, together with the two great Byzantine churches and the Roman tower, invite the careful study of the architectural student.