CATHEDRALS AND CLOISTERS
OF THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

CATHEDRALS
and CLOISTERS

OF THE

SOUTH OF FRANCE

BY

ELISE WHITLOCK ROSE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

VIDA HUNT FRANCIS

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME I.

PREFACE.

For years the makers of this book have spent the summer time inwandering about the French country; led here by the fame of some oldmonument, or there by an incident of history. They have found the real,unspoiled France, often unexplored by any except the French themselves,and practically unknown to foreigners, even to the ubiquitous maker ofguide-books. For weeks together they have travelled without meeting anEnglish-speaking person. It is, therefore, not surprising that they wereunable to find, in any convenient form in English, a book telling of theCathedrals of the South which was at once accurate and complete. For theCathedrals of that country are monuments not only of architecture andits history, but of the history of peoples, the psychology of thechristianising and unifying of the barbarian and the Gallo-Roman, andmany things besides, epitomised perhaps in the old words, “the strugglebetween the world, the flesh, and the devil.” In French, works onCathedrals are numerous and exhaustive; but either so voluminous as tobe unpractical except for the specialist—as the volumes ofViollet-le-Duc,—or so technical as to make each Cathedral seem one inan endless, monotonous procession, differing from the others only insize, style, and age. This is distinctly unfair to these old churcheswhich have personalities and idiosyncrasies as real as those ofindividuals. It has been the aim of the makers of this book tointroduce, in photograph and in story,—not critically or exhaustively,but suggestively and accurately,—the Cathedral of the Mediterraneanprovinces as it exists to-day with its peculiar characteristics ofarchitecture and history. They have described only churches which theyhave seen, they have verified every fact and date where suchverification was possible, and have depended on local tradition onlywhere that was all which remained to tell of the past; and they willfeel abundantly repaid for travel, research, and patient exploration oftowers, crypts, and archives if the leisurely traveller on pleasure bentshall find in these volumes but a hint of the interest and fascinationwhich the glorious architecture, the history, and the unmatched climateof the Southland can awaken.