has been maintained, a rectangle whose
plain double arches support a tunnel vault and divide the interior into
four bays. The piers are heavy and severe; and between them are alcoves,
used as chapels. The choir, narrower than the nave, is preceded by the
usual dome, and beyond it is a little unused apse, concealed from the
rest of the interior by a wall. Unimportant windows built with
distinctly utilitarian purpose successfully light this small, simple
room, and no kindly shadow hides its bareness or diminishes the unhappy
effect of the paintings which disfigure the walls. The Cathedral's
exterior is so surrounded by irregular old houses that the traveller had
discovered it with some difficulty. It has little that is worthy of
description, and after having entered by a conspicuously poor
Renaissance portal only to go out under an uninteresting modern one, he
found himself lost in wonder that the Cathedral-builders of
Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth should have utterly failed in a town which
offered them such inspiring suggestions as the great Arch of Triumph and
the still greater Imperial Theatre, besides all the other remains of
Roman antiquity which, long after the building of Notre-Dame, the
practical Maurice of Orange demolished for the making of his mediaeval
castle.

[Sidenote: Cavaillon.]

It was growing dusk, of a spring evening, when the traveller arrived at
Cavaillon and wandered about the narrow streets and came upon the
Cathedral. Glimpses of an interesting dome and a turret-tower had
appeared once or twice above the house-tops, leading him on with
freshened interest, and there was still light enough for many first
impressions when he arrived before the low cloister-door. But here was
no place for peaceful meditation. An old woman, coiffed and bent,
brushed past him as she entered, a chair in each hand; and as he effaced
himself against the church wall, a younger woman went by, also
chair-laden. Two or three others came, talking eagerly, little girls in
all stages of excitement ran in and out, and little boys came and went,
divided between assumed carelessness and a feeling of unusual
responsibility. Then a priest appeared on the threshold, not in
meditation, but on business. Another, old and heavy, and panting,
hurried in; and through the cloister-door, Monsieur le Cure, breviary in
hand, prayed watchfully. A little fellow, running, fell down, and the
priest sprang to lift him; the child was too small not to wi