onsoled himself and irritated a royal Spanish brother.
Ferdinand and Isabella promptly visited their new possessions, and made
solemn entry into Perpignan. Unfortunately the Inquisition came in their
train, and the unbounded zeal of the Holy Office brought the Spanish
rule which protected it into ever-increasing disfavour. In vain Philip
III again bestowed on Perpignan the title of "faithful city," which she
had first received from John of Aragon for her loyal resistance to Louis
XI; in vain he ennobled several of her inhabitants and transferred to
her, from Elne, the episcopal power. The city was ready for new and
kinder masters than the Most Catholic Kings, and in 1642 the French were
received as liberators.

During all these years the Cathedral had grown very slowly. Commenced in
1324, over a century elapsed before the choir was finished and the
building of the nave was not begun until a hundred years later. The High
Altar, a Porch, and the iron cage of the tower were added with equal
deliberation, and even to-day it is still unfinished. The most beautiful
part is the strongly buttressed apse; the poorest, the unfinished
facade, which has been very fitly described as "plain and mean." Looking
disconsolately at it from the deserted square, scarcely tempted to go
nearer, the traveller was astounded at the thought that for several
centuries this unsightly wall had stared on generations of worshippers
without goading them into any frenzy of action,--either destructive or
constructive. His only comfort lay in the scaffolding which was building
around it, and which seemed to promise better things.

[Illustration: "THE UNFINISHED FACADE."--PERPIGNAN.]

The interior of the Cathedral is very large and lofty. It is without
aisles and the chapels are discreetly hidden between the piers. Far
above one's head curves the ribbed Gothic vaulting, and all around is
unbroken space that ends in darkness or the vague outline of an altar,
dimly lighted by a flickering candle. The walls are painted in rich,
sombre colours, and the light comes very gently through the good old
stained-glass windows. It is a southern church, dark, cool, and somewhat
mysterious; quite foreign to the glare and heat of reality. People are
lost in its solemn vastness, and even with many worshippers it is a
solitude where most holy vigils could be kept, a mystic place where the
southern imagination might well lose itself in such sacred ardours as
Saint Theresa