ding in every city he visited, was doomed to
disappointment. In vain he tried to console himself with the fact that
Toulouse had had two Cathedrals. Of one there was no trace; in the
other, confusion; and he was met with the axiom, true in architecture
as in other things, that two indifferent objects do not make one good
one. The "Dalbade," formerly the place of worship of the Knights of
Malta, has a more elegant tower; the Church of the Jacobins a more
interesting one; the portal of the old Chartreuse is more beautiful; the
Church of the Bull, more curious; and the Basilica of Saint-Sernin so
interesting and truly glorious that the Cathedral pales in colourless
insignificance.

Some cities of mediaeval France possessed, at the same time, two
Cathedrals, two bodies of Canons, and two Chapters under one and the
same Bishop. Such a city was Toulouse; and until the XII century,
Saint-Jacques and Saint-Etienne were rival Cathedrals. Then, for some
reason obscure to us, Saint-Jacques was degraded from its episcopal rank
and remained a simple church until 1812 when it was destroyed. The
present Cathedral of Saint-Etienne is a combination of styles and a
violation of every sort of architectural unity, and realises a confusion
which the most perverse imagination could scarcely have conceived.
According to every convention of building, the Cathedral is not only
artistically poor, but mathematically insupportable. The proportions are
execrable; and the interior, the finest part of the church, reminds one
irresistibly of a good puzzle badly put together. The weak tower is a
sufficient excuse for the absence of the other; from the tower the roof
slopes sharply and unreasonably, and the rose-window is perched, with
inappropriate jauntiness, to the left of the main portal. The whole
structure is not so much the vagary of an architect as the sport of
Fate, the self-evident survival of two unfitting facades. Walking
through narrow streets, one comes upon the apse as upon another church,
so different is its style. It is disproportionately higher than the
facade; instead of being conglomerate, it is homogeneous; instead of a
squat appearance, uninterestingly grotesque, it has the dignity of
height and unity. And although it is too closely surrounded by houses
and narrow streets, and although a view of the whole apse is entirely
prevented by the high wall of some churchly structure, it is the only
worthy part of the exterior and, by compa