e two towers forms a porch, the entrance to the
interior whose central nave stretches out in great spaciousness. The
lateral naves, in contrast, are exceedingly narrow and have high
galleries supported by large monolithic columns. These naves are
prolonged into an ambulatory, each of whose chapels, in consonance with
the Cathedral's colossal proportions, is as large as many a church. The
building stone of the interior is grey and pink, with white marble used
decoratively for capitals and bases; and these combinations of tints
which would seem almost too delicate, too effeminate, for so large a
building, are made rich and effective by their very mass, the gigantic
sizes which the plan exacts. All that artistic conception could produce
has been added to complete an interior that is entirely oriental in its
luxury of ornamentation, half-oriental in style, and without that sober
majesty which is an inherent characteristic of the most elaborate styles
native to Western Christianity. Under the gilded dome is a rich
baldaquined High Altar, and through the whole church there is a
magnificence of mosaics, of mural paintings, and of stained glass that
is sumptuous. Mosaics line the arches of the nave and the pendentives,
and form the flooring; and in the midst of this richness of colour the
grey pillars rise, one after the other in long, shadowy perspective,
like the trees of a stately grove.

In planning this new Provencal Cathedral its architects did not attempt
to reproduce, either exactly or in greater perfection, any maritime type
which its situation on the Mediterranean might have suggested, nor were
they inspired by any of the models of the native style; and perhaps, to
the captious mind, its most serious defect is that its building has
destroyed not only an actual portion of the old Majeure, but an historic
interest which might well have been preserved by a wise restoration or
an harmonious re-building. And yet, with the large Palace of the
Archbishop on the Port de la Joliette near-by, the statue of a devoted
and loving Bishop in the open square, and the majestic Cathedral of
Sainte-Marie-Majeure itself, the episcopacy of Marseilles has all the
outward and visible signs of strength and glory and power.

[Sidenote: Toulon.]

Toulon, although a foundation of the Romans, owes its rank to-day to
Henry IV, to Richelieu, and to Louis XIV's busy architect, Vauban. It is
the "Gibraltar of France," a bright, bustling, modern