Frejus lost prestige with the decadence of the Empire, and after a
destruction by the Saracens in the X century, Nature gave the blow which
finally crushed her when the sea retreated a mile, and her old Roman
light-house was left to overlook merely a long stretch of barren, sandy
land. Owing to this stranded, inland position, she has escaped both the
dignity of a modern sea-port and the prostitution of a Rivieran resort,
and is a little dead city, the seat of an ancient Provencal "Cathedral
of the Sea." This Cathedral is largely free from XVII and XVIII century
disfigurements; and the pity is that having escaped this, a French
church's imminent peril, it should have become so built around that the
character of the exterior is almost lost. The facade is severely plain,
an uninteresting re-building of 1823, but the carved wood of its portals
is beautiful. The towers, as in other maritime Cathedrals of Provence,
recall the perils and dangers of their days; and these towers of Frejus,
although none the less practically defensive, have a more churchly
appearance than those of Antibes, Grasse, and Vence. Over the vestibuled
entrance rises the western tower. Its heavy, rectangular base is the
support of a super-structure which was replaced in the XVI century by
one more in keeping with conventional ecclesiastical models. Then the
windows of the base, whose rounded arches are still traceable, were
walled in; and the new octagonal stage with high windows of its own was
completed by a tile-covered spire. The more interesting tower is that
which surmounts the apse. This was the lookout, facing the sea, the
really vital defence of the church. Its upper room was a storage place
for arms and ammunition, and on the side which faces the city was open,
with a broad, pointed arch. Above, the tower ends in machiolated
battlements and presents a very strong and stern front seaward, perhaps
no stronger, but more artistic and grim than towers of other Provencal
Cathedrals.

The entrance of the church is curiously complicated. To the left is the
little baptistery; directly before one, a narrow stairway which leads to
the Cloister; and on the right, a low-arched vestibule which opens into
the nave of the Cathedral. The interior of Saint-Etienne is dark and
somewhat gloomy, but that is an inherent trait of a fortress-church, for
every added inch of window-opening brought an ell of danger. The nave is
unusually low and broad, and its buttressed