a battered, brass-nailed door and saw before him
the stretch of a single, empty nave, a choir beneath whose lower vault
are three small windows, and on either side the archways which he knew
must lead to narrow transepts. In the south side, plain, rounded windows
give a glimmering light, and over each projects an arch, the modest
decoration of the walls. Far above rises the tunnel-vault, whose sheer
height is grandly dignified; the arches rest on roughly carved capitals,
and the outer rectangle of the piers is displaced for half a column. The
rehearsal of these most simple details seems but the writing of "the
letter which killeth," and not the portrayal of the spirit that seems to
live within these walls. Details which seem so poorly few when read, are
nobly so when seen. This small old church has a true religious
stateliness, and it seemed as if a priest should bring the
Sanctuary-light which says, "The Lord is in His holy temple."

Saint-Jerome was built between 1490 and 1500, a hundred years before its
episcopal elevation, and forms a most complete antithesis to
Notre-Dame-du-Bourg which it supplanted in 1591. Where Notre-Dame is
small, Saint-Jerome is large, where the old church is simple, the newer
one is either pretentious or sumptuous, and where the one is Romanesque,
the other is Gothic.

The present Cathedral stands on the heights of the city; and from one
side or another its clean, straight walls can be seen in all their large
angularity and absence of architectural significance. Towers rise
conventionally above the facade; and a big broad flight of white stone
steps leads to three modern portals that have been built in an
economical imitation of the sculptured richness of the XIII century.

The interior, also Gothic, has neither clerestory nor triforium, and its
naves are covered by a vaulting which springs broadly from the round,
supporting piers. The conception is not noble, it has no simplicity, and
no more of spiritual suggestion than a Madonna of Titian; but the space
of the nave is so largely generous and the new polychrome so richly
toned that the church has majesty of space and harmony, deep lights and
subdued colourings; it is large and sumptuous with the munificence of a
Veronese canvas, a singular and most curious contrast to the cold
severity of its outer walls.

[Illustration: "THE INTERIOR HAS NEITHER CLERESTORY NOR
TRIFORIUM."--DIGNE.]

Before the High Altar of this Church lies buried one