rnished with a complete triforium and clerestory, which, seen between
the pillars of the apses, allow the sort of break which the triforium
gives to be combined with the grand effect of the full unbroken columns.
Something of the same kind is found at Bourges, and, on a much smaller
scale, at Coutances. The effect of the arrangement comes out in
perfection at Le Mans. Altogether, little as the building seems to be
known, the thirteenth-century work at Le Mans undoubtedly entitles it to
rank among the noblest churches of the middle ages. One point more on
the Romanesque church of Le Mans. The original design embraced two
towers at the end of the transept, like Exeter, Ottery, and seemingly
Saint Martin's at Tours. These towers were destroyed by order of William
Rufus, who charged the Bishop Hildebert with having used them to shoot
at the neighbouring castle.[64] The north tower has never been rebuilt;
its ruins are there to this day. The southern tower was again rebuilt at
the end of the twelfth century and finished in the fifteenth. This is
surely as speaking a bit of architectural history as one often finds.

[Illustration: Interior of Le Mans Cathedral]

The writer in Murray, in his zeal for the cathedral of Chartres, assumes
that no one will care to visit such inferior buildings as the other
churches of that city. Let no man be thus led astray. In the general
view of the city from the walks to the south-east, one of the most
effective views to be had of any city, two other churches stand out very
strikingly, the cathedral crowning all. Of these Saint Anian, we must
confess, is somewhat of a deceiver. The distant effect is good, but
there is little to repay a nearer examination. It is far otherwise with
the Abbey of Saint Peter, whose apse, though on a far smaller scale, is
distinctly more skilfully managed than that of the cathedral. The
disused collegiate church of Saint Andrew has some good Transitional
work, and Saint Martin-in-the-Vale, just outside the town, is a gem of
bold and simple Romanesque. But the secondary churches of Chartres do
not equal those of Le Mans, while Chartres is still further behind Le
Mans in military and domestic remains. At Le Mans the Abbey of La
Couture (_de cultura Dei_) is a perfect minster with two unfinished
western towers, a nave of Aquitanian width,[65] a fine Romanesque apse,
in which, if later windows have been inserted, some small fragments of
some early work have also been pr