they talked; they were very
_meridionaux_.

The only two lions at Narbonne are the cathedral and the museum, the
latter of which is quartered in the hotel de ville. The cathedral,
closely shut in by houses and with the west front undergoing repairs, is
singular in two respects. It consists exclusively of a choir, which is
of the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the next, and
of great magnificence. There is absolutely nothing else. This choir, of
extraordinary elevation, forms the whole church. I sat there a good
while; there was no other visitor. I had taken a great dislike to poor
little Narbonne, which struck me as sordid and overheated, and this
place seemed to extend to me, as in the Middle Ages, the privilege of
sanctuary. It is a very solemn corner. The other peculiarity of the
cathedral is that, externally, it bristles with battlements, having
anciently formed part of the defences of the _archeveche_, which is
beside it and which connects it with the hotel de ville. This
combination of the church and the fortress is very curious, and during
the Middle Ages was not without its value. The palace of the former
archbishops of Narbonne (the hotel de ville of to-day forms part of it)
was both an asylum and an arsenal during the hideous wars by which all
Languedoc was ravaged in the thirteenth century. The whole mass of
buildings

[Illustration: NARBONNE--THE CATHEDRAL AND HOTEL DE VILLE.]

is jammed together in a manner that from certain points of view makes it
far from apparent which feature is which. The museum occupies several
chambers at the top of the hotel de ville, and is not an imposing
collection. It was closed, but I induced the portress to let me in--a
silent, cadaverous person, in a black coif, like a _beguine_, who sat
knitting in one of the windows while I went the rounds. The number of
Roman fragments is small, and their quality is not the finest; I must
add that this impression was hastily gathered. There is, indeed, a work
of art in one of the rooms which creates a presumption in favour of the
place--the portrait (rather a good one) of a citizen of Narbonne, whose
name I forget, who is described as having devoted all his time and his
intelligence to collecting the objects by which the visitor is
surrounded. This excellent man was a connoisseur, and the visitor is
doubtless often an ignoramus.

[Illustration]

Chapter xxv

"Cette, with its glistening houses white,