ON THE RAMPARTS OF THE CITÉ OF CARCASSONNE.
One of the most complete medieval towns in the world.
one feels that more regard for the marks of time and less speculative roof-making would have preserved the spirit of antiquity, which, it must in candour be admitted, has been destroyed in the enthusiasm for reconstruction. When this fact has been recognized and the first disappointment has gone, the Cité becomes, as it cannot fail to do, one of the most thrilling of medieval survivals. There is a continuous double line of walls from 50 to 60 feet in height, made strikingly picturesque with no less than forty-eight towers. Several of these are the work of the Visigoth successors of Alaric, and merely to gaze upon them for a few moments in making the circuit of the walls with the guide gives one a more real and true impression of what the invasion of Gaul really meant than one gets from reading the sketchy account of those times which is all the smaller histories supply. Six more towers make the three inner sides of the castle formidable. The Porte Narbonnaise, on the east side of the Cité, was built by Philippe le Hardi, who continued to strengthen the defences of Carcassonne until his death at Perpignan in 1285.
The Church of St. Nazaire is a building of exceptional charm and beauty, the choir and transepts being regarded as the most perfect example of thirteenth-century work in the South of France. They were added during the reign of St. Louis, to whose generosity the church was deeply indebted. The Romanesque nave dates from about 1100, when an earlier one was rebuilt. In the south aisle a most remarkable bas-relief is let into the wall. The subject is the Siege of Toulouse in 1218, when Simon de Montfort was killed. There are some exceedingly interesting effigies and tombs of early bishops, and that of Simon Vigorce, Archbishop of Narbonne, who died in 1575. The glass ranges from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, and some of it is very beautiful.
Good plans of the Cité are sold in the souvenir shop in the main street leading from the Porte d’Aude, which faces the modern town. The old bridge across the Aude is an interesting medieval survival, and makes a good foreground to the first near view of the old city, with its many towers and conical roofs cutting into the sky-line.
The streets of the later town are all narrow, and as they run at right angles to one another, the American visitor must almost feel at home. There are two churches which should not be overlooked. They are St. Michael’s, now the cathedral, a thirteenth-century building, with a painted nave, and St. Vincent’s, belonging to the fourteenth century, with a west portal enriched with statuary.
THE ROAD TO NARBONNE
goes straight out of Carcassonne towards the east, crossing the Pont Neuf. In fine weather this road is white and dusty, like all the roads in the South of France, and motor-cars appear as clouds by day and fire by night.
Looking back on the ancient Carcassonne, the medievalism of the place is quite fantastic, and exactly what the early school of Italian artists depicted as backgrounds to their pictures.