‘No words can express the dulness of the place, or the savage ferocity of the mistral which blows there; as a winter resort it possesses no advantages whatever.’
The place became prosperous in the thirteenth century with the founding of the School of Medicine, which is famous to this day. It is housed in the buildings of the Episcopal Palace, and its frontage is still machicolated.
The Musée Fabre in the Esplanade contains the best provincial collection of pictures in France next to Lille. It is open on week-days—except Mondays—from 9 to 12, and 1.30 to 4 or 5; Sundays, 11 to 4 or 5.
The Cathedral, with a very odd-looking porch, is the church of a Benedictine abbey founded in 1364. Three of the original towers at the angles of the nave survive; the fourth and the Gothic choir were rebuilt about 1857.
Town Plan No. 20.—Montpellier.
The Tour des Pins is a survival of the early fortifications of the town, now restored. The inscription is to the memory of Jayme, the conqueror of Arragon.
The Jardin des Plantes, founded in 1593 by Henry IV., is the earliest in France.
A triumphal arch, called the Porte du Peyrou, was put up at the end of the seventeenth century to the glory of Louis XIV. The Promenade de Peyrou, begun about the same time and completed in 1785, has a statue of the same Louis, and a great prospect towards the sea and the Cevennes across the level country bordering the mouth of the Rhone.
The impression one gets of Montpellier in a short visit is that of a city mainly composed of buildings that are all of a uniformly creamy-white colour, and that the only other colour besides the dusty green of the foliage is the bright red of the soldiers’ uniforms and the gaudy colour of advertisements.