Westward, if we except Béziers, where there is a commanding cathedral; Narbonne, where the true sky-pointing Gothic is to be found; and Perpignan, where there is a very ancient though peculiarly disposed cathedral, there are no really grand cathedral churches of this or any other day. On the whole, however, all these cities are possessed of a subtle charm of manner and environment which tell a story peculiarly their own.
Foremost among these cities of Southern Gaul, which have perhaps the greatest and most appealing interest for the traveller, are Carcassonne and Aigues-Mortes.
Each of these remarkable reminders of days that are gone is unlike anything elsewhere. Their very decay and practical desertion make for an interest which would otherwise be unattainable.
Aigues-Mortes has no cathedral, nor ever had; but Carcassonne has a very beautiful, though small, example in St. Nazaire, treated elsewhere in this book.
Both Aigues-Mortes and Carcassonne are the last, and the greatest, examples of the famous walled and fortified cities of the Middle Ages.
Aigues-Mortes itself is a mere dead thing of the marshes, which once held ten thousand souls, and witnessed all the pomp and glitter which attended upon the embarking of Louis IX. on his chivalrous, but ill-starred, ventures to the African coasts.
"Here was a city built by the whim of a king—the last of the Royal Crusaders." To-day it is a coffin-like city with perhaps a couple of thousand pallid, shaking mortals, striving against the marsh-fever, among the ruined houses, and within the mouldering walls of an ancient Gothic burgh.
The Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes