The fine western towers are modern, but they form the one note which produces the effect of ensemble, which otherwise would be entirely wanting.
The view from the Quai Bergemet, just across the Adour, for picturesqueness of the quality which artists—tyros and masters alike—love to sketch, is reminiscent only of St. Lo in Normandy.
Aside from the charm of its general picturesqueness of situation and grouping, Notre Dame de Bayonne will appeal mostly by its interior arrangements and embellishments.
The western portal is still lacking the greatness which future ages may yet bestow upon it, and that of the north transept, by which one enters, is, though somewhat more ornate, not otherwise remarkable.
A florid cloister of considerable size attaches itself on the south, but access is had only from the sacristy.
The choir and apse are of the thirteenth century, and immediately followed the fire of 1213.
Neither the transepts nor choir are of great length; indeed, they are attenuated as compared with those of the more magnificent churches of the Gothic type, of which this is, in a way, an otherwise satisfying example.
The patriotic Englishman will take pride in the fact that the English arms are graven somewhere in the vaulting of the nave. He may not be able to spy them out,—probably will not be,—but they likely enough existed, as a mid-Victorian writer describes them minutely, though no modern guides or works of local repute make mention of the feature in any way. The triforium is elegantly traceried, and is the most worthy and artistic detail to be seen in the whole structure.
The clerestory windows contain glass of the fifteenth century; much broken to-day, but of the same excellent quality of its century, and that immediately preceding. The remainder of the glass, in the clerestory and choir, is modern.
In the sacristy is a remarkable series of perfectly preserved thirteenth-century sculptures in stone which truthfully—with the before-mentioned triforum—are the real "art treasures" of the cathedral. The three naves; the nave proper and its flanking aisles; the transepts, attenuated though they be; and the equally shallow choir, all in some way present a really grand effect, at once harmonious and pleasing.