XIV
ST. NAZAIRE DE CARCASSONNE
With old and new Carcassonne one finds a contrast, if not as great as between the hyphenated Hungarian cities of Buda and Pest, at least as marked in detail.
In most European settlements, where an old municipality adjoins a modern one, walls have been razed, moats filled, and much general modernization has been undertaken.
With Carcassonne this is not so; its winding ways, its culs-de-sacs, narrow alleys, and towering walls remain much as they always were, and the great stronghold of the Middle Ages, vulnerable—as history tells—from but one point, remains to-day, after its admirable restoration of roof and capstone, much as it was in the days when modern Carcassonne was but a scattering hamlet beneath the walls of the older fortification.
One thing will always be recalled, and that is that a part of the enceinte of the ancient Cité was a construction of the sixth century—the days of the Visigoths—and that its subsequent development into an almost invulnerable fortress was but the endorsement which later centuries gave to the work and forethought of a people who were supposed to possess no arts, and very little of ingenuity.
This should suggest a line of investigation to one so minded; while for us, who regard the ancient walls merely as a boundary which sheltered and protected a charming Gothic church, it is perhaps sufficient to recall the inconsistency in many previous estimates as to what great abilities, if any, the Goths possessed.
If it is true that the Visigoths merely followed Roman tradition, so much the more creditable to them that they preserved these ancient walls to the glory of those who came after, and but added to the general plan.
Old and new Carcassonne, as one might call them, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had each their own magistrates and a separate government. The Cité, elevated above the ville, held also the garrison, the presidial seat, and the first seneschalship of the province.
The bishopric of the Cité is not so ancient as the ville itself; for the first prelate there whose name is found upon record was one Sergius, "who subscribed to a 'Council' held at Narbonne in 590."