This great church—for it is truly great, pure and simple—makes up in width what it lacks in length. Its nave and aisles are just covered by a span of one hundred and twenty feet,—a greater dimension than is possessed by Chartres or Rouen, and nearly as great as Paris or Amiens.
Altogether Notre Dame de Rodez is a most pleasing church, though conglomerate as to its architecture, and as bad, with respect to the Renaissance gable of its façade, as any contemporary work in the same style.
Rodez lacks, however, the great enfolding tower central of Albi.
This mellow and warm-toned cathedral, from its beginnings in the latter years of the thirteenth century to the time when the Renaissance cast its dastardly spell over the genius who inspired its original plan, was the result of the persevering though intermittent work of three centuries, and even then the two western towers were left incomplete.
This perhaps was fortunate; otherwise they might have been topped with such an excrescence as looms up over the doorless west façade.
The Gascon compares the pyramidal roofs which cap either tower—and with some justness, too—to the pyramids of Egypt, and for that reason the towers are, to him, the most wonderful in the universe. Subtle humour this, and the observer will have little difficulty in tracing the analogy.
Still, they really are preferable, as a decorative feature, to the tomb-like headboard which surmounts the central gable which they flank. The ground-plan is singularly uniform, with transepts scarcely defined—except in the interior arrangements—and yet not wholly absent.
The elaborate tower, called often and with some justification the beffroi, which flanks, or rather indicates, the northerly transept, is hardly pure as to its Gothic details, but it is a magnificent work nevertheless.
It dates from 1510, is two hundred and sixty-five feet high, and is typical of most of the late pointed work of its era. The final stage is octagonal and is surmounted by a statue of the Virgin surrounded by the Evangelists. This statue may or may not be a worthy work of art; it is too elevated, however, for one to decide.
The decorations of the west front, except for the tombstone-like Renaissance gable, are mainly of the same period as the north transept tower, and while perhaps ultra-florid, certainly make a fine appearance when viewed across the Place d'Armes.