As the most notable and peculiar details of the interior, will be remarked the cupolas of the roof, and the lantern at the crossing, which is pierced by twelve windows.
For sheer beauty, and its utile purpose as well, this great lanthorn is further noted as being most unusual in either the Romanesque or Gothic churches of France.
The choir is apse-ended and is surrounded by four chapels of no great prominence or beauty.
The south transept has a tour in embryo, which, had it been completed, would doubtless have been the twin of that which terminates the transept on the north.
The foundations of the episcopal residence, which is immediately beside the cathedral (restored in the nineteenth century), are very ancient. In its garden stands a colossal statue to Comte Jean, the father of François I.
Angoulême was the residence of the Black Prince after the battle of Poitiers, though no record remains as to where he may have lodged. A house in the Rue de Genève has been singled out in the past as being where John Calvin lived in 1533, but it is not recognizable to-day.
XII
NOTRE DAME DE MOULINS
"Les Bourbonnais sont aimables, mais vains, légers et facilement oublieux, avec rien d'excessif, rien d'exubérance dans leur nature."
—André Rolland.
Until he had travelled through Bourbonnais, "the sweetest part of France—in the hey-day of the vintage," said Sterne, "I never felt the distress of plenty."