Again the parapet and terrace which precede this church, the ground-plan, and some of the elevations are pure Lombard in motive.
There are no transepts and no ancient chapels at the eastern termination; the windows running down to the pavement. This, however, does not make for an appearance at all outré—quite the reverse is the case. The general effect of the entire internal distribution of parts, with its fine approach from the nave to the sanctuary and choir, is exceedingly notable.
Of the remains of the edifice, which was erected on the foundations of a still earlier church, in 1052 (reconstructed in 1515), we have those of the primitive, but rich, ornamentation of the façade as the most interesting and appealing.
The north doorway, too, indicates in its curious bas-reliefs, of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, a luxuriance which in the north—in the Romanesque churches at least—came only with later centuries.
There are few accessories of note to be seen in the choir or chapels: a painting of St. Maurice by Desgoffés, a small quantity of fourteenth-century glass, the mausoleum of Cardinal de Montmorin, a sixteenth-century tomb, and, in one of the chapels, some modern glass of more than usual brilliance.
The pulpit is notable, and, with that in St. Jean de Lyon, ranks as one of the most elaborate in France.
For the rest, one's admiration for St. Maurice de Vienne must rest on the glorious antiquity of the city, as a centre of civilizing and Christianizing influence.
When Pope Paschal II. (1099-1118) confirmed the metropolitan privileges of Vienne, and sent the pallium to its archbishop, he assigned to him as suffragans the bishops of Grenoble, Valence, Dié, Viviers, Geneva, and St. Jean de Maurienne, and conferred upon him the honorary office of primate over Monstiers in Tarentaise. Still later, Calixtus II. (1119-24) favoured the archbishopric still further by not only confirming the privileges which had gone before, but investing the archbishop with the still higher dignity of the office of primate over the seven ecclesiastical Provinces of Vienne, Bourges, Bordeaux, Auch, Narbonne, Aix, and Embrun.
