[Illustration: CLOISTER OF ST. JUST _de NARBONNE_....]
The cathedral itself still remains unachieved as to completeness, but its _tourelles_, its vaulting, its buttresses, and its crenelated walls are most impressive.
There are some elaborate tombs in the interior, in general of the time of Henri IV.
The _trésor_ is rich in missals, manuscripts, ivories, and various altar ornaments and decorations.
The choir is enclosed with a series of arena-like _loges_, outside which runs a double aisle.
There are fragmentary evidences of the one-time possession of good glass, but what paintings are shown appear ordinary and are doubtless of little worth.
Decidedly the cathedral is an unusually splendid, if not a truly magnificent, work.
The basin of the Garonne includes all of the lower Aquitanian province, Lower Languedoc,--still a debatable and undefinable land,--and much of that region known of lovers of France, none the less than the native himself, as the _Midi_.
Literally the term _Midi_ refers to the south of France, but more particularly that part which lies between the mouth of the Rhône and the western termination of the Pyrenean mountain boundary between France and Spain.
The term is stamped indelibly in the popular mind by the events which emanated from that wonderful march of the legion, known as "_Les Rouges du Midi_," in Revolutionary times. We have heard much of the excesses of the Revolution, but certainly the vivid history of "_Les Rouges_" as recounted so well in that admirable book of Félix Gras (none the less truthful because it is a novel), which bears the same name, gives every justification to those valiant souls who made up that remarkable phalanx; of whose acts most historians and humanitarians are generally pleased to revile as cruelty and sacrilege unspeakable.
Félix Gras himself has told of the ignoble subjection in which his own great-grandfather, a poor peasant, was held; and Frederic Mistral tells of a like incident--of lashing and beating--which was thrust upon a relative of his. If more reason were wanted, a perusal of the written records of the Marseilles Battalion will point the way. Written history presents many stubborn facts, difficult to digest and hard to swallow; but the historical novel in the hands of a master will prove much that is otherwise unacceptable. A previous acquaintance with this fascinating and lurid story is absolutely necessary for a proper realization of the spirit which endowed the inhabitants of this section of the _pays du Midi_.