Of Bourbon's château there remains only the tower bearing the curious name of the Mal-Coiffée, and a Renaissance pavilion--an appendage found in the castle of every great noble of this time.
In the eleventh century Moulins was one of the more southerly fortresses to hold out against William of Normandy. It had been commanded by a certain Wimund, who surrendered it to Henry, the French king. As an important outpost it was garrisoned strongly and put under the command of Guy of Geoffrey, Count of Gascony, presently to become William VIII. of Aquitaine. The Norman duke, however, was advancing upon Arques, which was within an ace of surrender from hunger, and with little difficulty he obtained terms from the garrison. News of this defeat soon flew to Moulins, and its commander seems to have been instantly seized with an access either of panic or of prejudice--the two bore a curious relation in those days--and without giving the Normans time so much as to come within sight of the town, he withdrew his garrison and left Moulins with all speed.
The Cathedral at Moulins has a curious misfit of nave and chancel. The former is of the thirteenth century, with a high clerestory and rather low triforium arches; the latter is Flamboyant, with a flat wall termination to the east end, and seems to have been built without any regard to the pre-existing nave; at any rate, the main piers do not meet, and a small bay of no particular style is introduced literally as a stop-gap.
An excellent hotel--the "Central"--makes Limoges a convenient stopping-place on the southern road, irrespective of its attractions to those interested in faïence and enamel work; but there are plenty of other interests within the town, and Limoges may, indeed, speak for itself in this respect, by reason of its standing on a hill, overlooking a river, and containing, in the old quarter at least, ancient houses and crooked streets enough to satisfy any craving for the picturesque. The town slopes up a hill rising from the Vienne, and really divides into two distinct parts, _ville_ and _cité_; the _ville_ is the newer town straggling up the slope, while the _cité_, the original camping-ground of the Lemovices, occupies the quarter near the river. So distinct were these two in the Middle Ages that we even read of war between them as between two separate states, the _ville_ led by the abbot of Saint Martial, the _cité_ by the bishop. The great church of the river quarter is the Cathedral of Saint Etienne, built, so tradition has it, upon the remains of a former church erected by Saint Martial, and dating from 1273-1327, with a few later alterations. The west end terminates in the substructure of an old Romanesque campanile, resting on pillars. "The lowest story," says Freeman, "after a fashion rare but not unique, stood open. Four large columns with their round arches supported a kind of cupola." Under the choir is a crypt, dating from the eleventh century, and thus at each end of the later church is a relic of an older time.