[Illustration: 556. Plan of Church at Planes. (From Taylor and Nodier.)]
At Planes is another church the plan of which deserves to be quoted, if not for its merit, at least for its singularity: it is a triangle with an apse attached to each side, and supporting a circular part terminating in a plain roof. As a constructive puzzle it is curious, but it is doubtful how far any legitimate use could be made of such a _caprice_.
There is, so far as I know, only one triapsal church, that of St. Croix at Mont Majour near Arles. Built as a sepulchral chapel, it is a singularly gloomy but appropriate erection; but it is too tall and too bare to rank high as a building even for such a purpose.
Provence is far from being rich in towers, which never seem there to have been favourite forms of architectural display. That of St. André le Bas at Vienne has already been alluded to, but this at Puissalicon (Woodcut No. 557) near Béziers is even more typical of the style, and standing as it now does in solitary grandeur among the ruins of the church once attached to it, has a dignity seldom possessed by such monuments. In style it resembles the towers of Italy more than any found farther north, but it is not without peculiarities that point to a different mode of elaborating this peculiar feature from anything found elsewhere. As a design its principal defect seems to be a want of lightness in the upper storey. The single circular opening there is a mistake in a building gradually growing lighter towards its summit.
[Illustration: 557. Tower at Puissalicon. (From Renouvier.)]
These towers were very seldom, if ever, attached symmetrically to the churches. When height was made an object, it was more frequently attained by carrying up the dome at the intersection of the choir with the nave. At Arles this is done by a heavy square tower, gradually diminishing, but still massive to the top; but in most instances the square becomes an octagon, and this again passes into a circle, which terminates the composition. One of the best specimens of this class of domes, if they may be so called, is the church of Cruas (Woodcut No. 558), where these parts are pleasingly subordinated, and form, with the apses on which they rest, a very beautiful composition. The defect is the tiled roofs or offsets at the junction of the various storeys, which give an appearance of weakness, as if the upper parts could slide, like the joints of a telescope, one into the other. This could easily be avoided, and probably was so in the original design. If this were done, we have here the principle of a more pleasing crowning member at an intersection than was afterwards used in pointed architecture, and capable of being applied to domes of any extent.