There still remains to be mentioned the cathedral at Rouen. This remarkable building possesses parts belonging to all ages, and exhibits most of the beauties, as also, it must be confessed, most of the defects of each style. It was erected with a total disregard to all rule, yet so splendid and so picturesque that we are almost driven to the wild luxuriance of nature to find anything to which we can compare it. Internally its nave, though rich, is painfully cut up into small parts. The undivided piers of the choir, on the contrary, are too simple for their adjuncts. Externally, the transept towers are beautiful in themselves, but are overpowered by the richness of those of the west front. The whole of that façade, in spite of the ruin of some of its most important features, and the intrusion of much modern vulgarity, may be called a romance in stone, consisting as it does of a profusion of the most playful fancies. Like most of the cathedrals near our shores, that of Rouen was designed to have a central spire; this, however, was not completed till late in the cinque-cento age, and then only in vulgar woodwork, meant to imitate stone. That being destroyed, an attempt has lately been made to replace it by still more vulgar iron-work, leaner and poorer than almost anything else of modern times. [Illustration: 638. Window of Cathedral at Lyons. (From Peyrée’s ‘Manuel de l’Architecture.’)] [Illustration: 639. Plan of Cathedral at Bazas. (From Lamothe.[40]) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.] In the preceding pages, all mention of the cathedrals of Bazas and Bourges has been purposely omitted, because they belong to a different type from the above. The first (Woodcut No. 639) is one of the most perfect specimens of the pure Gothic style in the South of France. Its noble triple portal, filled with exquisite sculpture, and its extensive chevet, make it one of the most beautiful of its class. It shows no trace of a transept,—a peculiarity, as before pointed out, by no means uncommon in the South. This, though a defect in so far as external effect is concerned, gives great value to the internal dimensions, the appearance of length being far greater than when the view is broken by the intersection of the transept. [Illustration: 640. Plan of Cathedral at Bourges. (From Girardot, ‘Description de la Cathédrale.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]