At St. Front, Périgueux, at Moissac, and at Loches, we find the pointed arch, introduced evidently for this purpose, and forming a class of roofs more like those of mosques in Cairo than any other buildings in Europe. It is true they now look bare and formal—their decorations having been originally painted on stucco, which has pealed off; but still the variety of form and perspective they afford internally, and the character and truthfulness they give to the roof as seen from without, are such advantages that we cannot but regret that these two expedients of stone external roofs and domes were not adopted in Gothic. Had the great architects of that style in the 13th century carried out these with their characteristic zeal and earnestness, they might have left us a style in every respect infinitely more perfect and more beautiful than the one they invented, and which we are copying so servilely, instead of trying, with our knowledge and means of construction, to repair the errors and omissions of our forefathers, and out of the inheritance they have left us to work out something more beautiful and more worthy of our greater refinement and more advanced civilisation. The practice of the Greeks in respect to their roofs was a curious contrast to that of the mediæval architects. Their architecture, as before remarked, being essentially external, while that of the Middle Ages was internal, they placed the stone of their roofs on the outside, and took the utmost pains to arrange the covering ornamentally; but they supported all this on a framework of wood, which in every instance has perished. It is difficult to say which was the greater mistake of the two. Both were wrong without doubt. The happy medium seems to be that which the Romance architects aimed at—a complete homogeneous roof, made of the most durable materials and ornamented, both externally and internally; and there can be little doubt but that this is the only legitimate and really artistic mode of effecting this purpose, and the one to which attention should now be turned.[21] This early mode of employing the pointed arch is so little understood generally that, before leaving this branch of the subject, it may be well to quote one other example with a perfectly authentic date. The Church of St. Nazaire at Carcassonne was dedicated by Pope Urban II. in 1096. It was not then quite complete, but there seems no doubt but that the nave, as we now find it, was finished by the year 1100. As will be seen from the annexed section, the side aisles and all the openings are constructed with round arches; but the difficulty of vaulting the nave forced on the architects the introduction of the pointed arch. It is here constructed solid with flat ribs over each pillar, and without any attempt to pierce it for the introduction of light; and as the west end is blocked up—fortified in fact—the result is gloomy enough.