The rest of the church is as elegant as these parts, though far less classical, the necessities of vaulting and construction requiring a different mode of treatment, and a departure from conventional forms, which the architect does not seem to have considered himself at liberty to employ in the apse. [Illustration: 551. Elevation of half one Bay of the Exterior of St. Paul-Trois-Châteaux.] [Illustration: 552. Half Bay of Interior of St. Paul-Trois-Châteaux. (From the ‘Archives des Monuments Historiques.’)] Another singularly elegant specimen of this style is the church of St. Paul-Trois-Châteaux, near Avignon (Woodcuts Nos. 551, 552). Its details are so elegant and so classical that it might almost be mistaken for a building of the Lower Empire anterior to Justinian’s time. Its plan, however, and the details of its construction, prove that it belongs to a much more modern date; Viollet le Duc would even bring it down as low as the 12th century. It hardly seems possible that it should be so modern as this; but the truth is, the whole history of the Romance style in this province has still to be written.[23] It has not yet been examined with the care it deserves by any competent authority, and till it is we must be content with the knowledge that, in the neighbourhood of the Bouches du Rhône, there exists a group of churches which, drawing their inspiration from the classical remains with which the country is studded, exhibit an elegance of design as exquisite as it is in strange contrast with the rude vigour—almost vulgarity—which characterised the works of the Normans in the opposite corner of the land at the same period. Passing from the round-arched to the pointed modifications of this style, the church at Fontifroide, near Narbonne, shows it in its completeness, perhaps better than any other example. There, not only the roof is pointed, but all the constructive openings have assumed the same forms. The windows and doorways, it is true, still retain their circular heads, and did retain them as long as the native style flourished—the pointed-headed opening being only introduced by the Franks when they occupied this country in the time of Simon de Montfort. [Illustration: 553. Longitudinal and Cross Section of Fontifroide Church. (From Taylor and Nodier.)]