To the south of the Cathedral lies the interesting Abbey Church of St. Remi, built in the eleventh century. Many of the French cathedral towns are fortunate in the possession of either an abbey or collegiate church, which existed some two or three centuries before the cathedral itself was built. At Nevers is the church of St. Etienne, at Evreux St. Taurin, at Tours St. Martin. At Angers and other places the old Romanesque basilicas are still to be found. Rheims has for its parent church the basilica of St. Remi. The western towers are Romanesque, and one of them has been left more or less unrestored; the interior has all the impressiveness of the basilica design; the pier arcades and triforium of the nave elevation occupy the whole space up to the springing of the barrel vault, and pilasters are carried down to the pier capitals, where they rest on quaint corbels of very early design. Like churches constructed in the early days, St. Remi has double aisles on either side of the nave; the choir is brought westwards to overlap the nave arches, an arrangement often found in short chancelled churches; the east end is periapsidal in plan, and the windows are filled with fine blue glass. Ferguson does not give France the credit of having many fine Romanesque churches sufficient to satisfy the splendid tastes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but he makes an exception in the case of St. Remi, and declares it to be “a vast and noble basilica of the early part of the eleventh century, presenting considerable points of similarity to those of Burgundy.” Rheims has enjoyed for a long time popularity amongst travellers. As far back as a hundred and twenty years ago a writer, describing the town and its hotel accommodation, says: “The streets are almost all broad, strait and well built, equal in that respect to any I have seen; and the inn, the Hôtel de Moulinet, is so large and well served as not to check the emotions raised by agreeable objects, by giving an impulse to contrary vibrations in the bosom of the traveller, which at inns in France is too often the case.... We have about half a dozen real English dishes that exceed anything in my opinion to be met with in France; by English dishes I mean a turbot and lobster sauce, ham and chicken, a haunch of venison, turkey and oysters, and after these there is an end of an English table. It is an idle prejudice to class roast beef among them, for there is not better beef in the world than at Paris.... The French are cleaner in their persons, and the English in their houses.” * * * * *