The Cathedral of Saint-Julien sits astride a great rock overlooking the Place des Jacobins--a square wide enough for once to allow of an adequate view of the great church on its eastern side. It stands so high that the want of a central tower is felt less than would be the case at a lower level. The only tower of any pretensions is over the south transept--originally the north transept possessed one also--but even this is rather inefficient. It is advisable to enter the Cathedral by the west door rather than by the south porch, so as to prevent the uninteresting west wall of the nave from becoming a factor of one’s first impression. From this point it is the choir that first arrests our attention; we pass on through the lower, simpler nave and through the great soaring chancel arch that to look upon makes us giddy, to the blaze of deep-coloured glass and the magnificent _chevet_ of stilted arches placed close together and looking from their great height much narrower than they really are. The same idea of height and light prevails in the transepts, for by this time the French architect had begun to gauge the emotional effect of tremendous height, and to dare greater things than his predecessors had ever dreamed; while the same insatiable desire for light that we saw in the choir at Amiens has possessed the builder of Saint Julien, and led him to make his transepts nearly all window--especially the northern one, which has a triforium lighted by beautiful fifteenth-century glass--and to put a double ambulatory round the choir, both lighted by that marvellous jewelled glass. The Romanesque nave was restored in the twelfth century, but this restoration was apparently a replacement of a great deal of old work, with only slight modifications of the original inspiration. A large door, decorated with sculpture and bearing a strong analogy to the Portail Royal of Chartres, was opened in the middle of the south aisle. Further changes were made in the early part of the thirteenth century, when the ancient apses were destroyed, and the admirable choir, as we now see it, was built--“a masterpiece of effect”--with its encircling chapels radiating like the petals of a flower. The vaulting approaches in construction the “cupola inspiration”; but here, as at Angers and Poitiers, it is an example of only the last traces which remain to us of the domical design.