Riez was the Albece Reiorum Apollinarium in the Colonia Julia Reiorum of the Romans, but there are very few traces of the city with this high-sounding name. The whole atmosphere of the little town is XII century. Two of its old gates, part of the wall, and the crenellated tower still stand, with ruined convents and monasteries of Capuchins, Cordeliers, and Ursulines; and it may be inferred from the remains of the Bishop's Palace and the broad promenade which was one of its avenues, and from the episcopal chateau at Montagnac, that ecclesiastical state was not less worthily upheld at Riez than in the other Sees of the South of France. Many difficulties, however, had beset the Cathedral-building prelates. Their first church, Notre-Dame-du-Siege, dating partly from the foundation of the See in the IV century, partly from the X and XII centuries, was destroyed by storm and flood, and its site near the treacherous little river being considered too perilous, a new Cathedral of Notre-Dame-du-Siege and Saint-Maxime was begun; and it was then that the Bishops celebrated temporarily at Saint-Maxime's on the hill. During the Revolution the See was suppressed; the church has been much re-built and changed; so that only a tower which is part of the present Notre-Dame-du-Siege, and the traces of the earliest foundation near the little Colostre, remain to tell of the different Cathedrals of Riez. [Illustration: "THE TOWER OF NOTRE-DAME-DU-SIEGE."--RIEZ.] Near the site of the oldest church is one of the few monuments of a very early Christianity which have escaped the perils of time. It is of unknown date, and although it is said to have been part of the Cathedral which stood between it and the river, it appears to have been always an independent and separate building. The peasants say that in the memory of their forefathers it was used as a chapel, they call it indefinitely "the Pantheon," "the Temple," or "the Chapel of Saint-Clair," but it was almost certainly a baptistery of that curious and beautiful type which was abandoned so early in the evolution of Christian architecture. [Illustration: "NOTHING COULD BE MORE QUAINTLY OLD AND MODEST THAN THE BAPTISTERY."--RIEZ.]