The facade of Saint-Nazaire of Beziers has a Gothic portal of good but not notable proportions, and a large and beautiful rose-window. As if to protect these weaker and decorative attempts, the builder flanked them with two square towers, whose crenellated tops and solid, heavy walls could serve as strongholds. Perhaps to reconcile the irreconcilable, crenellations joining the towers were placed over the rose-window, and at either end of the portal, a few inches of Gothic carving were cut in the tower-wall. The result is frank incongruity. And the traveller left without regret, to look at the apse. It cannot be denied that the clock-tower which comes into view is very square and thick; but in spite of that it has a simple dignity, and as the apse itself is not florid, this proved to be the really pleasing detailed view of the Cathedral. The open square behind the church is tiny, and there one can best see the curious grilled iron-work, which in the times of mediaeval outbreaks protected the fine windows of the choir and preserved them for future generations of worshippers and admirers. It was after noon when the traveller finished his investigations of Saint-Nazaire; and as the southern churches close between twelve and two, he took dejeuner at a little cafe near-by and patiently waited for the hour of re-opening. Had there been nothing but the interior to explore, he could not have spent two hours in such contented waiting. But there was a Cloister,--and on the stroke of two he and the sacristan met before the portal. [Illustration: "THE CLOCK-TOWER IS VERY SQUARE AND THICK."--BEZIERS.] In describing their "monuments," French guide-books confine themselves to facts, and the adjectives "fine" and "remarkable"; they are almost always strictly impersonal, and the traveller who uses them as a cicerone, has a sense of unexpected discovery, a peculiar elation, in finding a monument of rare beauty; but he is never subjected to that disappointed irritation which comes when one stands before the "monument" and feels that one's expectations have been unduly stimulated. The Cloister of Beziers is a "fine monument," but as he walked about it, the traveller felt no sense of elation. He found a small Cloister, Gothic like the Cathedral, with clustered columns and little ornamentation. It was not very completely restored, and had a sad, melancholy charm, like a solitary sprig of lavender in an old press, or a rose-leaf between the pages of a worn and forgotten Missal. In the Cloister-close, stands a Gothic fountain; but the days when its waters dropped and tinkled in the stillness, when their sound mingled with the murmured prayers and slow steps of the priests,--those days are long forgotten. The quaint and pretty fountain is now dry and dust-covered; while about it trees and plants and weeds grow as they may, and bits of the Cloister columns have fallen off, and niches are without their guarding Saints.