After the cathedral, the church of S. Martin, at the opposite end of the town, is the principal architectural relic still left in Laon. Like the cathedral, it is remarkable for its square east end. It is cruciform in plan, and consists of nave and aisles, choir without aisles, and transepts with chapels on the east side. Two towers are placed in the angles between the transepts and nave. The general foundation of the fabric is Romanesque work, but the choir and transepts are of a rather ornate early first-pointed, much more German than French in its character, and the western façade is one of the best examples that I know of a middle-pointed front to a church of moderate pretensions. The early-pointed work at the east is remarkable for the very heavy character of its mouldings and string-courses, the use of both round and pointed arches, and the very ingenious arrangement of the chapels in the east wall of the transept, and of the buttresses above them. Three chapels are formed under two bays of vaulting, so that the vaulting shaft and buttress come over the point of the arch. The church is well groined. The steeples are poor in character and rather insignificant, but they appear never to have been completed, and in the neighbourhood of the cathedral it was dangerous to venture upon any but the most careful and noble work. The west front is very ornate, and is marked chiefly by the fine octangular pinnacles at the angles of the clerestory and by the large sculpture of S. Martin in a quatrefoil which fills the gable. The three western doorways are composed of a succession of small reedy mouldings, and against the buttresses beyond the central doorway are figures of saints considerably mutilated. Almost the only other interesting church is a small building attached now to an educational institution for boys. A priest told me it had belonged to the Templars, and at any rate it is an octagonal building with a small chancel on its eastern side, and a smaller circular apse. At the west end there is a small porch. The whole is in a late Romanesque style, and very small, the external measurement of each side of the octagon being only about eleven feet. Here and there are to be seen remains of houses and gateways, but there is nothing of sufficient interest to require a special note here, and the only other building I need mention is the very curious church at Vaux-sous-Laon, a village at the foot of the hill below the citadel and cathedral. This has a western porch or narthex, nave and aisles of five bays, transepts and low central steeple, and a choir and aisles of three bays, groined, and both loftier and wider than the nave. The east end is square, and has a triplet and a large rose window above, very similar in design to the east end of the cathedral. The columns are cylindrical, with simply carved caps of bold design. The choir is all first-pointed, the nave of earlier date and much simpler character and not groined.