In 1233 the Cathedral of Bazas was begun, and, unlike the majority of such undertakings, was carried through and finished in a comparatively short time. [Illustration: 57. RODEZ CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT] [Illustration: 58. BORDEAUX CATHEDRAL. CHOIR AND NORTH FRONT] [Illustration: 59. LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT] The Cathedral of Bayonne, a contemporary building, shared the fate of Meaux, Troyes, and Auxerre. It was completed, with one tower only, in the sixteenth century. In 1248 the foundations of Clermont Cathedral were laid. The plan provided for six or seven towers, but the choir was the only portion finished in the thirteenth century. The transept and four towers, together with a portion of the nave, were completed in the following century, and the work was then abandoned until the reign of Napoleon III., who caused it to be again taken up. The Cathedral of Limoges was begun in 1273, under the direct inspiration of Notre Dame at Amiens. Down to our own times it has had to content itself with a choir, a transept, and the suggestions of a nave, the last of which has lately been completed. At Rodez a greater perseverance was shown, and the work went steadily on from 1277 until the Renascence, at which period, however, the two western towers were left unfinished, notwithstanding a contemporary description of their magnificence, which, in a truly Gascon vein, compares them to the Egyptian pyramids, among other world-renowned marvels. "In 1272 Toulouse and Narbonne entered the lists against Amiens, imitating its plan, and proposing to at least equal it in dimensions. Neither of these undertakings proved happy. Archbishop Maurice of Narbonne died the same year the works were begun; his successors took but a lukewarm interest in their progress. In 1320 the sea retreated, leaving the port on which the wealth of the inhabitants mainly depended high and dry. Fortunately the choir with its noble vault 130 feet high was already completed, but the transept walls were left to fall into ruins. At Toulouse Bishop Bertrand de l'Isle-Jourdain lived just long enough to carry the work above the triforium of the choir; it was then abandoned till the fifteenth century. His successors squandered the revenues of their vast diocese so shamelessly in pleasures and display that Popes Boniface VIII. and John XXII., scandalised at their disorders, dismembered their territory and subdivided it into four bishoprics, granting to the Bishop of Toulouse the title of archbishop by way of compensation. But this compensation was of small avail to future zealous prelates for the carrying out of Bertrand's projects, and the choir of Toulouse was never finished. It falls short of its predestined height of 130 feet by 90, and the transept was not even begun.