The easternmost bays and the south arm of the transept were built about the same time, soon after 1160, and their masonry roof belongs to the first phase of the Gothic of the West. Over the crossing is a six-branch vault; for the rest of the church, the eight-branch type was used. The lower half of the inclosure walls is ornamented with a blind arcade above which runs a circulating gallery carried on corbels carved with fantasy. Again was used the artifice employed in Poitiers' Romanesque church of Notre Dame-la-Grande, whereby from the eastern end onward the edifice grew slightly wider and higher. The axial line deviates considerably, and it is known that this cathedral rose during different periods. While the plan and the beginning of the work were of Aliénor and Henry's day, the greater part of the church was erected under their great-grandson, Alphonse of Poitiers, the brother of St. Louis. When he died in 1271, the two westernmost bays were incomplete. After a lull, the work was resumed at the close of the century. In the XIV century was erected the not very interesting west frontispiece which stands below the street level and which is too wide for its height; it would have been better had the towers been set in a line with the aisles and not planted beyond them like the towers of Rouen and Bourges. The first of the Avignon popes, Clement V, builder of the Rayonnant Gothic choir of Bordeaux Cathedral, watched Poitiers' Rayonnant façade rising during the sixteen months that he spent in the city. While here he learned that fire had damaged St. John Lateran's at Rome and ordered it to be reconstructed. The last windows in St. Pierre's Cathedral have the Flamboyant tracery of Jean de Berry's time. That amateur of art--sixth in descent from Henry and Aliénor--left his mark all through middle France. The interior of Poitiers Cathedral is an ample parallelogram of eight bays, divided into three aisles of equal height, by a dozen widely spaced piers, each of which is a cluster of lovely shafts rising from pavement to vault-springing. The eighteen _bombé_ vault sections are grace itself. As the light floods in from the big lancets in the side walls, one scarcely notices that this church has ground supports. The plan of Poitou's Romanesque churches--seen at its best at St. Savin[199]--shows adroit construction, since it employed the aisles to buttress the principal span, and used one roof to cover the entire structure.