There are several interesting architectural relics in the town of VILLENEUVE. The church, a Gothic edifice of the fourteenth century, is designed on the Southern plan of a wide hall, but is executed with Gothic details, and pointed vaulting. The tower at the east end (Fig. 61) is a good specimen of the massive fortified type of church towers so common in the South. From the ramparts of the castle the ruins of the “CHARTREUSE DU VAL DE BÉNÉDICTION” are seen in the valley beneath. This monastery was founded in 1356 by Pope Innocent VI., who was buried there, and over whose grave a splendid monument in the style of the Northern Gothic was erected. After being sadly neglected and abused for many years, it has now been removed to the chapel of the hospital. The CHURCHES OF AVIGNON are mostly on the Southern plan of a single wide nave with internal buttresses containing chapels between them, while the ornamental features are almost all derived from Northern Gothic. They are all of the fourteenth century, and that of St Pierre has an elaborate Gothic front in the flamboyant style practised in the North in the sixteenth century. The “beffroi” of the ancient Hôtel-de-Ville, the emblem of the city’s independence, built in 1354, still exists, but is so surrounded with buildings as not to be properly visible. In the vicinity of Avignon, or at least more easily got at from there than any other comfortable resting-place, are many most interesting examples of early Provençal architecture. In the immediate neighbourhood are the ruins of the ABBEY OF ST RUF--situated about one mile to the southward. The church has a good apse, and is partly fortified. Two miles to the north-east of the town are found the remains of the PRIORY OF ST VÉRAN, founded 1140, and still containing some traces of early paintings. Both are figured by Révoil. At a greater distance from Avignon many more very primitive and picturesque illustrations of early Provençal architecture are to be met with. Of these several may be visited together as they lie in the same easterly direction, such as Carpentras, Pernes, and Le Thor. VAISON is also a place of considerable architectural interest, but it is somewhat remote from Avignon, and may be best reached from Orange. In the days of the Empire the town of Vaison, which was of great antiquity, stood on the plain of the river Ouvèze, where the soil still abounds in relics of Roman sculpture, tiles, mosaics, hypocausts, and other works. Some good statues have also been found and conveyed to the museum at Avignon. The cathedral was originally founded at an early period in the same low situation, but the town being exposed to frequent assaults, the inhabitants found it necessary in the twelfth century to remove their houses to a securer site on the hill above. The two divisions of the town are united by a Roman bridge of one span of over sixty feet, which is built, with the usual solidity, across the Ouvèze.