The choir, of early pointed style, in its actual disposition and arrangement, may be included in that classification which comprehends some of its more important northern compeers, though, as a matter of fact, it lacks their magnitude. Indeed, the building is one of the smallest cathedrals in all France. The exterior offers an imposing and picturesque ensemble, with its crocketed spire rising some two hundred and fifty or more feet above the roof-tops of the ancient city. Nearer inspection shows a certain incoherence of construction, particularly in reference to the evidences of garish crudities in the work done under Robert I. in 1031-76, in contrast to the later pointed work. The doorway of the lateral southern wing is ornamented with a series of grossly exaggerated columns, in imitation of the antique, with the addition of an apse, which contrastingly shows work of a late flamboyant order. The spire itself is the masterwork of the entire structure, and, unlike those which surmount many another church, appears not to have suffered the dangers of fire. As a fifteenth-century work, it merits special mention. Rising abruptly from a heavy square base, the pyramid is very acute, and is ornamented at the angles with foliaged crockets, basely called stone cauliflowers by unimaginative persons. One might say, with the gentle Abbe Bourasse, that the "ornamentation breaks into sky and cloud with an exceedingly agreeable effect, far beyond that of a straight line." The inconsistency lies only in the juxtaposition of the two western transition towers, which have hardly enough of the Gothic in them to merit the name. The lower windows of the nave are of good flamboyant style, with a sort of Romanesque triforium, and a simple round-headed window in each bay of the clerestory, which is the more poor in treatment and effect in that it holds no notable glass. There are none of those distinctly northern accessories, the great rose windows, and the whole reeks of distinctly a milder atmosphere. There is a luxuriance of decoration in the many chapels of different epochs. The exterior, in general, is of excessive simplicity; but, if it is not to be placed among those cathedrals and churches accredited the most notable and most beautiful, it will, at least, take rank as one of the most ancient to be seen to-day, and has the further benefit of a glorious environment and association with the past. [Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. BENIGNE DIJON_] X ST. BENIGNE DE DIJON The power and wealth of the Dukes of Burgundy, whose influence extended northward to the Netherlands, where they often held court at Ghent and Bruges, were, in a way, responsible for the opulence and splendour of the life of the day. So, too, Burgundian architecture became a term synonymous for the amplitude and grandeur with which many of its institutions were endowed.