The nave is aisleless, but has numerous lateral chapels. The choir has a remarkable series of windows which preserve, even to-day, their ancient protecting _grilles_--a series of wonderfully worked iron scrolls. These serve to preserve much fourteenth-century glass of curious, though hardly beautiful, design. To a great extent this ancient glass is hidden from view by a massive eighteenth-century _retable_, which is without any worth whatever as an artistic accessory. A cloister of the fourteenth century flanks the nave on the south, and is the chief feature of really appealing quality within the confines of the cathedral precincts. The view from the terrace before the cathedral is one which is hardly approachable elsewhere. For many miles in all directions stretches the low, flat plain of Languedoc; the Mediterranean lies to the east; the Cevennes and the valley of the Orb to the north; with the lance-like Canal du Midi stretching away to the westward. As might be expected, the streets of the city are tortuous and narrow, but there are evidences of the march of improvement which may in time be expected to eradicate all this--to the detriment of the picturesque aspect. [Illustration] XIII ST. JEAN DE PERPIGNAN Perpignan is another of those provincial cities of France which in manners and customs sedulously imitate those of their larger and more powerful neighbours. From the fact that it is the chief town of the Départment des Pyrénêes-Orientales, it perhaps justifies the procedure. But it is as the ancient capital of Rousillon--only united with France in 1659--that the imaginative person will like to think of it--in spite of its modern cafés, tram-cars, and _magazins_. Like the smaller and less progressive town of Elne, Perpignan retains much the same Catalonian flavour of "physiognomy, language, and dress;" and its narrow, tortuous streets and the _jalousies_ and _patios_ of its houses carry the suggestion still further. The Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 changed the course of the city's destinies, and to-day it is the fortress-city of France which commands the easterly route into Spain. The city's Christian influences began when the see was removed hither from Elne, where it had been founded as early as the sixth century. The cathedral of St. Jean is a wonderful structure. In the lines of its apside it suggests those of Albi, while the magnitude of its great strongly roofed nave is only comparable with that of Bordeaux as to its general dimensions. The great distinction of this feature comes from the fact that its Romanesque walls are surmounted by a truly ogival vault. This great church was originally founded by the king of Majorca, who held Rousillon in ransom from the king of Aragon in 1324.