The transepts have apsidal terminations, as is much more frequent south of the Loire than in the north of France, but still of sufficient novelty to be remarked here. The east end is rectangular--which is really a very unusual attribute in any part of France, only two examples elsewhere standing out prominently--the cathedrals at Laon and Dol-de-Bretagne. The cloister of Notre Dame, small and simple though it be, is of a singular charm and tranquillity. With the tower or cupola of this cathedral the architects of Auvergne achieved a result very near the _perfectionnement_ of its style. Like all of the old-time _clochers_ erected in this province--anterior to Gothic--it presents a great analogy to Byzantine origin, though, in a way, not quite like it either. Still the effect of columns and pillars, in both the interior construction and exterior decoration of these fine towers, forms something which suggests, at least, a development of an ideal which bears little, or no, relation to the many varieties of _campanile_, _beffroi_, _tour_ or _clocher_ seen elsewhere in France. The spire, as we know it elsewhere, a dominant pyramidal termination, the love of which Mistral has said is the foundation of patriotism, is in this region almost entirely wanting; showing that the influence, from whatever it may have sprung, was no copy of anything which had gone before, nor even the suggestion of a tendency or influence toward the pointed Gothic, or northern style. Therefore the towers, like most other features of this style, are distinctly of the land of its environment--Auvergnian. This will call to mind, to the American, the fact that Trinity Church in Boston is manifestly the most distinctive application, in foreign lands, of the form and features of the manner of church-building of the Auvergne. Particularly is this to be noted by viewing the choir exterior with its inlaid or geometrically planned stonework: a feature which is Romanesque if we go back far enough, but which is distinctly Auvergnian in its mediæval use. For sheer novelty, before even the towering bronze statue of the Virgin, which overtops the cathedral, must be placed that other needle-like basaltic eminence which is crowned by a tiny chapel dedicated to St. Michel. This "_aiguille_," as it is locally known, rises something over two hundred and fifty feet from the river-bed at its base; like a sharp cone, dwindling from a diameter of perhaps five hundred feet at its base to a scant fifty at its apex.