From this high estate it has sadly fallen, and there is only its decrepit cathedral, rebuilt after a seventeenth-century fire, and two churches--one of them modern--to uphold its ecclesiastical dignity. The towers of the cathedral are of the seventeenth century, but the so-called "Deanery Tower" is more ancient, and suggestive of much that is militant and very little that is churchly. The interior has been restored, not wholly with success, but yet not wholly spoiled. In plan and arrangement it is a simple and severe church, but acceptable enough when one contemplates changes made elsewhere. Here are to be seen no debased copies of Greek or Roman orders; which is something to be thankful for. The arches of the nave and choir are strong and bold, but not of great spread. The height of the nave, part of which has come down from the thirteenth century, is ninety feet at least. There are well-carved capitals to the pillars of the nave, and the coloured glass of the windows of triforium and clerestory is rich without rising to great beauty. In general the style is decidedly a _mélange_, though the cathedral is entitled to rank as a Gothic example. Its length is 350 feet. The _maître-autel_ is one of the most elegant in France. Modern improvement has cleared away much that was picturesque, but around the cathedral are still left a few gabled houses, which serve to preserve something of the mediæval setting which once held it. The courtyard and its dependencies at the base of the "Deanery Tower" are the chief artistic features. They appeal far more strongly than any general accessory of the cathedral itself, and suggest that they once must have been the components of a cloister. The see was founded in the fifth century as a suffragan of Lyon. III ST. VINCENT DE MACON The _Mastieo_ of the Romans was not the Macon of to-day, though, by evolution, or corruption, or whatever the process may have been, the name has come down to us as referring to the same place. The former city did not border the river, but was seated on a height overlooking the Saône, which flows by the doors of the present city of Macon. Its site is endowed with most of the attributes included in the definition of "commanding," and, though not grandly situated, is, from any riverside view-point, attractive and pleasing. When it comes to the polygonal towers of its olden cathedral, this charming and pleasing view changes to that of one which is curious and interesting. The cathedral of St. Vincent is a battered old ruin, and no amount of restoration and rebuilding will ever endow it with any more deserving qualities. [Illustration: ST. VINCENT _de MACON_.] The Revolution was responsible for its having withered away, as it was also for the abolishment of the see of Macon.