The theatre at Orange--the Arausio of Roman times, colonized by the veterans of the Second Legion--was not the best of these many noble edifices. Decidedly, the good fortune that has preserved so large a part of it would have been better bestowed upon the far more beautiful, because more purely Grecian, theatre at Arles: which the blessed Saint Hilary and the priest Cyril of holy memory fell afoul of in the fifth century and destroyed because of its inherent idolatrous wickedness, and then used as raw material for their well-meant but injudicious church-building. But the Orange theatre--having as its only extant rival that at Pompeii--has the distinction of being the most nearly perfect Roman theatre surviving until our day; and, setting aside comparisons with things nonexistent, it is one of the most majestic structures to be found in the whole of France. Louis XIV., who styled it "the most magnificent wall of my kingdom," placed it first of all. The unknown architect who wrought this great work--traversing the Roman custom of erecting a complete building on level ground--followed the Grecian custom of hollowing out a hill-side and of facing the open cutting with a structure of masonry: which completed the tiers of seats cut in the living rock; provided in its main body the postscenium, and in its wings the dressing-rooms; and, rising in front to a level with the colonnade which crowned and surrounded the auditorium, made at once the outer facade and the rear wall of the stage.[5] The dominant characteristic of the building--a great parallelogram jutting out from the hill-side into the very heart of the town--is its powerful mass. The enormous facade, built of great blocks of stone, is severely simple: a stony height--the present bareness of which formerly was a little relieved by the vast wooden portico that extended along the entire front--based upon a cornice surmounting open Tuscan arches and broken only by a few strong lines. The essential principle of the whole is stability. It is the Roman style with all its good qualities exaggerated. Elegance is replaced by a heavy grandeur; purity by strength. The auditorium as originally constructed--save for the graceful colonnade which surmounted its enclosing wall, and for the ornamentation which certainly was bestowed upon the rear wall of the stage and probably upon the facing-wall of the first tier of seats--was as severe as the facade: simply bare tiers of stone benches, divided into three distinct stages, rising steplike one above another in a great semi-circle. But when the theatre was filled with an eager multitude its bareness disappeared; and its brilliant lowest division--where sat the nobles clad in purple-bordered white robes: a long sweep of white dashed with strong colour--fitly brought the auditorium into harmony with the splendour of the permanent setting of the stage.