Looking back on the ancient Carcassonne, the medievalism of the place is quite fantastic, and exactly what the early school of Italian artists depicted as backgrounds to their pictures. For many miles a ridge of arid hills runs parallel to the road on the south, and the Cevennes appear in the distance to the north. Barbaira has a ruined castle bearing the Visigoth name of Alaric. Some of the hamlets have a strong resemblance to the rock villages of Italy, and it is here that the silvery green foliage of the olive is first noticed on the journey eastward. Soon after passing Moux the low hills come close to the road, exposing layers of soft sand between harder strata, and the soil changes in colour from a light buff to the deepest orange. Lézignan has a fourteenth-century church, but is not an interesting town. Passing through more arid hills, one reaches the historic cathedral city of NARBONNE [Illustration: No. 16. CARCASSONNE TO MONTPELLIER.] The continual silting-up of the Aude has converted the _Narbo_ of the Phœnicians from one of the busiest ports of the Mediterranean into an inland town, connected with the sea by a canal. The Romans, foreseeing this danger, deflected part of the River Aude, and thus kept the seaway to Narbonne open until 1320, when a dyke gave way, and the river reverted to its earlier course, with the consequent rapid decline of the town as a port. [Illustration: THE ARCADED SQUARE OF MIREPOIX. The pillars of timber have curiously carved gargoyles. (_Page 252._)] It stands at the southern end of a plain which is a vast vineyard, and produces great quantities of wine. The martyr St. Sebastian, whose death took place in 288, was born at Narbonne, and also the Roman Emperors Carus, Carinus, and Numerian. Carved stones of the Roman period have been discovered in great quantities in the city. The Cathedral of St. Just was begun in 1272 on a most ambitious scale, but the choir alone [Illustration: TOWN PLAN NO. 18.--NARBONNE.] came into being. Had the great undertaking been completed, Narbonne would have possessed one of the vastest cathedrals in France. As it stands to-day, the choir, with its two towers of the fifteenth [Illustration: NARBONNE. A picturesque town in Southern France.] century, rises up above the roofs of the city, after the fashion of Chartres. In the eighteenth century an effort was made to complete the nave, but the unfinished masonry in front of the west end of the choir is all that was accomplished. The swing-doors lead into what might be called a ‘narthex,’ which is without windows, and the darkness is profound until one has stumbled cautiously into one of the aisles. There are fourteenth-century windows in the apse, and round the sanctuary are some interesting tombs, including those of Cardinal Briçonnet, Prime Minister under Charles VIII., and La Borde, President and General Treasurer of France (1607).