The coming of Christianity is associated with the name of St. Front, around whose tomb an oratory was built in the sixth century. Towards the end of the tenth century an abbey arose on the site, and then, precisely as at Tours, a new town arose alongside the walled Roman _cité_, and the dual towns must have had somewhat the appearance of the Carcassonne of to-day. After being in rivalry for a time, the two portions of Périgueux were in 1240 united by a solemn treaty. [Illustration: TOWN PLAN NO. 13.--PÉRIGUEUX.] _The Cathedral of St. Front_ only became the cathedral after the mutilation of St. Étienne by the Huguenots. It is a most remarkable building, in the form of a Greek cross, roofed with five huge domes. The similarity of the plan to that of St. Mark’s at Venice has suggested that it was copied from that building, with which it is generally regarded as contemporary, although a considerable conflict of opinion has taken place as to its exact age. At the west end of the domical building there is a roofless structure consisting of three naves, and whether it is the earlier of the two still remains in doubt. Félix de Verneilh, a distinguished archæologist, holds that the domed building was begun in 984, and consecrated in 1047, and that the roofless church goes back as far as Merovingian times (fifth and sixth centuries); but latterly there has been a tendency to date the complete building between 1125 and 1150, and to regard the ruined structure as the one consecrated in 1047, and burnt in 1120. The restoration has been so wholesale that, were it not for the domes and the impressiveness of the colossal square piers, the interior would be too bald and bare to be interesting. The arches are only slightly pointed, and this building is, perhaps, the birthplace of French Gothic. The tower is one of the very earliest, if not the only Byzantine campanile in France, while the apse is quite modern. The Bishop’s offices are above the cloisters of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, and, since the demolition of 1903, are all that remains of the monastery. The site is now an open space, forming a broad terrace, which gives a delightful view of the river and the wooded hills, and to a town with so many narrow streets as this it must be a boon to the inhabitants. A walk through the old streets of the episcopal town, especially the _Rues Limogeaune_ and _Aubergerie_, reveals some fine domestic architecture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and there are some old houses defended with machicolation on the quay by the Pont Vieux. The _Tour Mataquerre_, of the fourteenth century, is a part of the ramparts of the city.