tailieunhanh - CATHEDRALS AND CLOISTERS OF THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

For years the makers of this book have spent the summer time in wandering about the French country; led here by the fame of some old monument, or there by an incident of history. They have found the real, unspoiled France, often unexplored by any except the French themselves, and practically unknown to foreigners, even to the ubiquitous maker of guide-books. For weeks together they have travelled without meeting an English-speaking person. | CATHEDRALS AND CLOISTERS OF THE SOUTH OF FRANCE Front Cover Rodez. Sheer and straight the pillars rise . and arch after arch is lost on the shadows of the narrow vaulting of the side-aisle. To List CATHEDRALS and CLOISTERS OF THE SOUTH OF FRANCE BY ELISE WHITLOCK ROSE WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS BY VIDA HUNT FRANCIS IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME I. G. P. PUTNAM S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1906 Copyright 1906 by G. P. PUTNAM S SONS PREFACE. For years the makers of this book have spent the summer time in wandering about the French country led here by the fame of some old monument or there by an incident of history. They have found the real unspoiled France often unexplored by any except the French themselves and practically unknown to foreigners even to the ubiquitous maker of guide-books. For weeks together they have travelled without meeting an English-speaking person. It is therefore not surprising that they were unable to find in any convenient form in English a book telling of the Cathedrals of the South which was at once accurate and complete. For the Cathedrals of that country are monuments not only of architecture and its history but of the history of peoples the psychology of the christianising and unifying of the barbarian and the Gallo-Roman and many things besides epitomised perhaps in the old words the struggle between the world the flesh and the devil. In French works on Cathedrals are numerous and exhaustive but either so voluminous as to be unpractical except for the specialist as the volumes of Viollet-le-Duc or so technical as to make each Cathedral seem one in an endless monotonous procession differing from the others only in size style and age. This is distinctly unfair to these old churches which have personalities and idiosyncrasies as real as those of individuals. It has been the aim of the makers of this book to introduce in photograph and in story not critically or exhaustively but suggestively and accurately .