Directly above is the higher upper crypt of the church, a diminutive but true choir, with its tiny altar and ambulatory,--a jewel of the Romanesque, heavy and plain and beautifully proportioned, with columns and vaulting in perfect miniature. This, from its absolute purity of style, is the most interesting part of the church; and being a crypt, it is also the most difficult to see. In vain the sacristan ran from side to side with his little candle, in vain the traveller gazed and peered,--the little church was full of shadows and mysteries, dark and lost under the weight of the great choir above.
[Illustration: "THE MAIN BODY OF THE CHURCH."--APT.]
Even the main body of the church, above ground, is dimly lighted by small, rounded windows above the arches of the nave, and from the dome of Saint Anne's Chapel. Doubtless, on Sundays after High Mass, when the great doors are opened, the merry sun of Provence casts its cheerful rays far up the nave. But this is a church which is the better for its shadows. A Romanesque aisle of the IX or X century, built by that same Bishop Alphant who had seen the construction of the little crypt church, a central nave of the XI century, Romanesque in conception, and a north aisle of poor Provençal Gothic make a large but inharmonious interior. Restoration following restoration, chapels of the XVIII century, new vaultings, debased and conglomerate Gothic, and spectacular decorations of gilded wood have destroyed the architectural value and real beauty of the Cathedral's interior. Yet in the dim light, which is the light of its every-day life, the great height of the church and its sombre massiveness are not without impressiveness.
The exterior dominates the city, but it is so hopelessly confused and commonplace that its natural dignity is lost. The heavy arch which supports the clock tower forms an arcade across a narrow street and makes it picturesque without adding dignity to the church itself. The walls are unmeaning, often hidden by buildings, and there is not a portal worthy of description. There is the dome of Saint Anne's Chapel with a huge statue of the Patron, and the lantern of the central dome ending in a pointed roof; but each addition to the exterior seems only an ignorant or a spiteful accentuation of the general architectural confusion.