The western portal, which is of an acceptable modern Gothic, is of more than usual interest as to its decorations. In the tympanum of the arch is a figure of the Saviour giving his blessing, with the emblems of the Evangelists below, and an angel and the pelican--the emblem of the sacrament--above. Beneath the figure of the Saviour is another of St. Jerome, the patron, to whom the cathedral is dedicated.
A square, ungainly tower holds a noisy peal of bells, which, though a great source of local pride, can but prove annoying to the stranger, with their importunate and unseemly clanging.
The chief accessories, in the interior, are an elaborate organ-case,--of the usual doubtful taste,--a marble statue of St. Vincent de Paul (by Daumas, 1869), and a sixteenth or seventeenth-century statue of a former bishop of the diocese.
Digne has perhaps a more than ordinary share of picturesque environment, seated, as it is, luxuriously in the lap of the surrounding mountains.
St. Domnin, the first bishop, came, it is said, from Africa at a period variously stated as from 330 to 340 A. D., but, at any rate, well on into the fourth century. His enthronement appears to have been undertaken amid much heretical strife, and was only accomplished with the aid of St. Marcellin, the archbishop of Embrun, of which the diocese of Digne was formerly a suffragan.
The good St. Domnin does not appear to have made great headway in putting out the flame of heresy, though his zeal was great and his miracles many. He departed this world before the dawn of the fifth century, and his memory is still brought to the minds of the communicants of the cathedral each year on the 13th of February--his fête-day--by the display of a reliquary, which is said to contain--somewhat unemphatically--the remains of his head and arm.
Wonderful cures are supposed to result to the infirm who view this _relique_ in a proper spirit of veneration, and devils are warranted to be cast out from the true believer under like conditions.
A council of the Church was held at Digne in 1414.
The _Augusta Dia_ of the Romans is to-day a diminutive French town lying at the foot of the _colline_ whose apex was formerly surmounted by the more ancient city.