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As a general thing, I do not favor the fashion of attributing moral qualities to buildings; I shrink from talking about tender porticos and sincere campanili; but I find I cannot get on at all without imputing some sort of morality to Saint- Sernin. As it stands to-day, the church has been completely restored by Viollet-le-Duc.
My real consolation was an hour I spent in Saint- Sernin, one of the noblest churches in southern France, and easily the first among those of Toulouse. This great structure, a masterpiece of twelfth-century ro- manesque, and dedicated to Saint Saturninus, the Toulousains have abbreviated, is, I think, alone worth a journey to Toulouse.
Like that of the cathedral of Coimbra, which was being built about the same time, the inside is clearly founded on the great cathedral of Santiago, itself a copy of S. Sernin at Toulouse, and quite uninfluenced by the French design of Alcobaça.
Except the church of Saint- Sernin and the fine old court of the Hotel d'Assezat, Toulouse has no architecture; the houses are for the most part of brick, of a grayish-red color, and have no particular style.
It is known that the great cathedral of Santiago in Galicia was begun in 1078, just about the time Villar must have been building, and Santiago is an almost exact copy in granite of what the great abbey church of S. Sernin at Toulouse was intended to be, so that it may be assumed that Bernardo who built the cathedral was, if not a native of Toulouse, at any rate very well acquainted with what was being done there.
I know that my uncle, the Bishop of Grenoble, would let me want for nothing if he were here, but he is away at his Abbey of St. Sernin at Toulouse, which is so far off that there would be no time for a man to go there and back." "Do not trouble," said his friend, "you and I will go to Ainay, and I trust we shall manage it." This was some comfort, but the young warrior had no sleep that night.
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