Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/477

 Bk. II. Ch. I. DIVISION OF SUBJECT. 445 who, though conquered, Avere never colonized by the Barbarians to sucli an extent as to alter their blood or consequently the ethnographic relations of the people. North of the line the Goths and Lombards in Italy, and the Franks in Gaul, settled in such numbers as to influence very considerably the status of the races, in some instances almost to the obliteration of their leading characteristics. In F'rance the boundary line folloAVS the valley of the Loire near its northern edge till it passes behind Tours ; it crosses that river between that city and Orleans, follows a somewhat devious course to Lyons, and up the valley of the Rhone to Geneva. In the Middle Ages the two races were roughly designated as those speaking the Langue d'oc and the Langue d'oeil — somewhat more correctly those to the south were called Romance, ^ those to the north Prankish ; but the truth is the distinction is too broad to be now clearly defined, and we must descend much more into detail before any satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at. On the south of the line, one of the most beautiful as well as the best defined architectural provinces is that I have ventured to designate as Provence or Provenyal. Its limits are very nearly coincident with those of Gallia Narbonensis, and " Narbonese " would consequently be a more correct designation, and would be adopted if treating of a classical style of art. It has, however, the defect of including Toulouse, which does not belong to the ])rovince, and consequently the name affects an accuracy it does not possess. It may, therefore, be better at present to adopt the vague name of the " Provence " /jar excellence^ especially as Proven9al is a word applied by French authors to literary matters much in the sense it is here used to define an architectural division. The Avhole of the south coast of France from the Alps to the Pyrenees belongs to this province, and it extends up the valley of the Rhone as far as Lyons, and is generally bounded by the hills on either on side of that river. Perhaps the best mode of defining the limits of the Aquitanian pi-ovince would be to say that it includes all those towns Avhose names end with the Basque article ac, consequently indicating the presence at some former period of a people speaking that language or something very closely allied to it, or at all events differing from those of the rest of France. It is only on the eastward that the line seems difficult to define. There are some towns, such as Barjac, 1 The use of this temi is a little awk- ward at first from its having another meaning in English; it has, however, long been used by English etymologists to distinguish the Romance languages, such as Italian, Spanish, and French, from those of Teutonic origin, and is here used in precisely the same sense as applied to architecture — to those styles derived from the Roman, but one de- gree more removed from it than the Romanesque.