Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/494

 462 FRENCH ARCHITECTURE. Part H. 322. Plan of Church at Planes (From Taylor and Kodier.) of the few examples found is a small baptistery attached to the cathe- dral at Aix, either very ancient oi- built with ancient materials, and now painfully modernized. At Riez there is a circular detached baptistery, usually, like the churches at Vaison, called a pagan temple, but evidently of Cliristian origin, though the pillars in the interior seem un- doubtedly to have been borrowed from some more ancient and classical edifice. But the finest of its class is the church at Rieux, prol lably of the 1 1th century. Internally the vault is supported by 4 piers and 3 pillars, ])roducing an irregularity far from pleas- ing, and without any apparent motive. At Planes is another church the plan of which deserves to be quoted, if not for its merit, at least for its singularity : it is a triangle with an apse attached to each side, and sup- porting a circular part terminating in a plain roof. As a constructive puzzle it is curious, but it is doubtful how far anv legitimate use could be made of such a capriccio. There is, so far as I know, only one triapsal church, that of St. Croix at Mont Majour near Aries. Built as a sepulchral chapel, it is a singularly gloomy but appropriate erection ; but it is too tall and too bare to rank high as a building even for such a purpose. Towers. Provence is far from being rich in towers, which never seem there to have been favorite forms of arch- itectural display. That of St. Andre le Bas at Vienne has already been alluded to, but this at Puissalicon (Woodcut No, 232) near Beziers is even more typical of the style, and standing as it now does in solitary (F'rom (jrandeur among the ruins of the church once attached to it, has a dignity seldom possessed by such monuments. In style it resembles the towers of Italy more than any found farther north, but it is not 323. Tower at Pnissalioon. Kenouvier.)