XIII St. Jean de Perpignan
Perpignan is another of those provincial cities of France which in manners and customs sedulously imitate those of their larger and more powerful neighbours.
From the fact that it is the chief town of the Départment des Pyrénêes-Orientales, it perhaps justifies the procedure. But it is as the ancient capital of Rousillon—only united with France in 1659—that the imaginative person will like to think of it—in spite of its modern cafés, tram-cars, and magazins.
Like the smaller and less progressive town of Elne, Perpignan retains much the same Catalonian flavour of “physiognomy, language, and dress;” and its narrow, tortuous streets and the jalousies and patios of its houses carry the suggestion still further.
The Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 changed the course of the city’s destinies, and to-day it is the fortress-city of France which commands the easterly route into Spain.
The city’s Christian influences began when the see was removed hither from Elne, where it had been founded as early as the sixth century.
The cathedral of St. Jean is a wonderful structure. In the lines of its apside it suggests those of Albi, while the magnitude of its great strongly roofed nave is only comparable with that of Bordeaux as to its general dimensions. The great distinction of this feature comes from the fact that its Romanesque walls are surmounted by a truly ogival vault. This great church was originally founded by the king of Majorca, who held Rousillon in ransom from the king of Aragon in 1324.
The west front is entirely unworthy of the other proportions of the structure, and decidedly the most brilliant and lively view is that of the apside and its chapels. There is an odd fourteenth-century tower, above which is suspended a clock in a cage of iron.
The whole design or outline of the exterior of this not very ancient cathedral is in the main Spanish; it is at least not French.
This Spanish sentiment is further sustained by many of the interior accessories and details, of which the chief and most elaborate are an altar-screen of wood and stone of great magnificence, a marble retable of the seventeenth century, a baptismal font of the twelfth or thirteenth century, some indifferent paintings, the usual organ buffet with fifteenth-century carving, and a tomb of a former bishop (1695) in the transept.
The altars, other than the above, are garish and unappealing.
A further notable effect to be seen in the massive nave is the very excellent “pointed” vaulting.
There are, close beside the present church, the remains of an older St. Jean—now nought but a ruin.
The Bourse (locally called La Loge, from the Spanish Lonja) has a charming cloistered courtyard of a mixed Moorish-Gothic style. It is well worthy of interest, as is also the citadel and castle of the King of Majorca. The latter has a unique portal to its chapel.
It is recorded that Bishop Berengarius II. of Perpignan in the year 1019 visited the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and on his return built a church or chapel on similar lines in memory of his pilgrimage. No remains of it are visible to-day, nor can it be further traced. Mention of it is made here from the fact that it seems to have been a worthy undertaking,—this memorial of a prelate’s devotion to his faith.