XVIII Sts. Benoit et Vincent de Castres
Castres will ever rank in the mind of the wayfarer along the byways of the south of France as a marvellous bit of stage scenery, rather than as a collection of profound, or even highly interesting, architectural types.
It is one of those spots into which a traveller drops quite unconsciously en route to somewhere else; and lingers a much longer time than circumstances would seem to justify.
This is perhaps inexplicable, but it is a fact, which is only in a measure accounted for by reason of the “local colour”—whatever that vague term of the popular novelist may mean—and customs which weave an entanglement about one which is difficult to resist.
The river Agout is as weird a stream as its name implies, and divides this haphazard little city of the Tarn into two distinct, and quite characteristically different, parts.
Intercourse between Castres and its faubourg, Villegondom, is carried on by two stone bridges; and from either bank of the river, or from either of the bridges, there is always in a view a ravishingly picturesque ensemble of decrepit walls and billowy roof-tops, that will make the artist of brush and pencil angry with fleeting time.
The former cathedral is not an entrancingly beautiful structure; indeed, it is not after the accepted “good form” of any distinct architectural style. It is a poor battered thing which has suffered hardly in the past; notably at the hands of the Huguenots in 1567. As it stands to-day, it is practically a seventeenth-century construction, though it is yet unfinished and lacks its western façade.
The vaulting of the choir, and the chapels are the only constructive elements which warrant remark. There are a few paintings in the choir, four rather attractive life-size statues, and a series of severe but elegant choir-stalls.
The former évêché is to-day the Hôtel de Ville, but was built by Mansart in 1666, and has a fine escalier in sculptured stone.
As a centre of Christianity, Castres is very ancient. In 647 there was a Benedictine abbey here. The bishopric, however, did not come into being until 1317, and was suppressed in 1790.