fgr^Uie- faigSiimgtf a..- '&Qliegi?§&^tf.. tj^fpnf From the estate of Miss Martha Day Porter 1923 A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER BOSTON HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street (JCJe Hii'angibe t^rei^, Camliriftoe 1884 Copyright, 1883, Bi CHAELBS DUDLEY WAENBE. AU rights reserved. MTERSlDE, OAMBBIDOE: ELECTBOTTPED AND PBINTED BX a. 0. HOCQHION AND COMPANT. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Faoe Out of the Fog into the Sun 1 CHAPTER IL fHE Fountain of Vaucluse 7 CHAPTER III. A-VIGNON TO OTmes 17 CHAPTER IV. MONTPEIXIEB 29 CHAPTER V. Cette 39 CHAPTER VL AlGUES-MOETES 46 CHAPTER VII. La Belle Maguelonne 59 CHAPTER Vni. Munich to Orvieto 68 CHAPTER IX. Palermo 78 CHAPTER X. Girgenti and Catania 91 IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. Taormina 104 CHAPTER xn. Syracuse 118 CHAPTER Xni. Malta 132 CHAPTER XIV. Gibealtak and Tangier 144 CHAPTER XV. Across Africa 162 CHAPTER XVI. Along the Spanish Coast 191 CHAPTER XVII. A Ride in Spain 199 CHAPTER xvrn. The Alhambra 235 CHAPTER XIX. The Bull-Fight 255 CHAPTER XX. Monsekrat 283 CHAPTER XXI. Random Spanish Notes 304 CHAPTER XXII. Wagner's Paesifax 333 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. CHAPTER I. ODT OF THE FOG INTO THE SUN. We left Paris on the morning of November 8, 1881, in a dense fog. The difference between the fog of Paris and the fog of London is that one is yellow and the other is black; both are raw and piercing, and when I am in Paris I am not prepared to say that I prefer the latter. The Paris sky is gray, like its houses. I do not know why it is that all the large capitals of the civilized world have such unpleasant climates, — London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Berlin, — New York, even with its extremes,, is better than either. We did not escape from the fog until we had run through the forest of Fontainebleau, when the sun came out in all its splendor, and we were whirled along through a cloudless day, and over a smiling land, every inch of which is cultivated. The effect is that of a prairie, so extensive is the view ; but there are low hills, now and then, and water-courses, with miles on miles of sentinel poplars, and now and then, 1 2 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. on an elevation, a ruined tower marking some old feudal domination. The fields, without fences, are cultivated in long narrow strips, in colors of green, brown, and gray. Gautier says the country looks like the cloth patterns pasted on cards which his tailor sends him. Gray houses dot the landscape every where ; gray villages with curious old spires and tow ers are frequent ; the long strips of gray roads are dazzling white in the sunshine. Gray is the prevail ing color, for France seems to be all limestone and chalk, and houses, fields, and people take this color of decadence. At this season there are no -vivid greens to make a contrast. The foliage, however, has warmth, the forests showing rich brown and the mulberries golden yellow. We travel express, none but first-class carriages be ing on the train. The fare also is first class. The distance from Paris to Avignon is about four hundred and sixty miles, and the fare is over ninety-one francs — over eighteen dollars. This includes only a little baggage, so that there is a large extra charge for that. However, there are some compensations. We travel fast and we reach places at the time named on the schedule. This surprises Americans, who are accus tomed to regard time tables on long routes as arranged for the amusement of directors and not for the infor mation of the public. We made the distance, four hundred and sixty miles, from Paris to Avignon, in twelve hours and forty minutes, and arrived on time. This includes stops of a half hour for breakfast at OUT OF THE FOG INTO THE SUN. 3 twelve, and a half hour for dinner at six. There are, besides, five other stops of five minutes each, so that the running time is actually only a little over eleven hours, or (if I have figured correctly) over forty-one miles an hour. Another good thing about the journey was the ab sence of "hot boxes." The only thing that could bear that name was the hot-water cans that were given us for foot-warmers. Now, a real American is not com fortable without a "hot box" occasionally in the course of a long journey. It seems to him that something has n't happened. The cars also were exceedingly easy. This was due to comfortable seats and good springs partly, but mainly to the excellence of the road-bed and the per fection of the steel rails. We glided along on our very rapid course without a jar. And another discov ery we soon made was that the road was so perfectly ballasted with stone that we had no dust. We were neither jerked about nor banged up and down. This splendid steel highway from Paris to Marseilles is run over as smoothly as if one were in a gondola, a dustless journey, on time. And we were little visited by conductors, ticket-men, or other inquisitive persons, and not once by boys who desired to improve our minds and destroy our stomachs by their merchandise. Having once put us into a ca-L- for Avignon and been satisfied that we had paid, tho officials let us alone. We might have got out any where, and forfeited our tickets and left our baggage. 4 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. Not till we reached Dijon at night did a ticket-taker open the door. But then four simple words that he said — ''Billets s'il vous plait " — so deluged the apart ment with garlic that we had to open all the windows. If he had added another soHd word, I think we should have been compelled to jump out of the car. Such a mighty power is the breath of a single man in this great nation. I am sorry to say that the climate of Paris extends far south. The isothermal line takes a dip almost down to the Mediterranean. By the middle of the afternoon we were in a cold, dense fog again, as thick as we have on the banks of Newfoundland, and it was not until we were well away from Lyons and the sun had ceased to draw the moisture from the ground that we saw the stars. But by nine o' clock we had changed our climate totally, and when we saw in the moonlight the towers of the ancient Palace of the Popes at Avignon, we knew that the sort of winter to which we are accustomed was left behind us, and we had not to look forward with apprehension to Thanklgiving day. The ancient hotel received us in its ancient court yard, where the big sycamore-tree grows and the galleries run round, and where there are benches for loiterers to sit in the sun. The next morning was cloudless, delicious. The soldiers and the children were sunning themselves in the Place de la Ville, at the head of the Rue de la Republique, where stands the statue of Crillon, friend of Henry of Navarre, and OUT OF THE FOG INTO THE SUN. 5 the pretty theatre with the figures of Racine and Cor- neille seated in front. We were come to a land where statues can sit out doors with comfort in winter. I returned to the hotel with my hands full of the open air roses of Provence, which are blooming everywhere. It is only truth to say, however, that the " mistral," an odious, cold, cutting northeast wind, blows here in the winter and gives Avignon a bad name. It is not so very far from the spurs of the Alps, and one of the finest sights from the Dome of Rocks, above the old palace, is Mt. Ventoux, eighteen miles away and 6,421 feet high, a lovely purple mountain, said by Petrarch, who ascended it, to be covered with eternal snow. The snow may be eternal or internal, but we could not see it. Avignon, crumbling, old, crooked in its ways and indecent in some of its smells, is, after all, a most romantic, delightful old town, interesting in its archi tectures, its superb old palaces, its historical associ ations of the Popes and the Two Lovers, and has, altogether, a most fascinating atmosphere for the trav eler. But it is afflicted, as all France is, with soldiers, barracks full of them, streets full of them. They sleep in the Palace of the Popes ; you see one of their unintelligent heads at every little window of the for tress-palace, and squads of conscripts, the rawest of raw recruits, are always in sight. And they seem poor material for soldiers, short in stature, ill-made, inferior in every way, light weights in head as well as in body. 6 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. This is the general character of the conscripts and troops we have seen everywhere south on our journey, and it is very poor stuff to oppose to the stalwart, in telligent German soldiers — if they are to be opposed to them. CHAPTER II. THE FOUNTAIN OP VAUCLUSE. The lover has almost as good a chance pf immortal ity as the warrior. A romantic attachment to a charm ing woman, especially if it is hopeless or ought to be hopeless, put into literature, does very nearly as well for a man's reputation as if he murdered a great many of his feUows. Not quite ; for killing is stiU the most popular thing a man can do in this world. Witness, the prominent industry of France at this moment is the training of the most awkward of conscripts into the most unsoldierly-like-looking soldiers, for the pur pose of killing Germans and other outside barbarians. The quaint old walled city of Avignon, however, owes more to Petrarch than it does to any or all of the Popes who once made it the centre of the shows and pilgrimages of the Christian world ; more even than to that fighting Pope Benoit XIIL, who was n't a very good Holy Father, as holy fathers go in this world, al though he stood a siege in his palace-fortress in Avig non that lasted a year longer than the siege of Troy. AH Avignon is saturated with the story of Petrarch and Laura, and it is a pity that the name of the hand somest street in the city and the only straight one. 8 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. which was Rue Pitrarque, has, in the access of Re publicanism — for Avignon is fiercely Republican — been changed into Rue de la Republique. I know very well that it is the fashion now not to believe very much in Petrarch's love-affair, and to say that the sweet but cold Laura de Sade, dying at the age of forty, a faithful wife and the mother of eleven children, was only a literary flame of the sentimental Italian. But I like, while I am here, to believe the old romance in aU its details. And if the poetically amorous poet mingled his taste for letters and his love of renown with a convenient and idealized passion for a beautiful woman, and made every event of his de spairing love the theme of a sonnet, I like to believe that the name of Laura, which was always on his lips or at the end of his pen, was something more than a name. It was, says the simple narrative, on the Monday of Holy Week, at six o'clock in the morning, that Petrarch saw at Avignon, in the church of the nuns of Sainte Claire, a young woman whose robe of green was sown with violets. Her beauty struck him : it was Laura. Daughter of Audibert des Noves, chevalier, she had recently married Hugues de Sade, of an old patrician house of Avignon. Her features — so Petrarch de scribes her — were fine and regular, her eyes were briU iant, her glance was tender, her physiognomy sweet, her behavior modest, her gait noble, her voice vibrant with feeling ; her waist was slender, her eyebrows were black, her hair was blonde ; her complexion was of dajz- THE FOUNTAIN OF VAUCLtJSE. 9 zling whiteness, animated with the most lively colors ; in short, she had a charm more seducing than beauty. To see this lovely person was to love her. To be absent from her was a torture. It was necessary to Petrarch to be near her always. He sought her every where. She had the air of inviting him. If he ap proached her, she fled ; but she fled slowly ; she fled to be pursued. Petrarch was timid. Laura was a woman of sense, and yet, like all women, au fond, a coquette. It was a coquetry which nature inspired, which modesty confessed. Laura was flattered by his devotion, not insensible to the renown which his son nets brought her; distinguished strangers from afar wished to see the divinity who inspired the famous poet. They could not always recognize in her the rav ing beauty whom Petrarch saw. Did Laura love him? The love of Petrarch flat tered her pride. But she had the air of ignoring the passion of the young poet ; she treated him with kind ness ; but a sweet severity came to the aid of her -vir tue. She attracted him and repeUed him. He seemed always to pursue an enticing shadow which always just evaded his grasp, and yet invited him with a sweet smile into some heavenly place. In the despair of a lover whose love was in the air, in disgust of a sycophantic court whose favor was only got by fawning, in hatred of a city whose morals were decayed, and in order to have uninterrupted leisure for the cultivation of the muse, Petrarch sought a retreat in the solitude of Vaucluse. Even there the image of 10 Notes of A roundabout journey. Laura pursued him ; he heard her voice in the garden at evening, and in the murmuring stream that ran be fore his door his thought swiftly traveled to A-vdgnon, where she lived. He wrote there many sonnets upon her. Upon her beautiful eyes he composed three poems full of grace, delicacy, esprit. Drawn back to Avig non by his passion for her, or drawn from Vaucluse by missions political or poetic, Petrarch returned to it again and again. But it was never more than a retreat of convenience, a summer residence. What is this Vaucluse, whose fountain is such a per ennial spring of poetic longing ? Vaucluse is to-day a little town of some five or six hundred inhabitants, in the foot-hiUs of the French Alps, about eighteen mUes east of Avignon. I went there by the railway to Ca- vaiUon, which was the home, you may remember, of Pierre de Provence, whose romantic love for La BeUe Maguelonne is the theme of one of the most charming stories of the twelfth century. The road was through a level gray limestone region, planted everywhere with the vine and the olive. Here and there are little hiUs, and on one of these, to the north, is the Chateau Neuf du Pape, whence comes a very good red wine of that name, which even the temperance traveler in this land of the grape and the madder may drink if he gets an absolution from the Pope. Before us, however, all the way, rose one of the loveliest of mountains — the last southern effort of the Alps to sustain their majesty — a barren height, lifted up in a purple light under this blue sky of Provence ; a mountain which has a special THE FOUNTAIN OF VAUCLUSE. 11 fame from the fact that Petrarch once ascended it, and describes it as in perpetual snow. Things are not now so perpetual as they were in mediseval times, or this season has been unfavorable for snow. We could see none. It is the Mt. Ventoux. It has an air of repose in lonely grandeur, and gets the full benefit of its alti tude, for this plain descends with only a gentle slope to the Mediterranean. The day was lovely — it was the 12th of November — like our choicest and most inspiring October days. Olive orchards gave a silver shimmer to the air, and flowers bloomed in the open without fear of frosts. At every little station upon low trellises were trained rose vines, and sweet-scented red roses, the red rose that used to be a shy confession of love in June in New England, made briUiant banks of color. We left the train at L'Isle du Sorgue, a sleepy, gray, and dusty little -village on the river Sorgue, and took an omnibus for Vaucluse, three or four miles distant. The stone houses are gray, the roads are gray, the landscape is grizzly. The road, however, is broad, and hard, and smooth. As we go on, by vineyards and olive orchards, with a Virgin and Child at odd angles and corners by the portals in the walls, the country becomes rougher and less arable. We are approaching the mountains, or rather the gray limestone cliffs which are their outposts. The road descends to the narrow vaUey of the Sorgue, and foUows its tortuous course into the very bosom of the mountain. Soon we pass under the 12 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. arches of a fine modern yiaduct, and find ourselves in a ravine, with the rapid little river and high cliffs on both sides. There is a house with a garden now and then, but there is no room for many houses. We pur sue this way until we come to a veritable cui de sac. In this cui de sac is Vaucluse. It is a sorry little town, rather Italian than French in its appearance, with its few houses on the edge of the stream, and perched on the hill-sides. In one place the rock has been tunneled, and the tunnel leads to other stone houses jammed under the ledges. There is a little square with a high commemorative column (erected in 1804), and a big sycamore-tree. This is where the omnibus stops, and the horses are unhitched, and . where old women, not so pretty as old women might be, offer to seU you dried grasses colored, and sprigs of lavender, and photographs of the fountain and the town. There is, of course, a caf ^ on this square, the fetrarque et Laure, and a bridge across the stream leads to a modern paper-miU. Taking the right bank of the river we ascend by a stony path, always attended by the woman with the lavender and the photographs and babies, untU we reach the end of the horse-shoe inclosure. In the last few hundred yards the river has disappeared. We mount by the side of a dry cascade. The bed of the stream is strewn with big moss-covered bowlders, and over these the torrent pours when the fountain, in the spring, is high enough to overflow. Its outlet now is under this stony bed. These bowlders in the dry THE FOUNTAIN OF VAUCLUSE. 13 stream (for it is here dry the greater part of the year) are thickly painted with the names of distin guished Frenchmen. I know they are distinguished or they would not be here. Every square foot of the vast cliffs about us, as far as moderate ladders can reach, also bears in white paint the sanie noble names. The Frenchman always paints or carves his name on every object that is available whenever he ventures into the savage and unknown world outside of Paris. His appreciation of himself is of the same sort as the modesty of the ancient Pharaohs. Mounting above this dry cascade, we were faced and hemmed in by a perpendicular limestone precipice eleven hundred feet in height. Before us in the cliff is a cavern, perhaps a hundred feet long by thirty deep. At a descent into it of thirty or forty feet from the brink where we stood was a pool of water, perhaps thirty feet across, and probably, at this time, about thirty feet deep. But it is impossible to say how deep it is, for the water is absolutely peUucid. I have never seen any mountain stream clearer. And yet its color is a sort of blue black. Petrarch describes it as " a mirror of blue-black water, so pure, so stUl, that where it laps the pebbles you can scarcely say where air begins and water ends." I found this literaUy true, for stooping on the shingly edge to dip the water in my hand I only perceived by the touch where the water began. This is the sole source of the river Sorgue, which issuing from this ravine parts itself into many canals ; 14 NOTES OF A ROUNbABOtJT JOVRNEY. it refreshes the prairies of Vaucluse, it waters LUle and the beautiful plain of Contat, and at last throws itself into the Rhone near Avignon. " O Vaucluse ! " exclaims the poet in his absence, " who -wiU transport me to thy fresh banks ! O fountain marvelous ! would that I were seated near thy source ! " Returning to the square, we crossed the bridge to the rock-hewn street behind the mill and passed through a rock tunnel in search of the site of Pe trarch's house. On the height above us, perched upon the rugged rocks, are the ruins of the castle of Cardi nal Cabasole. The Cardinal was Petrarch's friend, the seignior of this district, and part of the time Pe trarch's companion here. At the foot of the precipice, under this castle in the air, was Petrarch's modest house. This site is tolerably well defined. The house has long ago gone, but another, which is said to be ex actly like his, stands in its place. It is a two-story stone house, jammed under the precipice of which it seems to be a ragged part, with smaU windows, and looks very much like a poor stable and hen-house. In front of it is a little garden fenced in. This was a part of the larger garden of Petrarch, which extended to the river. In Petrarch's day this may have been a charming retreat. In the stream he drew his nets for fish. Melodious birds chanted in his ear, and farther off he heard in the meadows the lowing of herds and the bleating of sheep. The birds sang on one side ; on the other, the waves murmured. Figs, grapes, al monds he had — these were his delicacies. His habit THE FOUNTAIN OF VAUCLUSE. 15 was that of a shepherd. At mid-day he was in a vaulted grotto impenetrable to the rays of the sun. At evening he wandered in the meadows, where he had a second garden. It is a little difficult to imagine all this now, in the midst of these surroundings so grim and common place. But the stream is there, and the everlasting gray cliffs are there ; and the ruins of his friend's cas tle stiU look down upon this marvelous gorge in the mountain. I plucked some pink roses of Provence and a leaf of magnolia from this dusty and blooming little garden, as romantic aids to imagination and faith. In this solitude I can believe that the image of Laura pursued Petrarch as it had followed him in the forest of Ardennes. He believed that he saw her. He saw her start from the trunk of a tree, from the basin of the fountain, from the crevice of a rock, even from the edge of a cloud. " Three times," says he, " in the midst of the horrors of the night, all the doors fast shut, I have seen her appear at the foot of the bed, with an air assumed, with a countenance haughty. It was her very self." She rebuked her slave ; she reclaimed him. What did Laura wish ? " Perhaps," says the naif chronicler, " to be the first and perhaps the only woman who was ever loved with an angelic love." On the front of the caf^ of Pitrarque et Laure, in the little square, is an inscription saying that on the site of this building Petrarch had his study, and that 16 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. on this very spot he composed his one hundred and twenty-ninth sonnet, beginning (written here in French and in Italian) : — " O sweet country ! O pure river ! . Which bathes the beautiful visage And the dear eyes of my Laura ! " CHAPTER III. AVIGNON TO nImES. Put a man in red trousers and blue jacket and make his red legs move in unison with a lot of other red legs, and the man is perhaps relieved a little of his original insignificance. We have been witnessing the manufacture of soldiers, out of poor material, all the way across France. We have seen the forlorn squads of conscripts on their way to the stations ; we have seen the first attempts on the drill ground to make four of them stand in a right line ; we have seen their awkward efforts to make the musket anything but a murderous instrument for themselves, and we have finaUy seen them march off in columns — -this thousand red-legged machine of war — with slanting bayonets and the intent to kiU. I did not intend to say anything more about the soldiers. But as I opened my window to the south to let in the sweet morning air, I heard the toot-toot of the everlasting trumpet-call, and while I sit down to begin this page a red-legged regiment is crossing the esplanade. I wish I could say anything good of them. IndividuaUy they are insignificant ; but their red legs do go very weU together. At any rate they are the 2 18 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. prominent fact in all these towns and cities. The air is full of soldiering. The trumpet-call is the first thing one hears in the morning and the last in the evening, and all day the tan-ta-ra tan-ta-ra is liable to break out and a squad of uniforms appear round the corner. In the streets everywhere are soldiers and officers, the most familiar figures ; but nothing seems able to give any of them the soldierly bearing that the Germans have. I don't know, however, that it is any of my business, if the republic chooses to use up its energies in this way. But I wish they would put some good -sized men into the army, just for appearances. There are Frenchmen of fair proportions ; you see occasionaUy a large man on the street, an^ they make a brave show — especially the commercial travelers — at the tables d'hote. A row of Frenchmen at the table of a first- class hotel is likely to be a row of exceedingly good heads and highly intelligent faces, and men of more than ordinary size. To be sure, their table manners are apt to be barbarous, but then one would not go to a hotel in America to learn manners. It seems to me on the whole, taking the conscripts and the crowds in the streets, that the French in the south are under sized. Perhaps it is a significant and decisive fact that the bedsteads at the hotels are aU a trifle short for a man of good honest proportions to stretch himself at ease. We have plenty of men in Hartford to whom these bedsteads would be the mere mockery of repose. They have in this region a new use for men. They AVIGNON TO NIMES. 19 make "chambermaids " of them. Nearly all our cham bermaids since we left Paris have been of the awkward sex. It seems to outrage the nature of things to see one of these unhandy creatures making up a bed, and trying to give that touch to it which is instinctive in a woman. The fact that men are employed to do this domestic service in hotels speaks volumes. But what is in the volumes I don't know. From A-vignon to Nimes is a very pleasant ride of some twenty-five or thirty mUes by rail of a sunny morning. The view is very extended, though the land is not flat ; there are charming slopes and great sweeps of weU-tilled land. The prominent feature — every where in this region, indeed — is the vast olive or chards. Together -with the grape -vines they cover the land. In coming only this short distance we have changed, however, the milieu. There are not so many roses and other flowers in the open air as at Avignon. That old town, although it has, as I said, a bad name for the mistral, is nevertheless very good to the flowers all the year round, and is a bower of roses. In the gar den above the Palace of the Popes they were setting out new beds of mignonette, as if they expected it to bloom through the winter. The cemetery was odorous with sweet flowers. About the sarcophagus where lie, in a nook sheltered by hedges of pines, John Stuart MiU and his weU-beloved wife, are banks of roses, red and pink and yellow, rejoicing in the sun and robbing the grave of half its lonesomeness. 20 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. We left behind, too, at Avignon, the strawberries. Strawberries, they say, they have there every month in the year. To be sure they are the small, seedy, Swiss variety, of which it takes a great many to make a mouthful. But a strawberry is a strawberry in lit erature as well as on the table, and to come in of a winter morning from a walk in the abounding sun with a hand full of roses, and see on the breakfast- table even the humblest strawberry, is more pleasing than a stalled ox and snow in New England. This Nimes is a large city — 63,000 inhabitants the guide-book says — and it has the reputation of being one of the most cheerful and pleasant cities in southern France. It is open and sunny, and wide-spaced, but somehow, after one has seen the Roman ruins and the public garden, where there are also lovely Roman remains, there is not much to interest the traveler. It is too modern and lacks altogether the picturesque ness of Avignon, with its crooked, iU-savored streets and its decayed grandeur. The H6tel Luxembourg, where we stay, has a lovely sunny front south and west on the esplanade, a great esplanade of gravel in the middle of which is a lovely fountain -with statues by Pradier, and about which are the public buildings and the vast and imposing Roman Amphitheatre. It is a good place also from our bal cony to see the sun set and to hear day and night the toot-toot of the trumpeting soldiers, and the tooting horns of the omnibus and street-car conductors. If there is any one thing the French like more than an other it is noise. AVIGNON TO NIMES. 21 This old hotel has a sort of imposing appearance interiorly, with its large court and open staircase and gaUeries. It is a curious place, however. We were met on entering by two old women, in mob caps, black fronts, and short black dresses, who regarded us with the curiosity of magpies — nice, friendly old mag pies — tottering about and solicitous to know our wants and to turn the last penny on them. It seems to be quite in the way here for old ladies to keep hotels. The Europa at Avignon was kept for sixty years by two hvely, comfortable old ladies — they were not always so old — who had just departed this Ufe the year we were at Avignon before (in 1875). In the Uttle waiting room hangs a portrait of their gracious old mother, who, I suppose, kept the same house ages before. They have certainly transmitted their sweet and hospitable spirit to their successors, the present agreeable landlord and his lovely wife, who make the old house seem like home to the wayfarer. The fussy old magpies at Nimes transferred us to a queer old waiter, older even than themselves, who hob bled up-stairs before us. There was an assuring air of decrepitude about the whole menage. The bonne who sat in the bureau was lame, and all the servitors were more or less venerable. Indeed, we got the no tion as soon as we went into the streets that inferior and crippled and ugly people were very common in Nimes, and the whole population — as we saw it — seemed to have suffered somehow a blight. This may be very unjust, but with aU its Roman grandeur and 22 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. spacious lay-out, Mmes seems to be iU-favored in re spect to population. Pretty women, or passable look ing women, are even scarcer than at Avignon, and the men are inferior. You do not expect me to instruct you on the Roman remains of Nimes, indeed you do not wish information about them. You already know that twelve miles from here the Pont du Gard, the ancient aqueduct over the river Gard, is one of the most imposing Ro man remains in existence, much more striking than anything about Rome itself. You know that the vast amphitheatre here, where 17,000 spectators could see, under awnings and at ease, gladiators pound each other and wild beasts eat persons professing the Christian faith, is the most perfect large amphitheatre left to us from Roman times. I saw the other day the Roman theatre at Orange. It is unique. The semi -circle seats for the spectators are hewn out of the rocky hiU, like the theatre of Dionysius at Athens, and it is sep arated from the town by a wall thirteen feet thick, a hundred and twenty-one feet high and three hundred and thirty-four feet long. This high waU made the background for the stage; and built on it next the stage were, the spacious green-rooms for the actors. This amphitheatre at Nimes was not for plays at aU, but for spectacles, combats, and the circus performances of the arena. The amphitheatre is eUiptical in form, four hundred and thirty-seven feet in the greater axis and three hundred and thirty-three in the less. It is altogether one of the noblest ruins in the world, and AVIGNON TO NIMES. 23 is in such repair that it is stiU used for circus sports, and, I believe, for mild combats of the bull. Another charming specimen of the grace and archi tectural refinement of the Augustan age is the Maison Carrie, a beautiful little Corinthian temple, stiU in good preservation, and used as a museum of local curi osities. Perhaps the most pleasing feature of the city is the public garden, an artificial pleasure-place, very attract ive. It is in front of a high rocky hiU, on top of which is a noble Roman ruin caUed Tourmas-ne. From the summit of this tower there is a most exten sive prospect of the city and variegated country. Be low this is a pine forest with lovely walks. The side of the hill is terraced and adorned with circular bal ustrades in marble. At the foot is a basin of water, a Uving fountain, limpid and larger than the famous fountain of Vaucluse. It supplies the water for the canals and baths of the garden. This garden is a skil ful adaptation of the old to the new. Adjoining it is the ruin of the Temple of Diana, buUt in the year b. c. 24, and in the garden are the Roman baths, about twelve feet below the level of the promenade, the vaulting being supported on slender columns over which rise open stone balustrades. The garden is adorned with vases and statues, gay with flower-beds, enlivened with the sparkling waters from the spring at the foot of the hill, shaded with elms and palm- trees, protected from the wind, and loved of the sun. Altogether it is a pleasant place for a northerner to 24 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. saunter in a November day, and make the acquaint ance of the children and babies and the old women who knit in the sun. Nimes is fuU of idlers, idle young men and idle old men. I have never seen a city where loafing is so much an occupation. It is a contrast to industrious Avignon. Perhaps this is the loafing time of the year. Before you leave Nimes, if you ever do leave it, you ought to make yourself acquainted -with the works of M. Boueoiran. When this genius describes the cities of Provence and Languedoc in his native language, it is not difficult to comprehend him. But in an evil hour it occurred to him that he was capable of instruct ing the English travelers through this region in their own tongue. He has had a great success, and pro duced a book more amusing than he has any idea it is. We cannot always understand M. Boucoiran's de scriptions, but his reflections are always valuable, as when, standing on the top of the wall of the amphi theatre, he views the city on one side, while " from the other side your sight plunges into an immense and destroyed crater, the picturesque accounts of which induce the mind to reflect upon the most lasting works of men. We are inquiring, before so much devasta tion and solitude, if the monuments are not formed as the sports of going over civUizations, which conserved or mutilated them according to their necessities, or the employments to which they may be appropriated." Whicb seems altogether probable. AVIGNON TO NIMES. , 25 But the author is at his best in dweUing upon his sensations in search of such a marvel of architecture as the Pont du Gard : — "If you may have the least artistic mind, you wUl scarcely resist certain sensation of curiosity in seeing for the first time this aqueduct bridge. . . . The most you approach and the most it increases and astonishes, as aU those conjunctive shafts that the man exercised to leap over the rivers and the vaUeys ; it seems therefore that the solitude may be more hard, so as to Eoquerfavour." This is true. And the author justly adds : " There are many people who at the sight of a handsome site give way to their impressions, and take a pecuUar pleasure to the infinite sensations that inspire a bright sunrise after a storm-day, in the midst of the young nature — and near the dampish rocks. The early beams that play through that lofty wall as an open work, prepare the mind to sweet sensations, and the hours go rapidly over in that solitary spot that you wUl see again with a new delight." The city of Aries is famous, you know, not more for its many and splendid Roman remains than for its beautiful women. I heard an Englishman at Avignon raving about them. They also are survivals of the Roman times, preser-ving in their regular and hand some features, their noble bearing, their aUuring man ners, the traits of the girls of old Rome. This is a topic that evokes the fuU powers of M. Boueoiran : — " The modern city of Aries saved the prestige of its olden times. What seduces the more the foreigner, 26 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. what charms hun, is surely the sight of handsome women. The successive dominations crossing the country, each brought there its tribute for the per formance of such beauties. They like fiowers, fondle various perfumes, and are not indifferent to aU sorts of poetry. The noise or motion transport them in joy ; they take great pleasure in walking, desire the dances, the concerts, the holidays. Every spectacle attracts them, less for itself than for the incidents whereof they raise up. " The women of Aries are in some way the Atheni ans of the Provenza ; they are speciaUy cited for the superiority of their manner of speaking and dressing, so that the attire is the most important work of their youthfulness. Preserved amidst the Arlesian girls of the middle classes, in spite of the universal invasion of Paris fashions, their dress contributes very much to their attractions and they exhibit, in its improving, the most exquisite art, and the most dexterous inqui ries." These women, we are assured, have the forms and the features of the antique statues. Perhaps they have a dash of Moorish blood also, for some Andalu sian customs obtain in this region. One of these is the yearly gathering of the bulls in a great plain, for the purpose of marking the half-wild animals with the names of the owners. The custom is described by a -writer in the sixteenth century. Our author dilates upon it : — " An amusing pleasure, which has so many attrao- AVIGNON TO NIMES. 27 tions for the Arlesians as for the Andalous, is the buU runnings. It is not, we must say that, the sole rela tion that may be found between those two types, sepa rated nevertheless by great distances. But it is then proved that the handsomest chUds of the Prophet found sometimes sympathetical affinities, yet evident at Aries as on other places of Spain. " You may observe on the spirit, either on the skin as in the veins of the Arlesian girls, of that same blood which reveals itself among the Malaguenes, by the brilliancy, as alike ingenuity of conversing, or by that adorable forsaking which makes of them any danger ous spoiled children whereof you will love till the im perfections. " That simiUtude of kindness, that irresistible pro pensity for the dressing art, have not been drawn up at the same spring? Those are not primitive sins reckoning from a little far ! " The marking of young buUs, which is caUed Per vade, keeps yere so numerous adepts as at the foot of the Alpujarras mountains, among the girls than among the young men." After this, if we do not go to Aries, it will be be cause we are entirely wanting in the classical spirit and the love of beauty. I have neglected to speak of an institution at Mmes more entertaining and lively than its Roman remains. It is the public blanchisserie, or wash-house. The great spring or fountain which waters the public gar den flows away in waUed canals. It also supplies the 28 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. washing place. Sunken in one of the wide streets, several feet below the surface, and surrounded by a high waU in the form of a paraUelogram, perhaps two hundred and fifty feet long and fifty feet broad, is the washing place. Through this slowly flows the stream, let in and out by small gates. In the middle is a stone platform, and on each side of this is a canal of water, about eighteen inches deep. All along the edges is also a stone platform. As I approached this sunken place I heard a tre mendous spatting and pounding, and chattering and laughing. Looking down into the long pit over the wall, I saw four rows of women and girls, old and ugly, and roguish and indifferent, all ages and degrees of feminity, some two hundred and fifty women in all, standing in the canals and beating clothes with little mallets on the stone benches. Each woman stood in the canal, but each one stood in her own wash-tub, with her skirts tucked up, so that her feet were kept as dry as if she had been on land. I have been ac customed to see the clothes put into the wash-tub and the women standing outside, but here the women stood in the tubs, and from time to time dipped the clothes into the canal, which was a mass of soap-suds, and then dragged them out for another pounding on the stones. Splash, splash, thump, thump, chatter, chat ter, chaff, laughter, thump, whack — blackbirds could not talk faster, mermaids could not splash more. Each woman in her own tub, each tub standing on its own bottom — voild ! independence, and convenience. AU in the open air, and the sight of the world. CHAPTER IV. MONTPELLIER. You need n't desire a pleasanter autumn ride of an hour than that from Nimes to Montpellier. In the spring this region must be a sort of paradise. The slope is towards the south, towards the Mediterranean, which we all the time approach. On the north pro longs itself the purple range of the Cevennes. The olive orchards spread themselves out to the sun. Their silver sheen is already toned by the fruit, which is ripening to a dead black. Long before we reach the city our sight is fascinated by two mountain cliffs, rising up from the plain like a gateway, with perpendicular faces of gray limestone, shapely, handsome peaks — the last of the Cevennes. Rarely do you see, even in a mountain region, such striking and beautiful hills. They lie exactly north of Montpellier, and give dignity and romantic beauty to all the landscape. Although Montpellier is only five miles from the Mediterranean, it occupies high ground — 300 to 400 feet above the sea — and is, in fact, perched on the very irregular foot-hiUs of the mountain range. Its position is thus picturesque, and the views from its 30 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. highest places are charming. The city itself is old, but it has the advantage of being full of active, modem life and trade — one of the busiest and most lively of all the old towns in the south of France. It has about the same^population as Hartford — something under 50,000. It does not, however, enjoy such a climate as that of Hartford. Considering that it is a very gay and cheerful city, with many handsome modern buildings and open sminy streets, it is exceedingly interesting, for it preserves for the most part its ancient character of tortuous, narrow streets, which wind about most unexpectedly up and down the hiUs, and you are constantly enter tained withun expected architectural effects. In fact, as my friend Boueoiran says, " almost the whole town partakes of that boldness of irregular di rections, that they are desirous to redress the utmost in our utilitary ages." And he adds, with as much poetry as perspicuity, " the name of Montpellier re minds always in the foreign countries the remem brance of Hyeres or Nice, and smUing thoughts as the emblem of the spring. The renown of the medical school, as well as the clearness of meridianal sky, at tracts every year numerous foreigners, because for the northern nations, Montpellier is a sort of hot-house, suitable for the weak constitutions ; it is besides the fortunate land of the troubadours to sweet language." There is no doubt about the genial climate. The first four days of our stay here the weather was perfection, a clear sky -with an invigorating but still soft breeze MONTPELLIER. 31 from the Cevennes. And now for three or four days it has been cloudy, with occasional bursts of sunshine, and now and then a warm shower — the thermometer standing somewhere from 58° to 66° Fahrenheit. In the sun it is always pleasant, and people here make a business of sitting in the sun. The windows of our apartment in the HQtel Nevet look south over a Uttle garden, and although all vegetation is in its decay, the grass is yet green and the magnolia trees rejoice in f uU leaf and -vivid color. Near the hotel is the esplanade, a vast tree-planted promenade, and parade-ground for the soldiers, who are quartered in the citadel beyond the sunken rail way. The trumpet is always tooting, and the red legs are always trotting around there. The conscripts are getting so that they can trot together very well. I see that drafts of them are being trotted off to Tunis every few days, after only a drUl of three months, which is hardly enough to get the slouch out of their bumpkin gait. This esplanade has been occupied now some time by a temporary fair, the cheap booths of which in long- streets always attract a crowd. There is another street of cheap side-shows, peep-galleries, shooting gal leries, fortune-tellers, games and little lotteries and go- rounds, paste-board theatres, a traveling menagerie, and a circus. In front of the booths men in fancy costumes and women in fancy paint stand and beat drums or tum hurdy-gurdies, and call the passers-by to enter their show. It is a cheap Vanity Fair, and 82 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. at night when the lamps are lighted and everything is in full blast, rather an entertaining one. There are traders and sorcerers here from Algiers, swarthy women and men in fezes. The ground is a study of petty games and feats of legerdemain. I made friends with a lively and lying little Oriental from Algiers, who sold me inedible nugat from Zanzibar, and a queer confection from Algiers, which I believed from his toothsome and lively recommendation of it was a sort of ambrosia. America ? Oh, yes, he had been in that America in the Philadelphia in 1876 — and he liked it not at all, and shrugged his shoulders in recol lection of the mauvais tempts in that country there. Montpellier has many attractions. Being of a liter ary turn, you would probably come here because Pe trarch in his youth sojourned here for some time, pre tending to read law, but cultivating the muse instead, in the law school which was already in his day very famous. Not more so, however, than the medical school, which owed its existence to the learning of Arab scholars. Their knowledge of medicine was one of the many benefits that the Saracens brought into benighted Europe. Not only was the school of medi cine famous here, but here was the first Botanical Gar den instituted in France. It is still one of the most interesting, and I do not know where the botanist and the arborUst could go to be better pleased. There are nine acres in the grounds. I recognize in the ar boretum a great many trees indigenous in America. The grounds are divided into charming walks by aU^es MONTPELLIER. 33 of trees, by hedges, by paths festooned -with ivy. In the Botanical Garden are the busts of the botanical professors, whose names are famous all over Europe, from the middle of the sixteenth century down. MontpeUier has always been the home of culture and of schools. It sustains its reputation to-day by a num ber of exceUent schools for girls and for boys, and by a conservatoire of music and a gallery of the fine arts. The Museum, with its picture gallery — largely the gift of one man, M. Fabre — passes above provincial pretensions. It is indeed a charming gallery, with works of old and new masters, the lovely heads of Greuze and busts of Canova being prominent. But the glory of Montpellier, after all, is the Prom enade Peyrou. This is on a great eminence at the west side of the to-wn. It is an elevated esplanade, planted with trees — many of them large — and flowers, and adorned -with statues. I do not know such another airy, light, and cheerful place. The view from it is one of the finest in Europe. Beneath you is the sunny, irregular city, with its outlying vUlas and villages, its orchards of ohves and groves of pines. To the north are the lovely cliffs of the Cevennes, already spoken of. On the south lie the blue waters of the Mediterranean, not more, in a right line, than five miles distant. On a clear day, at sunrise or sunset, you can see in the west the Canigou, the last outpost of the Pyrenees, and in the east Mt. Ventoux, the first sentinel of the Alps. With the Cevennes, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Mediterranean in sight, one ought to be satisfied. 34 NOTES OP A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. But the charm of this promenade seems to be quite as much in itself as in its commanding prospect. It is so lifted up and cheerful, and elegant in itself and in its surroundings. This great rectangular terrace, built up on rocky foundations, is inclosed by low walls and balustrades, and here and there steps descend to other tree-planted terraces and allees below. In the centre of the terrace is an equestrian statue, in bronze, of Louis XIV. The original one was sent down here from Paris a year or two after the death of this great conqueror of heresy, as a sort of witness that he had upheld the true faith in his province of Languedoc. Religious feeling still ran high, and the statue was first set up out of the city on ground used for winnowing corn. In 1792 it was destroyed. The present one is by Deboy and was erected in 1888. Opposite the en trance of the Promenade Peyrou is a magnificent tri umphal arch whieh was raised in honor of the victories of Louis XIV., in his life-time. Near it is the Palace de Justice, a fine building with two wings, thrown in advance, and a beautiful Corinthian portico with fig ures sculptured in high relief in the pediment. This and other edifices are in keeping with the noble situar tion. In one of the little divisions of the promenade, amid flowers and half hidden by trees, is one of the most charming groups of modern statuary I have seen. I could not learn the name of its creator. A noble male figure, seated, is holding upon one knee the figure of a woman. He supports her -with his right arm. Her MONTPELLIER. 35 left arm is clinging about his neck, and her face is upturned to his, which regards her with all tenderness and pity. His left hand clasps her right hand. At their feet and crouching beneath them are two lovely children, one apparently nodding in weariness, and the other leaning upon his comrade's shoulder as if weeping. It is the little Cain and Abel! On the base of the statue are the words : — PARADIS PERDU. The figures are exquisitely modeled ; it seems im possible for marble to appear so yielding and flexible, and to express more tenderness, grace, and sentiment. On this promenade also is a fountain with a basin of pellucid water, in which a couple of white swans are enjoying the sun and the pure air which comes gently do-wn from the CeVennes. In the terraces below are other fountains and basins, with swans, white and black. Above this basin and at the west end of the plateau is a beautiful hexagonal Corinthian building. It is the Chateau d'Eau. Into it pours the water from the aqueduct, which, on high double rows of arches, stretches across the country and is an exceedingly pic turesque addition to the landscape. You comprehend now that this lovely terrace, tree- planted and flower-adorned and statue-set is a reservoir. You never would suspect it. The water comes in a long covered way, partly on arches, from springs in the Cevennes, eight or ten mUes distant. It is exceUent, 36 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. and clear as crystal. It keeps sweet in its covered way and in this reservoir, which is also, as I said, completely covered, but has openings in the side to admit the air. When shaU we in America attain such civilization as to utilize for beauty a reservoir as this is utilized ? On Sunday we heard mass in the little Church of St. Denis, where the music was very good indeed. The people of Montpellier pride themselves upon their music, though I doubt if they have as much critical knowledge of it as the people of Avignon. It was a simple little chureh, full of devout worshipers. Rich and poor mingled together. Whatever else the churches are they are democratic. And there is some thing, I know not what, of the familiar in these ser vices that is pleasing. Even the dogs come in and wander about at their will, seeking their masters or mistresses, and no one remarks or repulses them. I have seen a good-sized dog, even a little one, almost break up a Protestant worship in five minutes. In the afternoon of Sunday at three o'clock the reg imental band plays upon the Promenade de Peyrou. All the world goes there, all there is of fashion and ton in Montpellier is on -view. The music was not very good, mostly light, trashy stuff — the French military bands are simply not to be compared with the German — but the whole town was out. There must have been nearly three thousand people on the terrace — a gay and animated concourse, a little provincial, but not the less interesting. One noticed that the people were in family groups for the most part. No MONTPELLIER. 37 young girls unattended, no young men promenading ¦with young ladies. At noon there was a street parade of the traveling circus, a motley procession with brass band and brazen faces ; pseudo knights in soiled mediseval costume upon caparisoned steeds ; painted women on horseback, with copper helmets and a faded, dissolute air, led per forming horses, clowns of both sexes, and the usual -vulgar show of such an affair. In the evening the fair on the esplanade, next to our hotel, was in more than fuU blast, and crowded with people. We seldom have so animated a Sunday in Hartford. As we go away from Paris, and out of the through routes to Cannes and Nice, we see less and less English and Americans ; only French, largely commercial trav elers, wine and olive merchants, at the tables d'hdte. It is rare to hear a word of English from one day to another. At the Avignon hotel, which is a thorough fare of the English, Uttle else is heard besides their tongue, and the sensitive American who attempts to speak it is apt to be encouraged by his British cousin, who lets him know that he detects his accent, but likes Americans himself — has, in short, been so fortunate as to meet a good many pleasant people from America. If the American expresses surprise at this the English man pleasantly insists, and even goes so far as to name names. The American sometimes gets weary of this incessant flattery, and seeks to evade it by assuming at the outset his proper position. It was at the table in Avignon that I heard one of my countrymen reply 38 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. to an Educator of the Globe and Standard of Man ners, who foUowed his soup with the usual question — Parler^ous Anglais, Monseer? — "No, sir, I speak American, but I understand English, you can go on." Here at Montpellier, the long table is fiUed day after day with men, prosperous, well-to-do looking merchants, aU men of business apparently. Few women seem to be traveling. They are all French, and yet the types are somehow famUiar, and we constantly see faces that re mind us of well kno-wn people at home. There is one innocent old man who persists in remaining here who constantly reminds me of an old fool in Hartford, whose name I cannot recaU. He is very annoying. I should like before I close this wandering epistle to the gentiles to caU the attention of the Hartford club, by way of eating, to a sort of smaU, soft-sheU clam they have here, which comes from Cette or Palavas, and is called clovise. It is a very nice morsel, as a hors d'ouvre at breakfast. Worthy the attention of the club, also, is a tiny white fish — an inch long or so, also from the Mediterranean — which is a great deli cacy when fried crisp. The club cannot do better, if it is out of white bait, than to direct its attention to this bonne bouche. It might also get from MontpeUier — but it of course does not care for that' — the best vin ordinaire I have ever tasted. CHAPTER V. CETTE. One inducement to go to Cette was that the spelling of the word has some relation to its pronunciation, a novelty to attract the attention of the traveler in France. He sometimes feels like making suggestions on this point, but he is restrained by two reflections ; one is the need of a spelling-reform in his own tongue, and the other is the unimportance of the suggestion in regard to the French language. The English and not the French is the conquering language of the world. The French was invented to enable people to talk in terminably without saying anything. The language itself is full of little shrugs, ejaculations, refinements of trifling expirations of breath, which enable two peo ple to keep up a friendly, exciting, in-viting little noise incessantly -without committing themselves to any thing. It is caUed the language of love and of diplo macy. 'Voild tout I Everybody knows what the words of lovers and of diplomats are worth. And when di plomats are also lovers we have the final use of the French tongue. Cette was the ancient Setion of the Greeks. The name, untU the end of the last century, was -written Sette. 40 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. All this coast from Cette to Marseilles is a most interesting study of lagoons and sandbars. These marshes are intersected by the great Canal du Midi, which, coming from Toulouse, and thus by some river navigation connecting the Atlantic with the Mediter ranean, follows the winding coast from Cette to Mar seilles. You approach Cette by raU on a long curved cause way over the lagoons, and sometimes close along the sea. You leave it, going southwest, by another long sand beach between the lagoon and the sea. Cette is in fact as good as an island. It is, however, a bold prom ontory, thrust out into the Mediterranean at the end of a sand spit. Mons Setius was its name before the Christian era. The bulk of the town is on a flat, cut by canals, the streets communicating by drawbridges. Its best street is a canal flanked by broad quays and high houses ; so that the masts of smaU vessels ap pear amidst the houses of the town. It has also an artificial harbor, made by a stone pier and breakwa ter, an inclosed basin with a narrow entrance, and a light-house. The town has aU the characteristics of iin active seaport : quays crowded with drays, hogs heads piled up, noise, dirt, clamor, confusion, taverns, cafes, a floating southern population, saUors from aU the Mediterranean ports, dark-eyed, bronze-cheeked women, able to give back as good as they get to the chaff of the sailors. The population (as one sees it in the streets) is evi dently mixed, dashed with the blood of Italian, Span- CETTE. 41 ish, and Greek. The result is favorable. One sees many pretty, handsome faces of young girls. Until you get south the French woman is celebrated for any thing but her beauty. In Paris a handsome woman is as rare as a good one in some places. And the race does not improve until you get to the Mediterranean coast. These southern towns are tolerably well sup plied with attractive and piquant if not altogether handsome faces. I was in Cette only a few hours, and perhaps I did not see aU the women in the city, but I probably saw most of them, for it is the habit to be out doors. The young women are ou the street with babies ; the old ones sit by the doors of their little shops or their houses and knit. There are groups in the squares. There are knots of them watching the soldiers driU on the parade. Soldiering is going on here as everywhere else. On the parade the raw con- scipts, got into uniforms which do not fit, are being put through gymnastic exercises. Standing in rows each six feet from another, at the word, they all lift up the left leg together, put that down and lift up the right ; bend forward till the head is as near the ground as possible, and then stay there for a while ; squat down in unison and get up, squat down and get up, squat down and get up, — it is a most usful and beautiful sight in this age of the world. The streets of the city are not all flat. Some of them climb up the round, steep hill. This conical hill, which in the upper half is all occupied by little villas and gardens, inclosed in high walls, is five hundred 42 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. and ninety feet high. Try cUmbing up its stony way, half steps and half sharp stones, after a three franc breakfast (wine included) and see if you do not think it is half as high as Talcott mountain. On the very top is a telegraph signal station, and the queerest little church. The view from it of the sea dotted -with saUs, the lagoons traversed by causeways and canals, the mainland shore sprinkled -with villages. Lake Thau and the Cevennes striding down from the north, is superb. Half-way up the hiU, on the top of a tower of a large church, stands a monstrous image of the Virgin in shining new bronze, perhaps the largest bronze fig ure of the Virgin in the world. It watches over the town, and must be an object of hope to the storm- tossed sailors. We are most interested, however, in Cette as the place from whence come our wines. Cette has one of the largest wine manufactories in France. There are made here annually over one hundred thousand pipes of imitations of all the weU kno-wn wines. M. Boueoi ran says, " the fabrication of vessels and casks of every size procures a constant employment to numerous workers. But which makes the object of a consider able trade is the mingling of various wines, to imitate perfectly weU those different soUs and growths, such as Spanish, Greek, SicUian, Portuguese, with their colors and natural perfumes." These -wine factories partially explain why it is, in the bad years for wine even, aU sorts of excellent -wines are cheaper in New CETTE. 43 York, after paying duties, than in Paris. You get, by the way, much better table wine — vin ordinaire — in these southern towns than in Paris. And the same may be said of coffee. I happen to know only one place in Paris where a cup of genuine coffee can be had. At the hotels and caf^s generaUy you get little but chiccory. Whereas, in Avignon, Nimes, Montpel lier, and even in smaller places in the south, cafS is commonly made of coffee. But if the wine in Cette is bogus, I can testify that the milk is genuine, unless the cows are party to a de ception. In the middle of the afternoon I saw in a principal street what I supposed to be a couple of yoke of oxen. Dra-wing nearer, they still appeared by their size and the shape of their heads to be oxen. They were tied in couples, and their eyes blinded by fringed curtains. Behold, however, they were cows ! About them stood groups of women, each with a little earthen pitcher that might hold two gills, waiting for her tum to have it fiUed. There was no deception here. The milk was milked straight into the little pitchers, under the inspection of the women, who carefuUy watched the process and took care that they did not get too much foam for their sous. How the cows like this " strip ping," here and there, from street to street, and whether they will stand milking in driblets all day, I cannot say. This is, however, the only way, in this sinful, watery world, to get honest milk. The weather in Montpellier, in the closing days of November, which has been a little cloudy, but calm 44 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. and warm and free from the storms that have scourged the north of France, is again bright and sunny. As I write I have had to close the outside blinds to keep out the sun. Montpellier is as lively and crowded as ever. Why so many strangers (all French) come here and fUl the hotels day after day nobody seems to know. Perhaps it is trade, perhaps the schools, perhaps the courts which are in session. I looked into the court-rooms the other day. The lawyers and judges all wear black robes, cut with a gathered yoke on the shoulder, with white bands in front, and round fiuted caps, larger at the top than at the bottom — a very becoming head piece. Some of them have a black rosette on the shoulder, and a tab hanging from it tipped with er mine. In the "court of the first instance," the inferior court, were three judges on the bench. Behind them on the waU hung a crucifix. On the same elevated platform, at the sides, were the clerks. The railed space in front was empty. In the benches before the bar sat the lawyers, among their clients and among the spectators. Whatever case was going on nearly every lawyer present seemed to take a hand in it, jumping up every few moments to make a remark or read a paper. On the bench of the court of appeals sat six judges. A lawyer was making an argument, chattering and jerking himself up and down with the utmost vivacity, and his colleague was so much interested in it that he occasionally gestured for his partner. The court was CETTE. 45 much like any other court. The fattest judge was fast asleep and nodding — he was probably the one who would write the opinion, being unprejudiced. The one next him was writing a letter. The two next were reading letters and conversing. Another was writing. And the last was regarding space vacantly. Nobody listened to the orator, who nevertheless kept on in the most persuasive and gentlemanly manner. The criminal court was not in session. But the criminal business must be large, if one can judge by the newspapers, which are fiUed with accounts of most brutal crimes. The country, however, seems to be in a better state than Paris. Every day the Paris jour nals contain many accounts of crimes to the person, such as street assaults, stabbings, and murders. Paris is evidently not nearly so well in hand as it was under the empire, when, under the strict watch of the police, the stranger was safe to wander anywhere day or night. It is far from being so now. CHAPTER VI. AIGUES-MORTES. " Several ways," says the most amusing guide-book for Provence and Languedoc, written by M. Boueoiran of Nimes, who has discovered new incapacities in the English language, — " several ways are offered to the travelers to attain Aigues-Mortes ; by earth or by wa ters, but the most practical is by raUi-oad." I found it so. The approach by raU is through the marshes and lagoons which lie on either side of the Rhone. This country, only a foot or two above the Mediterranean, and intersected by canals, is one vast vineyard. The wine produced is, I suppose, of an in ferior quality, but the quantity ought to satisfy any body. " Before the arrival " — I cannot refram from quot ing the accomplished Boueoiran — " in sight of the Carboniere tower toward the left, upon a hiUock, and between other modern rural constructions, an old arched waU that is yet up there. Upon that former house many centuries intrusted their architectural forms, and the tradition did maintain to that place the name of Psalmodi, because the Benedictine monks who were established there since the eighth century, sung unceasing psalms." AIGUES-MORTES. 47 This old abbey was in one sense the mother of the later city, but Aigues-Mortes — the name signifie. i " stagnant water " — owes its importance to Louis IX., the saint. It required a saint to drop a fuU-waUed city, a town completely inclosed with high ramparts and lofty fighting: towers, in the midst of these swamps, and approached from the tideless Mediterranean only by shaUow channels. The -view from the ramparts is largely of water and sandy ground saturated with salt, a narrow zone about the waUs lending itself to cultivation. " The sight," says our instructor, " can only perceive a wide extent, in midst of which arise some pine forests that intersect ponds bordered by tamarisk trees and reeds. Upon these sandy shores and damp moors abound venomous reptiles ; there whirl around swarms of winged insects, and feed on freely flocks of savage buUs or white horses. Among the numerous water fowls that fiU these ponds the hunters often perceive, on the edge of waters, a company of long-legged ibis, and pursuing their career at the first alarm, they display in fiock, at the sun their rosy wings." From this inviting coast Saint Louis chose to em bark for Palestine, and that is the explanation of the existence here of the most remarkable walled city in France, the most perfect and picturesque reminder of the Middle Ages. From afar off we see its high ram parts and heaATy round towers, all in perfect condi tion ; and it would occasion no surprise to see the crenlated waUs manned with nien in armor, and to be- 48 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. hold a cavalcade of knights enter one of the narrow gates. The city is so small and the waUs are so solid that it seems as if it would be possible to pick up the whole affair and carry it away — that it would aU hang to gether like a toy city which children play -with. The embrasured wall is built in the exact form of a paral lelogram, and it is only 596 yards long by 149 yards in breadth. The walls are thirty-six feet high, flanked by fifteen round towers. From the interior at regular intervals steps ascend to the top of the ramparts. The most remarkable, and the famous one, of these round towers is that of Constance, built out by sahent walls from the northeast corner. This tower is ninety-six feet high and seventy-two feet in diameter, and con tains a couple of vaulted chambers, the walls of which are, at the base, of enormous thickness. This tower is surmounted by a slender column, upon which a lan tern used to be kept burning at night. Within these narrow limits, Aigues-Mortes is a little city of straight, narrow streets. There are several en trance gates, and from one you look straight through the city out of another. It is said that in its prosper ous days the city had a population crowded into it of 11,000. It is credited now with about 4,000, but it seemed to me there were scarcely 1,000 people in its silent streets. There are in it many vacant plots of ground and many deserted houses. Every other walled city I have ever seen has outgi'own its bondage and spread into the surroimding country. Aigues-Mortes AIGUES-MORTES. 49 has shrunk -within its stone sheU, and rattles around in it Uke a dried nut. It was in the summer of 1224 that Louis IX., be ing sick, and mindful of the necessity of propitiating Heaven, projected a crusade to Palestine. AU the havens along the coast were in possession of his ene mies or rivals. MontpeUier, with its creeks, belonged to the King of Aragon, Maguelonne to a bishop, Nar- bonne to Count Aimery IV., and so on ; while Mar seiUes was then not sufficient for the King of France, and he wished a less conspicuous place, where he could make preparations at his leisure, and assemble his eight hundred gaUeys and his forty thousand fighting men. Important works were undertaken, a sort of port was made, the channels were deepened, and on the 25th of August, 1248, Saint Louis with Queen Marguerite, having heard mass in the Church of Notre Dame des Sablons, — the ugly little edifice still stands in the prin cipal square, and evidently has not been ventilated since 1248, for its smell dates back to the time when smells were first created, — embarked in great state and with much noise on his first crusade. He sailed again from Aigues-Mortes in July, 1270, on his second jaunt to Palestine, and he died that year in August amid the ruins of Carthage. These two crusades are known as the fifth and sixth. In the old square of the city there is a fine statue of the hero of these, by Pradier. King Louis, clad in a coat of maU and armor, has a beauti ful face and figure. Saint Louis, who so much loved Aigues-Mortes, did 4 50 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. not however, build its waUs. They were erected by his son, PhUippe the Hardy, after the plan, it is said, of the defenses of Damietta, the city at the east mouth of the Nile. The exact spot where Saint Louis embarked on his crusades has been in dispute. But our accom pUshed writer of English throws this Ught upon it: " It was discovered by chance, in 1835 a Uttle vessel concealed under the sands, on the spot called Les Tombes, and where, it is supposed. Saint Louis had ordered to be buUt an hospital for pUgrims. That old carcass ascended untU enough ancient ages, but difficult to precise exactly, and at least certified that, had ex isted at that place, before the thirteenth century, a pas sage for the ships going in the port of Aigues-Mortes." But the city has other historic interests. In an old house one is shown a chamber — containing a famous carved mantel-piece, kno-wn as the CheminSe de Saint Louis — where was held in 1538 the interview be tween Francis I. and Charles V. of Spain, what time Hariadan Barbarousse, the Moslem corsair, was hover ing along the coast to ra-vish the towns and carry away slaves. Of stiU more interest to us are the reUgious perse cutions of the sixteenth century, of which this city was one of the centres. The towns of Languedoc took eagerly to the reformation of 1560. It was impossible to repress the increase of proselytes to the new faith. Aigues-Mortes was the seat of a constant struggle be tween the Cal-vinists and the Papists, who held it tum and turn about. Louis XIV. visited this region with AIGUES-MORTES. 51 fire and fagot. After the repeal of the Edict of Nantes Protestant worship was forbidden in this region, houses of worship were pulled down, meetings for worship were forbidden, emigration was prohibited, and the faithful were immured in loathsome dungeons. The tower of Constance was for many years the prison of unfortunate women whose sin was an humble profession of the Protestant faith. I saw the round chamber in the second story in which they were con- . fined. It has several long, narrow slits in the thick waUs to admit air, and one small, grated window. In this room, -with never any egress, were heaped together the poor women, fed on the coarsest food, with little light and air, and deprived of the common accommoda tions of life. The wretched condition of these prison ers at length excited the sympathy of the Swiss, the HoUanders, and the Germans, who by their ministers protested to the court of Louis XIV., but without other result than to increase the rigors of the prisoners. Their confinement lasted during a good part of the reign of Louis XV. Finally, in 1767, a humane man. Prince de Beauvau, was made commandant of the province (Languedoc), and inspected the tower of Con stance. I cannot, he says in his report, describe the horror of the first view of this appalling chamber, which had as little light as air. Fourteen women, the survivors of many, pined away in wretchedness and tears. Disgust at the sight of them was mingled -with pity. At the unexpected visit the poor women fell to gether at his feet, seeking words and finding only sob- 52 NOTES OF A ROUNDABOUT JOURNEY. bings. " Alas ! their capital crime was to have been born and instructed in the same belief as Henry IV. The youngest of these martyrs exceeded fifty years, and she was only eight years old when she had been appre hended, going with her mother to hear a sermon, and her punishment yet continued." On the walls of this round chamber are scratched the names of these unfor tunate women who for nearly half a century languished there. So much for the historical interest of Aigues-Mortes, where, in a dirty little inn, ill-kept by friendly, simple people, I had a capital breakfast. But I confess that I was drawn to visit the city by an interest still more romantic. For it was at Aigues-Mortes that Pierre de Provence landed after his oriental captivity, and it was on an island near it that the fair Maguelonne founded her hospital for pilgrims and wayfarers. Perhaps you do not remember the detaUs of the charming story of " Pierre de Provence et de La BeUe Maguelonne " ? It was a favorite history in the twelfth century. This romance was turned into verse in 1178, by Barnard de Trivies, canon of Maguelonne, and it is said that it was one of the first books that Petrarch read when he came to Avignon, and that he attempted to perfect it. The story is, in brief, this : Pierre was the son of Jean de Provence and his lovely wife, IsabeUe, the daughter of Don Alvares, Count of Barcelona. He had considerable fortune, and the right to rei