a charming hotel de with a box planted garden said to have been laid out by and soon after the wild break away in as the road throws its about the sides of the � black hollows deepening below and long grey between the crowded peaks unhappily a enveloped us before we reached the top of the pass so that we lost all the beauty of the long southern descent to and were aware of it only as a distant of lights in the plain toward which we painfully through wind and rain the rain persisted the next day but perhaps it is a not accompaniment to a first view of since it that and element which has so possessed itself of the ancient restoring to it under a grey light something of its narrow huddled life he who has gone there with wrath in his heart against le may even under these by a plight through france conditions go so far as to think that the universal has for once been justified by his results � that in advance the possibility of innumerable errors of detail his brilliant still produces a total impression of reality perhaps too all the floating of literary � the irresistible of keep and and � help out the illusion the little and people it with such figures as walked among when went with leather at any rate the impression is there � for those who have the to take it � there all the more on a day of such unbroken rain when even the official their stove and a beneficent mist hides the of post cards and the traveller from every window the weather however so beneficent at car proved an obstacle to the seeing of and b� and drove us before it to where it gave us the next morning one of those brilliant southern days that are born of the southern here was at last � dry clear edged classic � with by q o i i z q co z m ui z by by the to a sky like blue marble low red hills by stony hollows with thin threads of stream and a sun that picked out in gold the pure curves of the among the greek towns of the there is none as greek � or to speak more precisely as roman � as no other city of old seems to have put itself so completely in harmony with its rich of remains � or the monuments of other periods and content to group its later growth about the temple and the it was very well for to make its venture for to crown itself with a glory of but with the tranquil lines of the and the the spring of the arches to act as influences � above all with the overwhelming grandeur of the du as a background � how could so far more deeply pledged to the past do otherwise than constitute herself the guardian of great memories the du alone would be enough to any town to a state of its is as as by a flight through france that of a great mountain and next to the it is the object in the solitude of its site and the austere lines of the surrounding landscape make it appear as much on the outer edge of as when it was first planted there and its long of arches seems to be forever pushing on into the wilderness with the tremendous tread of the roman by one of the charming of french travel one may return from this classic pilgrimage through the town of and as if such were not fruitful enough may pause on the way to smile at the fantastic d � a half ruined century folly with an of a chapel like a roman temple and a ruined box garden haunted by itself a steep town clustered about the keep of the has a stately terrace above the valley and some fine century houses in shabby streets swept but its chief feature is of course the castle which planted in the centre of the town l by q id q u h o z z z o co co o cr o by by the to up its central over a fine of from to the the impressions are packed too thick first the with the castles of and each other across its yellow flood from a steep cliff from the very brink of the river then after a short flight through olive and the pretty leafy town of saint on the skirts of the and a mile to the south of saint on a ledge of the low mountain chain the two monuments of the roman city of they are set side by side the tomb and the arch in a circular grassy space enclosed with olive and backed by delicate fretted peaks not another of roman construction left to connect them with the past was it one wonders their singular beauty that saved them that held even the hands when they wiped out every other trace of the city of stone with its walls and temples certainly seeing the two buildings thus isolated under the radiant lonely sky one is tempted to exclaim that they by a flight through france might well have checked even violence and that never again did the stout roman trunk throw out two such flowers of grace and lightness it is as though from that packed al soil some dust of greece had passed into the latin stem clearing a little its thick sap yet it is just because the monuments remain so roman that the grace and the lightness count so much this country between and is itself the most thing west of greece of in every line of its bare sharp cut heights with a spare classic growth of olive and it explains why the greek found himself at home on these 