the ruins, is worth ascending, were it only for the fine view from its top. St. Pierre's church, of the 14th and 15th centuries, has a good front, built 1512, and a black marble pulpit. There are 16 other churches; at one time there were 60, and as many religious houses. St. A ricol (named after the patron saint of Avignon) offers a fine nave, of the 14th century. At St. Didier's (a church of the 14th century) is part of a curious bas-relief of Christ carrying the cross, by King René, the other part being in the museum. The ruined Dominican church and its cloisters are used as a cannon foundry. That of St. Martial (1th century) contains the Musée Requien. A fragment is left of the Cordeliers' church, which had the tomb of Petrarch's Laura de Sade, whom he first saw here, 1327. A cypress marks the spot. The Hôtel de Ville was the Pope's Mint, built 1620, by Paul V. It stands in Place de l'Horloge (where most of the cafés are), so called from the Jacquemart or belfry tower, close to the theatre (built 1817). Near it, on Place d'Oule, Marshal Brune was killed by the royalists, 1815. The public Library o 60,000 volumes and 1,200 MSS. is placed in the Musée Calvet (so named after the founder), with Roman and other inscriptions, 20,000 medals, sculptures, the Inquisition seal, rare books, pictures by Italian and Dutch masters, the Vernets, &c., and a cabinet of natural history, geology, &c. One of the pictures is Vernet's "Mazeppa," and here is the remainder of King René's bas-relief. At the lunatic asylum (hospice des alienés) is Guillemin's famous iory crucifix, 26 inches long, which was in Miséricorde Church. Hôtel de Crillon, of the 17th century, is in Rue de la Masse. The Préfecture is a modern building. The Protestant Temple, about 150 years old. A vast pile, called the Hôtel des Invalides (for soldiers), was suppressed in 1850, and turned into a Penitentiary. [VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON (population, 3,560), across the new bridge, contains various remains, as the old fort and abbey of St. André; the Chartreuse convent, and its ruined church; the fortified church of Nôtre Dame, of the 14th century. In the Hôpital Church is Innocent VI.'s tomb, also another picture attributed to le bon Roi René, and Mignard's portrait of Madame de Ganges, the belle Provençale, whose fate was a melancholy one.] The women of Avignon are handsome. Its climate is soft but variable. North and north-west winds blow vehemently; but the people comfort themselves with a proverb founded on experience"Avenio ventosa, Sine vento venenosa, Cum vento fastidiosa," The manufactures are silk, madder, leather, honey, cantharides flies, olive oil, &c. Madder was first introduced by a Persian, styled Jean Althen on the bronze statue erected to him by the grateful Avignonese, on the Rochers des Doms. Conveyances: By steamer to Valence, and Lyons (being against the stream,-the steamer takes three or four days to go up). The new road to Geneva by the plains of the Bresse is open, by coach, to Carpentras, Digne, &c. Coaches to Vaucluse, Apt, Pertuis, Sallon, St. Remy, &c. A caleche may be hired to Vaucluse (17 miles) there and back, 22fr., including the driver (see A. below). Senany Abbey and Pont du Gard are near (see C.) St. Ruf's Romanesque church is also within a short run. [(A.) Avignon to Vaucluse, &c., by way of the rail to Cavaillon. It goes past St. Saturnin d'Avignon (8 miles), in department Vaucluse. Population, 2,020. Le Thor (3 miles), with a Romanesque church. Population, 4,160. L'Isle-sur-Sorgues (3 miles), on the Sorgues, noted for its eels and trout. At Skil. to the left is VAUCLUSE, at the head of a deep cleft (vallis clausa) in the limestone of Mont Ventoux, where the Sorgues takes its rise, in precipices 500 feet high. In summer it is seen trickling down from many parts of the rock; but when the snows melt at the beginning of spring, it falls like a cataract, from an arched cave (overshadowed by a fig-tree), into the dark pool or Fountain of Vaucluse, below. Petrarch describes it in his Letters, and they show his little country seat on a hill to the right, with remains of the bishop of Cavaillon's castle. An ugly pillar stands close to the pool. Hotel.-De Laure. Cavaillon (5 miles), on the north bank of the Durance; once a Roman colony and a bishop's see, in a fertile spot, where vermicelli, silk, | long, on twenty-one arches of 66 feet span, resting &c., are made. It has a triumphal arch and a church of the 11th century. APT (25 kil. from L'Isle), a sous-préfecture of 5,800 souls, in department Vaucluse, on the Cavalon, founded by Cæsar, as Apta-Julia-Vulgientes. Old walls run round it, and it stands in a valley among vines and olive yards. Its church of the 10th and 11th centuries, contains an old crypt. Pont Julien is ancient. FORCALQUIER (36 kil.), another old place, once the capital of the Memini, now a sous-préfecture in department Basses-Alpes. Population, 3,060. About 50 kil. further is DIGNE (see Route 25), up the Durance. (B.) Along the Durance. CHÂTEAU RENARD (16 kil. south-east), on the south side of the Durance, is so called from an old castle which commands a noble range of view. Further up the river is Organ, once a Roman settlement, with old walls, and two or three castles round it. Still higher up the river is Cadenet, 19 kil. south of Apt, near the remains of a Roman station; the font in the church is Roman. Beyond this is the Romanesque chapel of Bonnieux. (C.) To Pont du Gard. About 13 miles west of Avignon is on piles. The suspension bridge for the road, and the castles of Barbentane and Château-Renard, are in view. Barbentane (3 miles), at the foot of the rock of Montagnette, has a castle of the 12th century, built by Archbishop Rostand, of Arles. We are now in department Bouches-du-Rhône, part of Provence. Pass Rognonas to Graveson (3 miles), near Cadillan. Tarascon (5 miles). Here the line to Nismes, Montpellier, and Cette, turns off (Route 30), crossing the river, near the suspension bridge, to Beaucaire. Tarascon is an old fortified town, of 11,515 population, having a fine ruined Castle (Château du Roi René), a square machicolated pile of the 15th century, with two round towers, on a rock above the Rhône. St. Martha's church, of the 14th century (the portal is Romanesque, 1187), contains seventeen curious paintings of the Saint's life, by Vien. At St. Jacques' is a picture by Vanloo. are also a palais de justice, Hôtel de Ville, library, theatre, ship-yard, &c. The Rue des Halles and its arcades, are worth notice. Trade in silks, wine, oil, eaux-de-vie. Hotel.-Des Empereurs. Coaches to St. Remy, Aix, &c. There [St. REMY (13 kil. east), in a fine spot, on the Réal canal, has Roman remains about fifty feet asunder: one, being part of a triumphal arch, the other, a mausoleum of beautiful design.] Segonnaux (4 miles). The country is flat and uninteresting, to ARLES (6 miles). HOTELS.-Forum; Du Nord. Population, 25,600. Here a line runs off to Lunel, Montpellier, &c. Pont du Gard, a noble Roman remain, being part of the great aqueduct (17 miles long) which carried the waters of the Azure to Nîmes; and looking like a screen across the valley. It is a mass, 640 feet long and 133 high, of three rows of arches, one over the other -the lowest, a row of six arches; the next, eleven of the same size; the third, twenty-five small arches, having the water way above them, where it ran 6 feet wide and deep. It was used as a road before a separate bridge was built, 1747, close to the bottom of it. Being half-way between Avignon and Nismes, it is common for pic-nic parties from both towns to meet here to pass the day.] From Avignon, the Marseilles line crosses a plain on an embankment high enough to escape the inundations of the Rhône, and the Durance, a brawl--Alyscamps Cemetery. ing changeable stream, here traversed by a handsome viaduct, constructed by M. Didion, 1,794 feet This town, remarkable for its Roman remains and its beautiful women, is a sous-préfecture, in a marshy but cultivated spot, at the head of the delta of the Rhône, about 24 miles from the Mediterranean, to which a canal runs down as far as Port de Bouc. OBJECTS OF NOTICE.-Cathedral-Obelisk -Roman Amphitheatre-Theatre-Aqueduct, &c. It was the Roman Aralata, a port of great trade, which Constantine improved and called Constantina. It fell to the Goths, and after Charlemagne's time was the head of a kingdom (including Provence, Dauphiny, and Savoy), under Bozon and his four successors; then became subject to the Emperors of Germany, and was given up to France in the time of Charles VI. Arles stands on a rock; its streets are irregular and narrow; a bridge of boats leads to Trinqueville, which Constantine founded. Place Plan de la Cour is shaded with trees, In Place Royale is the Hôtel de Ville, built by Mansard, in a rich Corinthian style. St. Trophime's Cathedral, originally begun 626, by St. Virgilius, has a large and highly decorated portal of the 12th century, with columns, niches, grotesque sculptures, a Romanesque tower, and a fine cloister, half Romanesque and half Gothic, adjoining the old palace of the Archbishop, with an ancient Obelisk in the middle of it. This is a single block of plain granite, 50 feet long, and was brought here by the Romans, but remained on the ground till set up, in 1676, in honour of Louis XIV., with a pedestal and lions, and a globe and sun, for an apex, added to it, making a total height of 65 feet. The Roman Amphitheatre is in pretty good condition. It is an oval, 338 feet by 460, in three stages of about 60 arches each, chiefly in the composite style. It had four principal entrances, with upwards of forty rows of seats, and would hold above 2,500 persons. Two later towers have been built on it. The interior has been cleared out, and a light railing erected round it, to preserve it from injury. Here a real bull-fight was performed in 1853, by artists from Spain. Near it and the old house of La Miséricorde, are some arches of a Roman Theatre, now called the Tower of Roland, with two columns of breccia marble on the site of the stage, remains of seats, and a gate, not far off In Place St. Lucien, or du Forum, are two granite pillars of a Temple of Minerva, and some other fragments, supposed to be of the Pantheon. Ruins of an aqueduct are also seen. The Tour de la Trouille, near the old house of the Grand Prior of Malta, was built, they say, by Constantine. In some respects Arles has more of the appearance of a decayed Roman town than any other place in France. St. Anne's old church, now the Museum, contains a good collection of bas-reliefs, busts, altars, gravestones, of the times of the lower Empire (from The &c. There is a Alyscamps), a famous head of Diana, public library numbers 12,000 volumes. school of navigation, a college, &c. Good walks on the Lice (i.e., Lists) promenade, by the Graponne canal. Nôtre Dame de Grace church, with its eightsided steeple, stands in the old Roman Cemetery, called Alyscamps, or Eliscamp (Campus Elysius), where many ancient gravestones remain, on a hill outside the town, now occupied by the railway workshops. The Pagan tombs are marked "D. M." (for "Diis manibus"); the Christian, by the cross. On another hill are the ruined church (partly as old as the 10th century) and cloister, the machicolated tower (built 1369), 85 feet high, and St. Avix, or Crucifix, chapel (in shape of a Greek cross, built 1019), all belonging to the abbey of Mont Majeur. On the Montagne des Cordes are traces of a Celtic town. Baux is a deserted town, with several houses cut out of the rock, and an old castle. The Emperor Constantine's son was born here. Manufactures of silk, soap, brandy, good sausages and a trade in corn, wine, oil, manna, salt, wool, cattle, horses, &c. Conveyances: By coach to Aix, Salong, &c.; rail to Lunel, &c.; steamer to Marseilles. [Arles to Lunel, &c., by rail. It passes La Camargue (7 miles), on the Camargue, or delta of the Rhône, below Aries; a salt marsh, full of lakes, where the pelican, flamingo, and beaver breed, and vast numbers of horses and cattle, and 150,000 sheep, are pastured. In the hot season the sheep are driven up the hills, with a file of goats at their head. One part cal'ed the Crau, is a desolate flinty plain, without tree or shade; across which the mistral blows with terrible keenness. There used to be a saying, that the Durance, the parliament, and the mistral, were the three curses of Provence. "It is difficult to give," says Trollope, an adequate idea of the detestableness of the climate under the influence of this scourge. The same sun is shining in the same bright blue sky, but the temperature is glacial. The boisterous blast chills the very marrow bones. The whole air is so full of dust that it is impossible to stir out without getting the mouth and nostrils filled with it. The inhabitants hurry through the bleak |