This Footway, Wide Enough Only For A
Single Pedestrian, Is In The Best Order, And Near Each
Of The Gates A Flight Of Steps Leads Up To It; But A
Locked Gate, At The Top Of The Steps, Makes Access Im-
Possible, Or At Least Unlawful.
Aigues-Mortes, however,
has its citadel, an immense tower, larger than any of
the others, a little detached, and standing at the north-
west angle of the town.
I called upon the _casernier_,
the custodian of the walls, - and in his absence I was
conducted through this big Tour de Constance by his
wife, a very mild, meek woman, yellow with the traces
of fever and ague, - a scourge which, as might be ex-
pected in a town whose name denotes "dead waters,"
enters freely at the nine gates. The Tour de Con-
stance is of extraordinary girth and solidity, divided
into three superposed circular chambers, with very fine
vaults, which are lighted by embrasures of prodigious
depth, converging to windows little larger than loop-
holes. The place served for years as a prison to many
of the Protestants of the south whom the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes had exposed to atrocious
penalties, and the annals of these dreadful chambers
during the first half of the last century were written
in tears and blood. Some of the recorded cases of
long confinement there make one marvel afresh at
what man has inflicted and endured. In a country in
which a policy of extermination was to be put into
practice this horrible tower was an obvious resource.
From the battlements at the top, which is surmounted
by an old disused light-house, you see the little com-
pact rectangular town, which looks hardly bigger than
a garden-patch, mapped out beneath you, and follow
the plain configuration of its defences. You take
possession of it, and you feel that you will remember
it always.
XXVIII.
After this I was free to look about me at Nimes,
and I did so with such attention as the place appeared
to require. At the risk of seeming too easily and too
frequently disappointed, I will say that it required
rather less than I had been prepared to give. It is a
town of three or four fine features, rather than a town
with, as I may say, a general figure. In general,
Nimes is poor; its only treasures are its Roman re-
mains, which are of the first order. The new French
fashions prevail in many of its streets; the old houses
are paltry, and the good houses are new; while beside
my hotel rose a big spick-and-span church, which
had the oddest air of having been intended for
Brooklyn or Cleveland. It is true that this church
looked out on a square completely French, - a square
of a fine modern disposition, flanked on one side by a
classical _palais de justice_ embellished with trees and
parapets, and occupied in the centre with a group of
allegorical statues, such as one encounters only in the
cities of France, the chief of these being a colossal
figure by Pradier, representing Nimes.
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