I Retain, However, A Suf- Ficiently Clear Impression Of The Little Superannuated Temple, With Its Four Apses And Its Perceptible Odor Of Antiquity, - The Odor Of The Eleventh Century.

The ruins of Les Baux remain quite indistinguish- able, even when you are directly beneath them, at the foot of the charming little Alpilles, which mass themselves with a kind of delicate ruggedness.

Rock and ruin have been so welded together by the con- fusions of time, that as you approach it from behind - that is, from the direction of Arles - the place presents simply a general air of cragginess. Nothing can be prettier than the crags of Provence; they are beautifully modelled, as painters say, and they have a delightful silvery color. The road winds round the foot of the hills on the top of which Lea Baux is planted, and passes into another valley, from which the approach to the town is many degrees less pre- cipitous, and may be comfortably made in a carriage. Of course the deeply inquiring traveller will alight as promptly as possible; for the pleasure of climbing into this queerest of cities on foot is not the least part of the entertainment of going there. Then you appreciate its extraordinary position, its picturesque- ness, its steepness, its desolation and decay. It hangs - that is, what remains of it - to the slanting summit of the mountain. Nothing would be more natural than for the whole place to roll down into the valley. A part of it has done so - for it is not unjust to suppose that in the process of decay the crumbled particles have sought the lower level; while the remainder still clings to its magnificent perch.

If I called Les Baux a city, just, above, it was not that I was stretching a point in favor of the small spot which to-day contains but a few dozen inhabi- tants. The history of the plate is as extraordinary as its situation. It was not only a city, but a state; not only a state, but an empire; and on the crest of its little mountain called itself sovereign of a territory, or at least of scattered towns and counties, with which its present aspect is grotesquely out of relation. The lords of Les Baux, in a word, were great feudal pro- prietors; and there-was a time during which the island of Sardinia, to say nothing of places nearer home, such as Arles and Marseilles, paid them homage. The chronicle of this old Provencal house has been written, in a style somewhat unctuous and flowery, by M. Jules Canonge. I purchased the little book - a modest pamphlet - at the establishment of the good sisters, just beside the church, in one of the highest parts of Les Baux. The sisters have a school for the hardy little Baussenques, whom I heard piping their lessons, while I waited in the cold _parloir_ for one of the ladies to come and speak to me. Nothing could have been more perfect than the manner of this excellent woman when she arrived; yet her small religious house seemed a very out-of-the-way corner of the world.

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