I Followed This
Walk For Some Time, Under The Stunted Trees, Beside
The Grass-Covered Bastions; It Is Very Charming, Wind-
Ing And Wandering, Always With Trees.
Beneath the
rampart is a tidal river, and on the other side, for a
long distance, the mossy walls of the immense garden
of a seminary.
Three hundred years ago, La Rochelle
was the great French stronghold of Protestantism; but
to-day it appears to be a'nursery of Papists.
The walk upon the rampart led me round to one
of the gatesi of the town, where I found some small
modern, fortifications and sundry red-legged soldiers,
and, beyond the fortifications, another shady walk, -
a _mail_, as the French say, as well as a _champ de
manoeuvre_, - on which latter expanse the poor little
red-legs were doing their exercise. It was all very
quiet and very picturesque, rather in miniature; and
at once very tidy and a little out of repair. This,
however, was but a meagre back-view of La Rochelle,
or poor side-view at best. There are other gates than
the small fortified aperture just mentioned; one of
them, an old gray arch beneath a fine clock-tower, I
had passed through on my way from the station.
This picturesque Tour de l'Horloge separates the town
proper from the port; for beyond the old gray arch,
the place presents its bright, expressive little face to
the sea. I had a charming walk about the harbor,
and along the stone piers and sea-walls that shut it
in.
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