I Know Not Whether The Arle-
Sians Neglected Their Trust; But The Extinction Of The
Sturdy Little Stronghold Is Too Complete Not To Have
Begun Long Ago.
Its memories are buried under its
ponderous stones.
As we drove away from it in the
gloaming, my friend and I agreed that the two or three
hours we had spent there were among the happiest
impressions of a pair of tourists very curious in the
picturesque. We almost forgot that we were bound to
regret that the shortened day left us no time to drive
five miles further, above a pass in the little mountains
- it had beckoned to us in the morning, when we
came in sight of it, almost irresistibly - to see the Ro-
man arch and mausoleum of Saint Remy. To compass
this larger excursion (including the visit to Les Baux)
you must start from Arles very early in the morning;
but I can imagine no more delightful day.
XXXIII.
I had been twice at Avignon before, and yet I was
not satisfied. I probably am satisfied now; neverthe-
less, I enjoyed my third visit. I shall not soon forget
the first, on which a particular emotion set indelible
stamp. I was travelling northward, in 1870, after four
months spent, for the first time, in Italy. It was the
middle of January, and I had found myself, unexpected-
ly, forced to return to England for the rest of the
winter. It was an insufferable disappointment; I was
wretched and broken-hearted. Italy appeared to me
at that time so much better than anything else in the
world, that to rise from table in the middle of the
feast was a prospect of being hungry for the rest of
my days. I had heard a great deal of praise of the
south of France; but the south of France was a poor
consolation. In this state of mind I arrived at Avignon,
which under a bright, hard winter sun was tingling -
fairly spinning - with the _mistral_. I find in my journal
of the other day a reference to the acuteness of my
reluctance in January, 1870. France, after Italy, ap-
peared, in the language of the latter country, _poco sim-
patica_; and I thought it necessary, for reasons now in-
conceivable, to read the "Figaro," which was filled
with descriptions of the horrible Troppmann, the mur-
derer of the _famille_ Kink. Troppmann, Kink, _le crime
do Pantin_, very names that figured in this episode
seemed to wave me back. Had I abandoned the so-
norous south to associate with vocables so base?
It was very cold, the other day, at Avignon; for
though there was no mistral, it was raining as it rains
in Provence, and the dampness had a terrible chill in
it. As I sat by my fire, late at night - for in genial
Avignon, in October, I had to have a fire - it came
back to me that eleven years before I had at that
same hour sat by a fire in that same room, and, writ-
ing to a friend to whom I was not afraid to appear
extravagant, had made a vow that at some happier
period of the future I would avenge myself on the _ci-
devant_ city of the Popes by taking it in a contrary
sense.
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