It Came To Me,
Then, That In All This View There Was Something Trans-
Alpine With A Greater Smartness And Freshness And
Much Less Elegance And Languor.
This impression was
occasionally deepened by the appearance, on the long
eminence of which I speak, of a village, a church, or
a chateau, which seemed to look down at the plain
from over the ruined wall.
The perpetual vines, the
bright-faced flat-roofed houses, covered with tiles, the
softness and sweetness of the light and air, recalled
the prosier portions of the Lombard plain. Toulouse
itself has a little of this Italian expression, but not
enough to give a color to its dark, dirty, crooked streets,
which are irregular without being eccentric, and which,
if it were not for the, superb church of Saint-Sernin,
would be quite destitute of monuments.
I have already alluded to the way in which the
names of certain places impose themselves on the
mind, and I must add that of Toulouse to the list of
expressive appellations. It certainly evokes a vision,
- suggests something highly _meridional_. But the city,
it must be confessed, is less pictorial than the word,
in spite of the Place du Capitole, in spite of the quay
of the Garonne, in spite of the curious cloister of the
old museum. What justifies the images that are latent
in the word is not the aspect, but the history, of the
town. The hotel to which the well-advised traveller
will repair stands in a corner of the Place du Capitole,
which is the heart and centre of Toulouse, and which
bears a vague and inexpensive resemblance to Piazza
Castello at Turin.
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