Everything In
The Cite Is Little; You Can Walk Round The Walls In
Twenty Minutes.
On the drawbridge of the chateau,
which, with a picturesque old face, flanking towers,
and a dry moat, is to-day simply a bare _caserne_,
lounged half a dozen soldiers, unusually small.
No-
thing could be more odd than to see these objects en-
closed in a receptacle which has much of the appear-
ance of an enormous toy. The Cite and its population
vaguely reminded me of an immense Noah's ark.
XXIII.
Carcassonne dates from the Roman occupation of
Gaul. The place commanded one of the great roads
into Spain, and in the fourth century Romans and
Franks ousted each other from such a point of vantage.
In the year 436, Theodoric, King of the Visigoths,
superseded both these parties; and it is during his oc-
cupation that the inner enceinte was raised upon the
ruins of the Roman fortifications. Most of the Visigoth
towers that are still erect are seated upon Roman sub-
structions which appear to have been formed hastily,
probably at the moment of the Frankish invasion.
The authors of these solid defences, though occasionally
disturbed, held Carcassonne and the neighboring coun-
try, in which they had established their kingdom of
Septimania, till the year 713, when they were expelled
by the Moors of Spain, who ushered in an unillumined
period of four centuries, of which no traces remain.
These facts I derived from a source no more recondite
than a pamphlet by M. Viollet-le-Duc, - a very luminous
description of the fortifications, which you may buy
from the accomplished custodian.
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