You May Walk
Round The Enceinte Of Aigues-Mortes, Both Outside And
In; But You May Not, As At Carcassonne, Make A Por-
Tion Of This Circuit On The _Chemin De Ronde_, The Little
Projecting Footway Attached To The Inner Face Of The
Battlements.
This footway, wide enough only for a
single pedestrian, is in the best order, and near each
of the gates a flight of steps leads up to it; but a
locked gate, at the top of the steps, makes access im-
possible, or at least unlawful.
Aigues-Mortes, however,
has its citadel, an immense tower, larger than any of
the others, a little detached, and standing at the north-
west angle of the town. I called upon the _casernier_,
the custodian of the walls, - and in his absence I was
conducted through this big Tour de Constance by his
wife, a very mild, meek woman, yellow with the traces
of fever and ague, - a scourge which, as might be ex-
pected in a town whose name denotes "dead waters,"
enters freely at the nine gates. The Tour de Con-
stance is of extraordinary girth and solidity, divided
into three superposed circular chambers, with very fine
vaults, which are lighted by embrasures of prodigious
depth, converging to windows little larger than loop-
holes. The place served for years as a prison to many
of the Protestants of the south whom the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes had exposed to atrocious
penalties, and the annals of these dreadful chambers
during the first half of the last century were written
in tears and blood.
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