The Place Has Long Been Familiar, On Festal
Sundays, To The Swains Of Avignon And Their Attendant
Nymphs.
The little fish of the Sorgues are much
esteemed, and, eaten on the spot, they constitute, for
the children of the once Papal city, the classic sub-
urban dinner.
Vaucluse has been turned to account,
however, not only by sentiment, but by industry; the
banks of the stream being disfigured by a pair of
hideous mills for the manufacture of paper and of
wool. In an enterprising and economical age the
water-power of the Sorgues was too obvious a motive;
and I must say that, as the torrent rushed past them,
the wheels of the dirty little factories appeared to turn
merrily enough. The footpath on the left bank, of
which I just spoke, carries one, fortunately, quite out
of sight of them, and out of sound as well, inasmuch
as on the day of my visit the stream itself, which was
in tremendous force, tended more and more, as one
approached the fountain, to fill the valley with its own
echoes. Its color was magnificent, and the whole
spectacle more like a corner of Switzerland than a
nook in Provence. The protrusions of the mountain
shut it in, and you penetrate to the bottom of the re-
cess which they form. The Sorgues rushes and rushes;
it is almost like Niagara after the jump of the cataract.
There are dreadful little booths beside the path, for
the sale of photographs and _immortelles_, - I don't know
what one is to do with the immortelles, - where you
are offered a brush dipped in tar to write your name
withal on the rocks.
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