About Five In The Afternoon, I Had The First Glimpse Of
The Famous Pont Du Garde, Which Stands On The Right Hand, About
The Distance Of A League From The Post-Road To Nismes, And About
Three Leagues From That City.
I would not willingly pass for a
false enthusiast in taste; but I cannot help observing, that from
the
First distant view of this noble monument, till we came near
enough to see it perfectly, I felt the strongest emotions of
impatience that I had ever known; and obliged our driver to put
his mules to the full gallop, in the apprehension that it would
be dark before we reached the place. I expected to find the
building, in some measure, ruinous; but was agreeably
disappointed, to see it look as fresh as the bridge at
Westminster. The climate is either so pure and dry, or the free-stone,
with which it is built, so hard, that the very angles of
them remain as acute as if they had been cut last year. Indeed,
some large stones have dropped out of the arches; but the whole
is admirably preserved, and presents the eye with a piece of
architecture, so unaffectedly elegant, so simple, and majestic,
that I will defy the most phlegmatic and stupid spectator to
behold it without admiration. It was raised in the Augustan age,
by the Roman colony of Nismes, to convey a stream of water
between two mountains, for the use of that city. It stands over
the river Gardon, which is a beautiful pastoral stream, brawling
among rocks, which form a number of pretty natural cascades, and
overshadowed on each side with trees and shrubs, which greatly
add to the rural beauties of the scene. It rises in the Cevennes,
and the sand of it produces gold, as we learn from Mr. Reaumur,
in his essay on this subject, inserted in the French Memoirs, for
the year 1718. If I lived at Nismes, or Avignon (which last city
is within four short leagues of it) I should take pleasure in
forming parties to come hither, in summer, to dine under one of
the arches of the Pont du Garde, on a cold collation.
This work consists of three bridges, or tire of arches, one above
another; the first of six, the second of eleven, and the third of
thirty-six. The height, comprehending the aqueduct on the top,
amounts to 174 feet three inches: the length between the two
mountains, which it unites, extends to 723. The order of
architecture is the Tuscan, but the symmetry of it is
inconceivable. By scooping the bases of the pilasters, of the
second tire of arches, they had made a passage for foot-travellers:
but though the antients far excelled us in beauty,
they certainly fell short of the moderns in point of conveniency.
The citizens of Avignon have, in this particular, improved the
Roman work with a new bridge, by apposition, constructed on the
same plan with that of the lower tire of arches, of which indeed
it seems to be a part, affording a broad and commodious passage
over the river, to horses and carriages of all kinds.
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