The Approach To Lyons,
However, Made Some Amends For These Inconveniences.
The shores of the
river, hitherto low and level, began to rise into hills, broken with
precipices and crowned by castles, some in ruins and others entire, and
seemingly a part of the very rocks on which they stood, so old and mossy
and strong did they seem.
What struck me most in Lyons was the superiority
of its people in looks and features to the inhabitants of Paris - the
clatter and jar of silk-looms with which its streets resounded - and the
picturesque beauty of its situation, placed as it is among steeps and
rocks, with the quiet Saone on one side, and the swiftly-running Rhone on
the other. In our journey from Lyons to Marseilles we travelled by land
instead of taking the steamboat, as is commonly done as far as Avignon.
The common books of travels will tell you how numerous are the ruins of
feudal times perched upon the heights all along the Rhone, remnants of
fortresses and castles, overlooking a vast extent of country and once
serving as places of refuge to the cultivators of the soil who dwelt in
their vicinity - how frequently also are to be met with the earlier yet
scarcely less fresh traces of Roman colonization and dominion, in
gateways, triumphal arches, walls, and monuments - how on entering
Provence you find yourself among a people of a different physiognomy from
those of the northern provinces, speaking a language which rather
resembles Italian than French - how the beauty of the women of Avignon
still does credit to the taste of the clergy, who made that city for more
than half a century the seat of the Papal power - and how, as you approach
the shores of the Mediterranean, the mountains which rise from the
fruitful valleys shoot up in wilder forms, until their summits become mere
pinnacles of rock wholly bare of vegetation.
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