It was a "Fille du Regiment" in real life. Near
Montelimart, we lost sight of Mont Ventoux, whose gleaming white crest
had been visible all the way from Vaucluse, and passed along the base of
a range of hills running near to the river. So went our march, without
particular incident, till we bivouacked for the night among a company of
soldiers in the little village of Loriol.

Leaving at six o'clock, wakened by the trumpets which called up the
soldiery to their day's march, we reached the river Drome at dawn, and
from the bridge over its rapid current, gazed at the dim, ash-colored
masses of the Alps of Dauphine, piled along the sky, far up the valley.
The coming of morn threw a yellow glow along their snowy sides, and
lighted up, here and there, a flashing glacier. The peasantry were
already up and at work, and caravans of pack-wagons rumbled along in the
morning twilight We trudged on with them, and by breakfast-time had made
some distance of the way to Valence. The road, which does not approach
the Rhone, is devoid of interest and tiresome, though under a summer
sky, when the bare vine-hills are latticed over with green, and the
fruit-trees covered with blossoms and foliage, it might be a scene of
great beauty.

Valence, which we reached towards noon, is a commonplace city on the
Rhone; and my only reasons for traversing its dirty streets in
preference to taking the road, which passes without the walls, were--to
get something for dinner, and because it _might_ have been the
birth-place of Aymer de Valence, the valorous Crusader, chronicled in
"Ivanhoe," whose tomb I had seen in Westminster Abbey. One of the
streets which was marked "_Rue Bayard_," shows that my valiant
namesake--the knight without fear and reproach--is still remembered in
his native province. The ruins of his chateau are still standing among
the Alps near Grenoble.

In the afternoon we crossed the Isere, a swift, muddy river, which rises
among the Alps of Dauphine, We saw their icy range, among which is the
desert solitude of the Grand Chartreuse, far up the valley; but the
thick atmosphere hid the mighty Mont Blanc, whose cloudy outline, eighty
miles distant in a "bee line," is visible in fair weather. At Tain, we
came upon the Rhone again, and walked along the base of the hills which
contract its current. Here, I should call it beautiful. The scenery has
a wildness that approaches to that of the Rhine. Rocky, castellated
heights frown over the ru