ny a fine old page, and it is often in vain one goes
to these decaying cities of Provence. "We see," he said, gesticulating
dejectedly, "we see their towers and their walls, but if we say we know
that place, how many times do we deceive ourselves. It is too often as
though we claimed to know the life and thought and passions of a man
from looking on his grave."

But--to consider what we may know. Sisteron is an old Roman city, most
strongly and picturesquely built in a narrow defile of the Durance. On
one side the river is the high, bare rock of La Baume; on the other, a
higher rock where houses, supporting each other by outstretched
buttresses, seem to cling to the sheer hillside as shrubs in mountain
crevasses, and are dominated and protected by a large and formidable
fortress-castle that crowns the very top of the peak. The town walls are
almost gone; the fortress is abandoned; since the Revolution there are
no longer Bishops in Sisteron; but the old town has lost little of its
war-like and romantic atmosphere of days when it commanded an important
pass, and when the way across the Durance was guarded by a drawbridge,
and a big portcullis that now stands in rusty idleness.

[Illustration: "THE CHURCH TOWER STOOD OUT AGAINST THE ROCKY
PEAKS."--ENTREVAUX.]

It is claimed that the Bishopric of this stronghold was founded in the
IV century, and grew and flourished mightily, until the Bishop dwelt
securely on his rock, his Brother of Gap had a "box" on the opposite
bank, the Convent of the little Dominican Sisters was further up the
river, and, besides this busy ecclesiastical life, there was the world
of burghers in the town and its Convent of Ursulines. Here came once
upon a time a sprightly lady who added a thousand lively interests. This
was Louise de Cabris, sister of the great Mirabeau, "who, when a mere
girl, had been married to the Marquis de Cabris. Part knave, part fool,
the vices of de Cabris sometimes ended in attacks of insanity. His
marriage with one who united the violence of the Mirabeaus to the
license of the Vassans was unfortunate; ... and after Louise began to
reign in the big dark house of the Cours of Grasse, life never lacked
for incidents." Matters were not mended by the arrival of her brother,
twenty-four and wild, and supposed to be living under a "lettre de
cachet" in the sleepy little town of Manosque. The two were soon
embroiled in so outrageous a scandal that their father, who loved a
quar