e of islands--amidst which the river
wandered so tortuously that our pilot had behind him a strong
tiller-crew in order to carry us through safely--we came to the noble
town of Viviers. From afar we saw its tall bell-tower, its beautiful
cathedral, its episcopal palace; and as we drew nearer the whole
environment of ancient houses and fortifications spread out around those
governing points in a great amphitheatre. But what held us most was the
gay dash of tri-colour on its bridge, and the crowd there evidently
waiting for our coming to manifest toward us their good will. They
cheered us and waved their hats and handkerchiefs at us, those
poet-lovers, as we neared them; and as we passed beneath the bridge a
huge wreath of laurel was swung downward to our deck, and a shower of
laurel branches fluttered down upon us through the sunlit air. In all
the fourteen centuries since Viviers was founded I am confident that
nothing more gracious than this tribute to passing Poetry is recorded
in the history of the town.

Naturally, being capable of such an act of nicely discriminating
courtesy, Viviers has sound traditions of learning and of gentle blood.
In its day it was a great episcopal city: whose bishops maintained an
army, struck money, counted princes among their vassals, in set terms
defied the power of the King of France--and recognized not the existence
of any temporal sovereign until the Third Conrad of Germany enlarged
their knowledge of political geography by taking their city by storm.
Yet while finely lording it over outsiders, the bishops were brought
curiously to their bearings within their own walls. Each of them, in
turn, on his way to his installation, found closed against him, as he
descended from his mule before it, the door of the cathedral; and the
door was not opened until he had sworn there publicly that he would
maintain inviolate as he found them the rights and privileges of the
chapter and of the town. Moreover, once in each year the men and women
of rank of Viviers asserted their right to a part enjoyment of the
ecclesiastical benefices by putting on copes and mitres and occupying
with the canons the cathedral stalls.

The line of one hundred and thirty bishops who in succession reigned
here ended--a century back, in the time of the Revolution--in a
veritable lurid flame; yet with, I think, a touch of agonized human
nature too. The church historian can see only the diabolical side of the
situation; a