, the scene of the Duke de Guise's murder, may
possibly assist its effect on the imagination.

On issuing from this gloomy but not uninteresting spot, the eye opens
upon an extensive prospect, rich in many of those features which we find
scattered through the works of Claude and Salvator. To the right, the
hills which hung[13] over the road to Tain, recede into a long
perspective, terminated in the distance by a ruined castle on a
pyramidical rock, near Valence; and the Rhone, following the same
direction, winds away from the road in a slower and wider current than
before. To the left, the outskirts of the Dauphine Alps form a
singularly wild and fantastic barrier, sometimes rising in abrupt
pinnacles, and sometimes rent as if by an earthquake into precipices of
some thousand feet of sheer perpendicular descent. The vale inclosed
between these rough walls, and in the centre of which the Isere unites
itself to the Rhone, appears a perfect garden in point of richness,
cheerfulness, and high cultivation. We crossed the Isere, a strong and
rapid stream, by a ferry, for our Itineraire, with its usual accuracy,
forgot to mention that the bridge of which it speaks was broken down by
Augereau on the advance of the Austrians. Within two or three miles of
Valence, a rising ground, fringed with scattered oak underwood, affords
a more distinct and striking semicircular view of the mountains to the
left; and glimpses of others yet more distant, bordering an immense
plain, through which the Rhone takes its course towards Avignon.

[Footnote 13: Vide Cooke's Views.]

As we approached Valence, the ancient Civitas Valentinorum, we again
observed the ruined castle which we had at first remarked, called
Chateau Crussol. It stands on a conical cliff on the opposite side of
the river, overlooking the town at about two cannon-shots distance. On
inquiring into the history of this eagle's nest, we found that it had
been in days of yore the fortress of a petty free-booting chieftain, who
kept the inhabitants of Valence in a perpetual state of war and
annoyance; a history which almost appears fabricated to suit its
appearance and character. It bears a very strong resemblance, in point
of situation, to the ruin within a mile of Massa di Carrara; which the
tradition of the peasants assigns as the abode of Castruccio Castracani,
the scourge of the Pisans. Seeing it relieved by a gleam of sunshine
from a dark evening cloud behind it, we could fanc