road from Montelimart to Grignan was inaccessible to
four-wheeled carriages, we set off at four in the morning in a patache,
the most genteel description of one-horse chair which the town afforded.
Let no one imagine that a patache bears that relation to a cabriolet
which a dennet does to a tilbury; for ours, at least, would in England
have been called a very sorry higgler's cart. The inside accommodations
were so arranged, that we sat back to back, and nearly neck and heels
together, after swarming up a sort of dresser or sounding-board in the
rear, which afforded the most practicable entrance. "Mais montez,
montez, Messieurs, vous y serez parfaitement bien," quoth our civil
conducteur, haranguing, handing, and shoving at the same time. The
alacrity with which he and his merry little dog Carlin did the honours
of the vehicle, and the stout active appearance of the horse (to say
nothing of the whim of the moment, and the fine morning), reconciled us
to a mode of conveyance no better than that which calves enjoy in a
butcher's cart; and for the first few miles we forgot even the want of
springs.

After travelling a league or two, the road began to wind into the
outskirts of the range of mountains which we had first seen from Tain,
and reminded us, in its general features, of some of the most
sequestered parts of South Wales. The soil is generally poor, but
derives an appearance of verdure and cheerfulness from the large walnut
and mulberry-trees which shade the road, and the stunted oak copses
through which it occasionally winds. We passed an extensive pile of
building, of a character which we had not before observed, consisting of
a number of small awkwardly-contrived rooms, without any uniformity,
piled like so many inhabited buttresses against the outside and inside
of a circular wall. This, it seems, is the property and habitation of
one person, a M. Dilateau; but it certainly has more the appearance of
the residence of a whole Birkbeck colony, each back-settler established
in his own nook, amid the contents of his travelling waggon. A little
farther, on the summit of a bare rocky ridge to the left, stands a
castle of a more Gothic character, but equally uncouth and comfortless.
It was demolished, as we understood, at the time of the Revolution; but
in its best days must have been but a wretched residence, as no trace
remains within many hundred yards of it, of any soil where tree or
garden could have stood. To the