ng, cannot be too strongly insisted on in this country. Persons,
indeed, who have not visited the south of France, connect its very name
with the idea of uniform mildness; but in reality, its caprices render
it, without proper caution, a more dangerous climate than our own.

[Footnote 18: "L'air de Grignan me fait peur pour vous; me fait
trembler; je crains qu'il n'emporte, ma chere enfant, qu'il ne l'epuise,
qu'il ne la desseche--."

"Voila le vent, le tourbillon, l'ouragan, les diables dechaines qui
veulent emporter votre chateau; quel ebranlement universel! quelle
furie! quelle frayeur repandue partout!"--_Mad. de Sevigne_.]

On advancing to the balustrades of what appeared a projecting part of
the terrace, we were surprised to find that it formed one of the towers
of the lofty church of Grignan, on the top of which, as on a massy
buttress, we were standing. A trap-door, formed by a moveable paving
stone, admitted us upon the leads of the church, which are secured from
the effects of weather by the additional casing which the terrace
affords. Its interior communicates with the lower rooms of the castle by
a passage, terminating in a stone gallery, where from its height above
the body of the church, the family could hear mass unperceived, as in a
private oratory. The establishment of this church, founded entirely at
the private expense of the Count de Grignan's ancestors, was very rich,
and consisted of a deanery, twenty-one canonries, and a numerous and
well-appointed choir. From its lofty proportions, I should suppose that
the internal decorations had also been costly; but much mischief, we
were informed, had been done to it during the time of the Revolution by
the same troop of brigands which burnt the castle, and which consisted
of the refuse of the neighbouring towns, countenanced by the
revolutionary committee of Orange. With a natural aversion to every
thing noble, these ragamuffins directed their outrages particularly
against the statue of the founder of the church, whose grim black trunk
stands in the vestibule, deprived of its head. One almost regrets that
the figure did not possess the miraculous power of revenge which the
corpse of Campeador[19] exerted when the Jew plucked his beard, and fall
headlong of its own accord into the thick of its assailants. The remains
of Mad. de Sevigne, and of the Grignan family, however, were safe from
their violence, as the adherents of the castle had taken the precaution