feudal contributions of such a country could have
supported in earlier days the number of castles and towers, whose ruins
we saw on the summits of every detached rock. These, from their
resemblance to the "antiguas obras de Moros," which the muleteers used
to point out, presented another feature strongly reviving my Spanish
recollections. In the days of romance, this country must have been the
Utopia of Troubadours, where each might in the compass of a short walk
have taken morning draught, breakfast, nooning, dinner, and supper, at
the strong holds of different barons. The first of these fortalices,
called Chamaret le Maigre, presents a striking landmark from the town of
Grignan; but, on a nearer approach, consists of little more than a tall
slender tower upon an insulated rock; the rest is in ruins. At a short
distance beyond this spot stands Montsegur, a little old fortified town
upon a hill, which, from its name and appearance, may have been one of
those cradles of civil liberty, where the "bon homme Jacques" first
found refuge from his haughty feudal oppressors. A ruin of a more lordly
description close to it, is called, as we understood, the Chateau
Beaume: but the number of less important ruins, which occurred in this
day's journey, is too great to admit of a particular description. A turn
to the right between a couple of commanding heights, brought us out of
this barren country into the wide and fertile plain of the Rhone, and
under the walls of St. Paul de Trois Chateaux, the ancient Augusta
Tricastinorum. From the respectable appearance of this town, we
conceived ourselves in the high road to La Palud, and likely to be soon
indemnified by dinner and rest, for the joltings of the day; but our
driver, instead of taking the proper direction, lost himself in a series
of inextricable cross roads, which terminated in a quagmire. In this
slough of despond the unfortunate patache, from which we had descended,
might have stuck for ever, but for the assistance of two shepherds, as
wild in their attire, and as civil, as Don Quixote's friendly goatherds.
By dint of their exertions and those of the floundering and groaning
horse, the vehicle, which was too deeply imbedded in the muddy ruts to
dread an overturn, was dragged out by main force; the driver sometimes
wringing his hands in King Cambysses' vein, and sometimes strenuously
applying his shoulder to the wheel. A franc or two dismissed our
bare-legged friends grinning