asse ce diantre de Rhone," says
Madame de Sevigne, "si fier, si orgueilleux, si turbulent; il faut le
marier avec la Durance quand elle est en furie; ah le bon menage!" The
good people of Lyons have, however, settled this point otherwise by
their inscriptions and statues in the Hotel de Ville, which certify this
river-god as already married to the Saone: the Durance, therefore, can
hold no higher rank than that of his termagant mistress, while the
gentle, even, beneficent character of her rival, and the priority of her
claims, suit much better with the title of wife. If it be permitted me
to quote Mad. de Sevigne once more, I should remark, that the broken
Gothic bridge beneath our feet, which forms so picturesque an object in
every point of view, is the same against the piers of which Mad. de
Grignan was nearly lost.[29] It formerly connected the Roche Don with
the heights on the western side of the Rhone, up which the road to
Nismes winds near Fort Villeneuve; and is well worthy of a nearer survey
as an architectural relic. The few arches which remain have the same
bold span and elegant lightness of design so remarkable in the
celebrated Pont y Prydd in South Wales; and the piers, which appear
slight at a distance, are nevertheless solid and well adapted to the
nature of the Rhone, whose current they cut like the sharp bow of a
canoe. Its remarkable narrowness, which hardly allows two horses to pass
abreast, and the ancient guard-house in the centre, secured by gates on
both sides, carry the mind strongly back to those days of distrust and
violence, which have by some been called "the good old times:"--

"Ego me nunc denique natum
Gratulor."

[Footnote 29: As late as 1688, Louis XIV. seized on the territory of
Avignon in consequence of disagreements with Innocent XI., and the Count
de Grignan held the city as his viceroy for two subsequent years. Mad.
de Sevigne, in her letters written at this period of time, congratulates
her daughter (whose boat was nearly overset against the piers of this
identical bridge), on the dignity of the situation conferred on the
count, and the more solid advantages which might accrue from it.

"Vous prenez, ma chere fille, (says she) une fort honnete resolution
d'aller a votre terre d'Avignon, voir des gens qui vous donnent de si
bon coeur ce qu'ils donnoient au vicelegat."--June, 1689.

"Quelle difference de la vie que vous faites a Avignon, toute a la
grande, toute brilla