one would not have borne the sight of such a
lying varlet another instant, but I must confess that the mere sound of
our own language in a foreign town, disarmed our indignation, and we
bore with the fellow, whom we found not unamusing, and from his local
knowledge, serviceable. A very small degree of merit indeed suffices to
open one's heart towards a fellow-countryman in a strange land; a truth
no doubt known and acted on by knights of industry, matrimonial
speculators, and

"Broken dandies lately on their travels."

The legate's palace is now divided into barracks and a prison, and the
nakedness of its appearance upon a nearer view make its lofty
proportions more striking. We were expressing to each other our wonder
at its size, when our guide interrupted us with an original observation
of his own:--"The reason of its size, sir, is quite _clare_. The pope,
you see, always went about with such a _hape_ of monks--and of nuns--and
of all them kind of people, that the big number of rooms which you see
could hardly hold them any how." After all, if the annals of former
times have been truly written, the Milesian's account of this merry
menage might be nearer the truth than he knew or suspected.

The Papal Chapel exhibits now but few remains of its former probable
grandeur, its inside having been defaced with the most persevering
animosity during the Revolution, and presenting little more than a damp
bare shell, filled with the broken remains of monumental figures.
Headless popes and crippled cardinals lie together in heaps, mingled in
a manner which will render it impossible to restore to each his proper
allotment of limbs, when the projected repairs of the chapel are put in
execution. One tomb, broken up and shattered to pieces more than the
rest, was pointed out by the old woman as the sepulchre of La belle
Laure, an honour which, for aught I know, may be claimed by a tomb in
every church of Avignon. An assertion apparently still more apocryphal,
however, is that one of the small side chapels was built by
Constantine.

The interior of Avignon affords a much more agreeable promenade than
that of Lyons, from the superior cleanliness of its inhabitants, and the
moderate height of the houses. These circumstances tend to disperse the
combinations of ill smell, and purify the thick, vapid, flagging air
which is felt so perceptibly at Lyons. It may, perhaps, be beneath the
dignity of a _printed book_ to enumerate such circ