h furnished with a bed, dressing table, and a few plain
utensils. In one large room are a row of hot and cold baths, which are
frequently and regularly used; and nothing, the good priest said, has
been found to produce so desirable an effect on the mind and body as
this custom. The rank of the patients is various; the poorer sort are
supported by voluntary contributions; and many persons in the higher
ranks are also placed here at their own expense, or that of their
friends. Among others, there is a general who became deranged, as we
were assured, on hearing of the abdication of his patron Napoleon; the
most unequivocal instance of misplaced fidelity, which I have ever
heard. How this poor man contrives to agree with the partizan of Henry
IV., I am at a loss to make out: and he was not then visible to answer
for himself. At the time of the Revolution, the estates belonging to the
hospital were confiscated; and the establishment itself would have been
abolished, had not one of the members of the council at Avignon
observed, half in jest, that they might possibly be one day glad
themselves of such a retreat. It is now, as I mentioned, maintained by
private donations, and by the salaries paid for the accommodation of the
richer patients. The only objects of taste belonging to the institution
are a fine altar-piece attributed to Murillo, and an ivory crucifix
carved by Jean Guillermin, in 1659. The latter is not above two feet in
length; but the manner in which every muscle and vein indicate
suffering, and the mingled expression of pain and resignation in the
countenance, place it on the footing of a statue; and I could hardly
have supposed that a small piece of ivory-carving could do such justice
to a sacred subject. The worthy priest dwelt, with great exultation, on
the precautions he had taken to secure this favourite relic from
revolutionary pillage, slightly alluding to the circumstance of having
been forced to fly for his life to Italy, as a matter of minor
importance to himself.

[Footnote 30: It is to be hoped that Adam Smith has taken a correct view
of the subject of madness in his Moral Sentiments. "Of all the
calamities," says he, "to which the condition of mortality exposes
mankind, the loss of reason _appears_ by far the most dreadful; and we
behold that last stage of human wretchedness with deeper commisseration
than any other. But the poor wretch who is in it, laughs and sings,
perhaps, and is altogether inse