ared as if they had shells upon their backs.
Beaucaire, with its old castle overhanging the Rhone, soon came in
sight.

"Jeunet encore, etois sortant de page,
Lorsque a Beaucaire ouvrit un grand tournoi.
Maint chevaliers y firent maint exploits,
Dames d'amour animoient leur courage;"

says the French Roman: and in the old fabliaux also, the scene of
Aucassin and Nicolette is laid in this place. These are, I believe, but
a small portion of the claims which Beaucaire possesses to chivalrous
celebrity, and its very name is in a manner connected with knights and
ladies, tourneys and pageants. There is something in its appearance also
which does not belie these associations, although it was crowded with
farmers and market people at the time of our arrival: and those too of
the vulgar bettermost sort, which is the most hopelessly
unchivalrous.[41] The castle stands detached from the town, on as bold
and perpendicular a cliff as any romance writer could wish, and
overlooking one of the broadest and most rapid reaches of the Rhone; an
extensive green[42] meadow planted with trees, and large enough for a
tournament on the most extensive scale, or another Champ du Drap d'Or,
divides the steep side of this rock from the river; and on the land side
it is backed by another cliff garnished with as many windmills as Don
Quixote himself could have desired. We crossed the Rhone on a bridge of
boats to a long narrow island, from whence the view on both sides is
striking. Beaucaire, with the accompaniments I have just described, and
Tarascon, flanked by the large ancient castle of the counts of Provence,
front each other on the opposite banks of the Rhone, which rushes and
thunders on both sides of the isle, making the cables by which the
floating bridge is lashed, creak most fearfully every moment.[43] From
this point I made a drawing of Tarascon in defiance of a violent wind,
which forced me to place my paper on the lee side of a stranded boat,
and to sketch in the attitude of a plasterer white-washing a ceiling.
Another bridge of boats conducted us to Tarascon;[44] where we walked
out while the horses were baiting, the whole inn being in the same
confusion from market people as Beaucaire itself, and not seeming of the
most comfortable description. Being driven by a heavy scud of rain into
a shoemaker's shop, we found a civil and intelligent guide in his son,
from whom, however, we could not ascertain that there was an