one prince put to fire and sword the
whole town of Courthezon; how another was stabbed in prison by his
wife; how a third besieged the castle of his niece, and sought to
undermine her chamber, knowing her the while to be in childbed; how a
fourth was flayed alive outside the walls of Avignon. There is nothing
terrible, splendid, and savage, belonging to feudal history, of which
an example may not be found in the annals of Les Baux, as narrated by
their chronicler, Jules Canonge.

However abrupt may seem the transition from these memories of
the ancient nobles of Les Baux to mere matters of travel and
picturesqueness, it would be impossible to take leave of the old
towns of Provence without glancing at the cathedrals of S. Trophime
at Arles, and of S. Gilles--a village on the border of the dreary
flamingo-haunted Camargue. Both of these buildings have porches
splendidly encrusted with sculptures, half classical, half mediaeval,
marking the transition from ancient to modern art. But that of S.
Gilles is by far the richer and more elaborate. The whole facade of
this church is one mass of intricate decoration; Norman arches
and carved lions, like those of Lombard architecture, mingling
fantastically with Greek scrolls of fruit and flowers, with elegant
Corinthian columns jutting out upon the church steps, and with the old
conventional wave-border that is called Etruscan in our modern jargon.
From the midst of florid fret and foliage lean mild faces of saints
and Madonnas. Symbols of evangelists with half-human, half-animal
eyes and wings, are interwoven with the leafy bowers of cupids. Grave
apostles stand erect beneath acanthus wreaths that ought to crisp the
forehead of a laughing Faun or Bacchus. And yet so full, exuberant,
and deftly chosen are these various elements, that there remains no
sense of incongruity or discord. The mediaeval spirit had much trouble
to disentangle itself from classic reminiscences; and fortunately for
the picturesqueness of S. Gilles, it did not succeed. How strangely
different is the result of this transition in the south from those
severe and rigid forms which we call Romanesque in Germany and
Normandy and England!

* * * * *

THE CORNICE

It was a dull afternoon in February when we left Nice, and drove
across the mountains to Mentone. Over hill and sea hung a thick mist.
Turbia's Roman tower stood up in cheerless solitude, wreathed round
with dri