rate _place forte_ used to be
attacked and defended. Our peregrinations made it very clear that
Carcassonne was impregnable; it is impossible to imagine without having
seen them such refinements of immurement, such ingenuities of
resistance. We passed along the battlements and _chemins de ronde_,
ascended and descended towers, crawled under arches, peered out of
loopholes, lowered ourselves into dungeons, halted in all sorts of tight
places while the purpose of something or other was

[Illustration: CARCASSONNE]

described to us. It was very curious, very interesting; above all it was
very pictorial, and involved perpetual peeps into the little crooked,
crumbling, sunny, grassy, empty Cite. In places, as you stand upon it,
the great towered and embattled enceinte produces an illusion; it looks
as if it were still equipped and defended. One vivid challenge, at any
rate, it flings down before you; it calls upon you to make up your mind
on the matter of restoration. For myself I have no hesitation; I prefer
in every case the ruined, however ruined, to the reconstructed, however
splendid. What is left is more precious than what is added; the one is
history, the other is fiction; and I like the former the better of the
two--it is so much more romantic. One is positive, so far as it goes;
the other fills up the void with things more dead than the void itself,
inasmuch as they have never had life. After that I am free to say that
the restoration of Carcassonne is a splendid achievement. The little
custodian dismissed us at last, after having, as usual, inducted us into
the inevitable repository of photographs. These photographs are a great
nuisance all over the Midi. They are exceedingly bad for the most part;
and the worst--those in the form of the hideous little
_album-panorama_--are thrust upon you at every turn. They are a kind of
tax that you must pay; the best way is to pay to be let off. It was not
to be denied that there was a relief in separating from our accomplished
guide, whose manner of imparting information reminded me of the
energetic process by which I had seen mineral waters bottled. All this
while the afternoon had grown more lovely; the sunset had deepened, the
horizon of hills grown purple; the mass of the Canigou became more
delicate, yet more distinct. The day had so far faded that the interior
of the little cathedral was wrapped in twilight, into which the glowing
windows projected something of their co