ow converted
into a manufacturing establishment. The town is surrounded by
chalk-hills and quarries, from which is dug a free-stone, of the most
delicate white. The town, on the whole, had an air of rusticity and
recluseness which might have delighted a romantic imagination.

Between Orgon and St. Canat we travelled in a road occasionally bordered
by almond trees. The country on each side was rather barren, but being
an intermixture of rock and plain and being moreover new to us, it did
not appear tedious or uninteresting. We passed several houses of the
better sort, some in ruins, others evidently inhabited by a class of
people for whom they were not intended. This is one of the effects of
the Revolution. Where the proprietor emigrated, or was assassinated, the
nearest tenant moved into the mansion-house, and if he distinguished
himself by a violent and patriotic jacobinism, his possession, for a
mere trifle to the national fund, was converted into a right. In this
manner innumerable low ruffians have obtained the estates and houses of
their lords; but, faithful to their old habits and early origin, they
abuse only what they possess; live in the stables, and convert the
castle into a barn, a granary, a brew-house, a manufactory, or sometimes
dilapidate it brick by brick, as their convenience may require.

The inn at St. Canat will be long remembered by me, for the unusual
circumstance of a most hearty welcome from a good-humoured host, a
widower, and his two daughters. The eldest was the most beautiful
brunette I have ever seen. She was as coquettish as if educated in
Paris, and as easy, as familiar, as inclined to gallantry, as this
description of ladies, in France at least, universally are. She had been
married during the aera of jacobinism, and had divorced her husband,
_because they could not agree_. "He was so triste, and withal very
jealous, which was the more absurd, because he was old."--This young
woman was tall, elegant, and with the most fascinating features; her age
might be about four and twenty; her teeth were the whitest in the world,
and her smile was a paradise of sweets. She had the fault, however, of
all the French filles--a most invincible loquacity, and would not move
from the chamber till repeatedly admonished to call me early in the
morning.

I was awoke in the morning by a sweet-toned lark, which rising in the
ethereal vault of Heaven, made his watch-tower, as the poet calls it,
ring with his