Add to this the strange views made by the crags and cliffs on the other hand; the cascades that in many places throw themselves from the very summit down into the vale, and the river below; and many other particulars impossible to describe; you will conclude we had no occasion to repent our plans.  This place St. Bruno chose to retire to, and upon its very top founded the aforesaid convent, which is the superior of the whole order.  When we came there, the two fathers, who are commissioned to entertain strangers (for the rest must neither speak one to another nor to any one else) received us very kindly; and set before us a repast of dried fish, eggs, butter, and fruits, all excellent in their kind, and extremely neat.  They prest us to spend the night there, and to stay some days with them; but this we could not do, so they led us about their house, which is, you must think, like a little city; for there are 100 fathers, besides 300 servants, that make their clothes, grind their corn, press their wine, and do everything among themselves.

The whole is quite orderly and simple; nothing of finery; but the wonderful decency, and the strange situation, more than supply the place of it.  In the evening we descended by the same way, passing through many clouds that were then forming themselves on the mountain’s side.

CARCASSONNE[A]

[Footnote A:  From “A Little Tour in France.”  By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co.  Copyright, 1884.]

BY HENRY JAMES

When I say the town, I mean the towns; there being two at Carcassonne, perfectly distinct, and each with excellent claims to the title.  They have settled the matter between them, however, and the elder, the shrine of pilgrimage, to which the other is but a stepping-stone, or even, as I may say, a humble doormat, takes the name of the Cite.

You see nothing of the Cite from the station; it is masked by the agglomeration of the “ville-basse,” which is relatively (but only relatively) new.  A wonderful avenue of acacias leads to it from the station—­leads past it, rather, and conducts you to a little high-backed bridge over the Aude, beyond which, detached and erect, a distinct medieval silhouette, the Cite presents itself.  Like a rival shop, on the invidious side of a street, it has “no connection” with the establishment across the way, altho the two places are united (if old Carcassonne may be said to be united to anything) by a vague little rustic faubourg.  Perched on its solid pedestal, the perfect detachment of the Cite is what first strikes you.

To take leave, without delay, of the “ville-basse,” I may say that the splendid acacias I have mentioned flung a summerish dusk over the place, in which a few scattered remains of stout walls and big bastions looked venerable and picturesque.  A little boulevard winds around the town, planted with trees and garnished with more benches than I ever saw provided by a soft-hearted municipality.  This precinct had a warm, lazy, dusty, southern look, as if the people sat out-of-doors a great deal, and wandered about in the stillness of summer nights.  The figure of the elder town, at these hours, must be ghostly enough on its neighboring hill.