A Little Tour In France [59]
end his days. It seemed strange, as he sat there, with those romantic walls behind him and the great picture of the Pyrenees in front, to think that he had been across the seas to the far-away new world, had made part of a famous expedition, and was now a cripple at the gate of the mediaeval city where he had played as a child. All this struck me as a great deal of history for so modest a figure, - a poor little figure that could only just unclose its palm for a small silver coin.
He was not the only acquaintance I made at Car- cassonne. I had not pursued my circuit of the walls much further when I encountered a person of quite another type, of whom I asked some question which had just then presented, itself, and who proved to be the very genius of the spot. He was a sociable son of the _ville-basse_, a gentleman, and, as I afterwards learned, an employe at the prefecture, - a person, in short, much esteemed at Carcassonne. (I may say all this, as he will never read these pages.) He had been ill for a month, and in the company of his little dog was taking his first airing; in his own phrase he was _amoureux-fou de la Cite_, - he could lose no time in coming back to it. He talked of it, indeed, as a lover, and, giving me for half an hour the advantage of his company, showed me all the points of the place. (I speak here always of the outer enceinte; you penetrate to the inner - which is the specialty of Carcassonne, and the great curiosity - only by application at the lodge of the regular custodian, a remarkable func- tionary, who, half an hour later, when I had been in- troduced to him by my friend the amateur, marched me over the fortifications with a tremendous accompani- ment of dates and technical terms.) My companion pointed out to me in particular the traces of different periods in the structure of the walls. There is a por- tentous amount of history embedded in them, begin- ning with Romans and Visigoths; here and there are marks of old breaches, hastily repaired. We passed into the town, - into that part of it not included in the citadel. It is the queerest and most fragmentary little place in the world, as everything save the fortifications is being suffered to crumble away, in order that the spirit of M. Viollet-le-Duc alone may pervade it, and it may subsist simply as a magnificent shell. As the leases of the wretched little houses fall in, the ground is cleared of them; and a mumbling old woman ap- proached me in the course of my circuit, inviting me to condole with her on the disappearance of so many of the hovels which in the last few hundred years (since the collapse of Carcassonne as a stronghold) had attached themselves to the base of the walls, in the space between the two circles. These habitations, constructed of materials taken from the ruins, nestled there snugly enough. This intermediate space had therefore become a kind of street, which has crumbled in turn, as the fortress has grown up again. There are other streets, beside, very diminutive and vague, where you pick your way over heaps of rubbish and become conscious of unexpected faces looking at you out of windows as detached as the cherubic heads. The most definite thing in the place was the little cafe, where. the waiters, I think, must be the ghosts of the old Visigoths; the most definite, that is, after the little chateau and the little cathedral. Everything in the Cite is little; you can walk round the walls in twenty minutes. On the drawbridge of the chateau, which, with a picturesque old face, flanking towers, and a dry moat, is to-day simply a bare _caserne_, lounged half a dozen soldiers, unusually small. No- thing could be more odd than to see these objects en- closed in a receptacle which has much of the appear- ance of an enormous toy. The Cite and its population vaguely reminded me of an immense Noah's ark.
XXIII.
Carcassonne dates from the Roman occupation of Gaul. The place commanded one of the great roads into Spain, and in the fourth century Romans and Franks ousted each other from such a point
He was not the only acquaintance I made at Car- cassonne. I had not pursued my circuit of the walls much further when I encountered a person of quite another type, of whom I asked some question which had just then presented, itself, and who proved to be the very genius of the spot. He was a sociable son of the _ville-basse_, a gentleman, and, as I afterwards learned, an employe at the prefecture, - a person, in short, much esteemed at Carcassonne. (I may say all this, as he will never read these pages.) He had been ill for a month, and in the company of his little dog was taking his first airing; in his own phrase he was _amoureux-fou de la Cite_, - he could lose no time in coming back to it. He talked of it, indeed, as a lover, and, giving me for half an hour the advantage of his company, showed me all the points of the place. (I speak here always of the outer enceinte; you penetrate to the inner - which is the specialty of Carcassonne, and the great curiosity - only by application at the lodge of the regular custodian, a remarkable func- tionary, who, half an hour later, when I had been in- troduced to him by my friend the amateur, marched me over the fortifications with a tremendous accompani- ment of dates and technical terms.) My companion pointed out to me in particular the traces of different periods in the structure of the walls. There is a por- tentous amount of history embedded in them, begin- ning with Romans and Visigoths; here and there are marks of old breaches, hastily repaired. We passed into the town, - into that part of it not included in the citadel. It is the queerest and most fragmentary little place in the world, as everything save the fortifications is being suffered to crumble away, in order that the spirit of M. Viollet-le-Duc alone may pervade it, and it may subsist simply as a magnificent shell. As the leases of the wretched little houses fall in, the ground is cleared of them; and a mumbling old woman ap- proached me in the course of my circuit, inviting me to condole with her on the disappearance of so many of the hovels which in the last few hundred years (since the collapse of Carcassonne as a stronghold) had attached themselves to the base of the walls, in the space between the two circles. These habitations, constructed of materials taken from the ruins, nestled there snugly enough. This intermediate space had therefore become a kind of street, which has crumbled in turn, as the fortress has grown up again. There are other streets, beside, very diminutive and vague, where you pick your way over heaps of rubbish and become conscious of unexpected faces looking at you out of windows as detached as the cherubic heads. The most definite thing in the place was the little cafe, where. the waiters, I think, must be the ghosts of the old Visigoths; the most definite, that is, after the little chateau and the little cathedral. Everything in the Cite is little; you can walk round the walls in twenty minutes. On the drawbridge of the chateau, which, with a picturesque old face, flanking towers, and a dry moat, is to-day simply a bare _caserne_, lounged half a dozen soldiers, unusually small. No- thing could be more odd than to see these objects en- closed in a receptacle which has much of the appear- ance of an enormous toy. The Cite and its population vaguely reminded me of an immense Noah's ark.
XXIII.
Carcassonne dates from the Roman occupation of Gaul. The place commanded one of the great roads into Spain, and in the fourth century Romans and Franks ousted each other from such a point