few months, they were driven to their ships by the young soldier, who afterwards filled Europe with his fame. The chevalier Paul, who was born in the town, rose in the course of the last century from a very humble station, that of a common sailor, to be vice-admiral of France. Gorges The country round Toulon is adorned with groves of lemon, olive, and date trees; villas are scattered in different directions. Beyond them, on the road to Marseilles, are situated the Gorges d'Ollioules, a d'Ollioules. wild valley enclosed by arid heights; in some places, their precipitous and abrupt sides appear as if they were about to fall; in others they are like the ruins of ancient ramparts. The road across the Moorish mounts, so called from the devastations committed by African pirates, during the reign of Lewis the Twelfth, leads to BrigBrignolles. nolles, a small town situated in a pleasant country. The pureness of the air, its position on the side of a hill near the fruitful valley of Calami, abounding in grain and wine, render it perhaps the most agreeable residence in the department. Although it contains several manufactories, the principal trade consists in dried plums, which are transported into different countries. It is said to have been founded before the Christian era; it was the birth-place of St. Lewis, bishop of Toulon, and grand nephew to St. Lewis the Ninth. A rich plain extends between Brignolles and Draguignan, Draguignan. | the capital of the department; in the same plain are produced the large chesnuts that are sold in Paris. Draguignan is watered by several fountains, and traversed by the Pis, a small river; the principal curiosities are a botanical garden, a good library, and a museum of natural history. At two leagues from it, is situated Grasse, a much Grasse. more important place, both in point of population and industry; it stands on the side of a hill, commanding a view of fields and gardens, where the orange, the jessamine, and the rose, mingle their perfume. Swarms of bees, a source of wealth in that part of the country, find in these and other flowers, abundant nourishment, although the inhabitants extract from them the juices that are converted into liqueurs or essences, and sold in every quarter of the world. Department of the Lower Alps-Castellane. Castellane, now well known for its dried fruits and plums, is the first town in the department of the Lower Alps, on the road from Grasse to Dignes. On account of the salt springs, one of which is large enough to turn a mill, it obtained in ancient times the name of Salina. Dignes, an ancient city that Cæsar calls Digna," is situated in the midst of mountains, that might afford an ample harvest to 'the mineralogist and the botanist. It consists of steep and narrow streets, enclosed by old walls, and flanked with square turrets. The palaces belonging to the prefect and the bishop, together with the cathedral, are the only public buildings, and they are nowise remarkable. The thermal springs in the vicinity, to which the ancients repaired,' are visited during the summer and autumn by Italians, and people from different parts of France. The small village of Champtercier, near the town, has been rendered famous as the birth-place of the celebrated Gassendi, a philosopher, an astronomer, and the rival of Descartes. Colmars may be mentioned on account of a fountain, from which the water flows and intermits alternately every seven minutes. The rich valley of Barcelonette affords pasturage to numerous flocks of sheep, and to many herds of oxen; it derives its name from a small town built in 1230, on the site of a Roman city, by Count Raimond Berenger, and as his ancestors had Digna inter Montes posita. Cæsar; De Bello Gallico. They are mentioned by Ptolemy and Pliny. For the quality and properties of these waters, the reader may consult the statistical tables. | Sisteron. migrated from Barcelona, the place was called Barcelonette. Segustero, a Latin name of Celtic origin, announces the antiquity of Sisteron, at the confluence of the Buech and the Durance. The river, confined in the town between the two rocks on which the fortress of La Beaume rises, flows rapidly below a lofty arcade, to which the same rocks serve as butments. The principal altar in the cathedral is adorned with a fine painting by Wanloo, and at no great distance from the building, a walk laid out with much taste, leads to one of the gates on the road to Aix. Albertes was born in Cisteron, a Provençal poet, that flourished in the thirteenth century;-he was still more unfortunate than Petrarch, for he actually died of love;-the object of his passion was Laura, the beautiful marchioness of Malespine. It might be difficult to account for the origin of a singular custom that exists in the country between Cisteron and Dignes; the peasants wrap their dead in a winding sheet, place them on the roofs of the huts, and cover them with snow during winter. Claudius Tiberius Nero, sent by Cæsar into Narbonensis, founded there a small town, the Forum Neronis, on the site of which, Forcalquier stands at present, the capital of a subprefecture, a dirty and ill built city near a rock, commanded by the ruins of an ancient castle. Department of the Bouches du Rhone. Aix. Several ancient monuments have been observed in the same department; an inscription on a rock near Cisteron, informs the antiquary that Dardanus and Neva Gallia, his wife, introduced the custom of interring the dead in vaults at Theopolis, the present village of Theoux. A bridge attributed to Cæsar, and the tower of Enobarbus are still seen near the village of Cereste, five leagues distant from Forcalquier. The ruins of several ancient temples are situated near the small town of Riez. The department of the Bouches du Rhone contains too a thousand objects which recall ancient recollections. In the neighbourhood of St. Remy, are observed a triumphal arch erected to Marius, and a mausoleum fifty feet in height. Aix, formerly the capital of Provence, was founded a hundred and twenty years before the vulgar era by the consul Caius Sextius Calvinus, near the mineral springs which he himself had discovered, and on account of which he gave the name Aquæ Sextiæ to the town. It became soon afterwards a place of importance; the emperor Tiberius raised a temple there to the memory of Augustus; it had its senate, and a body of decurions. Many articles of antiquity have been discovered in the same place; the most of them are collected in the town-house. The sculptures and architecture of several edifices are connected with the rise of art in modern times. Such is the cathedral, of which the baptisery, constructed with the remains of a Roman temple, forms a very beautiful ornament. The town-clock, near the fountain in the market place, was erected during the middle ages; it is curious on account of its mechanism; springs put in motion different figures every time the hammer strikes the bell. The streets are paved, and many of the houses are well built. The Orbitelle, a public walk, is formed by four rows of trees, and adorned with several fountains. The counts of Provence resided at Aix, formerly the seat of a court, where gallantry and politeness reigned, where poetry was admired, and troubadours respected. It is still a collegiate town, where students may find ample means of instruction; it possesses an academy, schools of law and theology, several scientific collections, and a library of 80,000 volumes. In 1819, the mayor laid the foundation of a monument in honour of king René, whose memory must be for ever dear to the people of Provence. But if the inhabitants were to raise monuments to each of their celebrated townsmen, the walks and public places might acquire additional interest from the statues of Tournefort, Wanloo, Adanson, Vauvenargues, and Entrecasteaux. Procession, The glory which these distinguished men shed over the town, may console it for having given birth to the president D'Oppede, whose sad celebrity is still preserved in the annals of fanaticism. The procession on Corpus Christi-day attracts many idle persons to Aix, to enjoy probably the sight of sacred and profane ceremonies, of saints and devils with long horns,— -a ridiculous masquerade, in which the principal characters are sustained by the clergy and municipal authorities. The procession was abolished at the revolution, and afterwards renewed; but it might have been as well to have discontinued part of the ceremonies, inconsistent with the ideas of the age, and the respect due to religion. The country in the neighbourhood of Marseilles announces Marseilles. | a populous and commercial town; it consists of cultivated fields, gardens, and country houses or villas, of which the number is not less than 5000. Surrounded with manufactories, built on the declivity of a hill, and on a plain that extends to the sea, its situation cannot be compared with that of any other town in France. The old town on the declivity may give the stranger an unfavourable idea of the place; the finest part of Marseilles is that nearest the sea. Sailors of every nation are seen on the quay; the streets on the same quarter are straight and well paved; a public walk extends round the best harbour in the kingdom, sufficiently large to contain two hundred vessels, and the noisy centre of the trade which France carries on with the east. The castle of If, an ancient state prison, is perhaps the most striking object in the view from the summit of Notre Dame de la Garde, but the spectator may also ob serve institutions and edifices, of which the town's people are justly proud,-schools of hydrography, medicine, drawing, and music; seminaries where chemistry, geometry, and different sciences in their application to the arts, are gratuitously taught; a college, an observatory, a mint, an exchange, a lazaretto, the largest and the best regulated in the kingdom. At the sight of such institutions, one naturally remembers the Massilia, which Cicero called the Athens of Gaul, and Pliny, the mistress of the sciences, (Magistra studiorum.) It was the native town of Petronius, the satirist, Puget, the sculptor, Damarsais and Barbaroux, the conventionalist. The climate of Marseilles would be delightful, if the calmness of the atmosphere were not disturbed by the impetuous mistral. To the influence of the same wind have been attributed, probably by a stretch of the imagination, the violent character of the people, their ferocity and cruelty in the time of the revolution. The island of Carmague may be seen from the road that leads to Arles; it is enclosed by the sea and two branches of the Rhone; it contains nine villages, a great many country houses, and nearly three hundred and fifty farms, on which the proprietors or tenants rear annually 40,000 sheep, 3,000 oxen, and as many horses. The royal sheepfold of Armilliere is situated in the island. Arles or Arelas as it was once called, Arles. an ancient capital of Gaul, is now the chief town of a district in the Bouches du Rhone. Although thinly peopled and ill-built, it may be considered one of the most remarkable cities in France, both on account of the historical associations connected with it, and the remains of ancient splendour. It is supposed that it was built fifteen hundred years before the Christian era; the name has been derived from two Celtic words, ar and lait, which signify near the waters. The antiquary may still perceive several ancient arcades, the columns of a theatre, the remains of an amphitheatre in a good state of preservation, the tower of Constantine's palace, a granite obelisk, the only granite one in France; tombs, altars and statues, are almost daily excavated. A modern edifice rises near these * See the memoir on the ancient republic of Arles by Ambert. ruins, it is the fine town-house erected by Mansard. The trade of Arles consists in the sale of wines, corn, fruits and oil, produced in the surrounding country. The small town of Tarascon stands on the left bank of the Rhone, and the same river separates it from Beaucaire. It is commanded by an ancient castle, formerly a country seat belonging to the dukes of Provence, afterwards changed into a prison. The course of the Durance from the place where it joins Department the Verdon to its confluence with the Rhone, separates the of Vaucluse. last department from that of Vaucluse. Broad and majestic, rapid as a torrent, the river covers the country with its inundations, but the fertile ooze it deposits, the canals it supplies, compensate in some measure the waste it occasions. At a short distance from its streams, and on the banks of the Rhone, Avignon rises on a fruitful plain, embel| Avignon. lished with mulberry trees, orchards and meadows. The streets are narrow and crooked; the palace of Crillon, and the ancient apostolic palace, are two fine Gothic buildings; the cathedral may be remarked for a portal, which, it is supposed, was removed from an ancient temple of Hercules. The useful and charitable institutions are more numerous than might have been expected from the number of inhabitants. Among others there are a hospital, an infirmary, a collection of paintings, a museum of natural history, a botanical garden, different schools, a library of 27,000 volumes, and a learned society,-the academy of Vaucluse. It is unnecessary to mention the gayety of the inhabitants, the grace and beauty of the women, rivalling or surpassing the fair in most towns of the south; it may be remarked, however, that the low and ignorant part of the community, the same persons that committed in 1815, crimes only equalled by those of the revolution, are now making advances in different branches of industry. Avignon was the native town of the brave Crillon, Vernet, the abbé Poule and several men who have shed a lustre on the society of Jesuits. The town is the mart of the grain produced in some of the southern departments; it carries on a trade in silk, cottons, leather and paper. Avenio, the ancient name, is of Celtic origin. Pomponius Mela says that in his time the inhabitants were very wealthy. Apt, a place not less ancient than the last town, was embellished by Cæsar, and bore the name of Apta Julia; the present walls are said to have been founded by the Romans. Many ancient remains are contained in the subterranean chapels of the old cathedral; it is watered by the Calavon. Apt. Carpentras, another ancient city, surrounded with old walls, was the Carpentoracle of the Memimi, a tribe of the Cavares; | Carpentras. it would be much improved if the streets were straight. It is the metropolis of a diocess, which has continued from the third to the nineteenth century; the columns of the principal church, the ancient cathedral, supported the temple of Diana in the burgh of Venasque. The remains of a triumphal arch are situated in the courts of the episcopal palace; it was erected to commemorate the victory which Domitius Enobarbus gained over the Allobroges and the Arverni. The hospital, the different markets, the public lavers, the gate in the direction of Orange, surmounted by a lofty tower, and the modern aqueduct, consisting of forty-eight arches, thirty-six feet in width, and forty-five in height, are ornamental to the town. It possesses different manufactories, and carries on a trade in wines and other products of the department. The celebrated fountain of Vaucluse, perhaps the finest Fountain of Vaucluse. spring in Europe, is situated at an equal distance from Avignon, Apt and Carpentras. It issues from a large and deep cave at the base of a high hill, that bounds on the south the narrow and winding valley of Vaucluse (Vallis Clausa.) An old fig tree near the roof or arch of the cave, serves to indicate the height of the water in the fountain. When it is at the greatest elevation, occasioned by the melted snows about the vernal equinox, it bathes the roots of the tree; the vault or arch of the cavern is then no longer visible, and the calm waters occupy a large basin, almost circular, about sixty feet in diameter. The waters are lowest in the month of October, they descend to the depth of forty feet below the edge of the basin, or the roots of the fig-tree. The vault of the cave then appears in all its majesty, and the spectator may observe a lake of which the extent is lost in total darkness. Many have descended the sides of the basin, and seen the surface of the limpid water, that fills an abyss, of which the depth has never been measured. Extensive subterranean canals placed above each other, are the passages for the waters formed by melted snow. Twenty torrents are precipitated with a tremendous noise below the basin; their united streams are The Sorgues. the sources of the Sorgues, which becomes suddenly navigable for boats, and turns several mills. A majestic column was erected on the edge of the fountain in 1809, by the academy at Vaucluse; it bears the following simple inscription in golden letters,-A Pétrarque. The naked rocks that encompass the cascade, the pyramidical masses on the right and left, the green sward that covers the neighbouring heights, the old turreted castle on the left bank of the Sorgues, according to tradition, the residence of Petrarch, the verdant trees that shade the river, and the village of Vaucluse, are some parts of a landscape not inferior to any other in the kingdom. A thousand echoes respond to the names of Petrarch and Laura; the sympathy of the young and the fair may console the shade of the poet for the cruelty of his mistress. Mount Ventoux, near the northern extremity of the department, remains covered with snow eight months in the year. The small town of Vaison at some leagues westwards, stands on the ruins of Vasio, the principal city of the Vocontii. Orange, seven leagues southOrange. | west of the last place, contains several manufactories, spinning looms, print-fields and madder-mills; it also carries on a trade in wine, oil, honey and saffron. It was taken by Lewis the Fourteenth, then the capital of a principality belonging to the house of Nassau. Before Cæsar's expedition into Gaul, it was one of the four principal towns in the territory of the Cavari. Ptolemy designates it by the name of Aurosio Cavarum. A triumphal arch at the distance of four hundred paces from the walls, on the road to Marseilles, may bear a comparison with any in Rome. It was erected to commemorate the victory gained by Marius over the Cimbri. Department The Rhone forms a western limit throughout the whole of Drome. | length of the department of Drome; the road on the banks of the river crosses first Pierre-Latte, a small town, of which the name signifying a large stone, may recall the ancient worship of the Druids, or it may be attributed to the large rock on which it is built. The agreeable town of Montelimart, at five leagues northwards, is encomMontelimart. passed with walls and ramparts, watered by several canals, which supply different manufactories, and commanded by an ancient citadel. It is surrounded with fine meadows, fruitful plains, and hills covered with excellent vineyards. The four gates that lead to the town, correspond with the four cardinal points. Faujas de St. Fond, a learned professor, who promoted the study of geology, was a native of Montelimart. Valence is situated on the other side of the rapid Drome. This Valence. chief town of a department, built without regularity, contains some monuments not unworthy of notice; among others, a fine mausoleum in the cathedral, erected by Canova to the memory of Pius the Sixth, who terminated his days at Valence in 1798; the building called the Government, is not inelegant in point of architecture. It might be worth while to visit the citadel, were it for nothing else than to enjoy the view |