ligious institutions, and
from the same source. As the Crescent wanes, Gaul is coming back into
her own.

Frejus shopkeepers suffer from the proximity of the upstart St. Raphael.
Frejus keeps the bishop, but St. Raphael has taken the trade. There is
now only one business street. It runs from the Place du Marche through
the center of the city to the Place du Dome. You can get from one
_place_ to the other in about five minutes. Few people were on this
street in mid-afternoon. None were going into the shops. I chose the
department store, and asked the only saleswoman in sight for a collar.
She brought down two styles, both of which were bucolic. Matched with a
beflowered tie, either would have gone perfectly around the neck of a
Polish immigrant in New York on his wedding day. I suggested that I be
shown some other styles. The saleswoman gazed at me stonily.

"A bus leaves the corner below here for St. Raphael every hour. You are
there in twenty minutes. Or you can go by train in six minutes."

Up went the boxes to their shelf. There was nothing for me to do but get
out.

One says Place du Dome or Place de l'Hotel de Ville, depending upon
whether sympathies are ultramontane or anti-clerical. For cathedral and
city hall touch each other at right angles. LIBERTE-EGALITE-FRATERNITE
is the legend in large letters on the cathedral wall: the one notice
posted on the Hotel de Ville is a warning of the last day to pay taxes.
Two beggars stand guard at the cathedral portal: Senegalese with fixed
bayonets flank the archway leading to the municipal courtyard. The Hotel
de Ville is a modern building, typical of French official taste of the
present day: the cathedral is an edifice of several epochs, with a brick
facade reminiscent of Bologna. The episcopal palace, adjacent to the
cathedral, is part of the same structure. But it is used for government
offices, and the entrance to its upper floor is by a staircase from the
vestibule of the cathedral. The _Service de Sante Municipale_ occupies
the rooms along the portico that faces the cloister. The cure of souls
has been banished to a private house across the street.

The cathedral quarter is wholly Louis XVI and First Empire. If I had
begun my ramble there, I should have found much to admire. But I had
been spoiled by the Louis XIII quarter nearer the sea. Travel
impressions are largely dependent upon itinerary. I am often able to
surprise a compatriot whos