ocession of friends. The pomps
and vanities of the past disappeared as a mist from the traveller's
mind, and he saw Entrevaux as it really is, without the comforts of this
world's goods, without the greatness of a Bishopric, a small Provencal
village whose perfection of quaintness--so charming to him who passes
on--means hardship and discomfort to those who have been born and must
live and die there.

[Illustration: "A FORT THAT PERCHES ON A SHARP PEAK."--ENTREVAUX.]

[Illustration: "A TRUE PLACE D'ARMES."--ENTREVAUX.]

And yet so potent is that charm, when the traveller re-crossed the
drawbridge and looked up at the sharp teeth of the portcullis that may
still fall and bite, when he had passed out on the high-road and turned
again and again to watch the fading sunlight on the tangled mass of
roofs, the illusion had returned. The bastions stood out in bold relief,
the church tower with its crenellated top stood out against the rocky
peaks, the sun fell suddenly behind the hill, and the traveller felt
himself again a minstrel wandering in a mediaeval night.

[Illustration: "THE LONG LINES OF WALLS THAT ZIGZAG DOWN THE
HILLSIDE."--ENTREVAUX.]

[Sidenote: Sisteron.]

The traveller is curious,--frankly curious. Almost every time that he
enters a Cathedral, his memory recalls the words of Renan, "these
splendid marvels are almost always the blossoming of some little
deceit," and after he has feasted his eye, he thinks of history and of
details, and of Renan, prejudiced but well-informed, and wonders what
was here the "little deceit." At Grasse, he had longed for the papers a
certain lawyer has, which tell much of the city's life a hundred and
fifty years ago, and at Sisteron, he sat by the Durance, wondering how
he could induce a kind and good old lady of a remote corner of Provence
to lend him an ancient manuscript, which even the gentle Cure said she
"obstinately" refused to "impart." Blessed are they who can be satisfied
with guide-books, as his friends who had visited Avignon and Arles,
Tarascon and the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, and had seen Provence to
their entire edification while he was merely peering about
Notre-Dame-des-Doms and the Fort Saint-Andre. Of a more indolent and
leisurely turn of mind, he suffers--and perhaps justly--the penalty of
his joyous idleness, for even lawyers and good ladies with hidden papers
are rare. Revolutionary sieges, fires, and a wise discretion have led to
the destroying of ma