--it is not always that we poets thus are mounted upon high
horses in the sight of all the world--and we cheered back to those
discriminating and warm-hearted towns-folk until we fairly were under
way down-stream. To the very last the cherubic Mayor, his hat raised,
regarded us smilingly. To the very last--rivalling the golden glory of
the helmet of Mambrino--the slightly-wavering head-gear of his attendant
firemen shot after us golden gleams.

VIII

We drew away into calmer latitudes after leaving that whirlwind of a
town. For the time being, our duties as public poets were ended; and
there was a sense of restful comfort in knowing that for the moment we
were rid of our fame and celebrity, and were free--as the lightest
hearted of simple travellers--to enjoy the beauties of the river as it
carried us, always at a full gallop, downward toward the sea.

In that tranquil spirit we came, presently, to the leaning Tour-Maudite:
and found farther restfulness, after our own varied and too-energetic
doings, in looking upon a quiet ruin that had remained soberly in the
same place, and under the same sedative curse, for more than three
hundred years. It is an architectural curiosity, this Cursed
Tower--almost as far out from the perpendicular as is its better-known
rival of Pisa; but more impressive in its unnatural crookedness because
it stands upon an isolated crag which drops below it sheer to the river
in a vast precipice. Anciently, before it went wrong and its curse came
upon it, the tower was the keep of the Benedictine nunnery of Soyons.
Most ungallantly, in the year 1569, the Huguenots captured the Abbey by
assault; and thereupon the Abbess, Louise d'Amauze (poor frightened
soul!) hurriedly embraced the Reformed religion--in dread lest, without
that concession to the prejudices of the conquerors, still worse might
come. Several of her nuns followed her hastily heterodox example; but
the mass of them stood stoutly by their faith, and ended by making off
with it intact to Valence. I admit that an appearance of improbability
is cast upon this tradition by the unhindered departure from the Abbey
of the stiff-necked nuns: who thus manifested an open scorn equally of
the victorious Huguenots and of the Reformed faith. But, on the other
hand, there are the ruins of the Abbey to prove conclusively that it
truly was conquered; and there, slanting with a conspicuously unholy
slant high up above the ruins, bearing steadfast wi