name being thus perpetuated, though
the circumstances in which it originated had been forgotten.

The fortress of Briancon, which we entered by a narrow winding roadway
round the western rampart, is the frontier fortress which guards the
pass from Italy into France by the road over Mont Genevre. It must
always have been a strong place by nature, overlooking as it does the
valley of the Durance on the one hand, and the mountain road from
Italy on the other, while the river Clairee, running in a deep defile,
cuts it off from the high ground to the south and east. The highest
part of the town is the citadel, or Fort du Chateau, built upon a peak
of rock on the site of the ancient castle. It was doubtless the
nucleus round which the early town became clustered, until it filled
the lower plateau to the verge of the walls and battlements. There
being no room for the town to expand, the houses are closely packed
together and squeezed up, as it were, so as to occupy the smallest
possible space. The streets are narrow, dark, gloomy, and steep, being
altogether impassable for carriages. The liveliest sight in the place
is a stream of pure water, that rushes down an open conduit in the
middle of the principal street, which is exceedingly steep and narrow.
The town is sacrificed to the fortifications, which dominate
everywhere. With the increasing range and power of cannon, they have
been extended in all directions, until they occupy the flanks of the
adjoining mountains and many of their summits, so that the original
castle now forms but a comparatively insignificant part of the
fortress. The most important part of the population is the
soldiery--the red-trousered missionaries of "civilisation," according
to the gospel of Louis Napoleon, published a short time before our
visit.

Other missionaries, are, however, at work in the town and
neighbourhood; and both at Briancon and Villeneuve Protestant stations
have been recently established, under the auspices of the Protestant
Society of Lyons. In former times, the population of Briancon included
a large number of Protestants. In the year 1575, three years after the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, they were so numerous and wealthy as to
be able to build a handsome temple, almost alongside the cathedral,
and it still stands there in the street called Rue du Temple, with the
motto over the entrance, in old French, "Cerches et vos troveres." But
at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, t