lysed and he was quite helpless. He had formerly been seven
years in the army, and had made the campaign of Mexico with Bazaine.
Born in the old Cite, he had come back there to end his days. It seemed
strange, as he sat there with those romantic walls behind him and the
great picture of the Pyrenees in front, to think that he had been across
the seas to the far-away new world, had made part of a famous
expedition, and was now a cripple at the gate of the mediaeval city where
he had played as a child. All this struck me as a great deal of history
for so modest a figure--a poor little figure that could only just
unclose its palm for a small silver coin.

He was not the only acquaintance I made at Carcassonne. I had not
pursued my circuit of the walls much farther when I encountered a person
of quite another type, of whom I asked some question which had just then
presented itself, and who proved to be the very genius of the spot. He
was a sociable son of the _ville-basse_, a gentleman, and, as I
afterwards learned, an employe at the prefecture--a person, in short,
much esteemed at Carcassonne. (I may say all this, as he will never read
these pages.) He had been ill for a month, and in the company of his
little dog was taking his first airing; in his own phrase, he was
_amoureux-fou de la Cite_--he could lose no time in coming back to it.
He talked of it indeed as a lover, and, giving me for half an hour the
advantage of his company, showed me all the points of the place. (I
speak here always of the outer enceinte; you penetrate to the
inner--which is the specialty of Carcassonne and the great
curiosity--only by application at the lodge of the regular custodian, a
remarkable functionary, who, half an hour later, when I had been
introduced to him by my friend the amateur, marched me over the
fortifications with a tremendous accompaniment of dates and technical
terms.) My companion pointed out to me in particular the traces of
different periods in the structure of the walls. There is a portentous
amount of history embedded in them, beginning with Romans and Visigoths;
here and there are marks of old breaches hastily repaired. We passed
into the town--into that part of it not included in the citadel. It is
the queerest and most fragmentary little place in the world, as
everything save the fortifications is being suffered to crumble away in
order that the spirit of M. Viollet-le-Duc alone may pervade it and it
may subsist simpl