of which no traces remain. These facts I derive from a
source no more recondite than a pamphlet by M. Viollet-le-Duc--a very
luminous description of the fortifications, which you may buy from the
accomplished custodian. The writer makes a jump to the year 1209, when
Carcassonne, then forming part of the realm of the viscounts of Beziers
and infected by the Albigensian heresy, was besieged, in the name of the
Pope, by the terrible Simon de Montfort and his army of crusaders. Simon
was accustomed to success, and the town succumbed in the course of a
fortnight. Thirty-one years later, having passed into the hands of the
King of France, it was again besieged by the young Raymond de Trincavel,
the last of the viscounts of Beziers; and of this siege M.
Viollet-le-Duc gives a long and minute account, which the visitor who
has a head for such things may follow, with the brochure in hand, on the
fortifications themselves. The young Raymond de Trincavel, baffled and
repulsed, retired at the end of twenty-four days. Saint Louis and Philip
the Bold, in the thirteenth century, multiplied the defences of
Carcassonne, which was one of the bulwarks of their kingdom on the
Spanish quarter; and from this time forth, being regarded as
impregnable, the place had nothing to fear. It was not even attacked;
and when in 1355 Edward the Black Prince marched into it, the
inhabitants had opened the gates to the conqueror before whom all
Languedoc was prostrate. I am not one of those who, as I said just now,
have a head for such things, and having extracted these few facts, had
made all the use of M. Viollet-le-Duc's pamphlet of which I was capable.

I have mentioned that my obliging friend the _amoureux-fou_ handed me
over to the doorkeeper of the citadel. I should add that I was at first
committed

[Illustration: CARCASSONNE.]

to the wife of this functionary, a stout peasant-woman, who took a key
down from a nail, conducted me to a postern door, and ushered me into
the presence of her husband. Having just begun his rounds with a party
of four persons, he was not many steps in advance. I added myself
perforce to this party, which was not brilliantly composed, except that
two of its members were gendarmes in full toggery, who announced in the
course of our tour that they had been stationed for a year at
Carcassonne and had never before had the curiosity to come up to the
Cite. There was something brilliant certainly in that. The _gardien_ was