try for
himself; and that Talleyrand would not hear of such a thing. The
villages that we passed to-day have a greater appearance of desolation
than any we have yet seen. Scarce a house which does not seem to be
tumbling to pieces, and those which we were unlucky enough to enter,
were as dirty and uncomfortable inside as they appeared without. On
entering the town, or rather at a little distance from the town of
Orange, we saw a beautiful triumphal arch, said to have been raised to
commemorate the victories of Marius over the Cimbri. The evening was
too gloomy for us to observe in what state of preservation the sculpture
is now, but the architecture is very grand. To-morrow we breakfast at
Avignon. But alas, the weather will not permit of our visiting
Vaucluse.----Distance 39 miles--to Orange.

* * *

_Saturday_, the 25th.--We left Orange at half past six. Our road to-day
lay through the same species of country, to which we have been condemned
for four days, producing vines, olives, and mulberries; the soil is to
all appearance a most wretched one for corn--gravel and stones. The
roads have, ever since our leaving Lyons, been very bad. After breakfast
at Avignon, we proceeded to see the ruins of the church of Notre Dame.
There are now remaining but very few vestiges of a church; the ground
formerly enclosed by the church, is now formed into a fruit garden, and
a country house has been built on the ruins. The owner of this house
wishes to let it, and hearing that a friend of ours was in need of a
house, he offered it to him for two hundred a-year. The house was such
as one could procure near London for about L.80, and such as we ought to
have in France for L.20. But the French do really think, that the
English will give any sum they ask, and that every individual is a kind
of animated bag of money.

The owner of the house was, to appearance, a broken-down gentleman; he
had been ordered to Marseilles by his physician for an affection of the
lungs; yet he strongly recommended the climate of Avignon. For my own
part, I think the situation is too low and windy to be healthy. The town
is one of the cleanest we have seen, and there are some excellent houses
in it; of the rent we could not well judge from the account of this
gentleman. We went through his garden, and were by him shewn the spot
under which the tomb of Laura is now situated. A small cypress tree had
been planted by the owner of the garden to mark the spot. He