_L'Arche admirable_; it is therefore natural to conclude, that the town
contained many others of less beauty. There are also within the walls
large remains of the palace of _Constantine_. A beautiful antique statue
of _Venus_ was found here also, about an hundred and twenty years
ago.--That a _veritable_ fine woman should set all the beaux and
_connoisseurs_ of a whole town in a flame, I do not much wonder; but you
will be surprized when I tell you that this cold trunk of marble, (for
the arms were never found) put the whole town of _Arles_ together by the
ears; one _Sçavant_ said it was the goddess _Diana_, and wrote a book to
prove it; another insisted upon it, that it was the true image of
_Venus_; then starts up an Ecclesiastic, who _you know has nothing to
do with women_, and he pronounced in dogmatical terms, it was neither
one nor the other; at length the wiser magistrates of the town agreed to
send it as a present to their august monarch Lewis the XIVth; and if you
have a mind to see an inanimate woman who has made such a noise in the
world, you will find her at _Versailles_, without any other notice taken
of her or the quarrels about her, than the following words written (I
think) upon her pedestal, _La Venus d'Arles_. This ended the dispute, as
I must my letter.




LETTER XXXVI.


I have not half done with _Arles_. The more I saw and heard in this
town, the more I found was to be seen. The remains of the Roman theatre
here would of itself be a sufficient proof that it was a town of great
riches and importance. Among the refuse of this building they found