little high-backed bridge over the Aude, beyond which,
detached and erect, a distinct mediaeval silhouette, the
Cite presents itself. Like a rival shop, on the in-
vidious side of a street, it has "no connection" with
the establishment across the way, although the two
places are united (if old Carcassonne may be said to be
united to anything) by a vague little rustic fau-
bourg. Perched on its solid pedestal, the perfect de-
tachment of the Cite is what first strikes you. To take
leave, without delay, of the _ville-basse_, I may say that
the splendid acacias I have mentioned flung a sum-
merish dusk over the place, in which a few scattered
remains of stout walls and big bastions looked vener-
able and picturesque. A little boulevard winds round
the town, planted with trees and garnished with more
benches than I ever saw provided by a soft-hearted
municipality. This precinct had a warm, lazy, dusty,
southern look, as if the people sat out-of-doors a great
deal, and wandered about in the stillness of summer
nights. The figure of the elder town, at these hours,
must be ghostly enough on its neighboring hill. Even
by day it has the air of a vignette of Gustave Dore, a
couplet of Victor Hugo. It is almost too perfect, - as
if it were an enormous model, placed on a big green
table at a museum. A steep, paved way, grass-grown
like all roads where vehicles never pass, stretches up
to it in the sun. It has a double enceinte, complete
outer walls and complete inner (these, elaborately forti-
fied, are the more curious); and this congregation of
ramparts, towers, bastions, battlements, barbicans, is