battlements. This footway, wide enough only for a
single pedestrian, is in the best order, and near each
of the gates a flight of steps leads up to it; but a
locked gate, at the top of the steps, makes access im-
possible, or at least unlawful. Aigues-Mortes, however,
has its citadel, an immense tower, larger than any of
the others, a little detached, and standing at the north-
west angle of the town. I called upon the _casernier_,
the custodian of the walls, - and in his absence I was
conducted through this big Tour de Constance by his
wife, a very mild, meek woman, yellow with the traces
of fever and ague, - a scourge which, as might be ex-
pected in a town whose name denotes "dead waters,"
enters freely at the nine gates. The Tour de Con-
stance is of extraordinary girth and solidity, divided
into three superposed circular chambers, with very fine
vaults, which are lighted by embrasures of prodigious
depth, converging to windows little larger than loop-
holes. The place served for years as a prison to many
of the Protestants of the south whom the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes had exposed to atrocious
penalties, and the annals of these dreadful chambers
during the first half of the last century were written
in tears and blood. Some of the recorded cases of
long confinement there make one marvel afresh at
what man has inflicted and endured. In a country in
which a policy of extermination was to be put into
practice this horrible tower was an obvious resource.
From the battlements at the top, which is surmounted
by an old disused light-house, you see the little com-