The town contains little of interest except the château of the Marquesses of Ganges, which unhappily is doomed to destruction, as it has been purchased by the town to be pulled down and the site to be occupied by a market-hall. This is the more to be regretted, as it is not only a very fine Renaissance structure, but is also rendered famous by the murder of the Marchioness in 1667. The story has been often told, but must not here be omitted on that account. All versions rest on that of Pitaval, taken from the records of the Parliament of Toulouse. Pitaval's narrative was published in 1734. Unhappily he has decked it out with romantic features, drawn from conjecture, to explain the motive of the murderers, and we shall be obliged to distinguish between these and the facts that were proved. [Illustration: CASTLE COURT, GANGES] At the Court of Louis XIV. one of the great beauties was the Marquise de Castellane, a woman as good as she was beautiful. Queen Christina of Sweden, who was then at the Court, declared that she had never seen one who was more lovely, and the painter, Mignard, took her portrait. She was the daughter of a M. de Roussan, of Avignon, and after the death of her father had been educated in the house of her grandfather, M. de Nochères, who loved her as the apple of his eye. He was a very wealthy man, and she would be his heiress. At the age of thirteen she married the Marquess, who brought her to Paris. When aged twenty she was a widow, as her husband was drowned in the Mediterranean. She then returned to Avignon, and was at once surrounded by suitors. Her choice fell on the Marquess de Ganges, younger than herself, a man of a weak character, but with pleasant manners. The marriage took place in 1658. By him she became the mother of two children, a son and a daughter. After a while the affection of the Marquess for his wife died away. Her superiority in mind and character offended his self-esteem, and to add to this his brother, the Abbé de Ganges, did his utmost to estrange the married couple. The Marquess had three younger brothers. The elder, the Count de Ganges, does not enter into the story except towards its close. The second brother was the Abbé. This man was clever, cultured, of insinuating manners. He was not really in Holy Orders, but was one of those who at the period assumed a semi-ecclesiastical dress, and was given a benefice _in commendam_, the duties of which he never performed as unqualified, but the income of which he devoured. The third brother, the Chevalier, was a poor, weak creature, completely in the hands of the Abbé. The Marquess was much from home. He lived on bad terms with his wife; he found life dull in a little country town, and he liked the dissipation of a capital. He left his two younger brothers at the château, and placed the management of his estates in the hands of the Abbé.