The first town we came to after passing this vast plain, I have forgot the name of; but it had nothing but its antiquity and a noble and immense old castle to recommend it, except a transparent agate statue of the Virgin in the church, as large as the life, with a _tin crown_ upon her head. Neither the town nor the inhabitants had any thing of the appearance of French about them; every thing and every body looked so wild, and the place was in such a ruinous condition, that I could scarce believe I was not among the Arabs in _Egypt_, or the ruins of _Persepolis_. Without the town, in a fine beautiful lawn stands a most irregular high and rude rock, perpendicular on all sides, and under one side of it are ruins of a house, which I suppose was inhabited by the first _Seigneur_ in the province. I looked in, and found the ruins full of miserable inhabitants, I fancy many families; but it exhibited such a scene of woe, that I was glad to get out again; and upon inquiry, I found it had been in that state ever since it had been used as an hospital during the last plague. LETTER XXXVIII. MARSEILLES. As the good and evil, which fall within the line of a road, as well as a worldly traveller, are by comparison, I need not say what a heavenly country _France_ (with all its untoward circumstances) appeared to us _after_ having journeyed in _Spain_: what would have put me out of temper before, became now a consolation. _How glad I should I have been, and how perfectly content, had it been thus in Spain_, was always uppermost, when things ran a little cross in France.