FROM the date at least on which Charlemagne captured Gerona from the Moors, it has been a victim to the horrors of war; manned through all history, and under every circumstance of siege and occupation, by men and women of the sternest courage and determination it has been held with the utmost tenacity, as really even more than Figueras (the actual frontier town), the key to the easiest line of advance from France into Spain. Hence the strength and interest of its fine old walls, which in spite of every ancient and modern vicissitude, still retain more curious features of middle age defence than, to the best of my belief, any other city of Spain, with the exception of Avila. As will be seen from my sketch, the apse of the fine old Romanesque church of San Pedro, which actually forms a bulwark, has been raised so as to bring it into practical fighting order; and the covered galleries for marksmen, with bow and cross bow, matchlock and firelock, still extend from it to the north and to the south in easily to be recognised, and still fairly complete, galleries of well-sheltered communication. The present aspect of the north of Gerona forms a fair pendant to the description Charles Didier gives of its sister fortress to the side of France, Figueras. He says, "Tout a un air d'abandon et de désolation; les casernes sont magnifiques, mais désertes; les casemates spacieuses, mais vides; les longues herbes de la solitude croissent partout, et la seule partie des bâtiments qui soit aujourd'hui de première nécessité, l'infirmerie, n'est point terminée; les pierres à moitié taillées jonchent le sol et sont couvertes de mousse. J'errai longtemps seul dans ce silencieux désert sans rencontrer personne; de loin en loin seulement, j'apercevais quelque sentinelle perdue à la pointe d'une demi-lune et nonchalamment appuyée contre les canons et les mortiers; de gros rats rongeaient en paix les affuts; ils se sont si bien emparés du lieu, que mon approche les dérangeait à peine; je n'avais pas fait trois pas, qu'ils se remettaient à l'oeuvre. Voilà sous quels traits l'Espagne apparaît au voyageur qui vient de France, triste et frappante image d'une chute sans exemple et d'une misère sans terme."[67] One would have preferred receiving from any other than a Frenchman so dreary a picture of the desolation mainly wrought by Frenchmen. Returning to Gerona, to which Didier's description applies (as I have already stated) nearly as well as to Figueras, in sight of which he may have written it, we shall find Mr. Street no less strongly impressed than I was with what Spain owes to France in the matter. "All this havoc and ruin is owing," he says, "like so much that one sees in Spain, to the action of the French troops during the Peninsular War." It is however but just to the French to add that the Spaniards are not, like them, endowed with wonderful recuperative energy. FOOTNOTES: [1] Von P. L. Berckenmeyern. Hamburg, 1731.