The capital of what was called _La Gavacherie_, was placed at Castelmoron-d'Albret, which is now one of the finest and most fertile cantons in the diocese of Bazas. There exists a propensity, it seems, in the people of this part of the country, particularly about Agen, to fix contemptuous epithets on strangers who settle amongst them; it matters not from what land they come,--it is sufficient that the Gascon idiom is unknown to them. The foreigner is generally called, in derision, _lou Franchiman_;[15] and is, for a long time after his first arrival, an object of suspicion and dislike. [Footnote 15: See the Poems of Jasmin.] This term evidently belongs to the period of the English possession, when a _Frenchman_ was another word for an enemy. On these shores, traces of the dwellings of the Romans are constantly found in Mosaic pavements, and ruins and coins. At Hures, in particular, some fine specimens have been lately discovered: amongst others, fragments of pillars of _verd-antique_ and fine marbles of different sorts. There is also a marvellous rock at Hures, where an invisible miraculous virgin is still in the habit of performing wonders, though her statue has been long since removed. A high hill, once crowned with a castle, rises from the river after a series of flat meadows. This was once Meilhan, one of the finest castles in the Garonne, belonging to the Duke de Bouillon, who, suspected of treason, blew up his magnificent abode, destroying with it the abbey and church beneath. An immense forest spread far into the Landes from this point, only a few trees of which remain. When the castle was destroyed, the clock of the Benedictine church rolled down into the river, and was afterwards raised in the night, and taken possession of by the Marmandais; the Meilhanais even still insist on its being their property. There are some ruins, in the quarter called La Roque, of a rampart, from whence is a perilous descent to the shore: here once stood a tower, through a breach in which it is said that the Maid of Orleans conducted the soldiers of Charles VII., and took the town. This tower was seen at so great a distance that it gave rise to a proverb: "He who sees Meilhan is not within side it." Over the principal entrance of the castle was a sculptured stone--still preserved, but in a most ignoble position: it represented a cavalier armed with a lance, with a shield on his left arm; by the form of which it would appear to belong to those used by the ancient Franks. The arms of Meilhan are _three toads_, doubtless the most familiar animal in so damp and marshy a country. At a village called Couture, a phrase is left from very old times, when _a_ Raymond, Count of Toulouse, happening to stop there to rest, asked for a measure of wine, which he drank off at a draught, though it was no small quantity; instead, therefore, of saying a bottle of two _litres_, it is usual to say in this country, "_A measure of Count Raymond's_."