There is not a single house near these edifices except a Maison des Fous, an extensive establishment, and celebrated for good management. I visited a house of this sort at Avignon, where the patients seemed to have every comfort their situation permitted. Several of them were amusing themselves in the large court: we passed by them in going out. One of them addressed himself to the gentleman who accompanied me: "Sir, I entreat you to interest yourself for me; it is horrible for me to live amongst these unhappy mad people. You see I am not mad; I am placed here by my relations that they may keep possession of a little estate that belongs to me." My friend asked, "Why do you not speak to the administrators?"--"I have done so often, but all to no purpose; _ce sont des ours_."[67] I do not know the end of the affair. We returned in the cool of the evening. On repassing the ferry, I did not get into the carriage again, but walked with my sons to the town. The carriage had some difficulty in passing the gate, owing to a piece of cheese and some other remains of our dinner, which the gate-keeper perceived at the bottom of the basket. Antoine laughed at him: "C'est mon souper:[68]" but it was no laughing matter; it was a question of the droits réunis. The coachman explained that the provisions had been taken out of the town in the morning, and the carriage passed on. We were much pleased with our excursion, and I promised my family to take them to Nismes before we should set off for Italy; but we had found the day, 18th of August, too hot, and determined to wait till the weather should be somewhat cooler. FOOTNOTES: [66] Voyage by sea and land. [67] They are bears. [68] It is my supper. CHAP. XVI. Saturday, the twenty-fifth of August, the fête of the king was celebrated with sports and rejoicings. A joûte d'eau was held on the Rhone; that is to say--two boats row as fast as possible in opposite directions bearing each of them a man, standing on the prow, armed with a long pole. At the moment that the boats pass by each other, each of the two men strives to push the other with his pole into the water. If both parties fail, the assistants are, for that time, disappointed; if one of the two tumbles in, they laugh and are delighted. Sometimes it happens, from the unsteadiness of their position and the effort which each makes to overturn the other, that both fall in, and, in that case, the joy of the standers and sitters-by is increased, as Malthus would say, not in an arithmetical, but in a geometrical proportion: it is not merely doubled; it is augmented a hundred-fold. Flags, and bells, and music, and the presence of the authorities and of a vast concourse of spectators, leave not the least doubt in the mind of any one but that he has been well amused. In the evening there was a ball at the prefecture.