pendant la Revolution," whispered our young Crispin.--"Oui, elle etoit cachee, voila ce que tu veux dire, mon petit--." "Eh! non, pardon, Messieurs, elle se cacha; mais il y a trois ans qu'elle se montre encore," replied the little fellow, with the most confident gravity. I trust that this monstrous fiction did not originate in the Ursuline convent which he mentioned; and that the fifty-two good ladies employ their time in more charitable and useful actions than in filling the heads of poor children with stories so hurtful to the real interests of religion. However credulous our young guide was, he was not mercenary, being with difficulty persuaded to accept a franc or two for what he styled the pleasure of having conducted us. We next visited the castle of Tarascon, now used as the public prison, and in which 1500 English were confined during the war. The enormous height and massiveness of its walls, which overtop the weather-cock of the cathedral, and the smallness of its few windows, qualify it well for this purpose; and a greater appearance of strength and solidity is given by the solid rock in which its foundations are embedded, and which in some places is shaped into wall and moat. We crossed a drawbridge into a court flanked by four round towers, and having a square keep in its centre. On the top of one of these towers is an esplanade, from whence the view of the course of the Rhone, and the great plain of Arles, is fine: the latter town, which is about nine miles distant, was seen distinctly. We were rather disappointed by the inside of the castle, which seemed chiefly to consist of small mean rooms: perhaps the baronial hall might be the dormitory of the prisoners, and not in a presentable state; but we saw nothing which recalled any idea of feudal magnificence. The same description which serves for the tower of Westburn-flat, in the Black Dwarf, allowing for the difference of size and finish, would exactly suit the cubical shape and high blind walls of this castle, which probably was intended to serve similar purposes in the days of club law. Its durability is not so remarkable as the fresh colour and sharpness of every part of the carving, and it might pass for a modern gothic edifice of twenty years standing, but for the solidity and frowning grandeur which characterise it. The air of Provence appears more clear and dry than even that of Italy, and to be more favourable to the preservation of old buildings. Its clearness certainly is remarkable, particularly in diminishing the effect of distance; and on Monday night, at Montpelier, I recollect that we could plainly discover with the naked eye the stars of the milky way, which are commonly imperceptible without a glass. I cannot say that our route from Tarascon to St. Remy was well calculated to show the climate of Provence in this light. The whole eleven miles were performed in almost a perpetual storm of rain and wind, which