I have been led into these observations, to account for the reason why Orange struck me so much; a place of which I had heard and read little or nothing. No attentive and intelligent cicerone anticipated our reflections in this place; nor did the creature-comforts of a good inn debase our Roman reveries, though we could well have pardoned their so doing. Madame Ran, of the Croix Blanche, was as mean and dirty as the hole in which she lived; and looked as malevolent as Canidia, Erichtho, or any other classical witch; and as to the inhabitants of Orange, though the revolutionary anecdotes which we have heard of them at Grignan might create some prejudice to their disadvantage, I think, in truth, that I never beheld a more squalid, uncivilized, ferocious-looking people. A grin of savage curiosity, or a cannibal scowl, seems almost universally to disfigure features which are none of the best or cleanest; and their whole appearance is as direct a contrast as can well be imagined, to the hale, honest Norman, or le franc Picard, as he is proverbially styled. We turned our backs upon them with pleasure, after casting back one lingering look at the noble old Circus; and soon found ourselves in the centre of the extensive plain in which Avignon stands. The forwardness of the climate, and the skilful system of irrigation pursued here, afforded us, at this early time of the year, the spectacle of hay-making in many places. An English farmer might be shocked by the rudeness of the method here pursued, the hay being mostly carried in sail-cloth sheets, and turned with large wooden forks. With respect to the former practice, I have nothing to say; but, having attentively observed their method of using these forks, I am confident that they are better adapted to the purpose of turning the hay than our heavy prongs of ash and iron. They are at once lighter in hand, and, from the length of their teeth, they take up a larger portion of hay at once; and must therefore be well calculated for making the most of the fine weather, which, in our climate, cannot always be calculated upon, and occasions a scarcity of working hands. At three or four miles from Avignon, and before any other part of the town becomes visible,[27] the legate's palace appears conspicuously Rising with its tiara of proud towers At airy distance, with majestic motion;