I have begun to draw for you a Maçonese costume. It is the only one that I have seen which possesses any grace. Even the girdle is arranged so oddly that the most slender waist could not be distinguished from the stoutest. One must have a special kind of physical organism to wear such a costume. The cheapness of cotton-stuffs, and the ease of communication with Paris, have caused the national costumes to fall into disuse. I gave myself a sort of sprain last night. I am writing now with one foot stretched on a chair, in a state of impatience difficult to describe. When will the swelling leave my foot? That is the question. If I were obliged to spend five or six days more in this position I do not know what would become of me. I believe I should prefer to be seriously ill rather than to be tied down as I am by such a trifling thing. At the same time, this causes me no little pain. Avignon is full of churches and palaces, all surmounted by high towers, with machicolated battlements. The great Palace of the Popes is an example of Middle-Age fortifications. It shows the friendly security that reigned in this land about the thirteenth or fourteenth century. In the Palace of the Popes you ascend a hundred steps of a winding stairway and then find yourself suddenly facing a wall. Turning your head, you see, fifteen feet above you, the continuation of the stairway, which can only be reached by means of a ladder. There are, also, subterranean chambers, which were used during the Inquisition. You are shown furnaces where the irons were heated to torture the heretics, and the remains of a complicated instrument, also used for torture. The inhabitants of Avignon are as proud of their Inquisition as the English are of their Magna Charta. “We,” they say, “invented the _auto-da-fé_, the Spaniards only imitated us!” At Vienna a few days ago I saw an antique statue which overthrew all my previous opinions concerning Roman statuary. I had always seen the conventional ideal of beauty exert its influence on the imitation of nature. In this instance it was altogether different. The statue represents a huge, fat woman, with enormous hanging throat, and folds of fat covering her ribs, just as Rubens painted his nymphs. It is all portrayed with a fidelity to nature amazing to see. What would the gentlemen of the Academy say to it? Good-bye. It is time for the post to leave. Write to me at Montpellier, and again at Carcassonne. I hope it will not be long before I shall go to find your letter, which always makes me happy. Good-bye once more. LXXX TOULON, _October 2_.