In earlier times Cagnes was both a place of military importance and a sort of a city of pleasure, something after the Pompeiian order, one fancies, from the Roman remains which have been found here. There is an ancient château of the Grimaldi family, still very much in evidence, though it has become the property of a German. In many respects it is a beautiful Renaissance work and is accordingly an architectural monument of rank. Directly inland from Cagnes is Vence, an ancient episcopal city which was shorn of its ecclesiastical rights at the Revolution. In spite of this the memories and the very substantial reminders of other days, still to be seen within the precincts of the one-time cathedral, give it rank as an ecclesiastical shrine quite out of the ordinary. The church itself is built upon the site, and in part out of, an ancient temple to Cybele, and the fortifications, erected when the Saracens had possession of the city, are still readily traced. It is a most picturesquely disposed little city, and well worth more attention than is generally bestowed upon it. Between Grasse and Nice lies the valley of the Loup, a stream of some sixty kilometres in length emptying into the Mediterranean, and which has the reputation of being the most torrential waterway in France, in this respect far exceeding the more important streams, such as the Rhône, the Durance, and the Touloubre. Its course is so sinuous, as it comes down from its source in the Alpes-Maritimes, that it is known locally as “_le serpent_.” With all violence it rolls down its rapidly sloping bed, amid rock-cut gorges and wooded ravines, in quite the manner of the scenic waterfalls of the geographies that one scans at school. It does not resemble Niagara in any manner, nor is it a slim, narrow cascade at any point; but throughout its whole length it is a series of tiny waterfalls which, in a photograph, do indeed look like miniature Niagaras. All along its course are numerous centres of population, though none of them reach to the dignity of a town and hardly that of a village, if one excepts Le Bar, the chief point of departure for excursions in the gorges. Le Bar is reminiscent of the Saracens, who were for long masters of the neighbouring country. The walls of the houses and barriers are of that warm, rosy, mud-baked tint that one associates mostly with the Orient, and no artist’s palette is too rich in colour to depict them as they are. The Saracens called the place “_Al-Bar_,” which came later, by an easy process of evolution, to _Albarnum_, and finally Le Bar. It was an important place under the Roman domination, and, in time, when the town came to be a valued possession of the Comtés de Provence, the cross succeeded the crescent. In the tiny church of the town there is a remarkable ancient painting picturing a “_danse macabre_,” supposed to be of the fifteenth century. [Illustration: _Gourdon_]