Within, the palace is disfigured by its present use as a barracks. The vast halls are ceiled over at mid-height and turned into dormitories. Nearly all the frescoes, painted in the melancholy, elegant manner of Simone Memmi and the Sienese, have been disfigured within this century. There is a party in Avignon naturally indignant at this defacement, which is all for buying the palace from the Government and turning it into a museum. This, however, would cost a great deal of money. And, as a mere impression, the great bare dædal building, gay with the crowded life of these youths of twenty, who race up and down stairs in noisy troops, or sit in the shadowy window-seats (picturesque figures in their white undress, black haversacks and deep-red caps), or fill the sombre quads with march and drill--yes, as a mere impression, it is certainly more appropriate as it is. IV “Sur le pont d’Avignon Tout le monde danse, danse; Sur le pont d’Avignon Tout le monde danse en rond.” Many generations of children have doubtless wondered why. Make an effort to cross the Rhone when the wind is blowing, and you will arrive, at any rate, at _one_ explanation. O masterly wind! _Vent magistral_, or _mistral_. With what a round, boisterous, over-mastering force you blow from the north-west! How you send the poor passengers of Avignon-bridge whirling in all directions, dancing to all tunes, battling comically and ineffectually against you! Men used to say that beautiful Provence were a Paradise, had it not suffered from three scourges: the Parliament, the Durance and the Mistral. The local Parliament exists no more (and we regret it), the Durance is no longer a curse, but a blessing, and serves to irrigate a thousand parched and fruitful southern fields. But the _mistral_ remains. We ourselves were nearly blown from the hill-top at Villeneuve; yet I can cherish no rancour against the _mistral_, the tyrant, who sweeps us all out of his way as he rushes, wreathed in dust, towards the sea. ’Tis a good honest wind, like our west-country sou’-wester, and quite devoid of the sharp, thin, exasperating quality of the east wind of our isles. And, but for the _mistral_, they never would have planted those dark long screens of soaring cypress which streak so picturesquely the wide blue prospects of Provence. V