On the morrow we set forth three hours before daybreak, so keenly was M. de Montaigne set on seeing the Roman plain by day. He found the cold air of morning as hurtful to his stomach as that of the evening,[70] and was ill at ease till sunrise, though the night was fine. After the fifteenth milestone we caught sight of the city of Rome: then we lost it for some long time. On the road we passed several villages and inns. We came upon some portions of road, elevated and paved with large stones, having about them a certain look of antiquity; and nearer to the city we remarked some masonry, evidently of great age, and stones which the Popes had caused to be reinstated on account of their antiquarian interest. The greater part of the ruins--the baths of Diocletian, for instance--are of bricks, small and plain like those we use, and not of the size and thickness of those we see in the ancient ruins of France and elsewhere. On our road the city did not show itself very plainly. Far on the left hand were the Apennines, the aspect of the country being unpleasing, rugged, full of deep clefts, and unfitted for the passage of troops or ordnance. All the land is treeless, and a good part of it sterile, and lying open for ten miles and more, the houses being very sparse, as in all countries of this sort. Travelling thus we went thirty miles, and arrived on the last day of November--Saint Andrew’s day--at the Porta del Popolo of Rome. VII ROME Here they raised difficulties as in other places concerning the plague raging at Genoa. We went to lodge at the “Bear,”[71] and stayed there the following day also, and on the 2nd of December we hired apartments in the house of a Spaniard in front of Santa Lucia della Tinta.[72] We were well accommodated in three fine chambers, a living room, a larder, a stable, and a kitchen, for twenty crowns a month, the host finding in addition a cook and fire in the kitchen. Here the apartments are as a rule furnished somewhat better than in Paris, inasmuch as they use much gilded leather in the upholstering of all houses of consideration. We might have had lodging at the “Vaso d’Oro” hard by at the same price, furnished with silk and cloth of gold such as kings use, but M. de Montaigne objected, first because the chambers had no separate entrances, and next because the magnificence of this furniture was not only useless in itself, but liable to give great trouble in keeping it from hurt, each bed being of the value of four or five hundred crowns. At our lodging we made a bargain for a supply of linen, as we should have done in France, but of this, as is the way of the country, they were somewhat sparing. [Illustration: THE ROMAN FORUM FROM THE CAPITOL _From Piranesi’s Views of Rome_ _To face p. 74_, vol. ii. ]