M. de Montaigne was annoyed to find such great number of Frenchmen in Rome,[73] so great that almost every person he met in the streets addressed him in his own tongue. He found novelty in the sight of so mighty a court, thronged with prelates and churchmen, and declared that Rome was far fuller of rich men and coaches and horses than any other city he had ever seen, and that the seeming of the streets in various ways, and notably in the crowds of people, reminded him more of Paris than of any other place. The present city is placed along either bank of the Tiber. The hilly quarter, where the ancient city stood, and whither M. de Montaigne went every day to walk and to survey the site, is now divided between certain churches, and rich houses and gardens belonging to the cardinals. He found clear evidence to show that the configuration and slopes of the hills had altogether changed since ancient times. He judged from the height of the ruins, and was fully assured that in certain places we were walking over the roof-ridges of houses still intact; indeed it is easy to see by the state of the Arch of Severus that we now stand more than two pikes’ length above the ancient level, and that we walk on the tops of the old walls, which the rains and the coach wheels occasionally bring into sight. M. de Montaigne would not admit that liberty existed in Rome equal to that enjoyed in Venice, and would advance by way of arguments the facts that houses were so insecure against robbers that people who might bring home with them a large amount of property usually determined to give their purses in charge of the bankers of the city so as not to find their strong boxes rifled, which mishap had befallen many; that it was by no means safe to walk abroad by night; that in this month of December the General of the Cordeliers had been suddenly deprived of his office and imprisoned because in his preaching, at which were present the Pope and the cardinals, he had censured the sloth and luxury of the prelates of the Church, and this without mentioning names and simply using commonplace remarks on the subject with a certain harshness of voice; that his own boxes had been searched by the tax-officers on entering the city and turned over even to the smallest articles of apparel, while in the other towns of Italy the officers had been satisfied by the presentation of the boxes for search; that in addition they had seized all the books they found there with the view of inspecting them, over which task they spent so much time that any one in different case might well have given up the books as lost. Again the regulations were so extraordinary that one of these books, the “Hours of our Lady,” having been printed at Paris and not in Rome, was looked at with suspicion, as were certain books against heretics by German doctors who, in argument, happened to make mention of the errors of their opponents. At this juncture he congratulated himself over his