It is a steep climb even now from the Old Port or the Anse des Catalans to the Colline Notre Dame; several different paths ascend to the summit, all alike of remote antiquity, and all ending at last in fatiguing steps. Along the main road, hemmed in on either side by poor southern hovels, wondrous old witches of true Provençal ugliness drive a brisk trade in rosaries, and chaplets, and blessed medals. These wares are for the pilgrim; but to suit all tastes, the same itinerant chapwomen offer to the more worldly-minded tourist of the Cookian type appropriate gewgaws, in the shape of photographs, images, and cheap trinkets. At the summit stand the charred and blackened ruins of Notre Dame de la Garde. Of late years, indeed, that immemorial shrine has fallen on evil times and evil days in many matters. To begin with, the needs of modern defence compelled the Government some years since to erect on the height a fort, which encloses in its midst the ancient chapel. Even military necessities, however, had to yield in part to the persistent religious sentiment of the community; and though fortifications girt it round on every side, the sacred site of Our Lady remained unpolluted in the center of the great defensive works of the fortress. Passing through the gates of those massive bastions a strongly-guarded path still guided the faithful sailor-folk of Marseilles to the revered shrine of their ancestral Madonna. Nay, more; the antique chapel of the thirteenth century was superseded by a gorgeous Byzantine building, from designs by Espérandieu, all glittering with gold, and precious stones, and jewels. On the topmost belfry stood a gigantic gilded statue of Our Lady. Dome and apse were of cunning workmanship--white Carrara marble and African _rosso antico_ draped the interior with parti-colored splendor. Corsican granite and Esterel porphyry supported the massive beams of the transepts; frescoes covered every inch of the walls: the pavement was mosaic, the high altar was inlaid with costly Florentine stonework. Every Marseilles fisherman rejoiced in heart that though the men of battle had usurped the sanctuary, their Madonna was now housed by the sons of the Faithful in even greater magnificence and glory than ever.