It is an odd town in the sense that it is made up of odd fragments. There are no two things alike in Cagnes, nothing that matches. It is indeed a pile of very miscellaneous houses inclined to set themselves askew like the parts of a cubist picture. Mixed up with dwellings, notable by their contrariness and their obvious revolt against all that is conventional in the shape and arrangements of a house, are portions of old ramparts, a ruined sentry tower and a gate that has got astray from its connections. There is a church too that is apparently out of drawing, that has a lane burrowing under its tower and that has become wedged in among bits of a town on a precarious slope. It looks like a very decrepit sick person who has slipped down in bed. Curious chimneys (some of which are wonderful to see) form conspicuous features of the dwellings of Cagnes. There are houses that seem to have rather overdone their efforts to be picturesque; as well as others that have carried their determination to be simple to excess. Of the super-simple house the old _Maison commune_ affords a good example. Cagnes is a quiet town with a total absence of traffic in its streets. Indeed as if to show that the highway is not intended for traffic an old lady has seated herself in the centre of the main road to knit, finding, no doubt, the light better in that position than in a house. The sudden way in which lanes drop headlong down the hill, to the right and to the left, is quite disturbing. It is a place of pitfalls and hazardous stairs that must be very trying to the village drunkard. The centre of Cagnes—its Place de la Concorde—is a peasant-like little place, humble and very still, called the Place Grimaldi. It is made green by a line of acacia trees and is bounded on one side by a row of modest houses, ranged, shoulder to shoulder, like a company in grey. The buildings at the principal end are supported upon arches with sturdy old pillars which give the spot an air of mystery. On the other side of the square a double flight of stairs mounts pompously to the castle. The square is approached by a lane which, to add to the fantastic character of the Place, pops out unexpectedly through the base of the church tower. [Illustration: CAGNES: THE TOWN GATE.]