Narbonne is only five miles from the sea, and one may scent the salt marshes even in her streets. In the days of her birth, five centuries before our era, she was surrounded by lakes and so connected with the sea, making her one of the most important ports of the great Roman Empire. She is described as beautiful in the year 95, possessed of theatres, temples, baths, a superb capitol, and all that in those days made the splendour of a Roman city. All this has vanished utterly in the passage of Visigoths, and Saracens,--who defied Charles Martel and Pépin until treason aided the latter. Its history onward is that of France, but its decay began one hundred years before day dawned on America, at which time the Jews were expelled and the port began to fill up through the bursting of a dike. To-day we roll into a commonplace town with but two relics even of the middle ages, and nothing at all of the more ancient periods. A fragment of a cathedral and a bishop's palace alone attract the eye. Of the former there is little of interest, though it would have been a great shrine if completed. The palace has a stately façade, but nothing inside worthy of note. We find a comfortable hotel here with a garrulous old lady seated near its door, who immediately asks me where Madame is, and on my telling her that I am not married, offers to bring forth several applicants for the empty post, adding that I am none too old, as she herself married again but lately at sixty-five, and I am but a boy. However, I decline the proffered assistance, and we roll away out of the very ancient city, leaving the old dame shaking her head at the "queer ideas of those Americans." CHAPTER V THE APPROACH TO CARCASSONNE--ITS PICTURESQUENESS, ITS RESTORATION AND HISTORY The ride from Narbonne via Béziers proves most enjoyable. As we leave the town, the air becomes cooler, and from the summit of a hill the Pyrenees range into view, a long line of glittering snow marching in stately procession across the southern horizon. The air is full of the buoyant freshness of the hills, and one's thoughts turn to pine forests and rushing waters. Over the superb highway where in ancient days stately processions passed to and fro from Spain, our machine glides on with a sweeping, flying motion, until I find myself leaning over and looking for the wings which should project from the centre of each wheel,--winged wheels, surely.