CHAPTER I.

NISMES.

I have omitted to notice the route to this place, having formerly described the greater portion of it. I remarked a considerable improvement in the different towns we passed through: the people look cleaner, and an air of business has replaced the stagnation that used to prevail, except in Marseilles and Toulon, which were always busy cities.

Nismes surpasses my expectations, although they had been greatly excited, and amply repays the long détour we have made to visit it.

When I look round on the objects of antiquity that meet my eye on every side, and above all on the Amphitheatre and Maison Carrée, I am forced to admit that Italy has nothing to equal the two last: for if the Coliseum may be said to surpass the amphitheatre in dimensions, the wonderful state of preservation of the latter renders it more interesting; and the Maison Carrée, it must be allowed, stands without a competitor. Well might the Abbé Barthélemy, in his Voyage d'Anacharsis, call it the masterpiece of ancient architecture and the despair of modern!