Riquet bore
the labour of that canal--and the calumny and obstructiveness, too,
which tried to prevent its formation; France bore the expense; Louis
Quatorze, of course, the glory; and no one, it is to be feared, the
profit: for the navigation of the Garonne at the one extremity, and
of the Mediterranean shallows at the other, were left unimproved till
of late years, and the canal has become practically useful only just
in time to be superseded by the railroads.
Now cross the Aude. Look down upon the willow and aspen copses,
where over the heads of busy washerwomen, the nightingale and the
hippolais crowded together away from the dusty plains and downs,
shake the copses with their song; and then toil upward to the grey
fortress tower on the grey limestone knoll; and pass, out of nature
and her pure sunshine, into the black shadow of the unnatural Middle
Age; into the region of dirt and darkness, cruelty and fear; grim
fortresses, crowded houses, narrow streets, and pestilence. Pass
through the outer circle of walls, of the latter part of the
thirteenth century, to examine--for their architecture is a whole
history engraved in stones--the ancient walls of the inner enceinte;
massive Roman below, patched with striped Visigothic work, with mean
and hasty Moorish, with graceful, though heavy, Romanesque of the
times of the Troubadours; a whole museum of ancient fortifications,
which has been restored, stone by stone, through the learning of M.
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