Polignac 195 



to their tops^ at heights where it is usual to find rock, wood, 

 or Hng {erica vulgaris). — 42 miles. 



17/A. The whole range of the 15 miles to Le Puy en Velay 

 is wonderfully interesting. Nature, in the production of this 

 country, such as we see it at present, must have proceeded by 

 means not common elsewhere. It is all in its form tempestuous 

 as the billowy ocean. Mountain rises beyond mountain, with 

 endless variety: not dark and dreary, like those of equal height 

 in other countries, but spread with cultivation (feeble indeed) 

 to the very tops. Some vales sunk among them, of beautiful 

 verdure, please the eye. Towards Le Puy the scenery is still 

 more striking, from the addition of some of the most singular 

 rocks anywhere to be seen. The castle of Polignac, from which 

 the duke takes his title, is built on a bold and enormous one, it is 

 almost of a cubical form, and towers perpendicularly above the 

 town, which surrounds it at its foot. The family of Polignac 

 claim an origin of great antiquity; they have pretensions that go 

 back, I forget whether to Hector or Achilles ; but I never found 

 any one in conversation inclined to allow them more than being 

 in the first class of French families, which they undoubtedly are. 

 Perhaps there is nowhere to be met with a castle more formed 

 to give a local pride of family than this of Polignac: the man 

 hardly exists that would not feel a certain vanity at having 

 given his own name, from remote antiquity, to so singular and 

 so commanding a rock ; but if, with the name, it belonged to me, 

 I would scarcely sell it for a province. The building is of such 

 antiquity, and the situation so romantic, that all the feudal ages 

 pass in review in one's imagination, by a sort of magic influence; 

 you recognise it for the residence of a lordly baron who, in an 

 age more distant and more respectable, though perhaps equally 

 barbarous, was the patriot defender of his country against the 

 invasion and tyranny of Rome. In every age, since the horrible 

 combustions of nature which produced it, such a spot would be 

 chosen for security and defence. To have given one's name to 

 a castle, without any lofty pre-eminence or singularity of nature, 

 in the midst, for instance, of a rich plain, is not equally flatter- 

 ing to our feelings; all antiquity of family derives from ages of 

 great barbarity, when civil commotions and wars swept away 

 and confounded the inhabitants of such situations. The Bretons 

 of the plains of England were driven to Bretagne; but the same 

 people, in the mountains of Wales, stuck secure and remain 

 there to this day. About a gun-shot from Polignac is another 

 rock, not so large, but equally remarkable; and in the town of 



