Tarascon and Beaucaire 



respective lords of these strongholds were at deadly feud. 

 Olivier de Beaucaire, a sly old fox, succeeded at last in 

 entrapping the gay young baron of Tarascon ; and, while 

 he kept him a prisoner, and continual boats were crossing 

 and re-crossing the Rhone with negotiations for the exor- 

 bitant ransom demanded, the captive managed to captivate 

 the heart of Mademoiselle Beaucaire. She, of course, let 

 him out by an underground passage. They were married ; 

 their heir inherited both baronies ; and the castle of Beau- 

 caire fell into premature decay. I wonder whether the 

 prisoners of the period at Tarascon make love to the 

 jailer's daughter. Old Francois de Rastaignac, from whom 

 I have this legend, adds : " Entre ces beaulx chasteaulx 

 il y avoit aultrefoys une rude chayne ; et on faisoit force 

 octroyes, ostant maintes foys les meilleurs barrycqs de ce 

 bon vin du Coste d'or, que tant aymaient les pyeux prestres 

 d'Avignon." ^ I found his quaint old chronicle on a book- 

 stall in Narbonne, and might have bought it for two francs 

 and a half, if it had not been too bulky a folio to carry all 

 through the Peninsula and back. 



The run by rail from Beaucaire to Montpellier, along the 

 side of a broad and fertile valley full of olives and orange- 

 groves, with rocky hills in the distance, all brought out by 

 the slanting beams of sunset, was very pretty and pleasant. 



The summer which left England about two months before 

 me is now decidedly overtaken. Leaving Montpellier in 

 the banquette^ which is the windiest place in the diligence, 

 and wrapping myself up for a considerable change in tem- 

 perature after sundown, I was too hot in the night. 



' " Between these fair castles there was of old a stout chain, 

 and they exercised a considerable tallage, abstracting often the 

 best barrels of that good wine of Cote d'Or, which the pious priests 

 of Avignon so loved." 



52 



