Photo by Arthur Stanley Riggs 

 THE FORTIFICATIONS OF AIGUES-MORTES : LANGUEDOC, FRANCE 



One of the best examples of early military engineering in France. The fortress forms a 

 rectangle 600 by 300 yards, with walls from 25 to 33 feet high (see text, page 433) 



Northward, the scenery grows more 

 mountainous, with an endless succession 

 of dim ravines, deep gorges, towns here 

 and there of houses rising one above the 

 other in such close tiers they seem primi- 

 tive skyscrapers of myriad stories. Again, 

 the most incredible "houses," actually 

 built under great isolated boulders, and 

 looking as if a good rain or a slight shock 

 of earthquake would throw them down 

 with a crash. 



PICTURESQUE MOUNTAIN TOWNS 



Entrevaux, the quaint, unspoiled little 

 town of Between-Valleys, crouches pic- 

 turesquely between a rushing blue stream 

 and the mountain side. Stout walls, 

 which include the side of the ancient 

 church, with guardian bastions and tow- 

 ers, straggle along the river and up the 

 granite crag to the ancient citadel. A 

 narrow draw-bridge over the river, with 

 its portcullis still in place, gives entrance 

 to the town, where the streets are so nar- 



row one must step into a doorway to let 

 a panniered mule go by. 



There is no room in Entrevaux for the 

 usual beautiful French gardens ; but tiny, 

 terraced potagers — kitchen gardens — 

 fairly hang over the river outside for 

 those who do not care to go to the far- 

 ther bottom-lands. The children are shy 

 and beautiful ; their elders charming, 

 simple souls, and all are uncontaminated 

 by foreign influence and money. 



Another picturesque mountain town is 

 Sisteron, which curves around a big gray 

 crag crowned by an imposing old citadel 

 and pierced, like Gibraltar, with tiers of 

 embrasures for cannon. At its feet the 

 dancing, sparkling, blue Buech sweeps a 

 broad moat about one side of the hill be- 

 fore it cuts a vivid gash into the heavier 

 gray tide of the Durance, which moats 

 one side of the town. 



The main street is a one-reel moving 

 picture. Here a young girl, fit to pose 

 for a Raphael, sits on the sidewalk grind- 



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