The place served for years as a prison to many of
the Protestants of the south whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
had exposed to atrocious penalties, and the annals of these dreadful
chambers during the first half of the last century were written in tears
and blood. Some of the record cases of long confinement there make one
marvel afresh at what man has inflicted and endured. In a country in which
a policy of extermination was to be put into practise this horrible tower
was an obvious resource. From the battlements at the top, which is
surmounted by an old disused lighthouse, you see the little compact
rectangular town, which looks hardly bigger than a garden-patch, mapped
out beneath you, and follow the plain configuration of its defenses. You
take possession of it, and you feel that you will remember it always.
* * * * *
In general Nimes is poor; its only treasures are its Roman remains, which
are of the first order. The new French fashions prevail in many of its
streets; the old houses are paltry, and the good houses are new; while
beside my hotel rose a big spick-and-span church, which had the oddest air
of having been intended for Brooklyn or Cleveland.
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