A MOTOR-FLIGHT THROUGH FRANCE
coppers and pots of herbs, all so saturated with
the old concentrated life of provincial France
that it was like lifting to one's lips a glass of some
ancient wine just at the turning-point of its
perfection.
Not far from Valence, Tournon springs ro-
mantically from a cliff of the west bank, sur-
mounted by the ducal castle of Soubise; and
the next strong impression comes where Vienne,
proudest of Rhone towns, lifts its flamboyant
cathedral on a vast flight of steps above the river.
The site of Vienne, and its long Roman past, pre-
pare one for more interest of detail than a closer
inspection reveals. The Roman temple, which
may once have rivalled the Maison Carrée, was
in the Middle Ages (like the temple of Syracuse)
incorporated in a Christian church, and now,
extricated lifeless from this fatal embrace, pre-
sents itself as an impersonal block of masonry
from which all significance of detail is gone.
The cathedral, too, has suffered in the same way,
though from other causes. In its early days it
was savagely mutilated by the Huguenots, and
since then the weather, eating deeply into its
friable stone, has wrought such havoc with the
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