The Great Hall In Which The Floral Games
Are Held Was Encumbered With Scaffoldings, And I
Was Unable To Admire The Long Series Of Busts Of The
Bards Who Have Won Prizes And The Portraits Of All
The Capitouls Of Toulouse.
As a compensation I was
introduced to a big bookcase, filled with the poems
that have been crowned since
The days of the trou-
badours (a portentous collection), and the big butcher's
knife with which, according to the legend, Henry,
Duke of Montmorency, who had conspired against the
great cardinal with Gaston of Orleans and Mary de ??????
Medici, was, in 1632, beheaded on this spot by the
order of Richelieu. With these objects the interest of
the Capitol was exhausted. The building, indeed,
has not the grandeur of its name, which is a sort
of promise that the visitor will find some sensible
embodiment of the old Roman tradition that once
flourished in this part of France. It is inferior in
impressiveness to the other three famous Capitols of
the modern world, - that of Rome (if I may call the
present structure modern) and those of Washington
and Albany!
The only Roman remains at Toulouse are to be
found in the museum, - a very interesting establish-
ment, which I was condemned to see as imperfectly
as I had seen the Capitol. It was being rearranged;
and the gallery of paintings, which is the least in-
teresting feature, was the only part that was not
upside-down. The pictures are mainly of the mo-
dern French school, and I remember nothing but a
powerful, though disagreeable specimen of Henner,
who paints the human body, and paints it so well,
with a brush dipped in blackness; and, placed among
the paintings, a bronze replica of the charming young
David of Mercie.
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