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A MOTOR-FLIGHT THROUGH FRANCE Simiane who married Pauline de Grignan, the grand-daughter of Madame de Sévigné.

This is the first reminder that we are in the Grignan country, and that a turn of the road will presently bring us in full view of that high-perched castle where the great lieutenant-governor of Provence, Madame de Sévigné's son-in-law, dispensed an almost royal hospitality and ruled with more than royal arrogance.

The Comte de Grignan was counted a proud man, and there was much to foster pride in the site and aspect of his ancestral castle—ce château royal de Grignan. If Italy, and papal Italy, has been in one's mind at every turn of the way from Avignon to Tulette, it seems actually to rise before one as the great ruin, springing suddenly from its cliff in the plain, evokes a not too audacious comparison with the rock of Caprarola. In France, at least, there is perhaps nothing as suggestive of the fortified pleasure-houses of Italy as this gallant castle on the summit of its rock, with the town clustering below, and the vast terrace before it actually forming the roof of its church. And the view from the terrace has the same illimitable sun-washed spaces, flowing [ 138 ]