[Illustration: ROMAN GATEWAY AT ORANGE (ON THE LYONS ROAD). _By Joseph Pennell._]
A few hours between trains permitted a visit to Orange and its great theatre and triumphal arch, which redeem the place from a somewhat featureless commonplace.
[Illustration: LOOKING DOWN THE GRANDE RUE, MARTIGUES. _By Joseph Pennell._]
We had to ask our way to the theatre, unluckily of some perfidious inhabitant whose misdirection would have landed us in the suburbs, had not Fortune, in the shape of a dapper youth in the first rosy flush of a dawning moustache, come to the rescue.
In the pursuit of his father's trade as a corn-dealer, he had travelled and learnt English together with a becoming admiration for the British nation, his enlightenment being assisted by an English mother. It seemed strange to think of an Englishwoman settled down in this little French provincial town, but as our guide chattered on, unconsciously revealing the life of the place, it was clear that French provincial human nature is much the same as any other. Heartburning, gossip, jealousies, stupendous proprieties, "convenances" of the most all-shadowing and abstruse kind made up the dreary existence of the inhabitants. Wretched "jeunes filles" unable to cross a street unattended, mothers on the prowl for husbands for the "jeunes filles" (our young friend intimated delicately that he had a perilous time of it among enterprising parents); the men intent on business and the recreations of the _café_ and so forth--it all sounded disheartening enough, and the hopelessness of it seemed to settle on the spirit like a blight.
Our guide regarded his native town with disdain. Its narrow streets and dingy aspect he pointed out with ironical pomp.
"This, you see, is our main street. Magnificent you cannot deny!" Had he not travelled and seen better things?
For those who liked that sort of thing----!
[Illustration: ON THE GRAND CANAL, MARTIGUES. _By Joseph Pennell._]
From behind blinds of discreet windows inquiring heads might often be seen peering out at our quaint procession of three, and our guide would then pull himself up and step out with a brisk experienced stride, as of one who has relations with a world that is not Orange!