Although there is a great deal that is entirely new in the principal quarter of the town, where our Hotel du Dauphin, in the spacious Place aux Halles, was situated, yet, to the antiquarian, there is no lack of interest in the antique parts, where much of the original city remains even as it might have been in the earliest times.

Roman walls and towers extend in every direction between the three bridges of Ysoir, St.Jean, and Napoleon; and, in the old quartiers of Gourdaine and du Pre, arches, pillars, and ruins, attest the antiquity of the spot.

We hesitated not to enter these singular old streets, where the lowest of the population reside, and, as is almost invariable in France, we always found civility and a cheerful readiness to afford us information.

The inquisitive stranger is generally, however, obliged, after going through several of the narrow ways which excite his curiosity, to abandon his search after uncertain antiquities, from the inodorous accompaniments which are sure to assail him; and so it was with us when we had visited the Rue _Danse Renard_, Rue _de la Truie qui File_, _Vert Galant_, the _Grande_ and _Petite Poterne_, &c.

We found ourselves wandering in circles, amongst dwellings that looked as if they must be the same inhabited by the original Gaulish inhabitants, and at length, anxious to pay our daily devotions at the shrine of Berangere, we ventured on the ascent of an apparently interminable flight of stone steps, between immensely high massive walls, called _Les Pans de Gorron_.
We paused every now and then, on our ascent, to wonder at the appearance of the town, of which, and the river, we caught glimpses at intervals, and to gaze upwards at the strange old Roman walls above us, and the high houses, some with five and six rows of windows in their shelving roofs.