by Henry James

“ In just the nuance that I have tried to indicate here, it is a terrible pattern of man. Permeated in a high degree by civilization, it is yet untouched by the desire which one finds in the Englishman, in proportion as he rises in the world, to approximate to the figure of the gentleman. On the other hand, a nettete, a faculty of exposition, such as the English gentleman is rarely either blessed or cursed with.
This brilliant, this suggestive warden of Carcassonne marched us about for an hour, haranguing, explaining, illustrating, as he went ”

“ These facts I derived from a source no more recondite than a pamphlet by M. Viollet-le-Duc, - a very luminous description of the fortifications, which you may buy from the accomplished custodian. The writer makes a jump to the year 1209, when Carcassonne, then forming part of the realm of the viscounts of Beziers and infected by the Albigensian heresy, was besieged, in the name of the Pope, by the terrible Simon de Montfort and his army of crusaders. Simon was accustomed to success, and the town succumbed in the course of a fortnight. ”

“ They are exceedingly bad, for the most part; and the worst those in the form of the hideous little album-panorama - are thrust upon you at every turn. They are a kind of tax that you must pay; the best way is to pay to be let off. ”