We passed along the battlements and
"chemins de ronde," ascended and descended towers, crawled under
arches, peered out of loopholes, lowered ourselves into dungeons,
halted in all sorts of tight places, while the purpose of something or
other was described to us.
It was very curious, very interesting; above all, it was very
pictorial, and involved perpetual peeps into the little crooked,
crumbling, sunny, grassy, empty Cite. In places, as you stand upon
it, the great towered and embattled enceinte produces an illusion; it
looks as if it were still equipped and defended. One vivid challenge,
at any rate, it flings down before you; it calls upon you to make
up your mind on the matter of restoration. For myself, I have no
hesitation; I prefer in every case the ruined, however ruined, to the
reconstructed, however splendid. What is left is more precious than
what is added; the one is history, the other is fiction; and I like
the former the better of the two--it is so much more romantic. One is
positive, so far as it goes; the other fills up the void with things
more dead than the void itself, inasmuch as they have never had life.
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