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Updated: June 19, 2025
There is the amphitheatre, smaller, but more perfect even, than that at Arles. There is the Maison Carree, a temple almost quite perfect, and of surpassing proportional perfection. Small this temple is: it consists of thirty elegant Corinthian columns, ten of which are disengaged, and form the portico, whereas the remainder are engaged in the naos or sanctuary.
The bulls are rarely killed, and indeed often are bulls only in the Irish sense of the term, being domestic and motherly cows. Such an entertainment of course does not supply to the arena that element of the exquisite which I spoke of as wanting. The exquisite at Nimes is mainly represented by the famous Maison Carree.
Gantheaume arrived, and Bonaparte gave him orders to fit out the two frigates, the 'Muiron' and the 'Carree', and the two small vessels, the 'Revanche' and the 'Fortune', with a two months' supply of provisions for from four to five hundred men.
If it had greater purity of style one might say of it that it belonged to the same family of monuments as the Maison Carrée at Nîmes. It has three passages the middle much higher than the others and a very elevated attic. The vaults of the passages are richly sculptured, and the whole structure is covered with friezes and military trophies.
I do not know whether it was that the weather was gloomy, or that the fair had set me out of tune for antiquities; but somehow this temple did not impress me as did the dear little Maison Carree at Nimes. For one thing the stone is dingy, whereas that of Nimes is bright and white; and the proportions did not please me.
Many of the antiquities of Nismes, which we went over to-day, might well command attention, were they not in the vicinity of two such remarkable and well-preserved monuments as the Amphitheatre and Maison Carrée. The Gate of Augustus, which now serves as the entrance to the barracks of the gendarmerie, is worthy of inspection.
The ruins of the amphitheatre are insignificant compared to those at Nimes and Arles, and there is no beautiful example of Roman art like the Maison Carree at Nimes; but there is an exceedingly curious monument of antiquity, which was long a puzzle to archaeologists, but which is now generally believed to be the cella of a Gallo-Roman temple dedicated to the city's tutelary divinities.
I can no more fancy the Maison Carrée appropriately placed in the bustle and gaiety of Paris, than I could endure to see one of the temples at Pæstum stuck down at Charing Cross. One loves, when contemplating such precious memorials of antiquity, to look around on the objects in nature, still wearing the same aspect as when they were reared.
Every thing therefore lies within the compass of an evening's stroll. The Maison Carrée is a beautiful bijou, better known than any other of the curiosities of Nismes. I believe the opinion of Mons. A perfect copy of it, built from actual measurement, may be found in the Temple of Victory and Concord, in the Duke of Buckingham's gardens at Stowe.
"And sit in the dark?" "I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and I thought that, as we were a partie carrée, you might have your rubber after all. But I see that the enemy's preparations have gone so far that we cannot risk the presence of a light. And, first of all, we must choose our positions.
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