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Updated: June 18, 2025
Viviers ancient capital of the Vivarais, to which it gave the name is most romantically placed on the side of a craggy hill, its ancient castle and old Romanesque cathedral conspicuous above the house-roofs. Just above the verdant river-bank run its mediaeval ramparts tapestried with ivy, the yellowish stone almost the colour of the rocks. The scenery here is wild and striking.
He long sought the Capitol without being able to discover it; he had to take his bearings, and ended by convincing himself that the square tower, modestly lost among surrounding house-roofs, which he saw in front of Sta. Maria Maggiore was its campanile.
Westward, however, in the direction of the slopes of Meudon, which Helene could not see, the last drops of the downpour must still have been obscuring the sun, for, though the sky above was clear, Paris remained gloomy, dismal beneath the vapor of the drying house-roofs.
Beyond these great tracks lay an immense plain of house-roofs, with short towers here and there marking public buildings, from the Caterham district on the left to Croydon in front, all clear and bright in smokeless air; and far away to the west and north showed the low suburban hills against the April sky.
The window stood open as I had left it. Outside, in the windless frosty night, the snow on the house-roofs sparkled under a wintering moon now near the close of her first quarter. But though the night was windless, a current of air poured into the room, and had set a little flame dancing in the fireplace where, three minutes ago, the sea-coals had held but a feeble glow, half-sullen.
And when next it rose over Europe everywhere were crowds of watchers on hilly slopes, on house-roofs, in open spaces, staring eastward for the rising of the great new star. It rose with a white glow in front of it, like the glare of a white fire, and those who had seen it come into existence the night before cried out at the sight of it. "It is larger," they cried. "It is brighter!"
And now behold us on our way up lovely combes, with their green copses, ridges of rock, golden furze, fruit-laden orchards, and slopes of emerald pasture, pitched as steep as house-roofs, where the red longhorns are feeding, with their tails a yard above their heads; and under us, seen in bird's-eye view, the ground-plans of the little snug farms and homesteads of the Damnonii, 'dwellers in the valley, as we West-countrymen were called of old.
The single industry is the weaving of hats from palm. On the house-roofs, and on the ground before the houses, palm was drying. Some of the work was extremely delicate, and the four grades of hats sell for from four pesos upward.
Through the dancing, golden dust you discerned little of the ruined pile except some stately outlines, some huge blocks of building which looked as though reared by Cyclopean hands; and beyond the rock you but vaguely distinguished the discoloured, intermingled house-roofs of the old town.
And over all rises the ancient turret of San Siro, like a Spanish giralda, a minaret of pinnacles and pyramids and dome bubbles, with windows showing heavy bells, old clocks, and sundials painted on the walls, and a cupola of green and yellow tiles like serpent-scales, to crown the whole. The sea lies beyond, and the house-roofs break it with grey horizontal lines.
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