The Henson Journals

[222]

Tuesday, April 9th, 1929.

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Carcassonne

[struck through] After a fiendish episode of packing, we paid our reckoning (2067 f. for 3 days) and left for Carcassonne. The train started shortly after 9 a.m. and arrived shortly after 3 p.m. We lunched on board, & travelled comfortably enough. We drove to the Hotel de la Cité, where we had sumptuous rooms, commanding the noblest view in the world. Unhappily I lost my spectacles in the train, a grave misfortune which will handicap me badly for the rest of the tour. Then both our new suit–cases disclosed intractable defects in the matter of unlocking. After tea we walked for an hour in this amazing City. [end] Carcassonne is unique – the most perfect example of a medieval fortified city now surviving. No doubt Viollet–le–duc has laid his hand heavily on the old walls, but, while he may have obliterated many details, he has probably left the general effect unaltered. And the general effect is really overpowering. There are two cir–cumvallations, an inner & an outer, the former is of immensely high & solid construction.

[223]

Carcassonne

[struck through] (N.B. I arrived in the Hotel with 1950 f. all that remains of £45. for the first week of my tour. i.e. I have spent about £30.)[end]

We dined pleasantly enough, and afterwards sat for awhile in the lounge talking with two men, whom we had met, the elder at Rode Hall, the younger at Sauchie–burn. They are on a motor tour in France.

[struck through] The weather is almost summerlike: but the papers report heavy snow storms in Switzerland & France.

"For while he lived, he counted himself an happy

man: & so long as thou doest well unto thyself,

men will speak good of thee." Psalm 49.18

I read these words in the psalms for the day, and they set me thinking. True in some sense of all men, they are preeminently true of the successful "novus homo", who comes to grief. For in his case an interruption of success is irreparable. So long as he advances, he is universally acclaimed: but let him trip & fall back, though for the honourablest reason in the world, and he passes at a stride into utter eclipse: for when the "novus homo" falls, he has nothing whereby to break his fall, but falls finally. Lloyd George perhaps illustrates this, &, perhaps, the B. of D. must do so also. [end]

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