Italian than a Greek. This, however, is a matter which we may perhaps take up elsewhere.
To revert to my travels in France,—I visited the capital of the kingdom, Paris, which claims Julius Caesar as its founder. I must have felt much the same upon entering the town as did Apuleius when he wandered about Hypata in Thessaly. I spent no little time there, in open-mouthed wonder; and I was so full of interest and eagerness to know the truth about what I had heard of the place that when daylight failed me I even prolonged my investigations into the night. After loitering about for a long time, gaping at the sights, I at last satisfied myself that I had discovered the point where truth left off and fiction began. But it is a long story, and not suited for a letter, and I must wait until I see you and can rehearse my experiences at length.
To pass over the intervening events, I also visited Ghent, which proudly claims the same illustrious founder as Paris, and I saw something of the people of Flanders and Brabant, who devote themselves to preparing and weaving wool. I also visited Liege, which is noted for its clergy, and Aix-la-Chapelle, Charles's capital, where in a marble church I saw the tomb of that great prince, which is very properly an object of veneration to the barbarian nations.[1]. . .
I did not leave Aix-la-Chapelle until I had bathed in the waters, which are warm like those at Baiæ. It
- ↑ This first letter closes here with a legend of Charles the Great which Petrarch heard at Aix-la-Chapelle.
