This was once Meilhan, one of the finest castles in the Garonne, belonging to the Duke de Bouillon, who, suspected of treason, blew up his magnificent abode, destroying with it the abbey and church beneath.

An immense forest spread far into the Landes from this point, only a few trees of which remain.
When the castle was destroyed, the clock of the Benedictine church rolled down into the river, and was afterwards raised in the night, and taken possession of by the Marmandais; the Meilhanais even still insist on its being their property.
There are some ruins, in the quarter called La Roque, of a rampart, from whence is a perilous descent to the shore: here once stood a tower, through a breach in which it is said that the Maid of Orleans conducted the soldiers of Charles VII., and took the town.

This tower was seen at so great a distance that it gave rise to a proverb: "He who sees Meilhan is not within side it." Over the principal entrance of the castle was a sculptured stone--still preserved, but in a most ignoble position: it represented a cavalier armed with a lance, with a shield on his left arm; by the form of which it would appear to belong to those used by the ancient Franks.

The arms of Meilhan are _three toads_, doubtless the most familiar animal in so damp and marshy a country.
At a village called Couture, a phrase is left from very old times, when _a_ Raymond, Count of Toulouse, happening to stop there to rest, asked for a measure of wine, which he drank off at a draught, though it was no small quantity; instead, therefore, of saying a bottle of two _litres_, it is usual to say in this country, "_A measure of Count Raymond's_." The _Roc de Quatalan_ is near this point, whose name has been derived from _quatre-a-l'an_; because it causes so many wrecks in the course of the year.
There is nothing very striking in the appearance of Marmande, once remarkable for its castle and churches and abbeys; but now only a place of commerce connected with Bordeaux.

Nevertheless, the Romans, Goths, and Saracens, made it a place of importance, and severally destroyed it in their turn.