III.
We find but two streets, terraced one behind the other; quiet, heavily-built houses, a small shop or two, another hotel, a little church, and the bathing establishment. The latter, large and substantial, overlooks the Gave a few steps up the road. We stroll inquisitively down through the village, lighten a dull little shop with a trifling investment, strike out upon the hill above for the reward of a view, descend to the bed of the torrent, and finally drift together again into the streetside near the hotel. Most of the houses are pensions or boarding-places during the summer, and while the spot is much less fashionable and populous than its neighbor, Eaux Bonnes, it is instinct with a comforting placidity not easily to be attained in larger resorts. The waters are said to be specifically good for rheumatism. Both drinking and bathing are prescribed. In former times the simple rule was, the more the better; Thor himself could scarcely have outquaffed the sixteenth-century invalids. One of the early French historians relates his visit "to the Baths of Beam, seven leagues from Pau." A young German, he says, "although very sober, drank each day fifty glasses of sulphur water within the hour." He himself was content with twenty-five, "rather from pleasure than need;" he experienced "great relief, with a marvelous appetite, sound sleep, and a feeling of buoyancy in his whole body."
An experimentally inclined visitor, a few years ago, heard of this exploit of the "sober young German," and attempted to repeat it. He very nearly lost his life in consequence.
The sovereigns at Pau were very fond of the Eaux. Marguerite of Angoulême loved to come to this stern, peaceful valley, and here found inspiration for her thoughts and her writings. One of her letters tells us that in these mountains, apart from the careless court, "elle a appris à vivre plus de papier que d'aultres choses," Her daughter, Queen Jeanne, Henry's mother, found her health here when she was young, having been "meagre and feeble." She often visited them afterward. Her visits were costly, too; the expenses of the court were considerable, but she had to bring an armed guard as well; Spain always stood ready to kidnap the Queen of Navarre if it had opportunity. Such were the times.
Later, for almost a century, these springs became neglected and forgotten; they were then again brought into notice, and now seem to have gained a permanent popularity.
As afternoon closes in, we reunite at the hotel, where Madame greets us graciously. Her visitors will begin to come with the coming week, but we actually have the house to ourselves. In the tidy parlor blazes a wood-fire; out of doors, in the dusk, it has grown a trifle chilly. Attentions are doubled upon us when it is known that we are Americans; Madame's daughter, who has married the chef and will succeed to the inheritance, will succeed to the kindly disposition as well, and with a sunny-faced waiting-woman looks after details of comfort with a personal interest. Our famous lunch at Laruns was both so ample and so recent that now we ask only for "tea and toast," and so, while the lamps are lighted, the trays are brought to us in the parlor, and around the centre-table and before the fire we nibble tartines in soothed content and plan to-morrow's excursion.
Later in the evening we pause at the little office in the hall, behind whose window sits Madame, busy with her knitting yet watchfully supervising all the details of the household. She chats with us freely, speaking slowly in her clear, low-toned French,—that southern French which sounds the vowels and the final e so lingeringly,—telling us of the village and its surroundings, of the people, of herself; questioning us about America, (where, she tells us, lives one of her daughters;) welcoming us evidently with the greater regard as being of the few she sees from that active, far-off land.