CAUTERETS.
Hîc secura quies et nescia fallere vita,
Dives opum variarum, hîc latis otia fundis
Speluncæ, vivique lacus, hîc frigida Tempe.
--Virgil.
The next morning we proceeded to Pierrefitte; and while some little alteration was taking place in the harness before we could go on towards Cauterets, a gendarme came up and asked for our passports. I luckily had mine in my pocket, though it had never been signed for the Pyrenees, but it answered very well, and was civilly returned, scarcely looked at. Not so happened it to a poor traveller on foot, who it appeared had no passport to show. When a man is in the wrong, and wishes to go on in the same way, he has but two resources, to bully or sneak. The poor traveller chose the first, and a violent quarrel ensued with the gendarme, who swore that he should not proceed one step without showing his passport, called out very loud about doing his duty, slapped his hand upon his heart, and talked about his honour. Finding that bully would not answer, the traveller had nothing for it but to sneak, so he asked the gendarme to come and drink a bottle of wine with him. The gendarme did not accept the invitation, but he drank the wine, and the traveller having paid for it walked on upon his way, while the other remained on the spot, to prove, to all who doubted it, what an honourable man he was, and how well he did his duty.
When the harness was all completely arranged, we passed on through the little town, and turning to the right entered the gorge of Cauterets. Here again was a new change of mountain scenery gaining in grandeur what is lost in richness and cultivation. From Pierrefitte the road suddenly turns into a deep ravine, with the river rushing below, and immense masses of crag rising many hundred feet above. But it is not even here the bare, cold, lifeless stone. Every spot where the root of a tree can fix itself, every ledge where the least earth can rest, is abundant in vegetable life, and all sorts of beautiful foliage seem striving to form a screen for the gray rock from which they spring. The road winds on through this sort of scenery, changing at every step, till, approaching Cauterets, the valley gradually widens, and again high mountains surround it on every side, but far bolder than those of Argelés, and covered near the tops with dark forests of pines and sapins.
Cauterets is a complete watering-place, a sort of barrack, which gets filled to the head the moment that fashion gives orders to march from the greater cities. As soon as the sound of the postman's whip was heard, all the inhabitants rushed to their windows to see who was to be added to their little world; and amid the number of white bonnets and blue, red bonnets and gray, which Paris had brought forth and Cauterets contained, we were fortunate enough to discover two or three with the owners of which we could claim acquaintance; and then there was pulling off of hats, and bowing of heads, and so forth, while a thousand gaping applicants stood round the carriage pressing for our "linge à blanchir," or for us to "manger chez-eux," so that there was practice enough in the art of refusing to train one for a prime minister.
We put up at the hotel of old Madame Lapierre, who is an original in her way. Some fifty years ago (I suppose) she kept a little auberge at Cauterets, when Cauterets was scarcely heard of. She has grown, into opulence as it has grown in fame and size, and now is one of the richest persons of the place. But still little Madame Lapierre retains all her old habits: six days of the week, trots about the kitchen in her original dirt, peeps into the saucepans, counts the onions, and scolds the servants, and the seventh puts on a clean muslin cap, and brings in one of the dishes herself, to show how fine she is. Withal she really is a very good old soul, civil, kind, and obliging; the only thing is, that there is no understanding a word that she says, for speaking patois sixty or seventy years has broken all the teeth out of her head, and spoilt her articulation.
Cauterets was as full as it could be. The violent hot weather had driven all the world out of large towns, and health, pleasure, curiosity, and fashion brought them all to the Pyrenees. Truly, truly, they could not have chosen a sweeter spot; grandeur and beauty become so familiar to the eye, that all the rest of the world does indeed look "stale, flat, and unprofitable." Besides, there are a thousand little lovely nooks unhackneyed by itineraries, which one is constantly finding out for one's self. I hate itineraries, they are a sort of Newgate Calendar, a record of all the common tours which have been executed for the last century. The Pyrenees have been but little tourified, or if they have I knew nothing about it, which came to the same thing.
There is a great difference between the Alps and the Pyrenees; the Alps are a country of mountains, the Pyrenees a chain. In Switzerland one is obliged to go to seek mountains: in the Pyrenees they start forward upon one; all that is beautiful and sublime is near at hand, and nature seems fond of changing from one form of grandeur to another.
Cauterets is surrounded on every side by majestic hills, and the walk to each of the sulphureous springs, of which there are several, displays new beauties at every step. That called La Raillère is the most frequented, and beyond it is a rich woody scene, dim and still, with the river divided into three or four streams, breaking over a high crag, and then foaming on under a small bridge of planks, which leads across from one rock to another. To the left lies a beautiful valley, to which we made an excursion with all the gay folks of the place. The ladies were carried in machines called chaises à porteurs, consisting simply of chairs fixed on poles and covered in with oil-cloth on all sides but one; these are carried between two men, whose dexterity is wonderful, bearing their burden up steep rocks, and over broken crags which seem quite impassable. Altogether they are not ugly in a landscape, and as we pedestrians stood upon the top of the hill and watched two-and-twenty of them following more slowly up the winding ascent, it had a very curious and pleasing effect. The pleasure of our party, however, was soon spoiled by a heavy rain, which came on and drove us back towards the town. Unfortunately, this is too frequent an occurrence in mountainous countries, and though the Pyrenees are less subject to it than many other places, they still are by no means exempt.
Though, in all probability, the good effect produced by visiting these waters, is more to be attributed to, the exercise, fine air, and beautiful scenery, than the benign influence of the nymph, yet I have seen two or three glasses from the well of La Raillère act in an extraordinary manner upon one of my friends, enabling him to walk for many miles without fatigue, which his health would not have permitted without some strong stimulus. However, the effects generally attributed to these fountains of the Pyrenees are rather amusing. The accounts published of them begin like the puff of a French charlatan, who states, that though some men make extravagant pretensions for their nostrum, that is not his case, there are only one or two diseases which his remedy is adapted to cure; and then he goes on to recite all the maladies incident to human nature.
The waters of Cauterets are thus stated to be specific in wounds, rheumatisms, affections of the liver, and the spleen, intermittent fevers, consumption, disease of the skin, and paralyses; and "etc." is put at the end to gratify the imagination of the reader, in case he should have any nondescript complaint which has not been enumerated.