I.
The street is a broad alley, planted with large trees, and lined with rather handsome hotels. It was opened by the intendant d’Ètigny, who, for this misdeed, was near being stoned. It was necessary to call in a company of dragoons to force the Luchonnais to endure the prosperity of their country.
At the end of the alley a pretty chalet, like those in the Jardin des Plantes, shelters the du Pr’e spring. Its walls are a fantastic trellis of gnarled branches, adorned with their bark; its roof is thatched; its ceiling is a tapestry of moss. A young girl sitting at the taps distributes to the bathers glasses of sulphurous water. The elegant toilettes come about four o’clock. Meanwhile you sit in the shade on benches of woven wood, and watch the children playing on the turf, the rows of trees descending toward the river, and the broad green plain, sprinkled with villages.
Below the spring are the bathing-houses, nearly finished, and which will be the finest in the Pyrenees. At present the neighboring field is still strewn with materials; the lime smokes all day, and makes the air to flame and quiver.
The court of the baths contains a large votive altar, bearing on one of its faces an amphora and this inscription:
Nymph is.
Aug.
Sacrum.
They have preserved in two:
Nymphis T. Claudius Rufus
V. S. L. M.
This god Lixo, they say, was in the time of the Celts the tutelary deity of the country. Hence the addition these other name of Luchon.
Lixoni Deo Fabia Festa
V. S. L. M.
He is maimed and not destroyed. The gods are tenacious of life.
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There are several balls, and orchestras in certain cafés. These orchestras are strolling families, hired at so much a week, to make the house uninhabitable. One of these, composed of a flute, male, and four violins, female, used fearlessly to play the same overture every evening. The privileged beings who had paid were in the hall among the music stands. A throng of peasants always crowded at the door, with open mouths; they formed in a circle and mounted on the benches to see.
The tradespeople of every sort turn their shops into a lottery: lottery of plate, of books, of little objects of ornament, etc. The tradesman and his wife distribute cards, price one sou, to the servant-maids, soldiers, and children, who compose the crowd. Somebody draws; the gallery and those interested stretch their necks eagerly forward. The man reads the number; a cry is heard, the unguarded sign of an overflowing joy. “It’s I that have won, I, monsieur the merchant.” And you see a little serving-maid, blushing all over, lift herself on tiptoe and stretch out her hands. The merchant dexterously seizes a pot, parades it above his head, and makes everybody about remark it. “A fine mustard-pot; a mustard-pot worth three francs, threaded with gold. Who wants numbers?” The assembly lasts four hours. It begins anew every day; the customers are not wanting for a single moment.
These people have a genius for display. One day we heard the roll of drums, followed by four men marching solemnly, swathed in shawls and pieces of cloth. The children and the dogs follow the procession with hubbub; it is the opening of a new shop. The next day I copied the following handbill printed on yellow paper:
“Orpheonic festival in the grotto of Gargas.
“The Orpheonic Society from the city of Montrejean will execute
“The polka;
“Several military marches;
“Several waltzes;
“Divers other pieces from the works of the great masters.
“Among other amateurs who will allow themselves to be heard, one will sing some stanzas on eternity.
“Finally, an exquisite voice, which wishes to remain anonymous in order to avoid those deserved praises that people are fond of lavishing on its sex, will sing also a number of pieces analogous to the circumstances.
“It will be delicious and even seraphic to lend an ear to the echo of the sonorous concretions of the stalactites, which will unite with the vibrating echo of the vault to repeat the harmonious notes; and when the divine voice shall be heard, the intoxicating charm of the spell will surpass every impression which can have been left in the soul by the most delightful of musical reunions.
“Price of admission: 1 franc.”
These people are descendants of Clemence Isaure. Their advertisements are odes. By way of compensation many odes are advertisements.
In fact, you are here not far from Toulouse; like the character, the type is new. The young girls have fine, regular, clear-cut faces, of a lively and gay expression. They are small, with a light step, brilliant eyes, the nimbleness of a bird. In the evening, about a lottery-shop, these pretty faces stand out animated and full of passion beneath the flickering light, fringed with a black shadow. The eyes sparkle, the red lips tremble, the neck tosses with the little abrupt movements of the swallow; no picture can be more full of life.
If you leave the lighted and tumultuous alley, at the distance of an hundred paces, you find silence, solitude and obscurity. At night, the valley is of great beauty; it is framed and drawn out between two chains of parallel mountains, huge pillars which stretch in two files and support the dark vault of heaven.
Their arches mark it out like a cathedral ceiling, and the immense nave vanishes several leagues away, radiant with stars; these stars fling out flames. At this moment, they are the only living things; the valley is black, the air motionless; you can only distinguish the tapering tops of the poplars, erect in the tranquil night, wrapt in their mantle of leaves. The topmost branches stir, and their rustle is like the murmur of a prayer echoed by the distant hum of the torrent.