[FULL-SIZE] -- [Medium-Size]
The chain of the mountains undulates to the left, bluish and like a long stratum of clouds. The rich valley resembles a great basin full to overflowing of fruit-trees and maize. White clouds hover slowly in the depths of heaven, like a flock of tranquil swans. The eye rests on the down of their sides, and turns with pleasure upon the roundness of their noble forms. They sail in a troop, carried on by the south wind, with an even flight, like a family of blissful gods, and from up above they seem to look with tenderness upon the beautiful earth which they protect and are going to nourish.
II.
Orthez, in the fourteenth century, was a capital; of this grandeur there remains but the wreck: ruined walls and the high tower of the castle hung with ivy. The counts of Foix had there a little state, almost independent, proudly planted between the realms of France, England and Spain. The people have gained in something, I know; they no longer hate their neighbors, and they live at peace; they receive from Paris inventions and news; peace, trade and well-being are increased. They have, however, lost in something; instead of thirty active thinking capitals, there are thirty provincial cities, torpid and docile. The women long for a hat, the men go to smoke at a café; that is their life; they scrape together a few empty old ideas from imbecile newspapers. In old times they had thoughts on politics and courts of love.
III.
