In Languedoc And Old Provence
The dim purple curtain of the Pyrenees had been drawn behind, us, and we were passing from the patois of Languedoc to the patois of Provence, where the peasants say pardie in place of pardou when an exclamation of surprise comes from their lips.
Cast your eyes over the map of ancient France, and you will distinguish plainly the lines of demarcation between the old political divisions which, in truth, the traveller by road may find to exist even to-day, in the manners and customs of the people at least.
Unconsciously we drew away from the sleepy indolence of Perpignan and Roussillon, and before we knew it had passed Narbonne, and on through Béziers to Agde, where we proposed stopping for the night.
Quite as Spanish-looking as Perpignan, Agde was the very antithesis of the gay and frivolous Catalan city. The aspect of its purple-brown architecture, the bridge-piers crossing the Herault, and the very pavements themselves were a colour-scheme quite unlike anything we had seen elsewhere. Brilliant and warm as a painting of Velasquez, there was nothing gaudy, and one could only dream of the time when the Renaissance house-fronts sheltered lords and ladies of high degree instead of itinerant automobilists and travelling salesmen.
The Hôtel du Cheval Blanc was one of these. It is not a particularly up-to-date hostelry, and there is a scant accommodation for automobiles, but for all that it is good of its kind, and one dines and sleeps well to the accompaniment of the rushing waters of the river, at its very dooryard, on its way to the sea.
From Agde to Montpellier is fifty odd kilometres over the worst stretch of roadway of the same length to be found in France, save perhaps that awful paved road of Navarre across the Landes.
Montpellier is one of the most luxurious and well-kept small cities of France. It is the seat of the préfecture, the assizes, and a university—whose college of medicine was famous in the days of Rabelais. It has the modern attributes of steam-heated, electric-lighted hotels and restaurants, a tramway system that is appalling and dangerous to all other traffic by reason of its complexity, and an Opera House and a Hôtel de Ville that would do credit to a city ten times its size.
We merely took Montpellier en route, just as we had many other places, and were really bound for Aigues-Mortes, where we proposed to lunch: one would not willingly sleep in a place with a name like that.