As I passed by Pongibaut I went to pay my respects to Madame La Fayette, and remained with her half-an-hour. This house has not the beauty its reputation warrants, the site being ugly, the garden small and angular, with paths raised some four or five feet, and beds sunk and filled for the most part with fruit trees, the herbs being very scanty. The sides of the sunk beds aforesaid are set with cut stone. It snowed so fast, and the weather was so rough and cold, that nothing was to be seen of the country. I reached Pont-a-Mar, seven leagues off, and slept there. This is a small village, and while there I heard that Monsieur and Madame du Lude were sojourning at a place two leagues away. I slept that night at Pont Sarrant after riding six leagues.

As far as Limoges this road is badly furnished with inns, which, however, give you tolerably good wine, but they are used only by muleteers and couriers going to Lyons. My head was uneasy, the storms and cold winds and rain were very bad for it; and in sooth it got its fill of discomfort in this journey over a region where the winter is sharper than anywhere else in France. On Wednesday, November 22, I left Pont Sarrant in very bad weather, and, after passing by Feletin, a well-built little town placed in a hollow surrounded by high hills and now almost deserted on account of the recent pestilence, I stopped the night at Chastein, a miserable little village, five leagues on the road. Here I was forced to drink new unclarified wine, as no other was to be had, and the next day went on five leagues farther to Saubiac, which belongs to Monsieur de Lausun, thence to Limoges, where I stayed all the Saturday, I bought a mule for ninety crowns of the sun,[133] and paid in addition five crowns for maintenance of this mule from Lyons to this place, having been hereby cheated out of four crowns, for the cost of all the other horses for the same distance only amounted to three crowns and two-thirds.

On Sunday, November the 26th, I left Limoges after dinner, and, after riding five leagues, slept at Cars, where I found no one but Madame de Cars at home. I slept on Monday night at Tivie—six leagues—on Tuesday at Perigus—five leagues—on Wednesday at Mauriac—five leagues—and on Thursday, St. Andrew’s, the last day of November, at Montaigne[134]—seven leagues—having quitted this same spot on June 22, 1580, to go to La Fère, my journey having lasted seventeen months and eight days.

INDEX

THE END
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FOOTNOTES:

[1] The cathedral. It stands on the summit of Monte Guasco above the harbour, and is supposed to occupy the site of a temple of Venus. Its present design is attributed, on doubtful authority, to Margaritone of Arezzo. Montaigne’s statement about the relics is hardly borne out by the existing collection, which is of the ordinary character: bits of the wood of the cross, nails, spear-heads, &c.

[2] Ἀγκώυ, an elbow.

[3] This inscription is no longer in existence. The church referred to is S. Maria di Porta Cipriana, in which the Greek rite was allowed by Clement VII. in 1524.