A young Frenchman, whose usual residence was at Paris, having travelled as far as Toulouse the year before the Revolution, was invited by a party of his friends to accompany them to Bareges, where some of them were going in pursuit of amusement and others in search of health from the medicinal springs which rise so plentifully, both in hot and cold streams, among the Pyrenean mountains.
This young Parisian, who had some taste for the sublime scenery of Nature, felt that it would be luxury to leave a little longer the regular walks, which Art had planted in the Tuilleries, and the trim gardens and jets d’eaux she has formed at Versailles; to wander amongst those piles of mountains which overhang each other, and listen to the torrents which fall down them with loud and irresistible impetuosity.
“Rich in her weeping country’s spoils, Versailles
May boast a thousand fountains, that can cast
The tortur’d waters to the distant heav’ns;
Yet let me choose some pine-topp’d precipice
Abrupt and shaggy, whence a foamy stream,
Like Anio, tumbling roars.”——
What powerful sensations does the first view of such a scene produce!—We seem to begin a new existence—every former impression is for a while erased from the memory, and the mind feels enrapped and lost in the strong emotions of awe, astonishment, and admiration.
Bareges was crouded, as it usually is in the season, not only with French company, but also with strangers, who travel from other countries, in order to use its celebrated baths. The company amused themselves, as they generally do at water-drinking places, by sauntering, lounging, cards, lotteries, jeux-d’ésprit, and scandal.