In the village there are numerous hotels and boarding-houses, capable of suiting the pockets and the wishes of all the middling, and even of the lower classes of society:—but there are three or four principal houses,—and especially two, reserved for the aristocracy; and here all the élite of the visitors congregate. We wealthy English may laugh at the moderate expense for which this kind of thing can be done in France, but we are not apt to grumble at it when we find it suit our pockets; and, therefore, take with you at once the description of the kind of fare you are likely to meet with here, and the amount of damage it will do to your fortune. In these large hotels, then, which are commodious houses, a vast number of bedrooms are provided for the guests, and two good reception-rooms; besides an immense salle-à-manger. Some sixty or a hundred guests can be accommodated in each house, and can sit down at table together. Breakfast is served between nine and ten,—and a glorious breakfast it is! All kinds of good things, which an old artiste from Paris comes down for the season to cook: ending with fruits of many kinds and café-au-lait—that Continental beverage which John Bull can no more imitate than he can the wines of the Rhone or the Rhine:—in short, 'tis as good a breakfast as they could put on the table at Verey's. Dinner is ready at six, and maintains its proper superiority over the breakfast, both in the number of dishes and in the length of its service. The wines are good, and the fruits delicious, for they all come from Clermont—whence many a wagon-load of comestibles is tugged weekly over the mountains to satisfy the exigencies of the fastidious invalids!
Well: they give you these two glorious spreads, your room, your light, your linen, and your attendance, for five francs a-day.
And how is this day passed? Why, 'tis a true castle of indolence, is Mont Dor-les-Bains; "a pleasing land of sleepy-head," where every one follows the bent of his own fancy, and where the only serious occupation is, to forget all care and to do nothing. After rising from the breakfast table, parties are immediately formed for the promenade or the distant excursion; and, for the latter, some two or three score of boys and girls are stationed on the Grande Place, each in charge of an animal disguised with the name of a horse, which you hire for the whole day, to go where, and how far you please, for the enormous sum of two francs. It is true that the animal has neither symmetry nor blood, but it is the indigenous pony of these mountains; it is a slow, sure-footed beast, and it will carry you up and down the steepest hill-side with exemplary patience and sagacity. Do not lose your own patience, however, if you mount one of them. They have no trotting, nor galloping, nor any other pace whatever in them, out of the half-amble half-walk at which they commonly proceed. But then, they know no better food than mountain-grass, or the occasional luxury of some chopped straw, and they will follow you all round the village for a slice of bread held before their noses. Nevertheless they suit the country; they accommodate the visitors; and there is not a spare horse to be got in the village by half-past ten, for love or money.
The day's ramble ended, and dinner duly dismissed, every body—that is to say, every body who is any body at all—adjourns to the salle de réunion, the large assembly-room built over the baths. This is really a handsome well-arranged ball-room, full of mirrors, ottomans, and benches; at one end is a billiard and card room, and behind are rooms for robing. Here, upon the payment of a napoleon, you have the entrée for the season; and here the guests meet, more upon the terms of a large family than as though they were strangers. Etiquette is relaxed; every body knows every body. The elder men take to billiards and écarté,—the graver ladies form into little côteries; a younger one goes to the piano, a circle is made, a romance is sung; and then, as the strain becomes lighter, the feet beat in sympathy, and the gay quadrille is formed. At eight or nine o'clock the room is at its fullest; the village minstrels are called in—some half-dozen violins, a clarionet, and a cornet; the music becomes louder, the mazy waltz is danced, and the enjoyment of the day is at its crowning point.
Happy, happy days! still happier, still more delightful nights! No trouble, no excess—health and cheerfulness going hand-in-hand. The most refined society in France, and yet the most simple and most unaffected; good-humour and politeness ruling all things: all calculated for enjoyment, nought for disquietude and regret!
At eleven o'clock it is understood that every body vacates the room; and, within half an hour after, not a sound is to be heard in the village, save the dash of the cascade, and the murmuring of the silvery Dor.
THE COMPANY.
Well: 'tis a motley assemblage this! The world is checkered here not less than in the noisy and elegant capital; and man's peculiarities, man's excellencies, and man's defects, follow him even into the heart of these wild mountains, showing themselves in these smaller groups, not less strongly than amid the crowded streets of Paris! How should it be otherwise? Does not every one come hither to unbend, to throw off the stiff mask of metropolitan society for the moment, and to become themselves natural while they invoke the aid of nature's healthy influence? The strict etiquette of the Faubourg St Germain may here be safely laid aside awhile; and the inspirations of country life, the happy the delightful inspirations of youth, may be once more resumed. What a comfort to be able to get out of the buckram and taffetas of the court, to put on one's négligé, or one's shooting-jacket, and to keep company awhile with no less cheerful companions than the songsters and the rangers of the forest! Why it does one's inmost soul good to fly away from the din and turmoil, even of the pleasure-seeking Parisians, and to revert to the simple, yet grand and expansive ideas which scenery such as this of Mont Dor brings into the mind in an instant.
True: the mountains increase in magnitude and grandeur as you approach them; once within their lofty and austere recesses, and their sublimity makes itself felt. You are brought into immediate contact with some of the mightiest works of the Creator, and the mind expands of itself, unconsciously and irresistibly, till it becomes capable of imbibing, of comprehending, and of enjoying the full magnificence of nature!
But does the courtier, does the citizen lay aside his pack of habits, as well as his pack of cares, when he becomes a temporary denizen of the country? Would that it were so! He is cast in a mould—his mind has been warped: his body requires moistening with the freshest and the earliest dews of many an "incense-breathing morn," ere it can resume the full elasticity and joyous lightness of rustic activity; and his soul wants a long oblivion of all conventional preoccupation, all trouble and all intrigue, ere it can recover the tone and temper of younger days.