The top of the great plateau of Auvergne looked beautiful the evening I
reached it--a fine July evening, when the sun had yet three hours to go
down, and I was about a dozen miles from the village of the Baths. I had
been vainly flattering myself that something or other might have
detained M. de Mirepoix's carriage, and that I should have the pleasure
of viewing this splendid scene in company with Madame. She had so strong
a taste for the picturesque, that I knew her sympathies would be
expressed, and I anticipated no small pleasure from eliciting her
sentiments. To see what is magnificent in the society of one whose
feelings of the sublime and beautiful emulate your own in intensity,
multiplies the charm, and elevates the pleasure, by the mutual
communication of the effects perceived and produced. So I looked out for
their carriage anxiously.
Nothing met my eye but the long undulating plain stretching like a
rounded wave or swell of the ocean to the feet of the mountains, and the
distant blue horizon--to the west nearly as far off as the Garonne--to
the east as far as the Saone. The plateau was covered with fine grass,
pastured by large herds of small dark-coloured cattle, goats, and a few
sheep; wild-flowers grew here and there of fragrant smell, and the tops
of the vast pine forests peeped up from the ends of the deep ravines
that run far into the bosom of the still hills. The sky was without a
cloud, and the sun seemed to gain double glory as he fell towards his
western bed.
My spirits rose with the scene; I was excited and yet happy; the full
genial warmth of nature was before me, and around me, and in me. I could
have danced and sung for joy. I could have stopped there for ever, and I
wanted somebody to say all this to, and who should re-echo the same to
me.
There stood the postilion--dull, senseless, brutal animal--he had got
off his horses, for I was once more out of the cabriolet, and was
bounding over the turf to look over the edge of a precipice on my right
hand: there he stood, he had lighted another pipe, and was thinking only
of a good chopine of wine out of his pour-boire, when he should arrive
at the village.
"A fine view, mon ami!" said I, at last, in pure despair.
He gave a shrug with his shoulders.
"Very high mountains those," I went on.
He turned round and looked at them; and then tapped his pipe against his
whip.
"What splendid forests!" I added.
"Monsieur! voyez-vous! it is the most villainous road I know; and if we
do not push on, we shall not get to Mont Dor before dark. I would not go
over the bridge at the bottom there in the dark, no Monsieur, not if I
had the honour to be carrying M. Le Prefet himself. They were never
found, Monsieur!"
"Who were never found?"
"Why, sir, when Petit-jean was driving M. le Commandant, the last year
but one--he was going to the Baths for the gout, sir--he did not get
down to the bridge till near ten at night; there was no parapet then,
the horses did not know the road, and over they went, roll, roll, all
the way into the Dor at the bottom; thirty feet, sir, and more, and then
the cascade to add to that."
"Dreadful! and did no trace remain of the unfortunate traveller and your
poor friend?"
"Oh, certainly yes! they got well wetted; but they rode the horses into
the village the same evening."
"Who were lost, then?"
"Petit-jean's new boots, and 'twas the first time he had put them on."
I jumped into the cabriolet; "drive on," said I pettishly, "and go to
the ----"
"Hi! hardi! Sacre coquin!" and crash went the whip over the off horse's
flank, enough to cut a steak of his lean sides had there been any flesh
to spare. In a quarter of an hour we found ourselves going down a steep
rough road, such as might break the springs of the best carriage,
chariot, britscha, &c., that ever came out of Long-Acre; and the thumps
that I got against the sides of my own vehicle, light as it was, made me
call out for a little less speed, and somewhat more care.
"Don't be afraid, Monsieur! Hi! hardi! heugh!"
I thought it was all over with me; so, holding in my breath, and firmly
clenching the top of my apron, I looked straight a-head, and made up my
mind for a pitch over the wall at the bottom, and down through the wood,
like the commandant and Petit-jean.
Just as we got to the bottom of the hill, we turned a sharp corner, that
I had not before perceived, and charged, full gallop, right into an old
shandrydan, that had pulled up, and, with a single horse, was beginning
to climb the ascent. Our impetus seemed to carry us over the poor animal
that was straining against its load, for he fell under our two beasts,
and the shafts of the cabriolet catching the shandrydan under the
driver's seat, turned it completely topsy-turvy into the midst of the
road.
Such a shriek, or rather such a chorus of confused cries, came forth
from the dark sides of that small and closely-shut vehicle!
"Au secours!" "Jesus-Maria!" "Vite, vite!" "Relevez-nous!" "Pour l'amour
de Dieu!"