holy father to offer Sir Beranger an escort free of all expense, so much was he captivated by that gentleman’s charming society.  One can imagine the sly winks and contortions interchanged by this pious party as the victim fell into the trap.  But no amount of imagination can ever do justice to the features of Sir Beranger, when, three leagues from the city, the right reverend prelate and his apostolic brethren threw off the mask with peals of un-canonical laughter, led the wretched cit off to Lourdes through crooked by-roads, and there extracted from his disconsolate relatives five thousand francs of ransom,—­which they, holy men, doubtless devoted to the purposes of their order.  There is a story for a rhymer Sherwood forest could not beat!

“It is but proper to set society right as to those gallant days of chivalry, when knights fought for the love of ladies’ eyes and glory that lived for ever.  More practical men are hardly to be found in business to-day, for they never lost sight of that grand maxim, to ’get money.’ ‘Quaerenda pecunia primum, virtus post nummos’ was a motto each knight might have much more truly borne upon his shield than the charming bits of brag and sentiment cunningly designed for that purpose by accommodating heraldry.  Money they got, honestly if they could, but they got it; and to do them justice they spent it right jovially, as all such gallant spirits do when they are disbursing what does not belong to them.  After all, time only alters the characters in the Drama,—­the plot is pretty much the same; and with a suburban villa for a chateau, a face of brass for a coat of iron, and a steel pen for a steel sword, your gallant knight of to-day storms his bank or plunders his neighbors from an entrenched joint-stock fortress or leads on his band to surprise the public pocket from some tangled thicket of swindling,—­just upon the same principles as our old Pyrenean friends.”

CHAPTER XVI.

THE INTERLAKEN OF THE PYRENEES.

“Perle enchassee au sein des Pyrenees Par l’ouvrier qu’on nomme l’Eternel, Je te predis de belles destinees; L’humanite te doit plus d’un autel.  Car l’etranger dans ta charmante enceinte Trouve toujours, suivant son rang, son nom, Le bon accueil, l’hospitalite sainte, Que sait offrir l’habitant de Luchon.”

—­Local Ode.

We now prepare for the last and longest drive on the Route Thermale,—­that from Bigorre to Luchon.  The distance is forty-four miles; the journey can be made in one long day, but owing to the amount of work for the horses “against collar,” it is wiser to break it into two.  This can be done at the village of Arreau, the only practicable resting-place between.  There are two severe cols to cross on this trip, one on this side of Arreau, the other beyond; the first is the most noted of all the Pyrenean cols for the immense and striking view it commands.  This pass, the Col d’Aspin, is but a morning’s drive from Bigorre, and is often made an excursion even by those not going to Luchon.  Another mode of reaching Luchon from Bigorre is by rail, both places being at the end of branches from the main line.  But the charm of mountain travel is in these magnificent roads, and few loving this charm would wisely sacrifice it to a mere gain in time.