to level the ground between and open three additional avenues, each planted with quadruple ranges of trees.  But this last innovation wrought trouble; it focused the growing opposition; every chair-carrier and pony-hirer in Luchon, together with every owner of the lands condemned, spitefully resented the opening of the new routes.  Combining with the neighboring mountaineers, they rose one night and utterly demolished all three of the avenues, uprooting the young trees, leaving the ways strewed with debris and wholly impassable.

D’Etigny calmly built them up anew, and with increased care.

They were demolished again.

Even the Intendant’s patience failed then.  He built the roads the third time, but in addition to trees he studded them with troops.

They were not molested after that.  Their enemies found they had a man against them who meant what he said and was prepared to stand by it.  Eventually they veered around even into respect; Luchon in the end grew to rejoice in her Allees unreservedly; they stand to this day, and D’Etigny’s name is all but canonized under the lindens which once heard him vigorously cursed.

VI.

Luchon is undoubtedly over-petted.  The belle of the spas is a trifle spoiled.  The inblowing of fashion has been fanning her self-appreciation for years.  Prices are crowded to the highest notch, for the season is short and one must live; the hotels are expensive, though pensions and apartment-houses mitigate this; the cost of living is high for the region, though always low when judged by home standards; articles in the shops are chiefly of luxury, and even carriages and guides are appraised at advanced rates.  It is the extreme of French fashion which comes to Luchon.  Eaux Bonnes and Cauterets are close rivals, but Luchon is the queenliest of the triplet.  As a consequence, the place shows a touch of caprice, of vanity, even of arrogance; prosperity is a powerful tonic, but sometimes its iron enters into the soul.

Notwithstanding, the bright little town ends by enchaining us completely.  During the days we pass in its Allees and vallees, we come to agree that there could be fewer more captivating spots for a summer wanderer, singly or en famille, seeking a six weeks’ resting-place in the mountains.  It will grow at length into the recognition of the English and Americans, now so unaccountably unknowing of this mountain-garden; the prediction lies on the surface that in time it must open rivalry almost with that much-loved Interlaken it so happily resembles.