As for myself, recognising the honour that you will do me in receiving from my hand the work thus restored to its right state, I shall ever feel obliged to render you most humble duty.

THE HEPTAMERON.

[Illustration:  013a.jpg]

[Prologue:  The Story-tellers in the Meadow near The Gave.]

PROLOGUE.

On the first day of September, when the baths in the Pyrenees Mountains begin to be possessed of their virtue, there were at those of Cauterets(1) many persons as well of France as of Spain, some to drink the water, others to bathe in it, and again others to make trial of the mud; all these being remedies so marvellous that persons despaired of by the doctors return thence wholly cured.  My purpose is not to speak to you of the situation or virtue of the said baths, but only to set forth as much as relates to the matter of which I desire to write.

1 There are no fewer than twenty-six sources at Cauterets, the waters being either of a sulphureous or a saline character.  The mud baths alluded to by Margaret were formerly taken at the Source de Cesar Vieux, half-way up Mount Peyraute, and so called owing to a tradition that Julius Caesar bathed there.  It is at least certain that these baths were known to the Romans.—­Ed.

Cauterets is frequently mentioned by the old authors, and Rabelais refers to it in this passage:  “Pantagruel’s urine was so hot that ever since that time it has not cooled, and you have some of it in France, at divers places, at Coderetz, Limous, Dast, Ballerue, Bourbonne, and elsewhere"(Book ii. chap, xxxiii.).—­M.

All the sick persons continued at the baths for more than three weeks, until by the amendment in their condition they perceived that they might return home again.  But while they were preparing to do so, there fell such extraordinary rains that it seemed as though God had forgotten the promise He made to Noah never to destroy the world with water again; for every cottage and every lodging in Cauterets was so flooded with water that it was no longer possible to continue there.  Those who had come from the side of Spain returned thither across the mountains as best they could, and such of them as knew whither the roads led fared best in making their escape.

The French lords and ladies thought to return to Tarbes as easily as they had come, but they found the streamlets so deep as to be scarcely fordable.  When they came to pass over the Bearnese Gave,(1) which at the time of their former passage had been less than two feet in depth, they found it so broad and swift that they turned aside to seek for the bridges.  But these being only of wood, had been swept away by the turbulence of the water.