Thus, even on fine days, a fine view is rare unless it is an early one.  We deplore this unhappy trait of the weather and deeply resent its arbitrariness.  But resentment is fruitless under a despotism.  And there is after all a certain glow of superciliousness in being up early; the feat once accomplished, it brings its own reward; one feels a comforting disdain for the napping thousands who are losing the crisp, unbreathed freshness in the air and on the mountains; one speedily ceases regretting the missing forty winks, as he opens eyes and lungs and heart to the spirit of the morning.

We accordingly arrange for an early start, not precisely resigned, but resolved nevertheless.  The guide, as instructed, knocks at our doors in the morning, just before six o’clock.  We hear the fatal words:  “It makes fine weather, monsieur;” we awake, imprecating but still resolved; we call out a response of assent, still imprecating; nerve ourselves to rise,—­struggle mentally to do so,—­struggle more faintly,—­yield imperceptibly,—­forget for an instant to struggle at all,—­and in another instant we are restfully back beyond recall in the land of dreams.

Our resentment was stronger than we knew.

When the carriage finally carries us out from the town, it is the fifth hour at least after sunrise and more than three after our time for starting.  We should have had half of the Entecade beneath us, and are but just quitting Luchon.  The inevitable thin lines of mist are already cobwebbing the horizons; but there is a good breeze abroad to-day and the clouds are not resting so quietly in the niches as usual.  So we comfort us greatly, and the horses urge forward up the valley, themselves seemingly full of hope that the day is not lost.

The base of the Entecade is six miles from Luchon.  For some distance the road runs up the Vallee du Lys, whose continuance merits a separate excursion.  Then we turn off, under the old border-tower of Castel Vieil, and soon the carriage is dodging up a cliffy hill, the road hooded with beeches and pines and playing majestic hide-and-seek with the sharp mountains ahead.  It is only an hour and a half, and we are at the Hospice de France.  Here the road ends.  The horses stop before the plain stone structure, low, heavily built, and not surpassingly commodious, and we alight to prepare for the climb.  The building is owned by the Commune of Luchon, which rents it out under conditions to an innkeeper; and its object, like that of the St. Bernard, is to serve as a refuge for those crossing the pass near which it lies.  There are no monks in it, however; it is simply a rough mountain posada, offering a few poor beds in emergencies, and finding its chiefer lifework in purveying to the Luchon tourists.