A Tour Through The Pyrenees by Hippolyte Adolphe Taine : (full image Illustrated)
(This, my dear Marcelin, is a trip to the Pyrenees; I have...)
This, my dear Marcelin, is a trip to the Pyrenees; I have been there, and that is a praiseworthy circumstance; many writers, including some of the longest-winded, have described these scenes without leaving home.
And yet I have serious shortcomings to confess, and am deeply humbled thereat. I have not been the first to scale any inaccessible mountain; I have broken neither leg nor arm; I have not been eaten by the bears; I have neither saved any English heiress from being swept away by the Gave, nor yet have I married one; I have not been present at a single duel; my experiences include no tragic encounter with brigands or smugglers. I have walked much, and talked a little, and now I recount the pleasures of my eyes and ears. What sort of a man can he be who comes home from a long absence bringing all his limbs with him, is not the least in the world a hero, and yet does not blush to confess it? In this book I have talked as if with thee. There is a Marcelin whom the public knows, a shrewd critic, a caustic wit, the lover and delineator of every worldly elegance; there is another Marcelin, known to but three or four, a learned and thoughtful man. If there are any good ideas in this work, half of them belong to him; to him, then, I restore them.
H. TAINE.
CHAPTER I. BORDEAUX.ROYAN. I.
The river is so fine, that before going to Bayonne I have come down as far as Royan. Ships heavy with white sails ascend slowly on both sides of the boat. At each gust of wind they incline like idle birds, lifting their long wing and showing their black belly. They run slantwise, then come back; one would say that they felt the better for being in this great fresh-water harbor; they loiter in it and enjoy its peace after leaving the wrath and inclemency of the ocean. The banks, fringed with pale verdure, glide right and left, far away to the verge of heaven; the river is broad like a sea; at this distance you might think you saw two hedges; the trees dimly lift their delicate shapes in a robe of bluish gauze; here and there great pines raise their umbrellas on the vapory horizon, where all is confused and vanishing; there is an inexpressible sweetness in these first hues of the timid day, softened still by the fog which exhales from the deep river. As for the river itself, its waters stretch out joyous and splendid; the rising sun pours upon its breast a long streamlet of gold; the breeze covers it with scales; its eddies stretch themselves, and tremble like an awaking serpent, and, when the billow heaves them, you seem to see the striped flanks, the taw-ney cuirass of a leviathan.
Indeed, at such moments it seems that the water must live and feel; it has a strange look, when it comes, transparent and sombre, to stretch itself upon a beach of pebbles; it turns about them as if uneasy and irritated; it beats them with its wavelets; it covers them, then retires, then comes back again with a sort of languid writhing and mysterious lovingness; its snaky eddies, its little crests suddenly beaten down or broken, its wave, sloping, shining, then all at once blackened, resembles the flashes of passion in an impatient mother, who hovers incessantly and anxiously about her children, and covers them, not knowing what she wants and what fears. Presently a cloud has covered the heavens, and the wind has risen.
CONTENTS
BOOK I. THE COAST.
I. BORDEAUX.ROYAN.
II. LES LANDES.BAYONNE.
III. BIARRITZ.SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ.
BOOK II. THE VALLEY OF OSSA
I. DAX.ORTHEZ.
II. PAU.
III. EAUX BONNES.
IV. LANDSCAPES.
V. EAUX-CHAUDE S.
VI. THE INHABITANTS.
BOOK III. THE VALLEY OF LUZ.
I. ON THE WAY TO LUZ.
II. LUZ.
III. SAUVT-SAUVEUR.BARÉGES.
IV. CAUTERETS.
V. SAINT-SAVIN.
VI. GAVARNIE.
VII. THE BERGONZ.THE PIC DU MIDI.
VIII. PLANTS AND ANIMALS.
BOOK IV. BAGNE RES AND LUCHON.
I. FROM LUZ TO BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE.
II. BAGNÈRES-DE-BIGORRE.
III. THE PEOPLE.
IV. THE ROAD TO BAGNÈRES-DE-LUCHON.
V. LUCHON.
VI. TOULOUSE.
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