Manners 35 



Bastard; Baron de Serres; Viscountess Duhamel; the Bishops 

 of Croire and Montauban; Monsieur de la Marche; the Baron 

 de Montagu, a chess player; the Chevalier de Che}Ton; and 

 Monsieur de Bellecomb, who commanded in Pondicherry, and 

 was taken by the English. There are also about half a dozen 

 young officers, and three or four abbes. — 



If I may hazard a remark on the conversation of French 

 assemblies, from what I have known here, I should praise them 

 for equanimity but condemn them for insipidity. All vigour 

 of thought seems so excluded from expression that characters 

 of ability and of inanity meet nearly on a par: tame and elegant, 

 uninteresting and polite, the mingled mass of communicated 

 ideas has powers neither to offend nor instruct; where there is 

 much polish of character there is little argument; and if you 

 neither argue nor discuss, what is ccuiversation ?' — Good temper7 

 and habitual ease, are the first ingredients in private society; 

 but' wit, knowledge, or originality must break their even surface 

 into some inequality of feeling, or conversation is like a journey 

 on an endless flat. 



Of the rural beauties we have to contemplate, the valley of 

 Larbousse, in a nook of which the town of Luchon is situated, 

 is the principal, with its surrounding accompaniment of moun- 

 tain. The range that bounds it to the north is bare of wood 

 but covered with cultivation; and a large village, about three 

 parts of its height, is perched on a steep that almost makes the 

 unaccustomed eye tremble with apprehension that the village, 

 church, and people will come tumbling into the valley. Villages 

 thus perched, like eagles' nests on rocks, are a general circum- 

 stance in the Pyrenees, which appear to be wonderfully peopled. 

 The mountain that forms the western wall of the valley is of a « 

 prodigious magnitude. Watered meadow and cultivation rise m 

 more than one-third the height. A forest of oak and beech -^ 

 forms^ noble belt above it: higher still is a region of ling; arid f^C 

 above all snow. From whatever point viewed, this mountain 

 is^ commanding from its magnitude and beautiful from its 

 luxuriant foliage. The range which closes in the valley to the 

 east is of a character different from the others; it has more 

 variety, more cultivation, villages, forests, glens, and cascades. 

 That of Gouzat, which turns a mill as soon as it falls from the 

 mountain, is romantic, with every accompaniment necessary 

 to give a high degree of picturesque beauty. There are features 

 in that of Montauban which Claude Loraine would not have 

 failed transfusing on his canvas ; and the view of the vale from 



