Clermont 19T 



and more still, a very fine irrigation, said also to be practised 

 there, I engaged a guide. Report, when it speaks of things of 

 which the reporter is ignorant, is sure to magnify; the irrigation 

 is nothing more than a mountain side converted by water to 

 some tolerable meadow, but done coarsely, and not w^ell under- 

 stood. That in the vale, between Riom and Ferrand, far 

 exceeds it. The springs are curious and powerful : they gush, 

 or rather burst, from the rock in four or five streams, each 

 powerful enough to turn a mill, into a cave a little below the 

 village. About half a league higher there are many others ; they 

 are indeed so numerous that scarcely a projection of the rocks or 

 hills is without them. At the village I found that my guide, 

 instead of knowing the country perfectly, w^as in reality ignorant; 

 I therefore took a woman to conduct me to the springs higher 

 up the mountain; on my return she was arrested by a soldier 

 'of the guarde bourgeois (for even this wTetched village is not 

 without its national militia) for having, without permission, 

 become the guide of a stranger. She was conducted to a heap 

 of stones they call the chateau. They told me they had nothing 

 to do with me; but as to the wom.an she should be taught more 

 prudence for the future: as the poor devil was in jeopardy on 

 my account, I determined at once to accompany them for the 

 chance of getting her cleared by attesting her innocence. We 

 were followed by a mob of all the village, with the woman's 

 children crying bitterly, for fear their mother should be im- 

 prisoned. At the castle, we waited some time, and were then 

 shown into another apartment, where the town committee was 

 assembled; the accusation was heard; and it was wisely re- 

 marked by all that, in such dangerous times as these, when all 

 the world knew that so great and powerful a person as the queen 

 was conspiring against France in the most alarming manner, 

 for a woman to become the conductor of a stranger — and of a 

 stranger who had been making so many suspicious inquiries as 

 I had, was a high offence. It was immediately agreed that she 

 ought to be imprisoned. I assured them she was perfectly 

 innocent, for it was impossible that any guilty motive should be 

 her inducement; finding me curious to see the springs, having 

 viewed the lower ones, and wanting a guide for seeing those 

 higher in the mountains, she offered herself: that she certainly 

 had no other than the industrious view of getting a few sols for 

 her poor family. They then turned their inquiries against 

 myself, that if I wanted to see springs only, what induced me 

 to ask a multitude of questions concerning the price, value, and 



