208 STRAY -AW AYS 



cell and greets her twelfth victim with unabated 

 cheerfulness. 



She lias been at work since 5 a.m. scouring and 

 slapi^ing four patients per hour, and she will con- 

 tinue till eleven, but neither her spirits nor her 

 muscles flag. These are a race to themselves, these 

 little sturdy baigneuses. From the time when the 

 Romans built the great pale arch that faces the 

 Etablissement, and downwards, their ancestresses 

 have been masseuses, and they have paddled through 

 all the generations in the healing streams of La 

 Source. One who saw them at 11 a.m. in their 

 plain black gowns, trooping down the wide steps, 

 and, as it happened, joining in the ranks of a troop 

 of similarly black-robed priests, said that the solu- 

 tion of their existence was then given to him. A 

 superannuated priest became a baigneuse — or per- 

 haps vice versa — ^less plausible theories have proved 

 correct. 



My last memory of Aix comes to me with a waft 

 of burning air, and of the scent of incense and rose- 

 leaves. Along, long procession, of priests, and choir- 

 boys, and nuns, and little cropped-headed children 

 dressed as angels, and more children, and yet more, 

 from all the schools of Aix, trails past the long, 

 shallow steps of the Etablissement that are thronged 

 with curious Etrangers and more or less devout 

 natives. A rose-decked altar, in honour of the 

 " Fete Dieu,^^ has been erected in one of the arched 

 entrances of the baths; a brief mass is sung, and 

 then this survival of mediaeval, possibly Pagan rites, 

 winds, chanting, between the trees and the flower- 

 stalls and the china booths, into the ancient church, 

 and the show is over. As far at least as M. M. les 

 Etrangers are concerned. These, looking at their 

 watches, recognise gladly that the serious appetite 



