But I am forgetting that I am now at Chanac.  When I went down into the kitchen at about seven o’clock, after two or three hours’ sleep, the landlady and the other women of the inn looked very tired and sheepish.  They were prepared to hear some strong criticism of the night’s proceedings, such as they would be sure to get when the controleur came down.

’You seem to have had some good amusement last night, and to have kept it up well,’ said I.

‘Oh, monsieur,’ exclaimed the hostess, shaking her head dolefully, ‘what a night it was!’

And she went on shaking her head, while the kitchen-maid—­the one who danced the bourree, and was now listlessly rinsing glasses innumerable—­giggled behind her mistress’s back.  She evidently thought that it was a good sort of night.  In making up the bill I think that the regretful aubergiste, who felt, that the reputation of her house had received a cruel blow, and that all the mothers in the place were reviling her for encouraging their sons in dissipation, must have left the bed out of the reckoning, considering that she could not honestly charge me for a night’s rest which I did not get.  At any rate, the bill was ridiculously small.

[Illustration:  CIGALA, THE SHOEBLACK.]

Now, with the help of daylight, I can see what the little town is like.  The houses—­many of which have late Gothic doorways—­are clustered about the sides of an isolated hill or mamelon in the valley of the Lot, beyond which rise the high cliffs covered with dark woods.  The town is still dominated by the tall rectangular tower that helped to protect it in the Middle Ages, and near to this is the church, which is both Romanesque and Gothic, and is rich in curious details.  The sanctuary is separated from the rest of the choir by the graceful arcade of numerous little arches supported by tall and slender columns, which is one of the most charming and characteristic features of the Auvergnat style.  The carving of the capitals exhibits in a delightful manner the hardihood and florid fancy of this singularly interesting development of Byzantine-Romanesque taste.  Upon one of the piers of the sanctuary are a pair of symbolical doves dipping their beaks into the chalice that separates them, and upon another are two grotesque and fantastic beasts facing one another with frightful jaws wide open.

The walk from Chanac down the valley through the rest of the department of the Lozere I did not do fairly.  The sun was so hot and the way so tedious that I at length yielded to the temptation of the railway that I met here, and rode some fifteen or twenty miles.  It was not until the next morning at St. Laurent d’Olt that I braced myself up to the task of faring on foot by the river through the department of the Aveyron.  Here in the upper country the stream retains its ancient name, the Olt, which is merely an abbreviation of Oltis, unless it be the Celtic origin of the Latin word.  It is easy to see how in rapid speech L’Olt became changed to Lot.  The t is still pronounced.