even when convenient; the torrent of ‘impossible’, ‘incroyable,’ ‘que c’est gentil,’ ‘ravissant,’ ‘beau’ would drown any opposition.  The only chance is to be deaf to argument, dumb to solicitations, to place the sum proposed before the merchant, and if it be not accepted, retire in dignified silence.  Ten to one you will be followed and a fresh assault commenced; be resolute, and the same odds you get your bargain.”

Variety marks the stores not only, but the streets and saunterers.  All these Pyrenean resorts put on the motley.  There is of course the substratum of plainly-garbed humanity; but as at Eaux Bonnes, it is set off with scarlet-coated guides, Spaniards in deep-colored mantles, peasant women with red capulets or bright-hued shoulder-wear, and the satin finish of fashion in its passing carriages.  Hucksters are pleading their varied wares in the plaza, and here and there a shovel-hatted priest is given reverential right of way.  We meet scarcely an English face, however, and of our own travel-loving countrymen none at all.  At noon the band plays in the music pavilion, and by degrees the idle world drifts in that direction.  The round cafe-tables under the trees gradually sort out their little coteries, and white-aproned gentry skate about with liqueur-bottles, clinking glass beer-mugs, baskets of rolls, and the inevitable long-handled tin coffee-pots.  The outdoor scene tempts us more than a hotel luncheon; we cast in our lot with an alert-eyed waiter, and the syrups and chocolate he brings are doubly sweetened with the strains of Martha.

II.

Here is an old letter concerning these waters, which brings the dead back in flesh and blood.  It leaves its writer before us in vivid presence, a womanly reality.  It is Marguerite of Angouleme[24] who writes it,—­the thoughtful, high-souled queen of Bearn-Navarre, whose daughter was afterward mother of Henry IV.  She is at Pau, and is sending word about her husband’s health to her brother, Francis I of France.

[24] Marguerite of Angouleme is often, even by historians, designated as Marguerite of Valois.  It is better to preserve the distinction in the names.  Marguerite of Angouleme was the wife of Henry II of Navarre; the name Marguerite of Valois more properly designates the wife (known also as Margot) of Henry IV, their grandson.

“Though this mild spring air,” she tells him, “ought to benefit the King of Navarre, he still feels the effects of the fall he met with.  The doctors have ordered him to spend the month of May at the Baths of Caulderets, where wonderful things are happening every day.

“I am thinking of going with him,” she adds,—­how domestic and personal these little royal plannings seem,—­“after the quiet of Lent, so as to keep him amused and look after him and help him with his affairs; for when one is away for his health at the baths, he ought to live like a child, without a care."[25]