[25] “Encores que l’air chault de ce pays devoit ayder au roy de Navarre, il ne laisse pas de se ressentir de la cheute qu’il prist; par le conseil des medecins a ce moys de may s’en va mettre aux Baings de Caulderets, ou il se foit tous les jours des choses merveilleuses.  Je me deslibere, apres m’estre repousee ce caresme, d’aller avecques luy, pour le garder d’ennuy et foire pour luy ses affaires; car tant que l’on est aux baings, il fault vivre comme ung enfant, sans nul soucy.”

Hither they came accordingly, and the court with them.  How royalty put up with the then primitive accommodations is not recorded; standards of comfort, if not of lavishness, were lower then.  Here, surrounded by her maids of honor, Marguerite passed the pleasant days of the king’s convalescence and wrote many of her Contes in the long summer afternoons upon the hillsides.

Rabelais used to come to Cauterets, and one of the springs is said to be named from a visit of Caesar’s.  Eaux Chaudes and Eaux Bonnes have had eclipses of popularity, but Cauterets has always been in vogue.  It was not always luxurious, however.  Invalids were brought here by rough litters or on the backs of guides or horses.  A monk and a physician lived near the bath-enclosure, and narrow cabins or huts, roofed with slate, were let out to the sick and their attendants.  How greatly the dignified Marguerite and her war-bred husband would marvel, if they could walk with us to-day from the Thermal Establishment, across the park and through the streets and squares,—­to pause from their astonishment in the polished and gilt-mirrored drawing-room of the Hotel Continental!

III.

There are walks and promenades and mountain nooks in all directions from the town, but the afternoon grows misty and we do not explore them.  The Gave running noisily on, hard by, has its stiller moments, up the valley, and the trout-fishing is reputed rather remarkable.  In fact, one ardent angler who came here is said to have complained of two drawbacks:  first, that the fish were so provokingly numerous as to ensure a nibble at every cast; and second, that they were so simple-minded and untactical that every nibble proved a take.

Besides affording these milder joys, Cauterets is a centre for larger excursions.  There are three especially noted.  The first and finest is the trip to the Lac de Gaube, a high mountain tarn at the very foot of the Vignemale.  This we plan in prospect for to-morrow.  It is four hours away by a bridle-path, passing on the way several much-admired mountain cataracts.  The second excursion is by the foot-pass over a shoulder of the Viscos to Luz, a counterpart of the path over the Gourzy from Eaux Chaudes to Eaux Bonnes.  As we purpose going to Luz by carriage, passing down to Pierrefitte and so up the other side of the V, we strike the Viscos from the list of necessaries.  The third is the ascent of the Monne, the mountain overhanging Cauterets and 9000 feet above the sea; reported as long but not difficult and as giving a repaying view.  But there is a mountain near Luz, the Bergonz, from which the view is held equally fine, and it is, we learn, simpler of ascent; there is even a bridle-path to the summit.  Since we are to go to Luz, we decide for the Bergonz, and so cancel the Monne.