“The Prince of Condé, who was present at this conversation, was overjoyed at my having a chaplain. Poor Poussatin was in a very tattered condition, and I had no time to provide him with a proper habit at Perpignan; but giving him a spare livery of one of the Marshal de Grammont’s servants, I made him get up behind the prince’s coach, who was like to die with laughing every time he looked at poor Poussatin’s uncanonical mien in a yellow livery. “As soon as we arrived in Paris the story was told to the queen, who at first expressed some surprise at it; this, however, did not prevent her from wishing to see my chaplain dance; for in Spain it is not altogether so strange to see ecclesiastics dance, as to see them in livery. “Poussatin performed wonders before the queen; but as he danced with great sprightliness, she could not bear the savour which his violent motions diffused through the room; the ladies likewise began to pray for relief.” The Eastern Pyrenees have, to my mind, been unduly neglected, and yet they present scenes of great beauty, and are very easily reached. To botanists they should be especially attractive. The Val d’Eyne, near Mont Louis, is known to possess flowers found nowhere else in the range. The ravine of the Aude is as fine as any in the Hautes Pyrénées. There are peaks that run up to 10,000 feet, and are covered with snow all the year, and if the glaciers be insignificant, glaciers are not essential to beauty. There are more mountain tarns here than elsewhere, and some of these the largest in the Pyrenees. In ecclesiastical architecture this is by far the richest portion of the chain, as the churches have not been wrecked by the Huguenots as in Béarn and Bigorre. And what is more, there is less rain, there are clearer and bluer skies. Some of the watering-places are sweet and sheltered nooks where one can be in summer sunlight early in April, even at the end of March, sheltered from every wind, and with excursions possible all about them, and what is more, are not so fashionable, not so savouring of Paris as Bagnères and Luchon, Cauterez, and Eauxbonnes. In the heats of summer no more cool and invigorating climate can be found than in some of those towns and villages on lofty plateaux, like Mont Louis. As to the Pyrenees in general, many best able to judge and with widest experience of mountain scenery, prefer them to the Alps of Switzerland and of Tyrol, so overrun with the tripper and the herds conducted by Cook. The colouring is richer and more varied, the foliage, the flowers more abundant; and the peasantry have not lost their simplicity, as have the Swiss.