"The best wines of all are called Aligote, and the second-best--still very good--are called Pinot. The boite ordinaire that grows away there in the plain, is called Gamay. When the Gamay is not red enough, we put it into some Otellot; that's as black as your hat, and colours the rest up beautifully. Do you drink much wine in your country, Monsieur?" "No, only the rich drink wine in our country. The poor never taste it. They drink mostly beer!" "Sapristi!" It was now our turn to be questioned. Mathilde, in particular, was very much interested in my wife's appearance and clothes. Were we married? Were we married in church? Why were we travelling? Were the English peasantry poor, and were they provident? "More poor than provident," we said. "Ah! now; the French poor are provident. They kill one pig a year, and lose not a hair of it. First comes the bacon; the fat is used for preparing meat; the blood for pudding; the entrails for sausages. It lasts from winter to winter--ah, Madame is making a picture!" Madame was sketching the brigand. "I shall put you into our book," said she. The brigand beamed approval. Five minutes later my wife thoughtlessly gave him the sketch. He tried not to look hurt--he was not, then, to go into the book, after all. Her woman's readiness saved the situation. "I never forget what I have once drawn," she said. "Vous y serez quand même." He was quite pacified. Then we left the men over their wine, while Mathilde took us the round of the church and village. She certainly was a charming person. I am not so sure that we shall live at Beaune after all. * * * * * Lest we should entirely forget the Roman occupation that was so much in our minds at Autun, we decided to make a pilgrimage to Cussy, a village due west of Beaune, where the Romans have set up a column, in memory of an event, or of a person, unknown. If a motor car be not available, you can best get there by taking the steam tramway, between Beaune and Arnay-le-Duc, as far as Lusigny; thence by bicycle, or as you will. The journey is worth making, for the sake of the climb you get through the gorge of Nantoux, and up the valley of Mavilly, where the train mounts, by a series of steep zig-zags, into the heart of the Côte d'Or. The view that opens out is quite Swiss in quality and magnificence. You look from the summit of a gigantic devil's cauldron, down rocky steeps, shaped like cathedral organ-pipes, whose eerie mountain music cheers the vignerons at their work below. All this great expanse of brown, cliff-bound upland, dappled in spring-time with blossoming fruit trees, is curiously chequered by dark hedges and white serpentine roads. Stage by stage the land falls away from you, until all detail is lost, and far away, over range after range of shining hills, the boundless plains of lower Burgundy merge imperceptibly into the sky.