"See!" said the weaver; "this is the Protestant side of the valley,--all Protestants here. Not a Catholic _cabane_--no, no! they must go elsewhere,--we have nothing to do with them,--we shake off the dust of our feet upon them and theirs. You and I are one, upon our own ground--Protestant ground--staunch and true;" and he stamped with his foot upon the pebbles. "Monsieur must absolutely go with me to my _cabane_, and drink a glass of wine to the good cause; and see my rabbits--Protestant rabbits." Who could resist this last attraction? We turned and toiled up the flinty paths together; my acquaintance informing me, with great pride, that M. Guizot was a good Protestant of Nismes, as his father, who had fallen, _dans le terreur_, was before him. He understood that M. Guizot was then in England, and he was sure that he would be delighted at seeing such a fine Protestant country, and such a staunch Protestant people. Stopping at length at an unpainted door, in the rough, unmortared wall, my friend opened it, and we stepped into a little patch of garden, planted with olives and straggling vine-bushes. "They are much better cultivated, and give better oil and better wine," he said, "than the Catholic grounds;" and I am sure he believed the asseveration. Having duly inspected the "Protestant rabbits," we entered the _cabane_, a bare, rough, white-washed room, with a table, a few chairs, and unglazed lattices. Unless when the mistral blows, the open air is seldom or never unpleasant; and then wooden shutters are applied to the windward side of the houses. On this occasion, however, there was not a breath stirring amid the silvery grey leaves of the olives. The grasshoppers--fellows of a size which would astound Sir Thomas Gresham--chirped and leaped in the grass at the foot of the wall; scores and scores of lithe, yellow lizards, with the blackest of eyes, flashed up and down over the rough stones, and shot in and out of the crevices; but, excepting these sights and sounds, all around was hushed and motionless; and the sun, wintry though it was, flooded all the still, brown valley with a deluge of pure, hot light. The weaver filled a very comfortable couple of glasses with a small, but not ill-tasted, wine. "Here's to----;" he uttered a sentiment not complimentary to the Catholic Church, and, indeed, consigning it to the warmest of quarters, and took off his liquor with undeniable unction. I need not say whether I drunk the toast: anyhow, I drunk the wine. "And now look there," continued my host, pointing with his empty glass through the open window, to the north. The bare, blue hills of the Cevennes lay--a long ridge of mountain scenery, stretching from the valley of the Rhone as far and farther than the eye could follow them--towards that of the Garonne.