This was not, indeed, the equipage with which the Countess de Bigorre should have visited a town once under the dominion of her husband's ancestors; but what was to be done? A carriage, indeed, we had, which would have held six, and if required, eight persons; though the gilding was somewhat tarnished, and a few industrious spiders had spun their delicate nets in the windows, and between the spokes of the wheels. Neither were horses wanting, for on the side of the mountain were eight coursers, with tails and manes as long as the locks of a mermaid, and a plentiful supply of hair to correspond about their feet. They were somewhat aged, indeed, and for the last six years they had gone about slip-shod amongst the hills, enjoying the _otium cum dignitate_ which neither men nor horses often find. Still they would have done; but where were we to find the six men dressed in the colours of the family, necessary to protect the foot-board behind? where the four stout cavaliers, armed up to the teeth, to ride by the side of the carriage? where the postilions? where the coachman? My mother did much more wisely than strive for a pomp which we were never to see again. She went quietly and simply, to discharge what she considered a duty, with as little ostentation as possible; and when the worthy _maître d'hôtel_ lamented, with the familiarity of long service, that the Countess de Bigorre should go without such a retinue as in his day had always made the name respected, she replied, quietly, that those who were as proud of the name as she was, would find no retinue needful to make it respectable. My father retired into his library, as we were about to depart, saying to my mother, that he hoped she had commanded such a body of retainers to accompany her as she thought necessary. She merely replied that she had; and set out, with a single groom to hold the horses, and a boy to show us the way to the dwelling of the procureur. Let it be observed, that, up to the commencement of the year of which I speak, Lourdes had never been visited with the plague of an attorney; but at that epoch, the father of the lad who had saved my life, and who, like him, was named Jean Baptiste Arnault, had come to settle in that place, much to the horror and astonishment of the inhabitants. He had, it was rumoured, been originally _intendant_, or steward, to some nobleman in Poitou, and having, by means best known to himself, obtained the charge of procureur in Bearn, he had first visited Pau, and thence removed to Lourdes.