The local merchants call St. Rémy “_toujours un pays mort_,” but in spite of this they all eke out considerably more than what a full-blooded Burgundian would call a good living. As a matter of fact the population of St. Rémy live on something approaching the abundance of good things of the Côte d’Or itself. There is perhaps nothing remarkable about this, in the midst of a mild and pleasant land like Provence; but it seems wise to state it here, for we know of an Englishman who stayed three days at St. Rémy’s most excellent Grand Hôtel de Provence and complained because he did not get beefsteaks or ham and eggs for a single meal! He got carp from Vaucluse, _langouste_ from St. Louis-de-Rhône, the finest sort of lamb (but not plain boiled, with cauliflower as a side dish), chickens of the real spring variety, or a brace of little wild birds which look like sparrows and taste like quail, but which are neither--with, as like as not, a bottle of Châteauneuf des Papes, grapes, figs, olives, and goat’s milk cheese. Either this, or a variation of it, was his daily menu for breakfast or dinner, and still he pined for beefsteaks! Had our traveller been an American he would perhaps have cried aloud for boiled codfish or pumpkin pie! The hotel of St. Rémy is to be highly commended in spite of all this, though the writer has only partaken of an occasional meal there. He got nearer the soil, living the greater part of one long bright autumn in the household of an estimable tradesman,--a baker by trade, though considering that he made a great accomplishment of it, it may well be reckoned a profession. Up at three in the morning, he, with the assistance of a small boy,--some day destined to be his successor,--puts in his artistic touches on the patting and shaping of the various loaves, ultimately sliding them into the great low-ceiled brick oven with a sort of elongated snow-shovel such as bakers use the world over. It was in his manipulating of things that the art of it all came in. Frenchmen will not all eat bread fashioned in the same form, and the cottage loaf is unknown in France. One may have a preference for a “_pain mouffle_,” a long sort of a roll; or, if he likes a crusty morsel, nothing but a “_pistolet_” or a “_baton_” will do him. Others will eat nothing but a great circular washer of bread--“_comme un rond de cuir_”--or a “_tresse_,” which is three plaited strands, also crusty. A favourite with toothless old veterans of the Crimea or beldames who have seen seventy or eighty summers is the “_chapeau de gendarme_,” a three-cornered sort of an affair with no crust to speak of. By midday the baker-host had become the merchant of the town and had dressed himself in a garb more or less approaching city fashions, and seated himself in a sort of back parlour to the shop in front, which, however, served as a kitchen and a dining-room as well.