From Bar-le-Duc onwards the leagues are again of the Gascon measure, and as one approaches Germany they become longer and longer, so that, at last, they wax double, or even treble. We entered Plommieres on Friday the 16th of September 1580, at two o’clock in the afternoon. It is on the borders of Lorraine and Germany, situated in a chasm between divers lofty scarped hills, which close it in on all sides. At the bottom of this valley several springs, cold and hot as well, flow forth. The hot water has neither smell nor taste, and is by nature as hot as any one can endure to drink: so much so that M. de Montaigne was obliged to pass it from glass to glass. Only two of the springs are drunk. One which flows from the eastward and forms the bath, which they call the Queen’s Bath, leaves in the mouth a certain sweet taste, not unlike liquorice, and no disagreeable aftertaste. But after very careful attention, M. de Montaigne declared that a slight flavour of iron might be detected therein. The other spring which rises at the base of the mountain opposite, and of which M. de Montaigne drank only one day, is slightly harsh, and has the flavour of alum. The habit of the place is to take a bath two or three times a day. Some take their meals in the bath, where they are cupped and scarified, and do not drink the waters except after a purge. If they drink at all, they take a glass or two in the bath. They deemed the practice of M. de Montaigne a mighty strange one, to wit that, without any preparatory medicine, he should take nine glasses of water, amounting to a potful, every morning at seven, and dine at mid-day; that on the days when he bathed--every other one--he should fix upon four o’clock, and only stay about an hour in the water. And on these days he willingly went without his supper.