Vic-sur-Cère, half an hour distant from Aurillac, is an earthly paradise, a primitive Eden, as yet unspoiled by fashion and utilitarianism. The large 'Etablissement des Bains,' described in French and English guide-books, has long ceased to exist; bells, carpets, curtains, and other luxuries are unknown; but the unfastidious traveller, who prefers homeliness and honesty to elegance and extortion, may here drink waters rivalling those of Spa without being exposed to the exorbitant prices and insolence of the Spa hotel-keepers. Rustic inns, or rather pensions, may be had at Vic-sur-Cère, in which the tourist is wholesomely lodged and handsomely 'tabled' at a cost that would enrapture Mr. Joseph Pennell. Two or three hundred visitors, chiefly from the neighbouring towns, spend the summer holidays here, one and all disappearing about the middle of September. When we arrived, we had the entire place to ourselves--inn, river-side walks, and dazzlingly green hills. No palm island in mid-Pacific could offer a sweeter, more pastoral halting-place. It is indeed a perfect little corner of earth, beauty of the quiet kind here reaching its acme; and neither indoors nor abroad is there any drawback to mar the traveller's enjoyment. From the windows of our hotel, close to the station, we enjoy a prospect absolutely flawless--Nature in one of her daintiest moods is here left to herself. The inn stands amid its large vegetable, fruit and flower gardens; looking beyond these, we see the prettiest little town imaginable nestled in a beautiful valley, around it rising romantic crags, wooded heights, and gentle slopes, fresh and verdant as if the month were May. Through the smooth meadows between the encompassing hills winds the musically-named stream, the Iraliot, and from end to end the broad expanse of green is scented with newly-mown hay. The delightful scenery, the purity of the air, the excellent quality of the waters, ought to turn Vic-sur-Cère into a miniature Vichy. Fortunately for the lovers of rusticity and calm, such has not as yet been the case, and the simple, straightforward character of the people is still unspoiled by contact with the outer world. Here, also, the pervading aspect is of well-being and contentment. 'Everybody can live here,' we were told by an intelligent resident; 'only the idle, the drunkard, and the thriftless need come to want.' Vagrancy is altogether absent; the children are neatly dressed and very clean; the men and women have all a look of cheerful independence as they toil on their little farms or mind their small flocks and herds.