These people have a genius for display. One day we heard the roll of drums, followed by four men marching solemnly, swathed in shawls and pieces of cloth. The children and the dogs follow the procession with hubbub; it is the opening of a { 489}new shop. The next day I copied the following handbill printed on yellow paper:
"Orpheonic festival in the grotto of Gargas.
"The Orpheonic Society from the city of Montrejean will execute
"Divers other pieces from the works of the great masters.
"Among other amateurs who will allow themselves to be heard, one will sing some stanzas on eternity.
"Finally, an exquisite voice, which wishes to remain anonymous in order to avoid those deserved praises that people are fond of lavishing on its sex, will sing also a number of pieces analogous to the circumstances.
"It will be delicious and even seraphic to lend an ear to the echo of the sonorous concretions of the stalactites, which will unite with the vibrating echo of the vault to repeat the harmonious notes; and when the divine voice shall be heard, the intoxicating charm of the spell will surpass every impression which can have been left in the soul by the most delightful of musical reunions.
These people are descendants of Clemence { 490}Isaure. Their advertisements are odes. By way of compensation many odes are advertisements.
In fact, you are here not far from Toulouse; like the character, the type is new. The young girls have fine, regular, clear-cut faces, of a lively and gay expression. They are small, with a light step, brilliant eyes, the nimbleness of a bird. In the evening, about a lottery-shop, these pretty faces stand out animated and full of passion beneath the flickering light, fringed with a black shadow. The eyes sparkle, the red lips tremble, the neck tosses with the little abrupt movements of the swallow; no picture can be more full of life.
If you leave the lighted and tumultuous alley, at the distance of an hundred paces, you find silence, solitude and obscurity. At night, the valley is of great beauty; it is framed and drawn out between two chains of parallel mountains, huge pillars which stretch in two files and support the dark vault of heaven.
Their arches mark it out like a cathedral ceiling, and the immense nave vanishes several leagues away, radiant with stars; these stars fling out flames. At this moment, they are the only living things; the valley is black, the air motionless; you can only distinguish the tapering tops of the poplars, erect in the tranquil night, wrapt in their mantle of leaves. The topmost branches stir, and { 491}their rustle is like the murmur of a prayer echoed by the distant hum of the torrent.