"And immediately he went away, and even my servants all went; so that there remained along with me only two pages, and the advocate de Las and the surgeon. They wanted to save the minister and the captain of the garrison, named Ladous, so as to have them hung before my quarters. But the soldiers had nearly killed them themselves, and took them away from those who held them and tore { 411}them into a thousand pieces. The soldiers made fifty or sixty who had withdrawn into the great tower, leap from the top into the moat, and these were drowned. It turns out that two who had hidden themselves were saved. There was a certain prisoner who wanted to give four thousand crowns. But never a man would hear of any ransom, and most of the women were killed."
With such fits of madness how has the human race managed to endure? "In vain you drain it," says Mephistopheles, "the fresh spring of living blood forever reappears."
You set out for Bagnères at five o'clock in the afternoon, in the dust and amidst a train of _coucous_ laden with people. The road is blocked, like the roads in the suburbs of Paris on a Saturday evening. The diligence, in passing, takes up as many peasants as it meets; they are put in heaps under the tilt, among the trunks, alongside the dogs; they seem proud and pleased with their lofty place. Legs, arms and heads, dispose themselves as best they can; they sing, and the coach appears like a music-box. It is in this triumphal equipage that you reach Bagnères, after sunset. You dine in haste, are taken to the _Promenade des Coustous_, and find, to your utter surprise, the Boulevard de Gand among the Pyrenees. { 413}Four rows of dusty trees; regular benches at equal intervals; on both sides, hotels of modern aspect, one of which is occupied by M. de Rothschild; rows of illuminated shops, of cafés chantants surrounded by crowds; terraces filled with seated spectators; upon the roadway, a black throng streaming under the lights. Such is the spectacle beneath your eyes. The groups form, dissolve, close up; you follow the crowd; you learn again the art of getting on without stepping on the feet of those you meet, of grazing everybody without elbowing anybody; of not getting crushed and of not crushing others; in short, all the talents taught by civilization and the asphaltum. You meet again with the rustle of dresses, the confused hum of conversations and steps, the offensive splendor of artificial lights, the obsequious and wearied faces of traffic, the skilful display of the shops, and all the sensations you wanted to leave behind. Bagnères-de-Bigorre and Luchon are in the Pyrenees the capitals of polite life, the meeting place of the pleasures of the world and of fashion--Paris, six hundred miles away from Paris.