following day; and that, in fine, Madam Besson having lost sight of him for more than fifteen years, was unable to furnish any other sign by which he could be recognised than his complexion, which, already at that time, promised to bear a great resemblance to mine. I now, on my part, entered into explanations which appeared to satisfy my hearers; and it was then and there determined, in order to cultivate the acquaintance thus accidentally commenced, that I should defer a whole week my journey to Bordeaux. Let me here observe by the way, and once for all, that never did hospitality show itself more attentive and frank than that which I experienced with this family; that never was the art better practised than by them, of saddening the hour of parting, by the constant exercise of the agreeable duties of friendship. The city of Pau contains but one remarkable monument, the Chateau of Henry IV., which I hastened to visit. It is situated on an eminence, from whose sides the eye discovers a magnificent landscape. I contemplated with unceasing pleasure that long chain of blue mountains, the extremity of which was concealed behind the horizon, and whose lofty summits, ever clothed in snow, feed incessantly the sinuous beds of the gaves or small rivers of the Bearn. Here and there a flock of sheep was pasturing under the secure guard of the formidable dog of the Pyrénées, and at no great distance the shepherd, quietly stretched upon the grass, told by means of a piercing whistle, of which he knew well how to vary the sounds, what orders he desired his faithful companion to transmit to the docile objects of his care. Nearly in front of me, at the foot of a hill, my friend pointed out to me an isolated cottage of a somewhat extraordinary shape. Under its shelter still dwell the descendants of the fosterfather of Henry le Grand, that simple and honest villager, who, when he could not gain admittance into the Louvre with a basket of cheeses made of cow's milk, which he destined for his royal charge, imagined that it was necessary to say that they were made of ox's milk! My complaisant cicerone, M. Besson, however, informed me that the porter was growing impatient, and that he would immediately introduce us into the great hall of the castle. We entered. It was the spacious sleeping apartment of Jeanne d'Albret. In the right hand corner .of the inner extremity, not far from an immense fire-place, stood the princess's bed when she became the mother, singing, even in the midst of her birth-pangs, to the best king France has ever possessed. I was shown in the centre of this chamber a cradle made of a single tortoiseshell, which a misguided spirit of magnificence had covered with a paltry drapery of velvet and gold. In this, the cradle of the young Henry, is still religiously preserved an iron fork like those used in England, and which he himself ate with during his childhood. I could have wished to examine in detail every corner, every picturesque casement, every antique moulding of this silent and solitary chamber; but our guide, at the expiration of a quarter of an hour, hinted to us that he must return to his post. I inquired whether permission could not be obtained to visit the other apartments of the castle. "The other apartments," replied he, "have been placed at the disposal of the governor and his family." I shrugged my shoulders, and we retired. I imagined, at the time, that in the façade, in the staircases, and along the vast corridors of this regal abode, there were perceptible certain signs of a dilapidation, which seemed rather to indicate a total want of care and attention, than that judicious veneration which, whilst it refrains from endeavouring to conceal the ravages of time, does all in its power to arrest their progress. May I be permitted to hope that the present government has laboured to deserve a different opinion. "Have you ever heard speak of Betharram, its calvary, and the miracles there performed?" inquired M. Besson, as we returned home. I professed my profound ignorance of all these things. "Then," pursued he, with a smile, “it must have been your guardian angel that inspired you with the idea of commencing your travels yesterday, in order that you might to-day arrive at Pau. To-morrow, a most notable fête is celebrated at Betharram. We are only four leagues from the place; and if you please, we will hire horses after dinner, and ride over to the village of L'Estelle, where we may put up at the house of a very amusing aubergiste; and to-morrow, at day break, I will show you the famous procession in honour of the Virgin." I heartily gave my consent to this arrangement, and in less than an hour we were labouring hard to accelerate the measured pace of our two meagre hacks. The road from Pau to L'Estelle is, in truth, delightful. On the right hand are hillocks, orchards, vineyards, with fertile and smiling pastures; on the left, the Gave weaves its capricious meanderings amidst vast fields of maize and wheat; hills covered with flocks rise beyond, and in the back ground still the same blue lofty mountains with their whitened and misty summits; near at hand, moreover, are cottages with their smoking chimneys, all clean, neat, wellbuilt, and surrounded by humble enclosures; whilst, at frequent intervals, long straggling villages, the elegant houses of which peeped coquettishly forth upon the road. At every step, a friendly voice utters the words of welcome. "God give you a safe journey, sir!" cries a countryman, whose form is at once athletic and graceful, as he takes off his berrette. "May Jesus and Mary watch over you," murmurs a gentle voice that seems half afraid to escape from beneath a white hood. "Tis a young and timid Béarnaise. You turn round; she hastens her step, turns round also and smiles: fugit, sed cupit ante videri. Thanks to the deliberate pace of our steeds, we were enabled to admire at leisure the gorgeous panorama which unceasingly unrolled itself before our eyes; and when we arrived at L'Estelle, the clear tinkling of the bell was announcing the Angelus. I shall never forget the sweet scene it was then my lot to contemplate. The last rays of the sun were fading behind the Pyrénées; and in the atmosphere floated that delicious perfume which the breezes of evening bring along with them, and on which no language has been able to bestow a name. A curtain of clouds was descending along the sides of the mountains, from amid which, ever and anon, a shepherd and his flock emerged, returning to the folds. The solemn hush of nature was broken only by the distant bleating of sheep, the warbling of birds beneath the foliage of the trees, and the measured and plaintive sounds of the Angelus. Near a cross of stone, blackened by the influences of time, stood an old man hard upon his hundredth year. His son, the curé of L'Estelle, had preceded him to the grave, and the inhabitants, honest and simple people, in the belief that his age brought him nearer to heaven than any other, had made it their request that the venerable Bernard should be invested with the most touching privilege of the priesthood—the prayer for all. "I hope it is not always the same," observed I, laughing. "You gentlemen seem Inclined to be witty, And to make me your theme; Like the pious multitude, I drew near the cross, knelt down, and prayed. The centenarian then stretched out his withered and trembling hands over the people, and slowly pronounced the words "May the Almighty protect us during our slumbers!" His two grandchildren, each of whom had lived through more than half a century, then gently led away the old he then proceededman, to whom the villagers bowed profoundly as they stood aside to allow him to pass. 66 Let us to supper," whispered my prosaic friend, M. Besson. I was half inclined to complain of him for having so unmercifully diverted the current of my reflections. I should have been in the wrong. His was one of those worthy and candid minds to whom evil alone seems out of place and astonishing. For them the good is the rule; it is customary, and by a fortunate instinct they draw near it, and unite themselves with it naturally and without effort. The only auberge at L'Estelle was kept at that time, and I hope is still kept, by a fat little man, with a bald head and pursy countenance, by name Monsieur Pommier. He was a merry old fellow, of fifty years, or thereabouts, with emaciated and bandy legs, but a huge body, and it was his custom to draw his head into his goitre, so as to remind one of a turkey-cock when he emits his harsh and guttural call. Two large black eyebrows shaded his grey, fiery eyes, and allowed him, when he pleased to lower them over his lids, to exhibit the most extraordinary play of features it had ever been my lot to behold. Add to this rough sketch, a nasal and drawling falsetto voice, the gascon accent in all its purity, and you will have a pretty correct notion of the physical advantages of the proprietor of the hotel des trois pommes d'or. retorted the good man, annoyed at my remark: "Here you will find Most capital fare: "Twill be just to your mind; And cheaper nowhere." Our host spoke truly: we had an excellent supper, for the moderate sum of two francs and fifty centimes. The repast over, I begged M. Pommier to bring us a bottle of his best Jurançon, and to help us in disposing of it—I was curious to hear the character of his prose. He thanked us for the honour we did him, and soon placed upon the table a sort of demi-john, artistically invested with the air of antiquity, by means of a cloak of cobwebs. In petto, I suspected our Amphitryon of having discovered this artful trick. I spare the reader all the poetical effusions which the charms of the Béarnaise nectar drew from the inexhaustible M. Pommier. Suffice it to say, that for more than an hour we were exposed to a constant fire of rhymes, the strangest it is possible to conceive, and which must have experienced considerable surprise at finding themselves in juxta-position. Nevertheless, in the midst of this abominable jargon, there every now and then peeped forth a sally which need not have been disowned even by the cabinet My dear host," said I at length, my friend and I must indeed acknowledge that no man can excel the prodigious facility with which you versify all sorts of subjects; permit us now to beg a small specimen of your prose. Being a stranger in these parts, I wish to obtain of you some information on that quarter of the village which is called Betharram, and on the miracles attributed to the image of the Virgin.". "You could not have applied in a more likely quarter," answered M. Pommier. From generation to generation we have inhabited the parish of L'Estelle, and know better than most persons-though we say it that shouldn't-the authentic traditions relative to the subject in question. To begin, then, with the beginning, you must know, gentlemen, that rather more than five hundred years ago, a monk established himself in the grotto, which you will see tomorrow, on the top of our Calvary, and hollowed a niche for the statue of the holy Virgin, which he had brought with him. "At length there was built in that place a convent, which had become very rich and extensive at the time that the reformation introduced itself among the Béarnais. Jeanne d'Albret, that abominable heretic, caused the holy monastery to be abolished, dispersed its inmates, and kept their treasures. The history adds that she even dared to order her creatures to take away the celebrated statue, which she, deridingly, called "the Popish idol!" It was secretly buried, no one knows where, eighty feet under ground, and it was no more heard of until the reign of Henry IV.; but the very day that this great king-mark me, gentlemen, if you please the very day that this great king solemnly abjured the errors of his youth, Notre Dame reappeared in her accustomed niche-the very same statue, gentlemen; 'tis in print. "This prodigy, as you may well believe, convinced the most incredulous and the most hardened; and from that time forward they gave to the grotto the name of "Betharram,' which means the house of God, in Hebrew or in Latin, I don't exactly know which: but so says M. de Marca, in his history of Bearn. "Since this memorable event it has become the custom to come from all parts, on the fifteenth of August, to the chapel of Betharram; and those young girls who ascend on their knees the road to the Calvary, never revisit the place, next year, without a husband of their own choice.' Here finished the innkeeper, wishing' us good night, and recommending us to put out our candles carefully. We were summoned at the break of day by M. Pommier, who advised us to ascend, as speedily as possible, the lofty hill at the back of his house, if we wished to obtain an ample view of the spectacle, which the fête would soon present. We followed him eagerly, and certainly never did I experience less regret at having snatched from sleep a few of the first hours of a summer's day. Before us, the east was clothed in all its splendour, and the snowy summit of the Rune sparkled with a thousand fires. At the foot of the mountain, bathed by the waters of the Gave, alighted every now and then long flights of wood pigeons, whilst their implacable enemy, the black eagle of the Pyrénées, hovering motionless and almost invisible in the air, alarmed them by his sharp, shrill cry. Here and there all along the chain could be distinguished the elegant forms of the isard. It was to me a marvellous sight to behold these daring animals throwing backward their heads, communicate to their whole bodies a rapid quivering, and then, making a spring of extraordinary length, alight firmly on an arid point of rock appearing to offer not the slightest footing. These agile inhabitants of the mountains dart from slope to slope, from valley to valley; no obstacle stops them, neither the yawning gulfs, at whose bottom broad cataracts of water rush with a horrible roar into unfathomable abysses, nor those frightful crevices so frequent in the Pyrénées, whose gloomy depths the eye refuses to scan. They ascend, they descend; they come, they go, disappearing like an arrow whose flight you vainly endeavour to follow: they escape from the pursuit of wild beasts and even of man himself, into their impenetrable retreats, where, with their little ones, they are exposed only to the cruel claws of the king of birds. But distant songs were now making themselves heard, and every parish of the Bearn was advancing in procession towards the mimic Calvary. The banks of the Gaves, the high-roads, the paths, the hills, the valleys, and even the steep slopes of the mountains, the whole landscape, in fact, offered to our view the most picturesque aspect it is possible to conceive. Six young girls, clothed in white, carried the banner of the patron saint of their village; the curé followed them in his sacerdotal robes, and behind him marched, in two files, the men on the right hand, the women on the left, alternately repeating, in chorus, the beautiful verses of the " Magnificat," or pious hymns, in the language of the country. This procession, a thousand times renewed on every side, formed a gigantic and astonishing picture. Those innumerable voices, deep or clear, coming from a distance, or near at hand, over my head, or under my feet, filled my soul with a sort of religious enthusiasm, with I know not what profound reverence for a creed ill understood, no doubt, but touching from its simplicity and earnestness. "Now," said M. Pommier, "Let us go visit The reverend hermit, he lives by the side of the chapel, and this will, it seems, be a good day for him." We ascended the steep way leading to the Calvary; it is a path two or three yards in width. Here and there, as you mount, you meet with sixteen deep niches cut in the rock, where have been placed rude figures in painted wood, protected by an iron grating. They are! the "stations of the cross;" that is to say, the most affecting scenes of our Lord's passion, from the treachery of Judas to the crucifixion. The processions knelt down before each of these niches; the faithful kissed the ground three times with devotion, and cast in between the iron grating divers small pieces of money. I beheld some good old women drag themselves laboriously on their knees from one station to another; but that year, doubtless, there was no young girl in all the Bearn who cared to get a husband, for all walked. I pointed out this to Pommier, who pretended that those whose desire it was to set up for themselves had done what was needful the preceding evening. I was satisfied with this answer. We at length reached the platform. Innumerable banners, white, green, red, of every colour, in fine, were ranged around the three crosses which represented the death of our Saviour, and the two thieves crucified by His side. The crowd was so dense round the entrance of the chapel, that I could not approach it. At the door sat the hermit, by a table covered with chaplets, scapularies, and medals of all dimensions. This worthy man distributed on all sides these slight and cheap relics, which the devout Bearnaire prize so much; having purchased one of which, as a remembrance, I shortly after bade adieu to the shrine of the Virgin of Betharram. TO THE BRAVE HEARTS. BY CAMILLA TOULMIN. To them who ne'er such birthright sold, Abused God's gift for tempting gold! To Woman, in her common course Who finds endurance still the source Than warrior's courage more divine; To them who, racked by mortal pain, Where mind doth o'er the body reign, Till this resolves to dust; To hearts that suffer, and are true, THE FOUND ONE. (From the German of Goëthe.) Planted in my fairy home, Bud and blossom gracefully, Bloom and blush for love and me! To the Brave Hearts! Not theirs who rush To lead the furious Van, When rising passions wildly crush Fear from the heart of man ; When nations look as umpires on, To the Brave Hearts! No senate throng, Drink to the Hearts which do not break, Not of a radiant beauty speak, But cheeks of pallid hue: To mortal eyes their crowns are dim; To Genius, doom'd with drooping wing Yet keeps itself a holy thing, A FRAGMENT. "Loved, lost, lamented." They tore her from him, Broke all the ties that linked their loves together, And crush'd by one irreparable blow The hopes they long had cherish'd in their hearts. They told her she was young, and that her love Was but the first warm passion of her youth, Of too quick growth to bear the rugged blasts And roughening gales of fickle fortune, When Poverty, with all her ghastly train, Sadness, and haggard want, should her assail; And thus weigh'd down by misery and despair, What she had fondly deem'd the purest love Would prove but passion. So they tore her from him, And by that hasty, cruel separation Broke two most loving hearts. Spilsby, Oct., 1844. MY AUNT'S TEA TABLE. (A Sketch.) BY ELIZA WALKER. but in the constitution, moral and physical, of those about him. It was not so much their deeds that he discussed-that task he left in the efficient care of Mrs. Perkins-but their tempers and their health. Every ebullition of spleen, every casual cold that had occurred in the village for the last ten years, he accurately chronicled. Did you mention a person's name, his reply was-"Yes, a good-natured fellow ordinarily; but you should have seen him in the temper I did, in the September of 1836." Did you meet him in the street, you were instantly reminded of some habitual ailment yourself desired to forget, with a gentle hint that repeated seizures would lead some day to the "shuffling off this mortal coil." In addition to these two specimens of the large maternal family of It was a bright, balmy afternoon; the rain which had fallen in the morning had been just enough to give freshness to the grass, and revive the flowers which drooped beneath the blaze of a fierce July sun, without leaving the ground too damp for even satin shoes to tread. My aunt, whose very infirmities seemed to bestow an extra grace upon her by the uncomplaining gentleness with which she bore them, was seated in her old arm-chair, her foot resting on an ottoman, whilst one hand was ready to perform the offices of the tea-table; the other, ever and anon slyly bestowing a fond caress on the favourite tabby, which, with upturned eyes and fixed expectant look, sat watching for the moment which should put her in possession of her accustomed donation of milk. It was six o'clock-for at that primitive hour, when the labours of the dinner-"Prys," were four or five others of the softer toilette have not commenced with a large pro- | portion of her Majesty's liege subjects, did my good old aunty decree should assemble the family for tea and scandal; for, where is the country coterie which, when meeting for the one, dispense with the other. I know it not. And truth to say, dear little Maplefield was a most scandal-loving, scandal-provoking village. The girls in it were prettier than I ever saw in any other, and I think a degree more given to flirting; then the men were certainly more accessible to the tender passion than are all the "lords of the creation;" and, what with the aid of a modiste from London, to embellish those who differed from the poet, and thought "beauty unadorned is not adorned the most," yearly races, and a not infrequent visit from the strolling players, Maplefield furnished ample scope for the gossip-loving-and these, in England, form a not inconsiderable class. On this particular evening, it seemed as if all the Prys had been congregated together for some special purpose. Firstly, there was Mrs. Perkins, she whose restless curiosity was a terror to the "evil doer," whose telescope was ever at her eye, to ascertain the doings of her more distant neighbours, when not engaged in "marking, learning, and inwardly digesting" the deeds of those in her immediate vicinity, who might, indeed, congratulate themselves if one additional flower bloomed in their garden without being detected by her lynx-like observation. In juxta-position with Mrs. Perkins sat Mr. Dring, whose professed employment it was to detect all the errors and flaws, not in the constitution of his country-would that he had been content with that sex, whose distinctiveness lay in form and fea- N |