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parsonage. The church itself, though exhibiting every sign of being well cared for, as evidenced by its general neatness, and some coloured glass in particular, was chiefly remarkable for the beauty of its situation on one of the upper ledges of the water-washed village. Resting and musing awhile within its walls, it might occur to you that the retired life of the curate of this secluded hamlet, whoever he might be-passed in the adjacent vinegrown cottage, without family and possessed probably of little means beyond what we should consider the beggarly pittance vouchsafed to a French 'curé de campagne '-seemed to gather round itself many of the elements of romance; differing in this respect, among others, from that of his English compeer, who is for the most part a wellto-do family man, not usually averse to society, the ample comforts of whose well-stored vicarage contrast sharply enough with the primitive simplicity-not to say the nakedness of the landwhich meets the eye in the 'presbytère' of the French curate and the 'canonica' of the Italian parish priest.

But problematical as may have been puss's curiosity, not so that of the landlady of the little waterside inn, with its southern aspect mitigated by a rude verandah or porch of creeping vines. For, seeing her guest was a stranger, and yet

thinking he must needs have some business of a commercial kind to draw him so far out of the usual track of tourists, and having, moreover, no doubt seen him come from the direction of the church and parsonage, she followed up a stray. question or two by hazarding the enquiry whether he dealt in ecclesiastical furniture and ornaments. This was a random shot indeed, but it told something for her ingenuity as well as her curiosity.

As the subject of her questioning-no less amused than amusing-leisurely sipped his cup of black coffee, which had been more easily bespoken than produced, and partook of a hunch of 'pain de menage,' or coarse household bread served on the bare board, a stout, elderly man of the bourgeois class, clad in broadcloth, and evidently at home in the place, may be its mayor or ex-mayor, sauntered in and asked to be furnished with a light for his cigar. In returning towards Conques the writer met this same typical bourgeois not far out of the village of St.- Projet, resting with his wife on a bench. by the riverside. A word or two of salutation having been exchanged in passing, the English traveller threw out a remark on the beauty of the scenery. Un vilain pays de bois et de rochers,' broke in the lady; evincing in this observation the genuine French indifference, or rather antipathy, to rural, and especially mountain, scenery. Her

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husband however, to show he appreciated (whether or not he shared) the feeling which had prompted the original remark, withdrew his havanna from his mouth and said, with slow emphasis, looking round as he spoke on the panorama of stream and cliff, woodland and vineyard, 'Mais c'est pittoresque !'

The walk last sketched lay along the flat-first through the valley of the Dourdou and then up that of the wide and beautiful Lot. The next excursion was of an opposite character. Mounting aloft among the breezy hills, one substituted varied and far-reaching views for the more straitened landscape of a rock-bound watershed. Quitting the town of Conques by the arched gateway at its northern end, and then skirting the brow of the hill beyond by a path winding gradually down into the glen watered by the Dourdou, you debouch upon that stream just where it is joined by one of the many feeders that come rushing down from the uplands. Striking again, and at once, into the highlands, and following the gorge bored out for itself by this tributary watercourse, you mount higher and higher by a good carriage-road overhung, as usual, with chestnut woods, broken at intervals by stretches of vineyard. On the right, the torrent flowed through a fine ravine, bordered by mountains tinted to their tops by the changing foliage of autumn. On the summit of one of these, in the

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centre of some level tableland, is Pomiers, which, like most villages hereabouts, proved but a sorry hamlet, although it owned the exceptional advantage of one good house or château, the residence of a gentleman to whom the parishioners are indebted for the hard, smooth road by which the ascent is made.

While looking round the small church that stands beside an open area of scanty turf, with a distant likeness to an English green, the writer was addressed by the curate, a young man of strong and active build, who recognized the stranger, somewhat to his surprise apparently, as having met him on one occasion, but without their exchanging a word, even the name and abode of the clergyman being alike unknown to the wanderer whom chance alone had brought within his parish. After a brief introduction founded upon this slight acquaintance, the curate invited him to rest awhile in the parsonage house, a plain, white building with a patch of flower garden in front. Taking his casual visitor up the garden, bright with dahlias and chrysanthemums, and through the cottage door, which was flanked on either side by a window, with corresponding casements above, he led the way into the unpretending entrance hall. Here on a plain boarded floor lay a sack of flour, a sign of the thrifty housekeeping characteristic of these frugal

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homes of the clergy of the most haughty and ambitious of Churches. In such lowly form was housed the representative of that proudly exclusive Church-its impersonating agent or 'parson,' (formerly written 'person') synonymous with the famous 'black dragoon' of the English parochial system immortalized by Charles Kingsley. front room on the first storey served as the clergyman's study, which appeared to do duty, according to the frequent custom of our neighbours across the Channel, at once for library and bedchamber. Furnished with bookshelves holding a few choice works, one or two of the French standard preachers being of the number, it set one thinking-when left for a moment alone-throwing back one's thoughts from the self-asserting present to the fervid rhetoric of Massillon and Bossuet, for example, or the unadorned piety of Bourdaloue. A cage-bird enlivened with its song this solitary uncarpeted sanctum of the French country parson. Beneath was the salle-d-manger, upon the bare boards of which stood, for sole furniture, a table and three or four rough cane chairs. The master of the house, in his liberality, was pleased to set before his guest, grapes, pears, bread, and a bottle of choice wine; carrying moreover his courtesy so far as to offer him a bed for the night, which however was declined with suitable acknowledgments.

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