Behind us, the Hotel Gassion rises to cut off the streets beyond it; to
the right, along the terrace a few hundred yards, stands a stout old
building, square and firm, which we know at once for the castle of Henry
of Navarre.


III.

"In most points of view," as Johnson observes, in his _Sketches in the
South of France_, "we look down the valley and see on either side its
mountain walls; or we are placed upon culminating points overtopping all
the rest of the prospect; but here the view is across the depression and
against the vast panorama, which opposes the eye at all quarters, and
comprehends within it the whole of the picture. High up in the snow the
very pebbles seem to lie so distinctly that, but for the space between,
a boy might pick them up; lower down, from among the brown heather thin
blue streaks stream aloft from some cottage chimney, winding along the
brae-side till melted into air. We half expect to see some human figure
traverse those white fields and mark the footprints he leaves behind,
some shepherd with his dog crossing from valley to valley. Alas! it is
twenty miles away, the pebbles are huge masses of projecting rock,
precipices on which the snow cannot rest; yonder smoke is from the
charcoal-burner's fire, which would take in a cottage for a mouthful of
fuel, and a dozen men piled on each other's shoulders might at this
moment be swallowed up in these snow-beds and we never the wiser.

"With the warm sunlight upon it, and the pure, clear blue above, into
which these great shapes are wedged like a divine mosaic, the scene
looks so spotless and holy in its union with the heavens that one might