CHAPTER VII.

AN ERA IN TWILIGHT.

"_Pour faire comprendre le caractère d'un peuple, je conterais
trente anecdotes et je supprimerais toutes les théories
philosophiques sur le sujet_,"

--STENDHAL.


Returning to Hendaye, a train takes us again to Bayonne, connecting
there for Orthez and Pau. The ride to Bayonne needs an hour or less, and
from thence to Orthez calls for two. It is not many decades since much
of this journey had to be made by the diligence. Railways and highways
have pushed rapidly toward the Pyrenees. When in the approaching
fortnight we shall come to traverse the Route Thermale, the great
carriage-way along the chain, we shall see modern road-making in its
perfection; and the rail will keep anxious watch, over the road, running
parallel along the distant plain and reaching helpful arms up the
valleys to uphold it.

Toward Pau especially, the railroads converge. That city, a social
capital for centuries, is a social capital still, and its winter influx
of invalids and pleasure-seekers stimulates every facility of approach.
Then, too, it lies on the way crossing southern France from the Bidassoa
to the Rhone, and no line linking these rivers could omit from its chain