I do not suppose that matters are very greatly changed in hotels here
since my visit so many years ago. In certain respects travellers fare
well. They may feast like Lucullus on fresh trout and on the dainty
aniseed cakes which are a local speciality. But hygienic arrangements
were almost prehistoric, and although politeness itself, mine host and
hostess showed strange nonchalance towards their guests. Thus, when
ringing and ringing again for our tea and bread and butter between seven
and eight o'clock, the chamber--not maid, but man--informed us that
Madame had gone to mass, and everything was locked up till her return.

Even the fastidious tourist, however, will hardly care to exchange his
somewhat rough and noisy quarters at Remiremont for the cosmopolitan
comforts of Plombieres within such easy reach. It is a pretty drive of an
hour and a half to Plombieres, and all is prettiness there--its little
park, its tiny lake, its toy town.

It is surely one of the hottest places in the world, and like Spa, of
which it reminds me, must be one of the most wearisome. Just such a
promenade, with a sleepy band, just such a casino, just such a routine.
This favourite resort of the third Napoleon has of late years seen many
rivals springing up. Vittel, Bains, Bussang--all in the Vosges--yet it
continues to hold up its head. The site is really charming, but so close
is the valley in which the town lies, that it is a veritable hothouse,
and the reverse, we should think, of what an invalid wants. Plombieres
has always had illustrious visitors--Montaigne, who upon several
occasions took the waters here--Maupertuis, Voltaire, Beaumarchais, the
Empress Josephine, and a host of historic personages. But the emperor may
be called the creator of Plombieres. The park, the fine road to
Remiremont, the handsome Bain Napoleon (now National), the church, all
these owe their existence to him, and during the imperial visits the