A traveller of my sort was a thing hitherto unheard of in that district. This was not merely from the natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the surprise with which I was regarded as a man living of his own free will in Monastier, when he might just as well have lived anywhere else in this big world it arose a good deal from my projected excursion southward through the Cévennes. In the midst of this Babylon I found myself a rallying-point every one was anxious to be kind and helpful to the stranger. Except for business purposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid aside even the civility of speech, 'Tis a mere mountain There are adherents of each of the four French parties-Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and Republicans-in this little mountain-town and they all hate, loathe, decry, and calumniate each other.
Monastier is notable for the making of lace, for drunkenness, for freedom of language, and for unparalleled political dissension. IN a little place called Le Monastier, in a pleasant highland valley fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about a month of fine days. THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE PACK-SADDLE
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