young limb, I thought of my own; but Reynaud, who knew everything about everybody in the village, said there was not a better one, so off we went with it, leaving the official staggering in the road and muttering, "France! 'tis the first nation in the world!"
The 3d of August came, but Macdonald did not appear, so we started for the Val Louise; our party consisting of Reynaud, myself, and a porter, Jean Casimir Giraud, nicknamed "little nails," the shoemaker of the place. An hour and a half's smart walking took us to La Ville de Val Louise, our hearts gladdened by the glorious peaks of Pelvoux shining out without a cloud around them. I renewed acquaintance with the mayor of "La Ville." His aspect was original, and his manners were gracious, but the odour which proceeded from him was dreadful. The same may be said of most of the inhabitants of these valleys.[1]
Reynaud kindly undertook to look after the commissariat, and I found to my annoyance, when we were about to leave, that I had given tacit consent to a small wine-cask being carried with us, which was a great nuisance from the commencement. It was excessively awkward to handle; one man tried to carry it, and then another, and at last it was slung from one of our batons, and was carried by two, which gave our party the appearance of a mechanical diagram to illustrate the uses of levers.
- ↑ Their late préfet shall tell why. "The men and women dress in sheepskins,—which have been dried and scoured with salt, of which the feet are used as clasps, the fore feet going round the neck, and the hinder ones round the loins. Their arms are naked, and the men are only distinguished from the women by the former wearing wretched drawers, and the latter a sort of gown, which only covers them to just below the knees. They sleep without undressing upon straw, and have only sheepskins for coverings. . . . The nature of their food, combined with their dirtiness, makes them exhale a strong odour from their bodies, which is smelt from afar, and which is almost insupportable to strangers. . . . They live in a most indifferent manner, or rather they linger in dreadful misery; their filthy and hideous countenances announce their slovenliness and their stink." — Ladoucette's Histoire des Hautes-Alpes, pp. 656-7. The sheepskins are now worn only by the poorest of the natives, but the rest of the description is sufficiently accurate.
