It was a fete--the Fete du bon Dieu, celebrated annually on this day
throughout all this part of the country; in all the villages there
were little shrines erected, adorned with strings of blue
corncockle, narcissus heads, and poppies, bunches of green, pink,
and white calico, moss and fir-tree branches, and in the midst of
these tastefully arranged bowers was an image of the Virgin and her
Son, with whatever other saints the place was possessed of.
At Briancon, which we reached (in a trap) at eight o'clock, these
demonstrations were more imposing, but less pleasing; the soldiers,
too, were being drilled and exercised, and the whole scene was one
of the greatest animation, such as Frenchmen know how to exhibit on
the morning of a gala day.
Leaving our trap at Briancon and making a hasty breakfast at the
Hotel de la Paix, we walked up a very lonely valley towards
Cervieres. I dare not say how many hours we wended our way up the
brawling torrent without meeting a soul or seeing a human
habitation; it was fearfully hot too, and we longed for vin
ordinaire; Cervieres seemed as though it never would come--still the
same rugged precipices, snow-clad heights, brawling torrent, and
stony road, butterflies beautiful and innumerable, flowers to match,
sky cloudless. At last we are there; through the town, or rather
village, the river rushes furiously, the dismantled houses and
gaping walls affording palpable traces of the fearful inundations of
the previous year, not a house near the river was sound, many quite
uninhabitable, and more such as I am sure few of us would like to
inhabit.
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