This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By ALFRED DE VIGNY
'Blow, blow, thou winter wind;
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly.
Most friendship is feigning; most loving mere folly.'
Amid that long and superb chain of the Pyrenees which forms the embattledisthmus of the peninsula, in the centre of those blue pyramids, coveredin gradation with snow, forests, and downs, there opens a narrow defile,a path cut in the dried-up bed of a perpendicular torrent; it circulatesamong rocks, glides under bridges of frozen snow, twines along the edgesof inundated precipices to scale the adjacent mountains of Urdoz andOleron, and at last rising over their unequal ridges, turns theirnebulous peak into a new country which has also its mountains and itsdepths, and, quitting France, descends into Spain. Never has the hoof ofthe mule left its trace in these windings; man himself can withdifficulty stand upright there, even with the hempen boots which can notslip, and the hook of the pikestaff to force into the crevices of therocks.
In the fine summer months the 'pastour', in his brown cape, and his blacklong-bearded ram lead hither flocks, whose flowing wool sweeps the turf.Nothing is heard in these rugged places but the sound of the large bellswhich the sheep carry, and whose irregular tinklings produce unexpectedharmonies, casual gamuts, which astonish the traveller and delight thesavage and silent shepherd. But when the long month of September comes,a shroud of snow spreads itself from the peak of the mountains down totheir base, respecting only this deeply excavated path, a few gorges openby torrents, and some rocks of granite, which stretch out theirfantastical forms, like the bones of a buried world.
It is then that light troops of chamois make their appearance, with theirtwisted horns extending over their backs, spring from rock to rock as ifdriven before the wind, and take possession of their aerial desert.Flights of ravens and crows incessantly wheel round and round in thegulfs and natural wells which they transform into dark dovecots, whilethe brown bear, followed by her shaggy family, who sport and tumblearound her in the snow, slowly descends from their retreat invaded by thefrost. But these are neither the most savage nor the most cruelinhabitants that winter brings into these mountains; the daring smugglerraises for himself a dwelling of wood on the very boundary of nature andof politics. There unknown treaties, secret exchanges, are made betweenthe two Navarres, amid fogs and winds.
It was in this narrow path on the frontiers of France that, about twomonths after the scenes we have witnessed in Paris, two travellers,coming from Spain, stopped at midnight, fatigued and dismayed. Theyheard musket-shots in the mountain.
"The scoundrels! how they have pursued us!" said one of them. "I cango no farther; but for you I shou