A daily sprinkling is the only cleansing process
they undergo: its effect is to soften the wood until it begins to absorb
a large proportion of the rubbish which is often but never thoroughly
swept up, and grows black and evil-odored. This result is most manifest,
of course, and most offensive in the dining-rooms.
St. Bonnet offered even less than we anticipated of interest. On the
Sunday morning we gladly drove away in such an equipage as the place
afforded to the not very distant village of St. Laurent en Champsaur.
Here we reached our first point in what was fifty years ago the parish
of Felix Neff, and has been for centuries a refuge of Protestantism. It
is a hamlet of stone cottages, lying on a kind of plateau and
overlooking a wide and fertile valley. The surrounding hills, though
mostly bare, were broken and beautified on that still autumn morning
with dim clefts of shadow. The sun was not yet high, and broad masses of
purple fell here and there across the plain and the brawling stream that
divides it, still the Drac, which we had seen an almost stately river
near Grenoble.
Having already learned something of the local habits, we bade our driver
take us to the _temple_. That is the distinctive name of a Protestant
church in these Roman Catholic lands. The morning service was in
progress when we entered the square and austere little chapel. Every pew
was occupied, the men and women taking different sides of the one
stone-paved aisle.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111