ved on it by a hint from
the black nurses of Barbadoes, who embalm weakly young Creoles in
wrappers lined with assa-foetida, and think it prejudicial to "burst
their cerements" more than once in a fortnight.

[Footnote 40: The word Oc, according to tradition, meant in the old
patois of the country "yes:" hence the original derivation of "Langue
d'Oc."]

After our horses had eaten a pound of honey with their corn, which
honest Durand considered a powerful cordial, we resumed our route, and
reached Montpelier to a late dinner, enjoying in no small degree the
coolness and quiet of Pical's house. It was indeed the love of quiet,
and the dislike to a constant ferment, which drove our landlord from
Nismes to settle in this place. The bigotry and party zeal of the former
town, in truth, appear to have been hardly exaggerated in the accounts
which have reached England, and to exist in such a degree as to render
Nismes an unsafe place for a moderate man, who is owned by neither
party. The spirit of discord and enmity is instilled by the more violent
of both parties into their children as a duty, so that it will probably
descend from generation to generation. Both parties, indeed, might adopt
as a crest and motto a boot-maker's sign in Montpelier, which is
somewhat diverting from its bombast, when merely applied as honest
Crispin meant it. A lion is represented tearing a boot, with the
inscription, "Tu peux me dechirer, mais jamais me decoudre." Construe
it, "You may cut my throat, but not alter me," and it will show the
pleasant state of party spirit at Nismes, if what we heard so near the
scene of action be true. We returned to Nismes on the 18th with
associations not so pleasant as had been created by its beautiful walks
and buildings, and the civility with which our questions were answered
by the inhabitants. We might have seen the country between Montpelier
and Nismes to greater advantage, the dust being somewhat less stifling
than before; but unluckily there was nothing worth seeing. The district
is certainly a garden, but then it is a flat uninteresting kitchen
garden, for the supply of the Lunel brandy merchants, and the rich
Nismes manufacturers, who appear too polite in their tastes to venture
into it. Hardly a single thing that can be called a gentleman's house
occurs, and that not for want of culture or opulence. The case seems to
be this; the people of Nismes, like the Bordelais, are proud of their
elegant and airy