Chapter 25

"Cette, with its glistening houses white,
Curves with the curving beach away
To where the lighthouse beacons bright,
Far in the bay."

That stanza of Matthew Arnold's, which I hap-
pened to remember, gave a certain importance to the
half-hour I spent in the buffet of the station at Cette
while I waited for the train to Montpellier. I had left
Narbonne in the afternoon, and by the time I reached
Cette the darkness had descended. I therefore missed
the sight of the glistening houses, and had to console
myself with that of the beacon in the bay, as well as
with a _bouillon_ of which I partook at the buffet afore-
said; for, since the morning, I had not ventured to
return to the table d'hote at Narbonne. The Hotel
Nevet, at Montpellier, which I reached an hour later,
has an ancient renown all over the south of France, -
advertises itself, I believe, as _le plus vaste du midi_. It
seemed to me the model of a good provincial inn; a
big rambling, creaking establishment, with brown,
labyrinthine corridors, a queer old open-air vestibule,
into which the diligence, in the _bon temps_, used to
penetrate, and an hospitality more expressive than
that of the new caravansaries. It dates from the days
when Montpellier was still accounted a fine winter re-
sidence for people with weak lungs; and this rather
melancholy tradition, together with the former celebrity
of the school of medicine still existing there, but from
which the glory has departed, helps to account for its
combination of high antiquity and vast proportions.
The old hotels were usually more concentrated; but
the school of medicine passed for one of the attrac-
tions of Montpellier. Long before Mentone was dis-
covered or Colorado invented, British invalids travelled
down through France in the post-chaise or the public
coach to spend their winters in the wonderful place
which boasted both a climate and a faculty. The air
is mild, no doubt, but there are refinements of mild-
ness which were not then suspected, and which in a
more analytic age have carried the annual wave far
beyond Montpellier. The place is charming, all the
same; and it served the purpose of John Locke; who
made a long stay there, between 1675 and 1679, and
became acquainted with a noble fellow-visitor, Lord
Pembroke, to whom he dedicated the famous Essay.
There are places that please, without your being able
to say wherefore, and Montpellier is one of the num-
ber. It has some charming views, from the great pro-
menade of the Peyrou; but its position is not strikingly
fair. Beyond this it contains a good museum and the
long facades of its school, but these are its only de-
finite treasures. Its cathedral struck me