Chapter 25 - Page 2

as quite the
weakest I had seen, and I remember no other monu-
ment that made up for it. The place has neither the
gayety of a modern nor the solemnity of an ancient
town, and it is agreeable as certain women are agree-
able who are neither beautiful nor clever. An Italian
would remark that it is sympathetic; a German would
admit that it is _gemuthlich_. I spent two days there,
mostly in the rain, and even under these circum-
stances I carried away a kindly impression. I think
the Hotel Nevet had something to do with it, and the
sentiment of relief with which, in a quiet, even a
luxurious, room that looked out on a garden, I reflected
that I had washed my hands of Narbonne. The phyl-
loxera has destroyed the vines in the country that sur-
rounds Montpellier, and at that moment I was capable
of rejoicing in the thought that I should not breakfast
with vintners.

The gem of the place is the Musee Fabre, one of
the best collections of paintings in a provincial city.
Francois Fabre, a native of Montpellier, died there in
1837, after having spent a considerable part of his
life in Italy, where he had collected a good many
valuable pictures and some very poor ones, the latter
class including several from his own hand. He was
the hero of a remarkable episode, having succeeded
no less a person than Vittorio Alfieri in the affections
of no less a person than Louise de Stolberg, Countess
of Albany, widow of no less a person than Charles
Edward Stuart, the second pretender to the British
crown. Surely no woman ever was associated senti-
mentally with three figures more diverse, - a disqualified
sovereign, an Italian dramatist, and a bad French
painter. The productions of M. Fabre, who followed
in the steps of David, bear the stamp of a cold me-
diocrity; there is not much to be said even for the
portrait of the genial countess (her life has been written
by M. Saint-Rene-Taillandier, who depicts her as de-
lightful), which hangs in Florence, in the gallery of
the Uffizzi, and makes a pendant to a likeness of
Alfieri by the same author. Stendhal, in his "Me-
moires d'un Touriste," says that this work of art
represents her as a cook who has pretty hands. I am
delighted to have an opportunity of quoting Stendhal,
whose two volumes of the "Memoires d'un Touriste"
every traveller in France should carry in his port-
manteau. I have had this opportunity more than once,
for I have met him at Tours, at Nantes, at Bourges;
and everywhere he is suggestive. But he has the de-
fect that he is never pictorial, that he never by any
chance makes an image, and that his style is per-
versely colorless, for a man so fond of contemplation.
His