God grant they may
remain so for ever.
And so, along the Gave de Pau, we run on to Pau, the ancient capital
of Bearn; the birthplace of Henri Quatre, and of Bernadotte, King of
Sweden; where, in the charming old chateau, restored by Louis
Philippe, those who list may see the tortoise which served as the
great Henry's cradle; and believe, if they list also, the tale that
that is the real shell.
For in 1793, when the knights of the 'bonnet rouge' and 'carmagnole
complete' burst into the castle, to destroy every memorial of hated
royalty, the shell among the rest, there chanced--miraculous
coincidence--to be in Pau, in the collection of a naturalist, another
shell, of the same shape and size. Swiftly and deftly pious hands
substituted it for the real relic, leaving it to be battered in
pieces and trampled in the mud, while the royal cradle lay perdu for
years in the roof of a house, to reappear duly at the Restoration of
the Bourbons.
Of Pau I shall say nothing. It would be real impertinence in one who
only spent three days in it, to describe a city which is known to all
Europe; which is a permanent English colony, and boasts of one, and
sometimes two, packs of English foxhounds.
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