At an auberge outside the Tour du Pin we stopped to feed the horses and eat an omelette. I declined the solitary little room wherein the pretty girl was raising clouds of dust to prepare it for us, and chose the more airy kitchen, where while I waited I might observe their attention to affairs spiritual and temporal. The temporal appeared first in order, in the print hung at the door, of a cock with extended wings, perched on a dial plate which marked five minutes to twelve, the verse below warning pennyless travellers:
"Quand ce coq chantera, Crédit l'on donnera; Mauvais payeur tu auras crédit, Quand l'aiguille marquera midi."
The other print, (the spiritual,) pinned above the snow-white pillow of the bed in the corner, exhibited a large eye, inscribed, "Dieu voit tout;" a great ear, "Dieu entend tout;" a man spurning a beggar, "un moment;" the same man seized by devils, "l'Éternité;" I suppose this exhortation to charity does not apply to wayfarers.
All the fine corn and promising vines we have passed on our road, will be unproductive this year, in consequence of the hail storms which visited the country during our stay at Lyons. The ear has been beaten empty, and the bunches of grapes broken; the season's loss in this department is computed at three millions of francs, and the peasants are planting potatoes, it being too late for any other seed. The town of La Tour du Pin is of course as disagreeable near, as picturesque at a distance, but the remainder of our road was so lovely, that we many times found ourselves exclaiming at its contrast with the gloomy flats and hills of the Isle de France and Burgundy; for here we had the chain of mountains, range above range, which the snow topped and the clouds sailed before, and where their view first opened on us, a foreground of fertile valleys, covered with cottages and clumps of old chestnut trees, the abrupt bank on our right, crowned with and shaded by them, while on the left, where they border the road also, they form with their fresh green branches a fitting frame for the prospect; it would be a pity to travel this road otherwise than on horseback, on a sunny spring evening.
Recommended by M. Pauche to the Hôtel de la Poste, at Pont du Beauvoisin, we made our way thither through crooked streets innumerable. All the front rooms were already taken. I warn you against the No. 1 on the ground floor, at the end of a long passage, with one small barred window, looking into the narrow yard where the post horses are cleaned, for it fell to our lot. Having been told that the landlady was exorbitant in her demands, I rang for her, specified what we wanted, and asked her charges. No answer, but a promenade round me with candle in hand, as it was dark when we arrived. I repeated the question when I thought the inspection over.