different
road, and at midnight we shall be in France safe and sound."

If I could have procured a good armed escort I would not have taken his
advice, but in the situation I was in I had no choice.

We found the three scoundrels in the place where the driver had told me
we should see them. I gave them a searching glance, and thought they
looked like true Sicarii, ready to kill anyone for a little money.

They started in a quarter of an hour, and half an hour later we set out,
with a peasant to guide us, and so struck into a cross road. The mules
went at a sharp pace, and in seven hours we had done eleven leagues. At
ten o'clock we stopped at an inn in a French village, and we had no more
to fear. I gave our guide a doubloon, with which he was well pleased, and
I enjoyed once more a peaceful night in a French bed, for nowhere will
you find such soft beds or such delicious wines as in the good land of
France.

The next day I arrived at the posting-inn at Perpignan in time for
dinner. I endeavoured in vain to think who could have paid my assassins,
but the reader will see the explanation when we get twenty days farther.

At Perpignan I dismissed my driver and my servant, rewarding them
according to my ability. I wrote to my brother at Paris, telling him I
had had a fortunate escape from the dagger of the assassin. I begged him
to direct his answer to Aix, where I intended to spend a fortnight, in
the hope of seeing the Marquis d'Argens. I left Perpignan the day after
my arrival, and slept at Narbonne, and the day after at Beziers.

The distance from Narbonne to Beziers is only five leagues, and I had not
intended to stop; but the good cheer which the kindest of landladies gave
me at dinner made me stop with her to supper.

Beziers is a town which looks pleasant even at the worst time of the
year. A philosopher who wished to renounce all the vanities of the world,
and an Epicurean who would enjoy good cheer cheaply, could find no better
retreat than Beziers.

Everybody at Beziers is intelligent, all the women are pretty, and the
cooks are all artists; the wines are exquisite--what more could one
desire! May its riches never prove its ruin!

When I reached Montpellier, I got down at the "White Horse," with the
intention of spending a week there. In the evening I supped at the table
d'hote, where I found a numerous company, and I saw to my amusement that
for every guest there was a separate dish brought to table.