next village, Nancray. The
breakfast was simple enough, owing to the absence of butter and other
things, and consisted of coffee in its native pot, and dry bread: the
milk was set on the table in the pan in which it had been boiled, and a
soup-ladle and a French wash-hand basin took the place of cup and spoon.
A cat kept the door against sundry large and tailless dogs, whose
appetites had not gone with their tails; and an old woman kindly
delivered a lecture on the most approved method of making a ptisan from
the flowers of the lime-tree, and on the many medicinal properties of
that decoction, to which she attributed her good health at so advanced
an age. I silently supplemented her peroration by attributing her
garrulity to a more stimulating source.

When we started again, it was time to learn something about the scene of
our further proceedings, and the driver enunciated his views on monks in
general, _a propos_ to the Convent of Grace-Dieu, the Chartreuse at
which we were to leave our carriage, and obtain food for man and horse.
The Brothers, he said, were possessed of many mills, and were in
consequence enormously rich. Among the products of their industry, a
liqueur known as _Chartreuse_ seemed to fill a high place in his esteem,
for he considered it to be better--and he said it as if that
comparative led into an eighth heaven--better even than absinthe. I had
an opportunity of tasting this liqueur some weeks after, a few minutes
below the summit of Mont Blanc, and certainly no one would suspect its
great strength, which is entirely disguised by an innocent and insidious
sweetness, as unlike absinthe as anything can possibly be: impressions,
however, respecting meat and drink, and all other matters, are not very
trustworthy when received near the top of the Calotte. It has lately
been found that the worthy Brothers of the Grande Chartreuse have been
systematically defrauding the revenue, by returning their profits on the
manufacture of this liqueur at something merely nominal as compared with
the real gains. I could not learn whether the ceremony of blessing each
batch of the liqueur, before sending it out to intoxicate the world, is
performed with so much solemnity at Grace-Dieu as at Grenoble; and,
indeed, it rests only on the assertion of the short-tongued Bisuntian
that the manufacture is carried on at all at the former place.[35]

Having communicated such information as he possessed, the man seemed to
think