I think that I can safely
say that no foreigner (with the exception of the Ducros' pupils)
had ever set foot in Nyons, for the place was quite unknown, and
there was nothing to draw strangers there. It was an
extraordinarily attractive spot, lying in a little circular cup of
a valley of the Dauphine Alps, through which a brawling river had
bored its way. Nyons was celebrated for its wine, its olive oil,
its silk, and its truffles, all of them superlatively good. The
ancient little walled town, basking in this sun-trap of a valley,
stood out ochre-coloured against the silver-grey background of
olive trees, whilst the jagged profiles of the encircling hills
were always mistily blue, with that intense blue of which the
Provence hills seem alone to have the secret. So few English
people knew anything about the conditions of life in a little out-
of-the-way French provincial town, where no foreigners have ever
set foot, that it may be worth while saying something about them.
In the first place, it must have been deadly dull for the
inhabitants, for nothing whatever happened there.
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