Gone within hours were the polished stone pavements with their brass buttoned Coquilles St-Jacques motifs and the people accustomed to picking their way through the tiny maze of passages in Montpellier. For the first time in two decades, the snow had fallen on the region causing within hours the total paralysis of its transport network… The delicate flakes falling had the quality of a timeless perfume whose expensive scent was immediately recognisable, a scent so overwhelmingly pure that it enraptured every living thing.
