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diff --git a/28004-h/28004-h.htm b/28004-h/28004-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..69a6e51 --- /dev/null +++ b/28004-h/28004-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7753 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> + <title> + A Little Tour In France | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + text-indent: 2%; + } + .c {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0%; + } + .lt {font-size:125%;letter-spacing:2px;} + .lt2 {font-size:55%;letter-spacing:2px;} + .non {text-indent:0%;} + .r {text-align: right; + margin-right:25%; + } + h1,h2 {text-align: center; + clear: both; + } + h3 {text-align: left; + clear: both;letter-spacing:2px; + } + .top5 {margin-top: 5%;} + .top15 {margin-top: 15%;} + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 5%; + margin-bottom: 5%; + border: solid black; + height: 5px; } + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + background:#fdfdfd; + color:black; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + font-size: large; + } + a:link {background-color: #ffffff; color: blue; text-decoration: none; } + link {background-color: #ffffff; color: blue; text-decoration: none; } + a:visited {background-color: #ffffff; color: blue; text-decoration: none; } + a:hover {background-color: #ffffff; color: red; text-decoration:underline; } + .pagenum { position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: 75%; + text-align: right; + color: gray; + padding: 1px 4px 1px 4px; + font-variant: normal; + font-weight: normal; + text-decoration: none; + text-indent: 0em; + } + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + font-size: large; + } + img {border: 3px silver double;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: 70%; color: black; background: #eeeeee; + border: solid 1px gray;} + .caption {font-size:80%;} + .figcenter {margin:auto; text-align: center;padding:5%;} + .figcenter2 {margin: 15% auto auto auto; text-align: center;} + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;margin-top:5%;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right; font-size: 0.7em;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .6em; text-decoration: none;} + .poem {margin-left:25%; + white-space:nowrap; + text-indent: 0%; + } + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 28004 ***</div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h3 class="c">A LITTLE<br />TOUR IN FRANCE</h3> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/ill_001.png" width="200" height="291" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + + +<p class="c">Novels by<br /> +<span class="lt">HENRY JAMES</span><br /> +<i>Six Shillings each</i></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> +<table summary="works" +cellpadding="0" +style="border:2px solid black;padding:3%;" +cellspacing="0"> +<tr><td>THE AWKWARD AGE</td></tr> +<tr><td>THE TWO MAGICS</td></tr> +<tr><td>WHAT MAISIE KNEW</td></tr> +<tr><td>THE OTHER HOUSE</td></tr> +<tr><td>THE SPOILS OF POYNTON</td></tr> +<tr><td>EMBARRASSMENTS</td></tr> +<tr><td>TERMINATIONS</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="c smcap">london: william heinemann<br /> +21 Bedford Street, W.C.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 343px;"> +<img src="images/ill_002_th.png" width="343" height="550" alt="image not available" /> +<a href="images/ill_002.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> + +<h1 class="top15">A LITTLE</h1> +<h1>TOUR IN FRANCE</h1> + +<p class="c">By</p> + +<h2>HENRY JAMES</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/ill_003.png" width="200" height="312" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + +<p class="c smcap">with ninety-four illustrations by</p> + +<h3 class="c top5">JOSEPH PENNELL</h3> + +<p class="c">LONDON<br /> +WILLIAM HEINEMANN<br /> +1900</p> + +<table summary="cont" +cellspacing="0" +cellpadding="0" +style="border:4px solid gray; +padding:2%;text-align:center; +margin:5% auto 5% auto;"> +<tr><td><a href="#Preface">Preface</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#Contents">Contents</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#List_of_Illustrations">List of Illustrations</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#Introductory">Introductory</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#FOOTNOTES">Footnotes</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_004.png" width="450" height="284" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Preface" id="Preface"></a>Preface</h3> + +<div class="sidenote">Preface</div> + + +<p><i>The notes presented in this volume were gathered, as will easily be +perceived, a number of years ago and on an expectation not at that time +answered by the event, and were then published in the United States. The +expectation had been that they should accompany a series of drawings, +and they themselves were altogether governed by the pictorial spirit. +They made, and they make in appearing now, after a considerable interval +and for the first time, in England, no pretension to any other; they are +impressions, immediate, easy, and consciously limited; if the written +word may ever play the part of brush or pencil, they are sketches on +"drawing-paper" and nothing more. From the moment the principle of +selection and expression, with a tourist, is not the delight of the eyes +and the play of fancy, it should be an energy in every way much larger; +there is no happy mean, in other words, I hold, between the sense and +the quest of the picture, and the surrender to it, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span> the sense and +the quest of the constitution, the inner springs of the subject—springs +and connections social, economic, historic.</i></p> + +<p><i>One must really choose, in other words, between the benefits of the +perception of surface—a perception, when fine, perhaps none of the most +frequent—and those of the perception of very complex underlying +matters. If these latter had had, for me, to be taken into account, my +pages would not have been collected. At the time of their original +appearance the series of illustrations to which it had been their policy +to cling for countenance and company failed them, after all, at the last +moment, through a circumstance not now on record; and they had suddenly +to begin to live their little life without assistance. That they have +seemed able in any degree still to prolong even so modest a career might +perhaps have served as a reason for leaving them undisturbed. In fact, +however, I have too much appreciated—for any renewal of +inconsistency—the opportunity of granting them at last, in an +association with Mr. Pennell's admirable drawings, the benefit they have +always lacked. The little book thus goes forth finally as the +picture-book it was designed to be. Text and illustrations are, +altogether and alike, things of the play of eye and hand and +fancy—views, head-pieces, tail-pieces; through the artist's work, +doubtless, in a much higher degree than the author's.</i></p> + +<p><i>But these are words enough on a minor point. Many things come back to +me on reading my pages over—such a world of reflection and emotion as I +can neither leave unmentioned nor yet, in this place, weigh them down +with the full expression of. Difficult indeed would be any full +expression for one who, deeply devoted always to the revela<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>tions of +France, finds himself, late in life, making of the sentiment no more +substantial, no more direct record than this mere revival of an +accident. Not one of these small chapters but suggests to me a regret +that I might not, first or last, have gone farther, penetrated deeper, +spoken oftener—closed, in short, more intimately with the great general +subject; and I mean, of course, not in such a form as the present, but +in many another, possible and impossible. It all comes back, doubtless, +this vision of missed occasions and delays overdone, to the general +truth that the observer, the enjoyer, may, before he knows it, be +practically too far</i> in <i>for all that free testimony and pleasant, easy +talk that are incidental to the earlier or more detached stages of a +relation. There are relations that soon get beyond all merely showy +appearances of value for us. Their value becomes thus private and +practical, and is represented by the process—the quieter, mostly, the +better—of absorption and assimilation of what the relation has done for +us. For persons thus indebted to the genius of France—however, in its +innumerable ways, manifested—the profit to be gained, the lesson to be +learnt, is almost of itself occupation enough. They feel that they bear +witness by the intelligent use and application of their advantage, and +the consciousness of the artist is therefore readily a consciousness of +pious service. He may repeatedly have dreamt of some such happy +combination of mood and moment as shall launch him in a profession of +faith, a</i> demonstration <i>of the interesting business; he may have had +inner glimpses of an explicit statement, and vaguely have sketched it to +himself as one of the most candid and charming ever drawn up; but time, +meanwhile, has passed, interruptions have done their dismal work, the +indirect tribute, too, has perhaps, behind the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> altar, grown and grown; +and the reflection has at all events established itself that honour is +more rendered by seeing and doing one's work in the light than by +brandishing the torch on the house-tops. Curiosity and admiration have +operated continually, but with as little waste as they could. The +drawback is only that in this case, to be handsomely consequent, one +would perhaps rather not have appeared to celebrate</i> any <i>rites. The +moral of all of which is that those here embodied must pass, at the +best, but for what they are worth.</i></p> + +<p class="r"><i>H. J.</i></p> + +<p><i>August 9, 1900.</i></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/ill_005.png" width="200" height="350" alt="image not available" /> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_006.png" width="450" height="348" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + +<h3 class="c"><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents</h3> + +<table summary="toc" +cellspacing="2" +cellpadding="2"> +<tr><td class="smcap">chapter</td><td> </td><td align="right"><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr> + +<tr><td> </td><td>Introductory</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_i">I</a>.</td><td>Tours</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_ii">II</a>.</td><td>Tours: the Cathedral</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_iii">III</a>.</td><td>Tours: Saint Martin</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td> </td><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"</span><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Saint Julian</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"</span><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Plessis</span>-les-Tours</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"</span><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Marmoutier</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_iv">IV</a>.</td><td>Blois</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_v">V</a>.</td><td>Chambord</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_vi">VI</a>.</td><td>Amboise</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td> </td><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chaumont</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_vii">VII</a>.</td><td>Chenonceaux</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_viii">VIII</a>.</td><td>Azay-le-Rideau</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_ix">IX</a>.</td><td>Langeais</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_68">68</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_x">X</a>.</td><td>Loches</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xi">XI</a>.</td><td>Bourges</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"</span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The</span> Cathedral</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xii">XII</a>.</td><td>Bourges: Jacques Cœur</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xiii">XIII</a>.</td><td>Le Mans</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xiv">XIV</a>.</td><td>Angers</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xv">XV</a>.</td><td>Nantes</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xvi">XVI</a>.</td><td>La Rochelle</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xvii">XVII</a>.</td><td>Poitiers</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xviii">XVIII</a>.</td><td>Angoulême</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td> </td><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bordeaux</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xix">XIX</a>.</td><td>Toulouse</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xx">XX</a>.</td><td>Toulouse: the Capitol</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxi">XXI</a>.</td><td>Toulouse: Saint-Sernin</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxii">XXII</a>.</td><td>Carcassonne</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxiii">XXIII</a>.</td><td>Carcassonne</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxiv">XXIV</a>.</td><td>Narbonne</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxv">XXV</a>.</td><td>Montpellier</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxvi">XXVI</a>.</td><td>The Pont du Gard</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_178">178</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxvii">XXVII</a>.</td><td>Aigues-Mortes</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxviii">XXVIII</a>.</td><td>Nîmes</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxix">XXIX</a>.</td><td>Tarascon</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxx">XXX</a>.</td><td>Arles</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"</span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The</span> Theatre</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxxi">XXXI</a>.</td><td>Arles: the Museum</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxxii">XXXII</a>.</td><td>Les Baux</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxxiii">XXXIII</a>.</td><td>Avignon</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"</span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The</span> Palace of the Popes</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxxiv">XXXIV</a>.</td><td>Villeneuve-lès-Avignon</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxxv">XXXV</a>.</td><td>Vaucluse</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxxvi">XXXVI</a>.</td><td>Orange</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_243">243</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxxvii">XXXVII</a>.</td><td>Macon</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxxviii">XXXVIII</a>.</td><td>Bourg-en-Bresse</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td> </td><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Church at Brou</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xxxix">XXXIX</a>.</td><td>Beaune</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#Chapter_xl">XL</a>.</td><td>Dijon</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/ill_007.png" width="200" height="333" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/ill_008.png" width="200" height="304" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span></p> + + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_009.png" width="450" height="185" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + +<h3 class="c"><a name="List_of_Illustrations" id="List_of_Illustrations"></a>List of Illustrations</h3> + + +<table summary="ills" +cellspacing="1" +cellpadding="0"> +<tr><td>Nîmes: the Garden (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td><i>Frontispiece</i></td><td> </td></tr> + +<tr><td>Tours: the House of Balzac</td><td><i>To face page</i></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Tours: the Cathedral (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td align="center">"</td> +<td align="right"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Tours: the Towers of St. Martin</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Blois (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Blois: the Château</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Chambord</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Amboise: the Château</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Chenonceaux (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Azay-le-Rideau</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Loches</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Loches: the Church</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Bourges: the House of Jacques Cœur (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Bourges: Doorway, House of Jacques Cœur</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Bourges: the Cathedral (West Front)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Le Mans: the Cathedral</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Angers: Old Timbered Houses</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>La Rochelle</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>La Rochelle: the Hôtel de Ville (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Poitiers: Church of St. Radegonde (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_126">126</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Bordeaux: the Quay (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Toulouse: St. Sernin (the Transept)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Toulouse: the Garonne (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Carcassonne</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Carcassonne (another View)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Narbonne: the Washing Place</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Narbonne: the Cathedral and Hôtel de Ville (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>The Pont du Gard</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Aigues-Mortes</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Nîmes: the Cathedral</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Nîmes: the Amphitheatre</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Tarascon: the Castle</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Arles: St. Trophimus</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Arles: Ruins of the Roman Theatre</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Arles: Door of St. Trophimus</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Arles: the Cloisters (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Avignon: the Church</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Vaucluse: Ruins of Castle</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Orange: the Theatre</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_246">246</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Lyons</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>Brou: the Church (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_256">256</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Beaune: the Hospital</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Dijon</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_266">266</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>Dijon: the Park</td><td align="center">"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_268">268</a></td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"> </td></tr> +<tr><td>Courtyard, House of Jacques Cœur</td><td><i>Half-title</i></td><td> </td></tr> + + +<tr><td>Angers from the Bridge</td><td><i>Title-page</i></td><td> </td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Aigues-Mortes</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_v">v</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Isle-sur-Sorgues</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_viii">viii</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Saint-Bénazet: the Broken Bridge</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_ix">ix</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Villeneuve-lès-Avignon</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_xi">xi</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Narbonne: the Fish Market</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_xii">ix</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Avignon from Villeneuve</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_xiii">xiii</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Toulouse: Hôtel d'Assézat</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_xvi">xvi</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Nantes</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Tours from the River</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Langeais</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Chaumont from the River</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Blois</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Chambord</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Chaumont from the Bridge</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Chenonceaux</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Azay-le-Rideau</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Langeais from the Loire</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Loches</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Bourges</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Bourges: the Hôtel Lallemont</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Le Mans</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Angers: the Castle</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Nantes: the Quay</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">La Rochelle: Tour de la Lanterne</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Poitiers: the Cathedral</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Bordeaux</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Toulouse: the Cathedral</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Toulouse: the Place de Capitol</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Toulouse: Saint-Sernin</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Carcassonne from the River</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Carcassonne</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Arles, Landscape near</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Montpellier: the Aqueduct</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">The Pont du Gard</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_178">178</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Aigues-Mortes</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Nîmes: the Maison Carrée</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Tarascon and Beaucaire</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Provençal Landscape</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Montmajeur</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Les Baux</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Villeneuve-lès-Avignon</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Avignon</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Vaucluse, Approach to</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Orange: the Gateway</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Valence</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Macon</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Macon: the Bridge</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="left">Beaune: the Hospital</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr> + +</table> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Page xvi]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/ill_010.png" width="200" height="327" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Page 1]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_011.png" width="450" height="283" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + +<h3><a name="Introductory" id="Introductory"></a>Introductory</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Introductory</div> + +<p>Though the good city of Paris appears to be less in fashion than in +other days with those representatives of our race—not always, perhaps, +acknowledged as the soundest and stiffest—curious of foreign +opportunity and addicted to foreign sojourns, it probably none the less +remains true that such frequentations of France as may be said still to +flourish among us have as much as ever the wondrous capital, and the +wondrous capital alone, for their object. The taste for Paris, at all +events, is—or perhaps I should say was, alluding as I do, I fear, to a +vanished order—a taste by itself; singularly little bound up, of +necessity, with such an interest in the country at large as would be +implied by an equal devotion, in other countries, to other capitals. +Putting aside the economic inducement, which may always operate, and +limiting the matter to the question of free choice, it is sufficiently +striking that the free chooser would have to be very fond of England to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> +quarter himself in London, very fond of Germany to quarter himself in +Berlin, very fond of America to quarter himself in New York. It had, on +the other hand, been a common reflection for the author of these light +pages that the fondness for France (throughout the company of strangers +more or less qualified) was oddly apt to feed only on such grounds for +it as made shift to spread their surface between the Arc de Triomphe and +the Gymnase Theatre: as if there were no good things in the <i>doux pays</i> +that could not be harvested in that field. It matters little how the +assumption began to strike him as stupid, especially since he himself +had doubtless equally shared in the guilt of it. The light pages in +question are but the simple record of a small personal effort to shake +it off. He took, it must be confessed, no extraordinary measures; he +merely started, one rainy morning in mid-September, for the charming +little city of Tours, where he felt that he might as immediately as +anywhere else see it demonstrated that, though France might be Paris, +Paris was by no means France. The beauty of the demonstration—quite as +prompt as he could have desired—drew him considerably farther, and his +modest but eminently successful adventure begot, as aids to amused +remembrance, a few informal notes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_012.png" width="450" height="306" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_i" id="Chapter_i"></a>Chapter i</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Tours</div> + +<p>I AM ashamed to begin with saying that Touraine is the garden of France; +that remark has long ago lost its bloom. The town of Tours, however, has +something sweet and bright, which suggests that it is surrounded by a +land of fruits. It is a very agreeable little city; few towns of its +size are more ripe, more complete, or, I should suppose, in better +humour with themselves and less disposed to envy the responsibilities of +bigger places. It is truly the capital of its smiling province; a region +of easy abundance, of good living, of genial, comfortable, optimistic, +rather indolent opinions. Balzac says in one of his tales that the real +Tourangeau will not make an effort, or displace himself even, to go in +search of a pleasure; and it is not difficult to understand the sources +of this amiable cynicism. He must have a vague conviction that he can +only lose by almost any change. Fortune has been kind to him: he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +lives in a temperate, reasonable, sociable climate, on the banks of a +river which, it is true, sometimes floods the country around it, but of +which the ravages appear to be so easily repaired that its aggressions +may perhaps be regarded (in a region where so many good things are +certain) merely as an occasion for healthy suspense. He is surrounded by +fine old traditions, religious, social, architectural, culinary; and he +may have the satisfaction of feeling that he is French to the core. No +part of his admirable country is more characteristically national. +Normandy is Normandy, Burgundy is Burgundy, Provence is Provence; but +Touraine is essentially France. It is the land of Rabelais, of +Descartes, of Balzac, of good books and good company, as well as good +dinners and good houses. George Sand has somewhere a charming passage +about the mildness, the convenient quality, of the physical conditions +of central France—"son climat souple et chaud, ses pluies abondantes et +courtes." In the autumn of 1882 the rains perhaps were less short than +abundant; but when the days were fine it was impossible that anything in +the way of weather could be more charming. The vineyards and orchards +looked rich in the fresh, gay light; cultivation was everywhere, but +everywhere it seemed to be easy. There was no visible poverty; thrift +and success presented themselves as matters of good taste. The white +caps of the women glittered in the sunshine, and their well-made sabots +clicked cheerfully on the hard, clean roads. Touraine is a land of old +châteaux,—a gallery of architectural specimens and of large hereditary +properties. The peasantry have less of the luxury of ownership than in +most other parts of France; though they have enough of it to give them +quite their share of that shrewdly conservative look which, in the +little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +chaffering <i>place</i> of the market-town, the stranger observes so often in +the wrinkled brown masks that surmount the agricultural blouse. This is, +moreover, the heart of the old French monarchy; and as that monarchy was +splendid and picturesque, a reflection of the splendour still glitters +in the current of the Loire. Some of the most striking events of French +history have occurred on the banks of that river, and the soil it waters +bloomed for a while with the flowering of the Renaissance. The Loire +gives a great "style" to a landscape of which the features are not, as +the phrase is, prominent, and carries the eye to distances even more +poetic than the green horizons of Touraine. It is a very fitful stream, +and is sometimes observed to run thin and expose all the crudities of +its channel—a great defect certainly in a river which is so much +depended upon to give an air to the places it waters. But I speak of it +as I saw it last; full, tranquil, powerful, bending in large slow curves +and sending back half the light of the sky. Nothing can be finer than +the view of its course which you get from the battlements and terraces +of Amboise. As I looked down on it from that elevation one lovely Sunday +morning, through a mild glitter of autumn sunshine, it seemed the very +model of a generous, beneficent stream. The most charming part of Tours +is naturally the shaded quay that overlooks it, and looks across too at +the friendly faubourg of Saint Symphorien and at the terraced heights +which rise above this. Indeed, throughout Touraine it is half the charm +of the Loire that you can travel beside it. The great dyke which +protects it, or protects the country from it, from Blois to Angers, is +an admirable road; and on the other side as well the highway constantly +keeps it company. A wide river, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +<span class="sidenote">Tours</span> +you follow a wide road, is excellent company; it brightens and shortens +the way.</p> + +<p>The inns at Tours are in another quarter, and one of them, which is +midway between the town and the station, is very good. It is worth +mentioning for the fact that every one belonging to it is +extraordinarily polite—so unnaturally polite as at first to excite your +suspicion that the hotel has some hidden vice, so that the waiters and +chambermaids are trying to pacify you in advance. There was one waiter +in especial who was the most accomplished social being I have ever +encountered; from morning till night he kept up an inarticulate murmur +of urbanity, like the hum of a spinning-top. I may add that I discovered +no dark secrets at the Hôtel de l'Univers; for it is not a secret to any +traveller to-day that the obligation to partake of a lukewarm dinner in +an overheated room is as imperative as it is detestable. For the rest, +at Tours there is a certain Rue Royale which has pretensions to the +monumental; it was constructed a hundred years ago, and the houses, all +alike, have on a moderate scale a pompous eighteenth-century look. It +connects the Palais de Justice, the most important secular building in +the town, with the long bridge which spans the Loire—the spacious, +solid bridge pronounced by Balzac, in "Le Curé de Tours," "one of the +finest monuments of French architecture." The Palais de Justice was the +seat of the Government of Léon Gambetta in the autumn of 1870, after the +dictator had been obliged to retire in his balloon from Paris and before +the Assembly was constituted at Bordeaux. The Germans occupied Tours +during that terrible winter: it is astonishing, the number of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>places +the Germans occupied. It is hardly too much to say that, wherever one goes in certain parts of France, one +encounters two great historic facts: one is the Revolution; the other is +the German invasion. The traces of the Revolution remain in a hundred +scars and bruises and mutilations, but the visible marks of the war of +1870 have passed away. The country is so rich, so living, that she has +been able to dress her wounds, to hold up her head, to smile again, so +that the shadow of that darkness has ceased to rest upon her. But what +you do not see you still may hear; and one remembers with a certain +shudder that only a few short years ago this province, so intimately +French, was under the heel of a foreign foe. To be intimately French was +apparently not a safeguard; for so successful an invader it could only +be a challenge. Peace and plenty, however, have succeeded that episode; +and among the gardens and vineyards of Touraine it seems only a legend +the more in a country of legends.</p> + +<p>It was not, all the same, for the sake of this chequered story that I +mentioned the Palais de Justice and the Rue Royale. The most interesting +fact, to my mind, about the high-street of Tours was that as you walk +toward the bridge on the right hand <i>trottoir</i> you can look up at the +house, on the other side of the way, in which Honoré de Balzac first saw +the light. That violent and complicated genius was a child of the +good-humoured and succulent Touraine. There is something anomalous in +this fact, though, if one thinks about it a little, one may discover +certain correspondences between his character and that of his native +province. Strenuous, laborious, constantly infelicitous in spite of his +great successes, he suggests at times a very different set of +influences. But he had his jovial, full-feeding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +side—the side that comes out in the "Contes Drolatiques," which are the +romantic and epicurean chronicle of the old manors and abbeys of this +region. And he was, moreover, the product of a soil into which a great +deal of history had been trodden. Balzac was genuinely as well as +affectedly monarchical, and he was saturated with a sense of the past. +Number 39 Rue Royale—of which the basement, like all the basements in +the Rue Royale, is occupied by a shop—is not shown to the public; and I +know not whether tradition designates the chamber in which the author of +"Le Lys dans la Vallée" opened his eyes into a world in which he was to +see and to imagine such extraordinary things. If this were the case I +would willingly have crossed its threshold; not for the sake of any +relic of the great novelist which it may possibly contain, nor even for +that of any mystic virtue which may be supposed to reside within its +walls, but simply because to look at those four modest walls can hardly +fail to give one a strong impression of the force of human endeavour. +Balzac, in the maturity of his vision, took in more of human life than +any one, since Shakspeare, who has attempted to tell us stories about +it; and the very small scene on which his consciousness dawned is one +end of the immense scale that he traversed. I confess it shocked me a +little to find that he was born in a house "in a row"—a house, +moreover, which at the date of his birth must have been only about +twenty years old. All that is contradictory. If the tenement selected +for this honour could not be ancient and embrowned, it should at least +have been detached.</p> + +<p>There is a charming description in his little tale of "La Grenadière" of +the view of the opposite side of</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 249px;"> +<img src="images/ill_013_th.png" width="249" height="550" alt="TOURS—THE HOUSE OF BALZAC" /> +<span class="caption">TOURS—THE HOUSE OF BALZAC</span> +<a href="images/ill_013.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Tours</div> + +<p class="non">the Loire as you have it from the square at the end of the Rue Royale—a +square that has some pretensions to grandeur, overlooked as it is by the +Hôtel de Ville and the Musée, a pair of edifices which directly +contemplate the river, and ornamented with marble images of François +Rabelais and René Descartes. The former, erected a few years since, is a +very honourable production; the pedestal of the latter could, as a +matter of course, only be inscribed with the <i>Cogito ergo Sum</i>. The two +statues mark the two opposite poles to which the wondrous French mind +has travelled; and if there were an effigy of Balzac at Tours it ought +to stand midway between them. Not that he by any means always struck the +happy mean between the sensible and the metaphysical; but one may say of +him that half of his genius looks in one direction and half in the +other. The side that turns toward François Rabelais would be, on the +whole, the side that takes the sun. But there is no statue of Balzac at +Tours; there is only in one of the chambers of the melancholy museum a +rather clever, coarse bust. The description in "La Grenadière" of which +I just spoke is too long to quote; neither have I space for anyone of +the brilliant attempts at landscape-painting which are woven into the +shimmering texture of "Le Lys dans la Vallée." The little manor of +Clochegourde, the residence of Madame de Mortsauf, the heroine of that +extraordinary work, was within a moderate walk of Tours, and the picture +in the novel is presumably a copy from an original which it would be +possible to-day to discover. I did not, however, even make the attempt. +There are so many châteaux in Touraine commemorated in history that it +would take one too far to look up those which have been commemorated in +fiction. The most I did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +was to endeavour to identify the former residence of Mademoiselle +Gamard, the sinister old maid of "Le Curé de Tours." This terrible woman +occupied a small house in the rear of the cathedral, where I spent a +whole morning in wondering rather stupidly which house it could be. To +reach the cathedral from the little <i>place</i> where we stopped just now to +look across at the Grenadière, without, it must be confessed, very +vividly seeing it, you follow the quay to the right and pass out of +sight of the charming <i>côteau</i> which, from beyond the river, faces the +town—a soft agglomeration of gardens, vineyards, scattered villas, +gables and turrets of slate-roofed châteaux, terraces with grey +balustrades, moss-grown walls draped in scarlet Virginia-creeper. You +turn into the town again beside a great military barrack which is +ornamented with a rugged mediæval tower, a relic of the ancient +fortifications, known to the Tourangeaux of to-day as the Tour de Guise. +The young Prince of Joinville, son of that Duke of Guise who was +murdered by the order of Henry II. at Blois, was, after the death of his +father, confined here for more than two years, but made his escape one +summer evening in 1591, under the nose of his keepers, with a gallant +audacity which has attached the memory of the exploit to his +sullen-looking prison. Tours has a garrison of five regiments, and the +little red-legged soldiers light up the town. You see them stroll upon +the clean, uncommercial quay, where there are no signs of navigation, +not even by oar, no barrels nor bales, no loading nor unloading, no +masts against the sky nor booming of steam in the air. The most active +business that goes on there is that patient and fruitless angling in +which the French, as the votaries of art for art, excel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +all other people. The little soldiers, weighed down by the contents of +their enormous pockets, pass with respect from one of these masters of +the rod to the other, as he sits soaking an indefinite bait in the +large, indifferent stream. After you turn your back to the quay you have +only to go a little way before you reach the cathedral.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 189px;"> +<img src="images/ill_014.png" width="189" height="300" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_ii" id="Chapter_ii"></a>Chapter ii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Tours: the Cathedral</div> + +<p>IT IS a very beautiful church of the second order of importance, with a +charming mouse-coloured complexion and a pair of fantastic towers. There +is a commodious little square in front of it, from which you may look up +at its very ornamental face; but for purposes of frank admiration the +sides and the rear are perhaps not sufficiently detached. The cathedral +of Tours, which is dedicated to Saint Gatianus, took a long time to +build. Begun in 1170, it was finished only in the first half of the +sixteenth century;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +but the ages and the weather have interfused so well the tone of the +different parts that it presents, at first at least, no striking +incongruities, and looks even exceptionally harmonious and complete. +There are many grander cathedrals, but there are probably few more +pleasing; and this effect of delicacy and grace is at its best towards +the close of a quiet afternoon, when the densely decorated towers, +rising above the little Place de l'Archevêché, lift their curious +lanterns into the slanting light and offer a multitudinous perch to +troops of circling pigeons. The whole front, at such a time, has an +appearance of great richness, although the niches which surround the +three high doors (with recesses deep enough for several circles of +sculpture) and indent the four great buttresses that ascend beside the +huge rose-window, carry no figures beneath their little chiselled +canopies. The blast of the great Revolution blew down most of the +statues in France, and the wind has never set very strongly towards +putting them up again. The embossed and crocketed cupolas which crown +the towers of Saint Gatien are not very pure in taste; but, like a good +many impurities, they have a certain character. The interior has a +stately slimness with which no fault is to be found and which in the +choir, rich in early glass and surrounded by a broad passage, becomes +very bold and noble. Its principal treasure perhaps is the charming +little tomb of the two children (who died young) of Charles VIII. and +Anne of Brittany, in white marble embossed with symbolic dolphins and +exquisite arabesques. The little boy and girl lie side by side on a slab +of black marble, and a pair of small kneeling angels, both at their head +and at their feet, watch over them. Nothing could be more elegant than +this monument, which is the work of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Tours: the Cathedral</div> + +<p>Michel Colomb, one of the earlier glories of the French Renaissance; it +is really a lesson in good taste. Originally placed in the great +abbey-church of Saint Martin, which was for so many ages the holy place +of Tours, it happily survived the devastation to which that edifice, +already sadly shattered by the wars of religion and successive +profanations, finally succumbed in 1797. In 1815 the tomb found an +asylum in a quiet corner of the cathedral.</p> + +<p>I ought perhaps to be ashamed to acknowledge that I found the profane +name of Balzac capable of adding an interest even to this venerable +sanctuary. Those who have read the terrible little story of "Le Curé de +Tours" will perhaps remember that, as I have already mentioned, the +simple and childlike old Abbé Birotteau, victim of the infernal +machinations of the Abbé Troubert and Mademoiselle Gamard, had his +quarters in the house of that lady (she had a specialty of letting +lodgings to priests), which stood on the north side of the cathedral, so +close under its walls that the supporting pillar of one of the great +flying buttresses was planted in the spinster's garden. If you wander +round behind the church in search of this more than historic habitation +you will have occasion to see that the side and rear of Saint Gatien +make a delectable and curious figure. A narrow lane passes beside the +high wall which conceals from sight the palace of the archbishop and +beneath the flying buttresses, the far-projecting gargoyles, and the +fine south porch of the church. It terminates in a little dead +grass-grown square entitled the Place Grégoire de Tours. All this part +of the exterior of the cathedral is very brown, ancient, Gothic, +grotesque; Balzac calls the whole place "a desert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 366px;"> +<img src="images/ill_015_th.png" width="366" height="550" alt="TOURS—THE CATHEDRAL" /> +<br /><span class="caption">TOURS—THE CATHEDRAL</span> +<a href="images/ill_015.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Tours: the Cathedral</div> + +<p class="non">of stone." A battered and gabled wing or out-house (as it appears to be) +of the hidden palace, with a queer old stone pulpit jutting out from it, +looks down on this melancholy spot, on the other side of which is a +seminary for young priests, one of whom issues from a door in a quiet +corner, and, holding it open a moment behind him, shows a glimpse of a +sunny garden, where you may fancy other black young figures strolling up +and down. Mademoiselle Gamard's house, where she took her two abbés to +board, and basely conspired with one against the other, is still farther +round the cathedral. You cannot quite put your hand upon it to-day, for +the dwelling of which you say to yourself that it must have been +Mademoiselle Gamard's does not fulfil all the conditions mentioned in +Balzac's description. The edifice in question, however, fulfils +conditions enough; in particular, its little court offers hospitality to +the big buttress of the church. Another buttress, corresponding with +this (the two, between them, sustain the gable of the north transept), +is planted in the small cloister, of which the door on the farther side +of the little soundless Rue de la Psalette, where nothing seems ever to +pass, opens opposite to that of Mademoiselle Gamard. There is a very +genial old sacristan, who introduced me to this cloister from the +church. It is very small and solitary, and much mutilated; but it +nestles with a kind of wasted friendliness beneath the big walls of the +cathedral. Its lower arcades have been closed, and it has a small plot +of garden in the middle, with fruit-trees which I should imagine to be +too much overshadowed. In one corner is a remarkably picturesque turret, +the cage of a winding staircase which ascends (no great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> +distance) to an upper gallery, where an old priest, the +<i>chanoine-gardien</i> of the church, was walking to and fro with his +breviary. The turret, the gallery, and even the chanoine-gardien, +belonged, that sweet September morning, to the class of objects that are +dear to painters in water-colours.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 203px;"> +<img src="images/ill_016.png" width="203" height="300" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_iii" id="Chapter_iii"></a>Chapter iii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Tours: Saint Martin</div> + +<p>I HAVE mentioned the church of Saint Martin, which was for many years +the sacred spot, the shrine of pilgrimage, of Tours. Originally the +simple burial-place of the great apostle who in the fourth century +Christianised Gaul and who, in his day a brilliant missionary and worker +of miracles, is chiefly known to modern fame as the worthy that cut his +cloak in two at the gate of Amiens to share it with a beggar (tradition +fails to say, I believe, what he did with the other half), the abbey of +Saint Martin, through the Middle Ages, waxed rich and powerful, till it +was known at last as one of the most luxurious religious houses in +Christendom, with kings for its titular abbots<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +(who, like Francis I., sometimes turned and despoiled it) and a great +treasure of precious things. It passed, however, through many +vicissitudes. Pillaged by the Normans in the ninth century and by the +Huguenots in the sixteenth, it received its death-blow from the +Revolution, which must have brought to bear upon it an energy of +destruction proportionate to its mighty bulk. At the end of the last +century a huge group of ruins alone remained, and what we see to-day may +be called the ruin of a ruin. It is difficult to understand how so vast +an edifice can have been so completely obliterated. Its site is given up +to several ugly streets, and a pair of tall towers, separated by a space +which speaks volumes as to the size of the church and looking across the +close-pressed roofs to the happier spires of the cathedral, preserve for +the modern world the memory of a great fortune, a great abuse, perhaps, +and at all events a great penalty. One may believe that to this day a +considerable part of the foundations of the great abbey is buried in the +soil of Tours. The two surviving towers, which are dissimilar in shape, +are enormous; with those of the cathedral they form the great landmarks +of the town. One of them bears the name of the Tour de l'Horloge; the +other, the so-called Tour Charlemagne, was erected (two centuries after +her death) over the tomb of Luitgarde, wife of the great Emperor, who +died at Tours in 800. I do not pretend to understand in what relation +these very mighty and effectually detached masses of masonry stood to +each other, but in their grey elevation and loneliness they are striking +and suggestive to-day; holding their hoary heads far above the modern +life of the town and looking sad and conscious, as they had outlived all +uses. I know not what is supposed to have become of the bones<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 351px;"> +<img src="images/ill_017_th.png" width="351" height="550" alt="TOURS—THE TOWERS OF ST. MARTIN" /> +<br /><span class="caption">TOURS—THE TOWERS OF ST. MARTIN</span> +<a href="images/ill_017.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Tours: Saint Martin</div> + +<p class="non">of the blessed saint during the various scenes of confusion in which +they may have got mislaid; but a mystic connection with his +wonder-working relics may be perceived in a strange little sanctuary on +the left of the street, which opens in front of the Tour +Charlemagne—whose immemorial base, by the way, inhabited like a cavern, +with a diminutive doorway where, as I passed, an old woman stood +cleaning a pot, and a little dark window decorated with homely flowers, +would be appreciated by a painter in search of "bits." The present +shrine of Saint Martin is enclosed (provisionally, I suppose) in a very +modern structure of timber, where in a dusky cellar, to which you +descend by a wooden staircase adorned with votive tablets and paper +roses, is placed a tabernacle surrounded by twinkling tapers and +prostrate worshippers. Even this crepuscular vault, however, fails, I +think, to attain solemnity; for the whole place is strangely vulgar and +garish. The Catholic Church, as churches go to-day, is certainly the +most spectacular; but it must feel that it has a great fund of +impressiveness to draw upon when it opens such sordid little shops of +sanctity as this. It is impossible not to be struck with the +grotesqueness of such an establishment as the last link in the chain of +a great ecclesiastical tradition.</p> + +<p>In the same street, on the other side, a little below, is something +better worth your visit than the shrine of Saint Martin. Knock at a high +door in a white wall (there is a cross above it), and a fresh-faced +sister of the convent of the Petit Saint Martin will let you into the +charming little cloister, or rather fragment of cloister. Only one side +of this surpassing structure remains, but the whole place is effective. +In front of the beautiful arcade, which is terribly bruised and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +obliterated, is one of those walks of interlaced <i>tilleuls</i> which are so +frequent in Touraine, and into which the green light filters so softly +through a lattice of clipped twigs. Beyond this is a garden, and beyond +the garden are the other buildings of the convent, where the placid +sisters keep a school—a test, doubtless, of placidity. The imperfect +arcade, which dates from the beginning of the sixteenth century (I know +nothing of it but what is related in Mrs. Pattison's "Renaissance in +France"), is a truly enchanting piece of work; the cornice and the +angles of the arches being covered with the daintiest sculpture of +arabesques, flowers, fruit, medallions, cherubs, griffins, all in the +finest and most attenuated relief. It is like the chasing of a bracelet +in stone. The taste, the fancy, the elegance, the refinement, are of the +order that straightens up again our drooping standard of distinction. +Such a piece of work is the purest flower of the French Renaissance; +there is nothing more delicate in all Touraine.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Tours: Saint Julian</div> + +<p>There is another fine thing at Tours which is not particularly delicate, +but which makes a great impression—the very interesting old church of +Saint Julian, lurking in a crooked corner at the right of the Rue +Royale, near the point at which this indifferent thoroughfare emerges, +with its little cry of admiration, on the bank of the Loire. Saint +Julian stands to-day in a kind of neglected hollow, where it is much +shut in by houses; but in the year 1225, when the edifice was begun, the +site was doubtless, as the architects say, more eligible. At present +indeed, when once you have caught a glimpse of the stout, serious +Romanesque tower—which is not high, but strong—you feel that the +building has something to say and that you must stop to listen to it. +Within, it has a vast and splendid nave,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> +of immense height, the nave of a cathedral, with a shallow choir and +transepts and some admirable old glass. I spent half an hour there one +morning, listening to what the church had to say, in perfect solitude. +Not a worshipper entered, not even an old man with a broom. I have +always thought there be a sex in fine buildings; and Saint Julian, with +its noble nave, is of the gender of the name of its patron.</p> + +<p>It was that same morning, I think, that I went in search of the old +houses of Tours; for the town contains several goodly specimens of the +domestic architecture of the past. The dwelling to which the average +Anglo-Saxon will most promptly direct his steps, and the only one I have +space to mention, is the so-called Maison de Tristan l'Hermite—a +gentleman whom the readers of "Quentin Durward" will not have +forgotten—the hangman-in-ordinary to that great and prompt chastener +Louis XI. Unfortunately the house of Tristan is not the house of Tristan +at all; this illusion has been cruelly dispelled. There are no illusions +left at all, in the good city of Tours, with regard to Louis XI. His +terrible castle of Plessis, the picture of which sends a shiver through +the youthful reader of Scott, has been reduced to suburban +insignificance; and the residence of his <i>triste compère</i>, on the front +of which a festooned rope figures as a motive for decoration, is +observed to have been erected in the succeeding century. The Maison de +Tristan may be visited for itself, however, if not for Sir Walter; it is +an exceedingly picturesque old façade, to which you pick your way +through a narrow and tortuous street—a street terminating, a little +beyond it, in the walk beside the river. An elegant Gothic doorway is +let into the rusty-red brickwork, and strange little beasts crouch at +the angles of the windows,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +which are surmounted by a tall graduated gable, pierced with a small +orifice, where the large surface of brick, lifted out of the shadow of +the street, looks yellow and faded. The whole thing is disfigured and +decayed; but it is a capital subject for a sketch in colours. Only I +must wish the sketcher better luck—or a better temper—than my own. If +he ring the bell to be admitted to see the court, which I believe is +more sketchable still, let him have patience to wait till the bell is +answered. He can do the outside while they are coming.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Tours: Plessis-les-Tours</div> + +<p>The Maison de Tristan, I say, may be visited for itself; but I hardly +know for what the remnants of Plessis-les-Tours may be investigated. To +reach them you wander through crooked suburban lanes, down the course of +the Loire, to a rough, undesirable, incongruous spot, where a small, +crude building of red brick is pointed out to you by your cabman (if you +happen to drive) as the legendary frame of the grim portrait, and where +a strong odour of pigsties and other unclean things so prostrates you +for the moment that you have no energy to protest against this obvious +fiction. You enter a yard encumbered with rubbish and a defiant dog, and +an old woman emerges from a shabby lodge and assures you that you stand +deep in historic dust. The red brick building, which looks like a small +factory, rises on the ruins of the favourite residence of the dreadful +Louis. It is now occupied by a company of night-scavengers, whose huge +carts are drawn up in a row before it. I know not whether this be what +is called the irony of fate; in any case, the effect of it is to +accentuate strongly the fact (and through the most susceptible of our +senses) that there is no honour for the authors of great wrongs. The +dreadful Louis is reduced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +simply to an offence to the nostrils. The old woman shows you a few +fragments—several dark, damp, much-encumbered vaults, denominated +dungeons, and an old tower staircase in good condition. There are the +outlines of the old moat; there is also the outline of the old +guard-room, which is now a stable; and there are other silhouettes of +the undistinguishable, which I have forgotten. You need all your +imagination, and even then you cannot make out that Plessis was a castle +of large extent, though the old woman, as your eye wanders over the +neighbouring <i>potagers</i>, discourses much of the gardens and the park. +The place looks mean and flat; and as you drive away you scarcely know +whether to be glad or sorry that all those bristling horrors have been +reduced to the commonplace.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Tours: Marmoutier</div> + +<p>A certain flatness of impression awaits you also, I think, at +Marmoutier, which is the other indispensable excursion in the near +neighbourhood of Tours. The remains of this famous abbey lie on the +other bank of the stream, about a mile and a half from the town. You +follow the edge of the big brown river; of a fine afternoon you will be +glad to go farther still. The abbey has gone the way of most abbeys; but +the place is a restoration as well as a ruin, inasmuch as the Sisters of +the Sacred Heart have erected a terribly modern convent here. A large +Gothic doorway, in a high fragment of ancient wall, admits you to a +garden-like enclosure, of great extent, from which you are further +introduced into an extraordinarily tidy little parlour, where two good +nuns sit at work. One of these came out with me and showed me over the +place—a very definite little woman, with pointed features, an intensely +distinct enunciation, and those pretty manners which (for whatever other +teachings it may be responsible)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +the Catholic Church so often instils into its functionaries. I have +never seen a woman who had got her lesson better than this little +trotting, murmuring, edifying nun. The interest of Marmoutier to-day is +not so much an interest of vision, so to speak, as an interest of +reflection—that is, if you choose to reflect (for instance) upon the +wondrous legend of the seven sleepers (you may see where they lie in a +row), who lived together—they were brothers and cousins—in primitive +piety, in the sanctuary constructed by the blessed Saint Martin (emulous +of his precursor, Saint Gatianus), in the face of the hillside that +overhung the Loire, and who, twenty-five years after his death, yielded +up their seven souls at the same moment and enjoyed the rare convenience +of retaining in their faces, in spite of mortality, every aspect of +health. The abbey of Marmoutier, which sprang from the grottos in the +cliff to which Saint Gatianus and Saint Martin retired to pray, was +therefore the creation of the latter worthy, as the other great abbey, +in the town proper, was the monument of his repose. The cliff is still +there; and a winding staircase, in the latest taste, enables you +conveniently to explore its recesses. These sacred niches are scooped +out of the rock, and will give you an impression if you cannot do +without one. You will feel them to be sufficiently venerable when you +learn that the particular pigeon-hole of Saint Gatianus, the first +Christian missionary to Gaul, dates from the third century. They have +been dealt with as the Catholic Church deals with most of such places +to-day; polished and furbished up, labelled and ticketed—<i>edited</i>, with +notes, in short, like an old book. The process is a mistake—the early +editions had more sanctity. The modern buildings (of the Sacred Heart), +on which you look down from these points of vantage,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +are in the vulgar taste which sets its so mechanical stamp on all new +Catholic work; but there was nevertheless a great sweetness in the +scene. The afternoon was lovely, and it was flushing to a close. The +large garden stretched beneath us, blooming with fruit and and wine and +succulent promise, and beyond it flowed the shining river. The air was +still, the shadows were long, and the place, after all, was full of +memories, most of which might pass for virtuous. It certainly was better +than Plessis-les-Tours.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 207px;"> +<img src="images/ill_018.png" width="207" height="300" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_iv" id="Chapter_iv"></a>Chapter iv</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Blois</div> + +<p>YOUR business at Tours is to make excursions; and if you make them all +you will be always under arms. The land is a rich reliquary, and an +hour's drive from the town in almost any direction will bring you to the +knowledge of some curious fragment of domestic or ecclesiastical +architecture, some turreted manor, some lonely tower, some gabled +village, some scene of something. Yet even if you do everything—which +was not my case—you cannot hope to tell everything, and, fortunately +for you, the excursions divide themselves into the greater and the less. +You may achieve most of the greater in a week or two; but a summer in +Touraine (which, by the way, must be a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 344px;"> +<img src="images/ill_019_th.png" width="344" height="550" alt="BLOIS" /> +<span class="caption">BLOIS</span> +<a href="images/ill_019.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> +<p class="non">delectable thing) would hold none too many days for the others. If you +come down to Tours from Paris your best economy is to spend a few days +at Blois, where a clumsy but rather attractive little inn on the edge of +the river will offer you a certain amount of that familiar and +intermittent hospitality which a few weeks spent in the French provinces +teaches you to regard as the highest attainable form of accommodation. +Such an economy I was unable to practise. I could only go to Blois (from +Tours) to spend the day; but this feat I accomplished twice over. It is +a very sympathetic little town, as we say nowadays, and a week there +would be sociable even without company. Seated on the north bank of the +Loire, it presents a bright, clean face to the sun and has that aspect +of cheerful leisure which belongs to all white towns that reflect +themselves in shining waters. It is the water-front only of Blois, +however, that exhibits this fresh complexion; the interior is of a +proper brownness, as old sallow books are bound in vellum. The only +disappointment is perforce the discovery that the castle, which is the +special object of one's pilgrimage, does not overhang the river, as I +had always allowed myself to understand. It overhangs the town, but is +scarcely visible from the stream. That peculiar good fortune is reserved +for Amboise and Chaumont.</p> + +<p>The Château de Blois is one of the most beautiful and elaborate of all +the old royal residences of this part of France, and I suppose it should +have all the honours of my description. As you cross its threshold you +step straight into the sunshine and storm of the French Renaissance. But +it is too rich to describe—I can only pick out the high lights. It must +be premised that in speaking of it as we see it to-day we speak of a +monument unsparingly restored. The work of restoration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> has been as +ingenious as it is profuse, but it rather chills the imagination. This +is perhaps almost the first thing you feel as you approach the castle +from the streets of the town. These little streets, as they leave the +river, have pretensions to romantic steepness; one of them, indeed, +which resolves itself into a high staircase with divergent wings (the +<i>escalier monumental</i>), achieved this result so successfully as to +remind me vaguely—I hardly know why—of the great slope of the Capitol, +beside the Ara Cœli, at Rome. The view of that part of the castle +which figures to-day as the back (it is the only aspect I had seen +reproduced) exhibits the marks of restoration with the greatest +assurance. The long façade, consisting only of balconied windows deeply +recessed, erects itself on the summit of a considerable hill, which +gives a fine, plunging movement to its foundations. The deep niches of +the windows are all aglow with colour. They have been repainted with red +and blue, relieved with gold figures; and each of them looks more like +the royal box at a theatre than like the aperture of a palace dark with +memories. For all this, however, and in spite of the fact that, as in +some others of the châteaux of Touraine (always excepting the colossal +Chambord, which is not in Touraine), there is less vastness than one had +expected, the least hospitable aspect of Blois is abundantly impressive. +Here, as elsewhere, lightness and grace are the keynote; and the +recesses of the windows, with their happy proportions, their sculpture +and their colour, are the hollow sockets of the human ornament. They +need the figure of a Francis I. to complete them, or of a Diane de +Poitiers, or even of a Henry III. The stand of this empty gilt cage +emerges from a bed of light verdure which has been allowed to mass +itself there and which contributes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px;"> +<img src="images/ill_020_th.png" width="375" height="550" alt="BLOIS—THE CHÂTEAU" /> +<span class="caption">BLOIS—THE CHÂTEAU</span> +<a href="images/ill_020.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Blois</div> + +<p class="non">to the springing look of the walls; while on the right it joins the most +modern portion of the castle, the building erected, on foundations of +enormous height and solidity, in 1635, by Gaston d'Orléans. This fine +frigid mansion—the proper view of it is from the court within—is one +of the masterpieces of François Mansard, whom a kind providence did not +allow to make over the whole palace in the superior manner of his +superior age. That had been a part of Gaston's plan—he was a blunderer +born, and this precious project was worthy of him. This execution of it +would surely have been one of the great misdeeds of history. Partially +performed, the misdeed is not altogether to be regretted; for as one +stands in the court of the castle and lets one's eye wander from the +splendid wing of Francis I.—which is the last word of free and joyous +invention—to the ruled lines and blank spaces of the ponderous pavilion +of Mansard, one makes one's reflections upon the advantage, in even the +least personal of the arts, of having something to say, and upon the +stupidity of a taste which had ended by becoming an aggregation of +negatives. Gaston's wing, taken by itself, has much of the <i>bel air</i> +which was to belong to the architecture of Louis XIV.; but, taken in +contrast to its flowering, laughing, living neighbour, it marks the +difference between inspiration and calculation. We scarcely grudge it +its place, however, for it adds a price to the rest of the pile.</p> + +<p>We have entered the court, by the way, by jumping over the walls. The +more orthodox method is to follow a modern terrace which leads to the +left, from the side of the edifice that I began by speaking of, and +passes round, ascending, to a little square on a considerably higher +level, a square not, like the rather prosaic space on which the back (as +I have called it) looks out,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +a thoroughfare. This small empty <i>place</i>, oblong in form, at once bright +and quiet, and which ought to be grass-grown, offers an excellent +setting to the entrance-front of the palace—the wing of Louis XII. The +restoration here has been lavish; but it was perhaps but an inevitable +reaction against the injuries, still more lavish, by which the +unfortunate building had long been overwhelmed. It had fallen into a +state of ruinous neglect, relieved only by the misuse proceeding from +successive generations of soldiers, for whom its charming chambers +served as barrack-room. Whitewashed, mutilated, dishonoured, the castle +of Blois may be said to have escaped simply with its life. This is the +history of Amboise as well, and is to a certain extent the history of +Chambord. Delightful, at any rate, was the refreshed façade of Louis +XII. as I stood and looked at it one bright September morning. In that +soft, clear, merry light of Touraine, everything shows, everything +speaks. Charming are the taste, the happy proportions, the colour of +this beautiful front, to which the new feeling for a purely domestic +architecture—an architecture of security and tranquillity, in which art +could indulge itself—gave an air of youth and gladness. It is true that +for a long time to come the castle of Blois was neither very safe nor +very quiet; but its dangers came from within, from the evil passions of +its inhabitants, and not from siege or invasion. The front of Louis XII. +is of red brick, crossed here and there with purple; and the purple +slate of the high roof, relieved with chimneys beautifully treated and +with the embroidered caps of pinnacles and arches, with the porcupine of +Louis, the ermine and the festooned rope which formed the devices of +Anne of Brittany—the tone of this decorative roof <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>carries out the mild +glow of the wall. The wide, fair +windows open as if they had expanded to let in the rosy dawn of the +Renaissance. Charming, for that matter, are the windows of all the +châteaux of Touraine, with their squareness corrected (as it is not in +the Tudor architecture) by the curve of the upper corners, which gives +this line the look, above the expressive aperture, of a pencilled +eyebrow. The low door of this front is crowned by a high, deep niche, in +which, under a splendid canopy, stiffly astride of a stiffly-draped +charger, sits in profile an image of the good King Louis. Good as he had +been—the father of his people, as he was called (I believe he remitted +various taxes)—he was not good enough to pass muster at the Revolution; +and the effigy I have just described is no more than a reproduction of +the primitive statue demolished at that period.</p> + +<p>Pass beneath it into the court, and the sixteenth century closes round +you. It is a pardonable flight of fancy to say that the expressive faces +of an age in which human passions lay very near the surface seem to peep +out at you from the windows, from the balconies, from the thick foliage +of the sculpture. The portion of the wing of Louis XII. that fronts +toward the court is supported on a deep arcade. On your right is the +wing erected by Francis I., the reverse of the mass of building which +you see on approaching the castle. This exquisite, this extravagant, +this transcendent piece of architecture is the most joyous utterance of +the French Renaissance. It is covered with an embroidery of sculpture in +which every detail is worthy of the hand of a goldsmith. In the middle +of it, or rather a little to the left, rises the famous winding +staircase (plausibly, but I believe not religiously, restored), which +even the ages which most misused it must vaguely have admired. It forms +a kind of chiselled cylinder, with wide interstices, so that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +stairs are open to the air. Every inch of this structure, of its +balconies, its pillars, its great central columns, is wrought over with +lovely images, strange and ingenious devices, prime among which is the +great heraldic salamander of Francis I. The salamander is everywhere at +Blois—over the chimneys, over the doors, on the walls. This whole +quarter of the castle bears the stamp of that eminently pictorial +prince. The running cornice along the top of the front is like an +unfolded, an elongated bracelet. The windows of the attic are like +shrines for saints. The gargoyles, the medallions, the statuettes, the +festoons are like the elaboration of some precious cabinet rather than +the details of a building exposed to the weather and to the ages. In the +interior there is a profusion of restoration, and it is all restoration +in colour. This has been, evidently, a work of great energy and cost, +but it will easily strike you as overdone. The universal freshness is a +discord, a false note; it seems to light up the dusky past with an +unnatural glare. Begun in the reign of Louis Philippe, this terrible +process—the more terrible always the better case you conceive made out +for it—has been carried so far that there is now scarcely a square inch +of the interior that preserves the colour of the past. It is true that +the place had been so coated over with modern abuse that something was +needed to keep it alive; it is only perhaps a pity the clever doctors, +not content with saving its life, should have undertaken to restore its +bloom. The love of consistency, in such a business, is a dangerous lure. +All the old apartments have been rechristened, as it were; the geography +of the castle has been re-established. The guard-rooms, the bedrooms, +the closets, the oratories have recovered their identity. Every spot +connected with the murder of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Blois</div> + +<p>Duke of Guise is pointed out by a small, shrill boy, who takes you from +room to room and who has learned his lesson in perfection. The place is +full of Catherine de'Medici, of Henry III., of memories, of ghosts, of +echoes, of possible evocations and revivals. It is covered with crimson +and gold. The fireplaces and the ceilings are magnificent; they look +like expensive "sets" at the grand opera.</p> + +<p>I should have mentioned that below, in the court, the front of the wing +of Gaston d'Orléans faces you as you enter, so that the place is a +course of French history. Inferior in beauty and grace to the other +portions of the castle, the wing is yet a nobler monument than the +memory of Gaston deserves. The second of the sons of Henry IV.—who was +no more fortunate as a father than as a husband—younger brother of +Louis XIII. and father of the great Mademoiselle, the most celebrated, +most ambitious, most self-complacent and most unsuccessful <i>fille à +marier</i> in French history, passed in enforced retirement at the castle +of Blois the close of a life of clumsy intrigues against Cardinal +Richelieu, in which his rashness was only equalled by his pusillanimity +and his ill-luck by his inaccessibility to correction, and which, after +so many follies and shames, was properly summed up in the +project—begun, but not completed—of demolishing the beautiful +habitation of his exile in order to erect a better one. With Gaston +d'Orléans, however, who lived there without dignity, the history of the +Château de Blois declines. Its interesting period is that of the wars of +religion. It was the chief residence of Henry III., and the scene of the +principal events of his depraved and dramatic rule. It has been restored +more than enough, as I have said, by architects and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> +decorators; the visitor, as he moves through its empty rooms, which are +at once brilliant and ill-lighted (they have not been refurnished), +undertakes a little restoration of his own. His imagination helps itself +from the things that remain; he tries to see the life of the sixteenth +century in its form and dress—its turbulence, its passions, its loves +and hates, its treacheries, falsities, sincerities, faith, its latitude +of personal development, its presentation of the whole nature, its +nobleness of costume, charm of speech, splendour of taste, unequalled +picturesqueness. The picture is full of movement, of contrasted light +and darkness, full altogether of abominations. Mixed up with them all is +the great theological motive, so that the drama wants little to make it +complete. What episode was ever more perfect—looked at as a dramatic +occurrence—than the murder of the Duke of Guise? The insolent +prosperity of the victim; the weakness, the vices, the terrors, of the +author of the deed; the perfect execution of the plot; the accumulation +of horror in what followed it—render it, as a crime, one of the classic +things.</p> + +<p>But we must not take the Château de Blois too hard: I went there, after +all, by way of entertainment. If among these sinister memories your +visit should threaten to prove a tragedy, there is an excellent way of +removing the impression. You may treat yourself at Blois to a very +cheerful afterpiece. There is a charming industry practised there, and +practised in charming conditions. Follow the bright little quay down the +river till you get quite out of the town and reach the point where the +road beside the Loire becomes sinuous and attractive, turns the corner +of diminutive headlands and makes you wonder what is beyond. Let not +your curiosity induce you, however, to pass by a modest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +white villa which overlooks the stream, enclosed in a fresh little +court; for here dwells an artist—an artist in faience. There is no sort +of sign, and the place looks peculiarly private. But if you ring at the +gate you will not be turned away. You will, on the contrary, be ushered +upstairs into a parlour—there is nothing resembling a shop—encumbered +with specimens of remarkably handsome pottery. The ware is of the best, +a careful reproduction of old forms, colours, devices; and the master of +the establishment is one of those completely artistic types that are +often found in France. His reception is as friendly as his work is +ingenious; and I think it is not too much to say that you like the work +better because he has produced it. His vases, cups and jars, lamps, +platters, <i>plaques</i>, with their brilliant glaze, their innumerable +figures, their family likeness and wide variations, are scattered +through his occupied rooms; they serve at once as his stock-in-trade and +as household ornament. As we all know, this is an age of prose, of +machinery, of wholesale production, of coarse and hasty processes. But +one brings away from the establishment of the very intelligent M. Ulysse +the sense of a less eager activity and a greater search for perfection. +He has but a few workmen and he gives them plenty of time. The place +makes a little vignette, leaves an impression—the quiet white house in +its garden on the road by the wide, clear river, without the smoke, the +bustle, the ugliness, of so much of our modern industry. It struck me as +an effort Mr. Ruskin might have inspired and Mr. William Morris—though +that be much to say—have forgiven.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_021.png" width="450" height="298" alt="21" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_v" id="Chapter_v"></a>Chapter v</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Chambord</div> + +<p>THE second time I went to Blois I took a carriage for Chambord, and came +back by the Château de Cheverny and the forest of Russy—a charming +little expedition, to which the beauty of the afternoon (the finest in a +rainy season that was spotted with bright days) contributed not a +little. To go to Chambord you cross the Loire, leave it on one side and +strike away through a country in which salient features become less and +less numerous and which at last has no other quality than a look of +intense and peculiar rurality—the characteristic, even when it be not +the charm, of so much of the landscape of France. This is not the +appearance of wildness, for it goes with great cultivation; it is simply +the presence of the delving, drudging, economising peasant. But it is a +deep, unrelieved rusticity. It is a peasant's landscape; not, as in +England, a landlord's. On the way to Chambord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +you enter the flat and sandy Sologne. The wide horizon opens out like a +great <i>potager</i>, without interruptions, without an eminence, with here +and there a long, low stretch of wood. There is an absence of hedges, +fences, signs of property; everything is absorbed in the general +flatness—the patches of vineyard, the scattered cottages, the villages, +the children (planted and staring and almost always pretty), the women +in the fields, the white caps, the faded blouses, the big sabots. At the +end of an hour's drive (they assure you at Blois that even with two +horses you will spend double that time), I passed through a sort of gap +in a wall which does duty as the gateway of the domain of a proscribed +pretender. I followed a straight avenue through a disfeatured park—the +park of Chambord has twenty-one miles of circumference; a very sandy, +scrubby, melancholy plantation, in which the timber must have been cut +many times over and is to-day a mere tangle of brushwood. Here, as in so +many spots in France, the traveller perceives that he is in a land of +revolutions. Nevertheless its great extent and the long perspective of +its avenues give this frugal shrubbery a certain state; just as its +shabbiness places it in agreement with one of the strongest impressions +awaiting you. You pursue one of these long perspectives a proportionate +time, and at last you see the chimneys and pinnacles of Chambord rise +apparently out of the ground. The filling-in of the wide moats that +formerly surrounded it has, in vulgar parlance, let it down and given it +a monstrous over-crowned air that is at the same time a magnificent +Orientalism. The towers, the turrets, the cupolas, the gables, the +lanterns, the chimneys look more like the spires of a city than the +salient points of a single building. You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +emerge from the avenue and find yourself at the foot of an enormous +fantastic mass. Chambord has a strange mixture of society and solitude. +A little village clusters within view of its liberal windows, and a +couple of inns near by offer entertainment to pilgrims. These things of +course are incidents of the political proscription which hangs its thick +veil over the place. Chambord is truly royal—royal in its great scale, +its grand air, its indifference to common considerations. If a cat may +look at a king, a tavern may look at a palace. I enjoyed my visit to +this extraordinary structure as much as if I had been a legitimist; and +indeed there is something interesting in any monument of a great system, +any bold presentation of a tradition.</p> + +<p>You leave your vehicle at one of the inns, which are very decent and +tidy and in which every one is very civil, as if in this latter respect +the neighbourhood of a Court veritably set the fashion, and you proceed +across the grass and the gravel to a small door, a door infinitely +subordinate and conferring no title of any kind on those who enter it. +Here you ring a bell, which a highly respectable person answers (a +person perceptibly affiliated, again, to the old regime), after which +she ushers you over a vestibule into an inner court. Perhaps the +strongest impression I got at Chambord came to me as I stood in this +court. The woman who admitted me did not come with me; I was to find my +guide somewhere else. The specialty of Chambord is its prodigious round +towers. There are, I believe, no less than eight of them, placed at each +angle of the inner and outer square of buildings; for the castle is in +the form of a larger structure which encloses a smaller one. One of +these towers stood before me in the court; it seemed to fling its +shadow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 324px;"> +<img src="images/ill_022.png" width="324" height="550" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote">Chambord</div> + +<p class="non">over the place; while above, as I looked up, the pinnacles and gables, +the enormous chimneys, soared into the bright blue air. The place was +empty and silent; shadows of gargoyles, of extraordinary projections, +were thrown across the clear grey surfaces. One felt that the whole +thing was monstrous. A cicerone appeared, a languid young man in a +rather shabby livery, and led me about with a mixture of the impatient +and the desultory, of condescension and humility. I do not profess to +understand the plan of Chambord, and I may add that I do not even desire +to do so; for it is much more entertaining to think of it, as you can so +easily, as an irresponsible, insoluble labyrinth. Within it is a +wilderness of empty chambers, a royal and romantic barrack. The exiled +prince to whom it gives its title has not the means to keep up four +hundred rooms; he contents himself with preserving the huge outside. The +repairs of the prodigious roof alone must absorb a large part of his +revenue. The great feature of the interior is the celebrated double +staircase, rising straight through the building, with two courses of +steps, so that people may ascend and descend without meeting. This +staircase is a truly majestic piece of humour; it gives you the note, as +it were, of Chambord. It opens on each landing to a vast guard-room, in +four arms, radiations of the winding shaft. My guide made me climb to +the great open-work lantern which, springing from the roof at the +termination of the rotund staircase (surmounted here by a smaller one), +forms the pinnacle of the bristling crown of the pile. This lantern is +tipped with a huge <i>fleur-de-lis</i> in stone—the only one, I believe, +that the Revolution did not succeed in pulling down. Here, from narrow +windows, you look over the wide, flat country and the tangled,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +melancholy park, with the rotation of its straight avenues. Then you +walk about the roof in a complication of galleries, terraces, balconies, +through the multitude of chimneys and gables. This roof, which is in +itself a sort of castle in the air, has an extravagant, fabulous +quality, and with its profuse ornamentation—the salamander of Francis +I. is a constant motive—its lonely pavements, its sunny niches, the +balcony that looks down over the closed and grass-grown main entrance, a +strange, half-sad, half-brilliant charm. The stonework is covered with +fine mould. There are places that reminded me of some of those quiet +mildewed corners of courts and terraces into which the traveller who +wanders through the Vatican looks down from neglected windows. They show +you two or three furnished rooms, with Bourbon portraits, hideous +tapestries from the ladies of France, a collection of the toys of the +<i>enfant du miracle</i>, all military and of the finest make. "Tout cela +fonctionne," the guide said of these miniature weapons; and I wondered, +if he should take it into his head to fire off his little cannon, how +much harm the Comte de Chambord would do.</p> + +<p>From below the castle would look crushed by the redundancy of its upper +protuberances if it were not for the enormous girth of its round towers, +which appear to give it a robust lateral development. These towers, +however, fine as they are in their way, struck me as a little stupid; +they are the exaggeration of an exaggeration. In a building erected +after the days of defence and proclaiming its peaceful character from +its hundred embroideries and cupolas, they seem to indicate a want of +invention. I shall risk the accusation of bad taste if I say that, +impressive as it is, the Château de Chambord seemed to me to have +altogether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +a touch of that quality of stupidity. The trouble is that it stands for +nothing very momentous; it has not happened, in spite of sundry +vicissitudes, to have a strongly-marked career. Compared with that of +Blois and Amboise its past is rather vacant; and one feels to a certain +extent the contrast between its pompous appearance and its spacious but +somewhat colourless annals. It had indeed the good fortune to be erected +by Francis I., whose name by itself expresses a good deal of history. +Why he should have built a palace in those sandy plains will ever remain +an unanswered question, for kings have never been obliged to give +reasons. In addition to the fact that the country was rich in game and +that Francis was a passionate hunter, it is suggested by M. de la +Saussaye, the author of the very complete little account of the place +which you may buy at the bookseller's at Blois, that he was governed in +his choice of the site by the chance that a charming woman had +previously lived there. The Comtesse de Thoury had a manor in the +neighbourhood, and the Comtesse de Thoury had been the object of a +youthful passion on the part of the most susceptible of princes before +his accession to the throne. This great pile was reared, therefore, +according to M. de la Saussaye, as a <i>souvenir de premières amours</i>! It +is certainly a very massive memento; and if these tender passages were +proportionate to the building that commemorates them, the flame blazed +indeed. There has been much discussion as to the architect employed by +Francis I., and the honour of having designed this splendid residence +has been claimed for several of the Italian artists who early in the +sixteenth century came to seek patronage in France. It seems well +established to-day, however, that Chambord was the work neither of +Primaticcio, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Chambord</div> + +<p>Vignola, nor of Il Rosso, all of whom have left some trace of their +sojourn in France; but of an obscure yet very complete genius, Pierre +Nepveu, known as Pierre Trinqueau, who is designated in the papers which +preserve in some degree the history of the origin of the edifice, as the +<i>maistre de l'œuvre de maçonnerie</i>. Behind this modest title, +apparently, we must recognise one of the most original talents of the +French Renaissance; and it is a proof of the vigour of the artistic life +of that period that, brilliant production being everywhere abundant, an +artist of so high a value should not have been treated by his +contemporaries as a celebrity. We make our celebrities to-day at smaller +cost.</p> + +<p>The immediate successors of Francis I. continued to visit Chambord; but +it was neglected by Henry IV. and was never afterwards a favourite +residence of any French king. Louis XIV. appeared there on several +occasions, and the apparition was characteristically brilliant; but +Chambord could not long detain a monarch who had gone to the expense of +creating a Versailles ten miles from Paris. With Versailles, +Fontainebleau, Saint-Germain and Saint-Cloud within easy reach of their +capital, the later French sovereigns had little reason to take the air +in the dreariest province of their kingdom. Chambord therefore suffered +from royal indifference, though in the last century a use was found for +its deserted halls. In 1725 it was occupied by the luckless Stanislaus +Leczynski, who spent the greater part of his life in being elected King +of Poland and being ousted from his throne, and who, at this time a +refugee in France, had found a compensation for some of his misfortunes +in marrying his daughter to Louis XV. He lived eight years at Chambord +and filled up the moats of the castle. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +1748 it found an illustrious tenant in the person of Maurice de Saxe, +the victor of Fontenoy, who, however, two years after he had taken +possession of it, terminated a life which would have been longer had he +been less determined to make it agreeable. The Revolution, of course, +was not kind to Chambord. It despoiled it in so far as possible of every +vestige of its royal origin, and swept like a whirlwind through +apartments to which upwards of two centuries had contributed a treasure +of decoration and furniture. In that wild blast these precious things +were destroyed or for ever scattered. In 1791 an odd proposal was made +to the French Government by a company of English Quakers, who had +conceived the bold idea of establishing in the palace a manufacture of +some peaceful commodity not to-day recorded. Napoleon allotted Chambord, +as a "dotation," to one of his marshals, Berthier, for whose benefit it +was converted, in Napoleonic fashion, into the so-called principality of +Wagram. By the Princess of Wagram, the marshal's widow, it was, after +the Restoration, sold to the trustees of a national subscription which +had been established for the purpose of presenting it to the infant Duke +of Bordeaux, then prospective King of France. The presentation was duly +made; but the Comte de Chambord, who had changed his title in +recognition of the gift, was despoiled of his property by the government +of Louis Philippe. He appealed for redress to the tribunals of his +country; and the consequence of his appeal was an interminable +litigation, by which, however, finally, after the lapse of twenty-five +years, he was established in his rights. In 1871 he paid his first visit +to the domain which had been offered him half a century before, a term +of which he had spent forty years in exile. It was from Chambord that +he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +dated his famous letter of the 5th of July of that year—the letter, +directed to his so-called subjects, in which he waves aloft the white +flag of the Bourbons. This rare miscalculation—virtually an invitation +to the French people to repudiate, as their national ensign, that +immortal tricolour, the flag of the Revolution and the Empire, under +which they have won the glory which of all glories has hitherto been +dearest to them and which is associated with the most romantic, the most +heroic, the epic, the consolatory, period of their history—this +luckless manifesto, I say, appears to give the measure of the political +wisdom of the excellent Henry V. The proposal should have had less +simplicity or the people less irony.</p> + +<p>On<span class="sidenote">Chambord</span> the whole Chambord makes a great impression; and the hour I was +there, while the yellow afternoon light slanted upon the September +woods, there was a dignity in its desolation. It spoke, with a muffled +but audible voice, of the vanished monarchy, which had been so strong, +so splendid, but to-day had become a vision almost as fantastic as the +cupolas and chimneys that rose before me. I thought, while I lingered +there, of all the fine things it takes to make up such a monarchy; and +how one of them is a superfluity of mouldering, empty palaces. Chambord +is touching—that is the best word for it; and if the hopes of another +restoration are in the follies of the Republic, a little reflection on +that eloquence of ruin ought to put the Republic on its guard. A +sentimental tourist may venture to remark that in presence of all the +haunted houses that appeal in this mystical manner to the retrospective +imagination it cannot afford to be foolish. I thought of all this as I +drove back to Blois by the way of the Château de Cheverny. The road took +us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +out of the park of Chambord, but through a region of flat woodland, +where the trees were not mighty, and again into the prosy plain of the +Sologne—a thankless soil to sow, I believe, but lately much amended by +the magic of cheerful French industry and thrift. The light had already +begun to fade, and my drive reminded me of a passage in some rural novel +of Madame Sand. I passed a couple of timber and plaster churches, which +looked very old, black and crooked, and had lumpish wooden porches and +galleries encircling the base. By the time I reached Cheverny the clear +twilight had approached. It was late to ask to be allowed to visit an +inhabited house; but it was the hour at which I like best to visit +almost anything. My coachman drew up before a gateway, in a high wall, +which opened upon a short avenue, along which I took my way on foot; the +coachmen in those parts being, for reasons best known to themselves, +mortally averse to driving up to a house. I answered the challenge of a +very tidy little portress who sat, in company with a couple of children, +enjoying the evening air in front of her lodge, and who told me to walk +a little farther and turn to the right. I obeyed her to the letter, and +my turn brought me into sight of a house as charming as an old manor in +a fairy tale. I had but a rapid and partial view of Cheverny; but that +view was a glimpse of perfection. A light, sweet mansion stood looking +over a wide green lawn, over banks of flowers and groups of trees. It +had a striking character of elegance, produced partly by a series of +Renaissance busts let into circular niches in the façade. The place +looked so private, so reserved, that it seemed an act of violence to +ring, a stranger and foreigner, at the graceful door. But if I had not +rung I should be unable to express—as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +it is such a pleasure to do—my sense of the exceeding courtesy with +which this admirable house is shown. It was near the dinner-hour—the +most sacred hour of the day; but I was freely conducted into the +inhabited apartments. They are extremely beautiful. What I chiefly +remember is the charming staircase of white embroidered stone, and the +great <i>salle des gardes</i> and <i>chambre à coucher du roi</i> on the second +floor. Cheverny, built in 1634, is of a much later date than the other +royal residences of this part of France; it belongs to the end of the +Renaissance and has a touch of the rococo. The guard-room is a superb +apartment; and as it contains little save its magnificent ceiling and +fireplace and certain dim tapestries on its walls, you the more easily +take the measure of its noble proportions. The servant opened the +shutters of a single window, and the last rays of the twilight slanted +into the rich brown gloom. It was in the same picturesque fashion that I +saw the bedroom (adjoining) of Henry IV., where a legendary-looking bed, +draped in folds long unaltered, defined itself in the haunted dusk. +Cheverny remains to me a very charming, a partly mysterious vision. I +drove back to Blois in the dark, some nine miles, through the forest of +Russy, which belongs to the State and which, though consisting +apparently of small timber, looked under the stars sufficiently vast and +primeval. There was a damp autumnal smell and the occasional sound of a +stirring thing; and as I moved through the evening air I thought of +Francis I. and Henry IV.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_023.png" width="450" height="306" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_vi" id="Chapter_vi"></a>Chapter vi</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Amboise</div> + +<p>YOU may go to Amboise either from Blois or from Tours; it is about +half-way between these towns. The great point is to go, especially if +you have put it off repeatedly; and to go, if possible, on a day when +the great view of the Loire, which you enjoy from the battlements and +terraces, presents itself under a friendly sky. Three persons, of whom +the author of these lines was one, spent the greater part of a perfect +Sunday morning in looking at it. It was astonishing, in the course of +the rainiest season in the memory of the oldest Tourangeau, how many +perfect days we found to our hand. The town of Amboise lies, like Tours, +on the left bank of the river—a little white-faced town staring across +an admirable bridge and leaning, behind, as it were, against the +pedestal of rock on which the dark castle masses itself. The town is so +small, the pedestal so big and the castle so high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +and striking, that the clustered houses at the base of the rock are like +the crumbs that have fallen from a well-laden table. You pass among +them, however, to ascend by a circuit to the château, which you attack, +obliquely, from behind. It is the property of the Comte de Paris, +another pretender to the French throne; having come to him remotely, by +inheritance, from his ancestor, the Duc de Penthièvre, who toward the +close of the last century bought it from the Crown, which had recovered +it after a lapse. Like the castle of Blois, it has been injured and +defaced by base uses, but, unlike the castle of Blois, it has not been +completely restored. "It is very, very dirty, but very curious"—it is +in these terms that I heard it described by an English lady who was +generally to be found engaged upon a tattered Tauchnitz in the little +<i>salon de lecture</i> of the hotel at Tours. The description is not +inaccurate; but it should be said that if part of the dirtiness of +Amboise is the result of its having served for years as a barrack and as +a prison, part of it comes from the presence of restoring stonemasons, +who have woven over a considerable portion of it a mask of scaffolding. +There is a good deal of neatness as well, and the restoration of some of +the parts seems finished. This process, at Amboise, consists for the +most part simply of removing the vulgar excrescences of the last two +centuries.</p> + +<p>The interior is virtually a blank, the old apartments having been +chopped up into small modern rooms; it will have to be completely +reconstructed. A worthy woman with a military profile and that sharp, +positive manner which the goodwives who show you through the châteaux of +Touraine are rather apt to have, and in whose high respectability, to +say nothing of the frill of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 381px;"> +<img src="images/ill_024_th.png" width="381" height="550" alt="image not available" /> +<a href="images/ill_024.png"><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + + +<p class="non">her cap and the cut of her thick brown dress, my companions and I +thought we discovered the particular note, or <i>nuance</i>, of Orleanism—a +competent, appreciative, peremptory person, I say—attended us through +the particularly delightful hour we spent upon the ramparts of Amboise. +Denuded and disfeatured within and bristling without with bricklayers' +ladders, the place was yet extraordinarily impressive and interesting. I +should mention that we spent a great deal of time in looking at the +view. Sweet was the view, and magnificent; we preferred it so much to +certain portions of the interior, and to occasional effusions of +historical information, that the old lady with the profile sometimes +lost patience with us. We laid ourselves open to the charge of +preferring it even to the little chapel of Saint Hubert, which stands on +the edge of the great terrace and has, over the portal, a wonderful +sculpture of the miraculous hunt of that holy man. In the way of plastic +art this elaborate scene is the gem of Amboise. It seemed to us that we +had never been in a place where there are so many points of vantage to +look down from. In the matter of position Amboise is certainly supreme +in the list of perched places; and I say this with a proper recollection +of the claims of Chaumont and of Loches—which latter, by the way (the +afterthought is due), is not on the Loire. The platforms, the bastions, +the terraces, the high-niched windows and balconies, the hanging gardens +and dizzy crenellations, of this complicated structure, keep you in +perpetual intercourse with an immense horizon. The great feature of the +place is the obligatory round tower which occupies the northern end of +it, and which has now been completely restored. It is of astounding +size, a fortress in itself, and contains, instead of a staircase, a +wonderful inclined<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +plane, so wide and gradual that a coach and four may be driven to the +top. This colossal cylinder has to-day no visible use; but it +corresponds, happily enough, with the great circle of the prospect. The +gardens of Amboise, lifted high aloft, covering the irregular remnants +of the platform on which the castle stands and making up in +picturesqueness what they lack in extent, constitute of course but a +scanty domain. But bathed, as we found them, in the autumn sunshine and +doubly private from their aerial site, they offered irresistible +opportunities for a stroll interrupted, as one leaned against their low +parapets, by long contemplative pauses. I remember in particular a +certain terrace planted with clipped limes upon which we looked down +from the summit of the big tower. It seemed from that point to be +absolutely necessary to one's happiness to go down and spend the rest of +the morning there; it was an ideal place to walk to and fro and talk. +Our venerable conductress, to whom our relation had gradually become +more filial, permitted us to gratify this innocent wish—to the extent, +that is, of taking a turn or two under the mossy <i>tilleuls</i>. At the end +of this terrace is the low door, in a wall, against the top of which, in +1498, Charles VIII., according to an accepted tradition, knocked his +head to such good purpose that he died. It was within the walls of +Amboise that his widow, Anne of Brittany, already in mourning for three +children, two of whom we have seen commemorated in sepulchral marble at +Tours, spent the first violence of that grief which was presently +dispelled by a union with her husband's cousin and successor, Louis XII. +Amboise was a frequent resort of the French Court during the sixteenth +century; it was here that the young Mary Stuart spent sundry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +hours of her first marriage. The wars of religion have left here the +ineffaceable stain which they left wherever they passed. An imaginative +visitor at Amboise to-day may fancy that the traces of blood are mixed +with the red rust on the crossed iron bars of the grim-looking balcony +to which the heads of the Huguenots executed on the discovery of the +conspiracy of La Renaudie are rumoured to have been suspended. There was +room on the stout balustrade—an admirable piece of work—for a ghastly +array. The same rumour represents Catherine de'Medici and the young +queen as watching from this balcony the <i>noyades</i> of the captured +Huguenots in the Loire. The facts of history are bad enough; the +fictions are, if possible, worse; but there is little doubt that the +future Queen of Scots learnt the first lessons of life at a horrible +school. If in subsequent years she was a prodigy of innocence and +virtue, it was not the fault of her whilom mother-in-law, of her uncles +of the house of Guise, or of the examples presented to her either at the +windows of the castle of Amboise or in its more private recesses.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Chaumont</div> + +<p>It was difficult to believe in these dark deeds, however, as we looked +through the golden morning at the placidity of the far-shining Loire. +The ultimate consequence of this spectacle was a desire to follow the +river as far as the castle of Chaumont. It is true that the cruelties +practised of old at Amboise might have seemed less phantasmal to persons +destined to suffer from a modern form of inhumanity. The mistress of the +little inn at the base of the castle-rock—it stands very pleasantly +beside the river, and we had breakfasted there—declared to us that the +Château de Chaumont, which is often during the autumn closed to +visitors, was at that particular moment standing so wide open to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +receive us that it was our duty to hire one of her carriages and drive +thither with speed. This assurance was so satisfactory that we presently +found ourselves seated in this wily woman's most commodious vehicle and +rolling, neither too fast nor too slow, along the margin of the Loire. +The drive of about an hour, beneath constant clumps of chestnuts, was +charming enough to have been taken for itself; and indeed when we +reached Chaumont we saw that our reward was to be simply the usual +reward of virtue, the consciousness of having attempted the right. The +Château de Chaumont was inexorably closed; so we learned from a +talkative lodge-keeper, who gave what grace she could to her refusal. +This good woman's dilemma was almost touching; she wished to reconcile +two impossibles. The castle was not to be visited, for the family of its +master was staying there; and yet she was loath to turn away a party of +which she was good enough to say that it had a <i>grand genre</i>; for, as +she also remarked, she had her living to earn. She tried to arrange a +compromise, one of the elements of which was that we should descend from +our carriage and trudge up a hill which would bring us to a designated +point where, over the paling of the garden, we might obtain an oblique +and surreptitious view of a small portion of the castle walls. This +suggestion led us to inquire (of each other) to what degree of baseness +it is lawful for an enlightened lover of the picturesque to resort in +order not to have a blank page in his collection. One of our trio +decided characteristically against any form of derogation; so she sat in +the carriage and sketched some object that was public property while her +two companions, who were not so proud, trudged up a muddy ascent which +formed a kind of back-stairs. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +is perhaps no more than they deserved that they were disappointed. +Chaumont is feudal, if you please; but the modern spirit is in +possession. It forms a vast clean-scraped mass, with big round towers, +ungarnished with a leaf of ivy or a patch of moss, surrounded by gardens +of moderate extent (save where the muddy lane of which I speak passes +near it), and looking rather like an enormously magnified villa. The +great merit of Chaumont is its position, which almost exactly resembles +that of Amboise; it sweeps the river up and down and seems to look over +half the province. This, however, was better appreciated as, after +coming down the hill and re-entering the carriage, we drove across the +long suspension-bridge which crosses the Loire just beyond the village +and over which we made our way to the small station of Onzain, at the +farther end, to take the train back to Tours. Look back from the middle +of this bridge; the whole picture composes, as the painters say. The +towers, the pinnacles, the fair front of the château, perched above its +fringe of garden and the rusty roofs of the village and facing the +afternoon sky, which is reflected also in the great stream that sweeps +below, all this makes a contribution to your happiest memories of +Touraine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_025.png" width="450" height="311" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_vii" id="Chapter_vii"></a>Chapter vii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Chenonceaux</div> + +<p>WE never went to Chinon; it was a fatality. We planned it a dozen times; +but the weather interfered, or the trains didn't suit, or one of the +party was fatigued with the adventures of the day before. This excursion +was so much postponed that it was finally postponed to everything. +Besides, we had to go to Chenonceaux, to Azay-le-Rideau, to Langeais, to +Loches. So I have not the memory of Chinon; I have only the regret. But +regret, as well as memory, has its visions; especially when, like +memory, it is assisted by photographs. The castle of Chinon in this form +appears to me as an enormous ruin, a mediæval fortress of the extent +almost of a city. It covers a hill above the Vienne, and after being +impregnable in its time is indestructible to-day. (I risk this phrase in +the face of the prosaic truth. Chinon, in the days when it was a prize, +more than once suffered capture, and at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +present it is crumbling inch by inch. It is apparent, however, I +believe, that these inches encroach little upon acres of masonry.) It +was in the castle that Jeanne Dare had her first interview with Charles +VII., and it is in the town that François Rabelais is supposed to have +been born. To the castle, moreover, the lover of the picturesque is +earnestly recommended to direct his steps. But one always misses +something, and I would rather have missed Chinon than Chenonceaux. +Fortunate exceedingly were the few hours we passed on the spot on which +we missed nothing.</p> + +<p>"In 1747," says Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his "Confessions," "we went to +spend the autumn in Touraine, at the Château of Chenonceaux, a royal +residence upon the Cher, built by Henry II. for Diana of Poitiers, whose +initials are still to be seen there, and now in possession of M. Dupin, +the farmer-general. We amused ourselves greatly at this fine place; the +living was of the best, and I became as fat as a monk. We made a great +deal of music and acted comedies."</p> + +<p>This is the only description that Rousseau gives of one of the most +romantic houses in France and of an episode that must have counted as +one of the most agreeable in his uncomfortable career. The eighteenth +century contented itself with general epithets; and when Jean-Jacques +has said that Chenonceaux was a "beau lieu," he thinks himself absolved +from further characterisation. We later sons of time have, both for our +pleasure and our pain, invented the fashion of special terms, and I am +afraid that even common decency obliges me to pay some larger tribute +than this to the architectural gem of Touraine. Fortunately I can +discharge my debt with gratitude. In going from Tours you leave the +valley of the Loire and enter that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +of the Cher, and at the end of about an hour you see the turrets of the +castle on your right, among the trees, down in the meadows, beside the +quiet little river. The station and the village are about ten minutes' +walk from the château, and the village contains a very tidy inn, where, +if you are not in too great a hurry to commune with the shades of the +royal favourite and the jealous queen, you will perhaps stop and order a +dinner to be ready for you in the evening. A straight, tall avenue leads +to the grounds of the castle; what I owe to exactitude compels me to add +that it is crossed by the railway-line. The place is so arranged, +however, that the château need know nothing of passing trains—which +pass, indeed, though the grounds are not large, at a very sufficient +distance. I may add that the trains throughout this part of France have +a noiseless, desultory, dawdling, almost stationary quality, which makes +them less of an offence than usual. It was a Sunday afternoon and the +light was yellow save under the trees of the avenue, where, in spite of +the waning of September, it was duskily green. Three or four peasants, +in festal attire, were strolling about. On a bench at the beginning of +the avenue sat a man with two women. As I advanced with my companions he +rose, after a sudden stare, and approached me with a smile in which (to +be Johnsonian for a moment) certitude was mitigated by modesty and +eagerness was embellished with respect. He came toward me with a +salutation that I had seen before, and I am happy to say that after an +instant I ceased to be guilty of the brutality of not knowing where. +There was only one place in the world where people smile like that, only +one place where the art of salutation has that perfect grace. This +excellent creature used to crook his arm,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/ill_026_th.png" width="550" height="381" alt="image not available" /> +<a href="images/ill_026.png"><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + + +<p class="non">in Venice, when I stepped into my gondola; and I now laid my hand on +that member with the familiarity of glad recognition; for it was only +surprise that had kept me even for a moment from accepting the genial +Francesco as an ornament of the landscape of Touraine. What on +earth—the phrase is the right one—was a Venetian gondolier doing at +Chenonceaux? He had been brought from Venice, gondola and all, by the +mistress of the charming house, to paddle about on the Cher. Our meeting +was affectionate, though there was a kind of violence in seeing him so +far from home. He was too well dressed, too well fed; he had grown +stout, and his nose had the tinge of good claret. He remarked that the +life of the household to which he had the honour to belong was that of a +<i>casa regia</i>; which must have been a great change for poor Checco, whose +habits in Venice were not regal. However, he was the sympathetic Checco +still; and for five minutes after I left him I thought less about the +little pleasure-house by the Cher than about the palaces of the +Adriatic.</p> + +<p>But attention was not long in coming round to the charming structure +that presently rose before us. The pale yellow front of the château, the +small scale of which is at first a surprise, rises beyond a considerable +court, at the entrance of which a massive and detached round tower, with +a turret on its brow (a relic of the building that preceded the actual +villa), appears to keep guard. This court is not enclosed—or is +enclosed at least only by the gardens, portions of which are at present +in process of radical readjustment. Therefore, though Chenonceaux has no +great height, its delicate façade stands up boldly enough. This façade, +one of the most finished things in Touraine, consists of two storeys, +surmounted by an attic which, as so often in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +buildings of the French Renaissance, is the richest part of the house. +The high-pitched roof contains three windows of beautiful design, +covered with embroidered caps and flowering into crocketed spires. The +window above the door is deeply niched; it opens upon a balcony made in +the form of a double pulpit—one of the most charming features of the +front. Chenonceaux is not large, as I say, but into its delicate compass +is packed a great deal of history—history which differs from that of +Amboise and Blois in being of the private and sentimental kind. The +echoes of the place, faint and far as they are to-day, are not +political, but personal. Chenonceaux dates, as a residence, from the +year 1515, when the shrewd Thomas Bohier, a public functionary who had +grown rich in handling the finances of Normandy and had acquired the +estate from a family which, after giving it many feudal lords, had +fallen into poverty, erected the present structure on the foundations of +an old mill. The design is attributed, with I know not what justice, to +Pierre Nepveu, <i>alias</i> Trinqueau, the audacious architect of Chambord. +On the death of Bohier the house passed to his son, who, however, was +forced, under cruel pressure, to surrender it to the Crown in +compensation for a so-called deficit in the official accounts of this +rash parent and predecessor. Francis I. held the place till his death; +but Henry II., on ascending the throne, presented it out of hand to that +mature charmer, the admired of two generations, Diana of Poitiers. Diana +enjoyed it till the death of her protector; but when this event occurred +the widow of the monarch, who had been obliged to submit in silence, for +years, to the ascendency of a rival, took the most pardonable of all the +revenges with which the name of Catherine de'Medici is associated and +turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> +her out of doors. Diana was not in want of refuges, Catherine went +through the form of giving her Chaumont in exchange; but there was only +one Chenonceaux. Catherine devoted herself to making the place more +completely unique. The feature that renders it sole of its kind is not +appreciated till you wander round to either side of the house. If a +certain springing lightness is the characteristic of Chenonceaux, if it +bears in every line the aspect of a place of recreation—a place +intended for delicate, chosen pleasures—nothing can confirm this +expression better than the strange, unexpected movement with which, from +behind, it carries itself across the river. The earlier building stands +in the water; it had inherited the foundations of the mill destroyed by +Thomas Bohier. The first step therefore had been taken upon solid piles +of masonry; and the ingenious Catherine—she was a <i>raffinée</i>—simply +proceeded to take the others. She continued the piles to the opposite +bank of the Cher, and over them she threw a long, straight gallery of +two tiers. This part of the château, which mainly resembles a house +built upon a bridge and occupying its entire length, is of course the +great curiosity of Chenonceaux. It forms on each floor a charming +corridor, which, within, is illuminated from either side by the +flickering river-light. The architecture of these galleries, seen from +without, is less elegant than that of the main building, but the aspect +of the whole thing is delightful. I have spoken of Chenonceaux as a +"villa," using the word advisedly, for the place is neither a castle nor +a palace. It is a very exceptional villa, but it has the +villa-quality—the look of being intended for life in common. This look +is not at all contradicted by the wing across the Cher, which only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +suggests indoor perspectives and intimate pleasures—walks in pairs on +rainy days; games and dances on autumn nights; together with as much as +may be of moonlighted dialogue (or silence) in the course of evenings +more genial still, in the well-marked recesses of windows.</p> + +<p>It<span class="sidenote">Chenonceaux</span> is safe to say that such things took place there in the last century, +during the kindly reign of Monsieur and Madame Dupin. This period +presents itself as the happiest in the annals of Chenonceaux. I know not +what festive train the great Diana may have led, and my imagination, I +am afraid, is only feebly kindled by the records of the luxurious +pastimes organised on the banks of the Cher by that terrible daughter of +the Medici whose appreciation of the good things of life was perfectly +consistent with a failure to perceive why others should live to enjoy +them. The best society that ever assembled there was collected at +Chenonceaux during the middle of the eighteenth century. This was +surely, in France at least, the age of good society, the period when the +"right people" made every haste to be born in time. Such people must of +course have belonged to the fortunate few—not to the miserable many; +for if a society be large enough to be good, it must also be small +enough. The sixty years that preceded the Revolution were the golden age +of fireside talk and of those amenities that proceed from the presence +of women in whom the social art is both instinctive and acquired. The +women of that period were, above all, good company; the fact is attested +in a thousand documents. Chenonceaux offered a perfect setting to free +conversation; and infinite joyous discourse must have mingled with the +liquid murmur of the Cher. Claude Dupin was not only a great man of +business, but a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +of honour and a patron of knowledge; and his wife was gracious, clever, +and wise. They had acquired this famous property by purchase (from one +of the Bourbons, as Chenonceaux, for two centuries after the death of +Catherine de'Medici, remained constantly in princely hands), and it was +transmitted to their son, Dupin de Francueil, grandfather of Madame +George Sand. This lady, in her Correspondence, lately published, +describes a visit that she paid more than thirty years ago to those +members of her family who were still in possession. The owner of +Chenonceaux to-day<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[a]</a> is the daughter of an Englishman naturalised in +France. But I have wandered far from my story, which is simply a sketch +of the surface of the place. Seen obliquely, from either side, in +combination with its bridge and gallery, the structure is singular and +fantastic, a striking example of a wilful and capricious conception. +Unfortunately all caprices are not so graceful and successful, and I +grudge the honour of this one to the false and blood-polluted Catherine. +(To be exact, I believe the arches of the bridge were laid by the +elderly Diana. It was Catherine, however, who completed the monument.) +Within, the house has been, as usual, restored. The staircases and +ceilings, in all the old royal residences of this part of France, are +the parts that have suffered least; many of them have still much of the +life of the old time about them. Some of the chambers of Chenonceaux, +however, encumbered as they are with modern detail, derive a +sufficiently haunted and suggestive look from the deep setting of their +beautiful windows, which thickens the shadows and makes dark corners. +There is a charming little Gothic chapel, with its apse hanging over the +water, fastened to the left flank of the house. Some of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +upper balconies, which look along the outer face of the gallery and +either up or down the river, are delightful protected nooks. We walked +through the lower gallery to the other bank of the Cher; this fine +apartment appeared to be for the moment a purgatory of ancient +furniture. It terminates rather abruptly; it simply stops, with a blank +wall. There ought, of course, to have been a pavilion here, though I +prefer very much the old defect to any modern remedy. The wall is not so +blank, however, but that it contains a door which opens on a rusty +drawbridge. This drawbridge traverses the small gap which divides the +end of the gallery from the bank of the stream. The house, therefore, +does not literally rest on opposite edges of the Cher, but rests on one +and just fails to rest on the other. The pavilion would have made that +up; but after a moment we ceased to miss this imaginary feature. We +passed the little drawbridge, and wandered awhile beside the river. From +this opposite bank the mass of the château looked more charming than +ever; and the little peaceful, lazy Cher, where two or three men were +fishing in the eventide, flowed under the clear arches and between the +solid pedestals of the part that spanned it, with the softest, vaguest +light on its bosom. This was the right perspective; we were looking +across the river of time. The whole scene was deliciously mild. The moon +came up; we passed back through the gallery and strolled about a little +longer in the gardens. It was very still. I met my old gondolier in the +twilight. He showed me his gondola, but I hated, somehow, to see it +there. I don't like, as the French say, to <i>mêler les genres</i>. A gondola +in a little flat French river? The image was not less irritating, if +less injurious, than the spectacle of a steamer in the Grand Canal, +which had driven me away from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Chenonceaux</div> + +<p>Venice a year and a half before. We took our way back to the Bon +Laboureur, and waited in the little inn-parlour for a late train to +Tours. We were not impatient, for we had an excellent dinner to occupy +us; and even after we had dined we were still content to sit awhile and +exchange remarks upon the superior civilisation of France. Where else, +at a village inn, should we have fared so well? Where else should we +have sat down to our refreshment without condescension? There were a +couple of countries in which it would not have been happy for us to +arrive hungry, on a Sunday evening, at so modest an hostelry. At the +little inn at Chenonceaux the <i>cuisine</i> was not only excellent, but the +service was graceful. We were waited on by mademoiselle and her mamma; +it was so that mademoiselle alluded to the elder lady as she uncorked +for us a bottle of Vouvray mousseux. We were very comfortable, very +genial; we even went so far as to say to each other that Vouvray +mousseux was a delightful wine. From this opinion indeed one of our trio +differed; but this member of the party had already exposed herself to +the charge of being too fastidious by declining to descend from the +carriage at Chaumont and take that back-stairs view of the castle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p> + + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_027.png" width="450" height="283" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_viii" id="Chapter_viii"></a>Chapter viii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Azay-le-Rideau</div> + +<p>WITHOUT fastidiousness it was fair to declare on the other hand that the +little inn at Azay-le-Rideau was very bad. It was terribly dirty and it +was in charge of a fat <i>mégère</i> whom the appearance of four trustful +travellers—we were four, with an illustrious fourth, on that +occasion—roused apparently to fury. I attached great importance to this +incongruous hostess, for she uttered the only uncivil words I heard +spoken (in connection with any business of my own) during a tour of some +six weeks in France. Breakfast not at Azay-le-Rideau therefore, too +trustful traveller; or if you do so, be either very meek or very bold. +Breakfast not, save under stress of circumstance; but let no +circumstance whatever prevent your going to see the great house of the +place, which is a fair rival to Chenonceaux. The village lies close to +the gates, though after you pass these gates you leave it well behind. A +little avenue, as at Chenonceaux, leads to the castle,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 342px;"> +<img src="images/ill_028_th.png" width="342" height="550" alt="image not available" /> +<span class="caption">AZAY-LE-RIDEAU</span> +<a href="images/ill_028.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">making a pretty vista as you approach the sculptured doorway. Azay is a +most perfect and beautiful thing; I should place it third in any list of +the great houses of this part of France in which these houses should be +ranked according to charm. For beauty of detail it comes after Blois and +Chenonceaux, but it comes before Amboise and Chambord. On the other +hand, of course it is inferior in majesty to either of these vast +structures. Like Chenonceaux, it is a watery place, though it is more +meagrely moated than the small château on the Cher. It consists of a +large square <i>corps de logis</i>, with a round tower at each angle, rising +out of a somewhat too slumberous pond. The water—the water of the +Indre—surrounds it, but it is only on one side that it bathes its feet +in the moat. On one of the others stretches a little terrace, treated as +a garden, and in front prevails a wide court formed by a wing which, on +the right, comes forward. This front, covered with sculptures, is of the +richest, stateliest effect. The court is approached by a bridge over the +pond, and the house would reflect itself in this wealth of water if the +water were a trifle less opaque. But there is a certain stagnation—it +affects more, senses than one—about the picturesque pools of Azay. On +the hither side of the bridge is a garden overshadowed by fine old +sycamores—a garden shut in by greenhouses and by a fine last-century +gateway flanked with twin lodges. Beyond the château and the standing +waters behind it is a so-called <i>parc</i>, which, however, it must be +confessed, has little of park-like beauty. The old houses—a large +number—remain in France; but the old timber does not remain, and the +denuded aspect of the few acres that surround the châteaux of Touraine +is pitiful to the traveller who has learned to take the measure of such +things from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +country of "stately homes." The garden-ground of the lordly Chaumont is +that of an English suburban villa; and in that and in other places there +is little suggestion, in the untended aspect of walk and lawns, of the +gardener the British Islands know. The manor as we see it dates from the +early part of the sixteenth century; and the industrious Abbé Chevalier, +in his very entertaining though slightly rose-coloured book on +Touraine,<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[b]</a> speaks of it as "perhaps the purest expression of the +<i>belle Renaissance françoise</i>." "Its height," he goes on "is divided +between two storeys, terminating under the roof in a projecting +entablature which imitates a row of machicolations. Carven chimneys and +tall dormer windows, covered with imagery, rise from the roofs; turrets +on brackets, of elegant shape, hang with the greatest lightness from the +angles of the building. The soberness of the main lines, the harmony of +the empty spaces and those that are filled out, the prominence of the +crowning parts, the delicacy of all the details, constitute an +enchanting whole." And then the Abbé speaks of the admirable staircase +which adorns the north front and which, with its extension inside, +constitutes the principal treasure of Azay. The staircase passes beneath +one of the richest of porticos—a portico over which a monumental +salamander indulges in the most decorative contortions. The sculptured +vaults of stone which cover the windings of the staircase within, the +fruits, flowers, ciphers, heraldic signs, are of the noblest effect. The +interior of the château is rich, comfortable, extremely modern; but it +makes no picture that compares with its external face, about which, with +its charming proportions, its profuse yet not extravagant sculpture, +there is something very tranquil and pure.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Azay-le-Rideau</div> + +<p>I took a particular fancy to the roof, high, steep, old, with its slope +of bluish slate, and the way the weather-worn chimneys seemed to grow +out of it—living things in a deep soil. The single defect of the house +is the blankness and bareness of its walls, which have none of that +delicate parasitic deposit that agrees so well—to the eye—with the +surface of old dwellings. It is true that this bareness results in a +kind of silvery whiteness of complexion which carries out the tone of +the quiet pools and even that of the scanty and shadeless park.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_029.png" width="450" height="282" alt="29" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_ix" id="Chapter_ix"></a>Chapter ix</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Langeais</div> + +<p>I HARDLY know what to say about the tone of Langeais, which, though I +have left it to the end of my sketch, formed the objective point of the +first excursion I made from Tours. Langeais is rather dark and grey; it +is perhaps the simplest and most severe of all the castles of the Loire. +I don't know why I should have gone to see it before any other, unless +it be because I remembered that Duchesse de Langeais who figures in +several of Balzac's novels, and found this association very potent. The +Duchesse de Langeais is a somewhat transparent fiction; but the castle +from which Balzac borrowed the title of his heroine is an extremely +solid fact. My doubt just above as to whether I should pronounce it +exceptionally grey came from my having seen it under a sky which made +most things look dark. I have, however, a very kindly memory of that +moist and melancholy afternoon, which was much more autumnal than many +of the days that followed it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> + +<p>Langeais lies down the Loire, near the river, on the opposite side from +Tours, and to go to it you will spend half an hour in the train. You +pass on the way the Château de Luynes, which, with its round towers +catching the afternoon light, looks uncommonly well on a hill at a +distance; you pass also the ruins of the castle of Cinq-Mars, the +ancestral dwelling of the young favourite of Louis XIII., the victim of +Richelieu, the hero of Alfred de Vigny's novel, which is usually +recommended to young ladies engaged in the study of French. Langeais is +very imposing and decidedly sombre; it marks the transition from the +architecture of defence to that of elegance. It rises, massive and +perpendicular, out of the centre of the village to which it gives its +name and which it entirely dominates; so that as you stand before it in +the crooked and empty street there is no resource for you but to stare +up at its heavy overhanging cornice and at the huge towers surmounted +with extinguishers of slate. If you follow this street to the end, +however, you encounter in abundance the usual embellishments of a French +village: little ponds or tanks, with women on their knees on the brink, +pounding and thumping a lump of saturated linen; brown old crones, the +tone of whose facial hide makes their nightcaps (worn by day) look +dazzling; little alleys perforating the thickness of a row of cottages +and showing you behind, as a glimpse, the vividness of a green garden. +In the rear of the castle rises a hill which must formerly have been +occupied by some of its appurtenances and which indeed is still partly +enclosed within its court. You may walk round this eminence, which, with +the small houses of the village at its base, shuts in the castle from +behind. The enclosure is not defiantly guarded, however; for a small, +rough path, which you presently reach, leads up to an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +open gate. This gate admits you to a vague and rather limited <i>parc</i>, +which covers the crest of the hill and through which you may walk into +the gardens of the castle. These gardens, of small extent, confront the +dark walls with their brilliant parterres and, covering the gradual +slope of the hill, form, as it were, the fourth side of the court. This +is the stateliest view of the structure, which looks to you sufficiently +grim and grey as, after asking leave of a neat young woman who sallies +out to learn your errand, you sit there on a garden bench and take the +measure of the three tall towers attached to this inner front and +forming severally the cage of a staircase. The huge bracketed cornice +(one of the features of Langeais), which is merely ornamental, as it is +not machicolated, though it looks so, is continued on the inner face as +well. The whole thing has a fine feudal air, though it was erected on +the ruins of feudalism.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">Langeais</span> main event in the history of the castle is the marriage of Anne of +Brittany to her first husband, Charles VIII., which took place in its +great hall in 1491. Into this great hall we were introduced by the neat +young woman—into this great hall and into sundry other halls, winding +staircases, galleries, chambers. The cicerone of Langeais is in too +great a hurry; the fact is pointed out in the excellent Guide-Joanne. +This ill-dissimulated vice, however, is to be observed, in the country +of the Loire, in every one who carries a key. It is true that at +Langeais there is no great occasion to indulge in the tourist's weakness +of dawdling; for the apartments, though they contain many curious odds +and ends of antiquity, are not of first-rate interest. They are cold and +musty indeed, with that touching smell of old furniture, as all +apartments should be through which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +the insatiate American wanders in the rear of a bored domestic, pausing +to stare at a faded tapestry or to read the name on the frame of some +simpering portrait.</p> + +<p>To return to Tours my companion and I had counted on a train which (as +is not uncommon in France) existed only in the "Indicateur des Chemins +de Fer;" and instead of waiting for another we engaged a vehicle to take +us home. A sorry <i>carriole</i> or <i>patache</i> it proved to be, with the +accessories of a lumbering white mare and a little wizened, ancient +peasant, who had put on, in honour of the occasion, a new blouse of +extraordinary stiffness and blueness. We hired the trap of an energetic +woman, who put it "to" with her own hands; women in Touraine and the +Blésois appearing to have the best of it in the business of letting +vehicles, as well as in many other industries. There is, in fact, no +branch of human activity in which one is not liable, in France, to find +a woman engaged. Women, indeed, are not priests; but priests are, more +or less, women. They are not in the army, it may be said but then they +<i>are</i> the army. They are very formidable. In France one must count with +the women. The drive back from Langeais to Tours was long, slow, cold; +we had an occasional spatter of rain. But the road passes most of the +way close to the Loire, and there was something in our jog-trot through +the darkening land, beside the flowing river, which it was very possible +to enjoy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_030.png" width="450" height="300" alt="30" /> +</div> + +<h3><a name="Chapter_x" id="Chapter_x"></a>Chapter x</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Loches</div> + +<p>THE consequence of my leaving to the last my little mention of Loches is +that space and opportunity fail me; and yet a brief and hurried account +of that extraordinary spot would after all be in best agreement with my +visit. We snatched a fearful joy, my companion and I, the afternoon we +took the train for Loches. The weather this time had been terribly +against us: again and again a day that promised fair became hopelessly +foul after lunch. At last we determined that if we could not make this +excursion in the sunshine we would make it with the aid of our +umbrellas. We grasped them firmly and started for the station, where we +were detained an unconscionable time by the evolutions, outside, of +certain trains laden with liberated (and exhilarated) conscripts, who, +their term of service ended, were about to be restored to civil life. +The trains in Touraine are provoking; they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 377px;"> +<img src="images/ill_031_th.png" width="377" height="550" alt="image not available" /> +<a href="images/ill_031.png"><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + + +<p class="non">serve as little as possible for excursions. If they convey you one way +at the right hour, it is on the condition of bringing you back at the +wrong; they either allow you far too little time to examine the castle +or the ruin, or they leave you planted in front of it for periods that +outlast curiosity. They are perverse, capricious, exasperating. It was a +question of our having but an hour or two at Loches, and we could ill +afford to sacrifice to accidents. One of the accidents, however, was +that the rain stopped before we got there, leaving behind it a moist +mildness of temperature and a cool and lowering sky which were in +perfect agreement with the grey old city. Loches is certainly one of the +greatest impressions of the traveller in central France—the largest +cluster of curious things that presents itself to his sight. It rises +above the valley of the Indre, the charming stream set in meadows and +sedges, which wanders through the province of Berry and through many of +the novels of Madame George Sand; lifting from the summit of a hill, +which it covers to the base, a confusion of terraces, ramparts, towers, +and spires. Having but little time, as I say, we scaled the hill amain +and wandered briskly through this labyrinth of antiquities. The rain had +decidedly stopped and, save that we had our train on our minds, we saw +Loches to the best advantage. We enjoyed that sensation with which the +conscientious tourist is—or ought to be—well acquainted and for which, +at any rate, he has a formula in his rough-and-ready language. We +"experienced," as they say (most irregular of verbs), an "agreeable +disappointment." We were surprised and delighted; we had for some reason +suspected that Loches was scarce good.</p> + +<p>I hardly know what is best there: the strange and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +impressive little collegial church, with its romanesque atrium or +narthex, its doorways covered with primitive sculpture of the richest +kind, its treasure of a so-called pagan altar embossed with fighting +warriors, its three pyramidal domes, so unexpected, so sinister, which I +have not met elsewhere in church architecture; or the huge square keep +of the eleventh century—the most cliff-like tower I remember, whose +immeasurable thickness I did not penetrate; or the subterranean +mysteries of two other less striking but not less historic dungeons, +into which a terribly imperative little cicerone introduced us, with the +aid of downward ladders, ropes, torches, warnings, extended hands, and +many fearful anecdotes—all in impervious darkness. These horrible +prisons of Loches, at an incredible distance below daylight, enlivened +the consciousness of Louis XI. and were for the most part, I believe, +constructed by him. One of the towers of the castle is garnished with +the hooks or supports of the celebrated iron cage in which he confined +the Cardinal La Balue, who survived so much longer than might have been +expected this extraordinary mixture of seclusion and exposure. All these +things form part of the castle of Loches, whose enormous <i>enceinte</i> +covers the whole of the top of the hill and abounds in dismantled +gateways, in crooked passages, in winding lanes that lead to postern +doors, in long façades that look upon terraces interdicted to the +visitor, who perceives with irritation that they command magnificent +views. These views are the property of the sub-prefect of the +department, who resides at the Château de Loches and who has also the +enjoyment of a garden—a garden compressed and curtailed, as those of +old castles that perch on hill-tops are apt to be—containing a +horse-chestnut tree of fabulous size,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 374px;"> +<img src="images/ill_032_th.png" width="374" height="550" alt="32" /> +<span class="caption">LOCHES—THE CHURCH</span> +<a href="images/ill_032.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">a tree of a circumference so vast and so perfect that the whole +population of Loches might sit in concentric rows beneath its boughs. +The gem of the place, however, is neither the big <i>marronier</i>, nor the +collegial church, nor the mighty dungeon, nor the hideous prisons of +Louis XI.; it is simply the tomb of Agnes Sorel, <i>la belle des belles</i>, +so many years the mistress of Charles VII. She was buried in 1450, in +the collegial church, whence, in the beginning of the present century, +her remains, with the monument that marks them, were transferred to one +of the towers of the castle. She has always, I know not with what +justice, enjoyed a fairer fame than most ladies who have occupied her +position, and this fairness is expressed in the delicate statue that +surmounts her tomb. It represents her lying there in lovely demureness, +her hands folded with the best modesty, a little kneeling angel at +either side of her head, and her feet, hidden in the folds of her decent +robe, resting upon a pair of couchant lambs, innocent reminders of her +name. Agnes, however, was not lamb-like, inasmuch as, according to +popular tradition at least, she exerted herself sharply in favour of the +expulsion of the English from France. It is one of the suggestions of +Loches that the young Charles VII., hard put to it as he was for a +treasury and a capital—"le roi de Bourges," he was called at Paris—was +yet a rather privileged mortal, to stand up as he does before posterity +between the noble Joan and the <i>gentille Agnes</i>; deriving, however, much +more honour from one of these companions than from the other. Almost as +delicate a relic of antiquity as this fascinating tomb is the exquisite +oratory of Anne of Brittany, among the apartments of the castle the only +chamber worthy of note. This small room, hardly larger than a closet, +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +forming part of the addition made to the edifice by Charles VIII., is +embroidered over with the curious and remarkably decorative device of +the ermine and festooned cord. The objects in themselves are not +especially graceful, but the constant repetition of the figure on the +walls and ceiling produces an effect of richness in spite of the modern +whitewash with which, if I remember rightly, they have been endued. The +little streets of Loches wander crookedly down the hill and are full of +charming pictorial "bits:" an old town-gate, passing under a medieval +tower, which is ornamented by Gothic windows and the empty niches of +statues; a meagre but delicate <i>hotel de ville</i> of the Renaissance +nestling close beside it; a curious <i>chancellerie</i> of the middle of the +sixteenth century, with mythological figures and a Latin inscription on +the front—both of these latter buildings being rather unexpected +features of the huddled and precipitous little town. Loches has a suburb +on the other side of the Indre, which we had contented ourselves with +looking down at from the heights while we wondered whether, even if it +had not been getting late and our train were more accommodating, we +should care to take our way across the bridge and look up that bust in +terra-cotta of Francis I. which is the principal ornament of the Château +de Sansac and the faubourg of Beaulieu. I think we decided that we +should not, that we had already often measured the longest nose in +history.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_033.png" width="450" height="287" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xi" id="Chapter_xi"></a>Chapter xi</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Bourges</div> + +<p>I KNOW not whether the exact limits of an excursion as distinguished +from a journey have ever been fixed; at any rate, it seemed none of my +business at Tours to settle the question. Therefore, though the making +of excursions had been the purpose of my stay, I thought it vain, while +I started for Bourges, to determine to which category that little +expedition might belong. It was not till the third day that I returned +to Tours; and the distance, traversed for the most part after dark, was +even greater than I had supposed. That, however, was partly the fault of +a tiresome wait at Vierzon, where I had more than enough time to dine, +very badly, at the <i>buffet</i> and to observe the proceedings of a family +who had entered my railway carriage at Tours and had conversed +unreservedly, for my benefit, all the way from that station—a family +whom it entertained me to assign to the class of <i>petite noblesse de +province</i>. Their noble origin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +was confirmed by the way they all "made <i>maigre</i>" in the +refreshment-room (it happened to be a Friday), as if it had been +possible to do anything else. They ate two or three omelets apiece and +ever so many little cakes, while the positive, talkative mother watched +her children as the waiter handed about the roast fowl. I was destined +to share the secrets of this family to the end; for while I took my +place in the empty train that was in waiting to convey us to Bourges the +same vigilant woman pushed them all on top of me into my compartment, +though the carriages on either side contained no travellers at all. It +was better, I found, to have dined (even on omelets and little cakes) at +the station at Vierzon than at the hotel at Bourges, which, when I +reached it at nine o'clock at night, did not strike me as the prince of +hotels. The inns in the smaller provincial towns in France are all, as +the term is, commercial, and the <i>commis-voyageur</i> is in triumphant +possession. I saw a great deal of him for several weeks after this; for +he was apparently the only traveller in the southern provinces, and it +was my daily fate to sit opposite to him at tables d'hôte and in railway +trains. He may be known by two infallible signs—his hands are fat and +he tucks his napkin into his shirt-collar. In spite of these +idiosyncrasies, he seemed to me a reserved and inoffensive person, with +singularly little of the demonstrative good-humour that he has been +described as possessing. I saw no one who reminded me of Balzac's +"illustre Gaudissart;" and indeed in the course of a month's journey +through a large part of France I heard so little desultory conversation +that I wondered whether a change had not come over the spirit of the +people. They seemed to me as silent as Americans when Americans have not +been "introduced,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +and infinitely less addicted to exchanging remarks in railway trains and +at tables d'hôte than the colloquial and cursory English; a fact perhaps +not worth mentioning were it not at variance with that reputation which +the French have long enjoyed of being a pre-eminently sociable nation. +The common report of the character of a people is, however, an +indefinable product, and is apt to strike the traveller who observes for +himself as very wide of the mark. The English, who have for ages been +described (mainly by the French) as the dumb stiff, unapproachable race, +present to-day a remarkable appearance of good-humour and garrulity and +are distinguished by their facility of intercourse. On the other hand, +any one who has seen half-a-dozen Frenchmen pass a whole day together in +a railway-carriage without breaking silence is forced to believe that +the traditional reputation of these gentlemen is simply the survival of +some primitive formula. It was true, doubtless, before the Revolution; +but there have been great changes since then. The question of which is +the better taste, to talk to strangers or to hold your tongue, is a +matter apart; I incline to believe that the French reserve is the result +of a more definite conception of social behaviour. I allude to it only +because it is at variance with the national fame and at the same time +compatible with a very easy view of life in certain other directions. On +some of these latter points the Boule d'Or at Bourges was full of +instruction; boasting as it did of a hall of reception in which, amid +old boots that had been brought to be cleaned, old linen that was being +sorted for the wash, and lamps of evil odour that were awaiting +replenishment, a strange, familiar, promiscuous household life went +forward. Small scullions in white caps and aprons slept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +upon greasy benches; the Boots sat staring at you while you fumbled, +helpless, in a row of pigeon-holes, for your candlestick or your key; +and, amid the coming and going of the <i>commis-voyageurs</i>, a little +sempstress bent over the under-garments of the hostess—the latter being +a heavy, stern, silent woman, who looked at people very hard.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Bourges: the Cathedral</div> + +<p>It was not to be looked at in that manner that one had come all the way +from Tours; so that within ten minutes after my arrival I sallied out +into the darkness to form somehow and somewhere a happier relation. +However late in the evening I may arrive at a place, I never go to bed +without my impression. The natural place at Bourges to look for it +seemed to be the cathedral; which, moreover, was the only thing that +could account for my presence <i>dans cette galère</i>. I turned out of a +small square in front of the hotel and walked up a narrow, sloping +street paved with big, rough stones and guiltless of a footway. It was a +splendid starlight night; the stillness of a sleeping <i>ville de +province</i> was over everything; I had the whole place to myself. I turned +to my right, at the top of the street, where presently a short, vague +lane brought me into sight of the cathedral. I approached it obliquely, +from behind; it loomed up in the darkness above me enormous and sublime. +It stands on the top of the large but not lofty eminence over which +Bourges is scattered—a very good position as French cathedrals go, for +they are not all so nobly situated as Chartres and Laon. On the side on +which I approached it (the south) it is tolerably well exposed, though +the precinct is shabby; in front, it is rather too much shut in. These +defects, however, it makes up for on the north side and behind, where it +presents<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +itself in the most admirable manner to the garden of the Archevêché, +which has been arranged as a public walk, with the usual formal alleys +of the <i>jardin français</i>. I must add that I appreciated these points +only on the following day. As I stood there in the light of the stars, +many of which had an autumnal sharpness, while others were shooting over +the heavens, the huge, rugged vessel of the church overhung me in very +much the same way as the black hull of a ship at sea would overhang a +solitary swimmer. It seemed colossal, stupendous, a dark leviathan.</p> + +<p>The next morning, which was lovely, I lost no time in going back to it, +and found with satisfaction that the daylight did it no injury. The +cathedral of Bourges is indeed magnificently huge, and if it is a good +deal wanting in lightness and grace, it is perhaps only the more +imposing. I read in the excellent handbook of M. Joanne that it was +projected "<i>dès</i> 1172," but commenced only in the first years of the +thirteenth century. "The nave," the writer adds, "was finished <i>tant +bien que mal, faute de ressources</i>; the façade is of the thirteenth and +fourteenth centuries in its lower part, and of the fourteenth in its +upper." The allusion to the nave means the omission of the transepts. +The west front consists of two vast but imperfect towers; one of which +(the south) is immensely buttressed, so that its outline slopes forward +like that of a pyramid. This is the taller of the two. If they had +spires these towers would be prodigious; as it is, given the rest of the +church, they are wanting in elevation. There are five deeply recessed +portals, all in a row, each surmounted with a gable, the gable over the +central door being exceptionally high. Above the porches, which give the +measure of its width, the front rears itself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +piles itself, on a great scale, carried up by galleries, arches, +windows, sculptures, and supported by the extraordinarily thick +buttresses of which I have spoken and which, though they embellish it +with deep shadows thrown sidewise, do not improve its style. The +portals, especially the middle one, are extremely interesting; they are +covered with curious early sculptures. The middle one, however, I must +describe alone. It has no less than six rows of figures—the others have +four—some of which, notably the upper one, are still in their places. +The arch at the top has three tiers of elaborate imagery. The upper of +these is divided by the figure of Christ in judgment, of great size, +stiff and terrible, with outstretched arms. On either side of him are +ranged three or four angels, with the instruments of the Passion. +Beneath him in the second frieze stands the angel of justice with the +scales; and on either side of him is the vision of the last judgment. +The good prepare, with infinite titillation and complacency, to ascend +to the skies; while the bad are dragged, pushed, hurled, stuffed, +crammed, into pits and caldrons of fire. There is a charming detail in +this section. Beside the angel, on the right, where the wicked are the +prey of demons, stands a little female figure, that of a child, who, +with hands meekly folded and head gently raised, waits for the stern +angel to decide upon her fate. In this fate, however, a dreadful big +devil also takes a keen interest: he seems on the point of appropriating +the tender creature; he has a face like a goat and an enormous hooked +nose. But the angel gently lays a hand upon the shoulder of the little +girl—the movement is full of dignity—as if to say: "No; she belongs to +the other side." The frieze below represents the general resurrection, +with the good and the wicked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +emerging from their sepulchres. Nothing can be more quaint and charming +than the difference shown in their way of responding to the final trump. +The good get out of their tombs with a certain modest gaiety, an +alacrity tempered by respect; one of them kneels to pray as soon as he +has disinterred himself. You may know the wicked, on the other hand, by +their extreme shyness; they crawl out slowly and fearfully; they hang +back, and seem to say "Oh, dear!" These elaborate sculptures, full of +ingenuous intention and of the reality of early faith, are in a +remarkable state of preservation; they bear no superficial signs of +restoration and appear scarcely to have suffered from the centuries. +They are delightfully expressive; the artist had the advantage of +knowing exactly the effect be wished to produce.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">Bourges: the Cathedral</span> interior of the cathedral has a great simplicity and majesty and, +above all, a tremendous height. The nave is extraordinary in this +respect; it dwarfs everything else I know. I should add, however, that I +am in architecture always of the opinion of the last speaker. Any great +building seems to me while I look at it the ultimate expression. At any +rate, during the hour that I sat gazing along the high vista of Bourges +the interior of the great vessel corresponded to my vision of the +evening before. There is a tranquil largeness, a kind of infinitude, +about such an edifice; it soothes and purifies the spirit, it +illuminates the mind. There are two aisles, on either side, in addition +to the nave—five in all—and, as I have said, there are no transepts; +an omission which lengthens the vista, so that from my place near the +door the central jewelled window in the depths of the perpendicular +choir seemed a mile or two away. The second or outward of each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +pair of aisles is too low and the first too high; without this +inequality the nave would appear to take an even more prodigious flight. +The double aisles pass all the way round the choir, the windows of which +are inordinately rich in magnificent old glass. I have seen glass as +fine in other churches, but I think I have never seen so much of it at +once.</p> + +<p>Beside the cathedral, on the north, is a curious structure of the +fourteenth or fifteenth century, which looks like an enormous flying +buttress, with its support, sustaining the north tower. It makes a +massive arch, high in the air, and produces a romantic effect as people +pass under it to the open gardens of the Archevêché, which extend to a +considerable distance in the rear of the church. The structure +supporting the arch has the girth of a largeish house, and contains +chambers with whose uses I am unacquainted, but to which the deep +pulsations of the cathedral, the vibration of its mighty bells and the +roll of its organ-tones must be transmitted even through the great arm +of stone.</p> + +<p>The archiepiscopal palace, not walled in as at Tours, is visible as a +stately habitation of the last century, at the time of my visit under +repair after a fire. From this side and from the gardens of the palace +the nave of the cathedral is visible in all its great length and height, +with its extraordinary multitude of supports. The gardens aforesaid, +accessible through tall iron gates, are the promenade—the Tuileries—of +the town, and, very pretty in themselves, are immensely set off by the +overhanging church. It was warm and sunny; the benches were empty; I sat +there a long time in that pleasant state of mind which visits the +traveller in foreign towns, when he is not too hurried,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> +while he wonders where he had better go next. The straight, unbroken +line of the roof of the cathedral was very noble; but I could see from +this point how much finer the effect would have been if the towers, +which had dropped almost out of sight, might have been carried still +higher. The archiepiscopal gardens look down at one end over a sort of +esplanade or suburban avenue lying on a lower level on which they open, +and where several detachments of soldiers (Bourges is full of soldiers) +had just been drawn up. The civil population was also collecting, and I +saw that something was going to happen. I learned that a private of the +Chasseurs was to be "broken" for stealing, and every one was eager to +behold the ceremony. Sundry other detachments arrived on the ground, +besides many of the military who had come as a matter of taste. One of +them described to me the process of degradation from the ranks, and I +felt for a moment a hideous curiosity to see it, under the influence of +which I lingered a little. But only a little; the hateful nature of the +spectacle hurried me away at the same that others were hurrying forward. +As I turned my back upon it I reflected that human beings are cruel +brutes, though I could not flatter myself that the ferocity of the thing +was exclusively French. In another country the concourse would have been +equally great, and the moral of it all seemed to be that military +penalties are as terrible as military honours are gratifying.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 240px;"> +<img src="images/ill_034.png" width="240" height="300" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xii" id="Chapter_xii"></a>Chapter xii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Bourges: Jacques Cœur</div> + +<p>THE cathedral is not the only lion of Bourges; the house of Jacques +Cœur awaits you in posture scarcely less leonine. This remarkable man +had a very strange history, and he too was "broken" like the wretched +soldier whom I did not stay to see. He has been rehabilitated, however, +by an age which does not fear the imputation of paradox, and a marble +statue of him ornaments the street in front of his house. To interpret +him according to this image—a womanish figure in a long robe and a +turban, with big bare arms and a dramatic pose—would be to think of him +as a kind of truculent sultana. He wore the dress of his period, but his +spirit was very modern; he was a Vanderbilt or a Rothschild of the +fifteenth century. He supplied the ungrateful Charles VII. with money to +pay the troops who, under the heroic Maid,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 390px;"> +<img src="images/ill_035_th.png" width="390" height="550" alt="Bourges—THE HOUSE OF JACQUES CŒUR" /> +<span class="caption">Bourges—THE HOUSE OF JACQUES CŒUR</span> +<a href="images/ill_035.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">drove the English from French soil. His house, which to-day is used as a +Palais de Justice, appears to have been regarded at the time it was +built very much as the residence of Mr. Vanderbilt is regarded in New +York to-day. It stands on the edge of the hill on which most of the town +is planted, so that, behind, it plunges down to a lower level, and, if +you approach it on that side, as I did, to come round to the front of it +you have to ascend a longish flight of steps. The back, of old, must +have formed a portion of the city wall; at any rate it offers to view +two big towers which Joanne says were formerly part of the defence of +Bourges. From the lower level of which I speak—the square in front of +the post-office—the palace of Jacques Cœur looks very big and strong +and feudal; from the upper street, in front of it, it looks very +handsome and delicate. To this street it presents two tiers and a +considerable length of façade; and it has both within and without a +great deal of curious and beautiful detail. Above the portal, in the +stonework, are two false windows, in which two figures, a man and a +woman, apparently household servants, are represented, in sculpture, as +looking down into the street. The effect is homely, yet grotesque, and +the figures are sufficiently living to make one commiserate them for +having been condemned, in so dull a town, to spend several centuries at +the window. They appear to be watching for the return of their master, +who left his beautiful house one morning and never came back.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">Bourges: Jacques Cœur</span> history of Jacques Cœur, which has been written by M. Pierre +Clément in a volume crowned by the French Academy, is very wonderful and +interesting, but I have no space to go into it here. There is no more +curious example, and few more tragical, of a great fortune<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +crumbling from one day to the other, or of the antique superstition that +the gods grow jealous of human success. Merchant, millionaire, banker, +ship-owner, royal favourite and minister of finance, explorer of the +East and monopolist of the glittering trade between that quarter of the +globe and his own, great capitalist who had anticipated the brilliant +operations of the present time, he expiated his prosperity by poverty, +imprisonment, and torture. The obscure points in his career have been +elucidated by M. Clément, who has drawn, moreover, a very vivid picture +of the corrupt and exhausted state of France during the middle of the +fifteenth century. He has shown that the spoliation of the great +merchant was a deliberately calculated act, and that the king sacrificed +him without scruple or shame to the avidity of a singularly villanous +set of courtiers. The whole story is an extraordinary picture of +high-handed rapacity—the crudest possible assertion of the right of the +stronger. The victim was stripped of his property, but escaped with his +life, made his way out of France and, betaking himself to Italy, offered +his services to the Pope. It is proof of the consideration that he +enjoyed in Europe, and of the variety of his accomplishments, that +Calixtus III. should have appointed him to take command of a fleet which +his Holiness was fitting out against the Turks. Jacques Cœur, +however, was not destined to lead it to victory. He died shortly after +the expedition had started, in the island of Chios, in 1456. The house +at Bourges, his native place, testifies in some degree to his wealth and +splendour, though it has in parts that want of space which is striking +in many of the buildings of the Middle Ages. The court indeed is on a +large scale, ornamented with turrets and arcades, with several beautiful +windows and with sculptures<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> +inserted in the walls, representing the various sources of the great +fortune of the owner. M. Pierre Clément describes this part of the house +as having been of an "incomparable richesse"—an estimate of its charms +which seems slightly exaggerated to-day. There is, however, something +delicate and familiar in the bas-reliefs of which I have spoken, little +scenes of agriculture and industry which show that the proprietor was +not ashamed of calling attention to his harvests and enterprises. To-day +we should question the taste of such allusions, even in plastic form, in +the house of a "merchant prince" however self-made. Why should it be, +accordingly, that these quaint little panels at Bourges do not displease +us? It is perhaps because things very ancient never, for some mysterious +reason, appear vulgar. This fifteenth-century millionaire, with his +palace, his "swagger" sculptures, may have produced that impression on +some critical spirits of his own day.</p> + +<p>The portress who showed me into the building was a dear little old +woman, with the gentlest, sweetest, saddest face—a little white, aged +face, with dark, pretty eyes—and the most considerate manner. She took +me up into an upper hall, where there were a couple of curious +chimney-pieces and a fine old oaken roof, the latter representing the +hollow of a long boat. There is a certain oddity in a native of +Bourges—an inland town if ever there was one, without even a river (to +call a river) to encourage nautical ambitions—having found his end as +admiral of a fleet; but this boat-shaped roof, which is extremely +graceful and is repeated in another apartment, would suggest that the +imagination of Jacques Cœur was fond of riding the waves. Indeed, as +he trafficked in Oriental products and owned many galleons, it is +probable that he was personally as much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> +at home in certain Mediterranean ports as in the capital of the pastoral +Berry. If, when he looked at the ceilings of his mansion, he saw his +boats upside down, this was only a suggestion of the shortest way of +emptying them of their treasures. He is presented in person above one of +the great stone chimney-pieces, in company with his wife, Macée de +Léodepart—I like to write such an extraordinary name. Carved in white +stone, the two sit playing at chess at an open window, through which +they appear to give their attention much more to the passers-by than to +the game. They are also exhibited in other attitudes; though I do not +recognise them in the composition on top of one of the fireplaces which +represents the battlements of a castle, with the defenders (little +figures between the crenellations) hurling down missiles with a great +deal of fury and expression. It would have been hard to believe that the +man who surrounded himself with these friendly and humorous devices had +been guilty of such wrong-doing as to call down the heavy hand of +justice.</p> + +<p>It is a curious fact, however, that Bourges contains legal associations +of a purer kind than the prosecution of Jacques Cœur, which, in spite +of the rehabilitations of history, can hardly be said yet to have +terminated, inasmuch as the law-courts of the city are installed in his +quondam residence. At a short distance from it stands the Hôtel Cujas, +one of the curiosities of Bourges and the habitation for many years of +the great jurisconsult who revived in the sixteenth century the study of +the Roman law and professed it during the close of his life in the +university of the capital of Berry. The learned Cujas had, in spite of +his sedentary pursuits, led a very wandering life; he died at Bourges in +the year 1590. Sedentary pursuits are perhaps not exactly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 368px;"> +<img src="images/ill_036_th.png" width="368" height="550" alt="BOURGES—THE HOUSE OF JACQUES CŒUR" /> +<span class="caption">BOURGES—THE HOUSE OF JACQUES CŒUR</span> +<a href="images/ill_036.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">what I should call them, having read in the "Biographie Universelle" +(sole source of my knowledge of the renowned Cujacius) that his usual +manner of study was to spread himself on his belly on the floor. He did +not sit down, he lay down; and the "Biographie Universelle" has (for so +grave a work) an amusing picture of the short, fat, untidy scholar +dragging himself <i>à plat ventre</i>, across his room, from one pile of +books to the other. The house in which these singular gymnastics took +place, and which is now the headquarters of the gendarmerie, is one of +the most picturesque at Bourges. Dilapidated and discoloured, it has a +charming Renaissance front. A high wall separates it from the street, +and on this wall, which is divided by a large open gateway, are perched +two overhanging turrets. The open gateway admits you to the court, +beyond which the melancholy mansion erects itself, decorated also with +turrets, with fine old windows and with a beautiful tone of faded red +brick and rusty stone. It is a charming encounter for a provincial +by-street; one of those accidents in the hope of which the traveller +with a propensity for sketching (whether on a little paper block or on +the tablets of his brain) decides to turn a corner at a venture. A +brawny gendarme in his shirtsleeves was polishing his boots in the +court; an ancient, knotted vine, forlorn of its clusters, hung itself +over a doorway and dropped its shadow on the rough grain of the wall. +The place was very sketchable. I am sorry to say, however, that it was +almost the only "bit." Various other curious old houses are supposed to +exist at Bourges, and I wandered vaguely about in search of them. But I +had little success, and I ended by becoming sceptical. Bourges is a +<i>ville de province</i> in the full force of the term, especially as +applied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> +invidiously. The streets, narrow, tortuous, and dirty, have very wide +cobble-stones; the houses for the most part are shabby, without local +colour. The look of things is neither modern nor antique—a kind of +mediocrity of middle age. There is an enormous number of blank +walls—walls of gardens, of courts, of private houses—that avert +themselves from the street as if in natural chagrin at there being so +little to see. Round about is a dull, flat, featureless country, on +which the magnificent cathedral looks down. There is a peculiar dulness +and ugliness in a French town of this type, which, I must immediately +add, is not the most frequent one. In Italy everything has a charm, a +colour, a grace; even desolation and ennui. In England a cathedral city +may be sleepy, but it is pretty sure to be mellow. In the course of six +weeks spent <i>en province</i>, however, I saw few places that had not more +expression than Bourges.</p> + +<p>I<span class="sidenote">Bourges: Jacques Cœur</span> went back to the cathedral; that, after all, was a feature. Then I +returned to my hotel, where it was time to dine, and sat down, as usual, +with the <i>commis-voyageurs</i>, who cut their bread on their thumb and +partook of every course; and after this repast I repaired for a while to +the café, which occupied a part of the basement of the inn and opened +into its court. This café was a friendly, homely, sociable spot, where +it seemed the habit of the master of the establishment to <i>tutoyer</i> his +customers and the practice of the customers to <i>tutoyer</i> the waiter. +Under these circumstances the waiter of course felt justified in sitting +down at the same table with a gentleman who had come in and asked him +for writing materials. He served this gentleman with a horrible little +portfolio covered with shiny black cloth and accompanied with two sheets +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"> +<img src="images/ill_037_th.png" width="369" height="550" alt="BOURGES: THE CATHEDRAL (WEST FRONT)" /> +<span class="caption">BOURGES: THE CATHEDRAL (WEST FRONT)</span> +<a href="images/ill_037.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + + +<p class="non">thin paper, three wafers, and one of those instruments of torture which +pass in France for pens—these being the utensils invariably evoked by +such a request; and then, finding himself at leisure, he placed himself +opposite and began to write a letter of his own. This trifling incident +reminded me afresh that France is a democratic country. I think I +received an admonition to the same effect from the free, familiar way in +which the game of whist was going on just behind me. It was attended +with a great deal of noisy pleasantry, flavoured every now and then with +a dash of irritation. There was a young man of whom I made a note; he +was such a beautiful specimen of his class. Sometimes he was very +facetious, chattering, joking, punning, showing off; then, as the game +went on and he lost and had to pay the <i>consommation</i>, he dropped his +amiability, slanged his partner, declared he wouldn't play any more, and +went away in a fury. Nothing could be more perfect or more amusing than +the contrast. The manner of the whole affair was such as, I apprehend, +one would not have seen among our English-speaking people; both the +jauntiness of the first phase and the petulance of the second. To hold +the balance straight, however, I may remark that if the men were all +fearful "cads," they were, with their cigarettes and their +inconsistency, less heavy, less brutal, than our dear English-speaking +cad; just as the bright little café where a robust materfamilias, doling +out sugar and darning a stocking, sat in her place under the mirror +behind the <i>comptoir</i>, was a much more civilised spot than a British +public-house or a "commercial room," with pipes and whisky, or even than +an American saloon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_038.png" width="450" height="280" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xiii" id="Chapter_xiii"></a>Chapter xiii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Le Mans</div> + +<p>IT IS very certain that when I left Tours for Le Mans it was a journey +and not an excursion; for I had no intention of coming back. The +question indeed was to get away, no easy matter in France in the early +days of October, when the whole <i>jeunesse</i> of the country is returning +to school. It is accompanied, apparently, with parents and grandparents, +and it fills the trains with little pale-faced <i>lycéens</i>, who gaze out +of the windows with a longing, lingering air not unnatural on the part +of small members of a race in which life is intense, who are about to be +restored to those big educative barracks that do such violence to our +American appreciation of the opportunities of boyhood. The train stopped +every five minutes; but fortunately the country was charming—hilly and +bosky, eminently good-humoured, and dotted here and there with a smart +little château. The old capital of the province of the Maine, which has +given its name to a great American State, is a fairly interesting town, +but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> + +<p>I confess that I found in it less than I expected to admire. My +expectations had doubtless been my own fault; there is no particular +reason why Le Mans should fascinate. It stands upon a hill, indeed—a +much better hill than the gentle swell of Bourges. This hill, however, +is not steep in all directions; from the railway, as I arrived, it was +not even perceptible. Since I am making comparisons, I may remark that, +on the other hand, the Boule d'Or at Le Mans is an appreciably better +inn than the Boule d'Or at Bourges. It looks out upon a small +market-place which has a certain amount of character and seems to be +slipping down the slope on which it lies, though it has in the middle an +ugly <i>halle</i>, or circular market-house, to keep it in position. At Le +Mans, as at Bourges, my first business was with the cathedral, to which +I lost no time in directing my steps. It suffered by juxtaposition to +the great church I had seen a few days before; yet it has some noble +features. It stands on the edge of the eminence of the town, which falls +straight away on two sides of it, and makes a striking mass, bristling +behind, as you see it from below, with rather small but singularly +numerous flying buttresses. On my way to it I happened to walk through +the one street which contains a few ancient and curious houses, a very +crooked and untidy lane, of really mediæval aspect, honoured with the +denomination of the Grand Rue. Here is the house of Queen Berengaria—an +absurd name, as the building is of a date some three hundred years later +than the wife of Richard Cœur de Lion, who has a sepulchral monument +in the south aisle of the cathedral. The structure in question—very +sketchable, if the sketcher could get far enough away from it—is an +elaborate little dusky façade, overhanging the street,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +ornamented with panels of stone, which are covered with delicate +Renaissance sculpture. A fat old woman standing in the door of a small +grocer's shop next to it—a most gracious old woman, with a bristling +moustache and a charming manner—told me what the house was, and also +indicated to me a rotten-looking brown wooden mansion in the same +street, nearer the cathedral, as the Maison Scarron. The author of the +"Roman Comique" and of a thousand facetious verses enjoyed for some +years, in the early part of his life, a benefice in the cathedral of Le +Mans, which gave him a right to reside in one of the canonical houses. +He was rather an odd canon, but his history is a combination of +oddities. He wooed the comic muse from the arm-chair of a cripple, and +in the same position—he was unable even to go down on his +knees—prosecuted that other suit which made him the first husband of a +lady of whom Louis XIV. was to be the second. There was little of comedy +in the future Madame de Maintenon; though, after all, there was +doubtless as much as there need have been in the wife of a poor man who +was moved to compose for his tomb such an epitaph as this, which I quote +from the "Biographie Universelle":</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Celui qui cy maintenant dort,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Fit plus de pitié que d'envie,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et souffrit mille fois la mort,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Avant que de perdre la vie.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Passant, ne fais icy de bruit,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et garde bien qu'il ne s'éveille.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Car voicy la première nuit,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Que le pauvre Scarron sommeille."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>There<span class="sidenote">Le Mans</span> is rather a quiet, satisfactory <i>place</i> in front of the cathedral, +with some good "bits" in it; notably a turret at the angle of one of the +towers and a very fine steep-roofed dwelling, behind low walls, which +it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +overlooks, with a tall iron gate. This house has two or three little +pointed towers, a big black, precipitous roof, and a general air of +having had a history. There are houses which are scenes, and there are +houses which are only houses. The trouble with the domestic architecture +of the United States is that it is not scenic, thank goodness, and the +characteristic of an old structure like the turreted mansion on the +hillside of Le Mans is that it is not simply a house. It is a person, as +it were, as well. It would be well, indeed, if it might have +communicated a little of its personality to the front of the cathedral, +which has none of its own. Shabby, rusty, unfinished, this front has a +romanesque portal, but nothing in the way of a tower. One sees from +without, at a glance, the peculiarity of the church—the disparity +between the romanesque nave, which is small and of the twelfth century, +and the immense and splendid transepts and choir, of a period a hundred +years later. Outside, this end of the church rises far above the nave, +which looks merely like a long porch leading to it, with a small and +curious romanesque porch in its own south flank. The transepts, shallow +but very lofty, display to the spectators in the <i>place</i> the reach of +their two clere-storey windows, which occupy, above, the whole expanse +of the wall. The south transept terminates in a sort of tower, which is +the only one of which the cathedral can boast. Within, the effect of the +choir is superb; it is a church in itself, with the nave simply for a +point of view. As I stood there I read in my Murray that it has the +stamp of the date of the perfection of pointed Gothic, and I found +nothing to object to the remark. It suffers little by confrontation with +Bourges and, taken in itself, seems to me quite as fine. A passage of +double aisles surrounds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +it, with the arches that divide them supported on very thick round +columns, not clustered. There are twelve chapels in this passage, and a +charming little lady-chapel filled with gorgeous old glass. The +sustained height of this almost detached choir is very noble; its +lightness and grace, its soaring symmetry, carry the eye up to places in +the air from which it is slow to descend. Like Tours, like Chartres, +like Bourges (apparently like all the French cathedrals, and unlike +several English ones), Le Mans is rich in splendid glass. The beautiful +upper windows of the choir make, far aloft, a brave gallery of pictures, +blooming with vivid colour. It is the south transept that contains the +formless image—a clumsy stone woman lying on her back—which purports +to represent Queen Berengaria aforesaid.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">Le Mans</span> +view of the cathedral from the rear is, as usual, very fine. A small +garden behind it masks its base; but you descend the hill to a large +<i>place de foire</i>, adjacent to a fine old public promenade which is known +as Les Jacobins, a sort of miniature Tuileries, where I strolled for a +while in rectangular alleys destitute of herbage and received a deeper +impression of vanished things. The cathedral, on the pedestal of its +hill, looks considerably farther than the fair-ground and the Jacobins, +between the rather bare poles of whose straightly planted trees you may +admire it at a convenient distance. I admired it till I thought I should +remember it (better than the event has proved), and then I wandered away +and looked at another curious old church, Notre-Dame-de-la-Couture. This +sacred edifice made a picture for ten minutes, but the picture has faded +now. I reconstruct a yellowish-brown façade and a portal fretted with +early sculptures; but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 367px;"> +<img src="images/ill_039_th.png" width="367" height="550" alt="LE MANS—THE CATHEDRAL" /> +<span class="caption">LE MANS—THE CATHEDRAL</span> +<a href="images/ill_039.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">details have gone the way of all incomplete sensations. After you have +stood awhile, in the choir of the cathedral there is no sensation at Le +Mans that goes very far. For some reason not now to be traced I had +looked for more than this. I think the reason was to some extent simply +in the name of the place; for names, on the whole, whether they be good +reasons or not, are very active ones. Le Mans, if I am not mistaken, has +a sturdy, feudal sound; suggests something dark and square, a vision of +old ramparts and gates. Perhaps I had been unduly impressed by the fact, +accidentally revealed to me, that Henry II., first of the English +Plantagenets, was born there. Of course it is easy to assure one's self +in advance, but does it not often happen that one had rather not be +assured? There is a pleasure sometimes in running the risk of +disappointment. I took mine, such as it was, quietly enough, while I sat +before dinner at the door of one of the cafés in the market-place with a +<i>bitter-et-curaçao</i> (invaluable pretext at such an hour!) to keep me +company. I remember that in this situation there came over me an +impression which both included and excluded all possible +disappointments. The afternoon was warm and still; the air was admirably +soft. The good Manceaux, in little groups and pairs, were seated near +me; my ear was soothed by the fine shades of French enunciation, by the +detached syllables of that perfect tongue. There was nothing in +particular in the prospect to charm; it was an average French view. Yet +I felt a charm, a kind of sympathy, a sense of the completeness of +French life and of the lightness and brightness of the social air, +together with a desire to arrive at friendly judgments, to express a +positive interest. I know not why this transcendental mood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +should have descended upon me then and there; but that idle half-hour in +front of the café, in the mild October afternoon suffused with human +sounds, is perhaps the most abiding thing I brought away from Le Mans.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 190px;"> +<img src="images/ill_040.png" width="190" height="300" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xiv" id="Chapter_xiv"></a>Chapter xiv</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Angers</div> + +<p>I AM shocked at finding, just after this noble declaration of +principles, that in a little note-book which at that time I carried +about with me the celebrated city of Angers is denominated a "sell."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p> + +<p>I reproduce this vulgar word with the greatest hesitation, and only +because it brings me more quickly to my point. This point is that Angers +belongs to the disagreeable class of old towns that have been, as the +English say, "done up." Not the oldness, but the newness, of the place +is what strikes the sentimental tourist to-day, as he wanders with +irritation along second-rate boulevards, looking vaguely about him for +absent gables. "Black Angers," in short, is a victim of modern +improvements and quite unworthy of its admirable name—a name which, +like that of Le Mans, had always had, to my eyes, a highly picturesque +value. It looks particularly well on the Shakespearean page (in "King +John"), where we imagine it uttered (though such would not have been the +utterance of the period) with a fine grinding insular accent. Angers +figures with importance in early English history: it was the capital +city of the Plantagenet race, home of that Geoffrey of Anjou who +married, as second husband, the Empress Maud, daughter of Henry I. and +competitor of Stephen, and became father of Henry II., first of the +Plantagenet kings, born, as we have seen, at Le Mans. These facts create +a natural presumption that Angers will look historic; I turned them over +in my mind as I travelled in the train from Le Mans, through a country +that was really pretty and looked more like the usual English than like +the usual French scenery, with its fields cut up by hedges and a +considerable rotundity in its trees. On my way from the station to the +hotel, however, it became plain that I should lack a good pretext for +passing that night at the Cheval Blanc; I foresaw that I should have +contented myself before the end of the day. I remained at the White +Horse only long enough to discover that it was an exceptionally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> +good provincial inn, one of the best that I encountered during six weeks +spent in these establishments.</p> + +<p>"Stupidly and vulgarly modernised"—that is another flower from my +note-book, and note-books are not obliged to be reasonable. "There are +some narrow and tortuous streets, with a few curious old houses," I +continue to quote; "there is a castle, of which the exterior is most +extraordinary, and there is a cathedral of moderate interest." It is +fair to say that the Château d'Angers is by itself worth a pilgrimage; +the only drawback is that you have seen it in a quarter of an hour. You +cannot do more than look at it, and one good look does your business. It +has no beauty, no grace, no detail, nothing that charms or detains you; +it is simply very old and very big—so big and so old that this simple +impression is enough, and it takes its place in your recollections as a +perfect specimen of a superannuated stronghold. It stands at one end of +the town, surrounded by a huge, deep moat, which originally contained +the waters of the Maine, now divided from it by a quay. The water-front +of Angers is poor—wanting in colour and in movement; and there is +always an effect of perversity in a town lying near a great river and +yet not upon it. The Loire is a few miles off; but Angers contents +itself with a meagre affluent of that stream. The effect was naturally +much better when the vast dark bulk of the castle, with its seventeen +prodigious towers, rose out of the protecting flood. These towers are of +tremendous girth and solidity; they are encircled with great bands, or +hoops, of white stone, and are much enlarged at the base. Between them +hang high curtains of infinitely old-looking masonry, apparently a dense +conglomeration of slate, the material of which the town was originally +built (thanks to rich quarries in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +the neighbourhood), and to which it owed its appellation of the Black. +There are no windows, no apertures, and to-day no battlements nor roofs. +These accessories were removed by Henry III., so that, in spite of its +grimness and blackness, the place has not even the interest of looking +like a prison; it being, as I suppose, the essence of a prison not to be +open to the sky. The only features of the enormous structure are the +blank, sombre stretches and protrusions of wall, the effect of which, on +so large a scale, is strange and striking. Begun by Philip Augustus and +terminated by St. Louis, the Château d'Angers has of course a great deal +of history. The luckless Fouquet, the extravagant minister of finance of +Louis XIV., whose fall from the heights of grandeur was so sudden and +complete, was confined here in 1661, just after his arrest, which had +taken place at Nantes. Here also Huguenots and Vendeans suffered +effective captivity.</p> + +<p>I<span class="sidenote">Angers</span> walked round the parapet which protects the outer edge of the moat (it +is all up-hill, and the moat deepens and deepens), till I came to the +entrance which faces the town, and which is as bare and strong as the +rest. The concierge took me into the court; but there was nothing to +see. The place is used as a magazine of ammunition, and the yard +contains a multitude of ugly buildings. The only thing to do is to walk +round the bastions for the view; but at the moment of my visit the +weather was thick, and the bastions began and ended with themselves. So +I came out and took another look at the big, black exterior, buttressed +with white-ribbed towers, and perceived that a desperate sketcher might +extract a picture from it, especially if he were to bring in, as they +say, the little black bronze statue of the good King René (a weak +production of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 359px;"> +<img src="images/ill_041_th.png" width="359" height="550" alt="ANGERS—OLD TIMBERED HOUSES" /> +<span class="caption">ANGERS—OLD TIMBERED HOUSES</span> +<a href="images/ill_041.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p>David d'Angers), which, standing within sight, ornaments the melancholy +faubourg. He would do much better, however, with the very striking old +timbered house (I suppose of the fifteenth century) which is called the +Maison d'Adam and is easily the first specimen at Angers of the domestic +architecture of the past. This admirable house, in the centre of the +town, gabled, elaborately timbered, and much restored, is a really +imposing monument. The basement is occupied by a linen-draper, who +flourishes under the auspicious sign of the Mère de Famille; and above +his shop the tall front rises in five overhanging storeys. As the house +occupies the angle of a little <i>place</i>, this front is double, and the +black beams and wooden supports, displayed over a large surface and +carved and interlaced, have a high picturesqueness. The Maison d'Adam is +quite in the grand style, and I am sorry to say I failed to learn what +history attaches to its name. If I spoke just above of the cathedral as +"moderate," I suppose I should beg its pardon; for this serious charge +was probably prompted by the fact that it consists only of a nave, +without side aisles. A little reflection now convinces me that such a +form is a distinction; and indeed I find it mentioned, rather +inconsistently, in my note-book, a little further on, as "extremely +simple and grand." The nave is spoken of in the same volume as "big, +serious, and Gothic," though the choir and transepts are noted as very +shallow. But it is not denied that the air of the whole thing is +original and striking; and it would therefore appear, after all, that +the cathedral of Angers, built during the twelfth and thirteenth +centuries, is a sufficiently honourable church; the more that its high +west front, adorned with a very primitive Gothic portal, supports two +elegant tapering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> +spires, between which, unfortunately, an ugly modern pavilion has been +inserted.</p> + +<p>I remember nothing else at Angers but the curious old Café Serin, where, +after I had had my dinner at the inn, I went and waited for the train +which, at nine o'clock in the evening, was to convey me, in a couple of +hours, to Nantes—an establishment remarkable for its great size and its +air of tarnished splendour, its brown gilding and smoky frescoes, as +also for the fact that it was hidden away on the second floor of an +unassuming house in an unilluminated street. It hardly seemed a place +where you would drop in; but when once you had found it, it presented +itself, with the cathedral, the castle, and the Maison d'Adam, as one of +the historical monuments of Angers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_042.png" width="450" height="286" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xv" id="Chapter_xv"></a>Chapter xv</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Nantes</div> + +<p>IF I spent two nights at Nantes, it was for reasons of convenience +rather than of sentiment; though indeed I spent them in a big circular +room which had a stately, lofty, last-century look—a look that consoled +me a little for the whole place being dirty. The high, old-fashioned inn +(it had a huge windy <i>porte-cochère</i>, and you climbed a vast black stone +staircase to get to your room) looked out on a dull square, surrounded +with other tall houses and occupied on one side by the theatre, a +pompous building decorated with columns and statues of the muses. Nantes +belongs to the class of towns which are always spoken of as "fine," and +its position near the mouth of the Loire gives it, I believe, much +commercial movement. It is a spacious, rather regular city, looking, in +the parts that I traversed, neither very fresh nor very venerable. It +derives its principal character from the handsome quays on the Loire, +which are overhung with tall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> +eighteenth-century houses (very numerous too in the other +streets)—houses with big <i>entresols</i> marked by arched windows, classic +pediments, balcony-rails of fine old iron-work. These features exist in +still better form at Bordeaux; but, putting Bordeaux aside, Nantes is +quite architectural. The view up and down the quays has the cool, +neutral tone of colour that one finds so often in French water-side +places—the bright greyness which is the tone of French landscape art. +The whole city has rather a grand, or at least an eminently +well-established, air. During a day passed in it of course I had time to +go to the Musée; the more so that I have a weakness for provincial +museums—a sentiment that depends but little on the quality of the +collection. The pictures may be bad, but the place is often curious; and +indeed from bad pictures, in certain moods of the mind, there is a +degree of entertainment to be derived. If they are tolerably old they +are often touching; but they must have a relative antiquity, for I +confess I can do nothing with works of art of which the badness is of +recent origin. The cool, still, empty chambers in which indifferent +collections are apt to be preserved, the red brick tiles, the diffused +light, the musty odour, the mementos around you of dead fashions, the +snuffy custodian in a black skull-cap, who pulls aside a faded curtain +to show you the lustreless gem of the museum—these things have a mild +historical quality, and the sallow canvases after all illustrate +something. Many of those in the museum of Nantes illustrate the taste of +a successful warrior, having been bequeathed to the city by Napoleon's +marshal Clarke (created Duc de Feltre). In addition to these there is +the usual number of specimens of the contemporary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> + +<p>French school, culled from the annual Salons and presented to the museum +by the State. Wherever the traveller goes, in France, he is reminded of +this very honourable practice—the purchase by the Government of a +certain number of "pictures of the year," which are presently +distributed in the provinces. Governments succeed each other and bid for +success by different devices; but the "patronage of art" is a plank, as +we should say here, in every platform. The works of art are often +ill-selected—there is an official taste which you immediately +recognise—but the custom is essentially liberal, and a Government which +should neglect it would be felt to be painfully common. The only thing +in this particular Musée that I remember is a fine portrait of a woman +by Ingres—very flat and Chinese, but with an interest of line and a +great deal of style.</p> + +<p>There is a castle at Nantes which resembles in some degree that of +Angers, but has, without, much less of the impressiveness of great size, +and, within, much more interest of detail. The court contains the +remains of a very fine piece of late Gothic—a tall elegant building of +the sixteenth century. The château is naturally not wanting in history. +It was the residence of the old Dukes of Brittany, and was brought, with +the rest of the province, by the Duchess Anne, the last representative +of that race, as her dowry, to Charles VIII. I read in the excellent +handbook of M. Joanne that it has been visited by almost every one of +the kings of France, from Louis XI. downward; and also that it has +served as a place of sojourn less voluntary on the part of various other +distinguished persons, from the horrible Maréchal de Retz, who in the +fifteenth century was executed at Nantes for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> +the murder of a couple of hundred young children, sacrificed in +abominable rites, to the ardent Duchess of Berry, mother of the Count of +Chambord, who was confined there for a few hours in 1832, just after her +arrest in a neighbouring house. I looked at the house in question—you +may see it from the platform in front of the château—and tried to +figure to myself that embarrassing scene. The Duchess, after having +unsuccessfully raised the standard of revolt (for the exiled Bourbons) +in the legitimist Bretagne, and being "wanted," as the phrase is, by the +police of Louis Philippe, had hidden herself in a small but loyal house +at Nantes, where, at the end of five months of seclusion, she was +betrayed, for gold, to the austere M. Guizot by one of her servants, an +Alsatian Jew named Deutz. For many hours before her capture she had been +compressed into an interstice behind a fireplace, and by the time she +was drawn forth into the light she had been ominously scorched. The man +who showed me the castle indicated also another historic spot, a house +with little <i>tourelles</i> on the Quai de la Fosse, in which Henry IV. is +said to have signed the Edict revoked by Louis XIV. I am, however, not +in a position to answer for this pedigree.</p> + +<p>There is another point in the history of the fine old houses which +command the Loire, of which, I suppose, one may be tolerably sure; that +is their having, placid as they stand there to-day, looked down on the +horrors of the Terror of 1793, the bloody reign of the monster Carrier +and his infamous <i>noyades</i>. The most hideous episode of the Revolution +was enacted at Nantes, where hundreds of men and women, tied together in +couples, were set afloat upon rafts and sunk to the bottom of the Loire. +The tall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +eighteenth-century house, full of the <i>air noble</i>, in France always +reminds me of those dreadful years—of the street-scenes of the +Revolution. Superficially, the association is incongruous, for nothing +could be more formal and decorous than the patent expression of these +eligible residences. But whenever I have a vision of prisoners bound on +tumbrels that jolt slowly to the scaffold, of heads carried on pikes, of +groups of heated <i>citoyennes</i> shaking their fists at closed +coach-windows, I see in the background the well-ordered features of the +architecture of the period—the clear grey stone, the high pilasters, +the arching lines of the <i>entresol</i>, the classic pediment, the +slate-covered attic. There is not much architecture at Nantes except the +domestic. The cathedral, with a rough west front and stunted towers, +makes no impression as you approach it. It is true that it does its best +to recover its reputation as soon as you have passed the threshold. +Begun in 1434 and finished about the end of the fifteenth century, as I +discover in Murray, it has a magnificent nave, not of great length, but +of extraordinary height and lightness. On the other hand, it has no +choir whatever. There is much entertainment in France in seeing what a +cathedral will take upon itself to possess or to lack; for it is only +the smaller number that have the full complement of features. Some have +a very fine nave and no choir; others a very fine choir and no nave. +Some have a rich outside and nothing within; others a very blank face +and a very glowing heart. There are a hundred possibilities of poverty +and wealth, and they make the most unexpected combinations.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">Nantes</span> great treasure of Nantes is the two noble sepulchral monuments which +occupy either transept,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +and one of which has (in its nobleness) the rare distinction of being a +production of our own time. On the south side stands the tomb of Francis +II., the last of the Dukes of Brittany, and of his second wife, Margaret +of Foix, erected in 1507 by their daughter Anne, whom we have +encountered already at the Château de Nantes, where she was born; at +Langeais, where she married her first husband; at Amboise, where she +lost him; at Blois, where she married her second, the "good" Louis XII., +who divorced an impeccable spouse to make room for her, and where she +herself died. Transferred to the cathedral from a demolished convent, +this monument, the masterpiece of Michel Colomb, author of the charming +tomb of the children of Charles VIII. and the aforesaid Anne, which we +admired at Saint Gatien of Tours, is one of the most brilliant works of +the French Renaissance. It has a splendid effect and is in perfect +preservation. A great table of black marble supports the reclining +figures of the duke and duchess, who lie there peacefully and +majestically, in their robes and crowns, with their heads each on a +cushion, the pair of which are supported from behind by three charming +little kneeling angels; at the foot of the quiet couple are a lion and a +greyhound, with heraldic devices. At each of the angles of the table is +a large figure in white marble of a woman elaborately dressed, with a +symbolic meaning, and these figures, with their contemporary faces and +clothes, which give them the air of realistic portraits, are truthful +and living, if not remarkably beautiful. Round the sides of the tomb are +small images of the apostles. There is a kind of masculine completeness +in the work, and a certain robustness of taste.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p> + +<p>In nothing were the sculptors of the Renaissance more fortunate than in +being in advance of us with their tombs: they have left us nothing to +say in regard to the great final contrast—the contrast between the +immobility of death and the trappings and honours that survive. They +expressed in every way in which it was possible to express it the +solemnity of their conviction that the marble image was a part of the +personal greatness of the defunct, and the protection, the redemption, +of his memory. A modern tomb, in comparison, is a sceptical affair; it +insists too little on the honours. I say this in the face of the fact +that one has only to step across the cathedral of Nantes to stand in the +presence of one of the purest and most touching of modern tombs. +Catholic Brittany has erected in the opposite transept a monument to one +of the most devoted of her sons, General de Lamoricière, the defender of +the Pope, the vanquished of Castelfidardo. This noble work, from the +hand of Paul Dubois, one of the most interesting of that new generation +of sculptors who have revived in France an art of which our over-dressed +century had begun to despair, has every merit but the absence of a +certain prime feeling. It is the echo of an earlier tune—an echo with a +beautiful cadence. Under a Renaissance canopy of white marble +elaborately worked with arabesques and cherubs, in a relief so low that +it gives the work a certain look of being softened and worn by time, +lies the body of the Breton soldier with a crucifix clasped to his +breast and a shroud thrown over his body. At each of the angles sits a +figure in bronze, the two best of which, representing Charity and +Military Courage, had given me extraordinary pleasure when they were +exhibited (in the clay) in the Salon of 1876. They are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> +admirably cast and not less admirably conceived: the one a serene, +robust young mother, beautiful in line and attitude; the other a lean +and vigilant young man, in a helmet that overshadows his serious eyes, +resting an outstretched arm, an admirable military member, upon the hilt +of a sword. These figures contain abundant assurance that M. Paul Dubois +has been attentive to Michael Angelo, whom we have all heard called a +splendid example and a bad model. The visor-shadowed face of his warrior +is more or less a reminiscence of the figure on the tomb of Lorenzo +de'Medici at Florence; but it is doubtless none the worse for that. The +interest of the work of Paul Dubois is its peculiar seriousness, a kind +of moral good faith which is not the commonest feature of French art, +and which, united as it is in this case with exceeding knowledge and a +remarkable sense of form, produces an impression of deep refinement. The +whole monument is a proof of exquisitely careful study; but I am not +sure that this impression on the part of the spectator is the happiest +possible. It explains much of the great beauty, and it also explains +perhaps a little of the slight pedantry. That word, however, is scarcely +in place; I only mean that M. Dubois has made a visible effort, which +has visibly triumphed. Simplicity is not always strength, and our +complicated modern genius contains treasures of intention. This +fathomless modern element is an immense charm on the part of M. Paul +Dubois. I am lost in admiration of the deep æsthetic experience, the +enlightenment of taste, revealed by such work. After that I only hope +that, Giuseppe Garibaldi may have somewhere or other some commemoration +as distinguished.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 422px;"> +<img src="images/ill_042a.png" width="422" height="264" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xvi" id="Chapter_xvi"></a>Chapter xvi</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">La Rochelle</div> + +<p>TO go from Nantes to La Rochelle you travel straight southward across +the historic <i>bocage</i> of La Vendée, the home of royalist bush-fighting. +The country, which is exceedingly pretty, bristles with copses, +orchards, hedges, and with trees more spreading and sturdy than the +traveller is apt to find the feathery foliage of France. It is true that +as I proceeded it flattened out a good deal, so that for an hour there +was a vast featureless plain, which offered me little entertainment +beyond the general impression that I was approaching the Bay of Biscay +(from which, in reality, I was yet far distant). As we drew near La +Rochelle, however, the prospect brightened considerably, and the railway +kept its course beside a charming little canal, or canalised river, +bordered with trees and with small, neat, bright-coloured and yet +old-fashioned cottages and villas, which stood back, on the farther +side, behind small gardens, hedges, painted palings,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> +patches of turf. The whole effect was Dutch and delightful; and in being +delightful, though not in being Dutch, it prepared me for the charms of +La Rochelle, which from the moment I entered it I perceived to be a +fascinating little town, a quite original mixture of brightness and +dulness. Part of its brightness comes from its being extraordinarily +clean—in which, after all, it <i>is</i> Dutch; a virtue not particularly +noticeable at Bourges, Le Mans, and Angers. Whenever I go southward, if +it be only twenty miles, I begin to look out for the south, prepared as +I am to find the careless grace of those latitudes even in things of +which it may be said that they may be south of something, but are not +southern. To go from Boston to New York (in this state of mind) is +almost as soft a sensation as descending the Italian side of the Alps; +and to go from New York to Philadelphia is to enter a zone of tropical +luxuriance and warmth. Given this absurd disposition, I could not fail +to flatter myself, on reaching La Rochelle, that I was already in the +Midi, and to perceive in everything, in the language of the country, the +<i>caractère méridional</i>. Really a great many things had a hint of it. For +that matter it seems to me that to arrive in the south at a bound—to +wake up there, as it were—would be a very imperfect pleasure. The full +pleasure is to approach by stages and gradations; to observe the +successive shades of difference by which it ceases to be the north. +These shades are exceedingly fine, but your true south-lover has an eye +for them all. If he perceives them at New York and Philadelphia—we +imagine him boldly as liberated from Boston—how could he fail to +perceive them at La Rochelle? The streets of this dear little city are +lined with arcades—good, big, straddling arcades of stone,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +such as befit a land of hot summers and which recalled to me, not to go +further, the dusky porticos of Bayonne. It contains, moreover, a great +wide <i>place d'armes</i> which looked for all the world like the piazza of +some dead Italian town, empty, sunny, grass-grown, with a row of yellow +houses overhanging it, an unfrequented café with a striped awning, a +tall, cold, florid, uninteresting cathedral of the eighteenth century on +one side, and on the other a shady walk which forms part of an old +rampart. I followed this walk for some time, under the stunted trees, +beside the grass-covered bastions; it is very charming, winding and +wandering, always with trees. Beneath the rampart is a tidal river, and +on the other side, for a long distance, the mossy walls of the immense +garden of a seminary. Three hundred years ago La Rochelle was the great +French stronghold of Protestantism, but to-day it appears to be a +nursery of Papists.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">La Rochelle</span> walk upon the rampart led me round to one of the gates of the town, +where I found some small modern fortifications and sundry red-legged +soldiers, and, beyond the fortifications, another shady walk—a <i>mail</i>, +as the French say, as well as a <i>champ de manœuvre</i>—on which latter +expanse the poor little red-legs were doing their exercise. It was all +very quiet and very picturesque, rather in miniature; and at once very +tidy and a little out of repair. This, however, was but a meagre +back-view of La Rochelle, or poor side-view at best. There are other +gates than the small fortified aperture just mentioned; one of them, an +old grey arch beneath a fine clock-tower, I had passed through on my way +from the station. This substantial Tour de l'Horloge separates the town +proper from the port; for beyond the old grey arch the place presents +its bright, expressive little face to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +the sea. I had a charming walk about the harbour and along the stone +piers and sea-walls that shut it in. This indeed, to take things in +their order, was after I had had my breakfast (which I took on arriving) +and after I had been to the <i>hôtel de ville</i>. The inn had a long narrow +garden behind it, with some very tall trees; and passing through this +garden to a dim and secluded <i>salle à manger</i>, buried in the heavy +shade, I had, while I sat at my repast, a feeling of seclusion which +amounted almost to a sense of incarceration. I lost this sense, however, +after I had paid my bill, and went out to look for traces of the famous +siege, which is the principal title of La Rochelle to renown. I had come +thither partly because I thought it would be interesting to stand for a +few moments in so gallant a spot, and partly because, I confess, I had a +curiosity to see what had been the starting-point of the Huguenot +emigrants who founded the town of New Rochelle in the State of New York, +a place in which I had passed sundry memorable hours. It was strange to +think, as I strolled through the peaceful little port, that these quiet +waters, during the wars of religion, had swelled with a formidable naval +power. The Rochelais had fleets and admirals, and their stout little +Protestant bottoms carried defiance up and down.</p> + +<p>To say that I found any traces of the siege would be to misrepresent the +taste for vivid whitewash by which La Rochelle is distinguished to-day. +The only trace is the dent in the marble top of the table on which, in +the <i>hôtel de ville</i>, Jean Guiton, the mayor of the city, brought down +his dagger with an oath when in 1628 the vessels and regiments of +Richelieu closed about it on sea and land. This terrible functionary was +the soul of the resistance; he held out from February<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 349px;"> +<img src="images/ill_043_th.png" width="349" height="550" alt="LA ROCHELLE" /> +<span class="caption">LA ROCHELLE</span> +<a href="images/ill_043.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">to October in the midst of pestilence and famine. The whole episode has +a brilliant place among the sieges of history; it has been related a +hundred times, and I may only glance at it and pass. I limit my ambition +in these light pages to speaking of those things of which I have +personally received an impression, and I have no such impression of the +defence of La Rochelle. The <i>hôtel de ville</i> is a pretty little +building, in the style of the Renaissance of Francis I.; but it has left +much of its interest in the hands of the restorers. It has been "done +up" without mercy; its natural place would be at Rochelle the New. A +sort of battlemented curtain, flanked with turrets, divides it from the +street and contains a low door (a low door in a high wall is always +felicitous), which admits you to an inner court, where you discover the +face of the building. It has statues set into it and is raised upon a +very low and very deep arcade. The principal function of the deferential +old portress who conducts you over the place is to call your attention +to the indented table of Jean Guiton; but she shows you other objects of +interest besides. The interior is absolutely new and extremely +sumptuous, abounding in tapestries, upholstery, morocco, velvet, satin. +This is especially the case with a really beautiful <i>grande salle</i>, +where, surrounded with the most expensive upholstery, the mayor holds +his official receptions. (So at least said my worthy portress.) The +mayors of La Rochelle appear to have changed a good deal since the days +of the grim Guiton; but these evidences of municipal splendour are +interesting for the light they throw on French manners. Imagine the +mayor of an English or an American town of twenty thousand inhabitants +holding magisterial soirées in the town hall! The said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> +<i>grande salle</i>, which is unchanged in form and in its larger features, +is, I believe, the room in which the Rochelais debated as to whether +they should shut themselves up, and decided in the affirmative. The +table and chair of Jean Guiton have been restored, like everything else, +and are very elegant and coquettish pieces of furniture—incongruous +relics of a season of starvation and blood. I believe that Protestantism +is somewhat shrunken to-day at La Rochelle, and has taken refuge mainly +in the <i>haute société</i> and in a single place of worship. There was +nothing particular to remind me of its supposed austerity as, after +leaving the <i>hôtel de ville</i>, I walked along the empty porticos and out +of the Tour de l'Horloge, which I have already mentioned. If I stopped +and looked up at this venerable monument, it was not to ascertain the +hour, for I foresaw that I should have more time at La Rochelle than I +knew what to do with; but because its high, grey, weather-beaten face +was an obvious subject for a sketch.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">La Rochelle</span> little port, which has two basins and is accessible only to vessels +of light tonnage, had a certain gaiety and as much local colour as you +please. Fisher-folk of picturesque type were strolling about, most of +them Bretons; several of the men with handsome, simple faces, not at all +brutal, and with a splendid brownness—the golden-brown colour on cheek +and beard that you see on an old Venetian sail. It was a squally, +showery day, with sudden drizzles of sunshine; rows of rich-toned +fishing-smacks were drawn up along the quays. The harbour is effective +to the eye by reason of three battered old towers which at different +points overhang it and look infinitely weather-washed and sea-silvered. +The most striking of these, the Tour de la Lanterne, is a big grey mass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 353px;"> +<img src="images/ill_044_th.png" width="353" height="550" alt="image not available" /> +<a href="images/ill_044.png"><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">of the fifteenth century, flanked with turrets and crowned with a Gothic +steeple. I found it was called by the people of the place the Tour des +Quatre Sergents, though I know not what connection it has with the +touching history of the four young sergeants of the garrison of La +Rochelle who were arrested in 1821 as conspirators against the +Government of the Bourbons, and executed, amid general indignation, in +Paris in the following year. The quaint little walk, with its label of +Rue sur les Murs, to which one ascends from beside the Grosse Horloge, +leads to this curious Tour de la Lanterne and passes under it. This walk +has the top of the old town-wall, towards the sea, for a parapet on one +side, and is bordered on the other with decent but irregular little +tenements of fishermen, where brown old women, whose caps are as white +as if they were painted, seem chiefly in possession. In this direction +there is a very pretty stretch of shore, out of the town, through the +fortifications (which are Vauban's, by the way); through, also, a +diminutive public garden or straggling shrubbery which edges the water +and carries its stunted verdure as far as a big Établissement des Bains. +It was too late in the year to bathe, and the Établissement had the +bankrupt aspect which belongs to such places out of the season; so I +turned my back upon it and gained, by a circuit in the course of which +there were sundry water-side items to observe, the other side of the +cheery little port, where there is a long breakwater and a still longer +sea-wall, on which I walked a while, to inhale the strong, salt breath +of the Bay of Biscay. La Rochelle serves, in the months of July and +August, as a <i>station de bains</i> for a modest provincial society; and, +putting aside the question of inns, it must be charming on summer +afternoons.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_045.png" width="450" height="310" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xvii" id="Chapter_xvii"></a>Chapter xvii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Poitiers</div> + +<p>IT is an injustice to Poitiers to approach her by night, as I did some +three hours after leaving La Rochelle; for what Poitiers has of best, as +they would say at Poitiers, is the appearance she presents to the +arriving stranger who puts his head out of the window of the train. I +gazed into the gloom from such an aperture before we got into the +station, for I remembered the impression received on another occasion; +but I saw nothing save the universal night, spotted here and there with +an ugly railway lamp. It was only as I departed, the following day, that +I assured myself that Poitiers still makes something of the figure she +ought on the summit of her considerable hill. I have a kindness for any +little group of towers, any cluster of roofs and chimneys, that lift +themselves from an eminence over which a long road ascends in zigzags; +such a picture creates for the moment a presumption<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> +that you are in Italy, and even leads you to believe that if you mount +the winding road you will come to an old town-wall, an expanse of +creviced brownness, and pass under a gateway surmounted by the arms of a +mediæval despot. Why I should find it a pleasure in France to imagine +myself in Italy, is more than I can say; the illusion has never lasted +long enough to be analysed. From the bottom of its perch Poitiers looks +large and high; and indeed, the evening I reached it, the interminable +climb of the omnibus of the hotel I had selected, which I found at the +station, gave me the measure of its commanding position. This hotel, +"magnifique construction ornée de statues," as the Guide-Joanne, usually +so reticent, takes the trouble to announce, has an omnibus, and, I +suppose, has statues, though I didn't perceive them; but it has very +little else save immemorial accumulations of dirt. It is magnificent, if +you will, but it is not even relatively proper; and a dirty inn has +always seemed to me the dirtiest of human things—it has so many +opportunities to betray itself.</p> + +<p>Poitiers covers a large space, and is as crooked and straggling as you +please; but these advantages are not accompanied with any very salient +features or any great wealth of architecture. Although there are few +picturesque houses, however, there are two or three curious old +churches. Notre Dame la Grande, in the market-place, a small romanesque +structure of the twelfth century, has a most interesting and venerable +exterior. Composed, like all the churches of Poitiers, of a light brown +stone with a yellowish tinge, it is covered with primitive but ingenious +sculptures, and is really an impressive monument. Within, it has lately +been daubed over with the most hideous decorative painting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> +that was ever inflicted upon passive pillars and indifferent vaults. +This battered yet coherent little edifice has the touching look that +resides in everything supremely old; it has arrived at the age at which +such things cease to feel the years; the waves of time have worn its +edges to a kind of patient dulness; there is something mild and smooth, +like the stillness, the deafness, of an octogenarian, even in its +rudeness of ornament, and it has become insensible to differences of a +century or two. The cathedral interested me much less than Our Lady the +Great, and I have not the spirit to go into statistics about it. It is +not statistical to say that the cathedral stands half-way down the hill +of Poitiers, in a quiet and grass-grown <i>place</i>, with an approach of +crooked lanes and blank garden-walls, and that its most striking +dimension is the width of its façade. This width is extraordinary, but +it fails, somehow, to give nobleness to the edifice, which looks within +(Murray makes the remark) like a large public hall. There are a nave and +two aisles, the latter about as high as the nave; and there are some +very fearful modern pictures, which you may see much better than you +usually see those specimens of the old masters that lurk in glowing +side-chapels, there being no fine old glass to diffuse a kindly gloom. +The sacristan of the cathedral showed me something much better than all +this bright bareness; he led me a short distance out of it to the small +Temple de Saint-Jean, which is the most curious object at Poitiers. It +is an early Christian chapel, one of the earliest in France; originally, +it would seem—that is, in the sixth or seventh century—a baptistery, +but converted into a church while the Christian era was still +comparatively young. The Temple de Saint-Jean is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> +therefore a monument even more venerable than Notre Dame la Grande, and +that numbness of age which I imputed to Notre Dame ought to reside in +still larger measure in its crude and colourless little walls. I call +them crude, in spite of their having been baked through by the +centuries, only because, although certain rude arches and carvings are +let into them and they are surmounted at either end with a small gable, +they have (so far as I can remember) little fascination of surface. +Notre Dame is still expressive, still pretends to be alive; but the +temple has delivered its message and is completely at rest. It retains a +kind of atrium, on the level of the street, from which you descend to +the original floor, now uncovered, but buried for years under a false +bottom. A semicircular apse was, apparently at the time of its +conversion into a church, thrown out from the east wall. In the middle +is the cavity of the old baptismal font. The walls and vaults are +covered with traces of extremely archaic frescoes, attributed, I +believe, to the twelfth century. These vague, gaunt, staring fragments +of figures are, to a certain extent, a reminder of some of the early +Christian churches in Rome; they even faintly recalled to me the great +mosaics of Ravenna. The Temple de Saint-Jean has neither the antiquity +nor the completeness of those extraordinary monuments, nearly the most +impressive in Europe; but, as one may say, it is very well for Poitiers.</p> + +<p>Not<span class="sidenote">Poitiers</span> far from it, in a lonely corner which was animated for the moment by +the vociferations of several old women who were selling tapers, +presumably for the occasion of a particular devotion, is the graceful +romanesque church erected in the twelfth century to Saint Radegonde—a +lady who found means to be a saint even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> +in the capacity of a Merovingian queen. It bears a general resemblance +to Notre Dame la Grande, and, as I remember it, is corrugated in +somewhat the same manner with porous-looking carvings; but I confess +that what I chiefly recollect is the row of old women sitting in front +of it, each with a tray of waxen tapers in her lap, and upbraiding me +for my neglect of the opportunity to offer such a tribute to the saint. +I know not whether this privilege is occasional or constant; within the +church there was no appearance of a festival, and I see that the +name-day of Saint Radegonde occurs in August, so that the importunate +old women sit there always perhaps and deprive of its propriety the +epithet I just applied to this provincial corner. In spite of the old +women, however, I suspect that the place is lonely; and indeed it is +perhaps the old women who have made the desolation.</p> + +<p>The lion of Poitiers in the eyes of the natives is doubtless the Palais +de Justice, in the shadow of which the statue-guarded hotel, just +mentioned, erects itself; and the gem of the court-house, which has a +prosy modern front, with pillars and a high flight of steps, is the +curious <i>salle des pas perdus</i>, or central hall, out of which the +different tribunals open. This is a feature of every French court-house, +and seems the result of a conviction that a palace of justice—the +French deal in much finer names than we—should be in some degree +palatial. The great hall at Poitiers has a long pedigree, as its walls +date back to the twelfth century and its open wooden roof, as well as +the remarkable trio of chimney-pieces at the right end of the room as +you enter, to the fifteenth. The three tall fireplaces, side by side, +with a delicate gallery running along the top of them, constitute the +originality of this ancient<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +chamber, and make one think of the groups that must formerly have +gathered there—of all the wet boot-soles, the trickling doublets, the +stiffened fingers, the rheumatic shanks, that must have been presented +to such an incomparable focus of heat. To-day, I am afraid, these mighty +hearths are for ever cold; justice is probably administered with the aid +of a modern <i>calorifère</i>, and the walls of the palace are perforated +with regurgitating tubes. Behind and above the gallery that surmounts +the three fireplaces are high Gothic windows, the tracery of which +masks, in some sort, the chimneys; and in each angle of this and of the +room to the right and left of the trio of chimneys is an open-work +spiral staircase, ascending to—I forget where; perhaps to the roof of +the edifice. The whole side of the <i>salle</i> is very lordly, and seems to +express an unstinted hospitality, to extend the friendliest of all +invitations, to bid the whole world come and get warm. It was the +invention of John, Duke of Berry and Count of Poitou, about 1395. I give +this information on the authority of the Guide-Joanne, from which source +I gather much other curious learning; as, for instance, that it was in +this building, when it had surely a very different front, that Charles +VII. was proclaimed king in 1422; and that here Jeanne Darc was +subjected, in 1429, to the inquisition of sundry doctors and matrons.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">Poitiers</span> most charming thing at Poitiers is simply the Promenade de +Blossac—a small public garden at one end of the flat top of the hill. +It has a happy look of the last century (having been arranged at that +period), and a beautiful sweep of view over the surrounding country, and +especially of the course of the little river Clain, which winds about a +part of the base of the big mound of Poitiers. The limit of this dear +little garden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> +is formed, on the side that turns away from the town, by the rampart +erected in the fourteenth century and by its big semicircular bastions. +This rampart, of great length, has a low parapet; you look over it at +the charming little vegetable-gardens with which the base of the hill +appears exclusively to be garnished. The whole prospect is delightful, +especially the details of the part just under the walls, at the end of +the walk. Here the river makes a shining twist which a painter might +have invented, and the side of the hill is terraced into several +hedges—a sort of tangle of small blooming patches and little pavilions +with peaked roofs and green shutters. It is idle to attempt to reproduce +all this in words; it should be reproduced only in water-colours. The +reader, however, will already have remarked that disparity in these +ineffectual pages, which are pervaded by the attempt to sketch without a +palette or brushes. He will doubtless also be struck with the grovelling +vision which, on such a spot as the ramparts of Poitiers, peoples itself +with carrots and cabbages rather than with images of the Black Prince +and the captive king. I am not sure that in looking out from the +Promenade de Blossac you command the old battle-field; it is enough that +it was not far off, and that the great rout of Frenchmen poured into the +walls of Poitiers, leaving on the ground a number of the fallen equal to +the little army (eight thousand) of the invader. I did think of the +battle. I wondered, rather helplessly, where it had taken place; and I +came away (as the reader will see from the preceding sentence) without +finding out. This indifference, however, was a result rather of a +general dread of military topography than of a want of admiration of +this particular victory, which I have always supposed to be one of the +most brilliant on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> +record. Indeed, I should be almost ashamed, and very much at a loss, to +say what light it was that this glorious day seemed to me to have left +for ever on the horizon, and why the very name of the place had always +caused my blood gently to tingle. It is carrying the feeling of race to +quite inscrutable lengths when a vague American permits himself an +emotion because more than five centuries ago, on French soil, one +rapacious Frenchman got the better of another. Edward was a Frenchman as +well as John, and French were the cries that urged each of the hosts to +the fight. French is the beautiful motto graven round the image of the +Black Prince as he lies for ever at rest in the choir of Canterbury: <i>à +la mort ne pensai-je mye</i>. Nevertheless, the victory of Poitiers +declines to lose itself in these considerations; the sense of it is a +part of our heritage, the joy of it a part of our imagination, and it +filters down through centuries and migrations till it titillates a New +Yorker who forgets in his elation that he happens at that moment to be +enjoying the hospitality of France. It was something done, I know not +how justly, for England; and what was done in the fourteenth century for +England was done also for New York.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_046.png" width="450" height="277" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xviii" id="Chapter_xviii"></a>Chapter xviii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Angoulême</div> + +<p>IF it was really for the sake of the Black Prince that I had stopped at +Poitiers (for my prevision of Notre Dame la Grande and of the little +temple of St. John was of the dimmest), I ought to have stopped at +Angoulême for the sake of David and Eve Séchard, of Lucien de Rubempré +and of Madame de Bargeton, who when she wore a <i>toilette étudiée</i> +sported a Jewish turban ornamented with an Eastern brooch, a scarf of +gauze, a necklace of cameos, and a robe of "painted muslin," whatever +that may be; treating herself to these luxuries out of an income of +twelve thousand francs. The persons I have mentioned have not that +vagueness of identity which is the misfortune of historical characters; +they are real, supremely real, thanks to their affiliation to the great +Balzac, who had invented an artificial reality which was as much better +than the vulgar article as mock-turtle soup is than the liquid it +emulates. The first time I read<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Les Illusions Perdues" I should have refused to believe that I was +capable of passing the old capital of Anjou without alighting to visit +the Houmeau. But we never know what we are capable of till we are +tested, as I reflected when I found myself looking back at Angoulême +from the window of the train just after we had emerged from the long +tunnel that passes under the town. This tunnel perforates the hill on +which, like Poitiers, Angoulême rears itself, and which gives it an +elevation still greater than that of Poitiers. You may have a tolerable +look at the cathedral without leaving the railway carriage, for it +stands just above the tunnel and is exposed, much foreshortened, to the +spectator below. There is evidently a charming walk round the plateau of +the town commanding those pretty views of which Balzac gives an account. +But the train whirled me away, and these are my only impressions. The +truth is that I had no need, just at that moment, of putting myself into +communication with Balzac, for opposite to me in the compartment were a +couple of figures almost as vivid as the actors in the "Comédie +Humaine." One of these was a very genial and dirty old priest, and the +other was a reserved and concentrated young monk—the latter (by which I +mean a monk of any kind) being a rare sight to-day in France. This young +man indeed was mitigatedly monastic. He had a big brown frock and cowl, +but he had also a shirt and a pair of shoes; he had, instead of a hempen +scourge round his waist, a stout leather thong, and he carried with him +a very profane little valise. He also read, from beginning to end, the +<i>Figaro</i> which the old priest, who had done the same, presented to him; +and he looked altogether as if, had he not been a monk, he would have +made a distinguished officer of engineers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Angoulême</div> + +<p>When he was not reading the <i>Figaro</i> he was conning his breviary or +answering, with rapid precision and with a deferential but discouraging +dryness, the frequent questions of his companion, who was of quite +another type. This worthy had a bored, good-natured, unbuttoned, +expansive look; was talkative, restless, almost disreputably human. He +was surrounded by a great deal of small luggage, and had scattered over +the carriage his books, his papers, and fragments of his lunch, and the +contents of an extraordinary bag which he kept beside him—a kind of +secular reliquary—and which appeared to contain the odds and ends of a +lifetime, as he took from it successively a pair of slippers, an old +padlock (which evidently did not belong to it), an opera-glass, a +collection of almanacs, and a large sea-shell, which he very carefully +examined. I think that if he had not been afraid of the young monk, who +was so much more serious than he, he would have held the shell to his +ear like a child. Indeed, he was a very childish and delightful old +priest, and his companion evidently thought him quite frivolous. But I +liked him the better of the two. He was not a country curé, but an +ecclesiastic of some rank, who had seen a good deal both of the church +and of the world; and if I too had not been afraid of his colleague, who +read the <i>Figaro</i> as seriously as if it had been an encyclical, I should +have entered into conversation with him.</p> + +<p>All this while I was getting on to Bordeaux, where I permitted myself to +spend three days. I am afraid I have next to nothing to show for them, +and that there would be little profit in lingering on this episode, +which is the less to be justified as I had in former years examined +Bordeaux attentively enough. It contains a very good hotel—an hotel not +good enough, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> +to keep you there for its own sake. For the rest, Bordeaux is a big, +rich, handsome, imposing commercial town, with long rows of fine old +eighteenth-century houses which overlook the yellow Garonne. I have +spoken of the quays of Nantes as fine, but those of Bordeaux have a +wider sweep and a still more architectural air. The appearance of such a +port as this makes the Anglo-Saxon tourist blush for the sordid +water-fronts of Liverpool and New York, which, with their larger +activity, have so much more reason to be stately. Bordeaux gives a great +impression of prosperous industries, and suggests delightful ideas, +images of prune-boxes and bottled claret. As the focus of distribution +of the best wine in the world, it is indeed a sacred city—dedicated to +the worship of Bacchus in the most discreet form. The country all about +it is covered with precious vineyards, sources of fortune to their +owners and of satisfaction to distant consumers: and as you look over to +the hills beyond the Garonne you see them, in the autumn sunshine, +fretted with the rusty richness of this or that immortal <i>clos</i>. But the +principal picture, within the town, is that of the vast curving quays, +bordered with houses that look like the <i>hôtels</i> of farmers-general of +the last century, and of the wide, tawny river, crowded with shipping +and spanned by the largest of bridges. Some of the types on the +water-side are of the sort that arrest a sketcher—figures of stalwart, +brown-faced Basques, such as I had seen of old in great numbers at +Biarritz, with their loose circular caps, their white sandals, their air +of walking for a wager. Never was a tougher, a harder race. They are not +mariners nor watermen, but, putting questions of temper aside, they are +the best possible dock-porters. "Il s'y fait un commerce terrible," a +<i>douanier</i> said to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +me, as he looked up and down the interminable docks; and such a place +has indeed much to say of the wealth, the capacity for production, of +France—the bright, cheerful, smokeless industry of the wonderful +country which produces, above all, the agreeable things of life, and +turns even its defeats and revolutions into gold. The whole town has an +air of almost depressing opulence, an appearance which culminates in the +great <i>place</i> which surrounds the Grand-Théatre—an establishment of the +highest style, encircled with columns, arcades, lamps, gilded cafés. One +feels it to be a monument to the virtue of the well-selected bottle. If +I had not forbidden myself to linger, I should venture to insist on this +and, at the risk of being called fantastic, trace an analogy between +good claret and the best qualities of the French mind; pretend that +there is a taste of sound Bordeaux in all the happiest manifestations of +that fine organ, and that, correspondingly, there is a touch of French +reason, French completeness, in a glass of Pontet-Canet. The danger of +such an excursion would lie mainly in its being so open to the reader to +take the ground from under my feet by saying that good claret doesn't +exist. To this I should have no reply whatever. I should be unable to +tell him where to find it. I certainly didn't find it at Bordeaux, where +I drank a most vulgar fluid; and it is of course notorious that a large +part of mankind is occupied in vainly looking for it. There was a great +pretence of putting it forward at the Exhibition which was going on at +Bordeaux at the time of my visit, an "exposition philomathique," lodged +in a collection of big temporary buildings in the Allées d'Orléans, and +regarded by the Bordelais for the moment as the most brilliant feature +of their city. Here were pyramids of bottles, mountains<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/ill_047_th.png" width="550" height="358" alt="BORDEAUX—THE QUAY" /> +<span class="caption">BORDEAUX—THE QUAY</span> +<a href="images/ill_047.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">of bottles, to say nothing of cases and cabinets of bottles. The +contemplation of these glittering tiers was of course not very +convincing; and indeed the whole arrangement struck me as a high +impertinence. Good wine is not an optical pleasure, it is an inward +emotion; and if there was a chamber of degustation on the premises, I +failed to discover it. It was not in the search for it, indeed, that I +spent half an hour in this bewildering bazaar. Like all "expositions," +it seemed to me to be full of ugly things, and gave one a portentous +idea of the quantity of rubbish that man carries with him on his course +through the ages. Such an amount of luggage for a journey after all so +short! There were no individual objects; there was nothing but dozens +and hundreds, all machine-made and expressionless, in spite of the +repeated grimace, the conscious smartness, of "the last new thing," that +was stamped on all of them. The fatal facility of the French <i>article</i> +becomes at last as irritating as the refrain of a popular song. The poor +"Indiens Galibis" struck me as really more interesting—a group of +stunted savages who formed one of the attractions of the place and were +confined in a pen in the open air, with a rabble of people pushing and +squeezing, hanging over the barrier, to look at them. They had no +grimace, no pretension to be new, no desire to catch your eye. They +looked at their visitors no more than they looked at each other, and +seemed ancient, indifferent, terribly bored.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 193px;"> +<img src="images/ill_048.png" width="193" height="300" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xix" id="Chapter_xix"></a>Chapter xix</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Toulouse</div> + +<p>THERE is much entertainment in the journey through the wide, smiling +garden of Gascony; I speak of it as I took it in going from Bordeaux to +Toulouse. It is the south, quite the south, and had for the present +narrator its full measure of the charm he is always determined to find +in countries that may even by courtesy be said to appertain to the sun. +It was, moreover, the happy and genial view of these mild latitudes, +which, goodness knows, often have a dreariness of their own; a land +teeming with corn and wine and speaking everywhere (that is everywhere +the phylloxera had not laid it waste) of wealth and plenty. The road +runs constantly near the Garonne, touching now and then its slow, brown, +rather sullen stream, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> +sullenness that encloses great dangers and disasters. The traces of the +horrible floods of 1875 have disappeared, and the land smiles placidly +enough while it waits for another immersion. Toulouse, at the period I +speak of, was up to its middle (and in places above it) in water, and +looks still as if it had been thoroughly soaked—as if it had faded and +shrivelled with a long steeping. The fields and copses, of course, are +more forgiving. The railway line follows as well the charming Canal du +Midi, which is as pretty as a river, barring the straightness, and here +and there occupies the foreground, beneath a screen of dense, tall +trees, while the Garonne takes a larger and more irregular course a +little way beyond it. People who are fond of canals—and, speaking from +the pictorial standpoint, I hold the taste to be most legitimate—will +delight in this admirable specimen of the class, which has a very +interesting history, not to be narrated here. On the other side of the +road (the left), all the way, runs a long, low line of hills, or rather +one continuous hill, or perpetual cliff, with a straight top, in the +shape of a ledge of rock, which might pass for a ruined wall. I am +afraid the reader will lose patience with my habit of constantly +referring to the landscape of Italy as if that were the measure of the +beauty of every other. Yet I am still more afraid that I cannot +apologise for it, and must leave it in its culpable nakedness. It is an +idle habit; but the reader will long since have discovered that this was +an idle journey and that I give my impressions as they came to me. It +came to me, then, that in all this view there was something transalpine, +with a greater smartness and freshness and much less elegance and +languor. This impression was occasionally deepened by the appearance, on +the long eminence of which I speak,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> +of a village, a church, a château, that seemed to look down at the plain +from over the ruined wall. The perpetual vines, the bright-faced +flat-roofed houses, covered with tiles, the softness and sweetness of +the light and air, recalled the prosier portions of the Lombard plain. +Toulouse itself has a little of this Italian expression, but not enough +to give a colour to its dark, dirty, crooked streets, which are +irregular without being eccentric, and which, if it were not for the +superb church of Saint-Sernin, would be quite destitute of monuments.</p> + +<p>I have already alluded to the way in which the names of certain places +impose themselves on the mind, and I must add that of Toulouse to the +list of expressive appellations. It certainly evokes a vision—suggests +something highly <i>méridional</i>. But the city, it must be confessed, is +less pictorial than the word, in spite of the Place du Capitole, in +spite of the quay of the Garonne, in spite of the curious cloister of +the old museum. What justifies the images that are latent in the word is +not the aspect, but the history, of the town. The hotel to which the +well-advised traveller will repair stands in a corner of the Place du +Capitole, which is the heart and centre of Toulouse, and which bears a +vague and inexpensive resemblance to Piazza Castello at Turin. The +Capitol, with a wide modern face, occupies one side, and, like the +palace at Turin, looks across at a high arcade, under which the hotels, +the principal shops, and the lounging citizens are gathered. The shops, +are probably better than the Turinese, but the people are not so good. +Stunted, shabby, rather vitiated looking, they have none of the personal +richness of the sturdy Piedmontese; and I will take this occasion to +remark that in the course of a journey of several weeks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +in the French provinces I rarely encountered a well-dressed male. Can it +be possible that republics are unfavourable to a certain attention to +one's boots and one's beard? I risk this somewhat futile inquiry because +the proportion of neat coats and trousers seemed to be about the same in +France and in my native land. It was notably lower than in England and +in Italy, and even warranted the supposition that most good provincials +have their chin shaven and their boots blacked but once a week. I hasten +to add, lest my observation should appear to be of a sadly superficial +character, that the manners and conversation of these gentlemen bore +(whenever I had occasion to appreciate them) no relation to the state of +their chin and their boots. They were almost always marked by an extreme +amenity. At Toulouse there was the strongest temptation to speak to +people simply for the entertainment of hearing them reply with that +curious, that fascinating accent of the Languedoc, which appears to +abound in final consonants and leads the Toulousians to say <i>bien-g</i> and +<i>maison-g</i> like Englishmen learning French. It is as if they talked with +their teeth rather than with their tongue. I find in my note-book a +phrase in regard to Toulouse which is perhaps a little ill-natured, but +which I will transcribe as it stands: "The oddity is that the place +should be both animated and dull. A big, brown-skinned population, +clattering about in a flat, tortuous town, which produces nothing +whatever that I can discover. Except the church of Saint-Sernin and the +fine old court of the Hôtel d'Assézat, Toulouse has no architecture; the +houses are for the most part of brick, of a greyish-red colour, and have +no particular style. The brickwork of the place is in fact very +poor—inferior to that of the North Italian towns and quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> +wanting in the wealth of tone which this homely material takes on in +general in the climates of dampness and greenness." And then my +note-book goes on to narrate a little visit to the Capitol, which was +soon made, as the building was in course of repair and half the rooms +were closed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_049.png" width="450" height="300" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xx" id="Chapter_xx"></a>Chapter xx</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Toulouse: the Capitol</div> + +<p>THE history of Toulouse is detestable, saturated with blood and perfidy; +and the ancient custom of the Floral Games, grafted upon all sorts of +internecine traditions, seems, with its false pastoralism, its mock +chivalry, its display of fine feelings, to set off rather than to +mitigate these horrors. The society was founded in the fourteenth +century, and it has held annual meetings ever since—meetings at which +poems in the fine old <i>langue d'oc</i> are declaimed and a blushing +laureate is chosen. This business takes place in the Capitol, before the +chief magistrate of the town, who is known as the <i>capitoul</i>, and of all +the pretty women as well—a class very numerous at Toulouse. It is +unusual to present a finer person than that of the portress who +pretended to show me the apartments in which the Floral Games are held; +a big, brown, expansive woman, still in the prime of life, with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> +speaking eye, an extraordinary assurance, and a pair of magenta +stockings, which were inserted into the neatest and most polished little +black sabots, and which, as she clattered up the stairs before me, +lavishly displaying them, made her look like the heroine of an +<i>opéra-bouffe</i>. Her talk was all in <i>n</i>'s, <i>g</i>'s and <i>d</i>'s, and in mute +<i>e</i>'s strongly accented, as <i>autré</i>, <i>théâtré</i>, <i>splendidé</i>—the last +being an epithet she applied to everything the Capitol contained, and +especially to a horrible picture representing the famous Clémence +Isaure, the reputed foundress of the poetical contest, presiding on one +of these occasions. I wondered whether Clémence Isaure had been anything +like this terrible Toulousaine of to-day, who would have been a capital +figure-head for a floral game. The lady in whose honour the picture I +have just mentioned was painted is a somewhat mythical personage, and +she is not to be found in the "Biographie Universelle." She is, however, +a very graceful myth; and if she never existed, her statue at least +does—a shapeless effigy transferred to the Capitol from the so-called +tomb of Clémence in the old church of La Daurade. The great hall in +which the Floral Games are held was encumbered with scaffoldings, and I +was unable to admire the long series of busts of the bards who have won +prizes and the portraits of all the capitouls of Toulouse. As a +compensation I was introduced to a big bookcase filled with the poems +that have been crowned since the days of the troubadours (a portentous +collection), and the big butcher's knife with which, according to the +legend, Henry, Duke of Montmorency, who had conspired against the great +cardinal with Gaston of Orleans and Mary de'Medici, was, in 1632, +beheaded on this spot by the order of Richelieu. With these objects the +interest of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Toulouse: the Capitol</div> + +<p>Capitol was exhausted. The building indeed has not the grandeur of its +name, which is a sort of promise that the visitor will find some +sensible embodiment of the old Roman tradition that once nourished in +this part of France. It is inferior in impressiveness to the other three +famous Capitols of the modern world—that of Rome (if I may call the +present structure modern) and those of Washington and Albany!</p> + +<p>The only Roman remains at Toulouse are to be found in the museum—a very +interesting establishment, which I was condemned to see as imperfectly +as I had seen the Capitol. It was being rearranged; and the gallery of +paintings, which is the least interesting feature, was the only part +that was not upside-down. The pictures are mainly of the modern French +school, and I remember nothing but a powerful though disagreeable +specimen of Henner, who paints the human body, and paints it so well, +with a brush dipped in blackness; and, placed among the paintings, a +bronze replica of the charming young David of Mercié. These things have +been set out in the church of an old monastery, long since suppressed, +and the rest of the collection occupies the cloisters. These are two in +number—a small one, which you enter first from the street, and a very +vast and elegant one beyond it, which, with its light gothic arches and +slim columns (of the fourteenth century), its broad walk, its little +garden with old tombs and statues in the centre, is by far the most +picturesque, the most sketchable, spot in Toulouse. It must be doubly so +when the Roman busts, inscriptions, slabs, and sarcophagi are ranged +along the walls; it must indeed (to compare small things with great, and +as the judicious Murray remarks) bear a certain resemblance to the Campo +Santo at Pisa. But these things are absent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> +now; the cloister is a litter of confusion, and its treasures have been +stowed away confusedly in sundry inaccessible rooms. The custodian +attempted to console me by telling me that when they are exhibited again +it will be on a scientific basis and with an order and regularity of +which they were formerly innocent. But I was not consoled. I wanted +simply the spectacle, the picture, and I didn't care in the least for +the classification. Old Roman fragments exposed to light in the open +air, under a southern sky, in a quadrangle round a garden, have an +immortal charm simply in their general effect; and the charm is all the +greater when the soil of the very place has yielded them up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 205px;"> +<img src="images/ill_050.png" width="205" height="300" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxi" id="Chapter_xxi"></a>Chapter xxi</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Toulouse: Saint-Sernin</div> + +<p>MY real consolation was an hour I spent in Saint-Sernin, one of the +noblest churches in southern France, and easily the first among those of +Toulouse. This great structure, a masterpiece of twelfth-century +romanesque and dedicated to Saint Saturninus—the Toulousains have +abbreviated—is, I think, alone worth a journey to Toulouse. What makes +it so is the extraordinary seriousness of its interior; no other term +occurs to me as expressing so well the character of its clear grey nave. +As a general thing, I favour little the fashion of attributing moral +qualities to buildings; I shrink from talking about tender cornices and +sincere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> +campanili; but one feels that one can scarce get on without imputing +some sort of morality to Saint-Sernin. As it stands to-day, the church +has been completely restored by Viollet-le-Duc. The exterior is of +brick, and has little charm save that of a tower of four rows of arches, +narrowing together as they ascend. The nave is of great length and +height, the barrel-roof of stone, the effect of the round arches and +pillars in the triforium especially fine. There are two low aisles on +either side. The choir is very deep and narrow; it seems to close +together, and looks as if it were meant for intensely earnest rites. The +transepts are most noble, especially the arches of the second tier. The +whole church is narrow for its length and is singularly complete and +homogeneous. As I say all this I feel that I quite fail to give an +impression of its manly gravity, its strong proportions, or of the +lonesome look of its renovated stones as I sat there while the October +twilight gathered. It is a real work of art, a high conception. The +crypt, into which I was eventually led captive by an importunate +sacristan, is quite another affair, though indeed I suppose it may also +be spoken of as a work of art. It is a rich museum of relics, and +contains the head of Saint Thomas Aquinas wrapped up in a napkin and +exhibited in a glass case. The sacristan took a lamp and guided me +about, presenting me to one saintly remnant after another. The +impression was grotesque, but some of the objects were contained in +curious old cases of beaten silver and brass: these things at least, +which looked as if they had been transmitted from the early church, were +venerable. There was, however, a kind of wholesale sanctity about the +place which overshot the mark; it pretends to be one of the holiest +spots in the world. The effect is spoiled by the way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 412px;"> +<img src="images/ill_051_th.png" width="412" height="550" alt="TOULOUSE SAINT-SERNIN (THE TRANSEPT)" /> +<span class="caption">TOULOUSE SAINT-SERNIN (THE TRANSEPT)</span> +<a href="images/ill_051.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">the sacristans hang about and offer to take you into it for ten sous—I +was accosted by two and escaped from another—and by the familiar manner +in which you pop in and out. This episode rather broke the charm of +Saint-Sernin, so that I took my departure and went in search of the +cathedral. It was scarcely worth finding, and struck me as an odd, +dislocated fragment. The front consists only of a portal beside which a +tall brick tower of a later period has been erected. The nave was +wrapped in dimness, with a few scattered lamps. I could only distinguish +an immense vault, like a high cavern, without aisles. Here and there in +the gloom was a kneeling figure; the whole place was mysterious and +lopsided. The choir was curtained off; it appeared not to correspond +with the nave—that is, not to have the same axis. The only other +ecclesiastical impression I gathered at Toulouse came to me in the +church of La Daurade, of which the front, on the quay by the Garonne, +was closed with scaffoldings; so that one entered it from behind, where +it is completely masked by houses, through a door which has at first no +traceable connection with it. It is a vast, high, modernised, heavily +decorated church, dimly lighted at all times, I should suppose, and +enriched by the shades of evening at the time I looked into it. I +perceived that it consisted mainly of a large square, beneath a dome, in +the centre of which a single person—a lady—was praying with the utmost +absorption. The manner of access to the church interposed such an +obstacle to the outer profanities that I had a sense of intruding and +presently withdrew, carrying with me a picture of the vast, still +interior, the gilded roof gleaming in the twilight, and the solitary +worshipper. What was she praying for, and was she not almost afraid to +remain there alone?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Toulouse</div> + +<p>For the rest, the picturesque at Toulouse consists principally of the +walk beside the Garonne, which is spanned, to the faubourg of +Saint-Cyprien, by a stout brick bridge. This hapless suburb, the +baseness of whose site is noticeable, lay for days under the water at +the time of the last inundations. The Garonne had almost mounted to the +roofs of the houses, and the place continues to present a blighted, +frightened look. Two or three persons with whom I had some conversation +spoke of that time as a memory of horror. I have not done with my +Italian comparisons; I shall never have done with them. I am therefore +free to say that in the way in which Toulouse looks out on the Garonne +there was something that reminded me vaguely of the way in which Pisa +looks out on the Arno. The red-faced houses—all of brick—along the +quay have a mixture of brightness and shabbiness, as well as the fashion +of the open <i>loggia</i> in the top-storey. The river, with another bridge +or two, might be the Arno, and the buildings on the other side of it—a +hospital, a suppressed convent—dip their feet into it with real +southern cynicism. I have spoken of the old Hôtel d'Assézat as the best +house at Toulouse; with the exception of the cloister of the museum, it +is the only "bit" I remember. It has fallen from the state of a noble +residence of the sixteenth century to that of a warehouse and a set of +offices; but a certain dignity lingers in its melancholy court, which is +divided from the street by a gateway that is still imposing and in which +a clambering vine and a red Virginia-creeper were suspended to the rusty +walls of brick and stone.</p> + +<p>The most interesting house at Toulouse is far from being the most +striking. At the door of No. 50 Rue des Filatiers, a featureless, solid +structure, was found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/ill_052.png" width="550" height="355" alt="TOULOUSE—THE GARONNE" /> +<span class="caption">TOULOUSE—THE GARONNE</span> +</div> + +<p class="non">hanging, one autumn evening, the body of the young Marc-Antoine Calas, +whose ill-inspired suicide was to be the first act of a tragedy so +horrible. The fanaticism aroused in the townsfolk by this incident; the +execution by torture of Jean Calas, accused as a Protestant of having +hanged his son, who had gone over to the Church of Rome; the ruin of the +family; the claustration of the daughters; the flight of the widow to +Switzerland; her introduction to Voltaire; the excited zeal of that +incomparable partisan and the passionate persistence with which, from +year to year, he pursued a reversal of judgment till at last he obtained +it and devoted the tribunal of Toulouse to execration and the name of +the victims to lasting wonder and pity—these things form part of one of +the most interesting and touching episodes of the social history of the +eighteenth century. The story has the fatal progression, the dark +rigour, of one of the tragic dramas of the Greeks. Jean Calas, advanced +in life, blameless, bewildered, protesting his innocence, had been +broken on the wheel; and the sight of his decent dwelling, which brought +home to me all that had been suffered there, spoiled for me, for half an +hour, the impression of Toulouse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_053.png" width="450" height="286" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxii" id="Chapter_xxii"></a>Chapter xxii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Carcassonne</div> + +<p>I SPENT but a few hours at Carcassonne; but those hours had a rounded +felicity, and I cannot do better than transcribe from my note-book the +little record made at the moment. Vitiated as it may be by crudity and +incoherency, it has at any rate the freshness of a great emotion. This +is the best quality that a reader may hope to extract from a narrative +in which "useful information" and technical lore even of the most +general sort are completely absent. For Carcassonne is moving, beyond a +doubt; and the traveller who in the course of a little tour in France +may have felt himself urged, in melancholy moments, to say that on the +whole the disappointments are as numerous as the satisfactions, must +admit that there can be nothing better than this.</p> + +<p>The country after you leave Toulouse continues to be charming; the more +so that it merges its flatness in the distant Cévennes on one side, and +on the other,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> +far away on your right, in the richer range of the Pyrenees. Olives and +cypresses, pergolas and vines, terraces on the roofs of houses, soft, +iridescent mountains, a warm yellow light—what more could the difficult +tourist want? He left his luggage at the station, warily determined to +look at the inn before committing himself to it. It was so evident (even +to a cursory glance) that it might easily have been much better, that he +simply took his way to the town, with the whole of a superb afternoon +before him. When I say the town, I mean the towns; there being two at +Carcassonne, perfectly distinct, and each with excellent claims to the +title. They have settled the matter between them, however, and the +elder, the shrine of pilgrimage, to which the other is but a +stepping-stone, or even, as I may say, a humble door-mat, takes the name +of the Cité. You see nothing of the Cité from the station; it is masked +by the agglomeration of the <i>ville-basse</i>, which is relatively (but only +relatively) new. A wonderful avenue of acacias leads to it from the +station—leads past it, rather, and conducts you to a little high-backed +bridge over the Aude, beyond which, detached and erect, a distinct +mediæval silhouette, the Cité presents itself. Like a rival shop on the +invidious side of a street, it has "no connection" with the +establishment across the way, although the two places are united (if old +Carcassonne may be said to be united to anything) by a vague little +rustic faubourg. Perched on its solid pedestal, the perfect detachment +of the Cité is what first strikes you. To take leave, without delay, of +the <i>ville-basse</i>, I may say that the splendid acacias I have mentioned +flung a summerish dusk over the place, in which a few scattered remains +of stout walls and big bastions looked venerable and picturesque.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Carcassonne</div> + +<p>A little boulevard winds round the town, planted with trees and +garnished with more benches than I ever saw provided by a soft-hearted +municipality. This precinct had a warm, lazy, dusty, southern look, as +if the people sat out-of-doors a great deal and wandered about in the +stillness of summer nights. The figure of the elder town at these hours +must be ghostly enough on its neighbouring hill. Even by day it has the +air of a vignette of Gustave Doré, a couplet of Victor Hugo. It is +almost too perfect—as if it were an enormous model placed on a big +green table at a museum. A steep, paved way, grass-grown like all roads +where vehicles never pass, stretches up to it in the sun. It has a +double enceinte, complete outer walls and complete inner (these, +elaborately fortified, are the more curious); and this congregation of +ramparts, towers, bastions, battlements, barbicans, is as fantastic and +romantic as you please. The approach I mention here leads to the gate +that looks toward Toulouse—the Porte de l'Aude. There is a second, on +the other side, called, I believe, the Porte Narbonnaise, a magnificent +gate, flanked with towers thick and tall, defended by elaborate +outworks; and these two apertures alone admit you to the place—putting +aside a small sally-port, protected by a great bastion, on the quarter +that looks toward the Pyrenees.</p> + +<p>As a votary, always, in the first instance, of a general impression, I +walked all round the outer enceinte—a process on the very face of it +entertaining. I took to the right of the Porte de l'Aude, without +entering it, where the old moat has been filled in. The filling-in of +the moat has created a grassy level at the foot of the big grey towers, +which, rising at frequent intervals, stretch their stiff curtain of +stone from point to point:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> +the curtain drops without a fold upon the quiet grass, which was dotted +here and there with a humble native dozing away the golden afternoon. +The natives of the elder Carcassonne are all humble; for the core of the +Cité has shrunken and decayed, and there is little life among the ruins. +A few tenacious labourers who work in the neighbouring fields or in the +<i>ville-basse</i>, and sundry octogenarians of both sexes, who are dying +where they have lived and contribute much to the pictorial effect—these +are the principal inhabitants. The process of converting the place from +an irresponsible old town into a conscious "specimen" has of course been +attended with eliminations; the population has, as a general thing, been +restored away. I should lose no time in saying that restoration is the +great mark of the Cité. M. Viollet-le-Duc has worked his will upon it, +put it into perfect order, revived the fortifications in every detail. I +do not pretend to judge the performance, carried out on a scale and in a +spirit which really impose themselves on the imagination. Few architects +have had such a chance, and M. Viollet-le-Duc must have been the envy of +the whole restoring fraternity. The image of a more crumbling +Carcassonne rises in the mind, and there is no doubt that forty years +ago the place was more affecting. On the other hand, as we see it to-day +it is a wonderful evocation; and if there is a great deal of new in the +old, there is plenty of old in the new. The repaired crenellations, the +inserted patches of the walls of the outer circle, sufficiently express +this commixture. My walk brought me into full view of the Pyrenees, +which, now that the sun had begun to sink and the shadows to grow long, +had a wonderful violet glow. The platform at the base of the walls has a +greater width on this side, and it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> +made the scene more complete. Two or three old crones had crawled out of +the Porte Narbonnaise to examine the advancing visitor; and a very +ancient peasant, lying there with his back against a tower, was tending +half a dozen lean sheep. A poor man in a very old blouse, crippled and +with crutches lying beside him, had been brought out and placed on a +stool, where he enjoyed the afternoon as best he might. He looked so ill +and so patient that I spoke to him; found that his legs were paralysed +and he was quite helpless. He had formerly been seven years in the army, +and had made the campaign of Mexico with Bazaine. Born in the old Cité, +he had come back there to end his days. It seemed strange, as he sat +there with those romantic walls behind him and the great picture of the +Pyrenees in front, to think that he had been across the seas to the +far-away new world, had made part of a famous expedition, and was now a +cripple at the gate of the mediæval city where he had played as a child. +All this struck me as a great deal of history for so modest a figure—a +poor little figure that could only just unclose its palm for a small +silver coin.</p> + +<p>He<span class="sidenote">Carcassonne</span> was not the only acquaintance I made at Carcassonne. I had not +pursued my circuit of the walls much farther when I encountered a person +of quite another type, of whom I asked some question which had just then +presented itself, and who proved to be the very genius of the spot. He +was a sociable son of the <i>ville-basse</i>, a gentleman, and, as I +afterwards learned, an employé at the prefecture—a person, in short, +much esteemed at Carcassonne. (I may say all this, as he will never read +these pages.) He had been ill for a month, and in the company of his +little dog was taking his first airing; in his own phrase, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> +was <i>amoureux-fou de la Cité</i>—he could lose no time in coming back to +it. He talked of it indeed as a lover, and, giving me for half an hour +the advantage of his company, showed me all the points of the place. (I +speak here always of the outer enceinte; you penetrate to the +inner—which is the specialty of Carcassonne and the great +curiosity—only by application at the lodge of the regular custodian, a +remarkable functionary, who, half an hour later, when I had been +introduced to him by my friend the amateur, marched me over the +fortifications with a tremendous accompaniment of dates and technical +terms.) My companion pointed out to me in particular the traces of +different periods in the structure of the walls. There is a portentous +amount of history embedded in them, beginning with Romans and Visigoths; +here and there are marks of old breaches hastily repaired. We passed +into the town—into that part of it not included in the citadel. It is +the queerest and most fragmentary little place in the world, as +everything save the fortifications is being suffered to crumble away in +order that the spirit of M. Viollet-le-Duc alone may pervade it and it +may subsist simply as a magnificent shell. As the leases of the wretched +little houses fall in, the ground is cleared of them; and a mumbling old +woman approached me in the course of my circuit, inviting me to condole +with her on the disappearance of so many of the hovels which in the last +few hundred years (since the collapse of Carcassonne as a stronghold) +had attached themselves to the base of the walls, in the space between +the two circles. These habitations, constructed of materials taken from +the ruins, nestled there snugly enough. This intermediate space had +therefore become a kind of street, which has crumbled in turn, as the +fortress<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> +has grown up again. There are other streets beside, very diminutive and +vague, where you pick your way over heaps of rubbish and become +conscious of unexpected faces looking at you out of windows as detached +as the cherubic heads. The most definite thing in the place was the +little café, where the waiters, I think, must be the ghosts of the old +Visigoths; the most definite, that is, after the little château and the +little cathedral. Everything in the Cité is little; you can walk round +the walls in twenty minutes. On the drawbridge of the château, which, +with a picturesque old face, flanking towers, and a dry moat, is to-day +simply a bare <i>caserne</i>, lounged half a dozen soldiers, unusually small. +Nothing could be more odd than to see these objects enclosed in a +receptacle which has much of the appearance of an enormous toy. The Cité +and its population vaguely reminded me of an immense Noah's ark.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_054.png" width="450" height="291" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxiii" id="Chapter_xxiii"></a>Chapter xxiii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Carcassonne</div> + +<p>CARCASSONE dates from the Roman occupation of Gaul. The place commanded +one of the great roads into Spain, and in the fourth century Romans and +Franks ousted each other from such a point of vantage. In the year 436 +Theodoric King of the Visigoths superseded both these parties; and it +was during his occupation that the inner enceinte was raised upon the +ruins of the Roman fortifications. Most of the Visigoth towers that are +still erect are seated upon Roman substructions which appear to have +been formed hastily, probably at the moment of the Frankish invasion. +The authors of these solid defences, though occasionally disturbed, held +Carcassonne and the neighbouring country, in which they had established +their kingdom of Septimania, till the year 713, when they were expelled +by the Moors of Spain, who ushered in an unillumined period of four +centuries, of which no traces remain. These facts I derive from a +source<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> +no more recondite than a pamphlet by M. Viollet-le-Duc—a very luminous +description of the fortifications, which you may buy from the +accomplished custodian. The writer makes a jump to the year 1209, when +Carcassonne, then forming part of the realm of the viscounts of Béziers +and infected by the Albigensian heresy, was besieged, in the name of the +Pope, by the terrible Simon de Montfort and his army of crusaders. Simon +was accustomed to success, and the town succumbed in the course of a +fortnight. Thirty-one years later, having passed into the hands of the +King of France, it was again besieged by the young Raymond de Trincavel, +the last of the viscounts of Béziers; and of this siege M. +Viollet-le-Duc gives a long and minute account, which the visitor who +has a head for such things may follow, with the brochure in hand, on the +fortifications themselves. The young Raymond de Trincavel, baffled and +repulsed, retired at the end of twenty-four days. Saint Louis and Philip +the Bold, in the thirteenth century, multiplied the defences of +Carcassonne, which was one of the bulwarks of their kingdom on the +Spanish quarter; and from this time forth, being regarded as +impregnable, the place had nothing to fear. It was not even attacked; +and when in 1355 Edward the Black Prince marched into it, the +inhabitants had opened the gates to the conqueror before whom all +Languedoc was prostrate. I am not one of those who, as I said just now, +have a head for such things, and having extracted these few facts, had +made all the use of M. Viollet-le-Duc's pamphlet of which I was capable.</p> + +<p>I have mentioned that my obliging friend the <i>amoureux-fou</i> handed me +over to the doorkeeper of the citadel. I should add that I was at first +committed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 358px;"> +<img src="images/ill_055_th.png" width="358" height="550" alt="CARCASSONNE." /> +<span class="caption">CARCASSONNE.</span> +<a href="images/ill_055.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">to the wife of this functionary, a stout peasant-woman, who took a key +down from a nail, conducted me to a postern door, and ushered me into +the presence of her husband. Having just begun his rounds with a party +of four persons, he was not many steps in advance. I added myself +perforce to this party, which was not brilliantly composed, except that +two of its members were gendarmes in full toggery, who announced in the +course of our tour that they had been stationed for a year at +Carcassonne and had never before had the curiosity to come up to the +Cité. There was something brilliant certainly in that. The <i>gardien</i> was +an extraordinarily typical little Frenchman, who struck me even more +forcibly than the wonders of the inner enceinte; and as I am bound to +assume, at whatever cost to my literary vanity, that there is not the +slightest danger of his reading these remarks, I may treat him as public +property. With his diminutive stature and his perpendicular spirit, his +flushed face, expressive protuberant eyes, high peremptory voice, +extreme volubility, lucidity and neatness of utterance, he reminded me +of the gentry who figure in the revolutions of his native land. If he +was not a fierce little Jacobin, he ought to have been, for I am sure +there were many men of his pattern on the Committee of Public Safety. He +knew absolutely what he was about, understood the place thoroughly, and +constantly reminded his audience of what he himself had done in the way +of excavations and reparations. He described himself as the brother of +the architect of the work actually going forward (that which has been +done since the death of M. Viollet-le-Duc, I suppose he meant), and this +fact was more illustrative than all the others. It reminded me, as one +is reminded at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> +every turn, of the democratic conditions of French life: a man of the +people, with a wife <i>en bonnet</i>, extremely intelligent, full of special +knowledge, and yet remaining essentially of the people and showing his +intelligence with a kind of ferocity, of defiance. Such a personage +helps one to understand the red radicalism of France, the revolutions, +the barricades, the sinister passion for theories. (I do not, of course, +take upon myself to say that the individual I describe—who can know +nothing of the liberties I am taking with him—is actually devoted to +these ideals; I only mean that many such devotees must have his +qualities.) In just the <i>nuance</i> that I have tried to indicate here it +is a terrible pattern of man. Permeated in a high degree by +civilisation, it is yet untouched by the desire which one finds in the +Englishman, in proportion as he rises in the world, to approximate to +the figure of the gentleman. On the other hand, a <i>netteté</i>, a faculty +of exposition, such as the English gentleman is rarely either blessed or +cursed with.</p> + +<p>This<span class="sidenote">Carcassonne</span> brilliant, this suggestive warden of Carcassonne marched us about +for an hour, haranguing, explaining, illustrating as he went; it was a +complete little lecture, such as might have been delivered at the Lowell +Institute, on the manner in which a first-rate <i>place forte</i> used to be +attacked and defended. Our peregrinations made it very clear that +Carcassonne was impregnable; it is impossible to imagine without having +seen them such refinements of immurement, such ingenuities of +resistance. We passed along the battlements and <i>chemins de ronde</i>, +ascended and descended towers, crawled under arches, peered out of +loopholes, lowered ourselves into dungeons, halted in all sorts of tight +places while the purpose of something or other was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 348px;"> +<img src="images/ill_056_th.png" width="348" height="550" alt="CARCASSONNE" /> +<span class="caption">CARCASSONNE</span> +<a href="images/ill_056.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">described to us. It was very curious, very interesting; above all it was +very pictorial, and involved perpetual peeps into the little crooked, +crumbling, sunny, grassy, empty Cité. In places, as you stand upon it, +the great towered and embattled enceinte produces an illusion; it looks +as if it were still equipped and defended. One vivid challenge, at any +rate, it flings down before you; it calls upon you to make up your mind +on the matter of restoration. For myself I have no hesitation; I prefer +in every case the ruined, however ruined, to the reconstructed, however +splendid. What is left is more precious than what is added; the one is +history, the other is fiction; and I like the former the better of the +two—it is so much more romantic. One is positive, so far as it goes; +the other fills up the void with things more dead than the void itself, +inasmuch as they have never had life. After that I am free to say that +the restoration of Carcassonne is a splendid achievement. The little +custodian dismissed us at last, after having, as usual, inducted us into +the inevitable repository of photographs. These photographs are a great +nuisance all over the Midi. They are exceedingly bad for the most part; +and the worst—those in the form of the hideous little +<i>album-panorama</i>—are thrust upon you at every turn. They are a kind of +tax that you must pay; the best way is to pay to be let off. It was not +to be denied that there was a relief in separating from our accomplished +guide, whose manner of imparting information reminded me of the +energetic process by which I had seen mineral waters bottled. All this +while the afternoon had grown more lovely; the sunset had deepened, the +horizon of hills grown purple; the mass of the Canigou became more +delicate, yet more distinct. The day had so far faded that the interior +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> +the little cathedral was wrapped in twilight, into which the glowing +windows projected something of their colour. This church has high beauty +and value, but I will spare the reader a presentation of details which I +myself had no opportunity to master. It consists of a romanesque nave, +of the end of the eleventh century, and a Gothic choir and transepts of +the beginning of the fourteenth; and, shut up in its citadel like a +precious casket in a cabinet, it seems—or seemed at that hour—to have +a sort of double sanctity. After leaving it and passing out of the two +circles of walls, I treated myself, in the most infatuated manner, to +another walk round the Cité. It is certainly this general impression +that is most striking—the impression from outside, where the whole +place detaches itself at once from the landscape. In the warm southern +dusk it looked more than ever like a city in a fairy tale. To make the +thing perfect, a white young moon, in its first quarter, came out and +hung just over the dark silhouette. It was hard to come away—to +incommode one's self for anything so vulgar as a railway train; I would +gladly have spent the evening in revolving round the walls of +Carcassonne. But I had in a measure engaged to proceed to Narbonne, and +there was a certain magic in that name which gave me strength—Narbonne, +the richest city in Roman Gaul.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_057.png" width="450" height="338" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxiv" id="Chapter_xxiv"></a>Chapter xxiv</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Narbonne</div> + +<p>AT Narbonne I took up my abode at the house of a <i>serrurier mécanicien</i>, +and was very thankful for the accommodation. It was my misfortune to +arrive at this ancient city late at night, on the eve of market-day; and +market-day at Narbonne is a very serious affair. The inns, on this +occasion, are stuffed with wine-dealers; for the country round about, +dedicated almost exclusively to Bacchus, has hitherto escaped the +phylloxera. This deadly enemy of the grape is encamped over the Midi in +a hundred places; blighted vineyards and ruined proprietors being quite +the order of the day. The signs of distress are more frequent as you +advance into Provence, many of the vines being laid under water in the +hope of washing the plague away. There are healthy regions still, +however, and the vintners find plenty to do at Narbonne.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Narbonne</div> + +<p>The traffic in wine appeared to be the sole thought of the Narbonnais; +every one I spoke to had something to say about the harvest of gold that +bloomed under its influence. "C'est inoui, monsieur, l'argent qu'il y a +dans ce pays. Des gens à qui la vente de leur vin rapporte jusqu'à +500,000 francs par an." That little speech addressed to me by a +gentleman at the inn gives the note of these revelations. It must be +said that there was little in the appearance either of the town or of +its population to suggest the possession of such treasures. Narbonne is +a <i>sale petite ville</i> in all the force of the term, and my first +impression on arriving there was an extreme regret that I had not +remained for the night at the lovely Carcassonne. My journey from that +delectable spot lasted a couple of hours and was performed in +darkness—a darkness not so dense, however, but that I was able to make +out, as we passed it, the great figure of Béziers, whose ancient roofs +and towers, clustered on a goodly hill-top, looked as fantastic as you +please. I know not what appearance Béziers may present by day, but by +night it has quite the grand air. On issuing from the station at +Narbonne I found that the only vehicle in waiting was a kind of bastard +tramcar, a thing shaped as if it had been meant to go upon rails; that +is, equipped with small wheels, placed beneath it, and with a platform +at either end, but destined to rattle over the stones like the most +vulgar of omnibuses. To complete the oddity of this conveyance, it was +under the supervision, not of a conductor, but of a conductress. A fair +young woman with a pouch suspended from her girdle had command of the +platform; and as soon as the car was full she jolted us into the town +through clouds of the thickest dust I ever have swallowed. I have had +occasion to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> +speak of the activity of women in France—of the way they are always in +the ascendant; and here was a signal example of their general utility. +The young lady I have mentioned conveyed her whole company to the +wretched little Hôtel de France, where it is to be hoped that some of +them found a lodging. For myself, I was informed that the place was +crowded from cellar to attic, and that its inmates were sleeping three +or four in a room. At Carcassonne I should have had a bad bed, but at +Narbonne, apparently, I was to have no bed at all. I passed an hour or +two of flat suspense while fate settled the question of whether I should +go on to Perpignan, return to Béziers, or still discover a modest couch +at Narbonne. I shall not have suffered in vain, however, if my example +serves to deter other travellers from alighting unannounced at that city +on a Wednesday evening. The retreat to Béziers, not attempted in time, +proved impossible, and I was assured that at Perpignan, which I should +not reach till midnight, the affluence of wine-dealers was not less than +at Narbonne. I interviewed every hostess in the town, and got no +satisfaction but distracted shrugs. Finally, at an advanced hour, one of +the servants of the Hôtel de France, where I had attempted to dine, came +to me in triumph to proclaim that he had secured for me a charming +apartment in a <i>maison bourgeoise</i>. I took possession of it gratefully, +in spite of its having an entrance like a stable and being pervaded by +an odour compared with which that of a stable would have been delicious. +As I have mentioned, my landlord was a locksmith, and he had strange +machines which rumbled and whirred in the rooms below my own. +Nevertheless I slept, and I dreamed of Carcassonne. It was better to do +that than to dream of the Hôtel de France.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Narbonne</div> + +<p>I was obliged to cultivate relations with the cuisine of this +establishment. Nothing could have been more <i>méridional</i>; indeed, both +the dirty little inn and Narbonne at large seemed to me to have the +infirmities of the south without its usual graces. Narrow, noisy, +shabby, belittered and encumbered, filled with clatter and chatter, the +Hôtel de France would have been described in perfection by Alphonse +Daudet. For what struck me above all in it was the note of the Midi as +he has represented it—the sound of universal talk. The landlord sat at +supper with sundry friends in a kind of glass cage, with a genial +indifference to arriving guests; the waiters tumbled over the loose +luggage in the hall; the travellers who had been turned away leaned +gloomily against door-posts; and the landlady, surrounded by confusion, +unconscious of responsibility, and animated only by the spirit of +conversation, bandied high-voiced compliments with the <i>voyageurs de +commerce</i>. At ten o'clock in the morning there was a table d'hôte for +breakfast—a wonderful repast, which overflowed into every room and +pervaded the whole establishment. I sat down with a hundred hungry +marketers, fat, brown, greasy men, with a good deal of the rich soil of +Languedoc adhering to their hands and their boots. I mention the latter +articles because they almost put them on the table. It was very hot, and +there were swarms of flies; the viands had the strongest odour; there +was in particular a horrible mixture known as <i>gras-double</i>, a light +grey, glutinous, nauseating mess, which my companions devoured in large +quantities. A man opposite to me had the dirtiest fingers I ever saw; a +collection of fingers which in England would have excluded him from a +farmers' ordinary. The conversation was mainly bucolic; though a part of +it, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 358px;"> +<img src="images/ill_058_th.png" width="358" height="550" alt="NARBONNE—THE WASHING PLACE" /> +<span class="caption">NARBONNE—THE WASHING PLACE</span> +<a href="images/ill_058.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">remember, at the table at which I sat, consisted of a discussion as to +whether or no the maid-servant were <i>sage</i>—a discussion which went on +under the nose of this young lady, as she carried about the dreadful +<i>gras-double</i>, and to which she contributed the most convincing blushes. +It was thoroughly <i>méridional</i>.</p> + +<p>In going to Narbonne I had of course counted upon Roman remains; but +when I went forth in search of them I perceived that I had hoped too +fondly. There is really nothing in the place to speak of; that is, on +the day of my visit there was nothing but the market, which was in +complete possession. "This intricate, curious, but lifeless town," +Murray calls it; yet to me it appeared overflowing with life. Its +streets are mere crooked, dirty lanes, bordered with perfectly +insignificant houses; but they were filled with the same clatter and +chatter that I had found at the hotel. The market was held partly in the +little square of the hôtel de ville, a structure which a flattering +woodcut in the Guide-Joanne had given me a desire to behold. The reality +was not impressive, the old colour of the front having been completely +restored away. Such interest as it superficially possesses it derives +from a fine mediæval tower which rises beside it with turrets at the +angles—always a picturesque thing. The rest of the market was held in +another <i>place</i>, still shabbier than the first, which lies beyond the +canal. The Canal du Midi flows through the town, and, spanned at this +point by a small suspension-bridge, presented a certain sketchability. +On the farther side were the vendors and chafferers—old women under +awnings and big umbrellas, rickety tables piled high with fruit, white +caps and brown faces, blouses, sabots, donkeys. Beneath this picture was +another—a long row of washerwomen, on their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> +knees on the edge of the canal, pounding and wringing the dirty linen of +Narbonne—no great quantity, to judge by the costume of the people. +Innumerable rusty men, scattered all over the place, were buying and +selling wine, straddling about in pairs, in groups, with their hands in +their pockets, and packed together at the doors of the cafés. They were +mostly fat and brown and unshaven; they ground their teeth as they +talked; they were very <i>méridionaux</i>.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">Narbonne</span> only two lions at Narbonne are the cathedral and the museum, the +latter of which is quartered in the hôtel de ville. The cathedral, +closely shut in by houses and with the west front undergoing repairs, is +singular in two respects. It consists exclusively of a choir, which is +of the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the next, and +of great magnificence. There is absolutely nothing else. This choir, of +extraordinary elevation, forms the whole church. I sat there a good +while; there was no other visitor. I had taken a great dislike to poor +little Narbonne, which struck me as sordid and overheated, and this +place seemed to extend to me, as in the Middle Ages, the privilege of +sanctuary. It is a very solemn corner. The other peculiarity of the +cathedral is that, externally, it bristles with battlements, having +anciently formed part of the defences of the <i>archevêché</i>, which is +beside it and which connects it with the hôtel de ville. This +combination of the church and the fortress is very curious, and during +the Middle Ages was not without its value. The palace of the former +archbishops of Narbonne (the hôtel de ville of to-day forms part of it) +was both an asylum and an arsenal during the hideous wars by which all +Languedoc was ravaged in the thirteenth century. The whole mass of +buildings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 346px;"> +<img src="images/ill_059_th.png" width="346" height="550" alt="NARBONNE—THE CATHEDRAL AND HÔTEL DE VILLE." /> +<span class="caption">NARBONNE—THE CATHEDRAL AND HÔTEL DE VILLE.</span> +<a href="images/ill_059.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">is jammed together in a manner that from certain points of view makes it +far from apparent which feature is which. The museum occupies several +chambers at the top of the hôtel de ville, and is not an imposing +collection. It was closed, but I induced the portress to let me in—a +silent, cadaverous person, in a black coif, like a <i>béguine</i>, who sat +knitting in one of the windows while I went the rounds. The number of +Roman fragments is small, and their quality is not the finest; I must +add that this impression was hastily gathered. There is, indeed, a work +of art in one of the rooms which creates a presumption in favour of the +place—the portrait (rather a good one) of a citizen of Narbonne, whose +name I forget, who is described as having devoted all his time and his +intelligence to collecting the objects by which the visitor is +surrounded. This excellent man was a connoisseur, and the visitor is +doubtless often an ignoramus.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_060.png" width="450" height="291" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxv" id="Chapter_xxv"></a>Chapter xxv</h3> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Cette, with its glistening houses white,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Curves with the curving beach away</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">To where the lighthouse beacons bright,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Far in the bay."</span><br /> +</p> + + +<div class="sidenote">Montpellier</div> + +<p>THAT stanza of Matthew Arnold's, which I happened to remember, gave a +certain importance to the half-hour I spent in the buffet of the station +at Cette while I waited for the train to Montpellier. I had left +Narbonne in the afternoon, and by the time I reached Cette the darkness +had descended. I therefore missed the sight of the glistening houses, +and had to console myself with that of the beacon in the bay, as well as +with a <i>bouillon</i> of which I partook at the buffet aforesaid; for, since +the morning, I had not ventured to return to the table d'hôte at +Narbonne. The Hôtel Nevet at Montpellier, which I reached an hour later, +has an ancient renown all over the south of France—advertises itself, I +believe, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> +<i>le plus vastedu midi</i>. It seemed to me the model of a good provincial +inn; a big rambling, creaking establishment, with brown, labyrinthine +corridors, a queer old open-air vestibule, into which the diligence, in +the <i>bon temps</i>, used to penetrate, and an hospitality more expressive +than that of the new caravansaries. It dates from the days when +Montpellier was still accounted a fine winter residence for people with +weak lungs; and this rather melancholy tradition, together with the +former celebrity of the school of medicine still existing there, but +from which the glory has departed, helps to account for its combination +of high antiquity and vast proportions. The old hotels were usually more +concentrated; but the school of medicine passed for one of the +attractions of Montpellier. Long before Mentone was discovered or +Colorado invented, British invalids travelled down through France in the +post-chaise or the public coach, to spend their winters in the wonderful +place which boasted both a climate and a faculty. The air is mild, no +doubt, but there are refinements of mildness which were not then +suspected, and which in a more analytic age have carried the annual wave +far beyond Montpellier. The place is charming, all the same; and it +served the purpose of John Locke, who made a long stay there, between +1675 and 1679, and became acquainted with a noble fellow-visitor, Lord +Pembroke, to whom he dedicated the famous Essay. There are places that +please without your being able to say wherefore, and Montpellier is one +of the number. It has some charming views, from the great promenade of +the Peyrou; but its position is not strikingly fine. Beyond this it +contains a good museum and the long façades of its school, but these are +its only definite treasures. Its cathedral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> +struck me as quite the weakest I had seen, and I remember no other +monument that made up for it. The place has neither the gaiety of a +modern nor the solemnity of an ancient town, and it is agreeable as +certain women are agreeable who are neither beautiful nor clever. An +Italian would remark that it is sympathetic; a German would admit that +it is <i>gemüthlich</i>. I spent two days there, mostly in the rain, and even +under these circumstances I carried away a kindly impression. I think +the Hôtel Nevet had something to do with it, and the sentiment of relief +with which, in a quiet, even a luxurious, room that looked out on a +garden, I reflected that I had washed my hands of Narbonne. The +phylloxera has destroyed the vines in the country that surrounds +Montpellier, and at that moment I was capable of rejoicing in the +thought that I should not breakfast with vintners.</p> + +<p>The gem of the place is the Musée Fabre, one of the best collections of +paintings in a provincial city. François Fabre, a native of Montpellier, +died there in 1837, after having spent a considerable part of his life +in Italy, where he had collected a good many valuable pictures and some +very poor ones, the latter class including several from his own hand. He +was the hero of a remarkable episode, having succeeded no less a person +than Vittorio Alfieri in the affections of no less a person than Louise +de Stolberg, Countess of Albany, widow of no less a person than Charles +Edward Stuart, the second pretender to the British crown. Surely no +woman ever was associated sentimentally with three figures more +diverse—a disqualified sovereign, an Italian dramatist, and a bad +French painter. The productions of M. Fabre, who followed in the steps +of David, bear the stamp of a cold mediocrity; there is not much to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> +be said even for the portrait of the genial countess (her life has been +written by M. Saint-Réné-Taillandier, who depicts her as delightful), +which hangs in Florence, in the gallery of the Uffizzi, and makes a +pendant to a likeness of Alfieri by the same author. Stendhal, in his +"Mémoires d'un Touriste," says that this work of art represents her as a +cook who has pretty hands. I am delighted to having an opportunity of +quoting Stendhal, whose two volumes of the "Mémoires d'un Touriste" +every traveller in France should carry in his portmanteau. I have had +this opportunity more than once, for I have met him at Tours, at Nantes, +at Bourges; and everywhere he is suggestive. But he has the defect that +he is never pictorial, that he never by any chance makes an image, and +that his style is perversely colourless for a man so fond of +contemplation. His taste is often singularly false; it is the taste of +the early years of the present century, the period that produced clocks +surmounted with sentimental "subjects." Stendhal does not admire these +clocks, but he almost does. He admires Domenichino and Guercino, he +prizes the Bolognese school of painters because they "spoke to the +soul." He is a votary of the new classic, is fond of tall, square, +regular buildings, and thinks Nantes, for instance, full of the "air +noble." It was a pleasure to me to reflect that five-and-forty years ago +he had alighted in that city, at the very inn in which I spent a night +and which looks down on the Place Graslin and the theatre. The hotel +that was the best in 1837 appears to be the best to-day. On the subject +of Touraine Stendhal is extremely refreshing; he finds the scenery +meagre and much overrated, and proclaims his opinion with perfect +frankness. He does, however, scant justice to the banks of the Loire; +his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> +want of appreciation of the picturesque—want of the sketcher's +sense—causes him to miss half the charm of a landscape which is nothing +if not "quiet," as a painter would say, and of which the felicities +reveal themselves only to waiting eyes. He even despises the Indre, the +river of Madame Sand. The "Mémoires d'un Touriste" are written in the +character of a commercial traveller, and the author has nothing to say +about Chenonceaux or Chambord, or indeed about any of the châteaux of +that part of France; his system being to talk only of the large towns, +where he may be supposed to find a market for his goods. It was his +ambition to pass for an ironmonger. But in the large towns he is usually +excellent company, though as discursive as Sterne and strangely +indifferent, for a man of imagination, to those superficial aspects of +things which the poor pages now before the reader are mainly an attempt +to render. It is his conviction that Alfieri, at Florence, bored the +Countess of Albany terribly; and he adds that the famous Gallophobe died +of jealousy of the little painter from Montpellier. The Countess of +Albany left her property to Fabre; and I suppose some of the pieces in +the museum of his native town used to hang in the sunny saloons of that +fine old palace on the Arno which is still pointed out to the stranger +in Florence as the residence of Alfieri.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">Montpellier</span> institution has had other benefactors, notably a certain M. Bruyas, +who has enriched it with an extraordinary number of portraits of +himself. As these, however, are by different hands, some of them +distinguished, we may suppose that it was less the model than the +artists to whom M. Bruyas wished to give publicity. Easily first are two +large specimens of David Teniers, which are incomparable for brilliancy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> +and a glowing perfection of execution. I have a weakness for this +singular genius, who combined the delicate with the grovelling, and I +have rarely seen richer examples. Scarcely less valuable is a Gerard Dow +which hangs near them, though it must rank lower, as having kept less of +its freshness. This Gerard Dow did me good, for a master is a master, +whatever he may paint. It represents a woman paring carrots, while a boy +before her exhibits a mouse-trap in which he has caught a frightened +victim. The goodwife has spread a cloth on the top of a big barrel which +serves her as a table, and on this brown, greasy napkin, of which the +texture is wonderfully rendered, lie the raw vegetables she is preparing +for domestic consumption. Beside the barrel is a large caldron lined +with copper, with a rim of brass. The way these things are painted +brings tears to the eyes; but they give the measure, of the Musée Fabre, +where two specimens of Teniers and a Gerard Dow are the jewels. The +Italian pictures are of small value; but there is a work by Sir Joshua +Reynolds, said to be the only one in France—an infant Samuel in prayer, +apparently a repetition of the picture in England which inspired the +little plaster image, disseminated in Protestant lands, that we used to +admire in our childhood. Sir Joshua, somehow, was an eminently +Protestant painter; no one can forget that, who in the National Gallery +in London has looked at the picture in which he represents several young +ladies as nymphs, voluminously draped, hanging garlands over a statue—a +picture suffused indefinably with the Anglican spirit and exasperating +to a member of one of the Latin races. It is an odd chance therefore +that has led him into that part of France where Protestants have been +least <i>bien vus</i>. This is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> +country of the dragonnades of Louis XIV. and of the pastors of the +desert. From the garden of the Peyrou, at Montpellier, you may see the +hills of the Cévennes, to which they of the religion fled for safety and +out of which they were hunted and harried.</p> + +<p>I have only to add, in regard to the Musée Fabre, that it contains the +portrait of its founder—a little, pursy, fat-faced, elderly man, whose +countenance contains few indications of the power that makes +distinguished victims. He is, however, just such a personage as the +mind's eye sees walking on the terrace of the Peyrou of an October +afternoon in the early years of the century; a plump figure in a +chocolate-coloured coat and a <i>culotte</i> that exhibits a good leg—a +culotte provided with a watch-fob from which a heavy seal is suspended. +This Peyrou (to come to it at last) is a wonderful place, especially to +be found in a little provincial city. France is certainly the country of +towns that aim at completeness; more than in other lands they contain +stately features as a matter of course. We should never have ceased to +hear about the Peyrou if fortune had placed it at a Shrewsbury or a +Buffalo. It is true that the place enjoys a certain celebrity at home, +which it amply deserves, moreover; for nothing could be more impressive +and monumental. It consists of an "elevated platform," as Murray +says—an immense terrace laid out, in the highest part of the town, as a +garden, and commanding in all directions a view which in clear weather +must be of the finest. I strolled there in the intervals of showers, and +saw only the nearer beauties—a great pompous arch of triumph in honour +of Louis XIV. (which is not, properly speaking, in the garden, but faces +it, straddling across the <i>place</i> by which you approach it from the +town), an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> +equestrian statue of that monarch set aloft in the middle of the +terrace, and a very exalted and complicated fountain, which forms a +background to the picture. This fountain gushes from a kind of hydraulic +temple, or <i>château d'eau</i>, to which you ascend by broad flights of +steps, and which is fed by a splendid aqueduct, stretched in the most +ornamental and unexpected manner across the neighbouring valley. All +this work dates from the middle of the last century. The combination of +features—the triumphal arch, or gate; the wide fair terrace, with its +beautiful view; the statue of the grand monarch; the big architectural +fountain, which would not surprise one at Rome, but does surprise one at +Montpellier; and to complete the effect, the extraordinary aqueduct, +charmingly fore-shortened—all this is worthy of a capital, of a little +court-city. The whole place, with its repeated steps, its balustrades, +its massive and plentiful stonework, is full of the air of the last +century—<i>sent bien son dix-huitième siècle</i>; none the less so, I am +afraid, that, as I read in my faithful Murray, after the revocation of +the Edict of Nantes the block, the stake, the wheel had been erected +here for the benefit of the desperate Camisards.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_061.png" width="450" height="277" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxvi" id="Chapter_xxvi"></a>Chapter xxvi</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">The Pont du Gard</div> + +<p>IT was a pleasure to feel one's self in Provence again—the land where +the silver-grey earth is impregnated with the light of the sky. To +celebrate the event, as soon as I arrived at Nîmes I engaged a calèche +to convey me to the Pont du Gard. The day was yet young and was +exceptionally fair; it appeared well, for a longish drive, to take +advantage, without delay, of such security. After I had left the town I +became more intimate with that Provençal charm which I had already +enjoyed from the window of the train, and which glowed in the sweet +sunshine and the white rocks and lurked in the smoke puffs of the little +olives. The olive-trees in Provence are half the landscape. They are +neither so tall, so stout, nor so richly contorted as you have seen them +beyond the Alps; but this mild colourless bloom seems the very texture +of the country. The road from Nîmes, for a distance of fifteen miles, is +superb; broad enough for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> +an army and as white and firm as a dinner-table. It stretches away over +undulations which have a kind of rhythmic value, and in the curves it +makes through the wide, free country, where there is never a hedge or a +wall and the detail is always exquisite, there is something majestic, +almost processional. Some twenty minutes before I reached the little inn +that marks the termination of the drive my vehicle met with an accident +which just missed being serious, and which engaged the attention of a +gentleman who, followed by his groom and mounted on a strikingly +handsome horse, happened to ride up at the moment. This young man, who, +with his good looks and charming manner, might have stepped out of a +novel of Octave Feuillet, gave me some very intelligent advice in +reference to one of my horses that had been injured, and was so good as +to accompany me to the inn, with the resources of which he was +acquainted, to see that his recommendations were carried out. The result +of our interview was that he invited me to come and look at a small but +ancient château in the neighbourhood, which he had the happiness—not +the greatest in the world, he intimated—to inhabit, and at which I +engaged to present myself after I should have spent an hour at the Pont +du Gard. For the moment, when we separated, I gave all my attention to +that great structure. You are very near it before you see it; the ravine +it spans suddenly opens and exhibits the picture. The scene at this +point grows extremely beautiful. The ravine is the valley of the Garden, +which the road from Nîmes has followed some time without taking account +of it, but which, exactly at the right distance from the aqueduct, +deepens and expands and puts on those characteristics which are best +suited to give it effect.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">The Pont du Gard</div> + +<p>The gorge becomes romantic, still and solitary, and, with its white +rocks and wild shrubbery, hangs over the clear-coloured river, in whose +slow course there is, here and there, a deeper pool. Over the valley, +from side to side and ever so high in the air, stretch the three tiers +of the tremendous bridge. They are unspeakably imposing, and nothing +could well be more Roman. The hugeness, the solidity, the +unexpectedness, the monumental rectitude of the whole thing leave you +nothing to say—at the time—and make you stand gazing. You simply feel +that it is noble and perfect, that it has the quality of greatness. A +road, branching from the highway, descends to the level of the river and +passes under one of the arches. This road has a wide margin of grass and +loose stones, which slopes upward into the bank of the ravine. You may +sit here as long as you please, staring up at the light, strong piers; +the spot is sufficiently "wild," though two or three stone benches have +been erected on it. I remained there an hour and got a complete +impression; the place was perfectly soundless and, for the time at +least, lonely; the splendid afternoon had begun to fade, and there was a +fascination in the object I had come to see. It came to pass that at the +same time I discovered in it a certain stupidity, a vague brutality. +That element is rarely absent from great Roman work, which is wanting in +the nice adaptation of the means to the end. The means are always +exaggerated; the end is so much more than attained. The Roman rigour was +apt to overshoot the mark, and I suppose a race which could do nothing +small is as defective as a race that can do nothing great. Of this Roman +rigour the Pont du Gard is an admirable example. It would be a great +injustice, however, not to insist upon its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 343px;"> +<img src="images/ill_062_th.png" width="343" height="550" alt="THE PONT DU GARD." /> +<span class="caption">THE PONT DU GARD.</span> +<a href="images/ill_062.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">beauty—a kind of manly beauty, that of an object constructed not to +please but to serve, and impressive simply from the scale on which it +carries out this intention. The number of arches in each tier is +different; they are smaller and more numerous as they ascend. The +preservation of the thing is extraordinary; nothing has crumbled or +collapsed; every feature remains, and the huge blocks of stone, of a +brownish-yellow (as if they had been baked by the Provençal sun for +eighteen centuries), pile themselves, without mortar or cement, as +evenly as the day they were laid together. All this to carry the water +of a couple of springs to a little provincial city! The conduit on the +top has retained its shape and traces of the cement with which it was +lined. When the vague twilight began to gather, the lonely valley seemed +to fill itself with the shadow of the Roman name, as if the mighty +empire were still as erect as the supports of the aqueduct; and it was +open to a solitary tourist, sitting there sentimental, to believe that +no people has ever been, or will ever be, as great as that, measured, as +we measure the greatness of an individual, by the push they gave to what +they undertook. The Pont du Gard is one of the three or four deepest +impressions they have left; it speaks of them in a manner with which +they might have been satisfied.</p> + +<p>I feel as if it were scarcely discreet to indicate the whereabouts of +the château of the obliging young man I had met on the way from Nîmes; I +must content myself with saying that it nestled in an enchanting +valley—<i>dans le fond</i>, as they say in France—and that I took my course +thither on foot after leaving the Pont du Gard. I find it noted in my +journal as "an adorable little corner." The principal feature of the +place is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> +couple of very ancient towers, brownish-yellow in hue, and mantled in +scarlet Virginia-creeper. One of these towers, reputed to be of +Saracenic origin, is isolated, and is only the more effective; the other +is incorporated in the house, which is delightfully fragmentary and +irregular. It had got to be late by this time, and the lonely <i>castel</i> +looked crepuscular and mysterious. An old housekeeper was sent for, who +showed me the rambling interior; and then the young man took me into a +dim old drawing-room, which had no less than four chimney-pieces, all +unlighted, and gave me a refection of fruit and sweet wine. When I +praised the wine and asked him what it was, he said simply "C'est du vin +de ma mère!" Throughout my little journey I had never yet felt myself so +far from Paris; and this was a sensation I enjoyed more than my host, +who was an involuntary exile, consoling himself with laying out a +<i>manège</i> which he showed me as I walked away. His civility was great, +and I was greatly touched by it. On my way back to the little inn where +I had left my vehicle I passed the Pont du Gard and took another look at +it. Its great arches made windows for the evening sky, and the rocky +ravine, with its dusky cedars and shining river, was lonelier than +before. At the inn I swallowed, or tried to swallow, a glass of horrible +wine with my coachman; after which, with my reconstructed team, I drove +back to Nîmes in the moonlight. It only added a more solitary whiteness +to the constant sheen of the Provençal landscape.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_063.png" width="450" height="284" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxvii" id="Chapter_xxvii"></a>Chapter xxvii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Aigues-Mortes</div> + +<p>THE weather the next day was equally fair, so that it seemed an +imprudence not to make sure of Aigues-Mortes. Nîmes itself could wait; +at a pinch I could attend to Nîmes in the rain. It was my belief that +Aigues-Mortes was a little gem, and it is natural to desire that gems +should have an opportunity to sparkle. This is an excursion of but a few +hours, and there is a little friendly, familiar, dawdling train that +will convey you, in time for a noonday breakfast, to the small dead town +where the blessed Saint Louis twice embarked for the Crusades. You may +get back to Nîmes for dinner; the run—or rather the walk, for the train +doesn't run—is of about an hour. I found the little journey charming +and looked out of the carriage window, on my right, at the distant +Cévennes, covered with tones of amber and blue, and, all around, at +vineyards red with the touch of October. The grapes were gone, but the +plants had a colour of their own.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> + +<p>Within a certain distance of Aigues-Mortes they give place to wide +salt-marshes, traversed by two canals; and over this expanse the train +rumbles slowly upon a narrow causeway, failing for some time, though you +know you are near the object of your curiosity, to bring you to sight of +anything but the horizon. Suddenly it appears, the towered and embattled +mass, lying so low that the crest of its defences seems to rise straight +out of the ground; and it is not till the train stops close before them +that you are able to take the full measure of its walls.</p> + +<p>Aigues-Mortes stands on the edge of a wide <i>étang</i>, or shallow inlet of +the sea, the farther side of which is divided by a narrow band of coast +from the Gulf of Lyons. Next after Carcassonne, to which it forms an +admirable <i>pendant</i>, it is the most perfect thing of the kind in France. +It has a rival in the person of Avignon, but the ramparts of Avignon are +much less effective. Like Carcassonne, it is completely surrounded with +its old fortifications; and if they are far simpler in character (there +is but one circle), they are quite as well preserved. The moat has been +filled up, and the site of the town might be figured by a billiard-table +without pockets. On this absolute level, covered with coarse grass, +Aigues-Mortes presents quite the appearance of the walled town that a +school-boy draws upon his slate or that we see in the background of +early Flemish pictures—a simple parallelogram, of a contour almost +absurdly bare, broken at intervals by angular towers and square holes. +Such, literally speaking, is this delightful little city, which needs to +be seen to tell its full story. It is extraordinarily pictorial, and if +it is a very small sister of Carcassonne, it has at least the essential +features of the family. Indeed, it is even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> +more like an image and less like a reality than Carcassonne; for by +position and prospect it seems even more detached from the life of the +present day. It is true that Aigues-Mortes does a little business; it +sees certain bags of salt piled into barges which stand in a canal +beside it, and which carry their cargo into actual places. But nothing +could well be more drowsy and desultory than this industry as I saw it +practised, with the aid of two or three brown peasants and under the eye +of a solitary douanier, who strolled on the little quay beneath the +western wall. "C'est bien plaisant, c'est bien paisible," said this +worthy man, with whom I had some conversation; and pleasant and peaceful +is the place indeed, though the former of these epithets may suggest an +element of gaiety in which Aigues-Mortes is deficient. The sand, the +salt, the dull sea-view, surround it with a bright, quiet melancholy. +There are fifteen towers and nine gates, five of which are on the +southern side, overlooking the water. I walked all round the place three +times (it doesn't take long), but lingered most under the southern wall, +where the afternoon light slept in the dreamiest, sweetest way. I sat +down on an old stone and looked away to the desolate salt-marshes and +the still, shining surface of the <i>étang</i>; and, as I did so, reflected +that this was a queer little out-of-the-world corner to have been +chosen, in the great dominions of either monarch, for that pompous +interview which took place, in 1538, between Francis I. and Charles V. +It was also not easy to perceive how Louis IX., when in 1248 and 1270 he +started for the Holy Land, set his army afloat in such very undeveloped +channels. An hour later I purchased in the town a little pamphlet by M. +Marius Topin, who undertakes to explain this latter anomaly and to show +that there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> +is water enough in the port, as we may call it by courtesy, to have +sustained a fleet of crusaders. I was unable to trace the channel that +he points out, but was glad to believe that, as he contends, the sea has +not retreated from the town since the thirteenth century. It was +comfortable to think that things are not so changed as that. M. Topin +indicates that the other French ports of the Mediterranean were not then +<i>disponibles</i>, and that Aigues-Mortes was the most eligible spot for an +embarkation.</p> + +<p>Behind the straight walls and the quiet gates the little town has not +crumbled like the Cité of Carcassonne. It can hardly be said to be +alive; but if it is dead it has been very neatly embalmed. The hand of +the restorer rests on it constantly; but this artist has not, as at +Carcassonne, had miracles to accomplish. The interior is very still and +empty, with small stony, whitewashed streets tenanted by a stray dog, a +stray cat, a stray old woman. In the middle is a little <i>place</i>, with +two or three cafés decorated by wide awnings—a little <i>place</i> of which +the principal feature is a very bad bronze statue of Saint Louis by +Pradier. It is almost as bad as the breakfast I had at the inn that +bears the name of that pious monarch. You may walk round the enceinte of +Aigues-Mortes both outside and in; but you may not, as at Carcassonne, +make a portion of this circuit on the <i>chemin de ronde</i>, the little +projecting footway attached to the inner face of the battlements. This +footway, wide enough only for a single pedestrian, is in the best order, +and near each of the gates a flight of steps leads up to it; but a +locked gate at the top of the steps makes access impossible, or at least +unlawful. Aigues-Mortes, however, has its citadel, an immense tower, +larger than any of the others, a little detached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 355px;"> +<img src="images/ill_064_th.png" width="355" height="550" alt="AIGUES-MORTES" /> +<span class="caption">AIGUES-MORTES</span> +<a href="images/ill_064.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">and standing at the north-west angle of the town. I called upon the +<i>casernier</i>—the custodian of the walls—and in his absence I was +conducted through this big Tour de Constance by his wife, a very mild, +meek woman, yellow with the traces of fever and ague—a scourge which, +as might be expected in a town whose name denotes "dead waters," enters +freely at the nine gates. The Tour de Constance is of extraordinary +girth and solidity, divided into three superposed circular chambers, +with very fine vaults, which are lighted by embrasures of prodigious +depth, converging to windows little larger than loopholes. The place +served for years as a prison to many of the Protestants of the south +whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had exposed to atrocious +penalties, and the annals of these dreadful chambers in the first half +of the last century were written in tears and blood. Some of the +recorded cases of long confinement there make one marvel afresh at what +man has inflicted and endured. In a country in which a policy of +extermination was to be put into practice this horrible tower was an +obvious resource. From the battlements at the top, which is surmounted +by an old disused lighthouse, you see the little compact rectangular +town, which looks hardly bigger than a garden-patch, mapped out beneath +you, and follow the plain configuration of its defences. You take +possession of it, and you feel that you will remember it always.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_065.png" width="450" height="280" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxviii" id="Chapter_xxviii"></a>Chapter xxviii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Nîmes</div> + +<p>AFTER this I was free to look about me at Nîmes, and I did so with such +attention as the place appeared to require. At the risk of seeming too +easily and too frequently disappointed, I will say that it required +rather less than I had been prepared to give. It is a town of three or +four fine features rather than a town with, as I may say, a general +figure. In general Nîmes is poor; its only treasures are its Roman +remains, which are of the first order. The new French fashions prevail +in many of its streets; the old houses are paltry, and the good houses +are new; while beside my hotel rose a big spick-and-span church, which +had the oddest air of having been intended for Brooklyn or Cleveland. It +is true that this church looked out on a square completely French—a +square of a fine modern disposition, flanked on one side by a classical +<i>palais de justice</i> embellished with trees and parapets and occupied in +the centre with a group of allegorical statues such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> +as one encounters only in the cities of France, the chief of these being +a colossal figure by Pradier representing Nîmes. An English, an American +town which should have such a monument, such a square as this would be a +place of great pretensions; but, like so many little <i>villes de +province</i> in the country of which I write, Nîmes is easily ornamental. +What nobler element can there be than the Roman baths at the foot of +Mont Cavalier and the delightful old garden that surrounds them? All +that quarter of Nîmes has every reason to be proud of itself; it has +been revealed to the world at large by copious photography. A clear, +abundant stream gushes from the foot of a high hill (covered with trees +and laid out in paths), and is distributed into basins which +sufficiently refer themselves to the period that gave them birth—the +period that has left its stamp on that pompous Peyrou which we admired +at Montpellier. Here are the same terraces and steps and balustrades, +and a system of waterworks less impressive perhaps, but very ingenious +and charming. The whole place is a mixture of old Rome and of the French +eighteenth century; for the remains of the antique baths are in a +measure incorporated in the modern fountains. In a corner of this +umbrageous precinct stands a small Roman ruin, which is known as a +temple of Diana, but was more apparently a <i>nymphæum</i>, and appears to +have had a graceful connection with the adjacent baths. I learn from +Murray that this little temple, of the period of Augustus, "was reduced +to its present state of ruin in 1577;" the moment at which the +townspeople, threatened with a siege by the troops of the Crown, partly +demolished it lest it should serve as a cover to the enemy. The remains +are very fragmentary, but they serve to show<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> +that the place was lovely. I spent half an hour in it on a perfect +Sunday morning (it is enclosed by a high <i>grille</i>, carefully tended, and +has a warden of its own), and with the help of my imagination tried to +reconstruct a little the aspect of things in the Gallo-Roman days. I do +wrong perhaps to say that I <i>tried</i>; from a flight so deliberate I +should have shrunk. But there was a certain contagion of antiquity in +the air; and among the ruins of baths and temples, in the very spot +where the aqueduct that crosses the Gardon in the wondrous manner I had +seen discharged itself, the picture of a splendid paganism seemed +vaguely to glow. Roman baths—Roman baths; those words alone were a +scene. Everything was changed: I was strolling in a <i>jardin français</i>; +the bosky slope of the Mont Cavalier (a very modest mountain), hanging +over the place, is crowned with a shapeless tower, which is as likely to +be of mediæval as of antique origin; and yet, as I leaned on the parapet +of one of the fountains, where a flight of curved steps (a hemicycle, as +the French say) descended into a basin full of dark, cool recesses, +where the slabs of the Roman foundations gleam through the clear green +water—as in this attitude I surrendered myself to contemplation and +reverie, it seemed to me that I touched for a moment the ancient world. +Such moments are illuminating, and the light of this one mingles, in my +memory, with the dusky greenness of the Jardin de la Fontaine.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">Nîmes</span> fountain proper—the source of all these distributed waters—is the +prettiest thing in the world, a reduced copy of Vaucluse. It gushes up +at the foot of the Mont Cavalier, at a point where that eminence rises +with a certain cliff-like effect, and, like other springs in the same +circumstances, appears to issue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 351px;"> +<img src="images/ill_066_th.png" width="351" height="550" alt="NÎMES—THE CATHEDRAL" /> +<span class="caption">NÎMES—THE CATHEDRAL</span> +<a href="images/ill_066.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">from the rock with a sort of quivering stillness. I trudged up the Mont +Cavalier—it is a matter of five minutes—and having committed this +cockneyism, enhanced it presently by another. I ascended the stupid Tour +Magne, the mysterious structure I mentioned a moment ago. The only +feature of this dateless tube, except the inevitable collection of +photographs to which you are introduced by the doorkeeper, is the view +you enjoy from its summit. This view is of course remarkably fine, but I +am ashamed to say I have not the smallest recollection of it; for while +I looked into the brilliant spaces of the air I seemed still to see only +what I saw in the depths of the Roman baths—the image, disastrously +confused and vague, of a vanished world. This world, however, has left +at Nîmes a far more considerable memento than a few old stones covered +with water-moss. The Roman arena is the rival of those of Verona and of +Arles; at a respectful distance it emulates the Colosseum. It is a small +Colosseum, if I may be allowed the expression, and is in much better +preservation than the great circus at Rome. This is especially true of +the external walls, with their arches, pillars, cornices. I must add +that one should not speak of preservation, in regard to the arena at +Nîmes, without speaking also of repair. After the great ruin ceased to +be despoiled it began to be protected, and most of its wounds have been +dressed with new material. These matters concern the archæologist; and I +felt here, as I felt afterwards at Arles, that one of the profane, in +the presence of such a monument, can only admire and hold his tongue. +The great impression, on the whole, is an impression of wonder that so +much should have survived. What remains at Nîmes, after all dilapidation +is estimated, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> +astounding. I spent an hour in the Arènes on that same sweet Sunday +morning, as I came back from the Roman baths, and saw that the +corridors, the vaults, the staircases, the external casing, are still +virtually there. Many of these parts are wanting in the Colosseum, whose +sublimity of size, however, can afford to dispense with detail. The +seats at Nîmes, like those at Verona, have been largely renewed; not +that this mattered much, as I lounged on the cool surface of one of them +and admired the mighty concavity of the place and the elliptical +sky-line, broken by uneven blocks and forming the rim of the monstrous +cup—a cup that had been filled with horrors. And yet I made my +reflections: I said to myself that though a Roman arena is one of the +most impressive of the works of man, it has a touch of that same +stupidity which I ventured to discover in the Pont du Gard. It is +brutal; it is monotonous; it is not at all exquisite. The Arènes at +Nîmes were arranged for a bull-fight—a form of recreation that, as I +was informed, is much <i>dans les habitudes Nîmoises</i>, and very common +throughout Provence, where (still according to my information) it is the +usual pastime of a Sunday afternoon. At Arles and Nîmes it has a +characteristic setting, but in the villages the patrons of the game make +a circle of carts and barrels, on which the spectators perch themselves. +I was surprised at the prevalence in mild Provence of the Iberian vice, +and hardly know whether it makes the custom more respectable that at +Nîmes and Arles the thing is shabbily and imperfectly done. The bulls +are rarely killed, and indeed often are bulls only in the Irish sense of +the term—being domestic and motherly cows. Such an entertainment of +course does not supply to the arena that element of the exquisite which +I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 353px;"> +<img src="images/ill_067_th.png" width="353" height="550" alt="NÎMES—THE AMPHITHEATRE" /> +<span class="caption">NÎMES—THE AMPHITHEATRE</span> +<a href="images/ill_067.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> +</div> + +<p class="non">spoke of as wanting. The exquisite at Nîmes is mainly represented by the +famous Maison Carrée. The first impression you receive from this +delicate little building, as you stand before it, is that you have +already seen it many times. Photographs, engravings, models, medals, +have placed it definitely in your eye, so that from the sentiment with +which you regard it curiosity and surprise are almost completely, and +perhaps deplorably, absent. Admiration remains, however—admiration of a +familiar and even slightly patronising kind. The Maison Carrée does not +overwhelm you; you can conceive it. It is not one of the great +sensations of antique art; but it is perfectly felicitous, and, in spite +of having been put to all sorts of incongruous uses, marvellously +preserved. Its slender columns, its delicate proportions, its charming +compactness, seem to bring one nearer to the century that built it than +the great superpositions of arenas and bridges, and give it the interest +that vibrates from one age to another when the note of taste is struck. +If anything were needed to make this little toy-temple a happy +production, the service would be rendered by the second-rate boulevard +that conducts to it, adorned with inferior cafés and tobacco-shops. +Here, in a respectable recess, surrounded by vulgar habitations and with +the theatre, of a classic pretension, opposite, stands the small "square +house," so called because it is much longer than it is broad. I saw it +first in the evening, in the vague moonlight, which made it look as if +it were cast in bronze. Stendhal says, justly, that it has the shape of +a playing-card, and he expresses his admiration for it by the singular +wish that an "exact copy" of it should be erected in Paris. He even goes +so far as to say that in the year 1880 this tribute will have been +rendered to its charms;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> +nothing would be more simple, to his mind, than to "have" in that city +"le Panthéon de Rome, quelques temples de Grèce." Stendhal found it +amusing to write in the character of a <i>commis-voyageur</i>, and sometimes +it occurs to his reader that he really was one.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_068.png" width="450" height="271" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxix" id="Chapter_xxix"></a>Chapter xxix</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Tarascon</div> + +<p>ON my way from Nîmes to Arles I spent three hours at Tarascon; chiefly +for the love of Alphonse Daudet, who has written nothing more genial +than "Les Aventures Prodigieuses de Tartarin," and the story of the +"siege" of the bright, dead little town (a mythic siege by the +Prussians) in the "Contes du Lundi." In the introduction which, for the +new edition of his works, he has lately supplied to "Tartarin," the +author of this extravagant but kindly satire gives some account of the +displeasure with which he has been visited by the ticklish Tarasconnais. +Daudet relates that in his attempt to shed a humorous light upon some of +the more vivid phases of the Provençal character he selected Tarascon at +a venture; not because the temperament of its natives is more +vainglorious than that of their neighbours, or their rebellion against +the "despotism of fact" more marked, but simply because he had to name a +particular Provençal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> +city. Tartarin is a hunter of lions and charmer of women, a true +"<i>produit du midi</i>," as Daudet says, a character of the most +extravagant, genial comedy. He is a minimised Don Quixote, with much +less dignity but with equal good faith; and the story of his exploits is +a little masterpiece of the free fantastic. The Tarasconnais, however, +declined to take the joke, and opened the vials of their wrath upon the +mocking child of Nîmes, who would have been better employed, they +doubtless thought, in showing up the infirmities of his own family. I am +bound to add that when I passed through Tarascon they did not appear to +be in the least out of humour. Nothing could have been brighter, easier, +more suggestive of amiable indifference, than the picture it presented +to my mind. It lies quietly beside the Rhone, looking across at +Beaucaire, which seems very distant and independent, and tacitly +consenting to let the castle of the good King René of Anjou, which +projects very boldly into the river, pass for its most interesting +feature. The other features are, primarily, a sort of vivid sleepiness +in the aspect of the place, as if the September noon (it had lingered on +into October) lasted longer there than elsewhere; certain low arcades +which make the streets look grey and exhibit empty vistas; and a very +curious and beautiful walk beside the Rhone, denominated the Chaussée—a +long and narrow causeway, densely shaded by two rows of magnificent old +trees planted in its embankment and rendered doubly effective at the +moment I passed over it by a little train of collegians who had been +taken out for mild exercise by a pair of young priests. Lastly one may +say that a striking element of Tarascon, as of any town that lies on the +Rhone, is simply the Rhone itself; the big brown flood, of uncertain +temper, which has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> +never taken time to forget that it is a child of the mountain and the +glacier, and that such an origin carries with it great privileges. +Later, at Avignon, I observed it in the exercise of these privileges, +chief among which was that of frightening the good people of the old +papal city half out of their wits.</p> + +<p>The<span class="sidenote">Tarascon</span> château of King René serves to-day as the prison of a district, and +the traveller who wishes to look into it must obtain his permission at +the Mairie of Tarascon. If he have had a certain experience of French +manners, his application will be accompanied with the forms of a +considerable obsequiosity, and in this case his request will be granted +as civilly as it has been made. The castle has more of the air of a +severely feudal fortress than I should suppose the period of its +construction (the first half of the fifteenth century) would have +warranted; being tremendously bare and perpendicular, and constructed +for comfort only in the sense that it was arranged for defence. It is a +square and simple mass, composed of small yellow stones and perched on a +pedestal of rock which easily commands the river. The building has the +usual circular towers at the corners and a heavy cornice at the top, and +immense stretches of sun-scorched wall relieved at wide intervals by +small windows, heavily cross-barred. It has, above all, an extreme +steepness of aspect; I cannot express it otherwise. The walls are as +sheer and inhospitable as precipices. The castle has kept its large +moat, which is now a hollow filled with wild plants. To this tall +fortress the good René retired in the middle of the fifteenth century, +finding it apparently the most substantial thing left him in a dominion +which had included Naples and Sicily, Lorraine and Anjou. He had been a +much-tried monarch and the sport of a various fortune, fighting half<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> +his life for thrones he didn't care for, and exalted only to be quickly +cast down. Provence was the country of his affection, and the memory of +his troubles did not prevent him from holding a joyous court at Tarascon +and at Aix. He finished the castle at Tarascon, which had been begun +earlier in the century—finished it, I suppose, for consistency's sake, +in the manner in which it had originally been designed rather than in +accordance with the artistic tastes that formed the consolation of his +old age. He was a painter, a writer, a dramatist, a modern dilettante, +addicted to private theatricals. There is something very attractive in +the image that he has imprinted on the page of history. He was both +clever and kind, and many reverses and much suffering had not embittered +him nor quenched his faculty of enjoyment. He was fond of his sweet +Provence, and his sweet Provence has been grateful; it has woven a light +tissue of legend around the memory of the good King René.</p> + +<p>I strolled over his dusky habitation—it must have taken all his good +humour to light it up—at the heels of the custodian, who showed me the +usual number of castle-properties: a deep, well-like court; a collection +of winding staircases and vaulted chambers, the embrasures of whose +windows and the recesses of whose doorways reveal a tremendous thickness +of wall. These things constitute the general identity of old castles; +and when one has wandered through a good many, with due discretion of +step and protrusion of head, one ceases very much to distinguish and +remember, and contents one's self with consigning them to the honourable +limbo of the romantic. I must add that this reflection did not in the +least deter me from crossing the bridge which connects Tarascon with +Beaucaire, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 332px;"> +<img src="images/ill_069_th.png" width="332" height="550" alt="TARASCON—THE CASTLE" /> +<span class="caption">TARASCON—THE CASTLE</span> +<a href="images/ill_069.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">order to examine the old fortress whose ruins adorn the latter city. It +stands on a foundation of rock much higher than that of Tarascon, and +looks over with a melancholy expression at its better-conditioned +brother. Its position is magnificent and its outline very gallant. I was +well rewarded for my pilgrimage; for if the castle of Beaucaire is only +a fragment, the whole place, with its position and its views, is an +ineffaceable picture. It was the stronghold of the Montmorencys, and its +last tenant was that rash Duke François whom Richelieu, seizing every +occasion to trample on a great noble, caused to be beheaded at Toulouse, +where we saw, in the Capitol, the butcher's knife with which the +cardinal pruned the crown of France of its thorns. The castle, after the +death of this victim, was virtually demolished. Its site, which nature +to-day has taken again to herself, has an extraordinary charm. The mass +of rock that it formerly covered rises high above the town and is as +precipitous as the side of the Rhone. A tall, rusty iron gate admits you +from a quiet corner of Beaucaire to a wild tangled garden covering the +side of the hill—for the whole place forms the public promenade of the +townsfolk—a garden without flowers, with little steep, rough paths that +wind under a plantation of small, scrubby stone-pines. Above this is the +grassy platform of the castle, enclosed on one side only (toward the +river) by a large fragment of wall and a very massive dungeon. There are +benches placed in the lee of the wall, and others on the edge of the +platform, where one may enjoy a view, beyond the river, of certain +peeled and scorched undulations. A sweet desolation, an everlasting +peace, seemed to hang in the air. A very old man (a fragment, like the +castle itself) emerged from some crumbling corner to do me the +honours—a very gentle,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> +obsequious, tottering, toothless, grateful old man. He beguiled me into +an ascent of the solitary tower, from which you may look down on the big +sallow river and glance at diminished Tarascon and the barefaced, +bald-headed hills behind it. It may appear that I insist too much upon +the nudity of the Provençal horizon—too much considering that I have +spoken of the prospect from the heights of Beaucaire as lovely. But it +is an exquisite bareness; it seems to exist for the purpose of allowing +one to follow the delicate lines of the hills and touch with the eyes, +as it were, the smallest inflections of the landscape. It makes the +whole thing wonderfully bright and pure.</p> + +<p>Beaucaire<span class="sidenote">Tarascon</span> used to be the scene of a famous fair, the great fair of the +south of France. It has gone the way of most fairs, even in France, +where these delightful exhibitions hold their own much better than might +be supposed. It is still held in the month of July; but the bourgeoises +of Tarascon send to the Magasin du Louvre for their smart dresses, and +the principal glory of the scene is its long tradition. Even now, +however, it ought to be the prettiest of all fairs, for it takes place +in, a charming wood which lies just beneath the castle, beside the +Rhone. The booths, the barracks, the platforms of the mountebanks, the +bright-coloured crowd, diffused through this midsummer shade and spotted +here and there with the rich Provençal sunshine, must be of the most +pictorial effect. It is highly probable too that it offers a large +collection of pretty faces; for even in the few hours that I spent at +Tarascon I discovered symptoms of the purity of feature for which the +women of the <i>pays d'Arles</i> are renowned. The Arlesian head-dress was +visible in the streets; and this delightful coiffure is so associated +with a charming facial oval, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> +dark mild eye, a straight Greek nose, and a mouth worthy of all the +rest, that it conveys a presumption of beauty which gives the wearer +time either to escape or to please you. I have read somewhere, however, +that Tarascon is supposed to produce handsome men, as Arles is known to +deal in handsome women. It may be that I should have found the +Tarasconnais very fine fellows if I had encountered enough specimens to +justify an induction. But there are very few males in the streets, and +the place presented no appearance of activity. Here and there the black +coif of an old woman or of a young girl was framed by a low doorway; but +for the rest, as I have said, Tarascon was mostly involved in a siesta. +There was not a creature in the little church of Saint Martha, which I +made a point of visiting before I returned to the station, and which, +with its fine romanesque side-portal and its pointed and crocketed +gothic spire, is as curious as it need be in view of its tradition. It +stands in a quiet corner where the grass grows between the small +cobble-stones, and you pass beneath a deep archway to reach it. The +tradition relates that Saint Martha tamed with her own hands and +attached to her girdle a dreadful dragon who was known as the Tarasque +and is reported to have given his name to the city on whose site (amid +the rocks which form the base of the château) he had his cavern. The +dragon perhaps is the symbol of a ravening paganism dispelled by the +eloquence of a sweet evangelist. The bones of the interesting saint, at +all events, were found, in the eleventh century, in a cave beneath the +spot on which her altar now stands. I know not what had become of the +bones of the dragon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_070.png" width="450" height="309" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxx" id="Chapter_xxx"></a>Chapter xxx</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Arles</div> + +<p>THERE are two shabby old inns at Arles which compete closely for your +custom. I mean by this that if you elect to go to the Hôtel du Forum, +the Hôtel du Nord, which is placed exactly beside it (at a right angle), +watches your arrival with ill-concealed disapproval; and if you take the +chances of its neighbour, the Hôtel du Forum seems to glare at you +invidiously from all its windows and doors. I forget which of these +establishments I selected; whichever it was, I wished very much that it +had been the other. The two stand together on the Place des Hommes, a +little public square of Arles which somehow quite misses its effect. As +a city, indeed, Arles quite misses its effect in every way; and if it is +a charming place, as I think it is, I can hardly tell the reason why. +The straight-nosed Arlésiennes account for it in some degree; and the +remainder may be charged to the ruins of the arena<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +and the theatre. Beyond this, I remember with affection the +ill-proportioned little Place des Hommes; not at all monumental, and +given over to puddles and to shabby cafés. I recall with tenderness the +tortuous and featureless streets, which looked liked the streets of a +village and were paved with villainous little sharp stones, making all +exercise penitential. Consecrated by association is even a tiresome walk +that I took the evening I arrived, with the purpose of obtaining a view +of the Rhone. I had been to Arles before, years ago, and it seemed to me +that I remembered finding on the banks of the stream some sort of +picture. I think that on the evening on which I speak there was a watery +moon, which it seemed to me would light up the past as well as the +present. But I found no picture, and I scarcely found the Rhone at all. +I lost my way, and there was not a creature in the streets to whom I +could appeal. Nothing could be more provincial than the situation of +Arles at ten o'clock at night. At last I arrived at a kind of embankment +where I could see the great mud-coloured stream slipping along in the +soundless darkness. It had come on to rain, I know not what had happened +to the moon, and the whole place was anything but gay. It was not what I +had looked for; what I had looked for was in the irrecoverable past. I +groped my way back to the inn over the infernal <i>cailloux</i>, feeling like +a discomfited Dogberry. I remember now that this hotel was the one +(whichever that may be) which has the fragment of a Gallo-Roman portico +inserted into one of its angles. I had chosen it for the sake of this +exceptional ornament. It was damp and dark, and the floors felt gritty +to the feet; it was an establishment at which the dreadful <i>gras-double</i> +might have appeared at the table d'hôte, as it had done<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> +at Narbonne. Nevertheless I was glad to get back to it; and nevertheless +too—and this is the moral of my simple anecdote—my pointless little +walk (I don't speak of the pavement) suffuses itself, as I look back +upon it, with a romantic tone. And in relation to the inn I suppose I +had better mention that I am well aware of the inconsistency of a person +who dislikes the modern caravansary and yet grumbles when he finds a +hotel of the superannuated sort. One ought to choose, it would seem, and +make the best of either alternative. The two old taverns at Arles are +quite unimproved; such as they must have been in the infancy of the +modern world, when Stendhal passed that way and the lumbering diligence +deposited him in the Place des Hommes, such in every detail they are +to-day. <i>Vieilles auberges de France</i>, one ought to enjoy their gritty +floors and greasy window-panes. Let it be put on record therefore that I +have been, I won't say less comfortable, but at least less happy, at +better inns.</p> + +<p>To be really historic, I should have mentioned that before going to look +for the Rhone I had spent part of the evening on the opposite side of +the little place, and that I indulged in this recreation for two +definite reasons. One of these was that I had an opportunity of +gossiping at a café with a conversable young Englishman whom I had met +in the afternoon at Tarascon and more remotely, in other years, in +London; the other was that there sat enthroned behind the counter a +splendid mature Arlésienne, whom my companion and I agreed that it was a +rare privilege to contemplate. There is no rule of good manners or +morals which makes it improper, at a café, to fix one's eyes upon the +<i>dame de comptoir</i>; the lady is, in the nature of things, a part of your +<i>consummation</i>. We were therefore free to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 381px;"> +<img src="images/ill_071_th.png" width="381" height="550" alt="ARLES—ST. TROPHIMUS" /> +<span class="caption">ARLES—ST. TROPHIMUS</span> +<a href="images/ill_071.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">admire without restriction the handsomest person I had ever seen give +change for a five-franc piece. She was a large quiet woman, who would +never see forty again; of an intensely feminine type, yet wonderfully +rich and robust, and full of a certain physical nobleness. Though she +was not really old, she was antique; and she was very grave, even a +little sad. She had the dignity of a Roman empress, and she handled +coppers as if they had been stamped with the head of Cæsar. I have seen +washerwomen in the Trastevere who were perhaps as handsome as she; but +even the head-dress of the Roman contadina contributes less to the +dignity of the person born to wear it than the sweet and stately +Arlesian cap, which sits at once aloft and on the back of the head; +which is accompanied with a wide black bow covering a considerable part +of the crown; and which, finally, accommodates itself indescribably well +to the manner in which the tresses of the front are pushed behind the +ears.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Arles: the Theatre</div> + +<p>This admirable dispenser of lumps of sugar has distracted me a little, +for I am still not sufficiently historical. Before going to the café I +had dined, and before dining I had found time to go and look at the +arena. Then it was that I discovered that Arles has no general +physiognomy and, except the delightful little church of Saint Trophimus, +no architecture, and that the rugosities of its dirty lanes affect the +feet like knife-blades. It was not then, on the other hand, that I saw +the arena best. The second day of my stay at Arles I devoted to a +pilgrimage to the strange old hill town of Les Baux, the mediæval +Pompeii, of which I shall give myself the pleasure of speaking. The +evening of that day, however (my friend and I returned in time for a +late dinner), I wandered among the Roman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +remains of the place by the light of a magnificent moon and gathered an +impression which has lost little of its silvery glow. The moon of the +evening before had been aqueous and erratic; but if on the present +occasion it was guilty of any irregularity, the worst it did was only to +linger beyond its time in the heavens in order to let us look at things +comfortably. The effect was admirable; it brought back the impression of +the way, in Rome itself, on evenings like that, the moonshine rests upon +broken shafts and slabs of antique pavement. As we sat in the theatre +looking at the two lone columns that survive—part of the decoration of +the back of the stage—and at the fragments of ruin around them, we +might have been in the Roman Forum. The arena at Arles, with its great +magnitude, is less complete than that of Nîmes; it has suffered even +more the assaults of time and the children of time, and it has been less +repaired. The seats are almost wholly wanting; but the external walls, +minus the topmost tier of arches, are massively, ruggedly complete; and +the vaulted corridors seem as solid as the day they were built. The +whole thing is superbly vast and as monumental, for a place of light +amusement—what is called in America a "variety-show"—as it entered +only into the Roman mind to make such establishments. The <i>podium</i> is +much higher than at Nîmes, and many of the great white slabs that faced +it have been recovered and put into their places. The proconsular box +has been more or less reconstructed, and the great converging passages +of approach to it are still majestically distinct; so that, as I sat +there in the moon-charmed stillness, leaning my elbows on the battered +parapet of the ring, it was not impossible to listen to the murmurs and +shudders, the thick voice of the circus, that died away fifteen hundred years ago.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 334px;"> +<img src="images/ill_072_th.png" width="334" height="550" alt="ARLES—RUINS OF THE ROMAN THEATRE" /> +<span class="caption">ARLES—RUINS OF THE ROMAN THEATRE</span> +<a href="images/ill_072.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p>The theatre has a voice as well, but it lingers on the ear of time with +a different music. The Roman theatre at Arles seemed to me one of the +most charming and touching ruins I had ever beheld; I took a particular +fancy to it. It is less than a skeleton—the arena may be called a +skeleton—for it consists only of half a dozen bones. The traces of the +row of columns which formed the scene—the permanent back-scene—remain; +two marble pillars—I just mentioned them—are upright, with a fragment +of their entablature. Before them is the vacant space which was filled +by the stage, with the line of the proscenium distinct, marked by a deep +groove impressed upon slabs of stone, which looks as if the bottom of a +high screen had been intended to fit into it. The semicircle formed by +the seats—half a cup—rises opposite; some of the rows are distinctly +marked. The floor, from the bottom of the stage, in the shape of an arc +of which the chord is formed by the line of the orchestra, is covered by +slabs of coloured marble—red, yellow and green—which, though terribly +battered and cracked to-day, give one an idea of the elegance of the +interior. Everything shows that it was on a great scale: the large sweep +of its enclosing walls, the massive corridors that passed behind the +auditorium and of which we can still perfectly take the measure. The way +in which every seat commanded the stage is a lesson to the architects of +our epochs, as also the immense size of the place is a proof of +extraordinary power of voice on the part of the Roman actors. It was +after we had spent half an hour in the moonshine at the arena that we +came on to this more ghostly and more exquisite ruin. The principal +entrance was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> +locked, but we effected an easy <i>escalade</i>, scaled a low parapet, and +descended into the place behind the scenes. It was as light as day, and +the solitude was complete. The two slim columns, as we sat on the broken +benches, stood there like a pair of silent actors. What I called +touching just now was the thought that here the human voice, the +utterance of a great language, had been supreme. The air was full of +intonations and cadences; not of the echo of smashing blows, of riven +armour, of howling victims and roaring beasts. The spot is, in short, +one of the sweetest legacies of the ancient world; and there seems no +profanation in the fact that by day it is open to the good people of +Arles, who use it to pass, by no means in great numbers, from one part +of the town to the other; treading the old marble floor and brushing, if +need be, the empty benches. This familiarity does not kill the place +again; it makes it, on the contrary, live a little—makes the present +and the past touch each other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_073.png" width="450" height="367" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxxi" id="Chapter_xxxi"></a>Chapter xxxi</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Arles: the Museum</div> + +<p>THE third lion of Arles has nothing to do with the ancient world, but +only with the old one. The church of Saint Trophimus, whose wonderful +romanesque porch is the principal ornament of the principal <i>place</i>—a +<i>place</i> otherwise distinguished by the presence of a slim and tapering +obelisk in the middle, as well as by that of the hôtel de ville and the +museum—the interesting church of Saint Trophimus swears a little, as +the French say, with the peculiar character of Arles. It is very +remarkable, but I would rather it were in another place. Arles is +delightfully pagan, and Saint Trophimus, with its apostolic sculptures, +is rather a false note. These sculptures are equally remarkable for +their primitive vigour and for the perfect preservation in which they +have come down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> +to us. The deep recess of a round-arched porch of the twelfth century is +covered with quaint figures which have not lost a nose or a finger. An +angular Byzantine-looking Christ sits in a diamond-shaped frame at the +summit of the arch, surrounded by little angels, by great apostles, by +winged beasts, by a hundred sacred symbols and grotesque ornaments. It +is a dense embroidery of sculpture, black with time, but as uninjured as +if it had been kept under glass. One good mark for the French +Revolution! Of the interior of the church, which has a nave of the +twelfth century and a choir three hundred years more recent, I chiefly +remember the odd feature that the romanesque aisles are so narrow that +you literally—or almost—squeeze through them. You do so with some +eagerness, for your natural purpose is to pass out to the cloister. This +cloister, as distinguished and as perfect as the porch, has a great deal +of charm. Its four sides, which are not of the same period (the earliest +and best are of the twelfth century), have an elaborate arcade, +supported on delicate pairs of columns, the capitals of which show an +extraordinary variety of device and ornament. At the corners of the +quadrangle these columns take the form of curious human figures. The +whole thing is a gem of lightness and preservation and is often cited +for its beauty; but—if it doesn't sound too profane—I prefer, +especially at Arles, the ruins of the Roman theatre. The antique element +is too precious to be mingled with anything less rare. This truth was +very present to my mind during a ramble of a couple of hours that I took +just before leaving the place; and the glowing beauty of the morning +gave the last touch to the impression. I spent half an hour at the +Museum; then I took another look at the Roman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 338px;"> +<img src="images/ill_074_th.png" width="338" height="550" alt="ARLES—DOOR OF ST. TROPHIMUS." /> +<span class="caption">ARLES—DOOR OF ST. TROPHIMUS.</span> +<a href="images/ill_074.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">theatre; after which I walked a little out of the town to the Aliscamps, +the old Elysian Fields, the meagre remnant of the old pagan place of +sepulture, which was afterwards used by the Christians, but has been for +ages deserted and now consists only of a melancholy avenue of cypresses +lined with a succession of ancient sarcophagi, empty, mossy and +mutilated. An iron-foundry, or some horrible establishment which is +conditioned upon tall chimneys and a noise of hammering and banging, has +been established near at hand; but the cypresses shut it out well +enough, and this small patch of Elysium is a very romantic corner.</p> + +<p>The door of the Museum stands ajar, and a vigilant custodian, with the +usual batch of photographs on his mind, peeps out at you disapprovingly +while you linger opposite, before the charming portal of Saint +Trophimus, which you may look at for nothing. When you succumb to the +silent influence of his eye and go over to visit his collection, you +find yourself in a desecrated church, in which a variety of ancient +objects disinterred in Arlesian soil have been arranged without any +pomp. The best of these, I believe, were found in the ruins of the +theatre. Some of the most curious of them are early Christian +sarcophagi, exactly on the pagan model, but covered with rude yet +vigorously wrought images of the apostles and with illustrations of +scriptural history. Beauty of the highest kind, either of conception or +of execution, is absent from most of the Roman fragments, which belong +to the taste of a late period and a provincial civilisation. But a gulf +divides them from the bristling little imagery of the Christian +sarcophagi, in which, at the same time, one detects a vague emulation of +the rich examples by which their authors were surrounded. There is a +certain element<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> +of style in all the pagan things; there is not a hint of it in the early +Christian relics, among which, according to M. Joanne, of the Guide, are +to be found more fine sarcophagi than in any collection but that of St. +John Lateran. In two or three of the Roman fragments there is a +noticeable distinction; principally in a charming bust of a boy, quite +perfect, with those salient eyes that one sees in antique portraits, and +to which the absence of vision in the marble mask gives a look, often +very touching, as of a baffled effort to see; also in the head of a +woman, found in the ruins of the theatre, who, alas! has lost her nose +and whose noble, simple contour, barring this deficiency, recalls the +great manner of the Venus of Milo. There are various rich architectural +fragments which indicate that that edifice was a very splendid affair. +This little Museum at Arles, in short, is the most Roman thing I know of +out of Rome.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/ill_075_th.png" width="600" height="418" alt="ARLES—THE CLOISTERS" /> +<span class="caption">ARLES—THE CLOISTERS</span> +<a href="images/ill_075.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_076.png" width="450" height="268" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxxii" id="Chapter_xxxii"></a>Chapter xxxii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Les Baux</div> + +<p>I FIND that I declared one evening, in a little journal I was keeping at +that time, that I was weary of writing (I was probably very sleepy), but +that it was essential I should make some note of my visit to Les Baux. I +must have gone to sleep as soon as I had recorded this necessity, for I +search my small diary in vain for any account of that enchanting spot. I +have nothing but my memory to consult—a memory which is fairly good in +regard to a general impression, but is terribly infirm in the matter of +details and items. We knew in advance, my companion and I, that Les Baux +was a pearl of picturesqueness; for had we not read as much in the +handbook of Murray, who has the testimony of an English nobleman as to +its attractions? We also knew that it lay some miles from Arles, on the +crest of the Alpilles, the craggy little mountains which, as I stood on +the breezy platform of Beaucaire, formed to my eye a charming, if +somewhat remote, background to Tarascon; this assurance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +having been given us by the landlady of the inn at Arles, of whom we +hired a rather lumbering conveyance. The weather was not promising, but +it proved a good day for the mediæval Pompeii; a grey, melancholy, +moist, but rainless, or almost rainless day, with nothing in the sky to +flout, as the poet says, the dejected and pulverised past. The drive +itself was charming, for there is an inexhaustible sweetness in the +grey-green landscape of Provence. It is never absolutely flat and yet is +never really ambitious, and is full both of entertainment and repose. It +is in constant undulation, and the bareness of the soil lends itself +easily to outline and profile. When I say the bareness I mean the +absence of woods and hedges. It blooms with heath and scented shrubs and +stunted olive, and the white rock shining through the scattered herbage +has a brightness which answers to the brightness of the sky. Of course +it needs the sunshine, for all southern countries look a little false +under the ground-glass of incipient bad weather. This was the case on +the day of my pilgrimage to Les Baux. Nevertheless I was glad to keep +going, as I was to arrive; and as I went it seemed to me that true +happiness would consist in wandering through such a land on foot, on +September afternoons, when one might stretch one's self on the warm +ground in some shady hollow and listen to the hum of bees and the +whistle of melancholy shepherds; for in Provence the shepherds whistle +to their flocks. I saw two or three of them, in the course of this drive +to Les Baux, meandering about, looking behind and calling upon the sheep +in this way to follow, which the sheep always did, very promptly, with +ovine unanimity. Nothing is more picturesque than to see a slow shepherd +threading his way down one of the winding paths on a hillside, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +his flock close behind him, necessarily expanded, yet keeping just at +his heels, bending and twisting as it goes and looking rather like the +tail of a dingy comet.</p> + +<p>Abou<span class="sidenote">Les Baux</span>t four miles from Arles, as you drive northward towards the +Alpilles, of which Alphonse Daudet has spoken so often and, as he might +say, so intimately, stand on a hill that overlooks the road the very +considerable ruins of the abbey of Montmajour, one of the innumerable +remnants of a feudal and ecclesiastical (as well as an architectural) +past that one encounters in the south of France; remnants which, it must +be confessed, tend to introduce a certain confusion and satiety into the +passive mind of the tourist. Montmajour, however, is very impressive and +interesting; the only trouble with it is that, unless you have stopped +and returned to Arles, you see it in memory over the head of Les Baux, +which is a much more absorbing picture. A part of the mass of buildings +(the monastery) dates only from the last century; and the stiff +architecture of that period does not lend itself very gracefully to +desolation: it looks too much as if it had been burnt down the year +before. The monastery was demolished during the Revolution, and it +injures a little the effect of the very much more ancient fragments that +are connected with it. The whole place is on a great scale; it was a +rich and splendid abbey. The church, a vast basilica of the eleventh +century and of the noblest proportions, is virtually intact; I mean as +regards its essentials, for the details have completely vanished. The +huge solid shell is full of expression; it looks as if it had been +hollowed out by the sincerity of early faith, and it opens into a +cloister as impressive as itself. Wherever one goes, in France, one +meets, looking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> +backward a little, the spectre of the great Revolution; and one meets it +always in the shape of the destruction of something beautiful and +precious. To make us forgive it at all, how much it must also have +destroyed that was more hateful than itself! Beneath the church of +Montmajour is a most extraordinary crypt, almost as big as the edifice +above it and making a complete subterranean temple, surrounded with a +circular gallery, or deambulatory, which expands at intervals into five +square chapels. There are other things, of which I have but a confused +memory: a great fortified keep; a queer little primitive chapel hollowed +out of the rock beneath these later structures and recommended to the +visitor's attention as the confessional of Saint Trophimus, who shares +with so many worthies the glory of being the first apostle of the Gauls. +Then there is a strange, small church, of the dimmest antiquity, +standing at a distance from the other buildings. I remember that after +we had let ourselves down a good many steepish places to visit crypts +and confessionals, we walked across a field to this archaic cruciform +edifice and went thence to a point farther down the road, where our +carriage was awaiting us. The chapel of the Holy Cross, as it is called, +is classed among the historic monuments of France; and I read in a +queer, rambling, ill-written book which I picked at Avignon, and in +which the author, M. Louis de Laincel, has buried a great deal of +curious information on the subject of Provence under a style inspiring +little confidence, that the "délicieuse chapelle de Sainte-Croix" is a +"véritable bijou artistique." He speaks of "a piece of lace in stone" +which runs from one end of the building to the other, but of which I am +obliged to confess that I have no recollection. I retain, however, a +sufficiently clear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> +impression of the little superannuated temple, with its four apses and +its perceptible odour of antiquity—the odour of the eleventh century.</p> + +<p>The ruins of Les Baux remain quite indistinguishable even when you are +directly beneath them, at the foot of the charming little Alpilles, +which mass themselves with a kind of delicate ruggedness. Rock and ruin +have been so welded together by the confusions of time that as you +approach it from behind—that is, from the direction of Arles—the place +presents simply a general air of cragginess. Nothing can be prettier +than the crags of Provence; they are beautifully modelled, as painters +say, and they have a delightful silvery colour. The road winds round the +foot of the hills on the top of which Les Baux is planted, and passes +into another valley, from which the approach to the town is many degrees +less precipitous and may be comfortably made in a carriage. Of course +the deeply inquiring traveller will alight as promptly as possible, for +the pleasure of climbing into this queerest of cities on foot is not the +least part of the entertainment of going there. Then you appreciate its +extraordinary position, its picturesqueness, its steepness, its +desolation and decay. It hangs—that is, what remains of it—to the +slanting summit of the mountain. Nothing would be more natural than for +the whole place to roll down into the valley. A part of it has done +so—for it is not unjust to suppose that in the process of decay the +crumbled particles have sought the lower level, while the remainder +still clings to its magnificent perch.</p> + +<p>If I called Les Baux a city, just above, it was not that I was +stretching a point in favour of the small spot which to-day contains but +a few dozen inhabitants. The history of the place is as extraordinary as +its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> +situation. It was not only a city, but a state; not only a state, but an +empire; and on the crest of its little mountain called itself sovereign +of a territory, or at least of scattered towns and counties, with which +its present aspect is grotesquely out of relation. The lords of Les +Baux, in a word, were great feudal proprietors; and there was a time +during which the island of Sardinia, to say nothing of places nearer +home, such as Arles and Marseilles, paid them homage. The chronicle of +this old Provençal house has been written, in a style somewhat unctuous +and flowery, by M. Jules Canonge. I purchased the little book—a modest +pamphlet—at the establishment of the good sisters, just beside the +church, in one of the highest parts of Les Baux. The sisters have a +school for the hardy little Baussenques, whom I heard piping their +lessons while I waited in the cold <i>parloir</i> for one of the ladies to +come and speak to me. Nothing could have been more perfect than the +manner of this excellent woman when she arrived; yet her small religious +house seemed a very out-of-the-way corner of the world. It was +spotlessly neat, and the rooms looked as if they had lately been papered +and painted: in this respect, at the mediæval Pompeii, they were rather +a discord. They were, at any rate, the newest, freshest thing at Les +Baux. I remember going round to the church after I had left the good +sisters, and to a little quiet terrace which stands in front of it, +ornamented with a few small trees and bordered with a wall, breast-high, +over which you look down steep hillsides, off into the air and all about +the neighbouring country. I remember saying to myself that this little +terrace was one of those felicitous nooks which the tourist of taste +keeps in his mind as a picture. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>The church was small and brown and +dark, with a certain rustic richness. All this, however, is no general description of +Les Baux.</p> + +<p>I<span class="sidenote">Les Baux</span> am unable to give any coherent account of the place, for the simple +reason that it is a mere confusion of ruin. It has not been preserved in +lava like Pompeii, and its streets and houses, its ramparts and castle, +have become fragmentary not through the sudden destruction, but through +the gradual withdrawal, of a population. It is not an extinguished, but +a deserted city; more deserted far than even Carcassonne and +Aigues-Mortes, where I found so much entertainment in the grass-grown +element. It is of very small extent, and even in the days of its +greatness, when its lords entitled themselves counts of Cephalonia and +Neophantis, kings of Arles and Vienne, princes of Achaia and emperors of +Constantinople—even at this flourishing period, when, as M. Jules +Canonge remarks, "they were able to depress the balance in which the +fate of peoples and kings is weighed," the plucky little city contained +at the most no more than thirty-six hundred souls. Yet its lords (who, +however, as I have said, were able to present a long list of subject +towns, most of them, though a few are renowned, unknown to fame) were +seneschals and captains-general of Piedmont and Lombardy, grand admirals +of the kingdom of Naples, and its ladies were sought in marriage by half +the first princes in Europe. A considerable part of the little narrative +of M. Canonge is taken up with the great alliances of the House of Baux, +whose fortunes, matrimonial and other, he traces from the eleventh +century down to the sixteenth. The empty shells of a considerable number +of old houses, many of which must have been superb, the lines of certain +steep little streets, the foundations of a castle, and ever so many +splendid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> +views, are all that remains to-day of these great titles. To such a list +I may add a dozen very polite and sympathetic people who emerged from +the interstices of the desultory little town to gaze at the two +foreigners who had driven over from Arles and whose horses were being +baited at the modest inn. The resources of this establishment we did not +venture otherwise to test, in spite of the seductive fact that the sign +over the door was in the Provençal tongue. This little group included +the baker, a rather melancholy young man, in high boots and a cloak, +with whom and his companions we had a good deal of conversation. The +Baussenques of to-day struck me as a very mild and agreeable race, with +a good deal of the natural amenity which, on occasions like this one, +the traveller who is waiting for his horses to be put in or his dinner +to be prepared observes in the charming people who lend themselves to +conversation in the hill-towns of Tuscany. The spot where our +entertainers at Les Baux congregated was naturally the most inhabited +portion of the town; as I say, there were at least a dozen human figures +within sight. Presently we wandered away from them, scaled the higher +places, seated ourselves among the ruins of the castle, and looked down +from the cliff overhanging that portion of the road which I have +mentioned as approaching Les Baux from behind. I was unable to trace the +configuration of the castle as plainly as the writers who have described +it in the guide-books, and I am ashamed to say that I did not even +perceive the three great figures of stone (the three Marys, as they are +called; the two Marys of Scripture, with Martha) which constitute one of +the curiosities of the place and of which M. Jules Canonge speaks with +almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> +hyperbolical admiration. A brisk shower, lasting some ten minutes, led +us to take refuge in a cavity of mysterious origin, where the melancholy +baker presently discovered us, having had the <i>bonne pensée</i> of coming +up for us with an umbrella which certainly belonged, in former ages, to +one of the Stéphanettes or Berangères commemorated by M. Canonge. His +oven, I am afraid, was cold so long as our visit lasted. When the rain +was over we wandered down to the little disencumbered space before the +inn, through a small labyrinth of obliterated things. They took the form +of narrow, precipitous streets bordered by empty houses with gaping +windows and absent doors, through which we had glimpses of sculptured +chimney-pieces and fragments of stately arch and vault. Some of the +houses are still inhabited, but most of them are open to the air and +weather. Some of them have completely collapsed; others present to the +street a front which enables one to judge of the physiognomy of Les Baux +in the days of its importance. This importance had pretty well passed +away in the early part of the sixteenth century, when the place ceased +to be an independent principality. It became—by bequest of one of its +lords, Bernardin des Baux, a great captain of his time—part of the +appanage of the kings of France, by whom it was placed under the +protection of Arles, which had formerly occupied with regard to it a +different position. I know not whether the Arlesians neglected their +trust, but the extinction of the sturdy little stronghold is too +complete not to have begun long ago. Its memories are buried under its +ponderous stones. As we drove away from it in the gloaming my friend and +I agreed that the two or three hours we had spent there were among the +happiest impressions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> +of a pair of tourists very curious of the picturesque. We almost forgot +that we were bound to regret that the shortened day left us no time to +drive five miles farther, above a pass in the little mountains—it had +beckoned to us in the morning, when we came in sight of it, almost +irresistibly—to see the Roman arch and mausoleum of Saint Remy. To +compass this larger excursion (including the visit to Les Baux) you must +start from Arles very early in the morning; but I can imagine no more +delightful day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_077.png" width="450" height="261" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxxiii" id="Chapter_xxxiii"></a>Chapter xxxiii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Avignon</div> + +<p>I HAD been twice at Avignon before, and yet I was not satisfied. I +probably am satisfied now; nevertheless I enjoyed my third visit. I +shall not soon forget the first, on which a particular emotion set an +indelible stamp. I was creeping northward, in 1870, after four months +spent, for the first time, in Italy. It was the middle of January, and I +had found myself unexpectedly forced to return to England for the rest +of the winter. It was an insufferable disappointment; I was wretched and +broken-hearted. Italy appeared to me at that time so much better than +anything else in the world, that to rise from table in the middle of the +feast was a prospect of being hungry for the rest of my days. I had +heard a great deal of praise of the south of France; but the south of +France was a poor consolation. In this state of mind I arrived at +Avignon, which under a bright, hard winter sun was tingling—fairly +spinning—with the <i>mistral</i>. I find in my journal of the other day a +reference to the acuteness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> +of my reluctance in January 1870. France, after Italy, appeared in the +language of the latter country <i>poco simpatica</i>; and I thought it +necessary, for reasons now inconceivable, to read the <i>Figaro</i>, which +was filled with descriptions of the horrible Troppmann, the murderer of +the <i>famille</i> Kink. Troppmann, Kink, <i>le crime de Pantin</i>—the very +names that figured in this episode seemed to wave me back. Had I +abandoned the sonorous south to associate with vocables so base?</p> + +<p>It was very cold the other day at Avignon, for though there was no +mistral, it was raining as it rains in Provence, and the dampness had a +terrible chill in it. As I sat by my fire late at night—for in genial +Avignon, in October, I had to have a fire—it came back to me that +eleven years before I had at that same hour sat by a fire in that same +room and, writing to a friend to whom I was not afraid to appear +extravagant, had made a vow that at some happier period of the future I +would avenge myself on the <i>ci-devant</i> city of the Popes by taking it in +a contrary sense. I suppose that I redeemed my vow on the occasion of my +second visit better than on my third; for then I was on my way to Italy, +and that vengeance, of course, was complete. The only drawback was that +I was in such a hurry to get to Ventimiglia (where the Italian +custom-house was to be the sign of my triumph), that I scarcely took +time to make it clear to myself at Avignon that this was better than +reading the <i>Figaro</i>. I hurried on almost too fast to enjoy the +consciousness of moving southward. On this last occasion I was +unfortunately destitute of that happy faith. Avignon was my southernmost +limit, after which I was to turn round and proceed back to England. But +in the interval I had been a great deal in Italy, and that made all the +difference.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Avignon</div> + +<p>I had plenty of time to think of this, for the rain kept me practically +housed for the first twenty-four hours. It had been raining in these +regions for a month, and people had begun to look askance at the Rhone, +though as yet the volume of the river was not exorbitant. The only +excursion possible, while the torrent descended, was a kind of +horizontal dive, accompanied with infinite splashing, to the little +<i>musée</i> of the town, which is within a moderate walk of the hotel. I had +a memory of it from my first visit; it had appeared to me more pictorial +than its pictures. I found that recollection had flattered it a little, +and that it is neither better nor worse than most provincial museums. It +has the usual musty chill in the air, the usual grass-grown forecourt, +in which a few lumpish Roman fragments are disposed, the usual red tiles +on the floor and the usual specimens of the more livid schools on the +walls. I rang up the <i>gardien</i>, who arrived with a bunch of keys, wiping +his mouth; he unlocked doors for me, opened shutters, and while (to my +distress, as if the things had been worth lingering over) he shuffled +about after me, he announced the names of the pictures before which I +stopped in a voice that reverberated through the melancholy halls and +seemed to make the authorship shameful when it was obscure and grotesque +when it pretended to be great. Then there were intervals of silence, +while I stared absent-mindedly, at haphazard, at some indistinguishable +canvas and the only sound was the downpour of the rain on the skylights. +The museum of Avignon derives a certain dignity from its Roman +fragments. The town has no Roman monuments to show; in this respect, +beside its brilliant neighbours, Arles and Nîmes, it is a blank. But a +great many small objects have been found in its soil—pottery, glass, +bronzes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> +lamps, vessels and ornaments of gold and silver. The glass is especially +charming—small vessels of the most delicate shape and substance, many +of them perfectly preserved. These diminutive, intimate things bring one +near to the old Roman life; they seems like pearls strung upon the +slender thread that swings across the gulf of time. A little glass cup +that Roman lips have touched says more to us than the great vessel of an +arena. There are two small silver <i>casseroles</i>, with chiselled handles, +in the museum of Avignon, that struck me as among the most charming +survivals of antiquity.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Avignon the Palace of the Popes</div> + +<p>I did wrong, just above, to speak of my attack on this establishment as +the only recreation I took that first wet day; for I remember a terribly +moist visit to the former palace of the Popes, which could have taken +place only in the same tempestuous hours. It is true that I scarcely +know why I should have gone out to see the Papal palace in the rain, for +I had been over it twice before, and even then had not found the +interest of the place so complete as it ought to be; the fact +nevertheless remains that this last occasion is much associated with an +umbrella, which was not superfluous even in some of the chambers and +corridors of the gigantic pile. It had already seemed to me the +dreariest of all historical buildings, and my final visit confirmed the +impression. The place is as intricate as it is vast, and as desolate as +it is dirty. The imagination has, for some reason or other, to make more +than the effort usual in such cases to restore and repeople it. The fact +indeed is simply that the palace has been so incalculably abused and +altered. The alterations have been so numerous that, though I have duly +conned the enumerations, supplied in guide-books, of the principal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 571px;"> +<img src="images/ill_078_th.png" width="571" height="550" alt="AVIGNON—THE CHURCH" /> +<span class="caption">AVIGNON—THE CHURCH</span> +<a href="images/ill_078.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">perversions, I do not pretend to carry any of them in my head. The huge +bare mass, without ornament, without grace, despoiled of its battlements +and defaced with sordid modern windows, covering the Rocher des Doms and +looking down over the Rhone and the broken bridge of Saint-Bénazet +(which stops in such a sketchable manner in mid-stream), and across at +the lonely tower of Philippe le Bel and the ruined wall of Villeneuve, +makes at a distance, in spite of its poverty, a great figure, the effect +of which is carried out by the tower of the church beside it (crowned +though the latter be, in a top-heavy fashion, with an immense modern +image of the Virgin) and by the thick, dark foliage of the garden laid +out on a still higher portion of the eminence. This garden recalls +faintly and a trifle perversely the grounds of the Pincian at Rome. I +know not whether it is the shadow of the Papal name, present in both +places, combined with a vague analogy between the churches—which, +approached in each case by a flight of steps, seemed to defend the +precinct—but each time I have seen the Promenade des Doms it has +carried my thoughts to the wider and loftier terrace from which you look +away at the Tiber and Saint Peter's.</p> + +<p>As<span class="sidenote">Avignon: the Palace of the Popes</span> you stand before the Papal palace, and especially as you enter it, +you are struck with its being a very dull monument. History enough was +enacted here: the great schism lasted from 1305 to 1370, during which +seven Popes, all Frenchmen, carried on the court of Avignon on +principles that have not commended themselves to the esteem of +posterity. But history has been whitewashed away, and the scandals of +that period have mingled with the dust of dilapidations and repairs. The +building has for many years been occupied as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> +barrack for regiments of the line, and the main characteristics of a +barrack—an extreme nudity and a very queer smell—prevail throughout +its endless compartments. Nothing could have been more cruelly dismal +than the appearance it presented at the time of this third visit of +mine. A regiment, changing quarters, had departed the day before, and +another was expected to arrive (from Algeria) on the morrow. The place +had been left in the befouled and belittered condition which marks the +passage of the military after they have broken camp, and it would offer +but a melancholy welcome to the regiment that was about to take +possession. Enormous windows had been left carelessly open all over the +building, and the rain and wind were beating into empty rooms and +passages, making draughts which purified, perhaps, but which scarcely +cheered. For an arrival it was horrible. A handful of soldiers had +remained behind. In one of the big vaulted rooms several of them were +lying on their wretched beds, in the dim light, in the cold, in the +damp, with the bleak bare walls before them and their overcoats, spread +over them, pulled up to their noses. I pitied them immensely, though +they may have felt less wretched than they looked. I thought not of the +old profligacies and crimes, not of the funnel-shaped torture-chamber +(which, after exciting the shudder of generations, has been ascertained +now, I believe, to have been a mediæval bakehouse), not of the tower of +the <i>glacière</i> and the horrors perpetrated here in the Revolution, but +of the military burden of young France. One wonders how young France +endures it, and one is forced to believe that the French conscript has, +in addition to his notorious good-humour, greater toughness than is +commonly supposed by those who consider only the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> +more relaxing influences of French civilisation. I hope he finds +occasional compensation for such moments as I saw those damp young +peasants passing on the mattresses of their hideous barrack, without +anything around to remind them that they were in the most civilised of +countries. The only traces of former splendour now visible in the Papal +pile are the walls and vaults of two small chapels, painted in fresco, +so battered and effaced as to be scarcely distinguishable, by Simone +Memmi. It offers of course a peculiarly good field for restoration, and +I believe the Government intend to take it in hand. I mention this fact +without a sigh, for they cannot well make it less interesting than it is +at present.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_079.png" width="450" height="214" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxxiv" id="Chapter_xxxiv"></a>Chapter xxxiv</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Villeneuve-lès-Avignon</div> + +<p>FORTUNATELY it did not rain every day (though I believe it was raining +everywhere else in the department); otherwise I should not have been +able to go to Villeneuve and to Vaucluse. The afternoon indeed was +lovely when I walked over the interminable bridge that spans the two +arms of the Rhone, divided here by a considerable island, and directed +my course, like a solitary horseman—on foot, to the lonely tower which +forms one of the outworks of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. The picturesque, +half-deserted little town lies a couple of miles farther up the river. +The immense round towers of its old citadel and the long stretches of +ruined wall covering the slope on which it lies are the most striking +features of the nearer view, as you look from Avignon across the Rhone. +I spent a couple of hours in visiting these objects, and there was a +kind of pictorial sweetness in the episode; but I have not many details +to relate. The isolated tower I just mentioned has much in common with +the detached donjon of Montmajour, which I had looked at in going to Les +Baux and to which I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +paid my respects in speaking of that excursion. Also the work of +Philippe le Bel (built in 1307), it is amazingly big and stubborn, and +formed the opposite limit of the broken bridge whose first arches (on +the side of Avignon) alone remain to give a measure of the occasional +volume of the Rhone. Half an hour's walk brought me to Villeneuve, which +lies away from the river, looking like a big village half depopulated +and occupied for the most part by dogs and cats, old women and small +children; these last, in general, remarkably pretty, in the manner of +the children of Provence. You pass through the place, which seems in a +singular degree vague and unconscious, and come to the rounded hill on +which the ruined abbey lifts its yellow walls—the Benedictine abbey of +Saint-André, at once a church, a monastery, and a fortress. A large part +of the crumbling enceinte disposes itself over the hill; but for the +rest, all that has preserved any traceable cohesion is a considerable +portion of the citadel. The defence of the place appears to have been +entrusted largely to the huge round towers that flank the old gate; one +of which, the more complete, the ancient warden (having first inducted +me into his own dusky little apartment and presented me with a great +bunch of lavender) enabled me to examine in detail. I would almost have +dispensed with the privilege, for I think I have already mentioned that +an acquaintance with many feudal interiors has wrought a sad confusion +in my mind. The image of the outside always remains distinct; I keep it +apart from other images of the same sort; it makes, a picture +sufficiently ineffaceable. But the guard-rooms, winding staircases, +loopholes, prisons, repeat themselves and intermingle; they have a +wearisome family likeness. There are always black passages and corners,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> +and walls twenty feet thick; and there is always some high place to +climb up to for the sake of a "magnificent" view. The views, too, are +apt to run together. These dense gate-towers of Philippe le Bel struck +me, however, as peculiarly wicked and grim. Their capacity is of the +largest, and they contain ever so many devilish little dungeons, lighted +by the narrowest slit in the prodigious wall, where it comes over one +with a good deal of vividness and still more horror that wretched human +beings once lay there rotting in the dark. The dungeons of Villeneuve +made a particular impression on me—greater than any except those of +Loches, which must surely be the most gruesome in Europe. I hasten to +add that every dark hole at Villeneuve is called a dungeon; and I +believe it is well established that in this manner, in almost all old +castles and towers, the sensibilities of the modern tourist are +unscrupulously played upon. There were plenty of black holes in the +Middle Ages that were not dungeons, but household receptacles of various +kinds; and many a tear dropped in pity for the groaning captive has +really been addressed to the spirits of the larder and the faggot-nook. +For all this, there are some very bad corners in the towers of +Villeneuve, so that I was not wide of the mark when I began to think +again, as I had often thought before, of the stoutness of the human +composition in the Middle Ages and the tranquillity of nerve of people +to whom the groaning captive and the blackness of a "living tomb" were +familiar ideas which did not at all interfere with their happiness or +their sanity. Our modern nerves, our irritable sympathies, our easy +discomforts and fears, make one think (in some relations) less +respectfully of human nature. Unless indeed it be true, as I have heard +it maintained, that in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Villeneuve-lès-Avignon</div> + +<p>Middle Ages every one did go mad—every one <i>was</i> mad. The theory that +this was a period of general dementia is not altogether untenable.</p> + +<p>Within the old walls of its immense abbey the town of Villeneuve has +built itself a rough faubourg; the fragments with which the soil was +covered having been, i suppose, a quarry of material. There are no +streets; the small, shabby houses, almost hovels, straggle at random +over the uneven ground. The only important feature is a convent of +cloistered nuns, who have a large garden (always within the walls) +behind their house, and whose doleful establishment you look down into, +or down at simply, from the battlements of the citadel. One or two of +the nuns were passing in and out of the house; they wore grey robes with +a bright red cape. I thought their situation most provincial. I came +away and wandered a little over the base of the hill, outside the walls. +Small white stones cropped through the grass, over which low olive-trees +were scattered. The afternoon had a yellow brightness. I sat down under +one of the little trees, on the grass—the delicate grey branches were +not much above my head—and rested and looked at Avignon across the +Rhone. It was very soft, very still and pleasant, though I am not sure +it was all I once should have expected of that combination of elements: +an old city wall for a background, a canopy of olives, and for a couch +the soil of Provence.</p> + +<p>When<span class="sidenote">Avignon</span> I came back to Avignon the twilight was already thick, but I walked +up to the Rocher des Doms. Here I again had the benefit of that amiable +moon which had already lighted up for me so many romantic scenes. She +was full, and she rose over the Rhone and made it look in the distance +like a silver serpent. I remember saying to myself at this moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> +that it would be a beautiful evening to walk round the walls of +Avignon—the remarkable walls which challenge comparison with those of +Carcassonne and Aigues-Mortes, and which it was my duty, as an observer +of the picturesque, to examine with some attention. Presenting +themselves to that silver sheen, they could not fail to be impressive. +So, at least, I said to myself; but unfortunately I did not believe what +I said. It is a melancholy fact that the walls of Avignon had never +impressed me at all, and I had never taken the trouble to make the +circuit. They are continuous and complete, but for some mysterious +reason they fail of their effect. This is partly because they are very +low, in some places almost absurdly so, being buried in new +accumulations of soil and by the filling in of the moat up to their +middle. Then they have been too well tended; they not only look at +present very new, but look as if they had never been old. The fact that +their extent is very much greater makes them more of a curiosity than +those of Carcassonne; but this is exactly, at the same time, what is +fatal to their pictorial unity. With their thirty-seven towers and seven +gates, they lose themselves too much to make a picture that will compare +with the admirable little vignette of Carcassonne. I may mention, now +that I am speaking of the general mass of Avignon, that nothing is more +curious than the way in which, viewed from a distance, it is all reduced +to naught by the vast bulk of the palace of the Popes. From across the +Rhone, or from the train as you leave the place, this great grey block +is all Avignon; it seems to occupy the whole city, extensive, with its +shrunken population, as the city is.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_080.png" width="450" height="283" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxxv" id="Chapter_xxxv"></a>Chapter xxxv</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Vaucluse</div> + +<p>IT was the morning after this, I think (a certain Saturday), that when I +came out of the Hôtel de l'Europe, which lies in shallow concavity just +within the city gate that opens on the Rhone—came out to look at the +sky from the little <i>place</i> before the inn and see how the weather +promised for the obligatory excursion to Vaucluse—I found the whole +town in a terrible taking. I say the whole town advisedly, for every +inhabitant appeared to have taken up a position on the bank of the +river, or on the uppermost parts of the promenade of the Doms, where a +view of its course was to be obtained. It had risen surprisingly in the +night, and the good people of Avignon had reason to know what a rise of +the Rhone might signify. The town, in its lower portions, is quite at +the mercy of the swollen waters; and it was mentioned to me that in 1856 +the Hôtel de l'Europe, in its convenient hollow, was flooded up to +within a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> +feet of the ceiling of the dining-room, where the long board which had +served for so many a table d'hôte floated disreputably, with its legs in +the air. On the present occasion the mountains of the Ardêche, where it +had been raining for a month, had sent down torrents which, all that +fine Friday night, by the light of the innocent-looking moon, poured +themselves into the Rhone and its tributary the Durance. The river was +enormous and continued to rise, and the sight was beautiful and +horrible. The water in many places was already at the base of the city +walls, the quay, with its parapet just emerging, being already covered. +The country, seen from the Plateau des Doms, resembled a vast lake, with +protrusions of trees, houses, bridges, gates. The people looked at it in +silence, as I had seen people before—on the occasion of a rise of the +Arno, at Pisa—appear to consider the prospect of an inundation. "Il +monte; il monte toujours"—there was not much said but that. It was a +general holiday, and there was an air of wishing to profit, for +sociability's sake, by any interruption of the commonplace (the popular +mind likes "a change," and the element of change mitigates the sense of +disaster); but the affair was not otherwise a holiday. Suspense and +anxiety were in the air, and it never is pleasant to be reminded of the +helplessness of man. In the presence of a loosened river, with its +ravaging, unconquerable volume, this impression is as strong as +possible; and as I looked at the deluge which threatened to make an +island of the Papal palace I perceived that the scourge of water is +greater than the scourge of fire. A blaze may be quenched, but where +could the flame be kindled that would arrest the quadrupled Rhone? For +the population of Avignon a good deal was at stake, and I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> +almost ashamed to confess that in the midst of the public alarm I +considered the situation from the point of view of the little projects +of a sentimental tourist. Would the prospective inundation interfere +with my visit to Vaucluse, or make it imprudent to linger twenty-four +hours longer at Avignon? I must add that the tourist was not perhaps, +after all, so sentimental. I have spoken of the pilgrimage to the shrine +of Petrarch as obligatory, and that was, in fact, the light in which it +presented itself to me; all the more that I had been twice at Avignon +without undertaking it. This is why I was vexed at the Rhone.—if vexed +I was—for representing as impracticable an excursion which I cared +nothing about. How little I cared was manifest from my inaction on +former occasions. I had a prejudice against Vaucluse, against Petrarch, +even against the incomparable Laura. I was sure that the place was +cockneyfied and threadbare, and I had never been able to take an +interest in the poet and the lady. I was sure that I had known many +women as charming and as handsome as she, about whom much less noise had +been made; and I was convinced that her singer was factitious and +literary, and that there are half a dozen stanzas in Wordsworth that +speak more to the soul than the whole collection of his <i>fioriture</i>. +This was the crude state of mind in which I determined to go, at any +risk, to Vaucluse. Now that I think it over, I seem to remember that I +had hoped, after all, that the submersion of the roads would forbid it. +Since morning the clouds had gathered again, and by noon they were so +heavy that there was every prospect of a torrent. It appeared absurd to +choose such a time as this to visit a fountain—a fountain which would +be indistinguishable in the general cataract.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Vaucluse</div> + +<p>Nevertheless I took a vow, that if at noon the rain should not have +begun to descend upon Avignon I would repair to the head-spring of the +Sorgues. When the critical moment arrived the clouds were hanging over +Avignon like distended water-bags, which only needed a prick to empty +themselves. The prick was not given, however; all nature was too much +occupied in following the aberrations of the Rhone to think of playing +tricks elsewhere. Accordingly I started for the station in a spirit +which, for a tourist who sometimes had prided himself on his unfailing +supply of sentiment, was shockingly perfunctory.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"For tasks in hours of insight willed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">May be in hours of gloom fulfilled."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>I remembered these lines of Matthew Arnold (written, apparently, in an +hour of gloom), and carried out the idea, as I went, by hoping that with +the return of insight I should be glad to have seen Vaucluse. Light has +descended upon me since then, and I declare that the excursion is in +every way to be recommended. The place makes a great impression, quite +apart from Petrarch and Laura.</p> + +<p>There was no rain; there was only, all the afternoon, a mild, moist wind +and a sky magnificently black; which made a <i>repoussoir</i> for the paler +cliffs of the fountain. The road, by train, crosses a flat, +expressionless country, towards the range of arid hills which lie to the +east of Avignon, and which spring (says Murray) from the mass of the +Mont-Ventoux. At Isle-sur-Sorgues, at the end of about an hour, the +foreground becomes much more animated and the distance much more (or +perhaps I should say much less) actual. I descended from the train and +ascended to the top of an omnibus which was to convey me into the +recesses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> +of the hills. It had not been among my previsions that I should be +indebted to a vehicle of that kind for an opportunity to commune with +the spirit of Petrarch; and I had to borrow what consolation I could +from the fact that at least I had the omnibus to myself. I was the only +passenger; every one else was at Avignon watching the Rhone. I lost no +time in perceiving that I could not have come to Vaucluse at a better +moment. The Sorgues was almost as full as the Rhone, and of a colour +much more romantic. Rushing along its narrowed channel under an avenue +of fine <i>platanes</i> (it is confined between solid little embankments of +stone), with the good wives of the village, on the brink, washing their +linen in its contemptuous flood, it gave promise of high entertainment +farther on.</p> + +<p>The drive to Vaucluse is of about three-quarters of an hour; and though +the river, as I say, was promising, the big pale hills, as the road +winds into them, did not look as if their slopes of stone and shrub were +a nestling-place for superior scenery. It is a part of the merit of +Vaucluse indeed that it is as much as possible a surprise. The place has +a right to its name, for the valley appears impenetrable until you get +fairly into it. One perverse twist follows another until the omnibus +suddenly deposits you in front of the "cabinet" of Petrarch. After that +you have only to walk along the left bank of the river. The cabinet of +Petrarch is to-day a hideous little <i>café</i>, bedizened, like a signboard, +with extracts from the ingenious "Rime." The poet and his lady are of +course the stock-in-trade of the little village, which has had for +several generations the privilege of attracting young couples engaged in +their wedding-tour and other votaries of the tender passion. The place +has long been familiar, on festal Sundays, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> +the swains of Avignon and their attendant nymphs. The little fish of the +Sorgues are much esteemed, and, eaten on the spot, they constitute, for +the children of the once Papal city, the classic suburban dinner. +Vaucluse has been turned to account, however, not only by sentiment, but +by industry; the banks of the stream being disfigured by a pair of +hideous mills for the manufacture of paper and of wool. In an +enterprising and economical age the water-power of the Sorgues was too +obvious a motive; and I must say that, as the torrent rushed past them, +the wheels of the dirty little factories appeared to turn merrily +enough. The footpath on the left bank, of which I just spoke, carries +one fortunately quite out of sight of them, and out of sound as well, +inasmuch as on the day of my visit the stream itself, which was in +tremendous force, tended more and more, as one approached the fountain, +to fill the valley with its own echoes. Its colour was magnificent, and +the whole spectacle more like a corner of Switzerland than a nook in +Provence. The protrusions of the mountain shut it in, and you penetrate +to the bottom of the recess which they form. The Sorgues rushes and +rushes; it is almost like Niagara after the jump of the cataract. There +are dreadful little booths beside the path, for the sale of photographs +and <i>immortelles</i>—I don't know what one is to do with the +immortelles—where you are offered a brush dipped in tar to write your +name withal on the rocks. Thousands of vulgar persons, of both sexes, +and exclusively, it appeared, of the French nationality, had availed +themselves of this implement, for every square inch of accessible stone +was scored over with some human appellation. It is not only we in +America, therefore, who besmirch our scenery; the practice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 327px;"> +<img src="images/ill_081_th.png" width="327" height="550" alt="VAUCLUSE—RUINS OF CASTLE" /> +<span class="caption">VAUCLUSE—RUINS OF CASTLE</span> +<a href="images/ill_081.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">exists, in a more organised form (like everything else in France), in +the country of good taste. You leave the little booths and stalls +behind; but the bescribbled crag, bristling with human vanity, keeps you +company even when you stand face to face with the fountain. This happens +when you find yourself at the foot of the enormous straight cliff out of +which the river gushes. It rears itself to an extraordinary height—a +huge forehead of bare stone—looking as if it were the half of a +tremendous mound split open by volcanic action. The little valley, +seeing it there, at a bend, stops suddenly and receives in its arms the +magical spring. I call it magical on account of the mysterious manner in +which it comes into the world, with the huge shoulder of the mountain +rising over it as if to protect the secret. From under the mountain it +silently rises, without visible movement, filling a small natural basin +with the stillest blue water. The contrast between the stillness of this +basin and the agitation of the water directly after it has overflowed, +constitutes half the charm of Vaucluse. The violence of the stream when +once it has been set loose on the rocks is as fascinating and +indescribable as that of other cataracts; and the rocks in the bed of +the Sorgues have been arranged by a master-hand. The setting of the +phenomenon struck me as so simple and so fine—the vast sad cliff, +covered with the afternoon light, still and solid for ever, while the +liquid element rages and roars at its base—that I had no difficulty in +understanding the celebrity of Vaucluse. I understood it, but I will not +say that I understood Petrarch. He must have been very self-supporting, +and Madonna Laura must indeed have been much to him.</p> + +<p>The aridity of the hills that shut in the valley is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> +<span class="sidenote">Vaucluse</span> +complete, and the whole impression is best conveyed by that very +expressive French epithet <i>morne</i>. There are the very fragmentary ruins +of a castle (of one of the bishops of Cavaillon) on a high spur of the +mountain, above the river; and there is another remnant of a feudal +habitation on one of the more accessible ledges. Having half an hour to +spare before my omnibus was to leave (I must beg the reader's pardon for +this atrociously false note; call the vehicle a <i>diligence</i>, and for +some undiscoverable reason the offence is minimised), I clambered up to +this latter spot and sat among the rocks in the company of a few stunted +olives. The Sorgues, beneath me, reaching the plain, flung itself +crookedly across the meadows like an unrolled blue ribbon. I tried to +think of the <i>amant de Laure</i>, for literature's sake; but I had no great +success, and the most I could do was to say to myself that I must try +again. Several months have elapsed since then, and I am ashamed to +confess that the trial has not yet come off. The only very definite +conviction I arrived at was that Vaucluse is indeed cockneyfied, but +that I should have been a fool, all the same, not to come.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_082.png" width="450" height="350" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxxvi" id="Chapter_xxxvi"></a>Chapter xxxvi</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Orange</div> + +<p>MOUNTED into my diligence at the door of the Hôtel de Pétrarque et de +Laure, and we made our way back to Isle-sur-Sorgues in the fading light. +This village, where at six o'clock every one appeared to have gone to +bed, was fairly darkened by its high, dense plane-trees, under which the +rushing river, on a level with its parapets, looked unnaturally, almost +wickedly, blue. It was a glimpse which has left a picture in my mind: +the little closed houses, the place empty and soundless in the autumn +dusk but for the noise of waters, and in the middle, amid the blackness +of the shade, the gleam of the swift, strange tide. At the station every +one was talking of the inundation being in many places an accomplished +fact, and, in particular, of the condition of the Durance at some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> +point that I have forgotten. At Avignon, an hour later, I found the +water in some of the streets. The sky cleared in the evening, the moon +lighted up the submerged suburbs, and the population again collected in +the high places to enjoy the spectacle. It exhibited a certain sameness, +however, and by nine o'clock there was considerable animation in the +Place Crillon, where there is nothing to be seen but the front of the +theatre and of several cafés—in addition indeed to a statue of this +celebrated brave, whose valour redeemed some of the numerous military +disasters of the reign of Louis XV. The next morning the lower quarters +of the town were in a pitiful state: the situation seemed to me odious. +To express my disapproval of it I lost no time in taking the train to +Orange, which, with its other attractions, had the merit of not being +seated on the Rhone. It was destiny to move northward; but even if I had +been at liberty to follow a less unnatural course I should not then have +undertaken it, inasmuch as the railway between Avignon and Marseilles +was credibly reported to be (in places) under water. This was the case +with almost everything but the line itself on the way to Orange. The day +proved splendid, and its brilliancy only lighted up the desolation. +Farmhouses and cottages were up to their middle in the yellow liquidity; +haystacks looked like dull little islands; windows and doors gaped open, +without faces; and interruption and flight were represented in the +scene. It was brought home to me that the <i>populations rurales</i> have +many different ways of suffering, and my heart glowed with a grateful +sense of cockneyism. It was under the influence of this emotion that I +alighted at Orange to visit a collection of eminently civil monuments.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote">Orange</div> + +<p>The collection consists of but two objects, but these objects are so +fine that I will let the word pass. One of them is a triumphal arch, +supposedly of the period of Marcus Aurelius; the other is a fragment, +magnificent in its ruin, of a Roman theatre. But for these fine Roman +remains and for its name, Orange is a perfectly featureless little town, +without the Rhone—which, as I have mentioned, is several miles +distant—to help it to a physiognomy. It seems one of the oddest things +that this obscure French borough—obscure, I mean, in our modern era, +for the Gallo-Roman Arausio must have been, judging it by its arches and +theatre, a place of some importance—should have given its name to the +heirs-apparent of the throne of Holland and been borne by a king of +England who had sovereign rights over it. During the Middle Ages it +formed part of an independent principality; but in 1531 it fell, by the +marriage of one of its princesses, who had inherited it, into the family +of Nassau. I read in my indispensable Murray that it was made over to +France by the treaty of Utrecht. The arch of triumph, which stands a +little way out of the town, is rather a pretty than an imposing vestige +of the Romans. If it had greater purity of style one might say of it +that it belonged to the same family of monuments as the Maison Carrée at +Nîmes. It has three passages—the middle much higher than the +others—and a very elevated attic. The vaults of the passages are richly +sculptured, and the whole structure is covered with friezes and military +trophies. This sculpture is rather mixed; much of it is broken and +defaced, and the rest seemed to me ugly, though its workmanship is +praised. The arch is at once well preserved and much injured. Its +general mass is there, and as Roman monuments go it is remarkably +perfect; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> +it has suffered, in patches, from the extremity of restoration. It is +not, on the whole, of absorbing interest. It has a charm, nevertheless, +which comes partly from its soft, bright yellow colour, partly from a +certain elegance of shape, of expression; and on that well-washed Sunday +morning, with its brilliant tone, surrounded by its circle of thin +poplars, with the green country lying beyond it and a low blue horizon +showing through its empty portals, it made, very sufficiently, a picture +that hangs itself to one of the lateral hooks of the memory. I can take +down the modest composition and place it before me as I write. I see the +shallow, shining puddles in the hard, fair French road; the pale blue +sky, diluted by days of rain; the disgarnished autumnal fields; the mild +sparkle of the low horizon; the solitary figure in sabots, with a bundle +under its arm, advancing along the <i>chaussée</i>; and in the middle I see +the little ochre-coloured trio of apertures, which, in spite of its +antiquity, looks bright and gay, as everything must look in France of a +fresh Sunday morning.</p> + +<p>It is true that this was not exactly the appearance of the Roman +theatre, which lies on the other side of the town; a fact that did not +prevent me from making my way to it in less than five minutes, through a +succession of little streets concerning which I have no observations to +record. None of the Roman remains in the south of France are more +impressive than this stupendous fragment. An enormous mound rises above +the place, which was formerly occupied—I quote from Murray—first by a +citadel of the Romans, then by a castle of the princes of Nassau, razed +by Louis XIV. Facing this hill a mighty wall erects itself, thirty-six +metres high and composed of massive blocks of dark brown stone simply +laid one on the other; the whole naked, rugged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 329px;"> +<img src="images/ill_083_th.png" width="329" height="550" alt="ORANGE—THE THEATRE." /> +<span class="caption">ORANGE—THE THEATRE.</span> +<a href="images/ill_083.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">surface of which suggests a natural cliff (say of the Vaucluse order) +rather than an effort of human or even of Roman labour. It is the +biggest thing at Orange—it is bigger than all Orange put together—and +its permanent massiveness makes light of the shrunken city. The face it +presents to the town—the top of it garnished with two rows of brackets +perforated with holes to receive the staves of the <i>velarium</i>—bears the +traces of more than one tier of ornamental arches; though how these flat +arches were applied, or incrusted, upon the wall, I do not profess to +explain. You pass through a diminutive postern—which seems in +proportion about as high as the entrance of a rabbit-hutch—into the +lodge of the custodian, who introduces you to the interior of the +theatre. Here the mass of the hill affronts you, which the ingenious +Romans treated simply as the material of their auditorium. They inserted +their stone seats, in a semicircle, in the slope of the hill, and +planted their colossal wall opposite to it. This wall, from the inside, +is, if possible, even more imposing. It formed the back of the stage, +the permanent scene, and its enormous face was coated with marble. It +contains three doors, the middle one being the highest and having above +it, far aloft, a deep niche apparently intended for an imperial statue. +A few of the benches remain on the hillside, which, however, is mainly a +confusion of fragments. There is part of a corridor built into the hill, +high up, and on the crest are the remnants of the demolished castle. The +whole place is a kind of wilderness of ruin; there are scarcely any +details; the great feature is the overtopping wall. This wall being the +back of the scene, the space left between it and the chord of the +semicircle (of the auditorium) which formed the proscenium is rather +less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> +than one would have supposed. In other words, the stage was very +shallow, and appears to have been arranged for a number of performers +placed in a line like a company of soldiers. There stands the silent +skeleton, however, as impressive by what it leaves you to guess and +wonder about as by what it tells you. It has not the sweetness, the +softness of melancholy, of the theatre at Aries; but it is more +extraordinary, and one can imagine only tremendous tragedies being +enacted there—</p> + +<p class="c">"Presenting Thebes' or Pelops' line."</p> + +<p>At<span class="sidenote">Orange</span> either end of the stage, coming forward, is an immense wing—immense +in height, I mean, as it reaches to the top of the scenic wall; the +other dimensions are not remarkable. The division to the right, <i>as you</i> +face the stage, is pointed out as the green-room; its portentous +altitude and the open arches at the top give it the air of a well. The +compartment on the left is exactly similar, save that it opens into the +traces of other chambers, said to be those of a hippodrome adjacent to +the theatre. Various fragments are visible which refer themselves +plausibly to such an establishment; the greater axis of the hippodrome +would appear to have been on a line with the triumphal arch. This is all +I saw, and all there was to see, of Orange, which had a very rustic, +bucolic aspect, and where I was not even called upon to demand breakfast +at the hotel. The entrance of this resort might have been that of a +stable of the Roman days.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_084.png" width="450" height="273" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxxvii" id="Chapter_xxxvii"></a>Chapter xxxvii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Macon</div> + +<p>I HAVE been trying to remember whether I fasted all the way to Macon, +which I reached at an advanced hour of the evening, and think I must +have done so except for the purchase of a box of nougat at Montélimart +(the place is famous for the manufacture of this confection, which, at +the station, is hawked at the windows of the train) and for a bouillon, +very much later, at Lyons. The journey beside the Rhone—past Valence, +past Tournon, past Vienne—would have been charming, on that luminous +Sunday, but for two disagreeable accidents. The express from Marseilles, +which I took at Orange, was full to overflowing; and the only refuge I +could find was an inside angle in a carriage laden with Germans who had +command of the windows, which they occupied as strongly as they have +been known to occupy other strategical positions. I scarcely know, +however, why I linger on this particular discomfort, for it was but a +single item in a considerable list of grievances—grievances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> +dispersed through six weeks of constant railway-travel in France. I have +not touched upon them at an earlier stage of this chronicle, but my +reserve is not owing to any sweetness of association. This form of +locomotion, in the country of the amenities, is attended with a dozen +discomforts; almost all the conditions of the business are detestable. +They force the sentimental tourist again and again to ask himself +whether, in consideration of such mortal annoyances, the game is worth +the candle. Fortunately a railway journey is a good deal like a +sea-voyage; its miseries fade from the mind as soon as you arrive. That +is why I completed, to my great satisfaction, my little tour in France. +Let this small effusion of ill-nature be my first and last tribute to +the whole despotic <i>gare</i>: the deadly <i>salle d'attente</i>, the +insufferable delays over one's luggage, the porterless platform, the +overcrowded and illiberal train. How many a time did I permit myself the +secret reflection that it is in perfidious Albion that they order this +matter best! How many a time did the eager British mercenary, clad in +velveteen and clinging to the door of the carriage as it glides into the +station, revisit my invidious dreams! The paternal porter and the +responsive hansom are among the best gifts of the English genius to the +world. I hasten to add, faithful to my habit (so insufferable to some of +my friends) of ever and again readjusting the balance after I have given +it an honest tip, that the bouillon at Lyons, which I spoke of above, +was, though by no means an idea bouillon, much better than any I could +have obtained at an English railway-station. After I had imbibed it I +sat in the train (which waited a long time at Lyons) and, by the light +of one of the big lamps on the platform, read all sorts of disagreeable +things in certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 336px;"> +<img src="images/ill_085_th.png" width="336" height="550" alt="LYONS." /> +<span class="caption">LYONS.</span> +<a href="images/ill_085.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">radical newspapers which I had bought at the bookstall. I gathered from +these sheets that Lyons was in extreme commotion. The Rhone and the +Saone, which form a girdle for the splendid town, were almost in the +streets, as I could easily believe from what I had seen of the country +after leaving Orange. The Rhone, all the way to Lyons, had been in all +sorts of places where it had no business to be, and matters were +naturally not improved by its confluence with the charming and copious +stream which, at Macon, is said once to have given such a happy +opportunity to the egotism of the capital. A visitor from Paris (the +anecdote is very old), being asked on the quay of that city whether he +didn't admire the Saone, replied good-naturedly that it was very pretty, +but that in Paris they spelled it with the <i>ei</i>. This moment of general +alarm at Lyons had been chosen by certain ingenious persons (I credit +them perhaps with too sure a prevision of the rise of the rivers) for +practising further upon the apprehensions of the public. A bombshell +filled with dynamite had been thrown into a café, and various votaries +of the comparatively innocuous <i>petit verre</i> had been wounded (I am not +sure whether any one had been killed) by the irruption. Of course there +had been arrests and incarcerations, and the <i>Intransigeant</i> and the +<i>Rappel</i> were filled with the echoes of the explosion. The tone of these +organs is rarely edifying, and it had never been less so than on this +occasion. I wondered as I looked through them whether I was losing all +my radicalism; and then I wondered whether, after all, I had any to +lose. Even in so long a wait as that tiresome delay at Lyons I failed to +settle the question, any more than I made up my mind as to the probable +future of the militant democracy, or the ultimate form of a +civilisation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> +which should have blown up everything else. A few days later the water +went down at Lyons; but the democracy has not gone down.</p> + +<p>I<span class="sidenote">Macon</span> remember vividly the remainder of that evening which I spent at +Macon—remember it with a chattering of the teeth. I know not what had +got into the place; the temperature, for the last day of October, was +eccentric and incredible. These epithets may also be applied to the +hotel itself—an extraordinary structure, all façade, which exposes an +uncovered rear to the gaze of nature. There is a demonstrative, voluble +landlady, who is of course part of the façade; but everything behind her +is a trap for the winds, with chambers, corridors, staircases all +exhibited to the sky as if the outer wall of the house had been lifted +off. It would have been delightful for Florida, but it didn't do for +Burgundy even on the eve of November 1, so that I suffered absurdly from +the rigour of a season that had not yet begun. There was something in +the air; I felt it the next day, even on the sunny quay of the Saone, +where in spite of a fine southerly exposure I extracted little warmth +from the reflection that Alphonse de Lamartine had often trodden the +flags. Macon struck me, somehow, as suffering from a chronic numbness, +and there was nothing exceptionally cheerful in the remarkable extension +of the river. It was no longer a river—it had become a lake; and from +my window, in the painted face of the inn, I saw that the opposite bank +had been moved back, as it were, indefinitely. Unfortunately the various +objects with which it was furnished had not been moved as well, the +consequence of which was an extraordinary confusion in the relations of +things. There were always poplars to be seen, but the poplar had become +an aquatic plant. Such phenomena,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> +however, at Macon attract but little attention, as the Saone, at certain +seasons of the year, is nothing if not expansive. The people are as used +to it as they appeared to be to the bronze statue of Lamartine, which is +the principal monument of the <i>place</i>, and which, representing the poet +in a frogged overcoat and top-boots, improvising in a high wind, struck +me as even less casual in its attitude than monumental sculpture usually +succeeds in being. It is true that in its present position I thought +better of this work of art, which is from the hand of M. Falguière, than +when I had seen it through the factitious medium of the Salon of 1876. I +walked up the hill where the older part of Macon lies, in search of the +natal house of the <i>amant d'Elvire</i>, the Petrarch whose Vaucluse was the +bosom of the public. The Guide-Joanne quotes from "Les Confidences" a +description of the birthplace of the poet, whose treatment of the +locality is indeed poetical. It tallies strangely little with the +reality, either as regards position or other features; and it may be +said to be not an aid, but a direct obstacle, to a discovery of the +house. A very humble edifice, in a small back street, is designated by a +municipal tablet, set into its face, as the scene of Lamartine's advent +into the world. He himself speaks of a vast and lofty structure, at the +angle of a <i>place</i>, adorned with iron clamps, with a <i>porte haute et +large</i> and many other peculiarities. The house with the tablet has two +meagre storeys above the basement, and (at present, at least) an air of +extreme shabbiness; the <i>place</i>, moreover, never can have been vast. +Lamartine was accused of writing history incorrectly, and apparently he +started wrong at first; it had never become clear to him where he was +born. Or is the tablet wrong? If the house is small, the tablet is very +big.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_086.png" width="450" height="268" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxxviii" id="Chapter_xxxviii"></a>Chapter xxxviii</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Bourg-en-Bresse</div> + +<p>THE foregoing reflections occur, in a cruder form, as it were, in my +note-book, where I find this remark appended to them: "Don't take leave +of Lamartine on that contemptuous note; it will be easy to think of +something more sympathetic!" Those friends of mine, mentioned a little +while since, who accuse me of always tipping back the balance, could not +desire a paragraph more characteristic; but I wish to give no further +evidence of such infirmities, and will therefore hurry away from the +subject—hurry away in the train which, very early on a crisp, bright +morning, conveyed me, by way of an excursion, to the ancient city of +Bourg-en-Bresse. Shining in early light, the Saone was spread, like a +smooth white tablecloth, over a considerable part of the flat country +that I traversed. There is no provision made in this image for the long, +transparent screens of thin-twigged trees which rose at intervals out of +the watery plain; but as, in all the conditions, there seemed to be no +provision<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> +for them in fact, I will let my metaphor go for what it is worth. My +journey was (as I remember it) of about an hour and a half; but I passed +no object of interest, as the phrase is, whatever. The phrase hardly +applies even to Bourg itself, which is simply a town <i>quelconque</i>, as M. +Zola would say. Small, peaceful, rustic, it stands in the midst of the +great dairy-feeding plains of Bresse, of which fat county, sometime +property of the house of Savoy, it was the modest capital. The blue +masses of the Jura give it a creditable horizon, but the only nearer +feature it can point to is its famous sepulchral church. This edifice +lies at a fortunate distance from the town, which, though inoffensive, +is of too common a stamp to consort with such a treasure. All I ever +knew of the church of Brou I had gathered, years ago +<span class="sidenote">The Church of Brou</span> +from Matthew Arnold's beautiful poem which bears its name. I remember +thinking, in those years, that it was impossible verses could be more +touching than these; and as I stood before the object of my pilgrimage, +in the gay French light (though the place was so dull), I recalled the +spot where I had first read them and where I had read them again and yet +again, wondering whether it would ever be my fortune to visit the church +of Brou. The spot in question was an armchair in a window which looked +out on some cows in a field; and whenever I glanced at the cows it came +over me—I scarcely know why—that I should probably never behold the +structure reared by the Duchess Margaret. Some of our visions never come +to pass; but we must be just—others do. "So sleep, for ever sleep, O +princely pair!" I remembered that line of Matthew Arnold's, and the +stanza about the Duchess Margaret coming to watch the builders on her +palfrey white. Then there came to me something in regard to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> +the moon shining on winter nights through the cold clere-storey. The +tone of the place at that hour was not at all lunar; it was cold and +bright, but with the chill of an autumn morning; yet this, even with the +fact of the unexpected remoteness of the church from the Jura added to +it, did not prevent me from feeling that I looked at a monument in the +production of which—or at least in the effect of which on the +tourist-mind of to-day—Matthew Arnold had been much concerned. By a +pardonable licence he has placed it a few miles nearer to the forests of +the Jura than it stands at present. It is very true that, though the +mountains in the sixteenth century can hardly have been in a different +position, the plain which separates the church from them may have been +bedecked with woods. The visitor to-day cannot help wondering why the +beautiful building, with its splendid works of art, is dropped down in +that particular spot, which looks so accidental and arbitrary. But there +are reasons for most things, and there were reasons why the church of +Brou should be at Brou, which is a vague little suburb of a vague little +town.</p> + +<p>The responsibility rests, at any rate, upon the Duchess +Margaret—Margaret of Austria, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian and +his wife Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold. This lady has a +high name in history, having been regent of the Netherlands in behalf of +her nephew, the Emperor Charles V., of whose early education she had had +the care. She married in 1501 Philibert the Handsome, Duke of Savoy, to +whom the province of Bresse belonged, and who died two years later. She +had been betrothed, as a child, to Charles VIII. of France, and was kept +for some time at the French court—that of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_087.png" width="450" height="464" alt="BROU—THE CHURCH." /> +<span class="caption">BROU—THE CHURCH.</span> +</div><div class="figcenter" style="width: 336px;"> +<img src="images/ill_088_th.png" width="336" height="550" alt="BROU—THE CHURCH." /> +<span class="caption">BROU—THE CHURCH.</span> +<a href="images/ill_088.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> + +</div> + +<p class="non">her prospective father-in-law, Louis XI.; but she was eventually +repudiated, in order that her <i>fiancé</i> might marry Anne of Brittany—an +alliance so magnificently political that we almost condone the offence +to a sensitive princess. Margaret did not want for husbands, however, +inasmuch as before her marriage to Philibert she had been united to John +of Castile, son of Ferdinand V., King of Aragon—an episode terminated +by the death of the Spanish prince within a year. She was twenty-two +years regent of the Netherlands and died, at fifty-one, in 1530. She +might have been, had she chosen, the wife of Henry VII. of England. She +was one of the signers of the League of Cambray against the Venetian +Republic, and was a most politic, accomplished, and judicious princess. +She undertook to build the church of Brou as a mausoleum for her second +husband and herself, in fulfilment of a vow made by Margaret of Bourbon, +mother of Philibert, who died before she could redeem her pledge and who +bequeathed the duty to her son. He died shortly afterwards, and his +widow assumed the pious task. According to Murray, she entrusted the +erection of the church to "Maistre Loys von Berghem," and the sculpture +to "Maistre Conrad." The author of a superstitious but carefully +<span class="sidenote">The Church of Brou</span> +prepared little Notice which I bought at Bourg calls the architect and +sculptor (at once) Jehan de Paris, author (<i>sic</i>) of the tomb of Francis +II. of Brittany, to which we gave some attention at Nantes, and which +the writer of my pamphlet ascribes only subordinately to Michel Colomb. +The church, which is not of great size, is in the last and most +flamboyant phase of gothic and in admirable preservation; the west +front, before which a quaint old sun-dial is laid out on the ground—a +circle of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> +numbers marked in stone, like those on a clock-face, let into the +earth—is covered with delicate ornament. The great feature, however +(the nave is perfectly bare and wonderfully new-looking, though the +warden, a stolid yet sharp old peasant in a blouse, who looked more as +if his line were chaffering over turnips than showing off works of art, +told me that it has never been touched and that its freshness is simply +the quality of the stone)—the great feature is the admirable choir, in +the midst of which the three monuments have bloomed under the chisel +like exotic plants in a conservatory. I saw the place to small +advantage, for the stained glass of the windows, which are fine, was +under repair, and much of it was masked with planks.</p> + +<p>In the centre lies Philibert-le-Bel, a figure of white marble on a great +slab of black, in his robes and his armour, with two boy-angels holding +a tablet at his head, and two more at his feet. On either side of him is +another cherub; one guarding his helmet, the other his stiff gauntlets. +The attitudes of these charming children, whose faces are all bent upon +him in pity, have the prettiest tenderness and respect. The table on +which he lies is supported by elaborate columns adorned with niches +containing little images and with every other imaginable elegance; and +beneath it he is represented in that other form so common in the tombs +of the Renaissance—a man naked and dying, with none of the state and +splendour of the image above. One of these figures embodies the duke, +the other simply the mortal; and there is something very strange and +striking in the effect of the latter, seen dimly and with difficulty +through the intervals of the rich supports of the upper slab. The +monument of Margaret herself is on the left, all in white marble<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> +tormented into a multitude of exquisite patterns, the last extravagance +of a gothic which had gone so far that nothing was left it but to return +upon itself. Unlike her husband, who has only the high roof of the +church above him, she lies under a canopy supported and covered by a +wilderness of embroidery—flowers, devices, initials, arabesques, +statuettes. Watched over by cherubs, she is also in her robes and +ermine, with a greyhound sleeping at her feet (her husband, at his, has +a waking lion); and the artist has not, it is to be presumed, +represented her as more beautiful than she was. She looks indeed like +the regent of a turbulent realm. Beneath her couch is stretched another +figure—a less brilliant Margaret, wrapped in her shroud, with her long +hair over her shoulders. Round the tomb is the battered iron railing +placed there originally, with the mysterious motto of the duchess worked +into the top—<i>fortune infortune fort une</i>. The other two monuments are +protected by barriers of the same pattern. That of Margaret of Bourbon, +Philibert's mother, stands on the right of the choir; and I suppose its +greatest distinction is that it should have been erected to a +mother-in-law. It is but little less florid and sumptuous than the +others; it has, however, no second recumbent figure. On the other hand, +the statuettes that surround the base of the tomb are of even more +exquisite workmanship: they represent weeping women, in long mantles and +hoods, which latter hang forward over the small face of the figure, +giving the artist a chance to carve the features within this hollow of +drapery—an extraordinary play of skill. There is a high, white marble +shrine of the Virgin, as extraordinary as all the rest (a series of +compartments representing the various scenes of her life, with the +Assumption in the middle);<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> +and there is a magnificent series of stalls, which are simply the +intricate embroidery of the tombs translated into polished oak. All +these things are splendid, ingenious, elaborate, precious; it is +goldsmith's work on a monumental scale, and the general effect is none +the less beautiful and solemn because it is so rich. But the monuments +of the church of Brou are not the noblest that one may see; the great +tombs of Verona are finer, and various other early Italian work. These +things are not insincere, as Ruskin would say; but they are pretentious, +and they are not positively <i>naïfs</i>. I should mention that the walls of +the choir are embroidered in places with Margaret's tantalising device, +which—partly perhaps because it is tantalising—is so very decorative, +as they say in London. I know not whether she was acquainted with this +epithet, but she had anticipated one of the fashions most characteristic +of our age.</p> + +<p>One<span class="sidenote">The Church of Brou</span> asks one's self how all this decoration, this luxury of fair and +chiselled marble, survived the French Revolution. An hour of liberty in +the choir of Brou would have been a carnival for the image-breakers. The +well-fed Bressois are surely a good-natured people. I call them well-fed +both on general and on particular grounds. Their province has the most +savoury aroma, and I found an opportunity to test its reputation. I +walked back into the town from the church (there was really nothing to +be seen by the way), and as the hour of the midday breakfast had struck, +directed my steps to the inn. The table d'hôte was going on, and a +gracious, bustling, talkative landlady welcomed me. I had an excellent +repast—the best repast possible—which consisted simply of boiled eggs +and bread and butter. It was the quality of these simple ingredients +that made the occasion memorable. The eggs were so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> +good that I am ashamed to say how many of them I consumed. "La plus +belle fille du monde," as the French proverb says, "ne peut donner que +ce qu'elle a;" and it might seem that an egg which has succeeded in +being fresh has done all that can reasonably be expected of it. But +there was a bloom of punctuality, so to speak, about these eggs of +Bourg, as if it had been the intention of the very hens themselves that +they should be promptly served. "Nous sommes en Bresse, et le beurre +n'est pas mauvais," the landlady said with a sort of dry coquetry, as +she placed this article before me. It was the poetry of butter, and I +ate a pound or two of it; after which I came away with a strange mixture +of impressions of late gothic sculpture and thick <i>tartines</i>. I came +away through the town, where, on a little green promenade, facing the +hotel, is a bronze statue of Bichat the physiologist, who was a +Bressois. I mention it not on account of its merit (though, as statues +go, I don't remember that it is bad), but because I learned from it—my +ignorance, doubtless, did me little honour—that Bichat had died at +thirty years of age, and this revelation was almost agitating. To have +done so much in so short a life was to be truly great. This reflection, +which looks deplorably trite as I write it here, had the effect of +eloquence as I uttered it for my own benefit on the bare little mall at +Bourg.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/ill_087.png" width="450" height="464" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xxxix" id="Chapter_xxxix"></a>Chapter xxxix</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Beaune</div> + +<p>ON my return to Macon I found myself fairly face to face with the fact +that my tour was near its end. Dijon had been marked by fate as its +farthest limit, and Dijon was close at hand. After that I was to drop +the tourist and re-enter Paris as much as possible like a Parisian. Out +of Paris the Parisian never loiters, and therefore it would be +impossible for me to stop between Dijon and the capital. But I might be +a tourist a few hours longer by stopping somewhere between Macon and +Dijon. The question was where I should spend these hours. Where better, +I asked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> +myself (for reasons not now entirely clear to me), than at Beaune? On my +way to this town I passed the stretch of the Côte d'Or, which, covered +with a mellow autumn haze, with the sunshine shimmering through, looked +indeed like a golden slope. One regards with a kind of awe the region in +which the famous <i>crûs</i> of Burgundy (Vougeot, Chambertin, Nuits, Beaune) +are, I was going to say, manufactured. Adieu, paniers; vendanges sont +faites! The vintage was over; the shrunken russet fibres alone clung to +their ugly stick. The horizon on the left of the road had a charm, +however; there is something picturesque in the big, comfortable +shoulders of the Côte. That delicate critic M. Emile Montégut, in a +charming record of travel through this region published some years ago, +praises Shakespeare for having talked (in "Lear") of "waterish +Burgundy." Vinous Burgundy would surely be more to the point. I stopped +at Beaune in pursuit of the picturesque, but I might almost have seen +the little I discovered without stopping. It is a drowsy Burgundian +town, very old and ripe, with crooked streets, vistas always oblique, +and steep, moss covered roofs. The principal lion is the +Hôpital-Saint-Esprit, or the Hôtel-Dieu simply, as they call it there, +founded in 1443 by Nicholas Rollin, Chancellor of Burgundy. It is +administered by the sisterhood of the Holy Ghost, and is one of the most +venerable and stately of hospitals. The face it presents to the street +is simple, but striking—a plain, windowless wall, surmounted by a vast +slate roof, of almost mountainous steepness. Astride this roof sits a +tall, slate-covered spire, from which, as I arrived, the prettiest +chimes I ever heard (worse luck to them, as I will presently explain) +were ringing. Over the door is a high, quaint canopy, without supports,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> +with its vault painted blue and covered with gilded stars. (This, and +indeed the whole building, have lately been restored, and its antiquity +is quite of the spick-and-span order. But it is very delightful.) The +treasure of the place is a precious picture—a Last Judgment, attributed +equally to John van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden—given to the hospital +in the fifteenth century by Nicholas Rollin aforesaid.</p> + +<p>I learned, however, to my dismay, from a sympathising but inexorable +concierge, that what remained to me of the time I had to spend at +Beaune, between trains—I had rashly wasted half an hour of it in +breakfasting at the station—was the one hour of the day (that of the +dinner of the nuns; the picture is in their refectory) during which the +treasure could not be shown. The purpose of the musical chimes to which +I had so artlessly listened was to usher in this fruitless interval. The +regulation was absolute, and my disappointment relative, as I have been +happy to reflect since I "looked up" the picture. Crowe and Cavalcaselle +assign it without hesitation to Roger van der Weyden, and give a weak +little drawing of it in their "Flemish Painters." I learn from them +also—what I was ignorant of—that Nicholas Rollin, Chancellor of +Burgundy and founder of the establishment at Beaune, was the original of +the worthy kneeling before the Virgin in the magnificent John van Eyck +of the Salon Carré. All I could see was the court of the hospital and +two or three rooms. The court, with its tall roofs, its pointed gables +and spires, its wooden galleries, its ancient well, with an elaborate +superstructure of wrought iron, is one of those places into which a +sketcher ought to be let loose. It looked Flemish or English rather than +French, and a splendid tidiness pervaded it. The porter took me into +two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 331px;"> +<img src="images/ill_089_th.png" width="331" height="550" alt="BEAUNE—THE HOSPITAL." /> +<span class="caption">BEAUNE—THE HOSPITAL.</span> +<a href="images/ill_089.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> +</div> + +<p class="non">rooms on the ground-floor, into which the sketcher should also be +allowed to penetrate, for they made irresistible pictures. One of them, +of great proportions, painted in elaborate "subjects" like a ball-room +of the seventeenth century, was filled with the beds of patients, all +draped in curtains of dark red cloth, the traditional uniform of these +eleemosynary couches. Among them the sisters moved about in their robes +of white flannel with big white linen hoods. The other room was a +strange, immense apartment, lately restored with much splendour. It was +of great length and height, had a painted and gilded barrel-roof, and +one end of it—the one I was introduced to—appeared to serve as a +chapel, as two white-robed sisters were on their knees before an altar. +This was divided by red curtains from the larger part; but the porter +lifted one of the curtains and showed me that the rest of it, a long, +imposing vista, served as a ward lined with little red-draped beds. +"C'est l'heure de la lecture," remarked my guide; and a group of +convalescents—all the patients I saw were women—were gathered in the +centre around a nun, the points of whose white hood nodded a little +above them and whose gentle voice came to us faintly, with a little +echo, down the high perspective. I know not what the good sister was +reading—a dull book, I am afraid—but there was so much colour and such +a fine, rich air of tradition about the whole place that it seemed to me +I would have risked listening to her. I turned away, however, with that +sense of defeat which is always irritating to the appreciative tourist, +and pottered about Beaune rather vaguely for the rest of my hour: looked +at the statue of Gaspard Monge, the mathematician, in the little <i>place</i> +(there is no <i>place</i> in France too little to contain an effigy to a +glorious son); at the fine old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> +porch—completely despoiled at the Revolution—of the principal church; +and even at the meagre treasures of a courageous but melancholy little +museum, which has been arranged—part of it being the gift of a local +collector—in a small hôtel de ville. I carried away from Beaune the +impression of something mildly autumnal—something rusty yet kindly, +like the taste of a sweet russet pear.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 330px;"> +<img src="images/ill_090_th.png" width="330" height="550" alt="DIJON." /> +<span class="caption">DIJON.</span> +<a href="images/ill_090.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 183px;"> +<img src="images/ill_091.png" width="183" height="300" alt="image not available" /> +</div> + + + +<h3><a name="Chapter_xl" id="Chapter_xl"></a>Chapter xl</h3> + + +<div class="sidenote">Dijon</div> + +<p>IT was very well that my little tour was to terminate at Dijon, for I +found, rather to my chagrin, that there was not a great deal, from the +pictorial point of view, to be done with Dijon. It was no great matter, +for I held my proposition to have been by this time abundantly +demonstrated—the proposition with which I started: that if Paris is +France, France is by no means Paris. If Dijon was a good deal of a +disappointment, I felt therefore that I could afford it. It was time for +me to reflect, also, that for my disappointments,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> +as a general thing, I had only myself to thank. They had too often been +the consequence of arbitrary preconceptions produced by influences of +which I had lost the trace. At any rate, I will say plumply that the +ancient capital of Burgundy is wanting in character; it is not up to the +mark. It is old and narrow and crooked, and it has been left pretty well +to itself: but it is not high and overhanging; it is not, to the eye, +what the Burgundian capital should be. It has some tortuous vistas, some +mossy roofs, some bulging fronts, some grey-faced hotels, which look as +if in former centuries—in the last, for instance, during the time of +that delightful Président de Brosses whose Letters from Italy throw an +interesting sidelight on Dijon—they had witnessed a considerable amount +of good living. But there is nothing else. I speak as a man who, for +some reason which he doesn't remember now, did not pay a visit to the +celebrated Puits de Moïse, an ancient cistern embellished with a +sculptured figure of the Hebrew lawgiver.</p> + +<p>The ancient palace of the dukes of Burgundy, long since converted into +an hôtel de ville, presents to a wide, clean court, paved with +washed-looking stones, and to a small semicircular <i>place</i>, opposite, +which looks as if it had tried to be symmetrical and had failed, a +façade and two wings characterised by the stiffness, but not by the +grand air, of the early part of the eighteenth century. It contains, +however, a large and rich museum—a museum really worthy of a capital. +The gem of this collection is the great banqueting hall of the old +palace, one of the few features of the place that has not been +essentially altered. Of great height, roofed with the old beams and +cornices, it exhibits,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 326px;"> +<img src="images/ill_092_th.png" width="326" height="550" alt="DIJON—THE PARK." /> +<span class="caption">DIJON—THE PARK.</span> +<a href="images/ill_092.png"><br /><span class="lt2">[Click to view image enlarged.]</span></a> +</div> + + +<p class="non">filling one end, a colossal gothic chimney-piece with a fireplace large +enough to roast, not an ox, but a herd of oxen. In the middle of this +striking hall, the walls of which are covered with objects more or less +precious, have been placed the tombs of Philippe-le-Hardi and +Jean-sans-Peur. These monuments, very splendid in their general effect, +have a limited interest. The limitation comes from the fact that we see +them to-day in a transplanted and mutilated condition. Placed originally +in a church which has disappeared from the face of the earth, demolished +and dispersed at the Revolution, they have been reconstructed and +restored out of fragments recovered and pieced together. The piecing has +been beautifully done; it is covered with gilt and with brilliant paint; +the whole result is most artistic. But the spell of the old mortuary +figures is broken, and it will never work again. Meanwhile the monuments +are immensely decorative.</p> + +<p>I<span class="sidenote">Dijon</span> think the thing that pleased me best at Dijon was the little old Parc, +a charming public garden, about a mile from the town, to which I walked +by a long, straight autumnal avenue. It is a <i>jardin français</i> of the +last century—a dear old place, with little blue-green perspectives and +alleys and <i>rond-points</i>, in which everything balances. I went there +late in the afternoon, without meeting a creature, though I had hoped I +should meet the Président de Brosses. At the end of it was a little +river that looked like a canal, and on the farther bank was an +old-fashioned villa, close to the water, with a little French garden of +its own. On the hither side was a bench, on which I seated myself, +lingering a good while; for this was just the sort of place I like. It +was the farthermost point of my little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> +tour. I thought that over, as I sat there, on the eve of taking the +express to Paris; and as the light faded in the Parc the vision of some +of the things I had enjoyed became more distinct.</p> + +<p class="c top15">Printed by <span class="smcap">Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.</span> London & Edinburgh</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3 class="c top5"><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[a]</span></a> 1884.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[b]</span></a> "Promenades pittoresques en Touraine." Tours: 1869.</p></div> + +</div> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 28004 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + diff --git a/28004-h/images/ill_001.png b/28004-h/images/ill_001.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6caf473 --- /dev/null +++ b/28004-h/images/ill_001.png diff --git a/28004-h/images/ill_002.png b/28004-h/images/ill_002.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cf7bcb1 --- /dev/null +++ b/28004-h/images/ill_002.png diff --git a/28004-h/images/ill_002_th.png b/28004-h/images/ill_002_th.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..57c5455 --- /dev/null +++ b/28004-h/images/ill_002_th.png diff --git a/28004-h/images/ill_003.png b/28004-h/images/ill_003.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..03f3a07 --- /dev/null +++ b/28004-h/images/ill_003.png diff --git a/28004-h/images/ill_004.png b/28004-h/images/ill_004.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b582b3 --- /dev/null +++ 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