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diff --git a/43844-0.txt b/43844-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d068086 --- /dev/null +++ b/43844-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6790 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43844 *** + + CLARET AND OLIVES, + + FROM + + THE GARONNE TO THE RHONE; + + OR, + + NOTES, SOCIAL, PICTURESQUE, AND LEGENDARY, + BY THE WAY. + + BY ANGUS B. REACH, + AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF A BUCCANEER," ETC. + +[Illustration] + + LONDON: DAVID BOGUE, FLEET STREET. + MDCCCLII. + + + + + LONDON: + + HENRY VIZETELLY, PRINTER AND ENGRAVER, + GOUGH SQUARE, FLEET STREET. + + + + + TO + + CHARLES MACKAY, ESQ., LL. D., + + MY EARLIEST AND KINDEST LITERARY FRIEND, + + These Pages + + ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. + + PAGE + + The Diligence--French Country Places--The English in + Guienne--Bordeaux--Old Bordeaux--A Bordeaux + Landlord--A Suburban Vintaging--The Vintage + Dinner 1-20 + + + CHAPTER II. + + Claret _v._ Port--The Claret Soil--The Claret Vine--Popular + Appetite for Grapes--Variable qualities of the + Claret Soil--French Veterans--The "Authorities" in + France 21-38 + + + CHAPTER III. + + The Claret Vintage--The Treading of the Grape--The Last + Drops of the Grape--Wanderings amongst the + Vineyards--Wandering Vintagers--The Vintage Dinner--The + Vintagers' Bedroom--The Claret Chateaux--The Chateau + Margaux 39-57 + + + CHAPTER IV. + + The Landes--The Bordeaux and Teste Railway--M. Tetard + and his Imitator--Start for the Landes--The Language + of the Landes--A Railway Station in the Landes--The + Scenery of the Landes--The Stilt-walkers of the + Landes--A Glimpse of Green 58-76 + + + CHAPTER V. + + The Clear Water of Arcachon--Legend of the Baron of + Chatel-morant--The Resin Harvest--The Witches of + the Landes--The Surf of the Bay of Biscay--French + Priests--Do the Landes Cows give Milk?--The _Amour + Patriæ_ of the Landes 77-101 + + + CHAPTER VI. + + Dawn on the Garonne--The Landscape of the Garonne--The + Freaks of the Old Wars in Guienne--Agen--Jasmin, + the Last of the Troubadours--Southern Cookery + and Garlic--The Black Prince in a New + Light--Cross-country Travelling in France 102-126 + + + CHAPTER VII. + + Pau--The English in Pau--English and Russians--The + View of the Pyrenees--The Castle--The Statue of + Henri Quatre--His Birth--A Vision of his + Life--Rochelle--St. Bartholomew--Ivry--Henri and + Sully--Henri and Gabrielle--Henri and Henriette + d'Entragues--Ravaillac 127-136 + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + The Val d'Ossau--The Vin de Jurancon--Pyrenean Cottages--The + Bernais Peasants--The Devil learning + Basque--The Wolves of the Pyrenees--The Bears of + the Pyrenees--The Dogs of the Pyrenees--An Auberge + in the Pyrenees--Omens and Superstitions in + the Pyrenees--The Songs of the Pyrenees 137-155 + + + CHAPTER IX. + + Wet Weather in the Pyrenees--Eaux Chaudes out of + Season, and in the Rain--Plucking the Indian Corn + at the Auberge at Laruns--The Legend of the Wehrwolf, + and the Baron who was changed into a Bear 156-166 + + + CHAPTER X. + + The Solitary Big Hotel--The Knitters of the Pyrenees--The + Weavers of the Pyrenees--Pigeon-catching in + the Pyrenees--The Giant of the Pyrenean Dogs--Murray + and _Commis Voyageurs_--The Eastern Pyrenees--The + Legend of Orthon 167-186 + + + CHAPTER XI. + + Languedoc--The "Austere South"--Beziers and the + Albigenses--The Fountain of the Greve--The Bishop + and his Flock--The Canal du Midi--The + Mistral--Rural Billiard-playing 187-199 + + + CHAPTER XII. + + Travelling by the Canal du Midi--Travelling French + People--The Salt Harvest--Equestrian Thrashing + Machines--Cette--The Mediterranean--The "Made" + Wines--The Priest on Wines--_La Cuisine Française_ 200-218 + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + The Olive-gathering--A Night with the + Mosquitoes--Aigues-Mortes--The Fever in + Aigues-Mortes--My _Cicerone_ in Aigues-Mortes--The + Pickled Burgundians--Reboul's Poetry--The Lighthouse + of Aigues-Mortes 219-235 + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + Fen Landscape--Tavern Allegories--Roman Remains--Roman + Architecture--Roman Theatricals--The Maison + Carrée--Greek Architecture--Catholic and Protestant--The + Weaver's _Cabane_--Protestant and Catholic 236-255 + + + CHAPTER THE LAST. + + Backward French Agriculture--French Rural Society--The + Small Property System--French "Encumbered + Estates" 256-264 + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CLARET AND OLIVES. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE DILIGENCE--OLD GUIENNE AND THE ENGLISH IN FRANCE--BORDEAUX AND A +SUBURBAN VINTAGING. + + +"_Voila la voila! La ville de Bordeaux!_" + +The conductor's voice roused me from the dreamy state of dose in which I +lay, luxuriously stretched back amid cloaks and old English +railway-wrappers, in the roomy banquette of one of the biggest +diligences which ever rumbled out of Caillard and Lafitte's yard. + +"_Voila! la Voila!_" The bloused peasant who drove the six stout nags +therewith stirred in his place; his long whip whistled and cracked; the +horses flung up their heads as they broke into a canter, and their bells +rang like a joy peal; while Niniche, the conductor's white poodle, +which maintained a perilous footing in the leathern hood of the +banquette, pattered and scratched above our heads, and barked in +recognition of his master's voice. + +I rubbed my eyes and looked. We were on the ridge of a wooded hill. +Below us lay a flat green plain, carpetted with vines. Right across it +ran the broad, white, chalky highway, powdering with dust the double +avenue of chestnuts which lined it. Beyond the plain glittered a great +river, crowded with shipping, and beyond the river rose stretching, +apparently for miles, a magnificent façade of high white buildings, +broken here and there by the foliage of public gardens, and the dark +embouchures of streets; while, behind the range of quays, and golden in +the sunrise, rose high into the clear morning air, a goodly array of +towering Gothic steeples, fretted and pinnacled up to the glancing +weather-cocks. It was, indeed, Bordeaux. + +The long journey from Paris was all but over, yet though I had been +tired enough of the way, I felt as if I could brave it again, rather +than make the exertion of encountering octroi officers, and plunging +into strange hotels. For after all, comfortable Diligence travelling +makes a man lazy. It is slow, but you get accustomed to the slowness; in +the banquette, too, you are never cramped; there is luxurious roominess +behind, and you plunge your legs in straw up to the knees. Then leaning +supinely back, you indulge a serene passiveness, rolling lazily on with +the rumbling mountain of a vehicle. The thunder of the heavy wheels, and +the low monotonous clash, clash, clash, of the hundred grelots, form a +soothing atmosphere of sound about you, and musingly, and dreamingly you +watch the action of the team--these half dozen little but stout tough +work-a-day horses, trotting manfully in their rough harness, while the +driver--oh, how different from our old coaching dandies!--a clumsy +peasant, in sabots, and a stable-smelling blouse, sits slouched, and +round-shouldered like a sack before you, incessantly flourishing that +whistling whip, and shouting in the uncouth jargon of his province, to +the jingling team below. And next you watch the country or the road. A +French road, like a mathematical line, on, and on, and on, straight, +straight, mournfully, dismally, straight, running like a tape laid +across the bleak bare country, till it fades, and fades, and seems to +tip over the horizon; or if you are in an undulating wooded district, +you catch sections of it as it climbs each successive ridge; and you +know that in the valleys it is just the same as on the hill tops. You +see your dinner before you, as Englishmen say over roast mutton. You see +your journey before you, as Frenchmen may say, over the slow trotting +team. And how drear and deserted the country looks--open, desolate, and +bare. Here and there a distant mite of a peasant or two bending over the +sun-burnt clods. No cottages, but ever and anon a congregation of +barns--the _bourgs_ in which the small land-owners collect; now a witch +of an old woman herding a cow; anon a solitary shepherd all in rags, +knitting coarse stockings, and followed by a handful of sheep, long in +the legs, low in the flesh, with thin dirty fleeces as ragged as their +guardian's coat. Upon the road travellers are scanty. The bronzed +Cantonier stares as you pass, his brass-lettered hat glittering in the +glare. There go a couple of soldiers on furlough, tramping the dreary +way to their native village, footsore, weary and slow, their hairy +knapsacks galling their shoulders, and their tin canteens evidently +empty. Another diligence, white with dust, meeting us. The conductors +shout to each other, and the passengers crane their heads out of window. +Then we overtake a whole caravan of _roulage_, or carriers, the +well-loaded carts poised upon one pair of huge wheels, the horses, with +their clumsy harness and high peaked collars, making a scant two miles +an hour. Not an equipage of any pretension to be seen. No graceful +phaeton, no slangy dog-cart, no cosey family carriage--only now and then +a crawling local diligence, or M. le Curé on a shocking bad horse, or an +indescribably dilapidated anomalous jingling appearance of a vague +shandry-dan. And so on from dawn till sunset, through narrow streeted +towns, with lanterns swinging above our heads, and open squares with +scrubby lime trees, and white-washed cafés all around; and by a shabby +municipality with gilded heads to the front railings, a dilapidated +tricolor, and a short-legged, red-legged sentinel, not so tall as his +firelock, keeping watch over it; and then, out into the open, fenceless, +hedgeless country, and on upon the straight unflinching road, and +through the long, long tunnels of eternal poplar trees, and by the +cantonnier, and the melancholy _bourgs_, and the wandering soldiers, and +the dusty carriers' carts as before. + +One thing strikes you forcibly in these little country towns--the +marvellously small degree of distinction of rank amid the people. No +neighbouring magnate rattles through the lonely streets in the +well-known carriage of the Hall or the Grange, graciously receiving the +ready homage of the townspeople. No retired man of business, or bustling +land-agent, trots his smart gig and cob--no half-pay officer goes +gossipping from house to house, or from shop to shop. There is no +banker's lady to lead the local fashions--no doctor, setting off upon +his well-worked nag for long country rounds--no assemblage, if it be +market day, of stout full-fed farmers, lounging, booted and spurred, +round the Red Lion or the Plough. Working men in blouses, women of the +same rank in the peasant head-dress of the country, and here and there a +nondescript personage in a cap and shooting jacket, who generally turns +up at the scantily-attended table d'hôte at dinner time--such are the +items which make up the mass of the visible population. You hardly see +an individual who does not appear to have been born and bred upon the +spot, and to have no ideas and no desires beyond it. Left entirely to +themselves, the people have vegetated in these dull streets from +generation to generation, and, though clustered together in a quasi +town--perhaps with octroi and mairie, a withered tree of liberty, and +billiard tables by the half-dozen--the population is as essentially +rural as though scattered in lone farms, unvisited, except on rent-day, +by either landlord or agent. It often happens that a large landed +proprietor has not even a house upon his ground. He lets the land, +receives his rent, and spends it in Paris or one of the large towns, +leaving his tenants to go on cultivating the ground in the jog-trot +style of their fathers and their grandfathers before them. The French, +in fact, have no notion of what we understand by the life of a country +gentleman. A proprietor may pay a sporting visit to his land when +partridge and quail are to be shot; but as to taking up his abode _au +fond de ses terres_, mingling in what we would call county business, +looking after the proceedings of his tenants, becoming learned, in an +amateur way, in things bucolic, in all the varieties of stock and all +the qualities of scientific manures--a life, a character, and a social +position of this sort, would be in vain sought for in the rural +districts of France. There are not, in fact, two more differing meanings +in the world than those attached to our "Country Life," and the French +_Vie de Chateau_. The French proprietor is a Parisian out of Paris. He +takes the rents, shoots the quails, and the clowns do the rest. + +An Englishman ought to feel at home in the south-west of France. That +fair town, rising beyond the yellow Garonne, was for three hundred years +and more an English capital. Who built these gloriously fretted Gothic +towers, rising high into the air, and sentinelled by so many minor +steeples? Why Englishmen! These towers rise above the Cathedral of St. +Andrew, and in the Abbey of St. Andrew the Black Prince held high court, +and there, after Poitiers, the captive King of France revelled with his +conqueror, with the best face he might. There our Richard the Second was +born. There the doughty Earl of Derby, long the English seneschal of +Bordeaux, with his retinue, "amused themselves," as gloriously +gossipping old Froissart tells, "with the citizens and their wives;" and +from thence Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, went forth, being eighty-six +years of age, mounted upon a little palfrey, to encounter the Duke of +Anjou, in those latter days when our continental dominions were +shrinking, as we deserved that they should shrink, after the brutal +murder of the glorious Maid of Domrémy. It is true that we are at this +moment in the department of the Dordogne, and that when we cross the +river we shall be in that of the Gironde. But we Englishmen love the +ancient provinces better than the modern departments, which we are +generally as bad at recognising, as we are in finding out dates by +Thermidors and Brumaires. No, no, departments may do for Frenchmen, but +to an Englishman the rich land we are crossing will ever be Guienne, the +"Fair Dutchy," and part and parcel of old Aquitane, the dowry of +Eleanor, when she wedded our second Henry. + +Is it not strange to think of those old times, in which the English were +loved in the Bourdelois--fine old name--and the French were hated, in +which the Gascon feudal chiefs around protested that they were the +"natural born subjects of England, which was so kind to them?" Let us +turn to Froissart:--The Duke of Anjou having captured four Gascon +knights, forced them, _nolens volens_, to take the oath of allegiance to +the King of France, and then turned them about their business. The +knights went straight to Bordeaux, and presented themselves before the +seneschal of the Landes, and the mayor of the city, saying, "Gentlemen, +we will truly tell you that before we took the oath, we reserved in our +hearts our faith to our natural lord, the king of England, and for +anything we have said or done, we never will become Frenchmen." Our +gallant forefathers appear on the whole, to have led a joyous life in +Guienne. In truth, their days and nights were devoted very much to +feasting themselves, and plundering their neighbours: two pursuits into +which their Gascon friends entered with heart and soul. It is quite +delightful to read in Froissart, or Enguerrand de Monstrelet, how +"twelve knights went forth in search of adventures," an announcement +which may be fairly translated, into how a dozen of gentlemen with +indistinct notions of _meum_ and _tuum_, went forth to lay their +chivalrous hands upon anything they could come across. Of course these +trips were made into the French territory, and really they appear to +have been conducted with no small degree of politeness on either side, +when the English "harried" Limousin, or the French rode a foray into +Guienne. The chivalrous feeling was strong on both sides, and we often +read how such-and-such a French and English knight or squire did +courteous battle with each other; the fight being held in honour of the +fair ladies of the respective champions. Thus, not in Guienne, but in +Touraine, when the English and the Gascons beleaguered a French town, +heralds came forth upon the walls and made this proclamation:--"Is there +any among you gentlemen, who for love of his lady is willing to try some +feat of arms? If there be any such, here is Gauvin Micaille, a squire +of the Beauce, quite ready to sally forth, completely armed and +mounted, to tilt three courses with the lance, give three blows with the +battle-axe, and three strokes with the dagger. Now look you, English, if +there be none among you in love." The challenge was duly accepted. Each +combatant wounded the other, and the Earl of Shrewsbury sent to the +squire of Beauce his compliments, and a hundred francs. This last +present takes somewhat away from the Amadis de Gaul, and Palmerin of +England vein; but the student of the old chroniclers, particularly of +the English in France, will be astonished to find how long the chivalric +feeling and ceremonials co-existed with constant habits of plundering +and unprovoked forays. + +Another curious trait of our forefathers in Guienne is the early +development of the English _brusquerie_, and haughtiness of manner to +the Continentals. The Gascons put up, however, with many a slight, +inasmuch as their over sea friends were such valiant plunderers, and +they, of course, shared the spoils. Listen to the frank declaration of a +Gascon gentleman who had deserted from the English to the French side. +Some one asking him how he did, he answers: "Thank God, my health is +very good; but I had more money at command when I made war for the king +of England, for then we seldom failed to meet some rich merchants of +Toulouse, Condom, La Reole, or Bergerac, whom we squeezed, which made us +gay and _debonnair_; but that is at an end." The questioner replies: "Of +a truth, that is the life Gascons love. They willingly hurt their +neighbour." Not even all the plunder they got, however, could silence +the grumblings of the native knights at the haughty reserve of the +English warriors. "I," says the canon of Chimay, "was at Bordeaux when +the Prince of Wales marched to Spain, and witnessed the great +haughtiness of the English, who are affable to no other nation than +their own. Neither could any of the gentlemen of Gascogny or Acquitaine +obtain office or appointment in their own country, for the English said +they were neither on a level with them, nor worthy of their society." So +early and so strongly did the proud island blood boil up; while many an +Englishman, to this good day, by his reserved and saturnine bearing +among an outspoken and merry-hearted people, perpetuates the old +reproach, and keeps up the old grievance. + +All sensible readers will be gratified when I state that I have not the +remotest intention of describing the archæology of Bordeaux, or any +other town whatever. Whoever wants to know the height of a steeple, the +length of an aisle, or the number of arches in a bridge, must betake +themselves to Murray and his compeers. I will neither be picturesquely +profound upon ogives, triforia, clerestorys, screens, or mouldings; nor +magniloquently great upon the arched, the early pointed, the florid, or +the flamboyant schools. I will go into raptures neither about Virgins +nor Holy Families, nor Oriel windows, in the fine old cut-and-dry school +of the traveller of taste, which means, of course, every traveller who +ever packed a shirt into a carpet bag; but, leaving the mere archæology +and carved stones alone in their glory, I will try to sketch living, +and now and then historical, France--to move gossippingly along in the +by-ways rather than the highways--always more prone to give a good +legend of a grey old castle, than a correct measurement of the height of +the towers; and always seeking to bring up, as well as I can, a varying, +shifting picture, well thronged with humanity, before the reader's eye. + +[Illustration: BORDEAUX.] + +When I got to Bordeaux, the vintage time had just commenced, and having +ever had a special notion that vintages were very beautiful and poetic +affairs, and a still more confirmed taste and reverence for claret, it +was my object to see as much of the vintage as I could--to see the juice +rush from the grape, which makes so good a figure in the bottle. Letters +of introduction I had none. But there is a knack of making one's own +way--of making one's own friends as you go--in which I have tolerable +confidence, and which did not fail me in the present conjuncture. First, +to settle and make up my notions, I strolled vaguely about the city, +buying local maps and little local guide-books. Bordeaux is emphatically +what the French call a _riant_ town, with plenty of air, and such pure, +soft, bright, sunny air. In the centre of a broad grand _Place_,--dotted +with very respectable trees for French specimens, emblazoned with gay +parterres, sprinkled with orange shrubs in bloom, and holed with no end +of round stone basins, in which dolphins and Neptunes spout from their +bronze mouths the live-long day, and urns, and pillars, and Dianas, and +Apollos stand all around--there rises upon his massive pedestal the +graven image of a fat comfortable gentleman in the ample cloak and +doublet of Louis Quatorze, knots of carven ribbons decorating his +shoulders, and flowing locks descending from under his broad-brimmed, +looped-up hat. This is the statue of a M. de Tournay, an ancient +intendant of the province, who was almost the creator of modern +Bordeaux. Under his auspices the whole tribe of dolphins and heathen +gods and goddesses were invoked to decorate the city. He reared great +sweeps of pillared and porticoed buildings, and laid out broad streets +and squares, on that enormous scale so characteristic of the _grand +monarque_. He made Bordeaux, indeed, at once vast, prim, and massively +magnificent. The mercantile town got quite a courtly air; and when the +tricolor no longer floated in St. Domingo, and the commerce of the +Gironde declined, so that not much was left over and above the wine +trade, which, as all the world knows, is the genteelest of all the +traffics, Bordeaux became what it is--a sort of retired city, having +declined business--quiet, and clean, and prim, and aristocratic. Such, +at least, is the new town. With old Bordeaux, M. de Tournay meddled not; +and when you plunge into its streets you leap at once from eighteenth +century terraces into fourteenth century lanes and tortuous by-ways. +Below you, rough, ill-paved, unclean, narrow thoroughfares; above, the +hanging old houses of five ages ago, peaked gables, and long projecting +eaves, and hanging balconies; quaint carvings in blackened wood and +mouldering stone;--the true middle-age tenements, dreadfully ricketty, +but gloriously picturesque--charming to look at, but woful to live in; +deep black ravines of courts plunging down into the masses of piled up, +jammed together dwellings; squalid, slatternly people buzzing about like +bees; bad smells permeating every street, lane, and alley; and now and +then the agglomeration of darksome dwellings clustering round a great +old church, with its vast Gothic portals, and, high up, its carven +pinnacles and grinning _goutieres_, catching the sunshine far above the +highest of these high-peaked roofs. This is the Bordeaux of the English +and the Gascons--the Bordeaux which has rung to the clash of armour--the +Bordeaux which was governed by a seneschal--the Bordeaux through whose +streets defiled, + + "With many a cross-bearer before, + And many a spear behind," + +the christening procession of King Richard the Second. + +We shall step into one church, and only one, that of the Feuillans. +There, upon a dark and massive pedestal, lies stretched the effigy of an +armed man. His hands are clasped, his vizor up shows his peaked beard, +and he is clad _cap-à-pied_ in steel. Who was the doughty warrior, thus +resting in his mail? Strange to say, no warrior at all; but the quietest +and most peaceable of God's beings. He had an odd, pedantic father, who +brought him up in strange Paganwise. The boy was never addressed but in +Latin. He never had a mother-tongue. He was surrounded with a blockade +of Latin speakers to keep afar off the profanation of French; he was +mentally fed upon the philosophers and the poets of old Rome, and taught +to weep for Seneca in the tub, as the nearest catastrophe which could +touch his sympathies. Furthermore, his father, out of respect for his +nerves, had him awakened every morning by the sound of soft music. +Happily, even this sublimity of pedantry and pedagoguism was +insufficient to ruin the native genius of Michael, Seigneur of +Montaigne, whose "essays ought to lie in every cottage window." + +I have said that I was in search of some one to introduce me to the +vineyards and the vintagers. In a day or two I had pitched upon my +landlord as my protector. His hotel was a very modest one, where never +before, I do believe, had Englishmen come to make everything dear and +disagreeable. The red boards of the aristocratic Murray were unknown in +his _salle à manger_. He hadn't an ounce of tea in his house, and very +probably, if he had, he would have fried it with butter, and served it +_à la_ something or other. When I say he, however, I mean madame, not +monsieur. The latter would have made a capital English innkeeper, but he +was a very bad French one. My gentleman, who was more than six feet +high, and a stately personage, was cut out for a "mine host." He would +have presided in a bar--which means drinking a continued succession of +glasses of ale--with uncommon effect, for his temperament was convivial +and gossippy; but he had no vocation for the kitchen, which is the +common sphere of a French innkeeper not of the first class, and where, +under the proud denomination of the _chef_, and clad in white like a +grimly ghost, he bustles among pipkins and stew-pans and skillets, and +lifts little trap-doors in his smoky range, and peers down them at blue +charcoal furnaces--over which the _plats_ are simmering. Now my good +landlord never troubled himself about these domestic matters; but he was +very clever at standing on the outer steps of his door, smoking cigars; +and, indeed, would stay very willingly there all day--at least, until he +heard his wife's voice, upon which he would make a precipitate retreat +to a neighbouring café, where he would drink _eau sucreé_ and rattle +dominoes on a marble table till dinner-time. With this worthy I formed a +personal acquaintance, by buying from him, at the reasonable rate of six +sous a-piece, a number of quaint brass-set flat stones, very like red +and grey cornelians, and just as pretty, which it was the fashion in the +days of the Directory to mount in watch-keys, and wear two at a time, +one dangling from each fob. These stones are picked up in great +quantities from the light shingly soil, whereon ripens the grape, which +is pressed into claret wine; and handsome and lustrous in themselves, +they thus become a species of mementos of chateau Margaux and chateau +Lafitte. To the landlord, then, I stated that I wished to see some +vine-gathering. + +"Could anything be more lucky? His particular friend M. So-and-so was +beginning his harvesting that very day, and was going to give a dinner +that very night on the occasion. I should go--he should go. A friend of +his was M. So-and-so's friend; in fact, we were all friends together." +The truth I suspect to be, that my ally was dreadfully in want of an +excuse to go to the dinner, and he welcomed my application as the +Israelites did manna in the desert. It was meat and drink and amusement +to him, and off we went. + +As I shall presently describe the real claret vintage upon a large +scale, I shall pass the more quickly over my first initiation into the +plucking of the grapes. But I passed a merry day, and eke a busy one. +There are no idle spectators at a vintage--all the world must work; and +so I speedily found myself, after being most cordially welcomed by a fat +old gentleman, hoarse with bawling, in a pair of very dirty +shirt-sleeves and a pouring perspiration--with a huge pair of scissors +in my hand cutting off the bunches, in the midst of an uproarious troop +of young men, young women, and children--threading the avenues between +the plants--stripping, with wonderful dexterity, the clustered +branches--their hands, indeed, gliding like dirty yellow serpents among +the broad green leaves--and sometimes shouting out merry badinage, +sometimes singing bits of strongly rhythmed melody in chorus, and all +the time, as far as the feat could be effected, eating the grapes by +handfuls. The whole thing was very jolly; I never heard more laughing +about nothing in particular, more open and unblushing love-making, and +more resolute quizzing of the good man, whose grapes were going partly +into the baskets, tubs, pots, and pans, carried every few moments by the +children and old people out of the green alleys to the pressing-tub, and +partly into the capacious stomachs of the gatherers. At first I was +dainty in my selection of the grapes to be chosen, eschewing the +under-ripe and the over-ripe. A damsel beside me observed this. From her +woolly hair and very dark but merry face, I imagined her to have a touch +of Guadeloupe or Martinique blood. "Cut away," she said; "every grape +makes wine." + +"Yes--but the caterpillars--" + +"They give it a body." + +"Yes--but the snails--" + +"O, save the snails, please do, for me!" said a little girl, holding out +her apron, full of painted shells. + +"What do you do with them?" I inquired. + +"Boil them and eat them," said my juvenile friend. + +I looked askance. + +"You cant think how nice they are with vinegar!" said the mulatto girl. + +I remembered our own appetite for periwinkles, and said nothing; but +added my mite of snail-flesh to the collection. + +I was talking to the lord of the vineyard, when some one--there was +petticoats in the case--dashed at him from behind, and instantly a +couple of hands clasped his neck, and one of them squashed a huge bunch +of grapes over his mouth and nose, rubbing in the burst and bleeding +fruit as vigorously as if it were a healing ointment, while streams of +juice squirted from between the fingers of the fair assailant, and +streamed down the patron's equivocal shirt. After being half burked, the +good man shook his fist at the girl as she flew, laughing, down the +alley; and then resuming his talk with me, he said: "We call that, +_Faire des moustaches_. We all do it at vintage time." And ten minutes +thereafter I saw the jolly old boy go chasing an ancient crone of a +pail-bearer, a bunch of very ripe grapes in his hand, amid the delighted +hurrahs of all assembled. + +Dinner was late, for it behoves vintagers to make the best of the +daylight. The ordinary hired labourers dined, indeed, soon after noon; +but I am talking of the feast of honour. It was served in a +thinly-furnished, stone-paved, damp and dismal _salle à manger_. A few +additional ladies with their beaux, grand provincial dandies, all of +whom tried to outstrip each other in the magnificence of their +waistcoats, had arrived from Bordeaux. It had been very hot, close +weather for a day or two past, and everybody was imprecating curses on +the heads of the mosquitos. The ladies, to prove the impeachment, +stripped their sleeves, and showed each other the bites on their brown +necks; and the gentlemen swore that the scamps were biting harder and +harder. Then came the host, in a magnificently ill-cut coat--all the +agricultural interest could not have furnished a worse--and his wife, +very red in the face, for she had cooked dinner for the vintagers and +for us; and then our host's father, a reverend old man in a black velvet +scull cap, and long silver hair. The dinner was copious, and, as may be +conceived, by no means served in the style of the _café de Paris_. But +_soupe_, _bouilli_, _roti_, the stewed and the fried, speedily went the +way of all flesh. Everybody _trinque-ed_ with everybody: the jingle of +the meeting glasses rose even over the clatter of the knives and forks; +the jolly host's heart grew warmer at every glass, and he issued +imperious mandates for older and older wine. His comfortable wife, whose +appetite had been affected by the cooking, made up for the catastrophe +at the dessert. The old grandfather garulously narrated tales of +wondrous vintages long ago. The waistcoats had all the scandal of +Bordeaux at their finger ends; and the young ladies with the mosquito +bites took to "making moustaches" on their male friends, with pancakes +instead of grapes--a process by which the worthy host was, as usual, an +especial sufferer. + +As may be conceived, my respected landlord was far more in his element +than at home with his wife. He eat more, drank more, talked more, and +laughed more than any two men present. Afterwards he grew tender and +sentimental, and professed himself to be an ardent lover of his kind--a +proposition which I suspect he afterwards narrowed specially in favour +of a most mosquito-ridden lady next him--to the high wrath of a +waistcoat opposite, who said sarcastic and cutting things, which nobody +paid any attention to; and the landlord, being really a good-looking +and plausible fellow, went on conquering and to conquer, and drinking +and being drunk to; until, under a glorious outburst of moonlight which +paled the blinking candles on the table, the merry company broke up; and +mine host of Bordeaux, after certain rather unsteady walking, suddenly +stopped on the centre of the bridge, and refused to go further until he +had told me a secret. This was said with vast solemnity and aplomb, so +we paused together on the granite pavement, and, after looking +mysteriously at the Garonne, the moon, and the dusky heights of Floriac, +my companion informed me in a hoarse whisper that he should leave +France, his native and beloved land, where he felt sure that he was not +appreciated, and pitch his tent, "_la bas, en Angleterre, parceque les +Anglais etaient si bons enfants!_" + +"So ho!" thought I; "a strange reminiscence of the old Gascons." But on +the morrow, my respectable entertainer had a bad headache, a yellow +visage, and an entire forgetfulness of how he had got home at all. + +[Illustration: MOUSTACHE AT THE VINTAGE] + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +CLARET--AND THE CLARET COUNTRY. + + +That our worthy forefathers in Guienne loved good wine, is a thing not +to be doubted--even by a teetotaller. When the Earl of Derby halted his +detachments, he always had a pipe set on broach for the good of the +company; and it is to be presumed that he knew their tastes. The wines +of the Garonne were also, as might be expected, freely imported into +England: + + "Whit wyn of Oseye, and of Gascoyne, + Of the Ruele, and of the Rochel wyn." + +As far down, indeed, as Henry VIII.'s time you might get Gascony and +Guienne wine for eightpence a gallon, and the comfortable word "claret" +was well known early in the seventeenth century. One of its admirers, +however, about that time gave odd reasons for liking it, to wit--"Claret +is a noble wine, for it is the same complexion that noblemen's coats be +of." This gentleman must have been a strenuous admirer of the +aristocracy. The old Gascon growth was, however, in all probability, +what we should now call coarse, rough wine. The district which is +blessed by the growth of Chateau Margaux and Chateau Lafitte, was a +stony desert. An old French local book gives an account of the "savage +and solitary country of Medoc;" and the wines of the Bordelais, there +is every reason to believe, were grown in the strong, loamy soil +bordering the river. By the time that the magic spots had been +discovered, blessed with the mystic properties which produce the Queen +of Wine we had been saddled with--our tastes perverted, and our stomachs +destroyed--by the woful Methuen treaty--heavy may it sit on the souls of +Queen Anne, and all her wigged and powdered ministers--if, indeed, men +who preferred port wine to claret can be conceived to have had any souls +at all, worth speaking about--and thenceforth John Bull burnt the coat +of his stomach, muddled the working of his brain, made himself bilious, +dyspeptic, headachy, and nationally stupid, by imbibing a mixture of +strong, coarse, wines, with a taste but no flavour, and bedevilled with +every alcoholic and chemical adulteration, which could make its natural +qualities worse than they were. See how our literature fell off. The +Elizabethans quaffed sack, or "Gascoyne, or Rochel wyn;" and we had the +giants of those days. The Charles II. comedy writers worked on claret. +Port came into fashion--port sapped our brains--and, instead of +Wycherly's _Country Wife_, and Vanbrugh's _Relapse_, we had Mr. Morton's +_Wild Oats_, and Mr. Cherry's _Soldier's Daughter_. It is really much to +the credit of Scotland, that she stood staunchly by her old ally, +France, and would have nothing to do with that dirty little slice of the +worst part of Spain--Portugal, or her brandified potations. In the old +Scotch houses a cask of claret stood in the hall, nobly on the tap. In +the humblest Scotch country tavern, the pewter _tappit hen_, holding +some three quarts--think of that, Master Slender,--"reamed," _Anglice_ +mantled, with claret just drawn from the cask, and you quaffed it, +snapping your fingers at custom-houses. At length, in an evil hour +Scotland fell: + + "Bold and erect the Caledonian stood, + Firm was his mutton, and his claret good; + 'Let him drink port!' the English statesman cried. + He drank the poison, and his spirit died!" + +But enough of this painful subject. As Quin used to say, "Anybody drink +port? No! I thought so: Waiter, take away the black strap, and throw it +out." + +Upon the principle, I suppose, of the nearer the church, the further +from God, Bordeaux is by no means a good place for good ordinary wine; +on the contrary, the stuff they give you for every-day tipple is +positively poor, and very flavourless. In southern Burgundy, the most +ordinary of the wines is capital. At Macon, for a quarter of a handful +of sous they give you nectar; at the little town of Tain, where the +Rhone sweeps gloriously round the great Hermitage rock, they give you +something better than nectar for less. But the ordinary Bordeaux wine is +very ordinary indeed; not quite so red-inky, perhaps, as the _Vin de +Surenne_, which, Brillat Savarin says, requires three men to swallow a +glassful--the man who drinks, and the friends who uphold +him on either side, and coax, and encourage him; but still meagre and +starveling, as if it had been strained through something which took the +virtue out of it. Of course, the best of wine can be had by the simple +process of paying for it, but I am talking of the ordinary work-a-day +tipple of the place. + +A few days' lounging in Bordeaux over, and hearing that the vintage was +in full operation, I put myself into a respectable little omnibus, and +started for the true claret country. In a couple of hours I was put down +at the door of the only auberge in the tiny village of Margaux, and to +any traveller who may hereafter wish to visit the famous wine district, +I cordially commend "The Rising Sun," kept by the worthy "Mere +Cadillac." There you will have a bedroom clean and bright as a Dutch +parlour; a grand old four-poster of the ancient regime, something +between a bed and a cathedral; a profusion of linen deliciously white +and sweet smelling; and _la Mere_ will toss you up a nice little potage, +and a cotelette done to a turn, and an omelette which is perfection; and +she will ask you, in the matter of wine, whether you prefer _ordinaire_ +or _vieux_? and when you reply, _Vieux et du meilleur_, she will +presently bustle in with a glorious long-necked, cobwebby flask, the +first glass of which will induce you to lean back in a tranquil state of +general happiness, and contemplate with satisfaction even the naughty +doings of the wicked Marguerite of Burgundy, and her sisters Blanche and +Henriette, with Buridan and Gaulnay, in the _Tour de +Nesle_--illustrations of which popular tragedy deck the walls on every +side. + +While thus agreeably employed, then, I may enlighten you with a few +topographical words about the claret district. Look at the map, and you +will observe a long tract of country, dotted with very few towns or +villages, called the Landes, stretching along the sea coast from the +Pyrenees to the mouth of the Gironde. At one place the Landes are almost +sixty miles broad, but to the north they fine gradually away, the great +river Garonne shouldering them, as it were, into the sea. Now these +Landes (into which we will travel presently) are, for the most part, a +weary wilderness of pine-wood, morasses, sand-deserts, and barren +shingle. On the other hand, the low banks of the Garonne are generally +of a fat, loamy, and black soil, called, locally, _Palus_. Well, between +the Palus and the Landes, there is a longish strip of country from two +to five miles broad, a low ridge or backbone, which may be said to be +the neutral and blending point of the sterile Landes and the fat and +fertile Palus. And truth to tell, the earth seems as if the influence of +the latter had much to do to bear up against the former. A Norfolk +farmer would turn with a contemptuous laugh from the poor-looking stony +soil. "Why," says he, "it's all sand, and gravel, and shingle, and +scorched with the sun. You would not get a blade of chickweed to grow +there." The proprietors of Medoc would be very glad if this latter +assertion were correct, for the weeding of the vineyards form no +inconsiderable item in the expense of cultivation; but this much may be +safely predicted of this strange soil, that it would not afford the +nourishment to a patch of oats, which that modest grain manages to +extract from the bare hill-side of some cold, bleak, Highland croft, and +yet that it furnishes the influence which produces grapes yielding the +most truly generous and consummately flavoured wine ever drank by man +since Noah planted the first vine slip. + +You have now finished the bottle of Vieux. Up, and let us out among the +vineyards. A few paces clears us of the little hamlet of Margaux, with +its constant rattle of busy coopers, and we are fairly in the country. +Try to catch the general _coup d'oeil_. We are in an unpretending +pleasant-looking region, neither flat nor hilly--the vines stretching +away around in gentle undulations, broken here and there by intervening +jungles of coppice-wood, by strips of black firs, or by the stately +avenues and ornamental woods of a first-class chateau. Gazing from the +bottoms of the shallow valleys, you seem standing amid a perfect sea of +vines, which form a monotonous horizon of unvaried green. Attaining the +height beyond, distant village spires rise into the air--the flattened +roofs and white walls of scattered hamlets gleam cheerfully forth from +embowering woods of walnut trees--and the expanse of the vineyards is +broken by hedged patches of meadow land, affording the crops of coarse +natural hay, upon which are fed the slowly-moving, raw-boned oxen which +you see dragging lumbering wains along the winding dusty way. + +And now look particularly at the vines. Nothing romantic in their +appearance, no trellis work, none of the embowering, or the clustering, +which the poets are so fond of. Here, in two words, is the aspect of +some of the most famous vineyards in the world. + +[Illustration] + +Fancy open and unfenced expanses of stunted-looking, scrubby bushes, +seldom rising two feet above the surface, planted in rows upon the +summit of deep furrow ridges, and fastened with great care to low, +fence-like lines of espaliers, which run in unbroken ranks from one end +of the huge fields to the other. These espaliers or lathes are cuttings +of the walnut-trees around, and the tendrils of the vine are attached to +the horizontally running stakes with withes, or thongs of bark. It is +curious to observe the vigilant pains and attention with which every +twig has been supported without being strained, and how things are +arranged so as to give every cluster as fair a chance as possible of a +goodly allowance of sun. Such, then, is the general appearance of +matters; but it is by no means perfectly uniform. Now and then you find +a patch of vines unsupported, drooping, and straggling, and sprawling, +and intertwisting their branches like beds of snakes; and again, you +come into the district of a new species of bush, a thicker, stouter +affair, a grenadier vine, growing to at least six feet, and supported +by a corresponding stake. But the low, two-feet dwarfs are invariably +the great wine givers. If ever you want to see a homily, not read, but +grown by nature, against trusting to appearances, go to Medoc and study +the vines. Walk and gaze, until you come to the most shabby, stunted, +weazened, scrubby, dwarfish, expanse of snobbish bushes, ignominiously +bound neck and crop to the espaliers like a man on the rack--these +utterly poor, starved, and meagre-looking growths, allowing, as they do, +the gravelly soil to show in bald patches of grey shingle through the +straggling branches--these contemptible-looking shrubs, like paralysed +and withered raspberries, it is which produce the most priceless, and +the most inimitably flavoured wines. Such are the vines which grow +Chateau Margaux at half a sovereign the bottle. The grapes themselves +are equally unpromising. If you saw a bunch in Covent Garden you would +turn from them with the notion that the fruiterer was trying to do his +customer, with over-ripe black currants. Lance's soul would take no joy +in them, and no sculptor in his senses would place such meagre bunches +in the hands and over the open mouths of his Nymphs, his Bacchantes, or +his Fauns. Take heed, then, by the lesson, and beware of judging of the +nature of either men or grapes by their looks. Meantime, let us continue +our survey of the country. No fences or ditches you see--the ground is +too precious to be lost in such vanities--only, you observe from time to +time a rudely carved stake stuck in the ground, and indicating the +limits of properties. Along either side of the road the vines extend, +utterly unprotected. No raspers, no ha-ha's, no fierce denunciations of +trespassers, no polite notices of spring guns and steel traps constantly +in a state of high go-offism--only, when the grapes are ripening, the +people lay prickly branches along the way-side to keep the dogs, +foraging for partridges among the espaliers, from taking a refreshing +mouthful from the clusters as they pass; for it seems to be a fact that +everybody, every beast, and every bird, whatever may be his, her, or its +nature in other parts of the world, when brought among grapes, eats +grapes. As for the peasants, their appetite for grapes is perfectly +preposterous. Unlike the surfeit-sickened grocer's boys, who, after the +first week loathe figs, and turn poorly when sugar-candy is hinted at, +the love of grapes appears literally to grow by what it feeds on. Every +garden is full of table vines. The people eat grapes with breakfast, +lunch, dinner, and supper, and between breakfast, lunch, dinner, and +supper. The labourer plods along the road munching a cluster. The child +in its mother's arms is tugging away with its toothless gums at a +bleeding bunch; while as for the vintagers, male and female, in the less +important plantations, Heaven only knows where the masses of grapes go +to, which they devour, labouring incessantly at the _metier_, as they +do, from dawn till sunset. + +A strange feature in the wine country is the wondrously capricious and +fitful nature of the soil. A forenoon's walk will show you the earth +altering in its surface qualities almost like the shifting hues of shot +silk--gravel of a light colour fading into gravel of a dark--sand +blending with the mould, and bringing it now to a dusky yellow, now to +an ashen grey--strata of chalky clay every now and then struggling into +light only to melt away into beds of mere shingle--or bright +semi-transparent pebbles, indebted to the action of water for shape and +hue. At two principal points these blending and shifting qualities of +soil put forth their utmost powers--in the favoured grounds of Margaux, +and again, at a distance of about fifteen miles further to the north, in +the vineyards of Lafitte, Latour, and between these latter, in the sunny +slopes of St. Jullien. And the strangest thing of all is, that the +quality--the magic--of the ground changes, without, in all cases, a +corresponding change in the surface strata. If a fanciful and wilful +fairy had flown over Medoc, flinging down here a blessing and there a +curse upon the shifting shingle, the effect could not have been more +oddly various. You can almost jump from a spot unknown to fame to +another clustered with the most precious vintage of Europe. Half-a-dozen +furrows often make all the difference between vines producing a beverage +which will be drunk in the halls and palaces of England and Russia, and +vines yielding a harvest which will be consumed in the cabarets and +estaminets of the neighbourhood. It is to be observed, however, that the +first-class wines belong almost entirely to the large proprietors. Amid +a labyrinth of little patches, the property of the labouring peasants +around, will be a spot appertaining to, and bearing the name of, some of +the famous growths; while, conversely, inserted, as if by an accident, +in the centre of a district of great name, and producing wine of great +price, will be a perverse patch, yielding the most commonplace tipple, +and worth not so many sous per yard as the surrounding earth is worth +crowns. + +How comes this? The peasants will tell you that it doesn't come at all. +That it is all cant and _blague_ and puff on the part of the big +proprietors, and that their wine is only more thought of because they +have more capital to get it bragged about. Near Chateau Lafitte, on a +burning afternoon, I took refuge beneath the emblematic bush; for the +emblem which good wine is said not to require, is still, in the mid and +southern districts of France, in universal use; in other words, I +entered a village public-house. + +Two old men, very much of the general type of the people of the +country--that is, tall and spare, with intelligent and mildly-expressive +faces and fine black eyes, were discussing together a sober bottle. One +of them had lost an arm, and the other a leg. As I glanced at this +peculiarity, the one-legged man caught my eye. + +"Ah!" he said, "looking at our misfortunes; I left my leg on Waterloo." + +"And I," chimed in his companion, "left my arm at Trafalgar." + +"_Sacré!_" said the veteran of the land. "One of the cursed English +bullets took me in the knee, and spoiled as tight a lancer as they had +in the gallant 10th." + +"And I," rejoined the other, "was at the fourth main-deck gun of the +Pluton when I was struck with the splinter while we were engaging the +Mars. But we had our revenge. The Pluton shot the Mars' captain's head +off!"--a fact which I afterwards verified. Captain Duff, the officer +alluded to, was thus killed upon his quarter-deck, and the same ball +shattered two seamen almost to pieces. + +"_Sacré!_" said the _ci-devant_ lancer, "I'd like to have a rap at the +English again--I would--the English--_nom de tonnerre_--tell me--didn't +they murder the emperor?" + +A rising smile, which I could not help, stopped him. I had spoken so few +words, that the fact that a son of _perfide Albion_ was before them was +only manifested by the expression of my face. + +"_Tiens!_" continued the Waterloo man, "_You_ are an Englishman." + +The old sailor, who was evidently by no means so keen a hand as his +comrade, nudged him; a hint, I suppose, in common phrase, to draw it +mild; but the ex-lancer of the 10th was not to be put down. + +"Well, and if you are, what then, eh? I say I would like to have another +brush with you." + +"No, no! We have had enough of brushes!" said the far more pacific man +of the sea. "I think--_mon voisin_--that you and I have had quite enough +of fighting." + +"But they killed the emperor. _Sacré nom de tous les diables_--they +killed the emperor." + +My modest exculpation on behalf of Great Britain and Ireland was +listened to with great impatience by the maimed lancer, and great +attention by the maimed sailor, who kept up a running commentary: + +"_Eh! eh! entendez cela._ Now, that's quite different (to his friend) +from what you tell us. Come--that's another story altogether; and what I +say is, that's reasonable." + +But the lancer was not to be convinced--"_Sacré bleu!_--they killed the +emperor." + +All this, it is to be observed, passed without the slightest feeling of +personal animosity. The lancer, who, I suspect, had passed the forenoon +in the cabaret, every now and then shook hands with me magnanimously, as +to show that his wrath was national--not individual; and when I proposed +a bottle of rather better wine than they had been drinking, neither +soldier nor sailor had a word to say in objection. The wine was brought, +and very good it was, though not, of course, first-class claret. + +"What do you think of that?" said the sailor. + +"I wish I had as good every day in England," I replied. + +"And why haven't you?" said the fierce lancer. "You might, if you chose. +But you drink none of our wines." + +I demurred to this proposition; but the Waterloo man was down on me in +no time. "Yes, yes; the wines of the great houses--the great +proprietors. _Sacré!_--the _farceurs_--the _blageurs_--who puff their +wines, and get them puffed, and great prices for them, when they're not +better than ours--the peasant's wines--when they're grown in the same +ground--ripened by the same sun! _Mille diables!_ Look at that +bottle!--taste it! My son-in-law grew it. My son-in-law sells it; I know +all about it. You shall have that bottle for ten sous, and the Lafitte +people and the Larose people would charge you ten francs for it; and it +is as good for ten sous as theirs for ten francs. I tell you it grew +side by side with their vines; but they have capital--they have power. +They crack off their wines, and we--the poor people!--we, who trim and +dig and work our little patches--no one knows anything about us. Our +wine--bah!--what is it? It has no name--no fame! Who will give us +francs? No, no; sous for the poor man--francs for the rich. Copper for +the little landlord; silver--silver and gold for the big landlord! As +our curé said last Sunday: 'Unto him who has much, more shall be given.' +_Sacré Dieu de dieux!_--Even the Bible goes against the poor!" + +All this time, the old sailor was tugging his comrade's jacket, and +uttering sundry deprecatory ejaculations against such unnecessary +vehemence. The Trafalgar man was clearly a take-it-easy personage; not +troubled by too much thinking, and by no means a professional +grievance-monger. So he interposed to bring back the topic to a more +soothing subject, and said that what he would like, would be to see lots +of English ships coming up the Gironde with the good cottons and +woollens and hardwares we made in England, and taking back in exchange +their cheap and wholesome wines--not only the great vintages (_crus_) +for the great folk, but the common vintages for the common folk. +"Indeed, I think," he concluded, "that sitting here drinking this good +ten sous' wine with this English gentleman--who's going to pay for +it--is far better than fighting him and hacking him up, or his hacking +us up, with swords and balls and so forth." + +To this most sensible opinion we had all the pains in the world to get +the doughty lancer to incline. He couldn't see it at all. He would like +to have another brush. He wasn't half done for yet. It was all very +well; but war was grand, and glory was grand. "_Vive la guerre!_" and +"_Vive la gloire!_" + +"But," said the sailor, "there is death in glory!" + +"_Eh bien!_" shouted the warrior, with as perfect French sentiment as +ever I heard, "_Vive la mort!_" + +In the end, however, he was pleased to admit that, if we took the +peasant wines, something might be made of us. The case was not utterly +hopeless; and when I rose to go, he proposed a stirrup-cup--a _coup de +l'étrier_--to the washing down of all unkindness; but, in the very act +of swallowing it, he didn't exactly stop, but made a motion as if he +would, and then slowly letting the last drop run over his lips, he put +down the glass, and said, bitterly and coldly, "_Mais pourtant, vous +avez tué l'Empereur!_" + +I have introduced this episode principally for the purpose of showing +the notions entertained by the small proprietary as to the boasted +superiority of the large vineyards; but the plain truth is, that the +great growers are perfectly in the right. I have stated that the quality +of the soil throughout the grape country varies almost magically. Well, +the good spots have been more or less known since Medoc was Medoc; and +the larger and richer residents have got them, by inheritance, by +marriage, and by purchase, almost entirely into their own hands. Next +they greatly improved both the soil and the breed of plants. They +studied and experimentalized until they found the most proper manures +and the most promising cultures. They grafted and crossed the vine +plants till they got the most admirably bearing bushes, and then, +generation after generation, devoting all their attention to the quality +of the wine, without regard to the quantity--scrupulously taking care +that not a grape which is unripe or over-ripe finds its way to the +tub--that the whole process shall be scrupulously clean, and that every +stage of fermentation be assiduously attended to--the results of all +this has been the perfectly-perfumed and high-class clarets, which fetch +an enormous price; while the peasant proprietors, careless in +cultivation, using old vine plants, anxious, at the vintage, only for +quantity, and confined to the worst spots in the district, succeed in +producing wines which, good as they are, have not the slightest pretence +to enter into competition with the liquid harvests of their richer and +more enlightened neighbours. + +But it is high time to sketch, and with more elaboration than I have +hitherto attempted, the claret vintage and the claret vintagers. Yet +still, for a moment, I must pause upon the threshold. Will it be +believed--whether it will or not it is, nevertheless, true--that the +commencement of the vintage in France is settled, not by the opinion or +the convenience of the proprietors, but by the _autorités_ of each +_arrondissement_? As September wanes and the grape ripens, the rural +mayor assembles what he calls a jury of _experts_; which jury proceed, +from day to day, through the vineyards, inspecting and tasting the +grapes and cross-questioning the growers; after which, they report to +the mayor a special day on which, having regard to all the vineyards, +they think that the vintage ought to commence. One proprietor, in a very +sunny situation and a hot soil, may have been ready to begin a fortnight +before; another, in a converse locality, may not be ready to commence +for a fortnight afterwards. _N'importe_--the French have a great notion +of uniform symmetry and symmetrical uniformity, and so the whole +district starts together--the mayor issuing, _par autorité_, a +highly-official-looking document, which is duly posted by +yellow-breeched _gens-d'armes_, and, before the appearance of which, not +a vine-grower can gather, for wine purposes, a single grape. Now, what +must be the common sense of a country which permits, for one instant, +the continuance of this wretched little tyrannical humbug? Only think of +a trumpery little mayor and a couple of beadles proclaiming to the +farmers of England that now they might begin to cut their wheat! The +mayor's mace would be forced down the beadle's throat, and the beadle's +staff down the mayor's. But they manage these things--not +exactly--better in France. What would France be without _les autorités_? +Could the sun rise without a prefect? Certainly not. Could it set +without a sub-prefect? Certainly not. Could the planets shine on France +unless they were furnished with passports for the firmament? Clearly +not. Could the rain on France unless each drop came armed with the +_visé_ of some wonderful bureau or other? Decidedly not. Well, then, how +could the vintage begin until the people, who know nothing about the +vintage, command it? It is quite clear, that if you have any doubt +about these particulars, you know very little of the privileges, the +rights, the functions, and the powers, of the "authorities" in France. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration: THE VINTAGE.] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE VINTAGE AND THE VINTAGERS. + + +So much, then, for preliminary information. Let us now proceed to the +joyous ingathering of the fruits of the earth--the great yearly festival +and jubilee of the property and the labour of Medoc. October, the "wine +month," is approaching. For weeks, every cloud in the sky has been +watched--every cold night breeze felt with nervous apprehension. Upon +the last bright weeks in summer, the savour and the bouquet of the wine +depend. Warmed by the blaze of an unclouded sun, fanned by the mild +breezes of the west, and moistened by morning and evening dews, the +grapes by slow degrees attain their perfect ripeness and their +culminating point of flavour. Then the vintage implements begin to be +sought out, cleaned, repaired, and scoured and sweetened with hot +brandy. Coopers work as if their lives depended upon their industry; and +all the anomalous tribe of lookers-out for chance jobs in town and +country pack up their bag and baggage, and from scores of miles around +pour in ragged regiments into Medoc. + +There have long existed pleasing, and in some sort poetical, +associations connected with the task of securing for human use the +fruits of the earth; and to no species of crop do these picturesque +associations apply with greater force than to the ingathering of the +ancient harvest of the vine. From time immemorial, the season has +typified epochs of plenty and mirthful-heartedness--of good fare and of +good-will. The ancient types and figures descriptive of the vintage are +still literally true. The march of agricultural improvement seems never +to have set foot amid the vines. As it was with the patriarchs in the +East, so it is with the modern children of men. The goaded ox still +bears home the high-pressed grape-tub, and the feet of the treader are +still red in the purple juice which maketh glad the heart of man. The +scene is at once full of beauty, and of tender and even sacred +associations. The songs of the vintagers, frequently chorussed from one +part of the field to the other, ring blithely into the bright summer +air, pealing out above the rough jokes and hearty peals of laughter +shouted hither and thither. All the green jungle is alive with the +moving figures of men and women, stooping among the vines or bearing +pails and basketfuls of grapes out to the grass-grown crossroads, along +which the labouring oxen drag the rough vintage carts, groaning and +cracking as they stagger along beneath their weight of purple tubs +heaped high with the tumbling masses of luscious fruit. The congregation +of every age and both sexes, and the careless variety of costume, add +additional features of picturesqueness to the scene. The white-haired +old man labours with shaking hands to fill the basket which his +black-eyed imp of a grandchild carries rejoicingly away. Quaint +broad-brimmed straw and felt hats--handkerchiefs twisted like turbans +over straggling elf locks--swarthy skins tanned to an olive-brown--black +flashing eyes--and hands and feet stained in the abounding juices of the +precious fruit--all these southern peculiarities of costume and +appearance supply the vintage with its pleasant characteristics. The +clatter of tongues is incessant. A fire of jokes and jeers, of saucy +questions, and more saucy retorts--of what, in fact, in the humble and +unpoetic but expressive vernacular, is called "chaff,"--is kept up with +a vigour which seldom flags, except now and then, when the butt-end of a +song, or the twanging close of a chorus strikes the general fancy, and +procures for the _morceau_ a lusty _encore_. Meantime, the master +wine-grower moves observingly from rank to rank. No neglected bunch of +fruit escapes his watchful eye. No careless vintager shakes the precious +berries rudely upon the soil, but he is promptly reminded of his +slovenly work. Sometimes the tubs attract the careful superintendent. He +turns up the clusters to ascertain that no leaves nor useless length of +tendril are entombed in the juicy masses, and anon directs his steps to +the pressing-trough, anxious to find that the lusty treaders are +persevering manfully in their long-continued dance. + +Thither we will follow. The wine-press, or _cuvier de pressoir_, +consists, in the majority of cases, of a massive shallow tub, varying in +size from four square feet to as many square yards. It is placed either +upon wooden trestles or on a regularly-built platform of mason-work +under the huge rafters of a substantial outhouse. Close to it stands a +range of great butts, their number more or less, according to the size +of the vineyard. The grapes are flung by tub and caskfuls into the +cuvier. The treaders stamp diligently amid the masses, and the expressed +juice pours plentifully out of a hole level with the bottom of the +trough into a sieve of iron or wickerwork, which stops the passage of +the skins, and from thence drains into tubs below. Suppose, at the +moment of our arrival, the cuvier for a brief space empty. The +treaders--big, perspiring men, in shirts and tucked-up +trowsers--spattered to the eyes with splatches of purple juice, lean +upon their wooden spades, and wipe their foreheads. But their respite is +short. The creak of another cart-load of tubs is heard, and immediately +the waggon is backed up to the broad open window, or rather hole in the +wall, above the trough. A minute suffices to wrench out tub after tub, +and to tilt their already half-mashed clusters splash into the reeking +_pressoir_. Then to work again. Jumping with a sort of spiteful +eagerness into the mountain of yielding quivering fruit, the treaders +sink almost to the knees, stamping and jumping and rioting in the masses +of grapes, as fountains of juice spurt about their feet, and rush +bubbling and gurgling away. Presently, having, as it were, drawn the +first sweet blood of the new cargo, the eager trampling subsides into a +sort of quiet, measured dance, which the treaders continue, while, with +their wooden spades, they turn the pulpy remnants of the fruit hither +and thither, so as to expose the half-squeezed berries in every possible +way to the muscular action of the incessantly moving feet. All this +time, the juice is flowing in a continuous stream into the tubs beneath. +When the jet begins to slacken, the heap is well tumbled with the wooden +spades, and, as though a new force had been applied, the juice-jet +immediately breaks out afresh. It takes, perhaps, half or three-quarters +of an hour thoroughly to squeeze the contents of a good-sized cuvier, +sufficiently manned. When at length, however, no further exertion +appears to be attended with corresponding results, the tubfuls of +expressed juice are carried by means of ladders to the edges of the +vats, and their contents tilted in; while the men in the trough, +setting-to with their spades, fling the masses of dripping grape-skins +in along with the juice. The vats sufficiently full, the fermentation is +allowed to commence. In the great cellars in which the juice is stored, +the listener at the door--he cannot brave the carbonic acid gas to enter +further--may hear, solemnly echoing in the cool shade of the great +darkened hall, the bubblings and seethings of the working liquid--the +inarticulate accents and indistinct rumblings which proclaim that a +great metempsychosis is taking place--that a natural substance is rising +higher in the eternal scale of things, and that the contents of these +great giants of vats are becoming changed from floods of mere mawkish, +sweetish fluid to noble wine--to a liquid honoured and esteemed in all +ages--to a medicine exercising a strange and potent effect upon body and +soul--great for good and evil. Is there not something fanciful and +poetic in the notion of this change taking place mysteriously in the +darkness, when all the doors are locked and barred--for the atmosphere +about the vats is death--as if Nature would suffer no idle prying into +her mystic operations, and as if the grand transmutation and projection +from juice to wine had in it something of a secret and solemn and awful +nature--fenced round, as it were, and protected from vulgar curiosity by +the invisible halo of stifling gas? I saw the vats in the Chateau +Margaux cellars the day after the grape-juice had been flung in. +Fermentation had not as yet properly commenced, so access to the place +was possible; still, however, there was a strong vinous smell loading +the atmosphere, sharp and subtle in its influence on the nostrils; +while, putting my ear, on the recommendation of my conductor, to the +vats, I heard, deep down, perhaps eight feet down in the juice, a +seething, gushing sound, as if currents and eddies were beginning to +flow, in obedience to the influence of the working Spirit, and now and +then a hiss and a low bubbling throb, as though of a pot about to boil. +Within twenty-four hours, the cellar would be unapproachable. + +Of course, it is quite foreign to my plan to enter upon anything like a +detailed account of wine-making. I may only add, that the refuse-skins, +stalks, and so forth, which settle into the bottom of the fermentation +vats, are taken out again after the wine has been drawn off and +subjected to a new squeezing--in a press, however, and not by the +foot--the products being a small quantity of fiery, ill-flavoured wine, +full of the bitter taste of the seeds and stalks of the grape, and +possessing no aroma or bouquet. The Bordeaux press for this purpose is +rather ingeniously constructed. It consists of a sort of a skeleton of a +cask, strips of daylight shining through from top to bottom between the +staves. In the centre works a strong perpendicular iron screw. The +_rape_, as the refuse of the treading is called, is piled beneath it; +the screw is manned capstan fashion, and the unhappy seeds, skins, and +stalks, undergo a most dismal squeezing. Nor do their trials end there. +The wine-makers are terrible hands for getting at the very last +get-at-able drop. To this end, somewhat on the principle of rinsing an +exhausted spirit bottle, so as, as it were, to catch the very flavour +still clinging to the glass, they plunge the doubly-squeezed _rape_ into +water, let it lie there for a short time, and then attack it with the +press again. The result is a horrible stuff called _piquette_, which, in +a wine country, bears the same resemblance to wine as the very dirtiest, +most wishy-washy, and most contemptible of swipes bears to honest porter +or ale. Piquette, in fact, may be defined as the ghost of wine!--wine +minus its bones, its flesh, and its soul!--a liquid shadow!--a fluid +nothing!--an utter negation of all comfortable things and associations! +Nevertheless, however, the peasants swill it down in astounding +quantities, and apparently with sufficient satisfaction. + +And now a word as to wine-treading. The process is universal in France, +with the exception of the cases of the sparkling wines of the Rhone and +Champagne, the grapes for which are squeezed by mechanical means, not by +the human foot. Now, very venerable and decidedly picturesque as is the +process of wine-treading, it is unquestionably rather a filthy one; and +the spectacle of great brown horny feet, not a whit too clean, splashing +and sprawling in the bubbling juice, conveys at first sight a qualmy +species of feeling, which, however, seems only to be entertained by +those to whom the sight is new. I looked dreadfully askance at the +operation when I first came across it; and when I was invited--by a +lady, too--to taste the juice, of which she caught up a glassful, a +certain uncomfortable feeling of the inward man warred terribly against +politeness. But nobody around seemed to be in the least squeamish. Often +and often did I see one of the heroes of the tub walk quietly over a +dunghill, and then jump--barefooted, of course, as he was--into the +juice; and even a vigilant proprietor, who was particularly careful that +no bad grapes went into the tub, made no objection. When I asked why a +press was not used, as more handy, cleaner, and more convenient, I was +everywhere assured that all efforts had failed to construct a wine-press +capable of performing the work with the perfection attained by the +action of the human foot. No mechanical squeezing, I was informed, would +so nicely express that peculiar proportion of the whole moisture of the +grape which forms the highest flavoured wine. The manner in which the +fruit was tossed about was pointed out to me, and I was asked to +observe that the grapes were, as it were, squeezed in every possible +fashion and from every possible side, worked and churned and mashed +hither and thither by the ever-moving toes and muscles of the foot. As +far as any impurity went, the argument was, that the fermentation flung, +as scum to the surface, every atom of foreign matter held in suspension +in the wine, and that the liquid ultimately obtained was as exquisitely +pure as if human flesh had never touched it. + +In the collection of these and such like particulars, I sauntered for +days among the vineyards around; and, utterly unknown and unfriended as +I was, I met everywhere the most cordial and pleasant receptions. I +would lounge, for example, to the door of a wine-treading shed, to watch +the movements of the people. Presently the proprietor, most likely +attired in a broad-brimmed straw hat, a strange faded outer garment, +half shooting-coat half dressing gown, would come up courteously to the +stranger, and, learning that I was an English visitor to the vintage, +would busy himself with the most graceful kindness, to make intelligible +the _rationale_ of all the operations. Often I was invited into the +chateau or farm-house, as the case might be; a bottle of an old vintage +produced and comfortably discussed in the coolness of the darkened, +thinly-furnished room, with its old-fashioned walnut-tree escrutoires, +and beauffets, its quaintly-pannelled walls, and its polished floors, +gleaming like mirrors and slippery as ice. On these occasions, the +conversation would often turn upon the general rejection, by England, of +French wines--a sore point with the growers of all save the first-class +vintages, and in which I had, as may be conceived, very little to say in +defence either of our taste or our policy. In the evenings, which were +getting chill and cold, I occasionally abandoned my room with +illustrations from the _Tour de Nesle_ for the general kitchen and +parlour of Madame Cadillac, and, ensconcing myself in the chimney +corner--a fine old-fashioned ingle, crackling and blazing with hard wood +logs--listened to the chat of the people of the village; they were +nearly all coopers and vine-dressers, who resorted there after the day's +work was over to enjoy an exceedingly modest modicum of very thin wine. +I never benefitted very much, however, by these listenings. It was my +bad luck to hear recounted neither tale nor legend--to pick up, at the +hands of my _compotatores_, neither local trait nor anecdote. The +conversation was as small as the wine. The gossip of the place--the +prospects of the vintage--elaborate comparisons of it with other +vintages--births, marriages, and deaths--a minute list of scandal, more +or less intelligible when conveyed in hints and allusions--were the +staple topics, mixed up, however, once or twice with general +denunciations of the niggardly conduct of certain neighbouring +proprietors to their vintagers--giving them for breakfast nothing but +coarse bread, lard, and not even piquette to wash it down with, and for +dinner not much more tempting dishes. + +In Medoc, there are two classes of vintagers--the fixed and the floating +population; and the latter, which makes an annual inroad into the +district just as the Irish harvesters do into England and Scotland, +comprising a goodly proportion of very dubious and suspicious-looking +characters. The _gen-d'armerie_ have a busy time of it when these gentry +are collected in numbers in the district. Poultry disappear with the +most miraculous promptitude; small linen articles hung out to dry have +no more chance than if Falstaff's regiment were marching by; and +garden-fruit and vegetables, of course, share the results produced by a +rigid application of the maxim that _la propriété c'est le vol_. Where +these people come from is a puzzle. There will be vagrants and strollers +among them from all parts of France--from the Pyrenees and the +Alps--from the pine-woods of the Landes and the moors of Brittany. They +unite in bands of a dozen or a score men and women, appointing a chief, +who bargains with the vine-proprietor for the services of the company, +and keeps up some degree of order and subordination, principally by +means of the unconstitutional application of a good thick stick. I +frequently encountered these bands, making their way from one district +to another, and better samples of "the dangerous classes" were never +collected. They looked vicious and abandoned, as well as miserably poor. +The women, in particular, were as brazen-faced a set of slatterns as +could be conceived; and the majority of the men--tattered, +strapping-looking fellows, with torn slouched hats, and tremendous +cudgels--were exactly the sort of persons a nervous gentleman would have +scruples about meeting at dusk in a long lane. It is when thus on the +tramp that the petty pilfering and picking and stealing to which I have +alluded to goes on. When actually at work, they have no time for +picking up unconsidered trifles. Sometimes these people pass the +night--all together, of course--in out-houses or barns, when the _chef_ +can strike a good bargain; at other times they bivouac on the lee-side +of a wood or wall, in genuine gipsy fashion. You may often see their +watchfires glimmering in the night; and be sure that where you do, there +are twisted necks and vacant nests in many a neighbouring hen-roost. One +evening I was sauntering along the beach at Paulliac--a little town on +the river's bank, about a dozen of miles from the mouth of the Gironde, +and holding precisely the same relation to Bordeaux as Gravesend does to +London--when a band of vintagers, men, women, and children, came up. +They were bound to some village on the opposite side of the Gironde, and +wanted to get ferried across. A long parley accordingly ensued between +the chief and a group of boatmen. The commander of the vintage forces +offered four sous per head as the passage-money. The bargemen would hear +of nothing under five; and after a tremendous verbal battle, the +vintagers announced that they were not going to be cheated, and that if +they could not cross the water, they could stay where they were. +Accordingly, a bivouac was soon formed. Creeping under the lee of a row +of casks, on the shingle of the bare beach, the women were placed +leaning against the somewhat hard and large pillows in question; the +children were nestled at their feet and in their laps; and the men +formed the outermost ranks. A supply of loaves was sent for and +obtained. The chief tore the bread up into huge hunks, which he +distributed to his dependents; and upon this supper the whole party +went coolly to sleep--more coolly, indeed, than agreeably; for a keen +north wind was whistling along the sedgy banks of the river, and the red +blaze of high-piled faggots was streaming from the houses across the +black, cold, turbid waters. At length, however, some arrangement was +come to; for, on visiting the spot a couple of hours afterwards, I found +the party rather more comfortably ensconced under the ample sails of the +barge which was to bear them the next morning to their destination. + +The dinner-party formed every day, when the process of stripping the +vines is going on, is, particularly in the cases in which the people are +treated well by the proprietor, frequently a very pretty and very +picturesque spectacle. It always takes place in the open air, amongst +the bushes, or under some neighbouring walnut-tree. Sometimes long +tables are spread upon tressles; but in general no such formality +is deemed requisite. The guests fling themselves in groups upon the +ground--men and women picturesquely huddled together--the former bloused +and bearded personages--the latter showy, in their bright short +petticoats of home-spun and dyed cloth, with glaring handkerchiefs +twisted like turbans round their heads--each man and woman with a deep +plate in his or her lap. Then the people of the house bustle about, +distributing huge brown loaves, which are torn asunder, and the +fragments chucked from hand to hand. Next a vast cauldron of soup, +smoking like a volcano, is painfully lifted out from the kitchen, and +dealt about in mighty ladlefuls; while the founder of the feast takes +care that the tough, thready _bouilli_--like lumps of boiled-down +hemp--shall be fairly apportioned among his guests. _Piquette_ is the +general beverage. A barrel is set abroach, and every species of mug, +glass, cup, and jug about the establishment is called in to aid in its +consumption. A short rest, devoted to chatting, or very often sleeping +in the shade, over, the signal is given, and the work recommences. + +"You have seen our _salle à manger_," said one of my courteous +entertainers--he of the broad-brimmed straw hat; "and now you shall see +our _chambre à coucher_." Accordingly, he led me to a barn close to his +wine-cellars. The place was littered deep with clean, fresh straw. Here +and there rolled-up blankets were laid against the wall; while all +round, from nails stuck in between the bare bricks, hung by straps and +strings the little bundles, knapsacks, and other baggage of the +labourers. On one side, two or three swarthy young women were playfully +pushing each other aside, so as to get at a morsel of cracked mirror +stuck against the wall--their long hair hanging down in black elf-locks, +in the preliminary stage of its arrangement. + +"That is the ladies' side," said my _cicerone_, pointing to the girls; +"and that"--extending his other hand--"is the gentlemen's side." + +"And so they all sleep here together?" + +"Every night. I find shelter and straw; any other accommodation they +must procure for themselves." + +"Rather unruly, I should suppose?" + +"Not a bit. They are too tired to do anything but sleep. They go off, +sir, like dormice." + +"_Oh, sil plait à Mossieu!_" put in one of the damsels. "The chief of +the band does the police." (_Fait la gen-d'armerie._) + +"Certainly--certainly," said the proprietor; "the gentlemen lie here, +with their heads to the wall; the ladies there; and the _chef de la +bande_ stretches himself all along between them." + +"A sort of living frontier?" + +"Truly; and he allows no nonsense." + +"_Il est meme éxcessivement severe_," interpolated the same young lady. + +"He need be," replied her employer. "He allows no loud speaking--no +joking; and as there are no candles, no light, why, they can do nothing +better than go quietly to sleep, if it were only in self-defence." + +One word more about the vintage. The reader will easily conceive that it +is on the smaller properties, where the wine is intended, not so much +for commerce as for household use, that the vintage partakes most of the +festival nature. In the large and first-class vineyards the process goes +on under rigid superintendence, and is as much as possible made a cold +matter of business. He who wishes to see the vintages of books and +poems--the laughing, joking, singing festivals amid the vines, which we +are accustomed to consider the harvests of the grape--must betake him to +the multitudinous patches of peasant property, in which neighbour helps +neighbour to gather in the crop, and upon which whole families labour +merrily together, as much for the amusement of the thing, and from good +neighbourly feeling, as in consideration of francs and sous. Here, of +course, there is no tight discipline observed, nor is there any absolute +necessity for that continuous, close scrutiny into the state of the +grapes--all of them hard or rotten, going slap-dash into the +_cuvier_--which, in the case of the more precious vintages, forms no +small check upon a general state of careless jollity. Every one eats as +much fruit as he pleases, and rests when he is tired. On such occasions +it is that you hear to the best advantage the joyous songs and choruses +of the vintage--many of these last being very pretty bits of melody, +generally sung by the women and girls, in shrill treble unison, and +caught up and continued from one part of the field to another. + +[Illustration: RETURNING FROM THE VINTAGE.] + +Yet, discipline and control it as you will, the vintage will ever be +beautiful, picturesque, and full of association. The rude wains, +creaking beneath the reeking tubs--the patient faces of the yoked +oxen--the half-naked, stalwart men, who toil to help the cart along the +ruts and furrows of the way--the handkerchief-turbaned women, their gay, +red-and-blue dresses peeping from out the greenery of the leaves--the +children dashing about as if the whole thing were a frolic, and the +grey-headed old men tottering cheerfully adown the lines of vines, with +baskets and pails of gathered grapes to fill the yawning tubs--the whole +picture is at once classic, venerable, and picturesque, not more by +association than actuality. + +And now, Reader, luxuriating amid the gorgeously carven and emblazoned +fittings of a Palais Royal or Boulevard restorateur, Vefours, the +Freres, or the Café de Paris; or perhaps ensconced in our quieter and +more sober rooms--dim and dull after garish Paris, but ten times more +comfortable in their ample sofas and carpets, into which you sink as +into quagmires, but with more agreeable results,--snugly, Reader, +ensconced in either one or the other locality, after the waiter has, in +obedience to your summons, produced the _carte de vins_, and your eye +wanders down the long list of tempting nectars, Spanish and Portuguese, +and better, far better, German and French--have you ever wondered as you +read, "ST. JULLIEN, LEOVILLE, CHATEAU LA LAFITTE, CHATEAU LA ROSE, and +CHATEAU MARGAUX, what these actual vineyards, the produce of which you +know so well--what those actual chateaux, which christen such glorious +growths, resemble?" If so, listen, and I will tell you. + +As you traverse the high road from Bordeaux to Pauillac, some one will +probably point out to you a dozen tiny sugar-loaf turrets, each +surmounted by a long lightning-conductor, rising from a group of noble +trees. This is the chateau St. Jullien. A little on, on the right side +of the way, rises, from the top of a tiny hill overlooking the Gironde, +a new building, with all the old crinkum-crankum ornaments of the +ancient fifteenth century country house. That is the chateau Latour. +Presently you observe that the entrance to a wide expanse of vines, +covering a series of hills and dales, tumbling down to the water's edge, +is marked by a sort of triumphal arch or ornamented gate, adorned with a +lion couchant, and a legend, setting forth that the vines behind produce +the noted wine of Leoville. The chateau Lafitte rises amid stately +groves of oak and walnut-trees, from amid the terraced walks of an +Italian garden--its white spreading wings gleaming through the trees, +and its round-roofed, slated towers rising above them. One chateau, the +most noted of all, remains. Passing along a narrow, sandy road, amid a +waste of scrubby-looking bushes, you pass beneath the branches of a +clump of noble oaks and elms, and perceive a great white structure +glimmering garishly before you. Take such a country house as you may +still find in your grandmothers' samplers, decorated with a due +allowance of doors and windows--clap before it a misplaced Grecian +portico, whitewash the whole to a state of the most glaring and dazzling +brightness, carefully close all outside shutters, painted white +likewise--and you have chateau Margaux rising before you like a wan, +ghastly spectre of a house, amid stately terraced gardens, and trimmed, +clipped, and tortured trees. But, as I have already insisted, nothing, +in any land of vines, must be judged by appearances. The first time I +saw at a distance Johannesberg, rising from its grape-clustered domains, +I thought it looked very much like a union workhouse, erected in the +midst of a field of potatoes. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration: LANDES SHEPHERDS.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE LANDES--THE BORDEAUX AND TESTE RAILWAY--NINICHE--THE LANDSCAPE +OF THE LANDES--THE PEOPLE OF THE LANDES--HOW THEY WALK ON STILTS, +AND GAMBLE. + + +Turn to the map of France--to that portion of it which would be +traversed by a straight line drawn from Bordeaux to Bayonne--and you +will observe that such a line would run through a vast extent of +bare-looking country--of that sort, indeed, where + + "Geographers on pathless downs + Place elephants, for want of towns." + +Roads, you will observe, are few and far between; the names of +far-scattered towns will be unfamiliar to you; and, indeed, nine-tenths +of this part of the map consists of white paper. The district you are +looking at is the Landes, forming now a department by itself, and +anciently constituting a portion of Gascony and Guienne. These Landes +form one of the strangest and wildest parts of France. Excepting here +and there small patches of poor, ill-cultivated land, the whole country +is a solitary desert--black with pine-wood, or white with +vast plains of drifting sand. By these two great features of the +district, occasionally diversified by sweeps of green morass, +intersected by canals and lanes of stagnant and often brackish water, +the Landes take a goodly slice out of La Belle France. Their sea-line +bounds the French side of the Bay of Biscay, stretching from Bayonne to +the mouth of the Gironde; and at their point of greatest breadth they +run some sixty miles back into the country; thence gradually receding +away towards the sea, as though pushed back by the course of the +Garonne, until, towards the mouth of the river, they fade away +altogether. + +So much for the _physique_ of the Landes. The inhabitants are every whit +as rugged, strange, and uncultivated. As the Landes were four centuries +ago, in all essential points, so they are now; as the people were four +centuries ago, in all essential points, so they are now. What should the +tide of progress or of improvement do in these deserts of pine and sand? +The people live on French soil, but cannot be called Frenchmen. They +speak a language as unintelligible to a Frenchman as an Englishman; they +have none of the national characteristics--little, perhaps, of the +national blood. They are saturnine, gloomy, hypochondriac, dismally +passing dismal lives in the depths of their black forests, their dreary +swamps, and their far-spreading deserts of white, fine sand. Such an odd +nook of the world was not to be passed unvisited; besides, I wanted to +see the Biscay surf; and accordingly I left Bordeaux for the Landes--not +in some miserable cross-country vehicle--not knight-errantwise, on a +Bordelais Rosinante--not pilgrim-wise, with a staff and scrip--but in a +comfortable railway-carriage. + +Yes, sir, a comfortable railway-carriage; and the railway in +question--the Bordeaux and Teste line--is the sole enterprise of the +kind undertaken and achieved in the south-west of France. + +"Railways!" said the conductor of the Paris and Bordeaux diligence to +me, with that magnificent condescension with which a Frenchman explains +to a Briton all about _Perfide Albion!_--"Railways, monsieur," he said, +"as all the world knows, have achieved the ruin of the Old England, and +presently they will do as much for France. _Tenez_; they are cursed +inventions--particularly the Paris and Bordeaux Railway." + +But if the ruin of France is to be consummated by railways, France, like +bankrupt linendrapers, will take a long time to ruin. The Bordeaux line +crawls but slowly on. In 1850, we left the rails and took to the road at +Tours; and, barring the bits of line leading down from some of the +Mediterranean towns to Marseilles, the Bordeaux and Teste fragment was +the sole morsel of railway then in operation south of Lyons. The +question comes, then, to be, What earthly inducement caused the +construction of this wilderness line, and how it happens that the only +locomotives in fair Guienne whistle through the almost uninhabited +Landes? The fact seems to be, that, once upon a time, the good folks of +Bordeaux were taken with an inappeasable desire to have a railway. One +would have thought that the natural course of such an undertaking would +have been northward, through the vines and thickly-peopled country of +Medoc to the comparatively-important towns of Paulliac and Lesparre. The +enterprising Bordelais, however, had another scheme. Some forty miles to +the west of the city, the sands, pines, and morasses of the Landes are +broken by a vast shallow basin, its edges scolloped with innumerable +creeks, bays, and winding friths, into which, through a breach in the +coast line of sand-hills, flow the waters of the Atlantic. On the +southern side of this estuary lie two or three scattered groups of +hovels, inhabited by fishermen and shepherds--the most important of the +hamlets being known as Teste, or Teste-la-buch. Between Teste and +Bordeaux, the only line of communication was a rutty road, half sand and +half morass, and the only traffic was the occasional pilgrimage to the +salt water of some patient sent thither at all risks by the Bordeaux +doctors, or now and then the transit towards the city of the Garonne of +the products of a day's lucky fishing, borne in panniers on the backs of +a string of donkeys. Folks, however, were sanguine. The speculation +"came out," shares got up, knowing people sold out, simple people held +on, and the line was actually constructed. No doubt it was cheaply got +up. Ground could be had in the Landes almost for the asking, and from +terminus to terminus there is not an inch of tunnel-cutting or +embankment. The line, moreover, is single, and the stations are knocked +up in the roughest and most primitive style. The result, however, +astonished no one, save the shareholders. The traffic does not half pay +the working expenses. Notwithstanding that some increase in the amount +of communication certainly did take place, consequent upon the facility +with which Teste can now be reached--a facility which has gone some way +to render it a summer place of sea-side resort--the two trains which +_per diem_ seldom convey more than a dozen or so of third-class +passengers, and the shareholders at length flung themselves into the +hands of the Government; and, insisting upon the advantages which would +accrue to the State as soon as the Paris and Bordeaux line was finished, +by a direct means of communication between the metropolis and a harbour +in the Bay of Biscay, they succeeded in hypothecating their line to the +Government for a small annual subvention. Such is the present agreeable +position of the single railway in the south-west of France. + +I was somewhat late, as I feared, for the train, and, calling a +_citadine_, got the man to urge his horse to a gallop, so that we pulled +up at the terminus with the animal in a lather. A porter approached, and +grinned. "Monsieur has made haste, but the winter season begins to-day, +and the train does not go for an hour and a half." There was no help for +it, and I sauntered into the nearest _café_ to read long disquisitions +on what was then all the vogue in the political world--the "situation." +I found the little marble slabs deserted--even the billiard-table +abandoned, and all the guests collected round the white Fayence stove. +Joining them, I perceived the attraction. On one of the velvet stools +sat an old gentleman of particularly grave and reverend aspect--a most +philosophic and sage-like old gentleman--and between his legs was a +white poodle, standing erect with his master's cane in his paws. All the +company were in raptures with Niniche, who was going through his +performances. + +"Niniche," said the patriarch, "what does Monsieur Tetard do when he +comes home late?" + +The dog immediately began to stagger about on its hind legs, sometimes +losing its balance and then getting up again, looking all the time with +a sort of stupid blinking stare at its master. It was clear that M. +Tetard, when he came home late, did not come home sober. + +"_Tiens! c'est admirable!_" shouted the spectators--burly fellows, with +black beards, and honest tradesman-looking people, with glasses of _eau +sucreé_ in their hands. + +"And now," said the old gentleman, the poodle's proprietor and +instructor, "what does Madame Tetard do when Monsieur Tetard comes home +late?" + +The dog straightway began to utter, with wonderful volubility, a series +of loud, shrill, yelping snaps, jerking itself up and down on its +haunches, and flinging its paws about as if it had the hydrophobia. The +spectators were enraptured. "It is actually her voice," said one. "Only +the dog is too good-looking for her," said another. "_Voilà petite!_" +vociferated a third, holding a huge piece of bluish-tinted beetroot +sugar to the performer, when suddenly the group was broken by a fussy, +fat old gentleman with a white baggy cravat, very snuffy, and a pair of +heavy gold spectacles. + +"_Je dis--moi!_" shouted the new comer, in violent wrath; "_que c'est +abominable ce que vous faites là Père Grignon._" A murmur of suppressed +laughter went through the group. Père Grignon looked considerably taken +aback, and the speaker aimed a hearty kick at Niniche, who dodged away +round the stove. It was evident that he was no other than the injured +and maligned Tetard himself. Instantly he broke into loud objurgations. +He knew how that atrocious old _Père Grignon_ had taught his dog to +malign him, the _bête misérable_! But as for it, he would poison +it--shoot it--drown it; and as for Père Grignon, who ought to have more +sense, all the quartier knew what he was--an _imbécille_, who was always +running about carrying tales, and making mischief. But he would appeal +to the authorities; he would lay his complaint before the commisary of +the quartier; he would--he would--. At this moment the excited orator +caught sight of the offending poodle slipping to the door, and instantly +sprung vigorously after him:-- + +"_Tenez-tenez_; don't touch Niniche--it's not his fault!" exclaimed the +poodle's proprietor. But the dog had bolted, with Tetard in hot chase of +his imitator, and vowing that he should be _écraséd_ and _abiméd_ as +soon as caught. There was, of course, great laughter at the whole +proceeding; and then the group betook themselves to the marble slabs +and dominoes--the instructor of the offending quadruped coolly lighting +his pipe, as he muttered that old Tetard was, after all, a _bon enfant_, +and that over a _petit verre_ he would always listen to reason. + +At length the tedious hour and a half wore away, and I entered the +terminus--a roughly built wooden shed. The train consisted of a first, +second, and third-class carriage; but there were no first-class +passengers, only one solitary second-class, and about a dozen +third-classes, with whom I cast my lot. Miserable as the freight was, +the locomotive whistled as loud and panted as vehemently as if it were +yoked to a Great Western express; and off we went through the broad belt +of nursery gardens, which encircles every French town, and where the +very best examples of the working of the small proprietary system are to +be seen. A rapid run through the once greatly famed and still esteemed +vineyards of Hautbrion, and we found ourselves scurrying along over a +negative sort of country--here a bit of heath, there a bit of +vineyard--now a bald spot of sand, anon a plot of irregularly-cut +stubble; while a black horizon of pine-wood rose gradually on the right +and left. On flew the train, and drearier grew the landscape; the heath +was bleaker--the pines began to appear in clumps--the sand-stretches +grew wider--every thing green, and fertile, and _riant_ disappeared. He, +indeed, who enters the Landes, appears to have crossed a French +frontier, and left the merry land behind. No more bright vineyards--no +more rich fields of waving corn--no more clustered villages--no more +chateau-turrets--no more tapering spires. You look up to heaven to see +whether the sky has not changed, as well as the land. No; all there is +blue and serene as before, and the keen, hot sun glares intensely down +upon undulating wastes of marsh, fir, and sand, among which you may +travel for leagues without seeing a man, hearing a dog bark, or a bird +sing. At last we were fairly among the woods, shooting down what seemed +an eternal straight tunnel, cleft by lightning through the pines. The +trees stood up stark and stiff, like cast-iron; the fir is at once a +solemn and a rigid tree--the Puritan of the forest; and down the side of +each Puritan I noticed a straight, yellowish gash, running +perpendicularly from the spread of the branches almost to the earth, and +turned for explanation to an intelligent-looking man, evidently a +citizen of Bordeaux, opposite me. + +"Ah!" he said, "you are new to our Landes." + +I admitted it. + +"And these gashes down the trees--these, monsieur, give us the harvest +of the Landes." + +"The harvest! What harvest?" + +"What harvest? Resin, to be sure." + +"Ay, resin," said an old fellow with a blouse and a quick eye; "resin, +monsieur; the only harvest that man can grow in sand." + +"_Tenez_," said my first interlocutor; "the peasants cut that gash in +the tree; and at the root they scoop a little hollow in the ground. The +resin perspires out of the wood, flows slowly and glutinously down the +gash, and in a month or so, according to the heat of the weather, the +hole is full, and the man who rents the trees takes up the sticky stuff, +like soup, with a ladle." + +"That's a very good description," said the old bloused gentleman. "And +then, sir" (addressing me), "we barrel our crop of the Landes. Yes, +indeed, we barrel it, as well as they do the crop of the Medoc." + +"Only you wouldn't like to drink it so well," said the Bordeaux man. + +Presently we pulled up at a station--a mere shed, with a clearing around +it, as there might have been in Texas or Maine. I observed the +name--TOHUA-COHOA, and remarked that it did not look like a French one. + +"French one!" said he of Bordeaux; "you don't expect to find French in +this chaos? No, no; it is some of the gibberish the savages hereabout +speak." + +"No such gibberish, and no such savages either," said the little +keen-eyed man. "_Moi, je suis de Landes_; and the Landes language is a +far finer language than French. French! phoo, phoo!" + +And he took a pinch of snuff indignantly and triumphantly. The Bordeaux +gentleman winked blandly at me, as if the keen-eyed man was a character +to be humoured, and then looked doubtful and unconvinced. + +"Tohua-Cohoa," he said; "it has a _sacré tonnerre_ of a barbarous sound; +has it any meaning?" + +"Meaning!" exclaimed the man of the Landes; "I should think so. +Tohua-Cohoa means, in French, _Allez doucement_; and the place was so +called because there was there a dangerous swamp, in which many a +donkey coming up from Teste with fish to you of Bordeaux was smothered; +and so it got to be quite proverbial among the drivers of the donkeys, +and they used to shout to each other, 'Tohua-Cohoa!' whenever they came +near the slough; meaning to look out, and go gently, and take care of +the soft places." + +The man with the blouse, who was clearly the champion of the Landes, +then turned indignantly from the Bordeaux man and addressed himself to +me. "The language which the poor people here speak, monsieur, is a fine +and expressive language, and liker the Spanish than the French. The +people are poor, and very ignorant. They believe, monsieur, in ghosts, +and witches, and sorceries, just as all France did two or three hundred +years ago. Very few of them can read, monsieur, and they have bad food +and no wine. But nevertheless, monsieur, they are _bons enfants--braves +gens_, monsieur. They love their pine-woods and their sands as much as +other people do their corn-fields and their vines, monsieur. They would +die, monsieur, if you took them away from the sand and the trees. They +are not like the Auvergnats, who go in troops to Paris to carry water +from the fountains, and who are _betes--betes--bien betes_! They stay at +home, monsieur. They wear their sheep-skins and walk upon their stilts, +like their forefathers before them, monsieur; and if you are coming here +to see the Landes, and if you lose yourself in the woods, and see a +light glimmering through the trees, and rap at the cottage door, +monsieur, you will be welcomed, monsieur, and have the best they can +offer to eat, and the softest they can offer to sleep on. _Tenez, tenez; +nous sommes pauvres et ignorants mais nous sommes, loyals et bons!_" + +The tears fairly stood in the keen black eyes of the Landes man as he +concluded his harangue, of which I have only reported the main points; +for, truth to tell, the poor fellow's vehemence was so great, and his +utterance so rapid, that I lost nearly as much as I caught. The Bordeaux +gentleman hammered the floor with his umbrella in satirical approbation, +the rest of the passengers looked curiously on, and, the engine +whistling, we pulled up again at a station similar to the first--a +shed--a clearing, and black pine all around. There were just three +persons on the rough platform--the station-master in a blouse, and two +yellow-breeched _gens-d'armes_. What could they find to occupy them +among these drear pine-woods? What thief, who had not made a vow of +voluntary starvation, or who had not a morbid taste for living upon +resin, would ever have ventured among them? But the authorities! Catch a +bit of France without an "authority!" As they certainly are omnipotent, +and profess to be omniscient, it is only to be supposed that they should +be omnipresent. One man left the train at the station in question--a +slouching, stupid, swarthy peasant, the authorities pounced upon him, +evidently in prodigious glee at catching somebody to be _autoritised_ +over, and we left them, spelling and squabbling over the greasy-looking +"papers" presented by the profoundly respectful Jacques or Pierre. + +And now, before proceeding further, I may be allowed to describe, with +some minuteness, the landscape which will greet the traveller in the +Landes. Its mere surface-aspect I have already sketched; but general +terms go but a small way towards indicating the dreary grandeurs of that +solemn wilderness. Over all its gloom and barrenness--over all its +"blasted heaths" and monotonous pine-woods, and sodden morasses, and +glaring heaps of shifting sand--there is a strong and pervading sense of +loneliness, a grandeur and intensity of desolation, which, as it were, +clothes the land with a sad, solemn poetry peculiar to itself. Emerging +from black forests of fir, the wanderer may find himself upon a plain, +flat as a billiard-table, and apparently boundless as the ocean, clad in +one unvaried, unbroken robe of dusky heath. Sometimes stripes and +ridges, or great ragged patches of sand, glisten in the fervid sunshine; +sometimes belts of scraggy young fir-trees appear rising from the +horizon on the left, and fading into the horizon on the right. +Occasionally a brighter shade of green, with jungles of willows and +coarse water-weeds, giant rushes, and marish-mosses, and tangled masses +of dank vegetation, will tell of the unfathomable swamp beneath. Dark +veins of muddy water will traverse the flat oozy land, sometimes, +perhaps, losing themselves in broad shallow lakes, bordered again by the +endless sand-banks and stretches of shadowy pine. The dwellings which +dot this dreary, yet, in its way, solemnly poetic landscape, are +generally mere isolated huts, separated sometimes by many miles, often +by many leagues. Round them the wanderer will descry a miserable field +or two, planted with a stunted crop of rye, millet, or maize. The +cottages are mouldering heaps of sod and unhewn and unmortared stones, +clustered round with ragged sheds composed of masses of tangled bushes, +pine stakes, and broadleaved reeds, beneath which cluster, when not +seeking their miserable forage in the woods, two or three cows, mere +skin and bone, and a score or two of the most abject-looking sheep which +ever browsed. + +Proceeding through the Landes towards the coast, a long chain of lakes +and water-courses, running parallel to the ocean, breaks their +uniformity. The country becomes a waste of shallow pools, and of land +which is parched in summer and submerged in winter. Running in devious +arms and windings through moss and moor and pine, these "lakes of the +dismal swamp" form labyrinths of gulfs and morasses which only the most +experienced shepherds can safely thread. Here and there a village, or +rather bourg, will be seen upon their banks, half hidden in the +pine-woods; and a roughly-built fishing-punt or two will be observed +floating like the canoe of a savage in the woodland lakes. Sometimes, as +in the case of the basin of Arcachon, which will be presently described, +these waters are arms of the sea; and the retreating tide leaves scores +of square miles of putrid swamp. Sometimes they are mere collections of +surface-drainage, accumulating without any means of escape to the ocean, +and perilous in the extreme to the dwellers on their shores. For, +forming the extreme line of coast, there runs, for near two hundred +miles, from the Adour to the Garonne, a range of vast hills of white +sand, as fine as though it had been sifted for an hour-glass. Every gale +changes the shape of these rolling mountains. A strong wind from the +land flings millions of tons of sand per hour into the sea, to be washed +up again by the surf, flung on the beach, and in the first Biscay gale +blown in whirlwinds inland. A winter hurricane again from the west has +filled up with sand square miles of shallow lake, driving the displaced +waters inland, dispersing them in gleaming lakes among the pine-woods, +flooding, and frequently destroying the scattered hamlets of the people, +and burying for ever their fields of millet and rye. I shall presently +have occasion to touch upon some disasters of this sort. Meantime, +having made the aspect of the Landes familiar to the reader, I pursue +the thread of my journey. + +The novelty of a population upon stilts--men, women, and children, +spurning the ground, and living habitually four or five feet higher than +the rest of mankind--irresistibly takes the imagination, and I leant +anxiously from the carriage to catch the first glimpse of a Landean in +his native style. I looked long in vain. We passed hut after hut, but +they seemed deserted, except that the lean swine burrowing round the +turf walls gave evidence that the pork had proprietors somewhere. At +last I was gratified; as the train passed not very quickly along a +jungle of bushes and coppice-wood, a black, shaggy figure rose above it, +as if he were standing upon the ends of the twigs. The effect was quite +eldritch. We saw him but as a vision, but the high conical hat with +broad brims, like Mother Red-cap's, the swarthy, bearded face, and the +rough, dirty sheep-skin, which hung fleecily from the shoulders of the +apparition, haunted me. He was come and gone, and that was all. +Presently, however, the natives began to heave in sight in sufficient +profusion. There were three gigantic-looking figures stalking together +across an expanse of dusky heath. I thought them men, and rather tall +ones; but my companions, more accustomed to the sight, said they were +boys on comparatively short stilts, herding the sheep, which were +scattered like little greyish stones all over the waste. Anon, near a +cottage, we saw a woman, in dark, coarse clothes, with shortish +petticoats, sauntering almost four feet from the ground, and next beheld +at a distance, and on the summit of a sand-ridge, relieved against the +sky, three figures, each leaning back, and supported, as it seemed, not +only by two daddy long-legs' limbs, but by a third, which appeared to +grow out of the small of their backs. The phenomenon was promptly +explained by my bloused _cicerone_, who seemed to feel especial pleasure +at my interest in the matter. The third leg was a pole or staff the +people carry, with a new moon-shaped crutch at the top, which, applied +to the back, serves as a capital prop. With his legs spread out, and his +back-stay firmly pitched, the shepherd of the Landes feels as much at +home as you would in the easiest of easy chairs. + +"He will remain so for hours, without stirring, and without being +wearied," said my fellow-passenger. "It is a way of sitting down in the +Landes. Why, a shepherd, could stand so, long enough to knit a pair of +stockings, ay, and not have an ache in his back. Sometimes they play +cards, so, without once coming off their stilts." + +"Ay, and cheat! _Mon Dieu!_ how they cheat!" said the Bordeaux +gentleman. The native of the Landes reluctantly admitted that was +the truth, and the other went on:-- + +"These fellows here on the stilts are the most confounded gamblers in +Europe. Men and women, it's all the same--play, play, play; they would +stake their bodies first, and their souls after. _Tenez_; I once heard +of a lot of the fellows playing in a wood till they were all but +starved. In the day they played by daylight, and when night came, they +kindled a bonfire and played in the glare. They played on and on, in +spite of hunger and thirst. They staked their money--not that they had +much of that--and their crops--not that they were of great value +either--and their pigs, and their sheep, and their Landes ponies, and +then their furniture, and then their clothes, and, last of all, their +stilts--for a Landes man thinks his stilts the principal part of his +wardrobe; and, _sacré!_ monsieur, three of the fellows were ruined out +and out, and had to give up their hats, and sheep-skins, and sabots, +while the man who was the greatest winner walked home on his own stilts, +with the stilts of all his comrades tucked under his arm." + +"Gaming is their fault--their great fault," meekly acknowledged the +blouse. + +"Not at all!" said his antagonist. "Cheating is their great fault. A +Landes shepherd would cheat the devil with a greasy pack of cards." + +"The fact is," replied the apologist, "that they count cheating part of +the game. Their motto is, win anyhow; so it is no worse for one than the +other. Cards is chance; but cheating needs skill, and _voila tout_." + +We were fast approaching Teste, and had passed two or three clusters of +poor huts, and a party of women up to their waists in a sluggish stream +washing fleeces, while yellow patches of ripening maize began to recur +quicker and quicker, showing that we had reached a comparatively +thickly-peopled district, when all at once there burst upon my eyes a +glorious-looking prairie of gently undulating land, of the brightest +green I ever looked upon. The green of the greenest lawns of England, +the green of the softest bogs of Ireland, the green even of the most +intensely green patches of the Curragh of Kildare, were brown, and +fuzzy, and rusty, compared to this wonderful hue. The land looked like +one huge emerald, sparkling in the sun. The brightness, the freshness, +the radiance of the tint, was almost supernatural, and the eye, nursed +for it, as it were, after our journey over the brown moors and black +pines, caught the bright fresh beauty of the colour with rapture. + +"Come," I thought, "there are, at least, oases in the Landes. Never was +turf so glorious; never was sward so bewitching." And then, gazing far +and wide upon the prairie, I saw it dotted with human figures labouring +at the soil, and great wains and carts drawn by oxen, looking like black +specks upon a great, fresh, green leaf. But, in a moment, I saw +something more. Could I believe my eyes? A ship! Yes, verily, a ship, +fast aground, high and dry upon the turf! and not only one, but two, +three, four, good-sized schooners and _chasse marées_, with peasants +digging about them, and country carts high heaped with green +rural-looking burdens. + +The Landes man saw my bewilderment. "The green-looking land," he said, +"is the flat bottom of part of the bay of Arcachon. It is now dead +low-water, and the country people have come down with their carts to +fill them with that green slimy seaweed, which makes capital manure; and +some of them, perhaps, have brought casks of resin for those ships which +principally belong to Bordeaux, Rochelle, and Nantes, and come here and +into other bays along the coast for the harvest of the Landes." + +The engine whistled. We were at Teste--a shabby, ancient little village, +with a deep stream flowing sluggishly around it, and dividing itself +into a many-forked delta along the level sand; fishermen's hovels +scattered on the beach, brown boats drawn up beneath them, nets drying, +a considerable fishy smell pervading the atmosphere, with, beyond again, +the black, unvarying mantle of pine-woods. There is a very good hotel at +Teste; thanks to its being one of the Bordeaux watering-places; and +there, for dinner, was provided red mullets, which would have made the +red mullet-loving Duke of Devonshire crazy, as he noted the difference +between the fish from the bay of Arcachon and their brethren from the +coast of Weymouth. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE LANDES--THE BAY OF ARCACHON AND ITS FISHERS--THE LEGEND OF +CHATEL-MORANT--THE PINE-WOODS--THE RESIN-GATHERER--THE WILD +HORSES--THE SURF OF THE BAY OF BISCAY--THE WITCHES OF THE +LANDES--POPULAR BELIEFS, AND POPULAR CUSTOMS. + + +The sun was low in the heavens next morning when I was afoot and down to +the beach, the glorious bay now brimming full, and the schooners and +_chasse marées_, like the swan on St. Mary's Loch, floating double, +ships and shadows. The scene was very strange. The green meadow had +disappeared, and where it had been, a gleaming lake stretched brilliant +in the sunshine, set in the pine-woods like a mirror in an ebony frame, +cutting slices of sweeping bay out of their dusky margins, and piercing +their depths with silent, weedy water-veins. + +[Illustration] + +Where the villages lie, there have been clearings made in the wood, +precisely as one would expect to see in a New Zealand or Australian bay. +Close to high-water mark, rows of rounded huts serve as storehouses for +nets, and spars, and sails. Before them straggling jetties run on piles +far to seaward; behind, huddled amid scanty vineyards and patches of +broadleaved Indian corn, groups of houses--their roofs nearly flat, and +their walls not above six feet, in some places not four feet, high--seem +cowering away from observation. For every cottage built of stone, there +are half-a-dozen out-houses, sheds, pig-sties, and so forth, piled up +with old oars, broken masts, furze, pine-cuttings, and Irish-looking +sod. I made my way to what seemed the principal landing-place--a +bleached jetty. A dozen or so of boats floated round it, roughly built, +very narrow, and very light, lying upon the very top of the water, and +just, in fact, as like canoes as the scene about resembled some still +savage country. Three boats were starting for the oyster fishery, manned +each by four as buxom, blithe, and debonnaire wenches as you would wish +to see. They had short petticoats--your Nereides of all shores have--and +straw hats, shaped like a man's. In the stern-sheets of each boat a +venerable, ancient mariner held the tiller; and as I approached, the +damsels, who were getting their clumsy oars inserted between the +thole-pins, clamoured out in a torrent of vociferous gabble, offering me +a day's oyster-fishing, if I would go with them. They were evidently +quite _au fait_ to ridding the Bordeaux loungers of their spare francs, +in the shape of passage-money, for a frolic on the oyster-banks; but I +had determined to pass the day in another fashion. I wanted a sail on +the bright, still bay, a walk in the pine-woods, and a glance at the +surf tumbling in from the Bay of Biscay; so I scrutinized the faces of +two or three lounging boatmen, with as much reference to Lavater's +principles as I might, and selecting the most intelligent-looking of the +lot--a mild, grey-eyed man, who spoke gently and slowly--we soon made a +bargain, and were speedily afloat in the bean-cod looking canoe of which +he was the skipper. I was gazing doubtfully at the heavy oars, and the +expanse of water, when a flying cat's-paw made just a pretence of +ruffling it. + +"_Merci, le bon vent!_" said the fisherman. Up went a mast; up went a +light patch of thin white canvass, and straightway the bubbles flew fast +and faster by the gunwale, and there arose a sweet gurgle from the +cleaving bow. + +"You can see how fast we're going by the bottom," said the boatman. I +leant over the gunwale, and looked down. Oh, the marvellous brightness +of that shining sea! I gazed from the boat upon the sand through the +water, almost as you might through the air upon the earth from a +balloon. Ghost-like fish gleamed in the depths, and their shadows +followed them below upon the ribbed sea-sand. Long flowing weeds, like +rich green ribbons, waved and streamed in the gently running tidal +current. You could see the white pebbles and shells--here a ridge of +rocks, there a dark bed of seaweed; and now and then a great flat-fish, +for all the world like a burnished pot-lid set in motion--went gleaming +along the bottom. + +"Once," said the boatman, "all the bottom of this great bay that you are +looking at was dry land, and there were cottages upon it, and an ancient +chateau. That was the chateau of Armand de Chatel-morant, an old baron +of these parts, a wicked man and a great magician, who had a familiar +spirit, which came when he blew a horn, and who was able, by his +sorceries, to rule the winds that blow. Only, once he raised a storm he +could not quell; and it was that storm which made the Bay of Arcachon; +for the wind blew the sand of the sea-shore up the country, like a +snow-storm, and the sand-hills rolled before it; and what the wind +began, the _coup de mer_ finished, and the ocean came bursting through +the breach it had battered in the sand-ridges of the coast, and +swallowed up the chateau and drowned the magician, and there was an end +of him." + +"Well," said I, "so be it; he deserved his fate." + +"For many a year after the flood the baron had made," the boatman +continued, "you could see, out of a boat, the pointed tops of the towers +of the chateau below you, with the weather-cocks still pointing to the +west, and the green seaweed hanging to them, like pennons from a ship's +vanes." + +"But I fear it is not to be seen now." + +"Oh! no. Ages and ages ago it rotted and rotted away; but the old men of +the village have heard from their fathers that the fishermen only +ventured there in calm summer weather and in good daylight; for, in the +dark, look you, and when a Biscay wind was blowing, they said they heard +the sounding of Chatel-morant's magic horn, and they saw his imp flying +above them and wailing like a hurt seabird." + +Of course, I was on thorns to hear all the story; and so my boatman +recounted a rude, disjointed tale, which I have hitched, legendwise, +into the following narrative:-- + +The Baron Armand de Chatel-morant sat in his dim studio high up in the +most seaward tower of the chateau of Chatel-morant. His hair and his +beard were white, but his eyes were keen, and his cheeks as ruddy as the +eyes and the cheeks of a young man. He had a furnace beside him, with +implements of projection, crucibles, and powders. On the table were +astrological instruments, and the magic crystal, which his Familiar had +given him, and in which--only, however, when the Familiar pleased--the +baron could read the future; but, for every reading of the future, the +baron was a year older--the Familiar had a year of his life. The baron +was clothed in a long furred robe, and he wore red shoes, with peaked +toes, as long again as his feet. His face was moody, and clouds went +driving along his brow. He took up his instruments, and laid them down, +and opened a big book, full of spells and cantrips, and shut it; then he +walked about the room; and then he stopped and blew a silver whistle. + +Very prompt at the sound came an old man--reverent and sorrowful +looking--with a white wand; for he was the seneschal of the chateau of +Chatel-morant. + +"Your niece," said the baron, "who comes hither from the town of +Bordeaux to visit you, and whom I saw but yester even,--has she +returned?" + +"She went this morning, monseigneur," said the seneschal; "she has +preparations to make; for, God save the pretty child! she is to be +married on the day of Blessed St. John." + +The baron frowned; for he was not an admirer of the saints, being quite, +indeed, on the other side of the hedge. + +"Say the number of the day, and the name of the month," he replied, +angrily; "and do not torment me with that shaveling jargon which they +talk in the monastery of Andrew, whom they call St. Andrew at Bordeaux." + +The seneschal, who was accustomed to be bullied, particularly upon +religious subjects, crossed himself behind his back; for he was a +prudent man, and, owing to the absence of mind of the baron, who was +always experimentalizing in the black art, managed, one way or other, to +pick up so much as to make his place a tolerably profitable one. + +"Married!" said the baron; "and to whom?" + +"Just to honest and brave Jacques Fort--the stoutest mariner who sails +out of the Garonne. He has got a ship of his own, now--the _Sainte +Vierge_; and to-day he sails upon his first voyage, as far as Bayonne." + +"He sails to-day--so; and the maiden's name--your niece's name--what is +that?" + +"Toinette, so please you, sir." + +"You may go." + +And go the seneschal did, wondering very much at the uncommon interest +his master seemed to be taking in vulgar, sublunary things. + +Then Baron Armand de Chatel-morant paced the room a long time in gloomy +meditation. At length he sat down again, and said aloud: "There is no +doubt of it--I am in love. That face haunts me; Toinette's face is ever +floating opposite to me. 'Tis an odd feeling; I was never so before. +But, since it is so, I must even have the maiden--she will cheer me--I +love her face. I will send to-morrow to Bordeaux, as from her uncle; and +when she comes here, by the star of Aldeboran, she stays here, Jacques +Fort to the contrary notwithstanding!" + +"Wrong--quite wrong!" said a voice. + +The baron turned coolly round, and saw, sitting upon the arm of the +chair close to him, the figure of a very thin dwarf, with a long, +unearthly face, and fingers like hawks' claws. This was the imp--the +baron's Familiar. + +"How, Klosso!" said Armand; "you come without being called?" + +"Yes; but you would have called me soon." + +"You know what I am thinking of--of Toinette. I love her--I must have +her." + +"You will not have her." + +"Why so?" + +"Because it is so decreed." + +"Klosso," said the baron, "I don't believe you. You know the future; +but you lie about it when you speak." + +"Will you, then," answered the demon, "look into the crystal: that can't +lie. Come--it's only another year--give yourself a treat--come!" + +"I have given you many years already," said the baron, musing; "look how +grey my hair is!" + +"Dye it," said the imp, who, if he was a Familiar, certainly behaved as +such. But the baron took no notice of his impertinence. He was +dreadfully smitten by Toinette, and said he'd have a twelvemonths' worth +of knowledge of futurity for her sake. The thin dwarf grinned, and then +made a motion of relief, as one who saw before him the speedy end of a +long, long watch. So he took the crystal, uttered, as may be supposed, +some magic words; and the baron looked upon the clear surface. + +"Malediction!" he exclaimed, as he saw in the crystal a huge hearth, +with pots on the fire, and poultry roasting before it, and Toinette +tending the cookery, and a stalwart fellow helping her clumsily. + +"That is Toinette!" cried the baron; "but who is the rascal with her?" + +"Her husband, Jacques Fort." + +"Curses on him!" + +Here the baron saw Jacques fling his arm round Toinette's waist, and +kiss her so naturally, that he ground his teeth. + +"Domestic felicity," said the imp; "a charming picture, baron--they're +cooking the christening feast for young Jacques." + +The baron flung the crystal down. + +"Pay me," said the imp; and he passed the bird-like hand over the +baron's face, and each of his fingers drew a wrinkle. A shudder went +over the sorcerer's frame, and then he breathed heavily, and looked +wistfully at the imp. He was a year older. + +"Klosso!" shouted Armand, leaping to his feet, "I will fight fate!" + +"Better not," said Klosso. + +"Curse the future!" exclaimed the baron; "I will alter the future, and +give the lie to the crystal, as to you!" + +"If you try," replied the imp, coolly, "you will belong to me before the +morning." + +"Silence, slave!" cried Armand, who was not a man to be put out of his +way; "you rule the winds--I rule you. Make the west wind blow." + +The imp raised its hand, and they heard the whistling of a strong, gusty +wind, and the creaking of the weather-cocks, as they all turned towards +the sea. + +"Stronger--stronger--stronger!" shouted the baron; and the whistle +became a roar, and the roar a howl; and the castle shook and swayed in +the blast. + +"Good--good!" laughed the baron; "something more than a puff there--ha! +ha!--as Jacques Fort has found by this time on the deck of his new ship +in the Bay of Biscay." + +The Familiar gently remarked that the weather was roughish, when the +seneschal rushed into the room in a dreadful state of terror at the +storm. + +"My lord--my lord!" he said, "we shall all be blown away; the air is +full of sand; you would be suffocated outside. The wind is tearing up +the pines; and oh, poor Jacques Fort is at sea, and drowned--drowned, by +this time, to a certainty!" + +"Yes," said Armand, "I should rather think so. Toinette must take up +with somebody else.--Stronger!" + +The last injunction was addressed to the imp, and instantly complied +with. The tempest roared like the up-bursting of a volcano, and +screeched and screamed through the sugar-loaf turrets and the lattices, +which it had burst in, and the loop-holes, like a hundred thousand +devils' whistles. The seneschal fell on his knees. + +"Stronger still!" said the baron. + +And meantime what was Jaques Fort doing in his new ship? With every rag +of canvass torn out of the bolt-ropes, the _Sainte Vierge_ was flying on +the very top, as it seemed, of the driving spray, on to the breakers. +Jacques was the only man left on deck--every one of the rest had been +washed overboard, and were already sleeping in the sea; and he knew that +in a moment he would follow them. The staggering ship rose on the back +of a mighty breaker; and the captain knew that with its fall upon the +beach his vessel would be ground to powder. + +"Oh, Toinette!" he murmured, as the ship was hove forward like a bolt +from a bow, and then fell shooting into a creaming current of rushing +water, while the sand-hills appeared right and left for a moment, and +then were left astern. The last grand wave had burst the barrier, and +the frail ship and the kneeling mariner were borne onward on the ridge +of the advancing flood, which formed the lake of Arcachon. Jacques Fort +saw a light, and steered towards it: it was the light in the baron's +chamber at the chateau of Chatel-morant. + +There, by the burst-in lattice, stood the baron, his grey hair flying +above his head, and ever shouting to the imp, "Stronger, +Klosso--stronger!" And every time he used the words, the hurricane burst +louder and louder upon the rocking turrets. And still Armand clung to +the stone-work of the burst-in lattice, through which the flying sand +drove in, and clustered in his robes and hair. + +And now the terrified domestics began to rush up to the chamber of the +baron. + +"My lord, such a storm was never heard of!" + +"My lord, the devil is loose, and riding on the wind!" + +"My lord, the end of the world is at hand!" + +"Klosso!" shouted the baron, "stronger!" + +As he spoke, the wind burst like a thunder-clap over them, and they +heard the crash of a falling tower. The serving men and women grovelled +in terror on the floor; the baron clung by the window; the imp, visible +only to him, sat on the back of the arm-chair, as he had sat since his +appearance. + +But hush! Another sound, mingling with the roar of the wind, and deeper +and more awful still. It rapidly increased, and the baron found his face +besprinkled with driving drops of water--they were salt. + +"My lord--my lord!" screamed the seneschal, sinking, as he spoke, at +the baron's knees; "my lord--the sea!" + +A cry was heard without; the lights of the hamlet beneath disappeared; +and then a shock from below made the chateau swing and rock, and white +waves were all around them. + +"The sea, my lord," said the seneschal, "has burst the sand-banks; the +castle stands on low ground. We are all dead men--the sea--the sea!" + +The Baron Armand turned to Klosso: "Does he speak truth?" + +"The worthy gentleman," said the imp, "is perfectly in the right; you +are all dead men; and, Monseigneur le Baron, when you gave me last a +year of your life, you gave me the last you had to give." + +Up rose the water, and higher dashed the waves. Up, foot by foot, and +yard by yard; and still the baron stood erect amid the raving of the +elements--his face as white as his hair, but his eyes as bright and keen +as ever. + +"Klosso," he said, "I am yours; and the future is the future." + +He looked at the iron lamp swinging above his head. + +"It will soon be out," said Klosso. + +Jacques Fort still steered to the light. It came nearer and nearer; and +he saw, even through the gloom and the driving spray, that it shone from +a castle-turret, and he seized the tiller to change the course of the +vessel; but as he did so, the grand, triumphant, finishing blast of the +hurricane fell upon the seething flood like iron--heaved up one +bristling, foaming sea, which caught the _Sainte Vierge_ upon its +crest, and flung the ship almost into the air. The light gleamed for a +moment almost beneath him; and Jacques, rushing to the bow, saw below +it, as in a prison, a fierce convulsed face, and staring eyes, and +flying white hair; and the eyes saw him. As Jacques recognised the +sorcerer Armand of Chatel-morant, so did Armand recognise the face and +form he had seen helping Toinette to cook the christening feast. + +The next instant the _Sainte Vierge_ was borne over and over the highest +turret of the chateau, her keel a fathom good above the loftiest and the +gaudiest of all the gilt weather-cocks. + +The event foreshadowed in the crystal duly took place on the anniversary +of the day which saw the chateau de Chatel-morant swallowed in the Bay +of Arcachon. + +The legend of the submerged chateau, with which I plead guilty to having +taken a few liberties, but "only with a view" (as the magistrate said +when he put his neighbour into the stocks)--"only with a view towards +improvement," occupied us during the greater part of our smooth and +pleasant sail. Dismissing matters legendary, we talked of the fishermen +of the bay, and their neighbours, the shepherds on stilts. The man of +the sea held the men of the land cheap. The peasants were never out of +the forests and the sand, he said; the fishermen often went to Bordeaux, +and sometimes to Rochelle, and sometimes even to Nantes. They (the +boatmen) never used stilts; but as soon as the peasant's children were +able to toddle, they were clapped upon a pair of sticks, and many a +tumble, and many a broken face they caught, before they could use them +easily. "They are a good set of people, but very ignorant, and they +believe whatever you tell them. They are frightened out of their wits if +you speak of witches or sorcerers; but we know that all these old tales +are nothing but nonsense. We go to Bordeaux very often as pilots, and to +Rochelle, and even to Nantes." I was further informed, that in the +winter time the fishermen pursued their occupation in the bay in such +boats as that in which I was sailing; and that in summer they went out +into the Atlantic; but never ventured more than a few miles to sea, and +never, if they could help it, stayed out a night. + +This kind of conversation brought us tolerably well to the narrow +passage, all fenced with intricate sand-banks, which leads to the open +sea. A white, graceful lighthouse rose above the sand-banks on our +right, into which the pine-woods were stretching in long, finger-like +projections; and the boat, beginning to rise and fall upon the slow, +majestic heave which the swell without communicated to the shallow water +within the bar, assured me that if we went further, the surf would +prevent our landing at all. We ran the boat upon the beach, and drawing +her up high and dry, plunged into, not the greenwood, but the black-wood +tree. It was hard walking. The pines grew out of fine bright sand, bound +here and there together by carpets of long bent grass, and the air was +sickly with the peculiar resinous smell of the rich sap of the tree +fermenting and distilling down the gashes. In our ramble, we encountered +two of the peasants, whose dreary work it is to hack the pines and +ladle up the flowing proceeds. We heard the blows of the axe echoing in +the hot silence of the mid-day, and made our way to whence the sound +proceeded, speedily descrying the workman, perched upon a slight bending +ladder, gashing the tree. This man, and, indeed, all his brethren whom I +saw, were miserable-looking creatures--their features sunken and +animal-like--their hair matted in masses over their brows--their feet +bare, and their clothing painfully wretched. Their calling is as +laborious as it is monotonous. Starting with the dawn, they plunge--a +ladder in one hand, and an adze in the other--into the recesses of the +pine-wood, repeating the same process to every tree. The ladder in +question is very peculiar, consisting of a single strip of elastic wood, +about ten feet long, dotted with knobs cut plain upon one side for the +foot to rest upon, and thus serving instead of rounds or steps. This +primitive ladder is sliced away towards the top, so as to rest more +commodiously upon the tree. When in use, it is placed almost +perpendicularly, and the workman ascends it like a monkey, never +touching the tree, but keeping the ladder in its position by the action +of his legs, which, from the knee downward, seem to cling round and +round the bending wood, and keep it in its place, even when the top, +laid perhaps against the rounded side of the trunk, appears to be +slipping off every moment. + +"Well," said my guide, the Teste boatman, "I would rather reef topsails +in a gale of wind than go up there, at any rate." + +The ladder, its proprietor told me, could not be used except with naked +feet. The instrument with which he cut the tree was as sharp as a razor, +and required long practice to acquire the knack of using it. I wondered +that the gashing did not kill the trees, as some of the largest were +marked with half-a-dozen cuts from the ground to the fork. Here and +there, indeed, you found one which had succumbed to the process, rotted, +and fallen; but the majority seemed in very good case, nevertheless. + +"Look at that tree," said a resin-gatherer. More than half the bark had +certainly gone in these perpendicular stripes, and yet it looked strong +and stately "That tree is more than a hundred years old; and that is not +a bad age for either a man or a fir." + +Leaving the peasant behind, we pushed steadily towards the sea. The +ground, thanks to the debris of the pines, was as slippery as ice, +except where we plunged into fine hot sand, half way to the knees. Every +now and then we crossed what I cannot describe better than by calling it +a perfectly bald spot in the woods--a circular patch of pure white +sand--in certain lights, you might have taken it for snow. All around +were the black pines; but not a blade or a twig broke the drifted +fineness of the bald white patch. You could find neither stone nor +shell--nothing but subtle, powdery sand--every particle as minute and as +uniform as those in an hour-glass. + +"That," said my guide, when we came in view of the first of these +singular little saharas--"that is a devil's garden." + +"And what does he grow there?" I asked. The man lowered his voice: "It +is in these spots of fine white sand that all the sorcerers and witches, +and warlocks in France--ay, and I have heard, in the whole world--meet +to sing, and dance, and frolic; and the devil sits in the middle. So, at +least," he added, after a pause, and in a more sprightly tone--"so the +peasants say." + +"And do you say it?" + +"Well, I do not know. There's witches, for certain, in the Landes,--old +women--but whether they come flying out here to dance round the devil or +no--the peasants say so for certain--but I don't think I believe it." + +"I should hope you didn't." + +"They enchant people, though; there's no doubt of that. They can give +you the fever so bad that no doctor can set you to rights again; and +they can curse a place, and keep the grass from growing on it; but I +don't believe they fly on broomsticks, or dance round the devil." + +"Are there any young women witches?" + +"Well, I do hear of one or two. _Mais elles ne sont pas bien fortes._ It +is only the old ones make good witches, and the uglier they are the +better." + +"Well, now, did they ever do any harm to you?" + +The man paused, and looked at me with a puzzled expression. "Our little +Marie," he said, "has fits; and my wife does say--" Here he stopped. +"No, monsieur," he said, "I do not believe in witches." + +But he did, as firmly as King Jamie; only now and then, in the bright +sunlight, and with an incredulous person, he thought he did not. + +On, however, we went mile after mile, over the slippery ground, and in +the shadow of the pines, ere we saw gleaming ahead, the region of fine +sand, and heard--although the little breeze which blew was off the +shore--the low thunder of the "coup de mer"--the breaking surf of the +ocean. Presently, passing through a zone of stunted furze, and dry +thin-bladed grass, we emerged into the most fearful desert I ever looked +upon--a sea of heights and hollows, dells and ridges, long slopes and +precipitous ravines--all of them composed of pure white, hot, drifting +sand. The labour of walking was excessive. I longed for the stilts I had +seen the day before. Every puff of breeze sent the sand, like dry +pungent powder, into our faces, and sometimes we could see it reft from +the peaks of the ridges, and blown like clouds of dust far out into the +air. All at once my guide touched my arm, "_Voila! donc, voila! des +chevaux sauvages!_" It certainly only required a breed of wild horses to +make the country an exact counterpart of Arabia; and I eagerly turned to +see the steeds of the desert, just succeeding in catching a glimpse of a +ruck of lean, brown, shaggy ponies, disappearing round a hill, in a +whirlwind of sand. There is, undoubtedly, something romantic and +Mazeppaish in the notion of wild horses of the desert; but stern truth +compels me to add, that a more stunted, ragged lot of worthless brutes, +not bigger than donkeys, than were the troop of desert steeds of the +Landes which I had the fortune to see, could be nowhere met with. My +fisherman told me that, when caught and tamed, they were useful in +carrying sacks and panniers along the sandy ways; but that there were +not more vicious, stubborn brutes in nature than Landes ponies. + +A doubly fatiguing trudge, unbroken by any further episodical visions of +desert steeds, but enlivened by the fast increasing thunder of the surf, +at length brought us to its foam. Winding through a succession of sand +valleys, we climbed a steepish bank, sinking to our knees at every step, +and from this last ridge beheld a long, gentle slope, as perfectly +smooth as though the sand had been smoothed by a ruler--fining away down +to the white creaming sheets of water which swept, with the loud +peculiar hiss of the agitated sea, far up and down the level banks. The +full force of the great heaving swells was expended in breakers, roaring +half a mile from the land; and from their uttermost verge to the tangled +heaps of seaweed washed high and dry upon the beach, was a vast belt of +foaming water, extending away on either hand in a perfectly straight +line as far as the eye could reach, and dividing the shipless expanse of +water from the houseless expanse of land. The scene was very solemn. +There was not even a seabird overhead--not an insect crawling or humming +along the ungrateful sand. Only the grand organ of the surf made its +incessant music, and the sharp thin rustle of the moving sand came +fitfully upon the ear. I sat down and listened to it, and as I sat, the +continually shifting sand gradually rose around me, as the waters rose +round the chateau of Chatel-morant. Had I stayed there long enough, only +my head would have been visible, like the head of the sphinx. + +I dined that day at the hotel, _tete-à-tete_ with a young priest, who +was returning to Bordeaux from a visit to his brother, one of the +officers of the Preventitive Service, whose lonely barracks are almost +the only human habitations which break the weary wilderness stretching +from the Adour to the Gironde. One would have thought that there could +be but little smuggling on such a coast; but the Duaniers are always +_autorités_, and the waves of the Gulf of Gascony could not, of course, +break on French ground without _autorités_ to help them. With respect to +the priest, however, he had one of the finest heads and the most +perfectly chiselled features I ever saw. The pale high brow--the keen +bright eyes, with remarkably long eye-lashes--the tenuity of the +cartilage of the nose, and the perfect delicacy of the mouth--all told +of intellect in no common development; while the meek sweetness of the +noble face had something in it perfectly heavenly. Fling in imagination +an aureole round that head, and you had the head of a youthful martyr, +or a saint canonized for early virtues. There was devotion and +aspiration in every line of the countenance--a meek, mild gentleness, +beautifully in keeping with every word he uttered, and every movement he +made. I was the more struck with all this, inasmuch as there is not an +uglier, meaner, nor, I will add, dirtier, set of worthy folks in all the +world, than the priests of France. Nine times out of ten, they are +big-jowled, coarse, animal-looking men, with mottled faces, and skins +which do not take kindly to the razor. The arrangements about the neck +show a decided scarcity of linen, and a still greater lack of soap and +water. They are seldom or never gentlemen, their figures are ungainly, +their motions uncouth, and--barring, of course, their scholastic and +theological knowledge--I found the majority with whom I conversed +stupid, illiterate, and unintelligent. Now, the young priest at Teste +was the reverse of all this. With manners as polished as those of any +courtly _abbé_ of the courtly old _regime_, there was a perfect +atmosphere of frankness and quiet good-humour about my companion, and +his conversation was delightfully easy, animated, and graceful. I do not +know if my friend belonged to the College of Jesus; but, if he did, he +was cut out for the performance of its highest and subtlest diplomacy. + +We talked of the strange part of the world I was visiting, and I found +he knew the people and the country well. I mentioned the submerged +chateau and its legend, and he replied that it was an undoubted fact, +that both chateaux and villages had been overwhelmed--both by the +inbursting of the sea, and by great gales blowing vast hills of sand +down into the existing lakes, and so forcing them out of their ancient +beds. The sand, indeed, he said, was more dangerous than the water. +Often and often the coast-guard stations had to be dug out after a gale; +and he believed that, on one occasion, a small church near the mouth of +the Gironde had been overwhelmed to such a height that only a few feet +of the spire and the weathercock were left apparent. The story put me +forcibly in mind of the remarkably heavy fall of snow experienced by my +old friend, Baron Munchausen; but, for all that, I see no reason why it +should not be literally correct. The pines, the priest informed me, were +the saving of the country, by fixing the unstable soil, and the +Government had engineers busily engaged in laying out plantations all +along the coast--the object being to get the trees down to high-water +mark. I mentioned the superstitions of the people. + +"Alas!" said the priest, "What you have heard is perfectly true. We are +improving a little, perhaps. The boys and girls we get to come to school +are taught to laugh at the notion of their old grandmothers being +witches, and in another generation or two there will be a great change." + +"And how do your witches work?" I asked. "As ours in England used to +do--by spell and charm?" + +"Precisely. They are said to make clay figures of their victims, and to +stick pins in them, or bake them in a fire; and then they have rhymes +and cabalistical incantations, and are greatly skilled in the magic +power of herbs. The worst of it is, that a year seldom passes without an +outrage on some poor old woman. A lout, who thinks himself bewitched by +such a person, will attack her and beat her; and occasionally a bullet +has been fired at night through the cottage-window." + +"The Landes people have, or had, other queer notions, as well as the +witch ones?" + +"Oh, yes! They long held out against potatoes, which, they said, gave +them apoplexy, and they have only lately begun to milk their cows." + +"Why so? As a pastoral people, they ought to be great in butter and +cheese." + +"On the contrary, they dislike them, and use lard or goose-grease +instead. Indeed, for centuries and centuries, they religiously believed +that Landes cows gave no milk." + +"But was not the experiment ever tried?" + +"Scores of times. An anxious reformer would go to a Landes farmer, and +urge him to milk his cows. 'Landes cows give no milk,' would be the +answer. 'Will you let me try?' would, perhaps, be replied. The Landes +man would have no objection; and the cow would be brought and milked +before him." + +"Well, seeing that would convince him." + +"Ah, you don't know the Landes people--not in the least; why, the farmer +would say, 'Ay, there are a few drops, perhaps; but it's not worth the +trouble of taking. Our fathers never milked their cows, and they were as +wise as we are. And next day he would have relapsed into the old creed, +that Landes cows never gave milk at all." + +I inquired about the rate at which the stilt-walkers progressed--whether +they could, as one sometimes hears, keep up with a horse at the gallop; +and found, as I expected, that six or seven miles an hour was as much as +they ever managed to achieve. The priest went on succinctly to sketch +the costume and life of the people. When in regular herding dress, the +shepherd of the Landes appears one uncouth mass of dirty wool. On his +body he wears a fleece, cut in the fashion of a rude paletot, and +sometimes flung over one shoulder, like a hussar's jacket. His thighs +and legs are defended on the outside by cuisses and greaves of the same +material. On his feet he wears sabots and coarse worsted socks, covering +only the heels and the instep. His remaining clothing generally consists +of frayed and tattered home-spun cloth; and altogether the appearance of +the man savours very strongly of that of a fantastically costumed +scarecrow. + +So attired, then, with a gourd containing some wretched _piquette_ hung +across his shoulders, and provided with a store of rye-bread, baked, +perhaps, three weeks before, a few dry sardines, and as many onions or +cloves of garlic, the Landes shepherd sallies forth into the wilderness. +He reckons himself a rich man, if his employer allows him, over and +above his food, sixty francs a-year. From the rising to the setting of +the sun, he never touches the ground, shuffling backwards and forwards +on his stilts, or leaning against a pine, plying the never-pausing +knitting-needle. Sometimes he drives his flock home at eventide; +sometimes he bivouacs in the wild. Unbuckling his stilts, and producing +his flint and steel, he has soon a rousing fire of fir-branches, when, +gathering his sheep-skins round him, he makes himself comfortable for +the night, his only annoyances being the mosquitoes and the dread of the +cantrips of some unchancy old lady, who may peradventure catch a glimpse +of him in the moonlight, as she rides buxomly on her besom to a festal +dance in a devil's garden. + +"Yet still," continued the young priest, "they are a good, +honest-hearted, open-handed people. For their wild, solitary life they +have a passionate love. The Landes peasant, taken from his dreary +plains, and put down in the richest landscape of France, would pine for +his heath, and sand, and woods, like a Swiss for his hills. But they +seldom leave their home here in the forests. They live and die in the +district where they were born, ignorant and careless of all that happens +beyond their own lonely bounds. France may vibrate with revolution and +change--the shepherds of the Landes feel no shock, take no heed, but +pursue the daily life of their ancestors, perfectly happy and contented +in their ignorance, driving their sheep, or notching their trees in the +wilderness." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +UP THE GARONNE--THE OLD WARS ON ITS BANKS--ITS BOATS AND ITS +SCENERY--AGEN--JASMIN, THE LAST OF THE TROUBADOURS--SOUTHERN +COOKERY AND GARLIC--THE BLACK PRINCE IN A NEW LIGHT--A DREARY +PILGRIMAGE TO PAU. + + +A solemn imprecation is on record, uttered against the memory of the man +who invented getting up by candle-light; to which some honest gentleman, +fond of long lying, has appended a fellow curse, fulminated against the +man who invented getting up at all. Whatever we may think of the latter +commination, I suppose we shall all agree in the propriety of the +former. At all events, no one ever execrated with more sincere good will +the memory of the ingenious originator of candle-light turnings-out than +I did, when a red ray shone through the keyhole of my bedroom, and the +knuckles of--one would call him boots at home--rattled at the door, +while his hoarse voice proclaimed, "_Trois heures et demi_,"--a most +unseasonable and absurd hour certainly; but the Agen steamer, having the +strong stream of the Garonne to face, makes the day as long as possible; +and starts from the bridge--and a splendid bridge it is--of Bordeaux, +crack at half-past four. There was no help for it; and so, leaving my +parting compliments for my worthy host, I soon found myself following +the truck which conveyed my small baggage, modestly stuck into the +interstices of an Alp-like pile of ricketty boxes and faded valises, the +property of an ancient _commis voyageur_, my fellow-lodger; and pacing, +for the last time, the stately quays of the city of the Black Prince. + +Early as it was, and pitch-dark, the steam-boat pier was crowded and +bustling enough. Men with lanterns and luggage were rushing breathlessly +about--and gentlemen with brushy black beards were kissing each other +with true French _éffusion_--while a crowd of humble vintagers were +being stowed away in the fore part of the boat. On the pier I observed a +tent, and looking in, found myself in a genuine early breakfast shop, +where I was soon accommodated with a seat by a pan of glowing charcoal. +The morning was bitter cold; and a magnificent bowl of smoking coffee, +bread hot from the oven, and just a nip of cognac, at the kind +suggestion of the jolly motherly-looking old lady in no end of shawls, +who presided over the establishment, and who pronounced it "_Bon pour +l'estomac, du monsieur le voyageur_." Then aboard; and after the due +amount of squabbling, bell-ringing, and contradictory orders, we +launched forth upon the black, rushing river. + +A dreary time it is waiting for the daylight of an autumnal morning, +watching the pale negative lighting of the east--then the spreading of +the dim approaching day--stars going out, and the outlines of hills +coming in--and houses and trees, faint and comfortless, looming amid the +grey, cold mist. The Garonne gradually turned from black to yellow--the +genuine pea-souppy hue--and bit by bit the whole landscape came clearly +into stark-staring view--but still cold and dreary-looking--until the +cheering fire stood upon the hill-tops, and announced the rising sun. In +half an hour the valley of the Garonne was a blaze of warmth and +cheerfulness, and nothing could be more picturesquely beautiful, seen +under such auspices, than the fleet of market-boats through which we +threaded our way, and which were floating quietly down to Bordeaux. I +dismiss the mere vegetable crafts; but the fruit-boats would have made +Mr. Lance leap and sing for joy. They were piled--clustered--heaped +over--with mountains of grapes bigger than big gooseberries--peaches and +apricots, like thousands of ladies' cheeks--plums like pulpy, juicy +cannon-balls--and melons big as the head of Gog or Magog. I could not +understand how the superincumbent fruit did not crush that below; but I +suppose there is a knack in piling. At all events, the boats were loaded +to the gunwales with the luscious, shiny, downy, gushing-looking +globules, purple and yellow, and both colours mellowed and softened by +the grateful green of the clustering leaves. These boats looked like +floating cornucopias. Amongst them sometimes appeared a wine-boat--one +man at the head, one at the stern, and a Pyrenees of wine casks between +them--while here and there we would pass a huge Noah's ark of a barge, +towed by a string of labouring oxen, and steered from a platform +amidships by a tiller a great deal longer, thicker, and heavier than the +mast. + +And now for a bit of the landscape. We have Gascony to our right, and +Guienne to our left. + +Here and there, then, particularly in Guienne, the Garonne is not unlike +the tamer portions of the Rhine. The green vine-clothed banks rise into +precipitous ridges, whitened by streaks of limestone cliff, cottages +nestling in the crevices and ravines, and an occasional feudal tower +crowning the topmost peak. The villages passed near the water's edge are +doleful-looking places, ruinous and death-like; whitish, crumbling +houses, with outside shutters invariably closed; empty and lonesome +streets, and dilapidated piers, the stakes worn and washed away by the +constant action of the river. Take Langon and Castres as specimens of +these places: two drearier towns--more like sepulchres than towns--never +nurtured owls and bats. They seem to be still lamenting the old English +rule, and longing for the jolly times when stout English barons led the +Gascon knights and men-at-arms on profitable forays into Limousin and +Angoumais. Occasionally, however, we have a more promising and pleasing +looking town. These, for the most part, are tolerably high up the river, +and possess some curious and characteristic features. You will descry +them, for instance, towering up from a mass of perpendicular cliffs; the +open-galleried and bartizaned red houses, reared upon arches and +pillars, rising from the rock; flights of stairs from the water's edge +disappearing among the buildings, and strips of terraced gardens laid +out on the narrow shelves and ledges of the precipice. + +The ruins of old feudal castles are numerous on both sides of the river; +and if the red mossy stone could speak, many a tale of desperate siege +and assault it could, no doubt, tell--for these strongholds were +perpetually changing masters in the wars between the French and the +English and Gascons; and often, when peace subsisted between the crowns, +were they attacked and harried by moss-trooping expeditions led by +French Watts Fire-the-Braes, or by English Christies of the Clinthill. +While, then, the steamer is slowly plodding her way up stream, turning +reach after reach, and showing us another and yet another pile of feudal +ruins, let us sit down here with Froissart beneath the awning, and try +to gain some inkling into the warlike customs of the times when these +thick-walled towers--no doubt built, as honest King James remarked, by +gentlemen who were thieves in their hearts--alternately displayed the +Lion Rampant and the Fleur-de-Lis. + +In all the fighting of the period--I refer generally to the age of the +Black Prince--there would appear to have been a great deal of chivalric +courtesy and forbearance shown on either side. It was but seldom that a +place was defended _à outrance_. If the besiegers appeared in very +formidable force, the besieged usually submitted with a very good grace, +marched honourably out, and had their turn next time. I cannot find that +there was anything in the nature of personal animosity between the +combatants, but there was great wantonness of life; and though few men +were killed in downright cold blood, a man was frequently made the +victim of a sort of murderous frolicsomeness, the manner of his death +being suggested, by the circumstances of the moment. For instance, on +one occasion, an English and Gascon garrison was besieged in +Auberoche--the French having "brought from Toulouse four large machines, +which cast stones into the fortress night and day, which stones +demolished all the roofs of the towers, so that none within the walls +dared to venture out of the vaulted rooms on the ground-floor." In this +strait, a "varlet" undertook to carry letters, requesting succour, to +the Earl of Derby, at Bordeaux. He was unsuccessful in getting through +the French lines, and being arrested, the letters were found upon him, +hung round his neck, and the poor wretch bound hand and foot, inserted +in one of the stone-throwing machines. His cries for mercy all unheeded, +the engine made two or three of its terrific swings, and then launched +the screaming "varlet" into the air, right over the battlements of +Auberoche, "so that he fell quite dead amid the other varlets, who were +much terrified at it;" and presently, the French knights, riding up to +the walls, shouted to the defenders: "Gentlemen, inquire of your +messenger where he found the Earl of Derby, seeing that he has returned +to you so speedily." But the Earl of Derby did come, and took signal +vengeance. The battle, which Froissart tells in his best manner, +resulted in the capture by the English of nine French viscounts, and "so +many barons, squires, and knights, that there was not a man-at-arms +among the English that had not for his share two or three." + +The captains of the pillaging bands, who preyed both upon the English +and the French, and the hired auxiliaries, who transferred their +services from one side to the other, were, however, miserable +assassins, thirsting for blood. These men were frequently Bretons; and, +says Froissart, "the most cruel of all Bretons was Geoffrey Tete-Noire." +With this Geoffrey Tete-Noire, continues the old chronicler, "there was +a certain captain, who performed many excellent deeds of arms, namely, +Aimerigot Marcel, a Limousin squire, attached to the side of the +English." One of the "deeds of arms" performed under this worthy's +auspices is narrated as follows:-- + +"Aimerigot made one day an excursion, with only twelve companions, to +seek adventures. They took the road towards Aloise, near St. Fleur, +which has a handsome castle in the bishopric of Clermont. They knew the +castle was only guarded by the porter. As they were riding silently +towards Aloise, Aimerigot spied the porter sitting upon the branch of a +tree without side of the castle. The Breton, who shot extraordinary well +with a cross-bow, says to him, 'Would you like to have that porter +killed at a shot?'--'Yea,' replied Aimerigot; 'and I hope you will +do so.' The cross-bow man shoots a bolt, which he drives into the +porter's head, and knocks him down. The porter, feeling himself mortally +wounded, regains the gate, which he attempts to shut, but cannot, and +falls down dead." + +This delectable anecdote, Froissart--probably as kind-hearted a man by +nature as any of his age--tells as the merest matter of course, and +without a word of compunction or reproof. The fact is, that the gay and +lettered canon of Chimay cared and thought no more of the spilling of +blood which was not gentle, than he would of the scotching of a rat or +a snake. Lingeringly and wofully does he record the deaths of dukes, and +viscounts, and even simple knights and squires, who have done their +_devoirs_ gallantly; but as to the life-blood of the varlets--the +vilains--the kernes--the villagios--the Jacques Bonhommes--foh! the red +puddle--let it flow; blood is only blood when it gushes from the veins +of a gentleman! + +[Illustration: JASMIN.] + +The evening was closing, and the mist stealing over the Garonne, when we +came alongside the pier at Agen. A troop of diligence _conducteurs_ and +canal touters immediately leaped on board, to secure the passengers for +Toulouse, either by road or water. Being, fortunately, not of the number +who were thus taken prisoners, I walked up through the sultry +evening--for we are now getting into the true south--to the very +comfortable hotel looking upon the principal square of the town. One of +my objects in stopping at Agen was, to pay a literary visit to a very +remarkable man--JASMIN, the peasant-poet of Provence and Languedoc--the +"Last of the Troubadours," as, with more truth than is generally to be +found in _ad captandum_ designations, he terms himself, and is termed by +the wide circle of his admirers; for Jasmin's songs and rural epics are +written in the _patois_ of the people, and that _patois_ is the still +almost unaltered _Langue d'Oc_--the tongue of the chivalric minstrelsy +of yore. But Jasmin is a Troubadour in another sense than that of merely +availing himself of the tongue of the _ménestrels_. He publishes, +certainly--conforming so far to the usages of our degenerate modern +times; but his great triumphs are his popular recitations of his poems. +Standing bravely up before an expectant assembly of perhaps a couple of +thousand persons--the hot-blooded and quick-brained children of the +South--the modern Troubadour plunges over head and ears into his lays, +working both himself and his applauding audience into fits of enthusiasm +and excitement, which, whatever may be the excellence of the poetry, an +Englishman finds it difficult to conceive or account for. The raptures +of the New Yorkers and Bostonians with Jenny Lind are weak and cold +compared with the ovations which Jasmin has received. At a recitation +given shortly before my visit at Auch, the ladies present actually tore +the flowers and feathers out of their bonnets, wove them into extempore +garlands, and flung them in showers upon the panting minstrel; while the +editors of the local papers next morning assured him, in floods of +flattering epigrams, that, humble as he was now, future ages would +acknowledge the "divinity" of a Jasmin! There is a feature, however, +about these recitations, which is still more extraordinary than the +uncontrollable fits of popular enthusiasm which they produce. His last +entertainment before I saw him was given in one of the Pyrenean cities +(I forget which), and produced 2000 francs. Every sous of this went to +the public charities; Jasmin will not accept a stiver of money so +earned. With a species of perhaps overstrained, but certainly exalted, +chivalric feeling, he declines to appear before an audience to exhibit +for money the gifts with which nature has endowed him. After, perhaps, a +brilliant tour through the South of France, delighting vast audiences in +every city, and flinging many thousands of francs into every poor-box +which he passes, the poet contentedly returns to his humble occupation, +and to the little shop where he earns his daily bread by his daily toil, +as a barber and hairdresser. It will be generally admitted, that the man +capable of self-denial of so truly heroic a nature as this, is no +ordinary poetaster. One would be puzzled to find a similar instance of +perfect and absolute disinterestedness in the roll of minstrels, from +Homer downwards; and, to tell the truth, there does seem a spice of +Quixotism mingling with and tinging the pure fervour of the enthusiast. +Certain it is, that the Troubadours of yore, upon whose model Jasmin +professes to found his poetry, were by no means so scrupulous. +"Largesse" was a very prominent word in their vocabulary; and it really +seems difficult to assign any satisfactory reason for a man refusing to +live upon the exercise of the finer gifts of his intellect, and throwing +himself for his bread upon the daily performance of mere mechanical +drudgery. + +[Illustration: A POET'S HOUSE.] + +Jasmin, as may be imagined, is well known in Agen. I was speedily +directed to his abode, near the open _Place_ of the town, and within +earshot of the rush of the Garonne; and in a few moments I found myself +pausing before the lintel of the modest shop inscribed, _Jasmin, +Perruquier, Coiffeur de jeunes Gens_. A little brass basin dangled above +the threshold; and, looking through the glass, I saw the master of the +establishment shaving a fat-faced neighbour. Now, I had come to see and +pay my compliments to a poet; and there did appear to me to be something +strangely awkward and irresistibly ludicrous in having to address, to +some extent in a literary and complimentary vein, an individual +actually engaged in so excessively prosaic and unelevated a species of +performance. I retreated, uncertain what to do, and waited outside until +the shop was clear. + +Three words explained the nature of my visit; and Jasmin received me +with a species of warm courtesy, which was very peculiar and very +charming--dashing at once, with the most clattering volubility and fiery +speed of tongue, into a sort of rhapsodical discourse upon poetry in +general, and his own in particular--upon the French language in general, +and the _patois_ of it spoken in Languedoc, Provence, and Gascony in +particular. Jasmin is a well-built and strongly limbed man, of about +fifty, with a large, massive head, and a broad pile of forehead, +overhanging two piercingly bright black eyes, and features which would +be heavy were they allowed a moment's repose from the continual play of +the facial muscles, which were continually sending a series of varying +expressions across the swarthy visage. Two sentences of his conversation +were quite sufficient to stamp his individuality. The first thing which +struck me was the utter absence of all the mock-modesty, and the +pretended self-underrating, conventionally assumed by persons expecting +to be complimented upon their sayings or doings. Jasmin seemed +thoroughly to despise all such flimsy hypocrisy. "God only made four +Frenchmen poets!" he burst out with; "and their names are Corneille, +Lafontaine, Beranger, and Jasmin!" Talking with the most impassioned +vehemence, and the most redundant energy of gesture, he went on to +declaim against the influences of civilization upon language and +manners as being fatal to all real poetry. If the true inspiration yet +existed upon earth, it burned in the hearts and brains of men far +removed from cities, _salons_, and the clash and din of social +influences. Your only true poets were the unlettered peasants, who +poured forth their hearts in song, not because they wished to make +poetry, but because they were joyous and true. Colleges, academies, +schools of learning, schools of literature, and all such institutions, +Jasmin denounced as the curse and the bane of true poetry. They had +spoiled, he said, the very French language. You could no more write +poetry in French now, than you could in arithmetical figures. The +language had been licked, and kneaded, and tricked out, and plumed, and +dandified, and scented, and minced, and ruled square, and chipped--(I am +trying to give an idea of the strange flood of epithets he used)--and +pranked out, and polished, and muscadined, until, for all honest +purposes of true high poetry, it was mere unavailable and contemptible +jargon. It might do for cheating _agents de change_ on the Bourse--for +squabbling politicians in the Chambers--for mincing dandies in the +_salons_--for the sarcasm of Scribeish comedies, or the coarse +drolleries of Palais Royal farces; but for poetry the French language +was extinct. All modern poets who used it were mere _faiseurs de +phrase_--thinking about words, and not feelings. "No, no," my Troubadour +continued; "to write poetry, you must get the language of a rural +people--a language talked among fields, and trees, and by rivers and +mountains--a language never minced or disfigured by academies, and +dictionary-makers, and journalists; you must have a language like that +which your own Burns (whom I read of in Chateaubriand) used; or like the +brave old mellow tongue--unchanged for centuries--stuffed with the +strangest, quaintest, richest, raciest idioms, and odd, solemn words, +full of shifting meanings and associations, at once pathetic and +familiar, homely and graceful--the language which I write in, and which +has never yet been defiled by calculating men of science or jack-a-dandy +_litterateurs_." + +The above sentences may be taken as a specimen of the ideas with which +Jasmin seemed to be actually overflowing at every pore in his body, so +rapid, vehement, and loud was his enunciation of them. Warming more and +more as he went on, he began to sketch the outlines of his favourite +pieces, every now and then plunging into recitation, jumping from French +to _patois_, and from _patois_ to French, and sometimes spluttering them +out, mixed up pell-mell together. Hardly pausing to take breath, he +rushed about the shop as he discoursed, lugging out, from old chests and +drawers, piles of old newspapers and reviews, pointing me out a passage +here in which the estimate of the writer pleased him, a passage there +which showed how perfectly the critic had mistaken the scope of his +poetic philosophy, and exclaiming, with the most perfect _naivete_, how +mortifying it was for men of original and profound genius to be +misconceived and misrepresented by pigmy whipper-snapper scamps of +journalists. There was one review of his works, published in a London +"_Recueil_," as he called it, to which Jasmin referred with great +pleasure. A portion of it had been translated, he said, in the preface +to a French edition of his works; and he had most of the highly +complimentary phrases by heart. The English critic, he said, wrote in +the _Tintinum_; and he looked dubiously at me when I confessed that I +had never heard of the organ in question. "_Pourtant_," he said, "_je +vous le ferai voir_:" and I soon perceived that Jasmin's _Tintinum_ was +no other than the _Athenæum_. + +In the little back drawing-room behind the shop, to which the poet +speedily introduced me, his sister, a meek, smiling woman, whose eyes +never left her brother, following him as he moved with a beautiful +expression of love and pride in his glory, received me with simple +cordiality. The walls were covered with testimonials, presentations, and +trophies, awarded by cities and distinguished persons, literary and +political, to the modern Troubadour. Not a few of these are of a nature +to make any man most legitimately proud. Jasmin possesses gold and +silver vases, laurel branches, snuff-boxes, medals of honour, and a +whole museum of similar gifts, inscribed with such characteristic and +laconic legends as--"_Au Poete, Les Jeunes filles de Toulouse +reconnaissantes_----." The number of garlands of _immortelles_, wreaths +of ivy-jasmin (punning upon the name), laurel, and so forth, utterly +astonished me. Jasmin preserved a perfect shrubbery of such tokens; and +each symbol had, of course, its pleasant associative remembrance. One +was given by the ladies of such a town; another was the gift of the +prefect's wife of such a department. A handsome full-length portrait had +been presented to the poet by the municipal authorities of Agen; and a +letter from M. Lamartine, framed, above the chimney-piece, avowed the +writer's belief that the Troubadour of the Garonne was the Homer of the +modern world. M. Jasmin wears the ribbon of the Legion of Honour, and +has several valuable presents which were made to him by the late ex-king +and different members of the Orleans family. + +I have been somewhat minute in giving an account of my interview with M. +Jasmin, because he is really the popular poet--the peasant poet of the +south of France--the Burns of Limousin, Provence, and Languedoc. His +songs are in the mouths of all who sing in the fields and by the cottage +firesides. Their subjects are always rural, _naive_, and full of rustic +pathos and rustic drollery. To use his words to me, he sings what the +hearts of the people say, and he can no more help it than can the birds +in the trees. Translations into French of his main poems have appeared; +and compositions more full of natural and thoroughly unsophisticated +pathos and humour it would be difficult to find. Jasmin writes from a +teeming brain and a beaming heart; and there is a warmth and a glow, and +a strong, happy, triumphant march of song about his poems, which carry +you away in the perusal as they carried away the author in the writing. +I speak of course from the French translations, and I can well conceive +that they give but a comparatively faint transcript of the pith and +power of the original. The _patois_ in which these poems are written is +the common peasant language of the south-west. It varies in some slight +degree in different districts, but not more than the broad Scotch of +Forfarshire differs from that of Ayrshire. As for the dialect itself, it +seems in the main to be a species of cross between old French and +Spanish--holding, however, I am assured, rather to the latter tongue +than the former, and constituting a bold, copious, and vigorous speech, +very rich in its colouring, full of quaint words and expressive phrases, +and especially strong in all that relates to the language of the +passions and affections. + +I hardly know how long my interview with Jasmin might have lasted, for +he seemed by no means likely to tire of talking, and his talk was too +good and too curious not to be listened to with interest; but the +sister, who had left us for a moment, coming back with the intelligence +that there was quite a gathering of customers in the shop, I hastily +took my leave, the poet squeezing my hand like a vice, and immediately +thereafter dashing into all that appertains to curling-irons, scissors, +razors, and lather, with just as much apparent energy and enthusiasm as +he flung into his rhapsodical discourse on poetry and language. + +Hereabouts you begin to become sensible of a change in the cookery at +the _table-d'hôtes_; and in the gradually increasing predominance of oil +and garlic, you recognise the kitchen influences of the sweet south. +Garlic is a word of fear--of absolute horror to a great proportion of +our countrymen, whose prejudices will permit them to learn no better. I +admit that the first whiff of the odorous root coming upon +inexperienced nostrils is far from pleasant; indeed, I well remember +being once driven from the table in a small _gasthoff_ at Strasbourg by +the fumes of a particularly strong sausage. Now, however, I think I +should know better. A relish for garlic, in fact, is one of those many +acquired tastes which grew upon us with curious rapidity. You turn from +the first garlicky dish with dismay; the second does not appear quite so +bad; you muster up courage, and taste the third. A strange flavour +certainly--nasty, too--but still--not irredeemably bad--there is a +lurking merit in the sensation--and you try the experiment again and +again--speedily coming to Sir Walter Scott's evident opinions touching +the _petit point d'ail_, "which Gascons love and Scotsmen do not +despise." Indeed, your friends will probably think it well if you +content yourself with the _petit point_, and do not give yourself up to +a height of seasoning such as that which I saw in the _salle à manger_ +at Agen, drive two English ladies headlong from the room. Every body in +the South eats garlic, and you will find it for your interest, if but in +self-defence, to do the same; while the oil eating is equally +infectious: you enter Provence, able just to stand a sprinkling upon +your salad--you depart from it, thinking nothing of devouring a dish of +cabbage, chopped up, and swimming in the viscous fluid. The peasants all +through the South eat and drink oil like so many Russians. Wandering +through the dark and narrow streets of Agen--for we have now reached the +point where the eaves of the roofs are made to project so far as to cast +a perpetual shade upon the thoroughfare beneath--I came upon a group of +tiny urchins, clustered round a grocer's shop, in great admiration of a +row of clear oil-flasks displayed in the window. + +"_Tiens_," said one. "_C'est de l'huile ça--de l'huile claire--ça doit +etre bon su' le pain--ça!_" The little gourmand looked upon oil just as +an English urchin would upon treacle. + +It was from the heights above Agen--studded with the plum-trees which +produce the famous _prunes d'Agen_--that I caught my first glimpse of +the Pyrenees. I was sitting watching the calm uprising of the light +smoke from the leaf-covered town beneath, and marking the grand panorama +around me--the masses of luxuriant vines climbing up the plum and +fig-trees, and the earth frequently yellow with the bursting beds of +huge melons and pumpkins--when, extending my gaze over the vast expanse +of champagne country, watered by the winding reaches of the Garonne, I +saw--shadowy as the phantoms of airy clouds, rising into the far bright +air--faintly, very faintly traced, but still visible, a blue vision of +sierrated and jagged mountain peaks, stretching along the horizon from +east to west, forming the central portion of the great chain of peaks +running from Perpignan to Bayonne, and certainly, at least, one hundred +and twenty miles distant from me as the crow flies. There they +stood,--Louis Quatorze to the contrary, notwithstanding--one of the +great landmarks of the world; a natural boundary for ever; dividing a +people from a people, a tongue from a tongue, and a power from a power! + +Below me, at the back of the town, once rose the ancient castle of Agen. +Its ruins were demolished, with those of a cathedral, at the time of the +Revolution; but its memory recalls a very curious story, developing the +true character of the Black Prince, and shewing that, chivalrous and +daring as he was, his tongue had in it an occasional smack of the +braggart, and that the Foremost Knight of all the World could +occasionally do uncommonly sneaking things. Thus it fell out:--In the +year 1368, the Lord of Aquitaine announced that he would raise a +hearth-tax throughout Guienne. The measure was, of course, unpopular, +and the Gascon lords appealed to the King of France, as Feudal Superior +of the Prince; and the King sent, by two commissioners--a lawyer and a +knight--a summons to Edward, to appear and answer before the Parliament +of Paris. The emissaries were introduced in High Court, at Bordeaux, +told their tale, and exhibited their missives. The Black Prince heard in +silence, and then, after a long pause, he sternly and solemnly replied: +"Willing shall we be to attend on the appointed day at Paris, since the +King of France sends for us; but it will be with the helmet on our head, +and sixty thousand men behind us." + +The envoys fell on their knees, and bowed their heads to the ground. +After the Prince had retired, they were assured that they would get no +better answer; and so, after dinner, they set forth on the road to +Toulouse, where the Duke of Anjou lay, to convey to him the defiance of +the Englishman. Meantime, however, Edward began rather to repent the +unconditional style of his reply, and to wish the ambassadors back +again. Perhaps, after all, he had been a little too hasty, and had gone +a little too far; so he called together the chief of his barons, and +opened his mind to them. "He did not wish," he said, "the envoys to bear +his cartel to the King of France." In the opinion of the straightforward +practitioners whom he consulted, the means of prevention were easy: what +more practicable and natural than to send out a handful of +men-at-arms--catch the knight and the lawyer, and then and there cut +their throats? But Edward refused to commit unnecessary slaughter; and +possibly exclaiming, as gentlemen in a drama and a dilemma always do--"I +have it"--he gave some private instructions to Sir William le Moine, the +High Steward of Agenois, who immediately set forth at the head of a +plump of spears. Meantime, the envoys were quietly jogging along, when, +what was their horror and surprise at being suddenly pounced upon by the +Lord Steward, and arrested, upon the charge of having stolen a horse +from their last baiting place. It was in vain that the unfortunate pair +offered to bring any evidence of the falsity of the charge; Sir William +had as many witnesses as he commanded men-at-arms, and the victims were +hurried to the castle of Agen, and left to their own reflections in the +securest of its dungeons. When they got out again, or whether they ever +got out at all, Froissart does not condescend to inform us; but surely +the story shews the Black Prince in a new and not exactly favourable +light. We would hardly have expected to find the "Lion whelp of +England" stooping to trump up a false accusation against innocent men, +in order to shuffle out of the consequences of his own brag. + +I found it no easy matter to get comfortably from Agen to Pau: +cross-country diligences are most untrustworthy conveyances. The pace at +which they crawl puts it out of the question that they should ever see a +snail which they did not meet; while the terribly long stages to which +the horses are doomed, keeps one in a constant state of moral +discomfort. However, I managed to get rattled and jangled on to Auch, on +the great Toulouse road, one of those towns which you wonder has been +built where it chances to lie, rather than anywhere else; and boasting a +grand old Gothic cathedral church, which Louis Quatorze, in the kindest +manner, enriched with a hugely clumsy Grecian portico, supported on fat, +dropsical pillars. The question was now, how to get on to Pau. The +Toulouse diligence passed every day, but was nearly always full; I might +have to wait a week for a place. A _voiturier_, however, was to start in +the evening, and he faithfully promised to set me down at Tarbes, whence +locomotion to Pau is easy, in time for a late supper; and so with this +worthy I struck a bargain. He shewed me a fair looking vehicle, and we +were to start at six. Punctually to the time, I was upon the ground, but +no conveyance appeared. The place was the front of a carrier's shed, +with an army of _roulage_ carts drawn up before it. I kicked my heels +there in vain, for not a bit could I see of _voiture_ or _voiturier_. +Seven struck--half-past seven--the north wind was bitterly cold, and a +sleety rain began to fall. Had I absolute powers for ten minutes, like +Abou Hassan, sorrowful would have been the fate of that _voiturier_. As +it was, the wind got colder and colder; the streets became deserted, and +the rain and sleet lashed the rough pavement with a loud, shrieking +rattle, when a wilder gust than common came thundering up the narrow +street. At length, sick of cursing the scoundrel, I turned, for warmth, +into a vast, broad-eaved _auberge_, the house of call, I supposed, for +the carriers; and entering the great shadowy kitchen, almost as big and +massive looking a room as an old baronial hall, a voice I knew--the +voice of the rascally _voiturier_ himself--struck my ear, exclaiming +with the most warm-hearted affability, "_Entrez, monsieur; entrez._ We +were waiting for you." + +Waiting for me! Surrounded by a group of men in blouses, and two or +three fat women, who were to be my fellow-passengers, there was the +villain, discussing a capital dinner--the bare-armed wenches of the +place rushing between the vast fireplace and the table, with no end of +the savouriest and the most garlicky of dishes, and the whole party in +the highest state of feather and enjoyment. The cool impertinence of the +greeting, however, tickled me amazingly; and room being immediately +made, I was entreated to join the company, and exhorted to eat, as it +would be a good many hours before I had another chance. This looked +ominous; and besides, the whole meal, full of nicely browned stews, was +so appetising, that I fear I committed the enormity of making a very +tolerable second dinner; and so about half-past eight we at last got +under weigh. + +But not in the vehicle which I had been shown. There was some +cock-and-bull story of that having been damaged; and we were +squeezed--six of us, including the fat ladies--into a dreadful square +box, with our twelve legs jammed together like the sticks of a faggot, +in the centre. Oh, the woes of that dreary night!--the gruntings and the +groanings of the fat ladies--the squabbles about "making legs," and, +notwithstanding our crowded condition, the intensity of the pinching +cold--one window was broken, another wouldn't pull up, and the whole +vehicle was full of cracks and crevices. Outside, the gale had increased +to a hurricane; the rain and sleet lashed the ground, so that you could +hardly hear the driver shouting at the full pitch of his voice to the +poor jades, who drearily dragged us through the mire. After an hour or +two's riding, the water began to trickle in on all sides. The fat ladies +said they could not possibly survive the night; and a poor thin slip of +a soldier next me accepted half a railway wrapper with the most vehement +"_Merci-bien merci!_" I ever heard in my life. About one in the morning +we pulled up at a lone public-house, in the kitchen of which the +passengers refreshed themselves with coffee, and I myself, to their +great surprise, with a liberal application of cognac and hot water. But +the French have no notion of the mellow beauties of toddy. The rest of +the night wore slowly and wretchedly on. I believe we had the same +horses all the way. Day was grey around us when we heard the voices of +the market people flocking in to Tarbes; and looking forth, after a +short, nightmareish dose, I beheld around me a wide champaign country, +as white with snow as Nova Zembla at Christmas. And this was the boasted +South of France, and the date was the twentieth of October! + + + + +[Illustration: CASTLE OF PAU.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +PAU--THE ENGLISH IN PAU--ENGLISH AND RUSSIANS--THE VIEW OF THE +PYRENEES--THE CASTLE--THE STATUE OF HENRI QUATRE--HIS BIRTH--A +VISION OF HIS LIFE--ROCHELLE--ST. BARTHOLEMEW--IVRY--HENRI AND +SULLY--HENRI AND GABRIELLE--HENRI AND HENRIETTE +D'ENTRAGUES--RAVAILLAC. + + +Excepting, perhaps, the famous city of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Pau is the most +Anglicised town in France. There are a good many of our countrymen +congregated under the old steeples of Tours which every British man +should love, were it only for Quentin Durward; but they do not leaven +the mass; while in Pau, particularly during the winter time, the main +street and the _Place Royale_ look, so far as the passengers go, like +slices cut out from Weymouth, Bath, or Cheltenham. You see in an +instant the insular cut of the groups, who go laughing and talking the +familiar vernacular along the rough _pavé_. There is a tall, muscular +hoble-de-hoy, with red hair, high shirt collar, and a lady on each +arm--fresh-looking damsels, with flounces, which smack unmistakeably of +England. It is a young gentleman with his sisters. Next come a couple of +wonderfully well-shaved, well buttoned-up, fat, elderly, half-pay +English officers, talking "by Jove, sir," of "Wilkins of ours;" and "by +George, sir," of what the "old Duke had said to Galpins of the 9th. at +the United Service." An old fat half-pay officer is always a major. I do +not know how it happens, but so it is; and when you meet them settled +abroad, ten to one they have been dragged there by their wives and +daughters. + +"By Jove, sir!" said one of these veterans to me at Pau--he was very +confidential over a glass of brandy and water at the _café_ on the +_Place_--"By Jove, sir, for myself, I'd never like to go further from +Pall Mall than just down Whitehall, to set my watch by the Horse Guards' +clock; but the women, you know, sir, have a confounded hankering for +these confounded foreign places; and, by Jove, sir, what is an old +fellow who wants a quiet life to do, sir?" + +The colony of our country folks at Pau keep, as usual, very much +together, and try to live in the most English fashion they may; ask each +other mutually to cut mutton; display joints instead of _plats_, and +import their own sherry; pass half their time studying _Galignani_, and +reading to each other long epistles of news and chat from England--the +majors and other old boys clustering together like corks in a tub of +water; the young people getting up all manner of merry pic-nics and +dances, and any body who at all wishes to be in the set, going +decorously to the weekly English service. + +"_Tenez_," said a Pau shopkeeper to me; "your countrymen enjoy here all +the luxuries of England. They have even an episcopal chapel and a pack +of fox-hounds." + +Of course, the prosperity of Pau mainly depends upon its English +residents, who are generally well-to-do people, spending their money +freely. Shortly before my visit, however, a Russian prince, who had +established himself in a neighbouring chateau, had quite thrown the +English reputation for wealth into the shade. His equipages, his +parties, the countess's diamonds, had overblazed the grandeur of the +English all put together; and the way in which he spent money enraptured +the good folks of the old capital of Bearne. The Russians, indeed, +wherever they go on the continent, deprive us of our _prestige_ as the +richest people in the world--an achievement for which they deserve the +thanks of all Englishmen with heads longer than their purses. + +"_Ah, monsieur!_" I was once told, "_la pluie de guineés, c'est bonne; +mais le pluie de roubles, c'est une averse--un deluge!_" + +Gaston Phoebus, Count de Foix, was a sad Bluebeard of a fellow, but he +showed his taste in pitching upon a site for the castle of Pau. He +reared its towers on the edge of a rocky hill. Far beneath sparkle the +happy waters of the Gave--appearing and disappearing in the broken +country--a tumbling maze of wooded hill, green meadow, straggling +coppice, corn-fields, vineyards, and gardens--verily a land flowing with +milk and honey. Further on, sluggish round-backed hills heave up their +green masses, clustered all over with box-wood; and then come--cutting +with many a pointed peak and jagged sierra--the bright blue sky--the +glorious screen of the Pyrenees. From the end of the _Place_, which runs +to the ridge of the bank on which stands the town, you may gaze at it +for hours--the hills towering in peak and pinnacle, sharp, ridgy, +saw-like--either deeply, beautifully blue, or clad in one unvarying garb +of white; and beyond that, Spain. The same view from the castle is even +still finer, as you are more elevated; and the sheer sink of the wall +and rock below you, makes, as it were, a vast gulf, across which the +mind leaps, even over the green stumbling landscape of the foreground to +the blue or white peaks beyond. + +[Illustration: STATUE OF HENRI QUATRE.] + +But the feature--the characteristic--the essence--the very soul of +Pau--is neither the fair landscape, nor the rushing Gave, nor the +stedfast Pyrenees. It is the memory of the good King Henri Quatre, which +envelopes castle and town--which makes haunted holy stones of these grim +grey towers--which gives all its renown and glory to the little capital +of Bearne. Look up at the "Good King" in his bronze effigy in the +_Place_. These features are more familiar to you than those of any +foreign potentate. You know them of old--you know them by heart--a +goodly, honest, well-favoured, burly face--a face with mind and matter +in it--a face not of an abstract transcendental hero, but emphatically +of a MAN. Passion and impulse are there, as in the jaw of Henry VIII.; +energy and strong thought, as in the brow of Cromwell; a calm, and +courtly, and meditative smile over all, as in the face of Charles I. The +stubbly beard grizzling round the firm and close-set lips, and worn by +the helmet, speaks the soldier--the conqueror of Ivry; the high, broad +forehead and the quick eye tell of the statesman--he who proclaimed the +edict of Nantes; the frank, gallant, and blithsome expression of the +whole face--what does it tell of--of the gallant, whose mingled sagacity +and debonnair courage won La Reine Margot from the intrigues of +Catherine; whose impulsive heart and fiery passions cast him at the feet +of Gabrielle d'Estrees; and whose weakness--manly while unmanly--made +him for a time the slave of Henriette d'Entragues. There is an +encyclopædia of meaning in the face, and even in the figure, of Henri. +He had a grand mind, with turbulent passions; he was deeply wise, yet +frantically reckless; he had many faults, but few vices. If he gave up a +religion for a throne, he never claimed to be a martyr or a saint. +Indeed, he was the last man in the world deliberately to run his head +against a wall. He thought that he could do more for the Huguenots by +turning Catholic and King, than by remaining Protestant and Pretender; +and he did it. Yet for all--for the men of Rome and the men of +Geneva--he had a broad, genial, hearty sympathy. Were they not all +French?--all the children of a king of France? Henri had not one morsel +of bigotry in his soul: his mind was too clear, and his heart too big. +And yet, with the pithiest sagacity--with the sternest will--with the +most exalted powers of calm comprehension--and the most honest wish to +make his good people happy--he could be recklessly +vehement--Quixotically generous--he could fling himself over to his +passions--do foolish things, rash things--insult the kingdom for which +he laboured, and which he loved--and thunder out his wrath at the grey +head of the venerable counsellor who stood by him in field and hall, and +whose practical wisdom it was which trimmed and shaped Henri's grand +visions of majestic politics and astounding plans for national +combinations. In the face, then, and in the figure of the Good King, +you can trace, I think, some such mixture of qualities. Neither are beau +ideals. You are not looking at an angel or an Apollo--but a bold, +passionate, burly, good-humoured man, big in the bone, and firm in +muscle, with plenty of human flesh and its frailties, yet with plenty of +mind to shine through, and elevate them all. + +Let us enter the castle of his birth. Thanks to Louis Philippe, it has +been rescued from the rats and the owls, and re-fitted as exactly as +possible in its ancient style. Mounting the grand staircase, we see +everywhere around, on walls and vaulted ceiling, the gilt cyphers, "H. +M."--not, however, meaning Henri and Margot, but the grandfather of the +King of France--the stern, old Henri D'Albret, King of Navarre, and +Margaret his wife--_La Marguerite des Marguerites_, the Pearl of Pearls. +Pass through a series of noble state-apartments, vaulted, oak-pannelled, +with rich wooden carved work adorning cornice and ceiling, and we stand +in the room in which Henri saw the light. Jeanne D'Albret's bed, a huge +structure, massive and carven, and with ponderous silken curtains, still +stands as it did at the birth of the king. And what a strange coming +into the world that was. The Princess of Navarre had travelled a few +days previously nearly across France, that the hoped-for son and heir +might be a Bearnais born. Old Henri, her father, was waiting and praying +in mortal anxiety for the event. "My daughter," said the patriarch, "in +the hour of your trial you must neither cry nor moan, but sing a song +in the dear Bearnais tongue; and so shall the child be welcomed to the +world with music, and neither weep nor make wry faces." The princess +promised this, and she kept her word; so that the first mortal sound +which struck Henri Quatre's ear was his mother's voice feebly chanting +an old pastoral song of the shepherds of Bearne. + +"Thanks be to God!--a man-child hath come into the world, and cried +not," said the old man. He took the infant in his arms, and, after the +ancient fashion of the land, rubbed its lips with a clove of garlic, and +poured into its mouth, from a golden cup, a few drops of Jurancon wine. +And so was born Henri Quatre. Stand for a moment in the shadow of these +tapestried curtains, and call up in the gloom a vision of the grandly +eventful life which followed. An army is drawn up near Rochelle, and a +lady leads a child between the lines. Coligni and the Condé head the +group of generals who, bonnet in hand, surround the lady and the child; +and then Jeanne D'Albret, lifting up her clear woman's voice, dedicates +the little Henri to the Protestant cause in France; and with loud +acclamations is the gift received, and the leader accepted by the stern +Huguenot array.--The next picture. An antique room in the Louvre. The +bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois is pealing a loud alarm; arquebus shots +ring through the streets, and cries and clamour of distress come +maddening through the air. Pale, but firmly resolute, stands Henri, +beside a young man richly, but negligently, dressed, who, after speaking +wildly and passionately to him, snatches up an arquebus--stands for a +moment as though about to level it at his unshrinking companion, and +then exclaiming like a maniac, "_Il faut que je tue quelq'un_," flings +open the lattice, and fires without. Henri and Charles IX. on the night +of the St. Bartholemew.--Another vision. A battle-field: Henri +surrounded by his eager troops--the famous white plume of Ivry rising +above his helmet: + + "And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may, + For never saw I promise yet of a more bloody fray; + Charge where you see this white plume shine amid the ranks of war, + And be your oriflamme to day, the helmet of Navarre." + +--Solemn organ music floating through cathedral aisles must introduce +the next scene. The child who was dedicated to the cause of +Protestantism kneels before a mitred priest. "Who are you?" is the +question put. "I am the king." "And what is your request?" "To be +admitted into the pale of the Catholic Apostolic and Roman +Church."--Again a change. Henri the King of France, and Rosny, Duke de +Sully, labouring amid papers, calculations, and despatches, to elevate +and make prosperous the great kingdom of France. "I would," said the +king, "that every subject of mine might have a fat fowl in his pot every +Sunday."--Take another: a gay and courtly scene. A glittering mob of +courtiers surround a plain ferryman, who, in answer to the laughing +questions of the monarch, whom the boatman does not know, admits that +"the king is a good sort of fellow enough, but that he has a jade of a +mistress, who is continually wanting fine gowns and trumpery trinkets, +which the people have to pay for;--not, indeed, that it would signify so +much if she were but constant to her lover; but they did say that----." +Here a lady, with burning cheeks, and flashing eyes, exclaims: "Sire, +that fellow must be hanged forthwith!" "Sire!"--the boatman gazes in +astonishment on his questioner. "Tut, tut," is the reply; "the poor +fellow shall no longer pay _corvée_ or _gabelle_, and so will he sing +for the rest of his days, Vive Henri--Vive Gabrielle!"--Another scene: +in the library and working room of the great king, and his great +minister. The monarch shews a paper, signed with his name, to his +counsellor. It is a promise of marriage to Henriette d'Entragues. Sully +looks for a moment at his master, then tears up the instrument, and +flings the fragments on the earth. "Are you mad, duke?" shouts Henri. +"If I am," was the reply, "I should not be the only madman in France." +The king takes his hand, and does him justice.--Yet one last closing +sketch. In a huge gilded coach in the midst of a group of splendidly +dressed courtiers, sits the king. There is an obstruction in the street. +The _cortège_ stops; the lackeys leave it to clear the way; when a +moody-browed fanatic, with flaming eyes, and red hair all on end, bounds +into the carriage--a poniard gleaming above his head--and in a moment +the Good King, stabbed with three mortal wounds, has gone home to his +fathers. All is over: Henri Quatre is historical! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE VAL D'OSSAU--THE VIN DE JURANCON--THE OLD BEARNE COSTUME--THE +DEVIL AND THE BASQUE LANGUAGE--PYRENEAN SCENERY--THE WOLF--THE +BEAR--A PYRENEAN AUBERGE--THE FOUNTAIN OF LARUNS, AND THE EVENING +SONG. + + +The valley of Ossau, one of the finest and most varied of the clefts +running deep into the Pyrenees, opens up behind Pau, and penetrates some +thirty miles into the mountains, ending in two narrow horns, both +forming _cul de sacs_ for all, save active pedestrians and bold +muleteers, the bathing establishment of Eaux Bonnes being situated in +one, and that of Eaux Chaudes in the other. I was meditating as to my +best course for seeing some of the mountain scenery, as I hung over the +parapet of the bridge beneath the castle, and watched the pure, foaming +waters of the Gave bursting over their rocky bed beneath, when a little +man, with a merry red face, and a wonderfully long mouth, continually on +the grin, dressed in a species of imitation of English sporting +costume--in an old cut-away coat, and what is properly called a +bird's-eye choker--the effect of which, however, was greatly taken off +by sabots--addressed me, half in French, half in what he called +English:--Did I wish to go to the baths, or anywhere else in the hills? +The diligences had stopped running for the season; but what of that? he +had plenty of horses and vehicles: he would mount me for the fox-hounds, +if I wished. Oh, he was well known to, and highly respected by, +Messieurs les Anglais; and it was therefore a fortunate thing for me to +have fallen in with him. The upshot of a long conversation was, that he +engaged to drive me up the glen with his own worshipful hands, business +being slack at the time, and that he was to be as communicative as he +might touching the country, the people, their customs, and all about +them. The little man was delighted with this last stipulation, and +observed it so faithfully, that for the next two days his tongue never +lay; and as he was a merry, sensible little fellow enough, and +thoroughly good-natured, I did not in the least repent my bargain. Off +we went, then, in a lumbering old nondescript vehicle, drawn by a +raw-boned white horse, who, however, went through his work like a +Trojan. My driver's name was M. Martin; and the first thing he did was +to pull up at the first public-house outside of Pau. + +"Look up there!" he said, pointing to a high-wooded ridge to the right; +"there are the Jurancon vineyards--the best in the Pyrenees; and here we +shall have a _coup-d'étrier_ of genuine old Jurancon wine." + +Remembering Henri Quatre's first beverage, I had no objection. The wine, +which is white, tastes a good deal like a rough _chablis_, and is very +deceptive, and very heady: I would advise new-comers to the Pyrenees to +use it but gingerly. The garrison of Pau was changed while I was there, +and the new soldiers were going rolling about the streets--some of them +madly drunk, from the effects of this fireily intoxicating, yet mildly +tasting wine. Our road lay along the Gave--a flashing, sparkling +mountain-stream, running amid groups of trees, luxuriant coppice-wood, +and small fields of yellow Indian corn. Many were the cottages and +clusters of huts, half-hidden amid the vines, which are trailed in +screens and tunnels from stake to stake, and tree to tree; and, on each +side of the way, hedges of box-wood, growing in luxuriant thickets, +which would delight the heart of an English gardener--gave note of one +of the characteristic natural harvests of the Pyrenees. The soil and the +climate are, indeed, such, that the place which, in more northern +mountain regions, would be occupied by furze and heather, is hereabouts +taken up by perfect thickets and jungles of thriving box-wood; while the +laurel and rhododendron grow in bushy luxuriance. Charming, however, as +is the landscape, and thoroughly poetic the first aspect of the +cottages, they are in reality wretched, ricketty, and unwholesome +hovels. In fact, poor huts, and a mountain country, go almost invariably +together. In German Switzerland, the cottages are miserable; and every +body knows what an unwindowed stye is a Highland turf-built bothy. So of +the Pyrenean cottages: many of them--mere hovels of wood and clay, so +rickety-looking, that one wonders that the first squall from the hills +does not carry them bodily away--are composed of one large, irregular +room, having an earthen floor, with black, smoky beams stretching across +beneath the thatch. Two or three beds are made up in the darkest +corners; festoons of Indian corn, onions, and heads of garlic are +suspended from the rafters; and opposite the huge open fireplace is +generally placed the principal piece of furniture of the apartment--a +lumbering pile of a dresser, garnished with the crockery of the +household. In a very great proportion of cases, the windows of these +dwellings are utterly unglazed; and when the rough, unpainted outside +shutters are closed, the whole interior is in darkness. The people, +however, seem better fed and better clothed than the German Switzers. In +the vicinity of Pau, the women wear the brightest silk handkerchiefs on +their heads, are perfectly dissipated in the matter of gaudy ribbons, +and cut their petticoats of good, fleecy, home-spun stuff, so short as +to display a fair modicum of thick rig-and-furrow worsted stockings. The +men, except that they wear a blue bonnet--flat, like that called Tam +O'Shanter in Scotland--are decently clad in the ordinary blouse. It is +as you leave behind the influence of the town, that you come upon the +ancient dresses of the land. Every glen in Bearne has its distinguishing +peculiarities of costume; but cross its boundary to the eastward, and +you relapse at once into the ordinary peasant habiliments of +France--clumsy, home-cut coats only being occasionally substituted for +the blouse. + +The old Bernais costume is graceful and picturesque; and as we made our +way up into the hills, we soon began to see specimens; and hardly one of +these but was borne by a fine-looking, well-developed man, or a +black-eyed and stately stepping woman. The peasantry of Ossau are +indeed remarkable, notwithstanding their hard work and frequent +privations, for personal beauty. They have little or no real French +blood in their veins; indeed, I believe the stock to be Spanish, just as +the beauties of Arles, out of all sight the finest women in France, are +in their origin partly Italian, partly Saracen. The women of Ossau are +as swarthy as Moors, and have the true eastern dignity of motion, owing +it, indeed, to the same cause as the Orientals--the habit of carrying +water-vases on their heads. Their faces are in general clearly and +classically cut--the nose thin and aquiline--the eye magnificently +black, lustrous, and slightly almond-shaped--another eastern +characteristic. The dress, as I have said, is graceful, and the colours +thoroughly harmonious. A tight-fitting black jacket is worn over a red +vest, more or less gaudily ornamented with rough embroidery, and +fastening by small belts across the bosom. On the head, a sort of capote +or hood of dark cloth, corresponding to that of the jacket and +petticoat, is arranged. In good weather, and when a heavy burden is to +be carried, this hood is plaited in square folds across the crown of the +head, forming a protection also from the heat of the sun. In cold and +rainy days, it is allowed to fall down over the shoulders, mingling with +the folds of the drapery beneath. Both men and women wear peculiarly +shaped stockings, so made as to bulge over the edges of the sabot, into +which the naked foot is thrust. The dress of the men is of a +correspondingly quaint character. On their heads they invariably wear +the flat, brown bonnet, called the _beret_, and from beneath +it the hair flows in long, straight locks, soft and silky, and floating +over their shoulders. A round jacket, something like that worn by the +women, knee-breeches of blue velvet--upon high days and holidays--and, +like the rest of the costume, of coarse home-spun woollen upon ordinary +occasions, complete the dress. The capa, or hood, is worn only in rough +weather. In the glens more to the westward, low sandals of untanned +leather are frequently used, the sole of the foot only being protected. +Sandals have certain classic associations connected with them, and look +very well in pictures, but they are fearfully uncomfortable in reality. +I saw half-a-dozen peasants tramping in this species of _chaussure_ +through the wet streets of Pau amid a storm of snow and rain, and a +spectacle full of more intensely rheumatic associations could no where +be witnessed. + +As we jogged along behind the grey horse, the facetious M. Martin had a +joke to crack with every man, woman, and child we encountered; and the +black eyes lighted up famously, and the classic faces grinned in high +delight, at the witticisms. + +"I suppose you are speaking Bearne?" I said. + +"The fine old language of the hills, sir. French!--no more to be +compared with it than skimmed milk with clotted cream." + +"And you speak Spanish, too?" + +"Well, if a gentleman contrabanda, who takes walks over the hills in the +long dark nights, with a string of mules before him, wished to do a +small stroke of business with me, I daresay we could manage to +understand each other." And therewith M. Martin winked first with one +eye, and then with the other. + +"And Basque," said I, "you speak that also?" + +M. Martin recoiled: "No man who ever did live, or will live, could learn +a word of that infernal jargon, if he were not a born Basque. Learn +Basque, indeed!--_Mon Dieu, monsieur!_ Don't you know that the Devil +once tried, and was obliged to give it up for a bad job? I don't know +why he wanted to learn Basque, unless it were to talk to the fellows who +went to him from that part of the country; and he might have known that +it was very little worth the hearing they could tell him. But, however, +he spread his wings, and flew and flew till he alighted on the top of +one of the Basque mountains, where he summoned all the best Basque +scholars in the country, and there he was for seven years, working away +with a grammar in his hand, and saying his lessons like a good little +boy. But 'twas all no use; he never could keep a page in his head. So +one fine morning he gave a kick to the books with one foot, and a kick +to the masters with the other, and flew off--only able to say 'yes' and +'no' in Basque, and that with such a bad pronunciation that the Basques +couldn't understand him." + +This authentic anecdote brought us to that portion of the valley in +which we enter really into the Pyrenean hills. Up to this point we have +been traversing a gloriously wooded, and beautifully broken, country. +Ridges of forests, vineyard slopes, patches of bright-green meadow land, +steep, tumbling hills, wreathed with thickest box-wood, have been +rising and falling all around. Lateral glens, each with its foaming +torrent and woodland vista opening up, have been passed in close +succession. Scores of villages, ricketty and poverty-struck, even in +this land of fertility, have been traversed, until, gaining the height +of a ridge which seems to block the way, we saw before us what appears +to be another valley of a totally different character--stern, solitary, +wild--a broad, flat space, lying between the hills, yellow with +maize-fields, the river shining in the midst, and on either side the +mountain-slopes--no mere hills this time, but vast and stately Alps, +heaving up into the regions of the mist, rising in long, uniform slopes, +stretching away and away, and up and up--the vast sweeps green with a +richness of herbage unknown in the Alps, and faintly traced with ancient +mountain-paths, leading from chalet to chalet; here and there a gully or +wide ravine breaking the Titanic embankment; silver threads of +waterfalls appearing and disappearing in the black jaws; and over the +topmost clefts, glimpses of the snowy peaks, to which these stretching +braes lead upwards. The mist lies in long, thin wreaths upon the bosom +of the hills immediately around you, and you see their bluff summits now +rising above it, and then gradually disappearing in the rising vapour. +The general atmosphere is brighter and clearer than in the Alps, and you +imagine a peak a long day's march from you within an easy climb; +cottages, and even hamlets, appear perched at most impracticable +heights; and every now and then, a white gash in the far-up hill-side +announces a marble-quarry, and you see dark dots of carts toiling up to +it by winding ways. These hills are but partially wooded. The sombre +pine here begins to make its appearance, sometimes scattered, sometimes +growing thickly--for all the world like the wire-jags set round the +barrel of a musical snuff-box. The lateral valleys are, however, +frequently masses of forest, and it is high up in these little +frequented passes, that Bruin, who still haunts the Pyrenees, most often +makes his appearance. + +"But he is going," said M. Martin--"going with the wild cats and the +wolves. The Pyrenees are degenerating, monsieur; you never hear of a man +being hugged to death now. Poor Bruin! For, after all, monsieur, he is a +gentlemanly beast; he never kills the sheep wantonly. He always chooses +the best, which is but natural, and walks off with it. But the +wolf--_sacré nom du diable!_--the wolf--a _coquin_--a brigand--a _Basque +tonnere_--he will slaughter a flock in a night. _Mon Dieu!_ he laps +blood till he gets drunk on it. A _voleur_--a _mauvais sujet_--a +_cochon_--a dam beast!" + +"But do the Pyrenean wolves ever attack men?" + +"_Sacré! Monsieur; tenez._ There was Jacques Blitz--an honest man, a +farmer in the hills; he came down to Pau, when the snow was deep, and +the winter hard. I saw him in Pau. Well, in the afternoon he started to +go home again. It looked threatening, and people advised him to stay; +but no; and off he went. Monsieur, that night in his cottage they heard, +hour by hour, the howling of the wolves, and often went out, but could +see nothing. Poor Jacques did not return, and at sunrise they were all +off in search; and sure enough they found a skeleton, clean picked, and +the bones all shining in the snow. Only, monsieur, the feet were still +whole in the sabots: the wolves had gnawed the wood, but could not break +it. 'Take off the sabots!' screamed the wife. And they did so: and she +gave a shuddering gasp, and said, 'They are Jacques' feet!' and tumbled +down into the snow. _Sacré peste_, the cannibals! Curse the +wolves--here's to their extirpation!" + +And M. Martin took a goodly pull at a bottle of Jurancon we had laid in +at the last stage. He went on to tell me that sometimes a particular +wolf is known to haunt a district, perhaps for years, before he gets his +_quietus_; most probably a grey-haired, wily veteran, perfectly up to +all the devices of the hunter, who can seldom get a shot at him. Bears +flourish in the same fashion, and come to be so well known, as to be +honoured with regular names, by which they are spoken of in the country. +One old bear, of great size, and of the species in question, had taken +up his head-quarters upon a range of hills forming the side of a ravine +opening up from the valley of Ossau. He was called Dominique--probably +after his fellow Bruin, who long went by the same appellation in the +Jardin des Plantes, and was known by it to every Parisian. The Pyrenean +Dominique was a wily monster, who had long baffled all the address of +his numerous pursuers; and as his depredations were ordinarily confined +to the occasional abstraction of a sheep or a goat, and as he never +actually committed murder, he long escaped the institution of a regular +battue--the ordinary ending of a bear or wolf who manages to make +himself particularly conspicuous. At length the people of the district +got absolutely proud of Dominique. Like the Eagle in Professor Wilson's +fine tale, he was "the pride and the pest of the parish," and might have +been so yet, were it not that on one unlucky day he was casually espied +by the _garde forestiere_. This is a functionary whose duty it is to +patrol the hills, taking note that the sheep are confined to their +proper bounds on the pastures. The man had sat down to his dinner on a +ledge of rock, when, looking over it, whom should he see but the famous +Dominique sunning himself upon the bank below. The _garde_ had a gun, +and it was not in the heart of man to resist the temptation. He fired, +Dominique got up on his hind legs, roaring grimly, when the contents of +the second barrel stretched him on the earth. So great, however, was the +_garde's_ opinion of the prowess of his victim, that he kept loading and +firing long after poor Dominique had quitted this mortal scene. The +carcase was too heavy to be moved by a single man, but next day it was +carried to the nearest village by a funeral party of peasants, not +exactly certain as to whether they ought to be glad or sorry at the +catastrophe. + +As we were now well on in October, and as the weather had greatly broken +up, much of the pleasure of my Pyrenean rambles being indeed marred by +lowering skies and frequent and heavy rains--which were snow upon the +hills--the flocks were fast descending from the upland pastures to their +winter quarters in the valley and the plain. Every couple of miles or +so, in our upward route, we encountered a flock of small, long-eared, +long and soft woolled sheep, either trotting along the road or resting +and grazing in the adjacent fields. The shepherds stalked along at the +head of the procession, or, when it was stationary, stood statue-like in +the fields. They were great, gaunt, sinewy men, wearing the Ossau +costume, but one and all enveloped in a long, whitish cloak, with a +peaked hood, flowing to the earth, which gave them a ghastly, +winding-sheet sort of appearance. When a passing shower came rattling +down upon the wind, the herdsmen, stalking slowly across the fields, +enveloped from head to foot in these long, grey, shapeless robes, looked +like so many Ossianic ghosts flitting among the mountains. Each man +carried, slung round him, a little ornamented pouch, full of salt, a +handful of which is used to entice within reach any sheep which he +wishes to get hold of. One and all, like their brethren of the Landes, +they were busy at the manufacture of worsted stockings, and kept slowly +stalking through the meadows where their flocks pastured, with the +lounging gait of men thoroughly broken in to a solitary, monotonous +routine of sluggish life. Many of these shepherds were accompanied by +their children--the boys dressed in exact miniature imitation of their +fathers. Indeed, the prevalence of this style of juvenile costume in the +Pyrenees makes the boys and girls look exactly like odd, quaint little +men and women. The shepherds are assisted by a breed of noble dogs, one +or two of which I saw. They are not, however, generally taken down to +the low grounds, as they are frequently fierce and vicious in the +half-savage state in which it is of importance to keep them, in respect +to their avocations amid the bears and wolves. Among themselves, I was +told that they fought desperately, occasionally even killing each other. +The dogs I saw were magnificent looking fellows, of great size and +power, their chests of vast breadth and depth, and their limbs perfect +lumps of muscle. They appeared to me to be of a breed which might have +been originated by a judicious crossing of first-rate Newfoundlands, St. +Bernard mastiffs, and thorough old English bulldogs; and I could easily +believe that one wrench from their enormous square jaws is perfectly +sufficient to crash through the neck vertebræ of the largest wolf. + +As we neared Laruns, the mountain-slopes grew steeper and higher, and +more barren and rugged; the precipices became more fearful; the mountain +gorges more black and deep; and at length we appeared to be entering the +deep pit of an amphitheatre dug in the centre of a group of stormy and +precipitous mountains. Down in this nest lies the little mountain-town +of Laruns; the steep slope of the heathy hill rising on one side of the +single street from the very backs of the houses. M. Martin, on the Irish +principle of reserving the trot for the avenue, whipped up the good old +grey, and we rattled at a canter through the miriest street I ever +traversed, driving throngs of lean, long-legged pigs right and left, and +dispersing groups of cloaked, lounging men, with military shakos, and +sabres--in whose uniform, indeed, I recognised that of my old friends, +the _Douaniers_ of Boulogne and Calais; for true we were approaching, +not indeed an ocean, but a mountain frontier, and Spanish ground was not +so distant as Shakspeare's Cliff from Cape Grinez. + +We stopped in the little Place opposite a pretty marble fountain, and at +the door of a particularly modest-looking auberge. As I was getting out, +M. Martin stopped me: "Wait," he said, "and we will drive into the +house--don't you see how big the door is?" As he spoke, it opened upon +its portals. The old grey needed no invitation, and in a moment we found +ourselves in a huge, dark vault, half coach-house, half stable. Two or +three loaded carts were lying about, and lanterns gleamed from the +gloomiest corners, and horses and mules stamped and neighed as they were +rubbed down, or received their provender. + +"But where is the inn?" + +"The inn! up-stairs, of course." + +And then I beheld a rough, wooden staircase, or, rather, a railed +ladder, down which came tripping a couple of blooming girls to carry +up-stairs our small amount of luggage. Following their invitation, I +soon found myself in a vast parlour and kitchen and all--a great shadowy +room, with a baronnial-looking fireplace, and a couple of old women +sitting in the ingle-nook, plying the distaff. The fireplace and the +kitchen department of the room were in the shadow at the back. Nearer +the row of lozenge-pane windows, rose a dais--with a long dining-table +set out--and smaller tables were scattered around. Above your head were +mighty rafters, capitally garnished with bacon and hung-meat of various +kinds. The floor rose and fell in small mountains and valleys beneath +your feet; but, notwithstanding this evidence of rickettyness, every +thing appeared of massive strength, and the warmth of the place, and the +savour of the _cuisine_--for a French kitchen is always in a chronic +state of cookery--made the room at once comfortable and appetising--ten +times better than the dreary _salle_ of a barrack-like hotel. + +[Illustration: A PYRENEES PARLOUR.] + +In a few minutes, Martin, having attended to the grey, joined me, +rubbing his hands. "This was the place to stop at," he said. "No use of +going further. The mountains beyond were just like the mountains here; +but the people here were far more unsophisticated than the people +beyond. They hav'nt learned to cheat here, yet," he whispered. "And, +besides, you see a good Pyrenean auberge, and at the Wells you would +only see a bad French hotel, which, I daresay, would be no novelty; +while, as for price--pooh! you will get a capital dinner here for what +they would charge you for speaking to the waiter there." + +And so it proved. Pending, the preparation of this dinner, however, I +strolled about Laruns. It is a drearily-poor place, with the single +recommendation of being built of stone, which can be had all round for +the carrying. The arrangement of turning the ground-floor into a stable +is universal in the houses of any size, and as these stables also serve +for pig-styes, sheep-folds, and poultry-yards, and as cleaning-day is +made to come round as seldom as possible, it may be imagined that the +town of Laruns is a highly scented one. Through some of the streets, +brooks of sparkling water flow, working the hammers of feeble fulling +mills. Webs of the coarse cloth produced are hung to dry from window to +window, and roof to roof, and beneath them congregate groups of old +distaff-plying women, lounging _duaniers_, and no end of geese standing +half asleep on one foot, until a headlong charge of pigs being driven +afield, or driven home, comes trampling through the mire, and clears the +way in a moment. + +The auberge dinner was worthy of M. Martin's anticipations. +Delicately-flavoured soup, and trout of the genuine mountain-stream +breed--the skin gaily speckled, and the flesh a deep red, were followed +by a roasted _jigot_ of mutton, flavoured as only mutton can be +flavoured which has fed upon the aromatic herbage of the high hills--the +whole finished off with a capital omelette, tossed jauntily up by the +neat-handed Phillis who waited upon us, and joked, and laughed, and was +kept in one perpetual blush by M. Martin all through dinner-time. + +At length, through all this giggling, a plate was broken. + +"There's bad luck, Jeanne," said Martin. + +"You know nothing about it," replied Jeanne, pertly. "Any child knows +that to break a plate is good luck: it is to smash a dish which brings +bad luck." + +"They have all sorts of omens here in the hills," said my companion. "If +a hare cross the path, it is a bad omen; and if a cow kick over the +milking-pail, it is a bad omen. And they are always fancying themselves +bewitched----" + +"No, that we are not," interrupted Jeanne; "so long as we keep a sprig +of _vervene_ over the fire, we know very well that there's not a +_sorciere_ in all the Pyrenees can harm us." + +I thought of the old couplet-- + + "Sprigs of vervain, and of dill, + Which hinder witches of their will." + +As the evening closed, the little Place became quite thronged with +girls, come to wash their pails and draw water from the fountain. Each +damsel came statelily along, bearing a huge bucket, made of alternate +horizontal stripes of brass and tin, upon her head, and polished like a +mirror. A half-hour, or so, of gossipping ensued, frequently broken by a +pleasant chorus, sung in unison by the fresh, pure voices of the whole +assembly. The effect, when they first broke out into a low, wailing +song, echoing amongst the high houses and the hill behind, was quite +electrifying. Then they set to work, scrubbing their pails as if they +had been the utensils of a model dairy, and at length marched away, each +with the heavy bucket, full to the brim, poised upon her head--and with +a carriage so steady and gracefully unswerving that, to look at the +pails, you would suppose them borne in a boat, rather than carried by a +person walking. + +At night, after I had turned into as snug a bed, with as crisp, and +white, and fresh linen as man could wish for, I was long kept awake by +the vocal performances of a party of shepherds, who had just arrived +from the hills, and who paraded the Place singing in chorus, long after +the cracked bell in the little church had tolled midnight. Nine-tenths +of these people have capital voices. Their lungs and throats are +well-developed, by holding communication from hill to hill; and they +jodle or jerk the voice from octave to octave, just as they do in the +Alps. This said jodling appears, indeed, to be a natural accomplishment +in many mountain countries. The songs of the shepherds at Laruns had +jodling chorusses, but the airs were almost all plaintive minors, with +long quavering phrases, clinging, as it were, to the pitch of the +key-note, and only extending to about a third above or below it. The +music was always performed in unison, the words sometimes French, and +sometimes Bearnais. The single phrase in the former language, which I +could distinguish, and which formed the burden of one of the ditties, +was, "_Ma chere maitresse_." This "_chere maitresse_" song, indeed, +appeared the favourite. Over and over again was it sung, and there was a +wild, melancholy beauty which grew more and more upon you, as the mellow +cadence died away again and again in the long drawn out notes of "_Ma +chere maitresse_." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +RAINY WEATHER IN THE PYRENEES--EAUX CHAUDES OUT OF SEASON, AND IN +THE RAIN--PLUCKING THE INDIAN CORN AT THE AUBERGE AT LARUNS--THE +LEGEND OF THE WEHRWOLF, AND THE BARON WHO WAS CHANGED INTO A BEAR. + + +I wakened next morning to a mournful _reveillé_--the pattering of the +rain; and, looking out, found the Place one puddle of melting sleet. The +fog lay heavy and low upon the hills, and the sky was as dismal as a +London firmament in the dreariest day of November. Still, M. Martin was +sanguine that it would clear up after breakfast. Such weather was +absurd--nonsensical; he presumed it was intended for a joke; but if so, +the joke was a bad one. However, it must be fine speedily--that was a +settled point--that he insisted on. Breakfast came and went, however, +and the rain was steady. + +"Monsieur," said Jeanne, "has lost the season of the Pyrenees." + +"Is there not the summer of St. John to come yet?" demanded Martin. + +"Yes; but it will rain at least a week before then." + +What was one to do? There clearly was no speedy chance of the clouds +relenting; and what was sleet with us, was dry snow further up the pass. +The Peak du Midi, with visions of which I had been flattering myself, +was as inaccessible as Chimbarozo, Spain, of which I had hoped to catch +at least a Pisgah peep--for I did want to see at least a barber and a +priest--was equally out of the question. During the morning a string of +mules had returned to Laruns, with the news that the road was blocked +up; and truly I found that, had it not been so, my first step towards +going to Spain must needs have been in the direction of Bayonne, to have +my passports _visèd_--those dreary passports, which hang like clogs to a +traveller's feet. And so then passed the dull morning tide away, every +body sulky and savage. Peasants, with dripping capas, stumbled up +stairs, and sat in groups smoking over the fire; the two old women +scolded; Jeanne grew quite snappish; and M. Martin ran out every moment +to look at the weather, and came back to repeat that it was no lighter +yet, but that it soon must clear up, positively. At length my companion +and I determined upon a sally, at all events--a bold push. Let the +weather do what it pleased, we would do what we pleased, and never mind +the weather. So old grey was harnessed in the stable; we blockaded +ourselves with wraps, and started bravely forth, a forlorn hope against +the elements. We took the way to Eaux Chaudes; and the further we went, +the heavier fell the rain--cats and dogs became a mild expression for +the deluge. The mist got lower and lower; the sleet got colder and +colder; old grey snorted and steamed; we gathered ourselves up under the +multitudinous wrappers; the rain was oozing through them--it was +trickling down our necks--suddenly making itself felt in small rills in +unexpected and aggravating places, which made sitting +unpleasant--collecting in handsome lakes at our feet, and pervading with +one vast, clammy, chilly, freezing dampness body and soul. The whole of +creation seemed resolved into a chaos of fog, mire, and rain. We had +passed into what would be called in a pantomime "the Rainy Realms, or +the Dreary Domains of Desolation;" and what comfort was it--soaked, +sodden, shivering, teeth chattering--to hear Martin proclaim, about once +in five minutes, that the weather would clear up at the next turn of the +road? The dreary day remains, cold and clammy, a fog-bank looming in my +memory ever since. I believe I saw the _établissment_ of Eaux Chaudes; +at least, there were big drenched houses, with shutters up, like +dead-lights, and closed doors, and mud around them, like water round the +ark. They looked like dismal county hospitals, with all the patients +dead except the madmen, who might be enjoying the weather and the +situation; or like gaols, with all the prisoners hung, and the turnkeys +starved at the cell doors for lack of fees. I remember hearing a doleful +voice, like that of Priam's curtain drawer, asking me if I wouldn't get +out of the vehicle; but to move was hideous discomfort, bringing new wet +surfaces into contact with the skin; so I croaked out, "No, no; +back--back to the fire at Laruns." And so honest grey, all in a steam, +splashed round through the mud; and back we went as we had come--rain, +rain, rain, pitiless, hopeless rain--the fog hanging like a grey winding +sheet above us--the zenith like a pall above that, leaden and drear, as +on a Boothia Felix Christmas Day. + +There was nothing for it but the fireside. The very _douaniers_ had +abandoned the street--the pigs had retreated--the donkeys brayed at +intervals from their ground-floor parlours; and only the maniac geese +sat on one leg, croaking, to be rained on, and the marble fountain, so +pretty yester-evening in a gleam of sunshine, spouted away, bringing +"coals to Newcastle," with an insane perseverance which it made me sad +to contemplate. Dinner was ordered as soon as it could be got ready; we +felt it was the last resource. I fortunately had a change of clothes. +Martin had not; but he retired for awhile, and reappeared in a home-spun +coat and trowsers, six inches too long for him, which he was fain to +hold up, to the enormous triumph and delight of Jeanne. At length, then, +that neat-handed Phillis announced dinner. + +"Stay a moment!" exclaimed Martin; "I am just going to see whether it is +likely to clear up." + +Out he went into the mud, and returned with the announcement that it +would be summer weather in five minutes; he knew, by some particular +movement of the mist. But poor Martin's weather predictions had ceased +to command any credit; and the peasants around the fire shrugged their +shoulders and laughed. The dinner passed off like a funeral feast. I +looked upon the Place--still a puddle, and every moment getting deeper. +No songs--no jodling choruses to-night, maidens of Laruns! + +Sitting gloomily over the Jurancon wine, and looking at the fire, I saw +a huge cauldron put on, and presently the steam of soup began to steal +into the room. Martin and Jeanne were holding confidential intercourse, +which ended in my squire's coming to me, and announcing that there was +to be held a grand _épeluche_ of the Indian corn, and that the soup was +to form the supper of the work-people. Presently, sure enough, a vast +pile of maize in the husk was brought up, and heaped upon the floor; and +as the dusk gathered, massive iron candlesticks with tapers which were +rather rushlights than otherwise, were set in due order around the +grain. Then in laughing parties, drenched but merry, the neighbours +poured in--men, women, and children--and vast was the clatter of tongues +in Bernais, as they squatted themselves down on stools and on the floor, +and began to strip off the husks of the yellow heads of corn, flinging +the peeled grain into coarse baskets set for the purpose. The old people +deposited themselves on settles in the vast chimney-nook; and amongst +them there was led to a seat a tall blind man, with grizzly grey hair, +and a mild smiling face. + +"Ask that man to tell you a story about any of the old castles or towns +hereabouts," whispered Martin; "he knows them all--all the traditions, +and legends, and superstitions of Bearne." + +This council was good. So, as soon as the whole roomful were at +work--stripping and peeling--and moistening their labours by draughts of +the valley vine--I proceeded to be introduced to the patriarch, but, ere +I had made my way to him: + +"Pere Bruniqul," said a good-humoured looking matron; "you know you +always give us one of your tales to ease our work, and so now start off, +and here is the wine-flask to wet your lips." + +All this, and the story which followed, was spoken in Bernais, so that +to M. Martin I am indebted for the outlines of the tale, which I treat +as I did that of the Baron of the Chateau de Chatel-morant:-- + + * * * * * + +"Sir Roger d'Espaigne," said the lady of the knight she +addressed--holding in her hand the hand of their daughter Adele, a girl +of six or seven years of age--"where do you hunt to day?" + +"Marry," replied her husband, "in the domains of the Dame of Clargues. +There are more bears there than anywhere in the country." + +"But you know that the Dame of Clargues loves her bears, and would not +that they should be hurt; and besides, she is a sorceress, and can turn +men into animals, if she will. Oh, she practices cunning magic; and she +is also a wehr-wolf; and once, when Leopold of Tarbes struck a wolf with +an arblast bolt, and broke its right fore-leg, the Dame of Clargues +appeared with her right-arm in bandages, and Leopold of Tarbes died +within the year." + +But Sir Roger was not to be talked to. He said the Dame of Clargues was +no more a witch than her neighbours; and poising his hunting-spear, away +he rode with all his train--the horses caracolling, and the great wolf +and bear-hounds leaping and barking before them. They passed the castle +of the Dame of Clargues, and plunged into the forests, where the wolves +lay--the prickers beating the bushes, and the knights and gentlemen +ready, if any game rushed out, to start in pursuit with their long, +light spears. For more than half the day they hunted, but had no +success; when, at last, a huge wolf leaped out of a thicket, and passed +under the very feet of the horses, which reared and plunged, and the +riders, darting their spears in the confusion, only wounded each other +and their beasts, while three or four of the best dogs were trampled on, +and the wolf made off at a long gallop down the wood. But Sir Roger had +never lost sight of her, and now followed close upon her haunches, +standing up in his stirrups, and couching his lance. Never ran wolf so +hard and well, and had not Sir Roger's horse been a Spanish barb, he had +been left far behind. As it was, he had not a single companion; when, +coming close over the flying beast, he aimed a blow at her head. The +spear glanced off, but blood followed the stroke, and at the same moment +the barb swerved in her stride, and suddenly stopping, fell a trembling, +and laid her ears back, while Sir Roger descried a lady close by, her +robes rustling among the forest-herbs. Instantly, he leaped off his +horse, and advanced to meet and protect the stranger from the wolf; but +the wolf was gone, and, instead, he saw the Dame of Clargues with a +wound in her left temple, from which the blood was still flowing. + +"Sir Roger d'Espaigne," she said, "thou hast seen me a wolf--be thou a +bear!" And even as she spoke, the knight disappeared, and a huge, brown +bear stood before her. + +"And now," she cried, "begone, and seek thy kindred in the +forest-beasts--only hearken: thou shalt kill him who killest thee, and +killing him, thou shalt end thine own line, and thy blood shall be no +more upon the earth." + +When the chase came up, they found the Spanish barb all trembling, and +the knight's spear upon the ground; but Sir Roger was never after seen. +So years went by, and the little girl, who had beheld her father go +forth to hunt in the Dame of Clargues' domain, grew up, and being very +fair, was wooed and wedded by a knight of Foix, who was called Sir Peter +of Bearne. They had been married some months, and there was already a +prospect of an heir, when Sir Peter of Bearne went forth to hunt, and +his wife accompanied him to the castle-gate, even as her mother had +convoyed her father when he went on his last hunting party to the woods +of the Dame of Clargues. + +"Sir Peter," said the lady, "hast thou heard of a great bear in the +forest, which, when he is hunted, the hunters hear a doleful voice, +saying, 'Hurt me not, for I never did thee any harm?'" + +"Balaam, of whom the clerk tells us, ought to have that bear to keep +company with his ass," said the knight, gaily, and away he rode. He had +hunted with good success most of the day, and had killed both boars and +wolves, when he descried, couched in a thicket, a most monstrous bear, +with hair of a grizzly grey--for he seemed very old, but his eyes shone +bright, and there was something in his presence which cowed the dogs, +for, instead of baying, they crouched and whined; and even the knights +and squires held off, and looked dubiously at the beast, and called to +Sir Peter to be cautious, for never had such a monstrous bear been seen +in the Pyrenees; and one old huntsman shouted out aloud, "My lord, my +lord--draw back, for that is the bear which, when he is hunted, the +hunters hear a doleful voice, saying, 'Hurt me not, for I never did thee +any harm!'" + +Nevertheless, the knight advanced, and drawing his sword of good +Bordeaux steel, fell upon the beast. The dogs then took courage, and +flew at him; but the four fiercest of the pack he killed with as many +blows of his paws, and the rest again stood aloof; so that Sir Peter of +Bearne was left face to face with the great beast, and the fight was +long and uncertain; but at last the knight prevailed, and the bear gave +up the ghost. Then all the hunt rushed in, and made a litter, and with +songs and acclamations carried the dead bear to the castle, the knight, +still faint from the combat, following. They found the Lady Adele at the +castle-gate; but as soon as she saw the bear, she gave a lamentable +scream, and said, "Oh! what see I?" and fainted. When she was recovered, +she passed off her fainting fit upon terror at the sight of such a +monster; but still, she demanded that it should be buried, and not, as +was the custom, cut up, and parts eaten. "Holy Mary!" said the knight, +"you could not be more tender of the bear if he were your father." Upon +which, Adele grew very pale; but, nevertheless, she had her will, and +the beast was buried. + +That night Sir Peter de Bearne suddenly rose in his sleep, and, +catching up arms which hung near him, began to fight about the room, as +he had fought with the bear. His lady was terrified, and the varlets and +esquires came running in, and found him with the sweat pouring down his +face, and fighting violently--but they could not see with what. None +could approach him, he was so savage, and he fought till dawn, and +returned, quite over-wearied, to his bed. Next morning he knew nothing +of it; but the next night he rose again; and the next, and the next--and +fought as before. Then they took away his weapons, but he ranged the +castle through, till he found them, and then fought more furiously than +ever, till, at length, he was accustomed to fall on his knees with +weakness and fatigue. Before a month had passed, you would not have +known Sir Peter: he seemed twenty years older; he could hardly drag one +foot after the other; and he fell melancholy and pined--for at last he +knew that the curse of the bear was upon him, and that he was not long +for this world. Many then advised to send for the Dame of Clargues, who +was still alive, but old, and who was more skilful in such matters than +any priest or exorcist on this side of Paris: and at last she was sent +for, and arrived. The scar upon her forehead was still to be seen; her +grey hair did not cover it. + +"Lady," said she to the Lady of Bearne, "did you ever see your father?" + +"Yes, truly; the very day he went forth a-hunting and never returned, I +saw him, and I yet can fancy the face before me." + +"Thou wilt see it to-night." + +"Then my foreboding--that strange feeling--was true. Oh! my father--my +husband." + +Midnight came, and, worn and haggard, Sir Peter de Bearne rose again to +renew his nightly combat. He staggered and groaned, and his strength was +spent, and those who stood round sang hymns and prayed aloud. At length +the knight shrieked out with a fearful voice--the first time he had +spoken in all his dreary sleep-fighting--"Beast, thou hast conquered!" +and fell back upon the floor, his limbs twisting like the limbs of a man +who is being strangled; and Adele screamed aloud. + +"Look, minion, look!" exclaimed the Dame of Clargues to the +lady--passing at the same time her hand over the lady's eyes. + +"O God!" cried Adele--"my father kills my husband;" and she fell upon +the floor, and she and the unborn babe died together, and Sir Peter de +Bearne was likewise lifted lifeless from the spot. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +TARBES--BAGNERRE DE BIGORRE--PIGEON-CATCHING--FRENCH COMMIS +VOYAGEURS--THE KING OF THE PYRENEAN DOGS--THE LEGEND OF ORTHON, +WHO HAUNTED THE BARON OF CORASSE. + + +The next day by noon--still raining--I was at Pau; and having bidden +adieu to M. Martin, started for Bagnerre de Bigorre by Tarbes, the great +centre of Pyrenean locomotion. Here, as at Bordeaux, you are on ancient +English ground. The rich plain all around you is the old County of +Bigorre, which was given up to England as portion of the ransom of King +John of France; and here to Tarbes came, with a gallant train, the Black +Prince, to visit the Count of Argmanac--the celebrated Gaston Phoebus, +Count of Foix--leaving his strong Castle of Orthon, to be present at the +solemnity. The life and soul of Tarbes now consist of the scores of +small cross-country diligences, which start in every direction from it +as a common centre. The main feature of the town is a huge square, +nine-tenths of the houses being glaring white-washed hotels, with +_messageries_ on the groundfloors. Diligences by the score lie +scattered around; and every now and then the dogs'-meat old horses who +draw them go stalking solemnly across the square beneath the stunted +lime-trees. There is an adult population of conductors, with silver +ear-rings, and their hands in their pockets, always lounging about; and +a juvenile population of shoe-blacks, who swarm out upon you, and take +your legs by storm. Tarbes is the best place--excepting, perhaps, +Arles--for getting your boots blacked, I ever visited. If you were a +centipede, and had fifty pairs of Wellingtons, they would all be shining +like mirrors in a trice. How these boys live, I cannot make out, unless, +indeed, upon the theory that they black their shoes mutually, and keep +continually paying each other. Bagnerre is about sixteen miles distant; +and a mountain of a diligence, not so much laden with luggage as +freighted with a cargo, conveyed me there in not much under four hours; +and I repaired--it was dusk, and, of course, raining--to the Hotel de +France--one of the huge caravansaries common at watering-places. A buxom +lass opened the wicket in the Porte Cochere. + +"I can have a room?" + +"Oh, plenty!" + +And we stepped into the open court-yard. The great hotel rose on two +sides, and a small _corps de logis_ on the two others. + +"Wait," said the girl, "until I get the key." + +And off she tripped. The key! Was the house shut up? Even so. I was to +have a place as big as a hospital to myself. The door opened; all was +darkness and a fusty smell. The last family had been gone a fortnight. +Our footsteps echoed like Marianne's. It was decidedly a foreign +edition, uncarpeted and waxy-smelling, of the "Moated Grange." I was +ushered into a really splendid suite of rooms--of a decidedly grander +nature than I ever occupied before, or ever occupied since. + +"The price is the price of an ordinary bedroom. Monsieur may choose +whatever room he pleases; and the _table-d'hôte_ bell rings at six." + +This, at all events, was reassuring. Then my conductress retreated; the +doors banged behind her, and I felt like a man shut up in St. Peter's. +The silence in the house was dreadful. I was fool enough to go and +listen at the door: dead, solemn silence--a vault could not be stiller. +I would have given something handsome for a cat, or even a mouse; a +parrot would have been invaluable--it would have shouted and screamed. +But no; the hush of the place was like the Egyptian darkness--it was a +thick silence, which could be felt. At length the _table-d'hôte_ bell +rang. The _salle à manger_ was in the building across the yard. Thither +I repaired, and found a room, or rather a long corridor, big enough to +dine a Freemason's or London Tavern party, with a miraculously long +table, tapering away into the distance. Upon a few square feet of this +table was a patch of white cloth; and upon the patch of cloth one plate, +one knife and fork, and one glass. This was the _table-d'hôte_, and, +like Handel, "I was de kombany." + +Next day the weather was no better; but I was desperate, and sallied +out in utter defiance of the rain; but such a dreary little city as +Bagnerre, in that wintry day, was never witnessed. I never was at Herne +Bay in November, nor have I ever passed a Christmas at Margate; but +Bagnerre gave me a lively notion of the probable delights of the dead +season at either of these favourite watering-places. The town seemed +defunct, and lying there passively to be rained on. Half the houses are +lodging-places and hotels; and they were all shut up--ponderous green +outside shutters dotting the dirty white of the walls. Hardly a soul was +stirring; but ducks quacked manfully in the kennels, and two or three +wretched donkeys--dreary relics of the season--stood with their heads +together under the lime-trees in the Place. I retreated into a _café_. +If there were nobody in France but the last man, you would find him in a +_café_, making his own coffee, and playing billiards with himself. Here +the room was tolerably crowded; and I got into conversation with a group +of townspeople round the white Fayence stove. I abused the +weather--never had seen such weather--might live a century in England, +and not have such a dreary spell of rain--and so forth. The anxiety of +the good people to defend the reputation of their climate was excessive. +They were positively frightened at the prospect of a word being breathed +in England against the skies of the Pyrenees in general, and those of +Bagnerre in particular. The oldest inhabitant was appealed to, as never +having remembered such weather at Bagnerre. As for the summer, it had +been more than heavenly. All the springs were delightful; the autumns +were invariably charming; and the winters, if possible, the best of the +four. The present rain was extraordinary--exceptional--a sort of +phenomenon, like a comet or a calf with two heads. One of these +worthies, understanding that however strong my objections were to fog +and drizzle, I was not by any means afraid of being melted, recommended +me to make my way to the Palombiere, and see them catch wild pigeons, +after a fashion only practised there and at one other place in the +Pyrenees. Not appalled, then, by the prospect of a three-mile pull +up-hill, I made my way through the narrow suburban streets, and across +the foaming Adour, here a glorious mountain-stream, but already made +useful to turn numerous flour-mills, and to drive the saws and knives by +which the beautiful marble of the Pyrenees is cut and polished. +Hereabouts, in the straggling suburbs, the whole female and juvenile +population were clustered, just within the shelter of the open doors, +knitting those woollen jackets, scarfs, and so forth, which are so much +in vogue amongst the visitors in the season. There was one graceful +group of pretty girls, the eldest not more than four years of age, +pursuing the work in a shed open to the street, seated round a loom, at +which a good-natured-looking fellow was operating. + +"That is a beautiful scarf," I said to the girl next me; "how much will +they give you for making it?" + +The weaver paused in his work at this question. "Tell the gentleman, my +dear, how much Messieurs So-and-so give for knitting that scarf." + +"Two liards," said the little girl. + +Two liards, or half a solitary sous! This was worse than the +shirt-makers at home. + +"It is a bad trade now," said the weaver. "She is a child; but the best +hands can't make more than big sous where they once made francs; but all +the trades of the poor are going to the devil. I don't think there will +be any poor left in twenty years--they will be all starved before then." + +This led to a long talk with my new friend, who was a poor, mild, meek +sort of man--a thinker, after his fashion, totally uninstructed--he +could neither read nor write--and a curious specimen of the odd twists +which unregulated and unintelligent ponderings sometimes give a man's +mind. His grand notion seemed to be, that whatever might be the isolated +crimes and horrors now and then committed upon the earth, the most +terrible and malignant species of perverted human ingenuity was--the +employment of running streams to work looms. + +"Was water made to weave cloth?" he asked. "Did the power that formed +the Adour intend its streams to be made use of to deprive an honest man +of his daily bread? He would uncommonly like to find the orator who +would make that clear to his mind. It was terrible to see how men +perverted the gifts of Nature! How could I, or any one else, prove to +him that the water beside us was intended to take the place of men's +arms and fingers, and to be used, as if it were vital blood, to +manufacture the garments of those who lived upon its banks?" + +I ventured to hint, that running water might occasionally be put to +analogous, yet by no means so objectionable uses; and I instanced the +flour and maize mill, which was working merrily within a score of paces +of us. For a moment, but for a moment only, my antagonist was staggered. +Then recovering himself, he inquired triumphantly whether I meant to say +that the process of grinding corn was like the process of weaving cloth? +It was curious to observe the confusion in the man's mind between +_analogy_ and _resemblance_. As I could not but admit that the two +operations were conducted quite in a different fashion, my gratified +opponent, not to be too hard upon me, warily changed the immediate +subject of conversation. I was not a native of this part of France? Not +a native of France at all? Then I came from some place far away? Perhaps +from across the sea? From England! Ah! well, indeed, there was an +English lady married, about five miles off--Madame----. Of course I knew +her? No? Well, that was odd. He would have thought that, coming from the +same place, I ought to know her. However--were there many handloom +weavers like himself in England? No, very few indeed. What! did they +weave by water-power there, too? were the folks as bad as some of the +people in his country? I explained that, not being so much favoured in +the way of water-privilege, the people of England had resorted to steam. + +The poor weaver was quite overcome at this crowning proof of human +malignity. It was more horrible even than the water-atrocities of the +Pyrenees. + +"Steam!"--he repeated the word a dozen times over, shaking his head +mournfully at each iteration,--"Steam! Ah, well, what is this poor +unhappy world coming to?" + +Then rousing himself, and sending the shuttle rattling backwards and +forwards through the web, he added heartily: "After all, their moving +iron and wood will never make the good, substantial, well-wearing cloth +woven by honest, industrious flesh and blood." + +Who would have the heart to prescribe cold political economy in such a +case? I left the good man busily pursuing his avocation, and lamenting +over the perversity of making broad-cloth by the aid of boiling water. + +Stretching manfully up hill, by a path like the bed of a muddy torrent, +I was rewarded by a sudden watery blink of sunshine. Then the wind began +to blow, and vast rolling masses of mist to move before it. From a high +ridge, with vast green slopes, all dotted with sheep, spreading away +beneath until they blended with the corn-land on the plain, Bagnerre +appeared, the great white hotels peeping from the trees, and the whole +town lying as it were at the bottom of a bowl. It must be fearfully hot +in summer, when the sun shines right down into the amphitheatre, and the +high hills about, deaden every breeze. At present, however, the wind was +rising to a gale, and blowing the heavy clouds right over the Pyrenees. +Attaining a still greater height, the scene was very grand. On one side +was a confused sea of mountain-peaks and ridges, over which floated +masses of wreathing fog, flying like chased phantoms before the +northern wind. Now a mountain-top would be submerged in the mist, to +re-appear again in a moment. Anon I would get a glimpse of a long vista +of valley, which next minute would be a mass of grey nonentity. The +mist-wreaths rose and rolled beneath me and above me. Sometimes I would +be enveloped as in a dense white smoke; then the fog-bank would flee +away, ascending the broad breast of the hill before me, and wrapping +trees, and rocks, and pastures in its shroud. All this time the wind +blew a gale, and roared among the wrestling pines. Sometimes the sun +looked out, and lit with fiery splendour the rolling masses of the fog, +with some partial patch of landscape; and, altogether, the effect, the +constant movement of the mist, the wild, hilly landscape appearing and +disappearing, the glimpses occasionally vouchsafed of the distant plain +of Gascony, sometimes dimly seen through the driving vapours, sometimes +golden bright in a partial blaze of sunshine,--all this was very +striking and fine. At length, however, I reached the Palombiere, +situated upon the ridge of the hill--which cost a good hour and a half's +climb. Here grow a long row of fine old trees, and on the northern side +rise two or three very high, mast-like trees of liberty, notched so as +to allow a boy as supple and as sure-footed as a monkey to climb to the +top, and ensconce himself in a sort of cage, like the "crow's nest" +which whalers carry at their mast-heads, for the look-out. I found the +fowlers gathered in a hovel at the foot of a tree; they said the wind +was too high for the pigeons to be abroad; but for a couple of francs +they offered to make believe that a flock was coming, and shew me the +process of catching. The bargain made, away went one of the urchins up +the bending pole, into the crow's-nest--a feat which I have a great +notion the smartest topman in all Her Majesty's navy would have shirked, +considering that there were neither foot-ropes or man-ropes to hold on +by. Then, on certain cords being pulled, a whole screen of net rose from +tree to tree, so that all passage through the row was blocked. + +"Now," said the chief pigeon-catcher, "the birds at this season come +flying from the north to go to Spain, and they keep near the tops of the +hills. Well, suppose a flock coming now; they see the trees, and will +fly over them--if it wasn't for the _pigeonier_." + +"The _pigeonier_! what is that?" + +"We're going to show you." And he shouted to the boy in the crow's nest, +"Now Jacques!" + +Up immediately sprang the urchin, shouting like a possessed +person--waving his arms, and at length launching into the air a missile +which made an odd series of eccentric flights, like a bird in a fit. + +"That is the pigeonier," said the fowler; "it breaks the flight of the +birds, and they swoop down and dash between the trees--so." + +He gave a tug to a short cord, and immediately the wall of nets, which +was balanced with great stones, fell in a mass to the ground. + +"Monsieur will be good enough to imagine that the birds are struggling +and fluttering in the meshes." + +[Illustration: MARBLE WORKS AT BAGNERRE.] + +At Bagnerre there is a marble work--that of M. Géruset--which I +recommend every body to visit, not to see marble cut, although that is +interesting, but to pay their respects to, I believe, the grandest dog +in all the world--a giant even among the canine giants of the Pyrenees. +I have seen many a calf smaller than that magnificent fellow, who, as +you enter the yard, will rise from his haunches, like a king from his +throne, and, walking up to you with a solemn magnificence of step which +is perfect, will wag his huge tail, and lead you--you cannot +misunderstand the invitation--to the counting-house door. For vastness +of brow and jaw--enormous breadth and depth of chest, and girth of limb, +I never saw this creature equalled. The biggest St. Bernard I ever came +across was almost a puppy to him. A tall man may lay his hand on the +dog's back without the least degree of stoop; and the animal could not +certainly stand erect under an ordinary table. + +"I suppose," I said to the clerk who showed me the works, "you have had +many offers for that dog?" + +"My employer," he replied, "has refused one hundred pounds for him. But, +even if we wished, we could not dispose of him: he is fond of the place +and the people here; so that, though we might sell him, he wouldn't go +with his new master; and I would like to see any four men in Bagnerre +try to force him." + +That evening I fortunately did not include the whole company at the +_table-d'hôte_. There was a young gentleman very much jewelled, and an +elderly lady also very strongly got up in the way of brooches and +bracelets, to whom the young gentleman was paying very assiduous but +very forced attention. The lady was sulky, and sent _plat_ after _plat_ +untasted away; and when her companion, as I thought, whispered a +remonstrance, she snubbed him in great style; at which he bit his lip, +turned all manner of colours, and then got moodily silent. I suspected +that the young gentleman had married the old lady for her money, and was +leading just as comfortable a life as he deserved. But, besides them, we +had a couple of the gentlemen who are to be more or less found in every +hotel in France--_commis voyageurs_, or commercial travellers. By the +way, the aristocratic Murray lays his hand, or rather his "Hand-book," +heavily about the ears of these gentlemen--castigating them a good deal +in the Croker style, and with more ferocity than justice: "A more +selfish, depraved, and vulgar, if not brutal set, does not exist;" +"English gentlemen will take good care to keep at a distance from +them," and "English ladies will be cautious of presenting themselves at +a French _table-d'hôte_, except"--in certain cases specified. Now, I +agree with Mr. Murray, that commercial travellers, French and English, +are not distinguished by much polish of manner, or elegance of address; +on the contrary, the style of their proceedings at table is frequently +slovenly and coarse, and their talk is almost invariably "shop." In a +word, they are not educated people, or gentlemen. But when we come to +such expressions as "selfish, brutal, and depraved," I think most +English travellers in France will agree with me, that the aristocratic +hand-book maker is going more than a little too far. I have met scores +of clever and intelligent _commis voyageurs_--hundreds of affable, +good-humoured ones--thousands of decent, inoffensive ones. In company +with a lady, I have dined at every species of _table-d'hôte_, in every +species of hotel, from the Channel to the Mediterranean, and the Bay of +Biscay to the Alps, and I cannot call to mind one instance of rudeness, +or voluntary want of civility, from one end of our journey to the other; +while scores and scores of instances of attention and kindness--more +particularly when it was ascertained that my companion was in weak +health--come thronging on me. I know that the French _commis voyageur_ +looks after his own interest at table pretty sharply, and also that he +is quite deficient in all the elegant little courtesies of society; but +to say that he is brutal or depraved, because he is not a _petit maître_ +and an _elegant_, is neither true nor courteous. If there be any set of +Frenchmen to whose conduct at _table-d'hôtes_ strong expressions may be +fairly applied, it is French officers, who sprung from a rank often +inferior to that of the bagman, and, with all the coarseness of the +barracks clinging to them, frequently cluster together in groups of +half-a-dozen--scramble for all that is good upon the table--eat with +their caps on, which the _commis voyageur_ only does in winter, when the +bare and empty _salle_ is miserably cold--and in general behave with a +coarse rudeness, and a tumultuous vulgarity, which I never saw private +soldiers guilty of, either here or in France. + +But I must hurry my Pyrenean sketches to an end. The true South--I mean +the Mediterranean-washed provinces--still lie before me; and I must +perforce leap almost at a bound over a long and interesting journey +through the little-known towns of the eastern Pyrenees--quiet, sluggish, +tumble-down places, as St. Gaudens, St. Girons, and St. Foix, possessed +neither of pump-rooms, nor warm-springs, but vegetating on, lazily and +dreamily, in their glorious climate--for, after all, it does sometimes +stop raining, and that for a few blazing months at a time, too. I would +like to sketch St. Gaudens, with its broad-eaved, booth-like shops, and +the snug town-hall, with pictures of old prefects and wigged _fermiers +generaux_, into which they introduced me, and where they set all their +municipal documents before me, when I applied for some information as to +the landholding of the district. I would like to sketch at length a +curious walled village on the head waters of the Garonne--a +dead-and-gone sort of place, of which I asked an old man the name. "A +poor place, sir," he said; "a poor place. Not worth your while looking +at. All poor people here, sir--poor people; not worth your while +speaking to. And the name--oh, a poor name, sir--not worth your while +knowing; but, if you insist--why, then, it's Valentine." I would like to +sketch the merry population in the hills round that dead-and-gone +village--half farmers, half weavers, like the Saddleworth peasants, in +Yorkshire--a jolly set--all sporting men, too, who give up their looms, +and go into the woods after bears as boldly as Sir Peter de Bearne. And +I would like, too, to try to bring before my reader's eye the viney +valley of the Ariege, and the deep ravines through which the stream goes +foaming, spanned by narrow bridges, each with a tower in the centre, +where the warder kept his guard, and opened and shut the huge, +iron-bound doors, and dropped and raised the portcullis at pleasure. And +these old feudal memorials bring me to the castles and ruined towers so +thickly peopling the land where lived the bands of adventurers, as +Froissart calls them, by whom the fat citizens of the towns were wont to +be "_guerroyés et harriés_," and most of which have still their legends +of desperate sieges, and, too often, of foul murders done within their +dreary walls. Pass, as I perforce must, however, and gain +Provence--there is yet one legendary tale I cannot help telling. It is +one of the best things in Froissart, and a little twisting would give it +a famous satiric significance against a class of bores of our own day +and generation. It relates to the lord of a castle not far from Tarbes, +and was told to Froissart by a squire, "in a corner of the chapel of +Orthez," during the visit paid by the canon to Gaston Phoebus, Count +of Foix--who, I am sorry to say, has been puffed, and most snobbishly +exalted by the great chronicler into the ranks of the most noble +chivalry, in return for splendid entertainment bestowed; whereas, in +fact, Gaston Phoebus was a reckless murderer, possessed of neither +faith nor honour. But, alas, the Canon of Chimay sometimes descended +into the lowest depths of penny-a-lining, and "coloured" the cases just +as a bribed police reporter does when a "respectable" gentleman gets +into trouble. Gaston stabbed his son to death, in a dungeon; and the +bold Froissart has actually the coolness to assert that the death of the +heir took place, inasmuch as his father, in a rage, because he would not +eat the dainties placed before him, struck him with his clenched fist, +holding therein a knife with which he had been picking his nails, but +the blade of which, says the lame apologist, only protruded a "groat's +breadth" from his fingers,--the result being that the steel +unfortunately happened to cut a vein in young Gaston's throat. The +simple truth of the matter is, that the count was jealous of his son's +being a favourite of the boy's mother, from whom he (the count) was +separated--that he dreaded lest the wrongs of his wife might be avenged +by her brother, the King of Navarre--and that he determined to starve +the boy in a dungeon; but the child not dying so soon as was expected, +his father went very coolly in to him, and cut his throat. + +"To speak briefly and truly," says Froissart, "the Count de Foix was +perfect in body and mind, and no contemporary prince could be compared +to him for sense, honour, and liberality." + +"To speak briefly and truly, Sir John Froissart," I reply, "you have +written a charming and chivalrous chronicle; but you could take a bribe +with any man of your time, and having done so, you could attempt to +deceive posterity, and write down what you knew to be a lie, with as +gallant a grace and easy swagger as the great Mr. Jonathan Wild +himself." + +However, there are black spots in the sun--to the legend which I +promised. The Lord of Corasse--a castle, by the way, in which Henri +Quatre passed some portion of his boyish days--the Lord of Corasse had a +quarrel touching tithes with a neighbouring priest, who being unable to +obtain his dues by ordinary legal or illegal remedies, sent a spirit to +haunt the castle of Corasse. This spirit proceeded to perform his +mission by making a dreadful hallabuloo all night long, and breaking the +crockery--so that very soon the Lord and Lady of Corasse had to dine +without platters. At length, however, the Baron managed to come to +speaking terms with the demon, who was invisible, and found out that his +name was Orthon, and that the priest had sent him. + +"But Orthon, my good fellow," said the sly Lord of Corasse, "this priest +is a poor devil, and will never be able to pay you handsomely. Throw him +overboard at once, therefore, and come and take service with me." + +Orthon must have been the most fickle of all the devils, for he not only +acceded to the proposition with astonishing readiness, but took such an +affection to his new lord, that he could not be got out of his bedroom +at night, to the sore discomfiture of the baroness, "who was so much +frightened that the hairs of her head stood on end, and she always hid +herself under the bed-clothes;" while the too familiar demon, never +seen, but only heard, insisted on keeping his friend, the baron, +chatting all night. But the charms of Orthon's conversation at length +palled, particularly as they kept the baron night after night from his +natural rest; so he took to despatching the demon all over Europe, +collecting information for him of all that was going on in the courts +and councils of princes, and at the scene of war where there happened to +be fighting. Still, as Orthon moved as fast as a message by electric +telegraph, the baron found him nearly as troublesome as ever. He was +eternally coming in with intelligence which he insisted upon telling, +until the Lord of Corasse's head was fairly turned by the amount of news +he was obliged to listen to. Never had there been so indefatigable an +agent. He would have been invaluable to a newspaper--but he was boring +the Lord of Corasse to death. + +A loud thunder at the door at midnight. The baron would groan, for he +knew well who was the claimant for admission. "Let me in, Let me in. I +have news for thee from Hungary or England," as the case might be; and +the baron, groaning in soul and body, would get up and let the demon in; +while the latter would immediately commence his recitation: + +"Let me sleep. Let me sleep, for Heaven's sake!" the victim would +exclaim. + +"I have not told thee half the news," would be Orthon's reply; "I will +not let thee sleep until I have told thee the news;" and he would go on +with his budget of foreign intelligence till the day scared him, and +left the baron and the baronness to broken and unrefreshing slumbers. + +Froissart narrates that at length the demon consented to appear in a +visible form to the baron; that he took the shape of a lean sow, upon +which the Lord of Corasse ordered the dogs to be let loose upon the +animal, which straightway disappeared, and Orthon was never seen after. +I suspect, however, that Sir John was hoaxed in this respect. He clearly +did not see the fun of the story, which is very capable of being +resolved into an allegory--the fact being that the demon was some +gentleman of the priest's acquaintance, with supernatural powers of +boring whom he let loose upon the recalcitrant tithe-payer, until the +arrears were at length paid up. The sow which disappeared was clearly no +other than a tithe-pig. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +LANGUEDOC--THE "AUSTERE SOUTH"--BEZIERS AND THE ALBIGENSES--THE +FOUNTAIN OF THE GREVE AND PIERRE PAUL RIQUET--ANTICIPATIONS OF +THE MEDITERRANEAN--THE MISTRAL--THE OLIVE COUNTRY ABOUT +BEZIERS--THE PEASANTS OF THE SOUTH--RURAL BILLIARD-PLAYING. + + +Again in the banquette of the diligence, which, rolling on the great +highway from Toulouse to Marseilles, has taken me up at Carcassone, and +will deposit me for the present at Beziers. We have entered in +Languedoc, the most early civilised of the provinces which now make up +France--the land where chivalry was first wedded to literature--the land +whose tongue laid the foundations of the greater part of modern +poetry--the land where the people first rebelled against the tyranny of +Rome--the land of the Menestrals and the Albigenses. People are apt to +think of this favoured tract of Europe as a sort of terrestrial +paradise--one great glowing odorous garden--where, in the shade of the +orange and the olive-tree, queens of love and beauty, crowned the heads +of wandering Troubadours. The literary and historic associations have +not unnaturally operated upon our common notions of the country; and for +the "South of France," we are very apt to conjure up a brave, fictitious +landscape. Yet this country is no Eden. It has been admirably described, +in a single phrase, the "Austere South of France." It _is_ +austere--grim--sombre. It never smiles: it is scathed and parched. +There is no freshness or rurality in it. It does not seem the country, +but a vast yard--shadeless, glaring, drear, and dry. Let us glance from +our elevated perch over the district we are traversing. A vast, rolling +wilderness of clodded earth, browned and baked by the sun; here and +there masses of red rock heaving themselves above the soil like +protruding ribs of the earth, and a vast coating of drowthy dust, lying +like snow upon the ground. To the left, a long ridge of iron-like +mountains--on all sides rolling hills, stern and kneaded, looking as +though frozen. On the slopes and in the plains, endless rows of scrubby, +ugly trees, powdered with the universal dust, and looking exactly like +mopsticks. Sprawling and straggling over the soil beneath them, jungles +of burnt-up, leafless bushes, tangled, and apparently neglected. The +trees are olives and mulberries--the bushes, vines. + +Glance again across the country. It seems a solitude. Perhaps one or two +distant figures, grey with dust, are labouring to break the clods with +wooden hammers; but that is all. No cottages--no farmhouses--no +hedges--all one rolling sweep of iron-like, burnt-up, glaring land. In +the distance, you may espy a village. It looks like a fortification--all +blank, high stone walls, and no windows, but mere loop-holes. A square +church tower gloomily and heavily overtops the houses, or the dungeon of +an ancient fortress rears its massive pile of mouldering stone. Where +have you seen such a landscape before? Stern and forbidding, it has yet +a familiar look. These scrubby, mop-headed trees--these formal square +lines of huge edifices--these banks and braes, varying in hue from the +grey of the dust to the red of the rock--why, they are precisely the +back-grounds of the pictures of the renaissance painters of France and +Italy. + +I was miserably disappointed with the olive. It is one of the romantic +trees, full of association. It is a biblical tree, and one of the most +favoured of the old eastern emblems. But what claim has it to beauty? +The trunk, a weazened, sapless-looking piece of timber, the branches +spreading out from it like the top of a mushroom, and the colour, when +you can see it for dust, a cold, sombre, greyish green. One olive is as +like another as one mopstick is like another. The tree has no +picturesqueness--no variety. It is not high enough to be grand, and not +irregular enough to be graceful. Put it beside the birch, the beech, the +elm, or the oak, and you will see the poetry of the forest and its +poorest and most meagre prose. So also, to a great extent, of the +mulberry. I had a vague sort of respect for the latter tree, because one +of the Champions of Christendom--St. James of Spain, I think--delivered +out of the trunk of a mulberry an enchanted princess; but the enforced +lodgings of the captive form just as shabby and priggish-looking a tree +as the olive. The general shape--that of a mop--is the same, and a +mutual want of variety and picturesqueness, afflict, with the curse of +hopeless ugliness, both silk and oil-trees. The fig, in another way, is +just as bad. It is a sneaking tree, which appears as if it were growing +on the sly, while its soft, buttery-looking branches--bending and +twisting, swollen and unwholesome-looking--put you somehow in mind of +diseased limbs, which the quack doctors call "bad legs." In fact, it +seems as if the climate and soil of Provence and Languedoc were utterly +unfavourable to the production of forest scenery. One of our noble +clumps of oak, beech, birch, and elm, at home, is worth, for splendid +picturesqueness and rich luxuriance of greenery, every fig-tree which +ever grew since fig-leaves were in vogue; every olive which ever grew +since the dove from the ark plucked off a branch; and every mulberry +which ever grew since St. James of Spain cut out the imprisoned +princess. The menestrals of Languedoc no doubt gave our early bards many +a poetic lesson; but I can imagine the hopeless stare of the Southern +when the Northern rhymer, in return, would chant him a jolly Friar of +Copmanhurst sort of stave about the "merry greenwood," and the joys of +the "greenwood tree." + +As we roll along the dusty highway, intersecting the dusty fields, the +dusty olives, and the dusty vines, I pray the reader to glance to the +right, towards the summit of a chain of jagged, naked hills. These go by +the name of the Black Mountains--a good "Mysteries of Udolpho" sort of +title--and they form part of a range which separates the basin of the +streams which descend to the north, and form the head waters of the +Garonne, and those which descend to the south, and form the head waters +of the Aude. Somewhere about 1670, the scattered shepherds who dwelt in +these hills frequently observed a stranger, richly dressed, attended by +two labouring-looking men, who paid him great reverence. The little +party toiled up and down in the hills, and frequently erected and +gathered round magical-looking instruments. "Holy Mary!" said the +peasants, "they are sorcerers, and they are come to bewitch us all!" For +years and years did the richly dressed man and the two labourers haunt +the Black Mountains, wandering uneasily up and down, climbing ridges, +and plunging into valleys, and always seeming to seek something which +they could not find. At length, upon a glaring hot summer day, they came +suddenly upon a young peasant, who was quenching his thirst at a +fountain. + +The cavalier glanced at the spring, and caught the shepherd by his +home-spun jacket. The boy thought he was going to be murdered, and +screamed out; but a Louis-d'or quieted him in a moment. Then the +cavalier, trembling with anxiety, exclaimed: "What fountain is this?" + +"The fountain of the Greve," said the boy. + +"And it runs both ways along the ridge of the hill?" + +"Ay; any fool may see that half of the water goes north, and half goes +south--any fool knows that." + +"And I only discovered it now. Thank God!" + +We shall see who the cavalier, the discoverer of the fountain of the +Greve, was, when we arrive at Beziers. Meantime the reader may be +astonished that, after the cold frost and snow of the Pyrenees, a week +or two later in the season brought me into a region of dry parched land, +the sky blue and speckless from dawn to twilight--the sun glaringly hot, +and the flying dust penetrating into the very pores of the skin. But we +have left the mist-gathering and rain-attracting mountains, and we have +entered the "austere South," where the sky for months and months is +cloudless as in Arabia--where, at the season I traversed it, the sun +being hot by day does not prevent the frost from being keen at night; +and where the mistral, or north wind, nips your skin as with knives; +while in every sheltered spot the noon-day heat bakes and scorches it. +But such is Languedoc. + +As the evening closed in, we saw, duskily crowning a hill before us, a +clustered old city, with grand cathedral towers, and many minor church +steeples, cutting the darkening air. This is Beziers, where took place +the crowning massacre of the Albigenses--the most learned, intellectual, +and philosophic of the early revolters from the Church of Rome, and whom +it is a perfect mistake to consider in the light of mere peasant +fanatics, like the Camisards or the Vaudois. In this ancient city, +beneath the shadow of these dim towers, more than twenty thousand men, +women, and children, were slaughtered by the troops of orthodox France +and Rome, led on and incited to the work by the Bishop of Beziers, one +of the most black-souled bigots who ever deformed God's earth. When the +soldiers could hardly distinguish in the darkness the heretics from the +orthodox--although, indeed, they might have solved the problem by +cutting down every intelligent man they saw--the loving pastor of souls +roared out, "_Coedite omnes, coedite; noverit enim Dominus qui sunt +ejus!_" It is to be fervently hoped, that, for the sake of the Bishop of +Beziers, a certain other personage has long ago proved himself equally +perspicuous and discriminating. + +We pulled up at Hotel du Nord, at Beziers, just as the _table-d'hôte_ +bell was ringing; and I speedily found myself sitting down in a most +gaily lighted _salon_, to a capital dinner, in the midst of a merry +company. For the last ten miles of the way, I had been amusing myself by +catching glimpses of a distant lighthouse; for I knew that it shone from +a headland jutting into the Mediterranean. And the first glance at the +Mediterranean was now my grand object of interest, as the first glance +at the Pyrenees had been; and as, I remember, long ago, the first glance +of France, of the Rhine, and the Alps, had each their turn. When, +therefore, a dish of soles (stewed in oil, as the Jews cook them +here--and the Jews are the only people in England who can cook soles,) +was placed before me, I asked the waiter where the fish came from? + +"_Mais, monsieur_, where should they come from, but from the sea?" + +"You mean the Mediterranean?" + +"_Mais certainment, monsieur_; there is no sea but the Mediterranean +sea." + +An observation which, coinciding with my own mental view for the moment, +I quietly agreed in. + +In the market-place of Beziers stands the statue of a thoughtful and +handsome man, dressed in the costume of the early period of Louis +Quatorze, with flowing love-locks and peaked beard. His cloak has fallen +unheeded from his shoulders, as he eagerly gazes on the ground--one hand +holding a compass, the other a pencil. This is the statue of Pierre Paul +Riquet, feudal seigneur of Bonrepos, and the cavalier who discovered the +fountain of the Greve. That fountain solved a mighty problem--the +possibility of connecting, by means of water communication, the +Atlantic and the Mediterranean--the Garonne flowing into the one, with +the Aude flowing into the other; and the formation of the Canal du Midi, +doubled at a stroke the value of the Mediterranean provinces of France. +Francis I., although our James called him a "mere fechting fule," dreamt +of this. Henri and Sully projected the scheme; but it was only under +Louis and Colbert that it was executed; and the bold and resolute +engineer--he lived three quarters of a century before Brindley--was +Pierre Paul Riquet. This man was one of those chivalric enthusiasts for +a scheme--one of those gallant soldiers of an idea--who give up their +lives to the task of making a thought a fact. He had laboured at least a +dozen of weary years ere the court took up the plan. He had demonstrated +the thing again and again to commissioners of notabilities, ere the +first stone of the first loch was laid. The work went on; twelve +thousand "navvies" laboured at the task; Riquet had sunk his entire +fortune in it. In thirteen years, the toil was all but accomplished. In +the coming summer the Canal du Midi would be opened--when Riquet +died--the great cup of his life's ambition brimming untasted at his +lips. Six months thereafter, a gay company of king's commissioners, +gracefully headed by Riquet's two sons, rode through the channel of the +water-courses from Beziers to Toulouse, and returned the next week by +water, leading a jubilant procession of twenty-three great barges, +proceeding from the west with cargoes for the annual fair held on the +Rhone, at Beaucaire. Since Riquet's days, all his plans have been, one +by one, carried out. His canal now runs to Agen, where it joins the +Garonne; while at the other end, it is led through the chain of marshes +and lagoons which extend along the Mediterranean, from Perpignan to the +delta of the Rhone, joining the "swift and arrowy" river at Beaucaire. + +I have mentioned the mistral. I had heard a great deal previously about +this wind, and while at Beziers, had the pleasure of making its personal +acquaintance. This mistral is the plague and the curse of the +Mediterranean provinces of France. The ancient historians mention it as +sweeping gravel and stones up into the air. St. Paul talks of the south +wind, which blew softly until there arose against it a fierce wind, +called Euroclydon--certainly the mistral. Madame de Sevigne paints it as +"_le tourbillon, l'ouregan, tous les diables dechainés qui veulent bien +emporter votre chateau_;" and my amazement is, that the hurricane does +not sometimes carry bodily off, if not a chateau, at least the ricketty +villages of the peasants. I had but a taste of this wild, gusty, and +most abominably drying and cutting wind; for the gale which blew for a +couple of days over Beziers formed, I was told, only a very modified +version of the true mistral; but it was quite enough to give a notion of +the wind in the full height of its evil powers. The whole country was +literally one moving cloud of dust. The roads, so to speak, smoked. From +an eminence, you could trace their line for miles by the columns of +white powdered earth driven into the air. As for the paths you actually +traversed, the ground-down gravel was blown from the ruts, leaving the +way scarred, as it were, with ridgy seams, and often worn down to the +level of the subsidiary stratum of rock. The streaky, russet-brown of +the fields was speedily converted into one uniform grey. Never had I +seen anything more intensely or dismally parched up. As for any tree or +vegetable but vines and olives--whose very sustenance and support is +dust and gravel, thriving under the liability to such visitations--the +thing was impossible. Nor was the dust by any means the only evil. The +wind seemed poisonous; it made the eyes--mine, at all events--smart and +water; cracked the lips, as a sudden alternation from heat to cold will +do; caused a little accidentally inflicted scratch to ache and shoot; +and finally, dried, hardened, and roughened the skin, until one felt in +an absolute fever. The cold in the shade, let it be noted, was +intense--a pinching, nipping cold, in noways frosty or kindly; while in +sheltered corners the heat was as unpleasant, the blaze of an unclouded +sun darting right down upon the parched and gleaming earth. All this, +however, I was told, formed but a modified attack of mistral. The true +wind mingles with the flying dust a greyish or yellowish haze, through +which the sun shines hot, yet cheerless. I had, however, a specimen of +the wind, which quite satisfied me, and which certainly enables me to +affirm, that the coldest, harshest, and most rheumatic easterly gale +which ever whistled the fogs from Essex marshes over the dripping and +shivering streets of London, is a genial, balmy, and ambrosial zephyr, +compared with the mistral of the ridiculously bepuffed climate of the +South of France. + +Wandering about Beziers, so as to get the features of the olive country +thoroughly into my head, I had a good deal of conversation with the +scattered peasantry--a fierce, wild-looking set of people, dressed in +the common blouse, but a perfectly different race from the quiet, mild, +central and northern agriculturists. Their black, flashing eyes, so +brimful of devilry--their wild, straight, black hair, shooting in +straggling masses over their shoulders, and the fierce vehemence of +gesticulation--the loud, passionate tone of their habitual speech--all +mark the fiery and hot-blooded South. Go into a cabaret, into the high, +darkened room, set round with tables and benches, and you will think the +whole company are in a frantic state of quarrel. Not at all--it is +simply their way of conversing. But if a dispute does break out, they +leap, and scream, and glare into each other's eyes like demons, and the +ready knife is but too often seen gleaming in the air. Here in the South +you will note the change in the style of construction of the farmhouses, +which are clustered in bourgs. Everything is on a great scale, to give +air, the grand object being to let the breeze in, and keep the heat out. +Shade is the universal desideratum. Every auberge has its huge +_remise_--a vast, gloomy shed, into which carts and diligences drive, +where the mangers of the horses stand, and where you will often see the +carriers stretched out asleep. In large, messagerie hotels, these +_remises_, ponderously built of vast blocks of stone, look like enormous +catacombs, or vaults; and the stamping and neighing of the horses, and +the rumbling of entering and departing vehicles, roll along the roof in +thunder. + +Near Beziers, I came upon a good specimen of the South of France bourg, +or agricultural village. Seen from a little distance, it had quite an +imposing appearance--the white, commodious-looking mansions gleaming +cheerily out through the dusky olive-grounds. A closer inspection, +however, showed the real nakedness of the land. The high, white mansions +became great clumsy barns--the lower stories occupied as living places, +the windows above bursting with loads of hay and straw. The crooked, +devious streets were paved with filthy heaps of litter and dung. +Dilapidated ploughs and harrows--their wooden teeth worn down to the +stumps--lay hither and thither round the great gaunt, unpainted +doorways. The window-shutters of every occupied room were shut as +closely as port-holes in a gale of wind, and here and there a wandering +pig or donkey, or a slatternly woman sifting corn upon a piece of +sacking stretched before her door, or a purblind old crone knitting in +the sun, formed the only moving objects which gave life to the dreary +picture. + +In this village, however, dreary as it was, I found a _café_ and a +billiard-table. Where, indeed, in France will you not? Except in the +merest jumble of hovels, you can hardly traverse a hamlet without seeing +the crossed cues and balls figuring on a gaily painted house. You may +not be able to purchase the most ordinary articles a traveller requires, +but you can always have a game at pool. I have frequently found +billiard-rooms in filthy little hamlets, inhabited entirely by persons +of the rank of English agricultural labourers. At home, we associate the +game with great towns, and, perhaps, with the more dissipated portion +of the life of great towns. Here, even with the thoroughly rustic +portion of the population, the game seems a necessary of life. And there +are, too--contrary to what might have been expected--few or no +make-shift-looking, trumpery tables. The _cafés_ in the Palais Royal, or +in the fashionable Boulevards, contain no pieces of furniture of this +description more massive or more elaborately carved and adorned than +many I have met with in places hardly aspiring to the rank of villages. +It has often struck me, that the billiard-table must have cost at least +as much as the house in which it was erected; but the thing seemed +indispensable, and there it was in busy use all day long. A correct +return of the number of billiard-tables in France would give some very +significant statistics relative to the social customs and lives of our +merry neighbours. It would be an odd indication of the habits of the +people, should there be found to be five times as many billiard-tables +in France as there are mangles; and I for one firmly believe that such +would be the result of an impartial perquisition. Besides the _billard_ +and the newspapers--little provincial rags, with which an English grocer +would scorn to wrap up an ounce of pigtail--there are, of course, cards +and dominoes for the frequenters; and they are in as great requisition +all day as the balls and cues. I like--no man likes better--to see the +toilers of the world released from their labours, and enjoying +themselves; but after all there is something, to English ways of +thinking, desperately idle in the scene of a couple of big, burly +working men, sitting in the glare of the sunlight the best part of the +day, wrangling over a greasy pack of cards, or rattling dominoes upon +the little marble tables. I once remarked this to an old French +gentleman. + +"True--too true," he replied; "it was Bonaparte did the mischief. He +made--you know how great a proportion of the country youth of +France--soldiers. When they returned--those who did return--they had +garrison tastes and barrack habits; and those tastes and habits it was +which have brought matters to the pass, that you can hardly travel a +league, even in rural France, without hearing the click of the billiard +balls." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE TRACK-BOAT ON THE CANAL DU MIDI--APPROACH TO THE +MEDITERRANEAN--SALT-MARSHES AND SALT-WORKS--A CIRCUS +THRASHING-MACHINE--THE MEDITERRANEAN AND ITS CRAFT--CETTE AND +ITS MANUFACTURED WINES, WITH A PRIEST'S VIEWS ON GOURMANDISE. + + +I left Beziers for the Mediterranean, by Pierre Paul Riquet's canal. The +track-boat passes once a-day, taking upwards of thirty-five hours to +make the passage from Toulouse to Cette. The Beziers station is about a +mile from the town; and on approaching it early in the morning, I found +a crowd of people collected on the banks, looking at men dragging the +canal with huge hooks at the end of poles. They were searching for the +body of a poor fellow from Beziers, who had drowned himself under very +remarkable circumstances; and just as the packet-boat came up, the +corpse was raised, stark and stiff, almost from beneath it. The deceased +was a _decrotteur_, or boot-cleaner, and a light porter at Beziers--a +quiet, inoffensive man, who, by dint of untiring industry, and great +self-denial, had scraped together upwards of two hundred and fifty +francs, all of which he lent another _decrotteur_, without taking legal +security for the money. After the stipulated term for the loan had +elapsed, the poor lender naturally pressed for his cash. He was put off +from month to month with excuses; and when, at length, he became urgent +for repayment, the debtor laughed in his face, told him to do his best +and his worst, and get his money how he could. The _decrotteur_ went +away in a state of frenzy, and procured and charged a pistol, with which +he returned to the rascal borrower. + +"Will you pay me?--ay or no?" he said. + +"No," replied the other; "go about your business." + +The creditor instantly levelled his pistol and fired. Down went his +antagonist, doubled up in a heap on the road, and away went the assassin +as hard as his legs could carry him, to a bridge leading over the canal, +from the parapet of which he leaped into the water; while, as he +disappeared, the _quasi_ murdered man got up again, with no other damage +than a face blackened by the explosion of the pistol. He had fallen +through terror, for he was absolutely unscathed. + +The travelling by the Canal du Midi is a sleepy and monotonous business +enough. Mile after mile, and league after league, the boat is gliding +along between grassy or rushy banks, and rows of poplar, and sometimes +of acacia trees, the monotonous tramp of the team upon the bank mingling +with the endless gurgle of the waters beneath. The towing paths are +generally very lifeless. Now and then a solitary peasant, with his heavy +sharp-pointed hoe--an implement, in fact, half hoe and half +pick-axe--upon his shoulder, saunters up to see the boat go by; or a +shepherd, whistling to his flock, paces slowly at their head, wandering +to and fro in search of the greenest bits of pasture; or a handful of +jabbering women, from some neighbouring bourg, will be squatted along +the water's edge, certainly not obeying Napoleon's injunction to wash +their _linge sale en famille_, but pounding away at sheets and shirts +with heavy stones or wooden mallets--the counterparts of the instruments +used in Scotland to "get up" fine linen, and there called "beetles." The +bridges are shot cleverly. At a shout from the steersman, the +postillion, who rides one of the hindmost horses of the team, jumps off, +casts loose the tow-line, runs with the end of it to the centre of the +bridge, drops it aboard as the boat comes beneath, catches it up again +on the opposite side, flies back after his horses which have trotted +very tranquilly ahead, hooks on the rope again, jumps into his saddle, +cracks his long whip, and the boat is off again in full career long ere +she has lost her former headway. Little of the country can be seen from +the deck, but along the southern and eastern half of the canal you +seldom lose sight of the dusty tops of the formal olive groves, varied +now and then by a stony slope covered with ugly, sprawling vines, and as +you approach the sea, dotted with white, little country houses--of which +more hereafter--the glimpses of the changing picture being continually +set in a brown frame of sterile hills. + +The boats are long and narrow; the cabins like corridors, but +comfortably cushioned and stuffed, so that you can sleep in them, even +if the boat be tolerably crowded, as well as in a diligence. If there be +few passengers, you will have full-length room. The _restaurant_ on +board is excellent--as good as that on the Garonne boats, and very +cheap. Let all English travellers, however, beware of the steward's +department on the Loire and Rhone steamers, in both of which I have +been thoroughly swindled. The style of people who seemingly use the +track-boat on the Canal du Midi, are the _rotonde_ class of diligence +passengers. Going down to Cette, there were two or three families, +almost entirely composed of females, aboard; the elder ladies--horrid, +snuffy old women, who were always having exclusive cups of chocolate or +coffee, or little basins of soup, and who never appeared to move from +the spots on which they were deposited since the voyage began. + +Two of these families had canaries in cages, a very common practice in +France, where the people continually try, even in travelling, to keep +their household gods about them. Look at the baggage of your Frenchman +_en voyage_. All the old clothes of the last dozen of years are sure to +be lugged about in it. There is, perhaps, a pormanteau, exclusively +devoted to old boots, and half-a-dozen pasteboard hat-boxes, with +half-a-dozen hats, utterly beyond wearing. The plague of all this +baggage is dreadful; but the proprietor would go through any amount of +inconvenience rather than lose one stitch of his innumerable old +_hardes_. + +After passing the headland and dull old town of Agde, the former crowned +by the lighthouse I had seen from the road to Beziers, we fairly entered +into the great zone of salt swamps which here line the Mediterranean. It +was a desolate and dreary prospect. The land on either side stretched +away in a dead flat; now dry and parched, again traversed by green +streaks of swamp, and anon broken by clear, shallow pools of water. +Sometimes, again, you entered a perfect jungle of huge bulrushes, +stretching away as far as the eye could follow, and evidently teeming +with wild ducks, which rose in vast coveys, and flew landward or seaward +in their usual wedge-shaped order of flight. The sea, to which we were +approaching at a sharp angle, was still invisible, but you felt the +refreshing savour of the brine in the air, and now and then you caught, +sparkling for a moment in the bright, hot sunshine, a distant jet of +feathery spray, as a heavier wave than common came thundering along the +beach. Presently, the brown waste through which we were passing became +streaked with whitish belts and patches--the salt left by the +evaporation of the brine, which now begins to soak and well through the +spongy soil, and presently to expand into lakes and shallow belts of +water. Across these, long rows of stakes for nets, stretched away in +endless column, and here and there a rude, light boat floated, or a +fisherman slowly waded from point to point. Great herons and cranes +stood like sentinels in the shallow water, and flocks of sandpipers and +plovers ran along the white salt-powdered sand. Then came on the left, +or landward side, a series of tumuli of pyramidical form, some of them +white, others of a dark brown, scattered over a space of scores of +square miles. I wondered who were the inhabitants of this lake of the +dismal swamp, and accordingly pointed out the houses, as I conceived +them, to the captain. + +"Houses, monsieur!" he said; "these are all salt heaps. Salt is the +harvest of this country, and they stack it in these piles, just as the +people inland do their corn. When the heap is not expected to be wanted +soon, they thatch it with reeds and grass; but if they expect to get a +quick sale, they don't take the trouble. So you see that some of the +heaps are dark, and the others like snow-balls." + +"But if there come rain?" + +"Not much fear of that in this part of the world. There may be a shower, +but the salt is so hard and compacted, that it will do little more than +wash the dirt off." + +[Illustration: THRASHING CORN.] + +Presently we came to the salt-making basins--great shallow lakes, +divided by dykes into squares somewhat in the style of a chess-board; +and here the solitude of the expanse was broken by the figures of the +workmen clambering along the narrow dykes to watch and superintend the +progress of evaporation. By the side of these lakes, rows of ugly +rectangular cottages were erected, and slight carts drawn by two horses, +one ahead of the other, moved the loads of salt from the pans, or pools, +to the heaps in which it was stored. Here and there, where the ground +rose a little, a thin crop of maize, or barley, appeared to have been +cultivated; and it was probably some such harvest that I saw being +thrashed by the peculiar process in use all through Provence and +southern Languedoc. There are very few thrashing mills, even in the best +cultivated parts of France. Over the vast proportion of the kingdom, the +orthodox old flail bears undisturbed sway; but the farmer of the far +South chooses rather to employ horse than human muscles in the work. He +lays down, therefore, in a handy spot, a circular pavement, generally of +brick, a little larger than the ring at Astley's. All along the swampy +shores of the Mediterranean, traversed by the delta of the Rhone, and +stretching westward towards Spain, there feed upon the scanty herbage +great herds of semi-wild horses, said to have been originally of Arabian +descent. These creatures are caught, when needed, much in the style of +the Landes desert steeds, and every farmer has a right to a certain +number corresponding with the size of his farm. When, then, the harvest +has been cut, and the thrashing time comes on, you may see, approaching +the steeding, an unruly flock of lean, lanky, leggy horses, most of them +grey, driven by three or four mounted peasants--capital cavaliers--each +with a long lance like a trident held erect, and a lasso coiled at the +saddle-bow. Then work commences: the wild steeds are tolerably docile, +although shy and skittish. A heavy bit is forced into the mouth of each, +with a long bridle attached. The creatures are arranged in a circle on +the edge of the brick flooring, exactly as when Mr. Widdicombe or M. +Franconi prepare for an unrivalled feat of horsemanship upon eight +bare-backed steeds by the "Whirlwind Rider," surnamed the "Pet of the +Ring," or the famous artiste, "Herr Bridleinski, the Hungarian Tamer of +the Flying Steeds." The sheaves of corn are placed just where the active +grooms at Astley's rake the sawdust thickest; and then, in answer to the +thundering exhortations of Mr. Widdicombe and his coadjutors in the +centre of the ring, and the cracking of the whips, the horses, held by +their long bridles, go plunging and rearing round the arena, and, after +more or less obstreperousness, settle into a shambling trot, treading +out the corn as they go, and preserving the pace for a wonderful length +of time. At night, the creatures are released, and left to shift for +themselves. They seldom stray far from the farm, and are easily +recaptured and brought back to work next day. The four-legged thrashers, +I am sorry to say, are rather scurvily treated, for they get nothing in +return for their labour better than straw--a poor diet for a day's trot. +The first time I saw this equestrian thrashing-machine in motion, the +effect was very odd. I could not dissociate it from the equestrian +performance of some wandering company of high-bred steeds and "star +riders." The only thing that seemed strange was, that there should be no +spectators; and, after a little time, that there should be no human +performers. Round and round, at a long, irregular trot, went the lanky +brutes--sometimes breaking out--plunging, and taking it into their +heads, as their Rochester cousin, hired by Mr. Winkle, did, to go +sideways, but always reduced to obedience by a few smacking persuaders +from the whip. But where was the illustrious Whirlwind Rider, who +should have stood on all their necks at once, or the famous Bridleinski, +who should have stood on all their haunches? No shrill clown's voice +echoed from the circus. The stolid, bloused, straw-hatted master of the +ring was a perfect disgrace and reproach to Mr. Widdicombe, who, if he +had been on board the boat, would infallibly have taken refuge in the +run, rather than contemplated such a melancholy mockery of his mission +and his functions. + +At length there gleamed before us a noble sheet of water, ruffled by a +steady breeze, before which one of the Lateen-rigged craft of the +Mediterranean was bowling merrily, driving a rolling wave of foam on +either side of her bluff bows. This was the Lagoon, or Etang, of Thau, a +salt-water lake about a dozen of miles long, and opening up by a narrow +channel--on both banks of which rises the flourishing town of +Cette--into the Mediterranean. For the greater part of its length, only +a strip of sand and shingle interposes between the lake and the sea, and +as the steamer to which we were transferred, at the end of the canal, +paddled its way to Cette, we could see every moment the surf of the open +ocean rising beyond the barrier. The passage along the Etang is pretty +and characteristic. On the left lie, in a long, blue chain, the hills of +the Cevennes--distance hiding their barren bleakness from the eye--while +along the inland edge of the water, village after village, the houses +sparklingly white, are mirrored in the lake, with a little fleet of +lateen-rigged fishing boats, the sails usually very ragged, pursuing +their occupation before each hamlet. Now and then we were passed by +huge feluccas, rolling away before the wind, and bound for the Canal du +Midi, with great cargoes of hay and straw, heaped up half as high as the +mast--the lateen-sail having to be half furled in consequence, and the +captain shouting his orders to the steersman as from the top of a stack +in a barnyard. The scene reminded me greatly of the hay-barges of the +Thames bringing up to London the crops of Kent and Essex. + +At length we were landed among groups of Mediterranean sailors, with +Phrygian caps--otherwise conical red night-caps--and ugly-looking knives +in their belts. The women had the usual Naiad peculiarity of short +petticoats, and wore them, too, of a showy, striped stuff, which +reminded me of the Newhaven fish-wives, near Edinburgh. This Phrygian +cap, by the way, is the prototype of the ordinary cap of liberty, which +our good neighbours are so fond of sticking on the stumps of what they +call "trees of liberty"--of painting, of carving, of apostrophising, of +waving, of exalting--which, in short, they are so fond of doing +everything with--but wearing. The effect, as a head-dress, on the Cette +fishermen, was not unpleasant. The long, conical top, and tassel, give a +degree of drapery to the figure, and the cap itself seems luxuriously +comfortable to the head. + +A well-appointed little omnibus rattled me through busier streets than I +had seen for many a day, by open counting-houses, and under the great +lateen yards of feluccas lying in rows, with their bows to the quays, +and across a light, wooden swing-bridge, haunted by just such tarry +mortals as you see about St. Katherine's docks; and at length I was set +down at the wide portal of the Hotel de Poste--a straggling, airy +hostelry, such as befits the hot and glaring South. Still, I had not +seen the Mediterranean. The great _coup_ was yet unachieved: so, getting +five words of instruction from a waiter, I hurried through some narrow +streets, crossed two or three more swing-bridges, skirted half-a-dozen +boat-building yards, very like similar establishments in Wapping, and +then suddenly emerged upon the open beach, with sand-hills, and long +bent, or seagrass, rustling in the soft southern wind, with the blue of +the great inland sea stretching away, deep and lovely, before me; and +with the hissing water and foam-laced inner wavelets of the surf +creaming to my feet. A sensation, it will be admitted, is a pleasant +thing in these _blasé_ days, and the Mediterranean afforded one. There +came on me a vague, crowded, and indistinct vision, at once, of +schoolboy recollections and many a subsequent day-dream--of Roman +galleys, _triremes_ and _quadremes_, with brazen beaks and hundred oars, +moving like the legs of a centipede; of all the picturesque craft of the +middle-ages; of the fleets of Venice; the argosies and tall +merchant-barks which carried on the rich commerce of northern Italy; of +the Algerine corsairs, which so often bore down upon the Lion of St. +Marks; of the quick-pulling piratical craft; the rovers who pillaged +from the mouths of the Nile to the Pillars of Hercules; and of the whole +tribe of modern Mediterranean vessels, which thousands and thousands of +pictures have made classic, with their high peaked sails, and striped +gaudy canvass; the whole tribe of feluccas and polacres, whereof, as I +gazed, I could see here and there the scattered sails, gleaming like +bird-wings upon the sea. The Mediterranean is, after all, the sea of the +world: we associate it with everything classic and beautiful, either in +art or climate; and although we know well that its lazy, saint-ridden +seamen, and its picturesque, but dirty and ill-sailed, vessels would fly +before a breeze which a North-sea fisherman or a Channel boatman would +consider a mere puff,--still there is something racily and specially +picturesque about the black-eyed, swarthy, copper ear-ringed rascals, +and something dearly familiar about the high, graceful peaks of the +sails around which they cluster. From the beach I went to the harbour, +which was crowded almost to its entrance, but, for reasons to be +presently alluded to, I was not sorry to recognise not one union-jack +among the Stars and Stripes--Dutch and Brazilian ensigns, which were +flying from every mast-head. Few Mediterranean harbours are savoury +places. It will be remembered that "there shrinks no ebb in that +tideless sea;" and accordingly, when the drainage of a town or a +district is led into the harbours, there it stays. Marseilles enjoys a +most unenviable notoriety in this respect. The horrible fluid beneath +you becomes, in the summer time, despite its salt, absolutely putrid; +and I was told that there had been instances in which it bred noisome +and abhorrent insects and reptiles--that, literally and absolutely, +"slimy things did crawl, with legs, upon the slimy sea." + +As for the stench, the richness of the steam of fat gases perpetually +rising, must be smelt to be appreciated. The Marseillaise, however, have +sturdy noses, which do not yield to trifles. They say the dirt preserves +the ships, and besides, adds Dumas--a great favourer of the ancient +colony of the Greeks--"what a fool a man must be, who, under such a +glorious sky, turns his eyes down to gaze on mud and water!" + +The harbour of Cette is not quite so bad, but it has no particular +transparency of water to recommend it. Brave its foulness, however, and +go and visit the quays for the fishing-boats, as they are returning from +their night's toil. Mark the Catalan craft--you will perhaps remember +that the redoubted Monte Christo's first love was a Catalan girl, of a +Catalan village near Marseilles:--did you ever see more +exquisitely-formed boats afloat on the water? They swim apparently on +the very surface--the curve of the gunwale rising to a gondola peak at +stem and stern; but yet they are most buoyant sea-boats, and I suspect +their speed, particularly in light winds, would put even that of the +Yankee pilot-boats to a severe test. Look, too, at their cargoes, as the +slippery masses are being shovelled up in glancing, gleaming spadefuls, +to the quays. Did you ever see such odd fish? Respectable haddocks, +decent and well-to-do cods, and unpretending soles, would never be seen +in such strange, eccentric company--among fellows with heads bigger than +bodies, and eyes in their backs, and tails absurdly misplaced, and +feelers or legs where no fish with well-regulated minds would dream of +having such appendages--never was there seen such a strange _omnium +gatherum_ of piscatory eccentricities as the fishes of the +Mediterranean. + +I said that it was good--good for our stomachs--to see no English +bunting at Cette. The reason is, that Cette is a great manufacturing +place, and that what they manufacture there is neither cotton nor wool, +Perigord pies, nor Rheims biscuits,--but wine. "_Ici_," will a Cette +industrial write with the greatest coolness over his Porte +Cochere--"_Ici on fabrique des vins._" All the wines in the world, +indeed, are made in Cette. You have only to give an order for +Johannisberg, or Tokay--nay, for all I know, for the Falernian of the +Romans, or the Nectar of the gods--and the Cette manufacturers will +promptly supply you. They are great chemists, these gentlemen, and have +brought the noble art of adulteration to a perfection which would make +our own mere logwood and sloe-juice practitioners pale and wan with +envy. But the great trade of the place is not so much adulterating as +concocting wine. Cette is well-situated for this notable manufacture. +The wines of southern Spain are brought by coasters from Barcelona and +Valencia. The inferior Bordeaux growths come pouring from the Garonne by +the Canal du Midi; and the hot and fiery Rhone wines are floated along +the chain of etangs and canals from Beaucaire. With all these raw +materials, and, of course, a chemical laboratory to boot, it would be +hard if the clever folks of Cette could not turn out a very good +imitation of any wine in demand. They will doctor you up bad Bordeaux +with violet powders and rough cider--colour it with cochineal and +turnsole, and outswear creation that it is precious Chateau +Margaux--vintage of '25. Champagne, of course, they make by hogsheads. +Do you wish sweet liqueur wines from Italy and the Levant? The Cette +people will mingle old Rhone wines with boiled sweet wines from the +neighbourhood of Lunel, and charge you any price per bottle. Do you wish +to make new Claret old? A Cette manufacturer will place it in his oven, +and, after twenty-fours' regulated application of heat, return it to you +nine years in bottle. Port, Sherry, and Madeira, of course, are +fabricated in abundance with any sort of bad, cheap wine and brandy, for +a stock, and with half the concoctions in a druggist's shop for +seasoning. Cette, in fact, is the very capital and emporium of the +tricks and rascalities of the wine-trade; and it supplies almost all the +Brazils, and a great proportion of the northern European nations with +their after-dinner drinks. To the grateful Yankees it sends out +thousands of tons of Ay and Moet, besides no end of Johannisberg, +Hermitage, and Chateau Margaux, the fine qualities and dainty aroma of +which are highly prized by the transatlantic amateurs. The Dutch flag +fluttered plentifully in the harbour, so that I presume Mynheer is a +customer to the Cette industrials--or, at all events, he helps in the +distribution of their wares. The old French West Indian colonies also +patronise their ingenious countrymen of Cette; and Russian magnates get +drunk on Chambertin and Romanee Conti, made of low Rhone, and low +Burgundy brewages, eked out by the contents of the graduated phial. I +fear, however, that we do come in--in the matter of "fine golden +Sherries, at 22_s._ 9-1/2_d._ a dozen," or "peculiar old-crusted Port, +at 1_s._ 9_d._"--for a share of the Cette manufactures; and it is very +probable that after the wine is fabricated upon the shores of the +Mediterranean, it is still further improved upon the banks of the +Thames. + +At dinner-time, I found myself placed by the side of a +benevolent-looking old priest, with white hair, but cheeks and gills of +the most approved rubicund hue, who first eyed the dishes through a pair +of vast golden spectacles, and meditated profoundly ere he made a +choice--waving away the eternal _bouilli_ with an expression which +showed that he was not the man to spoil a good appetite with mere boiled +beef. This worthy, hearing me making interest with the waiter for a +peculiar bottle of wine, not of native manufacture, smiled paternally, +and with an approving countenance: "I would recommend," he said, softly, +and in a fat voice, "you to try Masdeu; and, if you please, I will join +you. I know Gilliaume (the waiter) of old. _C'est un bon enfant._" And +then, in a severe voice, "_The_ Masdeu, William." + +The priest was clearly at home; and presently the wine came. It had the +brightly deep glow of Burgundy, a bouquet not unlike Claret, and tasted +like the lightest and purest Port glorified and etherealised; in fact, +it was a rare good wine. + +"Ah!" said the priest, pouring out a second glass; "the vineyard where +this was grown once belonged to the Church. The Knights of the Temple +once drank this wine, and the Knights of St. John after them. It is a +good wine." + +"The Church understood the grape," I remarked. "I have drunk Hermitage +where the recluse fathers tended the vines, and have always looked upon +Rhone wine as one of the reasons why the Holy Father at Avignon was long +so loath to be the Holy Father at Rome." + +"Wine," replied my compotator, "is not forbidden, either by the laws of +God or the Church; and never was. Only the Vulgate denounces mixed +wines." + +"By the mixed wines prohibited in Holy Writ," said I, "I presume you +understand adulterated, not watered liquors. If so, we are in a sad city +of sinners." + +The priest smiled, but changed the topic. + +"Masdeu," he said, "is Catalan; you know the wine is grown not far from +Perpignan, where the people are half Spanish. Do you know the meaning of +Masdeu? It is a very old name for the vineyard, and it signifies 'God's +field.'" + +I thought of the difference of national character between the French and +the Germans--"God's field" in France, a vineyard; "God's field" in +Germany, a churchyard. + +"The ancient Romans," continued my friend, "liked the wines, the sweet +wines of this country, better than any other growths in Gaul." + +"The Romans," I said, "had a most swinish taste in wines, and dishes +too. The Falernian was boiled syrup, cooked up with drugs, and tempered +with salt water. Only think of mixing brine with your tipple; or of +placing it in a _fumarium_, to imbibe the flavour of the smoke! The +Romans were mere liqueur drinkers. Aniseed, or maraschino, or parfait +amour, or any trash of that kind, would have suited them better than +genuine, fine-flavoured wine." + +"_Pourtant_;" said my friend; "you go too far; maraschino and parfait +amour are not trash. Although I agree with you, that the palate which +eternally appeals for sweets is in a morbid condition. But the Romans, +after all, must have had tongues of peculiar nicety for some savours. A +Roman epicure could tell, by the relative tenderness, the leg upon which +a partridge had been in the habit of sitting at night, and whether a +carp had been caught above or below a certain bridge." + +"Or was it not," I asked, with hazy reminiscences of Juvenal floating +about me,--"was it not a certain sewer--the Cloaca Maxima, perhaps?" + +"Only," argued the priest in continuation, "I could never understand +their fondness for lampreys." + +"Perhaps," said I, "it is because you never tasted them after they had +been fattened on slaves." + +"Perhaps it is," replied the good man, musing. + +By this time dinner was over, and the guests gone. We had the remains of +the dessert, the pick-tooths, and another bottle of the Catalan wine to +ourselves. + +"You French," I ventured, "hardly seem worthy of your fine wines. You +never appear to care about them; you seldom sit a moment after dinner to +enjoy them; and if you relish anything more than another, it is +Champagne, which, after all, is but a baby taste. All your very best +wine goes to England; most of your second-class growths to Russia; and +your lower sorts to the northern nations on the Baltic. I don't think +there is anything like a generally cultivated taste for good wine in +France, and yet you are supreme in the _cuisine_." + +"It was the _fermiers generaux_, and the _financiers_," replied the +priest, "who made French cookery what it is. They tried to outshine the +old noblesse at table; they revived truffles, and they had the first +dishes of green pease, at eight hundred francs a _plat_. Next to the +financiers were the chevaliers and the abbés. _Oh, mon Dieu! qu'ils +étaient gourmands ces chers amis_; the chevaliers all swagger and dash; +the sword right up and down--shoulder-knot flaunting--a bold bearing and +a keen eye. The abbés, in velvet and silk--as fat as carps, as sleek as +moles, and as soft-footed as cats--little and sly--perfect enjoyers of +the gourmandise. Oh, there was nothing more snug than an _abbé +commanditaire_! He had consideration, position, money; no one to please, +and nothing to do." + +"These were the good old times," I said. + +"_Ma foi!_" replied the clerical dignitary; "they were bad times for +France in general; but they were rare times for the few who lived upon +it. There were Frenchmen, at any rate, then, who understood wine; at +least, they drunk enough of it to understand the science, from the alpha +to the omega." + +We parted, after a proper degree of hand-shaking; and a quarter of an +hour afterwards I was rattling along the Montpellier and Cette railway, +with a ticket for Lunel in my pocket. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +MORE ABOUT THE OLIVE-TREE--THE GATHERING OF THE OLIVES--LUNEL--A +NIGHT WITH A SCORE OF MOSQUITOES--AIGUES-MORTES--THE DEAD +LANDSCAPE--THE MARSH FEVER--A STRANGE CICERONE--THE LAST +CRUSADING KING--THE SALTED BURGUNDIANS--THE POISONED +CAMISARDS--THE MEDITERRANEAN. + + +Passing, for the present, Montpellier, where people with consumptions +used to be sent to swallow dust, as likely to be soothing to the lungs, +and to breathe the balmy zephyrs of the whispering mistral, I made +straight for Lunel, in order to get from thence to one of the strangest +old towns in France--Aigues-Mortes. All around us, as we hurried on, +were vines and olives--a true land of wine and oil. The olive-tree did +not improve on acquaintance--it got uglier and uglier--more formal, and +more cast-iron looking, the more you saw of it. And then it was +invariably planted in rows, at regular intervals, so as to give the +notion of a prim old garden--never of a wood. Like all fruit-trees in +France, the olive is most carefully trimmed, and clipped, and tortured, +and twisted into the most approved or fashionable shape. The man who can +make his _oliviers_ look most like umbrellas is the great cultivator; +and the services of the peasants who have got a reputation for olive +dressing are better paid than those of any agricultural labourers in +France. They are eternally snipping and slashing, and turning and +twisting the tree, until the unfortunate specimens have had any small +degree of natural ease and harmony which they possessed assiduously +wrenched out of them. And yet there are people in the South of France +who are enthusiastic on the hidden beauty of the olive. There are +technical terms for all the particular spreads and contortions given to +the branches; and the olive amateur will hold forth to you by the hour +upon the subtle charms of each. A gentleman from beyond Marseilles has +dilated with rapture to me on his delight, after a residence in +Normandy, in returning again to the hot South, and revisiting the dear +olives, so prim, and orderly, and symmetrical--not like the huge, +straggling, sprawling oaks and elms of the North, growing up in utter +defiance of all rule and system. + +The olives of France, this gentleman informed me, are very inferior to +the trees of a couple of generations ago. Towards the close of the last +century, there was a winter night of intense frost; and when the morning +broke, the trees were nearly smitten to the core. That year there was +not an olive gathered in Provence or Languedoc. The next season, some of +the stronger and younger trees partially revived, and slips were planted +from those to which the axe had been applied; but the entire species of +the tree, he assured me, had fallen off--had dwindled, and pined, and +become stunted; and the profits of olive cultivation had faded with it. +The gentleman spoke on the subject with a degree of unction which would +have suited the fall, not of the olive, but of man. It was a catastrophe +which coloured his whole life. He was himself an olive proprietor; and +very likely his fortunes fell on the fatal night as many points as the +thermometer. On our way to Lunel we saw the olive-gathering just +beginning; but, alas! it had none of the gaiety and bright associations +of the vintage. On the contrary, it was as business-like and unexciting +as weeding onions, or digging potatoes. A set of ragged peasants--the +country people hereabouts are poorly dressed--were clambering barefoot +in the trees, each man with a basket tied before him, and lazily +plucking the dull oily fruit. Occasionally, the olive-gatherers had +spread a white cloth beneath the tree, and were shaking the very ripe +fruit down; but there was neither jollity nor romance about the process. +The olive is a tree of association, but that is all. Its culture, its +manuring, and clipping, and trimming, and grafting--the gathering of its +fruits, and their squeezing in the mill, when the ponderous stone goes +round and round in the glutinous trough, crushing the very essence out +of the oily pulps--while the fat, oleaginous stream pours lazily into +the greasy vessels set to receive it;--all this is as prosaic and +uninteresting as if the whole Royal Agricultural Society were presiding +in spirit over the operations. And, after all, what could be expected? +"Grapes," said a clever Frenchman, "are wine-pills"--the notion of +conviviality and mirth is ever attached to them; and the vintagers, when +stripping the loaded branches, have their minds involuntarily carried +forward to the joyous ultimate results of their labours. But who--our +friends the Russians, and their cousins the Esquimaux excepted--could +possibly be jolly over the idea of oil? It may act balsamically and +soothingly; and the idea of the olive saucer, green amongst the bright +decanters, does approach, in some respect, towards the production of a +pleasant association of ideas; but still the elevated and poetic +feelings connected with the tree are remote and dim. + +It was Minerva's tree. When the gods assembled to decide the dispute +between Pallas and Neptune, as to which should baptize the rising +Athens, it was determined that the honour should belong to whichever of +the twain presented the greatest gift to man. Neptune struck the earth, +and a horse sprung to day. Minerva waved her hand, and the olive-tree +grew up before the conclave. The goddess won the day, inasmuch as the +sapient assemblage decided that the olive, as an emblem of peace, was +better than the horse, as an emblem of war. Now, I would put this +question to Olympus:--How could the olive or the horse be emblems before +they were created? And, even if they were emblems, was not the point at +issue the best gift--not the best allegorical symbol? I beg, therefore, +to assure Neptune that I consider him to have been an ill-used +individual, and to express a hope that, if he should ever again come +into power, he will not forget my having paid my respects to him in his +adversity. + +I do not know if I have anything particular to record respecting Lunel, +which is a quiet, stupid, shadowy place, but that I passed the night +engaged in mortal combat with a predatory band of mosquitoes. I was +warned, before going to bed, to take care how I managed the operation, +and to whip myself through the gauze curtains so as to allow nothing to +enter _en suite_. The bed--I don't know why--had been placed in the +middle of the room, and the filmy net curtains, like fairy drapery, were +snugly tucked in beneath the bedding. Looking at them more particularly, +I distinguished a little card, accidentally left adhering to the net, +which informed me that it was the fabrication of those wondrous +lace-machines of Nottingham; and I trusted that as Britannia rules the +waves, she would also baffle the mosquitoes. Perhaps it was my own fault +that she did not. I remembered Captain Basil Hall's admirable +description of doing the wretched insects in question by leaping +suddenly into bed, like harlequin through a clock-dial, and frantically +closing up the momentary opening, and I performed the feat in question +with as much agility as I could. But what has befallen the gallant +captain, also on that night befell me. Mosquitoes shoot into a bed like +the Whigs into office--through the most infinitesimal crevices--but with +the entrance the resemblance ceases--once in office, with the country +sleeping tolerably comfortably, the Whigs do nothing. Not so, the +mosquitoes. Their policy is perfectly different, and their energies +vastly greater. For a true sketch of the style of mosquito +administration, I must again refer to Hall. His picture is true--true to +a bite, to a scratch, to a hum. I might paint it again, but any one can +see the original. So I content myself with simply stating that from +eleven o'clock, P.M., till an unknown hour next morning, I was leaping +up and down the bed, striking myself furious blows all over, but never, +apparently, hitting my blood-thirsty enemies, and only now and then +occasionally sinking into a momentary doze to be roused by that loud, +clear trumpet of war--the very music of spite and pique and greediness +of blood, circling round and round in the darkness, and ever coming +nearer and nearer, till at last it ceased, and then came--the bite, as +regularly as the applause after the cavatina of a prima donna. I made my +appearance next morning, looking exactly as if I had been attacked in +the night by measles, the mumps, swollen face, and erysipelas. + +Between Aigues-Mortes and Lunel, there is no public vehicle, because +there is no travelling public; and so I hired a ricketty, shandry-dan +looking affair, to take me on; and away we started, under a perfect +blaze of hot, sickly sunshine. The road ran due south, through the +vineyards and olives, but they gradually faded away as the soil got more +and more spongy, and presently we saw before us a waste of the same sort +as that which I have described on approaching the sea by the Canal du +Midi. Shallow pools, salt marshes, and bulrush jungles, lay flat and +silent, glaring in the sunshine--the watchful crane, the sole living +creature to be seen amid these desolate swamps. It struck me that John +Bunyan, had he ever seen a landscape like this strange, stagnant expanse +of dreariness, would have made grand use of it in that great prose poem +of his. Perhaps he would have called it "Dead Corpse Land," or the +Slough--not of Despond, but of Despair. Presently we found the road +running upon a raised embankment, with two great lakes, spotted with +rushy islands on either hand, and before us a grim, grey tower, with an +ancient gateway--the gates or portcullis long since removed, but a +Gothic arch still spanning the roughly-paved causeway. As we rattled +beneath it, two or three lounging _douaniers_ came forth, and looked +lazily at us; and presently we saw the grey walls of Aigues-Mortes +rising, massive and square, above the level lines of the marshes, +fronted by one lone minaret, called the "Tower of Constance"--a gloomy +steeple-prison, where, in the time of the Camisards, a crowd of women +were confined--the wives and daughters of the brave Protestants of the +Cevennes, who fought their country inch by inch against the dragoons of +Louis Quatorze, and who--the prisoners, I mean--were forced to swallow +poison by the agents of that right royal and religious king, the pious +hero and Champion of the Faith, as it is in the Vatican. Outside the +town looks like a mere fortification--you see nothing but the sweep of +the massive walls reflected in the stagnant waters which lie dead around +them. Not a house-top appears above the ramparts. It is only by the thin +swirlings of the wood-fire smoke that you know that human life exists +behind that blank and dreary veil of stone. We entered by a deep Gothic +arch, and found ourselves in narrow, gloomy, silent streets, the houses +grey and ghastly, and many ruinous and deserted. The rotten remnants of +the green _jalousies_ were mouldering week by week away, and moss and +lichens were creeping up the walls; many roofs had fallen, and of some +houses only fragments of wall remained. The next moment we were +traversing an open space, strewn with rubbish of stone, brick, and +rotten wood, with patches of dismal garden-ground interspersed, and all +round the dim, grey, silent houses, dismal and dead. Aigues-Mortes +could, and once did, hold about ten thousand people. It was a city built +in whim by a king, the last of the royal crusaders, Louis IX. of France. +By him and his immediate descendants, it was esteemed a holy place--the +crusading port. The walls built round it, and which still remain--as the +empty armour, after the knight who once filled it is dead and gone--were +erected in imitation of those of the Egyptian town of Damietta, and all +sorts of privileges were granted to the inhabitants. But one privilege +the old kings of France could not grant: they could not, by any amount +of letters patent, or any seize of seals, confer immunity from fever; +and Aigues-Mortes has been dying of ague ever since it was founded. In +its early times, the influence of royal favour struggled long and well +against disease: one man down, another came on. What loyal Frenchman +would refuse to go from hot fits to cold fits of fever, for a certain +number of months, and then to his long home, if it were to pleasure a +descendant of St. Louis? But the time and the influences of the Holy +Wars went by, and the kings of France withdrew their smiles from +Aigues-Mortes; so that their royal brother, King Death, had it all his +own way. Funerals far outnumbered births or weddings, and gradually the +life faded and faded from the stone-girt town, as the ebbing tide leaves +a pier. Cette gave it the finishing stroke. A crowd of the inhabitants +emigrated _en masse_ to Riquet's city; and here now is +Aigues-Mortes--coffin-like Aigues-Mortes--with about a couple of +thousand pallid, shaking mortals, striving their best against the marsh +fever, among the ruined houses and within the smouldering walls of this +ancient Gothic city. + +In a solemn, shady street, I found a decentish hotel, not much above the +rank of an auberge, and where I was about as lonely as in the vast +caravansary at Bagnerre. The landlord himself--a staid, decent +man--waited at my solitary dinner. + +"Monsieur," he said, "is an artist, or a poet?" + +"What made him think so?" + +"Because nobody else ever came to Aigues-Mortes--no traveller ever +turned aside across the marshes, to visit their poor old decayed town. +There was no trade, no _commis voyageurs_. The people of Nismes and +Montpellier were afraid of the fever; and even if they were not, why +should they come there? It was no place for pleasure on a holiday--a man +would as soon think of amusing himself in a hospital or a morgue, as in +Aigues-Mortes." + +I inquired more particularly about the fever, for I felt it difficult to +conceive how people could continue to remain in a place cursed by nature +with a perpetual chronic plague. My host informed me that those who +lived well and copiously, were well clothed, well lodged, and under no +necessity to be out early and late among the marshes, fared tolerably. +They might have an ague-fit now and then, but when once well-seasoned +they did pretty well. It was the poorer class who suffered, particularly +in spring and autumn, when vegetation was forming and withering, and +the steaming mists came out thickest over the fens. People seldom died +with the first attack; but the subtle disease hung about them, and +returned again and again, and wore, and tugged, and exhausted their +energies--kept nibbling, in fact, at body and soul, till, in too many +cases, the disease-besieged man surrendered, and his soul marched out. I +asked again, then, how the poor people remained in such a hot-bed of +pestilence? "_Que voulez vous_," was the reply--"the greater part can't +help it; they were born here, and they have a place here;--at Nismes, or +Marseilles, or Montpellier, they would have no place. Besides, they are +accustomed to it; they look upon fevers as one of the conditions of +their lives, like eating and drinking; and, besides, they have no energy +for a change. The stuff has been taken out of them; you will see what a +sallow, worn-out people we have at Aigues-Mortes. They can get a living +here, but they would be overwhelmed anywhere else." + +The landlord had previously recommended a _cicerone_ to me, assuring me +that I would not find him an ordinary man, that he was a sort of +half-gentleman, and a scholar, and that he knew everything about +Aigues-Mortes better than anybody else in it. Accordingly, I was +presently introduced to M. Auguste Saint Jean, an old, very thin man, +dressed in rusty black, and wearing--hear it, ye degenerate +days!--powdered hair and a queue. M. Saint Jean looked like a +broken-down schoolmaster, some touches of pedantry still giving +formality to the humble sliding gait, and bent, bowing form. His face +was nearly as wrinkled as Voltaire's, but he had black eyes which +gleamed like a ferret's when you show him a rabbit. + +In company with this old gentleman I passed a wandering day in and round +Aigues-Mortes, rambling from gate to gate, scrambling up broken stairs +to the battlements, and threading our way amid dim lanes, half choked up +with rubbish, from one ghastly old tower to another. All this while my +guide's tongue was eloquent. He gesticulated like the most fiercely +fidgetty member of young France, and the ferret's eye gleamed as though +upon a whole warren of rabbits. Aigues-Mortes seemed his one great +subject, his one passion, his own idea. Aigues-Mortes was the bride of +his enthusiasm, the soul of his body. He had been born in Aigues-Mortes; +he had lived in it; he had the fever in it; and he hoped to die in +it, and be buried among the stilly marshes. How well he knew every +crumbling stone, every little Gothic bartizan, every relic of an ancient +chapel, every gloomy tower haunted by traditions, as it might be by +ghosts. His mind flew back every moment to the days of the splendid +founding of Aigues-Mortes--to the crusading host, whose glory crowded it +with armour, and banners, and cloth of gold, assembled round their king, +St. Louis, and bound for Palestine. On the seaward side of the walls, +Auguste shewed me rings sunk in the stone, and to these rings, he said, +the galleys and caravels of the king had been fastened. The sea is about +two miles and a half distant, but the traces of the canal which led to +it are still visible amid the marsh and sand, so that, right beneath the +walls, upon the smooth, unmoving _aguæ mortes_--whence, of course, +Aigues-Mortes--floated the fleet of the Crusade, made fast to the +ramparts of the fortress of the Crusade. And so Saint Louis sailed with +a thousand ships, standing proudly upon the poop, while the bishops +round him raised loud Latin chants, and the warriors clashed their +harness. The king wore the pilgrim's scrip and the pilgrim's shell. Long +and earnestly did my _cicerone_ dilate upon the evil fortunes of the +Crusade--how, indeed, in the beginning it seemed to prosper, and how +Damietta was stormed;--but the Saracens had their turn, and the King of +France, and many of his best paladins were soon prisoners in the Paynim +tents. Question of their ransom being raised, "A king of France," said +Louis, "is not bought or sold with money. Take a city--a city for a king +of France." The sentence and the sentiment are picturesque; but, after +all, there is not much in one or the other. However, the followers of +Mahound agreed. Louis was restored to France, and Damietta to its former +owners; the rest of the European prisoners being thrown into the bargain +for eight thousand gold bezants. Saint Louis, however, was too holy and +too restless a personage to remain long at home, so that Aigues-Mortes +soon saw him again; and this time he departed waving above his head the +crown of thorns. The infidels had laid hands on him the first time, but +a fiercer enemy now grappled with the king--the plague clutched him; and +though a monarch of France could not be bought or sold for any number of +gold bezants, the plague had him cheap--in fact, for an old song. "He +died," says that bold writer, M. Alexandre Dumas, who spins you off the +most interesting history, all out of his own head--"he died on a bed of +ashes, on the very spot where the messenger of Rome found Marius sitting +on the ruins of Carthage"--an interesting topographical fact, seeing +that nobody, now-a-days, knows where Carthage stood at all--always +saving and excepting M. Alexandre Dumas. + +We stood before a grey, massive tower--a Gothic finger of mouldering +stone. "Louis de Malagne," said my old _cicerone_, "a traitorous +Frenchman, delivered these holy walls to our enemies of Burgundy, and a +garrison of the Duke's held possession of the sacred city of +Aigues-Mortes. But the sacrilege was fearfully avenged. The oriflamme +was spread by the forces of the king, and the townspeople rose within +the walls, and, step by step, the foreign garrison were driven back till +they fought in a ring round this old tower. They fought well, and died +hard, but they did die--every man--always round this old tower. So, when +the question came to be, where to fling the corpses, a citizen said, +'This is a town of salt; salt is the harvest of Aigues-Mortes--let us +salt the Burgundians.' And another said, 'Truly, there is a cask ready +for the meat;' and he pointed to the tower. Then they laid the dead men +stark and stiff, as though to floor the tower. Then they heaped salt on +them, a layer two feet thick; then they put on another stratum of +Burgundian flesh, and another stratum of salt--till the tower was as a +cask--choke-full--bursting-full of pickled Burgundians." + +Much more he told me of the early fortunes of the Place--how here +Francis I. met his enemy, Charles V., in solemn conference, each +monarch utterly disbelieving every sacred word uttered by the other; and +how the celebrated Algerine pirate, Barbarossa, who was the very +patriarch of buccaneers--the Abraham of the Mansveldts, and Morgans, and +Dampiers, and who invented, and emblazoned upon his flags the famous +motto, "The Friend of the Sea, and the Enemy of All who sail upon +it"--how this red-bearded rover once cast anchor off the port, and by +way of notifying to France that their ally against the Spaniard had +arrived, set fire to a wood of Italian pine on the margin of the +marshes, and lighted up the whole country by the lurid blaze. Of the +Camisards, of whom I was more anxious to hear--of the poisoning in the +tower of St. Constance, and of the band of braves who descended from the +summit upon tattered strips of blankets--he knew comparatively little. +His mind was mediæval. Aigues-Mortes in the day of Louis Quatorze, was a +declining place. The glory had gone out of it, and the unappeasable +fever was slowly, but surely, claiming its own. Indeed, for a century it +had been master. Aigues-Mortes will probably vanish like Gatton and Old +Sarum. A pile of ruins, girdled in by crumbling walls, will slowly be +invaded by the sleeping waters of the marsh; and the heron, and the +duck, and the meek-eyed gull wandering from the sea, will alone flit +restlessly over the city built by Louis the Saint, walled by Philip the +Bold, and blessed by one of the wisest and the holiest of the Popes. + +Reboul, the Nismes poet--I called upon him, but he was from home--is a +baker, and lives by selling rolls, as Jasmin is a barber, and lives by +scraping chins. Reboul is, like M. Auguste Saint Jean, an enthusiastic +lover of the poor, dying, fever-struck Gothic town. Let me translate, as +well as I may, half-a-dozen couplets in which he characterises the dear +city of the Crusades. The poetry is not unlike Victor Hugo's--stern, +rich, fanciful, and coloured, like an old cathedral window. + + "See, from the stilly waters, and above the sleepy swamp, + Where, steaming up, the fever-fog rolls grim, and grey, and damp: + + How the holy, royal city--Aigues-Mortes, that silent town, + Looms like the ghost of Greatness, and of Pride that's been pulled + down. + + See how its twenty silent towers, with nothing to defend, + Stand up like ancient coffins, all grimly set on end; + + With ruins all around them, for, sleeping and at rest, + Lies the life of that old city, like a dead owl in its nest-- + + Like the shrunken, sodden body, so ghastly and so pale, + Of a warrior who has died, and who has rotted in his mail-- + + Like the grimly-twisted corpse of a nun within her pall, + Whom they bound, and gagged, and built, all living, in a wall." + +From the town, we partially floated, in a boat, and partially toiled +through swamp and sand to the sea--Auguste constantly preaching on the +antiquarian topography of the place, upon old canals, and middle-aged +canals--one obliterating the other; on the route which the galleys of +St. Louis followed from the walls to the ocean; on a dreary spot between +sand-hills, which he called _les Tombeaux_, and where, by his account, +the Crusaders who died before the starting of the expedition lie buried +in their armour of proof. Then we toiled to a little harbour--a mere +fisherman's creek--where it is supposed the ancient canal of St. Louis +joined the sea, and which still bears the name of the _Grau Louis_, or +the _Grau de Roi_--"grau" being understood to be a corruption of +_gradus_. At this spot, rising in the midst of a group of clustered +huts, the dwellings of fishermen and aged _douaniers_, one or +two of whom were lazily angling off the piers--their chief +occupation--there stands a lighthouse, about forty feet high. + +"Let us climb to the lantern," said Auguste, "and you will then see our +silent land, and our poor dear old fading town lying at our feet." + +Accordingly up we went; only poor Auguste stopped every three steps to +cough; and before we had got half way, the perspiration came streaming +down his yellow face, proving what might have been a matter of dispute +before--that he had some moisture somewhere in his body. From the top we +both gazed earnestly, and I curiously, around. On one side, the sea, +blue--purple blue; on the other side, something which was neither sea +nor land--water and swamp--pond and marsh--bulrush thickets, and +tamarisk jungles, shooting in peninsular capes, points, and headlands, +into the salt sea lakes; in the centre of them--like the ark grounding +after the deluge--the grey walls of Aigues-Mortes. Between the great +_mare internum_ and the lagoons, rolling sand-hills--the barrier-line of +the coast--and upon them, but afar off, moving specks--the semi-wild +cattle of the country; white dots--the Arab-blooded horses which are +used for flails; black dots--the wild bulls and cows, which the mounted +herdsmen drive with couched lance and flying lasso. + +"Is it not beautiful?" murmured Auguste; "I think it so. I was born +here. I love this landscape--it is so grand in its flatness; the shore +is as grand as the sea. Look, there are distant hills"--pointing to the +shadowy outline of the Cevennes--"but the hills are not so glorious as +the plain." + +"But neither have they the fever of the plain." + +"It is God's will. But, fever or no fever, I love this land--so quiet, +and still, and solemn--ay, monsieur, as solemn as the deserts of the +Arabs, or as a cathedral at midnight--as solemn, and as strange, and as +awful, as the early world, fresh from the making, with the birds flying, +and the fish swimming, on the evening of the fifth day, before the Lord +created Adam." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +FLAT MARSH SCENERY, TREATED BY POETS AND PAINTERS--TAVERN +ALLEGORIES--NISMES--THE AMPHITHEATRE AND THE MAISON +CARRÉE--PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC--THE OLD RELIGIOUS WARS ALIVE +STILL--THE SILK WEAVER OF NISMES AND THE DRAGONNÆDES. + + +As Launcelot Gobbo had an infection to serve Bassanio, so I somehow took +ill with an infection to walk, instead of ride, back to Lunel. I suppose +that Auguste had innoculated me, in some measure, with his mysterious +love for the boundless swamps and primeval jungles of bulrush around; so +that I felt a sort of pang in leaving them, and would willingly depart +lingeringly and alone. Sending on my small baggage, then, by _roulage_, +I strode forth out of the dead city, and was soon pacing alone the +echoing causeway, like an Arab steering by the sun in the desert. There +is one dead and one living English poet who would have made glorious use +of this fen landscape, so repulsive to many, but which did, after all, +possess a strange, undefinable attraction for me. The dead poet is +Shelley, who had the true eye for sublimity in waste. Take the following +picture-touch:-- + + "An uninhabited sea-side, + Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried, + Abandons; and no other object breaks + The waste, but one dwarf tree, and some few stakes, + Broken and unrepaired; and the tide makes + A narrow space of level sand thereon." + +This is the sort of landscape, too, which, in another department of art, +Collins delighted in representing. But Shelley's picture of the +luxuriant rush and water-plant vegetation would have been magnificent. +Listen how he handles a theme of the kind: + + "And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath, + Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth-- + Prickly and pulpous, and blistering and blue, + Livid and starred with a lurid dew; + Spawn-weeds, and filth, and leporous scum, + Made the running rivulet thick and dumb; + And at its outlet, flags huge as stakes + Dammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes." + +Tennyson is the living poet who would picture with equal effect the +region of swamp, and rush, and pool. Brought up in a fen district, his +eye and feeling for marsh scenery and vegetation are perfect. Remember +the marish mosses in the rotting fosse which encircled the "Moated +Grange." Musing thus of the Poet Laureate, I would assign to this +landscape embodiment of King Death, I passed the half-way tower, where +three _douaniers_, seated in chairs, were fishing and looking as glum +and silent as their prey, and began to discern the gravelly, shingly +land of vines and olives again before me. The clear air of the South +cheats us northerns like a mirage. You see objects as near you as in +England they would be brought by a very fair spy-glass, and the effect, +before you began to make allowances for the atmospheric spectacles, is +to put you dreadfully out of humour at the length of the way, before you +actually came up with the too distinct goal. So was it strongly with me +in pedestrianising towards Lunel. Lunel seemed retreating back and back, +so that my consolation became that it would be surely stopped by the +Cevennes, even if the worst came to the worst; and go where it would, I +was determined to come up with it somehow. Entering the region of the +vine, the moppy olive, and the dust which was flying about in clouds, I +halted at a roadside auberge to wash the latter article out of my +throat, and reaped my reward in the sight of a splendid cartoon +suspended over the great fireplace, which represented, in a severe +allegory, "The Death of Credit killed by bad Payers." The scene was a +handsome street, with a great open _café_ behind, at the _comptoir_ of +which sat Madam Commerce aghast at the atrocity being committed before +her. In a corner are seen a group of _gardes de commerce_--in the +vernacular, bailiffs--lamenting over their ruined occupation. I came to +know the profession of these gentlemen, from the fact that their style +and titles were legibly imprinted across their waistcoats. In the +foreground, the main catastrophe of the composition was proceeding. +Credit, represented by a fat, good-natured-looking, elderly gentleman in +a blue greatcoat, was stretched supine upon the stones, while his three +murderers brandished their weapons above him. The delineation of the +culprits was anything but flattering to the three classes of society +which I took them to represent. The "first murderer," as they say in +_Macbeth_, was a soldier. His sabre was deep in poor Credit's side. The +second criminal must have been a musician, for he has just hit Credit a +superhuman blow on the head with a fiddle--not a very deadly weapon one +would suppose; while the third assassin, armed with a billiard cue, +seemed to typify the idler portion of the community in general. Between +them, however, there could be no doubt that Credit had been fairly done +to death--the grim intimation was there to stare all topers in the face. + +The fact is, indeed, that all over rural France, in the places of public +entertainment, poor M. Credit is in exceedingly bad odour. I have seen +dozens of pictorial hints, conveying with more or less delicacy the +melancholy moral of that just described. Sometimes, however, the +landlord distrusts the pencil, puts no faith in allegory, and stern and +prosaic--with a propensity to political economy--and giving rise to dark +suspicions of a tendency to the Manchester school, writes up in sturdy +letters, grim and hopeless-- + + "ARGENT COMPTANT." + +At other times, cast in a more genial mould, he deviates into what may +be called didactic verse--containing, like the "Penny Magazine"--useful +knowledge for the people, and hints poetically to his customers, the +rule of the establishment--taking care, however, to intimate to their +susceptible feelings that generous social impulses, rather than sombre +commercial necessity, are at the bottom of the regulation. Thus it is +not uncommon to read the following pithy and not particularly rhythmical +distich:-- + + "Pour mieux conserver ses amis, + Ici on ne fait pas de credit." + +At last Lunel was fairly caught, and an hour of the rail brought me to +Nismes and to the Hotel de Luxembourg, running out at the windows with +swarms of _commis voyageurs_, the greater number connected with the silk +trade. One of these worthies beside whom I was placed at dinner, told me +that he intended to go to London to the Exhibition, and that he had a +very snug plan for securing a competent guide, who would poke up all the +lions; this guide to be a "_Marin du port de Londres; car tenez ils sont +des galliards futés, les marins du port de Londres_." I had all the +difficulty in the world in making the intending excursionist aware of +the probable effects of hiring, as a west-end guide, the first sailor or +waterman he picked up at Wapping. + +The great features of Nismes are, as every body knows, the features +which the Romans left behind them. Provence and Languedoc were the +regions of Gaul which the great masters of the world liked best, +probably because they were nearest home; and obscure as was the Roman +Nismes--for I believe that Nimauses lays claim to no historic dignity +whatever--it must still have been a populous and important place: the +unmouldering masonry of the Roman builders proves it. I had never seen +any Roman remains to speak of, and, to tell the truth, had never been +able to work up any great enthusiasm about the fragments of the ancient +people which I had come across. I had bathed in all the Roman baths +wherewith London abounds, but found no inspiration in the waters--I had +stood on grassy mounds of earth, believed to have been Roman camps; +traced like the Antiquary, the _Ager_, with its corresponding +_fossa_--marked the _porta sinistra_ and the _porta dextra_--and stood +where some hook-nosed general had reclined in the _Pretorium_; but I +again confess that my imagination did not fly impulsively back, and bury +itself among _patres conscripti_, togas, vestal virgins, lictors, +patricians, equites, and plebeians. + +And, in fact, such mere vague traces and memorials as baths, bits of +pavement, and dusty holes, with smouldering brick-basements, which +people call "Roman villas,"--are not at all fitted, whatever would-be +classicists may pretend, to stir up the strong tide of enthusiastic +association. These are but miserable odds and ends of fragments, from +which you can no more leap to the dignity and the grandeur of the +Romans, than you could argue, never having seen a man, from finding a +cast-away tooth-pick, up to the appearance and nature of the invisible +owner. But let us see a great specimen of a great Roman work, and then +we are in the right track. Any builder could have made you a bath--any +sapper and miner could have traced you out a camp--any of the small +architects with whom we are infested could have knocked you up a +villa--but give us a characteristic bit of the great people who are dead +and gone, and then we can, or, at all events, we will try, to take their +measure. + +The amphitheatre or arena at Nismes rose on me like a stupendous +spectre, and frowned me down. I was smote with the sight. The size +appalled me: mightiness--vastness--massiveness were there together--a +trinity of stone, rising up, as it were, in the middle of my little +preconceived and pet notions, and shivering and dispersing them, as the +English three-decker in the _Pilot_ came bowling into view, driving away +the fog in wreaths before her and around her. First I walked about the +great stone skeleton; but though the symmetrical glory of the +architecture, its massive regularity, and what I would call soldier-like +precision of uniformity, kept urging my mind to look and admire; still +the impression of vastness was predominant, and all but drove out other +thoughts. And yet it was not until I had entered, that impression +reached its profoundest depth. + +[Illustration: AMPHITHEATRE AT NISMES.] + +As I emerged from the vaulted and cavern-like corridor, through which a +garrulous old woman led me, into the blaze of keen sunshine, that fell +upon a mighty wilderness of stone; and as instinctively I laid my hand +upon the nearest ponderous block, the full and perfect idea of size and +power closed on me. _Roma!--Antiqua Roma!_--had me in her grasp; and as +I felt, I remembered that Eothen had described a similar sensation, as +produced by the bigness of the stones of the great pyramid. My old woman +having, happily, left me, I was alone within that enormous gulf--that +crater of regularly rising stone. Round and round, in ridges where +Titans might have sat and seen, megatheria combat mastadons, mounted up +the mighty steps of grey, dead stone--sometimes entire for the whole +round--sometimes splintered and riven, but never worn, until your +eye--now stumbling, as it were, over rubbish-heaps--now striding from +stone ledge to stone ledge--rested upon the broken and jagged rim, with +a hoary beard of plants and long dry weeds standing rigidly up between +you and the blue. I turned again to the details of the building--to the +vastness of the blocks of stone, and to the perfect manipulation which +had placed them. If the Romans were great soldiers, they were as great +masons. They conquered the world in all pursuits in which enormous +energy and iron muscularity of mind could conquer. The universe of +earth, and stone, and water was theirs. But they were not cloud +compellers. They had none of the great power over the essences of the +brain. Beauty was too subtle for them; and they only got it, +incidentally, as an element--not a principle. The arena in which I stood +was sternly beautiful; but it was the beauty of a legion drawn up for +battle--iron to the backbone--iron to the teeth--the beauty of that +rigid symmetric inflexibility which sat upon the bronze faces which, +when Hannibal, encamped on Roman ground set up for sale, and grimly and +unmovedly saw bought, at the common market rate, the patch of earth on +which the Carthaginian lay entrenched. + +I remained in the amphitheatre for hours--now descending to the arena, +where the men and beasts fought and tore each other--now scrambling to +the highest ridge, and watching, with a calmness which soothed and +lulled the mind, the vast bowl which lay beneath--so massive, so silent, +and so grey. You can still trace the two posts of honour--the royal +boxes, as it were--low down in the ring, and marked out by stone +barriers from the general sweep. Each of them has an exclusive corridor +sunk in the massive stone; and behind each are vaulted cells, which you +will be told were used as guard-houses by the escort of soldiers or +lictors. Tradition assigns one of these boxes to the proconsul--the +other to the vestal virgins; but the latter, if I remember my Roman +antiquities aright, could have no business out of Rome. There were no +subsidiary sacred fire-branch establishments, like provincial banks, to +promulgate the credit of the "central office,"--kindled in the remote +part of the empire. The holy flame burnt only before the mystic +palladium, which answered for the security of Rome. Whoever occupied the +boxes in question, however, were no doubt what one of Captain Marryatt's +characters describes the Smith family to be in London--"quite the +topping people of the place;" and up to them, no doubt, after the +gladiator had received the steel of his antagonist, and the thundering +shout of "Habet!" had died away, the poor Scythian, or Roman, as the +case might be, turned a sadly inquiring eye--intent upon the hands of +the great personages on whom his doom depended--on the upturned or the +downturned thumb. A very interesting portion of the arena is the +labyrinth of corridors, passages, and stairs, which honeycomb its +massive masonry, and into which, in the event of a shower, the whole +body of spectators could at once retreat, leaving the great circles of +stone as deserted as at midnight. So admirable, too, are the +arrangements, that there could have been very little crowding. The +vomitories get wider and wider as they approach the entrance, where the +people would emerge on every side, like the drops of water flung off by +the rotatory motion of a mop. There was an odd resemblance to the +general disposition of the opera corridors and staircases, which struck +me in the arrangement of the lobbies and passages behind. One could +fancy the young Roman men about Nemauses, in their scented tunics, +clasped with glittering stones and their broad purple girdles--the +Tyrian hue, as the poets say--gathering in knots, and discussing a blow +which had split a fellow-creature's head open, as our own opera elegants +might Grisi's celebrated holding-note in _Norma_, or Duprez' famous _ut +du poitrine_. The execution of a _débutant_ with the sword might be +praised, as the execution now-a-days of a _prima donna_. Rumours might +be discussed of a new net-and-trident man picked up in some obscure +arena, as the _cognoscenti_ now whisper the reported merits of a tenor +discovered in Barcelona or Palermo; and the _habitués_ would delight to +inform each other that the spirited and enterprising management had +secured the services of the celebrated Berbix, whose career at Massilia, +for instance, had excited such admiration--the _artiste_ having killed +fifteen antagonists in less than a fortnight. And then, after the +pleasant and critical chat between the acts, the trumpets would again +sound, and all the world would turn out upon the vast stone benches--the +nobles and wealthy nearest the ring, as in the stalls with us, and the +lower and slave population high up on the further benches, like the +humble folks and the footmen in the gallery--and then would recommence +that exhibition of which the Romans could never have enough, and of +which they never tired--the excitement of the shedding of blood. + +From the arena I walked slowly on to the Maison Carrée. All the great +Roman remains lie upon the open Boulevard, on the edge of the stacked +and crowded old town, while without the circle rise the spacious streets +of new _quartiers_ for the rich, and many a long straggling suburb, +where, in mean garrets and unwholesome cellars, the poor handloom +weavers produce webs of gorgeous silk which rival the choicest products +of Lyons. Presently, to the left, appeared a horribly clumsy theatre; +and, to the right, the wondrous Maison Carrée. The day of which I am +writing was certainly my day of architectural sensation. First, Rome, +with her hugeness and her symmetric strength, gripped me; and now, +Greece, with her pure and etherial beauty, which is essentially of the +spirit, enthralled me. The Maison Carrée was, no doubt, built by Roman +hands, but entirely after Greek models. It is wholly of Athens: not at +all of Rome--a Corinthian temple of the purest taste and divinest +beauty--small, slight, without an atom of the ponderous majesty of the +arena--reigning by love and smiles, like Venus; not by frowns and +thunder, like Jove. Cardinal Alberoni said that the Maison Carrée was a +gem which ought to be set in gold; and the two great Jupiters of +France--Louis Quatorze and Napoleon--had both of them schemes for +lifting the temple bodily out of the ground and carrying it to Paris. +The building is perfectly simple--merely an oblong square, with a +portico, and fluted Corinthian pillars--yet the loveliness of it is like +enchantment. The essence of its power over the senses appears to me to +consist in an exquisite subtlety of proportion, which amounts to the +very highest grace and the very purest and truest beauty. How many +_quasi_ Grecian buildings had I seen--all porticoed and +caryatided--without a sensation, save that the pile before me was cold +and perhaps correct--a sort of stone formulary. I had begun to fear that +Greek beauty was too subtle for me, or that Greek beauty was cant, when +the Maison Carrée in a moment utterly undeceived me. The puzzle was +solved: I had never seen Grecian architecture before. The things which +our domestic Pecksniffs call Grecian--their St. Martin's porticoes, and +St. Pancras churches--bear about the same relation to the divine +original, as the old statue of George IV. at King's Cross to the Apollo +Belvidere. Of course, these gentry--of whom we assuredly know none whose +powers qualify them to grapple with, a higher task than a +dock-warehouse or a railway tavern--have picked all manner of faults in +the divine proportions of this wondrous edifice. There is some +bricklaying cant about a departure from the proportions of Vitruvius, +which, I presume, are faithfully observed in the National Gallery, and +some modification of them, no doubt, in the Pavilion at Brighton--which +variations are gravely censured in the Maison Carrée; while, in order, +doubtless, to shew our modern superiority, the French hodmen have +erected a theatre just opposite the Corinthian temple, with a +portico--heavens and earth! such a portico--a mass of mathematical +clumsiness, with pillars like the legs of aldermen suffering from +dropsy. Anything more intensely ugly is not to be found in Christendom. +It actually beats the worst monstrosity of London; and this dreadful +caricature of the deathless work of the glorious Greeks is erected right +opposite to, perhaps, the most perfect piece of building and +stone-carving in the world. + +I believe that it requires neither art-training nor classic knowledge to +enjoy the unearthly beauty of the Corinthian temple. Give me a +healthy-minded youth, who has never heard of Alcibiades, Themistocles, +Socrates, or Æschylus, but who has the natural appreciation of +beauty--who can admire the droop of a lily, the spring of a deer, the +flight of an eagle--set him opposite the Maison Carrée, and the +sensation of divine, transcendant beauty, will rush into his heart and +brain, as when contemplating the flower, or beast or bird. The big man +in the parish at home will point you out the graces of the new church of +St. Kold Without, designed after the antique manner, by the celebrated +Mr. Jones Smith, and because you hesitate to acknowledge them, will read +you a benignant lecture on the impossibility of making people, with +uneducated taste, fully appreciate what he will be sure to call the +"severity" of Greek architecture; the worthy man himself having been +dinned with the apocryphal loveliness in question until he has come +actually to believe in it. Never mind the grave sermons preached about +educating and training taste. An educated and trained taste will, no +doubt, admire with even more fond appreciation and far higher enjoyment; +but he who cannot, at the first glance, see and feel the perfect grace +of pure Grecian art, must be insensible to the blue of the sky, to the +beauty of running water, to the song of the birds and the silver +radiance of moonlight. I never revisited the amphitheatre while I +remained in Nismes, but I haunted the temple. The grandeur, and the +massiveness of the Roman work, was like the north wind. It rudely +buffeted the wayfarer, but he clung to his cloak. The Grecian trophy +shone out like the gentle sun, and the traveller doffed mantle and cap +to pay it adoration. + +Nismes, as most people know, is one of the points of France where +Protestantism and Catholicism still glare upon each other with hostile +and threatening eyes. The old Catholic and Huguenot hatred has descended +lineally from the remote times of the Albigenses, and at this moment +broods as bitterly over the olive city as when Raymond of Toulouse +proclaimed a crusade against the Paulician heretics, and twenty +thousand people were slaughtered under the pastoral care of the Bishop +of Beziers. That the animosity, however, has not died out centuries ago, +we have to thank the pious precautions of Louis XIV., Madame de +Maintenon, and the priest, who waged as bitter war upon the Huguenots of +the Cevennes as ever their fathers of these same mountains had been +exposed to. The dragoonades are still fiercely remembered in the South. +The old-world stories in Scotland of the cruelties of Claverhouse and +his life-guards, have well-nigh ceased to excite anything like personal +bitterness; but in portions of Languedoc, the animosity between +neighbour and neighbour--Catholic and Protestant--is still deepened and +widened by the oft-told legends of those wretched religious wars. Nismes +is the head quarters of the sectarianism--Catholics and Protestants are +drawn up in two compacted hostile bodies, living, for the most part, in +separate _quartiers_; marrying each party within itself; scandalising +each party the other whenever it has a chance; and carrying, indeed, the +party spirit so far as absolutely to have established Protestant _cafés_ +and Catholic _cafés_, the _habitués_ of which will no more enter the +rival establishments than they would enter the opposition churches. + +The day after my arrival, I had a singular opportunity of becoming +acquainted with the spirit of the place. North from Nismes rises a +species of chaos of steep hills and deep valleys, or rather ravines, +composed almost entirely of shingle and rock, covered over, however, +with olive-groves and vines, and dotted with little white summer-houses, +to which almost the entire middle and working class population retire +upon Sundays to pass the day, partly in cultivating their patches of +land--there is hardly a family without an allotment--and partly to amuse +themselves after the toils of the week. Rambling among these rugged +hills and dales, I chanced to ask my way of a person I met descending +towards Nismes. He was a tall, ungainly, raw-boned man--pallid and worn, +as if with sedentary labour; but he seemed intelligent, and was very +polite--pointing out a number of localities around. Presently, he told +me that he had been up to his _cabane_, or summer-house; that he was a +silkweaver in Nismes; that his wages were so poor, that he had a hard +struggle to live; but that he still managed to give up an hour's work or +so a-day to go and feed his rabbits at the _cabane_. As we talked, he +inquired whether I were not a foreigner--an Englishman--and, with some +hesitation, but with great eagerness--a Protestant? My affirmative +answer to the last interrogatory produced a magical effect. The man's +face actually gleamed. He jumped off the ground, let fall his apronful +of melons and fresh figs, while he clutched both of my hands in his, and +exclaimed, "A Protestant! _Dieu merci! Dieu merci!_ an English +Protestant! Oh, how glad I am to see an English Protestant! Listen, +monsieur. We are here. We of the religion (the old phrase--as old as +Rosny and Coligni), we are here fifteen thousand strong--fifteen +thousand, monsieur. Don't believe those who say only ten. Fifteen +thousand, monsieur--good men and true. All ready--all standing by one +another--all _braves_--all on the _qui vive_--all prepared, if the hour +should come. We know each other--we love each other, and we hate"--a +pause; then, with a significant grin--"_les autres_. You will tell that, +in England, monsieur, to our brothers. Fifteen thousand, monsieur; and +every man, woman, and child, true to the cause and the faith." + +The whole tone of the orator did not appear to me to be so much a matter +of religious bitterness, as it marked a hatred of race. The two +contending parties at Nismes were evidently of different blood: their +religious animosities had gradually divided them into two distinct and +hostile peoples. + +"See!" said the weaver; "this is the Protestant side of the valley,--all +Protestants here. Not a Catholic _cabane_--no, no! they must go +elsewhere,--we have nothing to do with them,--we shake off the dust of +our feet upon them and theirs. You and I are one, upon our own +ground--Protestant ground--staunch and true;" and he stamped with his +foot upon the pebbles. "Monsieur must absolutely go with me to my +_cabane_, and drink a glass of wine to the good cause; and see my +rabbits--Protestant rabbits." + +Who could resist this last attraction? We turned and toiled up the +flinty paths together; my acquaintance informing me, with great pride, +that M. Guizot was a good Protestant of Nismes, as his father, who had +fallen, _dans le terreur_, was before him. He understood that M. Guizot +was then in England, and he was sure that he would be delighted at +seeing such a fine Protestant country, and such a staunch Protestant +people. Stopping at length at an unpainted door, in the rough, +unmortared wall, my friend opened it, and we stepped into a little patch +of garden, planted with olives and straggling vine-bushes. "They are +much better cultivated, and give better oil and better wine," he said, +"than the Catholic grounds;" and I am sure he believed the asseveration. +Having duly inspected the "Protestant rabbits," we entered the _cabane_, +a bare, rough, white-washed room, with a table, a few chairs, and +unglazed lattices. Unless when the mistral blows, the open air is seldom +or never unpleasant; and then wooden shutters are applied to the +windward side of the houses. On this occasion, however, there was not a +breath stirring amid the silvery grey leaves of the olives. The +grasshoppers--fellows of a size which would astound Sir Thomas +Gresham--chirped and leaped in the grass at the foot of the wall; scores +and scores of lithe, yellow lizards, with the blackest of eyes, flashed +up and down over the rough stones, and shot in and out of the crevices; +but, excepting these sights and sounds, all around was hushed and +motionless; and the sun, wintry though it was, flooded all the still, +brown valley with a deluge of pure, hot light. + +The weaver filled a very comfortable couple of glasses with a small, but +not ill-tasted, wine. "Here's to----;" he uttered a sentiment not +complimentary to the Catholic Church, and, indeed, consigning it to the +warmest of quarters, and took off his liquor with undeniable unction. I +need not say whether I drunk the toast: anyhow, I drunk the wine. + +"And now look there," continued my host, pointing with his empty glass +through the open window, to the north. The bare, blue hills of the +Cevennes lay--a long ridge of mountain scenery, stretching from the +valley of the Rhone as far and farther than the eye could follow +them--towards that of the Garonne. + +"There it was," he said, "that were fought the fiercest battles, in +those cruel times, between the people of the religion and the troops of +the king. Can you see a valley or a ravine just over the olive there? My +eyes are too much worn to see it; but we look at it every Sunday--my +wife and my children. That was the valley, monsieur, where my family +lived for ages and ages, weaving the rough cloth that they made in those +days, and tending their flocks upon the hill. Early in the troubles, +their cottage was beset by the dragoons of the king. The mother of the +family was suckling her child. They bound her to the bed-post, and put +the child just beyond her reach, and told her that not a drop more +should pass its lips till she cried _Ave Maria_ and made the sign of the +cross. They took the father and hung him by the feet, head downward, +from the roof-tree, and he died hanging. The children they ranged round +the mother, and tied matches between their fingers; and, when the first +match burned down to the flesh, the mother cried _Ave Maria_ and made +the sign of the cross. Then they released her, and held an orgie in the +cottage all night long, and the widow and the children served them. Next +morning, the woman was mad, and she wandered away into the woods with +her baby at her breast, and no one heard of her more. The children were +scattered over the country; and, whether they lived or died, I know +not; but one of them, monsieur, the eldest girl, whose name was Nicole, +became a famous prophetess. Yes, monsieur, she was inspired, and taught +the people among the rocks and the wild gorges of the hills. First, she +had _l'avertissement_--that is, the warning, or first degree of +inspiration; and then the _souffle_, or the breath of the Lord, came on +her, and she spoke; at last, she was endowed with _la prophetie_, and +told what would come to pass. Yes, monsieur; and many of her prophecies +are yet preserved, and they came true; for, in times like these, God +acts by extraordinary means. The people, monsieur, loved her, and +honoured her, and kept her so well, and hid her so closely, that the +persecutors could never seize her; and she survived the troubles; and I, +monsieur, a poor weaver of Nismes, have the honour to be her +descendant." + +That night I walked late along the Boulevards. Protestant _cafés_ and +Catholic _cafés_ were full and busy, and, no doubt, resounding with the +polemics of the warring creeds. Outside all, the by turns straggling and +crowded town lay, bathed in the most glorious flood of moonlight, poured +down, happily, alike upon Papist and Protestant, lighting up the grey +cathedral with its Gothic arches, and the heathen temple with its fluted +columns, and surely preaching by the universal-blessing ray that +sermon--so continuous in its delivery, yet so little heeded by the +congregation of the world--the sermon which enjoins charity and +forbearance, and love and peace, among all men. + + + + +CHAPTER THE LAST. + +AGRICULTURE IN FRANCE--ITS BACKWARD STATE--CENTRALISING +TENDENCY--SUBDIVISION OF PROPERTY--ITS EFFECTS--FRENCH +"ENCUMBERED ESTATES." + + +In the foregoing pages I have sketched, with as much regard to a +readable liveliness, and to vivid local colouring as I could command, +the features and incidents of part--the most interesting one--of an +extended journey through France. My primary purpose in undertaking the +latter was, to prepare a view of the social and agricultural condition +of the peasantry, for publication in the columns of the _Morning +Chronicle_; and accordingly a series of letters, devoted to that +important subject, duly appeared. These communications, however, were +necessarily confined to statements of agricultural progress, and the +investigation of solid social subjects, to the exclusion of those +matters of personal incident and artistic, literary, and legendary +significance, which naturally occur in the prosecution of a desultory +and inquiring journey. To this latter field--that of the tourist rather +than the commissioner--then, I have devoted the foregoing chapters; but +I am unwilling to send them forth without appending to them--extracted +from my concluding Letter in the _Morning Chronicle_--a summary of my +impressions of the social condition of the French agricultural +population, and the effects of the system of the infinitesimal division +of the land. These impressions are founded upon a five months' journey +through France, keeping mainly in the country places, being constantly +in communication with the people themselves, and hearing also the +opinions of the priests and men of business engaged in rural affairs, as +well as reading authors upon all sides of the question. My conclusions I +have summed up carefully, and with great deliberation; and I offer them +as an honest, and not ill-founded estimate of the present state and +future prospects of rural France. + +The French are undoubtedly at least a century behind us in agricultural +science and skill. This remark applies alike to breeding cattle and to +raising crops. Agriculture in France is rather a handicraft than what it +ought to be--a science. As a general rule, the farmers of France are +about on a level with the ploughmen of England. When I say this, I mean +that the immense majority of the cultivators are unlettered +peasants--hinds--who till the land in the unvarying, mechanical routine +handed down to them from their forefathers. Of agriculture, in any other +sense than the rule-of-thumb practice of ploughing, sowing, reaping, and +threshing, they know literally nothing. Of the _rationale_ of the +management of land--of the reasons why so and so should be done--they +think no more than honest La Balafrè, whose only notion of a final cause +was the command of his superior officer. Thus they are bound down in the +most abject submission to every custom, for no other reason than that it +is a custom: their fathers did so and so, and therefore, and for no +other reason, the sons do the same. I could see no struggling upwards, +no longing for a better condition, no discontent, even with the +vegetable food upon which they lived. All over the land there brooded +one almost unvaried mist of dull, unenlightened, passive content--I do +not mean social--but industrial content. + +There are two causes principally chargeable with this. In the first +place, strange as it may seem in a country in which two-thirds of the +population are agriculturists, agriculture is a very unhonoured +occupation. Develop, in the slightest degree, a Frenchman's mental +faculties, and he flies to a town as surely as steel filings fly to a +loadstone. He has no rural tastes--no delight in rural habits. A French +amateur farmer would, indeed, be a sight to see. Again, this national +tendency is directly encouraged by the centralizing system of +government--by the multitude of officials, and by the payment of all +functionaries. From all parts of France, men of great energy and +resource struggle up and fling themselves on the world of Paris. There +they try to become great functionaries. Through every department of the +eighty-four, men of less energy and resource struggle up to the +_chef-lieu_--the provincial capital. There they try to become little +functionaries. Go still lower--deal with a still smaller scale--and the +result will be the same. As is the department to France, so is the +arrondissement to the department, and the commune to the arrondissement. +Nine-tenths of those who have, or think they have, heads on their +shoulders, struggle into towns to fight for office. Nine-tenths of those +who are, or are deemed by themselves or others, too stupid for anything +else, are left at home to till the fields, and breed the cattle, and +prune the vines, as their ancestors did for generations before them. +Thus there is singularly little intelligence left in the country. The +whole energy, and knowledge, and resource of the land are barrelled up +in the towns. You leave one city, and, in many cases, you will not meet +an educated or cultivated individual until you arrive at another--all +between is utter intellectual barrenness. The English country gentleman, +we all know, is not a faultless character, but his useful qualities far +prevail over his defects; and it is only when traversing a land all but +destitute of any such order that the fatal effects of the blank are +fully realized. Were there more country gentlemen in France, there would +be more animal food and more wheaten bread in the country. The very idea +of a great proprietor living upon his estates implies the fact of an +educated person--an individual more or less rubbed and polished and +enlightened by society--taking his place amongst a class who must +naturally look up to him, and whose mass he must necessarily, to a +greater or less degree, leaven. It is easy to joke about English country +gentlemen--about their foibles, and prejudices, and absurd points; but +to the jokers I would seriously say, "Go to France; examine its +agriculture, and the structure and calibre of its rural society, and see +the result of the utter absence of a class of men--certainly not +Solomons, and as certainly not Chesterfields, but, for all that, most +useful personages--individuals with capital, with, at all events, a +certain degree of enlightenment--taking an active interest in +farming--often amateur farmers themselves--the patrons of district +clubs, and ploughing matches, and cattle-shows--and, above all, living +daily among their tenantry, and having an active and direct interest in +that tenantry's prosperity." I do not mean to say that here and there, +all over France, there may not be found active and intelligent resident +landlords, nor that, in the north of France, there may not be discovered +intelligent and clear-headed tenant-farmers; but the rule is as I have +stated. Utterly ignorant boors are allowed to plod on from generation to +generation, wrapped in the most dismal mists of agricultural +superstition; while what in America would be called the "smart" part of +the population, are intriguing, and constructing and undoing _complots_, +in the towns. To all present appearance, a score of dynasties may +succeed each other in France before La Vendée takes its place beside +Norfolk, or before Limousin rivals the Lothians. + +A word as to the subdivision of property. I know the extreme +difficulties of the subject, and the moral considerations which, in +connection with it, are often placed in opposition to admitted physical +and economical disadvantages. I shall, therefore, without discussing the +question at any length, mention two or three personally ascertained +facts:-- + +The tendency of landed properties, under the system in question, is to +continual diminution of seize. + +This tendency does _not_ stop with the interests of the parties +concerned--it goes on in spite of them. + +And the only practical check is nothing but a new evil. When a man finds +that his patch of land is insufficient to support his family, he borrows +money and buys more land. In nine cases out of ten, the interest to be +paid to the lender is greater than the profit which the borrower can +extract from the land--and bankruptcy, and reduction to the condition of +a day-labourer, is sooner or later the inevitable result. + +The infinitesimal patches of land are cultivated in the most rude and +uneconomical fashion. Not a franc of capital, further than that sunk in +the purchase of spades, picks, and hoes, is expended on them. They are +undrained, ill-manured, expensively worked, and they would often produce +no profit whatever, were it not that the proprietor is the labourer, and +that he looks for little or nothing save a recompense for his toil in a +bare subsistence. It is easy to see how the consumer must fare if the +producer possess little or no surplus after his own necessities are +satisfied. + +It is not to be supposed from the above remarks, that I conceive that in +no circumstances, and under no conditions, can the soil be +advantageously divided into minute properties. The rule which strikes me +as applying to the matter is this:--where spade-husbandry, can be +legitimately adopted, then the extreme subdivision of land loses much, +if not all, of its evils. The reason is plain: spade-husbandry, while it +pays the proprietor fair wages, also, in certain cases, develops in an +economical manner the resources of the soil. The instance of +market-gardens near a populous town is a case in point. But in a remote +district, removed from markets, ill provided with the means of +locomotion--where cereals, not vegetables, must be raised--spade-labour +is so far mere toil flung away. Near Nismes I found a man digging a +field which ought to have been ploughed. He told me that the spade +produced more than the plough. Then why did not the farmers use +spade-husbandry? "Because, although spade-husbandry was very productive, +it was still more expensive. It paid a small proprietor who could do the +work himself, but not a large proprietor, who had to remunerate his +labourers." Herein, then, lies the fallacy. Truly considered, a mode of +cultivation unprofitable for the great proprietor, must be unprofitable, +in the long run, for the small proprietor also. The former, by +spade-husbandry, loses his profit by paying extravagantly for labour; +the latter must pay for labour as well, but he pays himself, and is +therefore unconscious of the outlay--an outlay which is, nevertheless, +not the less real. If the plough, at an expense of 5_s._, can produce +20_s._ worth of produce--and if the spade, at an expense of 20_s._, can +produce 30_s._ worth of produce--the difference between the +proportionate outlays is so much deducted from the resources of the +country in which the transaction takes place; and this because that +difference of labour, or of money representing labour, if otherwise +applied--as by the agency of the plough it would be free to be +applied--might, profitably to its proprietor, still raise the sum total +of the production to the stated amount of 30_s._ + +Are small properties, then, in cases in which spade-husbandry cannot be +economically applied, injurious to the social and industrial interests +of the community in which they exist? + +The following propositions appear to me to sum up what may be said on +either side of the question: + +Small landed holdings undoubtedly tend to produce an industrious +population. A man always works hardest for himself. + +Small landed holdings tend to breed a spirit of independence, and +wholesome moral self-appreciation and reliance. + +On the other hand-- + +Small landed holdings, by breeding a poor and ignorant race of +proprietors, keep back agriculture, and injure the whole community of +consumers; and-- + +Small landed holdings tend to grow smaller than it is the interest of +their owners that they should become. Capital, borrowed at usurious +rates of interest, is then had recourse to for the purpose of enlarging +individual properties--and the result is the production of a race of +involved, mortgaged, and frequently bankrupt proprietors. + +At this present moment, I believe the proprietorship of France to be as +bankrupt as that of the south-west of Ireland. The number of "Encumbered +Estates" across the Channel would stagger the stoutest calculator. The +capitalists, notaries, land-agents, and others in the towns, and not the +peasantry, are the real owners of the mortgaged soil. The nominal +proprietors are sinking deeper and deeper at every struggle, and they +see no hope before them--save one--Socialism. French Socialism is simply +the result of French poverty. A ruined labourer has no resource but +casual charity. No law stands between him and starvation. He has no +right to his life unless he can support himself; and as the ponderous +machine of the law gradually grinds down his property to an extent too +small for him to exist on, and as the increasing interest swallows up +the comparatively diminishing products, he sees nothing for it but a +scramble. There is property--there is food--and it will go hard but he +shall have a share of them. Herein is the whole problem of the dreaded +Socialism. I cannot put the matter better than in the words of the old +song-- + + "Moll in the wad and I fell out, + And this is what it was all about, + She had money, and I had none, + And that was the way the row begun." + +Whether a Poor-law, and a change in the law of heritage might not check +the evil, I am not, of course, going to inquire; but the present state +of rural France--all political considerations left aside--appears to me +to point to the possibility, if not the probability, of the world seeing +a greater and bloodier _Jacquerie_ yet than it ever saw before. + + + THE END. + + HENRY VIZETELLY, PRINTER AND ENGRAVER, GOUGH SQUARE, + FLEET STREET, LONDON. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to +the Rhone, by Angus B. Reach + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43844 *** |