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diff --git a/43844-8.txt b/43844-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 282bee4..0000000 --- a/43844-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7188 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the -Rhone, by Angus B. Reach - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone - Notes, social, picturesque, and legendary, by the way. - -Author: Angus B. Reach - -Release Date: September 29, 2013 [EBook #43844] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLARET AND OLIVES *** - - - - -Produced by Matthias Grammel, Ann Jury and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - 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. 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