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+Project Gutenberg's In and Out of Three Normandy Inns, by Anna Bowman Dodd
+
+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
+
+
+Title: In and Out of Three Normandy Inns
+
+Author: Anna Bowman Dodd
+
+Posting Date: August 24, 2012 [EBook #7961]
+Release Date: April, 2005
+First Posted: June 5, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN AND OUT OF THREE NORMANDY INNS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Roberts, Anne Soulard, Charles Franks,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IN AND OUT OF THREE NORMANDY INNS
+
+BY
+
+ANNA BOWMAN DODD
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT-DIVES]
+
+
+TO EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
+
+_My Dear Mr. Stedman:
+
+To this little company of Norman men and women, you will, I know,
+extend a kindly greeting, if only because of their nationality. To your
+courtesy, possibly, you will add the leaven of interest, when you
+perceive--as you must--that their qualities are all their own, their
+defects being due solely to my own imperfect presentment.
+
+With sincere esteem_,
+
+ANNA BOWMAN DODD.
+
+_New York_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+VILLERVILLE.
+
+I.      A LANDING ON THE COAST OF FRANCE II.     A SPRING DRIVE III.
+FROM AN INN WINDOW IV.     OUT ON A MUSSEL-BED V.      THE VILLAGE VI.
+A PAGAN COBBLER VII.    SOME NORMAN LANDLADIES VIII.   THE QUARTIER
+LATIN ON THE BEACH IX.     A NORMAN HOUSEHOLD X.      ERNESTINE
+
+ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD.
+
+XI.     TO AN OLD MANOIR XII.    A NORMAN CURE XIII.   HONFLEUR--NEW
+AND OLD
+
+DIVES.
+
+XIV.    A COAST DRIVE XV.     GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT XVI.    THE GREEN
+BENCH XVII.   THE WORLD THAT CAME TO DIVES XVIII.  THE CONVERSATION OF
+PATRIOTS XIX.    IN LA CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS
+
+TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES.
+
+XX.     A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY REVIVAL XXI.    THE AFTER-DINNER TALK OF
+THREE GREAT LADIES XXII.   A NINETEENTH CENTURY BREAKFAST
+
+A LITTLE JOURNEY ALONG THE COAST.
+
+XXIII.  A NIGHT IN A CAEN ATTIC XXIV.   A DAY AT BAYEUX AND ST. LO XXV.
+A DINNER AT COUTANCES XXVI.   A SCENE IN A NORMAN COURT XXVII.  THE
+FETE-DIEU--A JUNE CHRISTMAS XXVIII. BY LAND TO MONT ST. MICHEL
+
+MONT ST. MICHEL.
+
+XXIX.   BY SEA TO THE POULARD INN XXX.    THE PILGRIMS AND THE
+SHRINE--AN HISTORICAL OMELETTE
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT--DIVES A VILLAGE STREET--VILLERVILLE ON THE
+BEACH--VILLERVILLE A SALE OF MUSSELS--VILLERVILLE A VILLERVILLE
+FISH-WIFE A DEPARTURE--VILLERVILLE THE INN AT
+DIVES--GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES CHAMBRE DES
+MARMOUSETS--DIVES MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES
+CHATEAU FONTAINE LE HENRI, NEAR CAEN AN EXCITING MOMENT--A COUTANCES
+INTERIOR A STREET IN COUTANCES--EGLISE SAINT-PIERRE MONT SAINT MICHEL
+MONT SAINT MICHEL SNAIL-GATHERERS
+
+
+
+
+VILLERVILLE.
+
+AN INN BY THE SEA.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A LANDING ON THE COAST OF FRANCE.
+
+
+Narrow streets with sinuous curves; dwarfed houses with minute shops
+protruding on inch-wide sidewalks; a tiny casino perched like a
+bird-cage on a tiny scaffolding; bath-houses dumped on the beach;
+fishing-smacks drawn up along the shore like so many Greek galleys;
+and, fringing the cliffs--the encroachment of the nineteenth century--a
+row of fantastic sea-side villas.
+
+This was Villerville.
+
+Over an arch of roses; across a broad line of olives, hawthorns,
+laburnums, and syringas, straight out to sea--
+
+This was the view from our windows.
+
+Our inn was bounded by the sea on one side, and on the other by a
+narrow village street. The distance between good and evil has been
+known to be quite as short as that which lay between these two
+thoroughfares. It was only a matter of a strip of land, an edge of
+cliff, and a shed of a house bearing the proud title of Hôtel-sur-Mer.
+
+Two nights before, our arrival had made quite a stir in the village
+streets. The inn had given us a characteristic French welcome; its eye
+had measured us before it had extended its hand. Before reaching the
+inn and the village, however, we had already tasted of the flavor of a
+genuine Norman welcome. Our experience in adventure had begun on the
+Havre quays.
+
+Our expedition could hardly be looked upon as perilous; yet it was one
+that, from the first, evidently appealed to the French imagination;
+half Havre was hanging over the stone wharves to see us start.
+
+"_Dame_, only English women are up to that!"--for all the world is
+English, in French eyes, when an adventurous folly is to be committed.
+
+This was one view of our temerity; it was the comment of age and
+experience of the world, of the cap with the short pipe in her mouth,
+over which curved, downward, a bulbous, fiery-hued nose that met the
+pipe.
+
+"_C'est beau, tout de même_, when one is young--and rich." This was a
+generous partisan, a girl with a miniature copy of her own round
+face--a copy that was tied up in a shawl, very snug; it was a bundle
+that could not possibly be in any one's way, even on a somewhat
+prolonged tour of observation of Havre's shipping interests.
+
+"And the blonde one--what do you think of her, _hein_?"
+
+This was the blouse's query. The tassel of the cotton night-cap nodded,
+interrogatively, toward the object on which the twinkling ex-mariner's
+eye had fixed itself--on Charm's slender figure, and on the yellow
+half-moon of hair framing her face. There was but one verdict
+concerning the blonde beauty; she was a creature made to be stared at.
+The staring was suspended only when the bargaining went on; for Havre,
+clearly, was a sailor and merchant first; its knowledge of a woman's
+good points was rated merely as its second-best talent.
+
+Meanwhile, our bargaining for the sailboat was being conducted on the
+principles peculiar to French traffic; it had all at once assumed the
+aspect of dramatic complication. It had only been necessary for us to
+stop on our lounging stroll along the stone wharves, diverting our gaze
+for a moment from the grotesque assortment of old houses that, before
+now, had looked down on so many naval engagements, and innocently to
+ask a brief question of a nautical gentleman, picturesquely attired in
+a blue shirt and a scarlet beret, for the quays immediately to swarm
+with jerseys and red caps. Each beret was the owner of a boat; and each
+jersey had a voice louder than his brother's. Presently the battle of
+tongues was drowning all other sounds.
+
+In point of fact, there were no other sounds to drown. All other
+business along the quays was being temporarily suspended; the most
+thrilling event of the day was centring in us and our treaty. Until
+this bargain was closed, other matters could wait. For a Frenchman has
+the true instinct of the dramatist; business he rightly considers as
+only an _entr'acte_ in life; the serious thing is the _scene de
+theatre_, wherever it takes place. Therefore it was that the black,
+shaky-looking houses, leaning over the quays, were now populous with
+frowsy heads and cotton nightcaps. The captains from the adjacent
+sloops and tug-boats formed an outer circle about the closer ring made
+by the competitors for our favors, while the loungers along the
+parapets, and the owners of top seats on the shining quay steps, may be
+said to have been in possession of orchestra stalls from the first
+rising of the curtain.
+
+A baker's boy and two fish-wives, trundling their carts, stopped to
+witness the last act of the play. Even the dogs beneath the carts, as
+they sank, panting, to the ground, followed, with red-rimmed eyes, the
+closing scenes of the little drama.
+
+"_Allons_, let us end this," cried a piratical-looking captain, in a
+loud, masterful voice. And he named a price lower than the others had
+bid. He would take us across--yes, us and our luggage, and land
+us--yes, at Villerville, for that.
+
+The baker's boy gave a long, slow whistle, with relish.
+
+"_Dame!_" he ejaculated, between his teeth, as he turned away.
+
+The rival captains at first had drawn back; they had looked at their
+comrade darkly, beneath their berets, as they might at a deserter with
+whom they meant to deal--later on. But at his last words they smiled a
+smile of grim humor. Beneath the beards a whisper grew; whatever its
+import, it had the power to move all the hard mouths to laughter. As
+they also turned away, their shrugging shoulders and the scorn in their
+light laughter seemed to hand us over to our fate.
+
+In the teeth of this smile, our captain had swung his boat round and we
+were stepping into her.
+
+"_Au revoir--au revoir et à bientôt!_"
+
+The group that was left to hang over the parapets and to wave us its
+farewell, was a thin one. Only the professional loungers took part in
+this last act of courtesy. There was a cluster of caps, dazzlingly
+white against the blue of the sky; a collection of highly decorated
+noses and of old hands ribboned with wrinkles, to nod and bob and wave
+down the cracked-voiced "_bonjours_." But the audience that had
+gathered to witness the closing of the bargain had melted away with the
+moment of its conclusion. Long ere this moment of our embarkation the
+wide stone street facing the water had become suddenly deserted. The
+curious-eyed heads and the cotton nightcaps had been swallowed up in
+the hollows of the dark, little windows. The baker's boy had long since
+mounted his broad basket, as if it were an ornamental head-dress, and
+whistling, had turned a sharp corner, swallowed up, he also, by the
+sudden gloom that lay between the narrow streets. The sloop-owners had
+linked arms with the defeated captains, and were walking off toward
+their respective boats, whistling a gay little air.
+
+  "_Colinette au bois s'en alla
+  En sautillant par-ci, par-là;
+  Trala deridera, trala, derid-er-a-a._"
+
+One jersey-clad figure was singing lustily as he dropped with a spring
+into his boat. He began to coil the loose ropes at once, as if the
+disappointments in life were only a necessary interruption, to be
+accepted philosophically, to this, the serious business of his days.
+
+We were soon afloat, far out from the land of either shores. Between
+the two, sea and river meet; is the river really trying to lose itself
+in the sea, or is it hopelessly attempting to swallow the sea? The
+green line that divides them will never give you the answer: it changes
+hour by hour, day by day; now it is like a knife-cut, deep and
+straight; and now like a ribbon that wavers and flutters, tying
+together the blue of the great ocean and the silver of the Seine. Close
+to the lips of the mighty mouth lie the two shores. In that fresh May
+sunshine Havre glittered and bristled, was aglow with a thousand tints
+and tones; but we sailed and sailed away from her, and behold, already
+she had melted into her cliffs. Opposite, nearing with every dip of the
+dun-colored sail into the blue seas, was the Calvados coast; in its
+turn it glistened, and in its young spring verdure it had the lustre of
+a rough-hewn emerald.
+
+"_Que voulez-vous, mesdames?_ Who could have told that the wind would
+play us such a trick?"
+
+The voice was the voice of our captain. With much affluence of gesture
+he was explaining--his treachery! Our nearness to the coast had made
+the confession necessary. To the blandness of his smile, as he
+proceeded in his unabashed recital, succeeded a pained expression. We
+were not accepting the situation with the true phlegm of philosophers;
+he felt that he had just cause for protest. What possible difference
+could it make to us whether we were landed at Trouville or at
+Villerville? But to him--to be accused of betraying two ladies--to
+allow the whole of the Havre quays to behold in him a man disgraced,
+dishonored!
+
+His was a tragic figure as he stood up, erect on the poop, to clap
+hands to a blue-clad breast, and to toss a black mane of hair in the
+golden air.
+
+"_Dame! Toujours été galant homme, moi!_ I am known on both shores as
+the most gallant of men. But the most gallant of men cannot control the
+caprice of the wind!" To which was added much abuse of the muddy
+bottoms, the strength of the undertow, and other marine disadvantages
+peculiar to Villerville.
+
+It was a tragic figure, with gestures and voice to match. But it was
+evident that the Captain had taken his own measure mistakenly. In him
+the French stage had lost a comedian of the first magnitude. Much,
+therefore, we felt, was to be condoned in one who doubtless felt so
+great a talent itching for expression. When next he smiled, we had
+revived to a keener appreciation of baffled genius ever on the scent
+for the capture of that fickle goddess, opportunity.
+
+The captain's smile was oiling a further word of explanation. "See,
+mesdames, they come! they will soon land you on the beach!"
+
+He was pointing to a boat smaller than our own, that now ran alongside.
+There had been frequent signallings between the two boats, a running up
+and down of a small yellow flag which we had thought amazingly becoming
+to the marine landscape, until we learned the true relation of the flag
+to the treachery aboard our own craft.
+
+"You see, mesdames," smoothly continued our talented traitor, "you see
+how the waves run up on the beach. We could never, with this great
+sail, run in there. We should capsize. But behold, these are bathers,
+accustomed to the water--they will carry you--but as if you were
+feathers!" And he pointed to the four outstretched, firmly-muscled
+arms, as if to warrant their powers of endurance. The two men had left
+their boat; it was dancing on the water, at anchor. They were standing
+immovable as pillars of stone, close to the gunwales of our craft. They
+were holding out their arms to us.
+
+Charm suddenly stood upright. She held out her hands like a child, to
+the least impressionable boatman. In an instant she was clasping his
+bronze throat.
+
+"All my life I've prayed for adventure. And at last it has come!" This
+she cried, as she was carried high above the waves.
+
+"That's right, have no fear," answered her carrier as he plunged
+onward, ploughing his way through the waters to the beach.
+
+Beneath my own feet there was a sudden swish and a swirl of restless,
+tumbling waters. The motion, as my carrier buried his bared legs in the
+waves, was such as accompanies impossible flights described in dreams,
+through some unknown medium. The surging waters seemed struggling to
+submerge us both; the two thin, tanned legs of the fisherman about
+whose neck I was clinging, appeared ridiculously inadequate to cleave a
+successful path through a sea of such strength as was running shoreward.
+
+"Madame does not appear to be used to this kind of travelling," puffed
+out my carrier, his conversational instinct, apparently, not in the
+least dampened by his strenuous plunging through the spirited sea. "It
+happens every day--all the aristocrats land this way, when they come
+over by the little boats. It distracts and amuses them, they say. It
+helps to kill the ennui."
+
+"I should think it might, my feet are soaking; sometimes wet feet--"
+
+"Ah, that's a pity, you must get a better hold," sympathetically
+interrupted my fisherman, as he proceeded to hoist me higher up on his
+shoulder. I, or a sack of corn, or a basket of fish, they were all one
+to this strong back and to these toughened sinews. When he had adjusted
+his present load at a secure height, above the dashing of the spray, he
+went on talking. "Yes, when the rich suffer a little it is not such a
+bad thing, it makes a pleasant change--_cela leur distrait_. For
+instance, there is the Princess de L----, there's her villa, close by,
+with green blinds. She makes little excuses to go over to Havre, just
+for this--to be carried in the arms like an infant. You should hear
+her, she shouts and claps her hands! All the beach assembles to see her
+land. When she is wet she cries for joy. It is so difficult to amuse
+one's self, it appears, in the great world."
+
+"But, _tiens_, here we are, I feel the dry sands." I was dropped as
+lightly on them as if it had been indeed a bunch of feathers my
+fisherman had been carrying.
+
+And meanwhile, out yonder, across the billows, with airy gesture
+dramatically executed, our treacherous captain was waving us a
+theatrical salute. The infant mate was grinning like a gargoyle. They
+were both delightfully unconscious, apparently, of any event having
+transpired, during the afternoon's pleasuring, which could possibly
+tinge the moment of parting with the hues of regret.
+
+"_Pour les bagages, mesdames_--"
+
+Two dripping, outstretched hands, two berets doffed, two picturesque
+giants bowing low, with a Frenchman's grace--this, on the Trouville
+sands, was the last act of this little comedy of our landing on the
+coast of France.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A SPRING DRIVE.
+
+
+The Trouville beach was as empty as a desert. No other footfall, save
+our own, echoed along the broad board walks; this Boulevard des
+Italiens of the Normandy coast, under the sun of May was a shining
+pavement that boasted only a company of jelly-fishes as loungers.
+
+Down below was a village, a white cluster of little wooden houses; this
+was the village of the bath houses. The hotels might have been
+monasteries deserted and abandoned, in obedience to a nod from Rome or
+from the home government. Not even a fisherman's net was spread
+a-drying, to stay the appetite with a sense of past favors done by the
+sea to mortals more fortunate than we. The whole face of nature was as
+indifferent as a rich relation grown callous to the voice of entreaty.
+There was no more hope of man apparently, than of nature, being moved
+by our necessity; for man, to be moved, must primarily exist, and he
+was as conspicuously absent on this occasion as Genesis proves him to
+have been on the fourth day of creation.
+
+Meanwhile we sat still, and took counsel together. The chief of the
+council suddenly presented himself. It was a man in miniature. The
+masculine shape, as it loomed up in the distance, gradually separating
+itself from the background of villa roofs and casino terraces, resolved
+itself into a figure stolid and sturdy, very brown of leg, and insolent
+of demeanor--swaggering along as if conscious of there being a
+full-grown man buttoned up within a boy's ragged coat. The swagger was
+accompanied by a whistle, whose neat crispness announced habits of
+leisure and a sense of the refined pleasures of life; for an artistic
+rendering of an aria from "La Fille de Madame Angot" was cutting the
+air with clear, high notes.
+
+The whistle and the brown legs suddenly came to a dead stop. The round
+blue eyes had caught sight of us:
+
+"_Ouid-a-a!_" was this young Norman's salutation. There was very little
+trouser left, and what there was of it was all pocket, apparently. Into
+the pockets the boy's hands were stuffed, along with his amazement; for
+his face, round and full though it was, could not hold the full measure
+of his surprise.
+
+"We came over by boat--from Havre," we murmured meekly; then, "Is there
+a cake-shop near?" irrelevantly concluded Charm with an unmistakable
+ring of distress in her tone. There was no need of any further
+explanation. These two hearty young appetites understood each other;
+for hunger is a universal language, and cake a countersign common among
+the youth of all nations.
+
+"Until you came, you see, we couldn't leave the luggage," she went on.
+
+The blue eyes swept the line of our boxes as if the lad had taken his
+afternoon stroll with no other purpose than to guard them. "There are
+eight, and two umbrellas. _Soyez tranquille, je vous attendrai._"
+
+It was the voice and accent of a man of the world, four feet high--a
+pocket edition, so to speak, in shabby binding. The brown legs hung,
+the next instant, over the tallest of the trunks. The skilful whistling
+was resumed at once; our appearance and the boy's present occupation
+were mere interludes, we were made to understand; his real business,
+that afternoon, was to do justice to the Lecoq's entire opera, and to
+keep his eye on the sea.
+
+Only once did he break down; he left a high _C_ hanging perilously in
+mid-air, to shout out "I like madeleines, I do!" We assured him he
+should have a dozen.
+
+"_Bien!_" and we saw him settling himself to await our return in
+patience.
+
+Up in the town the streets, as we entered them, were as empty as was
+the beach. Trouville might have been a buried city of antiquity. Yet,
+in spite of the desolation, it was French and foreign; it welcomed us
+with an unmistakably friendly, companionable air. Why is it that one is
+made to feel the companionable element, by instantaneous process, as it
+were, in a Frenchman and in his towns? And by what magic also does a
+French village or city, even at its least animated period, convey to
+one the fact of its nationality? We made but ten steps progress through
+these silent streets, fronting the beach, and yet, such was the subtle
+enigma of charm with which these dumb villas and mute shops were
+invested, that we walked along as if under the spell of fascination.
+Perhaps the charm is a matter of sex, after all: towns are feminine, in
+the wise French idiom, that idiom so delicate in discerning qualities
+of sex in inanimate objects, as the Greeks before them were clever in
+discovering sex distinctions in the moral qualities. Trouville was so
+true a woman, that the coquette in her was alive and breathing even in
+this her moment of suspended animation. The closed blinds and iron
+shutters appeared to be winking at us, slyly, as if warning us not to
+believe in this nightmare of desolation; she was only sleeping, she
+wished us to understand; the touch of the first Parisian would wake her
+into life. The features of her fashionable face, meanwhile, were
+arranged with perfect composure; even in slumber she had preserved her
+woman's instinct of orderly grace; not a sign was awry, not a
+window-blind gave hint of rheumatic hinges, or of shattered vertebrae;
+all the machinery was in order; the faintest pressure on the electrical
+button, the button that connects this lady of the sea with the Paris
+Bourse and the Boulevards, and how gayly, how agilely would this
+Trouville of the villas and the beaches spring into life!
+
+The listless glances of the few tailors and cobblers who, with
+suspended thread, now looked after us, seemed dazed--as if they could
+not believe in the reality of two early tourists. A woman's head, here
+and there, leaned over to us from a high window; even these feminine
+eyes, however, appeared to be glued with the long winter's lethargy of
+dull sleep; they betrayed no edge of surprise or curiosity. The sun
+alone, shining with spendthrift glory, flooding the narrow streets and
+low houses with a late afternoon stream of color, was the sole
+inhabitant who did not blink at us, bovinely, with dulled vision.
+
+Half an hour later we were speeding along the roadway. Half an
+hour--and Trouville might have been a thousand miles away. Inland, the
+eye plunged over nests of clover, across the tops of the apple and
+peach trees, frosted now with blossoms, to some farm interiors. The
+familiar Normandy features could be quickly spelled out, one by one.
+
+It was the milking-hour.
+
+The fields were crowded with cattle and women; some of the cows were
+standing immovable, and still others were slowly defiling, in
+processional dignity, toward their homes. Broad-hipped, lean-busted
+figures, in coarse gowns and worsted kerchiefs, toiled through the
+fields, carrying full milk-jugs; brass _amphorae_ these latter might
+have been, from their classical elegance of shape. Ploughmen appeared
+and disappeared, they and their teams rising and sinking with the
+varying heights and depressions of the more distant undulations. In the
+nearer cottages the voices of children would occasionally fill the air
+with a loud clamor of speech; then our steed's bell-collar would
+jingle, and for the children's cries, a bird-throat, high above, from
+the heights of a tall pine would pour forth, as if in uncontrollable
+ecstasy, its rapture into the stillness of this radiant Normandy
+garden. The song appeared to be heard by other ears than ours. We were
+certain the dull-brained sheep were greatly affected by the strains of
+that generous-organed songster--they were so very still under the pink
+apple boughs. The cows are always good listeners; and now, relieved of
+their milk, they lifted eyes swimming with appreciative content above
+the grasses of their pasture. Two old peasants heard the very last of
+the crisp trills, before the concert ended; they were leaning forth
+from the narrow window-ledges of a straw-roofed cottage; the music gave
+to their blinking old eyes the same dreamy look we had read in the
+ruminating cattle orbs. For an aeronaut on his way to bed, I should
+have felt, had I been in that blackbird's plumed corselet, that I had
+had a gratifyingly full house.
+
+Meanwhile, toward the west, a vast marine picture, like a panorama on
+wheels, was accompanying us all the way. Sometimes at our feet, beneath
+the seamy fissures of a hillside, or far removed by sweep of meadow,
+lay the fluctuant mass we call the sea. It was all a glassy yellow
+surface now; into the liquid mirror the polychrome sails sent down long
+lines of color. The sun had sunk beyond the Havre hills, but the flame
+of his mantle still swept the sky. And into this twilight there crept
+up from the earth a subtle, delicious scent and smell--the smell and
+perfume of spring--of the ardent, vigorous, unspent Normandy spring.
+
+[Illustration: A VILLAGE STREET--VILLERVILLE]
+
+Suddenly a belfry grew out of the grain-fields.
+
+"_Nous voici_--here's Villerville!" cried lustily into the twilight our
+coachman's thick peasant voice. With the butt-end of his whip he
+pointed toward the hill that the belfry crowned. Below the little
+hamlet church lay the village. A high, steep street plunged recklessly
+downward toward the cliff; we as recklessly were following it. The
+snapping of our driver's whip had brought every inhabitant of the
+street upon the narrow sidewalks. A few old women and babies hung forth
+from the windows, but the houses were so low, that even this portion of
+the population, hampered somewhat by distance and comparative
+isolation, had been enabled to join in the chorus of voices that filled
+the street. Our progress down the steep, crowded street was marked by a
+pomp and circumstance which commonly attend only a royal entrance into
+a town; all of the inhabitants, to the last man and infant, apparently,
+were assembled to assist at the ceremonial of our entry.
+
+A chorus of comments arose from the shadowy groups filling the low
+doorways and the window casements.
+
+"_Tiens_--it begins to arrive--the season!"
+
+"Two ladies--alone--like that!"
+
+"_Dame! Anglaises, Américaines_--they go round the world thus, _à
+deux_!"
+
+"And why not, if they are young and can pay?"
+
+"Bah! old or poor, it's all one--they're never still, those English!" A
+chorus of croaking laughter rattled down the street along with the
+rolling of our carriage-wheels.
+
+Above, the great arch of sky had shrunk, all at once, into a narrow
+scallop; with the fields and meadows the glow of twilight had been left
+behind. We seemed to be pressing our way against a great curtain, the
+curtain made by the rich dusk that filled the narrow thoroughfare.
+Through the darkness the sinuous street and rickety houses wavered in
+outline, as the bent shapes of the aged totter across dimly-lit
+interiors. A fisherman's bare legs, lit by some dimly illumined
+interior; a line of nets in the little yards; here and there a white
+kerchief or cotton cap, dazzling in whiteness, thrown out against the
+black facades, were spots of light here and there. There was a glimpse
+of the village at its supper--in low-raftered interiors a group of
+blouses and women in fishermen's rig were gathered about narrow tables,
+the coarse-featured faces and the seamed foreheads lit up by the feeble
+flame of candles that ended in long, thin lines of smoke.
+
+"_Ohé--Mère Mouchard!--des voyageurs!_" cried forth our coachman into
+the darkness. He had drawn up before a low, brightly-lit interior. In
+response to the call a figure appeared on the threshold of the open
+door. The figure stood there for a long instant, rubbing its hands, as
+it peered out into the dusk of the night to take a good look at us. The
+brown head was cocked on one side thoughtfully; it was an attitude that
+expressed, with astonishingly clear emphasis, an unmistakable
+professional conception of hospitality. It was the air and manner, in a
+word, of one who had long since trimmed the measurement of its
+graciousness to the price paid for the article.
+
+"_Ces dames_ wished rooms, they desired lodgings and board--_ces dames_
+were alone?" The voice finally asked, with reticent dignity. "From
+Havre--from Trouville, _par p'tit bateau!_" called out lustily our
+driver, as if to furnish us, _gratis_, with a passport to the
+landlady's not too effusive cordiality.
+
+What secret spell of magic may have lain hidden in our friendly
+coachman's announcement we never knew. But the "p'tit bateau" worked
+magically. The figure of Mère Mouchard materialized at once into such
+zeal, such effusion, such a zest of welcome, that we, our bags, and our
+coachman were on the instant toiling up a pair of spiral wooden stairs.
+There was quite a little crowd to fill the all-too-narrow landing at
+the top of the steep steps, a crowd that ended in a long line of
+waiters and serving-maids, each grasping a remnant of luggage. Our
+hostess, meanwhile, was fumbling at a door-lock--an obstinate door that
+refused to be wrenched open.
+
+"Augustine--run--I've taken the wrong key. _Cours, mon enfant_, it is
+no farther away than the kitchen."
+
+The long line pressed itself against the low walls. Augustine, a
+blond-haired, neatly-garmented shape, sped down the rickety stairs with
+the step of youth and a dancer; for only the nimble ankles of one
+accomplished in waltzing could have tripped as dexterously downward as
+did Augustine.
+
+"How she lags! what an idiot of a child!" fumed Mère Mouchard as she
+peered down into the round blackness about which the curving staircase
+closed like an embrace. "One must have patience, it appears, with
+people made like that. _Ah, tiens,_ here she comes. How could you keep
+_ces dames_ waiting like this? It is shameful, shameful!" cried the
+woman, as she half shook the panting girl, in anger. "If _ces dames_
+will enter,"--her voice changing at once to a caressing falsetto, as
+the door flew open, opened by Augustine's trembling fingers--"they will
+find their rooms in readiness."
+
+The rooms were as bare as a soldier's barrack, but they were spotlessly
+clean. There was the pale flicker of a sickly candle to illumine the
+shadowy recesses of the curtained beds and the dark little
+dressing-rooms.
+
+A few moments later we wound our way downward, spirally, to find
+ourselves seated at a round table in a cosy, compact dining-room.
+Directly opposite, across the corridor, was the kitchen, from which
+issued a delightful combination of vinous, aromatic odors. The light of
+a strong, bright lamp made it as brilliant as a ball-room; it was a
+ball-room which for decoration had rows of shining brass and copper
+kettles--each as burnished as a jewel--a mass of sunny porcelain, and
+for carpet the satin of a wooden floor. There was much bustling to and
+fro. Shapes were constantly passing and repassing across the lighted
+interior. The Mère's broad-hipped figure was an omniscient presence: it
+hovered at one instant over a steaming saucepan, and the next was
+lifting a full milk-jug or opening a wine-bottle. Above the clatter of
+the dishes and the stirring of spoons arose the thick Normandy voices,
+deep alto tones, speaking in strange jargon of speech--a world of
+patois removed from our duller comprehension. It was made somewhat too
+plain in this country, we reflected, that a man's stomach is of far
+more importance than the rest of his body. The kitchen yonder was by
+far the most comfortable, the warmest, and altogether the prettiest
+room in the whole house.
+
+Augustine crossed the narrow entry just then with a smoking pot of
+soup. She was followed, later, by Mère Mouchard, who bore a sole au vin
+blanc, a bottle of white Burgundy, and a super-naturally ethereal
+soufflé. And an hour after, even the curtainless, carpetless bed
+chambers above were powerless to affect the luxurious character of our
+dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FROM AN INN WINDOW.
+
+
+One travels a long distance, sometimes, to make the astonishing
+discovery that pleasure comes with the doing of very simple things. We
+had come from over the seas to find the act of leaning on a window
+casement as exciting as it was satisfying. It is true that from our two
+inn windows there was a delightful variety of nature and of human
+nature to look out upon. From the windows overlooking the garden there
+was only the horizon to bound infinity. The Atlantic, beginning with
+the beach at our feet, stopped at nothing till it met the sky. The sea,
+literally, was at our door; it and the Seine were next-door neighbors.
+Each hour of the day these neighbors presented a different face, were
+arrayed in totally different raiment, were grave or gay, glowing with
+color or shrouded in mists, according to the mood and temper of the
+sun, the winds, and the tides.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE BEACH--VILLERVILLE]
+
+The width of the sky overhanging this space was immense; not a scrap,
+apparently, was left over to cover, decently, the rest of the earth's
+surface--of that one was quite certain in looking at this vast inverted
+cup overflowing with ether. What there was of land was a very sketchy
+performance. Opposite ran the red line of the Havre headlands.
+
+Following the river, inland, there was a pretence of shore, just
+sufficiently outlined, like a youth's beard, to give substance to one's
+belief in its future growth and development. Beneath these windows the
+water, hemmed in by this edge of shore, panted, like a child at play;
+its sighs, liquid, lisping, were irresistible; one found oneself
+listening for the sound of them as if they had issued from a human
+throat. The humming of the bees in the garden, the cry of a fisherman
+calling across the water, the shout of the children below on the beach,
+or, at twilight, the chorusing birds, carolling at full concert pitch;
+this, at most, was all the sound and fury the sea beach yielded.
+
+The windows opening on the village street let in a noise as tumultuous
+as the sea was silent. The hubbub of a perpetual babble, all the louder
+for being compressed within narrow space, was always to be heard; it
+ceased only when the village slept. There was an incessant clicking
+accompaniment to this noisy street life; a music played from early dawn
+to dusk over the pavement's rough cobbles--the click clack, click clack
+of the countless wooden sabots.
+
+Part of this clamor in the streets was due to the fact that the
+village, as a village, appeared to be doing a tremendous business with
+the sea.
+
+Men and women were perpetually going to and coming from the beach.
+Fishermen, sailors, women bearing nets, oars, masts, and sails,
+children bending beneath the weight of baskets filled with kicking
+fish; wheelbarrows stocked high with sea-food and warm clothing; all
+this commerce with the sea made the life in these streets a more
+animated performance than is commonly seen in French villages.
+
+In time, the provincial mania began to work in our veins.
+
+To watch our neighbors, to keep an eye on this life--this became, after
+a few days, the chief occupation of our waking hours.
+
+The windows of our rooms fronting on the street were peculiarly well
+adapted for this unmannerly occupation. By merely opening the blinds,
+we could keep an eye on the entire village. Not a cat could cross the
+street without undergoing inspection. Augustine, for example, who, once
+having turned her back on the inn windows, believed herself entirely
+cut off from observation, was perilously exposed to our mercy. We knew
+all the secrets of her thieving habits; we could count, to a second,
+the time she stole from the Mere, her employer, to squander in smiles
+and dimples at the corner creamery. There a tall Norman rained
+admiration upon her through wide blue eyes, as he patted, caressingly,
+the pots of blond butter, just the color of her hair, before laying
+them, later, tenderly in her open palm. Soon, as our acquaintance with
+our neighbors deepened into something like intimacy, we came to know
+their habits of mind as we did their facial peculiarities; certain of
+their actions made an event in our day. It became a serious matter of
+conjecture as to whether Madame de Tours, the social swell of the town,
+would or would not offer up her prayer to Deity, accompanied by
+Friponne, her black poodle. If Friponne issued forth from the narrow
+door, in company with her austere mistress, the shining black silk
+gown, we knew, would not decorate the angular frame of this
+aristocratic provincial; a sober beige was best fitted to resist the
+dashes made by Friponne's sharply-trimmed nails. It was for this, to
+don a silk gown in full sight of her neighbors; to set up as companion
+a dog of the highest fashion, the very purest of _caniches_, that
+twenty years of patient nursing a paralytic husband--who died all too
+slowly--had been counted as nothing!
+
+Once we were summoned to our outlook by the vigorous beating of a drum.
+Madame Mouchard and Augustine were already at their own post of
+observation--the open inn door. The rest of the village was in full
+attendance, for it was not every day in the week that the "tambour,"
+the town-crier, had business enough to render his appearance, in his
+official capacity, necessary; as a mere townsman he was to be seen any
+hour of the day, as drunk as a lord, at the sign of "L'Ami Fidèle." His
+voice, as it rolled out the words of his cry, was as _staccato_ in
+pitch as any organ can be whose practice is largely confined to
+unceasing calls for potations. To the listening crowd, the thick voice
+was shouting:
+
+"_Madame Tricot--à la messe--dimanche--a--perdu une broche--or et
+perles--avec cheveux--Madame Merle a perdu--sur la plage--un panier
+avec--un chat noir--_"
+
+We ourselves, to our astonishment, were drummed the very next morning.
+Augustine had made the discovery of a missing shoulder-cape; she had
+taken it upon herself to call in the drummer. So great was the
+attendance of villagers, even the abstractors of the lost garment must,
+we were certain, be among the crowd assembled to hear our names shouted
+out on the still air. We were greatly affected by the publicity of the
+occasion; but the village heard the announcement, both of our names and
+of our loss, with the phlegm of indifference. "Vingt francs pour avoir
+tambouriné mademoiselle!" This was an item which a week later, in
+madame's little bill, was not confronted with indifference.
+
+"It gives one the feeling of having had relations with a wandering
+circus," remarked the young philosopher at my side.
+
+"But it is really a great convenience, that system," she continued;
+"I'm always mislaying things--and through the drummer there's a whole
+village as aid to find a lost article. I shall, doubtless, always have
+that, now, in my bills!" And Charm, with an air of serene confidence in
+the village, adjusted her restored shoulder-cape.
+
+Down below, in our neighbor's garden--the one adjoining our own and
+facing the sea--a new and old world of fashion in capes and other
+garments were a-flutter in the breeze, morning after morning. Who and
+what was this neighbor, that he should have so curious and eccentric a
+taste in clothes? No woman was to be seen in the garden-paths; a man,
+in a butler's apron and a silk skullcap, came and went, his arms piled
+high with gowns and scarves, and all manner of strange odds and ends.
+Each morning some new assortment of garments met our wondering eyes.
+Sometimes it was a collection of Empire embroidered costumes that were
+hung out on the line; faded fleur-de-lis, sprigs of dainty lilies and
+roses, gold-embossed Empire coats, strewn thick with seed-pearls on
+satins softened by time into melting shades. When next we looked the
+court of Napoleon had vanished, and the Bourbon period was, literally,
+in full swing. A frou-frou of laces, coats with deep skirts, and
+beribboned trousers would be fluttering airily in the soft May air.
+Once, in fine contrast to these courtly splendors, was a wondrous
+assortment of flannel petticoats. They were of every hue--red, yellow,
+brown, pink, patched, darned, wide-skirted, plaited, ruffled--they
+appeared to represent the taste and requirement of every climate and
+country, if one could judge by the thickness of some and the gossamer
+tissues of others; but even the smartest were obviously, unmistakably,
+effrontedly, flannel petticoats.
+
+It was a mystery that greatly intrigued us. One morning the mystery was
+solved. A whiff of tobacco from an upper window came along with a puff
+of wind. It was a heated whiff, in spite of the cooling breeze. It was
+from a pipe, a short, black pipe, owned by some one in the Mansard
+window next door. There was the round disk of a dark-blue beret
+drooping over the pipe. "Good--" I said to myself--"I shall see now--at
+last--this maniac with a taste for darned petticoats!"
+
+The pipe smoked peacefully, steadily on. The beret was motionless.
+Between the pipe and the cap was a man's profile; it was too much in
+shadow to be clearly defined.
+
+The next instant the man's face was in full sunlight. The face turned
+toward me--with the quick instinct of knowing itself watched--and then--
+
+"Pas--possible!"
+
+"You--here!"
+
+"Been here a year--but you, when did you arrive? What luck! What luck!"
+
+It was John Renard, the artist; after the first salutations question
+followed question.
+
+"Are you alone?--"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is she--young?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Pretty?"
+
+"Judge for yourself--that is she--in the garden yonder."
+
+The beret dipped itself perilously out into the sky--to take a full
+view.
+
+"Hem--I'll come in at once."
+
+It was as a trio that the conversation was continued later, in the
+garden. But Renard was still chief questioner.
+
+"Have you been out on the mussel-beds?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"We'll go this afternoon--Have you been to Honfleur? Not yet?--We'll go
+to-morrow. The tide will be in to-day about four--I'll call for
+you--wear heavy boots and old clothes. It's jolly dirty. Where do you
+breakfast?"
+
+The breakfast was eaten, as a trio, at our inn, an hour later. It was
+so warm a day, it was served under one of the arbors. Augustine was
+feeding and caressing the doves as we entered the inn garden. At sight
+of Renard she dropped a quiet courtesy, smiles and roses struggling for
+a supremacy on her round peasant face. She let the doves loose at once,
+saying: "Allez, allez," as if they quite understood that with Monsieur
+Renard's advent their hour of success was at an end.
+
+Why does a man's presence always seem to communicate such surprising
+animation to a woman--to any woman? Why does his appearance, for
+instance, suddenly, miraculously stiffen the sauces, lure from the
+cellar bottles incrusted with the gray of thick cobwebs, give an added
+drop of the lemon to the mayonnaise, and make an omelette to swim in a
+sea of butter? All these added touches to our commonly admirable
+breakfast were conspicuous that day--it was a breakfast for a prince
+and a gourmet.
+
+"The Mère can cook--when she gives her mind to it," was Renard's meagre
+masculine comment, as the last morsel of the golden omelette
+disappeared behind his mustache.
+
+It was a gay little breakfast, with the circling above of the birds and
+the doves. There are duller forms of pleasure than to eat a repast in
+the company of an artist. I know not why it is, but it has always
+seemed to me that the man who lives only to copy life appears to get
+far more out of it than those who make a point of seeing nothing in it
+save themselves.
+
+Renard, meanwhile, was taking pains to assure us that in less than a
+month the Villerville beaches would be crowded; only the artists of the
+brushes were here now; the artists of high life would scarcely be found
+deserting the Avenue des Acacias before June.
+
+"French people are always coming to the seashore, you know--or trying
+to come. It's a part of their emotional religion to worship the sea.
+'La mer! la mer!' they cry, with eyes all whites; then they go into
+little swoons of rapture--I can see them now, attitudinizing in salons
+and at tables-d'hôte!" To which comment we could find no more original
+rejoinder than our laughter.
+
+It was a day when laughter was good; it put one in closer relations
+with the universal smiling. There are certain days when nature seems to
+laugh aloud; in this hour of noon the entire universe, all we could see
+of it, was on a broad grin. Everything moved, or danced, or sang; the
+leaves were each alive, trembling, quivering, shaking; the insect hum
+was like a Wagnerian chorus, deafening to the ear; there was a brisk,
+light breeze stirring--a breeze that moved the higher branches of the
+trees as if it had been an arm; that rippled the grass; that tossed the
+wavelets of the sea into such foam that they seemed over-running with
+laughter; and such was still its unspent energy that it sent the Seine
+with a bound up through its shores, its waters clanging like a sheet of
+mail armor worn by some lusty warrior. We were walking in the narrow
+lane that edged the cliff; it was a lane that was guarded with a
+sentinel row of osiers, syringas, and laburnums. This was the guard of
+the cliffs. On the other side was the high garden wall, over which we
+caught dissolving views of dormer-windows, of gabled roofs, vine-clad
+walls, and a maze of peach and pear blossoms. This was not precisely
+the kind of lane through which one hurried. One needed neither to be
+sixteen nor even in love to find it a delectable path, very agreeable
+to the eye, very suggestive to the imaginative faculty, exceedingly
+satisfactory to the most fastidious of all the senses, to that
+aristocrat of all the five, the sense of smell. Like all entirely
+perfect experiences in life, the lane ended almost as soon as it began;
+it ended in a steep pair of steps that dropped, precipitously, on the
+pebbles of the beach.
+
+For some reason best known to the day and the view, we all, with one
+accord, proceeded to seat ourselves on the topmost step of this
+stairway. We were waiting for the tide to fall, to go out to the
+mussel-bed. Meanwhile the prospect to be seen from this improvised seat
+was one made to be looked at. There is a certain innate compelling
+quality in all great beauty. When nature or woman presents a really
+grandiose appearance, they are singularly reposeful, if you notice;
+they have the calm which comes with a consciousness of splendor. It is
+only prettiness which is tormented with the itching for display; and
+therefore this prospect, which rolled itself out beneath our feet,
+curling in a half-moon of beach, broadening into meadows that dropped
+to the river edge, lifting its beauty upward till the hills met the
+sky. and the river was lost in the clasp of the shore--this aspect of
+nature, in this moment of beauty, was as untroubled as if Chateaubriand
+had not found her a lover, and had flattered man by persuading him that,
+
+"La voix de l'univers, c'est mon intelligence."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OUT ON A MUSSEL-BED.
+
+
+That same afternoon we were out on the mussel bed.
+
+The tide was at its lowest. Before us, for an acre or more, there lay a
+wide, wet, stretch of brown mud. Near the beach was a strip of yellow
+sand; here and there it had contracted into narrow ridges, elsewhere it
+had expanded into scroll-like patterns. The bed of mud and slime ran
+out from this yellow sand strip--a surface diversified by puddles of
+muddy water, by pools, clear, ribbed with wavelets, and by little heaps
+of stones covered with lichens. The surface of the bed, whether pools
+or puddles, or rock-heaps, or sea-weeds massed, was covered by
+thousands and thousands of black, lozenge-shaped bivalves. These
+bivalves were the mussels. Over this bed of shells and slime there
+moved and toiled a whole villageful of old women. Where the sea met the
+edges of the mud-flat the throng of women was thickest. The line of the
+ever-receding shore was marked by the shapes of countless bent figures.
+The heads of these stooping women were on a level with their feet, not
+one stood upright. All that the eye could seize for outline was the
+dome made by the bent hips, and the backs that closed against the knees
+as a blade is clasped into a knife handle. The oblong masses that were
+lifted now and then, from the level of the sabots, resolved themselves
+into the outlines of women's heads and women's faces. These heads were
+tied up in cotton kerchiefs or in cotton nightcaps; these being white,
+together with the long, thick, aprons also white, were in startling
+contrast to the blue of the sky and to the changing sea-tones.
+
+Between these women and the incoming tide, twice daily, was fought a
+persistent, unrelenting duel. It was a duel, on the part of the
+fish-wives, against time, against the fate of the tides, against the
+blind forces of nature. For this combat the women were armed to the
+teeth, clad as they were in their skeleton muscular leanness; helmeted
+with their heads of iron; visored in the bronze of their skin and in
+wrinkles that laughed at the wind. In these sinewy, toughened bodies
+there was a grim strength that appeared to know neither ache nor
+fatigue nor satiety.
+
+High, clear, strong, came their voices. The tones were the tones that
+come from deep chests, and with a prolonged, sustained capacity for
+enduring the toil of men. But the high-pitched laughter proved them
+women, as did their loud and unceasing gossip. The battle of the voices
+rose above the swash of the waves, above, also, another sound, as
+incessant as the women's chatter and the swish of the water as it
+hissed along the mud-flat's edges.
+
+[Illustration: A SALE OF MUSSELS--VILLERVILLE]
+
+This was the swift, sharp, saw-like cutting among the stones and the
+slime, the scrape, scrape of the hundred of knives into the moist
+earth. This ceaseless scraping, lunging, digging, made a new world of
+sound--strange, sinister, uncanny. It was neither of the sea nor yet of
+the land--it was a noise that seemed inseparable from this tongue of
+mud, that also appeared to be neither of the heavens above nor of the
+earth, from the bowels out of which it had sprung.
+
+The mussels cling to their slime with extraordinary tenacity; only an
+expert, who knows the exact point of attachment between the hard shell
+and its soil, can remove a mussel with dexterity. These women, as they
+dipped their knives into the thick mud, swept the diminutive black
+bivalve with a trenchant movement, as a Moor might cleave a human head
+with one turn of his moon-shaped sword. Into the bronzed, wrinkled old
+hands the mussels then were slipped as if they had been so many dainty
+sweets.
+
+New and pungent smells were abroad on this strip of slime. Sea smells,
+strong and salty; smells of the moist and damp soil, the bitter-sweet
+of wetted weeds, the aromatic flavor that shell-life yields, and the
+smells also of rotten and decaying fish--all these were inextricably
+blended in the air, that was of the keenness of a frost-blight for
+freshness, and yet was warm with the softness of a June sun.
+
+Meanwhile the voices of the women were nearing. Some of the bent heads
+were lifted as we approached. Here and there a coif, or cotton cap,
+nodded, and the slit of a smile would gape between the nose and the
+meeting chin. A high good humor appeared to reign among the groups; a
+carnival of merriment laughed itself out in coarse, cracked laughter;
+loud was the play of the jests, hoarse and guttural the gibes that were
+abroad on the still air, from old mouths that uttered strong, deep
+notes.
+
+"Why should they all be old?" we queried. We were near enough to see
+the women face to face now, since we were far out along the outer edges
+of the bed; we were so near the sea that the tide was beginning to wash
+us back, along with the fringe of the diggers.
+
+"They're not--they only look old," replied Renard, stopping a moment to
+sketch in a group directly in front. "This life makes old women of them
+in no time. How old, for instance, should you think that girl was, over
+there?"
+
+The girl whom he designated was the only figure of youth we had seen on
+the bed. She was working alone and remote from the others. She wore no
+coif. Her masses of red, wavy hair shaded a face already deeply seamed
+with lines of premature age. A moment later she passed close to us. She
+was bent almost double beneath a huge, reeking basket, heaped with its
+pile of wet mussels. She was carrying it to a distant pool. Once beside
+the pool, with swift, dexterous movement the heavy basket was slipped
+from the bent back, the load of mussels falling in a shower into the
+miniature lake. The next instant she was stamping on the heap, to
+plunge them with her sabot still further into the pool. She was washing
+her load. Soon she shouldered the basket again, filling it with the
+cleansed mussels. A moment later she joined the long, toiling line of
+women that were perpetually forming and reforming on their way to the
+carts. These latter were drawn up near the beach, their contents
+guarded by boys and old men, who received the loads the women had dug,
+dragging the whole, later, up the hill.
+
+"She has the Venus de Milo lines, that girl," Renard continued,
+critically, with his eyes on her, as she now repassed us. The figure
+was drawn up at its full height. It had in truth a noble dignity of
+outline. There was a Spartan vigor and severity in the lean, uncorseted
+shape, with the bust thrown out against the sky--the bust of a young
+warrior rather than a woman. There was a hardy, masculine freedom in
+the pliable motion of her straight back, a ripple with muscles that
+played easily beneath the close bodice, in her arms, and her finely
+turned ankles and legs, that were bared below the knee. The very
+simplicity of her costume helped to mark the Greek severity of her
+figure. She wore a short skirt of some coarse hempen stuff, covered
+with a thick apron made of sail-cloth, her feet thrust into black
+sabots, while the upper part of her body was covered with an unbleached
+chemise, widely open at the throat.
+
+She had the Phidian breadth and the modern charm--that charm which
+troubles and disturbs, haunting the mind with vague, unsatisfied
+suggestions of something finer than is seen, something nobler than the
+gross physical envelope reveals.
+
+"I must have her--for my Salon picture," calmly remarked Renard, after
+a long moment of scrutiny, his eyes following the lean, stately figure
+in its grave walk across the weeds and slime. "Yes, I must have her."
+
+"Won't she be hard to get? How can she be made to sit, a stiffened
+image of clay, after this life of freedom, this athletic struggle out
+here--with these winds and tides?"
+
+One of us, at least, was stirred at Renard's calm assumption--the
+assumption so common to artists, who, when they see a good thing at
+once count on its possessorship, as if the whole world, indeed, were
+eternally sitting, agape with impatience, awaiting the advent of some
+painter to sketch in its portrait.
+
+"Oh, it'll be easy enough. She makes two francs a day with her six
+basketfuls. I'll offer her three, and she'll drop like a shot."
+
+"I'll make it a red picture," he continued, dipping his brushes into a
+little case of paints he held on his thumb; "the mussel-bed a reddish
+violet, the sky red in the horizon, and the girl in the foreground,
+with that torrent of hair as the high light. I've been hunting for that
+hair all over Europe." And he began sketching her in at once.
+
+"_Bonjour, mère_, how goes it?" He nodded as he sketched at a wrinkled,
+bent figure, who was smiling out at him from beneath her load of
+mussels.
+
+"_Pas mal--e' vous, M'sieur Renard?_"
+
+"All right--and the mortgage, how goes that?"
+
+"Pas si mal--it'll be paid off next year."
+
+"Who is she? One of your models?"
+
+"Yes, last year's: she was my belle--the belle of the mussel-bed for
+me, a year ago. Now there's a lesson in patience for you. She's
+sixty-five, if she's a minute; she's been working here, on this
+mussel-bed, for five years, to pay the mortgage off her farm; when that
+is done, her daughter Augustine can marry; Augustine's _dot_ is the
+farm."
+
+"Augustine--at our inn?"
+
+"The very same."
+
+"And the blonde--the handsome man at the creamery, he is the future--?"
+
+"I'm sorry to hear such things of Augustine," smiled Renard, as he
+worked; "she must be indulging in an entr'acte. No, the gentleman of
+Augustine's--well, perhaps not of her affections, but of her mother's
+choice, is a peasant who works the farm; the creamery is only an
+incidental diversion. Again, I'm sorry to hear such sad things of
+Augustine--"
+
+"Horrors!"
+
+"Exactly. That's the way it's done--over here. Will you join me--over
+there?" Renard blushed a little. "I mean I wish to follow that
+girl--she's going to dig out yonder. Will you come?"
+
+Meanwhile the light was changing, and so was the tide. The women were
+coming inward, washed up to the shore along with the grasses and
+seaweeds. A band of diggers suddenly started, with full basket loads,
+toward a fishing boat that had dropped anchor close in to the shore; it
+was a Honfleur craft, come to buy mussels for the Paris market. The
+women trudged through the water, up to their waists; they clustered
+about the boats like so many laden beasts. But their shrill bargaining
+proved them women.
+
+Meanwhile that gentle hissing along the level stretch of brown mud was
+the tide. It was pushing the women upward, as if it had been a
+hand--the hand of a relentless fate--instead of a little, liquid kiss.
+
+The sun, as it dipped, made a glory of splendor out of this commonplace
+bank. It soaked the mud in gold; it was in a royal mood, throwing its
+largess with reckless abundance to this poor of earth--to the slime and
+the mud. The long, yellow, lichen leaves massed on the rocks were dyed
+as if lying in a yellow bath. The sands were richly colored; the ridges
+were brown in the shadows and burnished at the tops. In the distance
+the sea weeds were black, sable furs, covering the velvet robes of
+earth. The sea out beyond was as rosy as a babe, and the sails were
+dazzlingly white as they floated past, between the sky and the distant
+purple line of the horizon.
+
+Meanwhile the tide is coming in.
+
+The procession of the women toward the carts grows in numbers. The
+thick sabots plunge into the mud, the water squirts out of the wooden
+shoes as the strong heels press into them. The straw, the universal
+stocking of these women-diggers, is reeking with dirt. Volumes of slush
+are splashed on the bared skinny ankles, on the wet skirts, wet to the
+waists, and on the coarse sail-cloth aprons tied beneath the hanging
+bosoms. The women are all drenched now in a bath of filth. The baskets
+are reeking with filth also, they rain showers of dirt along the bent
+backs. A long line of the bent figures has formed on their way to the
+carts. There is, however, a thick fringe of diggers left who still
+dispute their rights with the sea.
+
+But the tide is pushing them inward, upward. And all the while the
+light is getting more and more golden, shimmery, radiant. Under this
+light, beneath this golden mantel of color, these creatures appear
+still more terrible. As they bend over, their faces tirelessly held
+downward on a level with their hands, they seem but gnomes; surely they
+are huge, undeveloped embryos of women, with neither head nor trunk.
+For this light is pitiless. It makes them even more a part of this
+earth, out of which they seem to have sprung, a strange amorphous
+growth. The bronzed skins are dyed in the gold as if to match with the
+hue of the mud; the wet skirts are shreds, gray and brown tatters, not
+so good in texture as the lichens, and the ragged jerseys seem only
+bits of the more distant weeds woven into tissues to hide mercifully
+the lean, sinewy backs.
+
+The tide is almost in.
+
+In the shallows the sunset is fading. Here and there are brilliant
+little pools, each pool a mirror, and each mirror reflects a different
+picture. Here is a second sky--faintly blue, with a trailing saffron
+scarf of cloud; there, the inverted silhouettes of two fish-wives are
+conical shapes, their coifs and wet skirts startlingly distinct in
+tones; beyond, sails a fantastic fleet, with polychrome sails, each
+spar, masthead, and wrinkled sail as sharply outlined as if chiselled
+in relief. Presently these miniature pictures fade as the light fades.
+Blacker grows the mud, and there is less and less of it; the
+silhouetted shapes of the diggers are seen no more; they are following
+the carts up the steep cliffs; even the sky loses its color and fades
+also. And the little pools that have been a burning orange, then a
+darkening violet, gay with pictured worlds, in turn pale to gray, and
+die into the universal blackness.
+
+The tide is in.
+
+It is flowing, rich and full, crested with foam beneath the osier
+hedges. We hear it break with a sudden dash and splutter against the
+cliff parapets. And the mud-bank is no more.
+
+Half an hour later, from our chamber windows we looked forth through
+the dusk across at the mussel bed. The great mud-bank, all that black
+acreage of slime and sea-weed, the eager, struggling band of toiling
+fish wives, all was gone; it was all as if it had not been--would never
+be again. The water hissed along the beach; it broke in rhythmic,
+sonorous measure against the parapet. Surely there had never been any
+beds, or any mussels, or any toiling fish-wives; or if there had, it
+was all a world that the sea had washed up, and then as quietly, as
+heedlessly, as pitilessly had obliterated.
+
+It was the very epitome of life itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE VILLAGE.
+
+
+Our visit to the mussel-bed, as we soon found, had been our formal
+introduction to the village. Henceforth every door step held a friend;
+not a coif or a blouse passed without a greeting. The village, as a
+village, lived in the open street. Villerville had the true French
+genius for society; the very houses were neighborly, crowding close
+upon the narrow sidewalk. Conversation, to be carried on from a
+dormer-window or from opposite sides of the street, had evidently been
+the first architectural consideration in the mind of the builders;
+doors and windows must be as open and accessible as the lives of the
+inhabitants. The houses themselves appeared to be regarded in the light
+of pockets, into which the old women and fishermen plunged to drag
+forth a net or a knife; also as convenient, if rude, little caverns
+into which the village crawled at night, to take its heavy slumber.
+
+The door-step was the drawing-room, and the open street was the club of
+this Villerville world.
+
+The door-way, the yard, or the bit of garden tucked in between two high
+walls--it was here, under the tent of sky rather than beneath the
+stuffy roofs, that the village lived, talked, quarrelled, bargained,
+worked, and more or less openly made love.
+
+To the door-step everything was brought that was portable. There was
+nothing, from the small boy to the brass kettle, that could not be more
+satisfactorily polished off, in full view of one's world, than by one's
+self, in seclusion and solitude. Justice, at least, appeared to gain by
+this passion for open-air ministration, if one were to judge by the
+frequency with which the Villerville boy was laid across the parental
+knee. We were repeatedly called upon to coincide, at the very instant
+of flagellation, with the verdict pronounced against the youthful
+offender.
+
+"_S'il est assez méchant, lui?_ Ah, mesdames, what do you think of one
+who goes forth dry, with clean sabots, that I, myself, have washed, and
+behold him returned, _après un tout p'tit quart d'heure_, stinking with
+filth? Bah! it's he that will catch it when his father comes home!" And
+meanwhile the mother's hand descends, lest justice should cool ere
+night.
+
+[Illustration: A VILLERVILLE FISH-WIFE]
+
+There were other groups that crowded the doorsteps; there were young
+mothers that sat there, with their babes clasped to the full breasts,
+in whose eyes was to be read the satisfied passion of recent
+motherhood; there were gay clusters of young Norman maidens, whose
+glances, brilliant and restless, were pregnant with all the meaning of
+unspent youth. The figures of the fishermen, toiling up the street with
+bared legs and hairy breast, bending beneath their baskets alive with
+fish, stopped to have a word or two, seasoned with a laugh, with these
+latter groups. There were also knots of patient old men, wrecks that
+the sea had tossed back to earth, to rot and die there, that came out
+of the black little houses to rest their bones in the sun. And
+everywhere there were groups of old women, or of women still young, to
+whom the look of age had come long before its due time.
+
+The village seemed peopled with women, sexless creatures for the most
+part, whom toil and the life on the mussel-bed or in the field had
+dried and hardened into mummy shapes. Only these, the old and the
+useless, were left at home to rear the younger generation and to train
+them to take up the same heavy burden of life. The coifs of these old
+hags made dazzling spots of brightness against the gray of the walls
+and the stuccoed houses; clustered together, the high caps that nodded
+in unison to the chatter were in startling contrast to the bronzed
+faces bending over the fish-nets, and to the blue-veined, leathery
+hands that flew in and out of the coarse meshes with the fluent ease of
+long practice.
+
+With one of these old women we became friends. We had made her
+acquaintance at a poetic moment, under romantic circumstances. We were
+all three watching a sunset, under a pink sky; we were sitting far out
+on the grasses of the cliff. Her house was in the midst of the grasses,
+some little distance from the village, attached to it only as a ragged
+fringe might edge a garment. It was a thatched hut; yet there were
+circumstances in the life of the owner which had transformed the
+interior into a luxurious apartment. The owner of the hut was herself
+hanging on the edge of life; she was a toothless, bent, and withered
+old remnant; but her vigor and vivacity were those of a witch. Her
+hands and eyes were ceaselessly active; she was forever busy, fingering
+a fish-net, or polishing her Normandy brasses, or stirring some dark
+liquid in an iron pot over the dim fire.
+
+At our first meeting, conversation had immediately engaged itself; it
+had ended, as all right talk should, in friendship. On this morning of
+our visit, many a gay one having preceded it, we found our friend
+arrayed as if for an outing. She had mounted her best coif, and tied
+across her shrivelled old breast was a vivid purple silk kerchief.
+
+"_Tiens, mes enfants, soyez les bienvenues_," was her gay greeting,
+seasoned with a high cackling laugh, as she waved us to two rickety
+chairs. "No, I'm not going out, not yet; there is plenty of time,
+plenty of time. It is you who are good, _si aimables_, to come out here
+to see me. And tired, too, _hein_, with the long walk? _Tiens_, I had
+nearly forgotten; there's a bottle of wine open below--you must take a
+glass."
+
+She never forgot. The bottle of wine had always just been opened; the
+cork was always also miraculously rebellious for a cork that had been
+previously pulled. Although our ancient friend was a peasant, her
+cellar was the cellar of a gourmet. Wonderful old wines were hers!
+Port, Bordeaux, white wines, of vintages to make the heart warm; each
+was produced in turn, a different vintage and wine on each one of our
+visits, but no champagne. This was no wine for women--for the right
+women. Champagne was a bad, fast wine, for fast, disreputable people.
+"_C'est un vrai poison, qui vous infecte_," she had declared again and
+again, and when she saw her daughter drinking it, it made her shudder;
+she confessed to having a moment of doubt; had Paris, indeed, really
+brought her child no harm? Then the old mere would shrug her bent
+shoulders and rub her hands, and for a moment she would be lost in
+thought. Presently the cracked old laugh would peal forth again, and,
+as she threw back her head, she would shake it as if to dispel some
+dark vision.
+
+To-day she had dropped, almost as soon as we entered, into a narrow
+trap-door, descending a flight of stone steps. We could hear a clicking
+of bottles and a rustling of straw; and then, behold, a veritable fairy
+issuing from the bowels of the earth, with flushes of red suffusing the
+ribbed, bewrinkled face, as the old figure straightens its crookedness
+to carry the dusty bottle securely, steadily, lest the cloudy settling
+at the bottom should be disturbed. What a merry little feast then
+began! We had learned where the glasses were kept; we had been busily
+scouring them while our hostess was below. Then wine and glasses, along
+with three chairs, were quickly placed on the pine table at the door of
+the old house. Here, on the grass of the cliffs, we sat, sipping our
+wine, enjoying the sea that lay at our feet, and above, the sunlit sky.
+To our friend both sky and sea were familiar companions; but the fichu
+was a new friend.
+
+"Yes, it is very beautiful, as you say," she said, in answer to our
+admiring comments. "It came from Paris, from my daughter. She sent it
+to me; she is always making me gifts; she is one who remembers her old
+mother! Figure to yourselves that last year, in midwinter, she sent me
+no less than three gowns, all wool! What can I do with them? _C'est
+pour me flatter, c'est sa manière de me dire qu'il faut vivre pour
+longtemps! Ah, la chère folle!_ But she spoils me, the darling!"
+
+This daughter had become the most mysterious of all our Villerville
+discoveries. Our old friend was a peasant, the child of peasant
+farmers. She would always remain a peasant; and yet her daughter was a
+Parisian, and lived in a _bonbonnière_. She was also married; but that
+only served to thicken the web of mystery enshrouding her. How could a
+daughter of a peasant, brought up as a peasant, who had lived here, a
+tiller of the fields till her nineteenth year, suddenly be transformed
+into a woman of the Parisian world, gain the position of a banker's
+wife, and be dancing, as the old mere kept telling us, at balls at the
+Elysée? Her mother never answered this riddle for us; and, more amazing
+still, neither could the village. The village would shrug its
+shoulders, when we questioned it, with discretion, concerning this
+enigma. "Ah, dame! It was she--the old mere--who had had chances in
+life, to marry her daughter like that! Victorine was pretty--yes, there
+was no gainsaying she was pretty--but not so beautiful as all that, to
+entrap a banker, _un homme sérieux, qui vit de ses rentes!_ and who was
+generous, too, for the old mere needn't work now, since she was always
+receiving money." Gifts were perpetually pouring into the low
+rooms--wines, and Parisian delicacies, and thick garments.
+
+The tie between the two, between the mother and daughter, appeared to
+be as strong and their relations as complete, as if one were not clad
+in homespun and the other in Worth gowns. There was no shame, that was
+easily seen, on either side; each apparently was full of pride in the
+other; their living apart was entirely due to the old mère's preference
+for a life on the cliffs, alone in the midst of all her old peasant
+belongings.
+
+"_C'est plus chez-soi, ici!_ Victorine feels that, too. She loves the
+smell of the old wood, and of the peat burning there in the fireplace.
+When she comes down to see me, I must shut fast all the doors and
+windows; she wants the whole of the smell, _pour faire le vrai
+bouquet_, as she says. If she had had children--ah!--I don't say but
+what I might have consented; but as it is, I love my old fire, and my
+view out there, and the village, best!"
+
+At this point in the conversation, the old eyes, bright as they were,
+turned dim and cloudy; the inward eye was doubtless seeing something
+other than the view; it was resting on a youthful figure, clad in
+Parisian draperies, and on a face rising above the draperies, that bent
+lovingly over the deep-throated fireplace, basking in its warmth, and
+revelling in its homely perfume. We were silent also, as the picture of
+that transfigured daughter of the house flitted across our own mental
+vision.
+
+"The village?" suddenly broke in the old mère. "_Dieu de Dieu!_ that
+reminds me. I must go, my children, I must go. Loisette is waiting; _la
+pauvre enfant_--perhaps suffering too--how do I know? And here am I,
+playing, like a lazy clout! Did you know she had had un _nini_ this
+morning? The little angel came at dawn. That's a good sign! And what
+news for Auguste! He was out last night--fishing; she was at her
+washing when he left her. _Tiens_, there they are, looking for him!
+They've brought the spy-glass."
+
+The old mère shaded her eyes, as she looked out into the dazzling
+sunlight. We followed her finger, that pointed to a projection on the
+cliffs. Among the grasses, grouped on top of the highest rock, was a
+family party. An old fish-wife was standing far out against the sky;
+she also was shading her eyes. A child's round head, crowded into a
+white knit cap, was etched against the wide blue; and, kneeling,
+holding in both hands a seaman's long glass, was a girl, sweeping the
+horizon with swift, skilful stretches of arm and hand. The sun
+descended in a shower of light on the old grandam's seamy face, on the
+red, bulging cheeks of the chubby child, and on the bent figure of the
+girl, whose knees were firmly implanted in the deep, tall grasses.
+Beyond the group there was nothing but sea and sky.
+
+"Yes," the mere went on, garrulously, as she recorked the bottle of old
+port, carrying table and glasses within doors. "Yes, they're looking
+for him. It ought to be time, now; he's due about now. There's a man
+for you--good--_bon comme le bon Dieu_. Sober, saving too--good
+father--in love with Loisette as on the wedding night--_ah, mes
+enfants!_--there are few like him, or this village would be a paradise!"
+
+She shut the door of the little cabin. And then she gave us a broad
+wink. The wink was entirely by way of explanation; it was to enlighten
+us as to why a certain rare bottle of port--a fresh one--was being
+secreted beneath her fichu. It was a wink that conveyed to us a really
+valuable number of facts; chief among them being the very obvious fact
+that the French Government was an idiot, and a tyrant into the bargain,
+since it imposed stupid laws no one meant to carry out; least of all a
+good Norman. What? pay two _sous octroi_ on a bottle of one's own wine,
+that one had had in one's cellar for half a lifetime? To cheat the town
+out of those twopence becomes, of course, the true Norman's chief
+pleasure in life. What is his reputation worth, as a shrewd, sharp man
+of business, if a little thing like cheating stops him? It is even
+better fun than bargaining, to cheat thus one's own town, since nothing
+is to be risked, and one is so certain of success.
+
+The mere nodded to us gayly, in farewell, as we all three re-entered
+the town. She disappeared all at once into a narrow door way, her arms
+still clasping her old port, that lay in the folds of her shawl. On her
+shrewd kindly old face came a light that touched it all at once with a
+glow of divinity; the mother in her had sprung into life with sharp,
+sweet suddenness; she had caught the wail of the new-born babe through
+the open door.
+
+The village itself seemed to have caught something of the same glow. It
+was not only the splendor of the noon sun that made the faces of the
+worn fish-wives and the younger women softer and kindlier than common;
+the groups, as we passed them, were all talking of but one thing--of
+this babe that had come in the night, of Auguste's absence, and of
+Loisette's sharp pains and her cries, that had filled the street, so
+that none could sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A PAGAN COBBLER.
+
+
+At dusk that evening the same subject, with variations, was the
+universal topic of the conversational groups. Still Auguste had not
+come; half the village was out watching for him on the cliffs. The
+other half was crowding the streets and the doorsteps.
+
+Twilight is the classic time, in all French towns and villages, for the
+_al fresco_ lounge. The cool breath of the dusk is fresh, then, and
+restful; after the heat and sweat of the long noon the air, as it
+touches brow and lip, has the charm of a caress. So the door ways and
+streets were always crowded at this hour, groups moved, separated,
+formed and re formed, and lingered to exchange their budget of gossip,
+to call out their "_Bonne nuit_," the girls to clasp hands, looking
+longingly over their shoulders at the younger fishermen and farmers;
+the latter to nod, carelessly, gayly back at them; and then--as men
+will--to fling an arm about a comrade's shoulder as they, in their
+turn, called out into the dusk,
+
+"_Allons, mon brave; de l'absinthe, toi?_" as the cabaret swallowed
+them up.
+
+Great and mighty were the cries and the oaths that issued from the
+cabaret's open doors and windows. The Villerville fisherman loved
+Bacchus only, second to Neptune; when he was not out casting his net
+into the Channel he was drinking up his spoils. It was during the
+sobering process only that affairs of a purely domestic nature engaged
+his attention. Some of the streets were permeated with noxious odors,
+with the poison of absinthe and the fumes of cheap brandy. Noisy,
+reeling groups came out of the tavern doors, to shout and sing, or to
+fight their way homeward. One such figure was filling a narrow alley,
+swaying from right to left, with a jeering crowd at his heels.
+
+"_Est-il assez ridicule, lui?_ with his cap over his nose, and his
+knees knocking at everyone's door? _Bah! ça pue! _" the group of lads
+following him went on, shouting about the poor sot, as they pelted him
+with their rain of pebbles and paper bullets.
+
+"Ah--h, he will beat her, in his turn, poor soul; she always gets it
+when he's full, as full as that--"
+
+The voice was so close to our ears that we started. The words appeared
+addressed to us; they were, in a way, since they were intended for the
+street, as a street, and for the benefit of the groups that filled it.
+The voice was gruff yet mellow; despite its gruffness it had the ring
+of a latent kindliness in its deep tones. The man who owned it was
+seated on a level with our elbows, at a cobbler's bench. We stopped to
+let the crowd push on beyond us. The man had only lifted his head from
+his work, but involuntarily one stopped to salute the power in it.
+
+"_Bonsoir, mesdames_"--the head gravely bowed as the great frame of the
+body below the head rose from the low seat. The room within seemed to
+contain nothing else save this giant figure, now that it had risen and
+was moving toward us. The half-door was courteously opened.
+
+"Will not _ces dames_ give themselves the trouble of entering? The
+streets are not gay at this hour."
+
+We went in. A dog and a woman came forth from a smaller inner room to
+greet us; of the two the dog was obviously the personage next in point
+of intelligence and importance to the master. The woman had a
+snuffed-out air, as of one whose life had died out of her years ago.
+She blinked at us meekly as she dropped a timid courtesy; at a low word
+of command she turned a pitifully patient back on us all. There were
+years of obedience to orders written on its submissive curves; and she
+bent it once more over her kettles; both she and the kettles were on
+the bare floor. It was the poorest of all the Villerville interiors we
+had as yet seen; the house was also, perhaps, the oldest in the
+village. It and the old church had been opposite neighbors for several
+centuries. The shop and the living-room were all in one; the low window
+was a counter by day and a shutter by night. Within, the walls were
+bare as were the floors. Three chairs with sunken leather covers, and a
+bed with a mattress also sunken--a hollow in a pine frame, was the
+equipment in furniture. The poverty was brutal; it was the naked,
+unabashed poverty of the middle ages, with no hint of shame or effort
+of concealment. The colossus whom the low roof covered was as
+unconscious of the barrenness of his surroundings as were his own
+walls. This hovel was his home; he had made us welcome with the manners
+of a king.
+
+Meanwhile the dog was sniffing at our skirts. After a tour of
+observation and inspection he wagged his tail, gave a short bark, and
+seated himself by Charm. The giant's eyes twinkled.
+
+"You see, mesdames, it is a dog with a mind--he knows in an instant who
+are the right sort. And eloquence, also--he is one who can make
+speeches with his tail. A dog's tongue is in his tail, and this one
+wags his like an orator!"
+
+Some one else, as well as the dog, possessed the oratorical gift. The
+cobbler's voice was the true speaker's voice--rich, vibrating,
+sonorous, with a deep note of melody in it. Pose and gestures matched
+with the voice; they were flexible and picturesquely suggestive.
+
+"If you care for oratory--" Charm smiled out upon the huge but mobile
+face--"you are well placed. The village lies before you. You can always
+see the play going on, and hear the speeches--of the passers-by."
+
+The large mouth smiled back. But at Charm's first sentence the keen
+Norman eyes had fixed their twinkling glitter on the girl's face. They
+seemed to be reading to the very bottom of her thought and being. The
+scrutiny was not relaxed as he answered.
+
+"Yes, yes, it is very amusing. One sees a little of everything here.
+_Le monde qui passe_--it makes life more diverting; it helps to kill
+the time. I look out from my perch, like a bird--a very old one, and
+caged"--and he shook forth a great laugh from beneath the wide leather
+apron.
+
+The woman, hearing the laugh, came out into the room.
+
+"_E'ben--et toi_--what do you want?"
+
+The giant stopped laughing long enough to turn tyrant. The woman, at
+the first of his growl, smiled feebly, going back with unresisting
+meekness to her knees, to her pots, and her kettles. The dog growled in
+imitation of his master; obviously the soul of the dog was in the wrong
+body.
+
+Meanwhile the master of the dog and the woman had forgotten both now;
+he was continuing, in a masterful way, to enlighten us about the
+peculiarities of his native village. The talk had now reached the
+subject of the church.
+
+"Oh, yes, it is fine, very, and old; it and this old house are the
+oldest of all the inhabitants of this village. The church came first,
+though, it was built by the English, when they came over, thinking to
+conquer us with their Hundred Years' War. Little they knew France and
+Frenchmen. The church was thoroughly French, although the English did
+build it; on the ground many times, but up again, only waiting the hand
+of the builder and the restorer."
+
+Again the slim-waisted shape of the old wife ventured forth into the
+room.
+
+"Yes, as he says"--in a voice that was but an echo--"the church has
+been down many times."
+
+"_Tais-toi--c'est moi qui parle_," grumbled anew her husband, giving
+the withered face a terrific scowl.
+
+"_Ohé, oui, c'est toi_," the echo bleated. The thin hands meekly folded
+themselves across her apron. She stood quite still, as if awaiting more
+punishment.
+
+"It is our good curé who wishes to pull it down once more," her
+terrible husband went on, not heeding her quiet presence. "Do you know
+our curé? Ah, ha, he's a fine one. It's he that rules us now--he's our
+king--our emperor. Ugh, he's a bad one, he is."
+
+"Ah, yes, he's a bad one, he is," his wife echoed, from the side wall.
+
+"Well, and who asked you to talk?" cried her husband, with a face as
+black as when the curé's name had first been mentioned. The echo shrank
+into the wall. "As I was telling these ladies"--he resumed here his
+boot work, clamping the last between his great knees--"as I was saying,
+we have not been fortunate in cures, we of our parish. There are curés
+and curés, as there are fagots and fagots--and ours is a bad lot. We've
+had nothing but trouble since he came to rule over us. We get poorer
+day by day, and he richer. There he is now, feeding his hens and his
+doves--look, over there--with the ladies of his household gathered
+about him--his mother, his aunt, and his niece--a perfect harem. Oh, he
+keeps them all fat and sleek, like himself! Bah!"
+
+The grunt of disgust the cobbler gave filled the room like a
+thunder-clap. He was peering over his last, across the open counter, at
+a little house adjoining the church green, with a great hatred in his
+face. From one of the windows of the house there was leaning forth a
+group of three heads; there was the tonsured head of a priest, round,
+pink-tinted, and the figures of two women, one youthful, with a long,
+sad-featured face, and the other ruddy and vigorous in outline. They
+were watching the priest as he scattered corn to the hens and geese in
+the garden below the window.
+
+The cobbler was still eying them fiercely, as he continued to give vent
+to his disgust.
+
+"_Méchant homme--lui_," he here whipped his thread, venomously, through
+the leather he was sewing. "Figure to yourselves, mesdames, that
+besides being wicked, our curé is a very shrewd man; it is not for the
+pure good of the parish he works, not he."
+
+"Not he," the echo repeated, coming forth again from the wall. This
+time the whisper passed unnoticed; her master's hatred of the curé was
+greater than his passion for showing his own power.
+
+"Religion--religion is a very good way of making money, better than
+most, if one knows how to work the machine. The soul, it is a fine
+instrument on which to play, if one is skilful. Our curé has a grand
+touch on this instrument. You should see the good man take up a
+collection, it is better than a comedy."
+
+Here the cobbler turned actor; he rose, scattering his utensils right
+and left; he assumed a grand air and a mincing, softly tread, the tread
+of a priest. His flexible voice imitated admirably the rounded,
+unctuous, autocratic tone peculiar to the graduates of St. Sulpice.
+
+"You should hear him, when the collection does not suit him: '_Mes
+frères et mes soeurs_, I see that _le bon Dieu_ isn't in your minds and
+your hearts to-day; you are not listening to his voice; the Saviour is
+then speaking in vain?' Then he prays--" the cobbler folded his hands
+with a great parade of reference, lifting his eyes as he rolled his
+lids heavenward hypocritically--"yes, he prays--and then he passes the
+plate himself! He holds it before your very nose, there is no pushing
+it aside; he would hold it there till you dropped--till Doomsday. Ah,
+he's a hard crust, he is! There's a tyrant for you--_la monarchie
+absolue_--that's what he believes in. He must have this, he must have
+that. Now it is a new altar-cloth, or a fresh Virgin of the modern
+make, from Paris, with a robe of real lace; the old one was black and
+faded, too black to pray to. Now it is a _huissier_, forsooth, that we
+must have, we, a parish of a few hundred souls, who know our seats in
+the church as well as we know our own noses. One would think a 'suisse'
+would have done; but we are swells now--_avec ce gaillard-là_, only the
+tiptop is good enough. So, if you grace our poor old church with your
+presence you will be shown to your bench by a very splendid gentleman
+in black, in knee-breeches, with silver chains, with a three-cornered
+hat, who strikes with his stick three times as he seats you. Bah!
+ridiculous!"
+
+"Ridiculous!" the woman repeated, softly.
+
+"They had the curé once, though. One day in church he announced a
+subscription to be taken up for restorations, from fifty centimes
+to--to anything; he will take all you give him, avaricious that he is!
+He believes in the greasing of the palm, he does. Well, think you the
+subscription was for restorations, _mesdames_? It was for
+demolition--that's what it was for--to make the church level with the
+ground. To do this would cost a little matter of twenty thousand
+francs, which would pass through his hands, you understand. Well, that
+staggered the parish. Our mayor--a man _pas trop fin_, was terribly
+upset. He went about saying the curé claimed the church as his; he
+could do as he liked with it, he said, and he proposed to make it a
+fine modern one. All the village was weeping. The church was the oldest
+friend of the village, except for such as I, whom these things have
+turned pagan. Well, one of our good citizens reminds the mayor that the
+church, under the new laws, belongs to the commune. The mayor tells
+this timidly to the curé. And the curé retorts, 'Ah, _bien_, at least
+one-half belongs to me.' And the good citizen answers--he has gone with
+the mayor to prop him up--'Which half will you take? The cemetery,
+doubtless, since your charge is over the souls of the parish.' Ah! ah!
+he pricked him well then! he pricked him well!"
+
+The low room rang with the great shout of the cobbler's laughter. The
+dog barked furiously in concert. Our own laughter was drowned in the
+thunder of our host's loud guffaws. The poor old wife shook herself
+with a laugh so much too vigorous for her frail frame, one feared its
+after-effects.
+
+The after-effects were a surprise. After the first of her husband's
+spasms of glee the old woman spoke out, but in trembling tones no
+longer.
+
+"Ah, the cemetery, it is I who forgot to go there this week."
+
+Her husband stopped, the laugh dying on his lip as he turned to her.
+
+"_Ah, ma bonne_, how came that? You forgot?" His own tones trembled at
+the last word.
+
+"Yes, you had the cramps again, you remember, and there was no money
+left for the bouquet."
+
+"Yes, I remember," and the great chest heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"You have children--you have lost someone?"
+
+"_Hélas!_ no living children, mademoiselle. No, no--one daughter we
+had, but she died twenty years ago. She lies over there--where we can
+see her. She would have been thirty-eight years now--the fourteenth of
+this very month!"
+
+"Yes, this very month."
+
+Then the old woman, for the first time, left her refuge along the wall;
+she crept softly, quietly near to her husband to put her withered hand
+in his. His large palm closed over it. Both of the old faces turned
+toward the cemetery; and in the old eyes a film gathered, as they
+looked toward all that was left of the hope that was buried away from
+them.
+
+We left them thus, hand in hand, with many promises to renew the
+acquaintance.
+
+The village was no longer abroad in the streets. During our talk in the
+shop the night had fallen; it had cast its shadow, as trees cast
+theirs, in a long, slow slant. Lights were trembling in the dim
+interiors; the shrill cries of the children were stilled; only a
+muffled murmur came through the open doors and windows. The villagers
+were pattering across the rough floors, talking, as their sabots
+clattered heavily over the wooden surface, as they washed the dishes,
+as they covered their fires, shoving back the tables and chairs. As we
+walked along, through the nearer windows came the sound of steps on the
+creaking old stairs, then a rustling of straw and the heavy fall of
+weary bodies, as the villagers flung themselves on the old oaken beds,
+that groaned as they received their burden. Presently all was still.
+Only our steps resounded through the streets. The stars filled the sky;
+and beneath them the waves broke along the beach. In the closely packed
+little streets the heavy breathing of the sleeping village broke also
+in short, quick gasps.
+
+Only we and the night were awake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SOME NORMAN LANDLADIES.
+
+
+Quite a number of changes came about with our annexation of an artist
+and his garden. Chief among these changes was the surprising discovery
+of finding ourselves, at the end of a week, in possession of a villa.
+
+"It's next door," Renard remarked, in the casual way peculiar to
+artists. "You are to have the whole house to yourselves, all but the
+top floor; the people who own it keep that to live in. There's a garden
+of the right sort, with espaliers, also rose trees, and a tea house;
+quite the right sort of thing altogether."
+
+The unforeseen, in its way, is excellent and admirable. _De l'imprévu,_
+surely this is the dash of seasoning--the caviare we all crave in
+life's somewhat too monotonous repasts. But as men have been known to
+admire the still life in wifely character, and then repented their
+choice, marrying peace only to court dissension, so we, incontinently
+deserting our humble inn chambers to take possession of a grander
+state, in the end found the capital of experience drained to pay for
+our little infidelity.
+
+[Illustration: A DEPARTURE--VILLERVILLE]
+
+The owners of the villa Belle Etoile, our friend announced, he had
+found greatly depressed; of this, their passing mood, he had taken such
+advantage as only comes to the knowing. "They speak of themselves
+drearily as 'deux pauvres malheureux' with this villa still on their
+hands, and here they are almost 'touching June,' as they put it. They
+also gave me to understand that only the finest flowers of the
+aristocracy had had the honor of dwelling in this villa. They have been
+able, I should say, more or less successfully to deflower this 'fine
+fleur' of some of their gold. But they are very meek just now--they
+were willing to listen to reason."
+
+The "two poor unhappies" were looking surprisingly contented an hour
+later, when we went in to inspect our possessions. They received us
+with such suave courtesy, that I was quite certain Renard's skill in
+transactions had not played its full gamut of capacity.
+
+Civility is the Frenchman's mask; he wears it as he does his skin--as a
+matter of habit. But courtesy is his costume de bal; he can only afford
+to don his bravest attire of smiles and graciousness when his pocket is
+in holiday mood. Madame Fouchet we found in full ball-room toilet; she
+was wreathed in smiles. Would _ces dames_ give themselves the trouble
+of entering? would they see the house or the garden first? would they
+permit their trunks to be sent for? Monsieur Fouchet, meanwhile, was
+making a brave second to his wife's bustling welcome; he was rubbing
+his hands vigorously, a somewhat suspicious action in a Frenchman, I
+have had occasion to notice, after the completion of a bargain. Nature
+had cast this mild-eyed individual for the part of accompanyist in the
+comedy we call life; a _rôle_ he sometimes varied as now, with the
+office of _claqueur_, when an uncommonly clever proof of madame's
+talent for business drew from him this noiseless tribute of applause.
+His weak, fat contralto called after us, as we followed madame's quick
+steps up the waxed stairway; he would be in readiness, he said, to show
+us the garden, "once the chambers were visited."
+
+"It wasn't a real stroke, mesdames, it was only a warning!" was the
+explanation conveyed to us in loud tones, with no reserve of whispered
+delicacy, when we expressed regret at monsieur's detention below
+stairs; a partially paralyzed leg, dragged painfully after the latter's
+flabby figure, being the obvious cause of this detention.
+
+The stairway had the line of beauty, describing a pretty curve before
+its glassy steps led us to a narrow entry; it had also the brevity
+which is said to be the very soul, _l'anima viva_, of all true wit; but
+it was quite long and straight enough to serve Madame Fouchet as a
+stage for a prolonged monologue, enlivened with much affluence of
+gesture. Fouchet's seizure, his illness, his convalescence, and present
+physical condition--a condition which appeared to be bristling with the
+tragedy of danger, "un vrai drame d'anxiété"--was graphically conveyed
+to us. The horrors of the long winter also, so sad for a Parisian--"si
+triste pour la Parisienne, ces hivers de province"--together with the
+miseries of her own home life, between this paralytic of a husband
+below stairs, and above, her mother, an old lady of eighty, nailed to
+her sofa with gout. "You may thus figure to yourselves, mesdames, what
+a melancholy season is the winter! And now, with this villa still on
+our hands, and the season already announcing itself, ruin stares us in
+the face, mesdames--ruin!"
+
+It was a moving picture. Yet we remained strangely unaffected by this
+tale of woe. Madame Fouchet herself, the woman, not the actress, was to
+blame, I think, for our unfeelingness. Somehow, to connect woe, ruin,
+sadness, melancholy, or distress, in a word, of any kind with our
+landlady's opulent figure, we found a difficult acrobatic mental feat.
+She presented to the eye outlines and features that could only be
+likened, in point of prosperity, to a Dutch landscape. Like certain of
+the mediaeval saints presented by the earlier delineators of the
+martyrs as burning above a slow fire, while wearing smiles of purely
+animal content, as if in full enjoyment of the temperature, this lady's
+sufferings were doubtless an invisible discipline, the hair shirt which
+her hardened cuticle felt only to be a pleasurable itching.
+
+"_Voilà, mesdames!_" It was with a magnificent gesture that madame
+opened doors and windows. The drama of her life was forgotten for the
+moment in the conscious pride of presenting us with such a picture as
+her gay little house offered.
+
+Inside and out, summer and the sun were blooming and shining with
+spendthrift luxuriance. The salon opened directly on the garden; it
+would have been difficult to determine just where one began and the
+domain of the other ended, with the pinks and geraniums that nodded in
+response to the peach and pear blossoms in the garden. A bit of faded
+Aubusson and a print representing Madame Geoffrin's salon in full
+session, with a poet of the period transporting the half-moon grouped
+listeners about him to the point of tears, were evidences of the
+refined tastes of our landlady in the arts; only a sentimentalist would
+have hung that picture in her salon. Other decorations further proved
+her as belonging to both worlds. The chintzes gay with garlands of
+roses, with which walls, beds, and chairs were covered, revealed the
+mundane element, the woman of decorative tastes, possessed of a hidden
+passion for effective backgrounds. Two or three wooden crucifixes, a
+_prie-dieu_, and a couple of saints in plaster, went far to prove that
+this excellent _bourgeoise_ had thriftily made her peace with Heaven.
+It was a curious mixture of the sacred and the profane.
+
+Down below, beneath the windows overlooking the sea, lay the garden.
+All the houses fronting the cliff had similar little gardens, giving,
+as the French idiom so prettily puts it, upon the sea. But compared to
+these others, ours was as a rose of Sharon blooming in the midst of
+little deserts. Renard had been entirely right about this particular
+bit of earth attached to our villa. It was a gem of a garden. It was a
+French garden, and therefore, entirely as a matter of course, it had
+walls. It was as cut off from the rest of the world as if it had been a
+prison or a fortification.
+
+The Frenchman, above all others, appears to have the true sentiment of
+seclusion, when the society of trees and flowers is to be enjoyed. Next
+to woman, nature is his fetish. True to his national taste in dress, he
+prefers that both should be costumed _à la Parisienne_; but as poet and
+lover, it is his instinct to build a wall about his idol, that he may
+enjoy his moments of expansion unseen and unmolested. This square of
+earth, for instance, was not much larger than the space covered by the
+chamber roof above us; and yet, with the high walls towering over the
+rose-stalks, it was as secluded as a monk's cloister. We found it,
+indeed, on later acquaintance, as poetic and delicately sensuous a
+retreat as the romance-writers would wish us to believe did those
+mediaeval connoisseurs of comfort, when, with sandalled feet, they
+paced their own convent garden-walks. Fouchet was a broken-down
+shopkeeper; but somewhere hidden within, there lurked the soul of a
+Maecenas; he knew how to arrange a feast--of roses. The garden was a
+bit of greensward, not much larger than a pocket handkerchief; but the
+grass had the right emerald hue, and one's feet sank into the rich turf
+as into the velvet of an oriental rug. Small as was the enclosure,
+between the espaliers and the flower-beds serpentined minute paths of
+glistening pebbles. Nothing which belonged to a garden had been
+forgotten, not even a pine from the tropics, and a bench under the pine
+that was just large enough for two. This latter was an ideal little
+spot in which to bring a friend or a book. One could sit there and
+gorge one's self with sweets; a dance was perpetually going on--the
+gold-and-purple butterflies fluttering gayly from morning till night;
+and the bees freighted the air with their buzzing. If one tired of
+perfumes and dancing, there was always music to be enjoyed, from a full
+orchestra. The sea, just the other side of the wall of osiers, was
+always in voice, whether sighing or shouting. The larks and blackbirds
+had a predilection for this nest of color, announcing their preference
+loudly in a combat of trills. And once or twice, we were quite certain,
+a nightingale with Patti notes had been trying its liquid scales in the
+dark.
+
+It was in this garden that our acquaintance with our landlord deepened
+into something like friendship. Monsieur Fouchet was always to be found
+there, tying up the rose-trees, or mending the paths, or shearing the
+bit of turf.
+
+_"Mon jardin, c'est un peu moi, vous savez_--it is my pride and my
+consolation." At the latter word, Fouchet was certain to sigh.
+
+Then we fell to wondering just what grief had befallen this amiable
+person which required Horatian consolation. Horace had need of
+rose-leaves to embalm his disappointments, for had he not cooled his
+passions by plunging into the bath of literature? Besides, Horace was
+bitten by the modern rabies: he was as restless as an American. When at
+Rome was he not always sighing for his Sabine farm, and when at the
+farm always regretting Rome? But this harmless, innocent-eyed,
+benevolent-browed old man, with his passive brains tied up in a
+foulard, o' morning's, and his _bourgeois_ feet adorned with carpet
+slippers, what grief in the past had bitten his poor soul and left its
+mark still sore?
+
+"It isn't monsieur--it is madame who has made the past dark," was
+Renard's comment, when we discussed our landlord's probable
+acquaintance with regret--or remorse.
+
+Whatever secret of the past may have hovered over the Fouchet
+household, the evil bird had not made its nest in madame's breast, that
+was clear; her smooth, white brow was the sign of a rose-leaf
+conscience; that dark curtain of hair, looped madonna-wise over each
+ear, framed a face as unruffled as her conscience.
+
+She was entirely at peace with her world, and with heaven as well, that
+was certain. Whatever her sins, the confessional had purged her. Like
+others, doubtless, she had found a husband and the provinces excellent
+remedies for a damaged reputation. She lived now in the very odor of
+sanctity; the cure had a pipe in her kitchen, with something more
+sustaining, on certain bright afternoons. Although she was daily
+announcing to us her approaching dissolution--"I die, mesdames--I die
+of ennui"--it seemed to me there were still signs, at times, of a
+vigorous resuscitation. The cure's visits were wont to produce a deeper
+red in the deep bloom of her cheek; the mayor and his wife, who drank
+their Sunday coffee in the arbor, brought, as did Beatrix's advent to
+Dante, _vita nuova_ to this homesick Parisian.
+
+There were other pleasures in her small world, also, which made life
+endurable. Bargaining, when one teems with talent, may be as exciting
+as any other form of conquest. Madame's days were chiefly passed in
+imitation of the occupation so dear to an earlier, hardier race, that
+race kings have knighted for their powers in dealing mightily with
+their weaker neighbors. Madame, it is true, was only a woman, and
+Villerville was somewhat slimly populated. But in imitation of her
+remote feudal lords, she also fell upon the passing stranger, demanding
+tribute. When the stranger did not pass, she kept her arm in practice,
+so to speak, by extracting the last _sou_ in a transaction from a
+neighbor, or by indulging in a drama in which the comedy of insult was
+matched by the tragedy of contempt.
+
+One of these mortal combats it was my privilege to witness. The war
+arose on our announcement to Mère Mouchard, the lady of the inn by the
+sea, of our decision to move next door. To us Mère Mouchard presented
+the unruffled plumage of a dove; her voice also was as the voice of the
+same, mellowed by sucking. Ten minutes later the town was assembled to
+lend its assistance at the encounter between our two landladies. Each
+stood on their respective doorsteps with arms akimbo and head thrust
+forward, as geese protrude head and tongue in moments of combat. And it
+was thus, the mere hissed, that her boarders were stolen from
+her--under her very nose--while her back was turned, with no more
+thought of honesty or shame than a----. The word was never uttered. The
+mère's insult was drowned in a storm of voices? for there came a loud
+protest from the group of neighbors. Madame Fouchet, meanwhile, was
+sustaining her own role with great dignity. Her attitude of
+self-control could only have been learned in a school where insult was
+an habitual weapon. She smiled, an infuriating, exasperating,
+successful smile. She showed a set of defiant white teeth, and to her
+proud white throat she gave a boastful curve. Was it her fault if _ces
+dames_ knew what comfort and cleanliness were? if they preferred "_des
+chambres garnies avec goût, vraiment artistiques_"--to rooms fit only
+for peasants? _Ces dames_ had just come from Paris; doubtless, they
+were not yet accustomed to provincial customs--_aux moeurs
+provinciales_. Then there were exchanged certain melodious acerbities,
+which proved that these ladies had entered the lists on previous
+occasions, and that each was well practised in the other's methods of
+warfare. Opportunely, Renard appeared on the scene; his announcement
+that we proposed still to continue taking our repasts with the mere,
+was as oil on the sea of trouble. A reconciliation was immediately
+effected, and the street as immediately lost all interest in the play,
+the audience melting away as speedily as did the wrath of the
+disputants.
+
+"_Le bon Dieu soit loué_," cried Madame Fouchet, puffing, as she
+mounted the stairs a few moments later--"God be praised"--she hadn't
+come here to the provinces to learn her rights--to be taught her
+alphabet. Mère Mouchard, forsooth, who wanted a week's board as
+indemnity for her loss of us! A week's board--for lodgings scorned by
+peasants!
+
+"Ah, these Normans! what a people, what a people! They would peel the
+skin off your back! They would sell their children! They would cheat
+the devil himself!"
+
+"You, madame, I presume, are from Paris." Madame smiled as she
+answered, a thin fine smile, richly seasoned with scorn. "Ah, mesdames!
+All the world can't boast of Paris as a birthplace, unfortunately. I
+also, I am a Norman, _mais je ne m'en fiche pas!_ Most of my life,
+however, I've lived in Paris, thank God!" She lifted her head as she
+spoke, and swept her hands about her waist to adjust the broad belt, an
+action pregnant with suggestions. For it was thus conveyed to us,
+delicately, that such a figure as hers was not bred on rustic diet;
+also, that the Parisian glaze had not failed of its effect on the
+coarser provincial clay.
+
+Meanwhile, below in the garden, her husband was meekly tying up his
+rose-trees.
+
+Neither of the landladies' husbands had figured in the street-battle.
+It had been a purely Amazonian encounter, bloodless but bitter. Both
+the husbands of these two belligerent landladies appeared singularly
+well trained. Mouchard, indeed, occupied a comparatively humble sphere
+in his wife's _ménage_. He was perpetually to be seen in the
+court-yard, at the back of the house, washing dogs, or dishes, in a
+costume in which the greatest economy of cloth compatible with decency
+had been triumphantly solved. His wife ran the house, and he ran the
+errands, an arrangement which, apparently, worked greatly to the
+satisfaction of both. But Mouchard was not the first or the second
+French husband who, on the threshold of his connubial experience, had
+doubtless had his role in life appointed to him, filling the same with
+patient acquiescence to the very last of the lines.
+
+There is something very touching in the subjection of French husbands.
+In point of meekness they may well serve, I think, as models to their
+kind. It is a meekness, however, which does not hint of humiliation;
+for, after all, what humiliation can there be in being thoroughly
+understood? The Frenchwoman, by virtue of centuries of activity, in the
+world and in the field, has become an expert in the art of knowing her
+man; she has not worked by his side, under the burn of the noon sun, or
+in the cimmerian darkness of the shop-rear, counting the pennies, for
+nothing. In exchanging her illusions for the bald front of fact, man
+himself has had to pay the penalty of this mixed gain. She tests him by
+purely professional standards, as man tests man, or as he has tested
+her, when in the ante-matrimonial days he weighed her _dot_ in the
+scale of his need. The Frenchwoman and Shakespeare are entirely of one
+mind; they perceive the great truth of unity in the scheme of things:
+
+  "Woman's test is man's taste."
+
+This is the first among the great truths in the feminine grammar of
+assent. French masculine taste, as its criterion, has established the
+excellent doctrine of utilitarianism. With quick apprehension the
+Frenchwoman has mastered this fact; she has cleverly taken a lesson
+from ophidian habits--she can change her skin, quickly shedding the
+sentimentalist, when it comes to serious action, to don the duller
+raiment of utility. She has accepted her world, in other words, as she
+finds it, with a philosopher's shrug. But the philosopher is lined with
+the logician; for this system of life has accomplished the miracle of
+making its women logical; they have grasped the subtleties of inductive
+reasoning. Marriage, for example, they know is entered into solely on
+the principle of mutual benefit; it is therefore a partnership, _bon_;
+now, in partnerships sentiments and the emotions are out of place, they
+only serve to dim the eye; those commodities, therefore, are best
+conveyed to other markets than the matrimonial one; for in purely
+commercial transactions one has need of perfect clearness of vision, if
+only to keep one well practised in that simple game called looking out
+for one's own interest. In Frenchwomen, the ratiocinationist is
+extraordinarily developed; her logic penetrates to the core of things.
+
+Hence it is that Mouchard washes dishes.
+
+Monsieur Jourdain, in Molière's comedy, who expressed such surprise at
+finding that he had been talking prose for forty years without knowing
+it, was no more amazed than would Mère Mouchard have been had you
+announced to her that she was a logician; or that her husband's daily
+occupations in the bright little court-yard were the result of a
+system. Yet both facts were true.
+
+In that process we now know as the survival of the fittest, the mère's
+capacity had snuffed out her weaker spouse's incompetency; she had
+taken her place at the helm, because she belonged there by virtue of
+natural fitness. There were no tender illusions which would suffer, in
+seeing the husband allotted to her, probably by her parents and the
+_dot_ system, relegated to the ignominy of passing his days washing
+dishes--dishes which she cooked and served--dishes, it should be added,
+which she was entirely conscious were cooked by the hand of genius, and
+which she garnished with a sauce and served with a smile, such as only
+issue from French kitchens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE QUARTIER LATIN ON THE BEACH.
+
+
+The beach, one morning, we found suddenly peopled with artists. It was
+a little city of tents. Beneath striped awnings and white umbrellas a
+multitude of flat-capped heads sat immovably still on their
+three-legged stools, or darted hither and thither. Paris was evidently
+beginning to empty its studios; the Normandy beaches now furnished the
+better model.
+
+One morning we were in luck. A certain blonde beard had counted early
+in the day on having the beach to himself. He had posed his model in
+the open daylight, that he might paint her in the sun. He had placed
+her, seated on an edge of seawall; for a background there was the curve
+of the yellow sands and the flat breadth of the sea, with the droop of
+the sky meeting the sea miles away. The girl was a slim, fair shape,
+with long, thin legs and delicately moulded arms; she was dressed in
+the fillet and chiton of Greece. During her long poses she was as
+immovable as an antique marble; her natural grace and prettiness were
+transfigured into positive beauty by the flowing lines and the pink
+draperies of her Attic costume. Seated thus, she was a breathing
+embodiment of the best Greek period. When the rests came, her jump from
+the wall landed her square on her feet and at the latter end of the
+nineteenth century. Once free, she bounded from her perch on the high
+sea-wall. In an instant she had tucked her tinted draperies within the
+slender girdle; her sandalled feet must be untrammelled, she was about
+to take her run on the beach. Soon she was pelting, irreverently, her
+painter with a shower of loose pebbles. Next she had challenged him to
+a race; when she reached the goal, her thin, bare arms were uplifted as
+she clapped and shouted for glee; the Quartier Latin in her blood was
+having its moment of high revelry in the morning sun.
+
+This little grisette, running about free and unshackled in her loose
+draperies, quite unabashed in her state of semi-nudity--gay, reckless,
+wooing pleasure on the wing, surely she might have posed as the
+embodied archetype of France itself. So has this pagan among modern
+nations borrowed something of the antique spirit of wantonness. Along
+with its theft of the Attic charm and grace, it has captured, also,
+something of its sublime indifference; in the very teeth of the dull
+modern world, France has laughed opinion to scorn.
+
+At noon the tents were all deserted. It was at this hour that the inn
+garden was full. The gayety and laughter overflowed the walls. Everyone
+talked at once; the orders were like a rattle of artillery--painting
+for hours in the open air gives a fine edge to appetite, and patience
+is never the true twin of hunger. Everything but the _potage_ was
+certain to be on time.
+
+Colinette, released from her Greek draperies, with her Parisian bodice
+had recovered the _blague_ of the studios.
+
+"_Sacré nom de--on reste donc claquemuré ainsi toute la matinée!_ And
+all for an _omelette_--a puny, good-for-nothing _omelette_. And
+you--you've lost your tongue, it seems?" And a shrill voice pierced the
+air as Colinette gave her painter the hint of her prodding elbow. With
+the appearance of the _omelette_ the reign of good humor would return.
+Everything then went as merrily as that marriage-bell which,
+apparently, is the only one absent in Bohemia's gay chimes.
+
+These arbors had obviously been built out of pure charity: they
+appeared to have been constructed on the principle that since man,
+painting man, is often forced to live alone, from economic necessity,
+it is therefore only the commonest charity to provide him with the
+proper surroundings for eating _à deux._ The little tables beneath the
+kiosks were strictly _tête-à-tête_ tables; even the chairs, like the
+visitors, appeared to come only in couples.
+
+The Frenchman has been reproached with the sin of ingratitude; has been
+convicted, indeed, as possessed of more of that pride that comes
+late--the day after the gift of bounty has been given--than some other
+of his fellow-mortals. Yet here were a company of Frenchmen--and
+Frenchwomen--proving in no ordinary fashion their equipment in this
+rare virtue. It was early in May; up yonder, where the Seine flows
+beneath the Parisian bridges, the pulse of the gay Paris world was
+beating in time to the spring in the air. Yet these artists had
+deserted the asphalt of the boulevards for the cobbles of a village
+street, the delights of the _café chantant_ had been exchanged for the
+miracle of the moon rising over the sea, and for the song of the thrush
+in the bush.
+
+The Frenchman, more easily and with simpler art than any of his modern
+brethren, can change the prose of our dull, practical life into poetry;
+he can turn lyrical at a moment's notice. He possesses the power of
+transmuting the commonplace into the idyllic, by merely clapping on his
+cap and turning his back on the haunts of men. He has retained a
+singular--an almost ideal sensitiveness, of mental cuticle--such
+acuteness of sensation, that a journey to a field will oftentimes yield
+him all the flavor of a long voyage, and a sudden introduction to a
+forest, the rapture that commonly comes only with some unwonted aspect
+of nature. Perhaps it is because of this natural poet indwelling in a
+Frenchman, that makes him content to remain so much at home. Surely the
+extraordinary is the costly necessity for barren minds; the
+richly-endowed can see the beauty that lies the other side of their own
+door-step.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A NORMAN HOUSEHOLD.
+
+
+There were two paths in the village that were well worn. One was that
+which led the village up into the fields. The other was the one that
+led the tillers of the soil down into the village, to the door step of
+the justice of the peace.
+
+A good Norman is no Norman who has not a lawsuit on hand.
+
+Anything will serve as a pretext for a quarrel No sum of money is so
+small as not to warrant a breaking of the closest blood ties, if
+thereby one's rights may be secured. Those beautiful stripes of rye,
+barley, corn, and wheat up yonder in the fields, that melt into one
+another like sea-tones--down here on the benches before the _juge de
+paix_--what quarrels, what hatreds, what evil passions these few acres
+of land have brought their owners, facing each other here like so many
+demons, ready to spring at the others' throats! Brothers on these
+benches forget they are brothers, and sisters that they have suckled
+the same mother. Two more yards of the soil that should have been
+Fillette's instead of Jeanne's, and the grave will enclose both before
+the clenched fist of either is relaxed, and the last _sous_ in the
+stocking will be spent before the war between their respective lawyers
+will end.
+
+Many and many were the tales told us of the domestic tragedies, born of
+wills mal-administered, of the passions of hate, ambition, and despair
+kept at a white heat because half the village owned, up in the fields,
+what the other half coveted. Many, also, and fierce were the heated
+faces we looked in upon at the justice's door, in the very throes of
+the great moment of facing justice, and their adversary.
+
+Our own way, by preference, took us up into the fields. Here, in the
+broad open, the farms lay scattered like fortifications over a plain.
+Doubtless, in the earlier warlike days they had served as such.
+
+Once out of the narrow Villerville streets, and the pastoral was in
+full swing.
+
+The sea along this coast was not in the least insistant; it allowed the
+shore to play its full gamut of power. There were no tortured shapes of
+trees or plants, or barren wastes, to attest the fierce ways of the sea
+with the land. Reminders of the sea and of the life that is lived in
+ships were conspicuous features everywhere, in the pastoral scenes that
+began as soon as the town ended. Women carrying sails and nets toiled
+through the green aisles of the roads and lanes. Fishing-tackle hung in
+company with tattered jerseys outside of huts hidden in grasses and
+honeysuckle. The shepherdesses, as they followed the sheep inland into
+the heart of the pasture land, were busy netting the coarse cages that
+trap the finny tribe. Long-limbed, vigorous-faced, these shepherdesses
+were Biblical figures. In their coarse homespun, with only a skirt and
+a shirt, with their bare legs, half-open bosoms, and the fine poise of
+their blond heads, theirs was a beauty that commanded the homage
+accorded to a rude virginity.
+
+In some of the fields, in one of our many walks, the grass was being
+cut. In these fields the groups of men and women were thickest. The
+long scythes were swung mightily by both; the voices, a gay treble of
+human speech, rose above the metallic swish of the sharp blades cutting
+into the succulent grasses.
+
+The fat pasture lands rose and sank in undulations as rounded as the
+nascent breasts of a young Greek maiden. A medley of color played its
+charming variations over fields, over acres of poppies, over plains of
+red clover, over the backs of spotted cattle, mixing, mingling,
+blending a thousand twists and turns into one exquisite, harmonious
+whole. There was no discordant note, not one harsh contrast; even the
+hay-ricks seemed to have been modelled rather than pitched into shape;
+their sloping sides and finely pointed apexes giving them the dignity
+of structural intent.
+
+Why should not a peasant, in blouse and sabots, with a grinning idiot
+face, have put the picture out? But he did not. He was walking, or
+rather waddling, toward us, between two green walls that rose to be
+arched by elms that hid the blue of the sky. This lane was the kind of
+lane one sees only in Devonshire and in Normandy. There are lanes and
+lanes, as, to quote our friend the cobbler, there are cures and cures.
+But only in these above-named countries can one count on walking
+straight into the heart of an emerald, if one turns from the high-road
+into a lane. The trees, in these Devonshire and Normandy by-paths, have
+ways of their own of vaulting into space; the hedges are thicker,
+sweeter, more vocal with insect and song notes than elsewhere; the
+roadway itself is softer to the foot, and narrower--only two are
+expected to walk therein.
+
+It was through such a lane as this that the coarse, animal shape of a
+peasant was walking toward us. His legs and body were horribly twisted;
+the dangling arms and crooked limbs appeared as if caricaturing the
+gnarled and tortured boughs and trunks of the apple-trees. The
+peasant's blouse was filthy; his sabots were reeking with dirty straw;
+his feet and ankles, bare, were blacker than the earth over which he
+was painfully crawling; and on his face there was the vacuous, sensuous
+deformity of the smile idiocy wears. Again I ask, why did he not
+disfigure this fair scene, and put out something of the beauty of the
+day? Is it because the French peasant seems now to be an inseparable
+adjunct of the Frenchman's landscape? That even deformity has been so
+handled by the realists as to make us see beauty in ugliness? Or is it
+that, as moderns, we are all bitten by the rabies of the picturesque;
+that all things serve and are acceptable so long as we have our
+necessary note of contrast? Certain it is that it appears to be the
+peasant's blouse that perpetuates the Salon, and perhaps--who
+knows?--when over-emigration makes our own American farmer too poor to
+wear a boiled shirt when he ploughs, we also may develop a school of
+landscape, with figures.
+
+Meanwhile the walk and the talk had made Charm thirsty. "Why should we
+not go," she asked, "across the next field, into that farm house
+yonder, and beg for a glass of milk?"
+
+The farm-house might have been waiting for us, it was so still. Even
+the grasses along its sloping roof nodded, as if in welcome. The house,
+as we approached it, together with its out-buildings, assumed a more
+imposing aspect than it had from the road. Its long, low facade, broken
+here and there by a miniature window or a narrow doorway, appeared to
+stretch out into interminable length beneath the towering beeches and
+the snarl of the peach-tree boughs.
+
+The stillness was ominous--it was so profound.
+
+The only human in sight was a man in a distant field; he was raking the
+ploughed ground. He was too far away to hear the sound of our voices.
+
+"Perhaps the entire establishment is in the fields," said Charm, as we
+neared the house.
+
+Just then a succession of blows fell on our ear.
+
+"Someone is beating a mattress within, we shall have our glass after
+all."
+
+We knocked. But no one answered our knock.
+
+The beating continued; the sound of the blows fell as regularly as if
+machine-impelled. Then a cry rose up; it was the cry of a young, strong
+voice, and it was followed by a low wail of anguish.
+
+The door stood half-open, and this is what we saw: A man--tall, strong,
+powerful, with a face purple with passion--bending over the crouching
+form of a girl, whose slender body was quivering, shrinking, and
+writhing as the man's hand, armed with a short stick, fell, smiting her
+defenceless back and limbs.
+
+Her wail went on as each blow fell.
+
+In a corner, crouched in a heap, sitting on her heels, was a woman. She
+was clapping her hands. Her eyes were starting from her head; she
+clapped as the blows came, and above the girl's wail her strong,
+exultant voice arose--calling out:
+
+"_Tue-la! Tue-la!_"
+
+It was the voice of a triumphant fury.
+
+The backs of all these people were turned upon us; they had not seen,
+much less heard, our entrance.
+
+Someone else had seen us, however. A man with a rake over his shoulder
+rushed in through the open door; it was the peasant we had seen in the
+field. He seized Charm by the arm, and then my own hand was grasped as
+in a grip of iron. Before we had time for resistance he had pushed us
+out before him into the entry, behind the outer door. This latter he
+slammed. He put his broad back against it; then he dropped his rake and
+began to mop his face, violently, with a filthy handkerchief he plucked
+from beneath his blouse.
+
+"_Que chance! Nom de Dieu, que chance! Je v'avions vue_, I saw you just
+in time--just in time--"
+
+"But, I must go in--I wish to go back!" But Charm might as well have
+attempted to move a pillar of stone.
+
+The peasant's coarse, good-humored face broke into a broad laugh.
+
+"Pardon, mam'selle--_j'n bougeons pas. Not' maitre e encoléré; e' son
+jour--faut pas l'irriter--aujou'hui."_
+
+Meantime, during the noise of our forced exit and the ensuing dialogue,
+the scene within had evidently changed in character, for the blows had
+ceased. Steps could be heard crossing and recrossing the wooden floor.
+A creaking sound succeeded to the beating--it was the creaking and
+groaning of a wooden staircase bending beneath the weight of a human
+figure. In an upper chamber there came the sound of a quiet, subdued
+sobbing now. They were the sobs of the girl. She at least had been
+released.
+
+A face, cruel, pinched, hardened, with flaming agate eyes and an
+insolent smile, stood looking out at us through the dulled, dusty
+window-pane. It was the fury.
+
+Meanwhile the peasant was still defending his post. A moment later the
+tall frame of the farmer suddenly filled the open doorway. The peasant
+well-nigh fell into his master's arms. The farmer's face was still
+terrible to look upon, but the purple stain of passion was now turned
+to red. There was a mocking insolence in his tone as he addressed us,
+that matched with the woman's unconcealed glee.
+
+"Will you not come in, mesdames? Will you not rest a while after your
+long walk?" On the man's hard face there was still the shadow of a
+sinister cruelty as he waved his hand toward the room within.
+
+The peasant's good-humored, loutish smile, and his stupid, cow-like
+eyes, by contrast, were the eyes and smile of a benevolent deity.
+
+The smile told us we were right, as we slunk away toward the open road.
+The head kept nodding approval as we vanished presently beneath the
+shade of the protecting trees.
+
+The fields, as we swept rapidly past them, were as bathed in peace as
+when we had left them; there was even a more voluptuous content abroad:
+for the twilight was wrapping about the landscape its poppied dusk of
+gloom and shadow. Above, the birds were swirling in sweeping circles,
+raining down the ecstasy of their night-song; still above, far beyond
+them, across a zenith pure, transparent, ineffably pink, illumined
+wisps of clouds were trailing their scarf-like shapes. It was a scene
+of beatific peace. Across the fields came the sound of a distant bell.
+It was the _Angelus_. The ploughmen stopped to doff their hats, the
+women to bend their heads in prayer.
+
+And in our ears, louder than the vibrations of the hamlet bell, louder
+than the bird-notes and the tumult of the voluptuous insect whirr,
+there rang the thud, thud of cruel blows falling on quivering human
+flesh.
+
+The curtain that hid the life of the peasant-farmer had indeed been
+lifted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ERNESTINE.
+
+
+"Ah, mesdames, what will you have? The French peasant is like that.
+When he is in a rage nothing stops him--he beats anything, everything;
+whatever his hand encounters must suffer when he is angry; his wife,
+his child, his servant, his horse, they are all alike to him when he
+sees red."
+
+Monsieur Fouchet was tying up his rose-trees; we were watching him from
+our seat on the green bench. Here in the garden, beneath the blue
+vault, the roses were drooping from very heaviness of glory; they gave
+forth a scent that made the head swim. It was a healthy, virile
+intoxication, however, the salt in the air steadying one's nerves.
+
+Nature, not being mortal and cursed with a conscience, had risen that
+morning in a mood for carousal; at this hour of noon she had reached
+the point of ecstatic stupor. No state of trance was ever so exquisite.
+The air was swooning, but how delicate its gasps, as if it fell away
+into calm! How adorably blue the sky in its debauch of sun-lit ether!
+The sea, too, although it reeled slightly, unsteadily rising only to
+fall away, what a radiance of color it maintained! Here in the garden
+the drowsy air would lift a flower petal, as some dreamer sunk in
+hasheesh slumber might touch a loved hand, only to let it slip away in
+nerveless impotence. Never had the charm of this Normandy sea-coast
+been as compelling; never had the divine softness of this air, this
+harmonious marriage of earth-scents and sea-smells seemed as perfect;
+never before had the delicacy of the foliage and color-gradations of
+the sky as triumphantly proved that nowhere else, save in France, can
+nature be at once sensuous and poetic.
+
+We looked for something other than pure enjoyment from this golden
+moment; we hoped its beauty would help us to soften our landlord. This
+was the moment we had chosen to excite his sympathies, also to gain
+counsel from him concerning the tragedy we had witnessed the day
+before. He listened to our tale with evident interest, but there was a
+disappointing coolness in his eye. As the narrative proceeded, the
+brutality of the situation failed to sting him to even a mild form of
+indignation. He went on tying his rose-trees, his ardor expending
+itself in choice snippings of the stray stalks and rebellious tendrils.
+
+"This Guichon," he said, after a brief moment, in the tone that goes
+with the pursuance of an occupation that has become a passion. "This
+Guichon--I know him. He is a hard man, but no harder than many others,
+and he has had his losses, which don't always soften a man. '_Qui terre
+a guerre a_,' Molière says, and Guichon has had many lawsuits, losing
+them all. He has been twice married; that was his daughter by his first
+wife he was touching up like that. He married only the other day Madame
+Tier, a rich woman, a neighbor, their lands join. It was a great match
+for him, and she, the wife, and his daughter don't hit it off, it
+appears. There was some talk of a marriage for the girl lately; a good
+match presented itself, but the girl will have none of it; perhaps that
+accounts for the beating."
+
+A rose, overblown with its fulness of splendor, dropped in a shower at
+Fouchet's feet just then.
+
+"_Tiens, elle est finie, celle-là_" he cried, with an accent of regret,
+and he stooped over the fallen petals as if they had been the remains
+of a friend. Then he sighed as he swept the mass into his broad palm.
+
+"Come, let us leave him to the funeral of his roses; he hasn't the
+sensibilities of an insect;" and Charm grasped my arm to lead me over
+the turf, across the gravel paths, toward the tea-house.
+
+This tottering structure had become one of our favorite retreats; in
+the poetic _mise-en-scène_ of the garden it played the part of Ruin. It
+was absurdly, ridiculously out of repair; its gaping beams and the
+sunken, dejected floor could only be due to intentional neglect.
+Fouchet evidently had grasped the secrets of the laws of contrast; the
+deflected angle of the tumbling roof made the clean-cut garden beds
+doubly true. Nature had had compassion on the aged little building,
+however; the clustering, fragrant vines, in their hatred of nudity, had
+invested the prose of a wreck with the poetry of drapery. The
+tip-tilted settee beneath the odorous roof became, in time, our chosen
+seat; from that perch we could overlook the garden-walls, the beach,
+the curve of the shore, the grasses and hollyhocks in our neighbor's
+garden, the latter startlingly distinct against the great arch of the
+sky.
+
+It was here Renard found us an hour later. To him, likewise, did Charm
+narrate our extraordinary experience of yesterday, with much adjunct of
+fiery comment, embellishment of gesture, and imitative pose.
+
+"Ye gods, what a scene to paint! You were in luck--in luck; why wasn't
+I there?" was Renard's tribute to human pity.
+
+"Oh, you are all alike, all--nothing moves you--you haven't common
+human sympathies--you haven't the rudiments of a heart! You are
+terrible--all of you--terrible!" A moment after she had left us, as if
+the narrowness of the little house stifled her. With long, swinging
+steps she passed out, to air her indignation, apparently, beneath the
+wall of the espaliers.
+
+"Splendid creature, isn't she?" commented Renard, following the long
+lines of the girl's fluttering muslin gown, as he plucked at his
+mustache. "She should always wear white and gold--what is that
+stuff?--and be lit up like that with a kind of goddess-like anger. She
+is wrong, however," he went on, a moment later; "those of us who live
+here aren't really barbarians, only we get used to things. It's the
+peasants themselves that force us; they wouldn't stand interference. A
+peasant is a kind of king on his own domain; he does anything he likes,
+short of murder, and he doesn't always stop at that."
+
+"But surely the Government--at least their Church, ought to teach
+them--"
+
+"Oh, their Church! they laugh at their curés--till they come to die.
+He's a heathen, that's what the French peasant is--there's lots of the
+middle ages abroad up there in the country. Along here, in the coast
+villages, the nineteenth century has crept in a bit, humanizing them,
+but the _fonds_ is always the same; they're by nature avaricious,
+sordid, cruel; they'll do anything for money; there isn't anything
+sacred for them except their pocket."
+
+A few days later, in our friend the cobbler we found a more sympathetic
+listener. "Dame! I also used to beat my wife," he said,
+contemplatively, as he scratched his herculean head, "but that was when
+I was a Christian, when I went to confession; for the confessional was
+made for that, _c'est pour laver le linge sale des consciences, çà_"
+(interjecting his epigram). "But now--now that I am a free-thinker, I
+have ceased all that; I don't beat her," pointing to his old wife, "and
+neither do I drink or swear."
+
+"It's true, he's good--he is, now," the old wife nodded, with her slit
+of a smile; "but," she added, quickly, as if even in her husband's
+religious past there had been some days of glory, "he was always
+just--even then--when he beat me."
+
+"_C'est très femme, çà--hein, mademoiselle?_" And the cobbler cocked
+his head in critical pose, with a philosopher's smile.
+
+The result of the interview, however, although not entirely
+satisfactory, was illuminating, besides this light which had been
+thrown on the cobbler's reformation. For the cobbler was a cousin,
+distant in point of kinship, but still a cousin, of the brutal farmer
+and father. He knew all the points of the situation, the chief of which
+was, as Fouchet had hinted, that the girl had refused to wed the _bon
+parti_, who was a connection of the step-mother. As for the
+step-mother's murderous outcry, "Kill her! kill her!" the cobbler
+refused to take a dramatic view of this outburst.
+
+"In such moments, you understand, one loses one's head; brutality
+always intoxicates; she was a little drunk, you see."
+
+When we proposed our modest little scheme, that of sending for the girl
+and taking her, for a time at least, into our service, merely as a
+change of scene, the cobbler had found nothing but admiration for the
+project. "It will be perfect, mesdames. They, the parents, will ask
+nothing better. To have the girl out at service, away, and yet not
+disgracing them by taking a place with any other farmer; yes, they will
+like that, for they are rich, you see, and wealth always respects
+itself. Ah, yes, it's perfect; I'll arrange all that--all the details."
+
+Two days later the result of the arrangement stood before us. She was
+standing with her arms crossed, her fingers clasping her elbows--with
+her very best peasant manner. She was neatly, and, for a peasant,
+almost fashionably attired in her holiday dress--a short, black skirt,
+white stockings, a flowery kerchief crossed over her broad bosom, and
+on her pretty hair a richly tinted blue _foulard_. She was very well
+dressed for a peasant, and, from the point of view of two travellers,
+of about as much use as a plough.
+
+"It's a beautiful scheme, and it's as dramatic as the fifth act of a
+play; but what shall we do with her?"
+
+"Oh." replied Charm, carelessly, "there isn't anything in particular
+for her to do. I mean to buy her a lot of clothes, like those she has
+on, and she can walk about in the garden or in the fields."
+
+"Ah, I see; she's to be a kind of a perambulating figure-piece."
+
+"Yes, that's about it. I dare say she will be very useful at sunset, in
+a dim street; so few peasants wear anything approaching to costume
+nowadays."
+
+Ernestine herself, however, as we soon discovered, had an entirely
+different conception of her vocation. She was a vigorous, active young
+woman, with the sap of twenty summers in her lusty young veins. Her
+energies soon found vent in a continuous round of domestic excitements.
+There were windows and floors that cried aloud to Heaven to be
+scrubbed; there were holes in the sheets to make mam'zelle's lying
+between them _une honte, une vraie honte_. As for Madame Fouchet's
+little weekly bill, _Dieu de Dieu_, it was filled with such extortions
+as to make the very angels weep. Madame and Ernestine did valiant
+battle over those bills thereafter. Ernestine was possessed of the
+courage of a true martyr; she could suffer and submit to the scourge,
+in the matter of personal persecution, for the religion of her own
+convictions; but in the service of her rescuer, she could fight with
+the fierceness of a common soldier.
+
+"When Norman meets Norman--" Charm began one day, the sound of voices,
+in a high treble of anger, coming in to us through the windows.
+
+But Ernestine was knocking at the door, with a note in her hand.
+
+"An answer is asked, mesdames," she said, in a voice of honey, as she
+dropped her low courtesy.
+
+This was the missive:
+
+
+ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD.
+
+TO HONFLEUR AND TROUVILLE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+TO AN OLD MANOR.
+
+
+"Will _ces dames_ join me in a marauding expedition? Like the poet
+Villon, I am about to turn marauder, house breaker, thief. I shall hope
+to end the excursion by one act, at least, of highway robbery. I shall
+lose courage without the enlivening presence of _ces dames._ We will
+start when the day is at its best, we will return when the moon smiles.
+In case of finding none to rob, the coach of the desperadoes will be
+garrisoned with provisions; Henri will accompany us as counsellor,
+purveyor, and bearer of arms and costumes. The carriage for _ces dames_
+will stop the way at the hour of eleven.
+
+"I have the honor to sign myself their humble servant and
+co-conspirator.
+
+"John Renard."
+
+"This, in plain English," was Charm's laconic translation of this note,
+"means that he wishes us to be ready at eleven for the excursion to
+P----, to spend the day, you may remember, at that old manor. He wants
+to paint in a background, he said yesterday, while we stroll about and
+look at the old place. What shall I wear?"
+
+In an hour we were on the road.
+
+A jaunty yellow cart, laden with a girl on the front seat; with a man,
+tawny of mustache, broad of shoulder, and dark of eye, with face
+shining to match the spring in the air and that fair face beside him;
+laden also with another lady on the back seat, beside whom, upright and
+stiff, with folded arms, sat Henri, costumer, valet, cook, and groom.
+It was in the latter capacity that Henri was now posing. The role of
+groom was uppermost in his orderly mind, although at intervals, when
+his foot chanced to touch a huge luncheon-basket with which the cart
+was also laden, there were betraying signs of anxiety; it was then that
+the chef crept back to life. This spring in the air was all very well,
+but how would it affect the sauces? This great question was written on
+Henri's brow in a network of anxious wrinkles.
+
+"Henri," I remarked, as we were wheeling down the roadway, "I am quite
+certain you have put up enough luncheon for a regiment."
+
+"Madame has said it, for a regiment; Monsieur Renard, when he works,
+eats with the hunger of a wolf."
+
+"Henri, did you get in all the rags?" This came from Renard on the
+front seat, as he plied his steed with the whip.
+
+"The costume of Monsieur le Marquis, and also of Madame la Marquise de
+Pompadour, are beneath my feet in the valise, Monsieur Renard. I have
+the sword between my legs," replied Henri, the costumer coming to the
+surface long enough to readjust the sword.
+
+"Capital fellow, Henri, never forgets anything," said Renard, in
+English.
+
+"Couldn't we offer a libation or something, on such a morning--"
+
+"On such a morning," interrupted the painter, "one should be seated
+next to a charming young lady who has the genius to wear Nile green and
+white; even a painter with an Honorable Mention behind him and fame
+still ahead, in spite of the Mention, is satisfied. You know a Greek
+deity was nothing to a painter, modern, and of the French school, in
+point of fastidiousness."
+
+"Nonsense! it's the American woman who is fastidious, when it comes to
+clothes."
+
+Meanwhile, there was one of the party who was looking at the road; that
+also was arrayed in Nile green and white; the tall trees also held
+umbrellas above us, but these coverings were woven of leaves and sky.
+This bit of roadway appeared to have slipped down from the upper
+country, and to have carried much of the upper country with it. It was
+highway posing as pure rustic. It had brought all its pastoral
+paraphernalia along. Nothing had been forgotten: neither the hawthorn
+and the osier hedges, nor the tree-trunks, suddenly grown modest at
+sight of the sea, burying their nudity in nests of vines, nor the trick
+which elms and beeches have, of growing arches in the sky. Timbered
+farm-houses were here, also thatched huts, to make the next villa-gate
+gain in stateliness; apple orchards were dotted about with such a
+knowing air of wearing the long line of the Atlantic girdled about
+their gnarled trunks, that one could not believe pure accident had
+carried them to the edge of the sea. There were several miles of this
+driving along beneath these green aisles. Through the screen of the
+hedges and the crowded tree-trunks, picture succeeded picture; bits of
+the sea were caught between slits of cliff; farmhouses, huts, and
+villas lay smothered in blossoms; above were heights whereon poplars
+seemed to shiver in the sun, as they wrapped about them their
+shroud-like foliage; meadows slipped away from the heights, plunging
+seaward, as if wearying for the ocean; and through the whole this line
+of green roadway threaded its path with sinuous grace, serpentining,
+coiling, braiding in land and sea in one harmonious, inextricable
+blending of incomparable beauty. One could quite comprehend, after even
+a short acquaintance with this road, that two gentlemen of Paris, as
+difficult to please as Daubigny and Isabey, should have seen points of
+excellence in it.
+
+There are all sorts of ways of being a painter. Perhaps as good as any,
+if one cares at all about a trifling matter like beauty, is to know a
+good thing when one sees it. That poet of the brush, Daubigny, not only
+was gifted with this very unusual talent in a painter, but a good thing
+could actually be entrusted in his hands after its discovery. And
+herein, it appears to me, lies all the difference between good and bad
+painting; not only is an artist--any artist--to be judged by what he
+sees, but also by what he does with a fact after he's acquired
+it--whether he turns it into poetry or prose.
+
+I might incautiously have sprung these views on the artist on the front
+seat, had he not wisely forestalled my outburst by one of his own.
+
+"By the way," he broke in; "by the way, I'm not doing my duty as
+cicerone. There's a church near here--we're coming to it in a
+moment--famous--eleventh or twelfth century, Romanesque
+style--yes--that's right, although I'm somewhat shaky when it comes to
+architecture--and an old manoir, museum now, with lots of old furniture
+in it--in the manoir, I mean."
+
+"There's the church now. Oh, let us stop!"
+
+In point of fact there were two churches before us. There was one of
+ivy: nave, roof, aisles, walls, and conic-shaped top, as perfectly
+defined in green as if the beautiful mantle had been cut and fitted to
+the hidden stone structure. Every few moments the mantle would be
+lifted by the light breeze, as might a priest's vestment; it would move
+and waver, as if the building were a human frame, changing its posture
+to ease its long standing. Between this church of stone and this church
+of vines there were signs of the fight that had gone on for ages
+between them. The stones were obviously fighting decay, fighting ruin,
+fighting annihilation; the vines were also struggling, but both time
+and the sun were on their side. The stone edifice was now, it is true,
+as Renard told us, protected by the Government--it was classed as a
+"monument historique"--but the church of greens was protected by the
+god of nature, and seemed to laugh aloud, as if with conscious gleeful
+strength. This gay, triumphant laugh was reflected, as if to emphasize
+its mockery of man's work, in the tranquil waters of a little pond,
+lily-leaved, garlanded in bushes, that lay hidden beyond the roadway.
+Through the interstices of the vines one solitary window from the
+tower, like a sombre eye, looked down into the pond; it saw there,
+reflected as in a mirror, the old, the eternal picture of a dead ruin
+clasped by the arms of living beauty.
+
+This Criqueboeuf church presents the ideal picturesque accessories. It
+stands at the corner of two meeting roadways. It is set in an ideal
+pastoral frame--a frame of sleeping fields, of waving tree-tops, of an
+enchanting, indescribable snarl of bushes, vines, and wild flowers. In
+the adjoining fields, beneath the tree-boughs, ran the long, low line
+of the ancient manoir--now turned into a museum.
+
+We glanced for a few brief moments at the collection of antiquities
+assembled beneath the old roof--at the Henry II. chairs, at the
+Pompadour-wreathed cabinets, at the long rows of panels on which are
+presented the whole history of France--the latter an amazing record of
+the industry of a certain Dr. Le Goupils.
+
+"Criqueboeuf doesn't exactly hide its light under a bushel, you know,
+although it doesn't crown a hill. No end of people know it; it sits for
+its portrait, I should say at least twice a week regularly, on an
+average, during the season. English water-colorists go mad over
+it--they cross over on purpose to `do' it, and they do it extremely
+badly, as a rule."
+
+This was Renard's last comment of a biographical and critical nature,
+concerning the "historical monument," as we reseated ourselves to
+pursue our way to P----.
+
+"Why don't you show them how it can be done?"
+
+"Would," coolly returned Renard, "if it were worth while, but it isn't
+in my line. Henri, did you bring any ice?"
+
+Henri, I had noticed, when we had reseated ourselves in the cart, had
+greeted us with an air of silent sadness; he clearly had not approved
+of ruins that interfered with the business of the day.
+
+"_Oui, monsieur_, I did bring some ice, but as monsieur can imagine to
+himself--a two hours' sun--"
+
+"Nonsense, this sun wouldn't melt a pat of butter; the ice is all
+right, and so is the wine."
+
+Then he continued in English: "Now, ladies, as I should begin if I were
+a politician, or an auctioneer; now, ladies, the time for confession
+has arrived; I can no longer conceal from you my burglarious scheme. In
+the next turn that we shall make to the right, the park of the P----
+manoir will disclose itself. But, between us and that Park, there is a
+gate. That gate is locked. Now, gates, from the time of the Garden of
+Eden, I take it, have been an invention of--of--the other fellow, to
+keep people out. I know a way--but it's not the way you can follow.
+Henri and I will break down a few bars, we'll cross a few fields over
+yonder, and will present ourselves, with all the virtues written on our
+faces, to you in the Park. Meanwhile you must enter, as queens
+should--through the great gates. Behold, there is a curé yonder, a
+great friend of mine. You will step along the roadway; you will ring a
+door-bell; the curé will appear; you will ask him if it be true that
+the manoir of P---- is to rent, you have heard that he has the keys; he
+will present you the keys; you will open the big gate and find me."
+
+"But--but, Mr. Renard, I really don't see how that scheme will work."
+
+"Work! It will work to a charm. You will see. Henri, just help the
+ladies, will you?"
+
+Henri, with decisive gravity, was helping the ladies to alight; in
+another instant he had regained his seat, and he and Renard were flying
+down the roadway, out of sight.
+
+"Really--it's the coolest proceeding," Charm began. Then we looked
+through the bars of the park gate. The park was as green and as still
+as a convent garden; a pink brick mansion, with closed window-blinds,
+was standing, surrounded by a terrace on one side, and by glittering
+parterres on the other.
+
+"Where did he say the old curé was?" asked Charm, quite briskly, all at
+once. Everything had turned out precisely as Renard had predicted.
+Doubtless he had also counted on the efficacy of the old fable of the
+Peri at the Gate--one look had been sufficient to turn us into arrant
+conspirators; to gain an entrance into that tranquil paradise any ruse
+would serve.
+
+"Here's a church--he said nothing about a church, did he?"
+
+Across the avenue, above the branches of a row of tall trees, rose the
+ivied facade of a rude hamlet church; a flight of steep weedy steps led
+up to its Norman doorway. The door was wide open; through the arched
+aperture came the sounds of footfalls, of a heavy, vigorous tread;
+Charm ran lightly up a few of the lower steps, to peer into the open
+door.
+
+"It's the curé dusting the altar--shall I go in?"
+
+"No, we had best ring--this must be his house."
+
+The clatter of the curé's sabots was the response that answered to the
+bell we pulled, a bell attached to a diminutive brick house lying at
+the foot of the churchyard. The tinkling of the cracked-voiced bell had
+hardly ceased when the door opened.
+
+But the curé had already taken his first glance at us over the garden
+hedges.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A NORMAN CURE.
+
+
+"Mesdames!"
+
+The priest's massive frame filled the narrow door; the tones of his
+mellow voice seemed also suddenly to fill the air, drowning all other
+sounds. The grace of his manner, a grace that invested the simple act
+of his uncovering and the holding of his _calotte_ in hand, with an air
+of homage, made also our own errand the more difficult.
+
+I had already begun to murmur the nature of our errand: we were
+passing, we had seen the manoir opposite, we had heard it was to rent,
+also that he, Monsieur le Curé, had the keys.
+
+Yes, the keys were here. Then the velvet in Monsieur le Curé's eyes
+turned to bronze, as they looked out at us from beneath the fine dome
+of brow.
+
+"I have the keys of the garden only, mesdames," he replied, with
+perfect but somewhat distant courtesy; "the gardener, down the road
+yonder, has the keys of the house. Do you really wish to rent the
+house?"
+
+He had seen through our ruse with quick Norman penetration. He had not,
+from the first, been in the least deceived.
+
+It became the more difficult to smooth the situation into shape. "We
+had thought perhaps to rent a villa, we were in one now at Villerville.
+If Monsieur le curé would let us look at the garden. Monsieur Renard,
+whom perhaps he remembered--
+
+"M. Renard! Oh ho! Oh ho! I see it all now," and a deep, mellow laugh
+smote the air. The keenness in the fine eyes melted into mirth, a mirth
+that laid the fine head back on the broad shoulders, that the laugh
+that shook the powerful frame might have the fuller play.
+
+"Ah, _mes enfants_, I see it all now--it is that scoundrel of a boy.
+I'll warrant he's there, over yonder, already. He was here yesterday,
+he was here the day before, and he is afraid, he is ashamed to ask
+again for the keys. But come, _mes enfants_, come, let us go in search
+of him." And the little door was closed with a slam. Down the broad
+roadway the next instant fluttered the old curé's soutane. We followed,
+but could scarcely keep pace with the brisk, vigorous strides. The
+sabots ploughed into the dust. The cane stamped along in company with
+the sabots, all three in a fury of impatience. The curé's step and his
+manner might have been those of a boy, burning with haste to discover a
+playmate in hiding. All the keenness and shrewdness on the fine, ruddy
+face had melted into sweetness; an exuberance of mirth seemed to be the
+sap that fed his rich nature. It was easy to see he had passed the
+meridian of his existence in a realm of high spirits; an irrepressible
+fountain within, the fountain of an unquenchable good-humor, bathed the
+whole man with the hues of health. Ripe red lips curved generously over
+superb teeth; the cheeks were glowing, as were the eyes, the crimson
+below them deepening to splendor the velvet in the iris. The one severe
+line in the face, the thin, straight nose, ended in wide nostrils in
+the quivering, mobile nostrils of the humorist. The swell of the
+gourmand's paunch beneath the soutane was proof that the curé was a
+true Norman he had not passed a lifetime in these fertile gardens
+forgetful of the fact that the fine art of good living is the one
+indulgence the Church has left to its celibate sons.
+
+Meanwhile, our guide was peering with quick, excited gaze, through the
+thick foliage of the park; his fine black eyes were sweeping the
+parterre and terrace.
+
+"Ah-h!" his rich voice cried out, mockingly; and he stopped, suddenly,
+to plant his cane in the ground with mock fierceness.
+
+"_Tiens_, Monsieur le Curé!" cried Renard, from behind a tree, in a
+beautiful voice. It was a voice that matched with his well-acted
+surprise, when he appeared, confronting us, on the other side of the
+tree-trunk.
+
+The curé opened his arms.
+
+"_Ah, mon enfant, viens, viens!_ how good it is to see thee once again!"
+
+They were in each other's arms. The curé was pressing his lips to
+Renard's cheek, in hearty French fashion. The priest, however,
+administered his reproof before he released him. Renard's broad
+shoulders received a series of pats, which turned to blows, dealt by
+the curé's herculean hand.
+
+"Why didn't you let me know you were here, yesterday, _Hein_? Answer me
+that. How goes the picture? Is it set up yet? You see, mesdames,"
+turning with a reddened cheek and gleaming eyes, "it is thus I punish
+him--for he has no heart, no sensibilities--he only understands
+severities! And he defrauded me yesterday, he cheated me. I didn't even
+know of his being here till he had gone. And the picture, where is it?"
+
+It was on an easel, sunning itself beneath the park trees. The old
+priest clattered along the gravelly walk, to take a look at it.
+
+"_Tiens_--it grows--the figures begin to move--they are almost alive.
+There should be a trifle more shadow under the chin, what do you think?"
+
+Henri raised his chin. Henri had undergone the process of
+transformation in our absence. He was now M. le Marquis de
+Pompadour--under the heart-shaped arch of the great trees, he was
+standing, resplendent in laces, in glistening satins, leaning on a
+rusty, dull-jewelled sword. Renard had mounted his palette; he was
+dipping already into the mounds of color that dotted the palette-board,
+with his long brushes. On the canvas, in colors laid on by the touch of
+genius, this archway beneath which we were standing reared itself
+aloft; the park trees were as tall and noble, transfixed in their image
+of immutable calm, on that strip of linen, as they towered now above
+us; even the yellow cloud of the laburnum blossoms made the sunshine of
+the shaded grass, as it did here, where else no spot of sun might
+enter, so dense was the night of shade. The life of another day and
+time lived, however, beneath that shade; Charm and the curé, as they
+drooped over the canvas, confronted a graceful, attenuated courtier,
+sickening in a languor of adoration, and a sprightly coquette, whose
+porcelain beauty was as finished as the feathery edges of her lacy
+sleeves.
+
+"_Très bien très bien_" said the curé, nodding his head in critical
+commendation. "It will be a little masterpiece. And now," waving his
+hand toward us, "what do you propose to do with these ladies while you
+are painting?"
+
+"Oh, they can wander about," Renard replied, abstractedly. He had
+already reseated himself and had begun to ply his brushes; he now saw
+only Henri and the hilt of the sword he was painting in.
+
+"I knew it, I could have told you--a painter hasn't the manners of a
+peasant when he's painting," cried the priest, lifting cane and hands
+high in air, in mock horror. "But all the better, all the better, I
+shall have you all to myself. Come, come with me. You can see the house
+later. I'll send for the gardener. It's too fine a day to be indoors.
+What a day, _hein_? _Le bon Dieu_ sends us such days now and then, to
+make us ache for paradise. This way, this way--we'll go through the
+little door--my little door; it was made for me, you know, when the
+manoir was last inhabited. I and the children were too impatient--we
+suffered from that malady--all of us--we never could wait for the great
+gates yonder to be opened. So Monsieur de H---- built us this one." The
+little door opened directly on the road, and on the curé's house. There
+was a tangle of underbrush barring the way; but the curé pushed the
+briars apart with his strong hands, beating them down with his cane.
+
+When the door opened, we passed directly beyond the roadway, to the
+steep steps leading to the church. The curé, before mounting the steps,
+swept the road, upward and downward, with his keen glance. It was the
+instinctive action of the provincial, scenting the chance of novelty.
+Some distant object, in the meeting of two distant roadways, arrested
+the darting eyes; this time, at least, he was to be rewarded for his
+prudence in looking about him. The object slowly resolved itself into
+two crutches between which hung the limp figure of a one-legged man.
+
+"_Bonjour, Monsieur le curé_." The crutches came to a standstill; the
+cripple's hand went up to doff a ragged worsted cap.
+
+"Good-day, good-day, my friend; how goes it? Not quite so stiff,
+_hein_--in such a bath of sunlight as this? Good-day, good-day."
+
+The crutches and their burden passed on, kicking a little cloud of dust
+about the lean figure.
+
+"_Un peu cassé, le bonhomme_" he said, as he nodded to the cripple in a
+tone of reflection, as if the breakage that bad befallen his humble
+friend were a fresh incident in his experience. "Yes, he's a little
+broken, the poor old man; but then," he added, quickly renewing his
+tone of unquenchable high spirits--"one doesn't die of it. No, one
+doesn't die, fortunately. Why, we're all more or less cracked, or
+broken up here."
+
+He shook another laugh out, as he preceded us up the stone steps. Then
+he turned to stop for a moment to point his cane toward the small house
+with whose chimneys we were now on a level. "There, mesdames, there is
+the proof that more breaking doesn't signify in this matter of life and
+death, _Tenez_, madame--" and with a charming gesture he laid his
+richly-veined, strong old hand on my arm--a hand that ended in
+beautiful fingers, each with its rim of moon-shaped dirt;
+"_tenez_--figure to yourself, madame, that I myself have been here
+twenty years, and I came for two! I bought out the _bonhomme_ who lived
+over yonder.
+
+"I bought him and his furniture out. I said to myself, 'I'll buy it for
+eight hundred, and I'll sell it for four hundred, in a year.'" Here he
+laid his finger on his nose--lengthwise, the Norman in him supplanting
+the priest in his remembrance of a good bargain. "And now it is twenty
+years since then. Everything creaks and cracks over there: all of us
+creak and crack. You should hear my chairs, _elles se cassent les
+reins_--they break their thighs continually. Ah! there goes another, I
+cry out, as I sit down in one in winter and hear them groan. Poor old
+things, they are of the Empire, no wonder they groan. You should see
+us, when our brethren come to take a cup of soup with me. Such a
+collection of antiquities as we are! I catch them, my brothers, looking
+about, slyly peering into the secrets of my little ménage. 'From his
+ancestors, doubtless, these old chairs and tables, say these good
+frères, under their breath. And then I wink slyly at the chairs, and
+they never let on."
+
+Again the mellow laugh broke forth. He stopped again to puff and blow a
+little, from his toil up the steep steps. Then all at once, as the
+rough music of his clicking sabots and the playful taps of his cane
+ceased, the laugh on his mobile lips melted into seriousness. He lifted
+his cane, pointing to the cemetery just above us, and to the
+gravestones looking down over the hillsides between a network of roses.
+
+"We are old, madame--we are old, but, alas! we never die! It is
+difficult to people, that cemetery. There are only sixty of us in the
+parish, and we die--we die hard. For example, here is my old
+servant"--and he covered a grave with a sweep of his cane--for we were
+leisurely sauntering through the little cemetery now. The grave to
+which he pointed was a garden; heliotrope, myosotis, hare-bells and
+mignonette had made of the mound a bed of perfume--"see how quietly she
+lies--and yet what a restless soul the flowers cover! She, too, died
+hard. It took her years to make up her mind; finally _le bon Dieu_ had
+to decide it for her, when she was eighty-four. She complained to the
+last--she was poor, she was in my way, she was blind. '_Eh bien, tu
+n'as pas besoin de me faire les beaux yeux, toi_'--I used to say to
+her. Ah, the good soul that she was!" and the dark eye glistened with
+moisture. A moment later the curé was blowing vigorously the note of
+his grief, in trumpet-tones, through the organ that only a Frenchman
+can render an effective adjunct to moments of emotion.
+
+"You see, _mes enfants_, I am like that--I weep over my friends--when
+they are gone! But see," he added quickly, recovering himself--"see,
+over yonder there is my predecessor's grave. He lies well,
+_hein?_--comfortable, too--looking his old church in the face and the
+sun on his old bones all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will
+have company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a friend." The humorous
+smile was again curving his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were
+beginning to quiver. "When my friend and I lie there, we shall be a
+little crowded, perhaps. I said to him, when he proposed it, proposed
+to lie there with us, 'but we shall be crunching each other's bones!'
+'No,' he replied, 'only falling into each other's arms!' So it was
+settled. He comes over from Havre, every now and then, to talk our
+tombstones over; we drink a glass of wine together, and take a pipe and
+talk about our future--in eternity! Ah, how gay we are! It is so good
+to be friends with God!"
+
+The voice deepened into seriousness. He went on in a quieter key:
+
+"But why am I always preaching and talking about death and eternity to
+two such ladies--two such children? Ah--I know, I am really old--I only
+deceive myself into pretending I'm young. You will do the same, both of
+you, some day. But come and see my good works. You know everyone has
+his little corner of conceit--I have mine. I like to do good, and then
+to boast of it. You shall see--you shall see."
+
+He was hurrying us along the narrow paths now, past the little company
+of grave-stones, graves that were bearing their barbaric burdens of
+mortuary wreaths, of beaded crosses, and the motley assemblage, common
+to all French graveyards, of hideous shrines encasing tin saints and
+madonnas in plaster.
+
+Above the sunken graves and the tin effigies of the martyrs behind the
+church, arose a fair and glittering marble tomb. It was strangely out
+of keeping with the meagre and paltry surroundings of the peasant
+grave-stones. As we approached the tomb it grew in imposingness. It was
+a circular mortuary chapel, with carved pediment and iron-wrought
+gateway.
+
+"It's fine, _hein_, and beautiful, _hein?_ It is the Duke's!" The curé,
+it was easy to see, considered the chapel in the light of a personal
+possession. He stood before it, bare-headed, with a new earnestness on
+his mobile face. "It is the Duke's. Yes, the Duke's. I saved his soul,
+blessed be God! and he--he rebuilds my cellars for me: See"--and he
+pointed to the fine new base of stone, freshly cemented, on which the
+church rested--"see, I save his soul, and he preserves my buildings for
+me. It's a fair deal, isn't it? How does it come about, that he is
+converted? Ah, you see, although I am a man without science, without
+knowledge, devoid of pretensions and learning, the good God sometimes
+makes use of such humble instruments to work His will. It came about in
+the usual way. The Duke came here carrying his religion lightly, as one
+may say, not thinking of his soul. I--I dine with him. We talk, we
+argue; he does, that is--I only preach from my Bible. And behold! one
+day he is converted. He is devout. And from gratitude, he repairs my
+crumbling old stones. And now see how solid, how strong is my church
+cellar!"
+
+Again the fountain of his irrepressible merriment bubbled forth. For
+all the gayety, however, the severe line deepened as one grew to know
+the face better; the line in profile running from the nose into the
+firm upper lip and into the still more resolute chin, matched the
+impress of authority marked on the noble brow. It was the face of one
+who might have infinite charity and indulgence for a sin, and yet would
+make no compromise with it.
+
+We had resumed our walk. It led us at last into the interior of the
+little church. The gloom and silence within, after the dazzling
+brilliancy of the noon-day sun and the noisy insect hum, invested the
+narrow nave and dim altar with an added charm. The old priest knelt for
+the briefest instant in reverence to the altar. When he turned there
+was surprise as well as a gentle reproach in the changeable eyes.
+
+"And you, mesdames! How is this? You are not Catholics? And I was so
+sure of it! Quite sure of it, you were so sympathetic, so full of
+reverence. And you, my child"--turning to Charm--"you speak our tongue
+so well, with the very accent of a good Catholic. What! you are
+Protestant? La! La! What do I hear?" He shook his cane over the backs
+of the straw-bottomed chairs; the sweet, mellow accents of his voice
+melted into loving protest--a protest in which the fervor was not
+quenched in spite of the merry key in which it was pitched.
+
+"Protestants? Pouffe! pouffe! What is that? What is it to be a
+Protestant? Heretics, heretics, that is what you are. So you are _deux
+affreuses hérétiques_? Ah, la! la! Horrible! horrible! I must cure you
+of all that. I must cure you!" He dropped his cane in the enthusiasm of
+his attack; it fell with a clanging sound on the stone pavement. He let
+it lie. He had assumed, unconsciously, the orator's, the preacher's
+attitude. He crowded past the chairs, throwing back his head as he
+advanced, striking into argumentative gesture:
+
+"_Tenez_, listen, there is so little difference, after all. As I was
+saying to M. le comte de Chermont the other day, no later than
+Thursday--he has married an English wife, you know--can't understand
+that either, how they can marry English wives. However, that's none of
+my business--we have nothing to do with marrying, we priests, except as
+a sacrament for others. I said to M. le comte, who, you know, shows
+tendencies toward anglicism--astonishing the influence of women--I
+said: 'But, my dear M. le comte, why change? You will only exchange
+certainty for uncertainty, facts for doubts, truth for lies.' 'Yes,
+yes,' the comte replied, 'but there are so many new truths introduced
+now into our blessed religion--the infallibility of the pope--the--'
+'_Ah, mon cher comte--ne m'en parlez pas_. If that is all that stands
+in your way--_faites comme le bon Dieu! Lui--il ferme les yeux et tend
+les bras._ That is all we ask--we his servants--to have you close your
+eyes and open your arms.'"
+
+The good curé was out of breath; he was panting. After a moment, in a
+deeper tone, he went on:
+
+"You, too, my children, that is what I say to you--you need only to
+open your arms and to close your eyes. God is waiting for you."
+
+For a long instant there was a great stillness--a silence during which
+the narrow spaces of the dim aisles were vibrating with the echoes of
+the rich voice.
+
+The rustle of a light skirt sweeping the stone flooring broke the
+moment's silence. Charm was crossing the aisles. She paused before a
+little wooden box, nailed to the wall. There came suddenly on the ear
+the sound of coin rattling down into the empty box; she had emptied
+into it the contents of her purse.
+
+"For your poor, monsieur le curé," she smiled up, a little tremulously,
+into the burning, glowing eyes. The priest bent over the fair head,
+laying his hand, as if in benediction, upon it.
+
+"My poor need it sadly, my child, and I thank you for them. God will
+bless you."
+
+It was a touching little scene, and I preferred, for one, to look out
+just then at Henri's figure advancing toward us, up the stone steps.
+
+When the priest spoke again, it was in a husky tone, the gold in his
+voice dusted with moisture; but the bantering spirits in him had
+reappeared.
+
+"What a pity, that you must burn! For you must, dreadful heretics that
+you are! And this dear child, she seems to belong to us--I can never
+sit by, now, in Paradise, happy and secure, and see her burn!" The
+laugh that followed was a mingled caress and a blessing. Henri came in
+for a part of the indulgence of the good curé's smile as he came up the
+steps.
+
+"Ah, Henri, you have come for these ladies?"
+
+"_Oui_, monsieur le curé, luncheon is served."
+
+Our friend followed us to the topmost step, and to the very edge of the
+step. He stood there, talking down to us, as we continued to press him
+to return with us.
+
+"No, my children--no--no, I can't join you; don't urge me; I can't, I
+must not. I must say my prayers instead; besides the children come
+soon, for their catechism. No, don't beg me, I don't need to be
+importuned; I know what that dear Renard's wine is. _Au revoir et a
+bientôt_--and remember," and here he lifted his arms--cane and all,
+high in the air--"all you need do is to close your eyes and to open
+your arms. God himself is doing the same."
+
+High up he stood, with uplifted hands, the smile irradiating a face
+that glowed with a saint's simplicity. Behind the black lines of his
+robe, the sunlight lay streaming in noon glory; it aureoled him as
+never saint was aureoled by mortal brush. A moment only he lingered
+there, to raise his cap in parting salute. Then he turned, the trail of
+his gown sweeping the gravel paths, and presently the low church door
+swallowed him up. Through the door, as we crossed the road, there came
+out to us the click of sabots striking the rude flagging; and a moment
+after, the murmuring echo of a deep, rich voice, saying the office of
+the hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+HONFLEUR--NEW AND OLD.
+
+
+The stillness of the park trees, as we passed beneath them, was like
+the silence that comes after a blessing. The sun, flooding the
+landscape with a deluge of light, lost something of its effulgence, by
+contrast with the fulness of the priest's rich nature. This fair world
+of beauty that lay the other side of the terrace wall, beneath which
+our luncheon was spread, was fair and lovely still--but how unimportant
+the landscape seemed compared to the varied scenery of the curé's
+soul-lit character! Of all kinds of nature, human nature is assuredly
+the best; it is at least the most perdurably interesting. When we tire
+of it, when we weary of our fellow-man and turn the blasé cheek on the
+fresh pillow of mother-earth, how quickly is the pillow deserted once
+the mental frame is rested or renewed! The history of all human
+relations has the same ending--we all of us only fall out of love with
+man to fall as swiftly in again.
+
+The remainder of the afternoon passed with the rapidity common to all
+phases of enchantment.
+
+How could one eat seriously, with vulgar, gluttonous hunger, of a feast
+spread on the parapet of a terrace-wall? The white foam of napkins, the
+mosaic of the _patties_, the white breasts of chicken, the salads in
+their bath of dew--these spoke the language of a lost cause. For there
+was an open-air concert going on in full swing, and the performance was
+one that made the act of eating seem as gross as the munching of apples
+at an oratorio--the music being, indeed, of a highly refined order of
+perfection. One's ears needed to be highly attuned to hear the pricking
+of the locusts in the leaves; even the breeze kept uncommonly still,
+that the brushing of the humming-birds' and bees' wings against the
+flower-petals might be the more distinctly heard.
+
+I never knew which one of the party it was that decided we were to see
+the day out and the night in; that we were to dine at the Cheval Blanc,
+on the Honfleur quays, instead of sedately breaking bread at the Mère
+Mouchard's. Even our steed needed very little urging to see the
+advantages of such a scheme. Henri alone wore a grim air of
+disapproval. His aspect was an epitome of rigid protest. As he took his
+seat in the cart, he held the sword between his legs with the air of
+one burning with a pent-up anguish of protest. His eye gloomed on the
+day; his head was held aloft, reared on a column of bristling vertebra,
+and on his brow was written the sign of mutiny.
+
+"Henri--you think we should go back; you think going on to Honfleur a
+mistake?"
+
+"Madame has said it"--Henri was a fatalist--in his speech, at least, he
+lived up to his creed. "Honfleur is far--Monsieur Renard has not the
+good digestion when he is tired--he suffers. _Il passe des nuits
+d'angoisse. Il souffre des fatigues de l'estomac. Il se fatigue
+aujourd'hui!_" This, with an air of stern conviction, was accompanied
+by a glance at his master in which compassion was not the most obvious
+note to be read. He went on, remorselessly:
+
+"And, as madame knows, the work but begins for me when we are at home.
+There are the costumes to be dusted and put away, the paintbrushes to
+clean, the dishes and lunch-basket to be attended to. As madame says,
+monsieur is sometimes lacking in consideration. _Mais, que voulez-vous?
+le génie, c'est fait comme ça._"
+
+Madame had not expressed the feeblest echo of a criticism on the
+composition of the genius in front; but the short dialogue had helped,
+perceptibly, to lift the weight of Henri's gloom; he was beginning to
+accept the fate of the day with a philosopher's phlegm. Already he had
+readjusted a little difficulty between his feet and the lunch basket,
+making his religious care of the latter compatible with the open sin of
+improved personal comfort.
+
+Meanwhile the two on the front seat were a thousand miles away. Neither
+we, nor the day, nor the beauty of the drive had power to woo their
+glances from coming back to the focal point of interest they had found
+in each other. They were beginning to talk, not about each other but of
+themselves--the danger-signal of all tête-à-tête adventures.
+
+When two young people have got into the personal-pronoun stage of human
+intercourse, there is but one thing left for the unfortunate third in
+the party to do. Yes, now that I think of it, there are two roles to be
+played. The usual conception of the part is to turn marplot--to spoil
+and ruin the others' dialogue--to put an end to it, if possible, by
+legitimate or illegitimate means; a very successful way, I have
+observed, of prolonging, as a rule, such a duet indefinitely. The more
+enlightened actor in any such little human comedy, if he be gifted with
+insight, will collapse into the wings, and let the two young idiots
+have the whole stage to themselves. As like as not they'll weary of the
+play, and of themselves, if left alone. No harm will come of all the
+sentimental strutting and the romantic attitudinizing, other than
+viewing the scene, later, in perspective, as a rather amusing bit of
+emotional farce.
+
+Besides being in the very height of the spring fashion, in the matter
+of the sentiments, these two were also busily treading, at just this
+particular moment, the most alluring of all the paths leading to what
+may be termed the outlying territorial domain of the emotions; they
+were wandering through the land called Mutual Discovery. Now, this, I
+have always held, is among the most delectable of all the roads of
+life; for it may lead one--anywhere or nowhere.
+
+Therefore it was from a purely generous impulse that I continued to
+look at the view. The surroundings were, in truth, in conspiracy with
+the sentimentalists on the front seat; the extreme beauty of the road
+would have made any but sentimental egotists oblivious to all else. The
+road was a continuation of the one we had followed in the morning's
+drive. Again, all the greenness of field and grass was braided,
+inextricably, into the blue of river and ocean. Above, as before, in
+that earlier morning drive, towered the giant aisles of the beaches and
+elms. Through those aisles the radiant Normandy landscape flowed again,
+as music from rich organ-piped throats flows through cathedral arches.
+Out yonder, on the Seine's wide mouth, the boats were balancing
+themselves, as if they also were half divided between a doubt and a
+longing; a freshening spurt of breeze filled their flapping sails, and
+away they sped, skipping through the waters with all the gayety which
+comes with the vigor of fresh resolutions. The light that fell over the
+land and waters was dazzling, and yet of an astonishing limpidity; only
+a sun about to drop and end his reign could be at once so brilliant and
+so tender--the diffused light had the sparkle of gold made soft by
+usage. Wherever the eye roved, it was fed as on a banquet of light and
+color. Nothing could be more exquisite, for depth of green swimming in
+a bath of shadow, than the meadows curled beneath the cliffs; nothing
+more tempting, to the painter's brush, than the arabesque of blossoms
+netted across the sky; and would you have the living eye of nature,
+bristling with animation, alive with winged sails, and steeped in the
+very soul of yellow sunshine, look out over the great sheet of the
+waters, and steep the senses in such a breadth of aqueous splendor as
+one sees only in one or two of the rare shows of earth.
+
+Then, all at once, all too soon, the great picture seemed to shrink;
+the quivering pulsation of light and color gave way to staid,
+commonplace gardens. Instead of hawthorn hedges there was the stench of
+river smells--we were driving over cobble-paved streets and beneath
+rows of crooked, crumbling houses. A group of noisy street urchins
+greeted us in derision. And then we had no doubt whatsoever that we
+were already in Honfleur town.
+
+"Honfleur is an evil-smelling place," I remarked.
+
+"Oh, well, after all, the smells of antiquity are a part of the show;
+we should refuse to believe in ancientness, all of us, I fancy, if
+mustiness wasn't served along with it."
+
+"How can any town have such a stench with all this river and water and
+verdure to sweeten it?" I asked, with a woman's belief in the morality
+of environment--a belief much cherished by wives and mothers, I have
+noticed.
+
+"Wait till you see the inhabitants--they'll enlighten you--the hags and
+the nautical gentlemen along the basins and quays. They've discovered
+the secret that if cleanliness is next to godliness, dirt and the devil
+are likewise near neighbors. Awful set--those Honfleur sailors The
+Havre and Seine people call them Chinamen, they are so unlike the rest
+of France and Frenchmen."
+
+"Why are they so unlike?" asked Charm.
+
+"They're so low down, so hideously wicked; they're like the old houses,
+a rotten, worm-eaten set--you'll see."
+
+Charm stopped him then, with a gesture. She stopped the horse also; she
+brought the whole establishment to a standstill; and then she nodded
+her head briskly forward. We were in the midst of the Honfleur
+streets--streets that were running away from a wide open space, in all
+possible directions. In the centre of the square rose a curious, an
+altogether astonishing structure. It was a tower, a belfry doubtless, a
+house, a shop, and a warehouse, all in one; such a picturesque medley,
+in fact, as only modern irreverence, in its lawless disregard of
+original purpose and design, can produce. The low-timbered sub-base of
+the structure was pierced by a lovely doorway with sculptured lintel,
+and also with two impertinent modern windows, flaunting muslin
+curtains, and coquettishly attired with rows of flowering carnations.
+Beneath these windows was a shop. Above the whole rose, in beautiful
+symmetrical lines, a wooden belfry, tapering from a square tower into a
+delicately modelled spire. To complete and accentuate the note of the
+picturesque, the superstructure was held in its place by rude modern
+beams, propping the tower with a naive disregard of decorative
+embellishment. We knew it at once as the quaint and famous Belfry of
+St. Catherine.
+
+As we were about to turn away to descend the high street, a Norman
+maiden, with close-capped face, leaned over the carnations to look down
+upon us.
+
+"That's the daughter of the bell-ringer, doubtless. Economical idea
+that," Renard remarked, taking his cap off to the smiling eyes.
+
+"Economical?"
+
+"Yes, can't you see? Bell-ringer sends pretty daughter to window, just
+before vespers or service, and she rings in the worshippers; no need to
+make the bells ring."
+
+"What nonsense!"--but we laughed as flatteringly as if his speech had
+been a genuine coin of wit.
+
+A turn down the street, and the famous Honfleur of the wharves and
+floating docks lay before us. About us, all at once, was the roar and
+hubbub of an extraordinary bustle and excitement; all the life of the
+town, apparently, was centred upon the quays. The latter were swarming
+with a tattered, ragged, bare-footed, bare-legged assemblage of old
+women, of gamins, and sailors. The collection, as a collection, was one
+gifted with the talent of making itself heard. Everyone appeared to be
+shrieking, or yelling, or crying aloud, if only to keep the others in
+voice. Sailors lying on the flat parapets shouted hoarsely to their
+fellows in the rigging of the ships that lay tossing in the docks;
+fishermen's families tossed their farewells above the hubbub to the
+captain-fathers launching their fishing-smacks; one shrieking infant
+was being passed, gayly, from the poop of a distant deck, across the
+closely lying shipping, to the quay's steps, to be hushed by the
+generous opening of a peasant mother's bodice. One could hear the
+straining of cordage, the creak of masts, the flap of the sails, all
+the noises peculiar to shipping riding at anchor. The shriek of
+steam-whistles broke out, ever and anon, above all the din and uproar.
+Along the quay steps and the wharves there were constantly forming and
+re-forming groups of wretched, tattered human beings; of men with
+bloated faces and a dull, sodden look, strikingly in contrast with the
+vivacity common among French people. Even the children and women had a
+depraved, shameless appearance, as if vice had robbed them of the last
+vestige of hope and ambition. Along the parapet a half-dozen drunkards
+sprawled, asleep or dozing. At the legs of one a child was pulling,
+crying:
+
+"_Viens--mère t'battra, elle est soûle aussi._"
+
+The sailors out yonder, busy in the rigging, and the men on the decks
+of the smart brigs and steamships, whistled and shouted and sang, as
+indifferent to this picture of human misery and degradation as if they
+had no kinship with it.
+
+As a frame to the picture, Honfleur town lay beneath the crown of its
+hills; on the tops and sides of the latter, villa after villa shot
+through the trees, a curve of roof-line, with rows of daintily draped
+windows. At the right, close to the wharves, below the wooded heights,
+there loomed out a quaint and curious gateway flanked by two
+watchtowers, grim reminders of the Honfleur of the great days. And
+above and about the whole, encompassing villa-crowded hills and closely
+packed streets, and the forest of masts trembling against the sky,
+there lay a heaven of spring and summer.
+
+Renard had driven briskly up to a low, rambling facade parallel with
+the quays. It was the "Cheval Blanc." A crowd assembled on the instant,
+as if appearing according to command.
+
+"_Allons--n'encombrez pas ces dames!_" cried a very smart individual,
+in striking contrast to the down at-heel air of the hotel--a personage
+who took high-handed possession of us and our traps. "Will _ces dames_
+desire a salon--there is _un vrai petit bijou_ empty just now,"
+murmured a voice in a purring soprano, through the iron opening of the
+cashier's desk.
+
+Another voice was crying out to us, as we wound our way upward in
+pursuit of the jewel of a salon. "And the widow, _La Veuve_, shall she
+be dry or sweet?"
+
+When we entered the low dining-room, a little later, we found that the
+artist as well as the epicure has been in active conspiracy to make the
+dinner complete; the choice of the table proclaimed one accomplished in
+massing effects. The table was parallel with the low window, and
+through the latter was such a picture as one travels hundreds of miles
+to look upon, only to miss seeing it, as a rule. There was a great
+breadth of sky through the windows; against the sky rose the mastheads;
+and some red and brown sails curtained the space, bringing into relief
+the gray line of the sad-faced old houses fringing the shoreline.
+
+"Couldn't have chosen better if we'd tried, could we? It's just the
+right hour, and just the right kind of light. Those basins are
+unendurable--sinks of iniquitous ugliness, unless the tide's in and
+there's a sunset going on. Just look now! Who cares whether Honfleur
+has been done to death by the tourist horde or not? and been painted
+until one's art-stomach turns? I presume I ought to beg your pardon,
+but I can't stand the abomination of modern repetitions; the hand-organ
+business in art, I call it. But at this hour, at this time of the year,
+before this rattle-trap of an inn is as packed with Baedeker
+attachments as a Siberian prison is with Nihilists--to run out here and
+look at these quays and basins, and old Honfleur lying here, beneath
+her green cliffs--well, short of Cairo, I don't know any better bit of
+color. Look out there, now! See those sails, dripping with color, and
+that fellow up there, letting the sail down--there, splash it goes into
+the water, I knew it would; now tell me where will you get better blues
+or yellows or browns, with just the right purples in the shore line,
+than you'll get here?"
+
+Renard was fairly started; he had the bit of the born monologist
+between his teeth; he stopped barely long enough to hear even an
+echoing assent. We were quite content; we continued to sip our
+champagne and to feast our eyes. Meanwhile Renard talked on.
+
+"Guide-books--what's the use of guide-books? What do they teach you,
+anyway? Open any one of the cursed clap-trap things. Yes, yes, I know I
+oughtn't to use vigorous language."
+
+"Do," bleated Charm, smiling sweetly up at him. "Do, it makes you seem
+manly."
+
+Even Renard had to take time to laugh.
+
+"Thank you! I'm not above making use of any aids to create that
+illusion. Well, as I was saying, what guide-book ever really helped
+anyone to _see?_--that's what one travels for, I take it. Here, for
+instance, Murray or Baedeker would give you this sort of thing:
+'Honfleur, an ancient town, with pier, beaches, three floating docks,
+and a good deal of trade in timber, cod, etc.; exports large quantities
+of eggs to England.' Good heavens! it makes one boil! Do sane,
+reasonable mortals travel three thousand miles to read ancient history
+done up in modern binding, served up a la Murray, a la Baedeker?"
+
+"Oh, you do them injustice, I think--the guides do go in for a little
+more of the picturesque than that--"
+
+"And how--how do they do it? This is the sort of thing they'll give
+you: 'Church of St. Catherine is large and remarkable, entirely of
+timber and plaster, the largest of its kind in France.' Ah! ha! that's
+the picturesque with a vengeance. No, no, my friends, throw the
+guide-books into the river, pitch them overboard through the port
+holes, along with the flowers, and letters _to be read three days out_,
+and the nasty novels people send you to make the crossing pleasant. And
+when you travel, really travel, mind, never make a plan--just go--go
+anywhere, whenever the impulse seizes you--and you may hope to get
+there, in the right way, possibly."
+
+Here Renard stopped to finish his glass, draining-the last drop of the
+yellow liquid. Then he went on: "To travel! To start when an impulse
+seizes one! To go--anywhere! Why not! It was for this, after all, that
+all of us have come our three thousand miles." Perhaps it was the
+restless tossing of the shipping out yonder in the basins that awoke an
+answering impatience within, in response to Renard's outburst. Where
+did they go, those ships, and, up beyond this mouth of the Seine, how
+looked the shores, and what life lived itself out beneath the rustling
+poplars? Is it the mission of all flowing water to create an unrest in
+men's minds?
+
+Meanwhile, though the talk was not done, the dinner was long since
+eaten. We rose to take a glimpse of Honfleur and its famous old basin.
+The quays and the floating docks, in front of which we had been dining,
+are a part of the nineteenth century; the great ships ride in to them
+from the sea. But here, in this inner quadrangular dock, beside which
+we were soon standing, traced by Duquesne when Louis the Great
+discovered the maritime importance of Honfleur, we found still
+reminders of the old life. Here were the same old houses that, in the
+seventeenth century, upright and brave in their brand new carvings, saw
+the high-decked, picturesquely painted Spanish and Portuguese ships
+ride in to dip their flag to the French fleur-de-lis. There are but few
+of the old streets left to crowd about the shipping life that still
+floats here, as in those bygone days of Honfleur pride;--when Havre was
+but a yellow strip of sand; when the Honfleur merchants would have
+laughed to scorn any prophet's cry of warning that one day that
+sand-bar opposite, despised, disregarded, boasting only a chapel and a
+tavern, would grow and grow, and would steal year by year and inch by
+inch bustling Honfleur's traffic, till none was left.
+
+In the old adventurous days, along with the Spanish ships came others,
+French trading and fishing vessels, with the salty crustations of long
+voyages on their hulls and masts. The wharves were alive then with
+fish-wives, whom Evelyn will tell you wore "useful habits made of
+goats' skin." The captains' daughters were in quaint Normandy costumes;
+and the high-peaked coifs and the stiff woollen skirts, as well as the
+goat-skin coats, trembled as the women darted hither and thither among
+the sailors--whose high cries filled the air as they picked out mother
+and wife. Then were bronzed beards buried in the deeply-wrinkled old
+mères' faces, and young, strong arms clasped about maidens' waists. The
+whole town rang with gayety and with the mad joy of reunion. On the
+morrow, coiling its way up the steep hillsides, wound the long lines of
+the grateful company, one composed chiefly of the crews of these
+vessels happily come to port. The procession would mount up to the
+little church of Notre Dame de Grâce perched on the hill overlooking
+the harbor. Some even--so deep was their joy at deliverance from
+shipwreck and so fervent their piety--crawled up, bare-footed, with
+bared head, wives and children following, weeping for joy, as the rude
+_ex-votos_ were laid by the sailors' trembling hands at the feet of the
+Virgin Lady.
+
+As reminders of this old life, what is left? Within the stone
+quadrangle we found clustered a motley fleet of wrecks and
+fishing-vessels; the nets, flung out to dry in the night air, hung like
+shrouds from the mastheads; here and there a figure bestrode a deck, a
+rough shape, that seemed endowed with a double gift of life, so still
+and noiseless was the town. Around the silent dock, grouped in
+mysterious medley and confusion, were tottering roof lines, projecting
+eaves, narrow windows, all crazily tortured and out of shape. Here and
+there, beneath the broad beams of support, a little interior, dimly
+lighted, showed a knot of sailors gathered, drinking or lounging. Up
+high beneath a chimney perilously overlooking a rude facade, a quaint
+shape emerged, one as decrepit and forlorn of life and hope as the
+decaying houses it overlooked. Silence, poverty, wretchedness, the
+dregs of life, to this has Honfleur fallen. These old houses, in their
+slow decay, hiding in their dark bosom the gaunt secrets of this
+poverty and human misery, seemed to be dancing a dance of drunken
+indifference. Some day the dance will end in a fall, and then the
+Honfleur of the past will not even boast of a ghost, as reminder of its
+days of splendor.
+
+An artist quicker than anyone else, I think, can be trusted to take one
+out of history and into the picturesque. Renard refused to see anything
+but beauty in the decay about us; for him the houses were at just the
+right drooping angle; the roof lines were delightful in their
+irregularity; and the fluttering tremor of the nets, along the rigging,
+was the very poetry of motion.
+
+"We'll finish the evening on the pier," he exclaimed, suddenly; "the
+moon will soon be up--we can sit it out there and see it begin to color
+things."
+
+The pier was more popular than the quaint old dock. It was crowded with
+promenaders, who, doubtless, were taking a bite of the sea-air. Through
+the dusk the tripping figures of gentlemen in white flannels and jaunty
+caps brushed the provincial Honfleur swells. Some gentle English voices
+told us some of the villa residents had come down to the pier, moved by
+the beauty of the night. Groups of sailors, with tanned faces and
+punctured ears hooped with gold rings, sat on the broad stone parapets,
+talking unintelligible Breton _patois_. The pier ran far out, almost to
+the Havre cliffs, it seemed to us, as we walked along in the dusk of
+the young night. The sky was slowly losing its soft flame. A tender,
+mellow half light was stealing over the waters, making the town a rich
+mass of shade. Over the top of the low hills the moon shot out, a
+large, globular mass of beaten gold. At first it was only a part and
+portion of the universal lighting, of the still flushed sky, of the red
+and crimson harbor lights, of the dim twinkling of lamps and candles in
+the rude interiors along the shore. But slowly, triumphantly, the great
+lamp swung up; it rose higher and higher into the soft summer sky, and
+as it mounted, sky and earth began to pale and fade. Soon there was
+only a silver world to look out upon--a wealth of quivering silver over
+the breast of the waters, and a deeper, richer gray on cliffs and roof
+tops. Out of this silver world came the sound of waters, lapping in
+soft cadence against the pier; the rise and fall of sails, stirring in
+the night wind; the tread of human footsteps moving in slow, measured
+beat, in unison with the rhythm of the waters. Just when the stars were
+scattering their gold on the bosom of the sea-river, a voice rang out,
+a rich, full baritone. Quite near, two sailors were seated, with their
+arms about each other's shoulders. They also were looking at the
+moonlight, and one of them was singing to it:
+
+  "_Te souviens-tu, Marie,
+  De notre enfance aux champs?_
+
+  "_Te souviens-tu?
+  Le temps que je regrette
+  C'est le temps qui n'est plus._"
+
+[Illustration: THE INN AT DIVES--GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT]
+
+
+
+
+DIVES: AN INN ON A HIGH-ROAD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A COAST DRIVE.
+
+
+On our return to Villerville we found that the charm of the place, for
+us, was a broken one. We had seen the world; the effect of that
+experience was to produce the common result--there was a fine deposit
+of discontent in the cup of our pleasure.
+
+Madame Fouchet had made use of our absence to settle our destiny; she
+had rented her villa. This was one of the bitter dregs. Another was to
+find that the life of the village seemed to pass us by; it gave us to
+understand, with unflattering frankness, that for strangers who made no
+bargains for the season, it had little or no civility to squander. For
+the Villerville beach, the inn, and the villas were crowded. Mere
+Mouchard was tossing omelettes from morning till night; even Augustine
+was far too hurried to pay her usual visit to the creamery. A
+detachment of Parisian costumes and beribboned nursery maids was
+crowding out the fish-wives and old hags from their stations on the low
+door-steps and the grasses on the cliffs.
+
+Even Fouchet was no longer a familiar figure in the foreground of his
+garden; his roses were blooming now for the present owners of his
+villa. He and madame had betaken themselves to a box of a hut on the
+very outskirts of the village--a miserable little hovel with two rooms
+and a bit of pasture land being the substitute, as a dwelling, for the
+gay villa and its garden along the sea-cliffs. Pity, however, would
+have been entirely wasted on the Fouchet household and their change of
+habitation. Tucked in, cramped, and uncomfortable beneath the low eaves
+of their cabin ceilings, they could now wear away the summer in
+blissful contentment: Were they not living on nothing--on less than
+nothing, in this dark pocket of a _chaumière_, while their fine house
+yonder was paying for itself handsomely, week after week? The heart
+beats high, in a Norman breast, when the pocket bulges; gold--that is
+better than bread to feel in one's hand.
+
+The whole village wore this triumphant expression--now that the season
+was beginning. Paris had come down to them, at last, to be shorn of its
+strength; angling for pennies in a Parisian pocket was better, far,
+than casting nets into the sea. There was also more contentment in such
+fishing--for true Norman wit.
+
+Only once did the village change its look of triumph to one of polite
+regret; for though it was Norman, it was also French. It remembered, on
+the morning of our departure, that the civility of the farewell costs
+nothing, and like bread prodigally scattered on the waters, may
+perchance bring back a tenfold recompense.
+
+Even the morning arose with a flattering pallor. It was a gray day. The
+low houses were like so many rows of pale faces; the caps of the
+fishwives, as they nodded a farewell, seemed to put the village in half
+mourning.
+
+"You will have a perfect day for your drive--there's nothing better
+than these grays in the French landscape," Renard was saying, at our
+carriage wheels; "they bring out every tone. And the sea is wonderful.
+Pity you're going. Grand day for the mussel-bed. However, I shall see
+you, I shall see you. Remember me to Monsieur Paul; tell him to save me
+a bottle of his famous old wine. Good-by, good-by."
+
+There was a shower of rose-leaves flung out upon us; a great sweep of
+the now familiar beret; a sonorous "Hui!" from our driver, with an
+accompaniment of vigorous whip-snapping, and we were off.
+
+The grayness of the closely-packed houses was soon exchanged for the
+farms lying beneath the elms. With the widening of the distance between
+our carriage-wheels and Villerville, there was soon a great expanse of
+mouse-colored sky and the breath of a silver sea. The fields and
+foliage were softly brilliant; when the light wind stirred the grain,
+the poppies and bluets were as vivid as flowers seen in dreams.
+
+It is easy to understand, I think, why French painters are so enamoured
+of their gray skies--such a background makes even the commonplace wear
+an air of importance. All the tones of the landscape were astonishingly
+serious; the features of the coast and the inland country were as
+significant as if they were meditating an outbreak into speech. It was
+the kind of day that bred reflection; one could put anything one liked
+into the picture with a certainty of its fitting the frame. We were
+putting a certain amount of regret into it; for though Villerville has
+seen us depart with civilized indifference or the stolidity of the
+barbarian--for they are one, we found our own attainments in the
+science of unfeelingness deficient: to look down upon the village from
+the next hill top was like facing a lost joy.
+
+Once on the highroad, however, the life along the shore gave us little
+time for the futility of regret. Regret, at best, is a barren thing:
+like the mule, it is incapable of perpetuating its own mistakes; it
+appears to apologize, indeed, for its stupidity by making its exit as
+speedily as possible. With the next turn of the road we were in fitting
+condition to greet the wildest form of adventure.
+
+Pedlars' carts and the lumbering Normandy farm wagons were, at first,
+our chief companions along the roadway. Here and there a head would
+peep forth from a villa window, or a hand be stretched out into the air
+to see if any rain was falling from the moist sky. The farms were
+quieter than usual; there was an air of patient waiting in the
+courtyards, among the blouses and standing cattle, as though both man
+and beast were there in attendance on the day and the weather, till the
+latter could come to the point of a final decision in regard to the
+rain.
+
+Finally, as we were nearing Trouville, the big drops fell. The
+grain-fields were soon bent double beneath the spasmodic shower. The
+poppies were drenched, so were the cobble paved courtyards; only the
+geese and the regiment of the ducks came abroad to revel in the
+downpour. The villas were hermetically sealed now--their summer finery
+was not made for a wetting. The landscape had no such reserves; it gave
+itself up to the light summer shower as if it knew that its raiment,
+like Rachel's, when dampened the better to take her plastic outlines,
+only gained in tone and loveliness the closer it fitted the recumbent
+figure of mother earth.
+
+Our coachman could never have been mistaken for any other than a good
+Norman. He was endowed with the gift of oratory peculiar to the
+country; and his profanity was enriched with all the flavor of the
+provincial's elation in the committing of sin. From the earliest moment
+of our starting, the stream of his talk had been unending. His
+vocabulary was such as to have excited the envy and despair of a French
+realist, impassioned in the pursuit of "the word."
+
+"_Hui!--b-r-r-r!_"--This was the most common of his salutations to his
+horse. It was the Norman coachman's familiar apostrophe, impossible of
+imitation; it was also one no Norman horse who respects himself moves
+an inch without first hearing. Chat Noir was a horse of purest Norman
+ancestry; his Percheron blood was as untainted as his intelligence was
+unclouded by having no mixtures of tongues with which to deal. His
+owner's "_Hui!_" lifted him with arrowy lightness to the top of a hill.
+The deeper "_Bougre_" steadied his nerve for a good mile of unbroken
+trotting. Any toil is pleasant in the gray of a cool morning, with a
+friend holding the reins who is a gifted monologist; even imprecations,
+rightly administered, are only lively punctuations to really talented
+speech.
+
+"Come, my beauty, take in thy breath--courage! The hill is before thee!
+Curse thy withered legs, and is it thus thou stumbleth? On--up with
+thee and that mountain of flesh thou carriest about with thee." And the
+mountain of flesh would be lifted--it was carried as lightly by the
+finely-feathered legs and the broad haunches as if the firm avoirdupois
+were so much gossamer tissue. On and on the neat, strong hoofs rang
+their metallic click, clack along the smooth macadam. They had carried
+us past the farm-houses, the cliffs, the meadows, and the Norman roofed
+manoirs buried in their apple-orchards. These same hoofs were now
+carefully, dexterously picking their way down the steep hill that leads
+directly into the city of the Trouville villas.
+
+Presently, the hoofs came to a sudden halt, from sheer amazement. What
+was this order, this command the quick Percheron hearing had overheard?
+Not to go any farther into this summer city--not to go down to its
+sand-beach--not to wander through the labyrinth of its gay little
+streets?--Verily, it is the fate of a good horse, how often! to carry
+fools, and the destiny of intelligence to serve those deficient in mind
+and sense.
+
+The criticism on our choice of direction was announced by the hoofs
+turning resignedly, with the patient assent of the fatigue that is bred
+of disgust, into one of the upper Trouville by-streets. Our coachman
+contented himself with a commiserating shrug and a prolonged flow of
+explanation. Perhaps _ces dames_, being strangers, did not know that
+Trouville was now beginning its real season--its season of baths? The
+Casino, in truth, was only opened a week since; but we could hear the
+band even now playing above the noise of the waves. And behold, the
+villas were filling; each day some _grande dame_ came down to take
+possession of her house by the sea.
+
+How could we hope to make a Frenchman comprehend an instinctive impulse
+to turn our backs on the Trouville world? What, pray, had we just now
+to do with fashion--with the purring accents of boudoirs, with all the
+life we had run away from? Surely the romance--the charm of our present
+experiences would be put to flight once we exchanged salutations with
+the _beau monde_--with that world that is so sceptical of any pleasure
+save that which blooms in its own hot-houses, and so disdainful of all
+forms of life save those that are modelled on fashion's types. We had
+fled from cities to escape all this; were we, forsooth, to be pushed
+into the motley crowd of commonplace pleasure-seekers because of the
+scorn of a human creature, and the mute criticism of a beast that was
+hired to do the bidding of his betters? The world of fashion was one to
+be looked out upon as a part of the general _mise-en-scène_--as a bit
+of the universal decoration of this vast amphitheatre of the Normandy
+beaches.
+
+Chat noir had little reverence for philosophic reflections; he turned a
+sharp corner just then; he stopped short, directly in front of the
+broad windows of a confectioner's shop. This time he did not appeal in
+vain to the strangers with a barbarian's contempt for the great world.
+The brisk drive and the salt in the air were stimulants to appetite to
+be respected; it is not every day the palate has so fine an edge.
+
+"_Du thé, mesdames--à l'Anglaise?_" a neatly-corsetted shape, in black,
+to set off a pair of dazzling pink cheeks, shone out behind rows of
+apricot tarts. There was also a cap that conveyed to one, through the
+medium of pink bows, the capacities of coquetry that lay in the depths
+of the rich brown eyes beneath them. The attractive shape emerged at
+once from behind the counter, to set chairs about the little table. We
+were bidden to be seated with an air of smiling grace, one that
+invested the act with the emphasis of genuine hospitality. Soon a great
+clatter arose in the rear of the shop; opinions and counter-opinions
+were being volubly exchanged in shrill French, as to whether the water
+should or should not come to a boil; also as to whether the leaves of
+oolong or of green should be chosen for our beverage. The cap fluttered
+in several times to ask, with exquisite politeness--a politeness which
+could not wholly veil the hidden anxiety--our own tastes and
+preferences. When the cap returned to the battling forces behind the
+screen, armed with the authority of our confessed prejudices, a new war
+of tongues arose. The fate of nations, trembling on the turn of a
+battle, might have been settled before that pot of water, so watched
+and guarded over, was brought to a boil. When, finally, the little tea
+service was brought in, every detail was perfect in taste and
+appointment, except the tea; the action that had held out valiantly,
+that the water should not boil, had prevailed, as the half-soaked
+tea-leaves floating on top of our full cups triumphantly proclaimed.
+
+We sipped the beverage, agreeing Balzac had well named it _ce boisson
+fade et mélancolique_; the novelist's disdain being the better
+understood as we reflected he had doubtless only tasted it as concocted
+by French ineptitude. We were very merry over the liver-colored liquid,
+as we sipped it and quoted Balzac. But not for a moment had our
+merriment deceived the brown eyes and the fluttering cap-ribbons. A
+little drama of remorse was soon played for our benefit. It was she,
+her very self, the cap protested--as she pointed a tragic finger at the
+swelling, rounded line of her firm bodice--it was she who had insisted
+that the water should _not_ boil; there had been ladies--_des vraies
+anglaises_--here, only last summer, who would not that the water should
+boil, when their tea was made. And now, it appears that they were
+wrong, "_c'etait probablement une fantaisie de la part de ces dames_."
+Would we wait for another cup? It would take but an instant, it was a
+little mistake, so easy to remedy. But this mistake, like many another,
+like crime, for instance, could never be remedied, we smilingly told
+her; a smile that changed her solicitous remorse to a humorist's view
+of the situation.
+
+Another humorist, one accustomed to view the world from heights known
+as trapeze elevations, we met a little later on our way out of the
+narrow upper streets; he was also looking down over Trouville. It was a
+motley figure in a Pierrot garb, with a smaller striped body, both in
+the stage pallor of their trade. These were somewhat startling objects
+to confront on a Normandy high-road. For clowns, however, taken by
+surprise, they were astonishingly civil. They passed their "_bonjour_"
+to us and to the coachman as glibly as though accosting us from the
+commoner circus distance.
+
+"They have come to taste of the fresh air, they have," laconically
+remarked our driver, as his round Norman eyes ran over the muscled
+bodies of the two athletes. "I had a brother who was one--I had; he was
+a famous one--he was; he broke his neck once, when the net had been
+forgotten. They all do it--_ils se cassent le cou tous, tôt ou tard!
+Allons toi t'as peur, toi?_" Chat noir's great back was quivering with
+fear; he had no taste, himself, for shapes like these, spectral and wan
+as ghosts, walking about in the sun. He took us as far away as
+possible, and as quickly, from these reminders of the thing men call
+pleasure.
+
+We, meanwhile, were asking Pierre for a certain promised chateau, one
+famous for its beauty, between Trouville and Cabourg.
+
+"It is here, madame--the château," he said, at last.
+
+Two lions couchant, seated on wide pedestals beneath a company of noble
+trees, were the only visible inhabitants of the dwelling. There was a
+sweep of gardens: terraces that picked their way daintily down the
+cliffs toward the sea, a mansard roof that covered a large
+mansion--these were the sole aspects of chateau life to keep the trees
+company. In spite of Pierre's urgent insistence that the view was even
+more beautiful than the one from the hill, we refused to exchange our
+first experiences of the beauty of the prospect for a second which
+would be certain to invite criticism; for it is ever the critic in us
+that plays the part of Bluebeard to our many-wived illusions.
+
+We passed between the hedgerows with not even a sigh of regret. We were
+presently rewarded by something better than an illusion--by reality,
+which, at its best, can afford to laugh at the spectral shadow of
+itself. Near the château there lived on, the remnant of a hamlet. It
+was a hamlet, apparently, that boasted only one farm-house; and the
+farm-house could show but a single hayrick. Beneath the sloping roof,
+modelled into shape by a pitchfork and whose symmetrical lines put
+Mansard's clumsy creation yonder to the blush, sat an old couple--a man
+and a woman. Both were old, with the rounded backs of the laborer; the
+woman's hand was lying in the man's open palm, while his free arm was
+clasped about her neck with all the tenderness of young love. Both of
+the old heads were laid back on the pillow made by the freshly-piled
+grasses. They had done a long day's work already, before the sun had
+reached its meridian; they were weary and resting here before they went
+back to their toil.
+
+This was better than the view; it made life seem finer than nature; how
+rich these two poor old things looked, with only their poverty about
+them!
+
+Meanwhile Pierre had quickly changed the rural _mise-en-scène_; instead
+of pink hawthorn hedges we were in the midst of young forest trees. Why
+is it that a forest is always a surprise in France? Is it that we have
+such a respect for French thrift, that a real forest seems a waste of
+timber? There are forests and forests; this one seemed almost a
+stripling in its tentative delicacy, compared to the mature splendor of
+Fontainebleau, for example. This forest had the virility of a young
+savage; it was neither dense nor vast; yet, in contrast to the ribbony
+grain fields, and to the finish of the villa parks, was as refreshing
+to the eye as the right chord that strikes upon the ear after a
+succession of trills.
+
+In all this fair Normandy sea-coast, with its wonderful inland
+contrasts, there was but one disappointing note. One looked in vain for
+the old Normandy costumes. The blouse and the close white cap--this is
+all that is left of the wondrous headgear, the short brilliant
+petticoats, the embroidered stomacher, and the Caen and Rouen jewels,
+abroad in the fields only a decade ago.
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulders when asked a question concerning these
+now pre-historic costumes.
+
+ "Ah! mademoiselle, you must see for yourself, that the peasant who
+doesn't despise himself dresses now in the fields as he would in Paris."
+
+As if in confirmation of Pierre's news of the fashions, there stepped
+forth from an avenue of trees, fringing a near farm-house, a
+wedding-party. The bride was in the traditional white of brides; the
+little cortege following the trail of her white gown, was dressed in
+costumes modelled on Bon Marché styles. The coarse peasant faces flamed
+from bonnets more flowery than the fields into which they were passing.
+The men seemed choked in their high collars; the agony of new boots was
+written on faces not used to concealing such form of torture. Even the
+groom was suffering; his bliss was something the gay little bride
+hanging on his arm must take entirely for granted. It was enough
+greatness for the moment to wear broadcloth and a white vest in the
+face of men.
+
+"_Laissez, laissez, Marguerite_, it is clean here; it will look fine on
+the green!" cried the bride to an improvised train-bearer, who had been
+holding up the white alpaca. Then the full splendor of the bridal skirt
+trailed across the freshly mown grasses. An irrepressible murmur of
+admiration welled up from the wedding guests; even Pierre made part of
+the chorus. The bridegroom stopped to mop his face, and to look forth
+proudly, through starting eyeballs, on the splendor of his possessions.
+
+"Ah! Lizette, thou art pretty like that, thou knowest. _Faut
+l'embrasser, tu sais_."
+
+He gave her a kiss full on the lips. The little bride returned the kiss
+with unabashed fervor. Then she burst into a loud fit of laughter.
+
+"How silly you look, Jean, with your collar burst open."
+
+The groom's enthusiasm had been too much for his toilet; the noon sun
+and the excitements of the marriage service had dealt hardly with his
+celluloid fastenings. All the wedding cortege rushed to the rescue.
+Pins, shouts of advice, pieces of twine, rubber fastenings, even
+knives, were offered to the now exploding bridegroom; everyone was
+helping him repair the ravages of his moment of bliss; everyone
+excepting the bride. She sat down upon her train and wept from pure
+rapture of laughter.
+
+Pierre shook his head gravely, as he whipped up his steed.
+
+"Jean will repent it; he'll lose worse things than a button, with
+Lizette. A woman who laughs like that on the threshold of marriage will
+cry before the cradle is rocked, and will make others weep. However,
+Jean won't be thinking of that--to-night."
+
+"Where are they going--along the highroad?"
+
+"Only a short distance. They turn in there," and he pointed with his
+whip to a near lane; "they go to the farm-house now--for the wedding
+dinner. Ah! there'll be some heavy heads to-morrow. For you know, a
+Norman peasant only really eats and drinks well twice in his life--when
+he marries himself and when his daughter marries. Lizette's father is
+rich--the meat and the wines will be good to-night."
+
+Our coachman sighed, as if the thought of the excellence of the coming
+banquet had disturbed his own digestion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT.
+
+
+The wedding party was lost in a thicket. Pierre gave his whip so
+resounding a snap, it was no surprise to find ourselves rolling over
+the cobbles of a village street.
+
+"This is Dives, mesdames, this is the inn!"
+
+Pierre drew up, as he spoke, before a long, low facade.
+
+Now, no one, I take it, in this world enjoys being duped. Surely
+disappointment is only a civil term for the varying degrees of fraud
+practised on the imagination. This inn, apparently, was to be classed
+among such frauds. It did not in the least, externally at least, fulfil
+Renard's promises. He had told us to expect the marvellous and the
+mediaeval in their most approved period. Yet here we were, facing a
+featureless exterior! The facade was built yesterday--that was writ
+large, all over the low, rambling structure. One end, it is true, had a
+gabled end; there was also an old shrine niched in glass beneath the
+gable, and a low Norman gateway with rude letters carved over the arch.
+June was in its glory, and the barrenness of the commonplace structure
+was mercifully hidden by a wreath of pink and amber roses. But one
+scarcely drives twenty miles in the sun to look upon a facade of roses!
+
+Chat noir, meanwhile, was becoming restless. Pierre had managed to keep
+his own patience well in hand. Now, however, he broke forth:
+
+"Shall we enter, my ladies?"
+
+Pierre drove us straight into paradise; for here, at last, within the
+courtyard, was the inn we had come to seek.
+
+A group of low-gabled buildings surrounded an open court. All of the
+buildings were timbered, the diagonal beams of oak so old they were
+black in the sun, and the snowy whiteness of fresh plaster made them
+seem blacker still. The gabled roofs were of varying tones and tints;
+some were red, some mossy green, some as gray as the skin of a mouse;
+all were deeply, plentifully furrowed with the washings of countless
+rains, and they were bearded with moss. There were outside galleries,
+beginning somewhere and ending anywhere. There were open and covered
+outer stairways so laden with vines they could scarce totter to the low
+heights of the chamber doors on which they opened; and there were open
+sheds where huge farm-wagons were rolled close to the most modern of
+Parisian dog-carts. That not a note of contrast might be lacking,
+across the courtyard, in one of the windows beneath a stairway, there
+flashed the gleam of some rich stained glass, spots of color that were
+repeated, with quite a different lustre, in the dappled haunches of
+rows of sturdy Percherons munching their meal in the adjacent stalls.
+Add to such an ensemble a vagrant multitude of rose, honeysuckle,
+clematis, and wistaria vines, all blooming in full rivalry of perfume
+and color; insert in some of the corners and beneath some of the older
+casements archaic bits of sculpture--strange barbaric features with
+beards of Assyrian correctness and forms clad in the rigid draperies of
+the early Jumièges period of the sculptor's art; lance above the roof
+ridges the quaint polychrome finials of the earlier Palissy models; and
+crowd the rough cobble-paved courtyard with a rare and distinguished
+assemblage of flamingoes, peacocks, herons, cockatoos swinging from
+gabled windows, and game-cocks that strut about in company with pink
+doves--and you have the famous inn of Guillaume le Conquérant!
+
+Meanwhile an individual, with fine deep-gray eyes, and a face grave,
+yet kindly, over which a smile was humorously breaking, was patiently
+waiting at our carriage door. He could be no other than Monsieur Paul,
+owner and inn-keeper, also artist, sculptor, carver, restorer, to whom,
+in truth, this miracle of an inn owed its present perfection and
+picturesqueness.
+
+"We have been long expecting you, mesdames," Monsieur Paul's grave
+voice was saying. "Monsieur Renard had written to announce your coming.
+You took the trouble to drive along the coast this fine day? It is
+idyllically lovely, is it not--under such a sun?"
+
+Evidently the moment of enchantment was not to be broken by the worker
+of the spell. Monsieur Paul and his inn were one; if one was a poem the
+other was a poet. The poet was also lined with the man of the practical
+moment. He had quickly summoned a host of serving-people to take charge
+of us and our luggage.
+
+"Lizette, show these ladies to the room of Madame de Sévigné. If they
+desire a sitting-room--to the Marmousets."
+
+The inn-keeper gave his commands in the quiet, well-bred tone of a man
+of the world, to a woman in peasant's dress. She led us past the open
+court to an inner one, where we were confronted with a building still
+older, apparently, than those grouped about the outer quadrangle. The
+peasant passed quickly beneath an overhanging gallery, draped in vines.
+She was next preceding us up a spiral turret stairway; the adjacent
+walls were hung here and there with faded bits of tapestry. Once more
+she turned to lead us along an open gallery; on this several rooms
+appeared to open. On each door a different sign was painted in rude
+Gothic letters. The first was "Chambre de l'Officier;" the second,
+"Chambre du Curé," and the next was flung widely open. It was the room
+of the famous lady of the incomparable Letters. The room might have
+been left--in the yesterday of two centuries--by the lady whose name it
+bore. There was a beautiful Seventeenth century bedstead, a couple of
+wide arm-chairs, with down pillows for seats, and a clothes press with
+the carvings and brass work peculiar to the epoch of Louis XIV. The
+chintz hangings and draperies were in keeping, being copies of the
+brocades of that day. There were portraits in miniature of the
+courtiers and the ladies of the Great Reign on the very ewers and
+basins. On the flounced dressing-table, with its antique glass and a
+diminutive patch-box, now the receptacle of Lubin's powder, a sprig of
+the lovely Rose The was exhaling a faint, far-away century perfume. It
+was surely a stage set for a real comedy; some of these high-coiffed
+ladies, who knows? perhaps Madame de Sévigné herself would come to
+life, and give to the room the only thing it lacked--the living
+presence of that old world grace and speech.
+
+Presently, we sallied forth on a further voyage of discovery. We had
+reached the courtyard when Monsieur Paul crossed it; it was to ask if,
+while waiting for the noon breakfast, we would care to see the kitchen;
+it was, perhaps, different to those now commonly seen in modern taverns.
+
+The kitchen which was thus modestly described as unlike those of our
+own century might easily, except for the appetizing smell of the
+cooking fowls and the meats, have been put under lock and key and
+turned over to a care-taker as a full-fledged culinary museum of
+antiquities. One entire side of the crowded but orderly little room was
+taken up by a huge open fireplace. The logs resting on the great
+andirons were the trunks of full-grown trees. On two of the spits were
+long rows of fowl and legs of mutton roasting; the great chains were
+being slowly turned by a _chef_ in the paper cap of his profession. In
+deep burnished brass bowls lay water-cresses; in Caen dishes of an age
+to make a bric-a-brac collector turn green with envy, a _Béarnaise_
+sauce was being beaten by another gallic master-hand. Along the beams
+hung old Rouen plates and platters; in the numberless carved Normandy
+cupboards gleamed rare bits of Delft and Limoges; the walls may be said
+to have been hung with Normandy brasses, each as burnished as a jewel.
+The floor was sanded and the tables had attained that satiny finish
+which comes only with long usage and tireless use of the brush. There
+was also a shrine and a clock, the latter of antique Norman make and
+design.
+
+The smell of the roasting fowls and the herbs used by the maker of the
+sauces, a hungry palate found even more exciting than this most
+original of kitchens. There was a wine that went with the sauce; this
+fact Monsieur Paul explained, on our sitting down to the noonday meal;
+one which, in remembrance of Monsieur Renard's injunctions, he would
+suggest our trying. He crossed the courtyard and disappeared into the
+bowels of the earth, beneath one of the inn buildings, to bring forth a
+bottle incrusted with layers of moist dirt. This Sauterne was by some,
+Monsieur Paul smilingly explained, considered as among the real
+treasures of the inn. Both it and the sauce, we were enabled to assure
+him a moment later, had that golden softness which make French wines
+and French sauces at their best the rapture of the palate.
+
+In the courtyard, as our breakfast proceeded, a variety of incidents
+was happening. We were facing the open archway; through it one looked
+out upon the high-road. A wheelbarrow passed, trundled by a
+peasant-girl; the barrow stopped, the girl leaving it for an instant to
+cross the court.
+
+"_Bonjour, mère--_"
+
+"_Bonjour, ma fille_--it goes well?" a deep guttural voice responded,
+just outside of the window.
+
+"_Justement_--I came to tell you the mare has foaled and Jean will be
+late to-night."
+
+"_Bien._"
+
+"And Barbarine is still angry--"
+
+"Make up with her, my child--anger is an evil bird to take to one's
+heart," the deep voice went on.
+
+"It is my mother," explained Monsieur Paul. "It is her favorite seat,
+out yonder, on the green bench in the courtyard. I call it her judge's
+bench," he smiled, indulgently, as he went on. "She dispenses justice
+with more authority than any other magistrate in town. I am Mayor, as
+it happens, just now; but madame my mother is far above me, in real
+power. She rules the town and the country about, for miles. Everyone
+comes to her sooner or later for counsel and command. You will soon see
+for yourselves."
+
+A murmur of assent from all the table accompanied Monsieur Paul's
+prophecy.
+
+"_Femme vraiment remarquable_," hoarsely whispered a stout breakfaster,
+behind his napkin, between two spoonsful of his soup.
+
+"Not two in a century like her," said my neighbor.
+
+"No--nor two in all France--_non plus_," retorted the stout man.
+
+"She could rule a kingdom--hey, Paul?"
+
+"She rules me--as you see--and a man is harder to govern than a
+province, they say," smiled Monsieur Paul with a humorous relish,
+obviously the offspring of experience. "In France, mesdames," he added,
+a sweeter look of feeling coming into the deep eyes, "you see we are
+always children--_toujours enfants_--as long as the mother lives. We
+are never really old till she dies. May the good God preserve her!" and
+he lifted his glass toward the green bench. The table drank the toast,
+in silence.
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLES--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE GREEN BENCH.
+
+
+In the course of the first few days we learned what all Dives had known
+for the past fifty years or so--that the focal point of interest in the
+inn was centred in Madame Le Mois. She drew us, as she had the country
+around for miles, to circle close about her green bench.
+
+The bench was placed at the best possible point for one who, between
+dawn and darkness, made it the business of her life to keep her eye on
+her world. Not the tiniest mouse nor the most spectral shade could
+enter or slip away beneath the open archway without undergoing
+inspection from that omniscient eye, that seemed never to blink nor to
+grow weary. This same eye could keep its watch, also, over the entire
+establishment, with no need of the huge body to which it was attached
+moving a hair's-breadth. Was it Nitouche, the head-cook, who was
+grumbling because the kitchen-wench had not scoured the brass saucepans
+to the last point of mirrory brightness? Behold both Nitouche and the
+trembling peasant-girl, together with the brasses as evidence, all
+could be brought at an instant's call, into the open court. Were the
+maids--were Marianne or Lizette neglecting their work to flirt with the
+coachmen in the sheds yonder?
+
+"_Allons, mes filles--doucement, là-bas--et vos lits? qui les fait--les
+bons saints du paradis, peut-être?_" And Marianne and Lizette would
+slink away to the waiting beds. Nothing escaped this eye. If the _poule
+sultane_ was gone lame, limping in the inner quadrangle, madame's eye
+saw the trouble--a thorn in the left claw, before the feathered cripple
+had had time to reach her objective point, her mistress's capacious
+lap, and the healing touch of her skilful surgeon's fingers. Neither
+were the cockatoes nor the white parrots given license to make all the
+noise in the court-yard. When madame had an unusually loquacious
+moment, these more strictly professional conversationists were taught
+their place.
+
+"_E'ben, toi_--and thou wishest to proclaim to the world what a gymnast
+thou art--swinging on thy perch? Quietly, quietly, there are also
+others who wish to praise themselves! And now, my child, you were
+telling me how good you had been to your old grandmother, and how she
+scolded you. Well, and how about obedience to our parents, _hein_--how
+about that?" This, as the old face bent to the maiden beside her.
+
+There was one, assuredly, who had not failed in his duty to his
+parents. Monsieur Paul's whole life, as we learned later, had been a
+willing sacrifice to the unconscious tyranny of his mother's affection.
+The son was gifted with those gifts which, in a Parisian atelier, would
+easily have made him successful, if not famous. He had the artistic
+endowment in an unusual degree; it was all one to him, whether he
+modelled in clay, or carved in wood, or stone, or built a house, or
+restored old bric-a-brac. He had inherited the old world roundness of
+artistic ability--his was the plastic renascent touch that might have
+developed into that of a Giotto or a Benvenuto.
+
+It was such a sacrifice as this that he had lain at his mother's feet.
+
+Think you for an instant the clever, witty, canny woman in Madame Le
+Mois looked upon her son's renouncing the world of Paris, and holding
+to the glories of Dives and their famous inn in the light of a
+sacrifice? "_Parbleu!_" she would explode, when the subject was touched
+on, "it was a lucky thing for him that Paul had had an old mother to
+keep him from burning his fingers. Paris! What did the provinces want
+with Paris? Paris had need enough of them, the great, idle, shiftless,
+dissipated, cruel old city, that ground all their sons to powder, and
+then scattered their ashes abroad like so many cinders. Oh, yes, Paris
+couldn't get along without the provinces, to plunder and rob, to seduce
+their sons away from living good, pure lives, and to suck these lives
+as a pig would a trough of fresh water! But the provinces, if they
+valued their souls, shunned Paris as they would the devil. And as for
+artists--when it came to the young of the provinces, who thought they
+could paint or model--
+
+"_Tenez, madame_--this is what Paris does for our young. My neighbor
+yonder," and she pointed, as only Frenchwomen point, sticking her thumb
+into the air to designate a point back of her bench, "my neighbor had a
+son like Paul. He too was always niggling at something. He niggled so
+well a rich cousin sent him up to Paris. Well, in ten years he comes
+back, famous, rich, too, with a wife and even a child. The
+establishment is complete. Well, they come here to breakfast one fine
+morning, with his mother, whom he put at a side table, with his
+nurse--he is ashamed of his mother, you see. Well, then his wife talks
+and I hear her. '_Mais, mon Charles, c'est toi qui est le plus
+fameux--il n'y a que toi! Tu es un dieu, tu sais--il n'y a pas deux
+comme toi!_' The famous one deigns to smile then, and to eat of his
+breakfast. His digestion had gone wrong, it appears. The _Figaro_ had
+placed his name second on a certain list, _after_ a rival's! He alone
+must be great--there must not be another god of painting save him! He!
+He! that's fine, that's greatness--to lose one's appetite because
+another is praised, and to be ashamed of one's old mother!"
+
+Madame Le Mois's face, for a moment, was terrible to look upon. Even in
+her kindliest moments hers was a severe countenance, in spite of the
+true Norman curves in mouth and nostril--the laughter-loving curves.
+Presently, however, the fierceness of her severity melted; she had
+caught sight of her son. He was passing her, now, with the wine bottles
+for dinner piled up in his arms.
+
+"You see," croaked the mother, in an exultant whisper, "I've saved him
+from all that--he's happy, for he still works. In the winter he can
+amuse himself, when he likes, with his carving and paintbrushes. Ah,
+_tiens, du monde qui arrive!_" And the old woman seated herself, with
+an air of great dignity, to receive the new-comers.
+
+The world that came in under the low archway was of an altogether
+different character from any we had as yet seen. In a satin-lined
+victoria, amid the cushions, lay a young and lovely-eyed Anonyma.
+Seated beside her was a weak-featured man, with a huge flower
+decorating his coat lappel. This latter individual divided the seat
+with an army of small dogs who leaped forth as the carriage stopped.
+
+Madame Le Mois remained immovable on her bench. Her face was as
+enigmatic as her voice, as it gave Suzette the order to show the lady
+to the salon bleu. The high Louis XV. slipper, as it picked its way
+carefully after Suzette, never seemed more distinctly astray than when
+its fair wearer confided her safety to the insecure footing of the
+rough, uneven cobbles. In a brief half-hour the frou-frou of her silken
+skirts was once more sweeping the court-yard. She and her companion and
+the dogs chose the open air and a tent of sky for their
+banqueting-hall. Soon all were seated at one of the many tables placed
+near the kitchen, beneath the rose-vines.
+
+Madame gave the pair a keen, dissecting glance. Her verdict was
+delivered more in the emphasis of her shrug and the humor of her broad
+wink than in the loud-whispered "_Comme vous voyez, chère dame, de
+toutes sortes ici, chez nous--mais--toujours bon genre!_"
+
+The laughter of one who could not choose her world was stopped,
+suddenly, by the dipping of the thick fingers into an old snuff-box.
+That very afternoon the court-yard saw another arrival; this one was
+treated in quite a different spirit.
+
+A dog-cart was briskly driven into the yard by a gentleman who did not
+appear to be in the best of humor. He drew his horse up with a sudden
+fierceness; he as fiercely called out for the hostler. Monsieur Paul
+bit his lip; but he composedly confronted the disturbed countenance
+perched on the driver's seat. The gentleman wished.
+
+"I want indemnity--that is what I want. Indemnity for my horse," cried
+out a thick, coarse voice, with insolent authority.
+
+"For your horse? I do not think I understand--"
+
+"O--h, I presume not," retorted the man, still more insolently; "people
+don't usually understand when they have to pay. I came here a week ago,
+and stayed two days; and you starved my horse--and he died--that is
+what happened--he died!"
+
+The whole court-yard now rang with the cries of the assembled
+household. The high, angry tones had called together the last
+serving-man and scullery-maid; the cooks had come out from their
+kitchens; they were brandishing their long-handled saucepans. The
+peasant-women were shrieking in concert with the hostlers, who were
+raising their arms to heaven in proof of their innocence. Dogs, cats,
+cockatoes swinging on their perches, peacocks, parrots, pelicans, and
+every one of the cocks swarmed from the barnyards and garden and
+cellars, to add their shrill cries and shrieks to the universal babel.
+
+Meanwhile, calm and unruffled as a Hindoo goddess, and strikingly
+similar in general massiveness of structure and proportion to the
+common reproduction of such deities, sat Madame Le Mois. She went on
+with her usual occupation; she was dipping fresh-cut salad leaves into
+great bowls of water as quietly as if only her own little family were
+assembled before her. Once only she lifted her heavily-moulded,
+sagacious eyebrow at the irate dog-cart driver, as if to measure his
+pitiful strength. She allowed the fellow, however, to touch the point
+of abuse before she crushed him.
+
+Her first sentence reduced him to the ignominy of silence. All her
+people were also silent. What, the deep sarcastic voice chanted on the
+still air--what, this gentleman's horse had died--and yet he had waited
+a whole week to tell them of the great news? He was, of a truth,
+altogether too considerate. His own memory, perhaps, was also a short
+one, since it told him nothing of the condition in which the poor beast
+had arrived, dropping with fatigue, wet with sweat, his mouth all
+blood, and an eye as of one who already was past the consciousness of
+his suffering? Ah no, monsieur should go to those who also had short
+memories.
+
+"For we use our eyes--we do. We are used to deal with gentlemen--with
+Christians" (the Hebrew nose of the owner of the dead horse, even more
+plainly abused the privilege of its pedigree in proving its race, by
+turning downward, at this onslaught of the mère's satire), "as I said,
+with Christians," continued the mere, pitilessly. "And do those
+gentlemen complain and put upon us the death of their horses? No, my
+fine sir, they return--_ils reviennent, et sont revenus depuis la
+Conquête!_"
+
+With this fine climax madame announced the court as closed. She bowed
+disdainfully, with a grand and magisterial air, to the defeated
+claimant, who crept away, sulkily, through the low archway.
+
+"That is the way to deal with such vermin, Paul; whip them, and they
+turn tail." And the mere shook out a great laugh from her broad bosom,
+as she regaled her wide nostrils with a fresh pinch of snuff. The
+assembled household echoed the laugh, seasoning it with the glee of
+scorn, as each went to his allotted place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE WORLD THAT CAME TO DIVES.
+
+
+It was a world of many mixtures, of various ranks and habits of life
+that found its way under the old archway, and sat down at the table
+d'hôte breakfasts and dinners. Madame and her gifted son were far too
+clever to attempt to play the mistaken part of Providence; there was no
+pointed assortment made of the sheep and the goats; at least, not in a
+way to suggest the most remote intention of any such separation being
+premeditated. Such separation as there was came about in the most
+natural and in the pleasantest possible fashion. When Petitjean, the
+pedler, and his wife drove in under the Gothic sign, the huge lumbering
+vehicle was as quickly surrounded as when any of the neighboring
+notabilities arrived in emblazoned chariots. Madame was the first to
+waddle forward, nodding up toward the open hood as, with a short,
+brisk, business "_Bonjour_," she welcomed the head of Petitjean and his
+sharp-eyed spouse looking over the aprons.
+
+The pedler is always popular with his world and Dives knew Petitjean to
+be as honest as a pedler can ever hope to be in a world where small
+pence are only made large by some one being sacrificed on the altar of
+duplicity. Therefore it was that Petitjean's hearse-like cart was
+always a welcome visitor;--one could at least be as sure of a just
+return for one's money in trading with a pedler as from any other
+source in this thieving world. In the end, one always got something
+else besides the bargain to carry away with one. For Petitjean knew all
+the gossip of the province; after dinner, when the stiff cider was
+working in his veins, he would be certain to tell all one wanted to
+know. Even Madame Le Mois, whose days were too busy in summer to
+include the daily reading of her newspaper, had grown dependent, in
+these her later years, on such sources of information as the peddler's
+garrulous tongue supplied. In the end she had found his talent for
+fiction quite as reliable as that of the journalists, besides being
+infinitely more entertaining, abounding in personalities which were the
+more racy, as the pedler felt himself to be exempt from that curse of
+responsibility, which, in French journalism, is so often a barrier to
+the full play of one's talent.
+
+Therefore it was that Petitjean and his bright-eyed spouse were always
+made welcome at Dives.
+
+"It goes well, Madame Jean? Ah, there you are. Well, _hein_, also? It
+is long since we saw you."
+
+"Ah, madame, centuries, it is centuries since we were here. But what
+will you have? with the bad season, the rains, the banks failing,
+the--but you, madame, are well? And Monsieur Paul?" "_Ah, ça va tout
+doucement_ Paul is well, the good God be praised, but I--I perish day
+by day" At which the entire court-yard was certain to burst into
+laughing protest. For the whole household of Guillaume le Conquérant
+was quite sure to be assembled about the great wheels of the pedler's
+wagon--only to look, not to buy, not yet. Petitjean, and his wife had
+not dined yet, and a pedler's hunger is something to be respected--one
+made money by waiting for the hour of digestion. The little crowd of
+maids, hostlers, cooks, and scullery wenches, were only here to whet
+their appetite, and to greet Petitjean. Nitouche, the head _chef_, put
+a little extra garlic in his sauces that day. But in spite of this
+compliment to their palate, the pedler and his wife dined in the
+smaller room off the kitchen;--Madame was desolated, but the
+_salle-à-manger_ was crowded just now. One was really suffocated in
+there these days! Therefore it was that the two ate the herbaceous
+sauces with an extra relish, as those conscious of having a larger
+space for the play of vagrant elbows than their less fortunate
+brethren. The gossip and trading came later. On the edge of the fading
+daylight there was still time to see; the chosen articles could easily
+be taken into the brightly lit kitchen to be passed before the lamps.
+After the buying and bargaining came the talking. All the household
+could find time to spend the evening on the old benches; these latter
+lined the sidewalk just beneath the low kitchen casements. They had
+been here for many a long year.
+
+What a history of Dives these old benches could have told! What
+troopers, and beggars, and cowled monks, and wayfarers had sat
+there!--each sitter helping to wear away the wood till it had come to
+have the depressions of a drinking-trough. Night after night in the
+long centuries, as the darkness fell upon the hamlet--what tales and
+confidences, and what murmured anguish of remorse, what cries for help,
+what gay talk and light song must have welled up into the dome of sky!
+
+Once, as we sat within the court-yard, under the stars, a young voice
+sang out. It was so still and quiet every word the youth phrased was as
+clear as his fresh young voice.
+
+"_Tiens_--it is Mathieu--he is singing _Les Oreillers!_" cried Monsieur
+Paul, with an accent of pride in his own tone.
+
+The young voice sang on:
+
+  "_J'arrive en ce pays
+  De Basse Normandie,
+  Vous dire une chanson,
+  S'il plaît la compagnie!_"
+
+"It is an old Norman bridal song," Monsieur Paul went on, lowering his
+voice. "One I taught a lot of young boys and lads last winter--for a
+wedding held here--in the inn."
+
+Still the fresh notes filled the air:
+
+  "_Les amours sont partis
+  Dans un bateau de verre;
+  Le bateau a cassé
+  a cassé--
+  Les amours sont parterre._"
+
+"How the old women laughed--and cried--at once! It was years since they
+had heard it--the old song. And when these boys--their sons and
+grandsons--sang it, and I had trained them well--they wept for pure
+delight."
+
+Again the song went on:
+
+  "_Ouvrez la porte, ouvrez!
+  Nouvelle mariée,
+  Car si vous ne l'ouvrez
+  Vous serez accusée_"
+
+"I dressed all the young girls in old costumes," our friend continued,
+still in a whisper. "I ransacked all the old chests and closets about
+here. I got the ladies of the chateaux near by to aid me; they were so
+interested that many came down from Paris to see the wedding. It was a
+pretty sight, each in a different dress! Every century since the
+thirteenth was represented."
+
+  "_Attendez à demain,
+  La fraîche matinée,
+  Quand mon oiseau privé
+  Aura pris sa volée!_"
+
+Clear, strong, free rang the young tenor's voice--and then it broke
+into "_Comment--tu dis que Claire est là?_" whereat Monsieur Paul
+smiled.
+
+"That will be the next wedding--what shall I devise for that? That will
+also be the ending of a long lawsuit. But he should have sung the last
+verse--the prettiest of all. Mathieu!" Paul lifted his voice, calling
+into the dark.
+
+_"Oui, Monsieur Paul!"_
+
+"Sing us the last verse--"
+
+  "_Dans ce jardin du Roi
+  A pris sa reposée,
+  Cueillant le romarin
+  La--vande--bouton--née--_"
+
+The last notes were but faint vibrations, coming from a lengthening
+distance.
+
+"Ah!" and Monsieur Paul breathed a sigh. "They don't care about
+singing. They are doing it all the time they are so much in love. The
+fathers' lawsuit ended only last month. They've waited three
+years--happy Claire--happy Mathieu!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE CONVERSATION OF PATRIOTS.
+
+
+The world that found its way to the mayor's table at this early period
+of the summer season was largely composed of the class that travels
+chiefly to amuse others. The commercial gentlemen in France, however,
+have the outward bearing of those who travel to amuse themselves. The
+selling of other people's goods--it is surely as good an excuse as any
+other for seeing the world! Such an occupation offers an orator, one
+gifted in conversational talents--talents it would be a pity to see
+buried in the domestic napkin--a fine arena for display.
+
+The French commercial traveller is indeed a genus apart; he makes a
+fetish of his trade; he preaches his propaganda. The fat and the lean,
+the tall and the little, the well or meanly dressed representatives of
+the great French houses who sat down to dine, as our neighbors or
+_vis-à-vis_, night after night, were, on the whole, a great credit to
+their country. Their manners might have been mistaken for those of a
+higher rank; their gifts as talkers were of such an order as to make
+listening the better part of discretion.
+
+Dining is always a serious act in France. At this inn the sauces of the
+_chef_, with their reputation behind them, and the proof of their real
+excellence before one, the dinner-hour was elevated to the importance
+of a ceremony. How the petty merchants and the commercial gentlemen
+ate, at first in silence, as if respecting the appeal imposed by a
+great hunger, and then warming into talk as the acid cider was passed
+again and again! What crunching of the sturdy, dark-colored bread
+between the great knuckles! What huge helps of the famous sauces! What
+insatiable appetites! What nice appreciation of the right touch of the
+tricksy garlic! What nodding of heads, clinking of glasses, and warmth
+of friendship established over the wine-cups! At dessert everyone
+talked at once. On one occasion the subject of Gambetta's death was
+touched on; all the table, as one man, broke out into an effervescence
+of political babble.
+
+"What a loss! What a death-blow to France was his death!" exclaimed a
+heavy young man in a pink cravat.
+
+"If Gambetta had lived, Alsace and Lorraine would be ours now, without
+the firing of a gun!" added an elderly merchant at the foot of the
+table.
+
+"Ah--h! without the firing of a gun they will come to us yet. I tell
+you, without the firing of a gun--unless we insist on a battle,"
+explosively rejoined a fiery-hued little man sitting next to Monsieur
+Paul; "but you will see--we shall insist. There is between us and
+Germany an inextinguishable hate--and we must kill, kill, right and
+left!"
+
+"_Allons--allons!_" protested the table, in chorus.
+
+"Yes, yes, a general massacre, that is what we want; that is what we
+must have. Men, women, and children--all must fall. I am a married
+man--but not a woman or a child shall escape--when the time comes,"
+continued the fiery-eyed man, getting more and more ferocious as he
+warmed with the thought of his revenge.
+
+"What a monster!" broke in Madame Le Mois, her deep base notes
+unruffled by the spectacle of her bloodthirsty neighbor's violence;
+"you--to bayonet a woman with a child in her arms!"
+
+"I would--I would--"
+
+"Then you would be more cruel than they were. They treated our women
+with respect."
+
+There was a murmur of assenting applause, at this sentiment of justice,
+from the table. But the fiery-eyed man was not to be put down.
+
+"Oh, yes, they were generous enough in '71, but I should remember their
+insults of 1815!"
+
+"_Ancienne histoire--çà_" said the mère, dismissing the subject, with a
+humorous wink at the table.
+
+"As you see," was Monsieur Paul's comment on the conversation, as we
+were taking our after-dinner stroll in the garden--"as you see, that
+sort of person is the bad element in our country--the dangerous
+element--unreasoning, revengeful, and ignorant. It is such men as he
+who still uphold hatreds and keep the flame alive. It is better to have
+no talent at all for politics--to be harmless like me, for instance,
+whose worst vice is to buy up old laces and carvings."
+
+"And roses--"
+
+"Yes--that is another of my vices--to perpetuate the old varieties.
+They call me along our coast the millionnaire--of roses! Will you have
+a 'Marie Louise,' mademoiselle?"
+
+The garden was as complete in its old time aspect as the rest of the
+inn belongings. Only the older, rarer varieties of flowers and rose
+stalks had been chosen to bloom within the beautifully arranged
+inclosure. _Citronnelle_, purple irises, fringed asters, sage,
+lavender, _rose-pêche_, bachelor's-button, _the d'Horace_, and the
+wonderful electric fraxinelle, these and many other shrubs and plants
+of the older centuries were massed here with the taste of one difficult
+to please in horticultural arrangements. Our after-dinner walks became
+an event in our day. At that hour the press of the day's work was over,
+and Madame Mère or Monsieur Paul were always ready to join us for a
+stroll.
+
+"For myself, I do not like large gardens," Monsieur Paul remarked,
+during one of these after-dinner saunters. "The monks, in the old days,
+knew just the right size a garden should be--small and sheltered, with
+walls--like a strong arm about a pretty woman--to protect the shrubs
+and flowers. One should enter the garden, also, by a gate which must
+click as it closes--the click tickles the imagination--it is the sound
+henceforth connected with silence, with perfumes and seclusion. How far
+away we seem now, do we not?--from the bustle of the inn
+court-yard--and yet I could throw a stone into it."
+
+The only saunterers besides ourselves were the flamingo, who,
+cautiously, timorously picked his way--as if he were conscious he was
+only a bunch of feathers hoisted on stilts; the white parrot, who was
+wabbling across the lawn to a favorite perch in the leaves of a
+tropical palm; and the peacock, whose train had been spread with a due
+regard to effect across a bed of purple irises, with a view to
+annihilating the brilliancy of their rival hues.
+
+The bit of sky framed by these four garden walls always seemed more
+delicate in tone than that which covered the open court-yard. The birds
+in the bushes had moments of melodious outbursts they did not,
+apparently, indulge in along the high-road. And what with the fading
+lights, the stars pricking their way among the palms, the scents of
+flowers, and the talk of a poet, it is little wonder that this twilight
+hour in the old garden was certain to be the most lyrical of the
+twenty-four.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+IN LA CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS.
+
+
+"It is the winters, mesdames, that are hard to bear. They are
+long--they are dull. No one passes along the high-road. It is then,
+when sometimes the snow is piled knee-deep in the court-yard, it is
+then I try to amuse myself a little. Last year I did the Jumièges
+sculptures; they fit in well, do they not?"
+
+It was raining; and Monsieur Paul was paying us an evening call. A
+great fire was burning in the beautiful Francois I. fireplace of our
+sitting-room, the famous Chambre des Marmousets. We had not consented
+that any of the lights should be lit, although the lovely little Louis
+XIV. chandelier and the antique brass sconces were temptingly filled
+with fresh candles. The flames of the great logs would suffer no rival
+illuminations; if the trunks of full-grown trees could not suffice to
+light up an old room, with low-raftered ceilings, and a mass of
+bric-à-brac, what could a few thin waxen candles hope to do?
+
+On many other occasions we had thought our marvellous sitting-room had
+had exceptional moments of beauty. To turn in from the sunlit, open
+court-yard; to pass beneath, the vine-hung gallery; to lift the great
+latch of the low Gothic door and to enter the rich and sumptuous
+interior, where the light came, as in cathedral aisles, only through
+the jewels of fourteenth-century glass; to close the door; to sit
+beneath the prismatic shower, ensconced in a nest of old tapestried
+cushions, and to let the eye wander over the wealth of carvings, of
+ceramics, of Spanish and Normandy trousseaux chests, on the collection
+of antique chairs, Dutch porcelains, and priceless embroideries--all
+the riches of a museum in a living-room--such a moment in the
+Marmousets we had tested again and again with delectable results. At
+twilight, also, when the garden was submerged in dew, this old
+seigneurial chamber was a retreat fit for a sybarite or a modern
+aesthete. The stillness, the soft luxurious cushions, the rich dusk
+thickening in the corners, the complete isolation of the old room from
+the noise and tumult of the inn life, its curious, its delightful
+unmodernness, made this Marmouset room an ideal setting for any
+mediaeval picture. Even a sentiment tinctured with modern cynicism
+would, I think, have borrowed a little antique fervor, if, like the
+photographic negative our nineteenth-century emotionalism somewhat too
+closely resembles, in its colorless indefiniteness, the sentiment were
+sufficiently exposed, in point of time and degree of sensitiveness, to
+the charm of these old surroundings.
+
+On this particular evening, however, the pattering of the rain without
+on the cobbles and the great blaze of the fire within, made the old
+room seem more beautiful than we had yet seen it. Perhaps the capture
+of our host as a guest was the added treasure needed to complete our
+collection. Monsieur Paul himself was in a mood of prodigal liberality;
+he was, as he himself neatly termed the phrase, ripe for confession;
+not a secret should escape revelation; all the inn mysteries should
+yield up the fiction of their frauds; the full nakedness of fact should
+be given to us.
+
+"You see, _chères dames_, it is not so difficult to create the
+beautiful, if one has a little taste and great patience. My inn--it has
+become my hobby, my pride, my wife, my children. Some men marry their
+art, I espoused my inn. I found her poor, tattered, broken-down, in
+health, if you will; verily, as your Shakespeare says of some country
+wench: 'a poor thing but mine own.'" Monsieur Paul's possession of the
+English language was scarcely as complete as the storehouse of his
+memory. He would have been surprised, doubtless, to learn he had called
+poor Audrey, "a pure ting, buttaire my noon!"
+
+"She was, however," he continued, securely, in his own richer Norman,
+"though a wench, a beautiful one. And I vowed to make her glorious.
+'She shall be famous,' I vowed, and--and--better than most men I have
+kept my vow. All France now has heard of Guillaume le Conquérant!"
+
+The pride Monsieur Paul took in his inn was indeed a fine thing to see.
+The years of toil he had spent on its walls and in its embellishment
+had brought him the recompense much giving always brings; it had
+enriched him quite as much as the wealth of his taste and talent had
+bequeathed to the inn. Latterly, he said, he had travelled much, his
+collection of curios and antiquities having called him farther afield
+than many Frenchmen care to wander. His love of Delft had taken him to
+Holland; his passion for Spanish leather to the country of Velasquez;
+he must have a Virgin, a genuine fifteenth-century Virgin, all his own;
+behold her there, in her stiff wooden skirts, a Neapolitan captive. The
+brass braziers yonder, at which the courtiers of the Henris had warmed
+their feet, stamping the night out in cold ante chambers, had been
+secured at Blois; and his collection of tapestries, of stained glass,
+of Normandy brasses, and Breton carvings had made his own coast as
+familiar as the Dives streets.
+
+"The priests who sold me these, madame," he went on, as he picked up a
+priest's chasuble, now doing duty as a table covering "would sell their
+fathers and their mothers. It is all a question of price."
+
+After a review of the curios came the history of the human collection
+of antiquities who had peopled the inn and this old room.
+
+Many and various had been the visitors who had slept and dined here and
+gone forth on their travels along the high-road.
+
+The inn had had a noble origin; it had been built by no less a
+personage than the great William himself. He had deemed the spot a
+fitting one in which to build his boats to start forth for his modest
+project of conquering England. He could watch their construction in the
+waters of Dives River--that flows still, out yonder, among the grasses
+of the sea-meadows. For some years the Norman dukes held to the inn, in
+memory of the success of that clever boat-building. Then for five
+centuries the inn became a manoir--the seigneurial residence of a
+certain Sieur de Sémilly. It was his arms we saw yonder, joined to
+those of Savoy, in the door panel, one of the family having married
+into a branch of that great house.
+
+Of the famous ones of the world who had travelled along this Caen
+post-road and stopped the night here, humanly tired, like any other
+humble wayfarer, was a hurried visit from that king who loved his
+trade--Louis XI. He and his suite crowded into the low rooms, grateful
+for a bed and a fire, after the weary pilgrimage to the heights of Mont
+St. Michel. Louis's piety, however, was not as lasting in its
+physically exhaustive effects, as were the fleshly excesses of a
+certain other king--one Henri IV., whose over-appreciation of the
+oysters served him here, caused a royal attack of colic, as you may
+read at your pleasure in the State Archives in Paris--since, quite
+rightly, the royal secretary must write the court physician every
+detail of so important an event. What with these kingly travellers and
+such modern uncrowned kings as Puvis de Chavannes, Dumas, George Sand,
+Daubigny, and Troyon, together with a goodly number of lesser great
+ones, the famous little inn has had no reason to feel itself slighted
+by the great of any century. Of all this motley company of notabilities
+there were two whose visits seemed to have been indefinitely prolonged.
+There was nothing, in this present flowery, picturesque assemblage of
+buildings, to suggest a certain wild drama enacted here centuries ago.
+Nothing either in yonder tender sky, nor in the silvery foliage on a
+fair day, which should conjure up the image of William as he must have
+stood again and again beside the little river; nor of the fury of his
+impatience as the boats were building all too slowly for his hot hopes;
+nor of the strange and motley crew he had summoned there from all
+corners of Europe to cut the trees; to build and launch boats; to sail
+them, finally, across the strip of water to that England he was to meet
+at last, to grapple with, and overthrow, even as the English huscarles
+in their turn bore down on that gay Minstrel Taillefer, who rode so
+insolently forth to meet them, with a song in his throat, tossing his
+sword in English eyes, still chanting the song of Roland as he fell.
+None of the inn features were in the least informed with this great,
+impressive picture of its past. Yet does William seem by far the most
+realizable of all the personages who have inhabited the old house.
+
+There was another visitor whose presence Monsieur Paul declared was as
+entirely real as if she, also, had only just passed within the
+court-yard.
+
+"I know not why it is, but of all these great, _ces fameux_, Madame de
+Sévigné seems to me the nearest, in point of time. Her visit appears to
+have happened only yesterday. I never enter her room but I seem to see
+her moving about, talking, laughing, speaking in epigrams. She mentions
+the inn, you know, in her letters. She gives the details of her journey
+in full."
+
+I, also, knew not why; but, later, after Monsieur Paul had left us,
+when he had shut himself out, along with the pattering raindrops, and
+had closed us in with the warmth and the flickering fire-light, there
+came, with astonishing clearness, a vision of that lady's visit here.
+She and her company of friends might have been stopping, that very
+instant, without, in the open court. I, also, seemed to hear the very
+tones of their voices; their talk was as audible as the wind rustling
+in the vines. In the growing stillness the vision grew and grew, till
+this was what I saw and heard:
+
+
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY REVIVAL.
+
+
+Outside the inn, some two hundred years ago, there was a great noise
+and confusion; the cries of outriders, of mounted guardsmen and
+halberdiers, made the quiet village as noisy as a camp. An imposing
+cavalcade was being brought to a sharp stop; for the outriders had
+suddenly perceived the open inn entrance, with its raised portcullis,
+and they were shouting to the coachmen to turn in, beneath the archway,
+to the paved court-yard within.
+
+In an incredibly short space of time the open quadrangle presented a
+brilliant picture; the dashing guardsmen were dismounting; the maids
+and lackeys had quickly descended from their perches in the caleches
+and coaches; and the gentlemen of the household were dusting their wide
+hats and lace-trimmed coats. The halberdiers, ranging themselves in
+line, made a prismatic grouping beneath the low eaves of the
+picturesque old inn. In the very middle of the court-yard stood a
+coach, resplendent in painted panels and emblazoned with ducal arms.
+About this coach, as soon as the four horses which drew the vehicle
+were brought to a standstill, cavaliers, footmen, and maids swarmed
+with effusive zeal. One of the footmen made a rush for the door:
+another let down the steps; one cavalier was already presenting an
+outstretched, deferential hand, while still another held forth an arm,
+as rigid as a post, for the use of the occupants of the ducal carriage.
+
+Three ladies were seated within. Large and roomy as was the vehicle,
+their voluminous draperies and the paraphernalia of their belongings
+seemed completely to fill the wide, deep seats. The ladies were the
+Duchesse de Chaulnes, Madame de Kerman, and Madame de Sévigné. The
+faces of the Duchesse and of Madame de Kerman were invisible, being
+still covered with their masks, which, both as a matter of habit and of
+precaution against the sun's rays, they had religiously worn during the
+long day's journey. But Madame de Sévigné had torn hers off; she was
+holding it in her hand, as if glad to be relieved from its confinement.
+
+All three ladies were in the highest possible spirits, Madame de
+Sévigné obviously being the leader of the jests and the laughter.
+
+They were in a mood to find everything amusing and delightful. Even
+after they had left the coach and were carefully picking their way over
+the rough stones--walking on their high-heeled "mules" at best, was
+always a dangerous performance--their laughter and gayety continued in
+undiminished exuberance. Madame de Sévigné's keen sense of humor found
+so many things to ridicule. Could anything, for example, be more
+comical than the spectacle they presented as they walked, in state,
+with their long trains and high-heeled slippers, up these absurd little
+turret steps, feeling their way as carefully as if they were each a
+pickpocket or an assassin? The long line behind of maids carrying their
+muffs, and of lackeys with the muff-dogs, and of pages holding their
+trains, and the grinning innkeeper, bursting with pride and courtesying
+as if he had St. Vitus's dance, all this crowd coiling round the rude
+spiral stairway--it was enough to make one die of laughter. Such state
+in such savage surroundings!--they and their patch-boxes, and towering
+head-gears and trains, and dogs and fans, all crowded into a place fit
+only for peasants!
+
+When they reached their bedchambers the ridicule was turned into a
+condescending admiration; they found their rooms unexpectedly clean and
+airy. The furniture was all antique, of interesting design, and though
+rude, really astonishingly comfortable. Beds and dressing-tables,
+mostly of Henry III's time, were elaborately canopied in the hideous
+crude draperies of that primitive epoch. How different were the elegant
+shapes and brocades of their own time! Fortunately their women had
+suitable hangings and draperies with them, as well, of course, as any
+amount of linen and any number of mattresses. The settees and benches
+would do very well, with the aid of their own hassocks and cushions,
+and, after all, it was only for a night, they reminded the other.
+
+The toilet, after the heat and exposure of the day, was necessarily a
+long one. The Duchesse and Madame de Kerman had their faces to make
+up--all the paint had run, and not a patch was in its place. Hair,
+also, of this later de Maintenon period, with its elaborate artistic
+ranges of curls, to say nothing of the care that must be given to the
+coif and the "follette," these were matters that demanded the utmost
+nicety of arrangement.
+
+In an hour, however, the three ladies reassembled, in the panelled
+lower room--in "la Chambre de la Pucelle." In spite of the care her two
+companions had given to repairing the damages caused by their journey,
+of the three, Madame de Sévigné looked by far the freshest and
+youngest. She still wore her hair in the loosely flowing de Montespan
+fashion; a style which, though now out of date, was one that exactly
+suited her fair skin, her candid brow, and her brilliant eyes. These
+latter, when one examined them closely, were found to be of different
+colors; but this peculiarity, which might have been a serious defect in
+any other countenance, in Madame de Sévigné's brilliant face was
+perhaps one cause of its extraordinarily luminous quality. Not one
+feature was perfect in that fascinatingly mobile face: the chin was a
+trifle too long for a woman's chin; the lips, that broke into such
+delicious curves when she laughed, when at rest betrayed the firmness
+of her wit and the almost masculine quality of her reasoning judgment.
+Even her arms and hands and her shoulders were "_mal taillés_" as her
+contemporaries would have told you. But what a charm in those irregular
+features! What a seductiveness in the ensemble of that not
+too-well-proportioned figure! What an indescribable radiance seemed to
+emanate from the entire personality of this most captivating of women!
+
+As she moved about the low room, dark with the trembling shadows of
+light that flowed from the bunches of candles in the sconces, Madame de
+Sévigné's clear complexion, and her unpowdered chestnut curls, seemed
+to spot the room with light. Her companions, though dressed in the very
+height of the fashion, were yet not half as catching to the eye.
+Neither their minute waists, nor their elaborate underskirts and
+trains, nor their tall coffered coifs (the duchesse's was not unlike a
+bishop's mitre, studded as it was with ruby-headed pins), nor the
+correctness of these ladies' carefully placed patches, nor yet their
+painted necks and tinted eyebrows, could charm as did the unmodish
+figure of Madame de Sévigné--a figure so indifferently clad, and yet
+one so replete with its distinction of innate elegance and the subtle
+charm of her individuality.
+
+With the entrance of these ladies dinner was served at once. The talk
+flowed on; it was, however, more or less restrained by the presence of
+the always too curious lackeys, of the bustling innkeeper, and the
+gentlemen of the household in attendance on the party. As a spectacle,
+the little room had never boasted before of such an assemblage of
+fashion and greatness. Never before had the air under the rafters been
+so loaded with scents and perfumes--these ladies seeming, indeed, to
+breathe out odors. Never before had there been grouped there such
+splendor of toilet, nor had such courtly accents been heard, nor such
+finished laughter. The fire and the candlelight were in competition
+which should best light up the tall transparent caps, the lace fichus,
+the brocade bodices, and the long trains. The little muff-dogs,
+released from their prisons, since the muffs were laid aside at dinner
+time, blinked at the fire, curling their minute bodies--clipped
+lion-fashion--about the huge andirons, as they snored to kill time,
+knowing their own dinner would come only when their mistresses had done.
+
+After the dessert had been served the ladies withdrew; they were
+preceded by the ever-bowing innkeeper, who assured them, in his most
+reverential tones, that they would find the room opening on the other
+court-yard even warmer and more comfortable than the one they were in.
+In spite of the walk across the paved court-yard and the enormous
+height of their heels, always a fact to be remembered, the ladies voted
+to make the change, since by that means they could be assured the more
+entire seclusion. Mild as was the May air, Madame de Kerman's
+hand-glass hanging at her side was quickly lifted in the very middle of
+the open court-yard; she had scarcely passed the door when she had felt
+one of her patches blowing off.
+
+"I caught it just in time, dear duchesse," she cried, as she stood
+quite still, replacing it with a fresh one picked from her patch-box,
+as the others passed her.
+
+"The very best patch-maker I have found lives in the rue St. Denis, at
+the sign of La Perle des Mouches; have you discovered him, dear
+friend?" said the duchesse, as they walked on toward the low door
+beneath the galleries.
+
+"No, dear duchesse, I fear I have not even looked for him--the science
+of patches I have always found so much harder than the science of
+living!" gayly answered Madame de Sévigné.
+
+Madame de Kerman had now re joined them, and all three passed into la
+Chambre des Marmousets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE AFTER-DINNER TALK OF THREE GREAT LADIES.
+
+
+The three ladies grouped themselves about the fire, which they found
+already lighted. The duchesse chose a Henry II. carved aim chair, one,
+she laughingly remarked, quite large enough to have held both the King
+and Diana. A lackey carrying the inevitable muff-dogs, their fans, and
+scent-bottles, had followed the ladies; he placed a hassock at the
+duchesse's feet, two beneath the slender feet of Madame de Kerman, and,
+after having been bidden to open one of the casements, since it was
+still so light without, withdrew, leaving the ladies alone.
+
+Although Madame de Sévigné had comfortably ensconced herself in one of
+the deep window seats, piling the cushions behind her, no sooner was
+the window opened than with characteristic impetuosity she jumped up to
+look out into the country that lay beyond the leaded glass. In spite of
+the long day's drive in the open air, her appetite for blowing roses
+and sweet earth smells had not been sated. Madame de Sévigné all her
+life had been the victim of two loves and a passion; she adored society
+and she loved nature; these were her lesser delights, that gave way
+before the chief idolatry of her soul, her adoration for her daughter.
+
+[Illustration: MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ]
+
+As she stood by the open window, her charming face, always a mirror of
+her emotions, was suffused with a glow and a bloom that made it seem
+young again. Her eyes grew to twice their common size under the
+"wandering" eyelids, as her gaze roved over the meadows and across the
+tall grasses to the sea. A part of her youth was being, indeed, vividly
+brought back to her; the sight of this marine landscape recalled many
+memories; and with the recollection her whole face and figure seemed to
+irradiate something of the inward ardor that consumed her. She had
+passed this very road, through this same country before, long ago, in
+her youth, with her children. She half smiled at the remembrance of a
+description given of the impression produced by her appearance on the
+journey by her friend the Abbé Arnauld; he had ecstatically compared
+her to Latona seated in an open coach, between a youthful Apollo and a
+young Diana. In spite of the abbe's poetical extravagance, Madame de
+Sévigné recognized, in this moment of retrospect, the truth of the
+picture. That, indeed, had been a radiant moment! Her life at that time
+had been so full, and the rapture so complete--the rapture of
+possessing her children--that she could remember to have had the sense
+of fairly evaporating happiness. And now, the sigh came, how scattered
+was this gay group! her son in Brittany, her daughter in Provence, two
+hundred leagues away! And she, an elderly Latona, mourning her Apollo
+and her divine huntress, her incomparable Diana.
+
+The inextinguishable name of youth was burning still, however, in
+Madame de Sévigné's rich nature. This adventure, this amazing adventure
+of three ladies of the court having to pass the night in a rude little
+Normandy inn, she, for one, was finding richly seasoned with the spice
+of the unforeseen; it would be something to talk of and write about for
+a month hence at Chaulnes and at Paris. Their entire journey, in point
+of fact, had been a series of the most delightful episodes. It was now
+nearly a month since they had started from Picardy, from the castle of
+Chaulnes, going into Normandy _via_ Rouen. They had been on a driving
+tour, their destination being Rennes, which they would reach in a week
+or so. They had been travelling in great state, with the very best
+coach, the very best horses; and they had been guarded by a whole
+regiment of cavaliers and halberdiers. Every possible precaution had
+been taken \against their being disagreeably surprised on their route.
+Their chief fear on the journey had been, of course, the cry common in
+their day of "_Au voleur!_" and the meeting of brigands and assassins;
+for, once outside of Paris and the police reforms of that dear Colbert,
+and one must be prepared to take one's life in one's hand. Happily, no
+such misadventures had befallen them. The roads, it is true, they had
+found for the most part in a horrible condition; they had been pitched
+about from one end of their coach to the other they might easily have
+imagined themselves at sea. The dust also had nearly blinded them, in
+spite of their masks. The other nuisances most difficult to put up with
+had been the swarm of beggars that infested the roadsides; and worst of
+all had been the army of crippled, deformed, and mangy soldiers. These
+latter they had encountered everywhere; their whines and cries, their
+armless, legless bodies, their hideous filth, and their insolent
+importunities, they had found a veritable pest.
+
+Another annoyance had been the over-zealous courtesy of some of the
+upper middle-class. Only yesterday, in the very midst of the dust and
+under the burning noon sun, they had all been forced to alight, to
+receive the homage tendered the duchesse, of some thirty women and as
+many men. Each one of the sixty must, of course, kiss the duchesse's
+hand. It was really an outrage to have exposed them to such a form of
+torture! Poor Madame de Kerman, the delicate one of the party, had
+entirely collapsed after the ceremony. The duchesse also had been
+prostrated; it had wearied her more than all the rest of the journey.
+Madame de Sévigné alone had not suffered. She was possessed of a degree
+of physical fortitude which made her equal to any demand. The other two
+ladies, as well as she herself, were now experiencing the pleasant
+exhilaration which comes with the hour of rest after an excellent
+dinner. They were in a condition to remember nothing except the
+agreeable. Madame de Sévigné was the first to break the silence.
+
+She turned, with a brisk yet graceful abruptness, to the two ladies
+still seated before the low fire. With a charming outburst of
+enthusiasm she exclaimed aloud:
+
+"What a beauty, and youth, and tenderness this spring has, has it not?"
+
+"Yes," answered the duchesse, smiling graciously into Madame de
+Sévigné's brilliantly lit face; "yes, the weather in truth has been
+perfect."
+
+"What an adorable journey we have had!" continued Madame de Sévigné, in
+the same tone, her ardor undampened by the cooler accent of her
+friend--she was used to having her enthusiasm greeted with
+consideration rather than response. "What a journey!--only meeting with
+the most agreeable of adventures; not the slightest inconvenience
+anywhere; eating the very best of everything; and driving through the
+heart of this enchanting springtime!"
+
+Her listeners laughed quietly, with an accent of indulgence. It was the
+habit of her world to find everything Madame de Sévigné did or said
+charming. Even her frankness was forgiven her, her tact was so perfect;
+and her spontaneity had always been accounted as her chief excellence;
+in the stifled air of the court and the _ruelles_ it had been
+frequently likened to the blowing in of a fresh May breeze. Her present
+mood was one well known to both ladies.
+
+"Always 'pretty pagan,' dear madame," smiled Madame de Kerman,
+indulgently. "How well named--and what a happy hit of our friend
+Arnauld d'Audilly! You are in truth a delicious--an adorable pagan! You
+have such a sense of the joy of living! Why, even living in the country
+has, it appears, no terrors for you. We hear of your walking about in
+the moonlight-you make your very trees talk, they tell us, in
+Italian--in Latin; you actually pass whole hours alone with the
+hamadryads!" There was just a suspicion of irony in Madame de Kerman's
+tone, in spite of its caressing softness; it was so impossible to
+conceive of anyone really finding nature endurable, much less
+pretending to discover in trees and flowers anything amusing or
+suggestive of sentiment!
+
+But Madame de Sévigné was quite impervious to her friend's raillery.
+She responded, with perfect good humor:
+
+"Why not?--why not try to discover beauties in nature? One can be so
+happy in a wood! What a charming thing to hear a leaf sing! I know few
+things more delightful than to watch the triumph of the month of May
+when the nightingale, the cuckoo, and the lark open the spring in our
+forests! And then, later, come those beautiful crystal days of
+autumn--days that are neither warm, nor yet are they really cold! And
+then the trees--how eloquent they can be made; with a little teaching
+they may be made to converse so charmingly. _Bella cosa far aniente_,
+says one of my trees; and another answers, _Amor odit inertes_. Ah,
+when I had to bid farewell to all my leaves and trees; when my son had
+to dispose of the forest of Buron, to pay for some of his follies, you
+remember how I wept! It seemed to me I could actually feel the grief of
+those dispossessed sylvans and of all those homeless dryads!"
+
+"It is this, dear friend--this life you lead at Les Rochers--and your
+enthusiasm, which keep you so young. Yes, I am sure of it. How
+inconceivably young, for instance, you are looking this very evening!
+You and the glow out yonder make youth seem no longer a legend."
+
+The duchesse delivered her flattering little speech with a caressing
+tone. She moved gently forward in her chair, as if to gain a better
+view of the twilight and her friend. At the sound of the duchesse's
+voice Madame de Sévigné again turned, with the same charming smile and
+the quick impulsiveness of movement common to her. During her long
+monologue she had remained standing; but she left the window now to
+regain her seat amid the cushions of the window. There was something
+better than the twilight and the spring in the air; here, within, were
+two delightful friends-and listeners; there was before her, also, the
+prospect of one of those endless conversations that were the chief
+delight of her life.
+
+She laughed as she seated herself--a gay, frank, hearty little
+laugh--and she spread out her hands with the opening of her fan, as,
+with her usual vivacious spontaneity, her mood changed.
+
+"Fancy, dear duchesse, the punishment that comes to one who commits the
+crime of looking young--younger than one ought! My son-in-law, M. de
+Grignan, actually avows he is in daily terror lest I should give him a
+father-in-law!"
+
+All three ladies laughed gayly at this absurdity; the subject of Madame
+de Sévigné's remarrying had come to be a venerable joke now. It had
+been talked of at court and in society for nearly forty years; but such
+was the conquering power of her charms that these two friends, her
+listeners, saw nothing really extravagant in her son-in-law's fear; she
+was one of those rare women who, even at sixty, continue to suggest the
+altar rather than the grave. Madame de Kerman was the first to recover
+her breath after the laughter.
+
+"Dear friend, you might assure him that after a youth and the golden
+meridian of your years passed in smiling indifference to the sighs of a
+Prince de Conti, of a Turenne, of a Fouquet, of a Bussy de Rabutin, at
+sixty it is scarcely likely that--"
+
+"Ah, dear lady at sixty, when one has the complexion and the curls, to
+say nothing of the eyes of our dear enchantress, a woman is as
+dangerous as at thirty!" The duchesse's flattery was charmingly put,
+with just enough vivacity of tone to save it from the charge of
+insipidity. Madame de Sévigné bowed her curls to her waist.
+
+"Ah, dear duchesse, it isn't age," she retorted, quickly, "that could
+make me commit follies. It is the fact that that son-in-law of mine
+actually surrounds me with spies--he keeps me in perpetual
+surveillance. Such a state of captivity is capable of making me forget
+everything; I am beginning to develop a positive rage for follies. You
+know that has been my chief fault--always; discretion has been left out
+of my composition. But I say now, as I have always said, that if I
+could manage to live two hundred years, I should become the most
+delightful person in the world!"
+
+She herself was the first to lead in the laughter that followed her
+outburst; and then the duchesse broke in:
+
+"You talk of defects, dear friend; but reflect what a life yours has
+been. So surrounded and courted, and yet you were always so guarded; so
+free, and yet so wise! So gay, and yet so chaste!"
+
+"If you rubbed out all those flattering colors, dear duchesse, and
+wrote only, 'She worshipped her children, and preferred friends to
+lovers,' the portrait would be far nearer to the truth. It is easy to
+be chaste if one has only known one passion in one's life, and that the
+maternal one!"
+
+Again a change passed over Madame de Sévigné's mobile face; the
+bantering tone was lost in a note of deep feeling. This gift of
+sensibility had always been accounted as one of Madame de Sévigné's
+chief charms; and now, at sixty, she was as completely the victim of
+her moods as in her earlier youth.
+
+"Where is your daughter, and how is she?" sympathetically queried the
+duchesse.
+
+"Oh, she is still at Grignan, as usual; she is well, thank God. But,
+dear duchesse, after all these years of separation I suffer still,
+cruelly." The tears sprang to Madame de Sévigné's eyes, as she added,
+with passion and a force one would scarcely have expected in one whose
+manners were so finished, "the truth is, dear friends, I cannot live
+without her. I do not find I have made the least progress in that
+career. But, even now, believe me, these tears are sweeter than all
+else in life--more enrapturing than the most transporting joy!"
+
+Madame de Kerman smiled tenderly into the rapturous mother's face; but
+the duchesse moved, as if a little restless and uneasy under this
+shower of maternal feeling. For thirty years her friends had had to
+listen to Madame de Sévigné's rhapsodies over the perfections of her
+incomparable daughter. Although sensibility was not the emotional
+fashion of the day, maternity, in the person of Madame de Sévigné, had
+been apotheosized into the queen of the passions, if only because of
+its rarity; still, even this lady's most intimate friends sometimes
+wearied of banqueting off the feast of Madame de Grignan's virtues.
+
+"Have you heard from Madame de La Fayette recently?" asked the
+duchesse, allowing just time enough to elapse, before putting the
+question, for Madame de Sévigné's emotion to subside into composure.
+The duchesse was too exquisitely bred to allow her impatience to take
+the form of even the appearance of haste.
+
+"Oh, yes," was Madame de Sévigné's quiet reply; the turn in the
+conversation had been instantly understood, in spite of the delicacy of
+the duchesse's methods. "Oh, yes--I have had a line--only a line. You
+know how she detests writing, above all things. Her letters are all the
+same--two lines to say that she has no time in which to say it!"
+
+"Did she not once write you a pretty little series of epigrams about
+not writing?"
+
+"Oh, yes--some time ago, when I was with my daughter. I've quoted them
+so often, they have become famous. 'You are in Provence, my beauty;
+your hours are free, and your mind still more so. Your love for
+corresponding with everyone still endures within you, it appears; as
+for me, the desire to write to any human being has long since passed
+away-forever; and if I had a lover who insisted on a letter every
+morning, I should certainly break with him!'"
+
+"What a curious compound she is! And how well her soubriquet becomes
+her!"
+
+"Yes, it is perfect--'_Le Brouillard_'--the fog. It is indeed a fog
+that has always enveloped her, and what charming horizons are disclosed
+once it is lifted!"
+
+"And her sensibilities--of what an exquisite quality; and what a rare,
+precious type, indeed, is the whole of her nature! Do you remember how
+alarmed she would become when listening to music?"
+
+"And yet, with all this sensibility and delicacy of organization there
+was another side to her nature." Madame de Kerman paused a moment
+before she went on; she was not quite sure how far she dared go in her
+criticism; Madame de La Fayette was such an intimate friend of Madame
+de Sévigné's.
+
+"You mean," that lady broke out, with unhesitating candor, "that she is
+also a very selfish person. You know that is my daughter's theory of
+her--she is always telling me how Madame de La Fayette is making use of
+me; that while her sensitiveness is such that she cannot sustain the
+tragedy of a farewell visit--if I am going to Les Rochers or to
+Provence, when I go to pay my last visit I must pretend it is only an
+ordinary running-in; yet her delicacy does not prevent her from making
+very indelicate proposals, to suit her own convenience. You remember
+what one of her commands was, don't you?"
+
+"No," answered the duchesse, for both herself and her companion. "Pray
+tell us."
+
+Madame de Sévigné went on to narrate that once, when at Les Rochers,
+Madame de La Fayette was quite certain that she, Madame de Sévigné, was
+losing her mind, for no one could live in the provinces and remain
+sane, poring over stupid books and sitting over fires.
+
+"She was certain I should sicken and die, besides losing the tone of my
+mind," laughed Madame de Sévigné, as she called up the picture of her
+dissolution and rapid disintegration; "and therefore it was necessary
+at once that I should come up to Paris. This latter command was
+delivered in the tone of a judge of the Supreme Court. The penalty of
+my disobedience was to be her ceasing to love me. I was to come up to
+Paris directly--on the minute; I was to live with you, dear duchesse; I
+was not to buy any horses until spring; and, best of all, I was to find
+on my arrival a purse of a thousand crowns which would be lent me
+without interest! What a proposition, _mon Dieu_, what a proposition!
+To have no house of my own, to be dependent, to have no carriage, and
+to be in debt a thousand crowns!"
+
+As Madame de Sévigné lifted her hands the laces of her sleeves were
+fairly trembling with the force of her indignation. There were certain
+things that always put her in a passion, and Madame de La Fayette's
+peculiarities she had found at times unendurable. Her listeners had
+followed her narration with the utmost intensity and absorption. When
+she stopped, their eyes met in a look of assenting comment.
+
+"It was perfectly characteristic, all of it! She judged you, doubtless,
+by herself. She always seems to me, even now, to keep one eye on her
+comfort and the other on her purse!"
+
+"Ah, dear duchesse, how keen you are!" laughingly acquiesced Madame de
+Sévigné, as with a shrug she accepted the verdict--her indignation
+melting with the shrug. "And how right! No woman ever drives better
+bargains, without moving a finger. From her invalid's chair she can
+conduct a dozen lawsuits. She spends half her existence in courting
+death; she caresses her maladies; she positively hugs them; but she can
+always be miraculously resuscitated at the word money!"
+
+"Yes," added with a certain relish Madame de Kerman. "And this is the
+same woman who must be forever running away from Paris because she can
+no longer endure the exertion of talking, or of replying, or of
+listening; because she is wearied to extinction, as she herself admits,
+of saying good-morning and good-evening. She must hide herself in some
+pastoral retreat, where simply, as she says, 'to exist is enough;'
+where she can remain, as it were, miraculously suspended between heaven
+and earth!"
+
+A ripple of amused laughter went round the little group; there was
+nothing these ladies enjoyed so keenly as a delicate dish of gossip,
+seasoned with wit, and stuffed with epigrams. This talk was exactly to
+their taste. The silence and seclusion of their surroundings were an
+added stimulus to confidence and to a freer interchange of opinions
+about their world. Paris and Versailles seemed so very far away; it
+would appear safe to say almost anything about one's dearest friends.
+There was nothing to remind them of the restraints of levees, or the
+penalty indiscretion must pay for folly breathed in that whispering
+gallery--the _ruelle_. It was indeed a delightful hour; altogether an
+ideal situation.
+
+The fire had burned so low only a few embers were alive now, and the
+candles were beginning to flicker and droop in the sconces. But the
+three ladies refused to find the little room either cold or dark; their
+talk was not half done yet, and their muffs would keep them warm. The
+shadow of the deepening gloom they found delightfully provocative of
+confidences.
+
+After a short pause, while Madame de Kerman busied herself with the
+tongs and the fagots, trying to reinvigorate the dying flames, the
+duchesse asked, in a somewhat more intimate tone than she had used yet:
+
+"And the duke--do you really think she loved the Duke de La
+Rochefoucauld?"
+
+"She reformed him, dear duchesse; at least she always proclaims his
+reform as the justification of her love."
+
+"You--you esteemed him yourself very highly, did you not?"
+
+"Oh, I loved him tenderly; how could one help it? He was the best as
+well as the most brilliant of men! I never knew a tenderer heart;
+domestic joys and sorrows affected him in a way to render him
+incomparable. I have seen him weep over the death of his mother, who
+only died eight years before him, you know, with a depth of sincerity
+that made me adore him."
+
+"He must in truth have been a very sincere person."
+
+"Sincere!" cried Madame de Sévigné, her eyes flaming. "Had you but seen
+his deathbed! His bearing was sublime! Believe me, dear friend, it was
+not in vain that M. de La Rochefoucauld had written philosophic
+reflections all his life; he had already anticipated his last moments
+in such a way that there was nothing either new or strange in death
+when it came to him."
+
+"Madame de La Fayette truly mourned him--don't you think so? You were
+with her a great deal, were you not, after his death?"
+
+"I never left her. It was the most pitiable sight to see her in her
+loneliness and her misery. You see, their common ill-health and their
+sedentary habits, had made them so necessary to each other! It was, as
+it were, two souls in a single body. Nothing could exceed the
+confidence and charm of their friendship; it was incomparable. To
+Madame de La Fayette his loss came as her death-blow; life seems at an
+end for her; for where, indeed, can she find another such friend, or
+such intercourse, such sweetness and charm--such confidence and
+consideration?"
+
+There was a moment's silence after Madame de Sévigné's eloquent
+outburst. The eyes of the three friends were lost for a moment in the
+twinkling flames. The duchesse and Madame de Kerman exchanged meaning
+glances.
+
+"Since the duke's death her thoughts are more and more turned toward
+religion. I hear she has been fortunate in her choice of directors, has
+she not? Du Guet is said to be an ideal confessor for the authoress of
+'La Princesse de Clèves.'" There was just a suspicion of malice in the
+duchesse's tones.
+
+"Oh, he was born to take her in hand. He knew just when to speak with
+authority, and when to make use of the arts of persuasion. He wrote to
+her once, you remember: 'You, who have passed your life in
+dreaming--cease to dream! You, who have taken such pride unto yourself
+for being so true in all things, were very far, indeed, from the
+truth--you were only half true--falsely true. Your godless wisdom was
+in reality purely a matter of good taste!'"
+
+"What audacity! Bossuet himself could not have put the truth more
+nakedly." The duchesse was one of those to whom truths were novelties,
+and unpleasant ones.
+
+"Bossuet, if I remember rightly, was with the Duke de La Rochefoucauld
+at the last, was he not?"
+
+"Yes," responded Madame de Sévigné; "he was with him; he administered
+the supreme unction. The duke was in a beautiful state of grace. M,
+Vinet, you remember, said of him that he died with 'perfect decorum.'"
+
+"Speaking of dying reminds me"--cried suddenly Madame de Sévigné--"how
+are the duke's hangings getting on?"
+
+"They begin, the duke writes me, to hang again to-morrow," answered the
+duchesse, with a certain air of disdain, the first appearance of this
+weapon of the great now coming to the _grande dame's_ aid. Her husband,
+the Duke de Chaulnes' trouble with his revolutionary citizens at Rennes
+was a subject that never failed to arouse a feeling of angry contempt
+in her. It was too preposterous, the idea of those insolent creatures
+rising against him, their rightful duke and master!
+
+The duchesse's feeling in the matter was fully shared by her friends.
+In all the court there was but one opinion in the matter--hanging was
+really far too good for the wretched creatures.
+
+"Monsieur de Chaulnes," the duchesse went on, with ironical contempt in
+her voice, "still goes on punishing Rennes!"
+
+"This province and the duke's treatment of it will serve as a capital
+example to all others. It will teach those rascals," Madame de Kerman
+continued, in lower tones, "to respect their governors, and not to
+throw stones into their gardens!"
+
+"Fancy that--the audacity of throwing stones into their duke's garden!
+Why, did you know, they actually--those insolent creatures actually
+called him--called the duke--'_gros cochon?_'"
+
+All three ladies gasped in horror at this unparalleled instance of
+audacity; they threw up their hands, as they groaned over the picture,
+in low tones of finished elegance.
+
+"It is little wonder the duke hangs right and left! The dear duke--what
+a model governor! How I should like to have seen him sack that street
+at Rennes, with all the ridiculous old men, and the women in
+childbirth, and the children, turned out pêle-mêle! And the hanging,
+too--why, hanging now seems to me a positively refreshing performance!"
+And Madame de Sévigné laughed with unstinted gayety as at an excellent
+joke.
+
+The picture of Rennes and the cruelty dealt its inhabitants was a
+pleasant picture, in the contemplation of which these ladies evidently
+found much delectation. They were quiet for a longer period of time
+than usual; they continued silent, as they looked into the fire,
+smiling; the flames there made them think of other flames as forms of
+merited punishment.
+
+"A curious people those Bas Bretons," finally ejaculated Madame de
+Sévigné. "I never could understand how Bertrand Duguesclin made them
+the best soldiers of his day in France!"
+
+"You know Lower Brittany very well, do you not, dear friend?"
+
+"Not so well as the coast. Les Rochers is in Upper Brittany, you know.
+I know the south better still. Ah, what a charming journey I once took
+along the Loire with my friend _Bien-Bon_, the Abbé de Coulanges. We
+found it the most enchanting country in the world--the country of
+feasts and of famine; feasts for us and famine for the people. I
+remember we had to cross the river; our coach was placed on the barge,
+and we were rowed along by stout peasants. Through the glass windows of
+the coach we looked out at a series of changing pictures--the views
+were charming. We sat, of course, entirely at our ease, on our soft
+cushions. The country people, crowded together below, were--ugh!--like
+pigs in straw."
+
+"Was Bien-Bon with you when you made that little excursion to St.
+Germain?" queried the duchesse.
+
+"Ah, that was a gay night," joyously responded Madame de Sévigné. "How
+well we amused ourselves on that little visit that we paid Madame de
+Maintenon--when she was only Madame Scarron."
+
+"Was she so handsome then as they say she was--at that time?"
+
+"Very handsome; she was good, too, and amiable, and easy to talk to;
+one talked well and readily with her. She was then only the governess
+of the king's bastards, you know--of the children he had had by Madame
+de Montespan. That was the first step toward governing the king. Well,
+one night--the night to which you refer--I remember we were all supping
+with Madame de La Fayette. We had been talking endlessly! Suddenly it
+occurred to us it would be a most amusing adventure to take Madame
+Scarron home, to the very last end of the Faubourg Saint Germain, far
+beyond where Madame de La Fayette lived--near Vaugirard, out into the
+Bois, in the country. The Abbé came too. It was midnight when we
+started. The house, when at last we reached it, we found large and
+beautiful, with large and fine rooms and a beautiful garden; for Madame
+Scarron, as governess of the king's children, had a coach and a lot of
+servants and horses. She herself dressed then modestly and yet
+magnificently, as a woman should, who spent her life among people of
+the highest rank. We had a merry outing, returning in high spirits,
+blessed in having no end of lanterns, and thus assured against robbers."
+
+"She and Madame de La Fayette were very close friends, I remember,
+during that time," mused the duchesse, "when they were such near
+neighbors."
+
+"Yes," Madame de Sévigné went on, as unwearied now, although it was
+nearly midnight, as in the beginning of the long evening. "Yes; I
+always thought Madame de Maintenon's satirical little joke about Madame
+de La Fayette's bed festooned with gold--'I might have fifty thousand
+pounds income, and never should I live in the style of a great lady;
+never should I have a bed festooned with gold like Madame de La
+Fayette'--was the beginning of their rupture."
+
+"All the same, Madame de La Fayette, lying on that bed, beneath the
+gold hangings, was a much more simple person than ever was Madame de
+Maintenon!"
+
+"Your speaking of bed reminds me, dear ladies ours must be quite cold
+by this time. How we have chatted! What a delightful gossip! But we
+must not forget that our journey to-morrow is to be a long one!"
+
+The duchesse rose, the other two ladies rising instantly, observing, in
+spite of the intimate relations in which they stood toward the
+duchesse, the deference due to her more exalted rank. The latter
+clapped her hands; outside the door a shuffling and a low groan were
+heard--the groan came from the sleepy lackey, roused from his deep
+slumber, as he uncoiled himself from the close knot into which his legs
+and body were knit in the curve of the narrow stairs.
+
+The ladies, a few seconds later, were wending their way up the steep
+turret steps. They were preceded by torches and followed by quite a
+long train of maids and lackeys. For a long hour, at least, the little
+inn resounded with the sound of hurrying feet, of doors closing and
+shutting; with the echo of voices giving commands and of others purring
+in sleepy accents of obedience. Then one by one the sounds died away;
+the lights went out in the bedchambers; faint flickerings stole through
+the chinks of doors and windows. The watchman cried out the hour, and
+the gleam of a lantern flashed here and there, illuminating the open
+court-yard. The cocks crowed shrilly into the night air. A halberdier
+turned in his sleep where he lay, on some straw beneath the coach-shed,
+his halberd rattling as it struck the cobbles. And over the whole--over
+the gentle slumber of the great ladies and the sleep of beast and
+man--there fell the peace and the stillness of the midnight--of that
+midnight of long ago.
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A NINETEENTH-CENTURY BREAKFAST.
+
+
+The very next morning, after the rain, and the vision I had had of
+Madame de Sévigné, conjured up by my surroundings and the reading of
+her letters, Monsieur Paul paid us an early call. He came to beg the
+loan of our sitting-room, he said. He had had a despatch from a
+coaching-party from Trouville; they were to arrive for breakfast. The
+whip and owner of the coach was a great friend of his, he proffered by
+way of explanation--a certain count who had a genius for
+friendship--one who also had an artist's talent for admiring the
+beautiful. He was among those who were in a state of perpetual
+adoration before the inn's perfections. He made yearly pilgrimages from
+his chateau above Rouen to eat a noon breakfast in the Chambre des
+Marmousets. Now, a breakfast served elsewhere than in this chamber
+would be, from his point of view, to have journeyed to a shrine to find
+the niche empty. The gift that was begged of us, therefore, was the
+loan for a few hours of the famous little room.
+
+In less than a half hour we were watching the entrance of the coach by
+the side of Madame Le Mois. We were all three seated on the green bench.
+
+Faintly at first, and presently gaining in distinctness, came the fall
+of horses' hoofs and the rumble of wheels along the highway. A little
+cavalcade was soon passing beneath the archway. First there dashed in
+two horsemen, who had sprung to the ground almost as soon as their
+steeds' hoofs struck the paved court-yard. Then there swept by a jaunty
+dog cart, driven by a mannish figure radiantly robed in white. Swiftly
+following came the dash and jingle of four coach-horses, bathed in
+sweat, rolling the vehicle into the court as if its weight were a thing
+of air. All save one among the gay party seated on the high seats, were
+too busy with themselves and their chatter, to take heed of their
+surroundings. A lady beneath her deep parasol was busily engaged in a
+gay traffic of talk with the groups of men peopling the back seats of
+the coach. One of the men, however, was craning his neck beyond the
+heads of his companions; he was running his eye rapidly up and down the
+long inn facade. Finally his glance rested on us; and then, with a
+rush, a deep red mounted the man's cheek, as he tore off his derby to
+wave it, as if in a triumph of discovery. Renard had been true to his
+promise. He had come to see his friends and to test the famous
+Sauterne. He flung himself down from his lofty perch to take his seat,
+entirely as a matter of course, beside us on the green bench.
+
+"What luck, hey?--greatest luck in the world, finding you in, like
+this. I've been in no end of a tremble, fearing you'd gone to Caen, or
+Falaise, or somewhere, and that I shouldn't see you after all. Well,
+how are you? How goes it? What do you think of old Dives and Monsieur
+Paul, and the rest of it? I see you're settled; you took the palace
+chamber. Trust American women--they know the best, and get it."
+
+"But these people, who are they, and how did you--?" We were
+unfeignedly glad to see him, but curiosity is a passion not to be
+trifled with--after a month in the provinces.
+
+"Oh--the De Troisacs? Old friends of mine--known them years. Jolly lot.
+Charming fellow, De Troisac--only good Frenchman I've ever known.
+They're just off their yacht; saw them all yesterday at the Trouville
+Casino. Said they were running down here for breakfast to-day, asked
+me, and I came, of course." He laughed as he added: "I said I should
+come, you remember, to get some of that Sauterne. A man will go any
+distance for a good bottle of wine, you know."
+
+Meanwhile, in the court-yard, the party on the coach, by means of
+ladders and the helping of the grooms, were scrambling down from their
+seats. Renard's friend, the Comte de Troisac, was easily picked out
+from the group of men. He was the elder of the party--stoutish, with
+frank eyes and a smiling mouth; he was bustling about from the gaunt
+grooms to the ladder, and from ladder to the coach-seat, giving his
+commands right and left, and executing most of them himself. A tall,
+slim woman, with drooping eyelids, and an air of extreme elegance and
+of cultivated fatigue, was also easily recognizable as the countess. It
+took two grooms, two of the gentlemen guests, and her husband to assist
+her to the ground. Her passage down the steps of the ladder had been
+long enough, however, to enable her to display a series of pretty
+poses, each one more effective than the others. When one has an instep
+of ideal elevation, what is the use of being born a Frenchwoman, unless
+one knows how to make use of opportunity?
+
+From the dog-cart, that had rattled in across the cobbles with a dash
+and a spurt, there came quite a different accent and pose. The whitish
+personage, whom we had mistakenly supposed to be a man, wore
+petticoats; the male attire only held as far as the waist of the lady.
+The stiff white shirt-front, the knotted tie--a faultless male
+knot--the loose driving-jacket, with its sprig of white geranium, and
+the round straw-hat worn in mannish fashion, close to the level brows,
+was a costume that would have deceived either sex. Below the jacket
+flowed the straight lines of a straight skirt, that no further
+conjectures should be rendered necessary. This lady had a highbred air
+of singular distinction, accentuated by a tremendously knowing look.
+She was at once elegant and rakish; the _gamin_ in her was obviously
+the touch of _caviare_ to season the woman of fashion. The mixture made
+an extraordinarily attractive ensemble. As she jumped to the ground,
+throwing her reins to a groom, her jump was a master-stroke; it landed
+her squarely on her feet; even as she struck the ground her hands were
+thrust deeply into her pockets. The man seated beside her, who now
+leaped out after her, seemed timid and awkward by contrast with her
+alert precision. This couple moved at once toward the bench on which
+madame was seated. With the coming in of the coach and the cart she had
+risen, waddling forward to meet the party. Monsieur Paul was at the
+coach-wheels before the grooms had shot themselves down; De Troisac,
+with eager friendliness, stretched forth a hand from the top of his
+seat, exclaiming, with gay heartiness, "Ah, mon bon--comment ça va?"
+
+The mere was as eagerly greeted. Even the countess dismissed her
+indifference for the moment, as she held out her hand to Madame Le Mois.
+
+"Dear Madame Le Mois--and it goes well with you? And the gout and the
+rheumatism, they have ceased to torment you? Quelle bonne nouvelle! And
+here are the dear old cocks and the wounded bantam. The cockatoos--ah,
+there they are, still swinging in the air! Comme c'est joli--et
+frais--et que ça sent bon!"
+
+Madame and Monsieur Paul were equally effusive in their inquiries and
+exclamations--it was clearly a meeting of old friends. Madame Le Mois'
+face was meanwhile a study. The huge surface was glistening with
+pleasure; she was unfeignedly glad to see these Parisians:--but there
+was no elation at this meeting on such easy terms with greatness. Her
+shrewdness was as alive as ever; she was about to make money out of the
+visit--they were to have of her best, but they must pay for it. Between
+her rapid fire of questionings as to the countess's health and the
+history of her travels, there was as rapid a shower of commands,
+sometimes shouted out, above all the hubbub, to the cooks standing
+gaping in the kitchen doorway, or whispered hoarsely to Ernestine and
+Marianne, who were flying about like wild pigeons, a little drunk with
+the novelty of this first breakfast of the season.
+
+"_Allons, mon enfant--cours--cours_--get thy linen, my child, and the
+silver candélabres. It is to be laid in the Marmousets, thou knowest.
+Paul will come presently. And the salads, pluck them and bring them in
+to me--_cours--cours_."
+
+The great world was all very well, and it was well to be on friendly,
+even intimate terms, with it; but, _Dieu!_ one's own bread is of
+importance too! And the countess, for all her delicacy, was a _bonne
+fourchette_.
+
+The countess and her friend, after a moment of standing in the
+court-yard, of patting the pelican, of trying their blandishments on
+the flamingo, of catching up the bantam, and filling the air with their
+purring, and caressing, and incessant chatter, passed beneath the low
+door to the inner sanctum of madame. The two ladies were clearly bent
+on a few moments of unreserved gossip and that repairing of the toilet
+which is a religious act to women of fashion the world over.
+
+In the court-yard the scene was still a brilliant one. The gayly
+painted coach was now deserted. It stood, a chariot of state, as it
+were, awaiting royalty; its yellow sides gleamed like topaz in the sun.
+The grooms were unharnessing the leaders, that were still bathed in the
+white of their sweat. The count's dove-colored flannels were a soft
+mass against the snow of the _chef's_ apron and cap; the two were in
+deep consultation at the kitchen door. Monsieur Paul was showing, with
+all the absorption of the artist, his latest Jumièges carvings to the
+taller, more awkward of the gentlemen, to the one driven in by the
+mannish beauty.
+
+The cockatoos had not ceased shrieking from the very beginning of the
+hubbub; nor had the squirrels stopped running along the bars of their
+cage, a-flutter with excitement. The peacocks trailed their trains
+between the coach-wheels, announcing, squawkingly, their delight at the
+advent of a larger audience. Above the cries of the fowls and the
+shrieks of the cocks, the chatter of human tongues, the subdued murmur
+of the ladies' voices coming through the open lattice, and the stamp of
+horses' hoofs, there swept above it all the light June breeze, rustling
+in the vines, shaking the thick branches against the wooden facades.
+
+The two ladies soon made their appearance in the sunlit court-yard. The
+murmur of their talk and their laughter reached us, along with the
+froufrou of their silken petticoats.
+
+"You were not bored, _chère enfant_, driving Monsieur d'Agreste all
+that long distance?"
+
+The countess was smiling tenderly into her companion's face. She had
+stopped her to readjust the geranium sprig that was drooping in her
+friend's cover-coat. The smile was the smile of a sympathizing angel,
+but what a touch of hidden malice there was in the notes of her
+caressing voice! As she repinned the _boutonnière_, she gave the
+dancing eyes, that were brimming with the mirth of the coming retort,
+the searching inquest of her glance.
+
+"Bored! _Dieu, que non!_" The black little beauty threw back her
+throat, laughing, as she rolled her great eyes. "Bored--with all the
+tricks I was playing? Fernande! pity me, there was such a little time,
+and so much to do!"
+
+"So little time--only fourteen kilos!" The countess compressed her
+lips; they were smiling no longer.
+
+"Ah, but you see, I had so much to combat. You had a whole season, last
+summer, in which to play your game, your solemn game." Here the gay
+young widow rippled forth a pearly scale of treble laughter. "And I
+have had only a week, thus far!"
+
+"Yes, but what time you make!"
+
+And this time both ladies laughed, although, still, only one laughed
+well.
+
+"Ah! those women--how they love each other," commented Renard, as he
+sat on the bench, swinging his legs, with his eyes following the two
+vanishing figures. "Only women who are intimate--Parisian
+intimates--can cut to the bone like that, with a surgeon's dexterity."
+
+He explained then that the handsome brunette was a widow, a certain
+Baronne d'Autun, noted for her hunting and her conquests; the last on
+the latter list was Monsieur d'Agreste, a former admirer of the
+countess; he was somewhat famous as a scientist and socialist, so good
+a socialist as to refuse to wear his title of duke. The other two
+gentlemen of the party, who had joined them now, the two horsemen, were
+the Comtes de Mirant and de Fonbriant. These latter were two typical
+young swells of the Jockey Club model; their vacant, well-bred faces
+wore the correct degree of fashionable pallor, and their manners
+appeared to be also as perfect as their glances were insolent.
+
+Into these vacant faces the languid countess was breathing the
+inspiration of her smile. Enigmatic as was the latter, it was as simple
+as an infant's compared to the occult character of her glance. A wealth
+of complexities lay enfolded in the deep eyes, rimmed with their mystic
+darkened circlet--that circle in which the Parisienne frames her
+experience, and through which she pleads to have it enlarged!
+
+A Frenchwoman and cosmetics! Is there any other combination on this
+round earth more suggestive of the comedy of high life, of its elegance
+and of its perfidy, of its finish and of its emptiness?
+
+The men of the party wore costumes perilously suggestive of Opera
+Bouffe models. Their fingers were richly begemmed; their watch-chains
+were laden with seals and charms. Any one of the costumes was such as
+might have been chosen by a tenor in which to warble effectively to a
+_soubrette_ on the boards of a provincial theatre; and it was worn by
+these fops of the Jockey Club with the air of its being the last word
+in nautical fashions. Better than their costumes were their voices; for
+what speech from human lips pearls itself off with such crispness and
+finish as the delicate French idiom from a Parisian tongue?
+
+I never quite knew how it came about that we were added to this gay
+party of breakfasters. We found ourselves, however, after a high
+skirmish of preliminary presentations, among the number to take our
+places at the table.
+
+In the Chambre des Marmousets, Monsieur Paul, we found, had set the
+feast with the taste of an artist and the science of an archaeologist.
+The table itself was long and narrow, a genuine fifteenth century
+table. Down the centre ran a strip of antique altar-lace; the sides
+were left bare, that the lustre of the dark wood might be seen. In the
+centre was a deep old Caen bowl, with grapes and fuchsias to make a
+mound of soft color. A pair of seventeenth-century candélabres twisted
+and coiled their silver branches about their rich _repoussé_ columns;
+here and there on the yellow strip of lace were laid bunches of June
+roses, those only of the rarer and older varieties having been chosen,
+and each was tied with a Louis XV love-knot. Monsieur Paul was himself
+an omniscient figure at the feast; he was by turns officiating as
+butler, carving, or serving from the side-tables; or he was crossing
+the court-yard with his careful, catlike tread, a bottle under each
+arm. He was also constantly appealed to by Monsieur d'Agreste or the
+count, to settle a dispute about the age of the china, or the original
+home of the various old chests scattered about the room.
+
+"Paul, your stained glass shows up well in this light," the count
+called out, wiping his mustache over his soup-plate.
+
+"Yes," answered Monsieur Paul, as he went on serving the sherry,
+pausing for a moment at the count's glass. "They always look well in
+full sunlight. It was a piece of pure luck, getting them. One can
+always count on getting hold of tapestries and carvings, but old glass
+is as rare as--"
+
+"A pretty woman," interpolated the gay young widow, with the air of a
+connoisseur.
+
+"Outside of Paris--you should have added," gallantly contributed the
+count. Everyone went on eating after the light laughter had died away.
+
+The countess had not assisted at this brief conversation; she was
+devoting her attention to receiving the devotion of the two young
+counts; one was on either side of her, and both gave every outward and
+visible sign of wearing her chains, and of wearing them with
+insistance. The real contest between them appeared to be, not so much
+which should make the conquest of the languid countess, as which should
+outflank the other in his compromising demeanor. The countess, beneath
+her drooping lids, watched them with the indulgent indolence of a
+lioness, too luxuriously lazy to spring.
+
+The countess, clearly, was not made for sunlight. In the courtyard her
+face had seemed chiefly remarkable as a triumph of cosmetic treatment;
+here, under this rich glow, the purity and delicacy of the features
+easily placed her among the beauties of the Parisian world. Her eyes,
+now that the languor of the lids was disappearing with the advent of
+the wines, were magnificent; her use of them was an open avowal of her
+own knowledge of their splendor. The young widow across the table was
+also using her eyes, but in a very different fashion. She had now taken
+off her straw hat; the curly crop of a brown mane gave the brilliant
+face an added accent of vigor. The _chien de race_ was the dominant
+note now in the muscular, supple body, the keen-edged nostrils, and the
+intent gaze of the liquid eyes. These latter were fixed with the fixity
+of a savage on Charm. She was giving, in a sweet sibilant murmur, the
+man seated next her--Monsieur d'Agreste, the man who refused to bear
+his title--her views of the girl.
+
+"Those Americans, the Americans of the best type, are a race apart, I
+tell you; we have nothing like them; we condemn them because we don't
+understand them. They understand us--they read us--"
+
+"Oh, they read our books--the worst of them."
+
+"Yes, but they read the best too; and the worst don't seem to hurt
+them. I'll warrant that Mees Gay--that is her name, is it not?--has
+read Zola, for instance; and yet, see how simple and
+innocent--yes--innocent, she looks."
+
+"Yes, the innocence of experience--which knows how to hide," said
+Monsieur d'Agreste, with a slight shrug.
+
+"Mees Gay!" the countess cried out across the table, suddenly waking
+from her somnolence; she had overheard the baroness in spite of the low
+tone in which the dialogue had been carried on; her voice was so
+mellifluously sweet, one instinctively scented a touch of hidden poison
+in it--"Mees Gay, there is a question being put at this side of the
+table you alone can answer. Pray pardon the impertinence of a personal
+question--but we hear that American young ladies read Zola; is it true?"
+
+"I am afraid that we do read him," was Charm's frank answer. "I have
+read him--but my reading is all in the past tense now."
+
+"Ah--you found him too highly seasoned?" one of the young counts asked,
+eagerly, with his nose in the air, as if scenting an indiscretion.
+
+"No, I did not go far enough to get a taste of his horrors; I stopped
+at his first period."
+
+"And what do you call his first period, dear mademoiselle?" The
+countess's voice was still freighted with honey. Her husband coughed
+and gave her a warning glance, and Renard was moving uneasily in his
+chair.
+
+"Oh," Charm answered lightly, "his best period--when he didn't sell."
+
+Everyone laughed. The little widow cried beneath her breath:
+
+"_Elle a de l'esprit, celle-là_---"
+
+"_Elle en a de trop_," retorted the countess.
+
+"Did you ever read Zola's 'Quatre Saisons?'" Renard asked, turning to
+the count, at the other end of the table.
+
+No, the count had not read it--but he could read the story of a
+beautiful nature when he encountered one, and presently he allowed
+Charm to see how absorbing he found its perusal.
+
+"_Ah, bien--et tout de même_--Zola, yes, he writes terrible books; but
+he is a good man--a model husband and father," continued Monsieur
+d'Agreste, addressing the table.
+
+"And Daudet--he adores his wife and children," added the count, as if
+with a determination to find only goodness in the world.
+
+"I wonder how posterity will treat them? They'll judge their lives by
+their books, I presume."
+
+"Yes, as we judge Rabelais or Voltaire--"
+
+"Or the English Shakespeare by his 'Hamlet.'"
+
+"Ah! what would not Voltaire have done with Hamlet!" The countess was
+beginning to wake again.
+
+"And Molière? What of _his_ 'Misanthrope?' There is a finished, a
+human, a possible Hamlet! a Hamlet with flesh and blood," cried out the
+younger count on her right. "Even Mounet-Sully could do nothing with
+the English Hamlet."
+
+"Ah, well, Mounet-Sully did all that was possible with the part. He
+made Hamlet at least a lover!"
+
+"Ah, love! as if, even on the stage, one believed in that absurdity any
+longer!" was the countess's malicious comment.
+
+"Then, if you have ceased to believe in love, why did you go so
+religiously to Monsieur Caro's lectures?" cried the baroness.
+
+"Oh, that dear Caro! He treated the passions so delicately, he handled
+them as if they were curiosities. One went to hear his lecture on Love
+as one might go to hear a treatise on the peculiarities of an extinct
+species," was the countess's quiet rejoinder.
+
+"One should believe in love, if only to prove one's unbelief in it,"
+murmured the young count on her left.
+
+"Ah, my dear comte, love, nowadays, like nature, should only be used
+for decoration, as a bit of stage setting, or as stage scenery."
+
+"A moonlight night can be made endurable, sometimes," whispered the
+count.
+
+"A _clair de lune_ that ends in _lune de miel_, that is the true use to
+which to put the charms of Diana." It was Monsieur d'Agreste's turn now
+to murmur in the baroness's ear.
+
+"Oh, honey, it becomes so cloying in time," interpolated the countess,
+who had overheard; she overheard everything. She gave a wearied glance
+at her husband, who was still talking vigorously to Charm and Renard.
+She went on softly: "It's like trying to do good. All goodness, even
+one's own, bores one in the end. At Basniège, for example, lovely as it
+is, ideally feudal, and with all its towers as erect as you please, I
+find this modern virtue, this craze for charity, as tiresome as all the
+rest of it. Once you've seen that all the old women have woollen
+stockings, and that each cottage has fagots enough for the winter, and
+your _role_ of benefactress is at an end. In Paris, at least, charity
+is sometimes picturesque; poverty there is tainted with vice. If one
+believed in anything, it might be worth while to begin a mission; but
+as it is--"
+
+"The gospel of life, according to you, dear comtesse, is that in modern
+life there is no real excitement except in studying the very best way
+to be rid of it," cried out Renard, from the bottom of the table.
+
+"True; but suicide is such a coarse weapon," the lady answered, quite
+seriously; "so vulgar now, since the common people have begun to use
+it. Besides, it puts your adversary, the world, in possession of your
+secret of discontent. No, no. Suicide, the invention of the nineteenth
+century, goes out with it. The only refined form of suicide is to bore
+one's self to death," and she smiled sweetly into the young man's eyes
+nearest her.
+
+"Ah, comtesse, you should not have parted so early in life with all
+your illusions," was Monsieur d'Agreste's protest across the table.
+
+"And, Monsieur d'Agreste, it isn't given to us all to go to the ends of
+the earth, as you do, in search of new ones! This friction of living
+doesn't wear on you as it does on the rest of us."
+
+"Ah, the ends of the earth, they are very much like the middle and the
+beginning of things. Man is not so very different, wherever you find
+him. The only real difference lies in the manner of approaching him.
+The scientist, for example, finds him eternally fresh, novel,
+inspiring; he is a mine only as yet half-worked." Monsieur d'Agreste
+was beginning to wake up; his eyes, hitherto, alone had been alive; his
+hands had been busy, crunching his bread; but his tongue had been
+silent.
+
+"Ah--h science! Science is only another anaesthetic--it merely helps to
+kill time. It is a hobby, like any other," was the countess's rejoinder.
+
+"Perhaps," courteously returned Monsieur d'Agreste, with perfect
+sweetness of temper. "But at least, it is a hobby that kills no one
+else. And if of a hobby you can make a principle--"
+
+"A principle?" The countess contracted her brows, as if she had heard a
+word that did not please her.
+
+"Yes, dear lady; the wise man lays out his life as a gardener does a
+garden, on the principle of selection, of order, and with a view to the
+succession of the seasons. You all bemoan the dulness of life; you, in
+Paris, the torpor of ennui stifles you, you cry. On the contrary, I
+would wish the days were weeks, and the weeks months. And why? Simply
+because I have discovered the philosopher's stone. I have grasped the
+secret of my era. The comedy of rank is played out; the life of the
+trifler is at an end; all that went out with the Bourbons.
+Individualism is the new order. To-day a man exists simply by virtue of
+his own effort--he stands on his own feet. It is the era of the
+republican, of the individual--science is the true republic. For us who
+are displaced from the elevation our rank gave us, work is the
+watchword, and it is the only battle-cry left us now. He only is
+strong, and therefore happy, who perceives this truth, and who marches
+in step with the modern movement."
+
+The serious turn given to the conversation had silenced all save the
+baroness. She had listened even more intently than the others to her
+friend's eloquence, nodding her head assentingly to all that he said.
+His philosophic reflections produced as much effect on her vivacious
+excitability as they might on a restless Skye-terrier.
+
+"Yes, yes--he's entirely right, is Monsieur d'Agreste; he has got to
+the bottom of things. One must keep in step with modernity--one must be
+_fin de siècle_. Comtesse, you should hunt; there is nothing like a fox
+or a boar to make life worth living. It's better, infinitely better,
+than a pursuit of hearts; a boar's more troublesome than a man."
+
+"Unless you marry him," the countess interrupted, ending with a
+thrush-like laugh. When she laughed she seemed to have a bird in her
+throat.
+
+"Oh, a man's heart, it's like the flag of a defenceless country--anyone
+may capture it."
+
+The countess smiled with ineffable grace into the vacant, amorous-eyed
+faces on either side of her, rising as she smiled. We had reached
+dessert now; the coffee was being handed round. Everyone rose; but the
+countess made no move to pass out from the room. Both she and the
+baroness took from their pockets dainty cigarette-cases.
+
+"_Vous permettez?_" asked the baroness, leaning over coquettishly to
+Monsieur d'Agreste's cigar. She accompanied her action with a charming
+glance, one in which all the woman in her was uppermost, and one which
+made Monsieur d'Agreste's pale cheeks flush like a boy's. He was a
+philosopher and a scientist; but all his science and philosophy had not
+saved him from the barbed shafts of a certain mischievous little god.
+He, also, was visibly hugging his chains.
+
+The party had settled themselves in the low divans and in the Henri IV
+arm-chairs; a few here and there remained, still grouped about the
+table, with the freedom of pose and in the comfort of attitude smoking
+and coffee bring with them.
+
+It was destined, however, that the hour was to be a short one. One of
+the grooms obsequiously knocked at the door; he whispered in the
+count's ear, who advanced quickly toward him, the news that the coach
+was waiting; one of the leaders.
+
+"Desolated, my dear ladies--but my man tells me the coach is in
+readiness, and I have an impertinent leader who refuses to stand, when
+he is waiting, on anything more solid than his hind legs. Fernande, my
+dear, we must be on the move. Desolated, dear ladies--desolated--but
+it's only _au revoir_. We must arrange a meeting later, in Paris--"
+
+The scene in the court-yard was once again gay with life and bristling
+with color. The coach and the dog-cart shone resplendent in the
+slanting sun's rays. In the brighter sunlight, the added glow in the
+eyes and the cheeks of the brilliantly costumed group, made both men
+and women seem younger and fresher than when they had appeared, two
+hours since. All were in high good humor--the wines and the talk had
+warmed the quick French blood. There was a merry scramble for the top
+coach-seats; the two young counts exchanged their seat in their saddles
+for the privilege of holding, one the countess's vinaigrette, and the
+other, her long-handled parasol. Renard was beside his friend De
+Troisac; the horn rang out, the horses started as if stung, dashing at
+their bits, and in another moment the great coach was being whirled
+beneath the archway.
+
+"_Au revoir--au revoir!_" was cried down to us from the throne-like
+elevation. There was a pretty waving of hands--for even the countess's
+dislike melted into sweetness as she bade us farewell. There were
+answering cries from the shrieking cockatoos, from the peacocks who
+trailed their tails sadly in the dust, from the cooks and the peasant
+serving-women who had assembled to bid the distinguished guests adieu.
+There was also a sweeping bow from Monsieur Paul, and a grunt of
+contented dismissal from Madame Le Mois.
+
+A moment after the departure of the coach the court yard was as still
+as a convent cloister.
+
+It was still enough to hear the click of madame's fingers, as she
+tapped her snuff-box.
+
+"The count doesn't see any better than he did--_toujours myope, lui_"
+the old woman murmured to her son, with a pregnant wink, as she took
+her snuff.
+
+"_C'est sa façon de tout voir, au contraire, ma mère_," significantly
+returned Monsieur Paul, with his knowing smile.
+
+The mother's shrug answered the smile, as both mother and son walked in
+different directions--across the sunlit court.
+
+
+
+
+A LITTLE JOURNEY ALONG THE COAST.
+
+CAEN, BAYEUX, ST. LO, COUTANCES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+A NIGHT IN A CAEN ATTIC.
+
+
+I have always found the act of going away contagious. Who really enjoys
+being left behind, to mope in a corner of the world others have
+abandoned? The gay company atop of the coach, as they were whirled
+beneath the old archway, had left discontent behind; the music of the
+horn, like that played by the Pied Piper, had the magic of making the
+feet ache to follow after.
+
+Monsieur Paul was so used to see his world go and come--to greeting it
+with civility, and to assist at its departure with smiling indifference
+that the announcement of our own intention to desert the inn within a
+day or so, was received with unflattering impassivity. We had decided
+to take a flight along the coast--the month and the weather were at
+their best as aids to such adventure. We hoped to see the Fête Dieu at
+Caen. Why not push on to Coutances, where the Fête was still celebrated
+with a mediaeval splendor? From thence to the great Mont, the Mont St.
+Michel, it was but the distance of a good steed's galloping--we could
+cover the stretch of country between in a day's driving, and catch, who
+knows?--perhaps the June pilgrims climbing the Mont.
+
+"Ah, mesdames! there are duller things in the world to endure than a
+glimpse of the Normandy coast and the scent of June roses!
+_Idylliquement belle, la côte à ce moment-ci!_"
+
+This was all the regret that seasoned Monsieur Paul's otherwise
+gracious and most graceful of farewells. Why cannot we all attain to an
+innkeeper's altitude, as a point of view from which to look out upon
+the world? Why not emulate his calm, when people who have done with us
+turn their backs and stalk away? Why not, like him, count the pennies
+as not all the payment received when a pleasure has come which cannot
+be footed up in the bill? The entire company of the inn household was
+assembled to see us start. Not a white mouse but was on duty. The
+cockatoos performed the most perilous of their trapeze accomplishments
+as a last tribute; the doves cooed mournfully; the monkeys ran like
+frenzied spirits along their gratings to see the very last of us.
+Madame Le Mois considerately carried the bantam to the archway, that
+the lost joy of strutting might be replaced by the pride of preferment
+above its fellows.
+
+"_Adieu_, mesdames."
+
+"_Au revoir_--you will return--_tout le monde revient_--Guillaume le
+Conquérant, like Caesar, conquers once to hold forever--remember--"
+
+[Illustration: CHATEAU FONTAINE LE HENRI, NEAR CAEN]
+
+From Monsieur Paul, in quieter, richer tones, came his true farewell,
+the one we had looked for:
+
+"The evenings in the Marmousets will seem lonely when it rains--you
+must give us the hope of a quick return. Hope is the food of those who
+remain behind, as we Normans say!"
+
+The archway darkened the sod for an instant; the next we had passed out
+into the broad highway. Jean, in his blouse, with Suzette beside him,
+both jolting along in the lumbering _char-à-banc_, stared out at us
+with a vacant-eyed curiosity. We were only two travellers like
+themselves, along a dusty roadway, on our way to Caen; we were of no
+particular importance in the landscape, we and our rickety little
+phaeton. Yet only a moment before, in the inn court-yard, we had felt
+ourselves to be the pivotal centre of a world wholly peopled with
+friends! This is what comes to all men who live under the modern
+curse--the double curse of restlessness and that itching for novelty,
+which made the old Greek longing for the unknown deity--which is also
+the only honest prayer of so many _fin de siècle_ souls!
+
+Besides the dust, there were other things abroad on the high-road. What
+a lot of June had got into the air! The meadows and the orchards were
+exuding perfumes; the hedge-rows were so many yards of roses and wild
+grape-vines in blossom. The sea-smells, aromatic, pungent, floated
+inland to be married, in hot haste, to a perfect harem of clover and
+locust scents. The charm of the coast was enriched by the homely,
+familiar scenes of farm-house life. All the country between Dives and
+Caen seemed one vast farm, beautifully tilled, with its meadow-lands
+dipping seaward. For several miles, perhaps, the agricultural note
+alone would be the dominant one, with the fields full of the old, the
+eternal surprise--the dawn of young summer rising over them. Down the
+sides of the low hills, the polychrome grain waved beneath the touch of
+the breeze like a moving sea. Many and vast were the flat-lands; they
+were wide vistas of color: there were fields that were scarlet with the
+pomp of poppies, others tinged to the yellow of a Celestial by the
+feathery mustard; and still others blue as a sapphire's heart from the
+dye of millions of bluets. A dozen small rivers--or perhaps it was only
+one--coiled and twisted like a cobra in sinuous action, in and out
+among the pasture and sea meadows.
+
+As we passed the low, bushy banks, we heard the babel of the
+washerwomen's voices as they gossiped and beat their clothes on the
+stones. A fisherman or two gave one a hint that idling was understood
+here, as elsewhere, as being a fine art for those who possess the
+talent of never being pressed for time. A peasant had brought his horse
+to the bank; the river, to both peasant and Percheron, was evidently
+considered as a personal possession--as are all rivers to those who
+live near them. There was a naturalness in all the life abroad in the
+fields that gave this Normandy highroad an incomparable charm. An
+Arcadian calm, a certain patriarchal simplicity reigned beneath the
+trees. Children trudged to the river bank with pails and pitchers to be
+filled; women, with rakes and scythes in hand, crept down from the
+upper fields to season their mid-day meal with the cooling whiff of the
+river and sea air. Children tugged at their skirts. In two feet of
+human life, with kerchief tied under chin, the small hands carrying a
+huge bunch of cornflowers, how much of great gravity there may be! One
+such rustic sketch of the future peasant was seriously carrying its
+bouquet to another small edition seated in a grove of poppies; it might
+have been a votive offering. Both the children seated themselves, a
+very earnest conversation ensuing. On the hill-top, near by, the father
+and mother were also conversing, as they bent over their scythes.
+Another picture was wheeling itself along the river bank; it was a
+farmer behind a huge load of green grass; atop of the grasses two
+moon-faced children had laps and hands crowded with field flowers.
+Behind them the mother walked, with a rake slung over her shoulder, her
+short skirts and scant draperies giving to her step a noble freedom.
+The brush of Vollon or of Breton would have seized upon her to embody
+the type of one of their rustic beauties, that type whose mingled
+fierceness and grace make their peasants the rude goddesses of the
+plough.
+
+Even a rustic river wearies at last of wandering, as an occupation.
+Miles back we had left the sea; even the hills had stopped a full hour
+ago, as if they had no taste for the rivalry of cathedral spires.
+Behold the river now, coursing as sedately as the high-road, between
+two interminable lines of poplars. Far as the eye could reach stretched
+a wide, great plain. It was flat as an old woman's palm; it was also as
+fertile as the city sitting in the midst of its luxuriance has been
+rich in history.
+
+"_Ce pays est très beau, et Caen la plus jolie ville, la plus avenante,
+la plus gaie, la mieux située, les plus belles rues, les plus beaux
+bâtiments, les plus belles églises_--"
+
+There was no doubt, Charm added, as she repeated the lady's verdict, of
+the opinion Madame de Sévigné had formed of the town. As we drove, some
+two hundred years later, through the Caen streets, the charm we found
+had been perpetuated, but alas! not all of the beauty. At first we were
+entirely certain that Caen had retained its old loveliness; the
+outskirts were tricked out with the bloom of gardens and with old
+houses brave in their armor of vines. The meadows and the great trees
+of the plain were partly to blame for this illusion; they yielded their
+place grudgingly to the cobble-stoned streets and the height of dormer
+windows.
+
+To come back to the world, even to a provincial world, after having
+lived for a time in a corner, is certain to evoke a pleasurable feeling
+of elation. The streets of Caen were by no means the liveliest we had
+driven into; nor did the inhabitants, as at Villerville, turn out _en
+masse_ to welcome us. The streets, to be quite truthful, were as
+sedately quiet as any thoroughfares could well be, and proudly call
+themselves boulevards. The stony-faced gray houses presented a
+singularly chill front, considering their nationality. But neither the
+pallor of the streets nor their aspect of provincial calm had power to
+dampen the sense of our having returned to the world of cities. A girl
+issuing from a doorway with a netted veil drawn tightly over her rosy
+cheeks, and the curve of a Parisian bodice, immediately invested Caen
+with a metropolitan importance.
+
+The most courteous of innkeepers was bending over our carriage-door. He
+was desolated, but his inn was already full; it was crowded to
+repletion with people; surely these ladies knew it was the week of the
+races? Caen was as crowded as the inn; at night many made of the open
+street their bed; his own court-yard was as filled with men as with
+farm-wagons. It was altogether hopeless as a situation; as a welcome
+into a strange city, I have experienced none more arctic. I had,
+however, forgotten that I was travelling with a conqueror; that when
+Charm smiled she did as she pleased with her world. The innkeeper was
+only a man; and since Adam, when has any member of that sex been known
+to say "No" to a pretty woman? This French Adam, when Charm parted her
+lips, showing the snow of her teeth, found himself suddenly,
+miraculously, endowed with a fragment of memory. _Tiens_, he had
+forgotten! that very morning a corner of the attic--_un bout du
+toit_--had been vacated. If these ladies did not mind mounting to a
+_grenier_--an attic, comfortable, although still only an attic!
+
+The one dormer window was on a level with the roof-tops. We had a whole
+company of "belles voisines," a trick of neighborliness in windows the
+quick French wit, years ago, was swift to name. These "neighbors" were
+of every order and pattern. All the world and his mother-in-law were
+gone to the races;--and yet every window was playing a different scene
+in the comedy of this life in the sky. Who does not know and love a
+French window, the higher up in the world of air the better? There are
+certain to be plants, rows of them in pots, along the wide sill; one
+can count on a bullfinch or a parrot, as one can on the bébés that
+appear to be born on purpose to poke their fingers in the cages; there
+is certain also to be another cage hanging above the flowers--one
+filled with a fresh lettuce or a cabbage leaf. There is usually a snowy
+curtain, fringed; just at the parting of the draperies an old woman is
+always seated, with chin and nose-tip meeting, her bent figure rounding
+over the square of her knitting-needles.
+
+It was such a window as this that made us feel, before our bonnets were
+laid aside, that Caen was glad to see us. The window directly opposite
+was wide open. Instead of one there were half a dozen songsters aloft;
+we were so near their cages that the cat-bird whistled, to call his
+master and mistress to witness the intrusion of these strangers. The
+master brought a hot iron along--he was a tailor and was just in the
+act of pressing a seam. His wife was scraping carrots, and she tucked
+her bowl between her knees as she came to stand and gaze across. A cry
+rose up within the low room. Some one else wished to see the newcomers.
+The tailor laid aside his iron to lift proudly, far out beyond the
+cages, the fattest, rosiest offspring that ever was born in an attic.
+The babe smote its hands for pure joy. We were better than a broken
+doll--we were alive. The family as a family accepted us as one among
+them. The man smiled, and so did his wife. Presently both nodded
+graciously, as if, understanding the cause of our intrusion on their
+aerial privacy, they wished to present us with the compliment of their
+welcome. The manners among these garret-windows, we murmured, were
+really uncommonly good.
+
+"Bonjour, mesdames!" It was the third time the woman had passed, and we
+were still at the window. Her husband left his seam to join her.
+
+"Ces dames are not accustomed to such heights--_à ces hauteurs
+peut-être?_"
+
+The ladies in truth were not, unhappily, always so well lodged; from
+this height at least one could hope to see a city.
+
+"_Ah! ha! c'est gai par ici, n'est-ce pas?_ One has the sun all to
+one's self, and air! Ah! for freshness one must climb to an attic in
+these days, it appears."
+
+It was impossible to be more contented on a height than was this family
+of tailors; for when not cooking, or washing, or tossing the "bébé" to
+the birds, the wife stitched and stitched all her husband cut, besides
+taking a turn at the family socks. Part of this contentment came, no
+doubt, from the variety of shows and amusements with which the family,
+as a family, were perpetually supplied. For workers, there were really
+too many social distractions abroad in the streets; it was almost
+impossible for the two to meet all the demands on their time. Now it
+was the jingle of a horse's bell-collar; the tailor, between two snips
+at a collar, must see who was stopping at the hotel door. Later a horn
+sounded; this was only the fish vender, the wife merely bent her head
+over the flowers to be quite sure. Next a trumpet, clear and strong,
+rang its notes up into the roof eaves; this was something _bébé_ must
+see and hear--all three were bending at the first throbbing touch of
+that music on the still air, to see whence it came. Thus you see, even
+in the provinces, in a French street, something is quite certain to
+happen; it all depends on the choice one makes in life of a window--of
+being rightly placed--whether or not one finds life dull or amusing.
+This tailor had the talent of knowing where to stand, at life's
+corner--for him there was a ceaseless procession of excitements.
+
+It may be that our neighbor's talent for seeing was catching. It is
+certain that no city we had ever before looked out upon had seemed as
+crowded with sights. The whole history of Caen was writ in stone
+against the blue of the sky. Here, below us, sat the lovely old town,
+seated in the grasses of her plain. Yonder was her canal, as an artery
+to keep her pulse bounding in response to the sea; the ship-masts and
+the drooping sails seemed strange companions for the great trees and
+the old garden walls. Those other walls William built to cincture the
+city, Froissart found three centuries later so amazingly "strong, full
+of drapery and merchandise, rich citizens, noble dames, damsels, and
+fine churches," for this girdle of the Conqueror's great bastions the
+eye looks in vain. But William's vow still proclaims its fulfilment;
+the spire of l'Abbaye aux Hommes, and the Romanesque towers of its
+twin, l'Abbaye aux Dames, face each other, as did William and Mathilde
+at the altar--that union that had to be expiated by the penance of
+building these stones in the air.
+
+Commend me to an attic window to put one in sympathetic relations with
+cathedral spires! At this height we and they, for a part of their
+flight upward, at least, were on a common level--and we all know what
+confidences come about from the accident of propinquity. They seemed to
+assure us as never before when sitting at their feet, the difficulties
+they had overcome in climbing heavenward. Every stone that looked down
+upon the city wore this look of triumph.
+
+In the end it was this Caen in the air--it was this aerial city of
+finials, of towers, of peaked spires, of carved chimneys, of tree-tops
+over which the clouds rode; of a plain, melting--like a sea--into the
+mists of the horizon; this high, bright region peopled with birds and
+pigeons; of a sky tender, translucent, and as variable as human
+emotions; of an air that was rapture to breathe, and of nights in which
+the stars were so close they might almost be handled; it was this free,
+hilly city of the roofs that is still the Caen I remember best.
+
+There were other features of Caen that were good to see, I also
+remember. Her street expression, on the whole, was very pleasing. It
+was singularly calm and composed, even for a city in a plain. But the
+quiet came, doubtless, from its population being away at the races. The
+few townspeople who, for obvious reasons, were stay-at-homes, were
+uncommonly civil; Caen had evidently preserved the tradition of good
+manners. An army of cripples was in waiting to point the way to the
+church doors; a regiment of beggars was within them, with nets cast
+already for the catching of the small fry of our pennies. In the gay,
+geranium-lit garden circling the side walls of St. Pierre there were
+many legless soldiers; the old houses we went to see later on in the
+high street seemed, by contrast, to have survived other wars, those of
+the Directory and the Mountain, with a really scandalous degree of good
+fortune. On our way to a still greater church than St. Pierre, to the
+Abbaye aux Dames, that, like the queen who built her, sits on the
+throne of a hill--on our way thither we passed innumerable other
+ancient mansions. None of these were down in the guide books; they
+were, therefore, invested with the deeper charm of personal discovery.
+Once away from the little city of the shops, the real Caen came out to
+greet us. It was now a gray, sad, walled town; behind the walls,
+level-browed Francis I. windows looked gravely over the tufts of
+verdure; here was an old gateway; there what might once have been a
+portcullis, now only an arched wreath of vines; still beyond, a group
+of severe-looking mansions with great iron bound windows presented the
+front of miniature fortresses. And everywhere gardens and gardens.
+
+Turn where you would, you would only turn to face verdure, foliage, and
+masses of flowers. The high walls could neither keep back the odors nor
+hide the luxuriance of these Caen gardens. These must have been the
+streets that bewitched Madame de Sévigné. Through just such a maze of
+foliage Charlotte Corday has also walked, again and again, with her
+wonderful face aflame with her great purpose, before the purpose
+ripened into the dagger thrust at Marat's bared breast--that avenging
+Angel of Beauty stabbing the Beast in his bath. Auber, with his
+Anacreontic ballads in his young head, would seem more fittingly framed
+in this old Caen that runs up a hill-side. But women as beautiful as
+Marie Stuart and the Corday can deal safely in the business of
+assassination, the world will always continue to aureole their pictures
+with a garland of roses.
+
+The Abbaye on its hill was reached at last. All Caen lay below us; from
+the hillside it flowed as a sea rolls away from a great ship's sides.
+Down below, far below, as if buttressing the town that seemed rushing
+away recklessly to the waste of the plains, stands the Abbaye's
+twin-brother, the Aux Hommes. Plains, houses, roof-tops, spires, all
+were swimming in a sea of golden light; nothing seemed quite real or
+solid, so vast was the prospect and so ethereal was the medium through
+which we saw it. Perhaps it was the great contrast between that
+shimmering, unstable city below, that reeked and balanced itself like
+some human creature whose dazzled vision had made its footing
+insecure--it may be that it was this note of contrast which invested
+this vast structure bestriding the hill, with such astonishing
+grandeur. I have known few, if any, other churches produce so
+instantaneous an effect of a beauty that was one with austerity. This
+great Norman is more Puritan than French: it is Norman Gothic with a
+Puritan severity.
+
+The sound of a deep sonorous music took us quickly within. It was as
+mysterious a music as ever haunted a church aisle. The vast and snowy
+interior was as deserted as a Presbyterian church on a week-day. Yet
+the sound of the rich, strong voices filled all the place. There was no
+sound of tingling accompaniment: there was no organ pipe, even, to add
+its sensuous note of color. There was only the sound of the voices, as
+they swelled, and broke, and began afresh.
+
+The singing went on.
+
+It was a slow "plain chant." Into the great arches the sonorous
+chanting beat upon the ear with a rhythmic perfection that, even
+without the lovely flavor of its sweetness, would have made a beauty of
+its own. In this still and holy place, with the company of the stately
+Norman arches soaring aloft--beneath the sombre glory of the giant
+aisle--the austere simplicity of this chant made the heart beat, one
+knew not why, and the eyes moisten, one also knew not why.
+
+We had followed the voices. They came, we found, from within the choir.
+A pattering of steps proclaimed we were to go no farther.
+
+"Not there, my ladies--step this way, one only enters the choir by
+going into the hospital."
+
+The voice was low and sweet; the smile, a spark of divinity set in a
+woman's face; and the whole was clothed in a nun's garb.
+
+We followed the fluttering robes; we passed out once more into the
+sunlit parvis. We spoke to the smile and it answered: yes, the choir
+was reserved for the Sisters--they must be able to approach it from the
+convent and the hospital; it had always, since the time of Mathilde,
+been reserved for the nuns; would we pass this way? The way took us
+into an open vaulted passage, past a grating where sat a white-capped
+Sister, past a group of girls and boys carrying wreaths and
+garlands--they were making ready for the _Fête-Dieu_, our nun
+explained--past, at the last, a series of corridors through which,
+faintly at first, and then sweeter and fuller, there struck once more
+upon our ears the sounds of the deep and resonant chanting.
+
+The black gown stopped all at once. The nun was standing in front of a
+green curtain. She lifted it. This was what we saw. The semicircle of a
+wide apse. Behind, rows upon rows of round arches. Below the arches, in
+the choir stalls, a long half-circle of stately figures. The figures
+were draped from head to foot. When they bent their heads not an inch
+of flesh was visible, except a few hands here and there that had
+escaped the long, wide sleeves. All these figures were motionless; they
+were as immobile as statues; occasionally, at the end of a "Gloria,"
+all turned to face the high altar. At the end of the "Amen" a cloud of
+black veils swept the ground. Then for several measures of the chant
+the figures were again as marble. In each of the low, round arches, a
+stately woman, tall and nobly planned, draped like a goddess turned
+saint, stood and chanted to her Lord. Had the Norman builders carved
+these women, ages ago, standing about Mathilde's tomb, those ancient
+sculptures could not have embodied, in more ideal image, the type of
+womanly renunciation and of a saint's fervor of exaltation.
+
+We left them, with the rich chant still full upon their lips, with
+heads bent low, calm as graven images. It was only the bloom on a
+cheek, here and there, that made one certain of the youth entombed
+within these nuns' garb.
+
+"Happy, _mesdames? Oh, mais très heureuses, toutes_--there are no women
+so happy as we. See how they come to us, from all the country around.
+_En voilà une_--did you remark the pretty one, with the book, seated,
+all in white? She is to be a full Sister in a month. She comes from a
+noble family in the south. She was here one day, she saw the life of
+the Sisters, of us all working here, among the poor soldiers--_elle a
+vu ça, et pour tout de bon, s'est donnée à Dieu!_"
+
+The smile of our nun was rapturous. She was proving its source. Once
+more we saw the young countess who had given herself to her God. An
+hour later, when we had reached the hospital wards, her novice's robes
+were trailing the ground. She was on her knees in the very middle of
+the great bare room. She was repeating the office of the hour, aloud,
+with clasped hands and uplifted head. On her lovely young face there
+was the glow of a divine ecstasy. All the white faces from the long
+rows of the white beds were bending toward her; to one even in all
+fulness of strength and health that girlish figure, praying beside the
+great vase of the snowy daisies, with the glow that irradiated the
+sweet, pure face, might easily enough have seemed an angel's.
+
+As companions for our tour of the grounds we had two young Englishmen.
+Both eyed the nuns in the distance of the corridors and the gardens
+with the sharpened glances all men level at the women who have
+renounced them. It is a mystery no man ever satisfactorily fathoms.
+
+"Queer notion, this, a lot of women shutting themselves up," remarked
+the younger of the two. "In England, now, they'd all go in for being
+old maids, drinking tea and coddling cats, you know."
+
+"I wonder which are the happier, your countrywomen or these Sisters,
+who, in renouncing the world devote their lives to serving it. See,
+over yonder" and I nodded to a scene beneath the wide avenue of the
+limes. Two tall Augustines were supporting a crippled old man; they
+were showing him some fresh garden-beds. Beyond was a gayer group. Some
+of the lay sisters were tugging at a huge basket of clothes, fresh from
+the laundry. Running across the grass, with flying draperies, two nuns,
+laughing as they ran, each striving to outfoot the other, were
+hastening to their rescue.
+
+"They keep their bloom, running about like that; only healthy nuns I
+ever saw."
+
+"That's because they have something better than cats to coddle."
+
+"Ah, ha! that's not bad. It's a slow suicide, all the same. But here we
+are, at the top; it's a fine outlook, is it not?"
+
+The young man panted as he reached the top of the Maze, one of the
+chief glories of the old Abbaye grounds. He had a fair and sensitive
+face; a weak product on the whole, he seemed, compared with the
+nobly-built, vigorous-bodied nuns crowding the choir-stalls yonder.
+Instead of that long, slow suicide, surely these women should be doing
+their greater work of reproducing a race. Even an open-air cell seems
+to me out of place in our century. It will be entirely out of fashion
+in time, doubtless, as the mediaeval cell has gone along with the old
+castle life, whose princely mode of doing things made a nunnery the
+only respectable hiding-place for the undowered daughters.
+
+As we crept down into Caen, it was to find it thick with the dust of
+twilight. The streets were dense with other things besides the
+thickened light. The Caen world was crowding homeward; all the
+boulevards and side streets were alive with a moving throng of dusty,
+noisy, weary holidaymakers. The town was abroad in the streets to hear
+the news of the horses, and to learn the history of the betting.
+
+Although we had gone to church instead of doing the races, many of
+those who had peopled the gay race-track came back to us. The table
+d'hôte, at our inn that night, was as noisy as a Parisian cafe. It was
+scarcely as discreet, I should say. On our way to our attic that night,
+the little corridors made us a really amazing number of confidences.
+
+It was strange, but all the shoes appeared to have come in pairs of
+twos. Never was there such a collection of boots in couples. Strange it
+was, also, to see how many little secrets these rows of candid
+shoe-leather disclosed. Here a pert, coquettish pair of ties were
+having as little in common as possible with the stout, somewhat clumsy
+walking-boots next them. In the two just beyond, at the next door, how
+the delicate, slender buttoned kids leaned over, floppingly, to rest on
+the coarse, yet strong, hobnailed clumpers!
+
+Shabbier and shabbier grew the shoes, as we climbed upward. With each
+pair of stairs we seemed to have left a rung in the ladder of fortune
+behind. But even the very poorest in pocket had brought his little
+extravagance with him to the races.
+
+The only genuine family party had taken refuge, like ourselves, in the
+attic.
+
+At the very next door to our own, Monsieur, Madame, et Bébé proclaimed,
+by the casting of their dusty shoes, that they also, like the rest of
+the world, had come to Caen to see the horses run.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A DAY AT BAYEUX AND ST. LO.
+
+
+Caen seated in its plain, wearing its crown of steeples--this was our
+last glimpse of the beautiful city. Our way to Bayeux was strewn thick
+with these Normandy jewels; with towns smaller than Caen; with Gothic
+belfries; with ruined priories, and with castles, stately even when
+tottering in decay. When the last castle was lost in a thicket, we
+discovered that our iron horse was stopping in the very middle of a
+field. If the guard had shouted out the name of any American city,
+built overnight, on a Western prairie, we should have felt entirely at
+home in this meadow; we should have known any clearing, with grass and
+daisies, was a very finished evidence of civilization at high pressure.
+
+But a lane as the beginning of a cathedral town!
+
+Evidently Bayeux has had a Ruskinian dread of steam-whistles, for this
+ancient seat of bishops has succeeded in retaining the charms of its
+old rustic approaches, whatever else it may have sacrificed on the
+altar of modernness.
+
+An harangue, at the door of the quaint old Normandy omnibus, by the
+driver of the same, was proof that the lesson of good oratory,
+administered by generations of bishops, had not been lost on the Bayeux
+inhabitants. Two rebellious English tourists furnished the text for the
+driver's sermon; they were showing, with all the naive pride of
+pedestrians, their intention of footing the distance between the
+station and the cathedral. This was an independence of spirit no Norman
+could endure to see. What? these gentlemen proposed to walk, in the
+sun, through clouds of dust, when here was a carriage, with ladies for
+companions, at their command? The coach had come down the hill on
+purpose to conduct _Messieurs les voyageurs;_ how did these gentlemen
+suppose _a père de famille_ was to make his living if the fashion of
+walking came in? And the rusty red vest was thumbed by the gnarled hand
+of the father, who was also an orator; and a high-peaked hat swept the
+ground before the hard-hearted gentlemen. All the tragedy of the
+situation had come about from the fact that the tourists, also, had
+gotten themselves up in costume. When two fine youths have risen early
+in the day to put on checked stockings, leggings, russet walking-shoes,
+and a plaited coat with a belt, such attire is one to be lived up to.
+Once in knickerbockers and a man's getting into an omnibus is really
+too ignominious! With such a road before two sets of such well-shaped
+calves--a road all shaped and graded--this, indeed, would be flying in
+the face of a veritable providence of bishop-builders intent on
+maintaining pastoral effects.
+
+The knickerbockers relentlessly strode onward; the driver had addressed
+himself to hearts of stone. But he had not yet exhausted his quiver of
+appeal. Englishmen walk, well! there's no accounting for the taste of
+Britons who are also still half savages; but even a barbarian must eat.
+Half-way up the hill, the rattle of the loose-jointed vehicle came to a
+dead stop. With great gravity the guard descended from his seat; this
+latter he lifted to take from the entrails of the old vehicle a handful
+of hand-bills. He, the horse, the omnibus, and we, all waited for, what
+do you suppose? To besprinkle the walking Englishmen as they came
+within range with a shower of circulars announcing that at "_midi, chez
+Nigaud, il y aura un dejeuner chaud_."
+
+The driver turned to look in at the window--and to nod as he turned--he
+felt so certain of our sympathy; had he not made sure of them at last?
+
+A group of gossamer caps beneath a row of sad, gray-faced houses was
+our Bayeux welcome. The faces beneath the caps watched our approach
+with the same sobriety as did the old houses--they had the antique
+Norman seriousness of aspect. The noise we made with the clatter and
+rattle of our broken-down vehicle seemed an impertinence, in the face
+of such severe countenances. We might have been entering a deserted
+city, except for the presence of these motionless Normandy figures. The
+cathedral met us at the threshold of the city: magnificent, majestic, a
+huge gray mountain of stone, but severe in outline, as if the Norman
+builders had carved on the vast surface of its facade an imprint of
+their own grave earnestness.
+
+We were somewhat early for the hot breakfast at Nigaud's. There was,
+however, the appetizing smell of soup, with a flourishing pervasiveness
+of onion in the pot, to sustain the vigor of an appetite whetted by a
+start at dawn. The knickerbockers came in with the omelette. But one is
+not a Briton on his travels for nothing; one does not leave one's own
+island to be the dupe of French inn-keepers. The smell of the soup had
+not departed with our empty plates, and the voice of the walkers was
+not of the softest when they demanded their rights to be as odorous as
+we. There is always a curiously agreeable sensation, to an American, in
+seeing an Englishman angry; to get angry in public is one thing we do
+badly; and in his cup of wrath our British brother is sublime--he is so
+superbly unconscious--and so contemptuous--of the fact that the world
+sometimes finds anger ridiculous.
+
+At the other end of the long and narrow table two other travellers were
+seated, a man and a woman. But food, to them, it was made manifestly
+evident, was a matter of the most supreme indifference. They were at
+that radiant moment of life when eating is altogether too gross a form
+of indulgence. For these two were at the most interesting period of
+French courtship--just _after_ the wedding ceremony, when, with the
+priest's blessing, had come the consent of their world and of tradition
+to their making the other's acquaintance. This provincial bride and her
+husband of a day were beginning, as all rustic courting begins, by a
+furtive holding of hands; this particular couple, in view of our
+proximity and their own mutual embarrassment, had recourse to the
+subterfuge of desperate lunges at the other's fingers, beneath the
+table-cloth. The screen, as a screen, did not work. It deceived no
+one--as the bride's pale-gray dress and her flowery bonnet also
+deceived no one--save herself. This latter, in certain ranks of life,
+is the bride's travelling costume, the world over. And the world over,
+it is worn by the recently wedded with the profound conviction that in
+donning it they have discovered the most complete of all disguises.
+
+This bride and groom were obviously in the first rapture of mutual
+discovery. The honey in their moon was not fresher than their views of
+the other's tastes and predilections.
+
+"Ah--ah--you like to travel quickly--to see everything, to take it all
+in a gulp--so do I, and then to digest at one's leisure."
+
+The bride was entirely of this mind. Only, she murmured, there were
+other things one must not do too quickly--one must go slow in matters
+of the heart--to make quite sure of all the stages.
+
+But her husband was at her throat, that is, his eyes and lips were, as
+he answered, so that all the table might partake of his emotion--"No,
+no, the quicker the heart feels the quicker love comes. _Tiens, voyons,
+mon amie, toi-même, tu m'as confié_"--and the rest was lost in the
+bride's ear.
+
+Apparently we were to have them, these brides, for the rest of our
+journey, in all stages and of all ages! Thus far none others had
+appeared as determined as were these two honey-mooners, that all the
+world should share their bliss. They were cracking filberts with their
+disengaged fingers, the other two being closely interlocked, in quite
+scandalous openness, when we left them.
+
+That was the only form of excitement that greeted us in the quiet
+Bayeux streets. The very street urchins invited repose; the few we saw
+were seated sedately on the threshold of their own door-steps, frequent
+sallies abroad into this quiet city having doubtless convinced them of
+the futility of all sorties. The old houses were their carved facades
+as old ladies wear rich lace--they had reached the age when the vanity
+of personal adornment had ceased to inflate. The great cathedral,
+towering above the tranquil town, wore a more conscious air; its
+significance was too great a contrast to the quiet city asleep at its
+feet. In these long, slow centuries the towers had grown to have the
+air of protectors.
+
+The famous tapestries we went to see later, might easily enough have
+been worked yesterday, in any one of the old mediaeval houses; Mathilde
+and her hand-maidens would find no more--not so much--to distract and
+disturb them now in this still and tranquil town, with its sad gray
+streets and its moss-grown door-steps, as they must in those earlier
+bustling centuries of the Conqueror. Even then, when Normandy was only
+beginning its career of importance among the great French provinces,
+Bayeux was already old. She was far more Norse then than Norman; she
+was Scandinavian to the core; even her nobles spoke in harsh Norse
+syllables; they were as little French as it was possible to be, and yet
+govern a people.
+
+Mathilde, when she toiled over her frame, like all great writers, was
+doubtless quite unconscious she was producing a masterpiece. She was,
+however, in point of fact, the very first among the great French
+realists. No other French writer has written as graphically as she did
+with her needle, of the life and customs of their day. That long scroll
+of tapestry, for truth and a naive perfection of sincerity--where will
+you find it equalled or even approached? It is a rude Homeric epic; and
+I am not quite certain that it ought not to rank higher than even some
+of the more famous epics of the world--since Mathilde had to create the
+mould of art into which she poured her story. For who had thought
+before her of making women's stitches write or paint a great historical
+event, crowded with homely details which now are dubbed archaeological
+veracities?
+
+Bayeux and its tapestry; its grave company of antique houses; its
+glorious cathedral dominating the whole--what a lovely old background
+against which poses the eternal modernness of the young noon sun! The
+history of Bayeux is commonly given in a paragraph. Our morning's walk
+had proved to us it was the kind of town that does more to re-create
+the historic past than all the pages of a Guizot or a Challamel.
+
+The bells that were ringing out the hour of high-noon from the
+cathedral towers at Bayeux were making the heights of St. Lo, two hours
+later, as noisy as a village fair. The bells, for rivals, had the
+clatter of women's tongues. I think I never, before or since, have
+beheld so lively a company of washerwomen as were beating their clothes
+in Vire River. The river bends prettily just below the St. Lo heights,
+as if it had gone out of its way to courtesy to a hill. But even the
+waters, in their haste to be polite, could not course beneath the great
+bridge as swiftly as ran those women's tongues. There were a good
+hundred of them at work beneath the washing-sheds. Now, these sheds,
+anywhere in France, are really the open-air club room of the French
+peasant woman; the whole dish of the village gossip is hung out to dry,
+having previously been well soused and aired, along with the blouses
+and the coarse chemises. The town of St. Lo had evidently furnished
+these club members of the washing-stones with some fat dish of
+gossip--the heads were as close as currants on a stem, as they bent in
+groups over the bright waters. They had told it all to the stream; and
+the stream rolled the volume of the talk along as it carried along also
+the gay, sparkling reflections of the life and the toil that bent over
+it--of the myriad reflections of those moving, bare-armed figures, of
+the brilliant kerchiefs, of the wet blue and gray jerseys, and of the
+long prismatic line of the damp, motley-hued clothes that were
+fluttering in the wind.
+
+The bells' clangor was an assurance that something was happening on top
+of the hill. Just what happened was as altogether pleasing a spectacle,
+after a long and arduous climb up a hillside, as it has often been my
+good fortune to encounter.
+
+The portals of the church of Notre Dame were wide open. Within, as we
+looked over the shoulders of the townspeople who, like us, had come to
+see what the bells meant by their ringing, within the church there was
+a rich and sombre dusk; out of this dusk, indistinctly at first, lit by
+the tremulous flicker of a myriad of candles, came a line of
+white-veiled heads; then another of young boys, with faces as pale as
+the nosegays adorning their brand-new black coats; next the
+scarlet-robed choristers, singing, and behind them still others
+swinging incense that thickened the dusk. Suddenly, like a vision, the
+white veils passed out into the sunlight, and we saw that the faces
+beneath the veils were young and comely. The faces were still
+alternately lighted by the flare of the burning tapers and the glare of
+the noon sun. The long procession ended at last in a straggling group
+of old peasants with fine tremulous mouths, a-tremble with pride and
+with feeling; for here they were walking in full sight of their town,
+in their holiday coats, with their knees treacherously unsteady from
+the thrill of the organ's thunder and the sweetness of the choir-boys'
+singing.
+
+Whether it was a pardon, or a _fête_, or a first communion, we never
+knew. But the town of St. Lo is ever gloriously lighted, for us, with a
+nimbus of young heads, such as encircled the earlier madonnas.
+
+After such a goodly spectacle, the rest of the town was a tame morsel.
+We took a parting sniff of the incense still left in the eastern end of
+the church's nave; there was a bit of good glass in a window to reward
+us. Outside the church, on the west from the Petite Place, was a wide
+outlook over the lovely vale of the Vire, with St. Lo itself twisting
+and turning in graceful postures down the hillside.
+
+On the same prospect two kings have looked, and before the kings a
+saint. St. Lo or St. Laudus himself, who gave his name to the town,
+must, in the sixth century, have gazed on virgin forests stretching
+away from the hill far as the eye could reach. Charlemagne, three
+hundred years later, in his turn, found the site a goodly one, one to
+tempt men to worship the Creator of such beauty, for here he founded
+the great Abbey of St. Croix, long since gone with the monks who
+peopled it. Louis XI, that mystic wearing the warrior's helmet, set his
+seal of approval on the hill, by sending the famous glass yonder in the
+cathedral, when the hill and the St. Lo people beat the Bretons who had
+come to capture both.
+
+Like saint, and kings, and monks, and warriors, we in our turn crept
+down the hill. For we also were done with the town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A DINNER AT COUTANCES.
+
+
+The way from St. Lo to Coutances is a pleasant way. There is no map of
+the country that will give you even a hint of its true character, any
+more than from a photograph you can hope to gain an insight into the
+moral qualities of a pretty woman.
+
+Here, at last, was the ideal Normandy landscape. It was a country with
+a savage look--a savage that had been trained to follow the plough.
+Even in its color it had retained the true barbarians' instinct for a
+good primary. Here were no melting-yellow mustard-fields, nor flame-lit
+poppied meadows, nor blue-bells lifting their baby-blue eyes out of the
+grain. All the land was green. Fields, meadows, forests, plains--all
+were green, green, green. The features of the landscape had changed
+with this change in coloring. The slim, fragile grace of slim trees and
+fragile cliffs had been replaced by trees of heroic proportions, and by
+outlines nobly rounded and full--like the breasts of a mother. The
+whole country had an astonishing look of vigor--of the vigor which
+comes with rude strength; and it had that charm which goes with all
+untamed beauty--the power to sting one into a sense of agitated
+enjoyment.
+
+Even the farm-houses had been suddenly transformed into fortresses.
+Each one of the groups of the farm enclosures had its outer walls, its
+miniature turrets, and here and there its rounded bastions. Each farm,
+apparently, in the olden days had been a citadel unto itself. The
+Breton had been a very troublesome neighbor for many a long century;
+every ploughman, until a few hundred years ago, was quite likely to
+turn soldier at a second's notice--every true Norman must look to his
+own sword to defend his hearth-stone. Such is the story those stone
+turrets that cap the farm walls tell you--each one of these turrets was
+an open lid through which the farmer could keep his eye on Brittany.
+
+Meanwhile, along the roads as we rushed swiftly by, a quieter life was
+passing. The farm wagons were jogging peacefully along on a high-road
+as smooth as a fine lady's palm--and as white. The horses were
+harnessed one before the other, in interminable length of line.
+Sometimes six, sometimes eight, even so many as ten, marched with great
+gravity, and with that majestic dignity only possible to full-blooded
+Percherons, one after the other. They each wore a saddle-cloth of blue
+sheepskin. On their mottled haunches this bit of color made their
+polished coats to gleam like unto a lizards' skin.
+
+Meanwhile, also, we were nearing Coutances. The farm-houses were
+fortresses no longer; the thatched roofs were one once more with the
+green of the high roads; for even in the old days there was a great
+walled city set up on a hill, to which refuge all the people about for
+miles could turn for protection.
+
+A city that is set on a hill! That for me is commonly recommendation
+enough. Such a city, so set, promises at the very least the dual
+distinction of looking up as well as looking down; it is the nearer
+heaven, and just so much the farther removed from earth.
+
+Coutances, for a city with its head in the air, was surprisingly
+friendly. It went out of its way to make us at home. At the very
+station, down below in the plain, it had sent the most loquacious of
+coach-drivers to put us in immediate touch with its present interests.
+All the city, as the coarse blue blouse, flourishing its whip, took
+pains to explain, was abroad in the fields; the forests, _tiens_, down
+yonder through the trees, we could see for ourselves how the young
+people were making the woods as crowded as a ball-room. The city, as a
+city, was stripping the land and the trees bare--it would be as bald as
+a new-born babe by the morrow. But then, of a certainty, we also had
+come for the _fête_--or, and here a puzzled look of doubt beclouded the
+provincial's eyes--might we, perchance, instead, have come for the
+trial? _Mais non, pas çà_, these ladies had never come for that, since
+they did not even know the court was sitting, now, this very instant,
+at Coutances. And--_sapristi!_ but there was a trial going on--one to
+make the blood curdle; he himself had not slept, the rustic coachman
+added, as he shivered beneath his blouse, all the night before--the
+blood had run so cold in his veins.
+
+The horse and the road were all the while going up the hill. The road
+was easily one that might have been the path of warriors; the walls,
+still lofty on the side nearest the town, bristled with a turret or a
+bastion to remind us Coutances had not been set on a hill for mere
+purposes of beauty. The ramparts of the old fortifications had been
+turned into a broad promenade. Even as we jolted past, beneath the
+great breadth of the trees' verdure we could see how gloriously the
+prospect widened--the country below reaching out to the horizon like
+the waters of a sea that end only in indefiniteness.
+
+The city itself seemed to grow out of the walls and the trees. Here and
+there a few scattered houses grouped themselves as if meaning to start
+a street; but a maze of foliage made a straight line impossible.
+Finally a large group of buildings, with severe stone faces, took a
+more serious plunge away from the vines; they had shaken themselves
+free and were soon soberly ranging themselves into the parallel lines
+of narrow city streets.
+
+It was a pleasant surprise to find that, for once, a Norman blouse had
+told the truth; for here were the people of Coutances coming up from
+the fields to prove it. In all these narrow streets a great multitude
+of people were passing us; some were laden with vines, others with
+young forest trees, and still others with rude garlands of flowers. The
+peasant women's faces, as the bent figures staggered beneath a young
+fir-tree, were purple, but their smiles were as gay as the wild flowers
+with which the stones were thickly strewn. Their words also were as
+rough:
+
+"_Diantre--mais c'e lourd!_"
+
+"_E-ben, e toi, tu n' bougeons point, toi!_"
+
+And the nearest fir-tree carrier to our carriage wheels cracked a swift
+blow over the head of a vine-bearer, who being but an infant of two,
+could not make time with the swift foot of its mother.
+
+The smell of the flowers was everywhere. Fir-trees perfumed the air.
+Every doorstep was a garden. The courtyards were alive with the squat
+figures of capped maidens, wreathing and twisting greens and garlands.
+And in the streets there was such a noise as was never before heard in
+a city on a hill-top.
+
+For Coutances was to hold its great _fête_ on the morrow.
+
+It was a relief to turn in from the noise and hubbub to the bright
+courtyard of our inn. The brightness thereof, and of the entire
+establishment, indeed, appeared to find its central source in the
+brilliant eyes of our hostess. Never was an inn-keeper gifted with a
+vision at once so omniscient and so effulgent. Those eyes were
+everywhere; on us, on our bags, our bonnets, our boots; they divined
+our wants, and answered beforehand our unuttered longings. We had come
+far? the eyes asked, burning a hole through our gossamer evasions; from
+Paris, perhaps--a glance at our bonnets proclaimed the eyes knew all;
+we were here for the _fête_, to see the bishop on the morrow; that was
+well; we were going on to the Mont; and the eyes scented the shortness
+of our stay by a swift glance at our luggage.
+
+"_Numéro quatre, au troisième!_"
+
+There was no appeal possible. The eyes had penetrated the disguise of
+our courtesy; we were but travellers of a night; the top story was
+built for such as we.
+
+But such a top story, and such a chamber therein! A great, wide, low
+room; beams deep and black, with here and there a brass bit hanging;
+waxed floors, polished to mirrory perfection; a great bed clad in snowy
+draperies, with a snow-white _duvet_ of gigantic proportions. The walls
+were gray with lovely bunches of faded rosebuds flung abroad on the
+soft surface; and to give a quaint and antique note to the whole, over
+the chimney was a bit of worn tapestry with formidable dungeon, a
+Norman keep in the background, and well up in front, a stalwart young
+master of the hounds, with dogs in leash, of the heavy Norman type of
+bulging muscle and high cheekbones.
+
+Altogether, there were worse fates in the world than to be travellers
+of a night, with the destiny of such a room as part of the fate.
+
+When we descended the steep, narrow spiral of steps to the dining-room,
+it was to find the eyes of our hostess brighter than ever. The noise in
+the streets had subsided. It was long after dusk, and Coutances was
+evidently a good provincial. But in the gay little dining-room there
+was an astonishing bustle and excitement.
+
+The _fête_ and the court had brought a crowd of diners to the
+inn-table; when we were all seated we made quite a company at the long,
+narrow board. The candles and lamps lit up any number of Vandyke
+pointed beards, of bald heads, of loosely-tied cravats, and a few
+matronly bosoms straining at the buttons of silk holiday gowns. For the
+_Fête-Dieu_ had brought visitors besides ourselves from all the country
+round; and then "a first communion is like a marriage, all the
+relatives must come, as doubtless we knew," was a baldhead's friendly
+beginning of his soup and his talk, as we took our seats beside him.
+
+With the appearance of the _potage_ conversation, like a battle between
+foes eager for contest, had immediately engaged itself. The setting of
+the table and the air of companionship pervading the establishment were
+aiders and abettors to immediate intercourse. Nothing could be prettier
+than the Caen bowls with their bunches of purple phlox and spiked
+blossoms. Even a metropolitan table might have taken a lesson from the
+perfection of the lighting of the long board. In order that her guests
+should feel the more entirely at home, our brilliant-eyed hostess came
+in with the soup; she took her place behind it at the head of the table.
+
+It was evident the merchants from Cherbourg who had come as witnesses
+to the trial, had had many a conversational bout before now with
+madame's ready wit. So had two of the town lawyers. Even the commercial
+gentlemen, for once, were experiencing a brief moment of armed
+suspense, before they flung themselves into the arena of talk. At
+first, or it would never have been in the provinces, this talk at the
+long table, everyone broke into speech at once. There was a flood of
+words; one's sense of hearing was stunned by the noise. Gradually, as
+the cider and the thin red wine were passed, our neighbors gave
+digestion a chance; the din became less thick with words; each listened
+when the other talked. But, as the volume of speech lessened, the
+interest thickened. It finally became concentrated, this interest, into
+true French fervor when the question of the trial was touched on.
+
+"They say D'Alençon is very clever. He pleads for Filon, the culprit,
+to-night, does he not?"
+
+"Yes, poor Filon--it will go hard with him. His crime is a black one."
+
+"I should think it was--implicating _le petit_!"
+
+"Dame! the judge doesn't seem to be of your mind."
+
+"Ah--h!" cried a florid Vandyke-bearded man, the dynamite bomb of the
+table, exploding with a roar of rage. "_Ah--h, cré nom de
+Dieu!--Messieurs les presidents_ are all like that; they are always on
+the side of the innocent--"
+
+"Till they prove them guilty."
+
+"Guilty! guilty!" the bomb exploded in earnest now. "How many times in
+the annals of crime is a man guilty--really guilty? They should search
+for the cause--and punish that. That is true justice. The instigator,
+the instigator--he is the true culprit. Inheritances--_voilà les vrais
+coupables_. But when are such things investigated? It is ever the
+innocent who are punished. I know something of that--I do."
+
+"_Allons--allons!_" cried the table, laughing at the beard's vehemence.
+"When were you ever under sentence?"
+
+"When I was doing my duty," the beard hurled back with both arms in the
+air; "when I was doing my three years--I and my comrade; we were
+convicted--punished--for an act of insubordination we never committed.
+Without a trial, without a chance of defending ourselves, we were put
+on two crumbs of bread and a glass of water for two months. And we were
+innocent--as innocent as babes, I tell you."
+
+The table was as still as death. The beard had proved himself worthy of
+this compliment; his voice was the voice of drama, and his gestures
+such as every Frenchman delights in beholding and executing. Every ear
+was his, now.
+
+"I have no rancor. I am, by nature, what God made me, a peaceable man,
+but"--here the voice made a wild _crescendo_--"if I ever meet my
+colonel--_gare à lui_! I told him so. I waited two years, two long
+years, till I was released; then I walked up to him" (the beard rose
+here, putting his hand to his forehead), "I saluted" (the hand made the
+salute), "and I said to him, 'Mon colonel, you convicted me, on false
+evidence, of a crime I never committed. You punished me. It is two
+years since then. But I have never forgotten. Pray to God we may never
+meet in civil life, for then yours would end!"
+
+"_Allons, allons!_ A man after all must do his duty. A colonel--he
+can't go into details!" remonstrated the hostess, with her knife in the
+air.
+
+"I would stick him, I tell you, as I would a pig--or a Prussian! I live
+but for that!"
+
+"_Monstre!_" cried the table in chorus, with a laugh, as it took its
+wine. And each turned to his neighbor to prove the beard in the wrong.
+
+"Of what crime is the defendant guilty--he who is to be tried
+to-night?" Charm asked of a silent man, with sweet serious eyes and a
+rough gray beard, seated next her. Of all the beards at the table, this
+one alone had been content with listening.
+
+"Of fraud--mademoiselle--of fraud and forgery." The man had a voice as
+sweet as a church bell, and as deep. Every word he said rang out
+slowly, sonorously. The attention of the table was fixed in an instant.
+"It is the case of a Monsieur Filon, of Cherbourg. He is a cider
+merchant. He has cheated the state, making false entries, etc. But his
+worst crime is that he has used as his accomplice _un tout petit jeune
+homme_--a lad of barely fifteen--"
+
+"It is that that will make it go hard for him with the jury--"
+
+"Hard!" cried the ex-soldier, getting red at once with the passion of
+his protest--"hard--it ought to condemn him, to guillotine him. What
+are juries for if they don't kill such rascals as he?"
+
+"_Doucement, doucement, monsieur,_" interrupted the bell-note of the
+merchant. "One doesn't condemn people without hearing both sides. There
+may be extenuating circumstances!"
+
+"Yes--there are. He is a merchant. All merchants are thieves. He does
+as all others do--_only_ he was found out."
+
+A protesting murmur now rose from the table, above which rang once
+more, in clear vibrations, the deep notes of the merchant.
+
+"_Ah--h, mais--tous voleurs--non_, not all are thieves. Commerce
+conducted on such principles as that could not exist. Credit is not
+founded on fraud, but on trust."
+
+"_Très bien, très bien,_" assented the table. Some knives were thumped
+to emphasize the assent.
+
+"As for stealing"--the rich voice continued, with calm judicial
+slowness--"I can understand a man's cheating the state once,
+perhaps--yielding to an impulse of cupidity. But to do as _ce_ Monsieur
+Filon has done--he must be a consummate master of his art--for his
+processes are organized robbery."
+
+"Ah--h, but robbery against the state isn't the same thing as robbing
+an individual," cried the explosive, driven into a corner.
+
+"It is quite the same--morally, only worse. For a man who robs the
+state robs everyone--including himself."
+
+"That's true--perfectly true--and very well put." All the heads about
+the table nodded admiringly; their hostess had expressed the views of
+them all. The company was looking now at the gray beard with glistening
+eyes; he had proved himself master of the argument, and all were
+desirous of proving their homage. Not one of the nice ethical points
+touched on had been missed; even the women had been eagerly listening,
+following, criticising. Here was a little company of people gathered
+together from rustic France, meeting, perhaps, for the first time at
+this board. And the conversation had, from the very beginning, been
+such as one commonly expects to hear only among the upper ranks of
+metropolitan circles. Who would have looked to see a company of Norman
+provincials talking morality, and handling ethics with the skill of
+rhetoricians?
+
+Most of our fellow-diners, meanwhile, were taking their coffee in the
+street. Little tables were ranged close to the house-wall. There was
+just room for a bench beside the table, and then the sidewalk ended.
+
+"Shall you be going to the trial to-night?" courteously asked the
+merchant who had proven himself a master in debate, of Charm. He had
+lifted his hat before he sat down, bowing to her as if he had been in a
+ball-room.
+
+"It will be fine to-night--it is the opening of the defence," he added,
+as he placed carefully two lumps of sugar in his cup.
+
+"It's always finer at night--what with the lights and the people,"
+interpolated the landlady, from her perch on the door-sill. "If _ces
+dames_ wish to go, I can show them the way to the galleries. Only," she
+added, with a warning tone, her growing excitement obvious at the sense
+of the coming pleasure, "it is like the theatre. The earlier we get
+there the better the seat. I go to get my hat." And the door swallowed
+her up.
+
+"She is right--it is like a theatre," soliloquized the merchant--"and
+so is life. Poor Filon!"
+
+We should have been very content to remain where we were. The night had
+fallen; the streets, as they lost themselves in dim turnings, in
+mysterious alleyways, and arches that seemed grotesquely high in the
+vague blur of things, were filled for us with the charm of a new and
+lovely beauty. At one end the street ended in a towering mass of stone;
+that doubtless was the cathedral. At the right, the narrow houses
+dipped suddenly; their roof-lines were lost in vagueness. Between the
+slit made by the street a deep, vast chasm opened; it was the night
+filling the great width of sky, and the mists that shrouded the hill,
+rising out of the sleeping earth. There was only one single line of
+light; a long deep glow was banding the horizon; it was a bit of flame
+the dusk held up, like a fading torch, to show where the sun had
+reigned.
+
+In and out of this dusk the townspeople came and went. Away from the
+mellow lights, streaming past the open inn doors, the shapes were only
+a part of the blur; they were vague, phantasmal masses, clad in coarse
+draperies. As they passed into the circle of light, the faces showed
+features we had grown to know--the high cheekbones, the ruddy tones,
+the deep-set, serious eyes, and firm mouths, with lips close together.
+The air on this hill-top must be of excellent quality; the life up here
+could scarcely be so hard as in the field villages. For the women
+looked less worn, and less hideously old, and in the men's eyes there
+was not so hard and miserly a glittering.
+
+Almost all, young or old, were bearing strange burdens. Some of the men
+were carrying huge floral crosses; the women were laden with every
+conceivable variety of object--with candlesticks, vases, urns, linen
+sheets, rugs, with chairs even.
+
+"They are helping to dress the reposoirs, they must all be in readiness
+for the morning," answered our friend, still beside us, when we asked
+the cause of this astonishing spectacle.
+
+Everywhere garlands and firs, leaves, flowers, and wreaths; people
+moving rapidly; the carriers of the crosses stopping to chat for an
+instant with groups working at some mysterious scaffolding--all shapes
+in darkness. Everywhere, also, there was the sweet, aromatic scent of
+the greens and the pines abroad in the still, clear air of the summer
+night.
+
+This was the perfume and these the dim pictures that were our company
+along the narrow Coutances streets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A SCENE IN A NORMAN COURT.
+
+
+The court-room was brightly lighted; the yellow radiance on the white
+walls made the eyes blink. We had turned, following our guide, from the
+gloom of the dim streets into the roomy corridors of the Prefecture.
+Even the gardens about the building were swarming with townspeople and
+peasants waiting for the court to open. When we entered it was to find
+the hallways and stairs blocked with a struggling mass of people, all
+eager to get seats. A voice that was softened to a purring note, the
+voice that goes with the pursuit of the five franc piece, spoke to our
+landlady. "The seats to be reserved in the tribune were for these
+ladies?"
+
+No time had been lost, you perceive. We were strangers; the courtesies
+of the town were to be extended to us. We were to have of their best,
+here in Coutances; and their best, just now, was this _mise en scène_
+in their court room.
+
+The stage was well set. The Frenchman's instinctive sense of fitness
+was obvious in the arrangements. Long lines of blue drapery from the
+tall windows brought the groups below into high relief; the scarlet of
+the judges' robes was doubly impressive against this background. The
+lawyers, in their flowing black gowns and white ties, gained added
+dignity from the marine note behind them. The bluish pallor of the
+walls made the accused and the group about him pathetically sombre.
+Each one of this little group was in black. The accused himself, a
+sharp, shrewd, too keen-eyed man of thirty or so, might have been
+following a corpse--so black was his raiment. Even the youth beside
+him, a dull, sodden-eyed lad, with an air of being here not on his own
+account, but because he had been forced to come, was clad in deepest
+mourning. By the side of the culprit sat the one really tragic figure
+in all the court--the culprit's wife. She also was in black. In happier
+times she must have been a fair, fresh-colored blonde. Now all the
+color was gone from her cheek. She was as pale as death, and in her
+sweet downcast eyes there were the tell-tale vigils of long nights of
+weeping. Beside her sat an elderly man who bent over her, talking,
+whispering, commenting as the trial went on.
+
+Every eye in the tribune was fixed on the slim young figure. A passing
+glance sufficed, as a rule, for the culprit and his accomplice; but it
+was on the wife that all the quick French sympathy, that volubly spoke
+itself out, was lavished. The blouses and peasants' caps, the tradesmen
+and their wives crowded close about the railing to pass their comment.
+
+"She looks far more guilty than he," muttered a wizened old man next to
+us, very crooked on his three-legged stool.
+
+"Yes," warmly added a stout capped peasant, with a basket once on her
+arm, now serving as a pedestal to raise the higher above the others her
+own curiosity. "Yes--she has her modesty--too--to speak for her--"
+
+"Bah--all put on--to soften the jury." It was our fiery one of the
+table d'hôte who had wedged his way toward us.
+
+"And why not? A woman must make use of what weapons she has at hand--"
+
+_"Silence! Silence! messieurs!"_ The _huissier_ brought down his staff
+of office with a ring. The clatter of sabots over the wooden floor of
+the tribune and the loud talking were disturbing the court.
+
+This French court, as a court, sat in strange fashion, it seemed to us.
+The bench was on wonderfully friendly terms with the table about which
+the clerks sat, with the lawyers, with the foreman of the jury, with
+even the _huissiers_. Monsieur le President was in his robes, but he
+wore them as negligently as he did the dignity of his office. He and
+the lawyer for the defence, a noted Coutances orator, openly wrangled;
+the latter, indeed, took little or no pains to show him respect; now
+they joked together, next a retort flashed forth which began a quarrel,
+and the court and the trial looked on as both struggled for a mastery
+in the art of personal abuse. The lawyer made nothing of raising his
+finger, to shake it in open menace in the very teeth of the scarlet
+robes. And the robes clad a purple-faced figure that retorted angrily,
+like a fighting school-boy.
+
+But to Coutances, this, it appears, was a proper way for a court to sit.
+
+"_Ah, D'Alençon--il est fort, lui. C'est lui qui agace toujours
+monsieur le président_--"
+
+"He'll win--he'll make a great speech--he is never really fine unless
+it's a question of life or death--" Such were the criticisms that were
+poured out from the quick-speaking lips about us.
+
+Presently a simultaneous movement on the part of the jury brought the
+proceedings to confusion. A witness in the act of giving evidence
+stopped short in his sentence; he twisted his head; looking upward, he
+asked a question of the foreman, and the latter nodded, as if
+assenting. The judge then looked up. All the court looked up. All the
+heads were twisted. Something obviously was wrong. Then, presently the
+_concierge_ appeared with a huge bunch of keys.
+
+And all the court waited in perfect stillness while the windows were
+being closed!
+
+"_Il y avait un courant d'air_--there was a draught,"--gravely
+announced the crooked man, as he rose to let the _concierge_ pass. This
+latter had her views of a court so susceptible to whiffs of night air.
+
+"_Ces messieurs_ are delicate--pity they have to be out at
+night!"--whereat the tribune snickered.
+
+All went on bravely for a good half-hour. More witnesses were called;
+each answered with wonderful aptness, ease, and clearness; none were
+confused or timid; these were not men to be the playthings of others
+who made tortuous cross-questionings their trade. They, also, were
+Frenchmen; they knew how to speak. The judge and the Coutances lawyer
+continued their jokes and their squabblings. And still only the poor
+wife hung her head.
+
+Then all at once the judge began to mop his brow. The jury, to a man,
+mopped theirs. The witnesses and lawyers each brought forth their big
+silk handkerchiefs. All the court was wiping its brow.
+
+"It's the heat," cried the judge. "_Huissier_, call the _concierge_;
+tell her to open the windows."
+
+The _concierge_ reappeared. Flushed this time, and with anger in her
+eye. She pushed her way through the crowd; she took not the least pains
+in the world to conceal her opinion of a court as variable as this one.
+
+"_Ah mais_, this is too much! if the jury doesn't know its mind better
+than this!"--and in the fury of her wrath she well-nigh upset the
+crooked little old gentleman and his three-legged stool.
+
+"That's right--that's right. I'm not a fine lady, tip me over. You open
+and shut me as if I were a bureau drawer; _continuez_--_continuez_--"
+
+The _concierge_ had reached the windows now. She was opening and
+slamming them in the face of the judge, the jury, and _messieurs les
+huissiers_, with unabashed violence. The court, except for that one
+figure in sombre draperies, being men, suffered this violence as only
+men bear with a woman in a temper. With the letting in of the fresh
+air, fresh energy in the prosecution manifested itself. The witnesses
+were being subjected to inquisitorial torture; their answers were still
+glib, but the faces were studies of the passions held in the leash of
+self-control. Not twenty minutes had ticked their beat of time when
+once more the jury, to a man, showed signs of shivering. Half a dozen
+gravely took out their pocket-handkerchiefs, and as gravely covered
+their heads. Others knotted the square of linen, thus making a closer
+head-gear. The judge turned uneasily in his own chair; he gave a
+furtive glance at the still open windows; as he did so he caught sight
+of his jury thus patiently suffering. The spectacle went to his heart;
+these gentlemen were again in a draught? Where was the _concierge_?
+Then the _huissier_ whispered in the judge's ear; no one heard, but
+everyone divined the whisper. It was to remind monsieur le president
+that the _concierge_ was in a temper; would it not be better for him,
+the _huissier_, to close the windows? Without a smile the judge bent
+his head, assenting. And once more all proceedings were at a
+standstill; the court was patiently waiting, once more, for the windows
+to be closed.
+
+Now, in all this, no one, not even the wizened old man who was
+obviously the humorist of the tribune, had seen anything farcical. To
+be too hot--to be too cold! this is a serious matter in France. A jury
+surely has a right to protect itself against cold, against _la
+migraine_, and the devils of rheumatism and pleurisy. There is nothing
+ridiculous in twelve men sitting in judgment on a fellow-man, with
+their handkerchiefs covering their bare heads. Nor of a judge who
+gallantly remembers the temper of a _concierge_. Nor of a whole court
+sitting in silence, while the windows are opened and closed. There was
+nothing in all this to tickle the play of French humor. But then, we
+remembered, France is not the land of humorists, but of wits. Monsieur
+d'Alençon down yonder, as he rises from his chair to address the judge
+and jury, will prove to you and me, in the next two hours, how great an
+orator a Frenchman can be, without trenching an inch on the humorist's
+ground.
+
+The court-room was so still now that you could have heard the fall of a
+pin.
+
+At last the great moment had come-the moment and the man. There is
+nothing in life Frenchmen love better than a good speech--_un
+discours_; and to have the same pitched in the dramatic key, with a
+tragic result hanging on the effects of the pleading, this is the very
+climax of enjoyment. To a Norman, oratory is not second, but first,
+nature; all the men of this province have inherited the gift of a
+facile eloquence. But this Monsieur d'Alençon, the crooked man
+whispered, in hurried explanation, he was _un fameux_--even the Paris
+courts had to send for him when they wanted a great orator.
+
+The famous lawyer understood the alphabet of his calling. He knew the
+value of effect. He threw himself at once into the orator's pose. His
+gown took sculptural lines; his arms were waved majestically, as arms
+that were conscious of having great sleeves to accentuate the lines of
+gesture.
+
+Then he began to speak. The voice was soft; at first one was chiefly
+conscious of the music in its cadences. But as it warmed and grew with
+the ardor of the words, the room was filled with such vibrations as
+usually come only with the sounding of rich wind-instruments. With such
+a voice a man could do anything. D'Alençon played with it as a man
+plays with a power he has both trained and conquered. It was firmly
+modulated, with no accent of sympathy when he opened his plea for his
+client. It warmed slightly when he indignantly repelled the charges
+brought against the latter. It took the cadence of a lover when he
+pointed to the young wife's figure and asked if it were likely a
+husband could be guilty of such crimes, year after year, with such a
+woman as that beside him? It was tenderly explanatory as he went on
+enlarging on the young wife's perfections, on her character, so well
+known to them all here in Coutances, on the influence she had given the
+home-life yonder in Cherbourg. Even the children were not forgotten, as
+an aid to incidental testimony. Was it even conceivable a father of a
+young family would lead an innocent lad into error, fraud, and theft?
+"It is he who knows how to touch the heart!"
+
+"_Quel beau moment!_" cried the wizened man, in a transport.
+
+"See--the jury weep!"
+
+All the court was in tears, even monsieur le president sniffled, and
+yet there was no draught. As for the peasant women and the shop
+keepers, they could not have been more moved if the culprit had been a
+blood relation. How they enjoyed their tears! What a delight it was to
+thus thrill and shiver! The wife was sobbing now, with her head on her
+uncle's shoulder. And the culprit was acting his part, also, to
+perfection. He had been firmly stoical until now. But at this parade of
+his wife's virtues he broke down, his head was bowed at last. It was
+all the tribune could do to keep its applause from breaking forth. It
+was such a perfect performance! it was as good as the theatre--far
+better--for this was real--this play-with a man's whole future at stake!
+
+Until midnight the lawyer held all in the town in a trance. He ended at
+last with a Ciceronian, declamatory outburst. A great buzz of applause
+welled up from the court. The tribune was in transports; such a
+magnificent harangue he had not given them in years. It was one of his
+greatest victories.
+
+"And his victories, madame, they are the victories of all Coutances."
+
+The crooked man almost stood upright in the excitement of his
+enthusiasm. Great drops of sweat were on his wrinkled old brow. The
+evening had been a great event in his life, as his twisted frame, all
+a-tremble with pleasurable elation, exultingly proved. The women's caps
+were closer together than ever; they were pressing in a solid mass
+close to the railing of the tribune to gain one last look at the figure
+of the wife.
+
+"It is she who will not sleep--"
+
+"Poor soul, are her children with her?"
+
+"No--and no women either. There is only the uncle."
+
+"He is a good man, he will comfort her!"
+
+"_Faut prier le bon Dieu!_"
+
+At the court-room door there was a last glimpse of the stricken figure.
+She disappeared into the blackness of the night, bent and feeble,
+leaning with pitiful attempt at dignity on the uncle's arm. With the
+dawn she would learn her husband's fate. The jury would be out all
+night.
+
+"You see, madame, it is she who must really suffer in the end." We were
+also walking into the night, through the bushes of the garden, to the
+dark of the streets. Our landlady was guiding us, and talking volubly.
+She was still under the influence of the past hour's excitement. Her
+voice trembled audibly, and she was walking with brisk strides through
+the dim streets.
+
+"If Filon is condemned, what would happen to them?"
+
+"Oh, he would pass a few years in prison--not many. The jury is always
+easy on the rich. But his future is ruined. They--the family--would
+have to go away. But even then, rumor would follow them. It travels far
+nowadays--it has a thousand legs, as they say here. Wherever they go
+they will be known. But Monsieur d'Alençon, what did you think of him,
+_hein_? There's a great man--what an orator! One must go as far as
+Paris--to the theatre; one must hear a great play--and even there, when
+does an actor make you weep as he did? Henri, he was superb. I tell
+you, superb! _d'une éloquence!_" And to her husband, when we reached
+the inn door, our vivacious landlady was still narrating the chief
+points of the speech as we crawled wearily up to our beds.
+
+It was early the next morning when we descended into the inn
+dining-room. The lawyer's eloquence had interfered with our rest.
+Coffee and a bite of fresh air were best taken together, we agreed.
+Before the coffee came the news of the culprit's fate. Most of the inn
+establishment had been sent to court to learn the jury's verdict.
+Madame confessed to a sleepless night. The thought of that poor wife
+had haunted her pillow. She had deemed it best--but just to us all, in
+a word, to despatch Auguste--the one inn waiter, to hear the verdict.
+_Tiens_, there he was now, turning the street corner.
+
+"_Il est acquitté!_" rang through the streets.
+
+"He is acquitted--he is acquitted! _Le bon Dieu soit loué!_
+Henri--Ernest--Monsieur Terier, he is acquitted--he is acquitted! I
+tell you!"
+
+The cry rang through the house. Our landlady was shouting the news out
+of doors, through windows, to the passers-by, to the very dogs as they
+ran. But the townspeople needed no summoning. The windows were crowded
+full of eager heads, all asking the same question at once. A company of
+peasants coming up from the fields for breakfast stopped to hear the
+glad tidings. The shop-keepers all the length of the street gathered to
+join them. Everyone was talking at once. Every shade of opinion was
+aired in the morning sun. On one subject alone there was a universal
+agreement.
+
+"What good news for the poor wife!"
+
+"And what a night she must have passed!"
+
+All this sympathy and interest, be it remembered, was for one they
+barely knew. To be the niece of a Coutances uncle--this was enough, it
+appears, for the good people of this cathedral city, to insure the flow
+of their tears and the gift of their prayers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE FETE-DIEU--A JUNE CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+When we stepped forth into the streets, it was to find a flower strewn
+city. The paving stones were covered with the needles of pines, with
+fir boughs, with rose leaves, lily stocks, and with the petals of flock
+and clematis. One's feet sank into the odorous carpet as in the thick
+wool of an Oriental prayer rug. To tread upon this verdure was to crush
+out perfume. Yet the fragrance had a solemn flavor. There was a touch
+of consecration in the very aroma of the fir sap.
+
+Never was there a town so given over to its festival. Everything
+else--all trade, commerce, occupation, work, or pleasure even, was at a
+dead standstill. In all the city there was but one thought, one object,
+one end in view. This was the great day of the _Fête-Dieu_. To this
+blessed feast of the Sacrament the townspeople had been looking forward
+for weeks.
+
+It is their June Christmas. The great day brings families together.
+
+[Illustration: AN EXCITING MOMENT--A COUTANCES INTERIOR]
+
+From all the country round the farm wagons had been climbing the hill
+for hours. The peasants were in holiday dress. Gold crosses and amber
+beads encircled leathery old necks; the gossamer caps, real Normandy
+caps at last, crowned heads held erect today, with the pride of those
+who had come to town clad in their best. Even the younger women were in
+true peasant garb; there was a touch of a ribbon, brilliant red and
+blue stockings, and the sparkle of silver shoe-buckles and gold
+necklaces to prove they had donned their finery in honor of the _fête_.
+The men wore their blue and purple blouses over their holiday suits;
+but almost all had pinned a sprig of bright geranium or honeysuckle to
+brighten up the shiny cotton of the preservative blouse. Even the
+children carried bouquets; and thus many of the farm wagons were as gay
+as the streets.
+
+No, gay is not the word. Neither the city nor the streets were really
+gay. The city, as a city, was too dead in earnest, too absorbed, too
+intent, to indulge in gayety. It was the greatest of all the days of
+the year in Coutances. In the climaxic moments of life, one is solemn,
+not gay. It was not only the greatest, but the busiest, day of the year
+for this cathedral town. Here was a whole city to deck; every street,
+every alleyway must be as beautiful as a church on a feast-day. The
+city, in truth, must be changed from a bustling, trading, commercial
+entrepôt into an altar. And this altar must be beautiful--as beautiful,
+as ingeniously picturesque as only the French instinct for beauty could
+make it.
+
+Think you, with such a task on hand, this city-ful of artists had time
+for frivolous idling? Since dawn these artists had been scrubbing their
+doors, washing windows, and sluicing the gutters. One is not a
+provincial for nothing; one is honest in the provinces; one does not
+drape finery over a filthy frame. The city was washed first, before it
+was adorned.
+
+Opposite, across from our inn door-sill, where we lingered a moment
+before we began our journey through the streets, we could see for
+ourselves how thorough was this cleansing. A shopkeeper and his wife
+were each mounted on a step-ladder. One washed the inside and the other
+the outside of the low shop-windows. They were in the greatest possible
+haste, for they were late in their preparations. In two hours the
+procession was to pass. Their neighbors stopped to cry up to them:
+
+"_Tendez vous, aujourd'hui?_" It is the universal question, heard
+everywhere.
+
+"_Mais oui_," croaked out the man, his voice sounding like the croak of
+a rook, from the height from which he spoke. "Only we are late, you
+see."
+
+It was his wife who was taking the question to heart. She saw in it
+just cause for affront.
+
+"Ah, those Espergnons, they're always on time, they are; they had their
+hangings out a week ago, and now they are as filthy as wash-rags. No
+wonder they have time to walk the streets!" and the indignant dame gave
+her window-pane an extra polish.
+
+"Here, Leon, catch hold, I'm ready now!"
+
+The woman was holding out one end of a long, snowy sheet. Leon meekly
+took his end; both hooked the stuff to some rings ready to secure the
+hanging; the facade of the little house was soon hidden behind the
+white fall of the family linen; and presently Leon and his wife began
+very gravely to pin tiny sprigs of purple clematis across the white
+surface. This latter decoration was performed with the sure touch of
+artists. No mediaeval designer of tapestry could have chosen, with more
+secure selection, the precise points of distance at which to place the
+bouquets; nor could the tones and tints of the greens and purples, and
+the velvet of the occasional heartsease, sparsely used, have been more
+correctly combined. When the task was ended, the commonplace house was
+a palace wall, hung with the sheen of fine linen, on which bloomed
+geometric figures beautifully spaced.
+
+All the city was thus draped. One walked through long walls of snow, in
+which flowers grew. Sometimes the floral decorations expanded from the
+more common sprig into wreaths and garlands. Here and there the
+Coutances fancy worked itself out in _fleur-de-lis_ emblems or in
+armorial bearings. But everywhere an astonishing, instinctive sense of
+beauty, a knowledge of proportion, and a natural sense for color were
+obvious. There was not, in all the town, a single offence committed
+against taste. Is it any wonder, with such an heredity at their
+fingers' ends, that the provinces feed Paris, and that Paris sets the
+fashions in beauty for the rest of the world?
+
+Come with us, and look upon this open-air chapel. It stands in the open
+street, in front of an old house of imposing aspect. The two
+commonplace-looking women who are putting--the finishing--touches to
+this beautiful creation tell us it is the reposoir of Madame la
+Baronne. They have been working on it since the day before. In the
+night the miracle was finished--nearly--they were so weary they had
+gone to bed at dawn. They do not tell you it is a miracle. They think
+it fine, oh, yes--"c'est beau--Madame la Baronne always has the most
+beautiful of all the reposoirs," but then they have decked these altars
+since they were born; their grandmothers built them before ever they
+saw the light. For always in Coutances "on la fête beaucoup;" this
+feast of the Sacrament has been a great day in Coutances for centuries
+past. But although they are so used to it, these natural architects
+love the day. "It's so fine to see--_si beau à voir_ all the reposoirs,
+and the children and the fine ladies walking--through the streets, and
+then, all kneeling--when Monseigneur l'Archevêque prays. Ah yes, it is
+a fine sight." They nod, and smile, and then they turn to light a
+taper, and to consult about the placing of a certain vase from out of
+which an Easter lily towers.
+
+At the foot of these miniature altars trees had been planted. Gardens
+had also been laid out; the parterres were as gravely watered as if
+they were to remain in the middle of a bustling high street in
+perpetuity. Steps lead up to the altar. These were covered with rugs
+and carpets; for the feet of the bishop must tread only on velvet and
+flowers. Candelabra, vases, banners, crosses, crucifixes, flowers, and
+tall thin tapers--all the altars were crowded with such adornments.
+Human vanity and the love of surpassing one's neighbors, these also
+figured conspicuously among the things the fitfully shining sun looks
+down upon. But what a charm there is in such a contest! Surely the
+desire to beautify the spot on which the Blessed Sacrament rests this
+is only another way of professing one's adoration.
+
+As we passed through the streets a multitude of pictures crowded upon
+the eyes. In an archway groups of young first communicants were
+forming; they were on their way to the cathedral. Their white veils
+against the gloom of the recessed archways were like sunlit clouds
+caught in an abyss. Priests in gorgeous vestments were walking quickly
+through the streets. All the peasants were going also toward the
+cathedral. A group stopped, as did we, to turn into a side-street. For
+there was a picture we should not see later on. Between some lovely old
+turrets, down from convent walls a group of nuns fluttered tremulously;
+they were putting the last touches to the reposoir of their own Sacré
+Coeur. Some were carrying huge gilt crosses, staggering as they walked;
+others were on tiptoe filling the tall vases; others were on their
+knees, patting into perfect smoothness the turf laid about the altar
+steps. There was an old curé among them and a young carpenter whom the
+curé was directing. Everyone of the nuns had her black skirts tucked
+up; their stout shoes must be free to fly over the ground with the
+swiftness of hounds. How pretty the faces were, under the great caps,
+in that moment of unwonted excitement! The cheeks, even of the older
+nuns, were pink; it was a pink that made their habitual pallor have a
+dazzling beauty. The eyes were lighted into a fresh flame of life, and
+the lips were temptingly crimson; they were only women, after all,
+these nuns, and once a year at least this feast of the Sacrament brings
+all their feminine activities into play.
+
+Still we moved on, for within the cathedral the procession had not yet
+formed. There was still time to make a tour of the town.
+
+To plunge into the side-streets away from the wide cathedral parvis,
+was to be confronted with a strange calm. These narrow thoroughfares
+had the stillness which broods over all ancient cities' by-ways. Here
+was no festival bustle; all was grave and sad. The only dwellers left
+in the antique fifteenth century houses were those who must remain at
+home till a still smaller house holds them. We passed several aged
+Coutançais couples. By twos they were seated at the low windows; they
+had been dressed and then left; they were sitting here, in the pathetic
+patience of old age; they were hoping something of the _fête_ might
+come their way. Two women, in one of the low interiors, were more
+philosophic than their neighbors; if their stiffened knees would not
+carry them to the _fête_, at least their gnarled old hands could hold a
+pack of cards. They were seated close to the open casement, facing each
+other across a small round table; along the window-sill there were rows
+of flower-pots; a pewter tankard was set between them; and out of the
+shadowy interior came the topaz gleam of the Normandy brasses, the huge
+bed, with its snowy draperies, the great chests, and the flowery
+chintz-frill defining the width of the yawning fireplace. The two old
+faces, with the strong features, deep wrinkles, sunken mouths, and bald
+heads tied up in dazzling white coifs, were in full relief against the
+dim background. They were as motionless as statues; neither looked up
+as our footfall struck along the cobbles; it was an exciting moment in
+the game.
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN COUTANCES--EGLISE SAINT-PIERRE]
+
+Below these old houses stretched the public gardens. Here also there
+was a great stillness. For us alone the rose gardens bloomed, the
+tropical trees were shivering, and the palms were making a night of
+shade for wide acres of turf. Rarely does a city boast of such a
+garden. It was no surprise to learn, later, that these lovely paths and
+noble terraces had been the slow achievement of a lover of landscape
+gardening, one who, dying, had given this, his master-piece, to his
+native town.
+
+There is no better place from which to view the beautiful city. From
+the horizontal lines of the broad terraces flows the great sweep of the
+hillside; it takes a swift precipitous plunge, and rests below in wide
+stretches of meadow. The garden itself seemed, by virtue of this
+encompassing circle of green, to be only a more exquisitely cultivated
+portion of the lovely outlying hills and wooded depths. The cows,
+grazing below in the valleys, were whisking their tails, and from the
+farm-yards came the crow of the chanticleer.
+
+One turned to look upward--to follow heavenward the soaring glory of
+the cathedral towers. From the plane of the streets their geometric
+perfection had made their lines seem cold. Through this aerial
+perspective the eye followed, enraptured, the perfect Gothic of the
+spires and the lower central tower. The great nave roof and the choir
+lifted themselves above the turrets and the tiled house-tops of the
+city, as gray mountains of stone rise above the huts of pygmies.
+Coutances does well to be proud of its cathedral.
+
+The sound of a footstep, crunching the gravel of the garden-walk,
+caused us to turn. It was to find, face to face, the hero of the night
+before; the celebrated Coutances lawyer was also taking his
+constitutional. But not alone, some friends were with him, come up to
+town doubtless for the _fête_ or the trial. He was showing them his
+city. He stretched a hand forth, with the same magisterial gesture of
+the night before, to point out the glory of the prospect lying below
+the terrace. He faced the cathedral towers, explaining the points of
+their perfection. And then, for he was a Frenchman, he perceived the
+presence of two ladies. In an instant his hat was raised, and as
+quickly his eyes told us he had seen us before, in the courtroom. The
+bow was the lower because of this recognition, and the salute was
+accompanied by a grave smile.
+
+Manners in the provinces are still good, you perceive--if only you are
+far enough away from Paris.
+
+Someone else also bestowed on us the courtesy of a passing greeting. It
+was a curé who was saying his Ave, as he paced slowly, in the sun, up
+and down the yew path. He was old; one leg was already tired of
+life--it must be dragged painfully along, when one walked in the sun.
+The curé himself was not in the least tired of life. His smile was as
+warm as the sun as he lifted his _calotte_.
+
+"Surely, mesdames, you will not miss the _fête_? It must be forming
+now."
+
+He had taken an old man's, and a priest's, privilege. We were all three
+looking down into the valley, which lay below, a pool of freshness. He
+had spoken, first of the beauty of the prospect, and then of the great
+day. To be young and still strong, to be able to follow the procession
+from street to street, and yet to be lingering here among the
+roses!--this passed the simple curé's comprehension. The reproach in
+his mild old eyes was quickly changed to approval, however; for upon
+the announcement that the procession was already in motion we started,
+bidding him a hurried adieu.
+
+The huge cathedral portals yawned at the top of the hill; they were
+like a gaping chasm. The great place of the cathedral square was half
+filled; a part of the procession had passed already beyond the gloom of
+the vast aisles into the frank openness of day. Winding in and out of
+the white-hung streets a long line of figures was marching; part of the
+line had reached the first reposoir and gradually the swaying of the
+heads was slackening, as, by twos and twos, the figures stopped.
+
+Still, from between the cathedral doors an unending multitude of people
+kept pouring forth upon the cathedral square. Now it was an
+interminable line of young girls, first communicants, in their white
+veils and gowns; against the grays and browns of the cathedral facade
+this mass of snow was of startling purity--a great white rose of light.
+Closely following the dazzling line marched a grave company of nuns;
+with their black robes sweeping the flower-strewn streets, the pallor
+of their faces, and the white wings of their huge coifs, they might
+have been so many marble statues moving with slow, automatic step,
+repeating in life the statues in stone above their heads, incarnations
+of meek renunciation. With the free and joyous step of a vigorous youth
+not yet tamed to complete self-obliteration, next there stepped forth
+into the sun a group of seminarists. In the lace and scarlet of their
+bright robes they were like unto so many young kings. High in the
+summer air they swung their golden censers; from huge baskets, heaped
+with flowers, they scattered flowers as they swayed, in the grace of
+their youth, from side to side, with priestly rhythmic motion.
+
+In the days of Greece, under the Attic tent of sky, it was Jove that
+was thus worshipped; here in Coutances, under the paler, less ardent
+blue of France, it was the Christian God these youths were honoring. So
+men have continued to scatter flowers; to swing incense; to bend the
+knee; surely in all ages the long homage of men, like the procession
+here before us, has been but this--the longing to worship the
+Invisible, and to make the act one with beauty.
+
+Is it Greek, is it Christian, this festival? If it be Catholic, it is
+also pagan. It is as composite a union of religious ceremonials as man
+is himself an aggregate of lost types, for there is a subtle law of
+repetition which governs both men and ceremonials.
+
+How pagan was the color! how Greek the sense of beauty that lies in
+contrasts! how Jewish the splendor of the priestly vestments as the
+gold and silver tissues gleamed in the sun! How mediaeval this survival
+of an old miracle play! See this group of children, half-frightened,
+half-proud, wandering from side to side as children unused to walking
+soberly ever march. They were following the leadership of a huge
+Suisse. This latter was magnificently apparelled. He carried a great
+mace, and this he swung high in the air. The children, little John the
+Baptist, Christ, Mary the Mother, and Magdalen, were magnetized by his
+mighty skill. They were looking at the golden stick; they were thinking
+only of how high he, this splendid giant who terrified them so, would
+throw it the next time, and if he would always surely catch it. The
+small Virgin, in her long brown robes, tripped as she walked. The
+cherubic John the Baptist, with only his sheepskin and his cross,
+shivered as he stumbled after her.
+
+"At least they might have covered his arms, _le pauvre petit_," one
+stout peasant among the bystanders was Christian enough to mutter,
+"Poor little John!" Even in summer the sun is none too hot on this
+hill-top; and a sheepskin is a garment one must be used to, it appears.
+Christ, himself, was no better off. He was wearing his crown of thorns,
+but he had only his night-dress, bound with a girdle, to keep his naked
+little body warm. An angel, in gossamer wings and a huge rose-wreath,
+being of the other sex, had her innate woman's love of finery to make
+her oblivious to the light sting of the wind, as it passed through her
+draperies. As this group in the procession moved slowly along, the city
+took on a curiously antique aspect. In every lattice window a head was
+framed. The lines of the townspeople pressed closer and closer; they
+made a serried mass of blouses and caps, of shiny coats and bared
+heads. The very houses seemed to recognize that a part of their own
+youth was passing them by; these were the figures they had looked out
+upon, time after time, in the old fourteenth and fifteenth century
+days, when the great miracle plays drew the country around, for miles
+and miles, to this Coutances square.
+
+Across the square, in the long gray distance of the streets, the
+archbishop's canopy was motionless. A sweet groaning murmur rippled
+from lip to lip.
+
+Then a swift and mighty rustling filled the air, for the bones of
+thousands of knees were striking the stones of the street;--even
+heretic knees were bent when the Host was lifted. It was the moment of
+silent prayer. It was also, perhaps, the most beautiful, it was
+assuredly the most consummately picturesque moment of the day. The bent
+heads; the long vistas of kneeling figures; the lovely contrasts of the
+flowing draperies; the trailing splendor of the priests' robes dying
+into the black note made by the nuns' sombre skirts; the gossamer
+brilliance of the hundreds of white veils, through which the young
+rapture of religious awe on lips and brow made even commonplace
+features beautiful; the choristers' scarlet petticoats; the culminating
+note of splendor, the Archbishop, throned like some antique scriptural
+king under the feathers and velvets of his crimson canopy; then the
+long lines of the townspeople with the groups of peasants beside them,
+whose well-sunned skins made even their complexion seem pale by the
+side of cheeks that brought the burn of noon-suns in the valleys to
+mind; and behind this wall of kneeling figures, those other walls, the
+long white-hung house facades, with their pendent sprigs and wreaths
+and garlands above which hung the frieze of human heads beneath the
+carved cornices; surely this was indeed the culminating moment, both in
+point of beauty and in impressiveness, of the great day's festival.
+
+Thus was reposoir after reposoir visited. Again and again the multitude
+was on its knees. Again and again the Host was lifted. And still we
+followed. Sometimes all the line was in full light, a long perspective
+of color and of prismatic radiance. And then the line would be lost;
+some part of it was still in a side-street; and the rest were singing
+along the edges of the city's ramparts, under the great branches of the
+trees. Here, in the gray of the narrow streets, the choristers' gowns
+were startling in their richness. Yonder, in full sunlight, the
+brightness on the maidens' robes made the shadows in their white skirts
+as blue as light caught in a grotto's depth.
+
+Still they sang. In the dim streets or under the trees, where the gay
+banners were still fluttering, and the white veils, like airy sails,
+were bulging in the wind, the hymn went on. It was thin and
+pathetically weak in the mouths of the babes that walked. It was clear,
+as fresh and pure as a brooklet's ripple, from the mouths of the young
+communicants. It was of firm contralto strength from the throats of the
+grave nuns. The notes gained and gained in richness; the hymn was
+almost a chant with the priests; and in the mouths of the people it was
+as a ringing chorus. Together with the swelling music swung the incense
+into high air; and to the Host the rose-leaves were flung.
+
+Still we followed. Still the long line moved on from altar to altar.
+
+Then, when the noon was long past, wearily we climbed upward to our inn.
+
+In the high streets there was much going to and fro. The shop-keepers
+already were taking down their linen. Pouffe! Pouffe! there was much
+blowing through mouths and a great standing on tiptoes to reach the
+tall tapers on the reposoirs.
+
+Coutances was pious. Coutances was proud of its fête. But Coutances was
+also a thrifty city. Once the cortege had passed, it was high time to
+snuff out the tapers. Who could stand by and see good candles blowing
+uselessly in the wind, and one's money going along with the dripping?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+BY LAND TO MONT ST. MICHEL.
+
+
+Two hours later the usual collection of forces was assembled in our inn
+courtyard; for a question of importance was to be decided. Madame was
+there--chief of the council; her husband was also present, because he
+might be useful in case any dispute as to madame's word came up;
+Auguste, the one inn waiter, was an important figure of the group; for
+he, of them all, was the really travelled one; he had seen the
+world--he was to be counted on as to distances and routes; and above,
+from the upper windows, the two ladies of the bed-chamber looked down,
+to act as chorus to the brisk dialogue going on between madame and the
+owner of a certain victoria for which we were in treaty.
+
+"_Ces dames,_" madame said, with a shrug which was meant for the
+coachman, and a smile which was her gift to us--"these ladies wish to
+go to Mont St. Michel, to drive there. Have you your little victoria
+and Poulette?"
+
+Now, by the shrug madame had conveyed to the man and the assembled
+household generally, her own great scorn of us, and of our plans. What
+a whim this, of driving, forsooth, to the Mont! _Dieu sait_--French
+people were not given to any such follies; they were serious-minded,
+_always_, in matters of travel. To travel at all, was no light thing;
+one made one's will and took an honest and tearful farewell of one's
+family, when one went on a journey. But these English, these Americans,
+there's no foretelling to what point their folly will make them tempt
+fate! However, madame was one who knew on which side her bread was
+buttered, if ever a woman did, and the continuance of these mad follies
+helped to butter her own French roll. And so her shrug and wink
+conveyed to the tall Norman just how much these particular lunatics
+before them would be willing to pay for this their whim.
+
+"Have you Poulette?"
+
+"Yes--yes--Poulette is at home. I have made her repose herself all
+day--hearing these ladies had spoken of driving to the Mont--"
+
+Chorus from the upper window-sills. "The poor beast! it is _joliment
+longue--la distance_."
+
+"As these ladies observe," continued the owner of the doomed animal,
+not raising his head, but quickly acting on the hint, "it is long, the
+distance--one does not go for nothing." And though the man kept his
+mouth from betraying him, his keen eyes glittered with avarice.
+
+"And then--_ces dames_ must descend at Genets, to cross the _grève, tu
+sais_" interpolated the waiter, excitedly changing his napkin, his wand
+of office, from one armpit to the other. The thought of travel stirred
+his blood. It was fine--to start off thus, without having to make the
+necessary arrangements for a winter's service or a summer's season. And
+to drive, that would be new--yes that would be a change indeed from the
+stuffy third-class compartments. For Auguste, you see, approved of us
+and of the foolishness of our plans. His sympathy being gratis, was
+allied to the protective instinct--he would see the cheating was at
+least as honestly done as was compatible with French methods.
+
+"Another carriage--and why?" we meekly queried, warned by this friendly
+hint. A chorus now arose from the entire audience.
+
+"_Mais, madame!_--it is as much as five or six kilos over the sands to
+the Mont from Genets!" was cried out in a tone of universal reproach.
+
+"Through rivers, madame, through rivers as high as that!" and Auguste,
+striking in after the chorus, measured himself off at the breast.
+
+"Yes--the water comes to there, on the horse," added the driver,
+sweeping an imaginary horse's head, with a fine gesture, in the air.
+
+"Dame, that must be fine to see," cried down Léontine and Marie,
+gasping with little sighs of envy.
+
+"And so it is!" cried back Auguste, nodding upward with dramatic
+gesture. "One can get as wet as a duck splashing through those rivers.
+_Dieu! que c'est beau!_" And he clasped his hands as his eye, rolling
+heavenward, caught the blue and the velvet of the four feminine orbs on
+its upward way. Seeing which ecstasy, the courtyard visibly relented;
+Auguste's rapture and his envy had worked the common human miracle of
+turning contempt for a folly into belief in it.
+
+This quick firing of French people to a pleasurable elation in others'
+adventure is, I think we must all agree, one of the great charms of
+this excitable race: anything will serve as a pretext for setting this
+sympathetic vibration in motion. What they all crave as a nation is a
+daily, hourly diet of the unusual, the unforeseen.
+
+It is this passion for incident which makes a Frenchman's life not
+unlike his soups, since in the case of both, how often does he make
+something out of nothing!
+
+An hour later we were picking our way through the city's streets.
+Sweeter than the crushed flowers was the free air of the valley.
+
+There is no way of looking back so agreeable, on the whole, I think, as
+to look back upon a city.
+
+From the near distance of the first turn in the road, Coutances and its
+cathedral were at their very best. The hill on which both stood was
+only one of the many hills we now saw growing out of the green valley;
+among the dozen hill tops, this one we were leaving was only more
+crowded than the others, and more gloriously crowned. In giant height
+uprose, above the city's roofs and the lesser towers, the spires and
+the lovely lantern tower. This vast mass of stone, pricked into lacy
+apertures and with its mighty lines of grace-for how many a long
+century has it been in the eye of the valley? Tancrède de Hauteville
+saw it before William was born--before he, the Conqueror, rode in his
+turn through the green lanes to consecrate the church to One greater
+than he. From Tancrède to Boileau, what a succession of bishops, each
+in their turn, have had their eye on the great cathedral. There was a
+sort of viking bishop, one Geoffrey de Montbray, of the Conqueror's
+day, who, having a greater taste for men's blood than their
+purification, found Coutances a dull city; there was more war of the
+kind his stout arm rejoiced in across the Channel; and so he travelled
+a bit to do a little pleasant killing. From Geoffrey to Boileau and the
+latter's lacy ruffles--how many a rude Norman epic was acted out, here
+in the valley, beneath the soaring spires, before the Homeric combat
+was turned into the verse of a _chanso de geste_, a _Roman de Rou_, or
+a _Latrin!_
+
+As Poulette rolled the wheels along, instead of visored bishop, or mail
+rustling on strong breasts, there was the open face of the landscape,
+and the tremble of the grasses beneath the touch of the wind. Coming
+down the hill was a very peaceable company; doubtless, between wars in
+those hot fighting centuries, just such travellers went up and down the
+hill-road as unconcernedly as did these peasants. There was quite a
+variety among the present groups: some were strictly family parties;
+these talked little, giving their mind to stiff walking--the smell of
+the soup in the farmyard kitchen was in their nostrils. The women's
+ages were more legibly read in their caps than in their faces--the
+older the women the prettier the caps. Among these groups, queens of
+the party, were some first communicants. Their white kid slippers were
+brown now, from the long walk in the city streets and the dust of the
+highway. They held their veils with a maiden's awkwardness; with bent
+heads they leaned gravely on their fathers' arms. In this, their first
+supreme experience of self-consciousness, they had the self-absorption
+of young brides. The trail of their muslin gowns and the light cloud of
+their veils made dazzling spots of brightness in the delicate frame of
+the June landscape. Each of these white-clad figures was followed by a
+long train of friends and relatives. "_C'est joli à voir_--it's a
+pretty sight, _hein_, my ladies? these young girls are beautiful like
+that!" Our coachman took his eye off Poulette to turn in his seat,
+looking backward at the groups as they followed in our wake. "Ah--it
+was hard to leave my own--I had two like that, myself, in the
+procession to-day." And the full Norman eye filled with a sudden
+moisture. This was a more attractive glitter than the avarice of a
+moment before.
+
+"You see, mesdames," he went on, as if wishing to excuse the moistened
+eyelids, "you see--it's a great day in the family when our children
+take their first communion. It is the day the child dies and the man,
+the woman is born. When our children kneel at our feet, before the
+priest, before their comrades, and beg us to forgive them all the sin
+they have done since they were born--it is too much--the heart grows so
+big it is near to bursting. Ah--it is then we all weep!"
+
+Charm settled herself in her seat with a satisfied smile. "We are in
+luck--an emotional coachman who weeps and talks! The five hours will
+fly," she murmured. Then aloud, to Jacques--as we learned the now
+sniffling father was called--she presently asked, with the oil of
+encouragement in her tone:
+
+"You say your two were in the procession?"
+
+"Two! there were five in all. Even the babies walked. Did you see Jésu
+and the Magdalen? They were mine--_C'était à moi, çà!_ For the priests
+will have them--as many as they can get."
+
+"They are right. If the children didn't walk, how could the procession
+be so fine?" "Fine--_beau--ca?_" And there was a deep scorn in
+Jacques's voice. "You should have seen the _fête_ twenty years ago!
+Now, its glory is as nothing. It's the priests themselves who are to
+blame. They've spoiled it all. Years ago, the whole town walked.
+_Dieu_--what a spectacle! The mayor, the mairie, all the firemen,
+municipal officers--yes, even the soldiers walked. And as for the
+singing--_dame_, all the young men were choristers then--we were
+trained for months. When we walked and sang in the open streets the
+singing filled all the town. It was like a great thunder."
+
+"And the change--why has it come?" persisted Charm.
+
+"Oh," Jacques replied, caressing Poulette's haunches with his
+whip-lash. "It's the priests; they were too grasping. They are
+avaricious, that's what they are. They want everything for themselves.
+And a _fête--ça coule, vous savez_. Besides, the spirit of the times
+has changed. People aren't so devout now. _Libres penseurs_--that's the
+fashion now. _Holà_, Poulette!"
+
+Poulette responded. She dashed into the valley, below us now, as if
+this rolling along of a heavy victoria, a lot of luggage, and three
+travellers, was an agreeable episode in her career of toil. But on the
+mind of her owner, the spectre of the free-thinkers was still hovering
+like an evil spirit. During the next hour he gave us a long and
+exhaustive exposition of the changes wrought by _ces messieurs qui
+nient le bon Dieu._ Among their crimes was to be numbered that of
+having disintegrated the morale of the peasantry. They--the
+peasants--no longer believed in miracles, and as for sorcery, for the
+good old superstitions, bah: they were looked upon as old wives' tales.
+Even here, in the heart of this rural country, you would have to walk
+far before you could find _vne vraie sorcière_, one who, by looking
+into a glass of water, for instance, could read the future as in a
+book, or one who, if your cow dried up, could name the evil spirit, the
+demon, who, among the peasants was exercising the curse. All this
+science was lost. A peasant would now be ashamed to bring his cow to a
+fortune-teller; all the village would laugh. Even the shepherds had
+lost the power of communing with the planets at night; and all the
+valley read the _Petit Journal_ instead of consulting the _vieilles
+mères_. One must go as far as Brittany to see a real peasant with the
+superstitions of a peasant. As for Normandy, it went in step with the
+rest of the world, _que diable!_ And again the whip lash descended.
+Poulette must suffer for Jacques's disgust.
+
+If the Norman peasant was a modern, his country, at least, had retained
+the charm of its ancient beauty. The road was as Norman a highway as
+one could wish to see. It had the most capricious of natures, turning
+and perversely twisting among the farms and uplands. The land was
+ribboned with growing grain, and the June grass was being cut. The
+farms stood close upon the roadway, as if longing for its
+companionship; and then, having done so much toward the establishment
+of neighborly gossip, promptly turned their backs upon it--true
+Normans, all of them, with this their appearance of frankness and their
+real reserves of secrecy.
+
+For a last time we caught a distant glimpse of the great cathedral. As
+we looked back across the bright-roofed villages, we saw the stately
+pile, gray, glorious, superb, dominating the scene, the hills, river,
+and fields, as in the old days the great city walls and the cathedral
+towers had dominated all the human life that played helplessly about
+them.
+
+We were out once more among the green and yellow broadlands; between
+our carriage-wheels and the horizon there was now spread a wide
+amphitheatre of wooded hills. The windings of the poplar-lined road
+serpentined in sinuous grace in and out of forests, meadows, hills, and
+islands. The afternoon lights were deepening; the shadows on the
+grain-fields cast by the oaks and beeches were a part of our company.
+The blue bloom of the distant hills was strengthening into purple. As
+the light was intensifying in color, the human life in the fields was
+relaxing its tension; the bent backs were straightening, the ploughmen
+were whipping their steeds toward the open road; for although it was
+Sunday, and a _fête_ day, the farmer must work. The women were
+gathering up some of the grasses, tying them into bundles, and tossing
+them on their heads as they moved slowly across the blackening earth.
+
+One field near us was peopled with a group of girls resting on their
+scythes. One or two among them were mopping their faces with their
+coarse blue aprons; the faces of all were aflame with the red of rude
+health. As we came upon them, some had flung away their scythes, the
+tallest among the group grasping a near companion, playfully, in the
+pose of a wrestler. In an instant the company was turned into a group
+of wrestlers. There was a great shout of laughter, as maiden after
+maiden was tumbled over on her back or face amid the grasses. Sabots,
+short skirts, kerchiefs, scarlet arms rose and fell to earth in the mad
+whirl of their gayety.
+
+"Stop, Jacques, I must see the end," cried Charm. "Will they fight or
+dance, I wonder!"
+
+"Oh, it is a pure Georgic--they'll dance." They were dancing already.
+The line, with dishevelled hair, aprons and kerchiefs askew, had formed
+into the square of a quadrille. A rude measure was tripped; a snatch of
+song, shouted amid the laughter, gave rhythm to the measure, and then
+the whole band, singing in chorus, linked arms and swept with a furious
+dash beneath the thatched roof of a low farm-house.
+
+"As you see, my ladies, sometimes the fields are gay--even now," was
+Jacques's comment. "But they should be getting their grasses in--for
+it'll rain before night. It's time to sing when the scythe sleeps--as
+we say here."
+
+To our eyes there were no signs of rain. The clouds rolling in the blue
+sea above us were only gloriously lighted. But the birds and the
+peasants knew their sky; there was a great fluttering of wings among
+the branches; and the peasants, as we rattled in and out of the
+hamlets, were pulling the _reposoirs_ to pieces in the haste that
+predicts bad weather. They had been "celebrating" all along the road;
+and besides the piety, the Norman thrift was abroad upon the highway.
+Women were tearing sheets off the house facades; the lads and girls
+were bearing crosses, china vases, and highly-colored Virgins from the
+wooden altars into the low houses.
+
+Presently the great drops fell; they beat upon the smooth roadway like
+so many hard bits of coin. In less than two ticks of the clock, the
+world was a wet world; there were masses of soft gray clouds that were
+like so much cotton, dripping with moisture. The earth was as drenched
+as if, half an hour ago, it had not been a jewel gleaming in the sun;
+and the very farm-houses had quickly assumed an air of having been
+caught out in the rain without an umbrella. The farm gardens alone
+seemed to rejoice in the suddenness of the shower. Flowers have a way
+of shining, when it rains, that proves flower-petals have a woman's
+love of solitaires.
+
+There were other dashes of color that made the gray landscape
+astonishingly brilliant. Some of the peasants on their way to the
+village _fêtes_ were also caught in the passing shower. They had opened
+their wide blue and purple umbrellas; these latter made huge disks of
+color reflected in the glass of the wet macadam. The women had turned
+their black alpaca and cashmere skirts inside out, tucking the edges
+about their stout hips; beneath the wide vivid circles of the dripping
+umbrellas these brilliantly colored under-petticoats showed a liberal
+revelation of scarlet hose and thick ankles sunk in the freshly
+polished black sabots. The men's cobalt-blue blouses and their peaked
+felt hats spotted the landscape with contrasting notes and outlines.
+
+After the last peaked hat had disappeared into the farm enclosures, we
+and the wet landscape had the rain to ourselves. The trees now were
+spectral shapes; they could not be relied on as companions. Even the
+gardens and grain lands were mysteriously veiled, so close rolled the
+mists to our carriage-wheels. Beyond, at the farthest end of the road,
+these mists had formed themselves into a solid, compact mass.
+
+The clouds out yonder, far ahead, seemed to be enwrapping some part of
+earth that had lanced itself into the sky.
+
+After a little the eyes unconsciously watched those distant woolly
+masses. There was a something beyond, faint, vague, impalpable as yet,
+which the rolling mists begirt as sometimes they cincture an Alpine
+needle. Even as the thought came, a sudden lifting--of the gray mass
+showed the point of a high uplifted pinnacle. The point thereof pricked
+the sky. Then the wind, like a strong hand, swept the clouds into a
+mantle, and we saw the strange spectacle no more.
+
+For several miles our way led us through a dim, phantasmal landscape.
+All the outlines were blurred. Even the rain was a veil; it fell
+between us and the nearest hedgerows as if it had been a curtain. The
+jingling of Poulette's bell-collar and the gurgle of the water rushing
+in the gulleys--these were the only sounds that fell upon the ear.
+
+Still the clouds about that distant mass curled and rolled; they were
+now breaking, now re-forming--as if some strange and wondrous thing
+were hanging there--between heaven and earth.
+
+It was still far out, the mass; even the lower mists were not resting
+on any plain of earth. They also were moved by something that moved
+beneath them, as a thick cloak takes the shape and motion of the body
+it covers. Still we advanced, and still the great mountain of cloud
+grew and grew. And then there came a little lisping, hissing sound. It
+was the kiss of the sea as it met some unseen shore. And on our cheeks
+the sea-wind blew, soft and salty to the lips.
+
+The mass was taking shape and outline. The mists rolled along some
+wide, broad base that rested beneath the sea, and skyward they clasped
+the apexal point of a pyramid.
+
+This pyramid in the sky was Mont St. Michel.
+
+With its feet in the sea, and its head vanishing into infinity--here,
+at last, was this rock of rocks, caught, phantom-like, up into the very
+heavens above.
+
+It loomed out of the spectral landscape--itself the superlative
+spectre; it took its flight upward as might some genius of beauty
+enrobed in a shroud of mystery.
+
+Such has it been to generations of men. Beautiful, remote, mysterious!
+With its altars and its shrines, its miracle of stone carved by man on
+those other stones hewn by the wind and the tempest, Mont St. Michel
+has ever been far more a part of heaven than a thing of earth.
+
+Then, for us, the clouds suddenly lifted, as, for modern generations of
+men, the mists of superstition have also rolled themselves away.
+
+
+
+
+MONT ST. MICHEL:
+
+AN INN ON A ROCK.
+
+[Illustration: MONT SAINT MICHEL]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+BY SEA TO THE POULARD INN.
+
+
+We were being tossed in the air like so many balls. A Normandy _char a
+banc_ was proving itself no respecter of nice distinctions in
+conditions in life. It phlipped, dashed, and rolled us about with no
+more concern than if it were taking us to market to be sold by the
+pound. For we were on the _grève_. The promised rivers were before us.
+
+So was the Mont, spectral no longer, but nearing with every plunge
+forward of our sturdy young Percheron. Locomotion through any new or
+untried medium is certain to bring with the experiment a dash of
+elation. Now, driving through water appears to be no longer the fashion
+in our fastidious century; someone might get a wetting, possibly, has
+been the conclusion of the prudent. And thus a very innocent and
+exciting bit of fun has been gradually relegated among the lost arts of
+pleasure.
+
+We were taking water as we had never taken it before, and liking the
+method. We were as wet as ducks, but what cared we? We were being
+deluged with spray; the spume of the sea was spurting in our faces with
+the force of a strong wet breeze, and still we liked it. Besides,
+driving thus into the white foam of the waters, over the sand ridges,
+across the downs, into the wide plains of wet mud, this was the old
+classical way of going up to the Mont. Surely, what had been found good
+enough as a pathway for kings and saints and pilgrims should be good
+enough for two lovers of old-time methods. The dike yonder was built
+for those who believe in the devil of haste, and for those who also
+serve him faithfully.
+
+Someone else besides ourselves was enjoying our drive through the
+waves. Our gay young Normandy driver seemed to find an exquisite relish
+in the spectacle of our wet faces and unstable figures. He could not
+keep his eyes off us; they fairly glistened with the dew of his
+enjoyment. Two ladies pitched and rolled about, exactly as if they were
+peasants, and laughing as if they were children--this was a spectacle
+and a keen appreciation of a joke that brought joy to a rustic blouse.
+
+"Ah--ah! mesdames!" he cried, exultingly, between the gasps of his own
+laughter, as he tossed his own fine head in the air, sitting on his
+rude bench, covered with sheepskin, as if it had been an armchair. "Ah,
+ah! mesdames, you didn't expect this, _hein_? You hoped for a landau,
+and feathers and cushions, perhaps? But soft feathers and springs are
+not for the _grève_."
+
+"Is it dangerous? are there deep holes?"
+
+"Oh, the holes, they are as nothing. It is the quicksands we fear. But
+it is only a little danger, and danger makes the charm of travel, is it
+not so, my ladies? Adventure, that is what one travels for! _Hui!_ Fend
+l'Air!"
+
+It had occurred to us before that we had been uncommonly lucky in our
+coachmen, as well as in the names of the horses, that had brightened
+our journey. In spite of Juliet, whose disdain of the virtue or the
+charm that lies in a name is no more worthy of respect than is any
+lover's opinion when in the full-orbed foolishness of his lunacy, I
+believe names to be a very effective adjunct to life's scenic setting.
+Most of the horses we had had along these Normandy high-roads, had
+answered to names that had helped to italicize the features of the
+country. Could Poulette, the sturdy little mare, with whom only an hour
+ago we had parted forever, have been given a better sobriquet by which
+to have identified for us the fat landscape? And now here was Fend
+l'Air proving good his talent for cleaving through space, whatever of
+land or sea lay in his path.
+
+"And he merits his name, my lady," his driver announced with grave
+pride, as he looked at the huge haunches with a loving eye. "He can go,
+oh, but as the wind! It is he who makes of the crossing but as if it
+were nothing!"
+
+The crossing! That was the key-note of the way the coast spoke of the
+Mont. The rock out yonder was a country apart, a bit of land or stone
+the shore claimed not, had no part in, felt to be as remote as if it
+were a foreign province. At Genets the village spoke of the Mont as one
+talks of a distant land. Even the journey over the sands was looked
+upon with a certain seriousness. A starting forth was the signal for
+the village to assemble about the _char-à-banc's_ wheels. Quite a large
+company for a small village to muster was grouped about our own
+vehicle, to look on gravely as we mounted to the rude seat within. The
+villagers gave us their "_bonjours_" with as much fervor as if we were
+starting forth on a sea voyage.
+
+"You will have a good crossing!" cackled one of the old men, nodding
+toward the peak in the sky.
+
+"The sands may be wet, but they are firm already!" added a huge
+peasant--the fattest man in all the canton, whisperingly confided the
+landlady, as one proud of possessing a village curiosity.
+
+"_Hui_, Fend l'Air! _attention, toi!_" Fend l'Air tossed his fine mane,
+and struck out with a will over the cobbles. But his driver was only
+posing for the assembled village. He was in no real haste; there was a
+fresh voice singing yonder in his mother's tavern; the sentimentalist
+in him was on edge to hear the end of the song.
+
+"Do you hear that, mesdames? There's no such singing as that out of
+Paris. One must go to a café--"
+
+"_Allons, toi!_" shrieked his mother's voice, as her face darkened. "Do
+you think these ladies want to spend the night on the _grève_?
+_Depêches-toi, vaurien!_" And she gave the wheels a shove with her
+strong hand, whereat all the village laughed. But the good-for-nothing
+son made no haste as the song went on--
+
+  "_Le bon vin me fait dormir,
+  L'amour me réveil--_"
+
+He continued to cock his head on one side and to let his eyes dream a
+bit.
+
+Within, a group of peasants was gathered about the inn table. There
+were some young girls seated among the blouses; one of them, for the
+hour that we had sat waiting for Fend l'Air to be captured and
+harnessed, had been singing songs of questionable taste in a voice of
+such contralto sweetness as to have touched the heart of a bishop.
+"Some young girls from the factories at Avranches, mesdames, who come
+here Sundays to get a bit of fresh air; _Dieu soit si elles en ont
+besoin, pauvres enfants!_" was the landlady's charitable explanation.
+It appeared to us that the young ladies from Avranches were more in
+need of a moral than a climatic change. But then, we also charitably
+reflected, it makes all the difference in the world, in these nice
+questions of taste and morality, whether one has had as an inheritance
+a past of Francis I. and a Rabelais, or of Calvin and a Puritan
+conscience.
+
+The geese on the green downs, just below the village, had clearly never
+even heard of Calvin; they were luxuriating in a series of plunges into
+the deep pools in a way to prove complete ignorance of nice sabbatarian
+laws.
+
+With our first toss upon the downs, a world of new and fresh
+experiences began. Genets was quite right; the Mont over yonder was
+another country; even at the very beginning of the journey we learned
+so much. This breeze blowing in from the sea, that had swept the
+ramparts of the famous rock, was a double extract of the sea essence;
+it had all the salt of the sea and the aroma of firs and wild flowers;
+its lips had not kissed a garden in high air without the perfume
+lingering, if only to betray them. Even this strip of meadow marsh had
+a character peculiar to itself; half of it belonged to earth and half
+to the sea. You might have thought it an inland pasture, with its herds
+of cattle, its flocks of sheep, and its colonies of geese--patrolled by
+ragged urchins. But behold, somewhere out yonder the pasture was lost
+in high sea-waves; ships with bulging sails replaced the curve of the
+cattle's sides, and instead of bending necks of sheep, there were
+seagulls swooping down upon the foamy waves.
+
+As the incarnation of this dual life of sea and land, the rock stands.
+It also is both of the sea and the land. Its feet are of the
+waters--rocks and stones the sea-waves have used as playthings these
+millions of years. But earth regains possession as the rocks pile
+themselves into a mountain. Even from this distance, one can see the
+moving arms of great trees, the masses of yellow flower-tips that dye
+the sides of the stony hill, and the strips of green grass here and
+there. So much has nature done for this wonderful pyramid in the sea.
+Then man came and fashioned it to his liking. He piled the stones at
+its base into titanic walls; he carved about its sides the rounded
+breasts of bastions; he piled higher and higher up the dizzy heights a
+medley of palaces, convents, abbeys, cloisters, to lay at the very top
+the fitting crown of all, a jewelled Norman-Gothic cathedral.
+
+Earth and man have thrown their gauntlet down to the sea--this rock is
+theirs, they cry to the waves and the might of oceans. And the sea
+laughs--as strong men laugh when boys are angry or insistent. She has
+let them build and toil, and pray and fight; it is all one to her what
+is done on the rock--whether men carve its stones into lace, or rot and
+die in its dungeons; it is all the same to her whether each spring the
+daffodils creep up within the crevices and the irises nod to them from
+the gardens.
+
+It is all one to her. For twice a day she recaptures the Mont. She
+encircles it with the strong arm of her tides; with the might of her
+waters she makes it once more a thing of the sea.
+
+The tide was rising now.
+
+The fringe of the downs had dabbled in the shoals till they had become
+one. We had left behind the last of the shepherd lads, come out to the
+edge of the land to search for a wandering kid. We were all at once
+plunging into high water. Our road was sunk out of sight; we were
+driving through waves as high as our cart-wheels. Fend l'Air was
+shivering; he was as a-tremble as a woman. The height of the rivers was
+not to his liking.
+
+"_Sacré fainéant!_" yelled his owner, treating the tremor to a mighty
+crack of the whip.
+
+"Is he afraid?"
+
+"Yes--when the water is as high as that, he is always afraid. Ah, there
+he is--_diantre_, but he took his time!" he growled, but the growl was
+set in the key of relief. He was pointing toward a figure that was
+leaping toward us through the water. "It is the guide!" he added, in
+explanation.
+
+The guide was at Fend l'Air's shoulder. Very little of him was above
+water, but that little was as brown as an Egyptian. He was puffing and
+blowing like unto a porpoise. In one hand he held a huge pitchfork--the
+trident of this watery Mercury.
+
+"Shall I conduct you?" he asked, dipping the trident as if in salute,
+into the water, as he still puffed and gasped.
+
+"If you please," as gravely responded our driver. For though up to our
+cart-wheels and breasts in deep water, the formalities were not to be
+dispensed with, you understand. The guide placed himself at once in
+front of Fend l'Air, whose shivers as quickly disappeared.
+
+"You see, mesdames--the guide gives him courage--and he now knows no
+fear," cried out with pride our whip on the outer bench. "And what
+news, Victor--is there any?" It was of the Mont he was asking. And the
+guide replied, taking an extra plunge into deep water:
+
+"Oh, not much. There's to be a wedding tomorrow and a pilgrimage the
+next day. Madame Poulard has only a handful as yet. _Ces dames_ descend
+doubtless at Madame Poulard's--_celle qui fait les omelettes?_" The
+ladies were ignorant as yet of the accomplishments of the said
+landlady; they had only heard of her beauty.
+
+"_C'est elle_," gravely chorussed the guide and the driver, both
+nodding their heads as their eyes met. "_Fameuse, sa beauté, comme son
+omelette_," as gravely added our driver.
+
+The beauty of this lady and the fame of her omelette were very
+sobering, apparently, in their effects on the mind; for neither guide
+nor driver had another word to say.
+
+Still the guide plunged into the rivers, and Fend l'Air followed him.
+Our cart still pitched and tossed--we were still rocked about in our
+rough cradle. But the sun, now freed from the banks of clouds, was
+lighting our way with a great and sudden glory. And for the rest of our
+watery journey we were conscious only of that lighting. Behind the
+Mont, lay a vast sea of saffron. But it was in the sky; against it the
+great rock was as black as if the night were upon it. Here and there,
+through the curve of a flying buttress, or the apertures of a pierced
+parapet, gay bits of this yellow world were caught and framed. The sea
+lay beneath like a quiet carpet; and over this carpet ships and sloops
+swam with easy gliding motion, with sails and cordage dipped in gold.
+The smaller craft, moored close to shore, seemed transfigured as in a
+fog of gold. And nearer still were the brown walls of the Mont making a
+great shadow, and in the shadow the waters were as black as the skin of
+an African. In the shoals there were lovely masses of turquoise and
+palest green; for here and there a cloudlet passed, to mirror their
+complexions in the translucent pools.
+
+But Fend l'Air's hoofs had struck a familiar note. His iron shoes were
+clicking along the macadam of the dike. There was a rapid dashing
+beneath the great walls; a sudden night of darkness as we plunged
+through an open archway into a narrow village street; a confused
+impression of houses built into side-walls; of machicolated gateways;
+of rocks and roof-tops tumbling about our ears; and within the street
+was sounding the babel of a shrieking troop of men and women. Porters,
+peasants, lads, and children were clamoring about our cart-wheels like
+unto so many jackals. The bedlam did not cease as we stopped before a
+wide, brightly-lit open doorway.
+
+Then through the doorway there came a tall, finely-featured brunette.
+She made her way through the yelling crowd as a duchess might cleave a
+path through a rabble. She was at the side of the cart in an instant.
+She gave us a bow and smile that were both a welcome and an act of
+appropriation. She held out a firm, soft, brown hand. When it closed on
+our own, we knew it to be the grasp of a friend, and the clasp of one
+who knew how to hold her world. But when she spoke the words were all
+of velvet, and her voice had the cadence of a caress.
+
+"I have been watching you, _chères dames_--crossing the _grève_--but
+how wet and weary you must be! Come in by the fire, it is ablaze now--I
+have been feeding it for you!" And once more the beautifully curved
+lips parted over the fine teeth, and the exceeding brightness of the
+dark eyes smiled and glittered in our own. The caressing voice still
+led us forward, into the great gay kitchen; the touch of skilful,
+discreet fingers undid wet cloaks and wraps; the soft charm of a lovely
+and gracious woman made even the penetrating warmth of the huge
+fire-logs a secondary feature of our welcome. To those who have never
+crossed a _grève_; who have had no jolting in a Normandy _char-à-banc_;
+who, for hours, have not known the mixed pleasures and discomfort of
+being a part of sea-rivers; and who have not been met at the threshold
+of an Inn on a Rock by the smiling welcome of Madame Poulard--all such
+have yet a pleasant page to read in the book of travelled experience.
+
+Meanwhile somewhere, in an inner room, things sweet to the nostrils
+were cooking. Maids were tripping up and down stairs with covered
+dishes; there was the pleasant clicking in the ear of the lids of
+things; dishes or pans or jars were being lifted. And more delicious to
+the ear than even the promise to starving mouths of food, and of red
+wine to the lip, was the continuing music of madame's voice, as she
+stood over us purring with content at seeing her travellers drying and
+being thoroughly warmed. "The dinner-bell must soon be rung, dear
+ladies; I delayed it as long as I dared--I gauged your progress across
+from the terrace--I have kept all my people waiting; for your first
+dinner here must be hot! But now it rings! Shall I conduct you to your
+rooms?"
+
+I have no doubt that, even without this brunette beauty, with her olive
+cheek and her comely figure as guides, we should have gone the way she
+took us in a sort of daze. One cannot pass under machicolated gateways;
+rustle between the walls of fourteenth century fortifications; climb a
+stone stairway that begins in a watch-tower and ends in a rampart, with
+a great sea view, and with the breadth of all the land shoreward; walk
+calmly over the top of a king's gate, with the arms of a bishop and the
+shrine of the Virgin beneath one's feet; and then, presently, begin to
+climb the side of a rock in which rude stone steps have been cut, till
+one lands on a miniature terrace, to find a preposterously
+sturdy-looking house affixed to a ridiculous ledge of rock that has the
+presumption to give shelter to a hundred or more travellers--ground
+enough, also, for rows of plane-trees, for honeysuckles, and rose-vine,
+with a full coquettish equipment of little tables and iron chairs--no
+such journey as that up a rock was ever taken with entirely sober eyes.
+
+Although her people were waiting below, and the dinner was on its way
+to the cloth, Madame Poulard had plenty of time to give to the beauty
+about her. How fine was the outlook from the top of the ramparts! What
+a fresh sensation, this, of standing on a terrace in mid-air and
+looking down on the sea, and across to the level shores! The
+rose-vines--we found them sweet--_tiens_--one of the branches had
+fallen--she had full time to re-adjust the loosened support. And
+"Marianne, give these ladies their hot water, and see to their bags--"
+even this order was given with courtesy. It was only when the supple,
+agile figure had left us to fly down the steep rock-cut steps; when it
+shot over the top of the gateway and slid with the grace of a lizard
+into the street far below us, that we were made sensible of there
+having been any especial need of madame's being in haste.
+
+That night, some three hours later, a picturesque group was assembled
+about this same supple figure. A pretty, and unlooked-for ceremony was
+about to take place.
+
+It was the ceremony of the lighting of the lanterns.
+
+In the great kitchen, in the dance of the firelight and the glow of the
+lamps, some seven or eight of us were being equipped with Chinese
+lanterns. This of itself was an engaging sight. Madame Poulard was
+always gay at this performance--for it meant much innocent merriment
+among her guests, and with the lighting of the last lantern, her own
+day was done. So the brilliant eyes flashed with a fresh fire, and the
+olive cheek glowed anew. All the men and women laughed as children
+sputter laughter, when they are both pleased and yet a little ashamed
+to show their pleasure. It was so very ridiculous, this journey up a
+rock with a Chinese lantern! But just because it was ridiculous, it was
+also delightful. One--two--three--seven--eight--they were all lit. The
+last male guest had touched his cap to madame, exchanging the "_bonne
+nuit_" a man only gives to a pretty woman, and that which a woman
+returns who feels that her beauty has received its just meed of homage;
+madame's figure stood, still smiling, a radiant benedictory presence,
+in the doorway, with the great glow of the firelight behind her; the
+last laugh echoed down the street--and behold, darkness was upon us!
+The street was as black as a cavern. The strip of sky and the stars
+above seemed almost day, by contrast. The great arch of the Porte du
+Roi engulphed us, and then, slowly groping our way, we toiled up the
+steps to the open ramparts. Here the keen night air swept rudely
+through our cloaks and garments; the sea tossed beneath the bastions
+like some restless tethered creature, that showed now a gray and now a
+purple coat, and the stars were gold balls that might drop at any
+instant, so near they were. The men shivered and buttoned their coats,
+and the women laughed, a trifle shrilly, as they grasped the floating
+burnous closer about their faces and shoulders.
+
+And the lanterns' beams danced a strange dance on the stone flagging.
+
+Once more we were lost in darkness. We were passing through the old
+guard-house. And then slowly, more slowly than ever, the lanterns were
+climbing the steps cut in the rock. Hands groped in the blackness to
+catch hold of the iron railing; the laughter had turned into little
+shouts and gasps for help. And then one of the lanterns played a
+treacherous trick; it showed the backs of two figures groping upward
+together--about one of the girlish figures a man's arm was flung. As
+suddenly the noise of the cries was stilled.
+
+The lanterns played their fitful light on still other objects. They
+illumined now a vivid yellow shrub; they danced upon a roof-top; they
+flooded, with a sudden circlet of brilliance, the awful depths below of
+the swirling waters and of rocks that were black as a bottomless pit.
+
+Then the terrace was reached. And the lanterns danced a last gay little
+dance among the roses and the vines before, Pouffe! Pouffe! and behold!
+they were all blown out.
+
+Thus it was we went to bed on the Mont.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+AN HISTORICAL OMELETTE--THE PILGRIMS AND THE SHRINE.
+
+
+To awake on a hill-top at sea. This was what morning brought.
+
+Crowd this hill with houses plastered to the sides of rocks, with great
+walls girdling it, with tiny gardens lodged in crevices, and with a
+forest tumbling seaward. Let this hill yield you a town in which to
+walk, with a street of many-storied houses; with other promenades along
+ramparts as broad as church aisles; with dungeons, cloisters, halls,
+guard-rooms, abbatial gateways, and a cathedral whose flying buttresses
+seemed to spring from mid-air and to end in a cloud--such was the world
+into which we awoke on the heights of Mont St. Michel.
+
+The verdict of the shore on the hill had been a just one; this world on
+a rock was a world apart. This hill in the sea had a detached air--as
+if, though French, at heart a true Gaul, it had had from the beginning
+of things a life of adventure peculiar to itself. The shore, at best,
+had been only a foster-mother; the hill was the true child of the sea.
+Since its birth it has had a more or less enforced separateness, in
+experience, from the country to which it belonged. Whether temple or
+fortress, whether forest-clad in virginal fierceness of aspect, or
+subdued into beauty by the touch of man's chisel, its destiny has ever
+been the same--to suffice unto itself--to be, in a word, a world in
+miniature.
+
+The Mont proved by its appearance its history in adventure; it had the
+grim, grave, battered look that comes only to features, whether of rock
+or of more plastic human mould--that have been carved by the rough
+handling of experience.
+
+It is the common habit of hills and mountains, as we all know, to turn
+disdainful as they grow skyward; they only too eagerly drop, one by
+one, the things by which man has marked the earth for his own. To stand
+on a mountain top and to go down to your grave are alike, at least in
+this--that you have left everything, except yourself, behind you. But
+it is both the charm and the triumph of Mont St. Michel, that it
+carries so much of man's handiwork up into the blue fields of air; this
+achievement alone would mark it as unique among hills. It appears as if
+for once man and nature had agreed to work in concert to produce a
+masterpiece in stone. The hill and the architectural beauties it
+carries aloft, are like a taunt flung out to sea and to the upper
+heights of air; for centuries they appear to have been crying aloud,
+"See what we can do, against your tempests and your futile tides--when
+we try."
+
+On that particular morning, the taunt seemed more like an
+epithalamium--such marriage-lines did sea and sky appear to be reading
+over the glistening face of the rock. June had pitched its tent of blue
+across the seas; all the world was blue, except where the sun smote it
+into gold. To eyes in love with beauty, what a world at one's feet!
+Beneath that azure roof, toward the west, was the world of water,
+curling, dimpling, like some human thing charged with the conscious joy
+of dancing in the sun. Shoreward, the more stable earth was in the
+Moslem's ideal posture--that of perpetual prostration. The Brittany
+coast was a long, flat, green band; the rocks of Cancale were brown,
+but scarcely higher in point of elevation than the sand-hills; the
+Normandy forests and orchards were rippling lines that focussed into
+the spiral of the Avranches cathedral spires: floating between the two
+blues, hung the aerial shapes of the Chaunsey and the Channel Islands;
+and nearer, along the coast-line, were the fringing edges of the shore,
+broken with shoals and shallows--earth's fingers, as it were, touching
+the sea--playing, as Coleridge's Abyssinian maid fingered the dulcimer,
+that music that haunts the poet's ear.
+
+We were seated at the little iron tables, on the terrace. We were
+sipping our morning coffee, beneath the plane-trees. The terrace, a
+foot beyond our coffee-cups, instantly began its true career as a
+precipice. We, ourselves, seemed to have begun as suddenly our own
+flight heavenward--on such astonishing terms of intimacy were we with
+the sky. The clapping close to our ears of large-winged birds; the
+swirling of the circling sea-gulls; the amazing nearness of the cloud
+drapery--all this gave us the sense of being in a new world, and of its
+being a strangely pleasant one.
+
+Suddenly a cock's crow, shrill and clear, made us start from the
+luxurious languor of our contentment; for we had scarcely looked to
+find poultry on this Hill of Surprises. Turning in the direction of the
+homely, familiar note, we beheld a garden. In this garden walked the
+cock--a two-legged gentleman of gorgeous plumage. If abroad for purely
+constitutional purposes, the crowing chanticleer must be forced to pass
+the same objects many times in review. Of all infinitesimal,
+microscopic gardens, this one, surely, was a model in minuteness. Yet
+it was an entirely self-respecting little garden. It was not much
+larger than a generous-sized pocket handkerchief; yet how much
+talent--for growing--may be hidden in a yard of soil--if the soil have
+the right virtue in it. Here were two rocks forming, with a fringe of
+cliff, a triangle; in that tri-cornered bit of earth a lively crop of
+growing vegetables was offering flattering signs of promise to the
+owner's eye. Where all land runs aslant, as all land does on this Mont,
+not an inch was to be wasted; up the rocks peach and pear-split trees
+were made to climb--and why should they not, since everything
+else--since man himself must climb from the moment he touches the base
+of the hill?
+
+Following the cock's call, came the droning sweetness of bees; the rose
+and the honeysuckle vines were loading the morning air with the perfume
+of their invitations. Then a human voice drowned the bees' whirring,
+and a face as fresh and as smiling as the day stood beside us. It was
+the voice and the face of Madame Poulard, on the round of her morning
+inspections. Our table and the radiant world at her feet were included
+in this, her line of observations.
+
+"_Ah, mesdames, comme vous savez bien vous placer!_--how admirably you
+understand how to place yourselves! Under such a sky as this--before
+such a spectacle--one should be in the front row, as at a theatre!"
+
+And that was the beginning of our deeds finding favor in the eyes of
+Madame Poulard.
+
+It was our happy fate to drink many a morning cup of coffee at those
+little iron tables; to have many a prolonged chat with the charming
+landlady of the famous inn; to become as familiar with the glories and
+splendors of the historical hill as with the habits and customs of the
+world that came up to view them.
+
+For here our journey was to end.
+
+The comedy of life, as it had played itself out in Normandy inns, was
+here, in this Inn on a Rock, to give us a series of farewell
+performances. On no other stage, we were agreed, could the versatile
+French character have had as admirable and picturesque a setting; and
+surely, on no other bit of French soil could such an astonishing and
+amazing variety of types be assembled for a final appearance, as came
+up, day after day, to make the tour of the Mont.
+
+To the shore, and for the whole of the near-lying Breton and Norman
+rustic world, the Mont is still the Hill of Delight. It is their Alp,
+their shrine, the tenth wonder of the world, a prison, a palace, and a
+temple still. In spite of Parisian changes in religious fashions, the
+blouse is still devout; for curiosity is the true religion of the
+provincial, and all love of adventure did not die out with the Crusades.
+
+Therefore it is that rustic France along this coast still makes
+pilgrimages to the shrine of the Archangel St. Michael. No marriage is
+rightly arranged which does not include a wedding-journey across the
+_grève_; no nuptial breakfast is aureoled with the true halo of romance
+which is eaten elsewhere than on these heights in mid-air. The young
+come to drink deep of wonders; the old, to refresh the depleted
+fountains of memory; and the tourist, behold, he is as a plague of
+locusts let loose upon the defenceless hill!
+
+After a fortnight's sojourn, Charm and I held many a grave
+consultation; close observation of this world that climbed the heights
+had bred certain strange misgivings. What was it this world of
+sight-seers came up to the Mont for to see? Was it to behold the great
+glories thereof, or was it, oh, human eye of man! to look on the face
+of a charming woman I It was impossible, after sojourning a certain
+time upon the hill, not to concede that there were two equally strong
+centres of attractions, that drew the world hither-ward. One remained,
+indeed, gravely suspended between the doubt and the fear, as to which
+of these potential units had the greater pull, in point of actual
+attraction. The impartial historian, given to a just weighing of
+evidence, would have been startled to find how invariably the scales
+tipped; how lightly an historical Mont, born of a miracle, crowned by
+the noblest buildings, a pious Mecca for saints and kings innumerable,
+shot up like feathers in lightness when over-weighted by the modern
+realities of a perfectly appointed inn, the cooking and eating of an
+omelette of omelettes, and the all-conquering charms of Madame Poulard.
+The fog of doubt thickened as, day after day, the same scenes were
+enacted; when one beheld all sorts and conditions of men similarly
+affected; when, again and again, the potentiality in the human magnet
+was proved true. Doubt turned to conviction, at the last, that the holy
+shrine of St. Michael had, in truth, been, violated; that the Mont had
+been desecrated; that the latter exists now solely as a setting for a
+pearl of an inn; and that within the shrine--it is Madame Poulard
+herself who fills the niche!
+
+The pilgrims come from darkest Africa and the sunlit Yosemite, but they
+remain to pray at the Inn of the Omelette. Yonder, on the _grèves,_ as
+we ourselves had proved, one crosses the far seas and one is wet to the
+skin, only to hear the praises sung of madame's skill in the handling
+of eggs in a pan; it is for this the lean guide strides before the
+pilgrim tourist, and that he dippeth his trident in the waters. At the
+great gates of the fortifications the pilgrim descends, and behold, a
+howling chorus of serving-people take up the chant of: "_Chez Madame
+Poulard, à gauche, à la renommée de l'omelette!_" The inner walls of
+the town lend themselves to their last and best estate, that of
+proclaiming the glory of "_L'Omelette_." Placards, rich in indicative
+illustrations of hands all forefingers, point, with a directness never
+vouchsafed the sinner eager to find the way to right and duty, to the
+inn of "_L'Incomparable, la Fameuse Omelette!_" The pilgrims meekly
+descend at that shrine. They bow low to the worker of the modern
+miracle; they pass with eager, trembling foot, into the inner
+sanctorum, to the kitchen, where the presiding deity receives them with
+the grace of a queen and the simplicity of a saint.
+
+Life on the Mont, as we soon found, resolved itself into this--into so
+arranging one's day as to be on hand for the great, the eventful hour.
+In point of fact there were two such hours in the Mont St. Michel day.
+There was the hour of the cooking of the omelette. There was always the
+other really more tragic hour, of the coming across the dike, of the
+huge lumbering omnibuses. For you see, that although one may be
+beautiful enough to compete successfully against dead-and-gone saints,
+against worn out miracles, and wonders in stone, human nature, when it
+is alive, is human nature still. It is the curse of success, the world
+over, to arouse jealousy; and we all have lived long enough to know
+that jealousy's evil-browed offspring are named Hate and Competition.
+Up yonder, beyond the Porte du Roi, rivalry has set up a
+counter-shrine, with a competing saint, with all the hateful
+accessories of a pretty face, a younger figure, and a graceful if less
+skilled aptitude in the making of omelettes in public.
+
+The hour of the coming in of the coaches, was, therefore, a tragic hour.
+
+On the arrival of the coaches Madame was at her post long before the
+pilgrims came up to her door. Being entirely without personal
+vanity--since she felt her beauty, her cleverness, her grace, and her
+charm to be only a part of the capital of the inn trade--a higher order
+of the stock in trade, as it were--she made it a point to look
+handsomer on the arrival of coaches than at any other time. Her cheeks
+were certain to be rosier; her bird's head was always carried a trifle
+more takingly, perched coquettishly sideways, that the caressing smile
+of welcome might be the more personal; and as the woman of business,
+lining the saint, so to speak, was also present, into the deep pockets
+of the blue-checked apron, the calculating fingers were thrust, that
+the quick counting of the incoming guests might not be made too obvious
+an action. After such a pose, to see a pilgrim escape! To see him pass
+by, unmoved by that smile, turning his feelingless back on the true
+shrine! It was enough to melt the stoutest heart. Madame's welcome of
+the captured, after such an affront, was set in the minor key; and her
+smile was the smile of a suffering angel.
+
+"_Cours, mon enfant_, run, see if he descends or if he pushes on; tell
+him _I_ am Madame Poulard!" This, a low command murmured between a
+hundred orders, still in the minor key, would be purred to Clémentine,
+a peasant in a cap, exceeding fleet of foot, and skilled in the capture
+of wandering sheep.
+
+And Clémentine would follow that stray pilgrim: she would attack him in
+the open street; would even climb after him, if need be, up the steep
+rock steps, till, proved to be following strange gods, he would be
+brought triumphantly back to the kitchen-shrine, by Clémentine,
+puffing, but exultant.
+
+"Ah, monsieur, how could you pass us by?" madame's soft voice would
+murmur reproachfully in the pilgrim's ear. And the pilgrim, abashed,
+ashamed, would quickly make answer, if he were born of the right
+parents: "_Chère_ madame, how was I to believe my eyes? It is ten years
+since I was here, and you are younger, more beautiful than ever! I was
+going in search of your mother!" at which needless truism all the
+kitchen would laugh. Madame Poulard herself would find time for one of
+her choicest smiles, although this was the great moment of the working
+of the miracle. She was beginning to cook the omelette.
+
+The head-cook was beating the eggs in a great yellow bowl. Madame had
+already taken her stand at the yawning Louis XV. fireplace; she was
+beginning gently to balance the huge _casserole_ over the glowing logs.
+And all the pilgrims were standing about, watching the process. Now,
+the group circling about the great fireplace was scarcely ever the
+same; the pilgrims presented a different face and garb day after
+day--but in point of hunger they were as one man; they were each and
+all as unvaryingly hungry as only tourists could be, who, clamoring for
+food, have the smell of it in their nostrils, with the added ache of
+emptiness gnawing within. But besides hunger, each one of the pilgrims
+had brought with him a pair of eyes; and what eyes of man can be pure
+savage before the spectacle of a pretty woman cooking, _for him_,
+before an open fire? Therefore it was that still another miracle was
+wrought, that of turning a famished mob into a buzzing swarm of
+admirers.
+
+"_Mais si, monsieur_, in this pan I can cook an omelette large enough
+for you all; you will see. Ah, madame, you are off already? Célestine!
+Madame's bill, in the desk yonder. And you, monsieur, you too leave us?
+_Deux cognacs?_ Victor--_deux cognacs et une demi-tasse pour monsieur!_"
+
+These and a hundred other answers and questions and orders, were
+uttered in a fluted voice or in a tone of sharp command, by the
+miracle-worker, as the pan was kept gently turning, and the eggs were
+poured in at just the right moment--not one of the pretty poses of head
+and wrist being forgotten. Madame Poulard, like all clever women who
+are also pretty, had two voices: one was dedicated solely to the
+working of her charms; this one was soft, melodious, caressing, the
+voice of dove when cooing; the other, used for strictly business
+purposes, was set in the quick, metallic _staccato_ tones proper for
+such occasions.
+
+The dove's voice was trolling its sweetness, as she went on--
+
+"Eggs, monsieur? How many I use? Ah, it is in the season that counting
+the dozens becomes difficult--seventy dozen I used one day last year!"
+
+"Seventy dozen!" the pilgrim-chorus ejaculated, their eyes growing the
+wider as their lips moistened. For behold, the eggs were now cooked to
+a turn; the long-handled pan was being lifted with the effortless skill
+of long practice, the omelette was rolled out at just the right instant
+of consistency, and was being as quickly turned into its great flat
+dish.
+
+There was a scurrying and scampering up the wide steps to the dining
+room, and a hasty settling into the long rows of chairs. Presently
+madame herself would appear, bearing the huge dish. And the
+omelette--the omelette, unlike the pilgrims, would be found to be
+always the same--melting, juicy, golden, luscious, and above all _hot!_
+
+The noon-day table d'hôte was always a sight to see. Many of the
+pilgrim-tourists came up to the Mont merely to pass the day, or to stop
+the night; the midday meal was therefore certain to be the liveliest of
+all the repasts.
+
+The cloth was spread in a high, white, sunlit room. It was a trifle
+bare, this room, in spite of the walls being covered with pictures, the
+windows with pretty draperies, and the spotless linen that covered the
+long table. But all temples, however richly adorned, have a more or
+less unfurnished aspect; and this room served not only as the
+dining-table, but also as a foreshadowing of the apotheosis of Madame
+Poulard. Here were grouped together all the trophies and tributes of a
+grateful world; there were portraits of her charming brunette face
+signed by famous admirers; there were sonnets to her culinary skill and
+her charms as hostess, framed; these alternated with gifts of horned
+beasts that had been slain in her honor, and of stuffed birds who, in
+life, had beguiled the long winters for her with their songs. About the
+wide table, the snow of the linen reflected always the same picture;
+there were rows of little palms in flower-pots, interspersed with fruit
+dishes, with the butter pats, the almonds, and raisins, in their flat
+plates.
+
+The rows of faces above the cloth were more varied. The four corners of
+the earth were sometimes to be seen gathered together about the
+breakfast-table. Frenchmen of the Midi, with the skin of Spaniards and
+the buzz of Tartarin's _ze ze_ in their speech; priests, lean and fat;
+Germans who came to see a French stronghold as defenceless as a woman's
+palm; the Italian, a rarer type, whose shoes, sufficiently pointed to
+prick, and whose choice for décolleté collars betrayed his nationality
+before his lisping French accent could place him indisputably beyond
+the Alps; herds of English--of all types--from the aristocrat, whose
+open-air life had colored his face with the hues of a butcher, to the
+pale, ascetic clerk, off on a two weeks' holiday, whose bending at his
+desk had given him the stoop of a scholar; with all these were mixed
+hordes of French provincials, chiefly of the _bourgeois type,_ who
+singly, or in family parties, or in the nuptial train of sons or
+daughters, came up to the shrine of St. Michel.
+
+To listen to the chatter of these tourists was to learn the last word
+of the world's news. As in the days before men spoke to each other
+across continents, and the medium of cold type had made the event of
+to-day the history of to-morrow, so these pilgrims talked through the
+one medium that alone can give a fact the real essence of
+freshness--the ever young, the perdurably charming human voice. It was
+as good as sitting out a play to watch the ever-recurring
+characteristics, which made certain national traits as marked as the
+noses on the faces of the tourists. The question, for example, on which
+side the Channel a pilgrim was born, was settled five seconds after he
+was seated at table. The way in which the butter was passed was one
+test; the manner of the eating of the famous omelette was another. If
+the tourist were a Frenchman, the neat glass butter-dish was turned
+into a visiting-card--a letter of introduction, a pontoon-bridge, in a
+word, hastily improvised to throw across the stream of conversation.
+"_Madame_" (this to the lady at the tourist's left), "_me permet-elle
+de lui offrir le beurre?_" Whereat madame bowed, smiled, accepted the
+golden balls as if it were a bouquet, returning the gift, a few seconds
+later, by the proffer of the gravy dish. Between the little ceremony of
+the two bows and the smiling _mercis_, a tentative outbreak of speech
+ensued, which at the end of a half-hour, had spread from _bourgeois_ to
+countess, from curé to Parisian _boulevardier_, till the entire side of
+the table was in a buzz of talk. These genial people of a genial land
+finding themselves all in search of the same adventure, on top of a
+hill, away from the petty world of conventionality, remembered that
+speech was given to man to communicate with his fellows. And though
+neighbors for a brief hour, how charming such an hour can be made when
+into it are crowded the effervescence of personal experience, the witty
+exchange of comment and observation, and the agreeable conflict of
+thought and opinion!
+
+On the opposite side of the table, what a contrast! There the English
+were seated. There was the silence of the grave. All the rigid figures
+sat as upright as posts. In front of these severe countenances, the
+butter-plates remained as fixtures; the passing of them to a neighbor
+would be a frightful breach of good form--besides being dangerous. Such
+practices, in public places, had been known to lead to things--to
+unspeakable things--to knowing the wrong people, to walks afterward
+with cads one couldn't shake off, even to marriages with the
+impossible! Therefore it was that the butter remained a fixture. Even
+between those who formed the same tourist-party, there was rarely such
+an act of self-forgetfulness committed as an indulgence in talk--in
+public. The eye is the only active organ the Englishman carries abroad
+with him; his talking is done by staring. What fierce scowls, what dark
+looks of disapproval, contempt, and dislike were levelled at the
+chattering Frenchmen opposite.
+
+[Illustration: MONT SAINT MICHEL SNAIL-GATHERERS]
+
+Across the table, the national hate perpetuated itself. It appears to
+be a test of patriotism, this hatred between Frenchmen and Englishmen.
+That strip of linen might easily have been the Channel itself; it could
+scarcely more effectually have separated the two nations. A whole
+comedy of bitterness, a drama of rivalry, and a five-act tragedy of
+scorn were daily played between the Briton who sat facing the south,
+and the Frenchman who faced north. Both, as they eyed their neighbor
+over the foam of their napkins, had the Island in their eye!--the
+Englishman to flaunt its might and glory in the teeth of the hated
+Gaul, and the Frenchman to return his contempt for a nation of moist
+barbarians.
+
+Meanwhile, the omelette was going its rounds. It was being passed at
+that moment to Monsieur le Curé. He had been watching its progress with
+glistening eye and moistening lips. Madame Poulard, as she slipped the
+melting morsel beneath his elbow, had suddenly assumed the role of the
+penitent. Her tone was a reminder of the confessional, as of one who
+passed her masterpiece apologetically. She, forsooth, a sinner, to have
+the honor of ministering to the carnal needs of a son of the Church!
+
+The son of the Church took two heaping spoonfuls. His eye gave her,
+with his smile, the benediction of his gratitude, even before he had
+tasted of the luscious compound.
+
+"_Ah, chère madame! il n'y a que vous_--it is only you who can make the
+ideal omelette! I have tried, but Suzette has no art in her fingers;
+your receipt doesn't work away from the Mont!" And the good man sighed
+as he chuckled forth his praises.
+
+He had come up to the hill in company with the two excellent ladies
+beside him, of his flock, to make a little visit to his brethren
+yonder, to the priests who were still here, wrecks of the once former
+flourishing monastery. He had come to see them, and also to gaze on La
+Merveille. It was a good five years since he had looked upon its
+dungeons and its lace-work. But after all, in his secret soul of souls,
+he had longed to eat of the omelette. _Dieu!_ how often during those
+slow, quiet years in the little hamlet yonder on the plain, had its
+sweetness and lightness mocked his tongue with illusive tasting! Little
+wonder, therefore, that the good curé's praises were sweet in madame's
+ear, for they had the ring of truth--and of envy! And madame herself
+was only mortal, for what woman lives but feels herself uplifted by the
+sense of having found favor in the eyes of her priest?
+
+The omelette next came to a halt between the two ladies of the curé's
+flock. These were two _bourgeoises_ with the deprecating, mistrustful
+air peculiar to commonplace the world over. The walk up the steep
+stairs was still quickening their breath their compressed bosoms were
+straining the hooks of their holiday woollen bodices--cut when they
+were of slenderer build. Their bonnets proclaimed the antique fashions
+of a past decade; but the edge of their tongues had the keenness that
+comes with daily practice--than which none has been found surer than
+adoration of one's pastor, and the invigorating gossip of small towns.
+
+These ladies eyed the omelette with a chilled glance. Naturally, they
+could not see as much to admire in Madame Poulard or in her dish as did
+their curé. There was nothing so wonderful after all in the turning of
+eggs over a hot fire. The omelette!--after all, an omelette is an
+omelette! Some are better--some are worse; one has one's luck in
+cooking as in anything else. They had come up to the Mont with their
+good curé to see its wonders and for a day's outing; admiration of
+other women had not been anticipated as a part of the programme.
+_Tiens_--who was he talking to now? To that tall blonde--a foreigner, a
+young girl--_tiens_--who knows?--possibly an American--those Americans
+are terrible, they say--bold, immodest, irreverent. And the two ladies'
+necks were screwed about their over-tight collars, to give Charm the
+verdict of their disapproval.
+
+"Monsieur le Curé, they are passing you the fish!" cried the stouter,
+more aggressive parishioner, who boasted a truculent mustache.
+
+"Monsieur le Curé, the roast is at your elbow!" interpolated the
+second, with the more timid voice of a second in action; this protector
+of the good curé had no mustache, but her face was mercifully protected
+by nature from a too-disturbing combination of attractions, by being
+plentifully punctuated with moles from which sprouted little tufts of
+hair. The rain of these ladies' interruption was incessant; but the
+curé was a man of firm mind; their efforts to recapture his attention
+were futile. For the music of Charm's foreign voice was in his ear.
+Worship of the cloth is not a national, it is a more or less universal
+cult, I take it. It is in the blood of certain women. Opposite the two
+fussy, jealous _bourgeoises_, were others as importunate and
+aggressive. They were of fair, lean, lank English build, with the
+shifting eyes and the persistent courage which come to certain maidens
+in whose lives there is but one fixed and certain fact--that of having
+missed the matrimonial market. The shrine of their devotions, and the
+present citadel of their attack, was seated between them--he also being
+lean, pale, high-arched of brow, high anglican by choice, and
+noticeably weak of chin, in whose sable garments there was framed the
+classical clerical tie.
+
+To this curate Madame was now passing her dish. She still wore her fine
+sweet smile, but there was always a discriminating reserve in its edge
+when she touched the English elbow. The curate took his spoonful with
+the indifference of a man who had never known the religion of good
+eating. He put up his one eye-glass; it swept Madame's bending face,
+its smile, and the yellow glory floating beneath both. "Ah-h--ya-as--an
+omelette!" The glass was dropped; he took a meagre spoonful which he
+cut, presently, with his knife. He turned then to his neighbors--to
+both his neighbors! They had been talking of the parish church on the
+hill.
+
+"Ah-h-h, ya-as--lovely porch--isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, lovely--lovely!" chorussed the two maidens, with assenting fervor.
+"_Were_ you there this morning?" and they lifted eyes swimming with the
+rapture of their admiration.
+
+"Ya-as."
+
+"Only fancy--our missing you! We were _both_ there!"
+
+"Dear me! Really, were you?"
+
+"_Could_ you go this afternoon? I do want so to hear your criticism of
+my drawing--I'm working on the arch now."
+
+"So sorry--can't--possibly. I promised what's his name to go over to
+Tombelaine, don't you know!"
+
+"Oh-h! We do so want to go to Tombelaine!"
+
+"Ah-h--do you, really? One ought to start a little before the tide
+drops--they tell me!" and the clerical eye, through its correctly
+adjusted glass, looked into those four pleading eyes with no hint of
+softening. The dish that was the masterpiece of the house, meanwhile,
+had been despatched as if it were so much leather.
+
+The omelette fared no better with the brides, as a rule, than with the
+English curates. Such a variety of brides as came up to the Mont! You
+could have your choice, at the midday meal, of almost any nationality,
+age, or color. The attempt among these bridal couples to maintain the
+distant air of a finished indifference only made their secret the more
+open. The British phlegm, on such a journey, did not always serve as a
+convenient mask; the flattering, timid glance, the ripple of the tender
+whispers, and the furtive touching of fingers beneath the table, made
+even these English couples a part of the great human marrying family;
+their superiority to their fellows would return, doubtless, when the
+honey had dried out of their moon. The best of our adventures into this
+tender country were with the French bridal tourists; they were certain
+to be delightfully human. As we had had occasion to remark before, they
+were off, like ourselves, on a little voyage of discovery; they had
+come to make acquaintance with the being to whom they were mated for
+life. Various degrees of progress could be read in the air and manner
+of the hearty young _bourgeoises_ and their paler or even ruddier
+partners, as they crunched their bread or sipped their thin wine. Some
+had only entered as yet upon the path of inquiry; others had already
+passed the mile-stone of criticism; and still others had left the earth
+and were floating in full azure of intoxication. Of the many wedding
+parties that sat down to breakfast, we soon made the commonplace
+discovery that the more plebeian the company, the more certain-orbed
+appeared to be the promise of happiness.
+
+Some of the peasant weddings were noisy, boisterous performances; but
+how gay were the brides, and how bloated with joy the hardy,
+knotty-handied grooms! These peasant wedding guests all bore a striking
+family likeness; they might easily all have been brothers and sisters,
+whether they had come from the fields near Pontorson, or Cancale, or
+Dol, or St. Malo. The older the women, the prettier and the more
+gossamer were the caps; but the younger maidens were always delightful
+to look upon, such was the ripe vigor of their frames, and the liquid
+softness of eyes that, like animals, were used to wide sunlit fields
+and to great skies full of light. The bride, in her brand-new stuff
+gown, with a bonnet that recalled the bridal wreath only just laid
+aside, was also certain to be of a general universal type with the
+broad hips, wide waist, muscular limbs, and the melting sweetness of
+lips and eyes that only abundant health and a rich animalism of nature
+bring to maidenhood.
+
+Madame Poulard's air with this, her world, was as full of tact as with
+the tourists. Many of the older women would give her the Norman kiss,
+solemnly, as if the salute were a part of the ceremony attendant on the
+eating of a wedding breakfast at Mont St. Michel. There would be a
+three times' clapping of the wrinkled or the ruddy peasant cheeks
+against the sides of Madame Poulard's daintier, more delicately
+modelled face. Then all would take their seats noisily at table. It was
+Madame Poulard who then would bring us news of the party; at the end of
+a fortnight, Charm and I felt ourselves to be in possession of the
+hidden and secret reasons for all the marrying that had been done along
+the coast, that year. "_Tiens, ce n'est pas gai, la noce!_ I must learn
+the reason!" Madame would then flutter over the bridal breakfasters as
+a delicate plumaged bird hovers over a mass of stuff out of which it
+hopes to make a respectable meal. She presently would return to murmur
+in a whisper, "it is a _mariage de raison_. They, the bride and groom,
+love elsewhere, but they are marrying to make a good partnership; they
+are both hair-dressers at Caen. They have bought a new and fine shop
+with their earnings." Or it would be, "Look, madame, at that _jolie
+personne_; see how sad she looks. She is in love with her cousin who
+sits opposite, but the groom is the old one. He has a large farm and a
+hundred cows." To look on such a trio would only be to make the
+acquaintance anew of Sidonie and Risler and of Froment Jeune. Such
+brides always had the wandering gaze of those in search of fresh
+horizons, or of those looking already for the chance of escape. For
+such "unhappies," _ces malheureuses_, Madame's manner had an added
+softness and tenderness; she passed the frosted bridal cake as if it
+were a propitiatory offering to the God of Hymen. However melancholy
+the bride, the cake and Madame's caressing smiles wrought ever the same
+spell; for an instant, at least, the newly-made wife was in love with
+matrimony and with the cake, accepting the latter with the pleased
+surprise of one who realizes that, at least, on one's wedding day, one
+is a person of importance; that even so far as Mont St. Michel the news
+of their marriage had turned the ovens into a baking of wedding-cakes.
+This was destined to be the first among the deceptions that greeted
+such brides; for there were hundreds of such cakes, alas! kept
+constantly on hand. They were the same--a glory of sugar-mouldings and
+devices covering a mountain of richness--that were sent up yearly at
+Christmas time to certain mansard studios in the Latin quarter, where
+the artist recipients, like the brides, eat of the cake as did Adam
+when partaking of the apple, believing all the woman told them!
+
+There were other visitors who came up to the Mont, not as welcome as
+were these tourist parties.
+
+One morning, as we looked toward Pontorson, a small black cloud
+appeared to be advancing across the bay. The day was windy; the sky was
+crowded with huge white mountains--round, luminous clouds that moved in
+stately sweeps. And the sea was the color one loves to see in an
+earnest woman's eye, the dark-blue sapphire that turns to blue-gray.
+This was a setting that made that particular cloud, making such slow
+progress across from the shore, all the more conspicuous. Gradually, as
+the black mass neared the dike, it began to break and separate; and we
+saw plainly enough that the scattering particles were human beings.
+
+It was, in point of fact, a band of pilgrims; a peasant pilgrimage was
+coming up to the Mont. In wagons, in market carts, in _char-à-bancs_,
+in donkey-carts, on the backs of monster Percherons--the pilgrimage
+moved in slow processional dignity across the dike. Some of the younger
+black gowns and blue blouses attempted to walk across over the sands;
+we could see the girls sitting down on the edge of the shore, to take
+off their shoes and stockings and to tuck up their thick skirts. When
+they finally started they were like unto so many huge cheeses hoisted
+on stilts. The bare legs plunged boldly forward, keeping ahead of the
+slower-moving peasant-lads; the girls' bravery served them till they
+reached the fringe of the incoming tide; not until their knees went
+under water did they forego their venture. A higher wave came in,
+deluging the ones farthest out; and then ensued a scampering toward the
+dike and a climbing up of the stone embankment. The old route across
+the sands, that had been the only one known to kings and barons, was
+not good enough for a modern Norman peasant. The religion of personal
+comfort has spread even as far as the fields.
+
+At the entrance gate a tremendous hubbub and noise announced the
+arrival of the pilgrimage. Wagons, carts, horses, and peasants were
+crowded together as only such a throng is mixed in pilgrimages, wars,
+and fairs. Women were taking down hoods, unharnessing the horses,
+fitting slats into outsides of wagons, rolling up blankets, unpacking
+from the _char-à-bancs_ cooking utensils, children, grain-bags, long
+columns of bread, and hard-boiled eggs. For the women, darting hither
+and thither in their blue petticoats, their pink and red kerchiefs, and
+the stiff white Norman caps, were doing all the work. The men appeared
+to be decorative adjuncts, plying the Norman's gift of tongue across
+wagon-wheels and over the back of their vigorous wives and daughters.
+For them the battle of the day was over; the hour of relaxation had
+come. The bargains they had made along the route were now to be
+rehearsed, seasoned with a joke.
+
+"_Allons, toi, on ne fait pas de la monnaie blanche comme ca!_"
+
+"_Je t'ai offert huit sous, tu sais, lapin!_"
+
+"_Farceur, va-t'en--_"
+
+"Come, are you never going to have done fooling?" cried a tan-colored,
+wide-hipped peasant to her husband, who was lounging against the wagon
+pole, sporting a sprig of gentian pinned to his blouse. He was fat and
+handsome; and his eye proclaimed, as he was making it do heavy work at
+long range at a cluster of girls descending from an antique gig, that
+the knowledge of the same was known unto him.
+
+"That's right, growl ahead, thou, _tes beaux jours sont passés_, but
+for me _l'amour, l'amour--que c'est gai, que c'est frais!_" he half
+sung, half shouted.
+
+The moving mass of color, the Breton caps, and the Norman faces, the
+gold crosses that fell from dented bead necklaces, the worn hooped
+earrings, the clean bodices and home-spun skirts, streamed out past our
+windows as we looked down upon them. How pretty were some of the faces,
+of the younger women particularly! and with what gay spirits they were
+beginning their day! It had begun the night before, almost; many of the
+carts had been driven in from the forests beyond Avranches; some of the
+Brittany groups had started the day before. But what can quench the
+fountain of French vivacity? To see one's world, surely, there is
+nothing in that to tire one; it only excites and exhilarates; and so a
+fair or market day, and above all a pilgrimage, are better than balls,
+since they come more regularly; they are the peasant's opera, his
+Piccadilly and Broadway, club, drawing-room, Exchange, and parade, all
+in one.
+
+A half-hour after a landing of the pilgrims at the outer gates of the
+fortifications, the hill was swarming with them. The single street of
+the town was choked with the black gowns and the cobalt-blue blouses.
+Before these latter took a turn at their devotions they did homage to
+Bacchus. Crowds of peasants were to be seen seated about the long,
+narrow inn-tables, lifting huge pewter tankards to bristling beards.
+Some of these taverns were the same that had fed and sheltered bands of
+pilgrims that are now mere handfuls of dust in country churchyards.
+Those sixteenth century pilgrims, how many of them, had found this same
+arched doorway of La Licorne as cool as the shade of great trees after
+the long hot climb up to the hill! What a pleasant face has the
+timbered facade of the Tête d'Or, and the Mouton Blanc, been to the
+weary-limbed: and how sweet to the dead lips has been the first taste
+of the acid cider!
+
+Other aspects of the hill, on this day of the pilgrimage, made those
+older dead-and-gone bands of pilgrims astonishingly real. On the tops
+of bastions, in the clefts of the rocks, beneath the glorious walls of
+La Merveille, or perilously lodged on the crumbling cornice of a
+tourelle, numerous rude altars had been hastily erected. The crude
+blues and scarlets of banners were fluttering, like so many pennants,
+in the light breeze. Beneath the improvised altar-roofs--strips of gay
+cloth stretched across poles stuck into the ground--were groups not
+often seen in these less fervent centuries. High up, mounted on the
+natural pulpit formed of a bit of rock, with the rude altar before him,
+with its bit of scarlet cloth covered with cheap lace, stood or knelt
+the priest. Against the wide blue of the open heaven his figure took on
+an imposing splendor of mien and an unmodern impressiveness of action.
+Beneath him knelt, with bowed heads, the groups of the
+peasant-pilgrims; the women, with murmuring lips and clasped hands,
+their strong, deeply-seamed faces outlined, with the precision of a
+Francesco painting, against the gray background of a giant mass of
+wall, or the amazing breadth of a vast sea-view; children, squat and
+chubby, with bulging cheeks starting from the close-fitting French
+_bonnet_; and the peasant-farmers, mostly of the older varieties, whose
+stiffened or rheumatic knees and knotty hands made their kneeling real
+acts of devotional zeal. There were a dozen such altars and groups
+scattered over the perpendicular slant of the hill. The singing of the
+choir-boys, rising like skylark notes into the clear space of heaven,
+would be floating from one rocky-nested chapel, while below, in the one
+beneath which we, for a moment, were resting, there would be the
+groaning murmur of the peasant groups in prayer.
+
+All day little processions were going up and down the steep stone steps
+that lead from fortified rock to parish church, and from the town to
+the abbatial gateway. The banners and the choir-boys, the priests in
+their embroideries and lace, the peasants in cap and blouse, were
+incessantly mounting and descending, standing on rock edges, caught for
+an instant between a medley of perpendicular roofs, of giant gateways,
+and a long perspective of fortified walls, only to be lost in the curve
+of a bastion, or a flying buttress, that, in their turn, would be found
+melting into a distant sea-view.
+
+All the hours of a pilgrimage, we discovered, were not given to prayer;
+nor yet is an incessant bowing at the shrine of St. Michel the sole
+other diversion in a true pilgrim's round of pious devotions. Later on
+in this eventful day, we stumbled on a somewhat startling variation to
+the penitential order of the performances. In a side alley, beneath a
+friendly overhanging rock and two protecting roof-eaves, an acrobat was
+making her professional toilet. When she emerged to lay a worn strip of
+carpet on the rough cobbles of the street, she presented a pathetic
+figure in the gold of the afternoon sun. She was old and wrinkled; the
+rouge would no longer stick to the sunken cheeks; the wrinkles were
+become clefts; the shrunken but still muscular legs were clad in a pair
+of tights, a very caricature of the silken webs that must once have
+encased the poor old creature's limbs, for these were knitted of the
+coarse thread the commonest peasant uses for the rough field stocking.
+Over these obviously home-made coverings was a single skirt of azure
+tarlatan, plentifully besprinkled with golden stars. The gossamer skirt
+and its spangles turned, for their _début_, a somersault in the air,
+and the knitted tights took strange leaps from the bars of a rude
+trapeze. The groups of peasants were soon thicker about this spectacle
+than they had gathered about the improvised altars. All the men who had
+passed the day in the taverns came out at the sound of the hoarse
+cracked voice of the aged acrobat. As she hurled her poor old twisted
+shape from swinging bar to pole, she cried aloud, "_Ah, messieurs,
+essayez ça seulement!_" The men's hands, when she had landed on her
+feet after an uncommonly venturous whirl of the blue skirts in mid-air,
+came out of their deep pockets; but they seasoned their applause with
+coarse jokes which they flung, with a cruel relish, into the
+pitifully-aged face. A cracked accordion and a jingling tambourine were
+played by two hardened-looking ruffians, seated on their heels beneath
+a window--a discordant music that could not drown the noise of the
+peasants' derisive laughter. But the latter's pennies rattled a louder
+jingle into the ancient acrobat's tin cup than it had into the priest's
+green netted contribution box.
+
+"No, madame, as for us, we do not care for pilgrimages," was Madame
+Poulard's verdict on such survivals of past religious enthusiasms. And
+she seasoned her comments with an enlightening shrug. "We see too well
+how they end. The men go home dead drunk, the women are dropping with
+fatigue, _et les enfants même se grisent de cidre!_ No; pilgrimages are
+bad for everyone. The priests should not allow them."
+
+This was at the end of the day, after the black and blue swarm had
+passed, a weary, uncertain-footed throng, down the long street, to take
+its departure along the dike. At the very end of the straggling
+procession came the three acrobats; they had begged, or bought, a drive
+across the dike from some of the pilgrims. The lady of the knitted
+tights, in her conventional skirts and womanly fichu, was scarcely
+distinguishable from the peasant women who eyed her askance; though
+decently garbed now, they looked at her as if she were some plague or
+vice walking in their midst.
+
+The verdict of Madame Poulard seemed to be the verdict of all Mont St.
+Michel. The whole town was abroad that evening, on its doorsteps and in
+its garden beds, repairing the ravages committed by the band of the
+pilgrims. Never had the town, as a town, been so dirty; never had the
+street presented so shocking a collection of abominations; never had
+flowers and shrubs been so mercilessly robbed and plundered--these were
+the comments that flowed as freely as the water that was rained over
+the dusty cobbles, thick with refuse of luncheon and the shreds of torn
+skirts and of children's socks.
+
+At any hour of the day, of even an ordinary, uneventful day, to take a
+walk in the town is to encounter a surprise at every turning. Would you
+call it a town--this one straggling street that begins in a King's
+gateway and ends--ah, that is the point, just where does it end? I, for
+one, was never once quite certain at just what precise point this one
+single Mont St. Michel street stopped--lost itself, in a word, and
+became something else. That was also true of so many other things on
+the hill; all objects had such an astonishing way of suddenly becoming
+something else. A house, for example, that you had passed on your
+upward walk, had a beguiling air of sincerity. It had its cellar
+beneath the street front like any other properly built house; it
+continued its growth upward, showing the commonplace features of a
+door, of so many windows--queerly spaced, and of an amazing variety of
+shapes, but still unmistakably windows. Then, assured of so much
+integrity of character, you looked to see the roof covering the house,
+and instead-like the eggs in a Chinese juggler's fingers, that are
+turned in a jiffy into a growing plant--behold the roof miraculously
+transformed into a garden, or lost in a rampart, or, with quite
+shameless effrontery, playing deserter, and serving as the basement of
+another and still fairer dwelling. That was a sample of the way all
+things played you the trick of surprise on this hill. Stairways began
+on the cobbles of the streets, only to lose themselves in a side wall;
+a turn on the ramparts would land you straight into the privacy of a
+St. Michelese interior, with an entire household, perchance, at the
+mercy of your eye, taken at the mean disadvantage of morning
+dishabille. As for doors that flew open where you looked to find a
+bastion; or a school--house that flung all the Michelese _voyous_ over
+the tops of the ramparts at play-time; or of fishwives that sprung, as
+full-armed in their kit as Minerva from her sire's brows, from the very
+forehead of fortified places; or of beds and settees and wardrobes
+(surely no Michelese has ever been able, successfully, to maintain in
+secret the ghost of a family skeleton!) into which you were innocently
+precipitated on your way to discover the minutest of all
+cemeteries--these were all commonplace occurrences once your foot was
+set on this Hill of Surprises.
+
+There are two roads that lead one to the noble mass of buildings
+crowning the hill. One may choose the narrow street with its moss-grown
+steps, its curves, and turns; or one may have the broader path along
+the ramparts, with its glorious outlook over land and sea. Whichever
+approach one chooses, one passes at last beneath the great doors of the
+Barbican.
+
+Three times did the vision of St. Michel appear to Saint Aubert, in his
+dream, commanding the latter to erect a church on the heights of Mont
+St. Michel to his honor. How many a time must the modern pilgrim
+traverse the stupendous mass that has grown out of that command before
+he is quite certain that the splendor of Mont St. Michel is real, and
+not a part of a dream! Whether one enters through the dark magnificence
+of the great portals of the Châtelet; whether one mounts the fortified
+stairway, passing into the Salle des Gardes, passing onward from
+dungeon to fortified bridge, to gain the abbatial residence; whether
+one leaves the vaulted splendor of oratories for aerial passage-ways,
+only to emerge beneath the majestic roof of the Cathedral--that marvel
+of the early Norman, ending in the Gothic choir of the fifteenth
+century; or, as one penetrates into the gloom of the mighty dungeons
+where heroes and the brothers of kings, and saints and scientists have
+died their long death--as one gropes through the black night of the
+Crypt, where a faint, mysterious glint of light falls aslant the
+mystical face of the Black Virgin; as one climbs to the light beneath
+the ogive arches of the Aumônerie, through the wide-lit aisles of the
+Salle des Chevaliers, past the slender Gothic columns of the Refectory,
+up at last to the crowning glory of all the glories of La Merveille, to
+the exquisitely beautiful colonnades of the open Cloister the
+impressions and emotions excited by these ecclesiastical and military
+masterpieces are ever the same, however many times one may pass them in
+review. A charm, indefinable, but replete with subtle attractions,
+lurks in every one of these dungeons. The great halls have a power to
+make one retraverse their space, I have yet to find under other vaulted
+chambers. The grass that is set, like a green jewel, in the arabesques
+of the Cloister, is a bit of greensward the feet press with a different
+tread to that which skips lightly over other strips of turf. And the
+world, that one looks out upon through prison bars, that is so
+gloriously arched in the arm of a flying buttress, or that lies prone
+at your feet from the dizzy heights of the rock clefts, is not the
+world in which you, daily, do your petty stretch of toil, in which you
+laugh and ache, sorrow, sigh, and go down to your grave in. The secret
+of this deep attraction may lie in the fact of one's being in a world
+that is built on a height. Much, doubtless, of the charm lies, also, in
+the reminders of all the human life that, since the early dawn of
+history, has peopled this hill. One has the sense of living at
+tremendously high mental pressure; of impressions, emotions, sensations
+crowding upon the mind; of one's whole meagre outfit of memory, of
+poetic equipment, and of imaginative furnishing, being unequal to the
+demand made by even the most hurried tour of the great buildings, or
+the most flitting review of the noble massing of the clouds and the
+hilly seas.
+
+The very emptiness and desolation of all the buildings on the hill help
+to accentuate their splendor. The stage is magnificently set; the
+curtain, even, is lifted. One waits for the coming on of kingly shapes,
+for the pomp of trumpets, for the pattering of a mighty host. But,
+behold, all is still. And one sits and sees only a shadowy company pass
+and repass across that glorious _mise-en-scène._ For, in a certain
+sense, I know no other mediaeval mass of buildings as peopled as are
+these. The dead shapes seem to fill the vast halls. The Salle des
+Chevaliers is crowded, daily, with a brilliant gathering of knights,
+who sweep the trains of their white damask mantles, edged with ermine,
+over the dulled marble of the floor; two by two they enter the hall;
+the golden shells on their mantles make the eyes blink, as the groups
+gather about the great chimneys, or wander through the column-broken
+space. Behind this dazzling _cortège_, up the steep steps of the narrow
+street, swarm other groups--the mediaeval pilgrim host that rushes into
+the cathedral aisles, and that climbs the ramparts to watch the stately
+procession as it makes its way toward the church portals. There are
+still other figures that fill every empty niche and deserted
+watch-tower. Through the lancet windows of the abbatial gateways the
+yeomanry of the vassal villages are peering; it is the weary time of
+the Hundred Years' War, and all France is watching, through sentry
+windows, for the approach of her dread enemy. On the shifting sands
+below, as on brass, how indelibly fixed are the names of the hundred
+and twenty-nine knights whose courage drove, step by step, over that
+treacherous surface, the English invaders back to their island
+strongholds. Will you have a less stormy and belligerent company to
+people the hill? In the quieter days of the fourteenth century, on any
+bright afternoon, you could have sat beside some friendly artist-monk,
+and watched him color and embellish those wondrous missals that made
+the manuscripts of the Brothers famous throughout France. Earlier yet,
+in those naive centuries, Robert de Torigny, that "bouche des Papes,"
+would doubtless have discoursed to you on any subject dear to this
+"counsellor of kings"--on books, or architecture, or the science of
+fortifications, or on the theology of Lanfranc; from the helmeted locks
+of Rollon to the veiled tresses of the lovely Tiphaine Raguenel,
+Duguesclin's wife; from the ghastly rat-eaten body of the Dutch
+journalist, who offended that tyrant King, Louis XIV., to the
+Revolutionary heroes, as pitilessly doomed to an odious death under the
+gentle Louis Philippe--there is no shape or figure in French history
+which cannot be summoned at will to refill either a dungeon or a palace
+chamber at Mont St. Michel.
+
+Even in these, our modern days, one finds strange relics of past
+fashions in thought and opinion. The various political, religious, and
+ethical forms of belief to be met with in a fortnight's sojourn on the
+hill, give one a sense of having passed in review a very complete
+gallery of ancient and modern portraits of men's minds. In time one
+learns to traverse even a dozen or more centuries with ease. To be in
+the dawn of the eleventh century in the morning; at high noon to be in
+the flood-tide of the fifteenth; and, as the sun dipped, to hear the
+last word of our own dying century--such were the flights across the
+abysmal depths of time Charm and I took again and again.
+
+One of our chosen haunts was in a certain watch-tower. From its top
+wall, the loveliest prospect of Mont St. Michel was to be enjoyed. Day
+after day and sunset after sunset, we sat out the hours there. Again
+and again the world, as it passed, came and took its seat beside us.
+Pilgrims of the devout and ardent type would stop, perchance, would
+proffer a preliminary greeting, would next take their seat along the
+parapet, and, quite unconsciously, would end by sitting for their
+portrait. One such sitter, I remember, was clad in carmine crepe shawl;
+she was bonneted in the shape of a long-ago decade. She had climbed the
+hill in the morning before dawn, she said; she had knelt in prayer as
+the sun rose. For hers was a pilgrimage made in fulfilment of a vow.
+St. Michel had granted her wish, and she in return had brought her
+prayers to his shrine.
+
+"Ah, mesdames! how good is God! How greatly He rewards a little
+self-sacrifice. Figure to yourselves the Mont in the early mists, with
+the sun rising out of the sea and the hills. I was on my knees, up
+there. I had eaten nothing since yesterday at noon. I was full of the
+Holy Ghost. When the sun broke at last, it was God Himself in all His
+glory come down to earth! The whole earth seemed to be
+listening--_prêtait l'oreille_--and with the great stillness, and the
+sea, and the light breaking everywhere, it was as if I were being taken
+straight up into Paradise. Saint Michel himself must have been
+supporting me."
+
+The carmine crepe shawl covered a poet, you see, as well as a devotee.
+
+Up yonder, in the little shops and stalls tucked away within the walls
+of the Barbican, a lively traffic, for many a century now, has been
+going on in relics and _plombs de pèlerinage_. Some of these mediaeval
+impressions have been unearthed in strange localities, in the bed of
+the Seine, as far away as Paris. Rude and archaic are many of these
+early essays in the sculptor's art. But they preserve for us, in quaint
+intensity, the fervor of adoration which possessed that earlier, more
+devout time and period. On the mind of this nineteenth century pilgrim,
+the same lovely old forms of belief and superstition were imprinted as
+are still to be seen in some of those winged figures of St. Michel,
+with feet securely set on the back of the terrible dragon, staring,
+with triumphant gaze, through stony or leaden eyes.
+
+On the evening of the pilgrimage our friend, the Parisian, joined us on
+our high perch. The Mont seemed strangely quiet after the noise and
+confusion the peasants had brought in their train. The Parisian, like
+ourselves, had been glad to escape into the upper heights of the wide
+air, after the bustle and hurry of the day at our inn.
+
+"You permit me, mesdames?" He had lighted his after-dinner cigar; he
+went on puffing, having gained our consent. He curled a leg comfortably
+about the railings of a low bridge connecting a house that sprang out
+of a rock, with the rampart. Below, there was a clean drop of a few
+hundred feet, more or less. In spite of the glories of a spectacular
+sunset, yielding ceaseless changes and transformations of cloud and sea
+tones, the words of Madame Poulard alone had power to possess our
+companion. She had uttered her protest against the pilgrimage, as she
+had swept the Parisian's _pousse-café_ from his elbow. He took up the
+conversation where it had been dropped.
+
+"It is amusing to hear Madame Poulard talk of the priests stopping the
+pilgrimages! The priests? Why, that's all they have left them to live
+upon now. These peasants' are the only pockets in which they can fumble
+nowadays."
+
+"All the same, one can't help being grateful to those peasants,"
+retorted Charm. "They are the only creatures who have made these things
+seem to have any meaning. How dead it all seems! The abbey, the
+cloisters, the old prisons, the fortifications, it is like wandering
+through a splendid tomb!
+
+"Yes, as the curé said yesterday, '_l'âme n'y est plus_,'--since the
+priests have been dislodged, it is the house of the dead."
+
+"The priests"--the Parisian snorted at the very sound of the
+word--"they have only themselves to blame. They would have been here
+still, if they had not so abused their power."
+
+"How did they abuse it?" Charm asked.
+
+"In every possible way. I am, myself, not of the country. But my
+brother was stationed here for some years, when the Mont was
+garrisoned. The priests were in full possession then, and they
+conducted a lively commerce, mademoiselle. The Mont was turned into a
+show--to see it or any part of it, everyone had to pay toll. On the
+great fête-days, when St. Michel wore his crown, the gold ran like
+water into the monks' treasury. It was still then a fashionable
+religious fad to have a mass said for one's dead, out here among the
+clouds and the sea. Well, try to imagine fifty masses all dumped on the
+altar together; that is, one mass would be scrambled through, no names
+would be mentioned, no one save _le bon Dieu_ himself knew for whom it
+was being said; but fifty or more believed they had bought it, since
+they had paid for it. And the priests laughed in their sleeves, and
+then sat down, comfortably, to count the gold. Ah, mesdames, those
+were, literally, the golden days of the priesthood! What with the
+pilgrimages, and the sale of relics, and _les benefices_--together with
+the charges for seeing the wonders of the Mont--what a trade they did!
+It is only the Jews, who, in their turn, now own us, up in Paris, who
+can equal the priests as commercial geniuses!" And our pessimistic
+Parisian, during the next half-hour, gave us a prophetic picture of the
+approaching ruin of France, brought about by the genius for plunder and
+organization that is given to the sons of Moses.
+
+Following the Parisian, a figure, bent and twisted, opened a door in a
+side-wall, and took his seat beside us. One became used, in time, to
+these sudden appearances; to vanish down a chimney, or to emerge from
+the womb of a rock, or to come up from the bowels of what earth there
+was to be found--all such exits and entrances became as commonplace as
+all the other extraordinary phases of one's life on the hill. This
+particular shape had emerged from a hut, carved, literally, out of the
+side of the rock; but, for a hut, it was amazingly snug--as we could
+see for ourselves; for the venerable shape hospitably opened the low
+wooden door, that we might see how much of a home could be made out of
+the side of a rock. Only, when one had been used to a guard-room, and
+to great and little dungeons, and to a rattling of keys along dark
+corridors, a hut, and the blaze of the noon sun, were trying things to
+endure, as the shape, with a shrug, gave us to understand.
+
+"You see, mesdames, I was jailor here, years ago, when all La Merveille
+was a prison. Ah! those were great days for the Mont! There were
+soldiers and officers who came up to look at the soldiers, and the
+soldiers--it was their business to look after the prisoners. The
+Emperor himself came here once--I saw him. What a sight!--Dieu! all the
+monks and priests and nuns, and the archbishop himself were out. What
+banners and crosses and flags! The cannon was like a great thunder--and
+the grève was red with soldiers. Ah, those were days! Dieu--why
+couldn't the republic have continued those glories--_ces gloires?
+Aujourd'hui nous ne sommes que des morts_--instead of prisoners to
+handle--to watch and work, like so many good machines there is only the
+dike yonder to keep in repair! What changes--mon Dieu! what changes!"
+And the shape wrung his hands. It was, in truth, a touching spectacle
+of grief for a good old past.
+
+An old priest, with equally saddened vision, once came to take his
+seat, quite easily and naturally, beside us, on our favorite perch. He
+was one of the little band of priests who had remained faithful to the
+Mont after the government had dispersed his brothers--after the
+monastery had been broken up. He and his four or five companions had
+taken refuge in a small house, close by the cemetery; it was they who
+conducted the services in the little parish church; who had gathered
+the treasures still grouped together in that little interior--the
+throne of St. Michel, with its blue draperies and the golden
+fleur-de-lis, the floating banners and the shields of the Knights of
+St. Michel, the relics, and wondrous bits of carving rescued from the
+splendors of the cathedral.
+
+"_Ah, mesdames--que voulez-vous?_" was the old priest's broken chant;
+he was bewailing the woes that had come to his order, to religion, to
+France. "What will you have? The history of nations repeats itself, as
+we all know. We, of our day, are fallen on evil times; it is the reign
+of image-breakers--nothing is sacred, except money."
+
+"France has worn herself out. She is like an old man, the hero of many
+battles, who cares only for his easy chair and his slippers. She does
+not care about the children who are throwing stones at the windows. She
+likes to snooze, in the sun, and count her money-bags. France is too
+old to care about religion, or the future--she is thinking how best to
+be comfortable--here in this world, when she has rheumatism and a cramp
+in the stomach!" And the old priest wrapped his own _soutane_ about his
+lean knees, suiting his gesture to his inward convictions.
+
+Was the priest's summary the last word of truth about modern France? On
+the sands that lay below at our feet, we read a different answer.
+
+The skies were still brilliantly lighted. The actual twilight had not
+come yet, with its long, deep glow, a passion of color that had a
+longer life up here on the heights than when seen from a lower level.
+This twilight hour was always a prolonged moment of transfiguration for
+the Mont.
+
+The very last evening of our stay, we chose this as the loveliest light
+in which to see the last of the hill. On that evening, I remember, the
+reds and saffrons in the sky were of an astonishing richness. The sea
+wall, the bastions, the faces of the great rocks, the yellow broom that
+sprang from the clefts therein, were dyed as in a carmine bath. In that
+mighty glow of color, all things took on something of their old, their
+stupendous splendor. The giant walls were paved with brightness. The
+town, climbing the hill, assumed the proportions of a mighty citadel;
+the forest tree-tops were prismatic, emerald balls flung beneath the
+illumined Merveille; and the Cathedral was set in a daffodil frame; its
+aerial _escalier de dentelle_, like Jacob's ladder, led one easily
+heavenward. The circling birds, in the lace-work of the spiral finials,
+sang their night songs, as the glow in the sky changed, softened,
+deepened.
+
+This was the world that was in the west.
+
+Toward the east, on the flat surface of the sands, this world cast a
+strange and wondrous shadow. Jagged rocks, a pyramidal city, a Gothic
+cathedral in mid-air--behold the rugged outlines of Mont St. Michel
+carving their giant features on the shifting, sensitive surface of the
+mirroring sands.
+
+In the little pools and the trickling rivers, the fishermen--from this
+height, Liliputians grappling with Liliputian meshes--were setting
+their nets for the night. Across the river-beds, peasant women and
+fishwives, with bared legs and baskets clasped to their bending backs,
+appeared and disappeared--shapes that emerged into the light only to
+vanish into the gulf of the night.
+
+In was in these pictures that we read our answer.
+
+Like Mont St. Michel, so has France carried into the heights of history
+her glory and her power. On every century, she, like this world in
+miniature, has also cast her shadow, dwarfing some, illuminating
+others. And, as on those distant sands the toiling shapes of the
+fishermen are to be seen, early and late, in summer and winter, so can
+France point to her people, whose industry and amazing talent for toil
+have made her, and maintain her, great.
+
+Some of these things we have learned, since, in Normandy Inns, we have
+sat at meat with her peasants, and have grown to be friends with her
+fishwives.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In and Out of Three Normandy Inns, by 
+Anna Bowman Dodd
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+Project Gutenberg's In and Out of Three Normandy Inns, by Anna Bowman Dodd
+
+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
+
+
+Title: In and Out of Three Normandy Inns
+
+Author: Anna Bowman Dodd
+
+Posting Date: August 24, 2012 [EBook #7961]
+Release Date: April, 2005
+First Posted: June 5, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN AND OUT OF THREE NORMANDY INNS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Roberts, Anne Soulard, Charles Franks,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IN AND OUT OF THREE NORMANDY INNS
+
+BY
+
+ANNA BOWMAN DODD
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT-DIVES]
+
+
+TO EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
+
+_My Dear Mr. Stedman:
+
+To this little company of Norman men and women, you will, I know,
+extend a kindly greeting, if only because of their nationality. To your
+courtesy, possibly, you will add the leaven of interest, when you
+perceive--as you must--that their qualities are all their own, their
+defects being due solely to my own imperfect presentment.
+
+With sincere esteem_,
+
+ANNA BOWMAN DODD.
+
+_New York_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+VILLERVILLE.
+
+I.      A LANDING ON THE COAST OF FRANCE II.     A SPRING DRIVE III.
+FROM AN INN WINDOW IV.     OUT ON A MUSSEL-BED V.      THE VILLAGE VI.
+A PAGAN COBBLER VII.    SOME NORMAN LANDLADIES VIII.   THE QUARTIER
+LATIN ON THE BEACH IX.     A NORMAN HOUSEHOLD X.      ERNESTINE
+
+ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD.
+
+XI.     TO AN OLD MANOIR XII.    A NORMAN CURE XIII.   HONFLEUR--NEW
+AND OLD
+
+DIVES.
+
+XIV.    A COAST DRIVE XV.     GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT XVI.    THE GREEN
+BENCH XVII.   THE WORLD THAT CAME TO DIVES XVIII.  THE CONVERSATION OF
+PATRIOTS XIX.    IN LA CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS
+
+TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES.
+
+XX.     A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY REVIVAL XXI.    THE AFTER-DINNER TALK OF
+THREE GREAT LADIES XXII.   A NINETEENTH CENTURY BREAKFAST
+
+A LITTLE JOURNEY ALONG THE COAST.
+
+XXIII.  A NIGHT IN A CAEN ATTIC XXIV.   A DAY AT BAYEUX AND ST. LO XXV.
+A DINNER AT COUTANCES XXVI.   A SCENE IN A NORMAN COURT XXVII.  THE
+FETE-DIEU--A JUNE CHRISTMAS XXVIII. BY LAND TO MONT ST. MICHEL
+
+MONT ST. MICHEL.
+
+XXIX.   BY SEA TO THE POULARD INN XXX.    THE PILGRIMS AND THE
+SHRINE--AN HISTORICAL OMELETTE
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT--DIVES A VILLAGE STREET--VILLERVILLE ON THE
+BEACH--VILLERVILLE A SALE OF MUSSELS--VILLERVILLE A VILLERVILLE
+FISH-WIFE A DEPARTURE--VILLERVILLE THE INN AT
+DIVES--GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES CHAMBRE DES
+MARMOUSETS--DIVES MADAME DE SEVIGNE CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES
+CHATEAU FONTAINE LE HENRI, NEAR CAEN AN EXCITING MOMENT--A COUTANCES
+INTERIOR A STREET IN COUTANCES--EGLISE SAINT-PIERRE MONT SAINT MICHEL
+MONT SAINT MICHEL SNAIL-GATHERERS
+
+
+
+
+VILLERVILLE.
+
+AN INN BY THE SEA.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A LANDING ON THE COAST OF FRANCE.
+
+
+Narrow streets with sinuous curves; dwarfed houses with minute shops
+protruding on inch-wide sidewalks; a tiny casino perched like a
+bird-cage on a tiny scaffolding; bath-houses dumped on the beach;
+fishing-smacks drawn up along the shore like so many Greek galleys;
+and, fringing the cliffs--the encroachment of the nineteenth century--a
+row of fantastic sea-side villas.
+
+This was Villerville.
+
+Over an arch of roses; across a broad line of olives, hawthorns,
+laburnums, and syringas, straight out to sea--
+
+This was the view from our windows.
+
+Our inn was bounded by the sea on one side, and on the other by a
+narrow village street. The distance between good and evil has been
+known to be quite as short as that which lay between these two
+thoroughfares. It was only a matter of a strip of land, an edge of
+cliff, and a shed of a house bearing the proud title of Hotel-sur-Mer.
+
+Two nights before, our arrival had made quite a stir in the village
+streets. The inn had given us a characteristic French welcome; its eye
+had measured us before it had extended its hand. Before reaching the
+inn and the village, however, we had already tasted of the flavor of a
+genuine Norman welcome. Our experience in adventure had begun on the
+Havre quays.
+
+Our expedition could hardly be looked upon as perilous; yet it was one
+that, from the first, evidently appealed to the French imagination;
+half Havre was hanging over the stone wharves to see us start.
+
+"_Dame_, only English women are up to that!"--for all the world is
+English, in French eyes, when an adventurous folly is to be committed.
+
+This was one view of our temerity; it was the comment of age and
+experience of the world, of the cap with the short pipe in her mouth,
+over which curved, downward, a bulbous, fiery-hued nose that met the
+pipe.
+
+"_C'est beau, tout de meme_, when one is young--and rich." This was a
+generous partisan, a girl with a miniature copy of her own round
+face--a copy that was tied up in a shawl, very snug; it was a bundle
+that could not possibly be in any one's way, even on a somewhat
+prolonged tour of observation of Havre's shipping interests.
+
+"And the blonde one--what do you think of her, _hein_?"
+
+This was the blouse's query. The tassel of the cotton night-cap nodded,
+interrogatively, toward the object on which the twinkling ex-mariner's
+eye had fixed itself--on Charm's slender figure, and on the yellow
+half-moon of hair framing her face. There was but one verdict
+concerning the blonde beauty; she was a creature made to be stared at.
+The staring was suspended only when the bargaining went on; for Havre,
+clearly, was a sailor and merchant first; its knowledge of a woman's
+good points was rated merely as its second-best talent.
+
+Meanwhile, our bargaining for the sailboat was being conducted on the
+principles peculiar to French traffic; it had all at once assumed the
+aspect of dramatic complication. It had only been necessary for us to
+stop on our lounging stroll along the stone wharves, diverting our gaze
+for a moment from the grotesque assortment of old houses that, before
+now, had looked down on so many naval engagements, and innocently to
+ask a brief question of a nautical gentleman, picturesquely attired in
+a blue shirt and a scarlet beret, for the quays immediately to swarm
+with jerseys and red caps. Each beret was the owner of a boat; and each
+jersey had a voice louder than his brother's. Presently the battle of
+tongues was drowning all other sounds.
+
+In point of fact, there were no other sounds to drown. All other
+business along the quays was being temporarily suspended; the most
+thrilling event of the day was centring in us and our treaty. Until
+this bargain was closed, other matters could wait. For a Frenchman has
+the true instinct of the dramatist; business he rightly considers as
+only an _entr'acte_ in life; the serious thing is the _scene de
+theatre_, wherever it takes place. Therefore it was that the black,
+shaky-looking houses, leaning over the quays, were now populous with
+frowsy heads and cotton nightcaps. The captains from the adjacent
+sloops and tug-boats formed an outer circle about the closer ring made
+by the competitors for our favors, while the loungers along the
+parapets, and the owners of top seats on the shining quay steps, may be
+said to have been in possession of orchestra stalls from the first
+rising of the curtain.
+
+A baker's boy and two fish-wives, trundling their carts, stopped to
+witness the last act of the play. Even the dogs beneath the carts, as
+they sank, panting, to the ground, followed, with red-rimmed eyes, the
+closing scenes of the little drama.
+
+"_Allons_, let us end this," cried a piratical-looking captain, in a
+loud, masterful voice. And he named a price lower than the others had
+bid. He would take us across--yes, us and our luggage, and land
+us--yes, at Villerville, for that.
+
+The baker's boy gave a long, slow whistle, with relish.
+
+"_Dame!_" he ejaculated, between his teeth, as he turned away.
+
+The rival captains at first had drawn back; they had looked at their
+comrade darkly, beneath their berets, as they might at a deserter with
+whom they meant to deal--later on. But at his last words they smiled a
+smile of grim humor. Beneath the beards a whisper grew; whatever its
+import, it had the power to move all the hard mouths to laughter. As
+they also turned away, their shrugging shoulders and the scorn in their
+light laughter seemed to hand us over to our fate.
+
+In the teeth of this smile, our captain had swung his boat round and we
+were stepping into her.
+
+"_Au revoir--au revoir et a bientot!_"
+
+The group that was left to hang over the parapets and to wave us its
+farewell, was a thin one. Only the professional loungers took part in
+this last act of courtesy. There was a cluster of caps, dazzlingly
+white against the blue of the sky; a collection of highly decorated
+noses and of old hands ribboned with wrinkles, to nod and bob and wave
+down the cracked-voiced "_bonjours_." But the audience that had
+gathered to witness the closing of the bargain had melted away with the
+moment of its conclusion. Long ere this moment of our embarkation the
+wide stone street facing the water had become suddenly deserted. The
+curious-eyed heads and the cotton nightcaps had been swallowed up in
+the hollows of the dark, little windows. The baker's boy had long since
+mounted his broad basket, as if it were an ornamental head-dress, and
+whistling, had turned a sharp corner, swallowed up, he also, by the
+sudden gloom that lay between the narrow streets. The sloop-owners had
+linked arms with the defeated captains, and were walking off toward
+their respective boats, whistling a gay little air.
+
+  "_Colinette au bois s'en alla
+  En sautillant par-ci, par-la;
+  Trala deridera, trala, derid-er-a-a._"
+
+One jersey-clad figure was singing lustily as he dropped with a spring
+into his boat. He began to coil the loose ropes at once, as if the
+disappointments in life were only a necessary interruption, to be
+accepted philosophically, to this, the serious business of his days.
+
+We were soon afloat, far out from the land of either shores. Between
+the two, sea and river meet; is the river really trying to lose itself
+in the sea, or is it hopelessly attempting to swallow the sea? The
+green line that divides them will never give you the answer: it changes
+hour by hour, day by day; now it is like a knife-cut, deep and
+straight; and now like a ribbon that wavers and flutters, tying
+together the blue of the great ocean and the silver of the Seine. Close
+to the lips of the mighty mouth lie the two shores. In that fresh May
+sunshine Havre glittered and bristled, was aglow with a thousand tints
+and tones; but we sailed and sailed away from her, and behold, already
+she had melted into her cliffs. Opposite, nearing with every dip of the
+dun-colored sail into the blue seas, was the Calvados coast; in its
+turn it glistened, and in its young spring verdure it had the lustre of
+a rough-hewn emerald.
+
+"_Que voulez-vous, mesdames?_ Who could have told that the wind would
+play us such a trick?"
+
+The voice was the voice of our captain. With much affluence of gesture
+he was explaining--his treachery! Our nearness to the coast had made
+the confession necessary. To the blandness of his smile, as he
+proceeded in his unabashed recital, succeeded a pained expression. We
+were not accepting the situation with the true phlegm of philosophers;
+he felt that he had just cause for protest. What possible difference
+could it make to us whether we were landed at Trouville or at
+Villerville? But to him--to be accused of betraying two ladies--to
+allow the whole of the Havre quays to behold in him a man disgraced,
+dishonored!
+
+His was a tragic figure as he stood up, erect on the poop, to clap
+hands to a blue-clad breast, and to toss a black mane of hair in the
+golden air.
+
+"_Dame! Toujours ete galant homme, moi!_ I am known on both shores as
+the most gallant of men. But the most gallant of men cannot control the
+caprice of the wind!" To which was added much abuse of the muddy
+bottoms, the strength of the undertow, and other marine disadvantages
+peculiar to Villerville.
+
+It was a tragic figure, with gestures and voice to match. But it was
+evident that the Captain had taken his own measure mistakenly. In him
+the French stage had lost a comedian of the first magnitude. Much,
+therefore, we felt, was to be condoned in one who doubtless felt so
+great a talent itching for expression. When next he smiled, we had
+revived to a keener appreciation of baffled genius ever on the scent
+for the capture of that fickle goddess, opportunity.
+
+The captain's smile was oiling a further word of explanation. "See,
+mesdames, they come! they will soon land you on the beach!"
+
+He was pointing to a boat smaller than our own, that now ran alongside.
+There had been frequent signallings between the two boats, a running up
+and down of a small yellow flag which we had thought amazingly becoming
+to the marine landscape, until we learned the true relation of the flag
+to the treachery aboard our own craft.
+
+"You see, mesdames," smoothly continued our talented traitor, "you see
+how the waves run up on the beach. We could never, with this great
+sail, run in there. We should capsize. But behold, these are bathers,
+accustomed to the water--they will carry you--but as if you were
+feathers!" And he pointed to the four outstretched, firmly-muscled
+arms, as if to warrant their powers of endurance. The two men had left
+their boat; it was dancing on the water, at anchor. They were standing
+immovable as pillars of stone, close to the gunwales of our craft. They
+were holding out their arms to us.
+
+Charm suddenly stood upright. She held out her hands like a child, to
+the least impressionable boatman. In an instant she was clasping his
+bronze throat.
+
+"All my life I've prayed for adventure. And at last it has come!" This
+she cried, as she was carried high above the waves.
+
+"That's right, have no fear," answered her carrier as he plunged
+onward, ploughing his way through the waters to the beach.
+
+Beneath my own feet there was a sudden swish and a swirl of restless,
+tumbling waters. The motion, as my carrier buried his bared legs in the
+waves, was such as accompanies impossible flights described in dreams,
+through some unknown medium. The surging waters seemed struggling to
+submerge us both; the two thin, tanned legs of the fisherman about
+whose neck I was clinging, appeared ridiculously inadequate to cleave a
+successful path through a sea of such strength as was running shoreward.
+
+"Madame does not appear to be used to this kind of travelling," puffed
+out my carrier, his conversational instinct, apparently, not in the
+least dampened by his strenuous plunging through the spirited sea. "It
+happens every day--all the aristocrats land this way, when they come
+over by the little boats. It distracts and amuses them, they say. It
+helps to kill the ennui."
+
+"I should think it might, my feet are soaking; sometimes wet feet--"
+
+"Ah, that's a pity, you must get a better hold," sympathetically
+interrupted my fisherman, as he proceeded to hoist me higher up on his
+shoulder. I, or a sack of corn, or a basket of fish, they were all one
+to this strong back and to these toughened sinews. When he had adjusted
+his present load at a secure height, above the dashing of the spray, he
+went on talking. "Yes, when the rich suffer a little it is not such a
+bad thing, it makes a pleasant change--_cela leur distrait_. For
+instance, there is the Princess de L----, there's her villa, close by,
+with green blinds. She makes little excuses to go over to Havre, just
+for this--to be carried in the arms like an infant. You should hear
+her, she shouts and claps her hands! All the beach assembles to see her
+land. When she is wet she cries for joy. It is so difficult to amuse
+one's self, it appears, in the great world."
+
+"But, _tiens_, here we are, I feel the dry sands." I was dropped as
+lightly on them as if it had been indeed a bunch of feathers my
+fisherman had been carrying.
+
+And meanwhile, out yonder, across the billows, with airy gesture
+dramatically executed, our treacherous captain was waving us a
+theatrical salute. The infant mate was grinning like a gargoyle. They
+were both delightfully unconscious, apparently, of any event having
+transpired, during the afternoon's pleasuring, which could possibly
+tinge the moment of parting with the hues of regret.
+
+"_Pour les bagages, mesdames_--"
+
+Two dripping, outstretched hands, two berets doffed, two picturesque
+giants bowing low, with a Frenchman's grace--this, on the Trouville
+sands, was the last act of this little comedy of our landing on the
+coast of France.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A SPRING DRIVE.
+
+
+The Trouville beach was as empty as a desert. No other footfall, save
+our own, echoed along the broad board walks; this Boulevard des
+Italiens of the Normandy coast, under the sun of May was a shining
+pavement that boasted only a company of jelly-fishes as loungers.
+
+Down below was a village, a white cluster of little wooden houses; this
+was the village of the bath houses. The hotels might have been
+monasteries deserted and abandoned, in obedience to a nod from Rome or
+from the home government. Not even a fisherman's net was spread
+a-drying, to stay the appetite with a sense of past favors done by the
+sea to mortals more fortunate than we. The whole face of nature was as
+indifferent as a rich relation grown callous to the voice of entreaty.
+There was no more hope of man apparently, than of nature, being moved
+by our necessity; for man, to be moved, must primarily exist, and he
+was as conspicuously absent on this occasion as Genesis proves him to
+have been on the fourth day of creation.
+
+Meanwhile we sat still, and took counsel together. The chief of the
+council suddenly presented himself. It was a man in miniature. The
+masculine shape, as it loomed up in the distance, gradually separating
+itself from the background of villa roofs and casino terraces, resolved
+itself into a figure stolid and sturdy, very brown of leg, and insolent
+of demeanor--swaggering along as if conscious of there being a
+full-grown man buttoned up within a boy's ragged coat. The swagger was
+accompanied by a whistle, whose neat crispness announced habits of
+leisure and a sense of the refined pleasures of life; for an artistic
+rendering of an aria from "La Fille de Madame Angot" was cutting the
+air with clear, high notes.
+
+The whistle and the brown legs suddenly came to a dead stop. The round
+blue eyes had caught sight of us:
+
+"_Ouid-a-a!_" was this young Norman's salutation. There was very little
+trouser left, and what there was of it was all pocket, apparently. Into
+the pockets the boy's hands were stuffed, along with his amazement; for
+his face, round and full though it was, could not hold the full measure
+of his surprise.
+
+"We came over by boat--from Havre," we murmured meekly; then, "Is there
+a cake-shop near?" irrelevantly concluded Charm with an unmistakable
+ring of distress in her tone. There was no need of any further
+explanation. These two hearty young appetites understood each other;
+for hunger is a universal language, and cake a countersign common among
+the youth of all nations.
+
+"Until you came, you see, we couldn't leave the luggage," she went on.
+
+The blue eyes swept the line of our boxes as if the lad had taken his
+afternoon stroll with no other purpose than to guard them. "There are
+eight, and two umbrellas. _Soyez tranquille, je vous attendrai._"
+
+It was the voice and accent of a man of the world, four feet high--a
+pocket edition, so to speak, in shabby binding. The brown legs hung,
+the next instant, over the tallest of the trunks. The skilful whistling
+was resumed at once; our appearance and the boy's present occupation
+were mere interludes, we were made to understand; his real business,
+that afternoon, was to do justice to the Lecoq's entire opera, and to
+keep his eye on the sea.
+
+Only once did he break down; he left a high _C_ hanging perilously in
+mid-air, to shout out "I like madeleines, I do!" We assured him he
+should have a dozen.
+
+"_Bien!_" and we saw him settling himself to await our return in
+patience.
+
+Up in the town the streets, as we entered them, were as empty as was
+the beach. Trouville might have been a buried city of antiquity. Yet,
+in spite of the desolation, it was French and foreign; it welcomed us
+with an unmistakably friendly, companionable air. Why is it that one is
+made to feel the companionable element, by instantaneous process, as it
+were, in a Frenchman and in his towns? And by what magic also does a
+French village or city, even at its least animated period, convey to
+one the fact of its nationality? We made but ten steps progress through
+these silent streets, fronting the beach, and yet, such was the subtle
+enigma of charm with which these dumb villas and mute shops were
+invested, that we walked along as if under the spell of fascination.
+Perhaps the charm is a matter of sex, after all: towns are feminine, in
+the wise French idiom, that idiom so delicate in discerning qualities
+of sex in inanimate objects, as the Greeks before them were clever in
+discovering sex distinctions in the moral qualities. Trouville was so
+true a woman, that the coquette in her was alive and breathing even in
+this her moment of suspended animation. The closed blinds and iron
+shutters appeared to be winking at us, slyly, as if warning us not to
+believe in this nightmare of desolation; she was only sleeping, she
+wished us to understand; the touch of the first Parisian would wake her
+into life. The features of her fashionable face, meanwhile, were
+arranged with perfect composure; even in slumber she had preserved her
+woman's instinct of orderly grace; not a sign was awry, not a
+window-blind gave hint of rheumatic hinges, or of shattered vertebrae;
+all the machinery was in order; the faintest pressure on the electrical
+button, the button that connects this lady of the sea with the Paris
+Bourse and the Boulevards, and how gayly, how agilely would this
+Trouville of the villas and the beaches spring into life!
+
+The listless glances of the few tailors and cobblers who, with
+suspended thread, now looked after us, seemed dazed--as if they could
+not believe in the reality of two early tourists. A woman's head, here
+and there, leaned over to us from a high window; even these feminine
+eyes, however, appeared to be glued with the long winter's lethargy of
+dull sleep; they betrayed no edge of surprise or curiosity. The sun
+alone, shining with spendthrift glory, flooding the narrow streets and
+low houses with a late afternoon stream of color, was the sole
+inhabitant who did not blink at us, bovinely, with dulled vision.
+
+Half an hour later we were speeding along the roadway. Half an
+hour--and Trouville might have been a thousand miles away. Inland, the
+eye plunged over nests of clover, across the tops of the apple and
+peach trees, frosted now with blossoms, to some farm interiors. The
+familiar Normandy features could be quickly spelled out, one by one.
+
+It was the milking-hour.
+
+The fields were crowded with cattle and women; some of the cows were
+standing immovable, and still others were slowly defiling, in
+processional dignity, toward their homes. Broad-hipped, lean-busted
+figures, in coarse gowns and worsted kerchiefs, toiled through the
+fields, carrying full milk-jugs; brass _amphorae_ these latter might
+have been, from their classical elegance of shape. Ploughmen appeared
+and disappeared, they and their teams rising and sinking with the
+varying heights and depressions of the more distant undulations. In the
+nearer cottages the voices of children would occasionally fill the air
+with a loud clamor of speech; then our steed's bell-collar would
+jingle, and for the children's cries, a bird-throat, high above, from
+the heights of a tall pine would pour forth, as if in uncontrollable
+ecstasy, its rapture into the stillness of this radiant Normandy
+garden. The song appeared to be heard by other ears than ours. We were
+certain the dull-brained sheep were greatly affected by the strains of
+that generous-organed songster--they were so very still under the pink
+apple boughs. The cows are always good listeners; and now, relieved of
+their milk, they lifted eyes swimming with appreciative content above
+the grasses of their pasture. Two old peasants heard the very last of
+the crisp trills, before the concert ended; they were leaning forth
+from the narrow window-ledges of a straw-roofed cottage; the music gave
+to their blinking old eyes the same dreamy look we had read in the
+ruminating cattle orbs. For an aeronaut on his way to bed, I should
+have felt, had I been in that blackbird's plumed corselet, that I had
+had a gratifyingly full house.
+
+Meanwhile, toward the west, a vast marine picture, like a panorama on
+wheels, was accompanying us all the way. Sometimes at our feet, beneath
+the seamy fissures of a hillside, or far removed by sweep of meadow,
+lay the fluctuant mass we call the sea. It was all a glassy yellow
+surface now; into the liquid mirror the polychrome sails sent down long
+lines of color. The sun had sunk beyond the Havre hills, but the flame
+of his mantle still swept the sky. And into this twilight there crept
+up from the earth a subtle, delicious scent and smell--the smell and
+perfume of spring--of the ardent, vigorous, unspent Normandy spring.
+
+[Illustration: A VILLAGE STREET--VILLERVILLE]
+
+Suddenly a belfry grew out of the grain-fields.
+
+"_Nous voici_--here's Villerville!" cried lustily into the twilight our
+coachman's thick peasant voice. With the butt-end of his whip he
+pointed toward the hill that the belfry crowned. Below the little
+hamlet church lay the village. A high, steep street plunged recklessly
+downward toward the cliff; we as recklessly were following it. The
+snapping of our driver's whip had brought every inhabitant of the
+street upon the narrow sidewalks. A few old women and babies hung forth
+from the windows, but the houses were so low, that even this portion of
+the population, hampered somewhat by distance and comparative
+isolation, had been enabled to join in the chorus of voices that filled
+the street. Our progress down the steep, crowded street was marked by a
+pomp and circumstance which commonly attend only a royal entrance into
+a town; all of the inhabitants, to the last man and infant, apparently,
+were assembled to assist at the ceremonial of our entry.
+
+A chorus of comments arose from the shadowy groups filling the low
+doorways and the window casements.
+
+"_Tiens_--it begins to arrive--the season!"
+
+"Two ladies--alone--like that!"
+
+"_Dame! Anglaises, Americaines_--they go round the world thus, _a
+deux_!"
+
+"And why not, if they are young and can pay?"
+
+"Bah! old or poor, it's all one--they're never still, those English!" A
+chorus of croaking laughter rattled down the street along with the
+rolling of our carriage-wheels.
+
+Above, the great arch of sky had shrunk, all at once, into a narrow
+scallop; with the fields and meadows the glow of twilight had been left
+behind. We seemed to be pressing our way against a great curtain, the
+curtain made by the rich dusk that filled the narrow thoroughfare.
+Through the darkness the sinuous street and rickety houses wavered in
+outline, as the bent shapes of the aged totter across dimly-lit
+interiors. A fisherman's bare legs, lit by some dimly illumined
+interior; a line of nets in the little yards; here and there a white
+kerchief or cotton cap, dazzling in whiteness, thrown out against the
+black facades, were spots of light here and there. There was a glimpse
+of the village at its supper--in low-raftered interiors a group of
+blouses and women in fishermen's rig were gathered about narrow tables,
+the coarse-featured faces and the seamed foreheads lit up by the feeble
+flame of candles that ended in long, thin lines of smoke.
+
+"_Ohe--Mere Mouchard!--des voyageurs!_" cried forth our coachman into
+the darkness. He had drawn up before a low, brightly-lit interior. In
+response to the call a figure appeared on the threshold of the open
+door. The figure stood there for a long instant, rubbing its hands, as
+it peered out into the dusk of the night to take a good look at us. The
+brown head was cocked on one side thoughtfully; it was an attitude that
+expressed, with astonishingly clear emphasis, an unmistakable
+professional conception of hospitality. It was the air and manner, in a
+word, of one who had long since trimmed the measurement of its
+graciousness to the price paid for the article.
+
+"_Ces dames_ wished rooms, they desired lodgings and board--_ces dames_
+were alone?" The voice finally asked, with reticent dignity. "From
+Havre--from Trouville, _par p'tit bateau!_" called out lustily our
+driver, as if to furnish us, _gratis_, with a passport to the
+landlady's not too effusive cordiality.
+
+What secret spell of magic may have lain hidden in our friendly
+coachman's announcement we never knew. But the "p'tit bateau" worked
+magically. The figure of Mere Mouchard materialized at once into such
+zeal, such effusion, such a zest of welcome, that we, our bags, and our
+coachman were on the instant toiling up a pair of spiral wooden stairs.
+There was quite a little crowd to fill the all-too-narrow landing at
+the top of the steep steps, a crowd that ended in a long line of
+waiters and serving-maids, each grasping a remnant of luggage. Our
+hostess, meanwhile, was fumbling at a door-lock--an obstinate door that
+refused to be wrenched open.
+
+"Augustine--run--I've taken the wrong key. _Cours, mon enfant_, it is
+no farther away than the kitchen."
+
+The long line pressed itself against the low walls. Augustine, a
+blond-haired, neatly-garmented shape, sped down the rickety stairs with
+the step of youth and a dancer; for only the nimble ankles of one
+accomplished in waltzing could have tripped as dexterously downward as
+did Augustine.
+
+"How she lags! what an idiot of a child!" fumed Mere Mouchard as she
+peered down into the round blackness about which the curving staircase
+closed like an embrace. "One must have patience, it appears, with
+people made like that. _Ah, tiens,_ here she comes. How could you keep
+_ces dames_ waiting like this? It is shameful, shameful!" cried the
+woman, as she half shook the panting girl, in anger. "If _ces dames_
+will enter,"--her voice changing at once to a caressing falsetto, as
+the door flew open, opened by Augustine's trembling fingers--"they will
+find their rooms in readiness."
+
+The rooms were as bare as a soldier's barrack, but they were spotlessly
+clean. There was the pale flicker of a sickly candle to illumine the
+shadowy recesses of the curtained beds and the dark little
+dressing-rooms.
+
+A few moments later we wound our way downward, spirally, to find
+ourselves seated at a round table in a cosy, compact dining-room.
+Directly opposite, across the corridor, was the kitchen, from which
+issued a delightful combination of vinous, aromatic odors. The light of
+a strong, bright lamp made it as brilliant as a ball-room; it was a
+ball-room which for decoration had rows of shining brass and copper
+kettles--each as burnished as a jewel--a mass of sunny porcelain, and
+for carpet the satin of a wooden floor. There was much bustling to and
+fro. Shapes were constantly passing and repassing across the lighted
+interior. The Mere's broad-hipped figure was an omniscient presence: it
+hovered at one instant over a steaming saucepan, and the next was
+lifting a full milk-jug or opening a wine-bottle. Above the clatter of
+the dishes and the stirring of spoons arose the thick Normandy voices,
+deep alto tones, speaking in strange jargon of speech--a world of
+patois removed from our duller comprehension. It was made somewhat too
+plain in this country, we reflected, that a man's stomach is of far
+more importance than the rest of his body. The kitchen yonder was by
+far the most comfortable, the warmest, and altogether the prettiest
+room in the whole house.
+
+Augustine crossed the narrow entry just then with a smoking pot of
+soup. She was followed, later, by Mere Mouchard, who bore a sole au vin
+blanc, a bottle of white Burgundy, and a super-naturally ethereal
+souffle. And an hour after, even the curtainless, carpetless bed
+chambers above were powerless to affect the luxurious character of our
+dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FROM AN INN WINDOW.
+
+
+One travels a long distance, sometimes, to make the astonishing
+discovery that pleasure comes with the doing of very simple things. We
+had come from over the seas to find the act of leaning on a window
+casement as exciting as it was satisfying. It is true that from our two
+inn windows there was a delightful variety of nature and of human
+nature to look out upon. From the windows overlooking the garden there
+was only the horizon to bound infinity. The Atlantic, beginning with
+the beach at our feet, stopped at nothing till it met the sky. The sea,
+literally, was at our door; it and the Seine were next-door neighbors.
+Each hour of the day these neighbors presented a different face, were
+arrayed in totally different raiment, were grave or gay, glowing with
+color or shrouded in mists, according to the mood and temper of the
+sun, the winds, and the tides.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE BEACH--VILLERVILLE]
+
+The width of the sky overhanging this space was immense; not a scrap,
+apparently, was left over to cover, decently, the rest of the earth's
+surface--of that one was quite certain in looking at this vast inverted
+cup overflowing with ether. What there was of land was a very sketchy
+performance. Opposite ran the red line of the Havre headlands.
+
+Following the river, inland, there was a pretence of shore, just
+sufficiently outlined, like a youth's beard, to give substance to one's
+belief in its future growth and development. Beneath these windows the
+water, hemmed in by this edge of shore, panted, like a child at play;
+its sighs, liquid, lisping, were irresistible; one found oneself
+listening for the sound of them as if they had issued from a human
+throat. The humming of the bees in the garden, the cry of a fisherman
+calling across the water, the shout of the children below on the beach,
+or, at twilight, the chorusing birds, carolling at full concert pitch;
+this, at most, was all the sound and fury the sea beach yielded.
+
+The windows opening on the village street let in a noise as tumultuous
+as the sea was silent. The hubbub of a perpetual babble, all the louder
+for being compressed within narrow space, was always to be heard; it
+ceased only when the village slept. There was an incessant clicking
+accompaniment to this noisy street life; a music played from early dawn
+to dusk over the pavement's rough cobbles--the click clack, click clack
+of the countless wooden sabots.
+
+Part of this clamor in the streets was due to the fact that the
+village, as a village, appeared to be doing a tremendous business with
+the sea.
+
+Men and women were perpetually going to and coming from the beach.
+Fishermen, sailors, women bearing nets, oars, masts, and sails,
+children bending beneath the weight of baskets filled with kicking
+fish; wheelbarrows stocked high with sea-food and warm clothing; all
+this commerce with the sea made the life in these streets a more
+animated performance than is commonly seen in French villages.
+
+In time, the provincial mania began to work in our veins.
+
+To watch our neighbors, to keep an eye on this life--this became, after
+a few days, the chief occupation of our waking hours.
+
+The windows of our rooms fronting on the street were peculiarly well
+adapted for this unmannerly occupation. By merely opening the blinds,
+we could keep an eye on the entire village. Not a cat could cross the
+street without undergoing inspection. Augustine, for example, who, once
+having turned her back on the inn windows, believed herself entirely
+cut off from observation, was perilously exposed to our mercy. We knew
+all the secrets of her thieving habits; we could count, to a second,
+the time she stole from the Mere, her employer, to squander in smiles
+and dimples at the corner creamery. There a tall Norman rained
+admiration upon her through wide blue eyes, as he patted, caressingly,
+the pots of blond butter, just the color of her hair, before laying
+them, later, tenderly in her open palm. Soon, as our acquaintance with
+our neighbors deepened into something like intimacy, we came to know
+their habits of mind as we did their facial peculiarities; certain of
+their actions made an event in our day. It became a serious matter of
+conjecture as to whether Madame de Tours, the social swell of the town,
+would or would not offer up her prayer to Deity, accompanied by
+Friponne, her black poodle. If Friponne issued forth from the narrow
+door, in company with her austere mistress, the shining black silk
+gown, we knew, would not decorate the angular frame of this
+aristocratic provincial; a sober beige was best fitted to resist the
+dashes made by Friponne's sharply-trimmed nails. It was for this, to
+don a silk gown in full sight of her neighbors; to set up as companion
+a dog of the highest fashion, the very purest of _caniches_, that
+twenty years of patient nursing a paralytic husband--who died all too
+slowly--had been counted as nothing!
+
+Once we were summoned to our outlook by the vigorous beating of a drum.
+Madame Mouchard and Augustine were already at their own post of
+observation--the open inn door. The rest of the village was in full
+attendance, for it was not every day in the week that the "tambour,"
+the town-crier, had business enough to render his appearance, in his
+official capacity, necessary; as a mere townsman he was to be seen any
+hour of the day, as drunk as a lord, at the sign of "L'Ami Fidele." His
+voice, as it rolled out the words of his cry, was as _staccato_ in
+pitch as any organ can be whose practice is largely confined to
+unceasing calls for potations. To the listening crowd, the thick voice
+was shouting:
+
+"_Madame Tricot--a la messe--dimanche--a--perdu une broche--or et
+perles--avec cheveux--Madame Merle a perdu--sur la plage--un panier
+avec--un chat noir--_"
+
+We ourselves, to our astonishment, were drummed the very next morning.
+Augustine had made the discovery of a missing shoulder-cape; she had
+taken it upon herself to call in the drummer. So great was the
+attendance of villagers, even the abstractors of the lost garment must,
+we were certain, be among the crowd assembled to hear our names shouted
+out on the still air. We were greatly affected by the publicity of the
+occasion; but the village heard the announcement, both of our names and
+of our loss, with the phlegm of indifference. "Vingt francs pour avoir
+tambourine mademoiselle!" This was an item which a week later, in
+madame's little bill, was not confronted with indifference.
+
+"It gives one the feeling of having had relations with a wandering
+circus," remarked the young philosopher at my side.
+
+"But it is really a great convenience, that system," she continued;
+"I'm always mislaying things--and through the drummer there's a whole
+village as aid to find a lost article. I shall, doubtless, always have
+that, now, in my bills!" And Charm, with an air of serene confidence in
+the village, adjusted her restored shoulder-cape.
+
+Down below, in our neighbor's garden--the one adjoining our own and
+facing the sea--a new and old world of fashion in capes and other
+garments were a-flutter in the breeze, morning after morning. Who and
+what was this neighbor, that he should have so curious and eccentric a
+taste in clothes? No woman was to be seen in the garden-paths; a man,
+in a butler's apron and a silk skullcap, came and went, his arms piled
+high with gowns and scarves, and all manner of strange odds and ends.
+Each morning some new assortment of garments met our wondering eyes.
+Sometimes it was a collection of Empire embroidered costumes that were
+hung out on the line; faded fleur-de-lis, sprigs of dainty lilies and
+roses, gold-embossed Empire coats, strewn thick with seed-pearls on
+satins softened by time into melting shades. When next we looked the
+court of Napoleon had vanished, and the Bourbon period was, literally,
+in full swing. A frou-frou of laces, coats with deep skirts, and
+beribboned trousers would be fluttering airily in the soft May air.
+Once, in fine contrast to these courtly splendors, was a wondrous
+assortment of flannel petticoats. They were of every hue--red, yellow,
+brown, pink, patched, darned, wide-skirted, plaited, ruffled--they
+appeared to represent the taste and requirement of every climate and
+country, if one could judge by the thickness of some and the gossamer
+tissues of others; but even the smartest were obviously, unmistakably,
+effrontedly, flannel petticoats.
+
+It was a mystery that greatly intrigued us. One morning the mystery was
+solved. A whiff of tobacco from an upper window came along with a puff
+of wind. It was a heated whiff, in spite of the cooling breeze. It was
+from a pipe, a short, black pipe, owned by some one in the Mansard
+window next door. There was the round disk of a dark-blue beret
+drooping over the pipe. "Good--" I said to myself--"I shall see now--at
+last--this maniac with a taste for darned petticoats!"
+
+The pipe smoked peacefully, steadily on. The beret was motionless.
+Between the pipe and the cap was a man's profile; it was too much in
+shadow to be clearly defined.
+
+The next instant the man's face was in full sunlight. The face turned
+toward me--with the quick instinct of knowing itself watched--and then--
+
+"Pas--possible!"
+
+"You--here!"
+
+"Been here a year--but you, when did you arrive? What luck! What luck!"
+
+It was John Renard, the artist; after the first salutations question
+followed question.
+
+"Are you alone?--"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is she--young?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Pretty?"
+
+"Judge for yourself--that is she--in the garden yonder."
+
+The beret dipped itself perilously out into the sky--to take a full
+view.
+
+"Hem--I'll come in at once."
+
+It was as a trio that the conversation was continued later, in the
+garden. But Renard was still chief questioner.
+
+"Have you been out on the mussel-beds?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"We'll go this afternoon--Have you been to Honfleur? Not yet?--We'll go
+to-morrow. The tide will be in to-day about four--I'll call for
+you--wear heavy boots and old clothes. It's jolly dirty. Where do you
+breakfast?"
+
+The breakfast was eaten, as a trio, at our inn, an hour later. It was
+so warm a day, it was served under one of the arbors. Augustine was
+feeding and caressing the doves as we entered the inn garden. At sight
+of Renard she dropped a quiet courtesy, smiles and roses struggling for
+a supremacy on her round peasant face. She let the doves loose at once,
+saying: "Allez, allez," as if they quite understood that with Monsieur
+Renard's advent their hour of success was at an end.
+
+Why does a man's presence always seem to communicate such surprising
+animation to a woman--to any woman? Why does his appearance, for
+instance, suddenly, miraculously stiffen the sauces, lure from the
+cellar bottles incrusted with the gray of thick cobwebs, give an added
+drop of the lemon to the mayonnaise, and make an omelette to swim in a
+sea of butter? All these added touches to our commonly admirable
+breakfast were conspicuous that day--it was a breakfast for a prince
+and a gourmet.
+
+"The Mere can cook--when she gives her mind to it," was Renard's meagre
+masculine comment, as the last morsel of the golden omelette
+disappeared behind his mustache.
+
+It was a gay little breakfast, with the circling above of the birds and
+the doves. There are duller forms of pleasure than to eat a repast in
+the company of an artist. I know not why it is, but it has always
+seemed to me that the man who lives only to copy life appears to get
+far more out of it than those who make a point of seeing nothing in it
+save themselves.
+
+Renard, meanwhile, was taking pains to assure us that in less than a
+month the Villerville beaches would be crowded; only the artists of the
+brushes were here now; the artists of high life would scarcely be found
+deserting the Avenue des Acacias before June.
+
+"French people are always coming to the seashore, you know--or trying
+to come. It's a part of their emotional religion to worship the sea.
+'La mer! la mer!' they cry, with eyes all whites; then they go into
+little swoons of rapture--I can see them now, attitudinizing in salons
+and at tables-d'hote!" To which comment we could find no more original
+rejoinder than our laughter.
+
+It was a day when laughter was good; it put one in closer relations
+with the universal smiling. There are certain days when nature seems to
+laugh aloud; in this hour of noon the entire universe, all we could see
+of it, was on a broad grin. Everything moved, or danced, or sang; the
+leaves were each alive, trembling, quivering, shaking; the insect hum
+was like a Wagnerian chorus, deafening to the ear; there was a brisk,
+light breeze stirring--a breeze that moved the higher branches of the
+trees as if it had been an arm; that rippled the grass; that tossed the
+wavelets of the sea into such foam that they seemed over-running with
+laughter; and such was still its unspent energy that it sent the Seine
+with a bound up through its shores, its waters clanging like a sheet of
+mail armor worn by some lusty warrior. We were walking in the narrow
+lane that edged the cliff; it was a lane that was guarded with a
+sentinel row of osiers, syringas, and laburnums. This was the guard of
+the cliffs. On the other side was the high garden wall, over which we
+caught dissolving views of dormer-windows, of gabled roofs, vine-clad
+walls, and a maze of peach and pear blossoms. This was not precisely
+the kind of lane through which one hurried. One needed neither to be
+sixteen nor even in love to find it a delectable path, very agreeable
+to the eye, very suggestive to the imaginative faculty, exceedingly
+satisfactory to the most fastidious of all the senses, to that
+aristocrat of all the five, the sense of smell. Like all entirely
+perfect experiences in life, the lane ended almost as soon as it began;
+it ended in a steep pair of steps that dropped, precipitously, on the
+pebbles of the beach.
+
+For some reason best known to the day and the view, we all, with one
+accord, proceeded to seat ourselves on the topmost step of this
+stairway. We were waiting for the tide to fall, to go out to the
+mussel-bed. Meanwhile the prospect to be seen from this improvised seat
+was one made to be looked at. There is a certain innate compelling
+quality in all great beauty. When nature or woman presents a really
+grandiose appearance, they are singularly reposeful, if you notice;
+they have the calm which comes with a consciousness of splendor. It is
+only prettiness which is tormented with the itching for display; and
+therefore this prospect, which rolled itself out beneath our feet,
+curling in a half-moon of beach, broadening into meadows that dropped
+to the river edge, lifting its beauty upward till the hills met the
+sky. and the river was lost in the clasp of the shore--this aspect of
+nature, in this moment of beauty, was as untroubled as if Chateaubriand
+had not found her a lover, and had flattered man by persuading him that,
+
+"La voix de l'univers, c'est mon intelligence."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OUT ON A MUSSEL-BED.
+
+
+That same afternoon we were out on the mussel bed.
+
+The tide was at its lowest. Before us, for an acre or more, there lay a
+wide, wet, stretch of brown mud. Near the beach was a strip of yellow
+sand; here and there it had contracted into narrow ridges, elsewhere it
+had expanded into scroll-like patterns. The bed of mud and slime ran
+out from this yellow sand strip--a surface diversified by puddles of
+muddy water, by pools, clear, ribbed with wavelets, and by little heaps
+of stones covered with lichens. The surface of the bed, whether pools
+or puddles, or rock-heaps, or sea-weeds massed, was covered by
+thousands and thousands of black, lozenge-shaped bivalves. These
+bivalves were the mussels. Over this bed of shells and slime there
+moved and toiled a whole villageful of old women. Where the sea met the
+edges of the mud-flat the throng of women was thickest. The line of the
+ever-receding shore was marked by the shapes of countless bent figures.
+The heads of these stooping women were on a level with their feet, not
+one stood upright. All that the eye could seize for outline was the
+dome made by the bent hips, and the backs that closed against the knees
+as a blade is clasped into a knife handle. The oblong masses that were
+lifted now and then, from the level of the sabots, resolved themselves
+into the outlines of women's heads and women's faces. These heads were
+tied up in cotton kerchiefs or in cotton nightcaps; these being white,
+together with the long, thick, aprons also white, were in startling
+contrast to the blue of the sky and to the changing sea-tones.
+
+Between these women and the incoming tide, twice daily, was fought a
+persistent, unrelenting duel. It was a duel, on the part of the
+fish-wives, against time, against the fate of the tides, against the
+blind forces of nature. For this combat the women were armed to the
+teeth, clad as they were in their skeleton muscular leanness; helmeted
+with their heads of iron; visored in the bronze of their skin and in
+wrinkles that laughed at the wind. In these sinewy, toughened bodies
+there was a grim strength that appeared to know neither ache nor
+fatigue nor satiety.
+
+High, clear, strong, came their voices. The tones were the tones that
+come from deep chests, and with a prolonged, sustained capacity for
+enduring the toil of men. But the high-pitched laughter proved them
+women, as did their loud and unceasing gossip. The battle of the voices
+rose above the swash of the waves, above, also, another sound, as
+incessant as the women's chatter and the swish of the water as it
+hissed along the mud-flat's edges.
+
+[Illustration: A SALE OF MUSSELS--VILLERVILLE]
+
+This was the swift, sharp, saw-like cutting among the stones and the
+slime, the scrape, scrape of the hundred of knives into the moist
+earth. This ceaseless scraping, lunging, digging, made a new world of
+sound--strange, sinister, uncanny. It was neither of the sea nor yet of
+the land--it was a noise that seemed inseparable from this tongue of
+mud, that also appeared to be neither of the heavens above nor of the
+earth, from the bowels out of which it had sprung.
+
+The mussels cling to their slime with extraordinary tenacity; only an
+expert, who knows the exact point of attachment between the hard shell
+and its soil, can remove a mussel with dexterity. These women, as they
+dipped their knives into the thick mud, swept the diminutive black
+bivalve with a trenchant movement, as a Moor might cleave a human head
+with one turn of his moon-shaped sword. Into the bronzed, wrinkled old
+hands the mussels then were slipped as if they had been so many dainty
+sweets.
+
+New and pungent smells were abroad on this strip of slime. Sea smells,
+strong and salty; smells of the moist and damp soil, the bitter-sweet
+of wetted weeds, the aromatic flavor that shell-life yields, and the
+smells also of rotten and decaying fish--all these were inextricably
+blended in the air, that was of the keenness of a frost-blight for
+freshness, and yet was warm with the softness of a June sun.
+
+Meanwhile the voices of the women were nearing. Some of the bent heads
+were lifted as we approached. Here and there a coif, or cotton cap,
+nodded, and the slit of a smile would gape between the nose and the
+meeting chin. A high good humor appeared to reign among the groups; a
+carnival of merriment laughed itself out in coarse, cracked laughter;
+loud was the play of the jests, hoarse and guttural the gibes that were
+abroad on the still air, from old mouths that uttered strong, deep
+notes.
+
+"Why should they all be old?" we queried. We were near enough to see
+the women face to face now, since we were far out along the outer edges
+of the bed; we were so near the sea that the tide was beginning to wash
+us back, along with the fringe of the diggers.
+
+"They're not--they only look old," replied Renard, stopping a moment to
+sketch in a group directly in front. "This life makes old women of them
+in no time. How old, for instance, should you think that girl was, over
+there?"
+
+The girl whom he designated was the only figure of youth we had seen on
+the bed. She was working alone and remote from the others. She wore no
+coif. Her masses of red, wavy hair shaded a face already deeply seamed
+with lines of premature age. A moment later she passed close to us. She
+was bent almost double beneath a huge, reeking basket, heaped with its
+pile of wet mussels. She was carrying it to a distant pool. Once beside
+the pool, with swift, dexterous movement the heavy basket was slipped
+from the bent back, the load of mussels falling in a shower into the
+miniature lake. The next instant she was stamping on the heap, to
+plunge them with her sabot still further into the pool. She was washing
+her load. Soon she shouldered the basket again, filling it with the
+cleansed mussels. A moment later she joined the long, toiling line of
+women that were perpetually forming and reforming on their way to the
+carts. These latter were drawn up near the beach, their contents
+guarded by boys and old men, who received the loads the women had dug,
+dragging the whole, later, up the hill.
+
+"She has the Venus de Milo lines, that girl," Renard continued,
+critically, with his eyes on her, as she now repassed us. The figure
+was drawn up at its full height. It had in truth a noble dignity of
+outline. There was a Spartan vigor and severity in the lean, uncorseted
+shape, with the bust thrown out against the sky--the bust of a young
+warrior rather than a woman. There was a hardy, masculine freedom in
+the pliable motion of her straight back, a ripple with muscles that
+played easily beneath the close bodice, in her arms, and her finely
+turned ankles and legs, that were bared below the knee. The very
+simplicity of her costume helped to mark the Greek severity of her
+figure. She wore a short skirt of some coarse hempen stuff, covered
+with a thick apron made of sail-cloth, her feet thrust into black
+sabots, while the upper part of her body was covered with an unbleached
+chemise, widely open at the throat.
+
+She had the Phidian breadth and the modern charm--that charm which
+troubles and disturbs, haunting the mind with vague, unsatisfied
+suggestions of something finer than is seen, something nobler than the
+gross physical envelope reveals.
+
+"I must have her--for my Salon picture," calmly remarked Renard, after
+a long moment of scrutiny, his eyes following the lean, stately figure
+in its grave walk across the weeds and slime. "Yes, I must have her."
+
+"Won't she be hard to get? How can she be made to sit, a stiffened
+image of clay, after this life of freedom, this athletic struggle out
+here--with these winds and tides?"
+
+One of us, at least, was stirred at Renard's calm assumption--the
+assumption so common to artists, who, when they see a good thing at
+once count on its possessorship, as if the whole world, indeed, were
+eternally sitting, agape with impatience, awaiting the advent of some
+painter to sketch in its portrait.
+
+"Oh, it'll be easy enough. She makes two francs a day with her six
+basketfuls. I'll offer her three, and she'll drop like a shot."
+
+"I'll make it a red picture," he continued, dipping his brushes into a
+little case of paints he held on his thumb; "the mussel-bed a reddish
+violet, the sky red in the horizon, and the girl in the foreground,
+with that torrent of hair as the high light. I've been hunting for that
+hair all over Europe." And he began sketching her in at once.
+
+"_Bonjour, mere_, how goes it?" He nodded as he sketched at a wrinkled,
+bent figure, who was smiling out at him from beneath her load of
+mussels.
+
+"_Pas mal--e' vous, M'sieur Renard?_"
+
+"All right--and the mortgage, how goes that?"
+
+"Pas si mal--it'll be paid off next year."
+
+"Who is she? One of your models?"
+
+"Yes, last year's: she was my belle--the belle of the mussel-bed for
+me, a year ago. Now there's a lesson in patience for you. She's
+sixty-five, if she's a minute; she's been working here, on this
+mussel-bed, for five years, to pay the mortgage off her farm; when that
+is done, her daughter Augustine can marry; Augustine's _dot_ is the
+farm."
+
+"Augustine--at our inn?"
+
+"The very same."
+
+"And the blonde--the handsome man at the creamery, he is the future--?"
+
+"I'm sorry to hear such things of Augustine," smiled Renard, as he
+worked; "she must be indulging in an entr'acte. No, the gentleman of
+Augustine's--well, perhaps not of her affections, but of her mother's
+choice, is a peasant who works the farm; the creamery is only an
+incidental diversion. Again, I'm sorry to hear such sad things of
+Augustine--"
+
+"Horrors!"
+
+"Exactly. That's the way it's done--over here. Will you join me--over
+there?" Renard blushed a little. "I mean I wish to follow that
+girl--she's going to dig out yonder. Will you come?"
+
+Meanwhile the light was changing, and so was the tide. The women were
+coming inward, washed up to the shore along with the grasses and
+seaweeds. A band of diggers suddenly started, with full basket loads,
+toward a fishing boat that had dropped anchor close in to the shore; it
+was a Honfleur craft, come to buy mussels for the Paris market. The
+women trudged through the water, up to their waists; they clustered
+about the boats like so many laden beasts. But their shrill bargaining
+proved them women.
+
+Meanwhile that gentle hissing along the level stretch of brown mud was
+the tide. It was pushing the women upward, as if it had been a
+hand--the hand of a relentless fate--instead of a little, liquid kiss.
+
+The sun, as it dipped, made a glory of splendor out of this commonplace
+bank. It soaked the mud in gold; it was in a royal mood, throwing its
+largess with reckless abundance to this poor of earth--to the slime and
+the mud. The long, yellow, lichen leaves massed on the rocks were dyed
+as if lying in a yellow bath. The sands were richly colored; the ridges
+were brown in the shadows and burnished at the tops. In the distance
+the sea weeds were black, sable furs, covering the velvet robes of
+earth. The sea out beyond was as rosy as a babe, and the sails were
+dazzlingly white as they floated past, between the sky and the distant
+purple line of the horizon.
+
+Meanwhile the tide is coming in.
+
+The procession of the women toward the carts grows in numbers. The
+thick sabots plunge into the mud, the water squirts out of the wooden
+shoes as the strong heels press into them. The straw, the universal
+stocking of these women-diggers, is reeking with dirt. Volumes of slush
+are splashed on the bared skinny ankles, on the wet skirts, wet to the
+waists, and on the coarse sail-cloth aprons tied beneath the hanging
+bosoms. The women are all drenched now in a bath of filth. The baskets
+are reeking with filth also, they rain showers of dirt along the bent
+backs. A long line of the bent figures has formed on their way to the
+carts. There is, however, a thick fringe of diggers left who still
+dispute their rights with the sea.
+
+But the tide is pushing them inward, upward. And all the while the
+light is getting more and more golden, shimmery, radiant. Under this
+light, beneath this golden mantel of color, these creatures appear
+still more terrible. As they bend over, their faces tirelessly held
+downward on a level with their hands, they seem but gnomes; surely they
+are huge, undeveloped embryos of women, with neither head nor trunk.
+For this light is pitiless. It makes them even more a part of this
+earth, out of which they seem to have sprung, a strange amorphous
+growth. The bronzed skins are dyed in the gold as if to match with the
+hue of the mud; the wet skirts are shreds, gray and brown tatters, not
+so good in texture as the lichens, and the ragged jerseys seem only
+bits of the more distant weeds woven into tissues to hide mercifully
+the lean, sinewy backs.
+
+The tide is almost in.
+
+In the shallows the sunset is fading. Here and there are brilliant
+little pools, each pool a mirror, and each mirror reflects a different
+picture. Here is a second sky--faintly blue, with a trailing saffron
+scarf of cloud; there, the inverted silhouettes of two fish-wives are
+conical shapes, their coifs and wet skirts startlingly distinct in
+tones; beyond, sails a fantastic fleet, with polychrome sails, each
+spar, masthead, and wrinkled sail as sharply outlined as if chiselled
+in relief. Presently these miniature pictures fade as the light fades.
+Blacker grows the mud, and there is less and less of it; the
+silhouetted shapes of the diggers are seen no more; they are following
+the carts up the steep cliffs; even the sky loses its color and fades
+also. And the little pools that have been a burning orange, then a
+darkening violet, gay with pictured worlds, in turn pale to gray, and
+die into the universal blackness.
+
+The tide is in.
+
+It is flowing, rich and full, crested with foam beneath the osier
+hedges. We hear it break with a sudden dash and splutter against the
+cliff parapets. And the mud-bank is no more.
+
+Half an hour later, from our chamber windows we looked forth through
+the dusk across at the mussel bed. The great mud-bank, all that black
+acreage of slime and sea-weed, the eager, struggling band of toiling
+fish wives, all was gone; it was all as if it had not been--would never
+be again. The water hissed along the beach; it broke in rhythmic,
+sonorous measure against the parapet. Surely there had never been any
+beds, or any mussels, or any toiling fish-wives; or if there had, it
+was all a world that the sea had washed up, and then as quietly, as
+heedlessly, as pitilessly had obliterated.
+
+It was the very epitome of life itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE VILLAGE.
+
+
+Our visit to the mussel-bed, as we soon found, had been our formal
+introduction to the village. Henceforth every door step held a friend;
+not a coif or a blouse passed without a greeting. The village, as a
+village, lived in the open street. Villerville had the true French
+genius for society; the very houses were neighborly, crowding close
+upon the narrow sidewalk. Conversation, to be carried on from a
+dormer-window or from opposite sides of the street, had evidently been
+the first architectural consideration in the mind of the builders;
+doors and windows must be as open and accessible as the lives of the
+inhabitants. The houses themselves appeared to be regarded in the light
+of pockets, into which the old women and fishermen plunged to drag
+forth a net or a knife; also as convenient, if rude, little caverns
+into which the village crawled at night, to take its heavy slumber.
+
+The door-step was the drawing-room, and the open street was the club of
+this Villerville world.
+
+The door-way, the yard, or the bit of garden tucked in between two high
+walls--it was here, under the tent of sky rather than beneath the
+stuffy roofs, that the village lived, talked, quarrelled, bargained,
+worked, and more or less openly made love.
+
+To the door-step everything was brought that was portable. There was
+nothing, from the small boy to the brass kettle, that could not be more
+satisfactorily polished off, in full view of one's world, than by one's
+self, in seclusion and solitude. Justice, at least, appeared to gain by
+this passion for open-air ministration, if one were to judge by the
+frequency with which the Villerville boy was laid across the parental
+knee. We were repeatedly called upon to coincide, at the very instant
+of flagellation, with the verdict pronounced against the youthful
+offender.
+
+"_S'il est assez mechant, lui?_ Ah, mesdames, what do you think of one
+who goes forth dry, with clean sabots, that I, myself, have washed, and
+behold him returned, _apres un tout p'tit quart d'heure_, stinking with
+filth? Bah! it's he that will catch it when his father comes home!" And
+meanwhile the mother's hand descends, lest justice should cool ere
+night.
+
+[Illustration: A VILLERVILLE FISH-WIFE]
+
+There were other groups that crowded the doorsteps; there were young
+mothers that sat there, with their babes clasped to the full breasts,
+in whose eyes was to be read the satisfied passion of recent
+motherhood; there were gay clusters of young Norman maidens, whose
+glances, brilliant and restless, were pregnant with all the meaning of
+unspent youth. The figures of the fishermen, toiling up the street with
+bared legs and hairy breast, bending beneath their baskets alive with
+fish, stopped to have a word or two, seasoned with a laugh, with these
+latter groups. There were also knots of patient old men, wrecks that
+the sea had tossed back to earth, to rot and die there, that came out
+of the black little houses to rest their bones in the sun. And
+everywhere there were groups of old women, or of women still young, to
+whom the look of age had come long before its due time.
+
+The village seemed peopled with women, sexless creatures for the most
+part, whom toil and the life on the mussel-bed or in the field had
+dried and hardened into mummy shapes. Only these, the old and the
+useless, were left at home to rear the younger generation and to train
+them to take up the same heavy burden of life. The coifs of these old
+hags made dazzling spots of brightness against the gray of the walls
+and the stuccoed houses; clustered together, the high caps that nodded
+in unison to the chatter were in startling contrast to the bronzed
+faces bending over the fish-nets, and to the blue-veined, leathery
+hands that flew in and out of the coarse meshes with the fluent ease of
+long practice.
+
+With one of these old women we became friends. We had made her
+acquaintance at a poetic moment, under romantic circumstances. We were
+all three watching a sunset, under a pink sky; we were sitting far out
+on the grasses of the cliff. Her house was in the midst of the grasses,
+some little distance from the village, attached to it only as a ragged
+fringe might edge a garment. It was a thatched hut; yet there were
+circumstances in the life of the owner which had transformed the
+interior into a luxurious apartment. The owner of the hut was herself
+hanging on the edge of life; she was a toothless, bent, and withered
+old remnant; but her vigor and vivacity were those of a witch. Her
+hands and eyes were ceaselessly active; she was forever busy, fingering
+a fish-net, or polishing her Normandy brasses, or stirring some dark
+liquid in an iron pot over the dim fire.
+
+At our first meeting, conversation had immediately engaged itself; it
+had ended, as all right talk should, in friendship. On this morning of
+our visit, many a gay one having preceded it, we found our friend
+arrayed as if for an outing. She had mounted her best coif, and tied
+across her shrivelled old breast was a vivid purple silk kerchief.
+
+"_Tiens, mes enfants, soyez les bienvenues_," was her gay greeting,
+seasoned with a high cackling laugh, as she waved us to two rickety
+chairs. "No, I'm not going out, not yet; there is plenty of time,
+plenty of time. It is you who are good, _si aimables_, to come out here
+to see me. And tired, too, _hein_, with the long walk? _Tiens_, I had
+nearly forgotten; there's a bottle of wine open below--you must take a
+glass."
+
+She never forgot. The bottle of wine had always just been opened; the
+cork was always also miraculously rebellious for a cork that had been
+previously pulled. Although our ancient friend was a peasant, her
+cellar was the cellar of a gourmet. Wonderful old wines were hers!
+Port, Bordeaux, white wines, of vintages to make the heart warm; each
+was produced in turn, a different vintage and wine on each one of our
+visits, but no champagne. This was no wine for women--for the right
+women. Champagne was a bad, fast wine, for fast, disreputable people.
+"_C'est un vrai poison, qui vous infecte_," she had declared again and
+again, and when she saw her daughter drinking it, it made her shudder;
+she confessed to having a moment of doubt; had Paris, indeed, really
+brought her child no harm? Then the old mere would shrug her bent
+shoulders and rub her hands, and for a moment she would be lost in
+thought. Presently the cracked old laugh would peal forth again, and,
+as she threw back her head, she would shake it as if to dispel some
+dark vision.
+
+To-day she had dropped, almost as soon as we entered, into a narrow
+trap-door, descending a flight of stone steps. We could hear a clicking
+of bottles and a rustling of straw; and then, behold, a veritable fairy
+issuing from the bowels of the earth, with flushes of red suffusing the
+ribbed, bewrinkled face, as the old figure straightens its crookedness
+to carry the dusty bottle securely, steadily, lest the cloudy settling
+at the bottom should be disturbed. What a merry little feast then
+began! We had learned where the glasses were kept; we had been busily
+scouring them while our hostess was below. Then wine and glasses, along
+with three chairs, were quickly placed on the pine table at the door of
+the old house. Here, on the grass of the cliffs, we sat, sipping our
+wine, enjoying the sea that lay at our feet, and above, the sunlit sky.
+To our friend both sky and sea were familiar companions; but the fichu
+was a new friend.
+
+"Yes, it is very beautiful, as you say," she said, in answer to our
+admiring comments. "It came from Paris, from my daughter. She sent it
+to me; she is always making me gifts; she is one who remembers her old
+mother! Figure to yourselves that last year, in midwinter, she sent me
+no less than three gowns, all wool! What can I do with them? _C'est
+pour me flatter, c'est sa maniere de me dire qu'il faut vivre pour
+longtemps! Ah, la chere folle!_ But she spoils me, the darling!"
+
+This daughter had become the most mysterious of all our Villerville
+discoveries. Our old friend was a peasant, the child of peasant
+farmers. She would always remain a peasant; and yet her daughter was a
+Parisian, and lived in a _bonbonniere_. She was also married; but that
+only served to thicken the web of mystery enshrouding her. How could a
+daughter of a peasant, brought up as a peasant, who had lived here, a
+tiller of the fields till her nineteenth year, suddenly be transformed
+into a woman of the Parisian world, gain the position of a banker's
+wife, and be dancing, as the old mere kept telling us, at balls at the
+Elysee? Her mother never answered this riddle for us; and, more amazing
+still, neither could the village. The village would shrug its
+shoulders, when we questioned it, with discretion, concerning this
+enigma. "Ah, dame! It was she--the old mere--who had had chances in
+life, to marry her daughter like that! Victorine was pretty--yes, there
+was no gainsaying she was pretty--but not so beautiful as all that, to
+entrap a banker, _un homme serieux, qui vit de ses rentes!_ and who was
+generous, too, for the old mere needn't work now, since she was always
+receiving money." Gifts were perpetually pouring into the low
+rooms--wines, and Parisian delicacies, and thick garments.
+
+The tie between the two, between the mother and daughter, appeared to
+be as strong and their relations as complete, as if one were not clad
+in homespun and the other in Worth gowns. There was no shame, that was
+easily seen, on either side; each apparently was full of pride in the
+other; their living apart was entirely due to the old mere's preference
+for a life on the cliffs, alone in the midst of all her old peasant
+belongings.
+
+"_C'est plus chez-soi, ici!_ Victorine feels that, too. She loves the
+smell of the old wood, and of the peat burning there in the fireplace.
+When she comes down to see me, I must shut fast all the doors and
+windows; she wants the whole of the smell, _pour faire le vrai
+bouquet_, as she says. If she had had children--ah!--I don't say but
+what I might have consented; but as it is, I love my old fire, and my
+view out there, and the village, best!"
+
+At this point in the conversation, the old eyes, bright as they were,
+turned dim and cloudy; the inward eye was doubtless seeing something
+other than the view; it was resting on a youthful figure, clad in
+Parisian draperies, and on a face rising above the draperies, that bent
+lovingly over the deep-throated fireplace, basking in its warmth, and
+revelling in its homely perfume. We were silent also, as the picture of
+that transfigured daughter of the house flitted across our own mental
+vision.
+
+"The village?" suddenly broke in the old mere. "_Dieu de Dieu!_ that
+reminds me. I must go, my children, I must go. Loisette is waiting; _la
+pauvre enfant_--perhaps suffering too--how do I know? And here am I,
+playing, like a lazy clout! Did you know she had had un _nini_ this
+morning? The little angel came at dawn. That's a good sign! And what
+news for Auguste! He was out last night--fishing; she was at her
+washing when he left her. _Tiens_, there they are, looking for him!
+They've brought the spy-glass."
+
+The old mere shaded her eyes, as she looked out into the dazzling
+sunlight. We followed her finger, that pointed to a projection on the
+cliffs. Among the grasses, grouped on top of the highest rock, was a
+family party. An old fish-wife was standing far out against the sky;
+she also was shading her eyes. A child's round head, crowded into a
+white knit cap, was etched against the wide blue; and, kneeling,
+holding in both hands a seaman's long glass, was a girl, sweeping the
+horizon with swift, skilful stretches of arm and hand. The sun
+descended in a shower of light on the old grandam's seamy face, on the
+red, bulging cheeks of the chubby child, and on the bent figure of the
+girl, whose knees were firmly implanted in the deep, tall grasses.
+Beyond the group there was nothing but sea and sky.
+
+"Yes," the mere went on, garrulously, as she recorked the bottle of old
+port, carrying table and glasses within doors. "Yes, they're looking
+for him. It ought to be time, now; he's due about now. There's a man
+for you--good--_bon comme le bon Dieu_. Sober, saving too--good
+father--in love with Loisette as on the wedding night--_ah, mes
+enfants!_--there are few like him, or this village would be a paradise!"
+
+She shut the door of the little cabin. And then she gave us a broad
+wink. The wink was entirely by way of explanation; it was to enlighten
+us as to why a certain rare bottle of port--a fresh one--was being
+secreted beneath her fichu. It was a wink that conveyed to us a really
+valuable number of facts; chief among them being the very obvious fact
+that the French Government was an idiot, and a tyrant into the bargain,
+since it imposed stupid laws no one meant to carry out; least of all a
+good Norman. What? pay two _sous octroi_ on a bottle of one's own wine,
+that one had had in one's cellar for half a lifetime? To cheat the town
+out of those twopence becomes, of course, the true Norman's chief
+pleasure in life. What is his reputation worth, as a shrewd, sharp man
+of business, if a little thing like cheating stops him? It is even
+better fun than bargaining, to cheat thus one's own town, since nothing
+is to be risked, and one is so certain of success.
+
+The mere nodded to us gayly, in farewell, as we all three re-entered
+the town. She disappeared all at once into a narrow door way, her arms
+still clasping her old port, that lay in the folds of her shawl. On her
+shrewd kindly old face came a light that touched it all at once with a
+glow of divinity; the mother in her had sprung into life with sharp,
+sweet suddenness; she had caught the wail of the new-born babe through
+the open door.
+
+The village itself seemed to have caught something of the same glow. It
+was not only the splendor of the noon sun that made the faces of the
+worn fish-wives and the younger women softer and kindlier than common;
+the groups, as we passed them, were all talking of but one thing--of
+this babe that had come in the night, of Auguste's absence, and of
+Loisette's sharp pains and her cries, that had filled the street, so
+that none could sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A PAGAN COBBLER.
+
+
+At dusk that evening the same subject, with variations, was the
+universal topic of the conversational groups. Still Auguste had not
+come; half the village was out watching for him on the cliffs. The
+other half was crowding the streets and the doorsteps.
+
+Twilight is the classic time, in all French towns and villages, for the
+_al fresco_ lounge. The cool breath of the dusk is fresh, then, and
+restful; after the heat and sweat of the long noon the air, as it
+touches brow and lip, has the charm of a caress. So the door ways and
+streets were always crowded at this hour, groups moved, separated,
+formed and re formed, and lingered to exchange their budget of gossip,
+to call out their "_Bonne nuit_," the girls to clasp hands, looking
+longingly over their shoulders at the younger fishermen and farmers;
+the latter to nod, carelessly, gayly back at them; and then--as men
+will--to fling an arm about a comrade's shoulder as they, in their
+turn, called out into the dusk,
+
+"_Allons, mon brave; de l'absinthe, toi?_" as the cabaret swallowed
+them up.
+
+Great and mighty were the cries and the oaths that issued from the
+cabaret's open doors and windows. The Villerville fisherman loved
+Bacchus only, second to Neptune; when he was not out casting his net
+into the Channel he was drinking up his spoils. It was during the
+sobering process only that affairs of a purely domestic nature engaged
+his attention. Some of the streets were permeated with noxious odors,
+with the poison of absinthe and the fumes of cheap brandy. Noisy,
+reeling groups came out of the tavern doors, to shout and sing, or to
+fight their way homeward. One such figure was filling a narrow alley,
+swaying from right to left, with a jeering crowd at his heels.
+
+"_Est-il assez ridicule, lui?_ with his cap over his nose, and his
+knees knocking at everyone's door? _Bah! ca pue! _" the group of lads
+following him went on, shouting about the poor sot, as they pelted him
+with their rain of pebbles and paper bullets.
+
+"Ah--h, he will beat her, in his turn, poor soul; she always gets it
+when he's full, as full as that--"
+
+The voice was so close to our ears that we started. The words appeared
+addressed to us; they were, in a way, since they were intended for the
+street, as a street, and for the benefit of the groups that filled it.
+The voice was gruff yet mellow; despite its gruffness it had the ring
+of a latent kindliness in its deep tones. The man who owned it was
+seated on a level with our elbows, at a cobbler's bench. We stopped to
+let the crowd push on beyond us. The man had only lifted his head from
+his work, but involuntarily one stopped to salute the power in it.
+
+"_Bonsoir, mesdames_"--the head gravely bowed as the great frame of the
+body below the head rose from the low seat. The room within seemed to
+contain nothing else save this giant figure, now that it had risen and
+was moving toward us. The half-door was courteously opened.
+
+"Will not _ces dames_ give themselves the trouble of entering? The
+streets are not gay at this hour."
+
+We went in. A dog and a woman came forth from a smaller inner room to
+greet us; of the two the dog was obviously the personage next in point
+of intelligence and importance to the master. The woman had a
+snuffed-out air, as of one whose life had died out of her years ago.
+She blinked at us meekly as she dropped a timid courtesy; at a low word
+of command she turned a pitifully patient back on us all. There were
+years of obedience to orders written on its submissive curves; and she
+bent it once more over her kettles; both she and the kettles were on
+the bare floor. It was the poorest of all the Villerville interiors we
+had as yet seen; the house was also, perhaps, the oldest in the
+village. It and the old church had been opposite neighbors for several
+centuries. The shop and the living-room were all in one; the low window
+was a counter by day and a shutter by night. Within, the walls were
+bare as were the floors. Three chairs with sunken leather covers, and a
+bed with a mattress also sunken--a hollow in a pine frame, was the
+equipment in furniture. The poverty was brutal; it was the naked,
+unabashed poverty of the middle ages, with no hint of shame or effort
+of concealment. The colossus whom the low roof covered was as
+unconscious of the barrenness of his surroundings as were his own
+walls. This hovel was his home; he had made us welcome with the manners
+of a king.
+
+Meanwhile the dog was sniffing at our skirts. After a tour of
+observation and inspection he wagged his tail, gave a short bark, and
+seated himself by Charm. The giant's eyes twinkled.
+
+"You see, mesdames, it is a dog with a mind--he knows in an instant who
+are the right sort. And eloquence, also--he is one who can make
+speeches with his tail. A dog's tongue is in his tail, and this one
+wags his like an orator!"
+
+Some one else, as well as the dog, possessed the oratorical gift. The
+cobbler's voice was the true speaker's voice--rich, vibrating,
+sonorous, with a deep note of melody in it. Pose and gestures matched
+with the voice; they were flexible and picturesquely suggestive.
+
+"If you care for oratory--" Charm smiled out upon the huge but mobile
+face--"you are well placed. The village lies before you. You can always
+see the play going on, and hear the speeches--of the passers-by."
+
+The large mouth smiled back. But at Charm's first sentence the keen
+Norman eyes had fixed their twinkling glitter on the girl's face. They
+seemed to be reading to the very bottom of her thought and being. The
+scrutiny was not relaxed as he answered.
+
+"Yes, yes, it is very amusing. One sees a little of everything here.
+_Le monde qui passe_--it makes life more diverting; it helps to kill
+the time. I look out from my perch, like a bird--a very old one, and
+caged"--and he shook forth a great laugh from beneath the wide leather
+apron.
+
+The woman, hearing the laugh, came out into the room.
+
+"_E'ben--et toi_--what do you want?"
+
+The giant stopped laughing long enough to turn tyrant. The woman, at
+the first of his growl, smiled feebly, going back with unresisting
+meekness to her knees, to her pots, and her kettles. The dog growled in
+imitation of his master; obviously the soul of the dog was in the wrong
+body.
+
+Meanwhile the master of the dog and the woman had forgotten both now;
+he was continuing, in a masterful way, to enlighten us about the
+peculiarities of his native village. The talk had now reached the
+subject of the church.
+
+"Oh, yes, it is fine, very, and old; it and this old house are the
+oldest of all the inhabitants of this village. The church came first,
+though, it was built by the English, when they came over, thinking to
+conquer us with their Hundred Years' War. Little they knew France and
+Frenchmen. The church was thoroughly French, although the English did
+build it; on the ground many times, but up again, only waiting the hand
+of the builder and the restorer."
+
+Again the slim-waisted shape of the old wife ventured forth into the
+room.
+
+"Yes, as he says"--in a voice that was but an echo--"the church has
+been down many times."
+
+"_Tais-toi--c'est moi qui parle_," grumbled anew her husband, giving
+the withered face a terrific scowl.
+
+"_Ohe, oui, c'est toi_," the echo bleated. The thin hands meekly folded
+themselves across her apron. She stood quite still, as if awaiting more
+punishment.
+
+"It is our good cure who wishes to pull it down once more," her
+terrible husband went on, not heeding her quiet presence. "Do you know
+our cure? Ah, ha, he's a fine one. It's he that rules us now--he's our
+king--our emperor. Ugh, he's a bad one, he is."
+
+"Ah, yes, he's a bad one, he is," his wife echoed, from the side wall.
+
+"Well, and who asked you to talk?" cried her husband, with a face as
+black as when the cure's name had first been mentioned. The echo shrank
+into the wall. "As I was telling these ladies"--he resumed here his
+boot work, clamping the last between his great knees--"as I was saying,
+we have not been fortunate in cures, we of our parish. There are cures
+and cures, as there are fagots and fagots--and ours is a bad lot. We've
+had nothing but trouble since he came to rule over us. We get poorer
+day by day, and he richer. There he is now, feeding his hens and his
+doves--look, over there--with the ladies of his household gathered
+about him--his mother, his aunt, and his niece--a perfect harem. Oh, he
+keeps them all fat and sleek, like himself! Bah!"
+
+The grunt of disgust the cobbler gave filled the room like a
+thunder-clap. He was peering over his last, across the open counter, at
+a little house adjoining the church green, with a great hatred in his
+face. From one of the windows of the house there was leaning forth a
+group of three heads; there was the tonsured head of a priest, round,
+pink-tinted, and the figures of two women, one youthful, with a long,
+sad-featured face, and the other ruddy and vigorous in outline. They
+were watching the priest as he scattered corn to the hens and geese in
+the garden below the window.
+
+The cobbler was still eying them fiercely, as he continued to give vent
+to his disgust.
+
+"_Mechant homme--lui_," he here whipped his thread, venomously, through
+the leather he was sewing. "Figure to yourselves, mesdames, that
+besides being wicked, our cure is a very shrewd man; it is not for the
+pure good of the parish he works, not he."
+
+"Not he," the echo repeated, coming forth again from the wall. This
+time the whisper passed unnoticed; her master's hatred of the cure was
+greater than his passion for showing his own power.
+
+"Religion--religion is a very good way of making money, better than
+most, if one knows how to work the machine. The soul, it is a fine
+instrument on which to play, if one is skilful. Our cure has a grand
+touch on this instrument. You should see the good man take up a
+collection, it is better than a comedy."
+
+Here the cobbler turned actor; he rose, scattering his utensils right
+and left; he assumed a grand air and a mincing, softly tread, the tread
+of a priest. His flexible voice imitated admirably the rounded,
+unctuous, autocratic tone peculiar to the graduates of St. Sulpice.
+
+"You should hear him, when the collection does not suit him: '_Mes
+freres et mes soeurs_, I see that _le bon Dieu_ isn't in your minds and
+your hearts to-day; you are not listening to his voice; the Saviour is
+then speaking in vain?' Then he prays--" the cobbler folded his hands
+with a great parade of reference, lifting his eyes as he rolled his
+lids heavenward hypocritically--"yes, he prays--and then he passes the
+plate himself! He holds it before your very nose, there is no pushing
+it aside; he would hold it there till you dropped--till Doomsday. Ah,
+he's a hard crust, he is! There's a tyrant for you--_la monarchie
+absolue_--that's what he believes in. He must have this, he must have
+that. Now it is a new altar-cloth, or a fresh Virgin of the modern
+make, from Paris, with a robe of real lace; the old one was black and
+faded, too black to pray to. Now it is a _huissier_, forsooth, that we
+must have, we, a parish of a few hundred souls, who know our seats in
+the church as well as we know our own noses. One would think a 'suisse'
+would have done; but we are swells now--_avec ce gaillard-la_, only the
+tiptop is good enough. So, if you grace our poor old church with your
+presence you will be shown to your bench by a very splendid gentleman
+in black, in knee-breeches, with silver chains, with a three-cornered
+hat, who strikes with his stick three times as he seats you. Bah!
+ridiculous!"
+
+"Ridiculous!" the woman repeated, softly.
+
+"They had the cure once, though. One day in church he announced a
+subscription to be taken up for restorations, from fifty centimes
+to--to anything; he will take all you give him, avaricious that he is!
+He believes in the greasing of the palm, he does. Well, think you the
+subscription was for restorations, _mesdames_? It was for
+demolition--that's what it was for--to make the church level with the
+ground. To do this would cost a little matter of twenty thousand
+francs, which would pass through his hands, you understand. Well, that
+staggered the parish. Our mayor--a man _pas trop fin_, was terribly
+upset. He went about saying the cure claimed the church as his; he
+could do as he liked with it, he said, and he proposed to make it a
+fine modern one. All the village was weeping. The church was the oldest
+friend of the village, except for such as I, whom these things have
+turned pagan. Well, one of our good citizens reminds the mayor that the
+church, under the new laws, belongs to the commune. The mayor tells
+this timidly to the cure. And the cure retorts, 'Ah, _bien_, at least
+one-half belongs to me.' And the good citizen answers--he has gone with
+the mayor to prop him up--'Which half will you take? The cemetery,
+doubtless, since your charge is over the souls of the parish.' Ah! ah!
+he pricked him well then! he pricked him well!"
+
+The low room rang with the great shout of the cobbler's laughter. The
+dog barked furiously in concert. Our own laughter was drowned in the
+thunder of our host's loud guffaws. The poor old wife shook herself
+with a laugh so much too vigorous for her frail frame, one feared its
+after-effects.
+
+The after-effects were a surprise. After the first of her husband's
+spasms of glee the old woman spoke out, but in trembling tones no
+longer.
+
+"Ah, the cemetery, it is I who forgot to go there this week."
+
+Her husband stopped, the laugh dying on his lip as he turned to her.
+
+"_Ah, ma bonne_, how came that? You forgot?" His own tones trembled at
+the last word.
+
+"Yes, you had the cramps again, you remember, and there was no money
+left for the bouquet."
+
+"Yes, I remember," and the great chest heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"You have children--you have lost someone?"
+
+"_Helas!_ no living children, mademoiselle. No, no--one daughter we
+had, but she died twenty years ago. She lies over there--where we can
+see her. She would have been thirty-eight years now--the fourteenth of
+this very month!"
+
+"Yes, this very month."
+
+Then the old woman, for the first time, left her refuge along the wall;
+she crept softly, quietly near to her husband to put her withered hand
+in his. His large palm closed over it. Both of the old faces turned
+toward the cemetery; and in the old eyes a film gathered, as they
+looked toward all that was left of the hope that was buried away from
+them.
+
+We left them thus, hand in hand, with many promises to renew the
+acquaintance.
+
+The village was no longer abroad in the streets. During our talk in the
+shop the night had fallen; it had cast its shadow, as trees cast
+theirs, in a long, slow slant. Lights were trembling in the dim
+interiors; the shrill cries of the children were stilled; only a
+muffled murmur came through the open doors and windows. The villagers
+were pattering across the rough floors, talking, as their sabots
+clattered heavily over the wooden surface, as they washed the dishes,
+as they covered their fires, shoving back the tables and chairs. As we
+walked along, through the nearer windows came the sound of steps on the
+creaking old stairs, then a rustling of straw and the heavy fall of
+weary bodies, as the villagers flung themselves on the old oaken beds,
+that groaned as they received their burden. Presently all was still.
+Only our steps resounded through the streets. The stars filled the sky;
+and beneath them the waves broke along the beach. In the closely packed
+little streets the heavy breathing of the sleeping village broke also
+in short, quick gasps.
+
+Only we and the night were awake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SOME NORMAN LANDLADIES.
+
+
+Quite a number of changes came about with our annexation of an artist
+and his garden. Chief among these changes was the surprising discovery
+of finding ourselves, at the end of a week, in possession of a villa.
+
+"It's next door," Renard remarked, in the casual way peculiar to
+artists. "You are to have the whole house to yourselves, all but the
+top floor; the people who own it keep that to live in. There's a garden
+of the right sort, with espaliers, also rose trees, and a tea house;
+quite the right sort of thing altogether."
+
+The unforeseen, in its way, is excellent and admirable. _De l'imprevu,_
+surely this is the dash of seasoning--the caviare we all crave in
+life's somewhat too monotonous repasts. But as men have been known to
+admire the still life in wifely character, and then repented their
+choice, marrying peace only to court dissension, so we, incontinently
+deserting our humble inn chambers to take possession of a grander
+state, in the end found the capital of experience drained to pay for
+our little infidelity.
+
+[Illustration: A DEPARTURE--VILLERVILLE]
+
+The owners of the villa Belle Etoile, our friend announced, he had
+found greatly depressed; of this, their passing mood, he had taken such
+advantage as only comes to the knowing. "They speak of themselves
+drearily as 'deux pauvres malheureux' with this villa still on their
+hands, and here they are almost 'touching June,' as they put it. They
+also gave me to understand that only the finest flowers of the
+aristocracy had had the honor of dwelling in this villa. They have been
+able, I should say, more or less successfully to deflower this 'fine
+fleur' of some of their gold. But they are very meek just now--they
+were willing to listen to reason."
+
+The "two poor unhappies" were looking surprisingly contented an hour
+later, when we went in to inspect our possessions. They received us
+with such suave courtesy, that I was quite certain Renard's skill in
+transactions had not played its full gamut of capacity.
+
+Civility is the Frenchman's mask; he wears it as he does his skin--as a
+matter of habit. But courtesy is his costume de bal; he can only afford
+to don his bravest attire of smiles and graciousness when his pocket is
+in holiday mood. Madame Fouchet we found in full ball-room toilet; she
+was wreathed in smiles. Would _ces dames_ give themselves the trouble
+of entering? would they see the house or the garden first? would they
+permit their trunks to be sent for? Monsieur Fouchet, meanwhile, was
+making a brave second to his wife's bustling welcome; he was rubbing
+his hands vigorously, a somewhat suspicious action in a Frenchman, I
+have had occasion to notice, after the completion of a bargain. Nature
+had cast this mild-eyed individual for the part of accompanyist in the
+comedy we call life; a _role_ he sometimes varied as now, with the
+office of _claqueur_, when an uncommonly clever proof of madame's
+talent for business drew from him this noiseless tribute of applause.
+His weak, fat contralto called after us, as we followed madame's quick
+steps up the waxed stairway; he would be in readiness, he said, to show
+us the garden, "once the chambers were visited."
+
+"It wasn't a real stroke, mesdames, it was only a warning!" was the
+explanation conveyed to us in loud tones, with no reserve of whispered
+delicacy, when we expressed regret at monsieur's detention below
+stairs; a partially paralyzed leg, dragged painfully after the latter's
+flabby figure, being the obvious cause of this detention.
+
+The stairway had the line of beauty, describing a pretty curve before
+its glassy steps led us to a narrow entry; it had also the brevity
+which is said to be the very soul, _l'anima viva_, of all true wit; but
+it was quite long and straight enough to serve Madame Fouchet as a
+stage for a prolonged monologue, enlivened with much affluence of
+gesture. Fouchet's seizure, his illness, his convalescence, and present
+physical condition--a condition which appeared to be bristling with the
+tragedy of danger, "un vrai drame d'anxiete"--was graphically conveyed
+to us. The horrors of the long winter also, so sad for a Parisian--"si
+triste pour la Parisienne, ces hivers de province"--together with the
+miseries of her own home life, between this paralytic of a husband
+below stairs, and above, her mother, an old lady of eighty, nailed to
+her sofa with gout. "You may thus figure to yourselves, mesdames, what
+a melancholy season is the winter! And now, with this villa still on
+our hands, and the season already announcing itself, ruin stares us in
+the face, mesdames--ruin!"
+
+It was a moving picture. Yet we remained strangely unaffected by this
+tale of woe. Madame Fouchet herself, the woman, not the actress, was to
+blame, I think, for our unfeelingness. Somehow, to connect woe, ruin,
+sadness, melancholy, or distress, in a word, of any kind with our
+landlady's opulent figure, we found a difficult acrobatic mental feat.
+She presented to the eye outlines and features that could only be
+likened, in point of prosperity, to a Dutch landscape. Like certain of
+the mediaeval saints presented by the earlier delineators of the
+martyrs as burning above a slow fire, while wearing smiles of purely
+animal content, as if in full enjoyment of the temperature, this lady's
+sufferings were doubtless an invisible discipline, the hair shirt which
+her hardened cuticle felt only to be a pleasurable itching.
+
+"_Voila, mesdames!_" It was with a magnificent gesture that madame
+opened doors and windows. The drama of her life was forgotten for the
+moment in the conscious pride of presenting us with such a picture as
+her gay little house offered.
+
+Inside and out, summer and the sun were blooming and shining with
+spendthrift luxuriance. The salon opened directly on the garden; it
+would have been difficult to determine just where one began and the
+domain of the other ended, with the pinks and geraniums that nodded in
+response to the peach and pear blossoms in the garden. A bit of faded
+Aubusson and a print representing Madame Geoffrin's salon in full
+session, with a poet of the period transporting the half-moon grouped
+listeners about him to the point of tears, were evidences of the
+refined tastes of our landlady in the arts; only a sentimentalist would
+have hung that picture in her salon. Other decorations further proved
+her as belonging to both worlds. The chintzes gay with garlands of
+roses, with which walls, beds, and chairs were covered, revealed the
+mundane element, the woman of decorative tastes, possessed of a hidden
+passion for effective backgrounds. Two or three wooden crucifixes, a
+_prie-dieu_, and a couple of saints in plaster, went far to prove that
+this excellent _bourgeoise_ had thriftily made her peace with Heaven.
+It was a curious mixture of the sacred and the profane.
+
+Down below, beneath the windows overlooking the sea, lay the garden.
+All the houses fronting the cliff had similar little gardens, giving,
+as the French idiom so prettily puts it, upon the sea. But compared to
+these others, ours was as a rose of Sharon blooming in the midst of
+little deserts. Renard had been entirely right about this particular
+bit of earth attached to our villa. It was a gem of a garden. It was a
+French garden, and therefore, entirely as a matter of course, it had
+walls. It was as cut off from the rest of the world as if it had been a
+prison or a fortification.
+
+The Frenchman, above all others, appears to have the true sentiment of
+seclusion, when the society of trees and flowers is to be enjoyed. Next
+to woman, nature is his fetish. True to his national taste in dress, he
+prefers that both should be costumed _a la Parisienne_; but as poet and
+lover, it is his instinct to build a wall about his idol, that he may
+enjoy his moments of expansion unseen and unmolested. This square of
+earth, for instance, was not much larger than the space covered by the
+chamber roof above us; and yet, with the high walls towering over the
+rose-stalks, it was as secluded as a monk's cloister. We found it,
+indeed, on later acquaintance, as poetic and delicately sensuous a
+retreat as the romance-writers would wish us to believe did those
+mediaeval connoisseurs of comfort, when, with sandalled feet, they
+paced their own convent garden-walks. Fouchet was a broken-down
+shopkeeper; but somewhere hidden within, there lurked the soul of a
+Maecenas; he knew how to arrange a feast--of roses. The garden was a
+bit of greensward, not much larger than a pocket handkerchief; but the
+grass had the right emerald hue, and one's feet sank into the rich turf
+as into the velvet of an oriental rug. Small as was the enclosure,
+between the espaliers and the flower-beds serpentined minute paths of
+glistening pebbles. Nothing which belonged to a garden had been
+forgotten, not even a pine from the tropics, and a bench under the pine
+that was just large enough for two. This latter was an ideal little
+spot in which to bring a friend or a book. One could sit there and
+gorge one's self with sweets; a dance was perpetually going on--the
+gold-and-purple butterflies fluttering gayly from morning till night;
+and the bees freighted the air with their buzzing. If one tired of
+perfumes and dancing, there was always music to be enjoyed, from a full
+orchestra. The sea, just the other side of the wall of osiers, was
+always in voice, whether sighing or shouting. The larks and blackbirds
+had a predilection for this nest of color, announcing their preference
+loudly in a combat of trills. And once or twice, we were quite certain,
+a nightingale with Patti notes had been trying its liquid scales in the
+dark.
+
+It was in this garden that our acquaintance with our landlord deepened
+into something like friendship. Monsieur Fouchet was always to be found
+there, tying up the rose-trees, or mending the paths, or shearing the
+bit of turf.
+
+_"Mon jardin, c'est un peu moi, vous savez_--it is my pride and my
+consolation." At the latter word, Fouchet was certain to sigh.
+
+Then we fell to wondering just what grief had befallen this amiable
+person which required Horatian consolation. Horace had need of
+rose-leaves to embalm his disappointments, for had he not cooled his
+passions by plunging into the bath of literature? Besides, Horace was
+bitten by the modern rabies: he was as restless as an American. When at
+Rome was he not always sighing for his Sabine farm, and when at the
+farm always regretting Rome? But this harmless, innocent-eyed,
+benevolent-browed old man, with his passive brains tied up in a
+foulard, o' morning's, and his _bourgeois_ feet adorned with carpet
+slippers, what grief in the past had bitten his poor soul and left its
+mark still sore?
+
+"It isn't monsieur--it is madame who has made the past dark," was
+Renard's comment, when we discussed our landlord's probable
+acquaintance with regret--or remorse.
+
+Whatever secret of the past may have hovered over the Fouchet
+household, the evil bird had not made its nest in madame's breast, that
+was clear; her smooth, white brow was the sign of a rose-leaf
+conscience; that dark curtain of hair, looped madonna-wise over each
+ear, framed a face as unruffled as her conscience.
+
+She was entirely at peace with her world, and with heaven as well, that
+was certain. Whatever her sins, the confessional had purged her. Like
+others, doubtless, she had found a husband and the provinces excellent
+remedies for a damaged reputation. She lived now in the very odor of
+sanctity; the cure had a pipe in her kitchen, with something more
+sustaining, on certain bright afternoons. Although she was daily
+announcing to us her approaching dissolution--"I die, mesdames--I die
+of ennui"--it seemed to me there were still signs, at times, of a
+vigorous resuscitation. The cure's visits were wont to produce a deeper
+red in the deep bloom of her cheek; the mayor and his wife, who drank
+their Sunday coffee in the arbor, brought, as did Beatrix's advent to
+Dante, _vita nuova_ to this homesick Parisian.
+
+There were other pleasures in her small world, also, which made life
+endurable. Bargaining, when one teems with talent, may be as exciting
+as any other form of conquest. Madame's days were chiefly passed in
+imitation of the occupation so dear to an earlier, hardier race, that
+race kings have knighted for their powers in dealing mightily with
+their weaker neighbors. Madame, it is true, was only a woman, and
+Villerville was somewhat slimly populated. But in imitation of her
+remote feudal lords, she also fell upon the passing stranger, demanding
+tribute. When the stranger did not pass, she kept her arm in practice,
+so to speak, by extracting the last _sou_ in a transaction from a
+neighbor, or by indulging in a drama in which the comedy of insult was
+matched by the tragedy of contempt.
+
+One of these mortal combats it was my privilege to witness. The war
+arose on our announcement to Mere Mouchard, the lady of the inn by the
+sea, of our decision to move next door. To us Mere Mouchard presented
+the unruffled plumage of a dove; her voice also was as the voice of the
+same, mellowed by sucking. Ten minutes later the town was assembled to
+lend its assistance at the encounter between our two landladies. Each
+stood on their respective doorsteps with arms akimbo and head thrust
+forward, as geese protrude head and tongue in moments of combat. And it
+was thus, the mere hissed, that her boarders were stolen from
+her--under her very nose--while her back was turned, with no more
+thought of honesty or shame than a----. The word was never uttered. The
+mere's insult was drowned in a storm of voices? for there came a loud
+protest from the group of neighbors. Madame Fouchet, meanwhile, was
+sustaining her own role with great dignity. Her attitude of
+self-control could only have been learned in a school where insult was
+an habitual weapon. She smiled, an infuriating, exasperating,
+successful smile. She showed a set of defiant white teeth, and to her
+proud white throat she gave a boastful curve. Was it her fault if _ces
+dames_ knew what comfort and cleanliness were? if they preferred "_des
+chambres garnies avec gout, vraiment artistiques_"--to rooms fit only
+for peasants? _Ces dames_ had just come from Paris; doubtless, they
+were not yet accustomed to provincial customs--_aux moeurs
+provinciales_. Then there were exchanged certain melodious acerbities,
+which proved that these ladies had entered the lists on previous
+occasions, and that each was well practised in the other's methods of
+warfare. Opportunely, Renard appeared on the scene; his announcement
+that we proposed still to continue taking our repasts with the mere,
+was as oil on the sea of trouble. A reconciliation was immediately
+effected, and the street as immediately lost all interest in the play,
+the audience melting away as speedily as did the wrath of the
+disputants.
+
+"_Le bon Dieu soit loue_," cried Madame Fouchet, puffing, as she
+mounted the stairs a few moments later--"God be praised"--she hadn't
+come here to the provinces to learn her rights--to be taught her
+alphabet. Mere Mouchard, forsooth, who wanted a week's board as
+indemnity for her loss of us! A week's board--for lodgings scorned by
+peasants!
+
+"Ah, these Normans! what a people, what a people! They would peel the
+skin off your back! They would sell their children! They would cheat
+the devil himself!"
+
+"You, madame, I presume, are from Paris." Madame smiled as she
+answered, a thin fine smile, richly seasoned with scorn. "Ah, mesdames!
+All the world can't boast of Paris as a birthplace, unfortunately. I
+also, I am a Norman, _mais je ne m'en fiche pas!_ Most of my life,
+however, I've lived in Paris, thank God!" She lifted her head as she
+spoke, and swept her hands about her waist to adjust the broad belt, an
+action pregnant with suggestions. For it was thus conveyed to us,
+delicately, that such a figure as hers was not bred on rustic diet;
+also, that the Parisian glaze had not failed of its effect on the
+coarser provincial clay.
+
+Meanwhile, below in the garden, her husband was meekly tying up his
+rose-trees.
+
+Neither of the landladies' husbands had figured in the street-battle.
+It had been a purely Amazonian encounter, bloodless but bitter. Both
+the husbands of these two belligerent landladies appeared singularly
+well trained. Mouchard, indeed, occupied a comparatively humble sphere
+in his wife's _menage_. He was perpetually to be seen in the
+court-yard, at the back of the house, washing dogs, or dishes, in a
+costume in which the greatest economy of cloth compatible with decency
+had been triumphantly solved. His wife ran the house, and he ran the
+errands, an arrangement which, apparently, worked greatly to the
+satisfaction of both. But Mouchard was not the first or the second
+French husband who, on the threshold of his connubial experience, had
+doubtless had his role in life appointed to him, filling the same with
+patient acquiescence to the very last of the lines.
+
+There is something very touching in the subjection of French husbands.
+In point of meekness they may well serve, I think, as models to their
+kind. It is a meekness, however, which does not hint of humiliation;
+for, after all, what humiliation can there be in being thoroughly
+understood? The Frenchwoman, by virtue of centuries of activity, in the
+world and in the field, has become an expert in the art of knowing her
+man; she has not worked by his side, under the burn of the noon sun, or
+in the cimmerian darkness of the shop-rear, counting the pennies, for
+nothing. In exchanging her illusions for the bald front of fact, man
+himself has had to pay the penalty of this mixed gain. She tests him by
+purely professional standards, as man tests man, or as he has tested
+her, when in the ante-matrimonial days he weighed her _dot_ in the
+scale of his need. The Frenchwoman and Shakespeare are entirely of one
+mind; they perceive the great truth of unity in the scheme of things:
+
+  "Woman's test is man's taste."
+
+This is the first among the great truths in the feminine grammar of
+assent. French masculine taste, as its criterion, has established the
+excellent doctrine of utilitarianism. With quick apprehension the
+Frenchwoman has mastered this fact; she has cleverly taken a lesson
+from ophidian habits--she can change her skin, quickly shedding the
+sentimentalist, when it comes to serious action, to don the duller
+raiment of utility. She has accepted her world, in other words, as she
+finds it, with a philosopher's shrug. But the philosopher is lined with
+the logician; for this system of life has accomplished the miracle of
+making its women logical; they have grasped the subtleties of inductive
+reasoning. Marriage, for example, they know is entered into solely on
+the principle of mutual benefit; it is therefore a partnership, _bon_;
+now, in partnerships sentiments and the emotions are out of place, they
+only serve to dim the eye; those commodities, therefore, are best
+conveyed to other markets than the matrimonial one; for in purely
+commercial transactions one has need of perfect clearness of vision, if
+only to keep one well practised in that simple game called looking out
+for one's own interest. In Frenchwomen, the ratiocinationist is
+extraordinarily developed; her logic penetrates to the core of things.
+
+Hence it is that Mouchard washes dishes.
+
+Monsieur Jourdain, in Moliere's comedy, who expressed such surprise at
+finding that he had been talking prose for forty years without knowing
+it, was no more amazed than would Mere Mouchard have been had you
+announced to her that she was a logician; or that her husband's daily
+occupations in the bright little court-yard were the result of a
+system. Yet both facts were true.
+
+In that process we now know as the survival of the fittest, the mere's
+capacity had snuffed out her weaker spouse's incompetency; she had
+taken her place at the helm, because she belonged there by virtue of
+natural fitness. There were no tender illusions which would suffer, in
+seeing the husband allotted to her, probably by her parents and the
+_dot_ system, relegated to the ignominy of passing his days washing
+dishes--dishes which she cooked and served--dishes, it should be added,
+which she was entirely conscious were cooked by the hand of genius, and
+which she garnished with a sauce and served with a smile, such as only
+issue from French kitchens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE QUARTIER LATIN ON THE BEACH.
+
+
+The beach, one morning, we found suddenly peopled with artists. It was
+a little city of tents. Beneath striped awnings and white umbrellas a
+multitude of flat-capped heads sat immovably still on their
+three-legged stools, or darted hither and thither. Paris was evidently
+beginning to empty its studios; the Normandy beaches now furnished the
+better model.
+
+One morning we were in luck. A certain blonde beard had counted early
+in the day on having the beach to himself. He had posed his model in
+the open daylight, that he might paint her in the sun. He had placed
+her, seated on an edge of seawall; for a background there was the curve
+of the yellow sands and the flat breadth of the sea, with the droop of
+the sky meeting the sea miles away. The girl was a slim, fair shape,
+with long, thin legs and delicately moulded arms; she was dressed in
+the fillet and chiton of Greece. During her long poses she was as
+immovable as an antique marble; her natural grace and prettiness were
+transfigured into positive beauty by the flowing lines and the pink
+draperies of her Attic costume. Seated thus, she was a breathing
+embodiment of the best Greek period. When the rests came, her jump from
+the wall landed her square on her feet and at the latter end of the
+nineteenth century. Once free, she bounded from her perch on the high
+sea-wall. In an instant she had tucked her tinted draperies within the
+slender girdle; her sandalled feet must be untrammelled, she was about
+to take her run on the beach. Soon she was pelting, irreverently, her
+painter with a shower of loose pebbles. Next she had challenged him to
+a race; when she reached the goal, her thin, bare arms were uplifted as
+she clapped and shouted for glee; the Quartier Latin in her blood was
+having its moment of high revelry in the morning sun.
+
+This little grisette, running about free and unshackled in her loose
+draperies, quite unabashed in her state of semi-nudity--gay, reckless,
+wooing pleasure on the wing, surely she might have posed as the
+embodied archetype of France itself. So has this pagan among modern
+nations borrowed something of the antique spirit of wantonness. Along
+with its theft of the Attic charm and grace, it has captured, also,
+something of its sublime indifference; in the very teeth of the dull
+modern world, France has laughed opinion to scorn.
+
+At noon the tents were all deserted. It was at this hour that the inn
+garden was full. The gayety and laughter overflowed the walls. Everyone
+talked at once; the orders were like a rattle of artillery--painting
+for hours in the open air gives a fine edge to appetite, and patience
+is never the true twin of hunger. Everything but the _potage_ was
+certain to be on time.
+
+Colinette, released from her Greek draperies, with her Parisian bodice
+had recovered the _blague_ of the studios.
+
+"_Sacre nom de--on reste donc claquemure ainsi toute la matinee!_ And
+all for an _omelette_--a puny, good-for-nothing _omelette_. And
+you--you've lost your tongue, it seems?" And a shrill voice pierced the
+air as Colinette gave her painter the hint of her prodding elbow. With
+the appearance of the _omelette_ the reign of good humor would return.
+Everything then went as merrily as that marriage-bell which,
+apparently, is the only one absent in Bohemia's gay chimes.
+
+These arbors had obviously been built out of pure charity: they
+appeared to have been constructed on the principle that since man,
+painting man, is often forced to live alone, from economic necessity,
+it is therefore only the commonest charity to provide him with the
+proper surroundings for eating _a deux._ The little tables beneath the
+kiosks were strictly _tete-a-tete_ tables; even the chairs, like the
+visitors, appeared to come only in couples.
+
+The Frenchman has been reproached with the sin of ingratitude; has been
+convicted, indeed, as possessed of more of that pride that comes
+late--the day after the gift of bounty has been given--than some other
+of his fellow-mortals. Yet here were a company of Frenchmen--and
+Frenchwomen--proving in no ordinary fashion their equipment in this
+rare virtue. It was early in May; up yonder, where the Seine flows
+beneath the Parisian bridges, the pulse of the gay Paris world was
+beating in time to the spring in the air. Yet these artists had
+deserted the asphalt of the boulevards for the cobbles of a village
+street, the delights of the _cafe chantant_ had been exchanged for the
+miracle of the moon rising over the sea, and for the song of the thrush
+in the bush.
+
+The Frenchman, more easily and with simpler art than any of his modern
+brethren, can change the prose of our dull, practical life into poetry;
+he can turn lyrical at a moment's notice. He possesses the power of
+transmuting the commonplace into the idyllic, by merely clapping on his
+cap and turning his back on the haunts of men. He has retained a
+singular--an almost ideal sensitiveness, of mental cuticle--such
+acuteness of sensation, that a journey to a field will oftentimes yield
+him all the flavor of a long voyage, and a sudden introduction to a
+forest, the rapture that commonly comes only with some unwonted aspect
+of nature. Perhaps it is because of this natural poet indwelling in a
+Frenchman, that makes him content to remain so much at home. Surely the
+extraordinary is the costly necessity for barren minds; the
+richly-endowed can see the beauty that lies the other side of their own
+door-step.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A NORMAN HOUSEHOLD.
+
+
+There were two paths in the village that were well worn. One was that
+which led the village up into the fields. The other was the one that
+led the tillers of the soil down into the village, to the door step of
+the justice of the peace.
+
+A good Norman is no Norman who has not a lawsuit on hand.
+
+Anything will serve as a pretext for a quarrel No sum of money is so
+small as not to warrant a breaking of the closest blood ties, if
+thereby one's rights may be secured. Those beautiful stripes of rye,
+barley, corn, and wheat up yonder in the fields, that melt into one
+another like sea-tones--down here on the benches before the _juge de
+paix_--what quarrels, what hatreds, what evil passions these few acres
+of land have brought their owners, facing each other here like so many
+demons, ready to spring at the others' throats! Brothers on these
+benches forget they are brothers, and sisters that they have suckled
+the same mother. Two more yards of the soil that should have been
+Fillette's instead of Jeanne's, and the grave will enclose both before
+the clenched fist of either is relaxed, and the last _sous_ in the
+stocking will be spent before the war between their respective lawyers
+will end.
+
+Many and many were the tales told us of the domestic tragedies, born of
+wills mal-administered, of the passions of hate, ambition, and despair
+kept at a white heat because half the village owned, up in the fields,
+what the other half coveted. Many, also, and fierce were the heated
+faces we looked in upon at the justice's door, in the very throes of
+the great moment of facing justice, and their adversary.
+
+Our own way, by preference, took us up into the fields. Here, in the
+broad open, the farms lay scattered like fortifications over a plain.
+Doubtless, in the earlier warlike days they had served as such.
+
+Once out of the narrow Villerville streets, and the pastoral was in
+full swing.
+
+The sea along this coast was not in the least insistant; it allowed the
+shore to play its full gamut of power. There were no tortured shapes of
+trees or plants, or barren wastes, to attest the fierce ways of the sea
+with the land. Reminders of the sea and of the life that is lived in
+ships were conspicuous features everywhere, in the pastoral scenes that
+began as soon as the town ended. Women carrying sails and nets toiled
+through the green aisles of the roads and lanes. Fishing-tackle hung in
+company with tattered jerseys outside of huts hidden in grasses and
+honeysuckle. The shepherdesses, as they followed the sheep inland into
+the heart of the pasture land, were busy netting the coarse cages that
+trap the finny tribe. Long-limbed, vigorous-faced, these shepherdesses
+were Biblical figures. In their coarse homespun, with only a skirt and
+a shirt, with their bare legs, half-open bosoms, and the fine poise of
+their blond heads, theirs was a beauty that commanded the homage
+accorded to a rude virginity.
+
+In some of the fields, in one of our many walks, the grass was being
+cut. In these fields the groups of men and women were thickest. The
+long scythes were swung mightily by both; the voices, a gay treble of
+human speech, rose above the metallic swish of the sharp blades cutting
+into the succulent grasses.
+
+The fat pasture lands rose and sank in undulations as rounded as the
+nascent breasts of a young Greek maiden. A medley of color played its
+charming variations over fields, over acres of poppies, over plains of
+red clover, over the backs of spotted cattle, mixing, mingling,
+blending a thousand twists and turns into one exquisite, harmonious
+whole. There was no discordant note, not one harsh contrast; even the
+hay-ricks seemed to have been modelled rather than pitched into shape;
+their sloping sides and finely pointed apexes giving them the dignity
+of structural intent.
+
+Why should not a peasant, in blouse and sabots, with a grinning idiot
+face, have put the picture out? But he did not. He was walking, or
+rather waddling, toward us, between two green walls that rose to be
+arched by elms that hid the blue of the sky. This lane was the kind of
+lane one sees only in Devonshire and in Normandy. There are lanes and
+lanes, as, to quote our friend the cobbler, there are cures and cures.
+But only in these above-named countries can one count on walking
+straight into the heart of an emerald, if one turns from the high-road
+into a lane. The trees, in these Devonshire and Normandy by-paths, have
+ways of their own of vaulting into space; the hedges are thicker,
+sweeter, more vocal with insect and song notes than elsewhere; the
+roadway itself is softer to the foot, and narrower--only two are
+expected to walk therein.
+
+It was through such a lane as this that the coarse, animal shape of a
+peasant was walking toward us. His legs and body were horribly twisted;
+the dangling arms and crooked limbs appeared as if caricaturing the
+gnarled and tortured boughs and trunks of the apple-trees. The
+peasant's blouse was filthy; his sabots were reeking with dirty straw;
+his feet and ankles, bare, were blacker than the earth over which he
+was painfully crawling; and on his face there was the vacuous, sensuous
+deformity of the smile idiocy wears. Again I ask, why did he not
+disfigure this fair scene, and put out something of the beauty of the
+day? Is it because the French peasant seems now to be an inseparable
+adjunct of the Frenchman's landscape? That even deformity has been so
+handled by the realists as to make us see beauty in ugliness? Or is it
+that, as moderns, we are all bitten by the rabies of the picturesque;
+that all things serve and are acceptable so long as we have our
+necessary note of contrast? Certain it is that it appears to be the
+peasant's blouse that perpetuates the Salon, and perhaps--who
+knows?--when over-emigration makes our own American farmer too poor to
+wear a boiled shirt when he ploughs, we also may develop a school of
+landscape, with figures.
+
+Meanwhile the walk and the talk had made Charm thirsty. "Why should we
+not go," she asked, "across the next field, into that farm house
+yonder, and beg for a glass of milk?"
+
+The farm-house might have been waiting for us, it was so still. Even
+the grasses along its sloping roof nodded, as if in welcome. The house,
+as we approached it, together with its out-buildings, assumed a more
+imposing aspect than it had from the road. Its long, low facade, broken
+here and there by a miniature window or a narrow doorway, appeared to
+stretch out into interminable length beneath the towering beeches and
+the snarl of the peach-tree boughs.
+
+The stillness was ominous--it was so profound.
+
+The only human in sight was a man in a distant field; he was raking the
+ploughed ground. He was too far away to hear the sound of our voices.
+
+"Perhaps the entire establishment is in the fields," said Charm, as we
+neared the house.
+
+Just then a succession of blows fell on our ear.
+
+"Someone is beating a mattress within, we shall have our glass after
+all."
+
+We knocked. But no one answered our knock.
+
+The beating continued; the sound of the blows fell as regularly as if
+machine-impelled. Then a cry rose up; it was the cry of a young, strong
+voice, and it was followed by a low wail of anguish.
+
+The door stood half-open, and this is what we saw: A man--tall, strong,
+powerful, with a face purple with passion--bending over the crouching
+form of a girl, whose slender body was quivering, shrinking, and
+writhing as the man's hand, armed with a short stick, fell, smiting her
+defenceless back and limbs.
+
+Her wail went on as each blow fell.
+
+In a corner, crouched in a heap, sitting on her heels, was a woman. She
+was clapping her hands. Her eyes were starting from her head; she
+clapped as the blows came, and above the girl's wail her strong,
+exultant voice arose--calling out:
+
+"_Tue-la! Tue-la!_"
+
+It was the voice of a triumphant fury.
+
+The backs of all these people were turned upon us; they had not seen,
+much less heard, our entrance.
+
+Someone else had seen us, however. A man with a rake over his shoulder
+rushed in through the open door; it was the peasant we had seen in the
+field. He seized Charm by the arm, and then my own hand was grasped as
+in a grip of iron. Before we had time for resistance he had pushed us
+out before him into the entry, behind the outer door. This latter he
+slammed. He put his broad back against it; then he dropped his rake and
+began to mop his face, violently, with a filthy handkerchief he plucked
+from beneath his blouse.
+
+"_Que chance! Nom de Dieu, que chance! Je v'avions vue_, I saw you just
+in time--just in time--"
+
+"But, I must go in--I wish to go back!" But Charm might as well have
+attempted to move a pillar of stone.
+
+The peasant's coarse, good-humored face broke into a broad laugh.
+
+"Pardon, mam'selle--_j'n bougeons pas. Not' maitre e encolere; e' son
+jour--faut pas l'irriter--aujou'hui."_
+
+Meantime, during the noise of our forced exit and the ensuing dialogue,
+the scene within had evidently changed in character, for the blows had
+ceased. Steps could be heard crossing and recrossing the wooden floor.
+A creaking sound succeeded to the beating--it was the creaking and
+groaning of a wooden staircase bending beneath the weight of a human
+figure. In an upper chamber there came the sound of a quiet, subdued
+sobbing now. They were the sobs of the girl. She at least had been
+released.
+
+A face, cruel, pinched, hardened, with flaming agate eyes and an
+insolent smile, stood looking out at us through the dulled, dusty
+window-pane. It was the fury.
+
+Meanwhile the peasant was still defending his post. A moment later the
+tall frame of the farmer suddenly filled the open doorway. The peasant
+well-nigh fell into his master's arms. The farmer's face was still
+terrible to look upon, but the purple stain of passion was now turned
+to red. There was a mocking insolence in his tone as he addressed us,
+that matched with the woman's unconcealed glee.
+
+"Will you not come in, mesdames? Will you not rest a while after your
+long walk?" On the man's hard face there was still the shadow of a
+sinister cruelty as he waved his hand toward the room within.
+
+The peasant's good-humored, loutish smile, and his stupid, cow-like
+eyes, by contrast, were the eyes and smile of a benevolent deity.
+
+The smile told us we were right, as we slunk away toward the open road.
+The head kept nodding approval as we vanished presently beneath the
+shade of the protecting trees.
+
+The fields, as we swept rapidly past them, were as bathed in peace as
+when we had left them; there was even a more voluptuous content abroad:
+for the twilight was wrapping about the landscape its poppied dusk of
+gloom and shadow. Above, the birds were swirling in sweeping circles,
+raining down the ecstasy of their night-song; still above, far beyond
+them, across a zenith pure, transparent, ineffably pink, illumined
+wisps of clouds were trailing their scarf-like shapes. It was a scene
+of beatific peace. Across the fields came the sound of a distant bell.
+It was the _Angelus_. The ploughmen stopped to doff their hats, the
+women to bend their heads in prayer.
+
+And in our ears, louder than the vibrations of the hamlet bell, louder
+than the bird-notes and the tumult of the voluptuous insect whirr,
+there rang the thud, thud of cruel blows falling on quivering human
+flesh.
+
+The curtain that hid the life of the peasant-farmer had indeed been
+lifted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ERNESTINE.
+
+
+"Ah, mesdames, what will you have? The French peasant is like that.
+When he is in a rage nothing stops him--he beats anything, everything;
+whatever his hand encounters must suffer when he is angry; his wife,
+his child, his servant, his horse, they are all alike to him when he
+sees red."
+
+Monsieur Fouchet was tying up his rose-trees; we were watching him from
+our seat on the green bench. Here in the garden, beneath the blue
+vault, the roses were drooping from very heaviness of glory; they gave
+forth a scent that made the head swim. It was a healthy, virile
+intoxication, however, the salt in the air steadying one's nerves.
+
+Nature, not being mortal and cursed with a conscience, had risen that
+morning in a mood for carousal; at this hour of noon she had reached
+the point of ecstatic stupor. No state of trance was ever so exquisite.
+The air was swooning, but how delicate its gasps, as if it fell away
+into calm! How adorably blue the sky in its debauch of sun-lit ether!
+The sea, too, although it reeled slightly, unsteadily rising only to
+fall away, what a radiance of color it maintained! Here in the garden
+the drowsy air would lift a flower petal, as some dreamer sunk in
+hasheesh slumber might touch a loved hand, only to let it slip away in
+nerveless impotence. Never had the charm of this Normandy sea-coast
+been as compelling; never had the divine softness of this air, this
+harmonious marriage of earth-scents and sea-smells seemed as perfect;
+never before had the delicacy of the foliage and color-gradations of
+the sky as triumphantly proved that nowhere else, save in France, can
+nature be at once sensuous and poetic.
+
+We looked for something other than pure enjoyment from this golden
+moment; we hoped its beauty would help us to soften our landlord. This
+was the moment we had chosen to excite his sympathies, also to gain
+counsel from him concerning the tragedy we had witnessed the day
+before. He listened to our tale with evident interest, but there was a
+disappointing coolness in his eye. As the narrative proceeded, the
+brutality of the situation failed to sting him to even a mild form of
+indignation. He went on tying his rose-trees, his ardor expending
+itself in choice snippings of the stray stalks and rebellious tendrils.
+
+"This Guichon," he said, after a brief moment, in the tone that goes
+with the pursuance of an occupation that has become a passion. "This
+Guichon--I know him. He is a hard man, but no harder than many others,
+and he has had his losses, which don't always soften a man. '_Qui terre
+a guerre a_,' Moliere says, and Guichon has had many lawsuits, losing
+them all. He has been twice married; that was his daughter by his first
+wife he was touching up like that. He married only the other day Madame
+Tier, a rich woman, a neighbor, their lands join. It was a great match
+for him, and she, the wife, and his daughter don't hit it off, it
+appears. There was some talk of a marriage for the girl lately; a good
+match presented itself, but the girl will have none of it; perhaps that
+accounts for the beating."
+
+A rose, overblown with its fulness of splendor, dropped in a shower at
+Fouchet's feet just then.
+
+"_Tiens, elle est finie, celle-la_" he cried, with an accent of regret,
+and he stooped over the fallen petals as if they had been the remains
+of a friend. Then he sighed as he swept the mass into his broad palm.
+
+"Come, let us leave him to the funeral of his roses; he hasn't the
+sensibilities of an insect;" and Charm grasped my arm to lead me over
+the turf, across the gravel paths, toward the tea-house.
+
+This tottering structure had become one of our favorite retreats; in
+the poetic _mise-en-scene_ of the garden it played the part of Ruin. It
+was absurdly, ridiculously out of repair; its gaping beams and the
+sunken, dejected floor could only be due to intentional neglect.
+Fouchet evidently had grasped the secrets of the laws of contrast; the
+deflected angle of the tumbling roof made the clean-cut garden beds
+doubly true. Nature had had compassion on the aged little building,
+however; the clustering, fragrant vines, in their hatred of nudity, had
+invested the prose of a wreck with the poetry of drapery. The
+tip-tilted settee beneath the odorous roof became, in time, our chosen
+seat; from that perch we could overlook the garden-walls, the beach,
+the curve of the shore, the grasses and hollyhocks in our neighbor's
+garden, the latter startlingly distinct against the great arch of the
+sky.
+
+It was here Renard found us an hour later. To him, likewise, did Charm
+narrate our extraordinary experience of yesterday, with much adjunct of
+fiery comment, embellishment of gesture, and imitative pose.
+
+"Ye gods, what a scene to paint! You were in luck--in luck; why wasn't
+I there?" was Renard's tribute to human pity.
+
+"Oh, you are all alike, all--nothing moves you--you haven't common
+human sympathies--you haven't the rudiments of a heart! You are
+terrible--all of you--terrible!" A moment after she had left us, as if
+the narrowness of the little house stifled her. With long, swinging
+steps she passed out, to air her indignation, apparently, beneath the
+wall of the espaliers.
+
+"Splendid creature, isn't she?" commented Renard, following the long
+lines of the girl's fluttering muslin gown, as he plucked at his
+mustache. "She should always wear white and gold--what is that
+stuff?--and be lit up like that with a kind of goddess-like anger. She
+is wrong, however," he went on, a moment later; "those of us who live
+here aren't really barbarians, only we get used to things. It's the
+peasants themselves that force us; they wouldn't stand interference. A
+peasant is a kind of king on his own domain; he does anything he likes,
+short of murder, and he doesn't always stop at that."
+
+"But surely the Government--at least their Church, ought to teach
+them--"
+
+"Oh, their Church! they laugh at their cures--till they come to die.
+He's a heathen, that's what the French peasant is--there's lots of the
+middle ages abroad up there in the country. Along here, in the coast
+villages, the nineteenth century has crept in a bit, humanizing them,
+but the _fonds_ is always the same; they're by nature avaricious,
+sordid, cruel; they'll do anything for money; there isn't anything
+sacred for them except their pocket."
+
+A few days later, in our friend the cobbler we found a more sympathetic
+listener. "Dame! I also used to beat my wife," he said,
+contemplatively, as he scratched his herculean head, "but that was when
+I was a Christian, when I went to confession; for the confessional was
+made for that, _c'est pour laver le linge sale des consciences, ca_"
+(interjecting his epigram). "But now--now that I am a free-thinker, I
+have ceased all that; I don't beat her," pointing to his old wife, "and
+neither do I drink or swear."
+
+"It's true, he's good--he is, now," the old wife nodded, with her slit
+of a smile; "but," she added, quickly, as if even in her husband's
+religious past there had been some days of glory, "he was always
+just--even then--when he beat me."
+
+"_C'est tres femme, ca--hein, mademoiselle?_" And the cobbler cocked
+his head in critical pose, with a philosopher's smile.
+
+The result of the interview, however, although not entirely
+satisfactory, was illuminating, besides this light which had been
+thrown on the cobbler's reformation. For the cobbler was a cousin,
+distant in point of kinship, but still a cousin, of the brutal farmer
+and father. He knew all the points of the situation, the chief of which
+was, as Fouchet had hinted, that the girl had refused to wed the _bon
+parti_, who was a connection of the step-mother. As for the
+step-mother's murderous outcry, "Kill her! kill her!" the cobbler
+refused to take a dramatic view of this outburst.
+
+"In such moments, you understand, one loses one's head; brutality
+always intoxicates; she was a little drunk, you see."
+
+When we proposed our modest little scheme, that of sending for the girl
+and taking her, for a time at least, into our service, merely as a
+change of scene, the cobbler had found nothing but admiration for the
+project. "It will be perfect, mesdames. They, the parents, will ask
+nothing better. To have the girl out at service, away, and yet not
+disgracing them by taking a place with any other farmer; yes, they will
+like that, for they are rich, you see, and wealth always respects
+itself. Ah, yes, it's perfect; I'll arrange all that--all the details."
+
+Two days later the result of the arrangement stood before us. She was
+standing with her arms crossed, her fingers clasping her elbows--with
+her very best peasant manner. She was neatly, and, for a peasant,
+almost fashionably attired in her holiday dress--a short, black skirt,
+white stockings, a flowery kerchief crossed over her broad bosom, and
+on her pretty hair a richly tinted blue _foulard_. She was very well
+dressed for a peasant, and, from the point of view of two travellers,
+of about as much use as a plough.
+
+"It's a beautiful scheme, and it's as dramatic as the fifth act of a
+play; but what shall we do with her?"
+
+"Oh." replied Charm, carelessly, "there isn't anything in particular
+for her to do. I mean to buy her a lot of clothes, like those she has
+on, and she can walk about in the garden or in the fields."
+
+"Ah, I see; she's to be a kind of a perambulating figure-piece."
+
+"Yes, that's about it. I dare say she will be very useful at sunset, in
+a dim street; so few peasants wear anything approaching to costume
+nowadays."
+
+Ernestine herself, however, as we soon discovered, had an entirely
+different conception of her vocation. She was a vigorous, active young
+woman, with the sap of twenty summers in her lusty young veins. Her
+energies soon found vent in a continuous round of domestic excitements.
+There were windows and floors that cried aloud to Heaven to be
+scrubbed; there were holes in the sheets to make mam'zelle's lying
+between them _une honte, une vraie honte_. As for Madame Fouchet's
+little weekly bill, _Dieu de Dieu_, it was filled with such extortions
+as to make the very angels weep. Madame and Ernestine did valiant
+battle over those bills thereafter. Ernestine was possessed of the
+courage of a true martyr; she could suffer and submit to the scourge,
+in the matter of personal persecution, for the religion of her own
+convictions; but in the service of her rescuer, she could fight with
+the fierceness of a common soldier.
+
+"When Norman meets Norman--" Charm began one day, the sound of voices,
+in a high treble of anger, coming in to us through the windows.
+
+But Ernestine was knocking at the door, with a note in her hand.
+
+"An answer is asked, mesdames," she said, in a voice of honey, as she
+dropped her low courtesy.
+
+This was the missive:
+
+
+ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD.
+
+TO HONFLEUR AND TROUVILLE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+TO AN OLD MANOR.
+
+
+"Will _ces dames_ join me in a marauding expedition? Like the poet
+Villon, I am about to turn marauder, house breaker, thief. I shall hope
+to end the excursion by one act, at least, of highway robbery. I shall
+lose courage without the enlivening presence of _ces dames._ We will
+start when the day is at its best, we will return when the moon smiles.
+In case of finding none to rob, the coach of the desperadoes will be
+garrisoned with provisions; Henri will accompany us as counsellor,
+purveyor, and bearer of arms and costumes. The carriage for _ces dames_
+will stop the way at the hour of eleven.
+
+"I have the honor to sign myself their humble servant and
+co-conspirator.
+
+"John Renard."
+
+"This, in plain English," was Charm's laconic translation of this note,
+"means that he wishes us to be ready at eleven for the excursion to
+P----, to spend the day, you may remember, at that old manor. He wants
+to paint in a background, he said yesterday, while we stroll about and
+look at the old place. What shall I wear?"
+
+In an hour we were on the road.
+
+A jaunty yellow cart, laden with a girl on the front seat; with a man,
+tawny of mustache, broad of shoulder, and dark of eye, with face
+shining to match the spring in the air and that fair face beside him;
+laden also with another lady on the back seat, beside whom, upright and
+stiff, with folded arms, sat Henri, costumer, valet, cook, and groom.
+It was in the latter capacity that Henri was now posing. The role of
+groom was uppermost in his orderly mind, although at intervals, when
+his foot chanced to touch a huge luncheon-basket with which the cart
+was also laden, there were betraying signs of anxiety; it was then that
+the chef crept back to life. This spring in the air was all very well,
+but how would it affect the sauces? This great question was written on
+Henri's brow in a network of anxious wrinkles.
+
+"Henri," I remarked, as we were wheeling down the roadway, "I am quite
+certain you have put up enough luncheon for a regiment."
+
+"Madame has said it, for a regiment; Monsieur Renard, when he works,
+eats with the hunger of a wolf."
+
+"Henri, did you get in all the rags?" This came from Renard on the
+front seat, as he plied his steed with the whip.
+
+"The costume of Monsieur le Marquis, and also of Madame la Marquise de
+Pompadour, are beneath my feet in the valise, Monsieur Renard. I have
+the sword between my legs," replied Henri, the costumer coming to the
+surface long enough to readjust the sword.
+
+"Capital fellow, Henri, never forgets anything," said Renard, in
+English.
+
+"Couldn't we offer a libation or something, on such a morning--"
+
+"On such a morning," interrupted the painter, "one should be seated
+next to a charming young lady who has the genius to wear Nile green and
+white; even a painter with an Honorable Mention behind him and fame
+still ahead, in spite of the Mention, is satisfied. You know a Greek
+deity was nothing to a painter, modern, and of the French school, in
+point of fastidiousness."
+
+"Nonsense! it's the American woman who is fastidious, when it comes to
+clothes."
+
+Meanwhile, there was one of the party who was looking at the road; that
+also was arrayed in Nile green and white; the tall trees also held
+umbrellas above us, but these coverings were woven of leaves and sky.
+This bit of roadway appeared to have slipped down from the upper
+country, and to have carried much of the upper country with it. It was
+highway posing as pure rustic. It had brought all its pastoral
+paraphernalia along. Nothing had been forgotten: neither the hawthorn
+and the osier hedges, nor the tree-trunks, suddenly grown modest at
+sight of the sea, burying their nudity in nests of vines, nor the trick
+which elms and beeches have, of growing arches in the sky. Timbered
+farm-houses were here, also thatched huts, to make the next villa-gate
+gain in stateliness; apple orchards were dotted about with such a
+knowing air of wearing the long line of the Atlantic girdled about
+their gnarled trunks, that one could not believe pure accident had
+carried them to the edge of the sea. There were several miles of this
+driving along beneath these green aisles. Through the screen of the
+hedges and the crowded tree-trunks, picture succeeded picture; bits of
+the sea were caught between slits of cliff; farmhouses, huts, and
+villas lay smothered in blossoms; above were heights whereon poplars
+seemed to shiver in the sun, as they wrapped about them their
+shroud-like foliage; meadows slipped away from the heights, plunging
+seaward, as if wearying for the ocean; and through the whole this line
+of green roadway threaded its path with sinuous grace, serpentining,
+coiling, braiding in land and sea in one harmonious, inextricable
+blending of incomparable beauty. One could quite comprehend, after even
+a short acquaintance with this road, that two gentlemen of Paris, as
+difficult to please as Daubigny and Isabey, should have seen points of
+excellence in it.
+
+There are all sorts of ways of being a painter. Perhaps as good as any,
+if one cares at all about a trifling matter like beauty, is to know a
+good thing when one sees it. That poet of the brush, Daubigny, not only
+was gifted with this very unusual talent in a painter, but a good thing
+could actually be entrusted in his hands after its discovery. And
+herein, it appears to me, lies all the difference between good and bad
+painting; not only is an artist--any artist--to be judged by what he
+sees, but also by what he does with a fact after he's acquired
+it--whether he turns it into poetry or prose.
+
+I might incautiously have sprung these views on the artist on the front
+seat, had he not wisely forestalled my outburst by one of his own.
+
+"By the way," he broke in; "by the way, I'm not doing my duty as
+cicerone. There's a church near here--we're coming to it in a
+moment--famous--eleventh or twelfth century, Romanesque
+style--yes--that's right, although I'm somewhat shaky when it comes to
+architecture--and an old manoir, museum now, with lots of old furniture
+in it--in the manoir, I mean."
+
+"There's the church now. Oh, let us stop!"
+
+In point of fact there were two churches before us. There was one of
+ivy: nave, roof, aisles, walls, and conic-shaped top, as perfectly
+defined in green as if the beautiful mantle had been cut and fitted to
+the hidden stone structure. Every few moments the mantle would be
+lifted by the light breeze, as might a priest's vestment; it would move
+and waver, as if the building were a human frame, changing its posture
+to ease its long standing. Between this church of stone and this church
+of vines there were signs of the fight that had gone on for ages
+between them. The stones were obviously fighting decay, fighting ruin,
+fighting annihilation; the vines were also struggling, but both time
+and the sun were on their side. The stone edifice was now, it is true,
+as Renard told us, protected by the Government--it was classed as a
+"monument historique"--but the church of greens was protected by the
+god of nature, and seemed to laugh aloud, as if with conscious gleeful
+strength. This gay, triumphant laugh was reflected, as if to emphasize
+its mockery of man's work, in the tranquil waters of a little pond,
+lily-leaved, garlanded in bushes, that lay hidden beyond the roadway.
+Through the interstices of the vines one solitary window from the
+tower, like a sombre eye, looked down into the pond; it saw there,
+reflected as in a mirror, the old, the eternal picture of a dead ruin
+clasped by the arms of living beauty.
+
+This Criqueboeuf church presents the ideal picturesque accessories. It
+stands at the corner of two meeting roadways. It is set in an ideal
+pastoral frame--a frame of sleeping fields, of waving tree-tops, of an
+enchanting, indescribable snarl of bushes, vines, and wild flowers. In
+the adjoining fields, beneath the tree-boughs, ran the long, low line
+of the ancient manoir--now turned into a museum.
+
+We glanced for a few brief moments at the collection of antiquities
+assembled beneath the old roof--at the Henry II. chairs, at the
+Pompadour-wreathed cabinets, at the long rows of panels on which are
+presented the whole history of France--the latter an amazing record of
+the industry of a certain Dr. Le Goupils.
+
+"Criqueboeuf doesn't exactly hide its light under a bushel, you know,
+although it doesn't crown a hill. No end of people know it; it sits for
+its portrait, I should say at least twice a week regularly, on an
+average, during the season. English water-colorists go mad over
+it--they cross over on purpose to `do' it, and they do it extremely
+badly, as a rule."
+
+This was Renard's last comment of a biographical and critical nature,
+concerning the "historical monument," as we reseated ourselves to
+pursue our way to P----.
+
+"Why don't you show them how it can be done?"
+
+"Would," coolly returned Renard, "if it were worth while, but it isn't
+in my line. Henri, did you bring any ice?"
+
+Henri, I had noticed, when we had reseated ourselves in the cart, had
+greeted us with an air of silent sadness; he clearly had not approved
+of ruins that interfered with the business of the day.
+
+"_Oui, monsieur_, I did bring some ice, but as monsieur can imagine to
+himself--a two hours' sun--"
+
+"Nonsense, this sun wouldn't melt a pat of butter; the ice is all
+right, and so is the wine."
+
+Then he continued in English: "Now, ladies, as I should begin if I were
+a politician, or an auctioneer; now, ladies, the time for confession
+has arrived; I can no longer conceal from you my burglarious scheme. In
+the next turn that we shall make to the right, the park of the P----
+manoir will disclose itself. But, between us and that Park, there is a
+gate. That gate is locked. Now, gates, from the time of the Garden of
+Eden, I take it, have been an invention of--of--the other fellow, to
+keep people out. I know a way--but it's not the way you can follow.
+Henri and I will break down a few bars, we'll cross a few fields over
+yonder, and will present ourselves, with all the virtues written on our
+faces, to you in the Park. Meanwhile you must enter, as queens
+should--through the great gates. Behold, there is a cure yonder, a
+great friend of mine. You will step along the roadway; you will ring a
+door-bell; the cure will appear; you will ask him if it be true that
+the manoir of P---- is to rent, you have heard that he has the keys; he
+will present you the keys; you will open the big gate and find me."
+
+"But--but, Mr. Renard, I really don't see how that scheme will work."
+
+"Work! It will work to a charm. You will see. Henri, just help the
+ladies, will you?"
+
+Henri, with decisive gravity, was helping the ladies to alight; in
+another instant he had regained his seat, and he and Renard were flying
+down the roadway, out of sight.
+
+"Really--it's the coolest proceeding," Charm began. Then we looked
+through the bars of the park gate. The park was as green and as still
+as a convent garden; a pink brick mansion, with closed window-blinds,
+was standing, surrounded by a terrace on one side, and by glittering
+parterres on the other.
+
+"Where did he say the old cure was?" asked Charm, quite briskly, all at
+once. Everything had turned out precisely as Renard had predicted.
+Doubtless he had also counted on the efficacy of the old fable of the
+Peri at the Gate--one look had been sufficient to turn us into arrant
+conspirators; to gain an entrance into that tranquil paradise any ruse
+would serve.
+
+"Here's a church--he said nothing about a church, did he?"
+
+Across the avenue, above the branches of a row of tall trees, rose the
+ivied facade of a rude hamlet church; a flight of steep weedy steps led
+up to its Norman doorway. The door was wide open; through the arched
+aperture came the sounds of footfalls, of a heavy, vigorous tread;
+Charm ran lightly up a few of the lower steps, to peer into the open
+door.
+
+"It's the cure dusting the altar--shall I go in?"
+
+"No, we had best ring--this must be his house."
+
+The clatter of the cure's sabots was the response that answered to the
+bell we pulled, a bell attached to a diminutive brick house lying at
+the foot of the churchyard. The tinkling of the cracked-voiced bell had
+hardly ceased when the door opened.
+
+But the cure had already taken his first glance at us over the garden
+hedges.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A NORMAN CURE.
+
+
+"Mesdames!"
+
+The priest's massive frame filled the narrow door; the tones of his
+mellow voice seemed also suddenly to fill the air, drowning all other
+sounds. The grace of his manner, a grace that invested the simple act
+of his uncovering and the holding of his _calotte_ in hand, with an air
+of homage, made also our own errand the more difficult.
+
+I had already begun to murmur the nature of our errand: we were
+passing, we had seen the manoir opposite, we had heard it was to rent,
+also that he, Monsieur le Cure, had the keys.
+
+Yes, the keys were here. Then the velvet in Monsieur le Cure's eyes
+turned to bronze, as they looked out at us from beneath the fine dome
+of brow.
+
+"I have the keys of the garden only, mesdames," he replied, with
+perfect but somewhat distant courtesy; "the gardener, down the road
+yonder, has the keys of the house. Do you really wish to rent the
+house?"
+
+He had seen through our ruse with quick Norman penetration. He had not,
+from the first, been in the least deceived.
+
+It became the more difficult to smooth the situation into shape. "We
+had thought perhaps to rent a villa, we were in one now at Villerville.
+If Monsieur le cure would let us look at the garden. Monsieur Renard,
+whom perhaps he remembered--
+
+"M. Renard! Oh ho! Oh ho! I see it all now," and a deep, mellow laugh
+smote the air. The keenness in the fine eyes melted into mirth, a mirth
+that laid the fine head back on the broad shoulders, that the laugh
+that shook the powerful frame might have the fuller play.
+
+"Ah, _mes enfants_, I see it all now--it is that scoundrel of a boy.
+I'll warrant he's there, over yonder, already. He was here yesterday,
+he was here the day before, and he is afraid, he is ashamed to ask
+again for the keys. But come, _mes enfants_, come, let us go in search
+of him." And the little door was closed with a slam. Down the broad
+roadway the next instant fluttered the old cure's soutane. We followed,
+but could scarcely keep pace with the brisk, vigorous strides. The
+sabots ploughed into the dust. The cane stamped along in company with
+the sabots, all three in a fury of impatience. The cure's step and his
+manner might have been those of a boy, burning with haste to discover a
+playmate in hiding. All the keenness and shrewdness on the fine, ruddy
+face had melted into sweetness; an exuberance of mirth seemed to be the
+sap that fed his rich nature. It was easy to see he had passed the
+meridian of his existence in a realm of high spirits; an irrepressible
+fountain within, the fountain of an unquenchable good-humor, bathed the
+whole man with the hues of health. Ripe red lips curved generously over
+superb teeth; the cheeks were glowing, as were the eyes, the crimson
+below them deepening to splendor the velvet in the iris. The one severe
+line in the face, the thin, straight nose, ended in wide nostrils in
+the quivering, mobile nostrils of the humorist. The swell of the
+gourmand's paunch beneath the soutane was proof that the cure was a
+true Norman he had not passed a lifetime in these fertile gardens
+forgetful of the fact that the fine art of good living is the one
+indulgence the Church has left to its celibate sons.
+
+Meanwhile, our guide was peering with quick, excited gaze, through the
+thick foliage of the park; his fine black eyes were sweeping the
+parterre and terrace.
+
+"Ah-h!" his rich voice cried out, mockingly; and he stopped, suddenly,
+to plant his cane in the ground with mock fierceness.
+
+"_Tiens_, Monsieur le Cure!" cried Renard, from behind a tree, in a
+beautiful voice. It was a voice that matched with his well-acted
+surprise, when he appeared, confronting us, on the other side of the
+tree-trunk.
+
+The cure opened his arms.
+
+"_Ah, mon enfant, viens, viens!_ how good it is to see thee once again!"
+
+They were in each other's arms. The cure was pressing his lips to
+Renard's cheek, in hearty French fashion. The priest, however,
+administered his reproof before he released him. Renard's broad
+shoulders received a series of pats, which turned to blows, dealt by
+the cure's herculean hand.
+
+"Why didn't you let me know you were here, yesterday, _Hein_? Answer me
+that. How goes the picture? Is it set up yet? You see, mesdames,"
+turning with a reddened cheek and gleaming eyes, "it is thus I punish
+him--for he has no heart, no sensibilities--he only understands
+severities! And he defrauded me yesterday, he cheated me. I didn't even
+know of his being here till he had gone. And the picture, where is it?"
+
+It was on an easel, sunning itself beneath the park trees. The old
+priest clattered along the gravelly walk, to take a look at it.
+
+"_Tiens_--it grows--the figures begin to move--they are almost alive.
+There should be a trifle more shadow under the chin, what do you think?"
+
+Henri raised his chin. Henri had undergone the process of
+transformation in our absence. He was now M. le Marquis de
+Pompadour--under the heart-shaped arch of the great trees, he was
+standing, resplendent in laces, in glistening satins, leaning on a
+rusty, dull-jewelled sword. Renard had mounted his palette; he was
+dipping already into the mounds of color that dotted the palette-board,
+with his long brushes. On the canvas, in colors laid on by the touch of
+genius, this archway beneath which we were standing reared itself
+aloft; the park trees were as tall and noble, transfixed in their image
+of immutable calm, on that strip of linen, as they towered now above
+us; even the yellow cloud of the laburnum blossoms made the sunshine of
+the shaded grass, as it did here, where else no spot of sun might
+enter, so dense was the night of shade. The life of another day and
+time lived, however, beneath that shade; Charm and the cure, as they
+drooped over the canvas, confronted a graceful, attenuated courtier,
+sickening in a languor of adoration, and a sprightly coquette, whose
+porcelain beauty was as finished as the feathery edges of her lacy
+sleeves.
+
+"_Tres bien tres bien_" said the cure, nodding his head in critical
+commendation. "It will be a little masterpiece. And now," waving his
+hand toward us, "what do you propose to do with these ladies while you
+are painting?"
+
+"Oh, they can wander about," Renard replied, abstractedly. He had
+already reseated himself and had begun to ply his brushes; he now saw
+only Henri and the hilt of the sword he was painting in.
+
+"I knew it, I could have told you--a painter hasn't the manners of a
+peasant when he's painting," cried the priest, lifting cane and hands
+high in air, in mock horror. "But all the better, all the better, I
+shall have you all to myself. Come, come with me. You can see the house
+later. I'll send for the gardener. It's too fine a day to be indoors.
+What a day, _hein_? _Le bon Dieu_ sends us such days now and then, to
+make us ache for paradise. This way, this way--we'll go through the
+little door--my little door; it was made for me, you know, when the
+manoir was last inhabited. I and the children were too impatient--we
+suffered from that malady--all of us--we never could wait for the great
+gates yonder to be opened. So Monsieur de H---- built us this one." The
+little door opened directly on the road, and on the cure's house. There
+was a tangle of underbrush barring the way; but the cure pushed the
+briars apart with his strong hands, beating them down with his cane.
+
+When the door opened, we passed directly beyond the roadway, to the
+steep steps leading to the church. The cure, before mounting the steps,
+swept the road, upward and downward, with his keen glance. It was the
+instinctive action of the provincial, scenting the chance of novelty.
+Some distant object, in the meeting of two distant roadways, arrested
+the darting eyes; this time, at least, he was to be rewarded for his
+prudence in looking about him. The object slowly resolved itself into
+two crutches between which hung the limp figure of a one-legged man.
+
+"_Bonjour, Monsieur le cure_." The crutches came to a standstill; the
+cripple's hand went up to doff a ragged worsted cap.
+
+"Good-day, good-day, my friend; how goes it? Not quite so stiff,
+_hein_--in such a bath of sunlight as this? Good-day, good-day."
+
+The crutches and their burden passed on, kicking a little cloud of dust
+about the lean figure.
+
+"_Un peu casse, le bonhomme_" he said, as he nodded to the cripple in a
+tone of reflection, as if the breakage that bad befallen his humble
+friend were a fresh incident in his experience. "Yes, he's a little
+broken, the poor old man; but then," he added, quickly renewing his
+tone of unquenchable high spirits--"one doesn't die of it. No, one
+doesn't die, fortunately. Why, we're all more or less cracked, or
+broken up here."
+
+He shook another laugh out, as he preceded us up the stone steps. Then
+he turned to stop for a moment to point his cane toward the small house
+with whose chimneys we were now on a level. "There, mesdames, there is
+the proof that more breaking doesn't signify in this matter of life and
+death, _Tenez_, madame--" and with a charming gesture he laid his
+richly-veined, strong old hand on my arm--a hand that ended in
+beautiful fingers, each with its rim of moon-shaped dirt;
+"_tenez_--figure to yourself, madame, that I myself have been here
+twenty years, and I came for two! I bought out the _bonhomme_ who lived
+over yonder.
+
+"I bought him and his furniture out. I said to myself, 'I'll buy it for
+eight hundred, and I'll sell it for four hundred, in a year.'" Here he
+laid his finger on his nose--lengthwise, the Norman in him supplanting
+the priest in his remembrance of a good bargain. "And now it is twenty
+years since then. Everything creaks and cracks over there: all of us
+creak and crack. You should hear my chairs, _elles se cassent les
+reins_--they break their thighs continually. Ah! there goes another, I
+cry out, as I sit down in one in winter and hear them groan. Poor old
+things, they are of the Empire, no wonder they groan. You should see
+us, when our brethren come to take a cup of soup with me. Such a
+collection of antiquities as we are! I catch them, my brothers, looking
+about, slyly peering into the secrets of my little menage. 'From his
+ancestors, doubtless, these old chairs and tables, say these good
+freres, under their breath. And then I wink slyly at the chairs, and
+they never let on."
+
+Again the mellow laugh broke forth. He stopped again to puff and blow a
+little, from his toil up the steep steps. Then all at once, as the
+rough music of his clicking sabots and the playful taps of his cane
+ceased, the laugh on his mobile lips melted into seriousness. He lifted
+his cane, pointing to the cemetery just above us, and to the
+gravestones looking down over the hillsides between a network of roses.
+
+"We are old, madame--we are old, but, alas! we never die! It is
+difficult to people, that cemetery. There are only sixty of us in the
+parish, and we die--we die hard. For example, here is my old
+servant"--and he covered a grave with a sweep of his cane--for we were
+leisurely sauntering through the little cemetery now. The grave to
+which he pointed was a garden; heliotrope, myosotis, hare-bells and
+mignonette had made of the mound a bed of perfume--"see how quietly she
+lies--and yet what a restless soul the flowers cover! She, too, died
+hard. It took her years to make up her mind; finally _le bon Dieu_ had
+to decide it for her, when she was eighty-four. She complained to the
+last--she was poor, she was in my way, she was blind. '_Eh bien, tu
+n'as pas besoin de me faire les beaux yeux, toi_'--I used to say to
+her. Ah, the good soul that she was!" and the dark eye glistened with
+moisture. A moment later the cure was blowing vigorously the note of
+his grief, in trumpet-tones, through the organ that only a Frenchman
+can render an effective adjunct to moments of emotion.
+
+"You see, _mes enfants_, I am like that--I weep over my friends--when
+they are gone! But see," he added quickly, recovering himself--"see,
+over yonder there is my predecessor's grave. He lies well,
+_hein?_--comfortable, too--looking his old church in the face and the
+sun on his old bones all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will
+have company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a friend." The humorous
+smile was again curving his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were
+beginning to quiver. "When my friend and I lie there, we shall be a
+little crowded, perhaps. I said to him, when he proposed it, proposed
+to lie there with us, 'but we shall be crunching each other's bones!'
+'No,' he replied, 'only falling into each other's arms!' So it was
+settled. He comes over from Havre, every now and then, to talk our
+tombstones over; we drink a glass of wine together, and take a pipe and
+talk about our future--in eternity! Ah, how gay we are! It is so good
+to be friends with God!"
+
+The voice deepened into seriousness. He went on in a quieter key:
+
+"But why am I always preaching and talking about death and eternity to
+two such ladies--two such children? Ah--I know, I am really old--I only
+deceive myself into pretending I'm young. You will do the same, both of
+you, some day. But come and see my good works. You know everyone has
+his little corner of conceit--I have mine. I like to do good, and then
+to boast of it. You shall see--you shall see."
+
+He was hurrying us along the narrow paths now, past the little company
+of grave-stones, graves that were bearing their barbaric burdens of
+mortuary wreaths, of beaded crosses, and the motley assemblage, common
+to all French graveyards, of hideous shrines encasing tin saints and
+madonnas in plaster.
+
+Above the sunken graves and the tin effigies of the martyrs behind the
+church, arose a fair and glittering marble tomb. It was strangely out
+of keeping with the meagre and paltry surroundings of the peasant
+grave-stones. As we approached the tomb it grew in imposingness. It was
+a circular mortuary chapel, with carved pediment and iron-wrought
+gateway.
+
+"It's fine, _hein_, and beautiful, _hein?_ It is the Duke's!" The cure,
+it was easy to see, considered the chapel in the light of a personal
+possession. He stood before it, bare-headed, with a new earnestness on
+his mobile face. "It is the Duke's. Yes, the Duke's. I saved his soul,
+blessed be God! and he--he rebuilds my cellars for me: See"--and he
+pointed to the fine new base of stone, freshly cemented, on which the
+church rested--"see, I save his soul, and he preserves my buildings for
+me. It's a fair deal, isn't it? How does it come about, that he is
+converted? Ah, you see, although I am a man without science, without
+knowledge, devoid of pretensions and learning, the good God sometimes
+makes use of such humble instruments to work His will. It came about in
+the usual way. The Duke came here carrying his religion lightly, as one
+may say, not thinking of his soul. I--I dine with him. We talk, we
+argue; he does, that is--I only preach from my Bible. And behold! one
+day he is converted. He is devout. And from gratitude, he repairs my
+crumbling old stones. And now see how solid, how strong is my church
+cellar!"
+
+Again the fountain of his irrepressible merriment bubbled forth. For
+all the gayety, however, the severe line deepened as one grew to know
+the face better; the line in profile running from the nose into the
+firm upper lip and into the still more resolute chin, matched the
+impress of authority marked on the noble brow. It was the face of one
+who might have infinite charity and indulgence for a sin, and yet would
+make no compromise with it.
+
+We had resumed our walk. It led us at last into the interior of the
+little church. The gloom and silence within, after the dazzling
+brilliancy of the noon-day sun and the noisy insect hum, invested the
+narrow nave and dim altar with an added charm. The old priest knelt for
+the briefest instant in reverence to the altar. When he turned there
+was surprise as well as a gentle reproach in the changeable eyes.
+
+"And you, mesdames! How is this? You are not Catholics? And I was so
+sure of it! Quite sure of it, you were so sympathetic, so full of
+reverence. And you, my child"--turning to Charm--"you speak our tongue
+so well, with the very accent of a good Catholic. What! you are
+Protestant? La! La! What do I hear?" He shook his cane over the backs
+of the straw-bottomed chairs; the sweet, mellow accents of his voice
+melted into loving protest--a protest in which the fervor was not
+quenched in spite of the merry key in which it was pitched.
+
+"Protestants? Pouffe! pouffe! What is that? What is it to be a
+Protestant? Heretics, heretics, that is what you are. So you are _deux
+affreuses heretiques_? Ah, la! la! Horrible! horrible! I must cure you
+of all that. I must cure you!" He dropped his cane in the enthusiasm of
+his attack; it fell with a clanging sound on the stone pavement. He let
+it lie. He had assumed, unconsciously, the orator's, the preacher's
+attitude. He crowded past the chairs, throwing back his head as he
+advanced, striking into argumentative gesture:
+
+"_Tenez_, listen, there is so little difference, after all. As I was
+saying to M. le comte de Chermont the other day, no later than
+Thursday--he has married an English wife, you know--can't understand
+that either, how they can marry English wives. However, that's none of
+my business--we have nothing to do with marrying, we priests, except as
+a sacrament for others. I said to M. le comte, who, you know, shows
+tendencies toward anglicism--astonishing the influence of women--I
+said: 'But, my dear M. le comte, why change? You will only exchange
+certainty for uncertainty, facts for doubts, truth for lies.' 'Yes,
+yes,' the comte replied, 'but there are so many new truths introduced
+now into our blessed religion--the infallibility of the pope--the--'
+'_Ah, mon cher comte--ne m'en parlez pas_. If that is all that stands
+in your way--_faites comme le bon Dieu! Lui--il ferme les yeux et tend
+les bras._ That is all we ask--we his servants--to have you close your
+eyes and open your arms.'"
+
+The good cure was out of breath; he was panting. After a moment, in a
+deeper tone, he went on:
+
+"You, too, my children, that is what I say to you--you need only to
+open your arms and to close your eyes. God is waiting for you."
+
+For a long instant there was a great stillness--a silence during which
+the narrow spaces of the dim aisles were vibrating with the echoes of
+the rich voice.
+
+The rustle of a light skirt sweeping the stone flooring broke the
+moment's silence. Charm was crossing the aisles. She paused before a
+little wooden box, nailed to the wall. There came suddenly on the ear
+the sound of coin rattling down into the empty box; she had emptied
+into it the contents of her purse.
+
+"For your poor, monsieur le cure," she smiled up, a little tremulously,
+into the burning, glowing eyes. The priest bent over the fair head,
+laying his hand, as if in benediction, upon it.
+
+"My poor need it sadly, my child, and I thank you for them. God will
+bless you."
+
+It was a touching little scene, and I preferred, for one, to look out
+just then at Henri's figure advancing toward us, up the stone steps.
+
+When the priest spoke again, it was in a husky tone, the gold in his
+voice dusted with moisture; but the bantering spirits in him had
+reappeared.
+
+"What a pity, that you must burn! For you must, dreadful heretics that
+you are! And this dear child, she seems to belong to us--I can never
+sit by, now, in Paradise, happy and secure, and see her burn!" The
+laugh that followed was a mingled caress and a blessing. Henri came in
+for a part of the indulgence of the good cure's smile as he came up the
+steps.
+
+"Ah, Henri, you have come for these ladies?"
+
+"_Oui_, monsieur le cure, luncheon is served."
+
+Our friend followed us to the topmost step, and to the very edge of the
+step. He stood there, talking down to us, as we continued to press him
+to return with us.
+
+"No, my children--no--no, I can't join you; don't urge me; I can't, I
+must not. I must say my prayers instead; besides the children come
+soon, for their catechism. No, don't beg me, I don't need to be
+importuned; I know what that dear Renard's wine is. _Au revoir et a
+bientot_--and remember," and here he lifted his arms--cane and all,
+high in the air--"all you need do is to close your eyes and to open
+your arms. God himself is doing the same."
+
+High up he stood, with uplifted hands, the smile irradiating a face
+that glowed with a saint's simplicity. Behind the black lines of his
+robe, the sunlight lay streaming in noon glory; it aureoled him as
+never saint was aureoled by mortal brush. A moment only he lingered
+there, to raise his cap in parting salute. Then he turned, the trail of
+his gown sweeping the gravel paths, and presently the low church door
+swallowed him up. Through the door, as we crossed the road, there came
+out to us the click of sabots striking the rude flagging; and a moment
+after, the murmuring echo of a deep, rich voice, saying the office of
+the hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+HONFLEUR--NEW AND OLD.
+
+
+The stillness of the park trees, as we passed beneath them, was like
+the silence that comes after a blessing. The sun, flooding the
+landscape with a deluge of light, lost something of its effulgence, by
+contrast with the fulness of the priest's rich nature. This fair world
+of beauty that lay the other side of the terrace wall, beneath which
+our luncheon was spread, was fair and lovely still--but how unimportant
+the landscape seemed compared to the varied scenery of the cure's
+soul-lit character! Of all kinds of nature, human nature is assuredly
+the best; it is at least the most perdurably interesting. When we tire
+of it, when we weary of our fellow-man and turn the blase cheek on the
+fresh pillow of mother-earth, how quickly is the pillow deserted once
+the mental frame is rested or renewed! The history of all human
+relations has the same ending--we all of us only fall out of love with
+man to fall as swiftly in again.
+
+The remainder of the afternoon passed with the rapidity common to all
+phases of enchantment.
+
+How could one eat seriously, with vulgar, gluttonous hunger, of a feast
+spread on the parapet of a terrace-wall? The white foam of napkins, the
+mosaic of the _patties_, the white breasts of chicken, the salads in
+their bath of dew--these spoke the language of a lost cause. For there
+was an open-air concert going on in full swing, and the performance was
+one that made the act of eating seem as gross as the munching of apples
+at an oratorio--the music being, indeed, of a highly refined order of
+perfection. One's ears needed to be highly attuned to hear the pricking
+of the locusts in the leaves; even the breeze kept uncommonly still,
+that the brushing of the humming-birds' and bees' wings against the
+flower-petals might be the more distinctly heard.
+
+I never knew which one of the party it was that decided we were to see
+the day out and the night in; that we were to dine at the Cheval Blanc,
+on the Honfleur quays, instead of sedately breaking bread at the Mere
+Mouchard's. Even our steed needed very little urging to see the
+advantages of such a scheme. Henri alone wore a grim air of
+disapproval. His aspect was an epitome of rigid protest. As he took his
+seat in the cart, he held the sword between his legs with the air of
+one burning with a pent-up anguish of protest. His eye gloomed on the
+day; his head was held aloft, reared on a column of bristling vertebra,
+and on his brow was written the sign of mutiny.
+
+"Henri--you think we should go back; you think going on to Honfleur a
+mistake?"
+
+"Madame has said it"--Henri was a fatalist--in his speech, at least, he
+lived up to his creed. "Honfleur is far--Monsieur Renard has not the
+good digestion when he is tired--he suffers. _Il passe des nuits
+d'angoisse. Il souffre des fatigues de l'estomac. Il se fatigue
+aujourd'hui!_" This, with an air of stern conviction, was accompanied
+by a glance at his master in which compassion was not the most obvious
+note to be read. He went on, remorselessly:
+
+"And, as madame knows, the work but begins for me when we are at home.
+There are the costumes to be dusted and put away, the paintbrushes to
+clean, the dishes and lunch-basket to be attended to. As madame says,
+monsieur is sometimes lacking in consideration. _Mais, que voulez-vous?
+le genie, c'est fait comme ca._"
+
+Madame had not expressed the feeblest echo of a criticism on the
+composition of the genius in front; but the short dialogue had helped,
+perceptibly, to lift the weight of Henri's gloom; he was beginning to
+accept the fate of the day with a philosopher's phlegm. Already he had
+readjusted a little difficulty between his feet and the lunch basket,
+making his religious care of the latter compatible with the open sin of
+improved personal comfort.
+
+Meanwhile the two on the front seat were a thousand miles away. Neither
+we, nor the day, nor the beauty of the drive had power to woo their
+glances from coming back to the focal point of interest they had found
+in each other. They were beginning to talk, not about each other but of
+themselves--the danger-signal of all tete-a-tete adventures.
+
+When two young people have got into the personal-pronoun stage of human
+intercourse, there is but one thing left for the unfortunate third in
+the party to do. Yes, now that I think of it, there are two roles to be
+played. The usual conception of the part is to turn marplot--to spoil
+and ruin the others' dialogue--to put an end to it, if possible, by
+legitimate or illegitimate means; a very successful way, I have
+observed, of prolonging, as a rule, such a duet indefinitely. The more
+enlightened actor in any such little human comedy, if he be gifted with
+insight, will collapse into the wings, and let the two young idiots
+have the whole stage to themselves. As like as not they'll weary of the
+play, and of themselves, if left alone. No harm will come of all the
+sentimental strutting and the romantic attitudinizing, other than
+viewing the scene, later, in perspective, as a rather amusing bit of
+emotional farce.
+
+Besides being in the very height of the spring fashion, in the matter
+of the sentiments, these two were also busily treading, at just this
+particular moment, the most alluring of all the paths leading to what
+may be termed the outlying territorial domain of the emotions; they
+were wandering through the land called Mutual Discovery. Now, this, I
+have always held, is among the most delectable of all the roads of
+life; for it may lead one--anywhere or nowhere.
+
+Therefore it was from a purely generous impulse that I continued to
+look at the view. The surroundings were, in truth, in conspiracy with
+the sentimentalists on the front seat; the extreme beauty of the road
+would have made any but sentimental egotists oblivious to all else. The
+road was a continuation of the one we had followed in the morning's
+drive. Again, all the greenness of field and grass was braided,
+inextricably, into the blue of river and ocean. Above, as before, in
+that earlier morning drive, towered the giant aisles of the beaches and
+elms. Through those aisles the radiant Normandy landscape flowed again,
+as music from rich organ-piped throats flows through cathedral arches.
+Out yonder, on the Seine's wide mouth, the boats were balancing
+themselves, as if they also were half divided between a doubt and a
+longing; a freshening spurt of breeze filled their flapping sails, and
+away they sped, skipping through the waters with all the gayety which
+comes with the vigor of fresh resolutions. The light that fell over the
+land and waters was dazzling, and yet of an astonishing limpidity; only
+a sun about to drop and end his reign could be at once so brilliant and
+so tender--the diffused light had the sparkle of gold made soft by
+usage. Wherever the eye roved, it was fed as on a banquet of light and
+color. Nothing could be more exquisite, for depth of green swimming in
+a bath of shadow, than the meadows curled beneath the cliffs; nothing
+more tempting, to the painter's brush, than the arabesque of blossoms
+netted across the sky; and would you have the living eye of nature,
+bristling with animation, alive with winged sails, and steeped in the
+very soul of yellow sunshine, look out over the great sheet of the
+waters, and steep the senses in such a breadth of aqueous splendor as
+one sees only in one or two of the rare shows of earth.
+
+Then, all at once, all too soon, the great picture seemed to shrink;
+the quivering pulsation of light and color gave way to staid,
+commonplace gardens. Instead of hawthorn hedges there was the stench of
+river smells--we were driving over cobble-paved streets and beneath
+rows of crooked, crumbling houses. A group of noisy street urchins
+greeted us in derision. And then we had no doubt whatsoever that we
+were already in Honfleur town.
+
+"Honfleur is an evil-smelling place," I remarked.
+
+"Oh, well, after all, the smells of antiquity are a part of the show;
+we should refuse to believe in ancientness, all of us, I fancy, if
+mustiness wasn't served along with it."
+
+"How can any town have such a stench with all this river and water and
+verdure to sweeten it?" I asked, with a woman's belief in the morality
+of environment--a belief much cherished by wives and mothers, I have
+noticed.
+
+"Wait till you see the inhabitants--they'll enlighten you--the hags and
+the nautical gentlemen along the basins and quays. They've discovered
+the secret that if cleanliness is next to godliness, dirt and the devil
+are likewise near neighbors. Awful set--those Honfleur sailors The
+Havre and Seine people call them Chinamen, they are so unlike the rest
+of France and Frenchmen."
+
+"Why are they so unlike?" asked Charm.
+
+"They're so low down, so hideously wicked; they're like the old houses,
+a rotten, worm-eaten set--you'll see."
+
+Charm stopped him then, with a gesture. She stopped the horse also; she
+brought the whole establishment to a standstill; and then she nodded
+her head briskly forward. We were in the midst of the Honfleur
+streets--streets that were running away from a wide open space, in all
+possible directions. In the centre of the square rose a curious, an
+altogether astonishing structure. It was a tower, a belfry doubtless, a
+house, a shop, and a warehouse, all in one; such a picturesque medley,
+in fact, as only modern irreverence, in its lawless disregard of
+original purpose and design, can produce. The low-timbered sub-base of
+the structure was pierced by a lovely doorway with sculptured lintel,
+and also with two impertinent modern windows, flaunting muslin
+curtains, and coquettishly attired with rows of flowering carnations.
+Beneath these windows was a shop. Above the whole rose, in beautiful
+symmetrical lines, a wooden belfry, tapering from a square tower into a
+delicately modelled spire. To complete and accentuate the note of the
+picturesque, the superstructure was held in its place by rude modern
+beams, propping the tower with a naive disregard of decorative
+embellishment. We knew it at once as the quaint and famous Belfry of
+St. Catherine.
+
+As we were about to turn away to descend the high street, a Norman
+maiden, with close-capped face, leaned over the carnations to look down
+upon us.
+
+"That's the daughter of the bell-ringer, doubtless. Economical idea
+that," Renard remarked, taking his cap off to the smiling eyes.
+
+"Economical?"
+
+"Yes, can't you see? Bell-ringer sends pretty daughter to window, just
+before vespers or service, and she rings in the worshippers; no need to
+make the bells ring."
+
+"What nonsense!"--but we laughed as flatteringly as if his speech had
+been a genuine coin of wit.
+
+A turn down the street, and the famous Honfleur of the wharves and
+floating docks lay before us. About us, all at once, was the roar and
+hubbub of an extraordinary bustle and excitement; all the life of the
+town, apparently, was centred upon the quays. The latter were swarming
+with a tattered, ragged, bare-footed, bare-legged assemblage of old
+women, of gamins, and sailors. The collection, as a collection, was one
+gifted with the talent of making itself heard. Everyone appeared to be
+shrieking, or yelling, or crying aloud, if only to keep the others in
+voice. Sailors lying on the flat parapets shouted hoarsely to their
+fellows in the rigging of the ships that lay tossing in the docks;
+fishermen's families tossed their farewells above the hubbub to the
+captain-fathers launching their fishing-smacks; one shrieking infant
+was being passed, gayly, from the poop of a distant deck, across the
+closely lying shipping, to the quay's steps, to be hushed by the
+generous opening of a peasant mother's bodice. One could hear the
+straining of cordage, the creak of masts, the flap of the sails, all
+the noises peculiar to shipping riding at anchor. The shriek of
+steam-whistles broke out, ever and anon, above all the din and uproar.
+Along the quay steps and the wharves there were constantly forming and
+re-forming groups of wretched, tattered human beings; of men with
+bloated faces and a dull, sodden look, strikingly in contrast with the
+vivacity common among French people. Even the children and women had a
+depraved, shameless appearance, as if vice had robbed them of the last
+vestige of hope and ambition. Along the parapet a half-dozen drunkards
+sprawled, asleep or dozing. At the legs of one a child was pulling,
+crying:
+
+"_Viens--mere t'battra, elle est soule aussi._"
+
+The sailors out yonder, busy in the rigging, and the men on the decks
+of the smart brigs and steamships, whistled and shouted and sang, as
+indifferent to this picture of human misery and degradation as if they
+had no kinship with it.
+
+As a frame to the picture, Honfleur town lay beneath the crown of its
+hills; on the tops and sides of the latter, villa after villa shot
+through the trees, a curve of roof-line, with rows of daintily draped
+windows. At the right, close to the wharves, below the wooded heights,
+there loomed out a quaint and curious gateway flanked by two
+watchtowers, grim reminders of the Honfleur of the great days. And
+above and about the whole, encompassing villa-crowded hills and closely
+packed streets, and the forest of masts trembling against the sky,
+there lay a heaven of spring and summer.
+
+Renard had driven briskly up to a low, rambling facade parallel with
+the quays. It was the "Cheval Blanc." A crowd assembled on the instant,
+as if appearing according to command.
+
+"_Allons--n'encombrez pas ces dames!_" cried a very smart individual,
+in striking contrast to the down at-heel air of the hotel--a personage
+who took high-handed possession of us and our traps. "Will _ces dames_
+desire a salon--there is _un vrai petit bijou_ empty just now,"
+murmured a voice in a purring soprano, through the iron opening of the
+cashier's desk.
+
+Another voice was crying out to us, as we wound our way upward in
+pursuit of the jewel of a salon. "And the widow, _La Veuve_, shall she
+be dry or sweet?"
+
+When we entered the low dining-room, a little later, we found that the
+artist as well as the epicure has been in active conspiracy to make the
+dinner complete; the choice of the table proclaimed one accomplished in
+massing effects. The table was parallel with the low window, and
+through the latter was such a picture as one travels hundreds of miles
+to look upon, only to miss seeing it, as a rule. There was a great
+breadth of sky through the windows; against the sky rose the mastheads;
+and some red and brown sails curtained the space, bringing into relief
+the gray line of the sad-faced old houses fringing the shoreline.
+
+"Couldn't have chosen better if we'd tried, could we? It's just the
+right hour, and just the right kind of light. Those basins are
+unendurable--sinks of iniquitous ugliness, unless the tide's in and
+there's a sunset going on. Just look now! Who cares whether Honfleur
+has been done to death by the tourist horde or not? and been painted
+until one's art-stomach turns? I presume I ought to beg your pardon,
+but I can't stand the abomination of modern repetitions; the hand-organ
+business in art, I call it. But at this hour, at this time of the year,
+before this rattle-trap of an inn is as packed with Baedeker
+attachments as a Siberian prison is with Nihilists--to run out here and
+look at these quays and basins, and old Honfleur lying here, beneath
+her green cliffs--well, short of Cairo, I don't know any better bit of
+color. Look out there, now! See those sails, dripping with color, and
+that fellow up there, letting the sail down--there, splash it goes into
+the water, I knew it would; now tell me where will you get better blues
+or yellows or browns, with just the right purples in the shore line,
+than you'll get here?"
+
+Renard was fairly started; he had the bit of the born monologist
+between his teeth; he stopped barely long enough to hear even an
+echoing assent. We were quite content; we continued to sip our
+champagne and to feast our eyes. Meanwhile Renard talked on.
+
+"Guide-books--what's the use of guide-books? What do they teach you,
+anyway? Open any one of the cursed clap-trap things. Yes, yes, I know I
+oughtn't to use vigorous language."
+
+"Do," bleated Charm, smiling sweetly up at him. "Do, it makes you seem
+manly."
+
+Even Renard had to take time to laugh.
+
+"Thank you! I'm not above making use of any aids to create that
+illusion. Well, as I was saying, what guide-book ever really helped
+anyone to _see?_--that's what one travels for, I take it. Here, for
+instance, Murray or Baedeker would give you this sort of thing:
+'Honfleur, an ancient town, with pier, beaches, three floating docks,
+and a good deal of trade in timber, cod, etc.; exports large quantities
+of eggs to England.' Good heavens! it makes one boil! Do sane,
+reasonable mortals travel three thousand miles to read ancient history
+done up in modern binding, served up a la Murray, a la Baedeker?"
+
+"Oh, you do them injustice, I think--the guides do go in for a little
+more of the picturesque than that--"
+
+"And how--how do they do it? This is the sort of thing they'll give
+you: 'Church of St. Catherine is large and remarkable, entirely of
+timber and plaster, the largest of its kind in France.' Ah! ha! that's
+the picturesque with a vengeance. No, no, my friends, throw the
+guide-books into the river, pitch them overboard through the port
+holes, along with the flowers, and letters _to be read three days out_,
+and the nasty novels people send you to make the crossing pleasant. And
+when you travel, really travel, mind, never make a plan--just go--go
+anywhere, whenever the impulse seizes you--and you may hope to get
+there, in the right way, possibly."
+
+Here Renard stopped to finish his glass, draining-the last drop of the
+yellow liquid. Then he went on: "To travel! To start when an impulse
+seizes one! To go--anywhere! Why not! It was for this, after all, that
+all of us have come our three thousand miles." Perhaps it was the
+restless tossing of the shipping out yonder in the basins that awoke an
+answering impatience within, in response to Renard's outburst. Where
+did they go, those ships, and, up beyond this mouth of the Seine, how
+looked the shores, and what life lived itself out beneath the rustling
+poplars? Is it the mission of all flowing water to create an unrest in
+men's minds?
+
+Meanwhile, though the talk was not done, the dinner was long since
+eaten. We rose to take a glimpse of Honfleur and its famous old basin.
+The quays and the floating docks, in front of which we had been dining,
+are a part of the nineteenth century; the great ships ride in to them
+from the sea. But here, in this inner quadrangular dock, beside which
+we were soon standing, traced by Duquesne when Louis the Great
+discovered the maritime importance of Honfleur, we found still
+reminders of the old life. Here were the same old houses that, in the
+seventeenth century, upright and brave in their brand new carvings, saw
+the high-decked, picturesquely painted Spanish and Portuguese ships
+ride in to dip their flag to the French fleur-de-lis. There are but few
+of the old streets left to crowd about the shipping life that still
+floats here, as in those bygone days of Honfleur pride;--when Havre was
+but a yellow strip of sand; when the Honfleur merchants would have
+laughed to scorn any prophet's cry of warning that one day that
+sand-bar opposite, despised, disregarded, boasting only a chapel and a
+tavern, would grow and grow, and would steal year by year and inch by
+inch bustling Honfleur's traffic, till none was left.
+
+In the old adventurous days, along with the Spanish ships came others,
+French trading and fishing vessels, with the salty crustations of long
+voyages on their hulls and masts. The wharves were alive then with
+fish-wives, whom Evelyn will tell you wore "useful habits made of
+goats' skin." The captains' daughters were in quaint Normandy costumes;
+and the high-peaked coifs and the stiff woollen skirts, as well as the
+goat-skin coats, trembled as the women darted hither and thither among
+the sailors--whose high cries filled the air as they picked out mother
+and wife. Then were bronzed beards buried in the deeply-wrinkled old
+meres' faces, and young, strong arms clasped about maidens' waists. The
+whole town rang with gayety and with the mad joy of reunion. On the
+morrow, coiling its way up the steep hillsides, wound the long lines of
+the grateful company, one composed chiefly of the crews of these
+vessels happily come to port. The procession would mount up to the
+little church of Notre Dame de Grace perched on the hill overlooking
+the harbor. Some even--so deep was their joy at deliverance from
+shipwreck and so fervent their piety--crawled up, bare-footed, with
+bared head, wives and children following, weeping for joy, as the rude
+_ex-votos_ were laid by the sailors' trembling hands at the feet of the
+Virgin Lady.
+
+As reminders of this old life, what is left? Within the stone
+quadrangle we found clustered a motley fleet of wrecks and
+fishing-vessels; the nets, flung out to dry in the night air, hung like
+shrouds from the mastheads; here and there a figure bestrode a deck, a
+rough shape, that seemed endowed with a double gift of life, so still
+and noiseless was the town. Around the silent dock, grouped in
+mysterious medley and confusion, were tottering roof lines, projecting
+eaves, narrow windows, all crazily tortured and out of shape. Here and
+there, beneath the broad beams of support, a little interior, dimly
+lighted, showed a knot of sailors gathered, drinking or lounging. Up
+high beneath a chimney perilously overlooking a rude facade, a quaint
+shape emerged, one as decrepit and forlorn of life and hope as the
+decaying houses it overlooked. Silence, poverty, wretchedness, the
+dregs of life, to this has Honfleur fallen. These old houses, in their
+slow decay, hiding in their dark bosom the gaunt secrets of this
+poverty and human misery, seemed to be dancing a dance of drunken
+indifference. Some day the dance will end in a fall, and then the
+Honfleur of the past will not even boast of a ghost, as reminder of its
+days of splendor.
+
+An artist quicker than anyone else, I think, can be trusted to take one
+out of history and into the picturesque. Renard refused to see anything
+but beauty in the decay about us; for him the houses were at just the
+right drooping angle; the roof lines were delightful in their
+irregularity; and the fluttering tremor of the nets, along the rigging,
+was the very poetry of motion.
+
+"We'll finish the evening on the pier," he exclaimed, suddenly; "the
+moon will soon be up--we can sit it out there and see it begin to color
+things."
+
+The pier was more popular than the quaint old dock. It was crowded with
+promenaders, who, doubtless, were taking a bite of the sea-air. Through
+the dusk the tripping figures of gentlemen in white flannels and jaunty
+caps brushed the provincial Honfleur swells. Some gentle English voices
+told us some of the villa residents had come down to the pier, moved by
+the beauty of the night. Groups of sailors, with tanned faces and
+punctured ears hooped with gold rings, sat on the broad stone parapets,
+talking unintelligible Breton _patois_. The pier ran far out, almost to
+the Havre cliffs, it seemed to us, as we walked along in the dusk of
+the young night. The sky was slowly losing its soft flame. A tender,
+mellow half light was stealing over the waters, making the town a rich
+mass of shade. Over the top of the low hills the moon shot out, a
+large, globular mass of beaten gold. At first it was only a part and
+portion of the universal lighting, of the still flushed sky, of the red
+and crimson harbor lights, of the dim twinkling of lamps and candles in
+the rude interiors along the shore. But slowly, triumphantly, the great
+lamp swung up; it rose higher and higher into the soft summer sky, and
+as it mounted, sky and earth began to pale and fade. Soon there was
+only a silver world to look out upon--a wealth of quivering silver over
+the breast of the waters, and a deeper, richer gray on cliffs and roof
+tops. Out of this silver world came the sound of waters, lapping in
+soft cadence against the pier; the rise and fall of sails, stirring in
+the night wind; the tread of human footsteps moving in slow, measured
+beat, in unison with the rhythm of the waters. Just when the stars were
+scattering their gold on the bosom of the sea-river, a voice rang out,
+a rich, full baritone. Quite near, two sailors were seated, with their
+arms about each other's shoulders. They also were looking at the
+moonlight, and one of them was singing to it:
+
+  "_Te souviens-tu, Marie,
+  De notre enfance aux champs?_
+
+  "_Te souviens-tu?
+  Le temps que je regrette
+  C'est le temps qui n'est plus._"
+
+[Illustration: THE INN AT DIVES--GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT]
+
+
+
+
+DIVES: AN INN ON A HIGH-ROAD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A COAST DRIVE.
+
+
+On our return to Villerville we found that the charm of the place, for
+us, was a broken one. We had seen the world; the effect of that
+experience was to produce the common result--there was a fine deposit
+of discontent in the cup of our pleasure.
+
+Madame Fouchet had made use of our absence to settle our destiny; she
+had rented her villa. This was one of the bitter dregs. Another was to
+find that the life of the village seemed to pass us by; it gave us to
+understand, with unflattering frankness, that for strangers who made no
+bargains for the season, it had little or no civility to squander. For
+the Villerville beach, the inn, and the villas were crowded. Mere
+Mouchard was tossing omelettes from morning till night; even Augustine
+was far too hurried to pay her usual visit to the creamery. A
+detachment of Parisian costumes and beribboned nursery maids was
+crowding out the fish-wives and old hags from their stations on the low
+door-steps and the grasses on the cliffs.
+
+Even Fouchet was no longer a familiar figure in the foreground of his
+garden; his roses were blooming now for the present owners of his
+villa. He and madame had betaken themselves to a box of a hut on the
+very outskirts of the village--a miserable little hovel with two rooms
+and a bit of pasture land being the substitute, as a dwelling, for the
+gay villa and its garden along the sea-cliffs. Pity, however, would
+have been entirely wasted on the Fouchet household and their change of
+habitation. Tucked in, cramped, and uncomfortable beneath the low eaves
+of their cabin ceilings, they could now wear away the summer in
+blissful contentment: Were they not living on nothing--on less than
+nothing, in this dark pocket of a _chaumiere_, while their fine house
+yonder was paying for itself handsomely, week after week? The heart
+beats high, in a Norman breast, when the pocket bulges; gold--that is
+better than bread to feel in one's hand.
+
+The whole village wore this triumphant expression--now that the season
+was beginning. Paris had come down to them, at last, to be shorn of its
+strength; angling for pennies in a Parisian pocket was better, far,
+than casting nets into the sea. There was also more contentment in such
+fishing--for true Norman wit.
+
+Only once did the village change its look of triumph to one of polite
+regret; for though it was Norman, it was also French. It remembered, on
+the morning of our departure, that the civility of the farewell costs
+nothing, and like bread prodigally scattered on the waters, may
+perchance bring back a tenfold recompense.
+
+Even the morning arose with a flattering pallor. It was a gray day. The
+low houses were like so many rows of pale faces; the caps of the
+fishwives, as they nodded a farewell, seemed to put the village in half
+mourning.
+
+"You will have a perfect day for your drive--there's nothing better
+than these grays in the French landscape," Renard was saying, at our
+carriage wheels; "they bring out every tone. And the sea is wonderful.
+Pity you're going. Grand day for the mussel-bed. However, I shall see
+you, I shall see you. Remember me to Monsieur Paul; tell him to save me
+a bottle of his famous old wine. Good-by, good-by."
+
+There was a shower of rose-leaves flung out upon us; a great sweep of
+the now familiar beret; a sonorous "Hui!" from our driver, with an
+accompaniment of vigorous whip-snapping, and we were off.
+
+The grayness of the closely-packed houses was soon exchanged for the
+farms lying beneath the elms. With the widening of the distance between
+our carriage-wheels and Villerville, there was soon a great expanse of
+mouse-colored sky and the breath of a silver sea. The fields and
+foliage were softly brilliant; when the light wind stirred the grain,
+the poppies and bluets were as vivid as flowers seen in dreams.
+
+It is easy to understand, I think, why French painters are so enamoured
+of their gray skies--such a background makes even the commonplace wear
+an air of importance. All the tones of the landscape were astonishingly
+serious; the features of the coast and the inland country were as
+significant as if they were meditating an outbreak into speech. It was
+the kind of day that bred reflection; one could put anything one liked
+into the picture with a certainty of its fitting the frame. We were
+putting a certain amount of regret into it; for though Villerville has
+seen us depart with civilized indifference or the stolidity of the
+barbarian--for they are one, we found our own attainments in the
+science of unfeelingness deficient: to look down upon the village from
+the next hill top was like facing a lost joy.
+
+Once on the highroad, however, the life along the shore gave us little
+time for the futility of regret. Regret, at best, is a barren thing:
+like the mule, it is incapable of perpetuating its own mistakes; it
+appears to apologize, indeed, for its stupidity by making its exit as
+speedily as possible. With the next turn of the road we were in fitting
+condition to greet the wildest form of adventure.
+
+Pedlars' carts and the lumbering Normandy farm wagons were, at first,
+our chief companions along the roadway. Here and there a head would
+peep forth from a villa window, or a hand be stretched out into the air
+to see if any rain was falling from the moist sky. The farms were
+quieter than usual; there was an air of patient waiting in the
+courtyards, among the blouses and standing cattle, as though both man
+and beast were there in attendance on the day and the weather, till the
+latter could come to the point of a final decision in regard to the
+rain.
+
+Finally, as we were nearing Trouville, the big drops fell. The
+grain-fields were soon bent double beneath the spasmodic shower. The
+poppies were drenched, so were the cobble paved courtyards; only the
+geese and the regiment of the ducks came abroad to revel in the
+downpour. The villas were hermetically sealed now--their summer finery
+was not made for a wetting. The landscape had no such reserves; it gave
+itself up to the light summer shower as if it knew that its raiment,
+like Rachel's, when dampened the better to take her plastic outlines,
+only gained in tone and loveliness the closer it fitted the recumbent
+figure of mother earth.
+
+Our coachman could never have been mistaken for any other than a good
+Norman. He was endowed with the gift of oratory peculiar to the
+country; and his profanity was enriched with all the flavor of the
+provincial's elation in the committing of sin. From the earliest moment
+of our starting, the stream of his talk had been unending. His
+vocabulary was such as to have excited the envy and despair of a French
+realist, impassioned in the pursuit of "the word."
+
+"_Hui!--b-r-r-r!_"--This was the most common of his salutations to his
+horse. It was the Norman coachman's familiar apostrophe, impossible of
+imitation; it was also one no Norman horse who respects himself moves
+an inch without first hearing. Chat Noir was a horse of purest Norman
+ancestry; his Percheron blood was as untainted as his intelligence was
+unclouded by having no mixtures of tongues with which to deal. His
+owner's "_Hui!_" lifted him with arrowy lightness to the top of a hill.
+The deeper "_Bougre_" steadied his nerve for a good mile of unbroken
+trotting. Any toil is pleasant in the gray of a cool morning, with a
+friend holding the reins who is a gifted monologist; even imprecations,
+rightly administered, are only lively punctuations to really talented
+speech.
+
+"Come, my beauty, take in thy breath--courage! The hill is before thee!
+Curse thy withered legs, and is it thus thou stumbleth? On--up with
+thee and that mountain of flesh thou carriest about with thee." And the
+mountain of flesh would be lifted--it was carried as lightly by the
+finely-feathered legs and the broad haunches as if the firm avoirdupois
+were so much gossamer tissue. On and on the neat, strong hoofs rang
+their metallic click, clack along the smooth macadam. They had carried
+us past the farm-houses, the cliffs, the meadows, and the Norman roofed
+manoirs buried in their apple-orchards. These same hoofs were now
+carefully, dexterously picking their way down the steep hill that leads
+directly into the city of the Trouville villas.
+
+Presently, the hoofs came to a sudden halt, from sheer amazement. What
+was this order, this command the quick Percheron hearing had overheard?
+Not to go any farther into this summer city--not to go down to its
+sand-beach--not to wander through the labyrinth of its gay little
+streets?--Verily, it is the fate of a good horse, how often! to carry
+fools, and the destiny of intelligence to serve those deficient in mind
+and sense.
+
+The criticism on our choice of direction was announced by the hoofs
+turning resignedly, with the patient assent of the fatigue that is bred
+of disgust, into one of the upper Trouville by-streets. Our coachman
+contented himself with a commiserating shrug and a prolonged flow of
+explanation. Perhaps _ces dames_, being strangers, did not know that
+Trouville was now beginning its real season--its season of baths? The
+Casino, in truth, was only opened a week since; but we could hear the
+band even now playing above the noise of the waves. And behold, the
+villas were filling; each day some _grande dame_ came down to take
+possession of her house by the sea.
+
+How could we hope to make a Frenchman comprehend an instinctive impulse
+to turn our backs on the Trouville world? What, pray, had we just now
+to do with fashion--with the purring accents of boudoirs, with all the
+life we had run away from? Surely the romance--the charm of our present
+experiences would be put to flight once we exchanged salutations with
+the _beau monde_--with that world that is so sceptical of any pleasure
+save that which blooms in its own hot-houses, and so disdainful of all
+forms of life save those that are modelled on fashion's types. We had
+fled from cities to escape all this; were we, forsooth, to be pushed
+into the motley crowd of commonplace pleasure-seekers because of the
+scorn of a human creature, and the mute criticism of a beast that was
+hired to do the bidding of his betters? The world of fashion was one to
+be looked out upon as a part of the general _mise-en-scene_--as a bit
+of the universal decoration of this vast amphitheatre of the Normandy
+beaches.
+
+Chat noir had little reverence for philosophic reflections; he turned a
+sharp corner just then; he stopped short, directly in front of the
+broad windows of a confectioner's shop. This time he did not appeal in
+vain to the strangers with a barbarian's contempt for the great world.
+The brisk drive and the salt in the air were stimulants to appetite to
+be respected; it is not every day the palate has so fine an edge.
+
+"_Du the, mesdames--a l'Anglaise?_" a neatly-corsetted shape, in black,
+to set off a pair of dazzling pink cheeks, shone out behind rows of
+apricot tarts. There was also a cap that conveyed to one, through the
+medium of pink bows, the capacities of coquetry that lay in the depths
+of the rich brown eyes beneath them. The attractive shape emerged at
+once from behind the counter, to set chairs about the little table. We
+were bidden to be seated with an air of smiling grace, one that
+invested the act with the emphasis of genuine hospitality. Soon a great
+clatter arose in the rear of the shop; opinions and counter-opinions
+were being volubly exchanged in shrill French, as to whether the water
+should or should not come to a boil; also as to whether the leaves of
+oolong or of green should be chosen for our beverage. The cap fluttered
+in several times to ask, with exquisite politeness--a politeness which
+could not wholly veil the hidden anxiety--our own tastes and
+preferences. When the cap returned to the battling forces behind the
+screen, armed with the authority of our confessed prejudices, a new war
+of tongues arose. The fate of nations, trembling on the turn of a
+battle, might have been settled before that pot of water, so watched
+and guarded over, was brought to a boil. When, finally, the little tea
+service was brought in, every detail was perfect in taste and
+appointment, except the tea; the action that had held out valiantly,
+that the water should not boil, had prevailed, as the half-soaked
+tea-leaves floating on top of our full cups triumphantly proclaimed.
+
+We sipped the beverage, agreeing Balzac had well named it _ce boisson
+fade et melancolique_; the novelist's disdain being the better
+understood as we reflected he had doubtless only tasted it as concocted
+by French ineptitude. We were very merry over the liver-colored liquid,
+as we sipped it and quoted Balzac. But not for a moment had our
+merriment deceived the brown eyes and the fluttering cap-ribbons. A
+little drama of remorse was soon played for our benefit. It was she,
+her very self, the cap protested--as she pointed a tragic finger at the
+swelling, rounded line of her firm bodice--it was she who had insisted
+that the water should _not_ boil; there had been ladies--_des vraies
+anglaises_--here, only last summer, who would not that the water should
+boil, when their tea was made. And now, it appears that they were
+wrong, "_c'etait probablement une fantaisie de la part de ces dames_."
+Would we wait for another cup? It would take but an instant, it was a
+little mistake, so easy to remedy. But this mistake, like many another,
+like crime, for instance, could never be remedied, we smilingly told
+her; a smile that changed her solicitous remorse to a humorist's view
+of the situation.
+
+Another humorist, one accustomed to view the world from heights known
+as trapeze elevations, we met a little later on our way out of the
+narrow upper streets; he was also looking down over Trouville. It was a
+motley figure in a Pierrot garb, with a smaller striped body, both in
+the stage pallor of their trade. These were somewhat startling objects
+to confront on a Normandy high-road. For clowns, however, taken by
+surprise, they were astonishingly civil. They passed their "_bonjour_"
+to us and to the coachman as glibly as though accosting us from the
+commoner circus distance.
+
+"They have come to taste of the fresh air, they have," laconically
+remarked our driver, as his round Norman eyes ran over the muscled
+bodies of the two athletes. "I had a brother who was one--I had; he was
+a famous one--he was; he broke his neck once, when the net had been
+forgotten. They all do it--_ils se cassent le cou tous, tot ou tard!
+Allons toi t'as peur, toi?_" Chat noir's great back was quivering with
+fear; he had no taste, himself, for shapes like these, spectral and wan
+as ghosts, walking about in the sun. He took us as far away as
+possible, and as quickly, from these reminders of the thing men call
+pleasure.
+
+We, meanwhile, were asking Pierre for a certain promised chateau, one
+famous for its beauty, between Trouville and Cabourg.
+
+"It is here, madame--the chateau," he said, at last.
+
+Two lions couchant, seated on wide pedestals beneath a company of noble
+trees, were the only visible inhabitants of the dwelling. There was a
+sweep of gardens: terraces that picked their way daintily down the
+cliffs toward the sea, a mansard roof that covered a large
+mansion--these were the sole aspects of chateau life to keep the trees
+company. In spite of Pierre's urgent insistence that the view was even
+more beautiful than the one from the hill, we refused to exchange our
+first experiences of the beauty of the prospect for a second which
+would be certain to invite criticism; for it is ever the critic in us
+that plays the part of Bluebeard to our many-wived illusions.
+
+We passed between the hedgerows with not even a sigh of regret. We were
+presently rewarded by something better than an illusion--by reality,
+which, at its best, can afford to laugh at the spectral shadow of
+itself. Near the chateau there lived on, the remnant of a hamlet. It
+was a hamlet, apparently, that boasted only one farm-house; and the
+farm-house could show but a single hayrick. Beneath the sloping roof,
+modelled into shape by a pitchfork and whose symmetrical lines put
+Mansard's clumsy creation yonder to the blush, sat an old couple--a man
+and a woman. Both were old, with the rounded backs of the laborer; the
+woman's hand was lying in the man's open palm, while his free arm was
+clasped about her neck with all the tenderness of young love. Both of
+the old heads were laid back on the pillow made by the freshly-piled
+grasses. They had done a long day's work already, before the sun had
+reached its meridian; they were weary and resting here before they went
+back to their toil.
+
+This was better than the view; it made life seem finer than nature; how
+rich these two poor old things looked, with only their poverty about
+them!
+
+Meanwhile Pierre had quickly changed the rural _mise-en-scene_; instead
+of pink hawthorn hedges we were in the midst of young forest trees. Why
+is it that a forest is always a surprise in France? Is it that we have
+such a respect for French thrift, that a real forest seems a waste of
+timber? There are forests and forests; this one seemed almost a
+stripling in its tentative delicacy, compared to the mature splendor of
+Fontainebleau, for example. This forest had the virility of a young
+savage; it was neither dense nor vast; yet, in contrast to the ribbony
+grain fields, and to the finish of the villa parks, was as refreshing
+to the eye as the right chord that strikes upon the ear after a
+succession of trills.
+
+In all this fair Normandy sea-coast, with its wonderful inland
+contrasts, there was but one disappointing note. One looked in vain for
+the old Normandy costumes. The blouse and the close white cap--this is
+all that is left of the wondrous headgear, the short brilliant
+petticoats, the embroidered stomacher, and the Caen and Rouen jewels,
+abroad in the fields only a decade ago.
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulders when asked a question concerning these
+now pre-historic costumes.
+
+ "Ah! mademoiselle, you must see for yourself, that the peasant who
+doesn't despise himself dresses now in the fields as he would in Paris."
+
+As if in confirmation of Pierre's news of the fashions, there stepped
+forth from an avenue of trees, fringing a near farm-house, a
+wedding-party. The bride was in the traditional white of brides; the
+little cortege following the trail of her white gown, was dressed in
+costumes modelled on Bon Marche styles. The coarse peasant faces flamed
+from bonnets more flowery than the fields into which they were passing.
+The men seemed choked in their high collars; the agony of new boots was
+written on faces not used to concealing such form of torture. Even the
+groom was suffering; his bliss was something the gay little bride
+hanging on his arm must take entirely for granted. It was enough
+greatness for the moment to wear broadcloth and a white vest in the
+face of men.
+
+"_Laissez, laissez, Marguerite_, it is clean here; it will look fine on
+the green!" cried the bride to an improvised train-bearer, who had been
+holding up the white alpaca. Then the full splendor of the bridal skirt
+trailed across the freshly mown grasses. An irrepressible murmur of
+admiration welled up from the wedding guests; even Pierre made part of
+the chorus. The bridegroom stopped to mop his face, and to look forth
+proudly, through starting eyeballs, on the splendor of his possessions.
+
+"Ah! Lizette, thou art pretty like that, thou knowest. _Faut
+l'embrasser, tu sais_."
+
+He gave her a kiss full on the lips. The little bride returned the kiss
+with unabashed fervor. Then she burst into a loud fit of laughter.
+
+"How silly you look, Jean, with your collar burst open."
+
+The groom's enthusiasm had been too much for his toilet; the noon sun
+and the excitements of the marriage service had dealt hardly with his
+celluloid fastenings. All the wedding cortege rushed to the rescue.
+Pins, shouts of advice, pieces of twine, rubber fastenings, even
+knives, were offered to the now exploding bridegroom; everyone was
+helping him repair the ravages of his moment of bliss; everyone
+excepting the bride. She sat down upon her train and wept from pure
+rapture of laughter.
+
+Pierre shook his head gravely, as he whipped up his steed.
+
+"Jean will repent it; he'll lose worse things than a button, with
+Lizette. A woman who laughs like that on the threshold of marriage will
+cry before the cradle is rocked, and will make others weep. However,
+Jean won't be thinking of that--to-night."
+
+"Where are they going--along the highroad?"
+
+"Only a short distance. They turn in there," and he pointed with his
+whip to a near lane; "they go to the farm-house now--for the wedding
+dinner. Ah! there'll be some heavy heads to-morrow. For you know, a
+Norman peasant only really eats and drinks well twice in his life--when
+he marries himself and when his daughter marries. Lizette's father is
+rich--the meat and the wines will be good to-night."
+
+Our coachman sighed, as if the thought of the excellence of the coming
+banquet had disturbed his own digestion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT.
+
+
+The wedding party was lost in a thicket. Pierre gave his whip so
+resounding a snap, it was no surprise to find ourselves rolling over
+the cobbles of a village street.
+
+"This is Dives, mesdames, this is the inn!"
+
+Pierre drew up, as he spoke, before a long, low facade.
+
+Now, no one, I take it, in this world enjoys being duped. Surely
+disappointment is only a civil term for the varying degrees of fraud
+practised on the imagination. This inn, apparently, was to be classed
+among such frauds. It did not in the least, externally at least, fulfil
+Renard's promises. He had told us to expect the marvellous and the
+mediaeval in their most approved period. Yet here we were, facing a
+featureless exterior! The facade was built yesterday--that was writ
+large, all over the low, rambling structure. One end, it is true, had a
+gabled end; there was also an old shrine niched in glass beneath the
+gable, and a low Norman gateway with rude letters carved over the arch.
+June was in its glory, and the barrenness of the commonplace structure
+was mercifully hidden by a wreath of pink and amber roses. But one
+scarcely drives twenty miles in the sun to look upon a facade of roses!
+
+Chat noir, meanwhile, was becoming restless. Pierre had managed to keep
+his own patience well in hand. Now, however, he broke forth:
+
+"Shall we enter, my ladies?"
+
+Pierre drove us straight into paradise; for here, at last, within the
+courtyard, was the inn we had come to seek.
+
+A group of low-gabled buildings surrounded an open court. All of the
+buildings were timbered, the diagonal beams of oak so old they were
+black in the sun, and the snowy whiteness of fresh plaster made them
+seem blacker still. The gabled roofs were of varying tones and tints;
+some were red, some mossy green, some as gray as the skin of a mouse;
+all were deeply, plentifully furrowed with the washings of countless
+rains, and they were bearded with moss. There were outside galleries,
+beginning somewhere and ending anywhere. There were open and covered
+outer stairways so laden with vines they could scarce totter to the low
+heights of the chamber doors on which they opened; and there were open
+sheds where huge farm-wagons were rolled close to the most modern of
+Parisian dog-carts. That not a note of contrast might be lacking,
+across the courtyard, in one of the windows beneath a stairway, there
+flashed the gleam of some rich stained glass, spots of color that were
+repeated, with quite a different lustre, in the dappled haunches of
+rows of sturdy Percherons munching their meal in the adjacent stalls.
+Add to such an ensemble a vagrant multitude of rose, honeysuckle,
+clematis, and wistaria vines, all blooming in full rivalry of perfume
+and color; insert in some of the corners and beneath some of the older
+casements archaic bits of sculpture--strange barbaric features with
+beards of Assyrian correctness and forms clad in the rigid draperies of
+the early Jumieges period of the sculptor's art; lance above the roof
+ridges the quaint polychrome finials of the earlier Palissy models; and
+crowd the rough cobble-paved courtyard with a rare and distinguished
+assemblage of flamingoes, peacocks, herons, cockatoos swinging from
+gabled windows, and game-cocks that strut about in company with pink
+doves--and you have the famous inn of Guillaume le Conquerant!
+
+Meanwhile an individual, with fine deep-gray eyes, and a face grave,
+yet kindly, over which a smile was humorously breaking, was patiently
+waiting at our carriage door. He could be no other than Monsieur Paul,
+owner and inn-keeper, also artist, sculptor, carver, restorer, to whom,
+in truth, this miracle of an inn owed its present perfection and
+picturesqueness.
+
+"We have been long expecting you, mesdames," Monsieur Paul's grave
+voice was saying. "Monsieur Renard had written to announce your coming.
+You took the trouble to drive along the coast this fine day? It is
+idyllically lovely, is it not--under such a sun?"
+
+Evidently the moment of enchantment was not to be broken by the worker
+of the spell. Monsieur Paul and his inn were one; if one was a poem the
+other was a poet. The poet was also lined with the man of the practical
+moment. He had quickly summoned a host of serving-people to take charge
+of us and our luggage.
+
+"Lizette, show these ladies to the room of Madame de Sevigne. If they
+desire a sitting-room--to the Marmousets."
+
+The inn-keeper gave his commands in the quiet, well-bred tone of a man
+of the world, to a woman in peasant's dress. She led us past the open
+court to an inner one, where we were confronted with a building still
+older, apparently, than those grouped about the outer quadrangle. The
+peasant passed quickly beneath an overhanging gallery, draped in vines.
+She was next preceding us up a spiral turret stairway; the adjacent
+walls were hung here and there with faded bits of tapestry. Once more
+she turned to lead us along an open gallery; on this several rooms
+appeared to open. On each door a different sign was painted in rude
+Gothic letters. The first was "Chambre de l'Officier;" the second,
+"Chambre du Cure," and the next was flung widely open. It was the room
+of the famous lady of the incomparable Letters. The room might have
+been left--in the yesterday of two centuries--by the lady whose name it
+bore. There was a beautiful Seventeenth century bedstead, a couple of
+wide arm-chairs, with down pillows for seats, and a clothes press with
+the carvings and brass work peculiar to the epoch of Louis XIV. The
+chintz hangings and draperies were in keeping, being copies of the
+brocades of that day. There were portraits in miniature of the
+courtiers and the ladies of the Great Reign on the very ewers and
+basins. On the flounced dressing-table, with its antique glass and a
+diminutive patch-box, now the receptacle of Lubin's powder, a sprig of
+the lovely Rose The was exhaling a faint, far-away century perfume. It
+was surely a stage set for a real comedy; some of these high-coiffed
+ladies, who knows? perhaps Madame de Sevigne herself would come to
+life, and give to the room the only thing it lacked--the living
+presence of that old world grace and speech.
+
+Presently, we sallied forth on a further voyage of discovery. We had
+reached the courtyard when Monsieur Paul crossed it; it was to ask if,
+while waiting for the noon breakfast, we would care to see the kitchen;
+it was, perhaps, different to those now commonly seen in modern taverns.
+
+The kitchen which was thus modestly described as unlike those of our
+own century might easily, except for the appetizing smell of the
+cooking fowls and the meats, have been put under lock and key and
+turned over to a care-taker as a full-fledged culinary museum of
+antiquities. One entire side of the crowded but orderly little room was
+taken up by a huge open fireplace. The logs resting on the great
+andirons were the trunks of full-grown trees. On two of the spits were
+long rows of fowl and legs of mutton roasting; the great chains were
+being slowly turned by a _chef_ in the paper cap of his profession. In
+deep burnished brass bowls lay water-cresses; in Caen dishes of an age
+to make a bric-a-brac collector turn green with envy, a _Bearnaise_
+sauce was being beaten by another gallic master-hand. Along the beams
+hung old Rouen plates and platters; in the numberless carved Normandy
+cupboards gleamed rare bits of Delft and Limoges; the walls may be said
+to have been hung with Normandy brasses, each as burnished as a jewel.
+The floor was sanded and the tables had attained that satiny finish
+which comes only with long usage and tireless use of the brush. There
+was also a shrine and a clock, the latter of antique Norman make and
+design.
+
+The smell of the roasting fowls and the herbs used by the maker of the
+sauces, a hungry palate found even more exciting than this most
+original of kitchens. There was a wine that went with the sauce; this
+fact Monsieur Paul explained, on our sitting down to the noonday meal;
+one which, in remembrance of Monsieur Renard's injunctions, he would
+suggest our trying. He crossed the courtyard and disappeared into the
+bowels of the earth, beneath one of the inn buildings, to bring forth a
+bottle incrusted with layers of moist dirt. This Sauterne was by some,
+Monsieur Paul smilingly explained, considered as among the real
+treasures of the inn. Both it and the sauce, we were enabled to assure
+him a moment later, had that golden softness which make French wines
+and French sauces at their best the rapture of the palate.
+
+In the courtyard, as our breakfast proceeded, a variety of incidents
+was happening. We were facing the open archway; through it one looked
+out upon the high-road. A wheelbarrow passed, trundled by a
+peasant-girl; the barrow stopped, the girl leaving it for an instant to
+cross the court.
+
+"_Bonjour, mere--_"
+
+"_Bonjour, ma fille_--it goes well?" a deep guttural voice responded,
+just outside of the window.
+
+"_Justement_--I came to tell you the mare has foaled and Jean will be
+late to-night."
+
+"_Bien._"
+
+"And Barbarine is still angry--"
+
+"Make up with her, my child--anger is an evil bird to take to one's
+heart," the deep voice went on.
+
+"It is my mother," explained Monsieur Paul. "It is her favorite seat,
+out yonder, on the green bench in the courtyard. I call it her judge's
+bench," he smiled, indulgently, as he went on. "She dispenses justice
+with more authority than any other magistrate in town. I am Mayor, as
+it happens, just now; but madame my mother is far above me, in real
+power. She rules the town and the country about, for miles. Everyone
+comes to her sooner or later for counsel and command. You will soon see
+for yourselves."
+
+A murmur of assent from all the table accompanied Monsieur Paul's
+prophecy.
+
+"_Femme vraiment remarquable_," hoarsely whispered a stout breakfaster,
+behind his napkin, between two spoonsful of his soup.
+
+"Not two in a century like her," said my neighbor.
+
+"No--nor two in all France--_non plus_," retorted the stout man.
+
+"She could rule a kingdom--hey, Paul?"
+
+"She rules me--as you see--and a man is harder to govern than a
+province, they say," smiled Monsieur Paul with a humorous relish,
+obviously the offspring of experience. "In France, mesdames," he added,
+a sweeter look of feeling coming into the deep eyes, "you see we are
+always children--_toujours enfants_--as long as the mother lives. We
+are never really old till she dies. May the good God preserve her!" and
+he lifted his glass toward the green bench. The table drank the toast,
+in silence.
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLES--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE GREEN BENCH.
+
+
+In the course of the first few days we learned what all Dives had known
+for the past fifty years or so--that the focal point of interest in the
+inn was centred in Madame Le Mois. She drew us, as she had the country
+around for miles, to circle close about her green bench.
+
+The bench was placed at the best possible point for one who, between
+dawn and darkness, made it the business of her life to keep her eye on
+her world. Not the tiniest mouse nor the most spectral shade could
+enter or slip away beneath the open archway without undergoing
+inspection from that omniscient eye, that seemed never to blink nor to
+grow weary. This same eye could keep its watch, also, over the entire
+establishment, with no need of the huge body to which it was attached
+moving a hair's-breadth. Was it Nitouche, the head-cook, who was
+grumbling because the kitchen-wench had not scoured the brass saucepans
+to the last point of mirrory brightness? Behold both Nitouche and the
+trembling peasant-girl, together with the brasses as evidence, all
+could be brought at an instant's call, into the open court. Were the
+maids--were Marianne or Lizette neglecting their work to flirt with the
+coachmen in the sheds yonder?
+
+"_Allons, mes filles--doucement, la-bas--et vos lits? qui les fait--les
+bons saints du paradis, peut-etre?_" And Marianne and Lizette would
+slink away to the waiting beds. Nothing escaped this eye. If the _poule
+sultane_ was gone lame, limping in the inner quadrangle, madame's eye
+saw the trouble--a thorn in the left claw, before the feathered cripple
+had had time to reach her objective point, her mistress's capacious
+lap, and the healing touch of her skilful surgeon's fingers. Neither
+were the cockatoes nor the white parrots given license to make all the
+noise in the court-yard. When madame had an unusually loquacious
+moment, these more strictly professional conversationists were taught
+their place.
+
+"_E'ben, toi_--and thou wishest to proclaim to the world what a gymnast
+thou art--swinging on thy perch? Quietly, quietly, there are also
+others who wish to praise themselves! And now, my child, you were
+telling me how good you had been to your old grandmother, and how she
+scolded you. Well, and how about obedience to our parents, _hein_--how
+about that?" This, as the old face bent to the maiden beside her.
+
+There was one, assuredly, who had not failed in his duty to his
+parents. Monsieur Paul's whole life, as we learned later, had been a
+willing sacrifice to the unconscious tyranny of his mother's affection.
+The son was gifted with those gifts which, in a Parisian atelier, would
+easily have made him successful, if not famous. He had the artistic
+endowment in an unusual degree; it was all one to him, whether he
+modelled in clay, or carved in wood, or stone, or built a house, or
+restored old bric-a-brac. He had inherited the old world roundness of
+artistic ability--his was the plastic renascent touch that might have
+developed into that of a Giotto or a Benvenuto.
+
+It was such a sacrifice as this that he had lain at his mother's feet.
+
+Think you for an instant the clever, witty, canny woman in Madame Le
+Mois looked upon her son's renouncing the world of Paris, and holding
+to the glories of Dives and their famous inn in the light of a
+sacrifice? "_Parbleu!_" she would explode, when the subject was touched
+on, "it was a lucky thing for him that Paul had had an old mother to
+keep him from burning his fingers. Paris! What did the provinces want
+with Paris? Paris had need enough of them, the great, idle, shiftless,
+dissipated, cruel old city, that ground all their sons to powder, and
+then scattered their ashes abroad like so many cinders. Oh, yes, Paris
+couldn't get along without the provinces, to plunder and rob, to seduce
+their sons away from living good, pure lives, and to suck these lives
+as a pig would a trough of fresh water! But the provinces, if they
+valued their souls, shunned Paris as they would the devil. And as for
+artists--when it came to the young of the provinces, who thought they
+could paint or model--
+
+"_Tenez, madame_--this is what Paris does for our young. My neighbor
+yonder," and she pointed, as only Frenchwomen point, sticking her thumb
+into the air to designate a point back of her bench, "my neighbor had a
+son like Paul. He too was always niggling at something. He niggled so
+well a rich cousin sent him up to Paris. Well, in ten years he comes
+back, famous, rich, too, with a wife and even a child. The
+establishment is complete. Well, they come here to breakfast one fine
+morning, with his mother, whom he put at a side table, with his
+nurse--he is ashamed of his mother, you see. Well, then his wife talks
+and I hear her. '_Mais, mon Charles, c'est toi qui est le plus
+fameux--il n'y a que toi! Tu es un dieu, tu sais--il n'y a pas deux
+comme toi!_' The famous one deigns to smile then, and to eat of his
+breakfast. His digestion had gone wrong, it appears. The _Figaro_ had
+placed his name second on a certain list, _after_ a rival's! He alone
+must be great--there must not be another god of painting save him! He!
+He! that's fine, that's greatness--to lose one's appetite because
+another is praised, and to be ashamed of one's old mother!"
+
+Madame Le Mois's face, for a moment, was terrible to look upon. Even in
+her kindliest moments hers was a severe countenance, in spite of the
+true Norman curves in mouth and nostril--the laughter-loving curves.
+Presently, however, the fierceness of her severity melted; she had
+caught sight of her son. He was passing her, now, with the wine bottles
+for dinner piled up in his arms.
+
+"You see," croaked the mother, in an exultant whisper, "I've saved him
+from all that--he's happy, for he still works. In the winter he can
+amuse himself, when he likes, with his carving and paintbrushes. Ah,
+_tiens, du monde qui arrive!_" And the old woman seated herself, with
+an air of great dignity, to receive the new-comers.
+
+The world that came in under the low archway was of an altogether
+different character from any we had as yet seen. In a satin-lined
+victoria, amid the cushions, lay a young and lovely-eyed Anonyma.
+Seated beside her was a weak-featured man, with a huge flower
+decorating his coat lappel. This latter individual divided the seat
+with an army of small dogs who leaped forth as the carriage stopped.
+
+Madame Le Mois remained immovable on her bench. Her face was as
+enigmatic as her voice, as it gave Suzette the order to show the lady
+to the salon bleu. The high Louis XV. slipper, as it picked its way
+carefully after Suzette, never seemed more distinctly astray than when
+its fair wearer confided her safety to the insecure footing of the
+rough, uneven cobbles. In a brief half-hour the frou-frou of her silken
+skirts was once more sweeping the court-yard. She and her companion and
+the dogs chose the open air and a tent of sky for their
+banqueting-hall. Soon all were seated at one of the many tables placed
+near the kitchen, beneath the rose-vines.
+
+Madame gave the pair a keen, dissecting glance. Her verdict was
+delivered more in the emphasis of her shrug and the humor of her broad
+wink than in the loud-whispered "_Comme vous voyez, chere dame, de
+toutes sortes ici, chez nous--mais--toujours bon genre!_"
+
+The laughter of one who could not choose her world was stopped,
+suddenly, by the dipping of the thick fingers into an old snuff-box.
+That very afternoon the court-yard saw another arrival; this one was
+treated in quite a different spirit.
+
+A dog-cart was briskly driven into the yard by a gentleman who did not
+appear to be in the best of humor. He drew his horse up with a sudden
+fierceness; he as fiercely called out for the hostler. Monsieur Paul
+bit his lip; but he composedly confronted the disturbed countenance
+perched on the driver's seat. The gentleman wished.
+
+"I want indemnity--that is what I want. Indemnity for my horse," cried
+out a thick, coarse voice, with insolent authority.
+
+"For your horse? I do not think I understand--"
+
+"O--h, I presume not," retorted the man, still more insolently; "people
+don't usually understand when they have to pay. I came here a week ago,
+and stayed two days; and you starved my horse--and he died--that is
+what happened--he died!"
+
+The whole court-yard now rang with the cries of the assembled
+household. The high, angry tones had called together the last
+serving-man and scullery-maid; the cooks had come out from their
+kitchens; they were brandishing their long-handled saucepans. The
+peasant-women were shrieking in concert with the hostlers, who were
+raising their arms to heaven in proof of their innocence. Dogs, cats,
+cockatoes swinging on their perches, peacocks, parrots, pelicans, and
+every one of the cocks swarmed from the barnyards and garden and
+cellars, to add their shrill cries and shrieks to the universal babel.
+
+Meanwhile, calm and unruffled as a Hindoo goddess, and strikingly
+similar in general massiveness of structure and proportion to the
+common reproduction of such deities, sat Madame Le Mois. She went on
+with her usual occupation; she was dipping fresh-cut salad leaves into
+great bowls of water as quietly as if only her own little family were
+assembled before her. Once only she lifted her heavily-moulded,
+sagacious eyebrow at the irate dog-cart driver, as if to measure his
+pitiful strength. She allowed the fellow, however, to touch the point
+of abuse before she crushed him.
+
+Her first sentence reduced him to the ignominy of silence. All her
+people were also silent. What, the deep sarcastic voice chanted on the
+still air--what, this gentleman's horse had died--and yet he had waited
+a whole week to tell them of the great news? He was, of a truth,
+altogether too considerate. His own memory, perhaps, was also a short
+one, since it told him nothing of the condition in which the poor beast
+had arrived, dropping with fatigue, wet with sweat, his mouth all
+blood, and an eye as of one who already was past the consciousness of
+his suffering? Ah no, monsieur should go to those who also had short
+memories.
+
+"For we use our eyes--we do. We are used to deal with gentlemen--with
+Christians" (the Hebrew nose of the owner of the dead horse, even more
+plainly abused the privilege of its pedigree in proving its race, by
+turning downward, at this onslaught of the mere's satire), "as I said,
+with Christians," continued the mere, pitilessly. "And do those
+gentlemen complain and put upon us the death of their horses? No, my
+fine sir, they return--_ils reviennent, et sont revenus depuis la
+Conquete!_"
+
+With this fine climax madame announced the court as closed. She bowed
+disdainfully, with a grand and magisterial air, to the defeated
+claimant, who crept away, sulkily, through the low archway.
+
+"That is the way to deal with such vermin, Paul; whip them, and they
+turn tail." And the mere shook out a great laugh from her broad bosom,
+as she regaled her wide nostrils with a fresh pinch of snuff. The
+assembled household echoed the laugh, seasoning it with the glee of
+scorn, as each went to his allotted place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE WORLD THAT CAME TO DIVES.
+
+
+It was a world of many mixtures, of various ranks and habits of life
+that found its way under the old archway, and sat down at the table
+d'hote breakfasts and dinners. Madame and her gifted son were far too
+clever to attempt to play the mistaken part of Providence; there was no
+pointed assortment made of the sheep and the goats; at least, not in a
+way to suggest the most remote intention of any such separation being
+premeditated. Such separation as there was came about in the most
+natural and in the pleasantest possible fashion. When Petitjean, the
+pedler, and his wife drove in under the Gothic sign, the huge lumbering
+vehicle was as quickly surrounded as when any of the neighboring
+notabilities arrived in emblazoned chariots. Madame was the first to
+waddle forward, nodding up toward the open hood as, with a short,
+brisk, business "_Bonjour_," she welcomed the head of Petitjean and his
+sharp-eyed spouse looking over the aprons.
+
+The pedler is always popular with his world and Dives knew Petitjean to
+be as honest as a pedler can ever hope to be in a world where small
+pence are only made large by some one being sacrificed on the altar of
+duplicity. Therefore it was that Petitjean's hearse-like cart was
+always a welcome visitor;--one could at least be as sure of a just
+return for one's money in trading with a pedler as from any other
+source in this thieving world. In the end, one always got something
+else besides the bargain to carry away with one. For Petitjean knew all
+the gossip of the province; after dinner, when the stiff cider was
+working in his veins, he would be certain to tell all one wanted to
+know. Even Madame Le Mois, whose days were too busy in summer to
+include the daily reading of her newspaper, had grown dependent, in
+these her later years, on such sources of information as the peddler's
+garrulous tongue supplied. In the end she had found his talent for
+fiction quite as reliable as that of the journalists, besides being
+infinitely more entertaining, abounding in personalities which were the
+more racy, as the pedler felt himself to be exempt from that curse of
+responsibility, which, in French journalism, is so often a barrier to
+the full play of one's talent.
+
+Therefore it was that Petitjean and his bright-eyed spouse were always
+made welcome at Dives.
+
+"It goes well, Madame Jean? Ah, there you are. Well, _hein_, also? It
+is long since we saw you."
+
+"Ah, madame, centuries, it is centuries since we were here. But what
+will you have? with the bad season, the rains, the banks failing,
+the--but you, madame, are well? And Monsieur Paul?" "_Ah, ca va tout
+doucement_ Paul is well, the good God be praised, but I--I perish day
+by day" At which the entire court-yard was certain to burst into
+laughing protest. For the whole household of Guillaume le Conquerant
+was quite sure to be assembled about the great wheels of the pedler's
+wagon--only to look, not to buy, not yet. Petitjean, and his wife had
+not dined yet, and a pedler's hunger is something to be respected--one
+made money by waiting for the hour of digestion. The little crowd of
+maids, hostlers, cooks, and scullery wenches, were only here to whet
+their appetite, and to greet Petitjean. Nitouche, the head _chef_, put
+a little extra garlic in his sauces that day. But in spite of this
+compliment to their palate, the pedler and his wife dined in the
+smaller room off the kitchen;--Madame was desolated, but the
+_salle-a-manger_ was crowded just now. One was really suffocated in
+there these days! Therefore it was that the two ate the herbaceous
+sauces with an extra relish, as those conscious of having a larger
+space for the play of vagrant elbows than their less fortunate
+brethren. The gossip and trading came later. On the edge of the fading
+daylight there was still time to see; the chosen articles could easily
+be taken into the brightly lit kitchen to be passed before the lamps.
+After the buying and bargaining came the talking. All the household
+could find time to spend the evening on the old benches; these latter
+lined the sidewalk just beneath the low kitchen casements. They had
+been here for many a long year.
+
+What a history of Dives these old benches could have told! What
+troopers, and beggars, and cowled monks, and wayfarers had sat
+there!--each sitter helping to wear away the wood till it had come to
+have the depressions of a drinking-trough. Night after night in the
+long centuries, as the darkness fell upon the hamlet--what tales and
+confidences, and what murmured anguish of remorse, what cries for help,
+what gay talk and light song must have welled up into the dome of sky!
+
+Once, as we sat within the court-yard, under the stars, a young voice
+sang out. It was so still and quiet every word the youth phrased was as
+clear as his fresh young voice.
+
+"_Tiens_--it is Mathieu--he is singing _Les Oreillers!_" cried Monsieur
+Paul, with an accent of pride in his own tone.
+
+The young voice sang on:
+
+  "_J'arrive en ce pays
+  De Basse Normandie,
+  Vous dire une chanson,
+  S'il plait la compagnie!_"
+
+"It is an old Norman bridal song," Monsieur Paul went on, lowering his
+voice. "One I taught a lot of young boys and lads last winter--for a
+wedding held here--in the inn."
+
+Still the fresh notes filled the air:
+
+  "_Les amours sont partis
+  Dans un bateau de verre;
+  Le bateau a casse
+  a casse--
+  Les amours sont parterre._"
+
+"How the old women laughed--and cried--at once! It was years since they
+had heard it--the old song. And when these boys--their sons and
+grandsons--sang it, and I had trained them well--they wept for pure
+delight."
+
+Again the song went on:
+
+  "_Ouvrez la porte, ouvrez!
+  Nouvelle mariee,
+  Car si vous ne l'ouvrez
+  Vous serez accusee_"
+
+"I dressed all the young girls in old costumes," our friend continued,
+still in a whisper. "I ransacked all the old chests and closets about
+here. I got the ladies of the chateaux near by to aid me; they were so
+interested that many came down from Paris to see the wedding. It was a
+pretty sight, each in a different dress! Every century since the
+thirteenth was represented."
+
+  "_Attendez a demain,
+  La fraiche matinee,
+  Quand mon oiseau prive
+  Aura pris sa volee!_"
+
+Clear, strong, free rang the young tenor's voice--and then it broke
+into "_Comment--tu dis que Claire est la?_" whereat Monsieur Paul
+smiled.
+
+"That will be the next wedding--what shall I devise for that? That will
+also be the ending of a long lawsuit. But he should have sung the last
+verse--the prettiest of all. Mathieu!" Paul lifted his voice, calling
+into the dark.
+
+_"Oui, Monsieur Paul!"_
+
+"Sing us the last verse--"
+
+  "_Dans ce jardin du Roi
+  A pris sa reposee,
+  Cueillant le romarin
+  La--vande--bouton--nee--_"
+
+The last notes were but faint vibrations, coming from a lengthening
+distance.
+
+"Ah!" and Monsieur Paul breathed a sigh. "They don't care about
+singing. They are doing it all the time they are so much in love. The
+fathers' lawsuit ended only last month. They've waited three
+years--happy Claire--happy Mathieu!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE CONVERSATION OF PATRIOTS.
+
+
+The world that found its way to the mayor's table at this early period
+of the summer season was largely composed of the class that travels
+chiefly to amuse others. The commercial gentlemen in France, however,
+have the outward bearing of those who travel to amuse themselves. The
+selling of other people's goods--it is surely as good an excuse as any
+other for seeing the world! Such an occupation offers an orator, one
+gifted in conversational talents--talents it would be a pity to see
+buried in the domestic napkin--a fine arena for display.
+
+The French commercial traveller is indeed a genus apart; he makes a
+fetish of his trade; he preaches his propaganda. The fat and the lean,
+the tall and the little, the well or meanly dressed representatives of
+the great French houses who sat down to dine, as our neighbors or
+_vis-a-vis_, night after night, were, on the whole, a great credit to
+their country. Their manners might have been mistaken for those of a
+higher rank; their gifts as talkers were of such an order as to make
+listening the better part of discretion.
+
+Dining is always a serious act in France. At this inn the sauces of the
+_chef_, with their reputation behind them, and the proof of their real
+excellence before one, the dinner-hour was elevated to the importance
+of a ceremony. How the petty merchants and the commercial gentlemen
+ate, at first in silence, as if respecting the appeal imposed by a
+great hunger, and then warming into talk as the acid cider was passed
+again and again! What crunching of the sturdy, dark-colored bread
+between the great knuckles! What huge helps of the famous sauces! What
+insatiable appetites! What nice appreciation of the right touch of the
+tricksy garlic! What nodding of heads, clinking of glasses, and warmth
+of friendship established over the wine-cups! At dessert everyone
+talked at once. On one occasion the subject of Gambetta's death was
+touched on; all the table, as one man, broke out into an effervescence
+of political babble.
+
+"What a loss! What a death-blow to France was his death!" exclaimed a
+heavy young man in a pink cravat.
+
+"If Gambetta had lived, Alsace and Lorraine would be ours now, without
+the firing of a gun!" added an elderly merchant at the foot of the
+table.
+
+"Ah--h! without the firing of a gun they will come to us yet. I tell
+you, without the firing of a gun--unless we insist on a battle,"
+explosively rejoined a fiery-hued little man sitting next to Monsieur
+Paul; "but you will see--we shall insist. There is between us and
+Germany an inextinguishable hate--and we must kill, kill, right and
+left!"
+
+"_Allons--allons!_" protested the table, in chorus.
+
+"Yes, yes, a general massacre, that is what we want; that is what we
+must have. Men, women, and children--all must fall. I am a married
+man--but not a woman or a child shall escape--when the time comes,"
+continued the fiery-eyed man, getting more and more ferocious as he
+warmed with the thought of his revenge.
+
+"What a monster!" broke in Madame Le Mois, her deep base notes
+unruffled by the spectacle of her bloodthirsty neighbor's violence;
+"you--to bayonet a woman with a child in her arms!"
+
+"I would--I would--"
+
+"Then you would be more cruel than they were. They treated our women
+with respect."
+
+There was a murmur of assenting applause, at this sentiment of justice,
+from the table. But the fiery-eyed man was not to be put down.
+
+"Oh, yes, they were generous enough in '71, but I should remember their
+insults of 1815!"
+
+"_Ancienne histoire--ca_" said the mere, dismissing the subject, with a
+humorous wink at the table.
+
+"As you see," was Monsieur Paul's comment on the conversation, as we
+were taking our after-dinner stroll in the garden--"as you see, that
+sort of person is the bad element in our country--the dangerous
+element--unreasoning, revengeful, and ignorant. It is such men as he
+who still uphold hatreds and keep the flame alive. It is better to have
+no talent at all for politics--to be harmless like me, for instance,
+whose worst vice is to buy up old laces and carvings."
+
+"And roses--"
+
+"Yes--that is another of my vices--to perpetuate the old varieties.
+They call me along our coast the millionnaire--of roses! Will you have
+a 'Marie Louise,' mademoiselle?"
+
+The garden was as complete in its old time aspect as the rest of the
+inn belongings. Only the older, rarer varieties of flowers and rose
+stalks had been chosen to bloom within the beautifully arranged
+inclosure. _Citronnelle_, purple irises, fringed asters, sage,
+lavender, _rose-peche_, bachelor's-button, _the d'Horace_, and the
+wonderful electric fraxinelle, these and many other shrubs and plants
+of the older centuries were massed here with the taste of one difficult
+to please in horticultural arrangements. Our after-dinner walks became
+an event in our day. At that hour the press of the day's work was over,
+and Madame Mere or Monsieur Paul were always ready to join us for a
+stroll.
+
+"For myself, I do not like large gardens," Monsieur Paul remarked,
+during one of these after-dinner saunters. "The monks, in the old days,
+knew just the right size a garden should be--small and sheltered, with
+walls--like a strong arm about a pretty woman--to protect the shrubs
+and flowers. One should enter the garden, also, by a gate which must
+click as it closes--the click tickles the imagination--it is the sound
+henceforth connected with silence, with perfumes and seclusion. How far
+away we seem now, do we not?--from the bustle of the inn
+court-yard--and yet I could throw a stone into it."
+
+The only saunterers besides ourselves were the flamingo, who,
+cautiously, timorously picked his way--as if he were conscious he was
+only a bunch of feathers hoisted on stilts; the white parrot, who was
+wabbling across the lawn to a favorite perch in the leaves of a
+tropical palm; and the peacock, whose train had been spread with a due
+regard to effect across a bed of purple irises, with a view to
+annihilating the brilliancy of their rival hues.
+
+The bit of sky framed by these four garden walls always seemed more
+delicate in tone than that which covered the open court-yard. The birds
+in the bushes had moments of melodious outbursts they did not,
+apparently, indulge in along the high-road. And what with the fading
+lights, the stars pricking their way among the palms, the scents of
+flowers, and the talk of a poet, it is little wonder that this twilight
+hour in the old garden was certain to be the most lyrical of the
+twenty-four.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+IN LA CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS.
+
+
+"It is the winters, mesdames, that are hard to bear. They are
+long--they are dull. No one passes along the high-road. It is then,
+when sometimes the snow is piled knee-deep in the court-yard, it is
+then I try to amuse myself a little. Last year I did the Jumieges
+sculptures; they fit in well, do they not?"
+
+It was raining; and Monsieur Paul was paying us an evening call. A
+great fire was burning in the beautiful Francois I. fireplace of our
+sitting-room, the famous Chambre des Marmousets. We had not consented
+that any of the lights should be lit, although the lovely little Louis
+XIV. chandelier and the antique brass sconces were temptingly filled
+with fresh candles. The flames of the great logs would suffer no rival
+illuminations; if the trunks of full-grown trees could not suffice to
+light up an old room, with low-raftered ceilings, and a mass of
+bric-a-brac, what could a few thin waxen candles hope to do?
+
+On many other occasions we had thought our marvellous sitting-room had
+had exceptional moments of beauty. To turn in from the sunlit, open
+court-yard; to pass beneath, the vine-hung gallery; to lift the great
+latch of the low Gothic door and to enter the rich and sumptuous
+interior, where the light came, as in cathedral aisles, only through
+the jewels of fourteenth-century glass; to close the door; to sit
+beneath the prismatic shower, ensconced in a nest of old tapestried
+cushions, and to let the eye wander over the wealth of carvings, of
+ceramics, of Spanish and Normandy trousseaux chests, on the collection
+of antique chairs, Dutch porcelains, and priceless embroideries--all
+the riches of a museum in a living-room--such a moment in the
+Marmousets we had tested again and again with delectable results. At
+twilight, also, when the garden was submerged in dew, this old
+seigneurial chamber was a retreat fit for a sybarite or a modern
+aesthete. The stillness, the soft luxurious cushions, the rich dusk
+thickening in the corners, the complete isolation of the old room from
+the noise and tumult of the inn life, its curious, its delightful
+unmodernness, made this Marmouset room an ideal setting for any
+mediaeval picture. Even a sentiment tinctured with modern cynicism
+would, I think, have borrowed a little antique fervor, if, like the
+photographic negative our nineteenth-century emotionalism somewhat too
+closely resembles, in its colorless indefiniteness, the sentiment were
+sufficiently exposed, in point of time and degree of sensitiveness, to
+the charm of these old surroundings.
+
+On this particular evening, however, the pattering of the rain without
+on the cobbles and the great blaze of the fire within, made the old
+room seem more beautiful than we had yet seen it. Perhaps the capture
+of our host as a guest was the added treasure needed to complete our
+collection. Monsieur Paul himself was in a mood of prodigal liberality;
+he was, as he himself neatly termed the phrase, ripe for confession;
+not a secret should escape revelation; all the inn mysteries should
+yield up the fiction of their frauds; the full nakedness of fact should
+be given to us.
+
+"You see, _cheres dames_, it is not so difficult to create the
+beautiful, if one has a little taste and great patience. My inn--it has
+become my hobby, my pride, my wife, my children. Some men marry their
+art, I espoused my inn. I found her poor, tattered, broken-down, in
+health, if you will; verily, as your Shakespeare says of some country
+wench: 'a poor thing but mine own.'" Monsieur Paul's possession of the
+English language was scarcely as complete as the storehouse of his
+memory. He would have been surprised, doubtless, to learn he had called
+poor Audrey, "a pure ting, buttaire my noon!"
+
+"She was, however," he continued, securely, in his own richer Norman,
+"though a wench, a beautiful one. And I vowed to make her glorious.
+'She shall be famous,' I vowed, and--and--better than most men I have
+kept my vow. All France now has heard of Guillaume le Conquerant!"
+
+The pride Monsieur Paul took in his inn was indeed a fine thing to see.
+The years of toil he had spent on its walls and in its embellishment
+had brought him the recompense much giving always brings; it had
+enriched him quite as much as the wealth of his taste and talent had
+bequeathed to the inn. Latterly, he said, he had travelled much, his
+collection of curios and antiquities having called him farther afield
+than many Frenchmen care to wander. His love of Delft had taken him to
+Holland; his passion for Spanish leather to the country of Velasquez;
+he must have a Virgin, a genuine fifteenth-century Virgin, all his own;
+behold her there, in her stiff wooden skirts, a Neapolitan captive. The
+brass braziers yonder, at which the courtiers of the Henris had warmed
+their feet, stamping the night out in cold ante chambers, had been
+secured at Blois; and his collection of tapestries, of stained glass,
+of Normandy brasses, and Breton carvings had made his own coast as
+familiar as the Dives streets.
+
+"The priests who sold me these, madame," he went on, as he picked up a
+priest's chasuble, now doing duty as a table covering "would sell their
+fathers and their mothers. It is all a question of price."
+
+After a review of the curios came the history of the human collection
+of antiquities who had peopled the inn and this old room.
+
+Many and various had been the visitors who had slept and dined here and
+gone forth on their travels along the high-road.
+
+The inn had had a noble origin; it had been built by no less a
+personage than the great William himself. He had deemed the spot a
+fitting one in which to build his boats to start forth for his modest
+project of conquering England. He could watch their construction in the
+waters of Dives River--that flows still, out yonder, among the grasses
+of the sea-meadows. For some years the Norman dukes held to the inn, in
+memory of the success of that clever boat-building. Then for five
+centuries the inn became a manoir--the seigneurial residence of a
+certain Sieur de Semilly. It was his arms we saw yonder, joined to
+those of Savoy, in the door panel, one of the family having married
+into a branch of that great house.
+
+Of the famous ones of the world who had travelled along this Caen
+post-road and stopped the night here, humanly tired, like any other
+humble wayfarer, was a hurried visit from that king who loved his
+trade--Louis XI. He and his suite crowded into the low rooms, grateful
+for a bed and a fire, after the weary pilgrimage to the heights of Mont
+St. Michel. Louis's piety, however, was not as lasting in its
+physically exhaustive effects, as were the fleshly excesses of a
+certain other king--one Henri IV., whose over-appreciation of the
+oysters served him here, caused a royal attack of colic, as you may
+read at your pleasure in the State Archives in Paris--since, quite
+rightly, the royal secretary must write the court physician every
+detail of so important an event. What with these kingly travellers and
+such modern uncrowned kings as Puvis de Chavannes, Dumas, George Sand,
+Daubigny, and Troyon, together with a goodly number of lesser great
+ones, the famous little inn has had no reason to feel itself slighted
+by the great of any century. Of all this motley company of notabilities
+there were two whose visits seemed to have been indefinitely prolonged.
+There was nothing, in this present flowery, picturesque assemblage of
+buildings, to suggest a certain wild drama enacted here centuries ago.
+Nothing either in yonder tender sky, nor in the silvery foliage on a
+fair day, which should conjure up the image of William as he must have
+stood again and again beside the little river; nor of the fury of his
+impatience as the boats were building all too slowly for his hot hopes;
+nor of the strange and motley crew he had summoned there from all
+corners of Europe to cut the trees; to build and launch boats; to sail
+them, finally, across the strip of water to that England he was to meet
+at last, to grapple with, and overthrow, even as the English huscarles
+in their turn bore down on that gay Minstrel Taillefer, who rode so
+insolently forth to meet them, with a song in his throat, tossing his
+sword in English eyes, still chanting the song of Roland as he fell.
+None of the inn features were in the least informed with this great,
+impressive picture of its past. Yet does William seem by far the most
+realizable of all the personages who have inhabited the old house.
+
+There was another visitor whose presence Monsieur Paul declared was as
+entirely real as if she, also, had only just passed within the
+court-yard.
+
+"I know not why it is, but of all these great, _ces fameux_, Madame de
+Sevigne seems to me the nearest, in point of time. Her visit appears to
+have happened only yesterday. I never enter her room but I seem to see
+her moving about, talking, laughing, speaking in epigrams. She mentions
+the inn, you know, in her letters. She gives the details of her journey
+in full."
+
+I, also, knew not why; but, later, after Monsieur Paul had left us,
+when he had shut himself out, along with the pattering raindrops, and
+had closed us in with the warmth and the flickering fire-light, there
+came, with astonishing clearness, a vision of that lady's visit here.
+She and her company of friends might have been stopping, that very
+instant, without, in the open court. I, also, seemed to hear the very
+tones of their voices; their talk was as audible as the wind rustling
+in the vines. In the growing stillness the vision grew and grew, till
+this was what I saw and heard:
+
+
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY REVIVAL.
+
+
+Outside the inn, some two hundred years ago, there was a great noise
+and confusion; the cries of outriders, of mounted guardsmen and
+halberdiers, made the quiet village as noisy as a camp. An imposing
+cavalcade was being brought to a sharp stop; for the outriders had
+suddenly perceived the open inn entrance, with its raised portcullis,
+and they were shouting to the coachmen to turn in, beneath the archway,
+to the paved court-yard within.
+
+In an incredibly short space of time the open quadrangle presented a
+brilliant picture; the dashing guardsmen were dismounting; the maids
+and lackeys had quickly descended from their perches in the caleches
+and coaches; and the gentlemen of the household were dusting their wide
+hats and lace-trimmed coats. The halberdiers, ranging themselves in
+line, made a prismatic grouping beneath the low eaves of the
+picturesque old inn. In the very middle of the court-yard stood a
+coach, resplendent in painted panels and emblazoned with ducal arms.
+About this coach, as soon as the four horses which drew the vehicle
+were brought to a standstill, cavaliers, footmen, and maids swarmed
+with effusive zeal. One of the footmen made a rush for the door:
+another let down the steps; one cavalier was already presenting an
+outstretched, deferential hand, while still another held forth an arm,
+as rigid as a post, for the use of the occupants of the ducal carriage.
+
+Three ladies were seated within. Large and roomy as was the vehicle,
+their voluminous draperies and the paraphernalia of their belongings
+seemed completely to fill the wide, deep seats. The ladies were the
+Duchesse de Chaulnes, Madame de Kerman, and Madame de Sevigne. The
+faces of the Duchesse and of Madame de Kerman were invisible, being
+still covered with their masks, which, both as a matter of habit and of
+precaution against the sun's rays, they had religiously worn during the
+long day's journey. But Madame de Sevigne had torn hers off; she was
+holding it in her hand, as if glad to be relieved from its confinement.
+
+All three ladies were in the highest possible spirits, Madame de
+Sevigne obviously being the leader of the jests and the laughter.
+
+They were in a mood to find everything amusing and delightful. Even
+after they had left the coach and were carefully picking their way over
+the rough stones--walking on their high-heeled "mules" at best, was
+always a dangerous performance--their laughter and gayety continued in
+undiminished exuberance. Madame de Sevigne's keen sense of humor found
+so many things to ridicule. Could anything, for example, be more
+comical than the spectacle they presented as they walked, in state,
+with their long trains and high-heeled slippers, up these absurd little
+turret steps, feeling their way as carefully as if they were each a
+pickpocket or an assassin? The long line behind of maids carrying their
+muffs, and of lackeys with the muff-dogs, and of pages holding their
+trains, and the grinning innkeeper, bursting with pride and courtesying
+as if he had St. Vitus's dance, all this crowd coiling round the rude
+spiral stairway--it was enough to make one die of laughter. Such state
+in such savage surroundings!--they and their patch-boxes, and towering
+head-gears and trains, and dogs and fans, all crowded into a place fit
+only for peasants!
+
+When they reached their bedchambers the ridicule was turned into a
+condescending admiration; they found their rooms unexpectedly clean and
+airy. The furniture was all antique, of interesting design, and though
+rude, really astonishingly comfortable. Beds and dressing-tables,
+mostly of Henry III's time, were elaborately canopied in the hideous
+crude draperies of that primitive epoch. How different were the elegant
+shapes and brocades of their own time! Fortunately their women had
+suitable hangings and draperies with them, as well, of course, as any
+amount of linen and any number of mattresses. The settees and benches
+would do very well, with the aid of their own hassocks and cushions,
+and, after all, it was only for a night, they reminded the other.
+
+The toilet, after the heat and exposure of the day, was necessarily a
+long one. The Duchesse and Madame de Kerman had their faces to make
+up--all the paint had run, and not a patch was in its place. Hair,
+also, of this later de Maintenon period, with its elaborate artistic
+ranges of curls, to say nothing of the care that must be given to the
+coif and the "follette," these were matters that demanded the utmost
+nicety of arrangement.
+
+In an hour, however, the three ladies reassembled, in the panelled
+lower room--in "la Chambre de la Pucelle." In spite of the care her two
+companions had given to repairing the damages caused by their journey,
+of the three, Madame de Sevigne looked by far the freshest and
+youngest. She still wore her hair in the loosely flowing de Montespan
+fashion; a style which, though now out of date, was one that exactly
+suited her fair skin, her candid brow, and her brilliant eyes. These
+latter, when one examined them closely, were found to be of different
+colors; but this peculiarity, which might have been a serious defect in
+any other countenance, in Madame de Sevigne's brilliant face was
+perhaps one cause of its extraordinarily luminous quality. Not one
+feature was perfect in that fascinatingly mobile face: the chin was a
+trifle too long for a woman's chin; the lips, that broke into such
+delicious curves when she laughed, when at rest betrayed the firmness
+of her wit and the almost masculine quality of her reasoning judgment.
+Even her arms and hands and her shoulders were "_mal tailles_" as her
+contemporaries would have told you. But what a charm in those irregular
+features! What a seductiveness in the ensemble of that not
+too-well-proportioned figure! What an indescribable radiance seemed to
+emanate from the entire personality of this most captivating of women!
+
+As she moved about the low room, dark with the trembling shadows of
+light that flowed from the bunches of candles in the sconces, Madame de
+Sevigne's clear complexion, and her unpowdered chestnut curls, seemed
+to spot the room with light. Her companions, though dressed in the very
+height of the fashion, were yet not half as catching to the eye.
+Neither their minute waists, nor their elaborate underskirts and
+trains, nor their tall coffered coifs (the duchesse's was not unlike a
+bishop's mitre, studded as it was with ruby-headed pins), nor the
+correctness of these ladies' carefully placed patches, nor yet their
+painted necks and tinted eyebrows, could charm as did the unmodish
+figure of Madame de Sevigne--a figure so indifferently clad, and yet
+one so replete with its distinction of innate elegance and the subtle
+charm of her individuality.
+
+With the entrance of these ladies dinner was served at once. The talk
+flowed on; it was, however, more or less restrained by the presence of
+the always too curious lackeys, of the bustling innkeeper, and the
+gentlemen of the household in attendance on the party. As a spectacle,
+the little room had never boasted before of such an assemblage of
+fashion and greatness. Never before had the air under the rafters been
+so loaded with scents and perfumes--these ladies seeming, indeed, to
+breathe out odors. Never before had there been grouped there such
+splendor of toilet, nor had such courtly accents been heard, nor such
+finished laughter. The fire and the candlelight were in competition
+which should best light up the tall transparent caps, the lace fichus,
+the brocade bodices, and the long trains. The little muff-dogs,
+released from their prisons, since the muffs were laid aside at dinner
+time, blinked at the fire, curling their minute bodies--clipped
+lion-fashion--about the huge andirons, as they snored to kill time,
+knowing their own dinner would come only when their mistresses had done.
+
+After the dessert had been served the ladies withdrew; they were
+preceded by the ever-bowing innkeeper, who assured them, in his most
+reverential tones, that they would find the room opening on the other
+court-yard even warmer and more comfortable than the one they were in.
+In spite of the walk across the paved court-yard and the enormous
+height of their heels, always a fact to be remembered, the ladies voted
+to make the change, since by that means they could be assured the more
+entire seclusion. Mild as was the May air, Madame de Kerman's
+hand-glass hanging at her side was quickly lifted in the very middle of
+the open court-yard; she had scarcely passed the door when she had felt
+one of her patches blowing off.
+
+"I caught it just in time, dear duchesse," she cried, as she stood
+quite still, replacing it with a fresh one picked from her patch-box,
+as the others passed her.
+
+"The very best patch-maker I have found lives in the rue St. Denis, at
+the sign of La Perle des Mouches; have you discovered him, dear
+friend?" said the duchesse, as they walked on toward the low door
+beneath the galleries.
+
+"No, dear duchesse, I fear I have not even looked for him--the science
+of patches I have always found so much harder than the science of
+living!" gayly answered Madame de Sevigne.
+
+Madame de Kerman had now re joined them, and all three passed into la
+Chambre des Marmousets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE AFTER-DINNER TALK OF THREE GREAT LADIES.
+
+
+The three ladies grouped themselves about the fire, which they found
+already lighted. The duchesse chose a Henry II. carved aim chair, one,
+she laughingly remarked, quite large enough to have held both the King
+and Diana. A lackey carrying the inevitable muff-dogs, their fans, and
+scent-bottles, had followed the ladies; he placed a hassock at the
+duchesse's feet, two beneath the slender feet of Madame de Kerman, and,
+after having been bidden to open one of the casements, since it was
+still so light without, withdrew, leaving the ladies alone.
+
+Although Madame de Sevigne had comfortably ensconced herself in one of
+the deep window seats, piling the cushions behind her, no sooner was
+the window opened than with characteristic impetuosity she jumped up to
+look out into the country that lay beyond the leaded glass. In spite of
+the long day's drive in the open air, her appetite for blowing roses
+and sweet earth smells had not been sated. Madame de Sevigne all her
+life had been the victim of two loves and a passion; she adored society
+and she loved nature; these were her lesser delights, that gave way
+before the chief idolatry of her soul, her adoration for her daughter.
+
+[Illustration: MADAME DE SEVIGNE]
+
+As she stood by the open window, her charming face, always a mirror of
+her emotions, was suffused with a glow and a bloom that made it seem
+young again. Her eyes grew to twice their common size under the
+"wandering" eyelids, as her gaze roved over the meadows and across the
+tall grasses to the sea. A part of her youth was being, indeed, vividly
+brought back to her; the sight of this marine landscape recalled many
+memories; and with the recollection her whole face and figure seemed to
+irradiate something of the inward ardor that consumed her. She had
+passed this very road, through this same country before, long ago, in
+her youth, with her children. She half smiled at the remembrance of a
+description given of the impression produced by her appearance on the
+journey by her friend the Abbe Arnauld; he had ecstatically compared
+her to Latona seated in an open coach, between a youthful Apollo and a
+young Diana. In spite of the abbe's poetical extravagance, Madame de
+Sevigne recognized, in this moment of retrospect, the truth of the
+picture. That, indeed, had been a radiant moment! Her life at that time
+had been so full, and the rapture so complete--the rapture of
+possessing her children--that she could remember to have had the sense
+of fairly evaporating happiness. And now, the sigh came, how scattered
+was this gay group! her son in Brittany, her daughter in Provence, two
+hundred leagues away! And she, an elderly Latona, mourning her Apollo
+and her divine huntress, her incomparable Diana.
+
+The inextinguishable name of youth was burning still, however, in
+Madame de Sevigne's rich nature. This adventure, this amazing adventure
+of three ladies of the court having to pass the night in a rude little
+Normandy inn, she, for one, was finding richly seasoned with the spice
+of the unforeseen; it would be something to talk of and write about for
+a month hence at Chaulnes and at Paris. Their entire journey, in point
+of fact, had been a series of the most delightful episodes. It was now
+nearly a month since they had started from Picardy, from the castle of
+Chaulnes, going into Normandy _via_ Rouen. They had been on a driving
+tour, their destination being Rennes, which they would reach in a week
+or so. They had been travelling in great state, with the very best
+coach, the very best horses; and they had been guarded by a whole
+regiment of cavaliers and halberdiers. Every possible precaution had
+been taken \against their being disagreeably surprised on their route.
+Their chief fear on the journey had been, of course, the cry common in
+their day of "_Au voleur!_" and the meeting of brigands and assassins;
+for, once outside of Paris and the police reforms of that dear Colbert,
+and one must be prepared to take one's life in one's hand. Happily, no
+such misadventures had befallen them. The roads, it is true, they had
+found for the most part in a horrible condition; they had been pitched
+about from one end of their coach to the other they might easily have
+imagined themselves at sea. The dust also had nearly blinded them, in
+spite of their masks. The other nuisances most difficult to put up with
+had been the swarm of beggars that infested the roadsides; and worst of
+all had been the army of crippled, deformed, and mangy soldiers. These
+latter they had encountered everywhere; their whines and cries, their
+armless, legless bodies, their hideous filth, and their insolent
+importunities, they had found a veritable pest.
+
+Another annoyance had been the over-zealous courtesy of some of the
+upper middle-class. Only yesterday, in the very midst of the dust and
+under the burning noon sun, they had all been forced to alight, to
+receive the homage tendered the duchesse, of some thirty women and as
+many men. Each one of the sixty must, of course, kiss the duchesse's
+hand. It was really an outrage to have exposed them to such a form of
+torture! Poor Madame de Kerman, the delicate one of the party, had
+entirely collapsed after the ceremony. The duchesse also had been
+prostrated; it had wearied her more than all the rest of the journey.
+Madame de Sevigne alone had not suffered. She was possessed of a degree
+of physical fortitude which made her equal to any demand. The other two
+ladies, as well as she herself, were now experiencing the pleasant
+exhilaration which comes with the hour of rest after an excellent
+dinner. They were in a condition to remember nothing except the
+agreeable. Madame de Sevigne was the first to break the silence.
+
+She turned, with a brisk yet graceful abruptness, to the two ladies
+still seated before the low fire. With a charming outburst of
+enthusiasm she exclaimed aloud:
+
+"What a beauty, and youth, and tenderness this spring has, has it not?"
+
+"Yes," answered the duchesse, smiling graciously into Madame de
+Sevigne's brilliantly lit face; "yes, the weather in truth has been
+perfect."
+
+"What an adorable journey we have had!" continued Madame de Sevigne, in
+the same tone, her ardor undampened by the cooler accent of her
+friend--she was used to having her enthusiasm greeted with
+consideration rather than response. "What a journey!--only meeting with
+the most agreeable of adventures; not the slightest inconvenience
+anywhere; eating the very best of everything; and driving through the
+heart of this enchanting springtime!"
+
+Her listeners laughed quietly, with an accent of indulgence. It was the
+habit of her world to find everything Madame de Sevigne did or said
+charming. Even her frankness was forgiven her, her tact was so perfect;
+and her spontaneity had always been accounted as her chief excellence;
+in the stifled air of the court and the _ruelles_ it had been
+frequently likened to the blowing in of a fresh May breeze. Her present
+mood was one well known to both ladies.
+
+"Always 'pretty pagan,' dear madame," smiled Madame de Kerman,
+indulgently. "How well named--and what a happy hit of our friend
+Arnauld d'Audilly! You are in truth a delicious--an adorable pagan! You
+have such a sense of the joy of living! Why, even living in the country
+has, it appears, no terrors for you. We hear of your walking about in
+the moonlight-you make your very trees talk, they tell us, in
+Italian--in Latin; you actually pass whole hours alone with the
+hamadryads!" There was just a suspicion of irony in Madame de Kerman's
+tone, in spite of its caressing softness; it was so impossible to
+conceive of anyone really finding nature endurable, much less
+pretending to discover in trees and flowers anything amusing or
+suggestive of sentiment!
+
+But Madame de Sevigne was quite impervious to her friend's raillery.
+She responded, with perfect good humor:
+
+"Why not?--why not try to discover beauties in nature? One can be so
+happy in a wood! What a charming thing to hear a leaf sing! I know few
+things more delightful than to watch the triumph of the month of May
+when the nightingale, the cuckoo, and the lark open the spring in our
+forests! And then, later, come those beautiful crystal days of
+autumn--days that are neither warm, nor yet are they really cold! And
+then the trees--how eloquent they can be made; with a little teaching
+they may be made to converse so charmingly. _Bella cosa far aniente_,
+says one of my trees; and another answers, _Amor odit inertes_. Ah,
+when I had to bid farewell to all my leaves and trees; when my son had
+to dispose of the forest of Buron, to pay for some of his follies, you
+remember how I wept! It seemed to me I could actually feel the grief of
+those dispossessed sylvans and of all those homeless dryads!"
+
+"It is this, dear friend--this life you lead at Les Rochers--and your
+enthusiasm, which keep you so young. Yes, I am sure of it. How
+inconceivably young, for instance, you are looking this very evening!
+You and the glow out yonder make youth seem no longer a legend."
+
+The duchesse delivered her flattering little speech with a caressing
+tone. She moved gently forward in her chair, as if to gain a better
+view of the twilight and her friend. At the sound of the duchesse's
+voice Madame de Sevigne again turned, with the same charming smile and
+the quick impulsiveness of movement common to her. During her long
+monologue she had remained standing; but she left the window now to
+regain her seat amid the cushions of the window. There was something
+better than the twilight and the spring in the air; here, within, were
+two delightful friends-and listeners; there was before her, also, the
+prospect of one of those endless conversations that were the chief
+delight of her life.
+
+She laughed as she seated herself--a gay, frank, hearty little
+laugh--and she spread out her hands with the opening of her fan, as,
+with her usual vivacious spontaneity, her mood changed.
+
+"Fancy, dear duchesse, the punishment that comes to one who commits the
+crime of looking young--younger than one ought! My son-in-law, M. de
+Grignan, actually avows he is in daily terror lest I should give him a
+father-in-law!"
+
+All three ladies laughed gayly at this absurdity; the subject of Madame
+de Sevigne's remarrying had come to be a venerable joke now. It had
+been talked of at court and in society for nearly forty years; but such
+was the conquering power of her charms that these two friends, her
+listeners, saw nothing really extravagant in her son-in-law's fear; she
+was one of those rare women who, even at sixty, continue to suggest the
+altar rather than the grave. Madame de Kerman was the first to recover
+her breath after the laughter.
+
+"Dear friend, you might assure him that after a youth and the golden
+meridian of your years passed in smiling indifference to the sighs of a
+Prince de Conti, of a Turenne, of a Fouquet, of a Bussy de Rabutin, at
+sixty it is scarcely likely that--"
+
+"Ah, dear lady at sixty, when one has the complexion and the curls, to
+say nothing of the eyes of our dear enchantress, a woman is as
+dangerous as at thirty!" The duchesse's flattery was charmingly put,
+with just enough vivacity of tone to save it from the charge of
+insipidity. Madame de Sevigne bowed her curls to her waist.
+
+"Ah, dear duchesse, it isn't age," she retorted, quickly, "that could
+make me commit follies. It is the fact that that son-in-law of mine
+actually surrounds me with spies--he keeps me in perpetual
+surveillance. Such a state of captivity is capable of making me forget
+everything; I am beginning to develop a positive rage for follies. You
+know that has been my chief fault--always; discretion has been left out
+of my composition. But I say now, as I have always said, that if I
+could manage to live two hundred years, I should become the most
+delightful person in the world!"
+
+She herself was the first to lead in the laughter that followed her
+outburst; and then the duchesse broke in:
+
+"You talk of defects, dear friend; but reflect what a life yours has
+been. So surrounded and courted, and yet you were always so guarded; so
+free, and yet so wise! So gay, and yet so chaste!"
+
+"If you rubbed out all those flattering colors, dear duchesse, and
+wrote only, 'She worshipped her children, and preferred friends to
+lovers,' the portrait would be far nearer to the truth. It is easy to
+be chaste if one has only known one passion in one's life, and that the
+maternal one!"
+
+Again a change passed over Madame de Sevigne's mobile face; the
+bantering tone was lost in a note of deep feeling. This gift of
+sensibility had always been accounted as one of Madame de Sevigne's
+chief charms; and now, at sixty, she was as completely the victim of
+her moods as in her earlier youth.
+
+"Where is your daughter, and how is she?" sympathetically queried the
+duchesse.
+
+"Oh, she is still at Grignan, as usual; she is well, thank God. But,
+dear duchesse, after all these years of separation I suffer still,
+cruelly." The tears sprang to Madame de Sevigne's eyes, as she added,
+with passion and a force one would scarcely have expected in one whose
+manners were so finished, "the truth is, dear friends, I cannot live
+without her. I do not find I have made the least progress in that
+career. But, even now, believe me, these tears are sweeter than all
+else in life--more enrapturing than the most transporting joy!"
+
+Madame de Kerman smiled tenderly into the rapturous mother's face; but
+the duchesse moved, as if a little restless and uneasy under this
+shower of maternal feeling. For thirty years her friends had had to
+listen to Madame de Sevigne's rhapsodies over the perfections of her
+incomparable daughter. Although sensibility was not the emotional
+fashion of the day, maternity, in the person of Madame de Sevigne, had
+been apotheosized into the queen of the passions, if only because of
+its rarity; still, even this lady's most intimate friends sometimes
+wearied of banqueting off the feast of Madame de Grignan's virtues.
+
+"Have you heard from Madame de La Fayette recently?" asked the
+duchesse, allowing just time enough to elapse, before putting the
+question, for Madame de Sevigne's emotion to subside into composure.
+The duchesse was too exquisitely bred to allow her impatience to take
+the form of even the appearance of haste.
+
+"Oh, yes," was Madame de Sevigne's quiet reply; the turn in the
+conversation had been instantly understood, in spite of the delicacy of
+the duchesse's methods. "Oh, yes--I have had a line--only a line. You
+know how she detests writing, above all things. Her letters are all the
+same--two lines to say that she has no time in which to say it!"
+
+"Did she not once write you a pretty little series of epigrams about
+not writing?"
+
+"Oh, yes--some time ago, when I was with my daughter. I've quoted them
+so often, they have become famous. 'You are in Provence, my beauty;
+your hours are free, and your mind still more so. Your love for
+corresponding with everyone still endures within you, it appears; as
+for me, the desire to write to any human being has long since passed
+away-forever; and if I had a lover who insisted on a letter every
+morning, I should certainly break with him!'"
+
+"What a curious compound she is! And how well her soubriquet becomes
+her!"
+
+"Yes, it is perfect--'_Le Brouillard_'--the fog. It is indeed a fog
+that has always enveloped her, and what charming horizons are disclosed
+once it is lifted!"
+
+"And her sensibilities--of what an exquisite quality; and what a rare,
+precious type, indeed, is the whole of her nature! Do you remember how
+alarmed she would become when listening to music?"
+
+"And yet, with all this sensibility and delicacy of organization there
+was another side to her nature." Madame de Kerman paused a moment
+before she went on; she was not quite sure how far she dared go in her
+criticism; Madame de La Fayette was such an intimate friend of Madame
+de Sevigne's.
+
+"You mean," that lady broke out, with unhesitating candor, "that she is
+also a very selfish person. You know that is my daughter's theory of
+her--she is always telling me how Madame de La Fayette is making use of
+me; that while her sensitiveness is such that she cannot sustain the
+tragedy of a farewell visit--if I am going to Les Rochers or to
+Provence, when I go to pay my last visit I must pretend it is only an
+ordinary running-in; yet her delicacy does not prevent her from making
+very indelicate proposals, to suit her own convenience. You remember
+what one of her commands was, don't you?"
+
+"No," answered the duchesse, for both herself and her companion. "Pray
+tell us."
+
+Madame de Sevigne went on to narrate that once, when at Les Rochers,
+Madame de La Fayette was quite certain that she, Madame de Sevigne, was
+losing her mind, for no one could live in the provinces and remain
+sane, poring over stupid books and sitting over fires.
+
+"She was certain I should sicken and die, besides losing the tone of my
+mind," laughed Madame de Sevigne, as she called up the picture of her
+dissolution and rapid disintegration; "and therefore it was necessary
+at once that I should come up to Paris. This latter command was
+delivered in the tone of a judge of the Supreme Court. The penalty of
+my disobedience was to be her ceasing to love me. I was to come up to
+Paris directly--on the minute; I was to live with you, dear duchesse; I
+was not to buy any horses until spring; and, best of all, I was to find
+on my arrival a purse of a thousand crowns which would be lent me
+without interest! What a proposition, _mon Dieu_, what a proposition!
+To have no house of my own, to be dependent, to have no carriage, and
+to be in debt a thousand crowns!"
+
+As Madame de Sevigne lifted her hands the laces of her sleeves were
+fairly trembling with the force of her indignation. There were certain
+things that always put her in a passion, and Madame de La Fayette's
+peculiarities she had found at times unendurable. Her listeners had
+followed her narration with the utmost intensity and absorption. When
+she stopped, their eyes met in a look of assenting comment.
+
+"It was perfectly characteristic, all of it! She judged you, doubtless,
+by herself. She always seems to me, even now, to keep one eye on her
+comfort and the other on her purse!"
+
+"Ah, dear duchesse, how keen you are!" laughingly acquiesced Madame de
+Sevigne, as with a shrug she accepted the verdict--her indignation
+melting with the shrug. "And how right! No woman ever drives better
+bargains, without moving a finger. From her invalid's chair she can
+conduct a dozen lawsuits. She spends half her existence in courting
+death; she caresses her maladies; she positively hugs them; but she can
+always be miraculously resuscitated at the word money!"
+
+"Yes," added with a certain relish Madame de Kerman. "And this is the
+same woman who must be forever running away from Paris because she can
+no longer endure the exertion of talking, or of replying, or of
+listening; because she is wearied to extinction, as she herself admits,
+of saying good-morning and good-evening. She must hide herself in some
+pastoral retreat, where simply, as she says, 'to exist is enough;'
+where she can remain, as it were, miraculously suspended between heaven
+and earth!"
+
+A ripple of amused laughter went round the little group; there was
+nothing these ladies enjoyed so keenly as a delicate dish of gossip,
+seasoned with wit, and stuffed with epigrams. This talk was exactly to
+their taste. The silence and seclusion of their surroundings were an
+added stimulus to confidence and to a freer interchange of opinions
+about their world. Paris and Versailles seemed so very far away; it
+would appear safe to say almost anything about one's dearest friends.
+There was nothing to remind them of the restraints of levees, or the
+penalty indiscretion must pay for folly breathed in that whispering
+gallery--the _ruelle_. It was indeed a delightful hour; altogether an
+ideal situation.
+
+The fire had burned so low only a few embers were alive now, and the
+candles were beginning to flicker and droop in the sconces. But the
+three ladies refused to find the little room either cold or dark; their
+talk was not half done yet, and their muffs would keep them warm. The
+shadow of the deepening gloom they found delightfully provocative of
+confidences.
+
+After a short pause, while Madame de Kerman busied herself with the
+tongs and the fagots, trying to reinvigorate the dying flames, the
+duchesse asked, in a somewhat more intimate tone than she had used yet:
+
+"And the duke--do you really think she loved the Duke de La
+Rochefoucauld?"
+
+"She reformed him, dear duchesse; at least she always proclaims his
+reform as the justification of her love."
+
+"You--you esteemed him yourself very highly, did you not?"
+
+"Oh, I loved him tenderly; how could one help it? He was the best as
+well as the most brilliant of men! I never knew a tenderer heart;
+domestic joys and sorrows affected him in a way to render him
+incomparable. I have seen him weep over the death of his mother, who
+only died eight years before him, you know, with a depth of sincerity
+that made me adore him."
+
+"He must in truth have been a very sincere person."
+
+"Sincere!" cried Madame de Sevigne, her eyes flaming. "Had you but seen
+his deathbed! His bearing was sublime! Believe me, dear friend, it was
+not in vain that M. de La Rochefoucauld had written philosophic
+reflections all his life; he had already anticipated his last moments
+in such a way that there was nothing either new or strange in death
+when it came to him."
+
+"Madame de La Fayette truly mourned him--don't you think so? You were
+with her a great deal, were you not, after his death?"
+
+"I never left her. It was the most pitiable sight to see her in her
+loneliness and her misery. You see, their common ill-health and their
+sedentary habits, had made them so necessary to each other! It was, as
+it were, two souls in a single body. Nothing could exceed the
+confidence and charm of their friendship; it was incomparable. To
+Madame de La Fayette his loss came as her death-blow; life seems at an
+end for her; for where, indeed, can she find another such friend, or
+such intercourse, such sweetness and charm--such confidence and
+consideration?"
+
+There was a moment's silence after Madame de Sevigne's eloquent
+outburst. The eyes of the three friends were lost for a moment in the
+twinkling flames. The duchesse and Madame de Kerman exchanged meaning
+glances.
+
+"Since the duke's death her thoughts are more and more turned toward
+religion. I hear she has been fortunate in her choice of directors, has
+she not? Du Guet is said to be an ideal confessor for the authoress of
+'La Princesse de Cleves.'" There was just a suspicion of malice in the
+duchesse's tones.
+
+"Oh, he was born to take her in hand. He knew just when to speak with
+authority, and when to make use of the arts of persuasion. He wrote to
+her once, you remember: 'You, who have passed your life in
+dreaming--cease to dream! You, who have taken such pride unto yourself
+for being so true in all things, were very far, indeed, from the
+truth--you were only half true--falsely true. Your godless wisdom was
+in reality purely a matter of good taste!'"
+
+"What audacity! Bossuet himself could not have put the truth more
+nakedly." The duchesse was one of those to whom truths were novelties,
+and unpleasant ones.
+
+"Bossuet, if I remember rightly, was with the Duke de La Rochefoucauld
+at the last, was he not?"
+
+"Yes," responded Madame de Sevigne; "he was with him; he administered
+the supreme unction. The duke was in a beautiful state of grace. M,
+Vinet, you remember, said of him that he died with 'perfect decorum.'"
+
+"Speaking of dying reminds me"--cried suddenly Madame de Sevigne--"how
+are the duke's hangings getting on?"
+
+"They begin, the duke writes me, to hang again to-morrow," answered the
+duchesse, with a certain air of disdain, the first appearance of this
+weapon of the great now coming to the _grande dame's_ aid. Her husband,
+the Duke de Chaulnes' trouble with his revolutionary citizens at Rennes
+was a subject that never failed to arouse a feeling of angry contempt
+in her. It was too preposterous, the idea of those insolent creatures
+rising against him, their rightful duke and master!
+
+The duchesse's feeling in the matter was fully shared by her friends.
+In all the court there was but one opinion in the matter--hanging was
+really far too good for the wretched creatures.
+
+"Monsieur de Chaulnes," the duchesse went on, with ironical contempt in
+her voice, "still goes on punishing Rennes!"
+
+"This province and the duke's treatment of it will serve as a capital
+example to all others. It will teach those rascals," Madame de Kerman
+continued, in lower tones, "to respect their governors, and not to
+throw stones into their gardens!"
+
+"Fancy that--the audacity of throwing stones into their duke's garden!
+Why, did you know, they actually--those insolent creatures actually
+called him--called the duke--'_gros cochon?_'"
+
+All three ladies gasped in horror at this unparalleled instance of
+audacity; they threw up their hands, as they groaned over the picture,
+in low tones of finished elegance.
+
+"It is little wonder the duke hangs right and left! The dear duke--what
+a model governor! How I should like to have seen him sack that street
+at Rennes, with all the ridiculous old men, and the women in
+childbirth, and the children, turned out pele-mele! And the hanging,
+too--why, hanging now seems to me a positively refreshing performance!"
+And Madame de Sevigne laughed with unstinted gayety as at an excellent
+joke.
+
+The picture of Rennes and the cruelty dealt its inhabitants was a
+pleasant picture, in the contemplation of which these ladies evidently
+found much delectation. They were quiet for a longer period of time
+than usual; they continued silent, as they looked into the fire,
+smiling; the flames there made them think of other flames as forms of
+merited punishment.
+
+"A curious people those Bas Bretons," finally ejaculated Madame de
+Sevigne. "I never could understand how Bertrand Duguesclin made them
+the best soldiers of his day in France!"
+
+"You know Lower Brittany very well, do you not, dear friend?"
+
+"Not so well as the coast. Les Rochers is in Upper Brittany, you know.
+I know the south better still. Ah, what a charming journey I once took
+along the Loire with my friend _Bien-Bon_, the Abbe de Coulanges. We
+found it the most enchanting country in the world--the country of
+feasts and of famine; feasts for us and famine for the people. I
+remember we had to cross the river; our coach was placed on the barge,
+and we were rowed along by stout peasants. Through the glass windows of
+the coach we looked out at a series of changing pictures--the views
+were charming. We sat, of course, entirely at our ease, on our soft
+cushions. The country people, crowded together below, were--ugh!--like
+pigs in straw."
+
+"Was Bien-Bon with you when you made that little excursion to St.
+Germain?" queried the duchesse.
+
+"Ah, that was a gay night," joyously responded Madame de Sevigne. "How
+well we amused ourselves on that little visit that we paid Madame de
+Maintenon--when she was only Madame Scarron."
+
+"Was she so handsome then as they say she was--at that time?"
+
+"Very handsome; she was good, too, and amiable, and easy to talk to;
+one talked well and readily with her. She was then only the governess
+of the king's bastards, you know--of the children he had had by Madame
+de Montespan. That was the first step toward governing the king. Well,
+one night--the night to which you refer--I remember we were all supping
+with Madame de La Fayette. We had been talking endlessly! Suddenly it
+occurred to us it would be a most amusing adventure to take Madame
+Scarron home, to the very last end of the Faubourg Saint Germain, far
+beyond where Madame de La Fayette lived--near Vaugirard, out into the
+Bois, in the country. The Abbe came too. It was midnight when we
+started. The house, when at last we reached it, we found large and
+beautiful, with large and fine rooms and a beautiful garden; for Madame
+Scarron, as governess of the king's children, had a coach and a lot of
+servants and horses. She herself dressed then modestly and yet
+magnificently, as a woman should, who spent her life among people of
+the highest rank. We had a merry outing, returning in high spirits,
+blessed in having no end of lanterns, and thus assured against robbers."
+
+"She and Madame de La Fayette were very close friends, I remember,
+during that time," mused the duchesse, "when they were such near
+neighbors."
+
+"Yes," Madame de Sevigne went on, as unwearied now, although it was
+nearly midnight, as in the beginning of the long evening. "Yes; I
+always thought Madame de Maintenon's satirical little joke about Madame
+de La Fayette's bed festooned with gold--'I might have fifty thousand
+pounds income, and never should I live in the style of a great lady;
+never should I have a bed festooned with gold like Madame de La
+Fayette'--was the beginning of their rupture."
+
+"All the same, Madame de La Fayette, lying on that bed, beneath the
+gold hangings, was a much more simple person than ever was Madame de
+Maintenon!"
+
+"Your speaking of bed reminds me, dear ladies ours must be quite cold
+by this time. How we have chatted! What a delightful gossip! But we
+must not forget that our journey to-morrow is to be a long one!"
+
+The duchesse rose, the other two ladies rising instantly, observing, in
+spite of the intimate relations in which they stood toward the
+duchesse, the deference due to her more exalted rank. The latter
+clapped her hands; outside the door a shuffling and a low groan were
+heard--the groan came from the sleepy lackey, roused from his deep
+slumber, as he uncoiled himself from the close knot into which his legs
+and body were knit in the curve of the narrow stairs.
+
+The ladies, a few seconds later, were wending their way up the steep
+turret steps. They were preceded by torches and followed by quite a
+long train of maids and lackeys. For a long hour, at least, the little
+inn resounded with the sound of hurrying feet, of doors closing and
+shutting; with the echo of voices giving commands and of others purring
+in sleepy accents of obedience. Then one by one the sounds died away;
+the lights went out in the bedchambers; faint flickerings stole through
+the chinks of doors and windows. The watchman cried out the hour, and
+the gleam of a lantern flashed here and there, illuminating the open
+court-yard. The cocks crowed shrilly into the night air. A halberdier
+turned in his sleep where he lay, on some straw beneath the coach-shed,
+his halberd rattling as it struck the cobbles. And over the whole--over
+the gentle slumber of the great ladies and the sleep of beast and
+man--there fell the peace and the stillness of the midnight--of that
+midnight of long ago.
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A NINETEENTH-CENTURY BREAKFAST.
+
+
+The very next morning, after the rain, and the vision I had had of
+Madame de Sevigne, conjured up by my surroundings and the reading of
+her letters, Monsieur Paul paid us an early call. He came to beg the
+loan of our sitting-room, he said. He had had a despatch from a
+coaching-party from Trouville; they were to arrive for breakfast. The
+whip and owner of the coach was a great friend of his, he proffered by
+way of explanation--a certain count who had a genius for
+friendship--one who also had an artist's talent for admiring the
+beautiful. He was among those who were in a state of perpetual
+adoration before the inn's perfections. He made yearly pilgrimages from
+his chateau above Rouen to eat a noon breakfast in the Chambre des
+Marmousets. Now, a breakfast served elsewhere than in this chamber
+would be, from his point of view, to have journeyed to a shrine to find
+the niche empty. The gift that was begged of us, therefore, was the
+loan for a few hours of the famous little room.
+
+In less than a half hour we were watching the entrance of the coach by
+the side of Madame Le Mois. We were all three seated on the green bench.
+
+Faintly at first, and presently gaining in distinctness, came the fall
+of horses' hoofs and the rumble of wheels along the highway. A little
+cavalcade was soon passing beneath the archway. First there dashed in
+two horsemen, who had sprung to the ground almost as soon as their
+steeds' hoofs struck the paved court-yard. Then there swept by a jaunty
+dog cart, driven by a mannish figure radiantly robed in white. Swiftly
+following came the dash and jingle of four coach-horses, bathed in
+sweat, rolling the vehicle into the court as if its weight were a thing
+of air. All save one among the gay party seated on the high seats, were
+too busy with themselves and their chatter, to take heed of their
+surroundings. A lady beneath her deep parasol was busily engaged in a
+gay traffic of talk with the groups of men peopling the back seats of
+the coach. One of the men, however, was craning his neck beyond the
+heads of his companions; he was running his eye rapidly up and down the
+long inn facade. Finally his glance rested on us; and then, with a
+rush, a deep red mounted the man's cheek, as he tore off his derby to
+wave it, as if in a triumph of discovery. Renard had been true to his
+promise. He had come to see his friends and to test the famous
+Sauterne. He flung himself down from his lofty perch to take his seat,
+entirely as a matter of course, beside us on the green bench.
+
+"What luck, hey?--greatest luck in the world, finding you in, like
+this. I've been in no end of a tremble, fearing you'd gone to Caen, or
+Falaise, or somewhere, and that I shouldn't see you after all. Well,
+how are you? How goes it? What do you think of old Dives and Monsieur
+Paul, and the rest of it? I see you're settled; you took the palace
+chamber. Trust American women--they know the best, and get it."
+
+"But these people, who are they, and how did you--?" We were
+unfeignedly glad to see him, but curiosity is a passion not to be
+trifled with--after a month in the provinces.
+
+"Oh--the De Troisacs? Old friends of mine--known them years. Jolly lot.
+Charming fellow, De Troisac--only good Frenchman I've ever known.
+They're just off their yacht; saw them all yesterday at the Trouville
+Casino. Said they were running down here for breakfast to-day, asked
+me, and I came, of course." He laughed as he added: "I said I should
+come, you remember, to get some of that Sauterne. A man will go any
+distance for a good bottle of wine, you know."
+
+Meanwhile, in the court-yard, the party on the coach, by means of
+ladders and the helping of the grooms, were scrambling down from their
+seats. Renard's friend, the Comte de Troisac, was easily picked out
+from the group of men. He was the elder of the party--stoutish, with
+frank eyes and a smiling mouth; he was bustling about from the gaunt
+grooms to the ladder, and from ladder to the coach-seat, giving his
+commands right and left, and executing most of them himself. A tall,
+slim woman, with drooping eyelids, and an air of extreme elegance and
+of cultivated fatigue, was also easily recognizable as the countess. It
+took two grooms, two of the gentlemen guests, and her husband to assist
+her to the ground. Her passage down the steps of the ladder had been
+long enough, however, to enable her to display a series of pretty
+poses, each one more effective than the others. When one has an instep
+of ideal elevation, what is the use of being born a Frenchwoman, unless
+one knows how to make use of opportunity?
+
+From the dog-cart, that had rattled in across the cobbles with a dash
+and a spurt, there came quite a different accent and pose. The whitish
+personage, whom we had mistakenly supposed to be a man, wore
+petticoats; the male attire only held as far as the waist of the lady.
+The stiff white shirt-front, the knotted tie--a faultless male
+knot--the loose driving-jacket, with its sprig of white geranium, and
+the round straw-hat worn in mannish fashion, close to the level brows,
+was a costume that would have deceived either sex. Below the jacket
+flowed the straight lines of a straight skirt, that no further
+conjectures should be rendered necessary. This lady had a highbred air
+of singular distinction, accentuated by a tremendously knowing look.
+She was at once elegant and rakish; the _gamin_ in her was obviously
+the touch of _caviare_ to season the woman of fashion. The mixture made
+an extraordinarily attractive ensemble. As she jumped to the ground,
+throwing her reins to a groom, her jump was a master-stroke; it landed
+her squarely on her feet; even as she struck the ground her hands were
+thrust deeply into her pockets. The man seated beside her, who now
+leaped out after her, seemed timid and awkward by contrast with her
+alert precision. This couple moved at once toward the bench on which
+madame was seated. With the coming in of the coach and the cart she had
+risen, waddling forward to meet the party. Monsieur Paul was at the
+coach-wheels before the grooms had shot themselves down; De Troisac,
+with eager friendliness, stretched forth a hand from the top of his
+seat, exclaiming, with gay heartiness, "Ah, mon bon--comment ca va?"
+
+The mere was as eagerly greeted. Even the countess dismissed her
+indifference for the moment, as she held out her hand to Madame Le Mois.
+
+"Dear Madame Le Mois--and it goes well with you? And the gout and the
+rheumatism, they have ceased to torment you? Quelle bonne nouvelle! And
+here are the dear old cocks and the wounded bantam. The cockatoos--ah,
+there they are, still swinging in the air! Comme c'est joli--et
+frais--et que ca sent bon!"
+
+Madame and Monsieur Paul were equally effusive in their inquiries and
+exclamations--it was clearly a meeting of old friends. Madame Le Mois'
+face was meanwhile a study. The huge surface was glistening with
+pleasure; she was unfeignedly glad to see these Parisians:--but there
+was no elation at this meeting on such easy terms with greatness. Her
+shrewdness was as alive as ever; she was about to make money out of the
+visit--they were to have of her best, but they must pay for it. Between
+her rapid fire of questionings as to the countess's health and the
+history of her travels, there was as rapid a shower of commands,
+sometimes shouted out, above all the hubbub, to the cooks standing
+gaping in the kitchen doorway, or whispered hoarsely to Ernestine and
+Marianne, who were flying about like wild pigeons, a little drunk with
+the novelty of this first breakfast of the season.
+
+"_Allons, mon enfant--cours--cours_--get thy linen, my child, and the
+silver candelabres. It is to be laid in the Marmousets, thou knowest.
+Paul will come presently. And the salads, pluck them and bring them in
+to me--_cours--cours_."
+
+The great world was all very well, and it was well to be on friendly,
+even intimate terms, with it; but, _Dieu!_ one's own bread is of
+importance too! And the countess, for all her delicacy, was a _bonne
+fourchette_.
+
+The countess and her friend, after a moment of standing in the
+court-yard, of patting the pelican, of trying their blandishments on
+the flamingo, of catching up the bantam, and filling the air with their
+purring, and caressing, and incessant chatter, passed beneath the low
+door to the inner sanctum of madame. The two ladies were clearly bent
+on a few moments of unreserved gossip and that repairing of the toilet
+which is a religious act to women of fashion the world over.
+
+In the court-yard the scene was still a brilliant one. The gayly
+painted coach was now deserted. It stood, a chariot of state, as it
+were, awaiting royalty; its yellow sides gleamed like topaz in the sun.
+The grooms were unharnessing the leaders, that were still bathed in the
+white of their sweat. The count's dove-colored flannels were a soft
+mass against the snow of the _chef's_ apron and cap; the two were in
+deep consultation at the kitchen door. Monsieur Paul was showing, with
+all the absorption of the artist, his latest Jumieges carvings to the
+taller, more awkward of the gentlemen, to the one driven in by the
+mannish beauty.
+
+The cockatoos had not ceased shrieking from the very beginning of the
+hubbub; nor had the squirrels stopped running along the bars of their
+cage, a-flutter with excitement. The peacocks trailed their trains
+between the coach-wheels, announcing, squawkingly, their delight at the
+advent of a larger audience. Above the cries of the fowls and the
+shrieks of the cocks, the chatter of human tongues, the subdued murmur
+of the ladies' voices coming through the open lattice, and the stamp of
+horses' hoofs, there swept above it all the light June breeze, rustling
+in the vines, shaking the thick branches against the wooden facades.
+
+The two ladies soon made their appearance in the sunlit court-yard. The
+murmur of their talk and their laughter reached us, along with the
+froufrou of their silken petticoats.
+
+"You were not bored, _chere enfant_, driving Monsieur d'Agreste all
+that long distance?"
+
+The countess was smiling tenderly into her companion's face. She had
+stopped her to readjust the geranium sprig that was drooping in her
+friend's cover-coat. The smile was the smile of a sympathizing angel,
+but what a touch of hidden malice there was in the notes of her
+caressing voice! As she repinned the _boutonniere_, she gave the
+dancing eyes, that were brimming with the mirth of the coming retort,
+the searching inquest of her glance.
+
+"Bored! _Dieu, que non!_" The black little beauty threw back her
+throat, laughing, as she rolled her great eyes. "Bored--with all the
+tricks I was playing? Fernande! pity me, there was such a little time,
+and so much to do!"
+
+"So little time--only fourteen kilos!" The countess compressed her
+lips; they were smiling no longer.
+
+"Ah, but you see, I had so much to combat. You had a whole season, last
+summer, in which to play your game, your solemn game." Here the gay
+young widow rippled forth a pearly scale of treble laughter. "And I
+have had only a week, thus far!"
+
+"Yes, but what time you make!"
+
+And this time both ladies laughed, although, still, only one laughed
+well.
+
+"Ah! those women--how they love each other," commented Renard, as he
+sat on the bench, swinging his legs, with his eyes following the two
+vanishing figures. "Only women who are intimate--Parisian
+intimates--can cut to the bone like that, with a surgeon's dexterity."
+
+He explained then that the handsome brunette was a widow, a certain
+Baronne d'Autun, noted for her hunting and her conquests; the last on
+the latter list was Monsieur d'Agreste, a former admirer of the
+countess; he was somewhat famous as a scientist and socialist, so good
+a socialist as to refuse to wear his title of duke. The other two
+gentlemen of the party, who had joined them now, the two horsemen, were
+the Comtes de Mirant and de Fonbriant. These latter were two typical
+young swells of the Jockey Club model; their vacant, well-bred faces
+wore the correct degree of fashionable pallor, and their manners
+appeared to be also as perfect as their glances were insolent.
+
+Into these vacant faces the languid countess was breathing the
+inspiration of her smile. Enigmatic as was the latter, it was as simple
+as an infant's compared to the occult character of her glance. A wealth
+of complexities lay enfolded in the deep eyes, rimmed with their mystic
+darkened circlet--that circle in which the Parisienne frames her
+experience, and through which she pleads to have it enlarged!
+
+A Frenchwoman and cosmetics! Is there any other combination on this
+round earth more suggestive of the comedy of high life, of its elegance
+and of its perfidy, of its finish and of its emptiness?
+
+The men of the party wore costumes perilously suggestive of Opera
+Bouffe models. Their fingers were richly begemmed; their watch-chains
+were laden with seals and charms. Any one of the costumes was such as
+might have been chosen by a tenor in which to warble effectively to a
+_soubrette_ on the boards of a provincial theatre; and it was worn by
+these fops of the Jockey Club with the air of its being the last word
+in nautical fashions. Better than their costumes were their voices; for
+what speech from human lips pearls itself off with such crispness and
+finish as the delicate French idiom from a Parisian tongue?
+
+I never quite knew how it came about that we were added to this gay
+party of breakfasters. We found ourselves, however, after a high
+skirmish of preliminary presentations, among the number to take our
+places at the table.
+
+In the Chambre des Marmousets, Monsieur Paul, we found, had set the
+feast with the taste of an artist and the science of an archaeologist.
+The table itself was long and narrow, a genuine fifteenth century
+table. Down the centre ran a strip of antique altar-lace; the sides
+were left bare, that the lustre of the dark wood might be seen. In the
+centre was a deep old Caen bowl, with grapes and fuchsias to make a
+mound of soft color. A pair of seventeenth-century candelabres twisted
+and coiled their silver branches about their rich _repousse_ columns;
+here and there on the yellow strip of lace were laid bunches of June
+roses, those only of the rarer and older varieties having been chosen,
+and each was tied with a Louis XV love-knot. Monsieur Paul was himself
+an omniscient figure at the feast; he was by turns officiating as
+butler, carving, or serving from the side-tables; or he was crossing
+the court-yard with his careful, catlike tread, a bottle under each
+arm. He was also constantly appealed to by Monsieur d'Agreste or the
+count, to settle a dispute about the age of the china, or the original
+home of the various old chests scattered about the room.
+
+"Paul, your stained glass shows up well in this light," the count
+called out, wiping his mustache over his soup-plate.
+
+"Yes," answered Monsieur Paul, as he went on serving the sherry,
+pausing for a moment at the count's glass. "They always look well in
+full sunlight. It was a piece of pure luck, getting them. One can
+always count on getting hold of tapestries and carvings, but old glass
+is as rare as--"
+
+"A pretty woman," interpolated the gay young widow, with the air of a
+connoisseur.
+
+"Outside of Paris--you should have added," gallantly contributed the
+count. Everyone went on eating after the light laughter had died away.
+
+The countess had not assisted at this brief conversation; she was
+devoting her attention to receiving the devotion of the two young
+counts; one was on either side of her, and both gave every outward and
+visible sign of wearing her chains, and of wearing them with
+insistance. The real contest between them appeared to be, not so much
+which should make the conquest of the languid countess, as which should
+outflank the other in his compromising demeanor. The countess, beneath
+her drooping lids, watched them with the indulgent indolence of a
+lioness, too luxuriously lazy to spring.
+
+The countess, clearly, was not made for sunlight. In the courtyard her
+face had seemed chiefly remarkable as a triumph of cosmetic treatment;
+here, under this rich glow, the purity and delicacy of the features
+easily placed her among the beauties of the Parisian world. Her eyes,
+now that the languor of the lids was disappearing with the advent of
+the wines, were magnificent; her use of them was an open avowal of her
+own knowledge of their splendor. The young widow across the table was
+also using her eyes, but in a very different fashion. She had now taken
+off her straw hat; the curly crop of a brown mane gave the brilliant
+face an added accent of vigor. The _chien de race_ was the dominant
+note now in the muscular, supple body, the keen-edged nostrils, and the
+intent gaze of the liquid eyes. These latter were fixed with the fixity
+of a savage on Charm. She was giving, in a sweet sibilant murmur, the
+man seated next her--Monsieur d'Agreste, the man who refused to bear
+his title--her views of the girl.
+
+"Those Americans, the Americans of the best type, are a race apart, I
+tell you; we have nothing like them; we condemn them because we don't
+understand them. They understand us--they read us--"
+
+"Oh, they read our books--the worst of them."
+
+"Yes, but they read the best too; and the worst don't seem to hurt
+them. I'll warrant that Mees Gay--that is her name, is it not?--has
+read Zola, for instance; and yet, see how simple and
+innocent--yes--innocent, she looks."
+
+"Yes, the innocence of experience--which knows how to hide," said
+Monsieur d'Agreste, with a slight shrug.
+
+"Mees Gay!" the countess cried out across the table, suddenly waking
+from her somnolence; she had overheard the baroness in spite of the low
+tone in which the dialogue had been carried on; her voice was so
+mellifluously sweet, one instinctively scented a touch of hidden poison
+in it--"Mees Gay, there is a question being put at this side of the
+table you alone can answer. Pray pardon the impertinence of a personal
+question--but we hear that American young ladies read Zola; is it true?"
+
+"I am afraid that we do read him," was Charm's frank answer. "I have
+read him--but my reading is all in the past tense now."
+
+"Ah--you found him too highly seasoned?" one of the young counts asked,
+eagerly, with his nose in the air, as if scenting an indiscretion.
+
+"No, I did not go far enough to get a taste of his horrors; I stopped
+at his first period."
+
+"And what do you call his first period, dear mademoiselle?" The
+countess's voice was still freighted with honey. Her husband coughed
+and gave her a warning glance, and Renard was moving uneasily in his
+chair.
+
+"Oh," Charm answered lightly, "his best period--when he didn't sell."
+
+Everyone laughed. The little widow cried beneath her breath:
+
+"_Elle a de l'esprit, celle-la_---"
+
+"_Elle en a de trop_," retorted the countess.
+
+"Did you ever read Zola's 'Quatre Saisons?'" Renard asked, turning to
+the count, at the other end of the table.
+
+No, the count had not read it--but he could read the story of a
+beautiful nature when he encountered one, and presently he allowed
+Charm to see how absorbing he found its perusal.
+
+"_Ah, bien--et tout de meme_--Zola, yes, he writes terrible books; but
+he is a good man--a model husband and father," continued Monsieur
+d'Agreste, addressing the table.
+
+"And Daudet--he adores his wife and children," added the count, as if
+with a determination to find only goodness in the world.
+
+"I wonder how posterity will treat them? They'll judge their lives by
+their books, I presume."
+
+"Yes, as we judge Rabelais or Voltaire--"
+
+"Or the English Shakespeare by his 'Hamlet.'"
+
+"Ah! what would not Voltaire have done with Hamlet!" The countess was
+beginning to wake again.
+
+"And Moliere? What of _his_ 'Misanthrope?' There is a finished, a
+human, a possible Hamlet! a Hamlet with flesh and blood," cried out the
+younger count on her right. "Even Mounet-Sully could do nothing with
+the English Hamlet."
+
+"Ah, well, Mounet-Sully did all that was possible with the part. He
+made Hamlet at least a lover!"
+
+"Ah, love! as if, even on the stage, one believed in that absurdity any
+longer!" was the countess's malicious comment.
+
+"Then, if you have ceased to believe in love, why did you go so
+religiously to Monsieur Caro's lectures?" cried the baroness.
+
+"Oh, that dear Caro! He treated the passions so delicately, he handled
+them as if they were curiosities. One went to hear his lecture on Love
+as one might go to hear a treatise on the peculiarities of an extinct
+species," was the countess's quiet rejoinder.
+
+"One should believe in love, if only to prove one's unbelief in it,"
+murmured the young count on her left.
+
+"Ah, my dear comte, love, nowadays, like nature, should only be used
+for decoration, as a bit of stage setting, or as stage scenery."
+
+"A moonlight night can be made endurable, sometimes," whispered the
+count.
+
+"A _clair de lune_ that ends in _lune de miel_, that is the true use to
+which to put the charms of Diana." It was Monsieur d'Agreste's turn now
+to murmur in the baroness's ear.
+
+"Oh, honey, it becomes so cloying in time," interpolated the countess,
+who had overheard; she overheard everything. She gave a wearied glance
+at her husband, who was still talking vigorously to Charm and Renard.
+She went on softly: "It's like trying to do good. All goodness, even
+one's own, bores one in the end. At Basniege, for example, lovely as it
+is, ideally feudal, and with all its towers as erect as you please, I
+find this modern virtue, this craze for charity, as tiresome as all the
+rest of it. Once you've seen that all the old women have woollen
+stockings, and that each cottage has fagots enough for the winter, and
+your _role_ of benefactress is at an end. In Paris, at least, charity
+is sometimes picturesque; poverty there is tainted with vice. If one
+believed in anything, it might be worth while to begin a mission; but
+as it is--"
+
+"The gospel of life, according to you, dear comtesse, is that in modern
+life there is no real excitement except in studying the very best way
+to be rid of it," cried out Renard, from the bottom of the table.
+
+"True; but suicide is such a coarse weapon," the lady answered, quite
+seriously; "so vulgar now, since the common people have begun to use
+it. Besides, it puts your adversary, the world, in possession of your
+secret of discontent. No, no. Suicide, the invention of the nineteenth
+century, goes out with it. The only refined form of suicide is to bore
+one's self to death," and she smiled sweetly into the young man's eyes
+nearest her.
+
+"Ah, comtesse, you should not have parted so early in life with all
+your illusions," was Monsieur d'Agreste's protest across the table.
+
+"And, Monsieur d'Agreste, it isn't given to us all to go to the ends of
+the earth, as you do, in search of new ones! This friction of living
+doesn't wear on you as it does on the rest of us."
+
+"Ah, the ends of the earth, they are very much like the middle and the
+beginning of things. Man is not so very different, wherever you find
+him. The only real difference lies in the manner of approaching him.
+The scientist, for example, finds him eternally fresh, novel,
+inspiring; he is a mine only as yet half-worked." Monsieur d'Agreste
+was beginning to wake up; his eyes, hitherto, alone had been alive; his
+hands had been busy, crunching his bread; but his tongue had been
+silent.
+
+"Ah--h science! Science is only another anaesthetic--it merely helps to
+kill time. It is a hobby, like any other," was the countess's rejoinder.
+
+"Perhaps," courteously returned Monsieur d'Agreste, with perfect
+sweetness of temper. "But at least, it is a hobby that kills no one
+else. And if of a hobby you can make a principle--"
+
+"A principle?" The countess contracted her brows, as if she had heard a
+word that did not please her.
+
+"Yes, dear lady; the wise man lays out his life as a gardener does a
+garden, on the principle of selection, of order, and with a view to the
+succession of the seasons. You all bemoan the dulness of life; you, in
+Paris, the torpor of ennui stifles you, you cry. On the contrary, I
+would wish the days were weeks, and the weeks months. And why? Simply
+because I have discovered the philosopher's stone. I have grasped the
+secret of my era. The comedy of rank is played out; the life of the
+trifler is at an end; all that went out with the Bourbons.
+Individualism is the new order. To-day a man exists simply by virtue of
+his own effort--he stands on his own feet. It is the era of the
+republican, of the individual--science is the true republic. For us who
+are displaced from the elevation our rank gave us, work is the
+watchword, and it is the only battle-cry left us now. He only is
+strong, and therefore happy, who perceives this truth, and who marches
+in step with the modern movement."
+
+The serious turn given to the conversation had silenced all save the
+baroness. She had listened even more intently than the others to her
+friend's eloquence, nodding her head assentingly to all that he said.
+His philosophic reflections produced as much effect on her vivacious
+excitability as they might on a restless Skye-terrier.
+
+"Yes, yes--he's entirely right, is Monsieur d'Agreste; he has got to
+the bottom of things. One must keep in step with modernity--one must be
+_fin de siecle_. Comtesse, you should hunt; there is nothing like a fox
+or a boar to make life worth living. It's better, infinitely better,
+than a pursuit of hearts; a boar's more troublesome than a man."
+
+"Unless you marry him," the countess interrupted, ending with a
+thrush-like laugh. When she laughed she seemed to have a bird in her
+throat.
+
+"Oh, a man's heart, it's like the flag of a defenceless country--anyone
+may capture it."
+
+The countess smiled with ineffable grace into the vacant, amorous-eyed
+faces on either side of her, rising as she smiled. We had reached
+dessert now; the coffee was being handed round. Everyone rose; but the
+countess made no move to pass out from the room. Both she and the
+baroness took from their pockets dainty cigarette-cases.
+
+"_Vous permettez?_" asked the baroness, leaning over coquettishly to
+Monsieur d'Agreste's cigar. She accompanied her action with a charming
+glance, one in which all the woman in her was uppermost, and one which
+made Monsieur d'Agreste's pale cheeks flush like a boy's. He was a
+philosopher and a scientist; but all his science and philosophy had not
+saved him from the barbed shafts of a certain mischievous little god.
+He, also, was visibly hugging his chains.
+
+The party had settled themselves in the low divans and in the Henri IV
+arm-chairs; a few here and there remained, still grouped about the
+table, with the freedom of pose and in the comfort of attitude smoking
+and coffee bring with them.
+
+It was destined, however, that the hour was to be a short one. One of
+the grooms obsequiously knocked at the door; he whispered in the
+count's ear, who advanced quickly toward him, the news that the coach
+was waiting; one of the leaders.
+
+"Desolated, my dear ladies--but my man tells me the coach is in
+readiness, and I have an impertinent leader who refuses to stand, when
+he is waiting, on anything more solid than his hind legs. Fernande, my
+dear, we must be on the move. Desolated, dear ladies--desolated--but
+it's only _au revoir_. We must arrange a meeting later, in Paris--"
+
+The scene in the court-yard was once again gay with life and bristling
+with color. The coach and the dog-cart shone resplendent in the
+slanting sun's rays. In the brighter sunlight, the added glow in the
+eyes and the cheeks of the brilliantly costumed group, made both men
+and women seem younger and fresher than when they had appeared, two
+hours since. All were in high good humor--the wines and the talk had
+warmed the quick French blood. There was a merry scramble for the top
+coach-seats; the two young counts exchanged their seat in their saddles
+for the privilege of holding, one the countess's vinaigrette, and the
+other, her long-handled parasol. Renard was beside his friend De
+Troisac; the horn rang out, the horses started as if stung, dashing at
+their bits, and in another moment the great coach was being whirled
+beneath the archway.
+
+"_Au revoir--au revoir!_" was cried down to us from the throne-like
+elevation. There was a pretty waving of hands--for even the countess's
+dislike melted into sweetness as she bade us farewell. There were
+answering cries from the shrieking cockatoos, from the peacocks who
+trailed their tails sadly in the dust, from the cooks and the peasant
+serving-women who had assembled to bid the distinguished guests adieu.
+There was also a sweeping bow from Monsieur Paul, and a grunt of
+contented dismissal from Madame Le Mois.
+
+A moment after the departure of the coach the court yard was as still
+as a convent cloister.
+
+It was still enough to hear the click of madame's fingers, as she
+tapped her snuff-box.
+
+"The count doesn't see any better than he did--_toujours myope, lui_"
+the old woman murmured to her son, with a pregnant wink, as she took
+her snuff.
+
+"_C'est sa facon de tout voir, au contraire, ma mere_," significantly
+returned Monsieur Paul, with his knowing smile.
+
+The mother's shrug answered the smile, as both mother and son walked in
+different directions--across the sunlit court.
+
+
+
+
+A LITTLE JOURNEY ALONG THE COAST.
+
+CAEN, BAYEUX, ST. LO, COUTANCES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+A NIGHT IN A CAEN ATTIC.
+
+
+I have always found the act of going away contagious. Who really enjoys
+being left behind, to mope in a corner of the world others have
+abandoned? The gay company atop of the coach, as they were whirled
+beneath the old archway, had left discontent behind; the music of the
+horn, like that played by the Pied Piper, had the magic of making the
+feet ache to follow after.
+
+Monsieur Paul was so used to see his world go and come--to greeting it
+with civility, and to assist at its departure with smiling indifference
+that the announcement of our own intention to desert the inn within a
+day or so, was received with unflattering impassivity. We had decided
+to take a flight along the coast--the month and the weather were at
+their best as aids to such adventure. We hoped to see the Fete Dieu at
+Caen. Why not push on to Coutances, where the Fete was still celebrated
+with a mediaeval splendor? From thence to the great Mont, the Mont St.
+Michel, it was but the distance of a good steed's galloping--we could
+cover the stretch of country between in a day's driving, and catch, who
+knows?--perhaps the June pilgrims climbing the Mont.
+
+"Ah, mesdames! there are duller things in the world to endure than a
+glimpse of the Normandy coast and the scent of June roses!
+_Idylliquement belle, la cote a ce moment-ci!_"
+
+This was all the regret that seasoned Monsieur Paul's otherwise
+gracious and most graceful of farewells. Why cannot we all attain to an
+innkeeper's altitude, as a point of view from which to look out upon
+the world? Why not emulate his calm, when people who have done with us
+turn their backs and stalk away? Why not, like him, count the pennies
+as not all the payment received when a pleasure has come which cannot
+be footed up in the bill? The entire company of the inn household was
+assembled to see us start. Not a white mouse but was on duty. The
+cockatoos performed the most perilous of their trapeze accomplishments
+as a last tribute; the doves cooed mournfully; the monkeys ran like
+frenzied spirits along their gratings to see the very last of us.
+Madame Le Mois considerately carried the bantam to the archway, that
+the lost joy of strutting might be replaced by the pride of preferment
+above its fellows.
+
+"_Adieu_, mesdames."
+
+"_Au revoir_--you will return--_tout le monde revient_--Guillaume le
+Conquerant, like Caesar, conquers once to hold forever--remember--"
+
+[Illustration: CHATEAU FONTAINE LE HENRI, NEAR CAEN]
+
+From Monsieur Paul, in quieter, richer tones, came his true farewell,
+the one we had looked for:
+
+"The evenings in the Marmousets will seem lonely when it rains--you
+must give us the hope of a quick return. Hope is the food of those who
+remain behind, as we Normans say!"
+
+The archway darkened the sod for an instant; the next we had passed out
+into the broad highway. Jean, in his blouse, with Suzette beside him,
+both jolting along in the lumbering _char-a-banc_, stared out at us
+with a vacant-eyed curiosity. We were only two travellers like
+themselves, along a dusty roadway, on our way to Caen; we were of no
+particular importance in the landscape, we and our rickety little
+phaeton. Yet only a moment before, in the inn court-yard, we had felt
+ourselves to be the pivotal centre of a world wholly peopled with
+friends! This is what comes to all men who live under the modern
+curse--the double curse of restlessness and that itching for novelty,
+which made the old Greek longing for the unknown deity--which is also
+the only honest prayer of so many _fin de siecle_ souls!
+
+Besides the dust, there were other things abroad on the high-road. What
+a lot of June had got into the air! The meadows and the orchards were
+exuding perfumes; the hedge-rows were so many yards of roses and wild
+grape-vines in blossom. The sea-smells, aromatic, pungent, floated
+inland to be married, in hot haste, to a perfect harem of clover and
+locust scents. The charm of the coast was enriched by the homely,
+familiar scenes of farm-house life. All the country between Dives and
+Caen seemed one vast farm, beautifully tilled, with its meadow-lands
+dipping seaward. For several miles, perhaps, the agricultural note
+alone would be the dominant one, with the fields full of the old, the
+eternal surprise--the dawn of young summer rising over them. Down the
+sides of the low hills, the polychrome grain waved beneath the touch of
+the breeze like a moving sea. Many and vast were the flat-lands; they
+were wide vistas of color: there were fields that were scarlet with the
+pomp of poppies, others tinged to the yellow of a Celestial by the
+feathery mustard; and still others blue as a sapphire's heart from the
+dye of millions of bluets. A dozen small rivers--or perhaps it was only
+one--coiled and twisted like a cobra in sinuous action, in and out
+among the pasture and sea meadows.
+
+As we passed the low, bushy banks, we heard the babel of the
+washerwomen's voices as they gossiped and beat their clothes on the
+stones. A fisherman or two gave one a hint that idling was understood
+here, as elsewhere, as being a fine art for those who possess the
+talent of never being pressed for time. A peasant had brought his horse
+to the bank; the river, to both peasant and Percheron, was evidently
+considered as a personal possession--as are all rivers to those who
+live near them. There was a naturalness in all the life abroad in the
+fields that gave this Normandy highroad an incomparable charm. An
+Arcadian calm, a certain patriarchal simplicity reigned beneath the
+trees. Children trudged to the river bank with pails and pitchers to be
+filled; women, with rakes and scythes in hand, crept down from the
+upper fields to season their mid-day meal with the cooling whiff of the
+river and sea air. Children tugged at their skirts. In two feet of
+human life, with kerchief tied under chin, the small hands carrying a
+huge bunch of cornflowers, how much of great gravity there may be! One
+such rustic sketch of the future peasant was seriously carrying its
+bouquet to another small edition seated in a grove of poppies; it might
+have been a votive offering. Both the children seated themselves, a
+very earnest conversation ensuing. On the hill-top, near by, the father
+and mother were also conversing, as they bent over their scythes.
+Another picture was wheeling itself along the river bank; it was a
+farmer behind a huge load of green grass; atop of the grasses two
+moon-faced children had laps and hands crowded with field flowers.
+Behind them the mother walked, with a rake slung over her shoulder, her
+short skirts and scant draperies giving to her step a noble freedom.
+The brush of Vollon or of Breton would have seized upon her to embody
+the type of one of their rustic beauties, that type whose mingled
+fierceness and grace make their peasants the rude goddesses of the
+plough.
+
+Even a rustic river wearies at last of wandering, as an occupation.
+Miles back we had left the sea; even the hills had stopped a full hour
+ago, as if they had no taste for the rivalry of cathedral spires.
+Behold the river now, coursing as sedately as the high-road, between
+two interminable lines of poplars. Far as the eye could reach stretched
+a wide, great plain. It was flat as an old woman's palm; it was also as
+fertile as the city sitting in the midst of its luxuriance has been
+rich in history.
+
+"_Ce pays est tres beau, et Caen la plus jolie ville, la plus avenante,
+la plus gaie, la mieux situee, les plus belles rues, les plus beaux
+batiments, les plus belles eglises_--"
+
+There was no doubt, Charm added, as she repeated the lady's verdict, of
+the opinion Madame de Sevigne had formed of the town. As we drove, some
+two hundred years later, through the Caen streets, the charm we found
+had been perpetuated, but alas! not all of the beauty. At first we were
+entirely certain that Caen had retained its old loveliness; the
+outskirts were tricked out with the bloom of gardens and with old
+houses brave in their armor of vines. The meadows and the great trees
+of the plain were partly to blame for this illusion; they yielded their
+place grudgingly to the cobble-stoned streets and the height of dormer
+windows.
+
+To come back to the world, even to a provincial world, after having
+lived for a time in a corner, is certain to evoke a pleasurable feeling
+of elation. The streets of Caen were by no means the liveliest we had
+driven into; nor did the inhabitants, as at Villerville, turn out _en
+masse_ to welcome us. The streets, to be quite truthful, were as
+sedately quiet as any thoroughfares could well be, and proudly call
+themselves boulevards. The stony-faced gray houses presented a
+singularly chill front, considering their nationality. But neither the
+pallor of the streets nor their aspect of provincial calm had power to
+dampen the sense of our having returned to the world of cities. A girl
+issuing from a doorway with a netted veil drawn tightly over her rosy
+cheeks, and the curve of a Parisian bodice, immediately invested Caen
+with a metropolitan importance.
+
+The most courteous of innkeepers was bending over our carriage-door. He
+was desolated, but his inn was already full; it was crowded to
+repletion with people; surely these ladies knew it was the week of the
+races? Caen was as crowded as the inn; at night many made of the open
+street their bed; his own court-yard was as filled with men as with
+farm-wagons. It was altogether hopeless as a situation; as a welcome
+into a strange city, I have experienced none more arctic. I had,
+however, forgotten that I was travelling with a conqueror; that when
+Charm smiled she did as she pleased with her world. The innkeeper was
+only a man; and since Adam, when has any member of that sex been known
+to say "No" to a pretty woman? This French Adam, when Charm parted her
+lips, showing the snow of her teeth, found himself suddenly,
+miraculously, endowed with a fragment of memory. _Tiens_, he had
+forgotten! that very morning a corner of the attic--_un bout du
+toit_--had been vacated. If these ladies did not mind mounting to a
+_grenier_--an attic, comfortable, although still only an attic!
+
+The one dormer window was on a level with the roof-tops. We had a whole
+company of "belles voisines," a trick of neighborliness in windows the
+quick French wit, years ago, was swift to name. These "neighbors" were
+of every order and pattern. All the world and his mother-in-law were
+gone to the races;--and yet every window was playing a different scene
+in the comedy of this life in the sky. Who does not know and love a
+French window, the higher up in the world of air the better? There are
+certain to be plants, rows of them in pots, along the wide sill; one
+can count on a bullfinch or a parrot, as one can on the bebes that
+appear to be born on purpose to poke their fingers in the cages; there
+is certain also to be another cage hanging above the flowers--one
+filled with a fresh lettuce or a cabbage leaf. There is usually a snowy
+curtain, fringed; just at the parting of the draperies an old woman is
+always seated, with chin and nose-tip meeting, her bent figure rounding
+over the square of her knitting-needles.
+
+It was such a window as this that made us feel, before our bonnets were
+laid aside, that Caen was glad to see us. The window directly opposite
+was wide open. Instead of one there were half a dozen songsters aloft;
+we were so near their cages that the cat-bird whistled, to call his
+master and mistress to witness the intrusion of these strangers. The
+master brought a hot iron along--he was a tailor and was just in the
+act of pressing a seam. His wife was scraping carrots, and she tucked
+her bowl between her knees as she came to stand and gaze across. A cry
+rose up within the low room. Some one else wished to see the newcomers.
+The tailor laid aside his iron to lift proudly, far out beyond the
+cages, the fattest, rosiest offspring that ever was born in an attic.
+The babe smote its hands for pure joy. We were better than a broken
+doll--we were alive. The family as a family accepted us as one among
+them. The man smiled, and so did his wife. Presently both nodded
+graciously, as if, understanding the cause of our intrusion on their
+aerial privacy, they wished to present us with the compliment of their
+welcome. The manners among these garret-windows, we murmured, were
+really uncommonly good.
+
+"Bonjour, mesdames!" It was the third time the woman had passed, and we
+were still at the window. Her husband left his seam to join her.
+
+"Ces dames are not accustomed to such heights--_a ces hauteurs
+peut-etre?_"
+
+The ladies in truth were not, unhappily, always so well lodged; from
+this height at least one could hope to see a city.
+
+"_Ah! ha! c'est gai par ici, n'est-ce pas?_ One has the sun all to
+one's self, and air! Ah! for freshness one must climb to an attic in
+these days, it appears."
+
+It was impossible to be more contented on a height than was this family
+of tailors; for when not cooking, or washing, or tossing the "bebe" to
+the birds, the wife stitched and stitched all her husband cut, besides
+taking a turn at the family socks. Part of this contentment came, no
+doubt, from the variety of shows and amusements with which the family,
+as a family, were perpetually supplied. For workers, there were really
+too many social distractions abroad in the streets; it was almost
+impossible for the two to meet all the demands on their time. Now it
+was the jingle of a horse's bell-collar; the tailor, between two snips
+at a collar, must see who was stopping at the hotel door. Later a horn
+sounded; this was only the fish vender, the wife merely bent her head
+over the flowers to be quite sure. Next a trumpet, clear and strong,
+rang its notes up into the roof eaves; this was something _bebe_ must
+see and hear--all three were bending at the first throbbing touch of
+that music on the still air, to see whence it came. Thus you see, even
+in the provinces, in a French street, something is quite certain to
+happen; it all depends on the choice one makes in life of a window--of
+being rightly placed--whether or not one finds life dull or amusing.
+This tailor had the talent of knowing where to stand, at life's
+corner--for him there was a ceaseless procession of excitements.
+
+It may be that our neighbor's talent for seeing was catching. It is
+certain that no city we had ever before looked out upon had seemed as
+crowded with sights. The whole history of Caen was writ in stone
+against the blue of the sky. Here, below us, sat the lovely old town,
+seated in the grasses of her plain. Yonder was her canal, as an artery
+to keep her pulse bounding in response to the sea; the ship-masts and
+the drooping sails seemed strange companions for the great trees and
+the old garden walls. Those other walls William built to cincture the
+city, Froissart found three centuries later so amazingly "strong, full
+of drapery and merchandise, rich citizens, noble dames, damsels, and
+fine churches," for this girdle of the Conqueror's great bastions the
+eye looks in vain. But William's vow still proclaims its fulfilment;
+the spire of l'Abbaye aux Hommes, and the Romanesque towers of its
+twin, l'Abbaye aux Dames, face each other, as did William and Mathilde
+at the altar--that union that had to be expiated by the penance of
+building these stones in the air.
+
+Commend me to an attic window to put one in sympathetic relations with
+cathedral spires! At this height we and they, for a part of their
+flight upward, at least, were on a common level--and we all know what
+confidences come about from the accident of propinquity. They seemed to
+assure us as never before when sitting at their feet, the difficulties
+they had overcome in climbing heavenward. Every stone that looked down
+upon the city wore this look of triumph.
+
+In the end it was this Caen in the air--it was this aerial city of
+finials, of towers, of peaked spires, of carved chimneys, of tree-tops
+over which the clouds rode; of a plain, melting--like a sea--into the
+mists of the horizon; this high, bright region peopled with birds and
+pigeons; of a sky tender, translucent, and as variable as human
+emotions; of an air that was rapture to breathe, and of nights in which
+the stars were so close they might almost be handled; it was this free,
+hilly city of the roofs that is still the Caen I remember best.
+
+There were other features of Caen that were good to see, I also
+remember. Her street expression, on the whole, was very pleasing. It
+was singularly calm and composed, even for a city in a plain. But the
+quiet came, doubtless, from its population being away at the races. The
+few townspeople who, for obvious reasons, were stay-at-homes, were
+uncommonly civil; Caen had evidently preserved the tradition of good
+manners. An army of cripples was in waiting to point the way to the
+church doors; a regiment of beggars was within them, with nets cast
+already for the catching of the small fry of our pennies. In the gay,
+geranium-lit garden circling the side walls of St. Pierre there were
+many legless soldiers; the old houses we went to see later on in the
+high street seemed, by contrast, to have survived other wars, those of
+the Directory and the Mountain, with a really scandalous degree of good
+fortune. On our way to a still greater church than St. Pierre, to the
+Abbaye aux Dames, that, like the queen who built her, sits on the
+throne of a hill--on our way thither we passed innumerable other
+ancient mansions. None of these were down in the guide books; they
+were, therefore, invested with the deeper charm of personal discovery.
+Once away from the little city of the shops, the real Caen came out to
+greet us. It was now a gray, sad, walled town; behind the walls,
+level-browed Francis I. windows looked gravely over the tufts of
+verdure; here was an old gateway; there what might once have been a
+portcullis, now only an arched wreath of vines; still beyond, a group
+of severe-looking mansions with great iron bound windows presented the
+front of miniature fortresses. And everywhere gardens and gardens.
+
+Turn where you would, you would only turn to face verdure, foliage, and
+masses of flowers. The high walls could neither keep back the odors nor
+hide the luxuriance of these Caen gardens. These must have been the
+streets that bewitched Madame de Sevigne. Through just such a maze of
+foliage Charlotte Corday has also walked, again and again, with her
+wonderful face aflame with her great purpose, before the purpose
+ripened into the dagger thrust at Marat's bared breast--that avenging
+Angel of Beauty stabbing the Beast in his bath. Auber, with his
+Anacreontic ballads in his young head, would seem more fittingly framed
+in this old Caen that runs up a hill-side. But women as beautiful as
+Marie Stuart and the Corday can deal safely in the business of
+assassination, the world will always continue to aureole their pictures
+with a garland of roses.
+
+The Abbaye on its hill was reached at last. All Caen lay below us; from
+the hillside it flowed as a sea rolls away from a great ship's sides.
+Down below, far below, as if buttressing the town that seemed rushing
+away recklessly to the waste of the plains, stands the Abbaye's
+twin-brother, the Aux Hommes. Plains, houses, roof-tops, spires, all
+were swimming in a sea of golden light; nothing seemed quite real or
+solid, so vast was the prospect and so ethereal was the medium through
+which we saw it. Perhaps it was the great contrast between that
+shimmering, unstable city below, that reeked and balanced itself like
+some human creature whose dazzled vision had made its footing
+insecure--it may be that it was this note of contrast which invested
+this vast structure bestriding the hill, with such astonishing
+grandeur. I have known few, if any, other churches produce so
+instantaneous an effect of a beauty that was one with austerity. This
+great Norman is more Puritan than French: it is Norman Gothic with a
+Puritan severity.
+
+The sound of a deep sonorous music took us quickly within. It was as
+mysterious a music as ever haunted a church aisle. The vast and snowy
+interior was as deserted as a Presbyterian church on a week-day. Yet
+the sound of the rich, strong voices filled all the place. There was no
+sound of tingling accompaniment: there was no organ pipe, even, to add
+its sensuous note of color. There was only the sound of the voices, as
+they swelled, and broke, and began afresh.
+
+The singing went on.
+
+It was a slow "plain chant." Into the great arches the sonorous
+chanting beat upon the ear with a rhythmic perfection that, even
+without the lovely flavor of its sweetness, would have made a beauty of
+its own. In this still and holy place, with the company of the stately
+Norman arches soaring aloft--beneath the sombre glory of the giant
+aisle--the austere simplicity of this chant made the heart beat, one
+knew not why, and the eyes moisten, one also knew not why.
+
+We had followed the voices. They came, we found, from within the choir.
+A pattering of steps proclaimed we were to go no farther.
+
+"Not there, my ladies--step this way, one only enters the choir by
+going into the hospital."
+
+The voice was low and sweet; the smile, a spark of divinity set in a
+woman's face; and the whole was clothed in a nun's garb.
+
+We followed the fluttering robes; we passed out once more into the
+sunlit parvis. We spoke to the smile and it answered: yes, the choir
+was reserved for the Sisters--they must be able to approach it from the
+convent and the hospital; it had always, since the time of Mathilde,
+been reserved for the nuns; would we pass this way? The way took us
+into an open vaulted passage, past a grating where sat a white-capped
+Sister, past a group of girls and boys carrying wreaths and
+garlands--they were making ready for the _Fete-Dieu_, our nun
+explained--past, at the last, a series of corridors through which,
+faintly at first, and then sweeter and fuller, there struck once more
+upon our ears the sounds of the deep and resonant chanting.
+
+The black gown stopped all at once. The nun was standing in front of a
+green curtain. She lifted it. This was what we saw. The semicircle of a
+wide apse. Behind, rows upon rows of round arches. Below the arches, in
+the choir stalls, a long half-circle of stately figures. The figures
+were draped from head to foot. When they bent their heads not an inch
+of flesh was visible, except a few hands here and there that had
+escaped the long, wide sleeves. All these figures were motionless; they
+were as immobile as statues; occasionally, at the end of a "Gloria,"
+all turned to face the high altar. At the end of the "Amen" a cloud of
+black veils swept the ground. Then for several measures of the chant
+the figures were again as marble. In each of the low, round arches, a
+stately woman, tall and nobly planned, draped like a goddess turned
+saint, stood and chanted to her Lord. Had the Norman builders carved
+these women, ages ago, standing about Mathilde's tomb, those ancient
+sculptures could not have embodied, in more ideal image, the type of
+womanly renunciation and of a saint's fervor of exaltation.
+
+We left them, with the rich chant still full upon their lips, with
+heads bent low, calm as graven images. It was only the bloom on a
+cheek, here and there, that made one certain of the youth entombed
+within these nuns' garb.
+
+"Happy, _mesdames? Oh, mais tres heureuses, toutes_--there are no women
+so happy as we. See how they come to us, from all the country around.
+_En voila une_--did you remark the pretty one, with the book, seated,
+all in white? She is to be a full Sister in a month. She comes from a
+noble family in the south. She was here one day, she saw the life of
+the Sisters, of us all working here, among the poor soldiers--_elle a
+vu ca, et pour tout de bon, s'est donnee a Dieu!_"
+
+The smile of our nun was rapturous. She was proving its source. Once
+more we saw the young countess who had given herself to her God. An
+hour later, when we had reached the hospital wards, her novice's robes
+were trailing the ground. She was on her knees in the very middle of
+the great bare room. She was repeating the office of the hour, aloud,
+with clasped hands and uplifted head. On her lovely young face there
+was the glow of a divine ecstasy. All the white faces from the long
+rows of the white beds were bending toward her; to one even in all
+fulness of strength and health that girlish figure, praying beside the
+great vase of the snowy daisies, with the glow that irradiated the
+sweet, pure face, might easily enough have seemed an angel's.
+
+As companions for our tour of the grounds we had two young Englishmen.
+Both eyed the nuns in the distance of the corridors and the gardens
+with the sharpened glances all men level at the women who have
+renounced them. It is a mystery no man ever satisfactorily fathoms.
+
+"Queer notion, this, a lot of women shutting themselves up," remarked
+the younger of the two. "In England, now, they'd all go in for being
+old maids, drinking tea and coddling cats, you know."
+
+"I wonder which are the happier, your countrywomen or these Sisters,
+who, in renouncing the world devote their lives to serving it. See,
+over yonder" and I nodded to a scene beneath the wide avenue of the
+limes. Two tall Augustines were supporting a crippled old man; they
+were showing him some fresh garden-beds. Beyond was a gayer group. Some
+of the lay sisters were tugging at a huge basket of clothes, fresh from
+the laundry. Running across the grass, with flying draperies, two nuns,
+laughing as they ran, each striving to outfoot the other, were
+hastening to their rescue.
+
+"They keep their bloom, running about like that; only healthy nuns I
+ever saw."
+
+"That's because they have something better than cats to coddle."
+
+"Ah, ha! that's not bad. It's a slow suicide, all the same. But here we
+are, at the top; it's a fine outlook, is it not?"
+
+The young man panted as he reached the top of the Maze, one of the
+chief glories of the old Abbaye grounds. He had a fair and sensitive
+face; a weak product on the whole, he seemed, compared with the
+nobly-built, vigorous-bodied nuns crowding the choir-stalls yonder.
+Instead of that long, slow suicide, surely these women should be doing
+their greater work of reproducing a race. Even an open-air cell seems
+to me out of place in our century. It will be entirely out of fashion
+in time, doubtless, as the mediaeval cell has gone along with the old
+castle life, whose princely mode of doing things made a nunnery the
+only respectable hiding-place for the undowered daughters.
+
+As we crept down into Caen, it was to find it thick with the dust of
+twilight. The streets were dense with other things besides the
+thickened light. The Caen world was crowding homeward; all the
+boulevards and side streets were alive with a moving throng of dusty,
+noisy, weary holidaymakers. The town was abroad in the streets to hear
+the news of the horses, and to learn the history of the betting.
+
+Although we had gone to church instead of doing the races, many of
+those who had peopled the gay race-track came back to us. The table
+d'hote, at our inn that night, was as noisy as a Parisian cafe. It was
+scarcely as discreet, I should say. On our way to our attic that night,
+the little corridors made us a really amazing number of confidences.
+
+It was strange, but all the shoes appeared to have come in pairs of
+twos. Never was there such a collection of boots in couples. Strange it
+was, also, to see how many little secrets these rows of candid
+shoe-leather disclosed. Here a pert, coquettish pair of ties were
+having as little in common as possible with the stout, somewhat clumsy
+walking-boots next them. In the two just beyond, at the next door, how
+the delicate, slender buttoned kids leaned over, floppingly, to rest on
+the coarse, yet strong, hobnailed clumpers!
+
+Shabbier and shabbier grew the shoes, as we climbed upward. With each
+pair of stairs we seemed to have left a rung in the ladder of fortune
+behind. But even the very poorest in pocket had brought his little
+extravagance with him to the races.
+
+The only genuine family party had taken refuge, like ourselves, in the
+attic.
+
+At the very next door to our own, Monsieur, Madame, et Bebe proclaimed,
+by the casting of their dusty shoes, that they also, like the rest of
+the world, had come to Caen to see the horses run.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A DAY AT BAYEUX AND ST. LO.
+
+
+Caen seated in its plain, wearing its crown of steeples--this was our
+last glimpse of the beautiful city. Our way to Bayeux was strewn thick
+with these Normandy jewels; with towns smaller than Caen; with Gothic
+belfries; with ruined priories, and with castles, stately even when
+tottering in decay. When the last castle was lost in a thicket, we
+discovered that our iron horse was stopping in the very middle of a
+field. If the guard had shouted out the name of any American city,
+built overnight, on a Western prairie, we should have felt entirely at
+home in this meadow; we should have known any clearing, with grass and
+daisies, was a very finished evidence of civilization at high pressure.
+
+But a lane as the beginning of a cathedral town!
+
+Evidently Bayeux has had a Ruskinian dread of steam-whistles, for this
+ancient seat of bishops has succeeded in retaining the charms of its
+old rustic approaches, whatever else it may have sacrificed on the
+altar of modernness.
+
+An harangue, at the door of the quaint old Normandy omnibus, by the
+driver of the same, was proof that the lesson of good oratory,
+administered by generations of bishops, had not been lost on the Bayeux
+inhabitants. Two rebellious English tourists furnished the text for the
+driver's sermon; they were showing, with all the naive pride of
+pedestrians, their intention of footing the distance between the
+station and the cathedral. This was an independence of spirit no Norman
+could endure to see. What? these gentlemen proposed to walk, in the
+sun, through clouds of dust, when here was a carriage, with ladies for
+companions, at their command? The coach had come down the hill on
+purpose to conduct _Messieurs les voyageurs;_ how did these gentlemen
+suppose _a pere de famille_ was to make his living if the fashion of
+walking came in? And the rusty red vest was thumbed by the gnarled hand
+of the father, who was also an orator; and a high-peaked hat swept the
+ground before the hard-hearted gentlemen. All the tragedy of the
+situation had come about from the fact that the tourists, also, had
+gotten themselves up in costume. When two fine youths have risen early
+in the day to put on checked stockings, leggings, russet walking-shoes,
+and a plaited coat with a belt, such attire is one to be lived up to.
+Once in knickerbockers and a man's getting into an omnibus is really
+too ignominious! With such a road before two sets of such well-shaped
+calves--a road all shaped and graded--this, indeed, would be flying in
+the face of a veritable providence of bishop-builders intent on
+maintaining pastoral effects.
+
+The knickerbockers relentlessly strode onward; the driver had addressed
+himself to hearts of stone. But he had not yet exhausted his quiver of
+appeal. Englishmen walk, well! there's no accounting for the taste of
+Britons who are also still half savages; but even a barbarian must eat.
+Half-way up the hill, the rattle of the loose-jointed vehicle came to a
+dead stop. With great gravity the guard descended from his seat; this
+latter he lifted to take from the entrails of the old vehicle a handful
+of hand-bills. He, the horse, the omnibus, and we, all waited for, what
+do you suppose? To besprinkle the walking Englishmen as they came
+within range with a shower of circulars announcing that at "_midi, chez
+Nigaud, il y aura un dejeuner chaud_."
+
+The driver turned to look in at the window--and to nod as he turned--he
+felt so certain of our sympathy; had he not made sure of them at last?
+
+A group of gossamer caps beneath a row of sad, gray-faced houses was
+our Bayeux welcome. The faces beneath the caps watched our approach
+with the same sobriety as did the old houses--they had the antique
+Norman seriousness of aspect. The noise we made with the clatter and
+rattle of our broken-down vehicle seemed an impertinence, in the face
+of such severe countenances. We might have been entering a deserted
+city, except for the presence of these motionless Normandy figures. The
+cathedral met us at the threshold of the city: magnificent, majestic, a
+huge gray mountain of stone, but severe in outline, as if the Norman
+builders had carved on the vast surface of its facade an imprint of
+their own grave earnestness.
+
+We were somewhat early for the hot breakfast at Nigaud's. There was,
+however, the appetizing smell of soup, with a flourishing pervasiveness
+of onion in the pot, to sustain the vigor of an appetite whetted by a
+start at dawn. The knickerbockers came in with the omelette. But one is
+not a Briton on his travels for nothing; one does not leave one's own
+island to be the dupe of French inn-keepers. The smell of the soup had
+not departed with our empty plates, and the voice of the walkers was
+not of the softest when they demanded their rights to be as odorous as
+we. There is always a curiously agreeable sensation, to an American, in
+seeing an Englishman angry; to get angry in public is one thing we do
+badly; and in his cup of wrath our British brother is sublime--he is so
+superbly unconscious--and so contemptuous--of the fact that the world
+sometimes finds anger ridiculous.
+
+At the other end of the long and narrow table two other travellers were
+seated, a man and a woman. But food, to them, it was made manifestly
+evident, was a matter of the most supreme indifference. They were at
+that radiant moment of life when eating is altogether too gross a form
+of indulgence. For these two were at the most interesting period of
+French courtship--just _after_ the wedding ceremony, when, with the
+priest's blessing, had come the consent of their world and of tradition
+to their making the other's acquaintance. This provincial bride and her
+husband of a day were beginning, as all rustic courting begins, by a
+furtive holding of hands; this particular couple, in view of our
+proximity and their own mutual embarrassment, had recourse to the
+subterfuge of desperate lunges at the other's fingers, beneath the
+table-cloth. The screen, as a screen, did not work. It deceived no
+one--as the bride's pale-gray dress and her flowery bonnet also
+deceived no one--save herself. This latter, in certain ranks of life,
+is the bride's travelling costume, the world over. And the world over,
+it is worn by the recently wedded with the profound conviction that in
+donning it they have discovered the most complete of all disguises.
+
+This bride and groom were obviously in the first rapture of mutual
+discovery. The honey in their moon was not fresher than their views of
+the other's tastes and predilections.
+
+"Ah--ah--you like to travel quickly--to see everything, to take it all
+in a gulp--so do I, and then to digest at one's leisure."
+
+The bride was entirely of this mind. Only, she murmured, there were
+other things one must not do too quickly--one must go slow in matters
+of the heart--to make quite sure of all the stages.
+
+But her husband was at her throat, that is, his eyes and lips were, as
+he answered, so that all the table might partake of his emotion--"No,
+no, the quicker the heart feels the quicker love comes. _Tiens, voyons,
+mon amie, toi-meme, tu m'as confie_"--and the rest was lost in the
+bride's ear.
+
+Apparently we were to have them, these brides, for the rest of our
+journey, in all stages and of all ages! Thus far none others had
+appeared as determined as were these two honey-mooners, that all the
+world should share their bliss. They were cracking filberts with their
+disengaged fingers, the other two being closely interlocked, in quite
+scandalous openness, when we left them.
+
+That was the only form of excitement that greeted us in the quiet
+Bayeux streets. The very street urchins invited repose; the few we saw
+were seated sedately on the threshold of their own door-steps, frequent
+sallies abroad into this quiet city having doubtless convinced them of
+the futility of all sorties. The old houses were their carved facades
+as old ladies wear rich lace--they had reached the age when the vanity
+of personal adornment had ceased to inflate. The great cathedral,
+towering above the tranquil town, wore a more conscious air; its
+significance was too great a contrast to the quiet city asleep at its
+feet. In these long, slow centuries the towers had grown to have the
+air of protectors.
+
+The famous tapestries we went to see later, might easily enough have
+been worked yesterday, in any one of the old mediaeval houses; Mathilde
+and her hand-maidens would find no more--not so much--to distract and
+disturb them now in this still and tranquil town, with its sad gray
+streets and its moss-grown door-steps, as they must in those earlier
+bustling centuries of the Conqueror. Even then, when Normandy was only
+beginning its career of importance among the great French provinces,
+Bayeux was already old. She was far more Norse then than Norman; she
+was Scandinavian to the core; even her nobles spoke in harsh Norse
+syllables; they were as little French as it was possible to be, and yet
+govern a people.
+
+Mathilde, when she toiled over her frame, like all great writers, was
+doubtless quite unconscious she was producing a masterpiece. She was,
+however, in point of fact, the very first among the great French
+realists. No other French writer has written as graphically as she did
+with her needle, of the life and customs of their day. That long scroll
+of tapestry, for truth and a naive perfection of sincerity--where will
+you find it equalled or even approached? It is a rude Homeric epic; and
+I am not quite certain that it ought not to rank higher than even some
+of the more famous epics of the world--since Mathilde had to create the
+mould of art into which she poured her story. For who had thought
+before her of making women's stitches write or paint a great historical
+event, crowded with homely details which now are dubbed archaeological
+veracities?
+
+Bayeux and its tapestry; its grave company of antique houses; its
+glorious cathedral dominating the whole--what a lovely old background
+against which poses the eternal modernness of the young noon sun! The
+history of Bayeux is commonly given in a paragraph. Our morning's walk
+had proved to us it was the kind of town that does more to re-create
+the historic past than all the pages of a Guizot or a Challamel.
+
+The bells that were ringing out the hour of high-noon from the
+cathedral towers at Bayeux were making the heights of St. Lo, two hours
+later, as noisy as a village fair. The bells, for rivals, had the
+clatter of women's tongues. I think I never, before or since, have
+beheld so lively a company of washerwomen as were beating their clothes
+in Vire River. The river bends prettily just below the St. Lo heights,
+as if it had gone out of its way to courtesy to a hill. But even the
+waters, in their haste to be polite, could not course beneath the great
+bridge as swiftly as ran those women's tongues. There were a good
+hundred of them at work beneath the washing-sheds. Now, these sheds,
+anywhere in France, are really the open-air club room of the French
+peasant woman; the whole dish of the village gossip is hung out to dry,
+having previously been well soused and aired, along with the blouses
+and the coarse chemises. The town of St. Lo had evidently furnished
+these club members of the washing-stones with some fat dish of
+gossip--the heads were as close as currants on a stem, as they bent in
+groups over the bright waters. They had told it all to the stream; and
+the stream rolled the volume of the talk along as it carried along also
+the gay, sparkling reflections of the life and the toil that bent over
+it--of the myriad reflections of those moving, bare-armed figures, of
+the brilliant kerchiefs, of the wet blue and gray jerseys, and of the
+long prismatic line of the damp, motley-hued clothes that were
+fluttering in the wind.
+
+The bells' clangor was an assurance that something was happening on top
+of the hill. Just what happened was as altogether pleasing a spectacle,
+after a long and arduous climb up a hillside, as it has often been my
+good fortune to encounter.
+
+The portals of the church of Notre Dame were wide open. Within, as we
+looked over the shoulders of the townspeople who, like us, had come to
+see what the bells meant by their ringing, within the church there was
+a rich and sombre dusk; out of this dusk, indistinctly at first, lit by
+the tremulous flicker of a myriad of candles, came a line of
+white-veiled heads; then another of young boys, with faces as pale as
+the nosegays adorning their brand-new black coats; next the
+scarlet-robed choristers, singing, and behind them still others
+swinging incense that thickened the dusk. Suddenly, like a vision, the
+white veils passed out into the sunlight, and we saw that the faces
+beneath the veils were young and comely. The faces were still
+alternately lighted by the flare of the burning tapers and the glare of
+the noon sun. The long procession ended at last in a straggling group
+of old peasants with fine tremulous mouths, a-tremble with pride and
+with feeling; for here they were walking in full sight of their town,
+in their holiday coats, with their knees treacherously unsteady from
+the thrill of the organ's thunder and the sweetness of the choir-boys'
+singing.
+
+Whether it was a pardon, or a _fete_, or a first communion, we never
+knew. But the town of St. Lo is ever gloriously lighted, for us, with a
+nimbus of young heads, such as encircled the earlier madonnas.
+
+After such a goodly spectacle, the rest of the town was a tame morsel.
+We took a parting sniff of the incense still left in the eastern end of
+the church's nave; there was a bit of good glass in a window to reward
+us. Outside the church, on the west from the Petite Place, was a wide
+outlook over the lovely vale of the Vire, with St. Lo itself twisting
+and turning in graceful postures down the hillside.
+
+On the same prospect two kings have looked, and before the kings a
+saint. St. Lo or St. Laudus himself, who gave his name to the town,
+must, in the sixth century, have gazed on virgin forests stretching
+away from the hill far as the eye could reach. Charlemagne, three
+hundred years later, in his turn, found the site a goodly one, one to
+tempt men to worship the Creator of such beauty, for here he founded
+the great Abbey of St. Croix, long since gone with the monks who
+peopled it. Louis XI, that mystic wearing the warrior's helmet, set his
+seal of approval on the hill, by sending the famous glass yonder in the
+cathedral, when the hill and the St. Lo people beat the Bretons who had
+come to capture both.
+
+Like saint, and kings, and monks, and warriors, we in our turn crept
+down the hill. For we also were done with the town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A DINNER AT COUTANCES.
+
+
+The way from St. Lo to Coutances is a pleasant way. There is no map of
+the country that will give you even a hint of its true character, any
+more than from a photograph you can hope to gain an insight into the
+moral qualities of a pretty woman.
+
+Here, at last, was the ideal Normandy landscape. It was a country with
+a savage look--a savage that had been trained to follow the plough.
+Even in its color it had retained the true barbarians' instinct for a
+good primary. Here were no melting-yellow mustard-fields, nor flame-lit
+poppied meadows, nor blue-bells lifting their baby-blue eyes out of the
+grain. All the land was green. Fields, meadows, forests, plains--all
+were green, green, green. The features of the landscape had changed
+with this change in coloring. The slim, fragile grace of slim trees and
+fragile cliffs had been replaced by trees of heroic proportions, and by
+outlines nobly rounded and full--like the breasts of a mother. The
+whole country had an astonishing look of vigor--of the vigor which
+comes with rude strength; and it had that charm which goes with all
+untamed beauty--the power to sting one into a sense of agitated
+enjoyment.
+
+Even the farm-houses had been suddenly transformed into fortresses.
+Each one of the groups of the farm enclosures had its outer walls, its
+miniature turrets, and here and there its rounded bastions. Each farm,
+apparently, in the olden days had been a citadel unto itself. The
+Breton had been a very troublesome neighbor for many a long century;
+every ploughman, until a few hundred years ago, was quite likely to
+turn soldier at a second's notice--every true Norman must look to his
+own sword to defend his hearth-stone. Such is the story those stone
+turrets that cap the farm walls tell you--each one of these turrets was
+an open lid through which the farmer could keep his eye on Brittany.
+
+Meanwhile, along the roads as we rushed swiftly by, a quieter life was
+passing. The farm wagons were jogging peacefully along on a high-road
+as smooth as a fine lady's palm--and as white. The horses were
+harnessed one before the other, in interminable length of line.
+Sometimes six, sometimes eight, even so many as ten, marched with great
+gravity, and with that majestic dignity only possible to full-blooded
+Percherons, one after the other. They each wore a saddle-cloth of blue
+sheepskin. On their mottled haunches this bit of color made their
+polished coats to gleam like unto a lizards' skin.
+
+Meanwhile, also, we were nearing Coutances. The farm-houses were
+fortresses no longer; the thatched roofs were one once more with the
+green of the high roads; for even in the old days there was a great
+walled city set up on a hill, to which refuge all the people about for
+miles could turn for protection.
+
+A city that is set on a hill! That for me is commonly recommendation
+enough. Such a city, so set, promises at the very least the dual
+distinction of looking up as well as looking down; it is the nearer
+heaven, and just so much the farther removed from earth.
+
+Coutances, for a city with its head in the air, was surprisingly
+friendly. It went out of its way to make us at home. At the very
+station, down below in the plain, it had sent the most loquacious of
+coach-drivers to put us in immediate touch with its present interests.
+All the city, as the coarse blue blouse, flourishing its whip, took
+pains to explain, was abroad in the fields; the forests, _tiens_, down
+yonder through the trees, we could see for ourselves how the young
+people were making the woods as crowded as a ball-room. The city, as a
+city, was stripping the land and the trees bare--it would be as bald as
+a new-born babe by the morrow. But then, of a certainty, we also had
+come for the _fete_--or, and here a puzzled look of doubt beclouded the
+provincial's eyes--might we, perchance, instead, have come for the
+trial? _Mais non, pas ca_, these ladies had never come for that, since
+they did not even know the court was sitting, now, this very instant,
+at Coutances. And--_sapristi!_ but there was a trial going on--one to
+make the blood curdle; he himself had not slept, the rustic coachman
+added, as he shivered beneath his blouse, all the night before--the
+blood had run so cold in his veins.
+
+The horse and the road were all the while going up the hill. The road
+was easily one that might have been the path of warriors; the walls,
+still lofty on the side nearest the town, bristled with a turret or a
+bastion to remind us Coutances had not been set on a hill for mere
+purposes of beauty. The ramparts of the old fortifications had been
+turned into a broad promenade. Even as we jolted past, beneath the
+great breadth of the trees' verdure we could see how gloriously the
+prospect widened--the country below reaching out to the horizon like
+the waters of a sea that end only in indefiniteness.
+
+The city itself seemed to grow out of the walls and the trees. Here and
+there a few scattered houses grouped themselves as if meaning to start
+a street; but a maze of foliage made a straight line impossible.
+Finally a large group of buildings, with severe stone faces, took a
+more serious plunge away from the vines; they had shaken themselves
+free and were soon soberly ranging themselves into the parallel lines
+of narrow city streets.
+
+It was a pleasant surprise to find that, for once, a Norman blouse had
+told the truth; for here were the people of Coutances coming up from
+the fields to prove it. In all these narrow streets a great multitude
+of people were passing us; some were laden with vines, others with
+young forest trees, and still others with rude garlands of flowers. The
+peasant women's faces, as the bent figures staggered beneath a young
+fir-tree, were purple, but their smiles were as gay as the wild flowers
+with which the stones were thickly strewn. Their words also were as
+rough:
+
+"_Diantre--mais c'e lourd!_"
+
+"_E-ben, e toi, tu n' bougeons point, toi!_"
+
+And the nearest fir-tree carrier to our carriage wheels cracked a swift
+blow over the head of a vine-bearer, who being but an infant of two,
+could not make time with the swift foot of its mother.
+
+The smell of the flowers was everywhere. Fir-trees perfumed the air.
+Every doorstep was a garden. The courtyards were alive with the squat
+figures of capped maidens, wreathing and twisting greens and garlands.
+And in the streets there was such a noise as was never before heard in
+a city on a hill-top.
+
+For Coutances was to hold its great _fete_ on the morrow.
+
+It was a relief to turn in from the noise and hubbub to the bright
+courtyard of our inn. The brightness thereof, and of the entire
+establishment, indeed, appeared to find its central source in the
+brilliant eyes of our hostess. Never was an inn-keeper gifted with a
+vision at once so omniscient and so effulgent. Those eyes were
+everywhere; on us, on our bags, our bonnets, our boots; they divined
+our wants, and answered beforehand our unuttered longings. We had come
+far? the eyes asked, burning a hole through our gossamer evasions; from
+Paris, perhaps--a glance at our bonnets proclaimed the eyes knew all;
+we were here for the _fete_, to see the bishop on the morrow; that was
+well; we were going on to the Mont; and the eyes scented the shortness
+of our stay by a swift glance at our luggage.
+
+"_Numero quatre, au troisieme!_"
+
+There was no appeal possible. The eyes had penetrated the disguise of
+our courtesy; we were but travellers of a night; the top story was
+built for such as we.
+
+But such a top story, and such a chamber therein! A great, wide, low
+room; beams deep and black, with here and there a brass bit hanging;
+waxed floors, polished to mirrory perfection; a great bed clad in snowy
+draperies, with a snow-white _duvet_ of gigantic proportions. The walls
+were gray with lovely bunches of faded rosebuds flung abroad on the
+soft surface; and to give a quaint and antique note to the whole, over
+the chimney was a bit of worn tapestry with formidable dungeon, a
+Norman keep in the background, and well up in front, a stalwart young
+master of the hounds, with dogs in leash, of the heavy Norman type of
+bulging muscle and high cheekbones.
+
+Altogether, there were worse fates in the world than to be travellers
+of a night, with the destiny of such a room as part of the fate.
+
+When we descended the steep, narrow spiral of steps to the dining-room,
+it was to find the eyes of our hostess brighter than ever. The noise in
+the streets had subsided. It was long after dusk, and Coutances was
+evidently a good provincial. But in the gay little dining-room there
+was an astonishing bustle and excitement.
+
+The _fete_ and the court had brought a crowd of diners to the
+inn-table; when we were all seated we made quite a company at the long,
+narrow board. The candles and lamps lit up any number of Vandyke
+pointed beards, of bald heads, of loosely-tied cravats, and a few
+matronly bosoms straining at the buttons of silk holiday gowns. For the
+_Fete-Dieu_ had brought visitors besides ourselves from all the country
+round; and then "a first communion is like a marriage, all the
+relatives must come, as doubtless we knew," was a baldhead's friendly
+beginning of his soup and his talk, as we took our seats beside him.
+
+With the appearance of the _potage_ conversation, like a battle between
+foes eager for contest, had immediately engaged itself. The setting of
+the table and the air of companionship pervading the establishment were
+aiders and abettors to immediate intercourse. Nothing could be prettier
+than the Caen bowls with their bunches of purple phlox and spiked
+blossoms. Even a metropolitan table might have taken a lesson from the
+perfection of the lighting of the long board. In order that her guests
+should feel the more entirely at home, our brilliant-eyed hostess came
+in with the soup; she took her place behind it at the head of the table.
+
+It was evident the merchants from Cherbourg who had come as witnesses
+to the trial, had had many a conversational bout before now with
+madame's ready wit. So had two of the town lawyers. Even the commercial
+gentlemen, for once, were experiencing a brief moment of armed
+suspense, before they flung themselves into the arena of talk. At
+first, or it would never have been in the provinces, this talk at the
+long table, everyone broke into speech at once. There was a flood of
+words; one's sense of hearing was stunned by the noise. Gradually, as
+the cider and the thin red wine were passed, our neighbors gave
+digestion a chance; the din became less thick with words; each listened
+when the other talked. But, as the volume of speech lessened, the
+interest thickened. It finally became concentrated, this interest, into
+true French fervor when the question of the trial was touched on.
+
+"They say D'Alencon is very clever. He pleads for Filon, the culprit,
+to-night, does he not?"
+
+"Yes, poor Filon--it will go hard with him. His crime is a black one."
+
+"I should think it was--implicating _le petit_!"
+
+"Dame! the judge doesn't seem to be of your mind."
+
+"Ah--h!" cried a florid Vandyke-bearded man, the dynamite bomb of the
+table, exploding with a roar of rage. "_Ah--h, cre nom de
+Dieu!--Messieurs les presidents_ are all like that; they are always on
+the side of the innocent--"
+
+"Till they prove them guilty."
+
+"Guilty! guilty!" the bomb exploded in earnest now. "How many times in
+the annals of crime is a man guilty--really guilty? They should search
+for the cause--and punish that. That is true justice. The instigator,
+the instigator--he is the true culprit. Inheritances--_voila les vrais
+coupables_. But when are such things investigated? It is ever the
+innocent who are punished. I know something of that--I do."
+
+"_Allons--allons!_" cried the table, laughing at the beard's vehemence.
+"When were you ever under sentence?"
+
+"When I was doing my duty," the beard hurled back with both arms in the
+air; "when I was doing my three years--I and my comrade; we were
+convicted--punished--for an act of insubordination we never committed.
+Without a trial, without a chance of defending ourselves, we were put
+on two crumbs of bread and a glass of water for two months. And we were
+innocent--as innocent as babes, I tell you."
+
+The table was as still as death. The beard had proved himself worthy of
+this compliment; his voice was the voice of drama, and his gestures
+such as every Frenchman delights in beholding and executing. Every ear
+was his, now.
+
+"I have no rancor. I am, by nature, what God made me, a peaceable man,
+but"--here the voice made a wild _crescendo_--"if I ever meet my
+colonel--_gare a lui_! I told him so. I waited two years, two long
+years, till I was released; then I walked up to him" (the beard rose
+here, putting his hand to his forehead), "I saluted" (the hand made the
+salute), "and I said to him, 'Mon colonel, you convicted me, on false
+evidence, of a crime I never committed. You punished me. It is two
+years since then. But I have never forgotten. Pray to God we may never
+meet in civil life, for then yours would end!"
+
+"_Allons, allons!_ A man after all must do his duty. A colonel--he
+can't go into details!" remonstrated the hostess, with her knife in the
+air.
+
+"I would stick him, I tell you, as I would a pig--or a Prussian! I live
+but for that!"
+
+"_Monstre!_" cried the table in chorus, with a laugh, as it took its
+wine. And each turned to his neighbor to prove the beard in the wrong.
+
+"Of what crime is the defendant guilty--he who is to be tried
+to-night?" Charm asked of a silent man, with sweet serious eyes and a
+rough gray beard, seated next her. Of all the beards at the table, this
+one alone had been content with listening.
+
+"Of fraud--mademoiselle--of fraud and forgery." The man had a voice as
+sweet as a church bell, and as deep. Every word he said rang out
+slowly, sonorously. The attention of the table was fixed in an instant.
+"It is the case of a Monsieur Filon, of Cherbourg. He is a cider
+merchant. He has cheated the state, making false entries, etc. But his
+worst crime is that he has used as his accomplice _un tout petit jeune
+homme_--a lad of barely fifteen--"
+
+"It is that that will make it go hard for him with the jury--"
+
+"Hard!" cried the ex-soldier, getting red at once with the passion of
+his protest--"hard--it ought to condemn him, to guillotine him. What
+are juries for if they don't kill such rascals as he?"
+
+"_Doucement, doucement, monsieur,_" interrupted the bell-note of the
+merchant. "One doesn't condemn people without hearing both sides. There
+may be extenuating circumstances!"
+
+"Yes--there are. He is a merchant. All merchants are thieves. He does
+as all others do--_only_ he was found out."
+
+A protesting murmur now rose from the table, above which rang once
+more, in clear vibrations, the deep notes of the merchant.
+
+"_Ah--h, mais--tous voleurs--non_, not all are thieves. Commerce
+conducted on such principles as that could not exist. Credit is not
+founded on fraud, but on trust."
+
+"_Tres bien, tres bien,_" assented the table. Some knives were thumped
+to emphasize the assent.
+
+"As for stealing"--the rich voice continued, with calm judicial
+slowness--"I can understand a man's cheating the state once,
+perhaps--yielding to an impulse of cupidity. But to do as _ce_ Monsieur
+Filon has done--he must be a consummate master of his art--for his
+processes are organized robbery."
+
+"Ah--h, but robbery against the state isn't the same thing as robbing
+an individual," cried the explosive, driven into a corner.
+
+"It is quite the same--morally, only worse. For a man who robs the
+state robs everyone--including himself."
+
+"That's true--perfectly true--and very well put." All the heads about
+the table nodded admiringly; their hostess had expressed the views of
+them all. The company was looking now at the gray beard with glistening
+eyes; he had proved himself master of the argument, and all were
+desirous of proving their homage. Not one of the nice ethical points
+touched on had been missed; even the women had been eagerly listening,
+following, criticising. Here was a little company of people gathered
+together from rustic France, meeting, perhaps, for the first time at
+this board. And the conversation had, from the very beginning, been
+such as one commonly expects to hear only among the upper ranks of
+metropolitan circles. Who would have looked to see a company of Norman
+provincials talking morality, and handling ethics with the skill of
+rhetoricians?
+
+Most of our fellow-diners, meanwhile, were taking their coffee in the
+street. Little tables were ranged close to the house-wall. There was
+just room for a bench beside the table, and then the sidewalk ended.
+
+"Shall you be going to the trial to-night?" courteously asked the
+merchant who had proven himself a master in debate, of Charm. He had
+lifted his hat before he sat down, bowing to her as if he had been in a
+ball-room.
+
+"It will be fine to-night--it is the opening of the defence," he added,
+as he placed carefully two lumps of sugar in his cup.
+
+"It's always finer at night--what with the lights and the people,"
+interpolated the landlady, from her perch on the door-sill. "If _ces
+dames_ wish to go, I can show them the way to the galleries. Only," she
+added, with a warning tone, her growing excitement obvious at the sense
+of the coming pleasure, "it is like the theatre. The earlier we get
+there the better the seat. I go to get my hat." And the door swallowed
+her up.
+
+"She is right--it is like a theatre," soliloquized the merchant--"and
+so is life. Poor Filon!"
+
+We should have been very content to remain where we were. The night had
+fallen; the streets, as they lost themselves in dim turnings, in
+mysterious alleyways, and arches that seemed grotesquely high in the
+vague blur of things, were filled for us with the charm of a new and
+lovely beauty. At one end the street ended in a towering mass of stone;
+that doubtless was the cathedral. At the right, the narrow houses
+dipped suddenly; their roof-lines were lost in vagueness. Between the
+slit made by the street a deep, vast chasm opened; it was the night
+filling the great width of sky, and the mists that shrouded the hill,
+rising out of the sleeping earth. There was only one single line of
+light; a long deep glow was banding the horizon; it was a bit of flame
+the dusk held up, like a fading torch, to show where the sun had
+reigned.
+
+In and out of this dusk the townspeople came and went. Away from the
+mellow lights, streaming past the open inn doors, the shapes were only
+a part of the blur; they were vague, phantasmal masses, clad in coarse
+draperies. As they passed into the circle of light, the faces showed
+features we had grown to know--the high cheekbones, the ruddy tones,
+the deep-set, serious eyes, and firm mouths, with lips close together.
+The air on this hill-top must be of excellent quality; the life up here
+could scarcely be so hard as in the field villages. For the women
+looked less worn, and less hideously old, and in the men's eyes there
+was not so hard and miserly a glittering.
+
+Almost all, young or old, were bearing strange burdens. Some of the men
+were carrying huge floral crosses; the women were laden with every
+conceivable variety of object--with candlesticks, vases, urns, linen
+sheets, rugs, with chairs even.
+
+"They are helping to dress the reposoirs, they must all be in readiness
+for the morning," answered our friend, still beside us, when we asked
+the cause of this astonishing spectacle.
+
+Everywhere garlands and firs, leaves, flowers, and wreaths; people
+moving rapidly; the carriers of the crosses stopping to chat for an
+instant with groups working at some mysterious scaffolding--all shapes
+in darkness. Everywhere, also, there was the sweet, aromatic scent of
+the greens and the pines abroad in the still, clear air of the summer
+night.
+
+This was the perfume and these the dim pictures that were our company
+along the narrow Coutances streets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A SCENE IN A NORMAN COURT.
+
+
+The court-room was brightly lighted; the yellow radiance on the white
+walls made the eyes blink. We had turned, following our guide, from the
+gloom of the dim streets into the roomy corridors of the Prefecture.
+Even the gardens about the building were swarming with townspeople and
+peasants waiting for the court to open. When we entered it was to find
+the hallways and stairs blocked with a struggling mass of people, all
+eager to get seats. A voice that was softened to a purring note, the
+voice that goes with the pursuit of the five franc piece, spoke to our
+landlady. "The seats to be reserved in the tribune were for these
+ladies?"
+
+No time had been lost, you perceive. We were strangers; the courtesies
+of the town were to be extended to us. We were to have of their best,
+here in Coutances; and their best, just now, was this _mise en scene_
+in their court room.
+
+The stage was well set. The Frenchman's instinctive sense of fitness
+was obvious in the arrangements. Long lines of blue drapery from the
+tall windows brought the groups below into high relief; the scarlet of
+the judges' robes was doubly impressive against this background. The
+lawyers, in their flowing black gowns and white ties, gained added
+dignity from the marine note behind them. The bluish pallor of the
+walls made the accused and the group about him pathetically sombre.
+Each one of this little group was in black. The accused himself, a
+sharp, shrewd, too keen-eyed man of thirty or so, might have been
+following a corpse--so black was his raiment. Even the youth beside
+him, a dull, sodden-eyed lad, with an air of being here not on his own
+account, but because he had been forced to come, was clad in deepest
+mourning. By the side of the culprit sat the one really tragic figure
+in all the court--the culprit's wife. She also was in black. In happier
+times she must have been a fair, fresh-colored blonde. Now all the
+color was gone from her cheek. She was as pale as death, and in her
+sweet downcast eyes there were the tell-tale vigils of long nights of
+weeping. Beside her sat an elderly man who bent over her, talking,
+whispering, commenting as the trial went on.
+
+Every eye in the tribune was fixed on the slim young figure. A passing
+glance sufficed, as a rule, for the culprit and his accomplice; but it
+was on the wife that all the quick French sympathy, that volubly spoke
+itself out, was lavished. The blouses and peasants' caps, the tradesmen
+and their wives crowded close about the railing to pass their comment.
+
+"She looks far more guilty than he," muttered a wizened old man next to
+us, very crooked on his three-legged stool.
+
+"Yes," warmly added a stout capped peasant, with a basket once on her
+arm, now serving as a pedestal to raise the higher above the others her
+own curiosity. "Yes--she has her modesty--too--to speak for her--"
+
+"Bah--all put on--to soften the jury." It was our fiery one of the
+table d'hote who had wedged his way toward us.
+
+"And why not? A woman must make use of what weapons she has at hand--"
+
+_"Silence! Silence! messieurs!"_ The _huissier_ brought down his staff
+of office with a ring. The clatter of sabots over the wooden floor of
+the tribune and the loud talking were disturbing the court.
+
+This French court, as a court, sat in strange fashion, it seemed to us.
+The bench was on wonderfully friendly terms with the table about which
+the clerks sat, with the lawyers, with the foreman of the jury, with
+even the _huissiers_. Monsieur le President was in his robes, but he
+wore them as negligently as he did the dignity of his office. He and
+the lawyer for the defence, a noted Coutances orator, openly wrangled;
+the latter, indeed, took little or no pains to show him respect; now
+they joked together, next a retort flashed forth which began a quarrel,
+and the court and the trial looked on as both struggled for a mastery
+in the art of personal abuse. The lawyer made nothing of raising his
+finger, to shake it in open menace in the very teeth of the scarlet
+robes. And the robes clad a purple-faced figure that retorted angrily,
+like a fighting school-boy.
+
+But to Coutances, this, it appears, was a proper way for a court to sit.
+
+"_Ah, D'Alencon--il est fort, lui. C'est lui qui agace toujours
+monsieur le president_--"
+
+"He'll win--he'll make a great speech--he is never really fine unless
+it's a question of life or death--" Such were the criticisms that were
+poured out from the quick-speaking lips about us.
+
+Presently a simultaneous movement on the part of the jury brought the
+proceedings to confusion. A witness in the act of giving evidence
+stopped short in his sentence; he twisted his head; looking upward, he
+asked a question of the foreman, and the latter nodded, as if
+assenting. The judge then looked up. All the court looked up. All the
+heads were twisted. Something obviously was wrong. Then, presently the
+_concierge_ appeared with a huge bunch of keys.
+
+And all the court waited in perfect stillness while the windows were
+being closed!
+
+"_Il y avait un courant d'air_--there was a draught,"--gravely
+announced the crooked man, as he rose to let the _concierge_ pass. This
+latter had her views of a court so susceptible to whiffs of night air.
+
+"_Ces messieurs_ are delicate--pity they have to be out at
+night!"--whereat the tribune snickered.
+
+All went on bravely for a good half-hour. More witnesses were called;
+each answered with wonderful aptness, ease, and clearness; none were
+confused or timid; these were not men to be the playthings of others
+who made tortuous cross-questionings their trade. They, also, were
+Frenchmen; they knew how to speak. The judge and the Coutances lawyer
+continued their jokes and their squabblings. And still only the poor
+wife hung her head.
+
+Then all at once the judge began to mop his brow. The jury, to a man,
+mopped theirs. The witnesses and lawyers each brought forth their big
+silk handkerchiefs. All the court was wiping its brow.
+
+"It's the heat," cried the judge. "_Huissier_, call the _concierge_;
+tell her to open the windows."
+
+The _concierge_ reappeared. Flushed this time, and with anger in her
+eye. She pushed her way through the crowd; she took not the least pains
+in the world to conceal her opinion of a court as variable as this one.
+
+"_Ah mais_, this is too much! if the jury doesn't know its mind better
+than this!"--and in the fury of her wrath she well-nigh upset the
+crooked little old gentleman and his three-legged stool.
+
+"That's right--that's right. I'm not a fine lady, tip me over. You open
+and shut me as if I were a bureau drawer; _continuez_--_continuez_--"
+
+The _concierge_ had reached the windows now. She was opening and
+slamming them in the face of the judge, the jury, and _messieurs les
+huissiers_, with unabashed violence. The court, except for that one
+figure in sombre draperies, being men, suffered this violence as only
+men bear with a woman in a temper. With the letting in of the fresh
+air, fresh energy in the prosecution manifested itself. The witnesses
+were being subjected to inquisitorial torture; their answers were still
+glib, but the faces were studies of the passions held in the leash of
+self-control. Not twenty minutes had ticked their beat of time when
+once more the jury, to a man, showed signs of shivering. Half a dozen
+gravely took out their pocket-handkerchiefs, and as gravely covered
+their heads. Others knotted the square of linen, thus making a closer
+head-gear. The judge turned uneasily in his own chair; he gave a
+furtive glance at the still open windows; as he did so he caught sight
+of his jury thus patiently suffering. The spectacle went to his heart;
+these gentlemen were again in a draught? Where was the _concierge_?
+Then the _huissier_ whispered in the judge's ear; no one heard, but
+everyone divined the whisper. It was to remind monsieur le president
+that the _concierge_ was in a temper; would it not be better for him,
+the _huissier_, to close the windows? Without a smile the judge bent
+his head, assenting. And once more all proceedings were at a
+standstill; the court was patiently waiting, once more, for the windows
+to be closed.
+
+Now, in all this, no one, not even the wizened old man who was
+obviously the humorist of the tribune, had seen anything farcical. To
+be too hot--to be too cold! this is a serious matter in France. A jury
+surely has a right to protect itself against cold, against _la
+migraine_, and the devils of rheumatism and pleurisy. There is nothing
+ridiculous in twelve men sitting in judgment on a fellow-man, with
+their handkerchiefs covering their bare heads. Nor of a judge who
+gallantly remembers the temper of a _concierge_. Nor of a whole court
+sitting in silence, while the windows are opened and closed. There was
+nothing in all this to tickle the play of French humor. But then, we
+remembered, France is not the land of humorists, but of wits. Monsieur
+d'Alencon down yonder, as he rises from his chair to address the judge
+and jury, will prove to you and me, in the next two hours, how great an
+orator a Frenchman can be, without trenching an inch on the humorist's
+ground.
+
+The court-room was so still now that you could have heard the fall of a
+pin.
+
+At last the great moment had come-the moment and the man. There is
+nothing in life Frenchmen love better than a good speech--_un
+discours_; and to have the same pitched in the dramatic key, with a
+tragic result hanging on the effects of the pleading, this is the very
+climax of enjoyment. To a Norman, oratory is not second, but first,
+nature; all the men of this province have inherited the gift of a
+facile eloquence. But this Monsieur d'Alencon, the crooked man
+whispered, in hurried explanation, he was _un fameux_--even the Paris
+courts had to send for him when they wanted a great orator.
+
+The famous lawyer understood the alphabet of his calling. He knew the
+value of effect. He threw himself at once into the orator's pose. His
+gown took sculptural lines; his arms were waved majestically, as arms
+that were conscious of having great sleeves to accentuate the lines of
+gesture.
+
+Then he began to speak. The voice was soft; at first one was chiefly
+conscious of the music in its cadences. But as it warmed and grew with
+the ardor of the words, the room was filled with such vibrations as
+usually come only with the sounding of rich wind-instruments. With such
+a voice a man could do anything. D'Alencon played with it as a man
+plays with a power he has both trained and conquered. It was firmly
+modulated, with no accent of sympathy when he opened his plea for his
+client. It warmed slightly when he indignantly repelled the charges
+brought against the latter. It took the cadence of a lover when he
+pointed to the young wife's figure and asked if it were likely a
+husband could be guilty of such crimes, year after year, with such a
+woman as that beside him? It was tenderly explanatory as he went on
+enlarging on the young wife's perfections, on her character, so well
+known to them all here in Coutances, on the influence she had given the
+home-life yonder in Cherbourg. Even the children were not forgotten, as
+an aid to incidental testimony. Was it even conceivable a father of a
+young family would lead an innocent lad into error, fraud, and theft?
+"It is he who knows how to touch the heart!"
+
+"_Quel beau moment!_" cried the wizened man, in a transport.
+
+"See--the jury weep!"
+
+All the court was in tears, even monsieur le president sniffled, and
+yet there was no draught. As for the peasant women and the shop
+keepers, they could not have been more moved if the culprit had been a
+blood relation. How they enjoyed their tears! What a delight it was to
+thus thrill and shiver! The wife was sobbing now, with her head on her
+uncle's shoulder. And the culprit was acting his part, also, to
+perfection. He had been firmly stoical until now. But at this parade of
+his wife's virtues he broke down, his head was bowed at last. It was
+all the tribune could do to keep its applause from breaking forth. It
+was such a perfect performance! it was as good as the theatre--far
+better--for this was real--this play-with a man's whole future at stake!
+
+Until midnight the lawyer held all in the town in a trance. He ended at
+last with a Ciceronian, declamatory outburst. A great buzz of applause
+welled up from the court. The tribune was in transports; such a
+magnificent harangue he had not given them in years. It was one of his
+greatest victories.
+
+"And his victories, madame, they are the victories of all Coutances."
+
+The crooked man almost stood upright in the excitement of his
+enthusiasm. Great drops of sweat were on his wrinkled old brow. The
+evening had been a great event in his life, as his twisted frame, all
+a-tremble with pleasurable elation, exultingly proved. The women's caps
+were closer together than ever; they were pressing in a solid mass
+close to the railing of the tribune to gain one last look at the figure
+of the wife.
+
+"It is she who will not sleep--"
+
+"Poor soul, are her children with her?"
+
+"No--and no women either. There is only the uncle."
+
+"He is a good man, he will comfort her!"
+
+"_Faut prier le bon Dieu!_"
+
+At the court-room door there was a last glimpse of the stricken figure.
+She disappeared into the blackness of the night, bent and feeble,
+leaning with pitiful attempt at dignity on the uncle's arm. With the
+dawn she would learn her husband's fate. The jury would be out all
+night.
+
+"You see, madame, it is she who must really suffer in the end." We were
+also walking into the night, through the bushes of the garden, to the
+dark of the streets. Our landlady was guiding us, and talking volubly.
+She was still under the influence of the past hour's excitement. Her
+voice trembled audibly, and she was walking with brisk strides through
+the dim streets.
+
+"If Filon is condemned, what would happen to them?"
+
+"Oh, he would pass a few years in prison--not many. The jury is always
+easy on the rich. But his future is ruined. They--the family--would
+have to go away. But even then, rumor would follow them. It travels far
+nowadays--it has a thousand legs, as they say here. Wherever they go
+they will be known. But Monsieur d'Alencon, what did you think of him,
+_hein_? There's a great man--what an orator! One must go as far as
+Paris--to the theatre; one must hear a great play--and even there, when
+does an actor make you weep as he did? Henri, he was superb. I tell
+you, superb! _d'une eloquence!_" And to her husband, when we reached
+the inn door, our vivacious landlady was still narrating the chief
+points of the speech as we crawled wearily up to our beds.
+
+It was early the next morning when we descended into the inn
+dining-room. The lawyer's eloquence had interfered with our rest.
+Coffee and a bite of fresh air were best taken together, we agreed.
+Before the coffee came the news of the culprit's fate. Most of the inn
+establishment had been sent to court to learn the jury's verdict.
+Madame confessed to a sleepless night. The thought of that poor wife
+had haunted her pillow. She had deemed it best--but just to us all, in
+a word, to despatch Auguste--the one inn waiter, to hear the verdict.
+_Tiens_, there he was now, turning the street corner.
+
+"_Il est acquitte!_" rang through the streets.
+
+"He is acquitted--he is acquitted! _Le bon Dieu soit loue!_
+Henri--Ernest--Monsieur Terier, he is acquitted--he is acquitted! I
+tell you!"
+
+The cry rang through the house. Our landlady was shouting the news out
+of doors, through windows, to the passers-by, to the very dogs as they
+ran. But the townspeople needed no summoning. The windows were crowded
+full of eager heads, all asking the same question at once. A company of
+peasants coming up from the fields for breakfast stopped to hear the
+glad tidings. The shop-keepers all the length of the street gathered to
+join them. Everyone was talking at once. Every shade of opinion was
+aired in the morning sun. On one subject alone there was a universal
+agreement.
+
+"What good news for the poor wife!"
+
+"And what a night she must have passed!"
+
+All this sympathy and interest, be it remembered, was for one they
+barely knew. To be the niece of a Coutances uncle--this was enough, it
+appears, for the good people of this cathedral city, to insure the flow
+of their tears and the gift of their prayers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE FETE-DIEU--A JUNE CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+When we stepped forth into the streets, it was to find a flower strewn
+city. The paving stones were covered with the needles of pines, with
+fir boughs, with rose leaves, lily stocks, and with the petals of flock
+and clematis. One's feet sank into the odorous carpet as in the thick
+wool of an Oriental prayer rug. To tread upon this verdure was to crush
+out perfume. Yet the fragrance had a solemn flavor. There was a touch
+of consecration in the very aroma of the fir sap.
+
+Never was there a town so given over to its festival. Everything
+else--all trade, commerce, occupation, work, or pleasure even, was at a
+dead standstill. In all the city there was but one thought, one object,
+one end in view. This was the great day of the _Fete-Dieu_. To this
+blessed feast of the Sacrament the townspeople had been looking forward
+for weeks.
+
+It is their June Christmas. The great day brings families together.
+
+[Illustration: AN EXCITING MOMENT--A COUTANCES INTERIOR]
+
+From all the country round the farm wagons had been climbing the hill
+for hours. The peasants were in holiday dress. Gold crosses and amber
+beads encircled leathery old necks; the gossamer caps, real Normandy
+caps at last, crowned heads held erect today, with the pride of those
+who had come to town clad in their best. Even the younger women were in
+true peasant garb; there was a touch of a ribbon, brilliant red and
+blue stockings, and the sparkle of silver shoe-buckles and gold
+necklaces to prove they had donned their finery in honor of the _fete_.
+The men wore their blue and purple blouses over their holiday suits;
+but almost all had pinned a sprig of bright geranium or honeysuckle to
+brighten up the shiny cotton of the preservative blouse. Even the
+children carried bouquets; and thus many of the farm wagons were as gay
+as the streets.
+
+No, gay is not the word. Neither the city nor the streets were really
+gay. The city, as a city, was too dead in earnest, too absorbed, too
+intent, to indulge in gayety. It was the greatest of all the days of
+the year in Coutances. In the climaxic moments of life, one is solemn,
+not gay. It was not only the greatest, but the busiest, day of the year
+for this cathedral town. Here was a whole city to deck; every street,
+every alleyway must be as beautiful as a church on a feast-day. The
+city, in truth, must be changed from a bustling, trading, commercial
+entrepot into an altar. And this altar must be beautiful--as beautiful,
+as ingeniously picturesque as only the French instinct for beauty could
+make it.
+
+Think you, with such a task on hand, this city-ful of artists had time
+for frivolous idling? Since dawn these artists had been scrubbing their
+doors, washing windows, and sluicing the gutters. One is not a
+provincial for nothing; one is honest in the provinces; one does not
+drape finery over a filthy frame. The city was washed first, before it
+was adorned.
+
+Opposite, across from our inn door-sill, where we lingered a moment
+before we began our journey through the streets, we could see for
+ourselves how thorough was this cleansing. A shopkeeper and his wife
+were each mounted on a step-ladder. One washed the inside and the other
+the outside of the low shop-windows. They were in the greatest possible
+haste, for they were late in their preparations. In two hours the
+procession was to pass. Their neighbors stopped to cry up to them:
+
+"_Tendez vous, aujourd'hui?_" It is the universal question, heard
+everywhere.
+
+"_Mais oui_," croaked out the man, his voice sounding like the croak of
+a rook, from the height from which he spoke. "Only we are late, you
+see."
+
+It was his wife who was taking the question to heart. She saw in it
+just cause for affront.
+
+"Ah, those Espergnons, they're always on time, they are; they had their
+hangings out a week ago, and now they are as filthy as wash-rags. No
+wonder they have time to walk the streets!" and the indignant dame gave
+her window-pane an extra polish.
+
+"Here, Leon, catch hold, I'm ready now!"
+
+The woman was holding out one end of a long, snowy sheet. Leon meekly
+took his end; both hooked the stuff to some rings ready to secure the
+hanging; the facade of the little house was soon hidden behind the
+white fall of the family linen; and presently Leon and his wife began
+very gravely to pin tiny sprigs of purple clematis across the white
+surface. This latter decoration was performed with the sure touch of
+artists. No mediaeval designer of tapestry could have chosen, with more
+secure selection, the precise points of distance at which to place the
+bouquets; nor could the tones and tints of the greens and purples, and
+the velvet of the occasional heartsease, sparsely used, have been more
+correctly combined. When the task was ended, the commonplace house was
+a palace wall, hung with the sheen of fine linen, on which bloomed
+geometric figures beautifully spaced.
+
+All the city was thus draped. One walked through long walls of snow, in
+which flowers grew. Sometimes the floral decorations expanded from the
+more common sprig into wreaths and garlands. Here and there the
+Coutances fancy worked itself out in _fleur-de-lis_ emblems or in
+armorial bearings. But everywhere an astonishing, instinctive sense of
+beauty, a knowledge of proportion, and a natural sense for color were
+obvious. There was not, in all the town, a single offence committed
+against taste. Is it any wonder, with such an heredity at their
+fingers' ends, that the provinces feed Paris, and that Paris sets the
+fashions in beauty for the rest of the world?
+
+Come with us, and look upon this open-air chapel. It stands in the open
+street, in front of an old house of imposing aspect. The two
+commonplace-looking women who are putting--the finishing--touches to
+this beautiful creation tell us it is the reposoir of Madame la
+Baronne. They have been working on it since the day before. In the
+night the miracle was finished--nearly--they were so weary they had
+gone to bed at dawn. They do not tell you it is a miracle. They think
+it fine, oh, yes--"c'est beau--Madame la Baronne always has the most
+beautiful of all the reposoirs," but then they have decked these altars
+since they were born; their grandmothers built them before ever they
+saw the light. For always in Coutances "on la fete beaucoup;" this
+feast of the Sacrament has been a great day in Coutances for centuries
+past. But although they are so used to it, these natural architects
+love the day. "It's so fine to see--_si beau a voir_ all the reposoirs,
+and the children and the fine ladies walking--through the streets, and
+then, all kneeling--when Monseigneur l'Archeveque prays. Ah yes, it is
+a fine sight." They nod, and smile, and then they turn to light a
+taper, and to consult about the placing of a certain vase from out of
+which an Easter lily towers.
+
+At the foot of these miniature altars trees had been planted. Gardens
+had also been laid out; the parterres were as gravely watered as if
+they were to remain in the middle of a bustling high street in
+perpetuity. Steps lead up to the altar. These were covered with rugs
+and carpets; for the feet of the bishop must tread only on velvet and
+flowers. Candelabra, vases, banners, crosses, crucifixes, flowers, and
+tall thin tapers--all the altars were crowded with such adornments.
+Human vanity and the love of surpassing one's neighbors, these also
+figured conspicuously among the things the fitfully shining sun looks
+down upon. But what a charm there is in such a contest! Surely the
+desire to beautify the spot on which the Blessed Sacrament rests this
+is only another way of professing one's adoration.
+
+As we passed through the streets a multitude of pictures crowded upon
+the eyes. In an archway groups of young first communicants were
+forming; they were on their way to the cathedral. Their white veils
+against the gloom of the recessed archways were like sunlit clouds
+caught in an abyss. Priests in gorgeous vestments were walking quickly
+through the streets. All the peasants were going also toward the
+cathedral. A group stopped, as did we, to turn into a side-street. For
+there was a picture we should not see later on. Between some lovely old
+turrets, down from convent walls a group of nuns fluttered tremulously;
+they were putting the last touches to the reposoir of their own Sacre
+Coeur. Some were carrying huge gilt crosses, staggering as they walked;
+others were on tiptoe filling the tall vases; others were on their
+knees, patting into perfect smoothness the turf laid about the altar
+steps. There was an old cure among them and a young carpenter whom the
+cure was directing. Everyone of the nuns had her black skirts tucked
+up; their stout shoes must be free to fly over the ground with the
+swiftness of hounds. How pretty the faces were, under the great caps,
+in that moment of unwonted excitement! The cheeks, even of the older
+nuns, were pink; it was a pink that made their habitual pallor have a
+dazzling beauty. The eyes were lighted into a fresh flame of life, and
+the lips were temptingly crimson; they were only women, after all,
+these nuns, and once a year at least this feast of the Sacrament brings
+all their feminine activities into play.
+
+Still we moved on, for within the cathedral the procession had not yet
+formed. There was still time to make a tour of the town.
+
+To plunge into the side-streets away from the wide cathedral parvis,
+was to be confronted with a strange calm. These narrow thoroughfares
+had the stillness which broods over all ancient cities' by-ways. Here
+was no festival bustle; all was grave and sad. The only dwellers left
+in the antique fifteenth century houses were those who must remain at
+home till a still smaller house holds them. We passed several aged
+Coutancais couples. By twos they were seated at the low windows; they
+had been dressed and then left; they were sitting here, in the pathetic
+patience of old age; they were hoping something of the _fete_ might
+come their way. Two women, in one of the low interiors, were more
+philosophic than their neighbors; if their stiffened knees would not
+carry them to the _fete_, at least their gnarled old hands could hold a
+pack of cards. They were seated close to the open casement, facing each
+other across a small round table; along the window-sill there were rows
+of flower-pots; a pewter tankard was set between them; and out of the
+shadowy interior came the topaz gleam of the Normandy brasses, the huge
+bed, with its snowy draperies, the great chests, and the flowery
+chintz-frill defining the width of the yawning fireplace. The two old
+faces, with the strong features, deep wrinkles, sunken mouths, and bald
+heads tied up in dazzling white coifs, were in full relief against the
+dim background. They were as motionless as statues; neither looked up
+as our footfall struck along the cobbles; it was an exciting moment in
+the game.
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN COUTANCES--EGLISE SAINT-PIERRE]
+
+Below these old houses stretched the public gardens. Here also there
+was a great stillness. For us alone the rose gardens bloomed, the
+tropical trees were shivering, and the palms were making a night of
+shade for wide acres of turf. Rarely does a city boast of such a
+garden. It was no surprise to learn, later, that these lovely paths and
+noble terraces had been the slow achievement of a lover of landscape
+gardening, one who, dying, had given this, his master-piece, to his
+native town.
+
+There is no better place from which to view the beautiful city. From
+the horizontal lines of the broad terraces flows the great sweep of the
+hillside; it takes a swift precipitous plunge, and rests below in wide
+stretches of meadow. The garden itself seemed, by virtue of this
+encompassing circle of green, to be only a more exquisitely cultivated
+portion of the lovely outlying hills and wooded depths. The cows,
+grazing below in the valleys, were whisking their tails, and from the
+farm-yards came the crow of the chanticleer.
+
+One turned to look upward--to follow heavenward the soaring glory of
+the cathedral towers. From the plane of the streets their geometric
+perfection had made their lines seem cold. Through this aerial
+perspective the eye followed, enraptured, the perfect Gothic of the
+spires and the lower central tower. The great nave roof and the choir
+lifted themselves above the turrets and the tiled house-tops of the
+city, as gray mountains of stone rise above the huts of pygmies.
+Coutances does well to be proud of its cathedral.
+
+The sound of a footstep, crunching the gravel of the garden-walk,
+caused us to turn. It was to find, face to face, the hero of the night
+before; the celebrated Coutances lawyer was also taking his
+constitutional. But not alone, some friends were with him, come up to
+town doubtless for the _fete_ or the trial. He was showing them his
+city. He stretched a hand forth, with the same magisterial gesture of
+the night before, to point out the glory of the prospect lying below
+the terrace. He faced the cathedral towers, explaining the points of
+their perfection. And then, for he was a Frenchman, he perceived the
+presence of two ladies. In an instant his hat was raised, and as
+quickly his eyes told us he had seen us before, in the courtroom. The
+bow was the lower because of this recognition, and the salute was
+accompanied by a grave smile.
+
+Manners in the provinces are still good, you perceive--if only you are
+far enough away from Paris.
+
+Someone else also bestowed on us the courtesy of a passing greeting. It
+was a cure who was saying his Ave, as he paced slowly, in the sun, up
+and down the yew path. He was old; one leg was already tired of
+life--it must be dragged painfully along, when one walked in the sun.
+The cure himself was not in the least tired of life. His smile was as
+warm as the sun as he lifted his _calotte_.
+
+"Surely, mesdames, you will not miss the _fete_? It must be forming
+now."
+
+He had taken an old man's, and a priest's, privilege. We were all three
+looking down into the valley, which lay below, a pool of freshness. He
+had spoken, first of the beauty of the prospect, and then of the great
+day. To be young and still strong, to be able to follow the procession
+from street to street, and yet to be lingering here among the
+roses!--this passed the simple cure's comprehension. The reproach in
+his mild old eyes was quickly changed to approval, however; for upon
+the announcement that the procession was already in motion we started,
+bidding him a hurried adieu.
+
+The huge cathedral portals yawned at the top of the hill; they were
+like a gaping chasm. The great place of the cathedral square was half
+filled; a part of the procession had passed already beyond the gloom of
+the vast aisles into the frank openness of day. Winding in and out of
+the white-hung streets a long line of figures was marching; part of the
+line had reached the first reposoir and gradually the swaying of the
+heads was slackening, as, by twos and twos, the figures stopped.
+
+Still, from between the cathedral doors an unending multitude of people
+kept pouring forth upon the cathedral square. Now it was an
+interminable line of young girls, first communicants, in their white
+veils and gowns; against the grays and browns of the cathedral facade
+this mass of snow was of startling purity--a great white rose of light.
+Closely following the dazzling line marched a grave company of nuns;
+with their black robes sweeping the flower-strewn streets, the pallor
+of their faces, and the white wings of their huge coifs, they might
+have been so many marble statues moving with slow, automatic step,
+repeating in life the statues in stone above their heads, incarnations
+of meek renunciation. With the free and joyous step of a vigorous youth
+not yet tamed to complete self-obliteration, next there stepped forth
+into the sun a group of seminarists. In the lace and scarlet of their
+bright robes they were like unto so many young kings. High in the
+summer air they swung their golden censers; from huge baskets, heaped
+with flowers, they scattered flowers as they swayed, in the grace of
+their youth, from side to side, with priestly rhythmic motion.
+
+In the days of Greece, under the Attic tent of sky, it was Jove that
+was thus worshipped; here in Coutances, under the paler, less ardent
+blue of France, it was the Christian God these youths were honoring. So
+men have continued to scatter flowers; to swing incense; to bend the
+knee; surely in all ages the long homage of men, like the procession
+here before us, has been but this--the longing to worship the
+Invisible, and to make the act one with beauty.
+
+Is it Greek, is it Christian, this festival? If it be Catholic, it is
+also pagan. It is as composite a union of religious ceremonials as man
+is himself an aggregate of lost types, for there is a subtle law of
+repetition which governs both men and ceremonials.
+
+How pagan was the color! how Greek the sense of beauty that lies in
+contrasts! how Jewish the splendor of the priestly vestments as the
+gold and silver tissues gleamed in the sun! How mediaeval this survival
+of an old miracle play! See this group of children, half-frightened,
+half-proud, wandering from side to side as children unused to walking
+soberly ever march. They were following the leadership of a huge
+Suisse. This latter was magnificently apparelled. He carried a great
+mace, and this he swung high in the air. The children, little John the
+Baptist, Christ, Mary the Mother, and Magdalen, were magnetized by his
+mighty skill. They were looking at the golden stick; they were thinking
+only of how high he, this splendid giant who terrified them so, would
+throw it the next time, and if he would always surely catch it. The
+small Virgin, in her long brown robes, tripped as she walked. The
+cherubic John the Baptist, with only his sheepskin and his cross,
+shivered as he stumbled after her.
+
+"At least they might have covered his arms, _le pauvre petit_," one
+stout peasant among the bystanders was Christian enough to mutter,
+"Poor little John!" Even in summer the sun is none too hot on this
+hill-top; and a sheepskin is a garment one must be used to, it appears.
+Christ, himself, was no better off. He was wearing his crown of thorns,
+but he had only his night-dress, bound with a girdle, to keep his naked
+little body warm. An angel, in gossamer wings and a huge rose-wreath,
+being of the other sex, had her innate woman's love of finery to make
+her oblivious to the light sting of the wind, as it passed through her
+draperies. As this group in the procession moved slowly along, the city
+took on a curiously antique aspect. In every lattice window a head was
+framed. The lines of the townspeople pressed closer and closer; they
+made a serried mass of blouses and caps, of shiny coats and bared
+heads. The very houses seemed to recognize that a part of their own
+youth was passing them by; these were the figures they had looked out
+upon, time after time, in the old fourteenth and fifteenth century
+days, when the great miracle plays drew the country around, for miles
+and miles, to this Coutances square.
+
+Across the square, in the long gray distance of the streets, the
+archbishop's canopy was motionless. A sweet groaning murmur rippled
+from lip to lip.
+
+Then a swift and mighty rustling filled the air, for the bones of
+thousands of knees were striking the stones of the street;--even
+heretic knees were bent when the Host was lifted. It was the moment of
+silent prayer. It was also, perhaps, the most beautiful, it was
+assuredly the most consummately picturesque moment of the day. The bent
+heads; the long vistas of kneeling figures; the lovely contrasts of the
+flowing draperies; the trailing splendor of the priests' robes dying
+into the black note made by the nuns' sombre skirts; the gossamer
+brilliance of the hundreds of white veils, through which the young
+rapture of religious awe on lips and brow made even commonplace
+features beautiful; the choristers' scarlet petticoats; the culminating
+note of splendor, the Archbishop, throned like some antique scriptural
+king under the feathers and velvets of his crimson canopy; then the
+long lines of the townspeople with the groups of peasants beside them,
+whose well-sunned skins made even their complexion seem pale by the
+side of cheeks that brought the burn of noon-suns in the valleys to
+mind; and behind this wall of kneeling figures, those other walls, the
+long white-hung house facades, with their pendent sprigs and wreaths
+and garlands above which hung the frieze of human heads beneath the
+carved cornices; surely this was indeed the culminating moment, both in
+point of beauty and in impressiveness, of the great day's festival.
+
+Thus was reposoir after reposoir visited. Again and again the multitude
+was on its knees. Again and again the Host was lifted. And still we
+followed. Sometimes all the line was in full light, a long perspective
+of color and of prismatic radiance. And then the line would be lost;
+some part of it was still in a side-street; and the rest were singing
+along the edges of the city's ramparts, under the great branches of the
+trees. Here, in the gray of the narrow streets, the choristers' gowns
+were startling in their richness. Yonder, in full sunlight, the
+brightness on the maidens' robes made the shadows in their white skirts
+as blue as light caught in a grotto's depth.
+
+Still they sang. In the dim streets or under the trees, where the gay
+banners were still fluttering, and the white veils, like airy sails,
+were bulging in the wind, the hymn went on. It was thin and
+pathetically weak in the mouths of the babes that walked. It was clear,
+as fresh and pure as a brooklet's ripple, from the mouths of the young
+communicants. It was of firm contralto strength from the throats of the
+grave nuns. The notes gained and gained in richness; the hymn was
+almost a chant with the priests; and in the mouths of the people it was
+as a ringing chorus. Together with the swelling music swung the incense
+into high air; and to the Host the rose-leaves were flung.
+
+Still we followed. Still the long line moved on from altar to altar.
+
+Then, when the noon was long past, wearily we climbed upward to our inn.
+
+In the high streets there was much going to and fro. The shop-keepers
+already were taking down their linen. Pouffe! Pouffe! there was much
+blowing through mouths and a great standing on tiptoes to reach the
+tall tapers on the reposoirs.
+
+Coutances was pious. Coutances was proud of its fete. But Coutances was
+also a thrifty city. Once the cortege had passed, it was high time to
+snuff out the tapers. Who could stand by and see good candles blowing
+uselessly in the wind, and one's money going along with the dripping?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+BY LAND TO MONT ST. MICHEL.
+
+
+Two hours later the usual collection of forces was assembled in our inn
+courtyard; for a question of importance was to be decided. Madame was
+there--chief of the council; her husband was also present, because he
+might be useful in case any dispute as to madame's word came up;
+Auguste, the one inn waiter, was an important figure of the group; for
+he, of them all, was the really travelled one; he had seen the
+world--he was to be counted on as to distances and routes; and above,
+from the upper windows, the two ladies of the bed-chamber looked down,
+to act as chorus to the brisk dialogue going on between madame and the
+owner of a certain victoria for which we were in treaty.
+
+"_Ces dames,_" madame said, with a shrug which was meant for the
+coachman, and a smile which was her gift to us--"these ladies wish to
+go to Mont St. Michel, to drive there. Have you your little victoria
+and Poulette?"
+
+Now, by the shrug madame had conveyed to the man and the assembled
+household generally, her own great scorn of us, and of our plans. What
+a whim this, of driving, forsooth, to the Mont! _Dieu sait_--French
+people were not given to any such follies; they were serious-minded,
+_always_, in matters of travel. To travel at all, was no light thing;
+one made one's will and took an honest and tearful farewell of one's
+family, when one went on a journey. But these English, these Americans,
+there's no foretelling to what point their folly will make them tempt
+fate! However, madame was one who knew on which side her bread was
+buttered, if ever a woman did, and the continuance of these mad follies
+helped to butter her own French roll. And so her shrug and wink
+conveyed to the tall Norman just how much these particular lunatics
+before them would be willing to pay for this their whim.
+
+"Have you Poulette?"
+
+"Yes--yes--Poulette is at home. I have made her repose herself all
+day--hearing these ladies had spoken of driving to the Mont--"
+
+Chorus from the upper window-sills. "The poor beast! it is _joliment
+longue--la distance_."
+
+"As these ladies observe," continued the owner of the doomed animal,
+not raising his head, but quickly acting on the hint, "it is long, the
+distance--one does not go for nothing." And though the man kept his
+mouth from betraying him, his keen eyes glittered with avarice.
+
+"And then--_ces dames_ must descend at Genets, to cross the _greve, tu
+sais_" interpolated the waiter, excitedly changing his napkin, his wand
+of office, from one armpit to the other. The thought of travel stirred
+his blood. It was fine--to start off thus, without having to make the
+necessary arrangements for a winter's service or a summer's season. And
+to drive, that would be new--yes that would be a change indeed from the
+stuffy third-class compartments. For Auguste, you see, approved of us
+and of the foolishness of our plans. His sympathy being gratis, was
+allied to the protective instinct--he would see the cheating was at
+least as honestly done as was compatible with French methods.
+
+"Another carriage--and why?" we meekly queried, warned by this friendly
+hint. A chorus now arose from the entire audience.
+
+"_Mais, madame!_--it is as much as five or six kilos over the sands to
+the Mont from Genets!" was cried out in a tone of universal reproach.
+
+"Through rivers, madame, through rivers as high as that!" and Auguste,
+striking in after the chorus, measured himself off at the breast.
+
+"Yes--the water comes to there, on the horse," added the driver,
+sweeping an imaginary horse's head, with a fine gesture, in the air.
+
+"Dame, that must be fine to see," cried down Leontine and Marie,
+gasping with little sighs of envy.
+
+"And so it is!" cried back Auguste, nodding upward with dramatic
+gesture. "One can get as wet as a duck splashing through those rivers.
+_Dieu! que c'est beau!_" And he clasped his hands as his eye, rolling
+heavenward, caught the blue and the velvet of the four feminine orbs on
+its upward way. Seeing which ecstasy, the courtyard visibly relented;
+Auguste's rapture and his envy had worked the common human miracle of
+turning contempt for a folly into belief in it.
+
+This quick firing of French people to a pleasurable elation in others'
+adventure is, I think we must all agree, one of the great charms of
+this excitable race: anything will serve as a pretext for setting this
+sympathetic vibration in motion. What they all crave as a nation is a
+daily, hourly diet of the unusual, the unforeseen.
+
+It is this passion for incident which makes a Frenchman's life not
+unlike his soups, since in the case of both, how often does he make
+something out of nothing!
+
+An hour later we were picking our way through the city's streets.
+Sweeter than the crushed flowers was the free air of the valley.
+
+There is no way of looking back so agreeable, on the whole, I think, as
+to look back upon a city.
+
+From the near distance of the first turn in the road, Coutances and its
+cathedral were at their very best. The hill on which both stood was
+only one of the many hills we now saw growing out of the green valley;
+among the dozen hill tops, this one we were leaving was only more
+crowded than the others, and more gloriously crowned. In giant height
+uprose, above the city's roofs and the lesser towers, the spires and
+the lovely lantern tower. This vast mass of stone, pricked into lacy
+apertures and with its mighty lines of grace-for how many a long
+century has it been in the eye of the valley? Tancrede de Hauteville
+saw it before William was born--before he, the Conqueror, rode in his
+turn through the green lanes to consecrate the church to One greater
+than he. From Tancrede to Boileau, what a succession of bishops, each
+in their turn, have had their eye on the great cathedral. There was a
+sort of viking bishop, one Geoffrey de Montbray, of the Conqueror's
+day, who, having a greater taste for men's blood than their
+purification, found Coutances a dull city; there was more war of the
+kind his stout arm rejoiced in across the Channel; and so he travelled
+a bit to do a little pleasant killing. From Geoffrey to Boileau and the
+latter's lacy ruffles--how many a rude Norman epic was acted out, here
+in the valley, beneath the soaring spires, before the Homeric combat
+was turned into the verse of a _chanso de geste_, a _Roman de Rou_, or
+a _Latrin!_
+
+As Poulette rolled the wheels along, instead of visored bishop, or mail
+rustling on strong breasts, there was the open face of the landscape,
+and the tremble of the grasses beneath the touch of the wind. Coming
+down the hill was a very peaceable company; doubtless, between wars in
+those hot fighting centuries, just such travellers went up and down the
+hill-road as unconcernedly as did these peasants. There was quite a
+variety among the present groups: some were strictly family parties;
+these talked little, giving their mind to stiff walking--the smell of
+the soup in the farmyard kitchen was in their nostrils. The women's
+ages were more legibly read in their caps than in their faces--the
+older the women the prettier the caps. Among these groups, queens of
+the party, were some first communicants. Their white kid slippers were
+brown now, from the long walk in the city streets and the dust of the
+highway. They held their veils with a maiden's awkwardness; with bent
+heads they leaned gravely on their fathers' arms. In this, their first
+supreme experience of self-consciousness, they had the self-absorption
+of young brides. The trail of their muslin gowns and the light cloud of
+their veils made dazzling spots of brightness in the delicate frame of
+the June landscape. Each of these white-clad figures was followed by a
+long train of friends and relatives. "_C'est joli a voir_--it's a
+pretty sight, _hein_, my ladies? these young girls are beautiful like
+that!" Our coachman took his eye off Poulette to turn in his seat,
+looking backward at the groups as they followed in our wake. "Ah--it
+was hard to leave my own--I had two like that, myself, in the
+procession to-day." And the full Norman eye filled with a sudden
+moisture. This was a more attractive glitter than the avarice of a
+moment before.
+
+"You see, mesdames," he went on, as if wishing to excuse the moistened
+eyelids, "you see--it's a great day in the family when our children
+take their first communion. It is the day the child dies and the man,
+the woman is born. When our children kneel at our feet, before the
+priest, before their comrades, and beg us to forgive them all the sin
+they have done since they were born--it is too much--the heart grows so
+big it is near to bursting. Ah--it is then we all weep!"
+
+Charm settled herself in her seat with a satisfied smile. "We are in
+luck--an emotional coachman who weeps and talks! The five hours will
+fly," she murmured. Then aloud, to Jacques--as we learned the now
+sniffling father was called--she presently asked, with the oil of
+encouragement in her tone:
+
+"You say your two were in the procession?"
+
+"Two! there were five in all. Even the babies walked. Did you see Jesu
+and the Magdalen? They were mine--_C'etait a moi, ca!_ For the priests
+will have them--as many as they can get."
+
+"They are right. If the children didn't walk, how could the procession
+be so fine?" "Fine--_beau--ca?_" And there was a deep scorn in
+Jacques's voice. "You should have seen the _fete_ twenty years ago!
+Now, its glory is as nothing. It's the priests themselves who are to
+blame. They've spoiled it all. Years ago, the whole town walked.
+_Dieu_--what a spectacle! The mayor, the mairie, all the firemen,
+municipal officers--yes, even the soldiers walked. And as for the
+singing--_dame_, all the young men were choristers then--we were
+trained for months. When we walked and sang in the open streets the
+singing filled all the town. It was like a great thunder."
+
+"And the change--why has it come?" persisted Charm.
+
+"Oh," Jacques replied, caressing Poulette's haunches with his
+whip-lash. "It's the priests; they were too grasping. They are
+avaricious, that's what they are. They want everything for themselves.
+And a _fete--ca coule, vous savez_. Besides, the spirit of the times
+has changed. People aren't so devout now. _Libres penseurs_--that's the
+fashion now. _Hola_, Poulette!"
+
+Poulette responded. She dashed into the valley, below us now, as if
+this rolling along of a heavy victoria, a lot of luggage, and three
+travellers, was an agreeable episode in her career of toil. But on the
+mind of her owner, the spectre of the free-thinkers was still hovering
+like an evil spirit. During the next hour he gave us a long and
+exhaustive exposition of the changes wrought by _ces messieurs qui
+nient le bon Dieu._ Among their crimes was to be numbered that of
+having disintegrated the morale of the peasantry. They--the
+peasants--no longer believed in miracles, and as for sorcery, for the
+good old superstitions, bah: they were looked upon as old wives' tales.
+Even here, in the heart of this rural country, you would have to walk
+far before you could find _vne vraie sorciere_, one who, by looking
+into a glass of water, for instance, could read the future as in a
+book, or one who, if your cow dried up, could name the evil spirit, the
+demon, who, among the peasants was exercising the curse. All this
+science was lost. A peasant would now be ashamed to bring his cow to a
+fortune-teller; all the village would laugh. Even the shepherds had
+lost the power of communing with the planets at night; and all the
+valley read the _Petit Journal_ instead of consulting the _vieilles
+meres_. One must go as far as Brittany to see a real peasant with the
+superstitions of a peasant. As for Normandy, it went in step with the
+rest of the world, _que diable!_ And again the whip lash descended.
+Poulette must suffer for Jacques's disgust.
+
+If the Norman peasant was a modern, his country, at least, had retained
+the charm of its ancient beauty. The road was as Norman a highway as
+one could wish to see. It had the most capricious of natures, turning
+and perversely twisting among the farms and uplands. The land was
+ribboned with growing grain, and the June grass was being cut. The
+farms stood close upon the roadway, as if longing for its
+companionship; and then, having done so much toward the establishment
+of neighborly gossip, promptly turned their backs upon it--true
+Normans, all of them, with this their appearance of frankness and their
+real reserves of secrecy.
+
+For a last time we caught a distant glimpse of the great cathedral. As
+we looked back across the bright-roofed villages, we saw the stately
+pile, gray, glorious, superb, dominating the scene, the hills, river,
+and fields, as in the old days the great city walls and the cathedral
+towers had dominated all the human life that played helplessly about
+them.
+
+We were out once more among the green and yellow broadlands; between
+our carriage-wheels and the horizon there was now spread a wide
+amphitheatre of wooded hills. The windings of the poplar-lined road
+serpentined in sinuous grace in and out of forests, meadows, hills, and
+islands. The afternoon lights were deepening; the shadows on the
+grain-fields cast by the oaks and beeches were a part of our company.
+The blue bloom of the distant hills was strengthening into purple. As
+the light was intensifying in color, the human life in the fields was
+relaxing its tension; the bent backs were straightening, the ploughmen
+were whipping their steeds toward the open road; for although it was
+Sunday, and a _fete_ day, the farmer must work. The women were
+gathering up some of the grasses, tying them into bundles, and tossing
+them on their heads as they moved slowly across the blackening earth.
+
+One field near us was peopled with a group of girls resting on their
+scythes. One or two among them were mopping their faces with their
+coarse blue aprons; the faces of all were aflame with the red of rude
+health. As we came upon them, some had flung away their scythes, the
+tallest among the group grasping a near companion, playfully, in the
+pose of a wrestler. In an instant the company was turned into a group
+of wrestlers. There was a great shout of laughter, as maiden after
+maiden was tumbled over on her back or face amid the grasses. Sabots,
+short skirts, kerchiefs, scarlet arms rose and fell to earth in the mad
+whirl of their gayety.
+
+"Stop, Jacques, I must see the end," cried Charm. "Will they fight or
+dance, I wonder!"
+
+"Oh, it is a pure Georgic--they'll dance." They were dancing already.
+The line, with dishevelled hair, aprons and kerchiefs askew, had formed
+into the square of a quadrille. A rude measure was tripped; a snatch of
+song, shouted amid the laughter, gave rhythm to the measure, and then
+the whole band, singing in chorus, linked arms and swept with a furious
+dash beneath the thatched roof of a low farm-house.
+
+"As you see, my ladies, sometimes the fields are gay--even now," was
+Jacques's comment. "But they should be getting their grasses in--for
+it'll rain before night. It's time to sing when the scythe sleeps--as
+we say here."
+
+To our eyes there were no signs of rain. The clouds rolling in the blue
+sea above us were only gloriously lighted. But the birds and the
+peasants knew their sky; there was a great fluttering of wings among
+the branches; and the peasants, as we rattled in and out of the
+hamlets, were pulling the _reposoirs_ to pieces in the haste that
+predicts bad weather. They had been "celebrating" all along the road;
+and besides the piety, the Norman thrift was abroad upon the highway.
+Women were tearing sheets off the house facades; the lads and girls
+were bearing crosses, china vases, and highly-colored Virgins from the
+wooden altars into the low houses.
+
+Presently the great drops fell; they beat upon the smooth roadway like
+so many hard bits of coin. In less than two ticks of the clock, the
+world was a wet world; there were masses of soft gray clouds that were
+like so much cotton, dripping with moisture. The earth was as drenched
+as if, half an hour ago, it had not been a jewel gleaming in the sun;
+and the very farm-houses had quickly assumed an air of having been
+caught out in the rain without an umbrella. The farm gardens alone
+seemed to rejoice in the suddenness of the shower. Flowers have a way
+of shining, when it rains, that proves flower-petals have a woman's
+love of solitaires.
+
+There were other dashes of color that made the gray landscape
+astonishingly brilliant. Some of the peasants on their way to the
+village _fetes_ were also caught in the passing shower. They had opened
+their wide blue and purple umbrellas; these latter made huge disks of
+color reflected in the glass of the wet macadam. The women had turned
+their black alpaca and cashmere skirts inside out, tucking the edges
+about their stout hips; beneath the wide vivid circles of the dripping
+umbrellas these brilliantly colored under-petticoats showed a liberal
+revelation of scarlet hose and thick ankles sunk in the freshly
+polished black sabots. The men's cobalt-blue blouses and their peaked
+felt hats spotted the landscape with contrasting notes and outlines.
+
+After the last peaked hat had disappeared into the farm enclosures, we
+and the wet landscape had the rain to ourselves. The trees now were
+spectral shapes; they could not be relied on as companions. Even the
+gardens and grain lands were mysteriously veiled, so close rolled the
+mists to our carriage-wheels. Beyond, at the farthest end of the road,
+these mists had formed themselves into a solid, compact mass.
+
+The clouds out yonder, far ahead, seemed to be enwrapping some part of
+earth that had lanced itself into the sky.
+
+After a little the eyes unconsciously watched those distant woolly
+masses. There was a something beyond, faint, vague, impalpable as yet,
+which the rolling mists begirt as sometimes they cincture an Alpine
+needle. Even as the thought came, a sudden lifting--of the gray mass
+showed the point of a high uplifted pinnacle. The point thereof pricked
+the sky. Then the wind, like a strong hand, swept the clouds into a
+mantle, and we saw the strange spectacle no more.
+
+For several miles our way led us through a dim, phantasmal landscape.
+All the outlines were blurred. Even the rain was a veil; it fell
+between us and the nearest hedgerows as if it had been a curtain. The
+jingling of Poulette's bell-collar and the gurgle of the water rushing
+in the gulleys--these were the only sounds that fell upon the ear.
+
+Still the clouds about that distant mass curled and rolled; they were
+now breaking, now re-forming--as if some strange and wondrous thing
+were hanging there--between heaven and earth.
+
+It was still far out, the mass; even the lower mists were not resting
+on any plain of earth. They also were moved by something that moved
+beneath them, as a thick cloak takes the shape and motion of the body
+it covers. Still we advanced, and still the great mountain of cloud
+grew and grew. And then there came a little lisping, hissing sound. It
+was the kiss of the sea as it met some unseen shore. And on our cheeks
+the sea-wind blew, soft and salty to the lips.
+
+The mass was taking shape and outline. The mists rolled along some
+wide, broad base that rested beneath the sea, and skyward they clasped
+the apexal point of a pyramid.
+
+This pyramid in the sky was Mont St. Michel.
+
+With its feet in the sea, and its head vanishing into infinity--here,
+at last, was this rock of rocks, caught, phantom-like, up into the very
+heavens above.
+
+It loomed out of the spectral landscape--itself the superlative
+spectre; it took its flight upward as might some genius of beauty
+enrobed in a shroud of mystery.
+
+Such has it been to generations of men. Beautiful, remote, mysterious!
+With its altars and its shrines, its miracle of stone carved by man on
+those other stones hewn by the wind and the tempest, Mont St. Michel
+has ever been far more a part of heaven than a thing of earth.
+
+Then, for us, the clouds suddenly lifted, as, for modern generations of
+men, the mists of superstition have also rolled themselves away.
+
+
+
+
+MONT ST. MICHEL:
+
+AN INN ON A ROCK.
+
+[Illustration: MONT SAINT MICHEL]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+BY SEA TO THE POULARD INN.
+
+
+We were being tossed in the air like so many balls. A Normandy _char a
+banc_ was proving itself no respecter of nice distinctions in
+conditions in life. It phlipped, dashed, and rolled us about with no
+more concern than if it were taking us to market to be sold by the
+pound. For we were on the _greve_. The promised rivers were before us.
+
+So was the Mont, spectral no longer, but nearing with every plunge
+forward of our sturdy young Percheron. Locomotion through any new or
+untried medium is certain to bring with the experiment a dash of
+elation. Now, driving through water appears to be no longer the fashion
+in our fastidious century; someone might get a wetting, possibly, has
+been the conclusion of the prudent. And thus a very innocent and
+exciting bit of fun has been gradually relegated among the lost arts of
+pleasure.
+
+We were taking water as we had never taken it before, and liking the
+method. We were as wet as ducks, but what cared we? We were being
+deluged with spray; the spume of the sea was spurting in our faces with
+the force of a strong wet breeze, and still we liked it. Besides,
+driving thus into the white foam of the waters, over the sand ridges,
+across the downs, into the wide plains of wet mud, this was the old
+classical way of going up to the Mont. Surely, what had been found good
+enough as a pathway for kings and saints and pilgrims should be good
+enough for two lovers of old-time methods. The dike yonder was built
+for those who believe in the devil of haste, and for those who also
+serve him faithfully.
+
+Someone else besides ourselves was enjoying our drive through the
+waves. Our gay young Normandy driver seemed to find an exquisite relish
+in the spectacle of our wet faces and unstable figures. He could not
+keep his eyes off us; they fairly glistened with the dew of his
+enjoyment. Two ladies pitched and rolled about, exactly as if they were
+peasants, and laughing as if they were children--this was a spectacle
+and a keen appreciation of a joke that brought joy to a rustic blouse.
+
+"Ah--ah! mesdames!" he cried, exultingly, between the gasps of his own
+laughter, as he tossed his own fine head in the air, sitting on his
+rude bench, covered with sheepskin, as if it had been an armchair. "Ah,
+ah! mesdames, you didn't expect this, _hein_? You hoped for a landau,
+and feathers and cushions, perhaps? But soft feathers and springs are
+not for the _greve_."
+
+"Is it dangerous? are there deep holes?"
+
+"Oh, the holes, they are as nothing. It is the quicksands we fear. But
+it is only a little danger, and danger makes the charm of travel, is it
+not so, my ladies? Adventure, that is what one travels for! _Hui!_ Fend
+l'Air!"
+
+It had occurred to us before that we had been uncommonly lucky in our
+coachmen, as well as in the names of the horses, that had brightened
+our journey. In spite of Juliet, whose disdain of the virtue or the
+charm that lies in a name is no more worthy of respect than is any
+lover's opinion when in the full-orbed foolishness of his lunacy, I
+believe names to be a very effective adjunct to life's scenic setting.
+Most of the horses we had had along these Normandy high-roads, had
+answered to names that had helped to italicize the features of the
+country. Could Poulette, the sturdy little mare, with whom only an hour
+ago we had parted forever, have been given a better sobriquet by which
+to have identified for us the fat landscape? And now here was Fend
+l'Air proving good his talent for cleaving through space, whatever of
+land or sea lay in his path.
+
+"And he merits his name, my lady," his driver announced with grave
+pride, as he looked at the huge haunches with a loving eye. "He can go,
+oh, but as the wind! It is he who makes of the crossing but as if it
+were nothing!"
+
+The crossing! That was the key-note of the way the coast spoke of the
+Mont. The rock out yonder was a country apart, a bit of land or stone
+the shore claimed not, had no part in, felt to be as remote as if it
+were a foreign province. At Genets the village spoke of the Mont as one
+talks of a distant land. Even the journey over the sands was looked
+upon with a certain seriousness. A starting forth was the signal for
+the village to assemble about the _char-a-banc's_ wheels. Quite a large
+company for a small village to muster was grouped about our own
+vehicle, to look on gravely as we mounted to the rude seat within. The
+villagers gave us their "_bonjours_" with as much fervor as if we were
+starting forth on a sea voyage.
+
+"You will have a good crossing!" cackled one of the old men, nodding
+toward the peak in the sky.
+
+"The sands may be wet, but they are firm already!" added a huge
+peasant--the fattest man in all the canton, whisperingly confided the
+landlady, as one proud of possessing a village curiosity.
+
+"_Hui_, Fend l'Air! _attention, toi!_" Fend l'Air tossed his fine mane,
+and struck out with a will over the cobbles. But his driver was only
+posing for the assembled village. He was in no real haste; there was a
+fresh voice singing yonder in his mother's tavern; the sentimentalist
+in him was on edge to hear the end of the song.
+
+"Do you hear that, mesdames? There's no such singing as that out of
+Paris. One must go to a cafe--"
+
+"_Allons, toi!_" shrieked his mother's voice, as her face darkened. "Do
+you think these ladies want to spend the night on the _greve_?
+_Depeches-toi, vaurien!_" And she gave the wheels a shove with her
+strong hand, whereat all the village laughed. But the good-for-nothing
+son made no haste as the song went on--
+
+  "_Le bon vin me fait dormir,
+  L'amour me reveil--_"
+
+He continued to cock his head on one side and to let his eyes dream a
+bit.
+
+Within, a group of peasants was gathered about the inn table. There
+were some young girls seated among the blouses; one of them, for the
+hour that we had sat waiting for Fend l'Air to be captured and
+harnessed, had been singing songs of questionable taste in a voice of
+such contralto sweetness as to have touched the heart of a bishop.
+"Some young girls from the factories at Avranches, mesdames, who come
+here Sundays to get a bit of fresh air; _Dieu soit si elles en ont
+besoin, pauvres enfants!_" was the landlady's charitable explanation.
+It appeared to us that the young ladies from Avranches were more in
+need of a moral than a climatic change. But then, we also charitably
+reflected, it makes all the difference in the world, in these nice
+questions of taste and morality, whether one has had as an inheritance
+a past of Francis I. and a Rabelais, or of Calvin and a Puritan
+conscience.
+
+The geese on the green downs, just below the village, had clearly never
+even heard of Calvin; they were luxuriating in a series of plunges into
+the deep pools in a way to prove complete ignorance of nice sabbatarian
+laws.
+
+With our first toss upon the downs, a world of new and fresh
+experiences began. Genets was quite right; the Mont over yonder was
+another country; even at the very beginning of the journey we learned
+so much. This breeze blowing in from the sea, that had swept the
+ramparts of the famous rock, was a double extract of the sea essence;
+it had all the salt of the sea and the aroma of firs and wild flowers;
+its lips had not kissed a garden in high air without the perfume
+lingering, if only to betray them. Even this strip of meadow marsh had
+a character peculiar to itself; half of it belonged to earth and half
+to the sea. You might have thought it an inland pasture, with its herds
+of cattle, its flocks of sheep, and its colonies of geese--patrolled by
+ragged urchins. But behold, somewhere out yonder the pasture was lost
+in high sea-waves; ships with bulging sails replaced the curve of the
+cattle's sides, and instead of bending necks of sheep, there were
+seagulls swooping down upon the foamy waves.
+
+As the incarnation of this dual life of sea and land, the rock stands.
+It also is both of the sea and the land. Its feet are of the
+waters--rocks and stones the sea-waves have used as playthings these
+millions of years. But earth regains possession as the rocks pile
+themselves into a mountain. Even from this distance, one can see the
+moving arms of great trees, the masses of yellow flower-tips that dye
+the sides of the stony hill, and the strips of green grass here and
+there. So much has nature done for this wonderful pyramid in the sea.
+Then man came and fashioned it to his liking. He piled the stones at
+its base into titanic walls; he carved about its sides the rounded
+breasts of bastions; he piled higher and higher up the dizzy heights a
+medley of palaces, convents, abbeys, cloisters, to lay at the very top
+the fitting crown of all, a jewelled Norman-Gothic cathedral.
+
+Earth and man have thrown their gauntlet down to the sea--this rock is
+theirs, they cry to the waves and the might of oceans. And the sea
+laughs--as strong men laugh when boys are angry or insistent. She has
+let them build and toil, and pray and fight; it is all one to her what
+is done on the rock--whether men carve its stones into lace, or rot and
+die in its dungeons; it is all the same to her whether each spring the
+daffodils creep up within the crevices and the irises nod to them from
+the gardens.
+
+It is all one to her. For twice a day she recaptures the Mont. She
+encircles it with the strong arm of her tides; with the might of her
+waters she makes it once more a thing of the sea.
+
+The tide was rising now.
+
+The fringe of the downs had dabbled in the shoals till they had become
+one. We had left behind the last of the shepherd lads, come out to the
+edge of the land to search for a wandering kid. We were all at once
+plunging into high water. Our road was sunk out of sight; we were
+driving through waves as high as our cart-wheels. Fend l'Air was
+shivering; he was as a-tremble as a woman. The height of the rivers was
+not to his liking.
+
+"_Sacre faineant!_" yelled his owner, treating the tremor to a mighty
+crack of the whip.
+
+"Is he afraid?"
+
+"Yes--when the water is as high as that, he is always afraid. Ah, there
+he is--_diantre_, but he took his time!" he growled, but the growl was
+set in the key of relief. He was pointing toward a figure that was
+leaping toward us through the water. "It is the guide!" he added, in
+explanation.
+
+The guide was at Fend l'Air's shoulder. Very little of him was above
+water, but that little was as brown as an Egyptian. He was puffing and
+blowing like unto a porpoise. In one hand he held a huge pitchfork--the
+trident of this watery Mercury.
+
+"Shall I conduct you?" he asked, dipping the trident as if in salute,
+into the water, as he still puffed and gasped.
+
+"If you please," as gravely responded our driver. For though up to our
+cart-wheels and breasts in deep water, the formalities were not to be
+dispensed with, you understand. The guide placed himself at once in
+front of Fend l'Air, whose shivers as quickly disappeared.
+
+"You see, mesdames--the guide gives him courage--and he now knows no
+fear," cried out with pride our whip on the outer bench. "And what
+news, Victor--is there any?" It was of the Mont he was asking. And the
+guide replied, taking an extra plunge into deep water:
+
+"Oh, not much. There's to be a wedding tomorrow and a pilgrimage the
+next day. Madame Poulard has only a handful as yet. _Ces dames_ descend
+doubtless at Madame Poulard's--_celle qui fait les omelettes?_" The
+ladies were ignorant as yet of the accomplishments of the said
+landlady; they had only heard of her beauty.
+
+"_C'est elle_," gravely chorussed the guide and the driver, both
+nodding their heads as their eyes met. "_Fameuse, sa beaute, comme son
+omelette_," as gravely added our driver.
+
+The beauty of this lady and the fame of her omelette were very
+sobering, apparently, in their effects on the mind; for neither guide
+nor driver had another word to say.
+
+Still the guide plunged into the rivers, and Fend l'Air followed him.
+Our cart still pitched and tossed--we were still rocked about in our
+rough cradle. But the sun, now freed from the banks of clouds, was
+lighting our way with a great and sudden glory. And for the rest of our
+watery journey we were conscious only of that lighting. Behind the
+Mont, lay a vast sea of saffron. But it was in the sky; against it the
+great rock was as black as if the night were upon it. Here and there,
+through the curve of a flying buttress, or the apertures of a pierced
+parapet, gay bits of this yellow world were caught and framed. The sea
+lay beneath like a quiet carpet; and over this carpet ships and sloops
+swam with easy gliding motion, with sails and cordage dipped in gold.
+The smaller craft, moored close to shore, seemed transfigured as in a
+fog of gold. And nearer still were the brown walls of the Mont making a
+great shadow, and in the shadow the waters were as black as the skin of
+an African. In the shoals there were lovely masses of turquoise and
+palest green; for here and there a cloudlet passed, to mirror their
+complexions in the translucent pools.
+
+But Fend l'Air's hoofs had struck a familiar note. His iron shoes were
+clicking along the macadam of the dike. There was a rapid dashing
+beneath the great walls; a sudden night of darkness as we plunged
+through an open archway into a narrow village street; a confused
+impression of houses built into side-walls; of machicolated gateways;
+of rocks and roof-tops tumbling about our ears; and within the street
+was sounding the babel of a shrieking troop of men and women. Porters,
+peasants, lads, and children were clamoring about our cart-wheels like
+unto so many jackals. The bedlam did not cease as we stopped before a
+wide, brightly-lit open doorway.
+
+Then through the doorway there came a tall, finely-featured brunette.
+She made her way through the yelling crowd as a duchess might cleave a
+path through a rabble. She was at the side of the cart in an instant.
+She gave us a bow and smile that were both a welcome and an act of
+appropriation. She held out a firm, soft, brown hand. When it closed on
+our own, we knew it to be the grasp of a friend, and the clasp of one
+who knew how to hold her world. But when she spoke the words were all
+of velvet, and her voice had the cadence of a caress.
+
+"I have been watching you, _cheres dames_--crossing the _greve_--but
+how wet and weary you must be! Come in by the fire, it is ablaze now--I
+have been feeding it for you!" And once more the beautifully curved
+lips parted over the fine teeth, and the exceeding brightness of the
+dark eyes smiled and glittered in our own. The caressing voice still
+led us forward, into the great gay kitchen; the touch of skilful,
+discreet fingers undid wet cloaks and wraps; the soft charm of a lovely
+and gracious woman made even the penetrating warmth of the huge
+fire-logs a secondary feature of our welcome. To those who have never
+crossed a _greve_; who have had no jolting in a Normandy _char-a-banc_;
+who, for hours, have not known the mixed pleasures and discomfort of
+being a part of sea-rivers; and who have not been met at the threshold
+of an Inn on a Rock by the smiling welcome of Madame Poulard--all such
+have yet a pleasant page to read in the book of travelled experience.
+
+Meanwhile somewhere, in an inner room, things sweet to the nostrils
+were cooking. Maids were tripping up and down stairs with covered
+dishes; there was the pleasant clicking in the ear of the lids of
+things; dishes or pans or jars were being lifted. And more delicious to
+the ear than even the promise to starving mouths of food, and of red
+wine to the lip, was the continuing music of madame's voice, as she
+stood over us purring with content at seeing her travellers drying and
+being thoroughly warmed. "The dinner-bell must soon be rung, dear
+ladies; I delayed it as long as I dared--I gauged your progress across
+from the terrace--I have kept all my people waiting; for your first
+dinner here must be hot! But now it rings! Shall I conduct you to your
+rooms?"
+
+I have no doubt that, even without this brunette beauty, with her olive
+cheek and her comely figure as guides, we should have gone the way she
+took us in a sort of daze. One cannot pass under machicolated gateways;
+rustle between the walls of fourteenth century fortifications; climb a
+stone stairway that begins in a watch-tower and ends in a rampart, with
+a great sea view, and with the breadth of all the land shoreward; walk
+calmly over the top of a king's gate, with the arms of a bishop and the
+shrine of the Virgin beneath one's feet; and then, presently, begin to
+climb the side of a rock in which rude stone steps have been cut, till
+one lands on a miniature terrace, to find a preposterously
+sturdy-looking house affixed to a ridiculous ledge of rock that has the
+presumption to give shelter to a hundred or more travellers--ground
+enough, also, for rows of plane-trees, for honeysuckles, and rose-vine,
+with a full coquettish equipment of little tables and iron chairs--no
+such journey as that up a rock was ever taken with entirely sober eyes.
+
+Although her people were waiting below, and the dinner was on its way
+to the cloth, Madame Poulard had plenty of time to give to the beauty
+about her. How fine was the outlook from the top of the ramparts! What
+a fresh sensation, this, of standing on a terrace in mid-air and
+looking down on the sea, and across to the level shores! The
+rose-vines--we found them sweet--_tiens_--one of the branches had
+fallen--she had full time to re-adjust the loosened support. And
+"Marianne, give these ladies their hot water, and see to their bags--"
+even this order was given with courtesy. It was only when the supple,
+agile figure had left us to fly down the steep rock-cut steps; when it
+shot over the top of the gateway and slid with the grace of a lizard
+into the street far below us, that we were made sensible of there
+having been any especial need of madame's being in haste.
+
+That night, some three hours later, a picturesque group was assembled
+about this same supple figure. A pretty, and unlooked-for ceremony was
+about to take place.
+
+It was the ceremony of the lighting of the lanterns.
+
+In the great kitchen, in the dance of the firelight and the glow of the
+lamps, some seven or eight of us were being equipped with Chinese
+lanterns. This of itself was an engaging sight. Madame Poulard was
+always gay at this performance--for it meant much innocent merriment
+among her guests, and with the lighting of the last lantern, her own
+day was done. So the brilliant eyes flashed with a fresh fire, and the
+olive cheek glowed anew. All the men and women laughed as children
+sputter laughter, when they are both pleased and yet a little ashamed
+to show their pleasure. It was so very ridiculous, this journey up a
+rock with a Chinese lantern! But just because it was ridiculous, it was
+also delightful. One--two--three--seven--eight--they were all lit. The
+last male guest had touched his cap to madame, exchanging the "_bonne
+nuit_" a man only gives to a pretty woman, and that which a woman
+returns who feels that her beauty has received its just meed of homage;
+madame's figure stood, still smiling, a radiant benedictory presence,
+in the doorway, with the great glow of the firelight behind her; the
+last laugh echoed down the street--and behold, darkness was upon us!
+The street was as black as a cavern. The strip of sky and the stars
+above seemed almost day, by contrast. The great arch of the Porte du
+Roi engulphed us, and then, slowly groping our way, we toiled up the
+steps to the open ramparts. Here the keen night air swept rudely
+through our cloaks and garments; the sea tossed beneath the bastions
+like some restless tethered creature, that showed now a gray and now a
+purple coat, and the stars were gold balls that might drop at any
+instant, so near they were. The men shivered and buttoned their coats,
+and the women laughed, a trifle shrilly, as they grasped the floating
+burnous closer about their faces and shoulders.
+
+And the lanterns' beams danced a strange dance on the stone flagging.
+
+Once more we were lost in darkness. We were passing through the old
+guard-house. And then slowly, more slowly than ever, the lanterns were
+climbing the steps cut in the rock. Hands groped in the blackness to
+catch hold of the iron railing; the laughter had turned into little
+shouts and gasps for help. And then one of the lanterns played a
+treacherous trick; it showed the backs of two figures groping upward
+together--about one of the girlish figures a man's arm was flung. As
+suddenly the noise of the cries was stilled.
+
+The lanterns played their fitful light on still other objects. They
+illumined now a vivid yellow shrub; they danced upon a roof-top; they
+flooded, with a sudden circlet of brilliance, the awful depths below of
+the swirling waters and of rocks that were black as a bottomless pit.
+
+Then the terrace was reached. And the lanterns danced a last gay little
+dance among the roses and the vines before, Pouffe! Pouffe! and behold!
+they were all blown out.
+
+Thus it was we went to bed on the Mont.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+AN HISTORICAL OMELETTE--THE PILGRIMS AND THE SHRINE.
+
+
+To awake on a hill-top at sea. This was what morning brought.
+
+Crowd this hill with houses plastered to the sides of rocks, with great
+walls girdling it, with tiny gardens lodged in crevices, and with a
+forest tumbling seaward. Let this hill yield you a town in which to
+walk, with a street of many-storied houses; with other promenades along
+ramparts as broad as church aisles; with dungeons, cloisters, halls,
+guard-rooms, abbatial gateways, and a cathedral whose flying buttresses
+seemed to spring from mid-air and to end in a cloud--such was the world
+into which we awoke on the heights of Mont St. Michel.
+
+The verdict of the shore on the hill had been a just one; this world on
+a rock was a world apart. This hill in the sea had a detached air--as
+if, though French, at heart a true Gaul, it had had from the beginning
+of things a life of adventure peculiar to itself. The shore, at best,
+had been only a foster-mother; the hill was the true child of the sea.
+Since its birth it has had a more or less enforced separateness, in
+experience, from the country to which it belonged. Whether temple or
+fortress, whether forest-clad in virginal fierceness of aspect, or
+subdued into beauty by the touch of man's chisel, its destiny has ever
+been the same--to suffice unto itself--to be, in a word, a world in
+miniature.
+
+The Mont proved by its appearance its history in adventure; it had the
+grim, grave, battered look that comes only to features, whether of rock
+or of more plastic human mould--that have been carved by the rough
+handling of experience.
+
+It is the common habit of hills and mountains, as we all know, to turn
+disdainful as they grow skyward; they only too eagerly drop, one by
+one, the things by which man has marked the earth for his own. To stand
+on a mountain top and to go down to your grave are alike, at least in
+this--that you have left everything, except yourself, behind you. But
+it is both the charm and the triumph of Mont St. Michel, that it
+carries so much of man's handiwork up into the blue fields of air; this
+achievement alone would mark it as unique among hills. It appears as if
+for once man and nature had agreed to work in concert to produce a
+masterpiece in stone. The hill and the architectural beauties it
+carries aloft, are like a taunt flung out to sea and to the upper
+heights of air; for centuries they appear to have been crying aloud,
+"See what we can do, against your tempests and your futile tides--when
+we try."
+
+On that particular morning, the taunt seemed more like an
+epithalamium--such marriage-lines did sea and sky appear to be reading
+over the glistening face of the rock. June had pitched its tent of blue
+across the seas; all the world was blue, except where the sun smote it
+into gold. To eyes in love with beauty, what a world at one's feet!
+Beneath that azure roof, toward the west, was the world of water,
+curling, dimpling, like some human thing charged with the conscious joy
+of dancing in the sun. Shoreward, the more stable earth was in the
+Moslem's ideal posture--that of perpetual prostration. The Brittany
+coast was a long, flat, green band; the rocks of Cancale were brown,
+but scarcely higher in point of elevation than the sand-hills; the
+Normandy forests and orchards were rippling lines that focussed into
+the spiral of the Avranches cathedral spires: floating between the two
+blues, hung the aerial shapes of the Chaunsey and the Channel Islands;
+and nearer, along the coast-line, were the fringing edges of the shore,
+broken with shoals and shallows--earth's fingers, as it were, touching
+the sea--playing, as Coleridge's Abyssinian maid fingered the dulcimer,
+that music that haunts the poet's ear.
+
+We were seated at the little iron tables, on the terrace. We were
+sipping our morning coffee, beneath the plane-trees. The terrace, a
+foot beyond our coffee-cups, instantly began its true career as a
+precipice. We, ourselves, seemed to have begun as suddenly our own
+flight heavenward--on such astonishing terms of intimacy were we with
+the sky. The clapping close to our ears of large-winged birds; the
+swirling of the circling sea-gulls; the amazing nearness of the cloud
+drapery--all this gave us the sense of being in a new world, and of its
+being a strangely pleasant one.
+
+Suddenly a cock's crow, shrill and clear, made us start from the
+luxurious languor of our contentment; for we had scarcely looked to
+find poultry on this Hill of Surprises. Turning in the direction of the
+homely, familiar note, we beheld a garden. In this garden walked the
+cock--a two-legged gentleman of gorgeous plumage. If abroad for purely
+constitutional purposes, the crowing chanticleer must be forced to pass
+the same objects many times in review. Of all infinitesimal,
+microscopic gardens, this one, surely, was a model in minuteness. Yet
+it was an entirely self-respecting little garden. It was not much
+larger than a generous-sized pocket handkerchief; yet how much
+talent--for growing--may be hidden in a yard of soil--if the soil have
+the right virtue in it. Here were two rocks forming, with a fringe of
+cliff, a triangle; in that tri-cornered bit of earth a lively crop of
+growing vegetables was offering flattering signs of promise to the
+owner's eye. Where all land runs aslant, as all land does on this Mont,
+not an inch was to be wasted; up the rocks peach and pear-split trees
+were made to climb--and why should they not, since everything
+else--since man himself must climb from the moment he touches the base
+of the hill?
+
+Following the cock's call, came the droning sweetness of bees; the rose
+and the honeysuckle vines were loading the morning air with the perfume
+of their invitations. Then a human voice drowned the bees' whirring,
+and a face as fresh and as smiling as the day stood beside us. It was
+the voice and the face of Madame Poulard, on the round of her morning
+inspections. Our table and the radiant world at her feet were included
+in this, her line of observations.
+
+"_Ah, mesdames, comme vous savez bien vous placer!_--how admirably you
+understand how to place yourselves! Under such a sky as this--before
+such a spectacle--one should be in the front row, as at a theatre!"
+
+And that was the beginning of our deeds finding favor in the eyes of
+Madame Poulard.
+
+It was our happy fate to drink many a morning cup of coffee at those
+little iron tables; to have many a prolonged chat with the charming
+landlady of the famous inn; to become as familiar with the glories and
+splendors of the historical hill as with the habits and customs of the
+world that came up to view them.
+
+For here our journey was to end.
+
+The comedy of life, as it had played itself out in Normandy inns, was
+here, in this Inn on a Rock, to give us a series of farewell
+performances. On no other stage, we were agreed, could the versatile
+French character have had as admirable and picturesque a setting; and
+surely, on no other bit of French soil could such an astonishing and
+amazing variety of types be assembled for a final appearance, as came
+up, day after day, to make the tour of the Mont.
+
+To the shore, and for the whole of the near-lying Breton and Norman
+rustic world, the Mont is still the Hill of Delight. It is their Alp,
+their shrine, the tenth wonder of the world, a prison, a palace, and a
+temple still. In spite of Parisian changes in religious fashions, the
+blouse is still devout; for curiosity is the true religion of the
+provincial, and all love of adventure did not die out with the Crusades.
+
+Therefore it is that rustic France along this coast still makes
+pilgrimages to the shrine of the Archangel St. Michael. No marriage is
+rightly arranged which does not include a wedding-journey across the
+_greve_; no nuptial breakfast is aureoled with the true halo of romance
+which is eaten elsewhere than on these heights in mid-air. The young
+come to drink deep of wonders; the old, to refresh the depleted
+fountains of memory; and the tourist, behold, he is as a plague of
+locusts let loose upon the defenceless hill!
+
+After a fortnight's sojourn, Charm and I held many a grave
+consultation; close observation of this world that climbed the heights
+had bred certain strange misgivings. What was it this world of
+sight-seers came up to the Mont for to see? Was it to behold the great
+glories thereof, or was it, oh, human eye of man! to look on the face
+of a charming woman I It was impossible, after sojourning a certain
+time upon the hill, not to concede that there were two equally strong
+centres of attractions, that drew the world hither-ward. One remained,
+indeed, gravely suspended between the doubt and the fear, as to which
+of these potential units had the greater pull, in point of actual
+attraction. The impartial historian, given to a just weighing of
+evidence, would have been startled to find how invariably the scales
+tipped; how lightly an historical Mont, born of a miracle, crowned by
+the noblest buildings, a pious Mecca for saints and kings innumerable,
+shot up like feathers in lightness when over-weighted by the modern
+realities of a perfectly appointed inn, the cooking and eating of an
+omelette of omelettes, and the all-conquering charms of Madame Poulard.
+The fog of doubt thickened as, day after day, the same scenes were
+enacted; when one beheld all sorts and conditions of men similarly
+affected; when, again and again, the potentiality in the human magnet
+was proved true. Doubt turned to conviction, at the last, that the holy
+shrine of St. Michael had, in truth, been, violated; that the Mont had
+been desecrated; that the latter exists now solely as a setting for a
+pearl of an inn; and that within the shrine--it is Madame Poulard
+herself who fills the niche!
+
+The pilgrims come from darkest Africa and the sunlit Yosemite, but they
+remain to pray at the Inn of the Omelette. Yonder, on the _greves,_ as
+we ourselves had proved, one crosses the far seas and one is wet to the
+skin, only to hear the praises sung of madame's skill in the handling
+of eggs in a pan; it is for this the lean guide strides before the
+pilgrim tourist, and that he dippeth his trident in the waters. At the
+great gates of the fortifications the pilgrim descends, and behold, a
+howling chorus of serving-people take up the chant of: "_Chez Madame
+Poulard, a gauche, a la renommee de l'omelette!_" The inner walls of
+the town lend themselves to their last and best estate, that of
+proclaiming the glory of "_L'Omelette_." Placards, rich in indicative
+illustrations of hands all forefingers, point, with a directness never
+vouchsafed the sinner eager to find the way to right and duty, to the
+inn of "_L'Incomparable, la Fameuse Omelette!_" The pilgrims meekly
+descend at that shrine. They bow low to the worker of the modern
+miracle; they pass with eager, trembling foot, into the inner
+sanctorum, to the kitchen, where the presiding deity receives them with
+the grace of a queen and the simplicity of a saint.
+
+Life on the Mont, as we soon found, resolved itself into this--into so
+arranging one's day as to be on hand for the great, the eventful hour.
+In point of fact there were two such hours in the Mont St. Michel day.
+There was the hour of the cooking of the omelette. There was always the
+other really more tragic hour, of the coming across the dike, of the
+huge lumbering omnibuses. For you see, that although one may be
+beautiful enough to compete successfully against dead-and-gone saints,
+against worn out miracles, and wonders in stone, human nature, when it
+is alive, is human nature still. It is the curse of success, the world
+over, to arouse jealousy; and we all have lived long enough to know
+that jealousy's evil-browed offspring are named Hate and Competition.
+Up yonder, beyond the Porte du Roi, rivalry has set up a
+counter-shrine, with a competing saint, with all the hateful
+accessories of a pretty face, a younger figure, and a graceful if less
+skilled aptitude in the making of omelettes in public.
+
+The hour of the coming in of the coaches, was, therefore, a tragic hour.
+
+On the arrival of the coaches Madame was at her post long before the
+pilgrims came up to her door. Being entirely without personal
+vanity--since she felt her beauty, her cleverness, her grace, and her
+charm to be only a part of the capital of the inn trade--a higher order
+of the stock in trade, as it were--she made it a point to look
+handsomer on the arrival of coaches than at any other time. Her cheeks
+were certain to be rosier; her bird's head was always carried a trifle
+more takingly, perched coquettishly sideways, that the caressing smile
+of welcome might be the more personal; and as the woman of business,
+lining the saint, so to speak, was also present, into the deep pockets
+of the blue-checked apron, the calculating fingers were thrust, that
+the quick counting of the incoming guests might not be made too obvious
+an action. After such a pose, to see a pilgrim escape! To see him pass
+by, unmoved by that smile, turning his feelingless back on the true
+shrine! It was enough to melt the stoutest heart. Madame's welcome of
+the captured, after such an affront, was set in the minor key; and her
+smile was the smile of a suffering angel.
+
+"_Cours, mon enfant_, run, see if he descends or if he pushes on; tell
+him _I_ am Madame Poulard!" This, a low command murmured between a
+hundred orders, still in the minor key, would be purred to Clementine,
+a peasant in a cap, exceeding fleet of foot, and skilled in the capture
+of wandering sheep.
+
+And Clementine would follow that stray pilgrim: she would attack him in
+the open street; would even climb after him, if need be, up the steep
+rock steps, till, proved to be following strange gods, he would be
+brought triumphantly back to the kitchen-shrine, by Clementine,
+puffing, but exultant.
+
+"Ah, monsieur, how could you pass us by?" madame's soft voice would
+murmur reproachfully in the pilgrim's ear. And the pilgrim, abashed,
+ashamed, would quickly make answer, if he were born of the right
+parents: "_Chere_ madame, how was I to believe my eyes? It is ten years
+since I was here, and you are younger, more beautiful than ever! I was
+going in search of your mother!" at which needless truism all the
+kitchen would laugh. Madame Poulard herself would find time for one of
+her choicest smiles, although this was the great moment of the working
+of the miracle. She was beginning to cook the omelette.
+
+The head-cook was beating the eggs in a great yellow bowl. Madame had
+already taken her stand at the yawning Louis XV. fireplace; she was
+beginning gently to balance the huge _casserole_ over the glowing logs.
+And all the pilgrims were standing about, watching the process. Now,
+the group circling about the great fireplace was scarcely ever the
+same; the pilgrims presented a different face and garb day after
+day--but in point of hunger they were as one man; they were each and
+all as unvaryingly hungry as only tourists could be, who, clamoring for
+food, have the smell of it in their nostrils, with the added ache of
+emptiness gnawing within. But besides hunger, each one of the pilgrims
+had brought with him a pair of eyes; and what eyes of man can be pure
+savage before the spectacle of a pretty woman cooking, _for him_,
+before an open fire? Therefore it was that still another miracle was
+wrought, that of turning a famished mob into a buzzing swarm of
+admirers.
+
+"_Mais si, monsieur_, in this pan I can cook an omelette large enough
+for you all; you will see. Ah, madame, you are off already? Celestine!
+Madame's bill, in the desk yonder. And you, monsieur, you too leave us?
+_Deux cognacs?_ Victor--_deux cognacs et une demi-tasse pour monsieur!_"
+
+These and a hundred other answers and questions and orders, were
+uttered in a fluted voice or in a tone of sharp command, by the
+miracle-worker, as the pan was kept gently turning, and the eggs were
+poured in at just the right moment--not one of the pretty poses of head
+and wrist being forgotten. Madame Poulard, like all clever women who
+are also pretty, had two voices: one was dedicated solely to the
+working of her charms; this one was soft, melodious, caressing, the
+voice of dove when cooing; the other, used for strictly business
+purposes, was set in the quick, metallic _staccato_ tones proper for
+such occasions.
+
+The dove's voice was trolling its sweetness, as she went on--
+
+"Eggs, monsieur? How many I use? Ah, it is in the season that counting
+the dozens becomes difficult--seventy dozen I used one day last year!"
+
+"Seventy dozen!" the pilgrim-chorus ejaculated, their eyes growing the
+wider as their lips moistened. For behold, the eggs were now cooked to
+a turn; the long-handled pan was being lifted with the effortless skill
+of long practice, the omelette was rolled out at just the right instant
+of consistency, and was being as quickly turned into its great flat
+dish.
+
+There was a scurrying and scampering up the wide steps to the dining
+room, and a hasty settling into the long rows of chairs. Presently
+madame herself would appear, bearing the huge dish. And the
+omelette--the omelette, unlike the pilgrims, would be found to be
+always the same--melting, juicy, golden, luscious, and above all _hot!_
+
+The noon-day table d'hote was always a sight to see. Many of the
+pilgrim-tourists came up to the Mont merely to pass the day, or to stop
+the night; the midday meal was therefore certain to be the liveliest of
+all the repasts.
+
+The cloth was spread in a high, white, sunlit room. It was a trifle
+bare, this room, in spite of the walls being covered with pictures, the
+windows with pretty draperies, and the spotless linen that covered the
+long table. But all temples, however richly adorned, have a more or
+less unfurnished aspect; and this room served not only as the
+dining-table, but also as a foreshadowing of the apotheosis of Madame
+Poulard. Here were grouped together all the trophies and tributes of a
+grateful world; there were portraits of her charming brunette face
+signed by famous admirers; there were sonnets to her culinary skill and
+her charms as hostess, framed; these alternated with gifts of horned
+beasts that had been slain in her honor, and of stuffed birds who, in
+life, had beguiled the long winters for her with their songs. About the
+wide table, the snow of the linen reflected always the same picture;
+there were rows of little palms in flower-pots, interspersed with fruit
+dishes, with the butter pats, the almonds, and raisins, in their flat
+plates.
+
+The rows of faces above the cloth were more varied. The four corners of
+the earth were sometimes to be seen gathered together about the
+breakfast-table. Frenchmen of the Midi, with the skin of Spaniards and
+the buzz of Tartarin's _ze ze_ in their speech; priests, lean and fat;
+Germans who came to see a French stronghold as defenceless as a woman's
+palm; the Italian, a rarer type, whose shoes, sufficiently pointed to
+prick, and whose choice for decollete collars betrayed his nationality
+before his lisping French accent could place him indisputably beyond
+the Alps; herds of English--of all types--from the aristocrat, whose
+open-air life had colored his face with the hues of a butcher, to the
+pale, ascetic clerk, off on a two weeks' holiday, whose bending at his
+desk had given him the stoop of a scholar; with all these were mixed
+hordes of French provincials, chiefly of the _bourgeois type,_ who
+singly, or in family parties, or in the nuptial train of sons or
+daughters, came up to the shrine of St. Michel.
+
+To listen to the chatter of these tourists was to learn the last word
+of the world's news. As in the days before men spoke to each other
+across continents, and the medium of cold type had made the event of
+to-day the history of to-morrow, so these pilgrims talked through the
+one medium that alone can give a fact the real essence of
+freshness--the ever young, the perdurably charming human voice. It was
+as good as sitting out a play to watch the ever-recurring
+characteristics, which made certain national traits as marked as the
+noses on the faces of the tourists. The question, for example, on which
+side the Channel a pilgrim was born, was settled five seconds after he
+was seated at table. The way in which the butter was passed was one
+test; the manner of the eating of the famous omelette was another. If
+the tourist were a Frenchman, the neat glass butter-dish was turned
+into a visiting-card--a letter of introduction, a pontoon-bridge, in a
+word, hastily improvised to throw across the stream of conversation.
+"_Madame_" (this to the lady at the tourist's left), "_me permet-elle
+de lui offrir le beurre?_" Whereat madame bowed, smiled, accepted the
+golden balls as if it were a bouquet, returning the gift, a few seconds
+later, by the proffer of the gravy dish. Between the little ceremony of
+the two bows and the smiling _mercis_, a tentative outbreak of speech
+ensued, which at the end of a half-hour, had spread from _bourgeois_ to
+countess, from cure to Parisian _boulevardier_, till the entire side of
+the table was in a buzz of talk. These genial people of a genial land
+finding themselves all in search of the same adventure, on top of a
+hill, away from the petty world of conventionality, remembered that
+speech was given to man to communicate with his fellows. And though
+neighbors for a brief hour, how charming such an hour can be made when
+into it are crowded the effervescence of personal experience, the witty
+exchange of comment and observation, and the agreeable conflict of
+thought and opinion!
+
+On the opposite side of the table, what a contrast! There the English
+were seated. There was the silence of the grave. All the rigid figures
+sat as upright as posts. In front of these severe countenances, the
+butter-plates remained as fixtures; the passing of them to a neighbor
+would be a frightful breach of good form--besides being dangerous. Such
+practices, in public places, had been known to lead to things--to
+unspeakable things--to knowing the wrong people, to walks afterward
+with cads one couldn't shake off, even to marriages with the
+impossible! Therefore it was that the butter remained a fixture. Even
+between those who formed the same tourist-party, there was rarely such
+an act of self-forgetfulness committed as an indulgence in talk--in
+public. The eye is the only active organ the Englishman carries abroad
+with him; his talking is done by staring. What fierce scowls, what dark
+looks of disapproval, contempt, and dislike were levelled at the
+chattering Frenchmen opposite.
+
+[Illustration: MONT SAINT MICHEL SNAIL-GATHERERS]
+
+Across the table, the national hate perpetuated itself. It appears to
+be a test of patriotism, this hatred between Frenchmen and Englishmen.
+That strip of linen might easily have been the Channel itself; it could
+scarcely more effectually have separated the two nations. A whole
+comedy of bitterness, a drama of rivalry, and a five-act tragedy of
+scorn were daily played between the Briton who sat facing the south,
+and the Frenchman who faced north. Both, as they eyed their neighbor
+over the foam of their napkins, had the Island in their eye!--the
+Englishman to flaunt its might and glory in the teeth of the hated
+Gaul, and the Frenchman to return his contempt for a nation of moist
+barbarians.
+
+Meanwhile, the omelette was going its rounds. It was being passed at
+that moment to Monsieur le Cure. He had been watching its progress with
+glistening eye and moistening lips. Madame Poulard, as she slipped the
+melting morsel beneath his elbow, had suddenly assumed the role of the
+penitent. Her tone was a reminder of the confessional, as of one who
+passed her masterpiece apologetically. She, forsooth, a sinner, to have
+the honor of ministering to the carnal needs of a son of the Church!
+
+The son of the Church took two heaping spoonfuls. His eye gave her,
+with his smile, the benediction of his gratitude, even before he had
+tasted of the luscious compound.
+
+"_Ah, chere madame! il n'y a que vous_--it is only you who can make the
+ideal omelette! I have tried, but Suzette has no art in her fingers;
+your receipt doesn't work away from the Mont!" And the good man sighed
+as he chuckled forth his praises.
+
+He had come up to the hill in company with the two excellent ladies
+beside him, of his flock, to make a little visit to his brethren
+yonder, to the priests who were still here, wrecks of the once former
+flourishing monastery. He had come to see them, and also to gaze on La
+Merveille. It was a good five years since he had looked upon its
+dungeons and its lace-work. But after all, in his secret soul of souls,
+he had longed to eat of the omelette. _Dieu!_ how often during those
+slow, quiet years in the little hamlet yonder on the plain, had its
+sweetness and lightness mocked his tongue with illusive tasting! Little
+wonder, therefore, that the good cure's praises were sweet in madame's
+ear, for they had the ring of truth--and of envy! And madame herself
+was only mortal, for what woman lives but feels herself uplifted by the
+sense of having found favor in the eyes of her priest?
+
+The omelette next came to a halt between the two ladies of the cure's
+flock. These were two _bourgeoises_ with the deprecating, mistrustful
+air peculiar to commonplace the world over. The walk up the steep
+stairs was still quickening their breath their compressed bosoms were
+straining the hooks of their holiday woollen bodices--cut when they
+were of slenderer build. Their bonnets proclaimed the antique fashions
+of a past decade; but the edge of their tongues had the keenness that
+comes with daily practice--than which none has been found surer than
+adoration of one's pastor, and the invigorating gossip of small towns.
+
+These ladies eyed the omelette with a chilled glance. Naturally, they
+could not see as much to admire in Madame Poulard or in her dish as did
+their cure. There was nothing so wonderful after all in the turning of
+eggs over a hot fire. The omelette!--after all, an omelette is an
+omelette! Some are better--some are worse; one has one's luck in
+cooking as in anything else. They had come up to the Mont with their
+good cure to see its wonders and for a day's outing; admiration of
+other women had not been anticipated as a part of the programme.
+_Tiens_--who was he talking to now? To that tall blonde--a foreigner, a
+young girl--_tiens_--who knows?--possibly an American--those Americans
+are terrible, they say--bold, immodest, irreverent. And the two ladies'
+necks were screwed about their over-tight collars, to give Charm the
+verdict of their disapproval.
+
+"Monsieur le Cure, they are passing you the fish!" cried the stouter,
+more aggressive parishioner, who boasted a truculent mustache.
+
+"Monsieur le Cure, the roast is at your elbow!" interpolated the
+second, with the more timid voice of a second in action; this protector
+of the good cure had no mustache, but her face was mercifully protected
+by nature from a too-disturbing combination of attractions, by being
+plentifully punctuated with moles from which sprouted little tufts of
+hair. The rain of these ladies' interruption was incessant; but the
+cure was a man of firm mind; their efforts to recapture his attention
+were futile. For the music of Charm's foreign voice was in his ear.
+Worship of the cloth is not a national, it is a more or less universal
+cult, I take it. It is in the blood of certain women. Opposite the two
+fussy, jealous _bourgeoises_, were others as importunate and
+aggressive. They were of fair, lean, lank English build, with the
+shifting eyes and the persistent courage which come to certain maidens
+in whose lives there is but one fixed and certain fact--that of having
+missed the matrimonial market. The shrine of their devotions, and the
+present citadel of their attack, was seated between them--he also being
+lean, pale, high-arched of brow, high anglican by choice, and
+noticeably weak of chin, in whose sable garments there was framed the
+classical clerical tie.
+
+To this curate Madame was now passing her dish. She still wore her fine
+sweet smile, but there was always a discriminating reserve in its edge
+when she touched the English elbow. The curate took his spoonful with
+the indifference of a man who had never known the religion of good
+eating. He put up his one eye-glass; it swept Madame's bending face,
+its smile, and the yellow glory floating beneath both. "Ah-h--ya-as--an
+omelette!" The glass was dropped; he took a meagre spoonful which he
+cut, presently, with his knife. He turned then to his neighbors--to
+both his neighbors! They had been talking of the parish church on the
+hill.
+
+"Ah-h-h, ya-as--lovely porch--isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, lovely--lovely!" chorussed the two maidens, with assenting fervor.
+"_Were_ you there this morning?" and they lifted eyes swimming with the
+rapture of their admiration.
+
+"Ya-as."
+
+"Only fancy--our missing you! We were _both_ there!"
+
+"Dear me! Really, were you?"
+
+"_Could_ you go this afternoon? I do want so to hear your criticism of
+my drawing--I'm working on the arch now."
+
+"So sorry--can't--possibly. I promised what's his name to go over to
+Tombelaine, don't you know!"
+
+"Oh-h! We do so want to go to Tombelaine!"
+
+"Ah-h--do you, really? One ought to start a little before the tide
+drops--they tell me!" and the clerical eye, through its correctly
+adjusted glass, looked into those four pleading eyes with no hint of
+softening. The dish that was the masterpiece of the house, meanwhile,
+had been despatched as if it were so much leather.
+
+The omelette fared no better with the brides, as a rule, than with the
+English curates. Such a variety of brides as came up to the Mont! You
+could have your choice, at the midday meal, of almost any nationality,
+age, or color. The attempt among these bridal couples to maintain the
+distant air of a finished indifference only made their secret the more
+open. The British phlegm, on such a journey, did not always serve as a
+convenient mask; the flattering, timid glance, the ripple of the tender
+whispers, and the furtive touching of fingers beneath the table, made
+even these English couples a part of the great human marrying family;
+their superiority to their fellows would return, doubtless, when the
+honey had dried out of their moon. The best of our adventures into this
+tender country were with the French bridal tourists; they were certain
+to be delightfully human. As we had had occasion to remark before, they
+were off, like ourselves, on a little voyage of discovery; they had
+come to make acquaintance with the being to whom they were mated for
+life. Various degrees of progress could be read in the air and manner
+of the hearty young _bourgeoises_ and their paler or even ruddier
+partners, as they crunched their bread or sipped their thin wine. Some
+had only entered as yet upon the path of inquiry; others had already
+passed the mile-stone of criticism; and still others had left the earth
+and were floating in full azure of intoxication. Of the many wedding
+parties that sat down to breakfast, we soon made the commonplace
+discovery that the more plebeian the company, the more certain-orbed
+appeared to be the promise of happiness.
+
+Some of the peasant weddings were noisy, boisterous performances; but
+how gay were the brides, and how bloated with joy the hardy,
+knotty-handied grooms! These peasant wedding guests all bore a striking
+family likeness; they might easily all have been brothers and sisters,
+whether they had come from the fields near Pontorson, or Cancale, or
+Dol, or St. Malo. The older the women, the prettier and the more
+gossamer were the caps; but the younger maidens were always delightful
+to look upon, such was the ripe vigor of their frames, and the liquid
+softness of eyes that, like animals, were used to wide sunlit fields
+and to great skies full of light. The bride, in her brand-new stuff
+gown, with a bonnet that recalled the bridal wreath only just laid
+aside, was also certain to be of a general universal type with the
+broad hips, wide waist, muscular limbs, and the melting sweetness of
+lips and eyes that only abundant health and a rich animalism of nature
+bring to maidenhood.
+
+Madame Poulard's air with this, her world, was as full of tact as with
+the tourists. Many of the older women would give her the Norman kiss,
+solemnly, as if the salute were a part of the ceremony attendant on the
+eating of a wedding breakfast at Mont St. Michel. There would be a
+three times' clapping of the wrinkled or the ruddy peasant cheeks
+against the sides of Madame Poulard's daintier, more delicately
+modelled face. Then all would take their seats noisily at table. It was
+Madame Poulard who then would bring us news of the party; at the end of
+a fortnight, Charm and I felt ourselves to be in possession of the
+hidden and secret reasons for all the marrying that had been done along
+the coast, that year. "_Tiens, ce n'est pas gai, la noce!_ I must learn
+the reason!" Madame would then flutter over the bridal breakfasters as
+a delicate plumaged bird hovers over a mass of stuff out of which it
+hopes to make a respectable meal. She presently would return to murmur
+in a whisper, "it is a _mariage de raison_. They, the bride and groom,
+love elsewhere, but they are marrying to make a good partnership; they
+are both hair-dressers at Caen. They have bought a new and fine shop
+with their earnings." Or it would be, "Look, madame, at that _jolie
+personne_; see how sad she looks. She is in love with her cousin who
+sits opposite, but the groom is the old one. He has a large farm and a
+hundred cows." To look on such a trio would only be to make the
+acquaintance anew of Sidonie and Risler and of Froment Jeune. Such
+brides always had the wandering gaze of those in search of fresh
+horizons, or of those looking already for the chance of escape. For
+such "unhappies," _ces malheureuses_, Madame's manner had an added
+softness and tenderness; she passed the frosted bridal cake as if it
+were a propitiatory offering to the God of Hymen. However melancholy
+the bride, the cake and Madame's caressing smiles wrought ever the same
+spell; for an instant, at least, the newly-made wife was in love with
+matrimony and with the cake, accepting the latter with the pleased
+surprise of one who realizes that, at least, on one's wedding day, one
+is a person of importance; that even so far as Mont St. Michel the news
+of their marriage had turned the ovens into a baking of wedding-cakes.
+This was destined to be the first among the deceptions that greeted
+such brides; for there were hundreds of such cakes, alas! kept
+constantly on hand. They were the same--a glory of sugar-mouldings and
+devices covering a mountain of richness--that were sent up yearly at
+Christmas time to certain mansard studios in the Latin quarter, where
+the artist recipients, like the brides, eat of the cake as did Adam
+when partaking of the apple, believing all the woman told them!
+
+There were other visitors who came up to the Mont, not as welcome as
+were these tourist parties.
+
+One morning, as we looked toward Pontorson, a small black cloud
+appeared to be advancing across the bay. The day was windy; the sky was
+crowded with huge white mountains--round, luminous clouds that moved in
+stately sweeps. And the sea was the color one loves to see in an
+earnest woman's eye, the dark-blue sapphire that turns to blue-gray.
+This was a setting that made that particular cloud, making such slow
+progress across from the shore, all the more conspicuous. Gradually, as
+the black mass neared the dike, it began to break and separate; and we
+saw plainly enough that the scattering particles were human beings.
+
+It was, in point of fact, a band of pilgrims; a peasant pilgrimage was
+coming up to the Mont. In wagons, in market carts, in _char-a-bancs_,
+in donkey-carts, on the backs of monster Percherons--the pilgrimage
+moved in slow processional dignity across the dike. Some of the younger
+black gowns and blue blouses attempted to walk across over the sands;
+we could see the girls sitting down on the edge of the shore, to take
+off their shoes and stockings and to tuck up their thick skirts. When
+they finally started they were like unto so many huge cheeses hoisted
+on stilts. The bare legs plunged boldly forward, keeping ahead of the
+slower-moving peasant-lads; the girls' bravery served them till they
+reached the fringe of the incoming tide; not until their knees went
+under water did they forego their venture. A higher wave came in,
+deluging the ones farthest out; and then ensued a scampering toward the
+dike and a climbing up of the stone embankment. The old route across
+the sands, that had been the only one known to kings and barons, was
+not good enough for a modern Norman peasant. The religion of personal
+comfort has spread even as far as the fields.
+
+At the entrance gate a tremendous hubbub and noise announced the
+arrival of the pilgrimage. Wagons, carts, horses, and peasants were
+crowded together as only such a throng is mixed in pilgrimages, wars,
+and fairs. Women were taking down hoods, unharnessing the horses,
+fitting slats into outsides of wagons, rolling up blankets, unpacking
+from the _char-a-bancs_ cooking utensils, children, grain-bags, long
+columns of bread, and hard-boiled eggs. For the women, darting hither
+and thither in their blue petticoats, their pink and red kerchiefs, and
+the stiff white Norman caps, were doing all the work. The men appeared
+to be decorative adjuncts, plying the Norman's gift of tongue across
+wagon-wheels and over the back of their vigorous wives and daughters.
+For them the battle of the day was over; the hour of relaxation had
+come. The bargains they had made along the route were now to be
+rehearsed, seasoned with a joke.
+
+"_Allons, toi, on ne fait pas de la monnaie blanche comme ca!_"
+
+"_Je t'ai offert huit sous, tu sais, lapin!_"
+
+"_Farceur, va-t'en--_"
+
+"Come, are you never going to have done fooling?" cried a tan-colored,
+wide-hipped peasant to her husband, who was lounging against the wagon
+pole, sporting a sprig of gentian pinned to his blouse. He was fat and
+handsome; and his eye proclaimed, as he was making it do heavy work at
+long range at a cluster of girls descending from an antique gig, that
+the knowledge of the same was known unto him.
+
+"That's right, growl ahead, thou, _tes beaux jours sont passes_, but
+for me _l'amour, l'amour--que c'est gai, que c'est frais!_" he half
+sung, half shouted.
+
+The moving mass of color, the Breton caps, and the Norman faces, the
+gold crosses that fell from dented bead necklaces, the worn hooped
+earrings, the clean bodices and home-spun skirts, streamed out past our
+windows as we looked down upon them. How pretty were some of the faces,
+of the younger women particularly! and with what gay spirits they were
+beginning their day! It had begun the night before, almost; many of the
+carts had been driven in from the forests beyond Avranches; some of the
+Brittany groups had started the day before. But what can quench the
+fountain of French vivacity? To see one's world, surely, there is
+nothing in that to tire one; it only excites and exhilarates; and so a
+fair or market day, and above all a pilgrimage, are better than balls,
+since they come more regularly; they are the peasant's opera, his
+Piccadilly and Broadway, club, drawing-room, Exchange, and parade, all
+in one.
+
+A half-hour after a landing of the pilgrims at the outer gates of the
+fortifications, the hill was swarming with them. The single street of
+the town was choked with the black gowns and the cobalt-blue blouses.
+Before these latter took a turn at their devotions they did homage to
+Bacchus. Crowds of peasants were to be seen seated about the long,
+narrow inn-tables, lifting huge pewter tankards to bristling beards.
+Some of these taverns were the same that had fed and sheltered bands of
+pilgrims that are now mere handfuls of dust in country churchyards.
+Those sixteenth century pilgrims, how many of them, had found this same
+arched doorway of La Licorne as cool as the shade of great trees after
+the long hot climb up to the hill! What a pleasant face has the
+timbered facade of the Tete d'Or, and the Mouton Blanc, been to the
+weary-limbed: and how sweet to the dead lips has been the first taste
+of the acid cider!
+
+Other aspects of the hill, on this day of the pilgrimage, made those
+older dead-and-gone bands of pilgrims astonishingly real. On the tops
+of bastions, in the clefts of the rocks, beneath the glorious walls of
+La Merveille, or perilously lodged on the crumbling cornice of a
+tourelle, numerous rude altars had been hastily erected. The crude
+blues and scarlets of banners were fluttering, like so many pennants,
+in the light breeze. Beneath the improvised altar-roofs--strips of gay
+cloth stretched across poles stuck into the ground--were groups not
+often seen in these less fervent centuries. High up, mounted on the
+natural pulpit formed of a bit of rock, with the rude altar before him,
+with its bit of scarlet cloth covered with cheap lace, stood or knelt
+the priest. Against the wide blue of the open heaven his figure took on
+an imposing splendor of mien and an unmodern impressiveness of action.
+Beneath him knelt, with bowed heads, the groups of the
+peasant-pilgrims; the women, with murmuring lips and clasped hands,
+their strong, deeply-seamed faces outlined, with the precision of a
+Francesco painting, against the gray background of a giant mass of
+wall, or the amazing breadth of a vast sea-view; children, squat and
+chubby, with bulging cheeks starting from the close-fitting French
+_bonnet_; and the peasant-farmers, mostly of the older varieties, whose
+stiffened or rheumatic knees and knotty hands made their kneeling real
+acts of devotional zeal. There were a dozen such altars and groups
+scattered over the perpendicular slant of the hill. The singing of the
+choir-boys, rising like skylark notes into the clear space of heaven,
+would be floating from one rocky-nested chapel, while below, in the one
+beneath which we, for a moment, were resting, there would be the
+groaning murmur of the peasant groups in prayer.
+
+All day little processions were going up and down the steep stone steps
+that lead from fortified rock to parish church, and from the town to
+the abbatial gateway. The banners and the choir-boys, the priests in
+their embroideries and lace, the peasants in cap and blouse, were
+incessantly mounting and descending, standing on rock edges, caught for
+an instant between a medley of perpendicular roofs, of giant gateways,
+and a long perspective of fortified walls, only to be lost in the curve
+of a bastion, or a flying buttress, that, in their turn, would be found
+melting into a distant sea-view.
+
+All the hours of a pilgrimage, we discovered, were not given to prayer;
+nor yet is an incessant bowing at the shrine of St. Michel the sole
+other diversion in a true pilgrim's round of pious devotions. Later on
+in this eventful day, we stumbled on a somewhat startling variation to
+the penitential order of the performances. In a side alley, beneath a
+friendly overhanging rock and two protecting roof-eaves, an acrobat was
+making her professional toilet. When she emerged to lay a worn strip of
+carpet on the rough cobbles of the street, she presented a pathetic
+figure in the gold of the afternoon sun. She was old and wrinkled; the
+rouge would no longer stick to the sunken cheeks; the wrinkles were
+become clefts; the shrunken but still muscular legs were clad in a pair
+of tights, a very caricature of the silken webs that must once have
+encased the poor old creature's limbs, for these were knitted of the
+coarse thread the commonest peasant uses for the rough field stocking.
+Over these obviously home-made coverings was a single skirt of azure
+tarlatan, plentifully besprinkled with golden stars. The gossamer skirt
+and its spangles turned, for their _debut_, a somersault in the air,
+and the knitted tights took strange leaps from the bars of a rude
+trapeze. The groups of peasants were soon thicker about this spectacle
+than they had gathered about the improvised altars. All the men who had
+passed the day in the taverns came out at the sound of the hoarse
+cracked voice of the aged acrobat. As she hurled her poor old twisted
+shape from swinging bar to pole, she cried aloud, "_Ah, messieurs,
+essayez ca seulement!_" The men's hands, when she had landed on her
+feet after an uncommonly venturous whirl of the blue skirts in mid-air,
+came out of their deep pockets; but they seasoned their applause with
+coarse jokes which they flung, with a cruel relish, into the
+pitifully-aged face. A cracked accordion and a jingling tambourine were
+played by two hardened-looking ruffians, seated on their heels beneath
+a window--a discordant music that could not drown the noise of the
+peasants' derisive laughter. But the latter's pennies rattled a louder
+jingle into the ancient acrobat's tin cup than it had into the priest's
+green netted contribution box.
+
+"No, madame, as for us, we do not care for pilgrimages," was Madame
+Poulard's verdict on such survivals of past religious enthusiasms. And
+she seasoned her comments with an enlightening shrug. "We see too well
+how they end. The men go home dead drunk, the women are dropping with
+fatigue, _et les enfants meme se grisent de cidre!_ No; pilgrimages are
+bad for everyone. The priests should not allow them."
+
+This was at the end of the day, after the black and blue swarm had
+passed, a weary, uncertain-footed throng, down the long street, to take
+its departure along the dike. At the very end of the straggling
+procession came the three acrobats; they had begged, or bought, a drive
+across the dike from some of the pilgrims. The lady of the knitted
+tights, in her conventional skirts and womanly fichu, was scarcely
+distinguishable from the peasant women who eyed her askance; though
+decently garbed now, they looked at her as if she were some plague or
+vice walking in their midst.
+
+The verdict of Madame Poulard seemed to be the verdict of all Mont St.
+Michel. The whole town was abroad that evening, on its doorsteps and in
+its garden beds, repairing the ravages committed by the band of the
+pilgrims. Never had the town, as a town, been so dirty; never had the
+street presented so shocking a collection of abominations; never had
+flowers and shrubs been so mercilessly robbed and plundered--these were
+the comments that flowed as freely as the water that was rained over
+the dusty cobbles, thick with refuse of luncheon and the shreds of torn
+skirts and of children's socks.
+
+At any hour of the day, of even an ordinary, uneventful day, to take a
+walk in the town is to encounter a surprise at every turning. Would you
+call it a town--this one straggling street that begins in a King's
+gateway and ends--ah, that is the point, just where does it end? I, for
+one, was never once quite certain at just what precise point this one
+single Mont St. Michel street stopped--lost itself, in a word, and
+became something else. That was also true of so many other things on
+the hill; all objects had such an astonishing way of suddenly becoming
+something else. A house, for example, that you had passed on your
+upward walk, had a beguiling air of sincerity. It had its cellar
+beneath the street front like any other properly built house; it
+continued its growth upward, showing the commonplace features of a
+door, of so many windows--queerly spaced, and of an amazing variety of
+shapes, but still unmistakably windows. Then, assured of so much
+integrity of character, you looked to see the roof covering the house,
+and instead-like the eggs in a Chinese juggler's fingers, that are
+turned in a jiffy into a growing plant--behold the roof miraculously
+transformed into a garden, or lost in a rampart, or, with quite
+shameless effrontery, playing deserter, and serving as the basement of
+another and still fairer dwelling. That was a sample of the way all
+things played you the trick of surprise on this hill. Stairways began
+on the cobbles of the streets, only to lose themselves in a side wall;
+a turn on the ramparts would land you straight into the privacy of a
+St. Michelese interior, with an entire household, perchance, at the
+mercy of your eye, taken at the mean disadvantage of morning
+dishabille. As for doors that flew open where you looked to find a
+bastion; or a school--house that flung all the Michelese _voyous_ over
+the tops of the ramparts at play-time; or of fishwives that sprung, as
+full-armed in their kit as Minerva from her sire's brows, from the very
+forehead of fortified places; or of beds and settees and wardrobes
+(surely no Michelese has ever been able, successfully, to maintain in
+secret the ghost of a family skeleton!) into which you were innocently
+precipitated on your way to discover the minutest of all
+cemeteries--these were all commonplace occurrences once your foot was
+set on this Hill of Surprises.
+
+There are two roads that lead one to the noble mass of buildings
+crowning the hill. One may choose the narrow street with its moss-grown
+steps, its curves, and turns; or one may have the broader path along
+the ramparts, with its glorious outlook over land and sea. Whichever
+approach one chooses, one passes at last beneath the great doors of the
+Barbican.
+
+Three times did the vision of St. Michel appear to Saint Aubert, in his
+dream, commanding the latter to erect a church on the heights of Mont
+St. Michel to his honor. How many a time must the modern pilgrim
+traverse the stupendous mass that has grown out of that command before
+he is quite certain that the splendor of Mont St. Michel is real, and
+not a part of a dream! Whether one enters through the dark magnificence
+of the great portals of the Chatelet; whether one mounts the fortified
+stairway, passing into the Salle des Gardes, passing onward from
+dungeon to fortified bridge, to gain the abbatial residence; whether
+one leaves the vaulted splendor of oratories for aerial passage-ways,
+only to emerge beneath the majestic roof of the Cathedral--that marvel
+of the early Norman, ending in the Gothic choir of the fifteenth
+century; or, as one penetrates into the gloom of the mighty dungeons
+where heroes and the brothers of kings, and saints and scientists have
+died their long death--as one gropes through the black night of the
+Crypt, where a faint, mysterious glint of light falls aslant the
+mystical face of the Black Virgin; as one climbs to the light beneath
+the ogive arches of the Aumonerie, through the wide-lit aisles of the
+Salle des Chevaliers, past the slender Gothic columns of the Refectory,
+up at last to the crowning glory of all the glories of La Merveille, to
+the exquisitely beautiful colonnades of the open Cloister the
+impressions and emotions excited by these ecclesiastical and military
+masterpieces are ever the same, however many times one may pass them in
+review. A charm, indefinable, but replete with subtle attractions,
+lurks in every one of these dungeons. The great halls have a power to
+make one retraverse their space, I have yet to find under other vaulted
+chambers. The grass that is set, like a green jewel, in the arabesques
+of the Cloister, is a bit of greensward the feet press with a different
+tread to that which skips lightly over other strips of turf. And the
+world, that one looks out upon through prison bars, that is so
+gloriously arched in the arm of a flying buttress, or that lies prone
+at your feet from the dizzy heights of the rock clefts, is not the
+world in which you, daily, do your petty stretch of toil, in which you
+laugh and ache, sorrow, sigh, and go down to your grave in. The secret
+of this deep attraction may lie in the fact of one's being in a world
+that is built on a height. Much, doubtless, of the charm lies, also, in
+the reminders of all the human life that, since the early dawn of
+history, has peopled this hill. One has the sense of living at
+tremendously high mental pressure; of impressions, emotions, sensations
+crowding upon the mind; of one's whole meagre outfit of memory, of
+poetic equipment, and of imaginative furnishing, being unequal to the
+demand made by even the most hurried tour of the great buildings, or
+the most flitting review of the noble massing of the clouds and the
+hilly seas.
+
+The very emptiness and desolation of all the buildings on the hill help
+to accentuate their splendor. The stage is magnificently set; the
+curtain, even, is lifted. One waits for the coming on of kingly shapes,
+for the pomp of trumpets, for the pattering of a mighty host. But,
+behold, all is still. And one sits and sees only a shadowy company pass
+and repass across that glorious _mise-en-scene._ For, in a certain
+sense, I know no other mediaeval mass of buildings as peopled as are
+these. The dead shapes seem to fill the vast halls. The Salle des
+Chevaliers is crowded, daily, with a brilliant gathering of knights,
+who sweep the trains of their white damask mantles, edged with ermine,
+over the dulled marble of the floor; two by two they enter the hall;
+the golden shells on their mantles make the eyes blink, as the groups
+gather about the great chimneys, or wander through the column-broken
+space. Behind this dazzling _cortege_, up the steep steps of the narrow
+street, swarm other groups--the mediaeval pilgrim host that rushes into
+the cathedral aisles, and that climbs the ramparts to watch the stately
+procession as it makes its way toward the church portals. There are
+still other figures that fill every empty niche and deserted
+watch-tower. Through the lancet windows of the abbatial gateways the
+yeomanry of the vassal villages are peering; it is the weary time of
+the Hundred Years' War, and all France is watching, through sentry
+windows, for the approach of her dread enemy. On the shifting sands
+below, as on brass, how indelibly fixed are the names of the hundred
+and twenty-nine knights whose courage drove, step by step, over that
+treacherous surface, the English invaders back to their island
+strongholds. Will you have a less stormy and belligerent company to
+people the hill? In the quieter days of the fourteenth century, on any
+bright afternoon, you could have sat beside some friendly artist-monk,
+and watched him color and embellish those wondrous missals that made
+the manuscripts of the Brothers famous throughout France. Earlier yet,
+in those naive centuries, Robert de Torigny, that "bouche des Papes,"
+would doubtless have discoursed to you on any subject dear to this
+"counsellor of kings"--on books, or architecture, or the science of
+fortifications, or on the theology of Lanfranc; from the helmeted locks
+of Rollon to the veiled tresses of the lovely Tiphaine Raguenel,
+Duguesclin's wife; from the ghastly rat-eaten body of the Dutch
+journalist, who offended that tyrant King, Louis XIV., to the
+Revolutionary heroes, as pitilessly doomed to an odious death under the
+gentle Louis Philippe--there is no shape or figure in French history
+which cannot be summoned at will to refill either a dungeon or a palace
+chamber at Mont St. Michel.
+
+Even in these, our modern days, one finds strange relics of past
+fashions in thought and opinion. The various political, religious, and
+ethical forms of belief to be met with in a fortnight's sojourn on the
+hill, give one a sense of having passed in review a very complete
+gallery of ancient and modern portraits of men's minds. In time one
+learns to traverse even a dozen or more centuries with ease. To be in
+the dawn of the eleventh century in the morning; at high noon to be in
+the flood-tide of the fifteenth; and, as the sun dipped, to hear the
+last word of our own dying century--such were the flights across the
+abysmal depths of time Charm and I took again and again.
+
+One of our chosen haunts was in a certain watch-tower. From its top
+wall, the loveliest prospect of Mont St. Michel was to be enjoyed. Day
+after day and sunset after sunset, we sat out the hours there. Again
+and again the world, as it passed, came and took its seat beside us.
+Pilgrims of the devout and ardent type would stop, perchance, would
+proffer a preliminary greeting, would next take their seat along the
+parapet, and, quite unconsciously, would end by sitting for their
+portrait. One such sitter, I remember, was clad in carmine crepe shawl;
+she was bonneted in the shape of a long-ago decade. She had climbed the
+hill in the morning before dawn, she said; she had knelt in prayer as
+the sun rose. For hers was a pilgrimage made in fulfilment of a vow.
+St. Michel had granted her wish, and she in return had brought her
+prayers to his shrine.
+
+"Ah, mesdames! how good is God! How greatly He rewards a little
+self-sacrifice. Figure to yourselves the Mont in the early mists, with
+the sun rising out of the sea and the hills. I was on my knees, up
+there. I had eaten nothing since yesterday at noon. I was full of the
+Holy Ghost. When the sun broke at last, it was God Himself in all His
+glory come down to earth! The whole earth seemed to be
+listening--_pretait l'oreille_--and with the great stillness, and the
+sea, and the light breaking everywhere, it was as if I were being taken
+straight up into Paradise. Saint Michel himself must have been
+supporting me."
+
+The carmine crepe shawl covered a poet, you see, as well as a devotee.
+
+Up yonder, in the little shops and stalls tucked away within the walls
+of the Barbican, a lively traffic, for many a century now, has been
+going on in relics and _plombs de pelerinage_. Some of these mediaeval
+impressions have been unearthed in strange localities, in the bed of
+the Seine, as far away as Paris. Rude and archaic are many of these
+early essays in the sculptor's art. But they preserve for us, in quaint
+intensity, the fervor of adoration which possessed that earlier, more
+devout time and period. On the mind of this nineteenth century pilgrim,
+the same lovely old forms of belief and superstition were imprinted as
+are still to be seen in some of those winged figures of St. Michel,
+with feet securely set on the back of the terrible dragon, staring,
+with triumphant gaze, through stony or leaden eyes.
+
+On the evening of the pilgrimage our friend, the Parisian, joined us on
+our high perch. The Mont seemed strangely quiet after the noise and
+confusion the peasants had brought in their train. The Parisian, like
+ourselves, had been glad to escape into the upper heights of the wide
+air, after the bustle and hurry of the day at our inn.
+
+"You permit me, mesdames?" He had lighted his after-dinner cigar; he
+went on puffing, having gained our consent. He curled a leg comfortably
+about the railings of a low bridge connecting a house that sprang out
+of a rock, with the rampart. Below, there was a clean drop of a few
+hundred feet, more or less. In spite of the glories of a spectacular
+sunset, yielding ceaseless changes and transformations of cloud and sea
+tones, the words of Madame Poulard alone had power to possess our
+companion. She had uttered her protest against the pilgrimage, as she
+had swept the Parisian's _pousse-cafe_ from his elbow. He took up the
+conversation where it had been dropped.
+
+"It is amusing to hear Madame Poulard talk of the priests stopping the
+pilgrimages! The priests? Why, that's all they have left them to live
+upon now. These peasants' are the only pockets in which they can fumble
+nowadays."
+
+"All the same, one can't help being grateful to those peasants,"
+retorted Charm. "They are the only creatures who have made these things
+seem to have any meaning. How dead it all seems! The abbey, the
+cloisters, the old prisons, the fortifications, it is like wandering
+through a splendid tomb!
+
+"Yes, as the cure said yesterday, '_l'ame n'y est plus_,'--since the
+priests have been dislodged, it is the house of the dead."
+
+"The priests"--the Parisian snorted at the very sound of the
+word--"they have only themselves to blame. They would have been here
+still, if they had not so abused their power."
+
+"How did they abuse it?" Charm asked.
+
+"In every possible way. I am, myself, not of the country. But my
+brother was stationed here for some years, when the Mont was
+garrisoned. The priests were in full possession then, and they
+conducted a lively commerce, mademoiselle. The Mont was turned into a
+show--to see it or any part of it, everyone had to pay toll. On the
+great fete-days, when St. Michel wore his crown, the gold ran like
+water into the monks' treasury. It was still then a fashionable
+religious fad to have a mass said for one's dead, out here among the
+clouds and the sea. Well, try to imagine fifty masses all dumped on the
+altar together; that is, one mass would be scrambled through, no names
+would be mentioned, no one save _le bon Dieu_ himself knew for whom it
+was being said; but fifty or more believed they had bought it, since
+they had paid for it. And the priests laughed in their sleeves, and
+then sat down, comfortably, to count the gold. Ah, mesdames, those
+were, literally, the golden days of the priesthood! What with the
+pilgrimages, and the sale of relics, and _les benefices_--together with
+the charges for seeing the wonders of the Mont--what a trade they did!
+It is only the Jews, who, in their turn, now own us, up in Paris, who
+can equal the priests as commercial geniuses!" And our pessimistic
+Parisian, during the next half-hour, gave us a prophetic picture of the
+approaching ruin of France, brought about by the genius for plunder and
+organization that is given to the sons of Moses.
+
+Following the Parisian, a figure, bent and twisted, opened a door in a
+side-wall, and took his seat beside us. One became used, in time, to
+these sudden appearances; to vanish down a chimney, or to emerge from
+the womb of a rock, or to come up from the bowels of what earth there
+was to be found--all such exits and entrances became as commonplace as
+all the other extraordinary phases of one's life on the hill. This
+particular shape had emerged from a hut, carved, literally, out of the
+side of the rock; but, for a hut, it was amazingly snug--as we could
+see for ourselves; for the venerable shape hospitably opened the low
+wooden door, that we might see how much of a home could be made out of
+the side of a rock. Only, when one had been used to a guard-room, and
+to great and little dungeons, and to a rattling of keys along dark
+corridors, a hut, and the blaze of the noon sun, were trying things to
+endure, as the shape, with a shrug, gave us to understand.
+
+"You see, mesdames, I was jailor here, years ago, when all La Merveille
+was a prison. Ah! those were great days for the Mont! There were
+soldiers and officers who came up to look at the soldiers, and the
+soldiers--it was their business to look after the prisoners. The
+Emperor himself came here once--I saw him. What a sight!--Dieu! all the
+monks and priests and nuns, and the archbishop himself were out. What
+banners and crosses and flags! The cannon was like a great thunder--and
+the greve was red with soldiers. Ah, those were days! Dieu--why
+couldn't the republic have continued those glories--_ces gloires?
+Aujourd'hui nous ne sommes que des morts_--instead of prisoners to
+handle--to watch and work, like so many good machines there is only the
+dike yonder to keep in repair! What changes--mon Dieu! what changes!"
+And the shape wrung his hands. It was, in truth, a touching spectacle
+of grief for a good old past.
+
+An old priest, with equally saddened vision, once came to take his
+seat, quite easily and naturally, beside us, on our favorite perch. He
+was one of the little band of priests who had remained faithful to the
+Mont after the government had dispersed his brothers--after the
+monastery had been broken up. He and his four or five companions had
+taken refuge in a small house, close by the cemetery; it was they who
+conducted the services in the little parish church; who had gathered
+the treasures still grouped together in that little interior--the
+throne of St. Michel, with its blue draperies and the golden
+fleur-de-lis, the floating banners and the shields of the Knights of
+St. Michel, the relics, and wondrous bits of carving rescued from the
+splendors of the cathedral.
+
+"_Ah, mesdames--que voulez-vous?_" was the old priest's broken chant;
+he was bewailing the woes that had come to his order, to religion, to
+France. "What will you have? The history of nations repeats itself, as
+we all know. We, of our day, are fallen on evil times; it is the reign
+of image-breakers--nothing is sacred, except money."
+
+"France has worn herself out. She is like an old man, the hero of many
+battles, who cares only for his easy chair and his slippers. She does
+not care about the children who are throwing stones at the windows. She
+likes to snooze, in the sun, and count her money-bags. France is too
+old to care about religion, or the future--she is thinking how best to
+be comfortable--here in this world, when she has rheumatism and a cramp
+in the stomach!" And the old priest wrapped his own _soutane_ about his
+lean knees, suiting his gesture to his inward convictions.
+
+Was the priest's summary the last word of truth about modern France? On
+the sands that lay below at our feet, we read a different answer.
+
+The skies were still brilliantly lighted. The actual twilight had not
+come yet, with its long, deep glow, a passion of color that had a
+longer life up here on the heights than when seen from a lower level.
+This twilight hour was always a prolonged moment of transfiguration for
+the Mont.
+
+The very last evening of our stay, we chose this as the loveliest light
+in which to see the last of the hill. On that evening, I remember, the
+reds and saffrons in the sky were of an astonishing richness. The sea
+wall, the bastions, the faces of the great rocks, the yellow broom that
+sprang from the clefts therein, were dyed as in a carmine bath. In that
+mighty glow of color, all things took on something of their old, their
+stupendous splendor. The giant walls were paved with brightness. The
+town, climbing the hill, assumed the proportions of a mighty citadel;
+the forest tree-tops were prismatic, emerald balls flung beneath the
+illumined Merveille; and the Cathedral was set in a daffodil frame; its
+aerial _escalier de dentelle_, like Jacob's ladder, led one easily
+heavenward. The circling birds, in the lace-work of the spiral finials,
+sang their night songs, as the glow in the sky changed, softened,
+deepened.
+
+This was the world that was in the west.
+
+Toward the east, on the flat surface of the sands, this world cast a
+strange and wondrous shadow. Jagged rocks, a pyramidal city, a Gothic
+cathedral in mid-air--behold the rugged outlines of Mont St. Michel
+carving their giant features on the shifting, sensitive surface of the
+mirroring sands.
+
+In the little pools and the trickling rivers, the fishermen--from this
+height, Liliputians grappling with Liliputian meshes--were setting
+their nets for the night. Across the river-beds, peasant women and
+fishwives, with bared legs and baskets clasped to their bending backs,
+appeared and disappeared--shapes that emerged into the light only to
+vanish into the gulf of the night.
+
+In was in these pictures that we read our answer.
+
+Like Mont St. Michel, so has France carried into the heights of history
+her glory and her power. On every century, she, like this world in
+miniature, has also cast her shadow, dwarfing some, illuminating
+others. And, as on those distant sands the toiling shapes of the
+fishermen are to be seen, early and late, in summer and winter, so can
+France point to her people, whose industry and amazing talent for toil
+have made her, and maintain her, great.
+
+Some of these things we have learned, since, in Normandy Inns, we have
+sat at meat with her peasants, and have grown to be friends with her
+fishwives.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of In and Out of Three Normady Inns
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+Title: In and Out of Three Normady Inns
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+Author: Anna Bowman Dodd
+
+Release Date: April, 2005  [EBook #7961]
+[This file was first posted on June 5, 2003]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, IN AND OUT OF THREE NORMADY INNS ***
+
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+
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+John Roberts, Anne Soulard, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+IN AND OUT OF THREE NORMANDY INNS
+
+BY
+
+ANNA BOWMAN DODD
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT-DIVES]
+
+
+TO EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
+
+_My Dear Mr. Stedman:
+
+To this little company of Norman men and women, you will, I know,
+extend a kindly greeting, if only because of their nationality. To your
+courtesy, possibly, you will add the leaven of interest, when you
+perceive--as you must--that their qualities are all their own, their
+defects being due solely to my own imperfect presentment.
+
+With sincere esteem_,
+
+ANNA BOWMAN DODD.
+
+_New York_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+VILLERVILLE.
+
+I.      A LANDING ON THE COAST OF FRANCE
+II.     A SPRING DRIVE
+III.    FROM AN INN WINDOW
+IV.     OUT ON A MUSSEL-BED
+V.      THE VILLAGE
+VI.     A PAGAN COBBLER
+VII.    SOME NORMAN LANDLADIES
+VIII.   THE QUARTIER LATIN ON THE BEACH
+IX.     A NORMAN HOUSEHOLD
+X.      ERNESTINE
+
+ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD.
+
+XI.     TO AN OLD MANOIR
+XII.    A NORMAN CURE
+XIII.   HONFLEUR--NEW AND OLD
+
+DIVES.
+
+XIV.    A COAST DRIVE
+XV.     GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT
+XVI.    THE GREEN BENCH
+XVII.   THE WORLD THAT CAME TO DIVES
+XVIII.  THE CONVERSATION OF PATRIOTS
+XIX.    IN LA CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS
+
+TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES.
+
+XX.     A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY REVIVAL
+XXI.    THE AFTER-DINNER TALK OF THREE GREAT LADIES
+XXII.   A NINETEENTH CENTURY BREAKFAST
+
+A LITTLE JOURNEY ALONG THE COAST.
+
+XXIII.  A NIGHT IN A CAEN ATTIC
+XXIV.   A DAY AT BAYEUX AND ST. LO
+XXV.    A DINNER AT COUTANCES
+XXVI.   A SCENE IN A NORMAN COURT
+XXVII.  THE FETE-DIEU--A JUNE CHRISTMAS
+XXVIII. BY LAND TO MONT ST. MICHEL
+
+MONT ST. MICHEL.
+
+XXIX.   BY SEA TO THE POULARD INN
+XXX.    THE PILGRIMS AND THE SHRINE--AN HISTORICAL OMELETTE
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT--DIVES
+A VILLAGE STREET--VILLERVILLE
+ON THE BEACH--VILLERVILLE
+A SALE OF MUSSELS--VILLERVILLE
+A VILLERVILLE FISH-WIFE
+A DEPARTURE--VILLERVILLE
+THE INN AT DIVES--GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT
+CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES
+CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS--DIVES
+MADAME DE SEVIGNE
+CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES
+CHATEAU FONTAINE LE HENRI, NEAR CAEN
+AN EXCITING MOMENT--A COUTANCES INTERIOR
+A STREET IN COUTANCES--EGLISE SAINT-PIERRE
+MONT SAINT MICHEL
+MONT SAINT MICHEL SNAIL-GATHERERS
+
+
+
+
+VILLERVILLE.
+
+AN INN BY THE SEA.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A LANDING ON THE COAST OF FRANCE.
+
+
+Narrow streets with sinuous curves; dwarfed houses with minute shops
+protruding on inch-wide sidewalks; a tiny casino perched like a
+bird-cage on a tiny scaffolding; bath-houses dumped on the beach;
+fishing-smacks drawn up along the shore like so many Greek galleys;
+and, fringing the cliffs--the encroachment of the nineteenth
+century--a row of fantastic sea-side villas.
+
+This was Villerville.
+
+Over an arch of roses; across a broad line of olives, hawthorns,
+laburnums, and syringas, straight out to sea--
+
+This was the view from our windows.
+
+Our inn was bounded by the sea on one side, and on the other by a
+narrow village street. The distance between good and evil has been
+known to be quite as short as that which lay between these two
+thoroughfares. It was only a matter of a strip of land, an edge of
+cliff, and a shed of a house bearing the proud title of Hotel-sur-Mer.
+
+Two nights before, our arrival had made quite a stir in the village
+streets. The inn had given us a characteristic French welcome; its eye
+had measured us before it had extended its hand. Before reaching the
+inn and the village, however, we had already tasted of the flavor of a
+genuine Norman welcome. Our experience in adventure had begun on the
+Havre quays.
+
+Our expedition could hardly be looked upon as perilous; yet it was one
+that, from the first, evidently appealed to the French imagination;
+half Havre was hanging over the stone wharves to see us start.
+
+"_Dame_, only English women are up to that!"--for all the world is
+English, in French eyes, when an adventurous folly is to be committed.
+
+This was one view of our temerity; it was the comment of age and
+experience of the world, of the cap with the short pipe in her mouth,
+over which curved, downward, a bulbous, fiery-hued nose that met the
+pipe.
+
+"_C'est beau, tout de meme_, when one is young--and rich." This was a
+generous partisan, a girl with a miniature copy of her own round
+face--a copy that was tied up in a shawl, very snug; it was a bundle
+that could not possibly be in any one's way, even on a somewhat
+prolonged tour of observation of Havre's shipping interests.
+
+"And the blonde one--what do you think of her, _hein_?"
+
+This was the blouse's query. The tassel of the cotton night-cap nodded,
+interrogatively, toward the object on which the twinkling ex-mariner's
+eye had fixed itself--on Charm's slender figure, and on the yellow
+half-moon of hair framing her face. There was but one verdict
+concerning the blonde beauty; she was a creature made to be stared at.
+The staring was suspended only when the bargaining went on; for Havre,
+clearly, was a sailor and merchant first; its knowledge of a woman's
+good points was rated merely as its second-best talent.
+
+Meanwhile, our bargaining for the sailboat was being conducted on the
+principles peculiar to French traffic; it had all at once assumed the
+aspect of dramatic complication. It had only been necessary for us to
+stop on our lounging stroll along the stone wharves, diverting our gaze
+for a moment from the grotesque assortment of old houses that, before
+now, had looked down on so many naval engagements, and innocently to
+ask a brief question of a nautical gentleman, picturesquely attired in
+a blue shirt and a scarlet beret, for the quays immediately to swarm
+with jerseys and red caps. Each beret was the owner of a boat; and each
+jersey had a voice louder than his brother's. Presently the battle of
+tongues was drowning all other sounds.
+
+In point of fact, there were no other sounds to drown. All other
+business along the quays was being temporarily suspended; the most
+thrilling event of the day was centring in us and our treaty. Until
+this bargain was closed, other matters could wait. For a Frenchman has
+the true instinct of the dramatist; business he rightly considers as
+only an _entr'acte_ in life; the serious thing is the _scene de
+theatre_, wherever it takes place. Therefore it was that the black,
+shaky-looking houses, leaning over the quays, were now populous with
+frowsy heads and cotton nightcaps. The captains from the adjacent
+sloops and tug-boats formed an outer circle about the closer ring made
+by the competitors for our favors, while the loungers along the
+parapets, and the owners of top seats on the shining quay steps, may be
+said to have been in possession of orchestra stalls from the first
+rising of the curtain.
+
+A baker's boy and two fish-wives, trundling their carts, stopped to
+witness the last act of the play. Even the dogs beneath the carts, as
+they sank, panting, to the ground, followed, with red-rimmed eyes, the
+closing scenes of the little drama.
+
+"_Allons_, let us end this," cried a piratical-looking captain, in a
+loud, masterful voice. And he named a price lower than the others had
+bid. He would take us across--yes, us and our luggage, and land
+us--yes, at Villerville, for that.
+
+The baker's boy gave a long, slow whistle, with relish.
+
+"_Dame!_" he ejaculated, between his teeth, as he turned away.
+
+The rival captains at first had drawn back; they had looked at their
+comrade darkly, beneath their berets, as they might at a deserter with
+whom they meant to deal--later on. But at his last words they smiled a
+smile of grim humor. Beneath the beards a whisper grew; whatever its
+import, it had the power to move all the hard mouths to laughter. As
+they also turned away, their shrugging shoulders and the scorn in their
+light laughter seemed to hand us over to our fate.
+
+In the teeth of this smile, our captain had swung his boat round and we
+were stepping into her.
+
+"_Au revoir--au revoir et a bientot!_"
+
+The group that was left to hang over the parapets and to wave us its
+farewell, was a thin one. Only the professional loungers took part in
+this last act of courtesy. There was a cluster of caps, dazzlingly
+white against the blue of the sky; a collection of highly decorated
+noses and of old hands ribboned with wrinkles, to nod and bob and wave
+down the cracked-voiced "_bonjours_." But the audience that had
+gathered to witness the closing of the bargain had melted away with the
+moment of its conclusion. Long ere this moment of our embarkation
+the wide stone street facing the water had become suddenly deserted.
+The curious-eyed heads and the cotton nightcaps had been swallowed up
+in the hollows of the dark, little windows. The baker's boy had long
+since mounted his broad basket, as if it were an ornamental head-dress,
+and whistling, had turned a sharp corner, swallowed up, he also, by the
+sudden gloom that lay between the narrow streets. The sloop-owners had
+linked arms with the defeated captains, and were walking off toward
+their respective boats, whistling a gay little air.
+
+  "_Colinette au bois s'en alla
+  En sautillant par-ci, par-la;
+  Trala deridera, trala, derid-er-a-a._"
+
+One jersey-clad figure was singing lustily as he dropped with a spring
+into his boat. He began to coil the loose ropes at once, as if the
+disappointments in life were only a necessary interruption, to be
+accepted philosophically, to this, the serious business of his days.
+
+We were soon afloat, far out from the land of either shores. Between
+the two, sea and river meet; is the river really trying to lose itself
+in the sea, or is it hopelessly attempting to swallow the sea? The
+green line that divides them will never give you the answer: it changes
+hour by hour, day by day; now it is like a knife-cut, deep and
+straight; and now like a ribbon that wavers and flutters, tying
+together the blue of the great ocean and the silver of the Seine. Close
+to the lips of the mighty mouth lie the two shores. In that fresh May
+sunshine Havre glittered and bristled, was aglow with a thousand tints
+and tones; but we sailed and sailed away from her, and behold, already
+she had melted into her cliffs. Opposite, nearing with every dip of the
+dun-colored sail into the blue seas, was the Calvados coast; in its
+turn it glistened, and in its young spring verdure it had the lustre of
+a rough-hewn emerald.
+
+"_Que voulez-vous, mesdames?_ Who could have told that the wind would
+play us such a trick?"
+
+The voice was the voice of our captain. With much affluence of gesture
+he was explaining--his treachery! Our nearness to the coast had made
+the confession necessary. To the blandness of his smile, as he
+proceeded in his unabashed recital, succeeded a pained expression. We
+were not accepting the situation with the true phlegm of philosophers;
+he felt that he had just cause for protest. What possible difference
+could it make to us whether we were landed at Trouville or at
+Villerville? But to him--to be accused of betraying two ladies--to
+allow the whole of the Havre quays to behold in him a man disgraced,
+dishonored!
+
+His was a tragic figure as he stood up, erect on the poop, to clap
+hands to a blue-clad breast, and to toss a black mane of hair in the
+golden air.
+
+"_Dame! Toujours ete galant homme, moi!_ I am known on both shores as
+the most gallant of men. But the most gallant of men cannot control the
+caprice of the wind!" To which was added much abuse of the muddy
+bottoms, the strength of the undertow, and other marine disadvantages
+peculiar to Villerville.
+
+It was a tragic figure, with gestures and voice to match. But it was
+evident that the Captain had taken his own measure mistakenly. In him
+the French stage had lost a comedian of the first magnitude. Much,
+therefore, we felt, was to be condoned in one who doubtless felt so
+great a talent itching for expression. When next he smiled, we had
+revived to a keener appreciation of baffled genius ever on the scent
+for the capture of that fickle goddess, opportunity.
+
+The captain's smile was oiling a further word of explanation. "See,
+mesdames, they come! they will soon land you on the beach!"
+
+He was pointing to a boat smaller than our own, that now ran alongside.
+There had been frequent signallings between the two boats, a running up
+and down of a small yellow flag which we had thought amazingly becoming
+to the marine landscape, until we learned the true relation of the flag
+to the treachery aboard our own craft.
+
+"You see, mesdames," smoothly continued our talented traitor, "you see
+how the waves run up on the beach. We could never, with this great
+sail, run in there. We should capsize. But behold, these are bathers,
+accustomed to the water--they will carry you--but as if you were
+feathers!" And he pointed to the four outstretched, firmly-muscled
+arms, as if to warrant their powers of endurance. The two men had left
+their boat; it was dancing on the water, at anchor. They were standing
+immovable as pillars of stone, close to the gunwales of our craft. They
+were holding out their arms to us.
+
+Charm suddenly stood upright. She held out her hands like a child, to
+the least impressionable boatman. In an instant she was clasping his
+bronze throat.
+
+"All my life I've prayed for adventure. And at last it has come!" This
+she cried, as she was carried high above the waves.
+
+"That's right, have no fear," answered her carrier as he plunged
+onward, ploughing his way through the waters to the beach.
+
+Beneath my own feet there was a sudden swish and a swirl of restless,
+tumbling waters. The motion, as my carrier buried his bared legs in the
+waves, was such as accompanies impossible flights described in dreams,
+through some unknown medium. The surging waters seemed struggling to
+submerge us both; the two thin, tanned legs of the fisherman about
+whose neck I was clinging, appeared ridiculously inadequate to cleave a
+successful path through a sea of such strength as was running
+shoreward.
+
+"Madame does not appear to be used to this kind of travelling," puffed
+out my carrier, his conversational instinct, apparently, not in the
+least dampened by his strenuous plunging through the spirited sea. "It
+happens every day--all the aristocrats land this way, when they come
+over by the little boats. It distracts and amuses them, they say. It
+helps to kill the ennui."
+
+"I should think it might, my feet are soaking; sometimes wet feet--"
+
+"Ah, that's a pity, you must get a better hold," sympathetically
+interrupted my fisherman, as he proceeded to hoist me higher up on his
+shoulder. I, or a sack of corn, or a basket of fish, they were all one
+to this strong back and to these toughened sinews. When he had adjusted
+his present load at a secure height, above the dashing of the spray, he
+went on talking. "Yes, when the rich suffer a little it is not such a
+bad thing, it makes a pleasant change--_cela leur distrait_. For
+instance, there is the Princess de L----, there's her villa, close by,
+with green blinds. She makes little excuses to go over to Havre, just
+for this--to be carried in the arms like an infant. You should hear
+her, she shouts and claps her hands! All the beach assembles to see her
+land. When she is wet she cries for joy. It is so difficult to amuse
+one's self, it appears, in the great world."
+
+"But, _tiens_, here we are, I feel the dry sands." I was dropped as
+lightly on them as if it had been indeed a bunch of feathers my
+fisherman had been carrying.
+
+And meanwhile, out yonder, across the billows, with airy gesture
+dramatically executed, our treacherous captain was waving us a
+theatrical salute. The infant mate was grinning like a gargoyle. They
+were both delightfully unconscious, apparently, of any event having
+transpired, during the afternoon's pleasuring, which could possibly
+tinge the moment of parting with the hues of regret.
+
+"_Pour les bagages, mesdames_--"
+
+Two dripping, outstretched hands, two berets doffed, two picturesque
+giants bowing low, with a Frenchman's grace--this, on the Trouville
+sands, was the last act of this little comedy of our landing on the
+coast of France.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A SPRING DRIVE.
+
+
+The Trouville beach was as empty as a desert. No other footfall, save
+our own, echoed along the broad board walks; this Boulevard des
+Italiens of the Normandy coast, under the sun of May was a shining
+pavement that boasted only a company of jelly-fishes as loungers.
+
+Down below was a village, a white cluster of little wooden houses; this
+was the village of the bath houses. The hotels might have been
+monasteries deserted and abandoned, in obedience to a nod from Rome or
+from the home government. Not even a fisherman's net was spread
+a-drying, to stay the appetite with a sense of past favors done by the
+sea to mortals more fortunate than we. The whole face of nature was as
+indifferent as a rich relation grown callous to the voice of entreaty.
+There was no more hope of man apparently, than of nature, being moved
+by our necessity; for man, to be moved, must primarily exist, and he
+was as conspicuously absent on this occasion as Genesis proves him to
+have been on the fourth day of creation.
+
+Meanwhile we sat still, and took counsel together. The chief of the
+council suddenly presented himself. It was a man in miniature. The
+masculine shape, as it loomed up in the distance, gradually separating
+itself from the background of villa roofs and casino terraces, resolved
+itself into a figure stolid and sturdy, very brown of leg, and insolent
+of demeanor--swaggering along as if conscious of there being a
+full-grown man buttoned up within a boy's ragged coat. The swagger was
+accompanied by a whistle, whose neat crispness announced habits of
+leisure and a sense of the refined pleasures of life; for an artistic
+rendering of an aria from "La Fille de Madame Angot" was cutting the
+air with clear, high notes.
+
+The whistle and the brown legs suddenly came to a dead stop. The round
+blue eyes had caught sight of us:
+
+"_Ouid-a-a!_" was this young Norman's salutation. There was very little
+trouser left, and what there was of it was all pocket, apparently. Into
+the pockets the boy's hands were stuffed, along with his amazement; for
+his face, round and full though it was, could not hold the full measure
+of his surprise.
+
+"We came over by boat--from Havre," we murmured meekly; then, "Is there
+a cake-shop near?" irrelevantly concluded Charm with an unmistakable
+ring of distress in her tone. There was no need of any further
+explanation. These two hearty young appetites understood each other;
+for hunger is a universal language, and cake a countersign common among
+the youth of all nations.
+
+"Until you came, you see, we couldn't leave the luggage," she went on.
+
+The blue eyes swept the line of our boxes as if the lad had taken his
+afternoon stroll with no other purpose than to guard them. "There are
+eight, and two umbrellas. _Soyez tranquille, je vous attendrai._"
+
+It was the voice and accent of a man of the world, four feet high--a
+pocket edition, so to speak, in shabby binding. The brown legs hung,
+the next instant, over the tallest of the trunks. The skilful whistling
+was resumed at once; our appearance and the boy's present occupation
+were mere interludes, we were made to understand; his real business,
+that afternoon, was to do justice to the Lecoq's entire opera, and to
+keep his eye on the sea.
+
+Only once did he break down; he left a high _C_ hanging perilously in
+mid-air, to shout out "I like madeleines, I do!" We assured him he
+should have a dozen.
+
+"_Bien!_" and we saw him settling himself to await our return in
+patience.
+
+Up in the town the streets, as we entered them, were as empty as was
+the beach. Trouville might have been a buried city of antiquity. Yet,
+in spite of the desolation, it was French and foreign; it welcomed us
+with an unmistakably friendly, companionable air. Why is it that one is
+made to feel the companionable element, by instantaneous process, as it
+were, in a Frenchman and in his towns? And by what magic also does a
+French village or city, even at its least animated period, convey to
+one the fact of its nationality? We made but ten steps progress through
+these silent streets, fronting the beach, and yet, such was the subtle
+enigma of charm with which these dumb villas and mute shops were
+invested, that we walked along as if under the spell of fascination.
+Perhaps the charm is a matter of sex, after all: towns are feminine, in
+the wise French idiom, that idiom so delicate in discerning qualities
+of sex in inanimate objects, as the Greeks before them were clever in
+discovering sex distinctions in the moral qualities. Trouville was so
+true a woman, that the coquette in her was alive and breathing even in
+this her moment of suspended animation. The closed blinds and iron
+shutters appeared to be winking at us, slyly, as if warning us not to
+believe in this nightmare of desolation; she was only sleeping, she
+wished us to understand; the touch of the first Parisian would wake her
+into life. The features of her fashionable face, meanwhile, were
+arranged with perfect composure; even in slumber she had preserved her
+woman's instinct of orderly grace; not a sign was awry, not a window-
+blind gave hint of rheumatic hinges, or of shattered vertebrae; all the
+machinery was in order; the faintest pressure on the electrical button,
+the button that connects this lady of the sea with the Paris Bourse and
+the Boulevards, and how gayly, how agilely would this Trouville of the
+villas and the beaches spring into life!
+
+The listless glances of the few tailors and cobblers who, with
+suspended thread, now looked after us, seemed dazed--as if they could
+not believe in the reality of two early tourists. A woman's head, here
+and there, leaned over to us from a high window; even these feminine
+eyes, however, appeared to be glued with the long winter's lethargy of
+dull sleep; they betrayed no edge of surprise or curiosity. The sun
+alone, shining with spendthrift glory, flooding the narrow streets and
+low houses with a late afternoon stream of color, was the sole
+inhabitant who did not blink at us, bovinely, with dulled vision.
+
+Half an hour later we were speeding along the roadway. Half an
+hour--and Trouville might have been a thousand miles away. Inland, the
+eye plunged over nests of clover, across the tops of the apple and
+peach trees, frosted now with blossoms, to some farm interiors. The
+familiar Normandy features could be quickly spelled out, one by one.
+
+It was the milking-hour.
+
+The fields were crowded with cattle and women; some of the cows were
+standing immovable, and still others were slowly defiling, in
+processional dignity, toward their homes. Broad-hipped, lean-busted
+figures, in coarse gowns and worsted kerchiefs, toiled through the
+fields, carrying full milk-jugs; brass _amphorae_ these latter might
+have been, from their classical elegance of shape. Ploughmen appeared
+and disappeared, they and their teams rising and sinking with the
+varying heights and depressions of the more distant undulations. In the
+nearer cottages the voices of children would occasionally fill the air
+with a loud clamor of speech; then our steed's bell-collar would
+jingle, and for the children's cries, a bird-throat, high above, from
+the heights of a tall pine would pour forth, as if in uncontrollable
+ecstasy, its rapture into the stillness of this radiant Normandy
+garden. The song appeared to be heard by other ears than ours. We were
+certain the dull-brained sheep were greatly affected by the strains of
+that generous-organed songster--they were so very still under the pink
+apple boughs. The cows are always good listeners; and now, relieved of
+their milk, they lifted eyes swimming with appreciative content above
+the grasses of their pasture. Two old peasants heard the very last of
+the crisp trills, before the concert ended; they were leaning forth
+from the narrow window-ledges of a straw-roofed cottage; the music gave
+to their blinking old eyes the same dreamy look we had read in the
+ruminating cattle orbs. For an aeronaut on his way to bed, I should
+have felt, had I been in that blackbird's plumed corselet, that I had
+had a gratifyingly full house.
+
+Meanwhile, toward the west, a vast marine picture, like a panorama on
+wheels, was accompanying us all the way. Sometimes at our feet, beneath
+the seamy fissures of a hillside, or far removed by sweep of meadow,
+lay the fluctuant mass we call the sea. It was all a glassy yellow
+surface now; into the liquid mirror the polychrome sails sent down long
+lines of color. The sun had sunk beyond the Havre hills, but the flame
+of his mantle still swept the sky. And into this twilight there crept
+up from the earth a subtle, delicious scent and smell--the smell and
+perfume of spring--of the ardent, vigorous, unspent Normandy spring.
+
+[Illustration: A VILLAGE STREET--VILLERVILLE]
+
+Suddenly a belfry grew out of the grain-fields.
+
+"_Nous voici_--here's Villerville!" cried lustily into the twilight our
+coachman's thick peasant voice. With the butt-end of his whip he
+pointed toward the hill that the belfry crowned. Below the little
+hamlet church lay the village. A high, steep street plunged recklessly
+downward toward the cliff; we as recklessly were following it. The
+snapping of our driver's whip had brought every inhabitant of the
+street upon the narrow sidewalks. A few old women and babies hung forth
+from the windows, but the houses were so low, that even this portion of
+the population, hampered somewhat by distance and comparative
+isolation, had been enabled to join in the chorus of voices that filled
+the street. Our progress down the steep, crowded street was marked by a
+pomp and circumstance which commonly attend only a royal entrance into
+a town; all of the inhabitants, to the last man and infant, apparently,
+were assembled to assist at the ceremonial of our entry.
+
+A chorus of comments arose from the shadowy groups filling the low
+doorways and the window casements.
+
+"_Tiens_--it begins to arrive--the season!"
+
+"Two ladies--alone--like that!"
+
+"_Dame! Anglaises, Americaines_--they go round the world thus, _a
+deux_!"
+
+"And why not, if they are young and can pay?"
+
+"Bah! old or poor, it's all one--they're never still, those English!" A
+chorus of croaking laughter rattled down the street along with the
+rolling of our carriage-wheels.
+
+Above, the great arch of sky had shrunk, all at once, into a narrow
+scallop; with the fields and meadows the glow of twilight had been left
+behind. We seemed to be pressing our way against a great curtain, the
+curtain made by the rich dusk that filled the narrow thoroughfare.
+Through the darkness the sinuous street and rickety houses wavered in
+outline, as the bent shapes of the aged totter across dimly-lit
+interiors. A fisherman's bare legs, lit by some dimly illumined
+interior; a line of nets in the little yards; here and there a white
+kerchief or cotton cap, dazzling in whiteness, thrown out against the
+black facades, were spots of light here and there. There was a glimpse
+of the village at its supper--in low-raftered interiors a group of
+blouses and women in fishermen's rig were gathered about narrow tables,
+the coarse-featured faces and the seamed foreheads lit up by the feeble
+flame of candles that ended in long, thin lines of smoke.
+
+"_Ohe--Mere Mouchard!--des voyageurs!_" cried forth our coachman into
+the darkness. He had drawn up before a low, brightly-lit interior. In
+response to the call a figure appeared on the threshold of the open
+door. The figure stood there for a long instant, rubbing its hands, as
+it peered out into the dusk of the night to take a good look at us. The
+brown head was cocked on one side thoughtfully; it was an attitude that
+expressed, with astonishingly clear emphasis, an unmistakable
+professional conception of hospitality. It was the air and manner, in a
+word, of one who had long since trimmed the measurement of its
+graciousness to the price paid for the article.
+
+"_Ces dames_ wished rooms, they desired lodgings and board--_ces
+dames_ were alone?" The voice finally asked, with reticent dignity.
+"From Havre--from Trouville, _par p'tit bateau!_" called out lustily our
+driver, as if to furnish us, _gratis_, with a passport to the
+landlady's not too effusive cordiality.
+
+What secret spell of magic may have lain hidden in our friendly
+coachman's announcement we never knew. But the "p'tit bateau" worked
+magically. The figure of Mere Mouchard materialized at once into such
+zeal, such effusion, such a zest of welcome, that we, our bags, and our
+coachman were on the instant toiling up a pair of spiral wooden stairs.
+There was quite a little crowd to fill the all-too-narrow landing at
+the top of the steep steps, a crowd that ended in a long line of
+waiters and serving-maids, each grasping a remnant of luggage. Our
+hostess, meanwhile, was fumbling at a door-lock--an obstinate door that
+refused to be wrenched open.
+
+"Augustine--run--I've taken the wrong key. _Cours, mon enfant_, it is
+no farther away than the kitchen."
+
+The long line pressed itself against the low walls. Augustine, a blond-
+haired, neatly-garmented shape, sped down the rickety stairs with the
+step of youth and a dancer; for only the nimble ankles of one
+accomplished in waltzing could have tripped as dexterously downward as
+did Augustine.
+
+"How she lags! what an idiot of a child!" fumed Mere Mouchard as she
+peered down into the round blackness about which the curving staircase
+closed like an embrace. "One must have patience, it appears, with
+people made like that. _Ah, tiens,_ here she comes. How could you keep
+_ces dames_ waiting like this? It is shameful, shameful!" cried the
+woman, as she half shook the panting girl, in anger. "If _ces dames_
+will enter,"--her voice changing at once to a caressing falsetto, as the
+door flew open, opened by Augustine's trembling fingers--"they will
+find their rooms in readiness."
+
+The rooms were as bare as a soldier's barrack, but they were spotlessly
+clean. There was the pale flicker of a sickly candle to illumine the
+shadowy recesses of the curtained beds and the dark little
+dressing-rooms.
+
+A few moments later we wound our way downward, spirally, to find
+ourselves seated at a round table in a cosy, compact dining-room.
+Directly opposite, across the corridor, was the kitchen, from which
+issued a delightful combination of vinous, aromatic odors. The light of
+a strong, bright lamp made it as brilliant as a ball-room; it was a
+ball-room which for decoration had rows of shining brass and copper
+kettles--each as burnished as a jewel--a mass of sunny porcelain, and
+for carpet the satin of a wooden floor. There was much bustling
+to and fro. Shapes were constantly passing and repassing across the
+lighted interior. The Mere's broad-hipped figure was an omniscient
+presence: it hovered at one instant over a steaming saucepan, and the
+next was lifting a full milk-jug or opening a wine-bottle. Above the
+clatter of the dishes and the stirring of spoons arose the thick
+Normandy voices, deep alto tones, speaking in strange jargon of
+speech--a world of patois removed from our duller comprehension. It was
+made somewhat too plain in this country, we reflected, that a man's
+stomach is of far more importance than the rest of his body. The
+kitchen yonder was by far the most comfortable, the warmest, and
+altogether the prettiest room in the whole house.
+
+Augustine crossed the narrow entry just then with a smoking pot of
+soup. She was followed, later, by Mere Mouchard, who bore a sole au vin
+blanc, a bottle of white Burgundy, and a super-naturally ethereal
+souffle. And an hour after, even the curtainless, carpetless bed
+chambers above were powerless to affect the luxurious character of our
+dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FROM AN INN WINDOW.
+
+
+One travels a long distance, sometimes, to make the astonishing
+discovery that pleasure comes with the doing of very simple things. We
+had come from over the seas to find the act of leaning on a window
+casement as exciting as it was satisfying. It is true that from our two
+inn windows there was a delightful variety of nature and of human
+nature to look out upon. From the windows overlooking the garden there
+was only the horizon to bound infinity. The Atlantic, beginning with
+the beach at our feet, stopped at nothing till it met the sky. The sea,
+literally, was at our door; it and the Seine were next-door neighbors.
+Each hour of the day these neighbors presented a different face, were
+arrayed in totally different raiment, were grave or gay, glowing with
+color or shrouded in mists, according to the mood and temper of the
+sun, the winds, and the tides.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE BEACH--VILLERVILLE]
+
+The width of the sky overhanging this space was immense; not a scrap,
+apparently, was left over to cover, decently, the rest of the earth's
+surface--of that one was quite certain in looking at this vast inverted
+cup overflowing with ether. What there was of land was a very sketchy
+performance. Opposite ran the red line of the Havre headlands.
+
+Following the river, inland, there was a pretence of shore, just
+sufficiently outlined, like a youth's beard, to give substance to one's
+belief in its future growth and development. Beneath these windows the
+water, hemmed in by this edge of shore, panted, like a child at play;
+its sighs, liquid, lisping, were irresistible; one found oneself
+listening for the sound of them as if they had issued from a human
+throat. The humming of the bees in the garden, the cry of a fisherman
+calling across the water, the shout of the children below on the beach,
+or, at twilight, the chorusing birds, carolling at full concert pitch;
+this, at most, was all the sound and fury the sea beach yielded.
+
+The windows opening on the village street let in a noise as tumultuous
+as the sea was silent. The hubbub of a perpetual babble, all the louder
+for being compressed within narrow space, was always to be heard; it
+ceased only when the village slept. There was an incessant clicking
+accompaniment to this noisy street life; a music played from early dawn
+to dusk over the pavement's rough cobbles--the click clack, click clack
+of the countless wooden sabots.
+
+Part of this clamor in the streets was due to the fact that the
+village, as a village, appeared to be doing a tremendous business with
+the sea.
+
+Men and women were perpetually going to and coming from the beach.
+Fishermen, sailors, women bearing nets, oars, masts, and sails,
+children bending beneath the weight of baskets filled with kicking
+fish; wheelbarrows stocked high with sea-food and warm clothing; all
+this commerce with the sea made the life in these streets a more
+animated performance than is commonly seen in French villages.
+
+In time, the provincial mania began to work in our veins.
+
+To watch our neighbors, to keep an eye on this life--this became, after
+a few days, the chief occupation of our waking hours.
+
+The windows of our rooms fronting on the street were peculiarly well
+adapted for this unmannerly occupation. By merely opening the blinds,
+we could keep an eye on the entire village. Not a cat could cross the
+street without undergoing inspection. Augustine, for example, who, once
+having turned her back on the inn windows, believed herself entirely
+cut off from observation, was perilously exposed to our mercy. We knew
+all the secrets of her thieving habits; we could count, to a second,
+the time she stole from the Mere, her employer, to squander in smiles
+and dimples at the corner creamery. There a tall Norman rained
+admiration upon her through wide blue eyes, as he patted, caressingly,
+the pots of blond butter, just the color of her hair, before laying
+them, later, tenderly in her open palm. Soon, as our acquaintance with
+our neighbors deepened into something like intimacy, we came to know
+their habits of mind as we did their facial peculiarities; certain of
+their actions made an event in our day. It became a serious matter of
+conjecture as to whether Madame de Tours, the social swell of the town,
+would or would not offer up her prayer to Deity, accompanied by
+Friponne, her black poodle. If Friponne issued forth from the narrow
+door, in company with her austere mistress, the shining black silk
+gown, we knew, would not decorate the angular frame of this
+aristocratic provincial; a sober beige was best fitted to resist the
+dashes made by Friponne's sharply-trimmed nails. It was for this, to
+don a silk gown in full sight of her neighbors; to set up as companion
+a dog of the highest fashion, the very purest of _caniches_, that
+twenty years of patient nursing a paralytic husband--who died all too
+slowly--had been counted as nothing!
+
+Once we were summoned to our outlook by the vigorous beating of a drum.
+Madame Mouchard and Augustine were already at their own post of
+observation--the open inn door. The rest of the village was in full
+attendance, for it was not every day in the week that the "tambour,"
+the town-crier, had business enough to render his appearance, in his
+official capacity, necessary; as a mere townsman he was to be seen any
+hour of the day, as drunk as a lord, at the sign of "L'Ami Fidele." His
+voice, as it rolled out the words of his cry, was as _staccato_ in
+pitch as any organ can be whose practice is largely confined to
+unceasing calls for potations. To the listening crowd, the thick voice
+was shouting:
+
+"_Madame Tricot--a la messe--dimanche--a--perdu une broche--or et
+perles--avec cheveux--Madame Merle a perdu--sur la plage--un panier
+avec--un chat noir--_"
+
+We ourselves, to our astonishment, were drummed the very next morning.
+Augustine had made the discovery of a missing shoulder-cape; she had
+taken it upon herself to call in the drummer. So great was the
+attendance of villagers, even the abstractors of the lost garment must,
+we were certain, be among the crowd assembled to hear our names shouted
+out on the still air. We were greatly affected by the publicity of the
+occasion; but the village heard the announcement, both of our names and
+of our loss, with the phlegm of indifference. "Vingt francs pour avoir
+tambourine mademoiselle!" This was an item which a week later, in
+madame's little bill, was not confronted with indifference.
+
+"It gives one the feeling of having had relations with a wandering
+circus," remarked the young philosopher at my side.
+
+"But it is really a great convenience, that system," she continued;
+"I'm always mislaying things--and through the drummer there's a whole
+village as aid to find a lost article. I shall, doubtless, always have
+that, now, in my bills!" And Charm, with an air of serene confidence in
+the village, adjusted her restored shoulder-cape.
+
+Down below, in our neighbor's garden--the one adjoining our own and
+facing the sea--a new and old world of fashion in capes and other
+garments were a-flutter in the breeze, morning after morning. Who and
+what was this neighbor, that he should have so curious and eccentric a
+taste in clothes? No woman was to be seen in the garden-paths; a man,
+in a butler's apron and a silk skullcap, came and went, his arms piled
+high with gowns and scarves, and all manner of strange odds and ends.
+Each morning some new assortment of garments met our wondering eyes.
+Sometimes it was a collection of Empire embroidered costumes that were
+hung out on the line; faded fleur-de-lis, sprigs of dainty lilies and
+roses, gold-embossed Empire coats, strewn thick with seed-pearls on
+satins softened by time into melting shades. When next we looked the
+court of Napoleon had vanished, and the Bourbon period was, literally,
+in full swing. A frou-frou of laces, coats with deep skirts, and
+beribboned trousers would be fluttering airily in the soft May air.
+Once, in fine contrast to these courtly splendors, was a wondrous
+assortment of flannel petticoats. They were of every hue--red, yellow,
+brown, pink, patched, darned, wide-skirted, plaited, ruffled--they
+appeared to represent the taste and requirement of every climate and
+country, if one could judge by the thickness of some and the gossamer
+tissues of others; but even the smartest were obviously, unmistakably,
+effrontedly, flannel petticoats.
+
+It was a mystery that greatly intrigued us. One morning the mystery was
+solved. A whiff of tobacco from an upper window came along with a puff
+of wind. It was a heated whiff, in spite of the cooling breeze. It was
+from a pipe, a short, black pipe, owned by some one in the Mansard
+window next door. There was the round disk of a dark-blue beret
+drooping over the pipe. "Good--" I said to myself--"I shall see now--at
+last--this maniac with a taste for darned petticoats!"
+
+The pipe smoked peacefully, steadily on. The beret was motionless.
+Between the pipe and the cap was a man's profile; it was too much in
+shadow to be clearly defined.
+
+The next instant the man's face was in full sunlight. The face turned
+toward me--with the quick instinct of knowing itself watched--and
+then--
+
+"Pas--possible!"
+
+"You--here!"
+
+"Been here a year--but you, when did you arrive? What luck! What luck!"
+
+It was John Renard, the artist; after the first salutations question
+followed question.
+
+"Are you alone?--"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is she--young?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Pretty?"
+
+"Judge for yourself--that is she--in the garden yonder."
+
+The beret dipped itself perilously out into the sky--to take a full
+view.
+
+"Hem--I'll come in at once."
+
+It was as a trio that the conversation was continued later, in the
+garden. But Renard was still chief questioner.
+
+"Have you been out on the mussel-beds?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"We'll go this afternoon--Have you been to Honfleur? Not yet?--We'll
+go to-morrow. The tide will be in to-day about four--I'll call for
+you--wear heavy boots and old clothes. It's jolly dirty. Where do you
+breakfast?"
+
+The breakfast was eaten, as a trio, at our inn, an hour later. It was
+so warm a day, it was served under one of the arbors. Augustine was
+feeding and caressing the doves as we entered the inn garden. At sight
+of Renard she dropped a quiet courtesy, smiles and roses struggling for
+a supremacy on her round peasant face. She let the doves loose at once,
+saying: "Allez, allez," as if they quite understood that with Monsieur
+Renard's advent their hour of success was at an end.
+
+Why does a man's presence always seem to communicate such surprising
+animation to a woman--to any woman? Why does his appearance, for
+instance, suddenly, miraculously stiffen the sauces, lure from the
+cellar bottles incrusted with the gray of thick cobwebs, give an added
+drop of the lemon to the mayonnaise, and make an omelette to swim in a
+sea of butter? All these added touches to our commonly admirable
+breakfast were conspicuous that day--it was a breakfast for a prince
+and a gourmet.
+
+"The Mere can cook--when she gives her mind to it," was Renard's meagre
+masculine comment, as the last morsel of the golden omelette
+disappeared behind his mustache.
+
+It was a gay little breakfast, with the circling above of the birds and
+the doves. There are duller forms of pleasure than to eat a repast in
+the company of an artist. I know not why it is, but it has always
+seemed to me that the man who lives only to copy life appears to get
+far more out of it than those who make a point of seeing nothing in it
+save themselves.
+
+Renard, meanwhile, was taking pains to assure us that in less than a
+month the Villerville beaches would be crowded; only the artists of the
+brushes were here now; the artists of high life would scarcely be found
+deserting the Avenue des Acacias before June.
+
+"French people are always coming to the seashore, you know--or trying
+to come. It's a part of their emotional religion to worship the sea.
+'La mer! la mer!' they cry, with eyes all whites; then they go into
+little swoons of rapture--I can see them now, attitudinizing in salons
+and at tables-d'hote!" To which comment we could find no more original
+rejoinder than our laughter.
+
+It was a day when laughter was good; it put one in closer relations
+with the universal smiling. There are certain days when nature seems to
+laugh aloud; in this hour of noon the entire universe, all we could see
+of it, was on a broad grin. Everything moved, or danced, or sang; the
+leaves were each alive, trembling, quivering, shaking; the insect hum
+was like a Wagnerian chorus, deafening to the ear; there was a brisk,
+light breeze stirring--a breeze that moved the higher branches of the
+trees as if it had been an arm; that rippled the grass; that tossed the
+wavelets of the sea into such foam that they seemed over-running with
+laughter; and such was still its unspent energy that it sent the Seine
+with a bound up through its shores, its waters clanging like a sheet
+of mail armor worn by some lusty warrior. We were walking in the narrow
+lane that edged the cliff; it was a lane that was guarded with a
+sentinel row of osiers, syringas, and laburnums. This was the guard of
+the cliffs. On the other side was the high garden wall, over which we
+caught dissolving views of dormer-windows, of gabled roofs, vine-clad
+walls, and a maze of peach and pear blossoms. This was not precisely
+the kind of lane through which one hurried. One needed neither to be
+sixteen nor even in love to find it a delectable path, very agreeable
+to the eye, very suggestive to the imaginative faculty, exceedingly
+satisfactory to the most fastidious of all the senses, to that
+aristocrat of all the five, the sense of smell. Like all entirely
+perfect experiences in life, the lane ended almost as soon as it began;
+it ended in a steep pair of steps that dropped, precipitously, on the
+pebbles of the beach.
+
+For some reason best known to the day and the view, we all, with one
+accord, proceeded to seat ourselves on the topmost step of this
+stairway. We were waiting for the tide to fall, to go out to the
+mussel-bed. Meanwhile the prospect to be seen from this improvised seat
+was one made to be looked at. There is a certain innate compelling
+quality in all great beauty. When nature or woman presents a really
+grandiose appearance, they are singularly reposeful, if you notice;
+they have the calm which comes with a consciousness of splendor. It
+is only prettiness which is tormented with the itching for display; and
+therefore this prospect, which rolled itself out beneath our feet,
+curling in a half-moon of beach, broadening into meadows that dropped
+to the river edge, lifting its beauty upward till the hills met the
+sky. and the river was lost in the clasp of the shore--this aspect of
+nature, in this moment of beauty, was as untroubled as if Chateaubriand
+had not found her a lover, and had flattered man by persuading him that,
+
+"La voix de l'univers, c'est mon intelligence."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OUT ON A MUSSEL-BED.
+
+
+That same afternoon we were out on the mussel bed.
+
+The tide was at its lowest. Before us, for an acre or more, there lay a
+wide, wet, stretch of brown mud. Near the beach was a strip of yellow
+sand; here and there it had contracted into narrow ridges, elsewhere it
+had expanded into scroll-like patterns. The bed of mud and slime ran
+out from this yellow sand strip--a surface diversified by puddles of
+muddy water, by pools, clear, ribbed with wavelets, and by little heaps
+of stones covered with lichens. The surface of the bed, whether pools
+or puddles, or rock-heaps, or sea-weeds massed, was covered by
+thousands and thousands of black, lozenge-shaped bivalves. These
+bivalves were the mussels. Over this bed of shells and slime there
+moved and toiled a whole villageful of old women. Where the sea met the
+edges of the mud-flat the throng of women was thickest. The line of the
+ever-receding shore was marked by the shapes of countless bent figures.
+The heads of these stooping women were on a level with their feet, not
+one stood upright. All that the eye could seize for outline was the
+dome made by the bent hips, and the backs that closed against the knees
+as a blade is clasped into a knife handle. The oblong masses that were
+lifted now and then, from the level of the sabots, resolved themselves
+into the outlines of women's heads and women's faces. These heads
+were tied up in cotton kerchiefs or in cotton nightcaps; these being
+white, together with the long, thick, aprons also white, were in
+startling contrast to the blue of the sky and to the changing sea-
+tones.
+
+Between these women and the incoming tide, twice daily, was fought a
+persistent, unrelenting duel. It was a duel, on the part of the fish-
+wives, against time, against the fate of the tides, against the blind
+forces of nature. For this combat the women were armed to the teeth,
+clad as they were in their skeleton muscular leanness; helmeted with
+their heads of iron; visored in the bronze of their skin and in
+wrinkles that laughed at the wind. In these sinewy, toughened
+bodies there was a grim strength that appeared to know neither ache nor
+fatigue nor satiety.
+
+High, clear, strong, came their voices. The tones were the tones that
+come from deep chests, and with a prolonged, sustained capacity for
+enduring the toil of men. But the high-pitched laughter proved them
+women, as did their loud and unceasing gossip. The battle of the voices
+rose above the swash of the waves, above, also, another sound, as
+incessant as the women's chatter and the swish of the water as it
+hissed along the mud-flat's edges.
+
+[Illustration: A SALE OF MUSSELS--VILLERVILLE]
+
+This was the swift, sharp, saw-like cutting among the stones and the
+slime, the scrape, scrape of the hundred of knives into the moist
+earth. This ceaseless scraping, lunging, digging, made a new world of
+sound--strange, sinister, uncanny. It was neither of the sea nor yet of
+the land--it was a noise that seemed inseparable from this tongue of
+mud, that also appeared to be neither of the heavens above nor of the
+earth, from the bowels out of which it had sprung.
+
+The mussels cling to their slime with extraordinary tenacity; only an
+expert, who knows the exact point of attachment between the hard shell
+and its soil, can remove a mussel with dexterity. These women, as they
+dipped their knives into the thick mud, swept the diminutive black
+bivalve with a trenchant movement, as a Moor might cleave a human head
+with one turn of his moon-shaped sword. Into the bronzed, wrinkled old
+hands the mussels then were slipped as if they had been so many dainty
+sweets.
+
+New and pungent smells were abroad on this strip of slime. Sea smells,
+strong and salty; smells of the moist and damp soil, the bitter-sweet
+of wetted weeds, the aromatic flavor that shell-life yields, and the
+smells also of rotten and decaying fish--all these were inextricably
+blended in the air, that was of the keenness of a frost-blight for
+freshness, and yet was warm with the softness of a June sun.
+
+Meanwhile the voices of the women were nearing. Some of the bent heads
+were lifted as we approached. Here and there a coif, or cotton cap,
+nodded, and the slit of a smile would gape between the nose and the
+meeting chin. A high good humor appeared to reign among the groups; a
+carnival of merriment laughed itself out in coarse, cracked laughter;
+loud was the play of the jests, hoarse and guttural the gibes that were
+abroad on the still air, from old mouths that uttered strong, deep
+notes.
+
+"Why should they all be old?" we queried. We were near enough to see
+the women face to face now, since we were far out along the outer edges
+of the bed; we were so near the sea that the tide was beginning to wash
+us back, along with the fringe of the diggers.
+
+"They're not--they only look old," replied Renard, stopping a moment to
+sketch in a group directly in front. "This life makes old women of them
+in no time. How old, for instance, should you think that girl was, over
+there?"
+
+The girl whom he designated was the only figure of youth we had seen on
+the bed. She was working alone and remote from the others. She wore no
+coif. Her masses of red, wavy hair shaded a face already deeply seamed
+with lines of premature age. A moment later she passed close to us. She
+was bent almost double beneath a huge, reeking basket, heaped with its
+pile of wet mussels. She was carrying it to a distant pool. Once beside
+the pool, with swift, dexterous movement the heavy basket was slipped
+from the bent back, the load of mussels falling in a shower into the
+miniature lake. The next instant she was stamping on the heap, to
+plunge them with her sabot still further into the pool. She was washing
+her load. Soon she shouldered the basket again, filling it with the
+cleansed mussels. A moment later she joined the long, toiling line of
+women that were perpetually forming and reforming on their way to the
+carts. These latter were drawn up near the beach, their contents
+guarded by boys and old men, who received the loads the women had dug,
+dragging the whole, later, up the hill.
+
+"She has the Venus de Milo lines, that girl," Renard continued,
+critically, with his eyes on her, as she now repassed us. The figure
+was drawn up at its full height. It had in truth a noble dignity of
+outline. There was a Spartan vigor and severity in the lean, uncorseted
+shape, with the bust thrown out against the sky--the bust of a young
+warrior rather than a woman. There was a hardy, masculine freedom in
+the pliable motion of her straight back, a ripple with muscles that
+played easily beneath the close bodice, in her arms, and her finely
+turned ankles and legs, that were bared below the knee. The very
+simplicity of her costume helped to mark the Greek severity of her
+figure. She wore a short skirt of some coarse hempen stuff, covered
+with a thick apron made of sail-cloth, her feet thrust into black
+sabots, while the upper part of her body was covered with an unbleached
+chemise, widely open at the throat.
+
+She had the Phidian breadth and the modern charm--that charm which
+troubles and disturbs, haunting the mind with vague, unsatisfied
+suggestions of something finer than is seen, something nobler than the
+gross physical envelope reveals.
+
+"I must have her--for my Salon picture," calmly remarked Renard, after
+a long moment of scrutiny, his eyes following the lean, stately figure
+in its grave walk across the weeds and slime. "Yes, I must have her."
+
+"Won't she be hard to get? How can she be made to sit, a stiffened
+image of clay, after this life of freedom, this athletic struggle out
+here--with these winds and tides?"
+
+One of us, at least, was stirred at Renard's calm assumption--the
+assumption so common to artists, who, when they see a good thing at
+once count on its possessorship, as if the whole world, indeed, were
+eternally sitting, agape with impatience, awaiting the advent of some
+painter to sketch in its portrait.
+
+"Oh, it'll be easy enough. She makes two francs a day with her six
+basketfuls. I'll offer her three, and she'll drop like a shot."
+
+"I'll make it a red picture," he continued, dipping his brushes into a
+little case of paints he held on his thumb; "the mussel-bed a reddish
+violet, the sky red in the horizon, and the girl in the foreground,
+with that torrent of hair as the high light. I've been hunting for that
+hair all over Europe." And he began sketching her in at once.
+
+"_Bonjour, mere_, how goes it?" He nodded as he sketched at a wrinkled,
+bent figure, who was smiling out at him from beneath her load of
+mussels.
+
+"_Pas mal--e' vous, M'sieur Renard?_"
+
+"All right--and the mortgage, how goes that?"
+
+"Pas si mal--it'll be paid off next year."
+
+"Who is she? One of your models?"
+
+"Yes, last year's: she was my belle--the belle of the mussel-bed for
+me, a year ago. Now there's a lesson in patience for you. She's sixty-
+five, if she's a minute; she's been working here, on this mussel-bed,
+for five years, to pay the mortgage off her farm; when that is done,
+her daughter Augustine can marry; Augustine's _dot_ is the farm."
+
+"Augustine--at our inn?"
+
+"The very same."
+
+"And the blonde--the handsome man at the creamery, he is the future--?"
+
+"I'm sorry to hear such things of Augustine," smiled Renard, as he
+worked; "she must be indulging in an entr'acte. No, the gentleman of
+Augustine's--well, perhaps not of her affections, but of her mother's
+choice, is a peasant who works the farm; the creamery is only an
+incidental diversion. Again, I'm sorry to hear such sad things of
+Augustine--"
+
+"Horrors!"
+
+"Exactly. That's the way it's done--over here. Will you join me--over
+there?" Renard blushed a little. "I mean I wish to follow that
+girl--she's going to dig out yonder. Will you come?"
+
+Meanwhile the light was changing, and so was the tide. The women were
+coming inward, washed up to the shore along with the grasses and
+seaweeds. A band of diggers suddenly started, with full basket loads,
+toward a fishing boat that had dropped anchor close in to the shore; it
+was a Honfleur craft, come to buy mussels for the Paris market. The
+women trudged through the water, up to their waists; they clustered
+about the boats like so many laden beasts. But their shrill bargaining
+proved them women.
+
+Meanwhile that gentle hissing along the level stretch of brown mud
+was the tide. It was pushing the women upward, as if it had been a
+hand--the hand of a relentless fate--instead of a little, liquid kiss.
+
+The sun, as it dipped, made a glory of splendor out of this commonplace
+bank. It soaked the mud in gold; it was in a royal mood, throwing its
+largess with reckless abundance to this poor of earth--to the slime and
+the mud. The long, yellow, lichen leaves massed on the rocks were dyed
+as if lying in a yellow bath. The sands were richly colored; the ridges
+were brown in the shadows and burnished at the tops. In the distance
+the sea weeds were black, sable furs, covering the velvet robes of
+earth. The sea out beyond was as rosy as a babe, and the sails were
+dazzlingly white as they floated past, between the sky and the distant
+purple line of the horizon.
+
+Meanwhile the tide is coming in.
+
+The procession of the women toward the carts grows in numbers. The
+thick sabots plunge into the mud, the water squirts out of the wooden
+shoes as the strong heels press into them. The straw, the universal
+stocking of these women-diggers, is reeking with dirt. Volumes of slush
+are splashed on the bared skinny ankles, on the wet skirts, wet to the
+waists, and on the coarse sail-cloth aprons tied beneath the hanging
+bosoms. The women are all drenched now in a bath of filth. The baskets
+are reeking with filth also, they rain showers of dirt along the bent
+backs. A long line of the bent figures has formed on their way to the
+carts. There is, however, a thick fringe of diggers left who still
+dispute their rights with the sea.
+
+But the tide is pushing them inward, upward. And all the while the
+light is getting more and more golden, shimmery, radiant. Under this
+light, beneath this golden mantel of color, these creatures appear
+still more terrible. As they bend over, their faces tirelessly held
+downward on a level with their hands, they seem but gnomes; surely they
+are huge, undeveloped embryos of women, with neither head nor trunk.
+For this light is pitiless. It makes them even more a part of this
+earth, out of which they seem to have sprung, a strange amorphous
+growth. The bronzed skins are dyed in the gold as if to match with the
+hue of the mud; the wet skirts are shreds, gray and brown tatters, not
+so good in texture as the lichens, and the ragged jerseys seem only
+bits of the more distant weeds woven into tissues to hide mercifully
+the lean, sinewy backs.
+
+The tide is almost in.
+
+In the shallows the sunset is fading. Here and there are brilliant
+little pools, each pool a mirror, and each mirror reflects a different
+picture. Here is a second sky--faintly blue, with a trailing saffron
+scarf of cloud; there, the inverted silhouettes of two fish-wives are
+conical shapes, their coifs and wet skirts startlingly distinct in
+tones; beyond, sails a fantastic fleet, with polychrome sails, each
+spar, masthead, and wrinkled sail as sharply outlined as if chiselled
+in relief. Presently these miniature pictures fade as the light fades.
+Blacker grows the mud, and there is less and less of it; the
+silhouetted shapes of the diggers are seen no more; they are following
+the carts up the steep cliffs; even the sky loses its color and fades
+also. And the little pools that have been a burning orange, then a
+darkening violet, gay with pictured worlds, in turn pale to gray, and
+die into the universal blackness.
+
+The tide is in.
+
+It is flowing, rich and full, crested with foam beneath the osier
+hedges. We hear it break with a sudden dash and splutter against the
+cliff parapets. And the mud-bank is no more.
+
+Half an hour later, from our chamber windows we looked forth through
+the dusk across at the mussel bed. The great mud-bank, all that black
+acreage of slime and sea-weed, the eager, struggling band of toiling
+fish wives, all was gone; it was all as if it had not been--would never
+be again. The water hissed along the beach; it broke in rhythmic,
+sonorous measure against the parapet. Surely there had never been any
+beds, or any mussels, or any toiling fish-wives; or if there had, it
+was all a world that the sea had washed up, and then as quietly, as
+heedlessly, as pitilessly had obliterated.
+
+It was the very epitome of life itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE VILLAGE.
+
+
+Our visit to the mussel-bed, as we soon found, had been our formal
+introduction to the village. Henceforth every door step held a friend;
+not a coif or a blouse passed without a greeting. The village, as a
+village, lived in the open street. Villerville had the true French
+genius for society; the very houses were neighborly, crowding close
+upon the narrow sidewalk. Conversation, to be carried on from a
+dormer-window or from opposite sides of the street, had evidently been
+the first architectural consideration in the mind of the builders; doors
+and windows must be as open and accessible as the lives of the
+inhabitants. The houses themselves appeared to be regarded in the light
+of pockets, into which the old women and fishermen plunged to drag
+forth a net or a knife; also as convenient, if rude, little caverns into
+which the village crawled at night, to take its heavy slumber.
+
+The door-step was the drawing-room, and the open street was the club of
+this Villerville world.
+
+The door-way, the yard, or the bit of garden tucked in between two high
+walls--it was here, under the tent of sky rather than beneath the
+stuffy roofs, that the village lived, talked, quarrelled, bargained,
+worked, and more or less openly made love.
+
+To the door-step everything was brought that was portable. There was
+nothing, from the small boy to the brass kettle, that could not be more
+satisfactorily polished off, in full view of one's world, than by one's
+self, in seclusion and solitude. Justice, at least, appeared to gain by
+this passion for open-air ministration, if one were to judge by the
+frequency with which the Villerville boy was laid across the parental
+knee. We were repeatedly called upon to coincide, at the very instant
+of flagellation, with the verdict pronounced against the youthful
+offender.
+
+"_S'il est assez mechant, lui?_ Ah, mesdames, what do you think of one
+who goes forth dry, with clean sabots, that I, myself, have washed, and
+behold him returned, _apres un tout p'tit quart d'heure_, stinking with
+filth? Bah! it's he that will catch it when his father comes home!" And
+meanwhile the mother's hand descends, lest justice should cool ere
+night.
+
+[Illustration: A VILLERVILLE FISH-WIFE]
+
+There were other groups that crowded the doorsteps; there were young
+mothers that sat there, with their babes clasped to the full breasts,
+in whose eyes was to be read the satisfied passion of recent
+motherhood; there were gay clusters of young Norman maidens, whose
+glances, brilliant and restless, were pregnant with all the meaning of
+unspent youth. The figures of the fishermen, toiling up the street with
+bared legs and hairy breast, bending beneath their baskets alive with
+fish, stopped to have a word or two, seasoned with a laugh, with these
+latter groups. There were also knots of patient old men, wrecks that
+the sea had tossed back to earth, to rot and die there, that came out
+of the black little houses to rest their bones in the sun. And
+everywhere there were groups of old women, or of women still young, to
+whom the look of age had come long before its due time.
+
+The village seemed peopled with women, sexless creatures for the most
+part, whom toil and the life on the mussel-bed or in the field had
+dried and hardened into mummy shapes. Only these, the old and the
+useless, were left at home to rear the younger generation and to train
+them to take up the same heavy burden of life. The coifs of these old
+hags made dazzling spots of brightness against the gray of the walls
+and the stuccoed houses; clustered together, the high caps that nodded
+in unison to the chatter were in startling contrast to the bronzed
+faces bending over the fish-nets, and to the blue-veined, leathery
+hands that flew in and out of the coarse meshes with the fluent ease of
+long practice.
+
+With one of these old women we became friends. We had made her
+acquaintance at a poetic moment, under romantic circumstances. We were
+all three watching a sunset, under a pink sky; we were sitting far out
+on the grasses of the cliff. Her house was in the midst of the grasses,
+some little distance from the village, attached to it only as a ragged
+fringe might edge a garment. It was a thatched hut; yet there were
+circumstances in the life of the owner which had transformed the
+interior into a luxurious apartment. The owner of the hut was herself
+hanging on the edge of life; she was a toothless, bent, and withered
+old remnant; but her vigor and vivacity were those of a witch. Her
+hands and eyes were ceaselessly active; she was forever busy, fingering
+a fish-net, or polishing her Normandy brasses, or stirring some dark
+liquid in an iron pot over the dim fire.
+
+At our first meeting, conversation had immediately engaged itself; it
+had ended, as all right talk should, in friendship. On this morning of
+our visit, many a gay one having preceded it, we found our friend
+arrayed as if for an outing. She had mounted her best coif, and tied
+across her shrivelled old breast was a vivid purple silk kerchief.
+
+"_Tiens, mes enfants, soyez les bienvenues_," was her gay greeting,
+seasoned with a high cackling laugh, as she waved us to two rickety
+chairs. "No, I'm not going out, not yet; there is plenty of time,
+plenty of time. It is you who are good, _si aimables_, to come out here
+to see me. And tired, too, _hein_, with the long walk? _Tiens_, I had
+nearly forgotten; there's a bottle of wine open below--you must take a
+glass."
+
+She never forgot. The bottle of wine had always just been opened; the
+cork was always also miraculously rebellious for a cork that had been
+previously pulled. Although our ancient friend was a peasant, her
+cellar was the cellar of a gourmet. Wonderful old wines were hers!
+Port, Bordeaux, white wines, of vintages to make the heart warm; each
+was produced in turn, a different vintage and wine on each one of our
+visits, but no champagne. This was no wine for women--for the right
+women. Champagne was a bad, fast wine, for fast, disreputable people.
+"_C'est un vrai poison, qui vous infecte_," she had declared again and
+again, and when she saw her daughter drinking it, it made her shudder;
+she confessed to having a moment of doubt; had Paris, indeed, really
+brought her child no harm? Then the old mere would shrug her bent
+shoulders and rub her hands, and for a moment she would be lost in
+thought. Presently the cracked old laugh would peal forth again, and,
+as she threw back her head, she would shake it as if to dispel some
+dark vision.
+
+To-day she had dropped, almost as soon as we entered, into a narrow
+trap-door, descending a flight of stone steps. We could hear a clicking
+of bottles and a rustling of straw; and then, behold, a veritable fairy
+issuing from the bowels of the earth, with flushes of red suffusing the
+ribbed, bewrinkled face, as the old figure straightens its crookedness
+to carry the dusty bottle securely, steadily, lest the cloudy settling
+at the bottom should be disturbed. What a merry little feast then
+began! We had learned where the glasses were kept; we had been busily
+scouring them while our hostess was below. Then wine and glasses, along
+with three chairs, were quickly placed on the pine table at the door of
+the old house. Here, on the grass of the cliffs, we sat, sipping our
+wine, enjoying the sea that lay at our feet, and above, the sunlit sky.
+To our friend both sky and sea were familiar companions; but the fichu
+was a new friend.
+
+"Yes, it is very beautiful, as you say," she said, in answer to our
+admiring comments. "It came from Paris, from my daughter. She sent it
+to me; she is always making me gifts; she is one who remembers her old
+mother! Figure to yourselves that last year, in midwinter, she sent me
+no less than three gowns, all wool! What can I do with them? _C'est
+pour me flatter, c'est sa maniere de me dire qu'il faut vivre pour
+longtemps! Ah, la chere folle!_ But she spoils me, the darling!"
+
+This daughter had become the most mysterious of all our Villerville
+discoveries. Our old friend was a peasant, the child of peasant
+farmers. She would always remain a peasant; and yet her daughter was a
+Parisian, and lived in a _bonbonniere_. She was also married; but that
+only served to thicken the web of mystery enshrouding her. How could a
+daughter of a peasant, brought up as a peasant, who had lived here, a
+tiller of the fields till her nineteenth year, suddenly be transformed
+into a woman of the Parisian world, gain the position of a banker's
+wife, and be dancing, as the old mere kept telling us, at balls at the
+Elysee? Her mother never answered this riddle for us; and, more amazing
+still, neither could the village. The village would shrug its
+shoulders, when we questioned it, with discretion, concerning this
+enigma. "Ah, dame! It was she--the old mere--who had had chances in
+life, to marry her daughter like that! Victorine was pretty--yes, there
+was no gainsaying she was pretty--but not so beautiful as all that, to
+entrap a banker, _un homme serieux, qui vit de ses rentes!_ and who was
+generous, too, for the old mere needn't work now, since she was always
+receiving money." Gifts were perpetually pouring into the low
+rooms--wines, and Parisian delicacies, and thick garments.
+
+The tie between the two, between the mother and daughter, appeared to
+be as strong and their relations as complete, as if one were not clad
+in homespun and the other in Worth gowns. There was no shame, that was
+easily seen, on either side; each apparently was full of pride in the
+other; their living apart was entirely due to the old mere's preference
+for a life on the cliffs, alone in the midst of all her old peasant
+belongings.
+
+"_C'est plus chez-soi, ici!_ Victorine feels that, too. She loves the
+smell of the old wood, and of the peat burning there in the fireplace.
+When she comes down to see me, I must shut fast all the doors and
+windows; she wants the whole of the smell, _pour faire le vrai
+bouquet_, as she says. If she had had children--ah!--I don't say but
+what I might have consented; but as it is, I love my old fire, and my
+view out there, and the village, best!"
+
+At this point in the conversation, the old eyes, bright as they were,
+turned dim and cloudy; the inward eye was doubtless seeing something
+other than the view; it was resting on a youthful figure, clad in
+Parisian draperies, and on a face rising above the draperies, that bent
+lovingly over the deep-throated fireplace, basking in its warmth, and
+revelling in its homely perfume. We were silent also, as the picture of
+that transfigured daughter of the house flitted across our own mental
+vision.
+
+"The village?" suddenly broke in the old mere. "_Dieu de Dieu!_ that
+reminds me. I must go, my children, I must go. Loisette is waiting; _la
+pauvre enfant_--perhaps suffering too--how do I know? And here am I,
+playing, like a lazy clout! Did you know she had had un _nini_ this
+morning? The little angel came at dawn. That's a good sign! And what
+news for Auguste! He was out last night--fishing; she was at her
+washing when he left her. _Tiens_, there they are, looking for him!
+They've brought the spy-glass."
+
+The old mere shaded her eyes, as she looked out into the dazzling
+sunlight. We followed her finger, that pointed to a projection on the
+cliffs. Among the grasses, grouped on top of the highest rock, was a
+family party. An old fish-wife was standing far out against the sky;
+she also was shading her eyes. A child's round head, crowded into a
+white knit cap, was etched against the wide blue; and, kneeling,
+holding in both hands a seaman's long glass, was a girl, sweeping the
+horizon with swift, skilful stretches of arm and hand. The sun
+descended in a shower of light on the old grandam's seamy face, on the
+red, bulging cheeks of the chubby child, and on the bent figure of the
+girl, whose knees were firmly implanted in the deep, tall grasses.
+Beyond the group there was nothing but sea and sky.
+
+"Yes," the mere went on, garrulously, as she recorked the bottle of
+old port, carrying table and glasses within doors. "Yes, they're
+looking for him. It ought to be time, now; he's due about now. There's
+a man for you--good--_bon comme le bon Dieu_. Sober, saving too--good
+father--in love with Loisette as on the wedding night--_ah, mes
+enfants!_--there are few like him, or this village would be a paradise!"
+
+She shut the door of the little cabin. And then she gave us a broad
+wink. The wink was entirely by way of explanation; it was to enlighten
+us as to why a certain rare bottle of port--a fresh one--was being
+secreted beneath her fichu. It was a wink that conveyed to us a really
+valuable number of facts; chief among them being the very obvious fact
+that the French Government was an idiot, and a tyrant into the bargain,
+since it imposed stupid laws no one meant to carry out; least of all a
+good Norman. What? pay two _sous octroi_ on a bottle of one's own wine,
+that one had had in one's cellar for half a lifetime? To cheat the town
+out of those twopence becomes, of course, the true Norman's chief
+pleasure in life. What is his reputation worth, as a shrewd, sharp man
+of business, if a little thing like cheating stops him? It is even
+better fun than bargaining, to cheat thus one's own town, since nothing
+is to be risked, and one is so certain of success.
+
+The mere nodded to us gayly, in farewell, as we all three re-entered
+the town. She disappeared all at once into a narrow door way, her arms
+still clasping her old port, that lay in the folds of her shawl. On her
+shrewd kindly old face came a light that touched it all at once with a
+glow of divinity; the mother in her had sprung into life with sharp,
+sweet suddenness; she had caught the wail of the new-born babe through
+the open door.
+
+The village itself seemed to have caught something of the same glow. It
+was not only the splendor of the noon sun that made the faces of the
+worn fish-wives and the younger women softer and kindlier than common;
+the groups, as we passed them, were all talking of but one thing--of
+this babe that had come in the night, of Auguste's absence, and of
+Loisette's sharp pains and her cries, that had filled the street, so
+that none could sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A PAGAN COBBLER.
+
+
+At dusk that evening the same subject, with variations, was the
+universal topic of the conversational groups. Still Auguste had not
+come; half the village was out watching for him on the cliffs. The
+other half was crowding the streets and the doorsteps.
+
+Twilight is the classic time, in all French towns and villages, for the
+_al fresco_ lounge. The cool breath of the dusk is fresh, then, and
+restful; after the heat and sweat of the long noon the air, as it
+touches brow and lip, has the charm of a caress. So the door ways and
+streets were always crowded at this hour, groups moved, separated,
+formed and re formed, and lingered to exchange their budget of gossip,
+to call out their "_Bonne nuit_," the girls to clasp hands, looking
+longingly over their shoulders at the younger fishermen
+and farmers; the latter to nod, carelessly, gayly back at them; and
+then--as men will--to fling an arm about a comrade's shoulder as they,
+in their turn, called out into the dusk,
+
+"_Allons, mon brave; de l'absinthe, toi?_" as the cabaret swallowed
+them up.
+
+Great and mighty were the cries and the oaths that issued from the
+cabaret's open doors and windows. The Villerville fisherman loved
+Bacchus only, second to Neptune; when he was not out casting his net
+into the Channel he was drinking up his spoils. It was during the
+sobering process only that affairs of a purely domestic nature engaged
+his attention. Some of the streets were permeated with noxious odors,
+with the poison of absinthe and the fumes of cheap brandy. Noisy,
+reeling groups came out of the tavern doors, to shout and sing, or to
+fight their way homeward. One such figure was filling a narrow alley,
+swaying from right to left, with a jeering crowd at his heels.
+
+"_Est-il assez ridicule, lui?_ with his cap over his nose, and his
+knees knocking at everyone's door? _Bah! ca pue! _" the group of lads
+following him went on, shouting about the poor sot, as they pelted him
+with their rain of pebbles and paper bullets.
+
+"Ah--h, he will beat her, in his turn, poor soul; she always gets it
+when he's full, as full as that--"
+
+The voice was so close to our ears that we started. The words appeared
+addressed to us; they were, in a way, since they were intended for the
+street, as a street, and for the benefit of the groups that filled it.
+The voice was gruff yet mellow; despite its gruffness it had the ring
+of a latent kindliness in its deep tones. The man who owned it was
+seated on a level with our elbows, at a cobbler's bench. We stopped to
+let the crowd push on beyond us. The man had only lifted his head from
+his work, but involuntarily one stopped to salute the power in it.
+
+"_Bonsoir, mesdames_"--the head gravely bowed as the great frame of the
+body below the head rose from the low seat. The room within seemed to
+contain nothing else save this giant figure, now that it had risen and
+was moving toward us. The half-door was courteously opened.
+
+"Will not _ces dames_ give themselves the trouble of entering? The
+streets are not gay at this hour."
+
+We went in. A dog and a woman came forth from a smaller inner room to
+greet us; of the two the dog was obviously the personage next in point
+of intelligence and importance to the master. The woman had a snuffed-
+out air, as of one whose life had died out of her years ago. She
+blinked at us meekly as she dropped a timid courtesy; at a low word of
+command she turned a pitifully patient back on us all. There were years
+of obedience to orders written on its submissive curves; and she bent
+it once more over her kettles; both she and the kettles were on the
+bare floor. It was the poorest of all the Villerville interiors we had
+as yet seen; the house was also, perhaps, the oldest in the village. It
+and the old church had been opposite neighbors for several centuries.
+The shop and the living-room were all in one; the low window was a
+counter by day and a shutter by night. Within, the walls were bare as
+were the floors. Three chairs with sunken leather covers, and a bed
+with a mattress also sunken--a hollow in a pine frame, was the
+equipment in furniture. The poverty was brutal; it was the naked,
+unabashed poverty of the middle ages, with no hint of shame or effort
+of concealment. The colossus whom the low roof covered was as
+unconscious of the barrenness of his surroundings as were his own
+walls. This hovel was his home; he had made us welcome with the manners
+of a king.
+
+Meanwhile the dog was sniffing at our skirts. After a tour of
+observation and inspection he wagged his tail, gave a short bark, and
+seated himself by Charm. The giant's eyes twinkled.
+
+"You see, mesdames, it is a dog with a mind--he knows in an instant who
+are the right sort. And eloquence, also--he is one who can make
+speeches with his tail. A dog's tongue is in his tail, and this one
+wags his like an orator!"
+
+Some one else, as well as the dog, possessed the oratorical gift. The
+cobbler's voice was the true speaker's voice--rich, vibrating,
+sonorous, with a deep note of melody in it. Pose and gestures matched
+with the voice; they were flexible and picturesquely suggestive.
+
+"If you care for oratory--" Charm smiled out upon the huge but mobile
+face--"you are well placed. The village lies before you. You can always
+see the play going on, and hear the speeches--of the passers-by."
+
+The large mouth smiled back. But at Charm's first sentence the keen
+Norman eyes had fixed their twinkling glitter on the girl's face. They
+seemed to be reading to the very bottom of her thought and being. The
+scrutiny was not relaxed as he answered.
+
+"Yes, yes, it is very amusing. One sees a little of everything here.
+_Le monde qui passe_--it makes life more diverting; it helps to kill
+the time. I look out from my perch, like a bird--a very old one, and
+caged"--and he shook forth a great laugh from beneath the wide leather
+apron.
+
+The woman, hearing the laugh, came out into the room.
+
+"_E'ben--et toi_--what do you want?"
+
+The giant stopped laughing long enough to turn tyrant. The woman, at
+the first of his growl, smiled feebly, going back with unresisting
+meekness to her knees, to her pots, and her kettles. The dog growled in
+imitation of his master; obviously the soul of the dog was in the wrong
+body.
+
+Meanwhile the master of the dog and the woman had forgotten both now;
+he was continuing, in a masterful way, to enlighten us about the
+peculiarities of his native village. The talk had now reached the
+subject of the church.
+
+"Oh, yes, it is fine, very, and old; it and this old house are the
+oldest of all the inhabitants of this village. The church came first,
+though, it was built by the English, when they came over, thinking to
+conquer us with their Hundred Years' War. Little they knew France and
+Frenchmen. The church was thoroughly French, although the English did
+build it; on the ground many times, but up again, only waiting the hand
+of the builder and the restorer."
+
+Again the slim-waisted shape of the old wife ventured forth into the
+room.
+
+"Yes, as he says"--in a voice that was but an echo--"the church has
+been down many times."
+
+"_Tais-toi--c'est moi qui parle_," grumbled anew her husband, giving
+the withered face a terrific scowl.
+
+"_Ohe, oui, c'est toi_," the echo bleated. The thin hands meekly folded
+themselves across her apron. She stood quite still, as if awaiting more
+punishment.
+
+"It is our good cure who wishes to pull it down once more," her
+terrible husband went on, not heeding her quiet presence. "Do you know
+our cure? Ah, ha, he's a fine one. It's he that rules us now--he's our
+king--our emperor. Ugh, he's a bad one, he is."
+
+"Ah, yes, he's a bad one, he is," his wife echoed, from the side wall.
+
+"Well, and who asked you to talk?" cried her husband, with a face as
+black as when the cure's name had first been mentioned. The echo shrank
+into the wall. "As I was telling these ladies"--he resumed here his
+boot work, clamping the last between his great knees--"as I was saying,
+we have not been fortunate in cures, we of our parish. There are cures
+and cures, as there are fagots and fagots--and ours is a bad lot. We've
+had nothing but trouble since he came to rule over us. We get poorer
+day by day, and he richer. There he is now, feeding his hens and his
+doves--look, over there--with the ladies of his household gathered
+about him--his mother, his aunt, and his niece--a perfect harem. Oh, he
+keeps them all fat and sleek, like himself! Bah!"
+
+The grunt of disgust the cobbler gave filled the room like a
+thunder-clap. He was peering over his last, across the open counter, at
+a little house adjoining the church green, with a great hatred in his
+face. From one of the windows of the house there was leaning forth a
+group of three heads; there was the tonsured head of a priest, round,
+pink-tinted, and the figures of two women, one youthful, with a long,
+sad-featured face, and the other ruddy and vigorous in outline. They
+were watching the priest as he scattered corn to the hens and geese in
+the garden below the window.
+
+The cobbler was still eying them fiercely, as he continued to give vent
+to his disgust.
+
+"_Mechant homme--lui_," he here whipped his thread, venomously, through
+the leather he was sewing. "Figure to yourselves, mesdames, that
+besides being wicked, our cure is a very shrewd man; it is not for the
+pure good of the parish he works, not he."
+
+"Not he," the echo repeated, coming forth again from the wall. This
+time the whisper passed unnoticed; her master's hatred of the cure was
+greater than his passion for showing his own power.
+
+"Religion--religion is a very good way of making money, better than
+most, if one knows how to work the machine. The soul, it is a fine
+instrument on which to play, if one is skilful. Our cure has a grand
+touch on this instrument. You should see the good man take up a
+collection, it is better than a comedy."
+
+Here the cobbler turned actor; he rose, scattering his utensils right
+and left; he assumed a grand air and a mincing, softly tread, the tread
+of a priest. His flexible voice imitated admirably the rounded,
+unctuous, autocratic tone peculiar to the graduates of St. Sulpice.
+
+"You should hear him, when the collection does not suit him: '_Mes
+freres et mes soeurs_, I see that _le bon Dieu_ isn't in your minds and
+your hearts to-day; you are not listening to his voice; the Saviour is
+then speaking in vain?' Then he prays--" the cobbler folded his hands
+with a great parade of reference, lifting his eyes as he rolled his
+lids heavenward hypocritically--"yes, he prays--and then he passes the
+plate himself! He holds it before your very nose, there is no pushing
+it aside; he would hold it there till you dropped--till Doomsday. Ah,
+he's a hard crust, he is! There's a tyrant for you--_la monarchie
+absolue_--that's what he believes in. He must have this, he must have
+that. Now it is a new altar-cloth, or a fresh Virgin of the modern
+make, from Paris, with a robe of real lace; the old one was black and
+faded, too black to pray to. Now it is a _huissier_, forsooth, that we
+must have, we, a parish of a few hundred souls, who know our seats in
+the church as well as we know our own noses. One would think a 'suisse'
+would have done; but we are swells now--_avec ce gaillard-la_, only the
+tiptop is good enough. So, if you grace our poor old church with your
+presence you will be shown to your bench by a very splendid gentleman
+in black, in knee-breeches, with silver chains, with a three-cornered
+hat, who strikes with his stick three times as he seats you. Bah!
+ridiculous!"
+
+"Ridiculous!" the woman repeated, softly.
+
+"They had the cure once, though. One day in church he announced a
+subscription to be taken up for restorations, from fifty centimes
+to--to anything; he will take all you give him, avaricious that he
+is! He believes in the greasing of the palm, he does. Well, think you
+the subscription was for restorations, _mesdames_? It was for
+demolition--that's what it was for--to make the church level with the
+ground. To do this would cost a little matter of twenty thousand
+francs, which would pass through his hands, you understand. Well, that
+staggered the parish. Our mayor--a man _pas trop fin_, was terribly
+upset. He went about saying the cure claimed the church as his; he
+could do as he liked with it, he said, and he proposed to make it a
+fine modern one. All the village was weeping. The church was the oldest
+friend of the village, except for such as I, whom these things have
+turned pagan. Well, one of our good citizens reminds the mayor that the
+church, under the new laws, belongs to the commune. The mayor tells
+this timidly to the cure. And the cure retorts, 'Ah, _bien_, at least
+one-half belongs to me.' And the good citizen answers--he has gone with
+the mayor to prop him up--'Which half will you take? The cemetery,
+doubtless, since your charge is over the souls of the parish.' Ah! ah!
+he pricked him well then! he pricked him well!"
+
+The low room rang with the great shout of the cobbler's laughter. The
+dog barked furiously in concert. Our own laughter was drowned in the
+thunder of our host's loud guffaws. The poor old wife shook herself
+with a laugh so much too vigorous for her frail frame, one feared its
+after-effects.
+
+The after-effects were a surprise. After the first of her husband's
+spasms of glee the old woman spoke out, but in trembling tones no
+longer.
+
+"Ah, the cemetery, it is I who forgot to go there this week."
+
+Her husband stopped, the laugh dying on his lip as he turned to her.
+
+"_Ah, ma bonne_, how came that? You forgot?" His own tones trembled at
+the last word.
+
+"Yes, you had the cramps again, you remember, and there was no money
+left for the bouquet."
+
+"Yes, I remember," and the great chest heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"You have children--you have lost someone?"
+
+"_Helas!_ no living children, mademoiselle. No, no--one daughter we had,
+but she died twenty years ago. She lies over there--where we can see
+her. She would have been thirty-eight years now--the fourteenth of this
+very month!"
+
+"Yes, this very month."
+
+Then the old woman, for the first time, left her refuge along the wall;
+she crept softly, quietly near to her husband to put her withered hand
+in his. His large palm closed over it. Both of the old faces turned
+toward the cemetery; and in the old eyes a film gathered, as they
+looked toward all that was left of the hope that was buried away from
+them.
+
+We left them thus, hand in hand, with many promises to renew the
+acquaintance.
+
+The village was no longer abroad in the streets. During our talk in the
+shop the night had fallen; it had cast its shadow, as trees cast
+theirs, in a long, slow slant. Lights were trembling in the dim
+interiors; the shrill cries of the children were stilled; only a
+muffled murmur came through the open doors and windows. The villagers
+were pattering across the rough floors, talking, as their sabots
+clattered heavily over the wooden surface, as they washed the dishes,
+as they covered their fires, shoving back the tables and chairs. As we
+walked along, through the nearer windows came the sound of steps on the
+creaking old stairs, then a rustling of straw and the heavy fall of
+weary bodies, as the villagers flung themselves on the old oaken beds,
+that groaned as they received their burden. Presently all was still.
+Only our steps resounded through the streets. The stars filled the sky;
+and beneath them the waves broke along the beach. In the closely packed
+little streets the heavy breathing of the sleeping village broke also
+in short, quick gasps.
+
+Only we and the night were awake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SOME NORMAN LANDLADIES.
+
+
+Quite a number of changes came about with our annexation of an artist
+and his garden. Chief among these changes was the surprising discovery
+of finding ourselves, at the end of a week, in possession of a villa.
+
+"It's next door," Renard remarked, in the casual way peculiar to
+artists. "You are to have the whole house to yourselves, all but the
+top floor; the people who own it keep that to live in. There's a garden
+of the right sort, with espaliers, also rose trees, and a tea house;
+quite the right sort of thing altogether."
+
+The unforeseen, in its way, is excellent and admirable. _De l'imprevu,_
+surely this is the dash of seasoning--the caviare we all crave in
+life's somewhat too monotonous repasts. But as men have been known to
+admire the still life in wifely character, and then repented their
+choice, marrying peace only to court dissension, so we, incontinently
+deserting our humble inn chambers to take possession of a grander
+state, in the end found the capital of experience drained to pay for
+our little infidelity.
+
+[Illustration: A DEPARTURE--VILLERVILLE]
+
+The owners of the villa Belle Etoile, our friend announced, he had
+found greatly depressed; of this, their passing mood, he had taken such
+advantage as only comes to the knowing. "They speak of themselves
+drearily as 'deux pauvres malheureux' with this villa still on their
+hands, and here they are almost 'touching June,' as they put it. They
+also gave me to understand that only the finest flowers of the
+aristocracy had had the honor of dwelling in this villa. They have been
+able, I should say, more or less successfully to deflower this
+'fine fleur' of some of their gold. But they are very meek just
+now--they were willing to listen to reason."
+
+The "two poor unhappies" were looking surprisingly contented an hour
+later, when we went in to inspect our possessions. They received us
+with such suave courtesy, that I was quite certain Renard's skill in
+transactions had not played its full gamut of capacity.
+
+Civility is the Frenchman's mask; he wears it as he does his skin--as a
+matter of habit. But courtesy is his costume de bal; he can only afford
+to don his bravest attire of smiles and graciousness when his pocket is
+in holiday mood. Madame Fouchet we found in full ball-room toilet; she
+was wreathed in smiles. Would _ces dames_ give themselves the trouble of
+entering? would they see the house or the garden first? would they
+permit their trunks to be sent for? Monsieur Fouchet, meanwhile, was
+making a brave second to his wife's bustling welcome; he was rubbing
+his hands vigorously, a somewhat suspicious action in a Frenchman, I
+have had occasion to notice, after the completion of a bargain.
+Nature had cast this mild-eyed individual for the part of accompanyist
+in the comedy we call life; a _role_ he sometimes varied as now, with
+the office of _claqueur_, when an uncommonly clever proof of madame's
+talent for business drew from him this noiseless tribute of applause.
+His weak, fat contralto called after us, as we followed madame's quick
+steps up the waxed stairway; he would be in readiness, he said, to show
+us the garden, "once the chambers were visited."
+
+"It wasn't a real stroke, mesdames, it was only a warning!" was the
+explanation conveyed to us in loud tones, with no reserve of whispered
+delicacy, when we expressed regret at monsieur's detention below
+stairs; a partially paralyzed leg, dragged painfully after the latter's
+flabby figure, being the obvious cause of this detention.
+
+The stairway had the line of beauty, describing a pretty curve before
+its glassy steps led us to a narrow entry; it had also the brevity
+which is said to be the very soul, _l'anima viva_, of all true wit; but
+it was quite long and straight enough to serve Madame Fouchet as a
+stage for a prolonged monologue, enlivened with much affluence of
+gesture. Fouchet's seizure, his illness, his convalescence, and present
+physical condition--a condition which appeared to be bristling with the
+tragedy of danger, "un vrai drame d'anxiete"--was graphically conveyed
+to us. The horrors of the long winter also, so sad for a Parisian--"si
+triste pour la Parisienne, ces hivers de province"--together with the
+miseries of her own home life, between this paralytic of a husband
+below stairs, and above, her mother, an old lady of eighty, nailed to
+her sofa with gout. "You may thus figure to yourselves, mesdames, what
+a melancholy season is the winter! And now, with this villa still on
+our hands, and the season already announcing itself, ruin stares us in
+the face, mesdames--ruin!"
+
+It was a moving picture. Yet we remained strangely unaffected by this
+tale of woe. Madame Fouchet herself, the woman, not the actress, was to
+blame, I think, for our unfeelingness. Somehow, to connect woe, ruin,
+sadness, melancholy, or distress, in a word, of any kind with our
+landlady's opulent figure, we found a difficult acrobatic mental feat.
+She presented to the eye outlines and features that could only be
+likened, in point of prosperity, to a Dutch landscape. Like certain of
+the mediaeval saints presented by the earlier delineators of the
+martyrs as burning above a slow fire, while wearing smiles of purely
+animal content, as if in full enjoyment of the temperature, this lady's
+sufferings were doubtless an invisible discipline, the hair shirt which
+her hardened cuticle felt only to be a pleasurable itching.
+
+"_Voila, mesdames!_" It was with a magnificent gesture that madame opened
+doors and windows. The drama of her life was forgotten for the moment
+in the conscious pride of presenting us with such a picture as her gay
+little house offered.
+
+Inside and out, summer and the sun were blooming and shining with
+spendthrift luxuriance. The salon opened directly on the garden; it
+would have been difficult to determine just where one began and the
+domain of the other ended, with the pinks and geraniums that nodded in
+response to the peach and pear blossoms in the garden. A bit of faded
+Aubusson and a print representing Madame Geoffrin's salon in full
+session, with a poet of the period transporting the half-moon grouped
+listeners about him to the point of tears, were evidences of the
+refined tastes of our landlady in the arts; only a sentimentalist would
+have hung that picture in her salon. Other decorations further proved
+her as belonging to both worlds. The chintzes gay with garlands of
+roses, with which walls, beds, and chairs were covered, revealed the
+mundane element, the woman of decorative tastes, possessed of a hidden
+passion for effective backgrounds. Two or three wooden crucifixes, a
+_prie-dieu_, and a couple of saints in plaster, went far to prove that
+this excellent _bourgeoise_ had thriftily made her peace with Heaven.
+It was a curious mixture of the sacred and the profane.
+
+Down below, beneath the windows overlooking the sea, lay the garden.
+All the houses fronting the cliff had similar little gardens, giving,
+as the French idiom so prettily puts it, upon the sea. But compared to
+these others, ours was as a rose of Sharon blooming in the midst of
+little deserts. Renard had been entirely right about this particular
+bit of earth attached to our villa. It was a gem of a garden. It was a
+French garden, and therefore, entirely as a matter of course, it had
+walls. It was as cut off from the rest of the world as if it had been a
+prison or a fortification.
+
+The Frenchman, above all others, appears to have the true sentiment of
+seclusion, when the society of trees and flowers is to be enjoyed. Next
+to woman, nature is his fetish. True to his national taste in dress, he
+prefers that both should be costumed _a la Parisienne_; but as poet and
+lover, it is his instinct to build a wall about his idol, that he may
+enjoy his moments of expansion unseen and unmolested. This square of
+earth, for instance, was not much larger than the space covered by the
+chamber roof above us; and yet, with the high walls towering over the
+rose-stalks, it was as secluded as a monk's cloister. We found it,
+indeed, on later acquaintance, as poetic and delicately sensuous a
+retreat as the romance-writers would wish us to believe did those
+mediaeval connoisseurs of comfort, when, with sandalled feet, they
+paced their own convent garden-walks. Fouchet was a broken-down
+shopkeeper; but somewhere hidden within, there lurked the soul of a
+Maecenas; he knew how to arrange a feast--of roses. The garden was a
+bit of greensward, not much larger than a pocket handkerchief; but the
+grass had the right emerald hue, and one's feet sank into the rich turf
+as into the velvet of an oriental rug. Small as was the enclosure,
+between the espaliers and the flower-beds serpentined minute paths of
+glistening pebbles. Nothing which belonged to a garden had been
+forgotten, not even a pine from the tropics, and a bench under the pine
+that was just large enough for two. This latter was an ideal little
+spot in which to bring a friend or a book. One could sit there and
+gorge one's self with sweets; a dance was perpetually going on--the
+gold-and-purple butterflies fluttering gayly from morning till night;
+and the bees freighted the air with their buzzing. If one tired of
+perfumes and dancing, there was always music to be enjoyed, from a full
+orchestra. The sea, just the other side of the wall of osiers, was
+always in voice, whether sighing or shouting. The larks and blackbirds
+had a predilection for this nest of color, announcing their preference
+loudly in a combat of trills. And once or twice, we were quite certain,
+a nightingale with Patti notes had been trying its liquid scales in the
+dark.
+
+It was in this garden that our acquaintance with our landlord deepened
+into something like friendship. Monsieur Fouchet was always to be found
+there, tying up the rose-trees, or mending the paths, or shearing the
+bit of turf.
+
+_"Mon jardin, c'est un peu moi, vous savez_--it is my pride and my
+consolation." At the latter word, Fouchet was certain to sigh.
+
+Then we fell to wondering just what grief had befallen this amiable
+person which required Horatian consolation. Horace had need of
+rose-leaves to embalm his disappointments, for had he not cooled his
+passions by plunging into the bath of literature? Besides, Horace was
+bitten by the modern rabies: he was as restless as an American. When at
+Rome was he not always sighing for his Sabine farm, and when at the
+farm always regretting Rome? But this harmless, innocent-eyed,
+benevolent-browed old man, with his passive brains tied up in a
+foulard, o' morning's, and his _bourgeois_ feet adorned with carpet
+slippers, what grief in the past had bitten his poor soul and left its
+mark still sore?
+
+"It isn't monsieur--it is madame who has made the past dark," was
+Renard's comment, when we discussed our landlord's probable
+acquaintance with regret--or remorse.
+
+Whatever secret of the past may have hovered over the Fouchet
+household, the evil bird had not made its nest in madame's breast, that
+was clear; her smooth, white brow was the sign of a rose-leaf
+conscience; that dark curtain of hair, looped madonna-wise over each
+ear, framed a face as unruffled as her conscience.
+
+She was entirely at peace with her world, and with heaven as well, that
+was certain. Whatever her sins, the confessional had purged her. Like
+others, doubtless, she had found a husband and the provinces excellent
+remedies for a damaged reputation. She lived now in the very odor of
+sanctity; the cure had a pipe in her kitchen, with something more
+sustaining, on certain bright afternoons. Although she was daily
+announcing to us her approaching dissolution--"I die, mesdames--I die
+of ennui"--it seemed to me there were still signs, at times, of a
+vigorous resuscitation. The cure's visits were wont to produce a
+deeper red in the deep bloom of her cheek; the mayor and his wife, who
+drank their Sunday coffee in the arbor, brought, as did Beatrix's
+advent to Dante, _vita nuova_ to this homesick Parisian.
+
+There were other pleasures in her small world, also, which made life
+endurable. Bargaining, when one teems with talent, may be as exciting
+as any other form of conquest. Madame's days were chiefly passed in
+imitation of the occupation so dear to an earlier, hardier race, that
+race kings have knighted for their powers in dealing mightily with
+their weaker neighbors. Madame, it is true, was only a woman, and
+Villerville was somewhat slimly populated. But in imitation of her
+remote feudal lords, she also fell upon the passing stranger, demanding
+tribute. When the stranger did not pass, she kept her arm in practice,
+so to speak, by extracting the last _sou_ in a transaction from a
+neighbor, or by indulging in a drama in which the comedy of insult was
+matched by the tragedy of contempt.
+
+One of these mortal combats it was my privilege to witness. The war
+arose on our announcement to Mere Mouchard, the lady of the inn by the
+sea, of our decision to move next door. To us Mere Mouchard presented
+the unruffled plumage of a dove; her voice also was as the voice of the
+same, mellowed by sucking. Ten minutes later the town was assembled to
+lend its assistance at the encounter between our two landladies. Each
+stood on their respective doorsteps with arms akimbo and head thrust
+forward, as geese protrude head and tongue in moments of combat. And it
+was thus, the mere hissed, that her boarders were stolen from
+her--under her very nose--while her back was turned, with no more
+thought of honesty or shame than a----. The word was never uttered.
+The mere's insult was drowned in a storm of voices? for there came a
+loud protest from the group of neighbors. Madame Fouchet, meanwhile,
+was sustaining her own role with great dignity. Her attitude of
+self-control could only have been learned in a school where insult was
+an habitual weapon. She smiled, an infuriating, exasperating,
+successful smile. She showed a set of defiant white teeth, and to her
+proud white throat she gave a boastful curve. Was it her fault if _ces
+dames_ knew what comfort and cleanliness were? if they preferred "_des
+chambres garnies avec gout, vraiment artistiques_"--to rooms fit only
+for peasants? _Ces dames_ had just come from Paris; doubtless, they
+were not yet accustomed to provincial customs--_aux moeurs
+provinciales_. Then there were exchanged certain melodious acerbities,
+which proved that these ladies had entered the lists on previous
+occasions, and that each was well practised in the other's methods of
+warfare. Opportunely, Renard appeared on the scene; his announcement
+that we proposed still to continue taking our repasts with the mere,
+was as oil on the sea of trouble. A reconciliation was immediately
+effected, and the street as immediately lost all interest in the play,
+the audience melting away as speedily as did the wrath of the
+disputants.
+
+"_Le bon Dieu soit loue_," cried Madame Fouchet, puffing, as she
+mounted the stairs a few moments later--"God be praised"--she hadn't
+come here to the provinces to learn her rights--to be taught her
+alphabet. Mere Mouchard, forsooth, who wanted a week's board as
+indemnity for her loss of us! A week's board--for lodgings scorned by
+peasants!
+
+"Ah, these Normans! what a people, what a people! They would peel the
+skin off your back! They would sell their children! They would cheat
+the devil himself!"
+
+"You, madame, I presume, are from Paris." Madame smiled as she
+answered, a thin fine smile, richly seasoned with scorn. "Ah, mesdames!
+All the world can't boast of Paris as a birthplace, unfortunately. I
+also, I am a Norman, _mais je ne m'en fiche pas!_ Most of my life,
+however, I've lived in Paris, thank God!" She lifted her head as she
+spoke, and swept her hands about her waist to adjust the broad belt, an
+action pregnant with suggestions. For it was thus conveyed to us,
+delicately, that such a figure as hers was not bred on rustic diet;
+also, that the Parisian glaze had not failed of its effect on the
+coarser provincial clay.
+
+Meanwhile, below in the garden, her husband was meekly tying up his
+rose-trees.
+
+Neither of the landladies' husbands had figured in the street-battle.
+It had been a purely Amazonian encounter, bloodless but bitter. Both
+the husbands of these two belligerent landladies appeared singularly
+well trained. Mouchard, indeed, occupied a comparatively humble sphere
+in his wife's _menage_. He was perpetually to be seen in the court-yard,
+at the back of the house, washing dogs, or dishes, in a costume in
+which the greatest economy of cloth compatible with decency had been
+triumphantly solved. His wife ran the house, and he ran the errands, an
+arrangement which, apparently, worked greatly to the satisfaction of
+both. But Mouchard was not the first or the second French husband who,
+on the threshold of his connubial experience, had doubtless had his
+role in life appointed to him, filling the same with patient
+acquiescence to the very last of the lines.
+
+There is something very touching in the subjection of French husbands.
+In point of meekness they may well serve, I think, as models to their
+kind. It is a meekness, however, which does not hint of humiliation;
+for, after all, what humiliation can there be in being thoroughly
+understood? The Frenchwoman, by virtue of centuries of activity, in the
+world and in the field, has become an expert in the art of knowing her
+man; she has not worked by his side, under the burn of the noon sun, or
+in the cimmerian darkness of the shop-rear, counting the pennies, for
+nothing. In exchanging her illusions for the bald front of fact, man
+himself has had to pay the penalty of this mixed gain. She tests him
+by purely professional standards, as man tests man, or as he has tested
+her, when in the ante-matrimonial days he weighed her _dot_ in the
+scale of his need. The Frenchwoman and Shakespeare are entirely of one
+mind; they perceive the great truth of unity in the scheme of things:
+
+  "Woman's test is man's taste."
+
+This is the first among the great truths in the feminine grammar of
+assent. French masculine taste, as its criterion, has established the
+excellent doctrine of utilitarianism. With quick apprehension the
+Frenchwoman has mastered this fact; she has cleverly taken a lesson
+from ophidian habits--she can change her skin, quickly shedding the
+sentimentalist, when it comes to serious action, to don the duller
+raiment of utility. She has accepted her world, in other words,
+as she finds it, with a philosopher's shrug. But the philosopher is
+lined with the logician; for this system of life has accomplished the
+miracle of making its women logical; they have grasped the subtleties
+of inductive reasoning. Marriage, for example, they know is entered
+into solely on the principle of mutual benefit; it is therefore a
+partnership, _bon_; now, in partnerships sentiments and the emotions
+are out of place, they only serve to dim the eye; those commodities,
+therefore, are best conveyed to other markets than the matrimonial one;
+for in purely commercial transactions one has need of perfect clearness
+of vision, if only to keep one well practised in that simple game
+called looking out for one's own interest. In Frenchwomen, the
+ratiocinationist is extraordinarily developed; her logic penetrates to
+the core of things.
+
+Hence it is that Mouchard washes dishes.
+
+Monsieur Jourdain, in Moliere's comedy, who expressed such surprise at
+finding that he had been talking prose for forty years without knowing
+it, was no more amazed than would Mere Mouchard have been had you
+announced to her that she was a logician; or that her husband's daily
+occupations in the bright little court-yard were the result of a
+system. Yet both facts were true.
+
+In that process we now know as the survival of the fittest, the mere's
+capacity had snuffed out her weaker spouse's incompetency; she had
+taken her place at the helm, because she belonged there by virtue of
+natural fitness. There were no tender illusions which would suffer, in
+seeing the husband allotted to her, probably by her parents and the
+_dot_ system, relegated to the ignominy of passing his days washing
+dishes--dishes which she cooked and served--dishes, it should be added,
+which she was entirely conscious were cooked by the hand of genius, and
+which she garnished with a sauce and served with a smile, such as only
+issue from French kitchens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE QUARTIER LATIN ON THE BEACH.
+
+
+The beach, one morning, we found suddenly peopled with artists. It was
+a little city of tents. Beneath striped awnings and white umbrellas a
+multitude of flat-capped heads sat immovably still on their
+three-legged stools, or darted hither and thither. Paris was evidently
+beginning to empty its studios; the Normandy beaches now furnished the
+better model.
+
+One morning we were in luck. A certain blonde beard had counted early
+in the day on having the beach to himself. He had posed his model in
+the open daylight, that he might paint her in the sun. He had placed
+her, seated on an edge of seawall; for a background there was the curve
+of the yellow sands and the flat breadth of the sea, with the droop of
+the sky meeting the sea miles away. The girl was a slim, fair shape,
+with long, thin legs and delicately moulded arms; she was dressed in
+the fillet and chiton of Greece. During her long poses she was as
+immovable as an antique marble; her natural grace and prettiness were
+transfigured into positive beauty by the flowing lines and the pink
+draperies of her Attic costume. Seated thus, she was a breathing
+embodiment of the best Greek period. When the rests came, her jump from
+the wall landed her square on her feet and at the latter end of the
+nineteenth century. Once free, she bounded from her perch on the high
+sea-wall. In an instant she had tucked her tinted draperies within the
+slender girdle; her sandalled feet must be untrammelled, she was about
+to take her run on the beach. Soon she was pelting, irreverently,
+her painter with a shower of loose pebbles. Next she had challenged him
+to a race; when she reached the goal, her thin, bare arms were uplifted
+as she clapped and shouted for glee; the Quartier Latin in her blood
+was having its moment of high revelry in the morning sun.
+
+This little grisette, running about free and unshackled in her loose
+draperies, quite unabashed in her state of semi-nudity--gay, reckless,
+wooing pleasure on the wing, surely she might have posed as the
+embodied archetype of France itself. So has this pagan among modern
+nations borrowed something of the antique spirit of wantonness. Along
+with its theft of the Attic charm and grace, it has captured, also,
+something of its sublime indifference; in the very teeth of the
+dull modern world, France has laughed opinion to scorn.
+
+At noon the tents were all deserted. It was at this hour that the inn
+garden was full. The gayety and laughter overflowed the walls. Everyone
+talked at once; the orders were like a rattle of artillery--painting
+for hours in the open air gives a fine edge to appetite, and patience
+is never the true twin of hunger. Everything but the _potage_ was
+certain to be on time.
+
+Colinette, released from her Greek draperies, with her Parisian bodice
+had recovered the _blague_ of the studios.
+
+"_Sacre nom de--on reste donc claquemure ainsi toute la matinee!_ And all
+for an _omelette_--a puny, good-for-nothing _omelette_. And you--you've
+lost your tongue, it seems?" And a shrill voice pierced the air as
+Colinette gave her painter the hint of her prodding elbow. With the
+appearance of the _omelette_ the reign of good humor would return.
+Everything then went as merrily as that marriage-bell which,
+apparently, is the only one absent in Bohemia's gay chimes.
+
+These arbors had obviously been built out of pure charity: they
+appeared to have been constructed on the principle that since man,
+painting man, is often forced to live alone, from economic necessity,
+it is therefore only the commonest charity to provide him with the
+proper surroundings for eating _a deux._ The little tables beneath the
+kiosks were strictly _tete-a-tete_ tables; even the chairs, like the
+visitors, appeared to come only in couples.
+
+The Frenchman has been reproached with the sin of ingratitude; has
+been convicted, indeed, as possessed of more of that pride that comes
+late--the day after the gift of bounty has been given--than some other
+of his fellow-mortals. Yet here were a company of Frenchmen--and
+Frenchwomen--proving in no ordinary fashion their equipment in this
+rare virtue. It was early in May; up yonder, where the Seine flows
+beneath the Parisian bridges, the pulse of the gay Paris world was
+beating in time to the spring in the air. Yet these artists had
+deserted the asphalt of the boulevards for the cobbles of a village
+street, the delights of the _cafe chantant_ had been exchanged for the
+miracle of the moon rising over the sea, and for the song of the thrush
+in the bush.
+
+The Frenchman, more easily and with simpler art than any of his modern
+brethren, can change the prose of our dull, practical life into poetry;
+he can turn lyrical at a moment's notice. He possesses the power of
+transmuting the commonplace into the idyllic, by merely clapping on his
+cap and turning his back on the haunts of men. He has retained a
+singular--an almost ideal sensitiveness, of mental cuticle--such
+acuteness of sensation, that a journey to a field will oftentimes yield
+him all the flavor of a long voyage, and a sudden introduction to a
+forest, the rapture that commonly comes only with some unwonted aspect
+of nature. Perhaps it is because of this natural poet indwelling in a
+Frenchman, that makes him content to remain so much at home. Surely the
+extraordinary is the costly necessity for barren minds; the richly-
+endowed can see the beauty that lies the other side of their own door-
+step.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A NORMAN HOUSEHOLD.
+
+
+There were two paths in the village that were well worn. One was that
+which led the village up into the fields. The other was the one that
+led the tillers of the soil down into the village, to the door step of
+the justice of the peace.
+
+A good Norman is no Norman who has not a lawsuit on hand.
+
+Anything will serve as a pretext for a quarrel No sum of money is so
+small as not to warrant a breaking of the closest blood ties, if
+thereby one's rights may be secured. Those beautiful stripes of rye,
+barley, corn, and wheat up yonder in the fields, that melt into one
+another like sea-tones--down here on the benches before the _juge de
+paix_--what quarrels, what hatreds, what evil passions these few acres
+of land have brought their owners, facing each other here like
+so many demons, ready to spring at the others' throats! Brothers on
+these benches forget they are brothers, and sisters that they have
+suckled the same mother. Two more yards of the soil that should have
+been Fillette's instead of Jeanne's, and the grave will enclose both
+before the clenched fist of either is relaxed, and the last _sous_ in
+the stocking will be spent before the war between their respective
+lawyers will end.
+
+Many and many were the tales told us of the domestic tragedies, born of
+wills mal-administered, of the passions of hate, ambition, and despair
+kept at a white heat because half the village owned, up in the fields,
+what the other half coveted. Many, also, and fierce were the heated
+faces we looked in upon at the justice's door, in the very throes of
+the great moment of facing justice, and their adversary.
+
+Our own way, by preference, took us up into the fields. Here, in the
+broad open, the farms lay scattered like fortifications over a plain.
+Doubtless, in the earlier warlike days they had served as such.
+
+Once out of the narrow Villerville streets, and the pastoral was in
+full swing.
+
+The sea along this coast was not in the least insistant; it allowed the
+shore to play its full gamut of power. There were no tortured shapes of
+trees or plants, or barren wastes, to attest the fierce ways of the sea
+with the land. Reminders of the sea and of the life that is lived in
+ships were conspicuous features everywhere, in the pastoral scenes that
+began as soon as the town ended. Women carrying sails and nets toiled
+through the green aisles of the roads and lanes. Fishing-tackle hung in
+company with tattered jerseys outside of huts hidden in grasses and
+honeysuckle. The shepherdesses, as they followed the sheep inland
+into the heart of the pasture land, were busy netting the coarse cages
+that trap the finny tribe. Long-limbed, vigorous-faced, these
+shepherdesses were Biblical figures. In their coarse homespun, with
+only a skirt and a shirt, with their bare legs, half-open bosoms, and
+the fine poise of their blond heads, theirs was a beauty that commanded
+the homage accorded to a rude virginity.
+
+In some of the fields, in one of our many walks, the grass was being
+cut. In these fields the groups of men and women were thickest. The
+long scythes were swung mightily by both; the voices, a gay treble of
+human speech, rose above the metallic swish of the sharp blades cutting
+into the succulent grasses.
+
+The fat pasture lands rose and sank in undulations as rounded as the
+nascent breasts of a young Greek maiden. A medley of color played its
+charming variations over fields, over acres of poppies, over plains of
+red clover, over the backs of spotted cattle, mixing, mingling,
+blending a thousand twists and turns into one exquisite, harmonious
+whole. There was no discordant note, not one harsh contrast; even the
+hay-ricks seemed to have been modelled rather than pitched into shape;
+their sloping sides and finely pointed apexes giving them the dignity
+of structural intent.
+
+Why should not a peasant, in blouse and sabots, with a grinning idiot
+face, have put the picture out? But he did not. He was walking, or
+rather waddling, toward us, between two green walls that rose to be
+arched by elms that hid the blue of the sky. This lane was the kind of
+lane one sees only in Devonshire and in Normandy. There are lanes and
+lanes, as, to quote our friend the cobbler, there are cures and cures.
+But only in these above-named countries can one count on walking
+straight into the heart of an emerald, if one turns from the high-road
+into a lane. The trees, in these Devonshire and Normandy by-paths, have
+ways of their own of vaulting into space; the hedges are thicker,
+sweeter, more vocal with insect and song notes than elsewhere; the
+roadway itself is softer to the foot, and narrower--only two are
+expected to walk therein.
+
+It was through such a lane as this that the coarse, animal shape of a
+peasant was walking toward us. His legs and body were horribly twisted;
+the dangling arms and crooked limbs appeared as if caricaturing the
+gnarled and tortured boughs and trunks of the apple-trees. The
+peasant's blouse was filthy; his sabots were reeking with dirty straw;
+his feet and ankles, bare, were blacker than the earth over which he
+was painfully crawling; and on his face there was the vacuous, sensuous
+deformity of the smile idiocy wears. Again I ask, why did he not
+disfigure this fair scene, and put out something of the beauty of the
+day? Is it because the French peasant seems now to be an inseparable
+adjunct of the Frenchman's landscape? That even deformity has been so
+handled by the realists as to make us see beauty in ugliness? Or is it
+that, as moderns, we are all bitten by the rabies of the picturesque;
+that all things serve and are acceptable so long as we have our
+necessary note of contrast? Certain it is that it appears to be the
+peasant's blouse that perpetuates the Salon, and perhaps--who
+knows?--when over-emigration makes our own American farmer too poor to
+wear a boiled shirt when he ploughs, we also may develop a school of
+landscape, with figures.
+
+Meanwhile the walk and the talk had made Charm thirsty. "Why should we
+not go," she asked, "across the next field, into that farm house
+yonder, and beg for a glass of milk?"
+
+The farm-house might have been waiting for us, it was so still. Even
+the grasses along its sloping roof nodded, as if in welcome. The house,
+as we approached it, together with its out-buildings, assumed a more
+imposing aspect than it had from the road. Its long, low facade, broken
+here and there by a miniature window or a narrow doorway, appeared to
+stretch out into interminable length beneath the towering beeches and
+the snarl of the peach-tree boughs.
+
+The stillness was ominous--it was so profound.
+
+The only human in sight was a man in a distant field; he was raking the
+ploughed ground. He was too far away to hear the sound of our voices.
+
+"Perhaps the entire establishment is in the fields," said Charm, as we
+neared the house.
+
+Just then a succession of blows fell on our ear.
+
+"Someone is beating a mattress within, we shall have our glass after
+all."
+
+We knocked. But no one answered our knock.
+
+The beating continued; the sound of the blows fell as regularly as if
+machine-impelled. Then a cry rose up; it was the cry of a young, strong
+voice, and it was followed by a low wail of anguish.
+
+The door stood half-open, and this is what we saw: A man--tall, strong,
+powerful, with a face purple with passion--bending over the crouching
+form of a girl, whose slender body was quivering, shrinking, and
+writhing as the man's hand, armed with a short stick, fell, smiting her
+defenceless back and limbs.
+
+Her wail went on as each blow fell.
+
+In a corner, crouched in a heap, sitting on her heels, was a woman. She
+was clapping her hands. Her eyes were starting from her head; she
+clapped as the blows came, and above the girl's wail her strong,
+exultant voice arose--calling out:
+
+"_Tue-la! Tue-la!_"
+
+It was the voice of a triumphant fury.
+
+The backs of all these people were turned upon us; they had not seen,
+much less heard, our entrance.
+
+Someone else had seen us, however. A man with a rake over his shoulder
+rushed in through the open door; it was the peasant we had seen in the
+field. He seized Charm by the arm, and then my own hand was grasped as
+in a grip of iron. Before we had time for resistance he had pushed us
+out before him into the entry, behind the outer door. This latter he
+slammed. He put his broad back against it; then he dropped his rake and
+began to mop his face, violently, with a filthy handkerchief he plucked
+from beneath his blouse.
+
+"_Que chance! Nom de Dieu, que chance! Je v'avions vue_, I saw you just
+in time--just in time--"
+
+"But, I must go in--I wish to go back!" But Charm might as well have
+attempted to move a pillar of stone.
+
+The peasant's coarse, good-humored face broke into a broad laugh.
+
+"Pardon, mam'selle--_j'n bougeons pas. Not' maitre e encolere; e' son
+jour--faut pas l'irriter--aujou'hui."_
+
+Meantime, during the noise of our forced exit and the ensuing dialogue,
+the scene within had evidently changed in character, for the blows had
+ceased. Steps could be heard crossing and recrossing the wooden floor.
+A creaking sound succeeded to the beating--it was the creaking and
+groaning of a wooden staircase bending beneath the weight of a human
+figure. In an upper chamber there came the sound of a quiet, subdued
+sobbing now. They were the sobs of the girl. She at least had been
+released.
+
+A face, cruel, pinched, hardened, with flaming agate eyes and an
+insolent smile, stood looking out at us through the dulled, dusty
+window-pane. It was the fury.
+
+Meanwhile the peasant was still defending his post. A moment later the
+tall frame of the farmer suddenly filled the open doorway. The peasant
+well-nigh fell into his master's arms. The farmer's face was still
+terrible to look upon, but the purple stain of passion was now turned
+to red. There was a mocking insolence in his tone as he addressed us,
+that matched with the woman's unconcealed glee.
+
+"Will you not come in, mesdames? Will you not rest a while after your
+long walk?" On the man's hard face there was still the shadow of a
+sinister cruelty as he waved his hand toward the room within.
+
+The peasant's good-humored, loutish smile, and his stupid, cow-like
+eyes, by contrast, were the eyes and smile of a benevolent deity.
+
+The smile told us we were right, as we slunk away toward the open road.
+The head kept nodding approval as we vanished presently beneath the
+shade of the protecting trees.
+
+The fields, as we swept rapidly past them, were as bathed in peace as
+when we had left them; there was even a more voluptuous content abroad:
+for the twilight was wrapping about the landscape its poppied dusk of
+gloom and shadow. Above, the birds were swirling in sweeping circles,
+raining down the ecstasy of their night-song; still above, far beyond
+them, across a zenith pure, transparent, ineffably pink, illumined
+wisps of clouds were trailing their scarf-like shapes. It was a scene
+of beatific peace. Across the fields came the sound of a distant
+bell. It was the _Angelus_. The ploughmen stopped to doff their hats,
+the women to bend their heads in prayer.
+
+And in our ears, louder than the vibrations of the hamlet bell, louder
+than the bird-notes and the tumult of the voluptuous insect whirr,
+there rang the thud, thud of cruel blows falling on quivering human
+flesh.
+
+The curtain that hid the life of the peasant-farmer had indeed been
+lifted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ERNESTINE.
+
+
+"Ah, mesdames, what will you have? The French peasant is like that.
+When he is in a rage nothing stops him--he beats anything, everything;
+whatever his hand encounters must suffer when he is angry; his wife,
+his child, his servant, his horse, they are all alike to him when he
+sees red."
+
+Monsieur Fouchet was tying up his rose-trees; we were watching him from
+our seat on the green bench. Here in the garden, beneath the blue
+vault, the roses were drooping from very heaviness of glory; they gave
+forth a scent that made the head swim. It was a healthy, virile
+intoxication, however, the salt in the air steadying one's nerves.
+
+Nature, not being mortal and cursed with a conscience, had risen that
+morning in a mood for carousal; at this hour of noon she had reached
+the point of ecstatic stupor. No state of trance was ever so exquisite.
+The air was swooning, but how delicate its gasps, as if it fell away
+into calm! How adorably blue the sky in its debauch of sun-lit ether!
+The sea, too, although it reeled slightly, unsteadily rising only to
+fall away, what a radiance of color it maintained! Here in the garden
+the drowsy air would lift a flower petal, as some dreamer sunk in
+hasheesh slumber might touch a loved hand, only to let it slip away in
+nerveless impotence. Never had the charm of this Normandy sea-coast
+been as compelling; never had the divine softness of this air, this
+harmonious marriage of earth-scents and sea-smells seemed as perfect;
+never before had the delicacy of the foliage and color-gradations of
+the sky as triumphantly proved that nowhere else, save in France, can
+nature be at once sensuous and poetic.
+
+We looked for something other than pure enjoyment from this golden
+moment; we hoped its beauty would help us to soften our landlord. This
+was the moment we had chosen to excite his sympathies, also to gain
+counsel from him concerning the tragedy we had witnessed the day
+before. He listened to our tale with evident interest, but there was a
+disappointing coolness in his eye. As the narrative proceeded, the
+brutality of the situation failed to sting him to even a mild form of
+indignation. He went on tying his rose-trees, his ardor expending
+itself in choice snippings of the stray stalks and rebellious tendrils.
+
+"This Guichon," he said, after a brief moment, in the tone that goes
+with the pursuance of an occupation that has become a passion. "This
+Guichon--I know him. He is a hard man, but no harder than many others,
+and he has had his losses, which don't always soften a man. '_Qui terre
+a guerre a_,' Moliere says, and Guichon has had many lawsuits, losing
+them all. He has been twice married; that was his daughter by his first
+wife he was touching up like that. He married only the other day Madame
+Tier, a rich woman, a neighbor, their lands join. It was a great match
+for him, and she, the wife, and his daughter don't hit it off, it
+appears. There was some talk of a marriage for the girl lately; a good
+match presented itself, but the girl will have none of it; perhaps that
+accounts for the beating."
+
+A rose, overblown with its fulness of splendor, dropped in a shower at
+Fouchet's feet just then.
+
+"_Tiens, elle est finie, celle-la_" he cried, with an accent of regret,
+and he stooped over the fallen petals as if they had been the remains
+of a friend. Then he sighed as he swept the mass into his broad palm.
+
+"Come, let us leave him to the funeral of his roses; he hasn't the
+sensibilities of an insect;" and Charm grasped my arm to lead me over
+the turf, across the gravel paths, toward the tea-house.
+
+This tottering structure had become one of our favorite retreats; in
+the poetic _mise-en-scene_ of the garden it played the part of Ruin. It
+was absurdly, ridiculously out of repair; its gaping beams and the
+sunken, dejected floor could only be due to intentional neglect.
+Fouchet evidently had grasped the secrets of the laws of contrast; the
+deflected angle of the tumbling roof made the clean-cut garden beds
+doubly true. Nature had had compassion on the aged little building,
+however; the clustering, fragrant vines, in their hatred of nudity, had
+invested the prose of a wreck with the poetry of drapery. The
+tip-tilted settee beneath the odorous roof became, in time, our chosen
+seat; from that perch we could overlook the garden-walls, the beach,
+the curve of the shore, the grasses and hollyhocks in our neighbor's
+garden, the latter startlingly distinct against the great arch of the
+sky.
+
+It was here Renard found us an hour later. To him, likewise, did Charm
+narrate our extraordinary experience of yesterday, with much adjunct of
+fiery comment, embellishment of gesture, and imitative pose.
+
+"Ye gods, what a scene to paint! You were in luck--in luck; why wasn't
+I there?" was Renard's tribute to human pity.
+
+"Oh, you are all alike, all--nothing moves you--you haven't common
+human sympathies--you haven't the rudiments of a heart! You are
+terrible--all of you--terrible!" A moment after she had left us, as if
+the narrowness of the little house stifled her. With long, swinging
+steps she passed out, to air her indignation, apparently, beneath the
+wall of the espaliers.
+
+"Splendid creature, isn't she?" commented Renard, following the long
+lines of the girl's fluttering muslin gown, as he plucked at his
+mustache. "She should always wear white and gold--what is that
+stuff?--and be lit up like that with a kind of goddess-like anger. She
+is wrong, however," he went on, a moment later; "those of us who live
+here aren't really barbarians, only we get used to things. It's the
+peasants themselves that force us; they wouldn't stand interference. A
+peasant is a kind of king on his own domain; he does anything he likes,
+short of murder, and he doesn't always stop at that."
+
+"But surely the Government--at least their Church, ought to teach
+them--"
+
+"Oh, their Church! they laugh at their cures--till they come to die.
+He's a heathen, that's what the French peasant is--there's lots of the
+middle ages abroad up there in the country. Along here, in the coast
+villages, the nineteenth century has crept in a bit, humanizing them,
+but the _fonds_ is always the same; they're by nature avaricious,
+sordid, cruel; they'll do anything for money; there isn't anything
+sacred for them except their pocket."
+
+A few days later, in our friend the cobbler we found a more sympathetic
+listener. "Dame! I also used to beat my wife," he said,
+contemplatively, as he scratched his herculean head, "but that was when
+I was a Christian, when I went to confession; for the confessional was
+made for that, _c'est pour laver le linge sale des consciences, ca_"
+(interjecting his epigram). "But now--now that I am a free-thinker, I
+have ceased all that; I don't beat her," pointing to his old wife, "and
+neither do I drink or swear."
+
+"It's true, he's good--he is, now," the old wife nodded, with her slit
+of a smile; "but," she added, quickly, as if even in her husband's
+religious past there had been some days of glory, "he was always
+just--even then--when he beat me."
+
+"_C'est tres femme, ca--hein, mademoiselle?_" And the cobbler cocked
+his head in critical pose, with a philosopher's smile.
+
+The result of the interview, however, although not entirely
+satisfactory, was illuminating, besides this light which had been
+thrown on the cobbler's reformation. For the cobbler was a cousin,
+distant in point of kinship, but still a cousin, of the brutal farmer
+and father. He knew all the points of the situation, the chief of
+which was, as Fouchet had hinted, that the girl had refused to wed
+the _bon parti_, who was a connection of the step-mother. As for the
+step-mother's murderous outcry, "Kill her! kill her!" the cobbler
+refused to take a dramatic view of this outburst.
+
+"In such moments, you understand, one loses one's head; brutality
+always intoxicates; she was a little drunk, you see."
+
+When we proposed our modest little scheme, that of sending for the girl
+and taking her, for a time at least, into our service, merely as a
+change of scene, the cobbler had found nothing but admiration for the
+project. "It will be perfect, mesdames. They, the parents, will ask
+nothing better. To have the girl out at service, away, and yet not
+disgracing them by taking a place with any other farmer; yes, they will
+like that, for they are rich, you see, and wealth always respects
+itself. Ah, yes, it's perfect; I'll arrange all that--all the
+details."
+
+Two days later the result of the arrangement stood before us. She was
+standing with her arms crossed, her fingers clasping her elbows--with
+her very best peasant manner. She was neatly, and, for a peasant,
+almost fashionably attired in her holiday dress--a short, black skirt,
+white stockings, a flowery kerchief crossed over her broad bosom, and
+on her pretty hair a richly tinted blue _foulard_. She was very well
+dressed for a peasant, and, from the point of view of two travellers,
+of about as much use as a plough.
+
+"It's a beautiful scheme, and it's as dramatic as the fifth act of a
+play; but what shall we do with her?"
+
+"Oh." replied Charm, carelessly, "there isn't anything in particular
+for her to do. I mean to buy her a lot of clothes, like those she has
+on, and she can walk about in the garden or in the fields."
+
+"Ah, I see; she's to be a kind of a perambulating figure-piece."
+
+"Yes, that's about it. I dare say she will be very useful at sunset, in
+a dim street; so few peasants wear anything approaching to costume
+nowadays."
+
+Ernestine herself, however, as we soon discovered, had an entirely
+different conception of her vocation. She was a vigorous, active young
+woman, with the sap of twenty summers in her lusty young veins. Her
+energies soon found vent in a continuous round of domestic excitements.
+There were windows and floors that cried aloud to Heaven to be
+scrubbed; there were holes in the sheets to make mam'zelle's lying
+between them _une honte, une vraie honte_. As for Madame Fouchet's
+little weekly bill, _Dieu de Dieu_, it was filled with such extortions
+as to make the very angels weep. Madame and Ernestine did valiant
+battle over those bills thereafter. Ernestine was possessed of the
+courage of a true martyr; she could suffer and submit to the scourge,
+in the matter of personal persecution, for the religion of her own
+convictions; but in the service of her rescuer, she could fight with
+the fierceness of a common soldier.
+
+"When Norman meets Norman--" Charm began one day, the sound of voices,
+in a high treble of anger, coming in to us through the windows.
+
+But Ernestine was knocking at the door, with a note in her hand.
+
+"An answer is asked, mesdames," she said, in a voice of honey, as she
+dropped her low courtesy.
+
+This was the missive:
+
+
+ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD.
+
+TO HONFLEUR AND TROUVILLE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+TO AN OLD MANOR.
+
+
+"Will _ces dames_ join me in a marauding expedition? Like the poet
+Villon, I am about to turn marauder, house breaker, thief. I shall hope
+to end the excursion by one act, at least, of highway robbery. I shall
+lose courage without the enlivening presence of _ces dames._ We will
+start when the day is at its best, we will return when the moon smiles.
+In case of finding none to rob, the coach of the desperadoes will be
+garrisoned with provisions; Henri will accompany us as counsellor,
+purveyor, and bearer of arms and costumes. The carriage for _ces dames_
+will stop the way at the hour of eleven.
+
+"I have the honor to sign myself their humble servant and
+co-conspirator.
+
+"John Renard."
+
+"This, in plain English," was Charm's laconic translation of this note,
+"means that he wishes us to be ready at eleven for the excursion to
+P----, to spend the day, you may remember, at that old manor. He wants
+to paint in a background, he said yesterday, while we stroll about and
+look at the old place. What shall I wear?"
+
+In an hour we were on the road.
+
+A jaunty yellow cart, laden with a girl on the front seat; with a man,
+tawny of mustache, broad of shoulder, and dark of eye, with face
+shining to match the spring in the air and that fair face beside him;
+laden also with another lady on the back seat, beside whom, upright and
+stiff, with folded arms, sat Henri, costumer, valet, cook, and groom.
+It was in the latter capacity that Henri was now posing. The role of
+groom was uppermost in his orderly mind, although at intervals, when
+his foot chanced to touch a huge luncheon-basket with which the cart
+was also laden, there were betraying signs of anxiety; it was then that
+the chef crept back to life. This spring in the air was all very well,
+but how would it affect the sauces? This great question was written on
+Henri's brow in a network of anxious wrinkles.
+
+"Henri," I remarked, as we were wheeling down the roadway, "I am quite
+certain you have put up enough luncheon for a regiment."
+
+"Madame has said it, for a regiment; Monsieur Renard, when he works,
+eats with the hunger of a wolf."
+
+"Henri, did you get in all the rags?" This came from Renard on the
+front seat, as he plied his steed with the whip.
+
+"The costume of Monsieur le Marquis, and also of Madame la Marquise de
+Pompadour, are beneath my feet in the valise, Monsieur Renard. I have
+the sword between my legs," replied Henri, the costumer coming to the
+surface long enough to readjust the sword.
+
+"Capital fellow, Henri, never forgets anything," said Renard, in
+English.
+
+"Couldn't we offer a libation or something, on such a morning--"
+
+"On such a morning," interrupted the painter, "one should be seated
+next to a charming young lady who has the genius to wear Nile green and
+white; even a painter with an Honorable Mention behind him and fame
+still ahead, in spite of the Mention, is satisfied. You know a Greek
+deity was nothing to a painter, modern, and of the French school, in
+point of fastidiousness."
+
+"Nonsense! it's the American woman who is fastidious, when it comes to
+clothes."
+
+Meanwhile, there was one of the party who was looking at the road; that
+also was arrayed in Nile green and white; the tall trees also held
+umbrellas above us, but these coverings were woven of leaves and sky.
+This bit of roadway appeared to have slipped down from the upper
+country, and to have carried much of the upper country with it. It was
+highway posing as pure rustic. It had brought all its pastoral
+paraphernalia along. Nothing had been forgotten: neither the hawthorn
+and the osier hedges, nor the tree-trunks, suddenly grown modest at
+sight of the sea, burying their nudity in nests of vines, nor the trick
+which elms and beeches have, of growing arches in the sky. Timbered
+farm-houses were here, also thatched huts, to make the next villa-gate
+gain in stateliness; apple orchards were dotted about with such a
+knowing air of wearing the long line of the Atlantic girdled about
+their gnarled trunks, that one could not believe pure accident had
+carried them to the edge of the sea. There were several miles of this
+driving along beneath these green aisles. Through the screen of the
+hedges and the crowded tree-trunks, picture succeeded picture; bits of
+the sea were caught between slits of cliff; farmhouses, huts, and
+villas lay smothered in blossoms; above were heights whereon poplars
+seemed to shiver in the sun, as they wrapped about them their shroud-
+like foliage; meadows slipped away from the heights, plunging seaward,
+as if wearying for the ocean; and through the whole this line of green
+roadway threaded its path with sinuous grace, serpentining, coiling,
+braiding in land and sea in one harmonious, inextricable blending of
+incomparable beauty. One could quite comprehend, after even a short
+acquaintance with this road, that two gentlemen of Paris, as difficult
+to please as Daubigny and Isabey, should have seen points of excellence
+in it.
+
+There are all sorts of ways of being a painter. Perhaps as good as any,
+if one cares at all about a trifling matter like beauty, is to know a
+good thing when one sees it. That poet of the brush, Daubigny, not only
+was gifted with this very unusual talent in a painter, but a good thing
+could actually be entrusted in his hands after its discovery. And
+herein, it appears to me, lies all the difference between good and bad
+painting; not only is an artist--any artist--to be judged by what he
+sees, but also by what he does with a fact after he's acquired
+it--whether he turns it into poetry or prose.
+
+I might incautiously have sprung these views on the artist on the front
+seat, had he not wisely forestalled my outburst by one of his own.
+
+"By the way," he broke in; "by the way, I'm not doing my duty as
+cicerone. There's a church near here--we're coming to it in a
+moment--famous--eleventh or twelfth century, Romanesque
+style--yes--that's right, although I'm somewhat shaky when it comes to
+architecture--and an old manoir, museum now, with lots of old furniture
+in it--in the manoir, I mean."
+
+"There's the church now. Oh, let us stop!"
+
+In point of fact there were two churches before us. There was one of
+ivy: nave, roof, aisles, walls, and conic-shaped top, as perfectly
+defined in green as if the beautiful mantle had been cut and fitted to
+the hidden stone structure. Every few moments the mantle would be
+lifted by the light breeze, as might a priest's vestment; it would move
+and waver, as if the building were a human frame, changing its posture
+to ease its long standing. Between this church of stone and this church
+of vines there were signs of the fight that had gone on for ages
+between them. The stones were obviously fighting decay, fighting ruin,
+fighting annihilation; the vines were also struggling, but both time
+and the sun were on their side. The stone edifice was now, it is true,
+as Renard told us, protected by the Government--it was classed as a
+"monument historique"--but the church of greens was protected by the
+god of nature, and seemed to laugh aloud, as if with conscious gleeful
+strength. This gay, triumphant laugh was reflected, as if to emphasize
+its mockery of man's work, in the tranquil waters of a little pond,
+lily-leaved, garlanded in bushes, that lay hidden beyond the roadway.
+Through the interstices of the vines one solitary window from the
+tower, like a sombre eye, looked down into the pond; it saw there,
+reflected as in a mirror, the old, the eternal picture of a dead ruin
+clasped by the arms of living beauty.
+
+This Criqueboeuf church presents the ideal picturesque accessories. It
+stands at the corner of two meeting roadways. It is set in an ideal
+pastoral frame--a frame of sleeping fields, of waving tree-tops, of an
+enchanting, indescribable snarl of bushes, vines, and wild flowers. In
+the adjoining fields, beneath the tree-boughs, ran the long, low line
+of the ancient manoir--now turned into a museum.
+
+We glanced for a few brief moments at the collection of antiquities
+assembled beneath the old roof--at the Henry II. chairs, at the
+Pompadour-wreathed cabinets, at the long rows of panels on which are
+presented the whole history of France--the latter an amazing record of
+the industry of a certain Dr. Le Goupils.
+
+"Criqueboeuf doesn't exactly hide its light under a bushel, you know,
+although it doesn't crown a hill. No end of people know it; it sits for
+its portrait, I should say at least twice a week regularly, on an
+average, during the season. English water-colorists go mad over
+it--they cross over on purpose to `do' it, and they do it extremely
+badly, as a rule."
+
+This was Renard's last comment of a biographical and critical nature,
+concerning the "historical monument," as we reseated ourselves to
+pursue our way to P----.
+
+"Why don't you show them how it can be done?"
+
+"Would," coolly returned Renard, "if it were worth while, but it isn't
+in my line. Henri, did you bring any ice?"
+
+Henri, I had noticed, when we had reseated ourselves in the cart, had
+greeted us with an air of silent sadness; he clearly had not approved
+of ruins that interfered with the business of the day.
+
+"_Oui, monsieur_, I did bring some ice, but as monsieur can imagine to
+himself--a two hours' sun--"
+
+"Nonsense, this sun wouldn't melt a pat of butter; the ice is all
+right, and so is the wine."
+
+Then he continued in English: "Now, ladies, as I should begin if I were
+a politician, or an auctioneer; now, ladies, the time for confession
+has arrived; I can no longer conceal from you my burglarious scheme. In
+the next turn that we shall make to the right, the park of the P----
+manoir will disclose itself. But, between us and that Park, there is a
+gate. That gate is locked. Now, gates, from the time of the Garden of
+Eden, I take it, have been an invention of--of--the other fellow, to
+keep people out. I know a way--but it's not the way you can follow.
+Henri and I will break down a few bars, we'll cross a few fields over
+yonder, and will present ourselves, with all the virtues written on our
+faces, to you in the Park. Meanwhile you must enter, as queens
+should--through the great gates. Behold, there is a cure yonder, a
+great friend of mine. You will step along the roadway; you will ring a
+door-bell; the cure will appear; you will ask him if it be true that
+the manoir of P---- is to rent, you have heard that he has the keys; he
+will present you the keys; you will open the big gate and find me."
+
+"But--but, Mr. Renard, I really don't see how that scheme will work."
+
+"Work! It will work to a charm. You will see. Henri, just help the
+ladies, will you?"
+
+Henri, with decisive gravity, was helping the ladies to alight; in
+another instant he had regained his seat, and he and Renard were flying
+down the roadway, out of sight.
+
+"Really--it's the coolest proceeding," Charm began. Then we looked
+through the bars of the park gate. The park was as green and as still
+as a convent garden; a pink brick mansion, with closed window-blinds,
+was standing, surrounded by a terrace on one side, and by glittering
+parterres on the other.
+
+"Where did he say the old cure was?" asked Charm, quite briskly, all at
+once. Everything had turned out precisely as Renard had predicted.
+Doubtless he had also counted on the efficacy of the old fable of the
+Peri at the Gate--one look had been sufficient to turn us into arrant
+conspirators; to gain an entrance into that tranquil paradise any ruse
+would serve.
+
+"Here's a church--he said nothing about a church, did he?"
+
+Across the avenue, above the branches of a row of tall trees, rose the
+ivied facade of a rude hamlet church; a flight of steep weedy steps led
+up to its Norman doorway. The door was wide open; through the arched
+aperture came the sounds of footfalls, of a heavy, vigorous tread;
+Charm ran lightly up a few of the lower steps, to peer into the open
+door.
+
+"It's the cure dusting the altar--shall I go in?"
+
+"No, we had best ring--this must be his house."
+
+The clatter of the cure's sabots was the response that answered to the
+bell we pulled, a bell attached to a diminutive brick house lying at
+the foot of the churchyard. The tinkling of the cracked-voiced bell had
+hardly ceased when the door opened.
+
+But the cure had already taken his first glance at us over the garden
+hedges.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A NORMAN CURE.
+
+
+"Mesdames!"
+
+The priest's massive frame filled the narrow door; the tones of his
+mellow voice seemed also suddenly to fill the air, drowning all other
+sounds. The grace of his manner, a grace that invested the simple act
+of his uncovering and the holding of his _calotte_ in hand, with an air
+of homage, made also our own errand the more difficult.
+
+I had already begun to murmur the nature of our errand: we were
+passing, we had seen the manoir opposite, we had heard it was to rent,
+also that he, Monsieur le Cure, had the keys.
+
+Yes, the keys were here. Then the velvet in Monsieur le Cure's eyes
+turned to bronze, as they looked out at us from beneath the fine dome
+of brow.
+
+"I have the keys of the garden only, mesdames," he replied, with
+perfect but somewhat distant courtesy; "the gardener, down the road
+yonder, has the keys of the house. Do you really wish to rent the
+house?"
+
+He had seen through our ruse with quick Norman penetration. He had not,
+from the first, been in the least deceived.
+
+It became the more difficult to smooth the situation into shape. "We
+had thought perhaps to rent a villa, we were in one now at Villerville.
+If Monsieur le cure would let us look at the garden. Monsieur Renard,
+whom perhaps he remembered--
+
+"M. Renard! Oh ho! Oh ho! I see it all now," and a deep, mellow laugh
+smote the air. The keenness in the fine eyes melted into mirth, a mirth
+that laid the fine head back on the broad shoulders, that the laugh
+that shook the powerful frame might have the fuller play.
+
+"Ah, _mes enfants_, I see it all now--it is that scoundrel of a boy.
+I'll warrant he's there, over yonder, already. He was here yesterday,
+he was here the day before, and he is afraid, he is ashamed to ask
+again for the keys. But come, _mes enfants_, come, let us go in search
+of him." And the little door was closed with a slam. Down the broad
+roadway the next instant fluttered the old cure's soutane. We followed,
+but could scarcely keep pace with the brisk, vigorous strides. The
+sabots ploughed into the dust. The cane stamped along in company with
+the sabots, all three in a fury of impatience. The cure's step and his
+manner might have been those of a boy, burning with haste to discover a
+playmate in hiding. All the keenness and shrewdness on the fine, ruddy
+face had melted into sweetness; an exuberance of mirth seemed to be the
+sap that fed his rich nature. It was easy to see he had passed the
+meridian of his existence in a realm of high spirits; an irrepressible
+fountain within, the fountain of an unquenchable good-humor, bathed the
+whole man with the hues of health. Ripe red lips curved generously over
+superb teeth; the cheeks were glowing, as were the eyes, the crimson
+below them deepening to splendor the velvet in the iris. The one severe
+line in the face, the thin, straight nose, ended in wide nostrils in
+the quivering, mobile nostrils of the humorist. The swell of the
+gourmand's paunch beneath the soutane was proof that the cure was a
+true Norman he had not passed a lifetime in these fertile gardens
+forgetful of the fact that the fine art of good living is the one
+indulgence the Church has left to its celibate sons.
+
+Meanwhile, our guide was peering with quick, excited gaze, through the
+thick foliage of the park; his fine black eyes were sweeping the
+parterre and terrace.
+
+"Ah-h!" his rich voice cried out, mockingly; and he stopped, suddenly,
+to plant his cane in the ground with mock fierceness.
+
+"_Tiens_, Monsieur le Cure!" cried Renard, from behind a tree, in a
+beautiful voice. It was a voice that matched with his well-acted
+surprise, when he appeared, confronting us, on the other side of the
+tree-trunk.
+
+The cure opened his arms.
+
+"_Ah, mon enfant, viens, viens!_ how good it is to see thee once
+again!"
+
+They were in each other's arms. The cure was pressing his lips to
+Renard's cheek, in hearty French fashion. The priest, however,
+administered his reproof before he released him. Renard's broad
+shoulders received a series of pats, which turned to blows, dealt by
+the cure's herculean hand.
+
+"Why didn't you let me know you were here, yesterday, _Hein_? Answer me
+that. How goes the picture? Is it set up yet? You see, mesdames,"
+turning with a reddened cheek and gleaming eyes, "it is thus I punish
+him--for he has no heart, no sensibilities--he only understands
+severities! And he defrauded me yesterday, he cheated me. I didn't even
+know of his being here till he had gone. And the picture, where is it?"
+
+It was on an easel, sunning itself beneath the park trees. The old
+priest clattered along the gravelly walk, to take a look at it.
+
+"_Tiens_--it grows--the figures begin to move--they are almost alive.
+There should be a trifle more shadow under the chin, what do you
+think?"
+
+Henri raised his chin. Henri had undergone the process of
+transformation in our absence. He was now M. le Marquis de
+Pompadour--under the heart-shaped arch of the great trees, he was
+standing, resplendent in laces, in glistening satins, leaning on a
+rusty, dull-jewelled sword. Renard had mounted his palette; he was
+dipping already into the mounds of color that dotted the palette-board,
+with his long brushes. On the canvas, in colors laid on by the touch of
+genius, this archway beneath which we were standing reared itself
+aloft; the park trees were as tall and noble, transfixed in their image
+of immutable calm, on that strip of linen, as they towered now above
+us; even the yellow cloud of the laburnum blossoms made the sunshine of
+the shaded grass, as it did here, where else no spot of sun might
+enter, so dense was the night of shade. The life of another day and
+time lived, however, beneath that shade; Charm and the cure, as they
+drooped over the canvas, confronted a graceful, attenuated courtier,
+sickening in a languor of adoration, and a sprightly coquette, whose
+porcelain beauty was as finished as the feathery edges of her lacy
+sleeves.
+
+"_Tres bien tres bien_" said the cure, nodding his head in critical
+commendation. "It will be a little masterpiece. And now," waving his
+hand toward us, "what do you propose to do with these ladies while you
+are painting?"
+
+"Oh, they can wander about," Renard replied, abstractedly. He had
+already reseated himself and had begun to ply his brushes; he now saw
+only Henri and the hilt of the sword he was painting in.
+
+"I knew it, I could have told you--a painter hasn't the manners of a
+peasant when he's painting," cried the priest, lifting cane and hands
+high in air, in mock horror. "But all the better, all the better, I
+shall have you all to myself. Come, come with me. You can see the house
+later. I'll send for the gardener. It's too fine a day to be indoors.
+What a day, _hein_? Le bon Dieu_ sends us such days now and then, to
+make us ache for paradise. This way, this way--we'll go through the
+little door--my little door; it was made for me, you know, when the
+manoir was last inhabited. I and the children were too impatient--we
+suffered from that malady--all of us--we never could wait for the
+great gates yonder to be opened. So Monsieur de H---- built us this
+one." The little door opened directly on the road, and on the cure's
+house. There was a tangle of underbrush barring the way; but the cure
+pushed the briars apart with his strong hands, beating them down with
+his cane.
+
+When the door opened, we passed directly beyond the roadway, to the
+steep steps leading to the church. The cure, before mounting the steps,
+swept the road, upward and downward, with his keen glance. It was the
+instinctive action of the provincial, scenting the chance of novelty.
+Some distant object, in the meeting of two distant roadways, arrested
+the darting eyes; this time, at least, he was to be rewarded for his
+prudence in looking about him. The object slowly resolved itself into
+two crutches between which hung the limp figure of a one-legged man.
+
+"_Bonjour, Monsieur le cure_." The crutches came to a standstill; the
+cripple's hand went up to doff a ragged worsted cap.
+
+"Good-day, good-day, my friend; how goes it? Not quite so stiff,
+_hein_--in such a bath of sunlight as this? Good-day, good-day."
+
+The crutches and their burden passed on, kicking a little cloud of dust
+about the lean figure.
+
+"_Un peu casse, le bonhomme_" he said, as he nodded to the cripple in a
+tone of reflection, as if the breakage that bad befallen his humble
+friend were a fresh incident in his experience. "Yes, he's a little
+broken, the poor old man; but then," he added, quickly renewing his
+tone of unquenchable high spirits--"one doesn't die of it. No, one
+doesn't die, fortunately. Why, we're all more or less cracked, or
+broken up here."
+
+He shook another laugh out, as he preceded us up the stone steps. Then
+he turned to stop for a moment to point his cane toward the small house
+with whose chimneys we were now on a level. "There, mesdames, there is
+the proof that more breaking doesn't signify in this matter of life
+and death, _Tenez_, madame--" and with a charming gesture he laid
+his richly-veined, strong old hand on my arm--a hand that ended in
+beautiful fingers, each with its rim of moon-shaped dirt;
+"_tenez_--figure to yourself, madame, that I myself have been here
+twenty years, and I came for two! I bought out the _bonhomme_ who lived
+over yonder.
+
+"I bought him and his furniture out. I said to myself, 'I'll buy it for
+eight hundred, and I'll sell it for four hundred, in a year.'" Here he
+laid his finger on his nose--lengthwise, the Norman in him supplanting
+the priest in his remembrance of a good bargain. "And now it is twenty
+years since then. Everything creaks and cracks over there: all of us
+creak and crack. You should hear my chairs, _elles se cassent les
+reins_--they break their thighs continually. Ah! there goes another, I
+cry out, as I sit down in one in winter and hear them groan. Poor old
+things, they are of the Empire, no wonder they groan. You should see
+us, when our brethren come to take a cup of soup with me. Such a
+collection of antiquities as we are! I catch them, my brothers, looking
+about, slyly peering into the secrets of my little menage. 'From his
+ancestors, doubtless, these old chairs and tables, say these good
+freres, under their breath. And then I wink slyly at the chairs, and
+they never let on."
+
+Again the mellow laugh broke forth. He stopped again to puff and blow a
+little, from his toil up the steep steps. Then all at once, as the
+rough music of his clicking sabots and the playful taps of his cane
+ceased, the laugh on his mobile lips melted into seriousness. He lifted
+his cane, pointing to the cemetery just above us, and to the
+gravestones looking down over the hillsides between a network of roses.
+
+"We are old, madame--we are old, but, alas! we never die! It is
+difficult to people, that cemetery. There are only sixty of us in the
+parish, and we die--we die hard. For example, here is my old
+servant"--and he covered a grave with a sweep of his cane--for we were
+leisurely sauntering through the little cemetery now. The grave to
+which he pointed was a garden; heliotrope, myosotis, hare-bells and
+mignonette had made of the mound a bed of perfume--"see how quietly
+she lies--and yet what a restless soul the flowers cover! She, too,
+died hard. It took her years to make up her mind; finally _le bon Dieu_
+had to decide it for her, when she was eighty-four. She complained to
+the last--she was poor, she was in my way, she was blind. '_Eh bien, tu
+n'as pas besoin de me faire les beaux yeux, toi_'--I used to say to
+her. Ah, the good soul that she was!" and the dark eye glistened with
+moisture. A moment later the cure was blowing vigorously the note of
+his grief, in trumpet-tones, through the organ that only a Frenchman
+can render an effective adjunct to moments of emotion.
+
+"You see, _mes enfants_, I am like that--I weep over my friends--when
+they are gone! But see," he added quickly, recovering himself--"see,
+over yonder there is my predecessor's grave. He lies well, _hein?_--
+comfortable, too--looking his old church in the face and the sun on his
+old bones all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will have
+company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a friend." The humorous smile
+was again curving his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were
+beginning to quiver. "When my friend and I lie there, we shall be a
+little crowded, perhaps. I said to him, when he proposed it, proposed
+to lie there with us, 'but we shall be crunching each other's bones!'
+'No,' he replied, 'only falling into each other's arms!' So it was
+settled. He comes over from Havre, every now and then, to talk our
+tombstones over; we drink a glass of wine together, and take a pipe and
+talk about our future--in eternity! Ah, how gay we are! It is so good
+to be friends with God!"
+
+The voice deepened into seriousness. He went on in a quieter key:
+
+"But why am I always preaching and talking about death and eternity to
+two such ladies--two such children? Ah--I know, I am really old--I only
+deceive myself into pretending I'm young. You will do the same, both of
+you, some day. But come and see my good works. You know everyone has
+his little corner of conceit--I have mine. I like to do good, and then
+to boast of it. You shall see--you shall see."
+
+He was hurrying us along the narrow paths now, past the little company
+of grave-stones, graves that were bearing their barbaric burdens of
+mortuary wreaths, of beaded crosses, and the motley assemblage, common
+to all French graveyards, of hideous shrines encasing tin saints and
+madonnas in plaster.
+
+Above the sunken graves and the tin effigies of the martyrs behind the
+church, arose a fair and glittering marble tomb. It was strangely out
+of keeping with the meagre and paltry surroundings of the peasant
+grave-stones. As we approached the tomb it grew in imposingness. It was
+a circular mortuary chapel, with carved pediment and iron-wrought
+gateway.
+
+"It's fine, _hein_, and beautiful, _hein?_ It is the Duke's!" The cure,
+it was easy to see, considered the chapel in the light of a personal
+possession. He stood before it, bare-headed, with a new earnestness on
+his mobile face. "It is the Duke's. Yes, the Duke's. I saved his soul,
+blessed be God! and he--he rebuilds my cellars for me: See"--and he
+pointed to the fine new base of stone, freshly cemented, on which the
+church rested--"see, I save his soul, and he preserves my buildings for
+me. It's a fair deal, isn't it? How does it come about, that he is
+converted? Ah, you see, although I am a man without science, without
+knowledge, devoid of pretensions and learning, the good God sometimes
+makes use of such humble instruments to work His will. It came about in
+the usual way. The Duke came here carrying his religion lightly, as one
+may say, not thinking of his soul. I--I dine with him. We talk, we
+argue; he does, that is--I only preach from my Bible. And behold! one
+day he is converted. He is devout. And from gratitude, he repairs my
+crumbling old stones. And now see how solid, how strong is my church
+cellar!"
+
+Again the fountain of his irrepressible merriment bubbled forth. For
+all the gayety, however, the severe line deepened as one grew to know
+the face better; the line in profile running from the nose into the
+firm upper lip and into the still more resolute chin, matched the
+impress of authority marked on the noble brow. It was the face of one
+who might have infinite charity and indulgence for a sin, and yet would
+make no compromise with it.
+
+We had resumed our walk. It led us at last into the interior of the
+little church. The gloom and silence within, after the dazzling
+brilliancy of the noon-day sun and the noisy insect hum, invested the
+narrow nave and dim altar with an added charm. The old priest knelt for
+the briefest instant in reverence to the altar. When he turned there
+was surprise as well as a gentle reproach in the changeable eyes.
+
+"And you, mesdames! How is this? You are not Catholics? And I was so
+sure of it! Quite sure of it, you were so sympathetic, so full of
+reverence. And you, my child"--turning to Charm--"you speak our tongue
+so well, with the very accent of a good Catholic. What! you are
+Protestant? La! La! What do I hear?" He shook his cane over the backs
+of the straw-bottomed chairs; the sweet, mellow accents of his voice
+melted into loving protest--a protest in which the fervor was not
+quenched in spite of the merry key in which it was pitched.
+
+"Protestants? Pouffe! pouffe! What is that? What is it to be a
+Protestant? Heretics, heretics, that is what you are. So you are _deux
+affreuses heretiques_? Ah, la! la! Horrible! horrible! I must cure you
+of all that. I must cure you!" He dropped his cane in the enthusiasm of
+his attack; it fell with a clanging sound on the stone pavement. He let
+it lie. He had assumed, unconsciously, the orator's, the preacher's
+attitude. He crowded past the chairs, throwing back his head as he
+advanced, striking into argumentative gesture:
+
+"_Tenez_, listen, there is so little difference, after all. As I was
+saying to M. le comte de Chermont the other day, no later than
+Thursday--he has married an English wife, you know--can't understand
+that either, how they can marry English wives. However, that's none of
+my business--we have nothing to do with marrying, we priests, except as
+a sacrament for others. I said to M. le comte, who, you know, shows
+tendencies toward anglicism--astonishing the influence of women--I
+said: 'But, my dear M. le comte, why change? You will only exchange
+certainty for uncertainty, facts for doubts, truth for lies.' 'Yes,
+yes,' the comte replied, 'but there are so many new truths introduced
+now into our blessed religion--the infallibility of the pope--the--'
+'_Ah, mon cher comte--ne m'en parlez pas_. If that is all that stands
+in your way--_faites comme le bon Dieu! Lui--il ferme les yeux et tend
+les bras._ That is all we ask--we his servants--to have you close your
+eyes and open your arms.'"
+
+The good cure was out of breath; he was panting. After a moment, in a
+deeper tone, he went on:
+
+"You, too, my children, that is what I say to you--you need only to
+open your arms and to close your eyes. God is waiting for you."
+
+For a long instant there was a great stillness--a silence during which
+the narrow spaces of the dim aisles were vibrating with the echoes of
+the rich voice.
+
+The rustle of a light skirt sweeping the stone flooring broke the
+moment's silence. Charm was crossing the aisles. She paused before a
+little wooden box, nailed to the wall. There came suddenly on the ear
+the sound of coin rattling down into the empty box; she had emptied
+into it the contents of her purse.
+
+"For your poor, monsieur le cure," she smiled up, a little tremulously,
+into the burning, glowing eyes. The priest bent over the fair head,
+laying his hand, as if in benediction, upon it.
+
+"My poor need it sadly, my child, and I thank you for them. God will
+bless you."
+
+It was a touching little scene, and I preferred, for one, to look out
+just then at Henri's figure advancing toward us, up the stone steps.
+
+When the priest spoke again, it was in a husky tone, the gold in his
+voice dusted with moisture; but the bantering spirits in him had
+reappeared.
+
+"What a pity, that you must burn! For you must, dreadful heretics that
+you are! And this dear child, she seems to belong to us--I can never
+sit by, now, in Paradise, happy and secure, and see her burn!" The
+laugh that followed was a mingled caress and a blessing. Henri came in
+for a part of the indulgence of the good cure's smile as he came up the
+steps.
+
+"Ah, Henri, you have come for these ladies?"
+
+"_Oui_, monsieur le cure, luncheon is served."
+
+Our friend followed us to the topmost step, and to the very edge of the
+step. He stood there, talking down to us, as we continued to press him
+to return with us.
+
+"No, my children--no--no, I can't join you; don't urge me; I can't, I
+must not. I must say my prayers instead; besides the children come
+soon, for their catechism. No, don't beg me, I don't need to be
+importuned; I know what that dear Renard's wine is. _Au revoir et a
+bientot_--and remember," and here he lifted his arms--cane and all,
+high in the air--"all you need do is to close your eyes and to open
+your arms. God himself is doing the same."
+
+High up he stood, with uplifted hands, the smile irradiating a face
+that glowed with a saint's simplicity. Behind the black lines of his
+robe, the sunlight lay streaming in noon glory; it aureoled him as
+never saint was aureoled by mortal brush. A moment only he lingered
+there, to raise his cap in parting salute. Then he turned, the trail of
+his gown sweeping the gravel paths, and presently the low church door
+swallowed him up. Through the door, as we crossed the road, there came
+out to us the click of sabots striking the rude flagging; and a
+moment after, the murmuring echo of a deep, rich voice, saying the
+office of the hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+HONFLEUR--NEW AND OLD.
+
+
+The stillness of the park trees, as we passed beneath them, was like
+the silence that comes after a blessing. The sun, flooding the
+landscape with a deluge of light, lost something of its effulgence, by
+contrast with the fulness of the priest's rich nature. This fair world
+of beauty that lay the other side of the terrace wall, beneath which
+our luncheon was spread, was fair and lovely still--but how unimportant
+the landscape seemed compared to the varied scenery of the cure's
+soul-lit character! Of all kinds of nature, human nature is assuredly
+the best; it is at least the most perdurably interesting. When we tire
+of it, when we weary of our fellow-man and turn the blase cheek on the
+fresh pillow of mother-earth, how quickly is the pillow deserted once
+the mental frame is rested or renewed! The history of all human
+relations has the same ending--we all of us only fall out of love with
+man to fall as swiftly in again.
+
+The remainder of the afternoon passed with the rapidity common to all
+phases of enchantment.
+
+How could one eat seriously, with vulgar, gluttonous hunger, of a feast
+spread on the parapet of a terrace-wall? The white foam of napkins, the
+mosaic of the _patties_, the white breasts of chicken, the salads in
+their bath of dew--these spoke the language of a lost cause. For there
+was an open-air concert going on in full swing, and the performance was
+one that made the act of eating seem as gross as the munching of apples
+at an oratorio--the music being, indeed, of a highly refined order of
+perfection. One's ears needed to be highly attuned to hear the pricking
+of the locusts in the leaves; even the breeze kept uncommonly still,
+that the brushing of the humming-birds' and bees' wings against the
+flower-petals might be the more distinctly heard.
+
+I never knew which one of the party it was that decided we were to see
+the day out and the night in; that we were to dine at the Cheval Blanc,
+on the Honfleur quays, instead of sedately breaking bread at the Mere
+Mouchard's. Even our steed needed very little urging to see the
+advantages of such a scheme. Henri alone wore a grim air of
+disapproval. His aspect was an epitome of rigid protest. As he took his
+seat in the cart, he held the sword between his legs with the air of
+one burning with a pent-up anguish of protest. His eye gloomed on the
+day; his head was held aloft, reared on a column of bristling vertebra,
+and on his brow was written the sign of mutiny.
+
+"Henri--you think we should go back; you think going on to Honfleur a
+mistake?"
+
+"Madame has said it"--Henri was a fatalist--in his speech, at least, he
+lived up to his creed. "Honfleur is far--Monsieur Renard has not the
+good digestion when he is tired--he suffers. _Il passe des nuits
+d'angoisse. Il souffre des fatigues de l'estomac. Il se fatigue
+aujourd'hui!_" This, with an air of stern conviction, was accompanied
+by a glance at his master in which compassion was not the most obvious
+note to be read. He went on, remorselessly:
+
+"And, as madame knows, the work but begins for me when we are at home.
+There are the costumes to be dusted and put away, the paintbrushes to
+clean, the dishes and lunch-basket to be attended to. As madame says,
+monsieur is sometimes lacking in consideration. _Mais, que voulez-vous?
+le genie, c'est fait comme ca._"
+
+Madame had not expressed the feeblest echo of a criticism on the
+composition of the genius in front; but the short dialogue had helped,
+perceptibly, to lift the weight of Henri's gloom; he was beginning to
+accept the fate of the day with a philosopher's phlegm. Already he had
+readjusted a little difficulty between his feet and the lunch basket,
+making his religious care of the latter compatible with the open sin of
+improved personal comfort.
+
+Meanwhile the two on the front seat were a thousand miles away. Neither
+we, nor the day, nor the beauty of the drive had power to woo their
+glances from coming back to the focal point of interest they had found
+in each other. They were beginning to talk, not about each other but of
+themselves--the danger-signal of all tete-a-tete adventures.
+
+When two young people have got into the personal-pronoun stage of human
+intercourse, there is but one thing left for the unfortunate third in
+the party to do. Yes, now that I think of it, there are two roles to be
+played. The usual conception of the part is to turn marplot--to spoil
+and ruin the others' dialogue--to put an end to it, if possible, by
+legitimate or illegitimate means; a very successful way, I have
+observed, of prolonging, as a rule, such a duet indefinitely. The more
+enlightened actor in any such little human comedy, if he be gifted with
+insight, will collapse into the wings, and let the two young idiots
+have the whole stage to themselves. As like as not they'll weary of the
+play, and of themselves, if left alone. No harm will come of all the
+sentimental strutting and the romantic attitudinizing, other than
+viewing the scene, later, in perspective, as a rather amusing bit of
+emotional farce.
+
+Besides being in the very height of the spring fashion, in the matter
+of the sentiments, these two were also busily treading, at just this
+particular moment, the most alluring of all the paths leading to what
+may be termed the outlying territorial domain of the emotions; they
+were wandering through the land called Mutual Discovery. Now, this, I
+have always held, is among the most delectable of all the roads of
+life; for it may lead one--anywhere or nowhere.
+
+Therefore it was from a purely generous impulse that I continued to
+look at the view. The surroundings were, in truth, in conspiracy with
+the sentimentalists on the front seat; the extreme beauty of the road
+would have made any but sentimental egotists oblivious to all else. The
+road was a continuation of the one we had followed in the morning's
+drive. Again, all the greenness of field and grass was braided,
+inextricably, into the blue of river and ocean. Above, as before, in
+that earlier morning drive, towered the giant aisles of the beaches
+and elms. Through those aisles the radiant Normandy landscape flowed
+again, as music from rich organ-piped throats flows through cathedral
+arches. Out yonder, on the Seine's wide mouth, the boats were balancing
+themselves, as if they also were half divided between a doubt and a
+longing; a freshening spurt of breeze filled their flapping sails, and
+away they sped, skipping through the waters with all the gayety which
+comes with the vigor of fresh resolutions. The light that fell over the
+land and waters was dazzling, and yet of an astonishing limpidity; only
+a sun about to drop and end his reign could be at once so brilliant and
+so tender--the diffused light had the sparkle of gold made soft by
+usage. Wherever the eye roved, it was fed as on a banquet of light and
+color. Nothing could be more exquisite, for depth of green swimming in
+a bath of shadow, than the meadows curled beneath the cliffs; nothing
+more tempting, to the painter's brush, than the arabesque of blossoms
+netted across the sky; and would you have the living eye of nature,
+bristling with animation, alive with winged sails, and steeped in the
+very soul of yellow sunshine, look out over the great sheet of the
+waters, and steep the senses in such a breadth of aqueous splendor as
+one sees only in one or two of the rare shows of earth.
+
+Then, all at once, all too soon, the great picture seemed to shrink;
+the quivering pulsation of light and color gave way to staid,
+commonplace gardens. Instead of hawthorn hedges there was the stench of
+river smells--we were driving over cobble-paved streets and beneath
+rows of crooked, crumbling houses. A group of noisy street urchins
+greeted us in derision. And then we had no doubt whatsoever that we
+were already in Honfleur town.
+
+"Honfleur is an evil-smelling place," I remarked.
+
+"Oh, well, after all, the smells of antiquity are a part of the show;
+we should refuse to believe in ancientness, all of us, I fancy, if
+mustiness wasn't served along with it."
+
+"How can any town have such a stench with all this river and water and
+verdure to sweeten it?" I asked, with a woman's belief in the morality
+of environment--a belief much cherished by wives and mothers, I have
+noticed.
+
+"Wait till you see the inhabitants--they'll enlighten you--the hags and
+the nautical gentlemen along the basins and quays. They've discovered
+the secret that if cleanliness is next to godliness, dirt and the devil
+are likewise near neighbors. Awful set--those Honfleur sailors The
+Havre and Seine people call them Chinamen, they are so unlike the rest
+of France and Frenchmen."
+
+"Why are they so unlike?" asked Charm.
+
+"They're so low down, so hideously wicked; they're like the old houses,
+a rotten, worm-eaten set--you'll see."
+
+Charm stopped him then, with a gesture. She stopped the horse also; she
+brought the whole establishment to a standstill; and then she nodded
+her head briskly forward. We were in the midst of the Honfleur
+streets--streets that were running away from a wide open space, in all
+possible directions. In the centre of the square rose a curious, an
+altogether astonishing structure. It was a tower, a belfry doubtless, a
+house, a shop, and a warehouse, all in one; such a picturesque medley,
+in fact, as only modern irreverence, in its lawless disregard of
+original purpose and design, can produce. The low-timbered sub-base of
+the structure was pierced by a lovely doorway with sculptured lintel,
+and also with two impertinent modern windows, flaunting muslin
+curtains, and coquettishly attired with rows of flowering carnations.
+Beneath these windows was a shop. Above the whole rose, in beautiful
+symmetrical lines, a wooden belfry, tapering from a square tower into a
+delicately modelled spire. To complete and accentuate the note of the
+picturesque, the superstructure was held in its place by rude modern
+beams, propping the tower with a naive disregard of decorative
+embellishment. We knew it at once as the quaint and famous Belfry of
+St. Catherine,
+
+As we were about to turn away to descend the high street, a Norman
+maiden, with close-capped face, leaned over the carnations to look down
+upon us.
+
+"That's the daughter of the bell-ringer, doubtless. Economical idea
+that," Renard remarked, taking his cap off to the smiling eyes.
+
+"Economical?"
+
+"Yes, can't you see? Bell-ringer sends pretty daughter to window, just
+before vespers or service, and she rings in the worshippers; no need to
+make the bells ring."
+
+"What nonsense!"--but we laughed as flatteringly as if his speech had
+been a genuine coin of wit.
+
+A turn down the street, and the famous Honfleur of the wharves and
+floating docks lay before us. About us, all at once, was the roar and
+hubbub of an extraordinary bustle and excitement; all the life of the
+town, apparently, was centred upon the quays. The latter were swarming
+with a tattered, ragged, bare-footed, bare-legged assemblage of old
+women, of gamins, and sailors. The collection, as a collection, was one
+gifted with the talent of making itself heard. Everyone appeared to be
+shrieking, or yelling, or crying aloud, if only to keep the others in
+voice. Sailors lying on the flat parapets shouted hoarsely to their
+fellows in the rigging of the ships that lay tossing in the docks;
+fishermen's families tossed their farewells above the hubbub to the
+captain-fathers launching their fishing-smacks; one shrieking infant
+was being passed, gayly, from the poop of a distant deck, across the
+closely lying shipping, to the quay's steps, to be hushed by the
+generous opening of a peasant mother's bodice. One could hear the
+straining of cordage, the creak of masts, the flap of the sails, all
+the noises peculiar to shipping riding at anchor. The shriek of
+steam-whistles broke out, ever and anon, above all the din and uproar.
+Along the quay steps and the wharves there were constantly forming and
+re-forming groups of wretched, tattered human beings; of men with
+bloated faces and a dull, sodden look, strikingly in contrast with the
+vivacity common among French people. Even the children and women had a
+depraved, shameless appearance, as if vice had robbed them of the last
+vestige of hope and ambition. Along the parapet a half-dozen drunkards
+sprawled, asleep or dozing. At the legs of one a child was pulling,
+crying:
+
+"_Viens--mere t'battra, elle est soule aussi._"
+
+The sailors out yonder, busy in the rigging, and the men on the decks
+of the smart brigs and steamships, whistled and shouted and sang, as
+indifferent to this picture of human misery and degradation as if they
+had no kinship with it.
+
+As a frame to the picture, Honfleur town lay beneath the crown of its
+hills; on the tops and sides of the latter, villa after villa shot
+through the trees, a curve of roof-line, with rows of daintily draped
+windows. At the right, close to the wharves, below the wooded heights,
+there loomed out a quaint and curious gateway flanked by two
+watchtowers, grim reminders of the Honfleur of the great days. And
+above and about the whole, encompassing villa-crowded hills and
+closely packed streets, and the forest of masts trembling against the
+sky, there lay a heaven of spring and summer.
+
+Renard had driven briskly up to a low, rambling facade parallel with
+the quays. It was the "Cheval Blanc." A crowd assembled on the instant,
+as if appearing according to command.
+
+"_Allons--n'encombrez pas ces dames!_" cried a very smart individual,
+in striking contrast to the down at-heel air of the hotel--a personage
+who took high-handed possession of us and our traps. "Will _ces dames_
+desire a salon--there is _un vrai petit bijou_ empty just now,"
+murmured a voice in a purring soprano, through the iron opening of the
+cashier's desk.
+
+Another voice was crying out to us, as we wound our way upward in
+pursuit of the jewel of a salon. "And the widow, _La Veuve_, shall she
+be dry or sweet?"
+
+When we entered the low dining-room, a little later, we found that the
+artist as well as the epicure has been in active conspiracy to make the
+dinner complete; the choice of the table proclaimed one accomplished in
+massing effects. The table was parallel with the low window, and
+through the latter was such a picture as one travels hundreds of miles
+to look upon, only to miss seeing it, as a rule. There was a great
+breadth of sky through the windows; against the sky rose the mastheads;
+and some red and brown sails curtained the space, bringing into relief
+the gray line of the sad-faced old houses fringing the shoreline.
+
+"Couldn't have chosen better if we'd tried, could we? It's just the
+right hour, and just the right kind of light. Those basins are
+unendurable--sinks of iniquitous ugliness, unless the tide's in and
+there's a sunset going on. Just look now! Who cares whether Honfleur
+has been done to death by the tourist horde or not? and been painted
+until one's art-stomach turns? I presume I ought to beg your pardon,
+but I can't stand the abomination of modern repetitions; the
+hand-organ business in art, I call it. But at this hour, at this time
+of the year, before this rattle-trap of an inn is as packed with
+Baedeker attachments as a Siberian prison is with Nihilists--to run out
+here and look at these quays and basins, and old Honfleur lying here,
+beneath her green cliffs--well, short of Cairo, I don't know any better
+bit of color. Look out there, now! See those sails, dripping with
+color, and that fellow up there, letting the sail down--there, splash
+it goes into the water, I knew it would; now tell me where will
+you get better blues or yellows or browns, with just the right purples
+in the shore line, than you'll get here?"
+
+Renard was fairly started; he had the bit of the born monologist
+between his teeth; he stopped barely long enough to hear even an
+echoing assent. We were quite content; we continued to sip our
+champagne and to feast our eyes. Meanwhile Renard talked on.
+
+"Guide-books--what's the use of guide-books? What do they teach you,
+anyway? Open any one of the cursed clap-trap things. Yes, yes, I know I
+oughtn't to use vigorous language."
+
+"Do," bleated Charm, smiling sweetly up at him. "Do, it makes you seem
+manly."
+
+Even Renard had to take time to laugh.
+
+"Thank you! I'm not above making use of any aids to create that
+illusion. Well, as I was saying, what guide-book ever really helped
+anyone to _see?_--that's what one travels for, I take it. Here, for
+instance, Murray or Baedeker would give you this sort of thing:
+'Honfleur, an ancient town, with pier, beaches, three floating docks,
+and a good deal of trade in timber, cod, etc.; exports large quantities
+of eggs to England.' Good heavens! it makes one boil! Do sane,
+reasonable mortals travel three thousand miles to read ancient history
+done up in modern binding, served up a la Murray, a la Baedeker?"
+
+"Oh, you do them injustice, I think--the guides do go in for a little
+more of the picturesque than that--"
+
+"And how--how do they do it? This is the sort of thing they'll give
+you: 'Church of St. Catherine is large and remarkable, entirely of
+timber and plaster, the largest of its kind in France.' Ah! ha! that's
+the picturesque with a vengeance. No, no, my friends, throw the
+guide-books into the river, pitch them overboard through the port
+holes, along with the flowers, and letters _to be read three days out_,
+and the nasty novels people send you to make the crossing pleasant. And
+when you travel, really travel, mind, never make a plan--just go--go
+anywhere, whenever the impulse seizes you--and you may hope to get
+there, in the right way, possibly."
+
+Here Renard stopped to finish his glass, draining-the last drop of the
+yellow liquid. Then he went on: "To travel! To start when an impulse
+seizes one! To go--anywhere! Why not! It was for this, after all, that
+all of us have come our three thousand miles." Perhaps it was the
+restless tossing of the shipping out yonder in the basins that awoke an
+answering impatience within, in response to Renard's outburst. Where
+did they go, those ships, and, up beyond this mouth of the Seine, how
+looked the shores, and what life lived itself out beneath the rustling
+poplars? Is it the mission of all flowing water to create an unrest in
+men's minds?
+
+Meanwhile, though the talk was not done, the dinner was long since
+eaten. We rose to take a glimpse of Honfleur and its famous old basin.
+The quays and the floating docks, in front of which we had been dining,
+are a part of the nineteenth century; the great ships ride in to them
+from the sea. But here, in this inner quadrangular dock, beside which
+we were soon standing, traced by Duquesne when Louis the Great
+discovered the maritime importance of Honfleur, we found still
+reminders of the old life. Here were the same old houses that, in
+the seventeenth century, upright and brave in their brand new carvings,
+saw the high-decked, picturesquely painted Spanish and Portuguese ships
+ride in to dip their flag to the French fleur-de-lis. There are but few
+of the old streets left to crowd about the shipping life that still
+floats here, as in those bygone days of Honfleur pride;--when Havre was
+but a yellow strip of sand; when the Honfleur merchants would have
+laughed to scorn any prophet's cry of warning that one day that
+sand-bar opposite, despised, disregarded, boasting only a chapel and a
+tavern, would grow and grow, and would steal year by year and inch by
+inch bustling Honfleur's traffic, till none was left.
+
+In the old adventurous days, along with the Spanish ships came others,
+French trading and fishing vessels, with the salty crustations of long
+voyages on their hulls and masts. The wharves were alive then with
+fish-wives, whom Evelyn will tell you wore "useful habits made of
+goats' skin." The captains' daughters were in quaint Normandy costumes;
+and the high-peaked coifs and the stiff woollen skirts, as well as the
+goat-skin coats, trembled as the women darted hither and thither among
+the sailors--whose high cries filled the air as they picked out mother
+and wife. Then were bronzed beards buried in the deeply-wrinkled old
+meres' faces, and young, strong arms clasped about maidens' waists. The
+whole town rang with gayety and with the mad joy of reunion. On the
+morrow, coiling its way up the steep hillsides, wound the long lines of
+the grateful company, one composed chiefly of the crews of these
+vessels happily come to port. The procession would mount up to the
+little church of Notre Dame de Grace perched on the hill overlooking
+the harbor. Some even--so deep was their joy at deliverance from
+shipwreck and so fervent their piety--crawled up, bare-footed, with
+bared head, wives and children following, weeping for joy, as the rude
+_ex-votos_ were laid by the sailors' trembling hands at the feet of the
+Virgin Lady.
+
+As reminders of this old life, what is left? Within the stone
+quadrangle we found clustered a motley fleet of wrecks and
+fishing-vessels; the nets, flung out to dry in the night air, hung like
+shrouds from the mastheads; here and there a figure bestrode a deck, a
+rough shape, that seemed endowed with a double gift of life, so still
+and noiseless was the town. Around the silent dock, grouped in
+mysterious medley and confusion, were tottering roof lines, projecting
+eaves, narrow windows, all crazily tortured and out of shape. Here
+and there, beneath the broad beams of support, a little interior, dimly
+lighted, showed a knot of sailors gathered, drinking or lounging. Up
+high beneath a chimney perilously overlooking a rude facade, a quaint
+shape emerged, one as decrepit and forlorn of life and hope as the
+decaying houses it overlooked. Silence, poverty, wretchedness, the
+dregs of life, to this has Honfleur fallen. These old houses, in their
+slow decay, hiding in their dark bosom the gaunt secrets of this
+poverty and human misery, seemed to be dancing a dance of drunken
+indifference. Some day the dance will end in a fall, and then the
+Honfleur of the past will not even boast of a ghost, as reminder of its
+days of splendor.
+
+An artist quicker than anyone else, I think, can be trusted to take one
+out of history and into the picturesque. Renard refused to see anything
+but beauty in the decay about us; for him the houses were at just the
+right drooping angle; the roof lines were delightful in their
+irregularity; and the fluttering tremor of the nets, along the rigging,
+was the very poetry of motion.
+
+"We'll finish the evening on the pier," he exclaimed, suddenly; "the
+moon will soon be up--we can sit it out there and see it begin to color
+things."
+
+The pier was more popular than the quaint old dock. It was crowded with
+promenaders, who, doubtless, were taking a bite of the sea-air. Through
+the dusk the tripping figures of gentlemen in white flannels and jaunty
+caps brushed the provincial Honfleur swells. Some gentle English voices
+told us some of the villa residents had come down to the pier, moved by
+the beauty of the night. Groups of sailors, with tanned faces and
+punctured ears hooped with gold rings, sat on the broad stone parapets,
+talking unintelligible Breton _patois_. The pier ran far out, almost to
+the Havre cliffs, it seemed to us, as we walked along in the dusk of
+the young night. The sky was slowly losing its soft flame. A tender,
+mellow half light was stealing over the waters, making the town a rich
+mass of shade. Over the top of the low hills the moon shot out, a
+large, globular mass of beaten gold. At first it was only a part and
+portion of the universal lighting, of the still flushed sky, of the red
+and crimson harbor lights, of the dim twinkling of lamps and candles in
+the rude interiors along the shore. But slowly, triumphantly, the great
+lamp swung up; it rose higher and higher into the soft summer sky, and
+as it mounted, sky and earth began to pale and fade. Soon there was
+only a silver world to look out upon--a wealth of quivering silver over
+the breast of the waters, and a deeper, richer gray on cliffs and
+roof tops. Out of this silver world came the sound of waters, lapping
+in soft cadence against the pier; the rise and fall of sails, stirring
+in the night wind; the tread of human footsteps moving in slow,
+measured beat, in unison with the rhythm of the waters. Just when the
+stars were scattering their gold on the bosom of the sea-river, a voice
+rang out, a rich, full baritone. Quite near, two sailors were seated,
+with their arms about each other's shoulders. They also were looking at
+the moonlight, and one of them was singing to it:
+
+ _"Te souviens-tu, Marie,
+  De notre enfance aux champs?
+
+ "Te souviens-tu?
+  Le temps que je regrette
+  C'est le temps qui n'est plus._"
+
+[Illustration: THE INN AT DIVES--GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT]
+
+
+
+
+DIVES: AN INN ON A HIGH-ROAD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A COAST DRIVE.
+
+
+On our return to Villerville we found that the charm of the place, for
+us, was a broken one. We had seen the world; the effect of that
+experience was to produce the common result--there was a fine deposit
+of discontent in the cup of our pleasure.
+
+Madame Fouchet had made use of our absence to settle our destiny; she
+had rented her villa. This was one of the bitter dregs. Another was to
+find that the life of the village seemed to pass us by; it gave us to
+understand, with unflattering frankness, that for strangers who made no
+bargains for the season, it had little or no civility to squander. For
+the Villerville beach, the inn, and the villas were crowded. Mere
+Mouchard was tossing omelettes from morning till night; even Augustine
+was far too hurried to pay her usual visit to the creamery. A
+detachment of Parisian costumes and beribboned nursery maids was
+crowding out the fish-wives and old hags from their stations on the low
+door-steps and the grasses on the cliffs.
+
+Even Fouchet was no longer a familiar figure in the foreground of his
+garden; his roses were blooming now for the present owners of his
+villa. He and madame had betaken themselves to a box of a hut on the
+very outskirts of the village--a miserable little hovel with two rooms
+and a bit of pasture land being the substitute, as a dwelling, for the
+gay villa and its garden along the sea-cliffs. Pity, however, would
+have been entirely wasted on the Fouchet household and their change of
+habitation. Tucked in, cramped, and uncomfortable beneath the low eaves
+of their cabin ceilings, they could now wear away the summer in
+blissful contentment: Were they not living on nothing--on less than
+nothing, in this dark pocket of a _chaumiere_, while their fine house
+yonder was paying for itself handsomely, week after week? The heart
+beats high, in a Norman breast, when the pocket bulges; gold--that is
+better than bread to feel in one's hand.
+
+The whole village wore this triumphant expression--now that the season
+was beginning. Paris had come down to them, at last, to be shorn of its
+strength; angling for pennies in a Parisian pocket was better, far,
+than casting nets into the sea. There was also more contentment in such
+fishing--for true Norman wit.
+
+Only once did the village change its look of triumph to one of polite
+regret; for though it was Norman, it was also French. It remembered, on
+the morning of our departure, that the civility of the farewell costs
+nothing, and like bread prodigally scattered on the waters, may
+perchance bring back a tenfold recompense.
+
+Even the morning arose with a flattering pallor. It was a gray day. The
+low houses were like so many rows of pale faces; the caps of the
+fishwives, as they nodded a farewell, seemed to put the village in half
+mourning.
+
+"You will have a perfect day for your drive--there's nothing better
+than these grays in the French landscape," Renard was saying, at our
+carriage wheels; "they bring out every tone. And the sea is wonderful.
+Pity you're going. Grand day for the mussel-bed. However, I shall see
+you, I shall see you. Remember me to Monsieur Paul; tell him to save me
+a bottle of his famous old wine. Good-by, good-by."
+
+There was a shower of rose-leaves flung out upon us; a great sweep of
+the now familiar beret; a sonorous "Hui!" from our driver, with an
+accompaniment of vigorous whip-snapping, and we were off.
+
+The grayness of the closely-packed houses was soon exchanged for the
+farms lying beneath the elms. With the widening of the distance between
+our carriage-wheels and Villerville, there was soon a great expanse of
+mouse-colored sky and the breath of a silver sea. The fields and
+foliage were softly brilliant; when the light wind stirred the grain,
+the poppies and bluets were as vivid as flowers seen in dreams.
+
+It is easy to understand, I think, why French painters are so enamoured
+of their gray skies--such a background makes even the commonplace wear
+an air of importance. All the tones of the landscape were astonishingly
+serious; the features of the coast and the inland country were as
+significant as if they were meditating an outbreak into speech. It was
+the kind of day that bred reflection; one could put anything one liked
+into the picture with a certainty of its fitting the frame. We were
+putting a certain amount of regret into it; for though Villerville has
+seen us depart with civilized indifference or the stolidity of
+the barbarian--for they are one, we found our own attainments in the
+science of unfeelingness deficient: to look down upon the village from
+the next hill top was like facing a lost joy.
+
+Once on the highroad, however, the life along the shore gave us little
+time for the futility of regret. Regret, at best, is a barren thing:
+like the mule, it is incapable of perpetuating its own mistakes; it
+appears to apologize, indeed, for its stupidity by making its exit as
+speedily as possible. With the next turn of the road we were in fitting
+condition to greet the wildest form of adventure.
+
+Pedlars' carts and the lumbering Normandy farm wagons were, at first,
+our chief companions along the roadway. Here and there a head would
+peep forth from a villa window, or a hand be stretched out into the air
+to see if any rain was falling from the moist sky. The farms were
+quieter than usual; there was an air of patient waiting in the
+courtyards, among the blouses and standing cattle, as though both man
+and beast were there in attendance on the day and the weather,
+till the latter could come to the point of a final decision in regard
+to the rain.
+
+Finally, as we were nearing Trouville, the big drops fell. The
+grain-fields were soon bent double beneath the spasmodic shower. The
+poppies were drenched, so were the cobble paved courtyards; only the
+geese and the regiment of the ducks came abroad to revel in the
+downpour. The villas were hermetically sealed now--their summer finery
+was not made for a wetting. The landscape had no such reserves; it gave
+itself up to the light summer shower as if it knew that its raiment,
+like Rachel's, when dampened the better to take her plastic outlines,
+only gained in tone and loveliness the closer it fitted the recumbent
+figure of mother earth.
+
+Our coachman could never have been mistaken for any other than a good
+Norman. He was endowed with the gift of oratory peculiar to the
+country; and his profanity was enriched with all the flavor of the
+provincial's elation in the committing of sin. From the earliest moment
+of our starting, the stream of his talk had been unending. His
+vocabulary was such as to have excited the envy and despair of a French
+realist, impassioned in the pursuit of "the word."
+
+"_Hui!--b-r-r-r!_"--This was the most common of his salutations to his
+horse. It was the Norman coachman's familiar apostrophe, impossible of
+imitation; it was also one no Norman horse who respects himself moves
+an inch without first hearing. Chat Noir was a horse of purest Norman
+ancestry; his Percheron blood was as untainted as his intelligence was
+unclouded by having no mixtures of tongues with which to deal. His
+owner's "_Hui!_" lifted him with arrowy lightness to the top of a hill.
+The deeper "_Bougre_" steadied his nerve for a good mile of unbroken
+trotting. Any toil is pleasant in the gray of a cool morning, with a
+friend holding the reins who is a gifted monologist; even imprecations,
+rightly administered, are only lively punctuations to really talented
+speech.
+
+"Come, my beauty, take in thy breath--courage! The hill is before thee!
+Curse thy withered legs, and is it thus thou stumbleth? On--up with
+thee and that mountain of flesh thou carriest about with thee." And the
+mountain of flesh would be lifted--it was carried as lightly by the
+finely-feathered legs and the broad haunches as if the firm avoirdupois
+were so much gossamer tissue. On and on the neat, strong hoofs rang
+their metallic click, clack along the smooth macadam. They had carried
+us past the farm-houses, the cliffs, the meadows, and the Norman roofed
+manoirs buried in their apple-orchards. These same hoofs were now
+carefully, dexterously picking their way down the steep hill that leads
+directly into the city of the Trouville villas.
+
+Presently, the hoofs came to a sudden halt, from sheer amazement. What
+was this order, this command the quick Percheron hearing had overheard?
+Not to go any farther into this summer city--not to go down to its
+sand-beach--not to wander through the labyrinth of its gay little
+streets?--Verily, it is the fate of a good horse, how often! to carry
+fools, and the destiny of intelligence to serve those deficient in mind
+and sense.
+
+The criticism on our choice of direction was announced by the hoofs
+turning resignedly, with the patient assent of the fatigue that is bred
+of disgust, into one of the upper Trouville by-streets. Our coachman
+contented himself with a commiserating shrug and a prolonged flow of
+explanation. Perhaps _ces dames_, being strangers, did not know that
+Trouville was now beginning its real season--its season of baths? The
+Casino, in truth, was only opened a week since; but we could hear the
+band even now playing above the noise of the waves. And behold, the
+villas were filling; each day some _grande dame_ came down to take
+possession of her house by the sea.
+
+How could we hope to make a Frenchman comprehend an instinctive impulse
+to turn our backs on the Trouville world? What, pray, had we just now
+to do with fashion--with the purring accents of boudoirs, with all the
+life we had run away from? Surely the romance--the charm of our present
+experiences would be put to flight once we exchanged salutations with
+the _beau monde_--with that world that is so sceptical of any pleasure
+save that which blooms in its own hot-houses, and so disdainful of all
+forms of life save those that are modelled on fashion's types. We had
+fled from cities to escape all this; were we, forsooth, to be pushed
+into the motley crowd of commonplace pleasure-seekers because of the
+scorn of a human creature, and the mute criticism of a beast that was
+hired to do the bidding of his betters? The world of fashion was one to
+be looked out upon as a part of the general _mise-en-scene_--as a bit
+of the universal decoration of this vast amphitheatre of the Normandy
+beaches.
+
+Chat noir had little reverence for philosophic reflections; he turned a
+sharp corner just then; he stopped short, directly in front of the
+broad windows of a confectioner's shop. This time he did not appeal in
+vain to the strangers with a barbarian's contempt for the great world.
+The brisk drive and the salt in the air were stimulants to appetite to
+be respected; it is not every day the palate has so fine an edge.
+
+"_Du the, mesdames--a l'Anglaise?_" a neatly-corsetted shape, in black,
+to set off a pair of dazzling pink cheeks, shone out behind rows of
+apricot tarts. There was also a cap that conveyed to one, through the
+medium of pink bows, the capacities of coquetry that lay in the depths
+of the rich brown eyes beneath them. The attractive shape emerged at
+once from behind the counter, to set chairs about the little table. We
+were bidden to be seated with an air of smiling grace, one that
+invested the act with the emphasis of genuine hospitality. Soon a great
+clatter arose in the rear of the shop; opinions and counter-opinions
+were being volubly exchanged in shrill French, as to whether the water
+should or should not come to a boil; also as to whether the leaves of
+oolong or of green should be chosen for our beverage. The cap fluttered
+in several times to ask, with exquisite politeness--a politeness which
+could not wholly veil the hidden anxiety--our own tastes and
+preferences. When the cap returned to the battling forces behind the
+screen, armed with the authority of our confessed prejudices, a new war
+of tongues arose. The fate of nations, trembling on the turn of a
+battle, might have been settled before that pot of water, so watched
+and guarded over, was brought to a boil. When, finally, the little tea
+service was brought in, every detail was perfect in taste and
+appointment, except the tea; the action that had held out valiantly,
+that the water should not boil, had prevailed, as the half-soaked tea-
+leaves floating on top of our full cups triumphantly proclaimed.
+
+We sipped the beverage, agreeing Balzac had well named it _ce boisson
+fade et melancolique_; the novelist's disdain being the better
+understood as we reflected he had doubtless only tasted it as concocted
+by French ineptitude. We were very merry over the liver-colored liquid,
+as we sipped it and quoted Balzac. But not for a moment had our
+merriment deceived the brown eyes and the fluttering cap-ribbons. A
+little drama of remorse was soon played for our benefit. It was she,
+her very self, the cap protested--as she pointed a tragic finger at the
+swelling, rounded line of her firm bodice--it was she who had insisted
+that the water should _not_ boil; there had been ladies--_des vraies
+anglaises_--here, only last summer, who would not that the water should
+boil, when their tea was made. And now, it appears that they were
+wrong, "_c'etait probablement une fantaisie de la part de ces dames_."
+Would we wait for another cup? It would take but an instant, it was a
+little mistake, so easy to remedy. But this mistake, like many another,
+like crime, for instance, could never be remedied, we smilingly told
+her; a smile that changed her solicitous remorse to a humorist's view
+of the situation.
+
+Another humorist, one accustomed to view the world from heights known
+as trapeze elevations, we met a little later on our way out of the
+narrow upper streets; he was also looking down over Trouville. It was a
+motley figure in a Pierrot garb, with a smaller striped body, both in
+the stage pallor of their trade. These were somewhat startling objects
+to confront on a Normandy high-road. For clowns, however, taken by
+surprise, they were astonishingly civil. They passed their "_bonjour_"
+to us and to the coachman as glibly as though accosting us from the
+commoner circus distance.
+
+"They have come to taste of the fresh air, they have," laconically
+remarked our driver, as his round Norman eyes ran over the muscled
+bodies of the two athletes. "I had a brother who was one--I had; he was
+a famous one--he was; he broke his neck once, when the net had been
+forgotten. They all do it--_ils se cassent le cou tous, tot ou tard!
+Allons toi t'as peur, toi?_" Chat noir's great back was quivering with
+fear; he had no taste, himself, for shapes like these, spectral and wan
+as ghosts, walking about in the sun. He took us as far away as
+possible, and as quickly, from these reminders of the thing men call
+pleasure.
+
+We, meanwhile, were asking Pierre for a certain promised chateau, one
+famous for its beauty, between Trouville and Cabourg.
+
+"It is here, madame--the chateau," he said, at last.
+
+Two lions couchant, seated on wide pedestals beneath a company of
+noble trees, were the only visible inhabitants of the dwelling.
+There was a sweep of gardens: terraces that picked their way daintily
+down the cliffs toward the sea, a mansard roof that covered a large
+mansion--these were the sole aspects of chateau life to keep the trees
+company. In spite of Pierre's urgent insistence that the view was even
+more beautiful than the one from the hill, we refused to exchange our
+first experiences of the beauty of the prospect for a second which
+would be certain to invite criticism; for it is ever the critic in us
+that plays the part of Bluebeard to our many-wived illusions.
+
+We passed between the hedgerows with not even a sigh of regret. We were
+presently rewarded by something better than an illusion--by reality,
+which, at its best, can afford to laugh at the spectral shadow of
+itself. Near the chateau there lived on, the remnant of a hamlet. It
+was a hamlet, apparently, that boasted only one farm-house; and the
+farm-house could show but a single hayrick. Beneath the sloping roof,
+modelled into shape by a pitchfork and whose symmetrical lines put
+Mansard's clumsy creation yonder to the blush, sat an old couple--a man
+and a woman. Both were old, with the rounded backs of the laborer;
+the woman's hand was lying in the man's open palm, while his free arm
+was clasped about her neck with all the tenderness of young love. Both
+of the old heads were laid back on the pillow made by the freshly-piled
+grasses. They had done a long day's work already, before the sun had
+reached its meridian; they were weary and resting here before they went
+back to their toil.
+
+This was better than the view; it made life seem finer than nature; how
+rich these two poor old things looked, with only their poverty about
+them!
+
+Meanwhile Pierre had quickly changed the rural _mise-en-scene_; instead
+of pink hawthorn hedges we were in the midst of young forest trees. Why
+is it that a forest is always a surprise in France? Is it that we have
+such a respect for French thrift, that a real forest seems a waste of
+timber? There are forests and forests; this one seemed almost a
+stripling in its tentative delicacy, compared to the mature splendor of
+Fontainebleau, for example. This forest had the virility of a young
+savage; it was neither dense nor vast; yet, in contrast to the ribbony
+grain fields, and to the finish of the villa parks, was as refreshing
+to the eye as the right chord that strikes upon the ear after a
+succession of trills.
+
+In all this fair Normandy sea-coast, with its wonderful inland
+contrasts, there was but one disappointing note. One looked in vain for
+the old Normandy costumes. The blouse and the close white cap--this is
+all that is left of the wondrous headgear, the short brilliant
+petticoats, the embroidered stomacher, and the Caen and Rouen jewels,
+abroad in the fields only a decade ago.
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulders when asked a question concerning these
+now pre-historic costumes.
+
+ "Ah! mademoiselle, you must see for yourself, that the peasant who
+doesn't despise himself dresses now in the fields as he would in
+Paris."
+
+As if in confirmation of Pierre's news of the fashions, there stepped
+forth from an avenue of trees, fringing a near farm-house, a wedding-
+party. The bride was in the traditional white of brides; the little
+cortege following the trail of her white gown, was dressed in costumes
+modelled on Bon Marche styles. The coarse peasant faces flamed from
+bonnets more flowery than the fields into which they were passing. The
+men seemed choked in their high collars; the agony of new boots was
+written on faces not used to concealing such form of torture. Even the
+groom was suffering; his bliss was something the gay little bride
+hanging on his arm must take entirely for granted. It was enough
+greatness for the moment to wear broadcloth and a white vest in the
+face of men.
+
+"_Laissez, laissez, Marguerite_, it is clean here; it will look fine on
+the green!" cried the bride to an improvised train-bearer, who had been
+holding up the white alpaca. Then the full splendor of the bridal skirt
+trailed across the freshly mown grasses. An irrepressible murmur of
+admiration welled up from the wedding guests; even Pierre made part of
+the chorus. The bridegroom stopped to mop his face, and to look forth
+proudly, through starting eyeballs, on the splendor of his possessions.
+
+"Ah! Lizette, thou art pretty like that, thou knowest. _Faut
+l'embrasser, tu sais_."
+
+He gave her a kiss full on the lips. The little bride returned the kiss
+with unabashed fervor. Then she burst into a loud fit of laughter.
+
+"How silly you look, Jean, with your collar burst open."
+
+The groom's enthusiasm had been too much for his toilet; the noon sun
+and the excitements of the marriage service had dealt hardly with his
+celluloid fastenings. All the wedding cortege rushed to the rescue.
+Pins, shouts of advice, pieces of twine, rubber fastenings, even
+knives, were offered to the now exploding bridegroom; everyone was
+helping him repair the ravages of his moment of bliss; everyone
+excepting the bride. She sat down upon her train and wept from pure
+rapture of laughter.
+
+Pierre shook his head gravely, as he whipped up his steed.
+
+"Jean will repent it; he'll lose worse things than a button, with
+Lizette. A woman who laughs like that on the threshold of marriage will
+cry before the cradle is rocked, and will make others weep. However,
+Jean won't be thinking of that--to-night."
+
+"Where are they going--along the highroad?"
+
+"Only a short distance. They turn in there," and he pointed with his
+whip to a near lane; "they go to the farm-house now--for the wedding
+dinner. Ah! there'll be some heavy heads to-morrow. For you know, a
+Norman peasant only really eats and drinks well twice in his life--when
+he marries himself and when his daughter marries. Lizette's father is
+rich--the meat and the wines will be good to-night."
+
+Our coachman sighed, as if the thought of the excellence of the coming
+banquet had disturbed his own digestion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT.
+
+
+The wedding party was lost in a thicket. Pierre gave his whip so
+resounding a snap, it was no surprise to find ourselves rolling over
+the cobbles of a village street.
+
+"This is Dives, mesdames, this is the inn!"
+
+Pierre drew up, as he spoke, before a long, low facade.
+
+Now, no one, I take it, in this world enjoys being duped. Surely
+disappointment is only a civil term for the varying degrees of fraud
+practised on the imagination. This inn, apparently, was to be classed
+among such frauds. It did not in the least, externally at least, fulfil
+Renard's promises. He had told us to expect the marvellous and the
+mediaeval in their most approved period. Yet here we were, facing a
+featureless exterior! The facade was built yesterday--that was writ
+large, all over the low, rambling structure. One end, it is true,
+had a gabled end; there was also an old shrine niched in glass beneath
+the gable, and a low Norman gateway with rude letters carved over the
+arch. June was in its glory, and the barrenness of the commonplace
+structure was mercifully hidden by a wreath of pink and amber roses.
+But one scarcely drives twenty miles in the sun to look upon a facade
+of roses!
+
+Chat noir, meanwhile, was becoming restless. Pierre had managed to keep
+his own patience well in hand. Now, however, he broke forth:
+
+"Shall we enter, my ladies?"
+
+Pierre drove us straight into paradise; for here, at last, within the
+courtyard, was the inn we had come to seek.
+
+A group of low-gabled buildings surrounded an open court. All of the
+buildings were timbered, the diagonal beams of oak so old they were
+black in the sun, and the snowy whiteness of fresh plaster made them
+seem blacker still. The gabled roofs were of varying tones and tints;
+some were red, some mossy green, some as gray as the skin of a mouse;
+all were deeply, plentifully furrowed with the washings of countless
+rains, and they were bearded with moss. There were outside galleries,
+beginning somewhere and ending anywhere. There were open and covered
+outer stairways so laden with vines they could scarce totter to the
+low heights of the chamber doors on which they opened; and there were
+open sheds where huge farm-wagons were rolled close to the most modern
+of Parisian dog-carts. That not a note of contrast might be lacking,
+across the courtyard, in one of the windows beneath a stairway, there
+flashed the gleam of some rich stained glass, spots of color that were
+repeated, with quite a different lustre, in the dappled haunches
+of rows of sturdy Percherons munching their meal in the adjacent
+stalls. Add to such an ensemble a vagrant multitude of rose,
+honeysuckle, clematis, and wistaria vines, all blooming in full rivalry
+of perfume and color; insert in some of the corners and beneath some of
+the older casements archaic bits of sculpture--strange barbaric
+features with beards of Assyrian correctness and forms clad in the
+rigid draperies of the early Jumieges period of the sculptor's
+art; lance above the roof ridges the quaint polychrome finials of the
+earlier Palissy models; and crowd the rough cobble-paved courtyard with
+a rare and distinguished assemblage of flamingoes, peacocks, herons,
+cockatoos swinging from gabled windows, and game-cocks that strut about
+in company with pink doves--and you have the famous inn of Guillaume le
+Conquerant!
+
+Meanwhile an individual, with fine deep-gray eyes, and a face grave,
+yet kindly, over which a smile was humorously breaking, was patiently
+waiting at our carriage door. He could be no other than Monsieur Paul,
+owner and inn-keeper, also artist, sculptor, carver, restorer, to whom,
+in truth, this miracle of an inn owed its present perfection and
+picturesqueness.
+
+"We have been long expecting you, mesdames," Monsieur Paul's grave
+voice was saying. "Monsieur Renard had written to announce your coming.
+You took the trouble to drive along the coast this fine day? It is
+idyllically lovely, is it not--under such a sun?"
+
+Evidently the moment of enchantment was not to be broken by the worker
+of the spell. Monsieur Paul and his inn were one; if one was a poem the
+other was a poet. The poet was also lined with the man of the practical
+moment. He had quickly summoned a host of serving-people to take charge
+of us and our luggage.
+
+"Lizette, show these ladies to the room of Madame de Sevigne. If they
+desire a sitting-room--to the Marmousets."
+
+The inn-keeper gave his commands in the quiet, well-bred tone of a man
+of the world, to a woman in peasant's dress. She led us past the open
+court to an inner one, where we were confronted with a building still
+older, apparently, than those grouped about the outer quadrangle. The
+peasant passed quickly beneath an overhanging gallery, draped in vines.
+She was next preceding us up a spiral turret stairway; the adjacent
+walls were hung here and there with faded bits of tapestry. Once more
+she turned to lead us along an open gallery; on this several rooms
+appeared to open. On each door a different sign was painted in rude
+Gothic letters. The first was "Chambre de l'Officier;" the second,
+"Chambre du Cure," and the next was flung widely open. It was the room
+of the famous lady of the incomparable Letters. The room might have
+been left--in the yesterday of two centuries--by the lady whose name it
+bore. There was a beautiful Seventeenth century bedstead, a couple of
+wide arm-chairs, with down pillows for seats, and a clothes press with
+the carvings and brass work peculiar to the epoch of Louis XIV. The
+chintz hangings and draperies were in keeping, being copies of the
+brocades of that day. There were portraits in miniature of the
+courtiers and the ladies of the Great Reign on the very ewers and
+basins. On the flounced dressing-table, with its antique glass and a
+diminutive patch-box, now the receptacle of Lubin's powder, a sprig of
+the lovely Rose The was exhaling a faint, far-away century perfume. It
+was surely a stage set for a real comedy; some of these high-coiffed
+ladies, who knows? perhaps Madame de Sevigne herself would come to
+life, and give to the room the only thing it lacked--the living
+presence of that old world grace and speech.
+
+Presently, we sallied forth on a further voyage of discovery. We had
+reached the courtyard when Monsieur Paul crossed it; it was to ask if,
+while waiting for the noon breakfast, we would care to see the kitchen;
+it was, perhaps, different to those now commonly seen in modern
+taverns.
+
+The kitchen which was thus modestly described as unlike those of our
+own century might easily, except for the appetizing smell of the
+cooking fowls and the meats, have been put under lock and key and
+turned over to a care-taker as a full-fledged culinary museum of
+antiquities. One entire side of the crowded but orderly little room was
+taken up by a huge open fireplace. The logs resting on the great
+andirons were the trunks of full-grown trees. On two of the spits were
+long rows of fowl and legs of mutton roasting; the great chains were
+being slowly turned by a _chef_ in the paper cap of his profession. In
+deep burnished brass bowls lay water-cresses; in Caen dishes of an age
+to make a bric-a-brac collector turn green with envy, a _Bearnaise_
+sauce was being beaten by another gallic master-hand. Along the beams
+hung old Rouen plates and platters; in the numberless carved Normandy
+cupboards gleamed rare bits of Delft and Limoges; the walls may be said
+to have been hung with Normandy brasses, each as burnished as a jewel.
+The floor was sanded and the tables had attained that satiny finish
+which comes only with long usage and tireless use of the brush. There
+was also a shrine and a clock, the latter of antique Norman make and
+design.
+
+The smell of the roasting fowls and the herbs used by the maker of the
+sauces, a hungry palate found even more exciting than this most
+original of kitchens. There was a wine that went with the sauce; this
+fact Monsieur Paul explained, on our sitting down to the noonday meal;
+one which, in remembrance of Monsieur Renard's injunctions, he would
+suggest our trying. He crossed the courtyard and disappeared into the
+bowels of the earth, beneath one of the inn buildings, to bring forth a
+bottle incrusted with layers of moist dirt. This Sauterne was by
+some, Monsieur Paul smilingly explained, considered as among the real
+treasures of the inn. Both it and the sauce, we were enabled to assure
+him a moment later, had that golden softness which make French wines
+and French sauces at their best the rapture of the palate.
+
+In the courtyard, as our breakfast proceeded, a variety of incidents
+was happening. We were facing the open archway; through it one looked
+out upon the high-road. A wheelbarrow passed, trundled by a peasant-
+girl; the barrow stopped, the girl leaving it for an instant to cross
+the court.
+
+"_Bonjour, mere--_"
+
+"_Bonjour, ma fille_--it goes well?" a deep guttural voice responded,
+just outside of the window.
+
+"_Justement_--I came to tell you the mare has foaled and Jean will be
+late to-night."
+
+"_Bien._"
+
+"And Barbarine is still angry--"
+
+"Make up with her, my child--anger is an evil bird to take to one's
+heart," the deep voice went on.
+
+"It is my mother," explained Monsieur Paul. "It is her favorite seat,
+out yonder, on the green bench in the courtyard. I call it her judge's
+bench," he smiled, indulgently, as he went on. "She dispenses justice
+with more authority than any other magistrate in town. I am Mayor, as
+it happens, just now; but madame my mother is far above me, in real
+power. She rules the town and the country about, for miles. Everyone
+comes to her sooner or later for counsel and command. You will soon see
+for yourselves."
+
+A murmur of assent from all the table accompanied Monsieur Paul's
+prophecy.
+
+"_Femme vraiment remarquable_," hoarsely whispered a stout breakfaster,
+behind his napkin, between two spoonsful of his soup.
+
+"Not two in a century like her," said my neighbor.
+
+"No--nor two in all France--_non plus_," retorted the stout man.
+
+"She could rule a kingdom--hey, Paul?"
+
+"She rules me--as you see--and a man is harder to govern than a
+province, they say," smiled Monsieur Paul with a humorous relish,
+obviously the offspring of experience. "In France, mesdames," he added,
+a sweeter look of feeling coming into the deep eyes, "you see we are
+always children--_toujours enfants_--as long as the mother lives. We
+are never really old till she dies. May the good God preserve her!" and
+he lifted his glass toward the green bench. The table drank the toast,
+in silence.
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLES--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE GREEN BENCH.
+
+
+In the course of the first few days we learned what all Dives had known
+for the past fifty years or so--that the focal point of interest in the
+inn was centred in Madame Le Mois. She drew us, as she had the country
+around for miles, to circle close about her green bench.
+
+The bench was placed at the best possible point for one who, between
+dawn and darkness, made it the business of her life to keep her eye on
+her world. Not the tiniest mouse nor the most spectral shade could
+enter or slip away beneath the open archway without undergoing
+inspection from that omniscient eye, that seemed never to blink nor to
+grow weary. This same eye could keep its watch, also, over the entire
+establishment, with no need of the huge body to which it was attached
+moving a hair's-breadth. Was it Nitouche, the head-cook, who was
+grumbling because the kitchen-wench had not scoured the brass saucepans
+to the last point of mirrory brightness? Behold both Nitouche and the
+trembling peasant-girl, together with the brasses as evidence, all
+could be brought at an instant's call, into the open court. Were the
+maids--were Marianne or Lizette neglecting their work to flirt with the
+coachmen in the sheds yonder?
+
+"_Allons, mes filles--doucement, la-bas--et vos lits? qui les
+fait--les bons saints du paradis, peut-etre?_" And Marianne and Lizette
+would slink away to the waiting beds. Nothing escaped this eye. If the
+_poule sultane_ was gone lame, limping in the inner quadrangle,
+madame's eye saw the trouble--a thorn in the left claw, before the
+feathered cripple had had time to reach her objective point, her
+mistress's capacious lap, and the healing touch of her skilful
+surgeon's fingers. Neither were the cockatoes nor the white parrots
+given license to make all the noise in the court-yard. When madame had
+an unusually loquacious moment, these more strictly professional
+conversationists were taught their place.
+
+"_E'ben, toi_--and thou wishest to proclaim to the world what a gymnast
+thou art--swinging on thy perch? Quietly, quietly, there are also
+others who wish to praise themselves! And now, my child, you were
+telling me how good you had been to your old grandmother, and how she
+scolded you. Well, and how about obedience to our parents, _hein_--how
+about that?" This, as the old face bent to the maiden beside her.
+
+There was one, assuredly, who had not failed in his duty to his
+parents. Monsieur Paul's whole life, as we learned later, had been a
+willing sacrifice to the unconscious tyranny of his mother's affection.
+The son was gifted with those gifts which, in a Parisian atelier, would
+easily have made him successful, if not famous. He had the artistic
+endowment in an unusual degree; it was all one to him, whether he
+modelled in clay, or carved in wood, or stone, or built a house, or
+restored old bric-a-brac. He had inherited the old world roundness of
+artistic ability--his was the plastic renascent touch that might have
+developed into that of a Giotto or a Benvenuto.
+
+It was such a sacrifice as this that he had lain at his mother's feet.
+
+Think you for an instant the clever, witty, canny woman in Madame Le
+Mois looked upon her son's renouncing the world of Paris, and holding
+to the glories of Dives and their famous inn in the light of a
+sacrifice? "_Parbleu!_" she would explode, when the subject was touched
+on, "it was a lucky thing for him that Paul had had an old mother to
+keep him from burning his fingers. Paris! What did the provinces want
+with Paris? Paris had need enough of them, the great, idle, shiftless,
+dissipated, cruel old city, that ground all their sons to powder, and
+then scattered their ashes abroad like so many cinders. Oh, yes, Paris
+couldn't get along without the provinces, to plunder and rob, to seduce
+their sons away from living good, pure lives, and to suck these lives
+as a pig would a trough of fresh water! But the provinces, if they
+valued their souls, shunned Paris as they would the devil. And as for
+artists--when it came to the young of the provinces, who thought they
+could paint or model--
+
+"_Tenez, madame_--this is what Paris does for our young. My neighbor
+yonder," and she pointed, as only Frenchwomen point, sticking her thumb
+into the air to designate a point back of her bench, "my neighbor had
+a son like Paul. He too was always niggling at something. He niggled
+so well a rich cousin sent him up to Paris. Well, in ten years he
+comes back, famous, rich, too, with a wife and even a child. The
+establishment is complete. Well, they come here to breakfast one fine
+morning, with his mother, whom he put at a side table, with his
+nurse--he is ashamed of his mother, you see. Well, then his wife talks
+and I hear her. '_Mais, mon Charles, c'est toi qui est le plus
+fameux--il n'y a que toi! Tu es un dieu, tu sais--il n'y a pas deux
+comme toi!_' The famous one deigns to smile then, and to eat of his
+breakfast. His digestion had gone wrong, it appears. The _Figaro_ had
+placed his name second on a certain list, _after_ a rival's! He alone
+must be great--there must not be another god of painting save him! He!
+He! that's fine, that's greatness--to lose one's appetite because
+another is praised, and to be ashamed of one's old mother!"
+
+Madame Le Mois's face, for a moment, was terrible to look upon. Even in
+her kindliest moments hers was a severe countenance, in spite of the
+true Norman curves in mouth and nostril--the laughter-loving curves.
+Presently, however, the fierceness of her severity melted; she had
+caught sight of her son. He was passing her, now, with the wine bottles
+for dinner piled up in his arms.
+
+"You see," croaked the mother, in an exultant whisper, "I've saved him
+from all that--he's happy, for he still works. In the winter he can
+amuse himself, when he likes, with his carving and paintbrushes. Ah,
+_tiens, du monde qui arrive!_" And the old woman seated herself, with
+an air of great dignity, to receive the new-comers.
+
+The world that came in under the low archway was of an altogether
+different character from any we had as yet seen. In a satin-lined
+victoria, amid the cushions, lay a young and lovely-eyed Anonyma.
+Seated beside her was a weak-featured man, with a huge flower
+decorating his coat lappel. This latter individual divided the seat
+with an army of small dogs who leaped forth as the carriage stopped.
+
+Madame Le Mois remained immovable on her bench. Her face was as
+enigmatic as her voice, as it gave Suzette the order to show the lady
+to the salon bleu. The high Louis XV. slipper, as it picked its way
+carefully after Suzette, never seemed more distinctly astray than when
+its fair wearer confided her safety to the insecure footing of the
+rough, uneven cobbles. In a brief half-hour the frou-frou of her silken
+skirts was once more sweeping the court-yard. She and her companion
+and the dogs chose the open air and a tent of sky for their
+banqueting-hall. Soon all were seated at one of the many tables placed
+near the kitchen, beneath the rose-vines.
+
+Madame gave the pair a keen, dissecting glance. Her verdict was
+delivered more in the emphasis of her shrug and the humor of her broad
+wink than in the loud-whispered "_Comme vous voyez, chere dame, de
+toutes sortes ici, chez nous--mais--toujours bon genre!_"
+
+The laughter of one who could not choose her world was stopped,
+suddenly, by the dipping of the thick fingers into an old snuff-box.
+That very afternoon the court-yard saw another arrival; this one was
+treated in quite a different spirit.
+
+A dog-cart was briskly driven into the yard by a gentleman who did not
+appear to be in the best of humor. He drew his horse up with a sudden
+fierceness; he as fiercely called out for the hostler. Monsieur Paul
+bit his lip; but he composedly confronted the disturbed countenance
+perched on the driver's seat. The gentleman wished.
+
+"I want indemnity--that is what I want. Indemnity for my horse," cried
+out a thick, coarse voice, with insolent authority.
+
+"For your horse? I do not think I understand--"
+
+"O--h, I presume not," retorted the man, still more insolently; "people
+don't usually understand when they have to pay. I came here a week ago,
+and stayed two days; and you starved my horse--and he died--that is
+what happened--he died!"
+
+The whole court-yard now rang with the cries of the assembled
+household. The high, angry tones had called together the last
+serving-man and scullery-maid; the cooks had come out from their
+kitchens; they were brandishing their long-handled saucepans. The
+peasant-women were shrieking in concert with the hostlers, who were
+raising their arms to heaven in proof of their innocence. Dogs, cats,
+cockatoes swinging on their perches, peacocks, parrots, pelicans, and
+every one of the cocks swarmed from the barnyards and garden and
+cellars, to add their shrill cries and shrieks to the universal babel.
+
+Meanwhile, calm and unruffled as a Hindoo goddess, and strikingly
+similar in general massiveness of structure and proportion to the
+common reproduction of such deities, sat Madame Le Mois. She went on
+with her usual occupation; she was dipping fresh-cut salad leaves into
+great bowls of water as quietly as if only her own little family were
+assembled before her. Once only she lifted her heavily-moulded,
+sagacious eyebrow at the irate dog-cart driver, as if to measure his
+pitiful strength. She allowed the fellow, however, to touch the
+point of abuse before she crushed him.
+
+Her first sentence reduced him to the ignominy of silence. All her
+people were also silent. What, the deep sarcastic voice chanted on the
+still air--what, this gentleman's horse had died--and yet he had waited
+a whole week to tell them of the great news? He was, of a truth,
+altogether too considerate. His own memory, perhaps, was also a short
+one, since it told him nothing of the condition in which the poor beast
+had arrived, dropping with fatigue, wet with sweat, his mouth all
+blood, and an eye as of one who already was past the consciousness of
+his suffering? Ah no, monsieur should go to those who also had short
+memories.
+
+"For we use our eyes--we do. We are used to deal with gentlemen--with
+Christians" (the Hebrew nose of the owner of the dead horse, even more
+plainly abused the privilege of its pedigree in proving its race, by
+turning downward, at this onslaught of the mere's satire), "as I said,
+with Christians," continued the mere, pitilessly. "And do those
+gentlemen complain and put upon us the death of their horses? No, my
+fine sir, they return--_ils reviennent, et sont revenus depuis la
+Conquete!_"
+
+With this fine climax madame announced the court as closed. She bowed
+disdainfully, with a grand and magisterial air, to the defeated
+claimant, who crept away, sulkily, through the low archway.
+
+"That is the way to deal with such vermin, Paul; whip them, and they
+turn tail." And the mere shook out a great laugh from her broad bosom,
+as she regaled her wide nostrils with a fresh pinch of snuff. The
+assembled household echoed the laugh, seasoning it with the glee of
+scorn, as each went to his allotted place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE WORLD THAT CAME TO DIVES.
+
+
+It was a world of many mixtures, of various ranks and habits of life
+that found its way under the old archway, and sat down at the table
+d'hote breakfasts and dinners. Madame and her gifted son were far too
+clever to attempt to play the mistaken part of Providence; there was no
+pointed assortment made of the sheep and the goats; at least, not in a
+way to suggest the most remote intention of any such separation being
+premeditated. Such separation as there was came about in the most
+natural and in the pleasantest possible fashion. When Petitjean, the
+pedler, and his wife drove in under the Gothic sign, the huge lumbering
+vehicle was as quickly surrounded as when any of the neighboring
+notabilities arrived in emblazoned chariots. Madame was the first to
+waddle forward, nodding up toward the open hood as, with a short,
+brisk, business "_Bonjour_," she welcomed the head of Petitjean and his
+sharp-eyed spouse looking over the aprons.
+
+The pedler is always popular with his world and Dives knew Petitjean to
+be as honest as a pedler can ever hope to be in a world where small
+pence are only made large by some one being sacrificed on the altar of
+duplicity. Therefore it was that Petitjean's hearse-like cart was
+always a welcome visitor;--one could at least be as sure of a just
+return for one's money in trading with a pedler as from any other
+source in this thieving world. In the end, one always got something
+else besides the bargain to carry away with one. For Petitjean knew
+all the gossip of the province; after dinner, when the stiff cider was
+working in his veins, he would be certain to tell all one wanted to
+know. Even Madame Le Mois, whose days were too busy in summer to
+include the daily reading of her newspaper, had grown dependent, in
+these her later years, on such sources of information as the peddler's
+garrulous tongue supplied. In the end she had found his talent for
+fiction quite as reliable as that of the journalists, besides
+being infinitely more entertaining, abounding in personalities which
+were the more racy, as the pedler felt himself to be exempt from that
+curse of responsibility, which, in French journalism, is so often a
+barrier to the full play of one's talent.
+
+Therefore it was that Petitjean and his bright-eyed spouse were always
+made welcome at Dives.
+
+"It goes well, Madame Jean? Ah, there you are. Well, _hein_, also? It
+is long since we saw you."
+
+"Ah, madame, centuries, it is centuries since we were here. But what
+will you have? with the bad season, the rains, the banks failing,
+the--but you, madame, are well? And Monsieur Paul?" "_Ah, ca va tout
+doucement_ Paul is well, the good God be praised, but I--I perish day
+by day" At which the entire court-yard was certain to burst into
+laughing protest. For the whole household of Guillaume le Conquerant
+was quite sure to be assembled about the great wheels of the pedler's
+wagon--only to look, not to buy, not yet. Petitjean, and his wife had
+not dined yet, and a pedler's hunger is something to be respected--one
+made money by waiting for the hour of digestion. The little crowd of
+maids, hostlers, cooks, and scullery wenches, were only here to whet
+their appetite, and to greet Petitjean. Nitouche, the head _chef_, put
+a little extra garlic in his sauces that day. But in spite of this
+compliment to their palate, the pedler and his wife dined in the
+smaller room off the kitchen;--Madame was desolated, but the
+_salle-a-manger_ was crowded just now. One was really suffocated in
+there these days! Therefore it was that the two ate the herbaceous
+sauces with an extra relish, as those conscious of having a larger
+space for the play of vagrant elbows than their less fortunate
+brethren. The gossip and trading came later. On the edge of the fading
+daylight there was still time to see; the chosen articles could easily
+be taken into the brightly lit kitchen to be passed before the lamps.
+After the buying and bargaining came the talking. All the household
+could find time to spend the evening on the old benches; these latter
+lined the sidewalk just beneath the low kitchen casements. They had
+been here for many a long year.
+
+What a history of Dives these old benches could have told! What
+troopers, and beggars, and cowled monks, and wayfarers had sat
+there!--each sitter helping to wear away the wood till it had come to
+have the depressions of a drinking-trough. Night after night in the
+long centuries, as the darkness fell upon the hamlet--what tales and
+confidences, and what murmured anguish of remorse, what cries for help,
+what gay talk and light song must have welled up into the dome of sky!
+
+Once, as we sat within the court-yard, under the stars, a young voice
+sang out. It was so still and quiet every word the youth phrased was as
+clear as his fresh young voice.
+
+"_Tiens_--it is Mathieu--he is singing _Les Oreillers!_" cried Monsieur
+Paul, with an accent of pride in his own tone.
+
+The young voice sang on:
+
+  "_J'arrive en ce pays
+  De Basse Normandie,
+  Vous dire une chanson,
+  S'il plait la compagnie!_"
+
+"It is an old Norman bridal song," Monsieur Paul went on, lowering his
+voice. "One I taught a lot of young boys and lads last winter--for a
+wedding held here--in the inn."
+
+Still the fresh notes filled the air:
+
+  "_Les amours sont partis
+  Dans un bateau de verre;
+  Le bateau a casse
+  a casse--
+  Les amours sont parterre._"
+
+"How the old women laughed--and cried--at once! It was years since they
+had heard it--the old song. And when these boys--their sons and
+grandsons--sang it, and I had trained them well--they wept for pure
+delight."
+
+Again the song went on:
+
+  "_Ouvrez la porte, ouvrez!
+  Nouvelle mariee,
+  Car si vous ne l'ouvrez
+  Vous serez accusee_"
+
+"I dressed all the young girls in old costumes," our friend continued,
+still in a whisper. "I ransacked all the old chests and closets about
+here. I got the ladies of the chateaux near by to aid me; they were so
+interested that many came down from Paris to see the wedding. It was a
+pretty sight, each in a different dress! Every century since the
+thirteenth was represented."
+
+  "_Attendez a demain,
+  La fraiche matinee,
+  Quand mon oiseau prive
+  Aura pris sa volee!_"
+
+Clear, strong, free rang the young tenor's voice--and then it broke
+into "_Comment--tu dis que Claire est la?_" whereat Monsieur Paul
+smiled.
+
+"That will be the next wedding--what shall I devise for that? That will
+also be the ending of a long lawsuit. But he should have sung the last
+verse--the prettiest of all. Mathieu!" Paul lifted his voice, calling
+into the dark.
+
+_"Oui, Monsieur Paul!"_
+
+"Sing us the last verse--"
+
+  "_Dans ce jardin du Roi
+  A pris sa reposee,
+  Cueillant le romarin
+  La--vande--bouton--nee--_"
+
+The last notes were but faint vibrations, coming from a lengthening
+distance.
+
+"Ah!" and Monsieur Paul breathed a sigh. "They don't care about
+singing. They are doing it all the time they are so much in love. The
+fathers' lawsuit ended only last month. They've waited three years--
+happy Claire--happy Mathieu!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE CONVERSATION OF PATRIOTS.
+
+
+The world that found its way to the mayor's table at this early period
+of the summer season was largely composed of the class that travels
+chiefly to amuse others. The commercial gentlemen in France, however,
+have the outward bearing of those who travel to amuse themselves. The
+selling of other people's goods--it is surely as good an excuse as any
+other for seeing the world! Such an occupation offers an orator, one
+gifted in conversational talents--talents it would be a pity to see
+buried in the domestic napkin--a fine arena for display.
+
+The French commercial traveller is indeed a genus apart; he makes a
+fetish of his trade; he preaches his propaganda. The fat and the lean,
+the tall and the little, the well or meanly dressed representatives of
+the great French houses who sat down to dine, as our neighbors or
+_vis-a-vis_, night after night, were, on the whole, a great credit to
+their country. Their manners might have been mistaken for those of a
+higher rank; their gifts as talkers were of such an order as to make
+listening the better part of discretion.
+
+Dining is always a serious act in France. At this inn the sauces of the
+_chef_, with their reputation behind them, and the proof of their real
+excellence before one, the dinner-hour was elevated to the importance
+of a ceremony. How the petty merchants and the commercial gentlemen
+ate, at first in silence, as if respecting the appeal imposed by a
+great hunger, and then warming into talk as the acid cider was passed
+again and again! What crunching of the sturdy, dark-colored bread
+between the great knuckles! What huge helps of the famous sauces! What
+insatiable appetites! What nice appreciation of the right touch of the
+tricksy garlic! What nodding of heads, clinking of glasses, and
+warmth of friendship established over the wine-cups! At dessert
+everyone talked at once. On one occasion the subject of Gambetta's
+death was touched on; all the table, as one man, broke out into an
+effervescence of political babble.
+
+"What a loss! What a death-blow to France was his death!" exclaimed a
+heavy young man in a pink cravat.
+
+"If Gambetta had lived, Alsace and Lorraine would be ours now, without
+the firing of a gun!" added an elderly merchant at the foot of the
+table.
+
+"Ah--h! without the firing of a gun they will come to us yet. I tell
+you, without the firing of a gun--unless we insist on a battle,"
+explosively rejoined a fiery-hued little man sitting next to Monsieur
+Paul; "but you will see--we shall insist. There is between us and
+Germany an inextinguishable hate--and we must kill, kill, right and
+left!"
+
+"_Allons--allons!_" protested the table, in chorus.
+
+"Yes, yes, a general massacre, that is what we want; that is what we
+must have. Men, women, and children--all must fall. I am a married
+man--but not a woman or a child shall escape--when the time comes,"
+continued the fiery-eyed man, getting more and more ferocious as he
+warmed with the thought of his revenge.
+
+"What a monster!" broke in Madame Le Mois, her deep base notes
+unruffled by the spectacle of her bloodthirsty neighbor's violence;
+"you--to bayonet a woman with a child in her arms!"
+
+"I would--I would--"
+
+"Then you would be more cruel than they were. They treated our women
+with respect."
+
+There was a murmur of assenting applause, at this sentiment of justice,
+from the table. But the fiery-eyed man was not to be put down.
+
+"Oh, yes, they were generous enough in '71, but I should remember their
+insults of 1815!"
+
+"_Ancienne histoire--ca_" said the mere, dismissing the subject, with a
+humorous wink at the table.
+
+"As you see," was Monsieur Paul's comment on the conversation, as we
+were taking our after-dinner stroll in the garden--"as you see, that
+sort of person is the bad element in our country--the dangerous
+element--unreasoning, revengeful, and ignorant. It is such men as he
+who still uphold hatreds and keep the flame alive. It is better to have
+no talent at all for politics--to be harmless like me, for instance,
+whose worst vice is to buy up old laces and carvings."
+
+"And roses--"
+
+"Yes--that is another of my vices--to perpetuate the old varieties.
+They call me along our coast the millionnaire--of roses! Will you have
+a 'Marie Louise,' mademoiselle?"
+
+The garden was as complete in its old time aspect as the rest of the
+inn belongings. Only the older, rarer varieties of flowers and rose
+stalks had been chosen to bloom within the beautifully arranged
+inclosure. _Citronnelle_, purple irises, fringed asters, sage,
+lavender, _rose-peche_, bachelor's-button, _the d'Horace_, and the
+wonderful electric fraxinelle, these and many other shrubs and plants
+of the older centuries were massed here with the taste of one difficult
+to please in horticultural arrangements. Our after-dinner walks became
+an event in our day. At that hour the press of the day's work was over,
+and Madame Mere or Monsieur Paul were always ready to join us for a
+stroll.
+
+"For myself, I do not like large gardens," Monsieur Paul remarked,
+during one of these after-dinner saunters. "The monks, in the old days,
+knew just the right size a garden should be--small and sheltered, with
+walls--like a strong arm about a pretty woman--to protect the shrubs
+and flowers. One should enter the garden, also, by a gate which must
+click as it closes--the click tickles the imagination--it is the sound
+henceforth connected with silence, with perfumes and seclusion. How far
+away we seem now, do we not?--from the bustle of the inn court-yard--and
+yet I could throw a stone into it."
+
+The only saunterers besides ourselves were the flamingo, who,
+cautiously, timorously picked his way--as if he were conscious he was
+only a bunch of feathers hoisted on stilts; the white parrot, who was
+wabbling across the lawn to a favorite perch in the leaves of a
+tropical palm; and the peacock, whose train had been spread with a due
+regard to effect across a bed of purple irises, with a view to
+annihilating the brilliancy of their rival hues.
+
+The bit of sky framed by these four garden walls always seemed more
+delicate in tone than that which covered the open court-yard. The birds
+in the bushes had moments of melodious outbursts they did not,
+apparently, indulge in along the high-road. And what with the fading
+lights, the stars pricking their way among the palms, the scents of
+flowers, and the talk of a poet, it is little wonder that this twilight
+hour in the old garden was certain to be the most lyrical of the
+twenty-four.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+IN LA CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS.
+
+
+"It is the winters, mesdames, that are hard to bear. They are long--they
+are dull. No one passes along the high-road. It is then, when sometimes
+the snow is piled knee-deep in the court-yard, it is then I try to
+amuse myself a little. Last year I did the Jumieges sculptures; they fit
+in well, do they not?"
+
+It was raining; and Monsieur Paul was paying us an evening call. A
+great fire was burning in the beautiful Francois I. fireplace of our
+sitting-room, the famous Chambre des Marmousets. We had not consented
+that any of the lights should be lit, although the lovely little Louis
+XIV. chandelier and the antique brass sconces were temptingly filled
+with fresh candles. The flames of the great logs would suffer no rival
+illuminations; if the trunks of full-grown trees could not suffice to
+light up an old room, with low-raftered ceilings, and a mass of bric-a-
+brac, what could a few thin waxen candles hope to do?
+
+On many other occasions we had thought our marvellous sitting-room had
+had exceptional moments of beauty. To turn in from the sunlit, open
+court-yard; to pass beneath, the vine-hung gallery; to lift the great
+latch of the low Gothic door and to enter the rich and sumptuous
+interior, where the light came, as in cathedral aisles, only through
+the jewels of fourteenth-century glass; to close the door; to sit
+beneath the prismatic shower, ensconced in a nest of old tapestried
+cushions, and to let the eye wander over the wealth of carvings, of
+ceramics, of Spanish and Normandy trousseaux chests, on the collection
+of antique chairs, Dutch porcelains, and priceless embroideries--all
+the riches of a museum in a living-room--such a moment in the
+Marmousets we had tested again and again with delectable results. At
+twilight, also, when the garden was submerged in dew, this old
+seigneurial chamber was a retreat fit for a sybarite or a modern
+aesthete. The stillness, the soft luxurious cushions, the rich dusk
+thickening in the corners, the complete isolation of the old room from
+the noise and tumult of the inn life, its curious, its delightful
+unmodernness, made this Marmouset room an ideal setting for any
+mediaeval picture. Even a sentiment tinctured with modern cynicism
+would, I think, have borrowed a little antique fervor, if, like the
+photographic negative our nineteenth-century emotionalism somewhat too
+closely resembles, in its colorless indefiniteness, the sentiment
+were sufficiently exposed, in point of time and degree of
+sensitiveness, to the charm of these old surroundings.
+
+On this particular evening, however, the pattering of the rain without
+on the cobbles and the great blaze of the fire within, made the old
+room seem more beautiful than we had yet seen it. Perhaps the capture
+of our host as a guest was the added treasure needed to complete our
+collection. Monsieur Paul himself was in a mood of prodigal liberality;
+he was, as he himself neatly termed the phrase, ripe for confession;
+not a secret should escape revelation; all the inn mysteries should
+yield up the fiction of their frauds; the full nakedness of fact should
+be given to us.
+
+"You see, _cheres dames_, it is not so difficult to create the beautiful,
+if one has a little taste and great patience. My inn--it has become my
+hobby, my pride, my wife, my children. Some men marry their art, I
+espoused my inn. I found her poor, tattered, broken-down, in health, if
+you will; verily, as your Shakespeare says of some country wench: 'a
+poor thing but mine own.'" Monsieur Paul's possession of the English
+language was scarcely as complete as the storehouse of his memory. He
+would have been surprised, doubtless, to learn he had called poor
+Audrey, "a pure ting, buttaire my noon!"
+
+"She was, however," he continued, securely, in his own richer Norman,
+"though a wench, a beautiful one. And I vowed to make her glorious.
+'She shall be famous,' I vowed, and--and--better than most men I have
+kept my vow. All France now has heard of Guillaume le Conquerant!"
+
+The pride Monsieur Paul took in his inn was indeed a fine thing to see.
+The years of toil he had spent on its walls and in its embellishment
+had brought him the recompense much giving always brings; it had
+enriched him quite as much as the wealth of his taste and talent had
+bequeathed to the inn. Latterly, he said, he had travelled much, his
+collection of curios and antiquities having called him farther afield
+than many Frenchmen care to wander. His love of Delft had taken him to
+Holland; his passion for Spanish leather to the country of Velasquez;
+he must have a Virgin, a genuine fifteenth-century Virgin, all his
+own; behold her there, in her stiff wooden skirts, a Neapolitan
+captive. The brass braziers yonder, at which the courtiers of the
+Henris had warmed their feet, stamping the night out in cold ante
+chambers, had been secured at Blois; and his collection of tapestries,
+of stained glass, of Normandy brasses, and Breton carvings had made his
+own coast as familiar as the Dives streets.
+
+"The priests who sold me these, madame," he went on, as he picked up a
+priest's chasuble, now doing duty as a table covering "would sell their
+fathers and their mothers. It is all a question of price."
+
+After a review of the curios came the history of the human collection
+of antiquities who had peopled the inn and this old room.
+
+Many and various had been the visitors who had slept and dined here and
+gone forth on their travels along the high-road.
+
+The inn had had a noble origin; it had been built by no less a
+personage than the great William himself. He had deemed the spot a
+fitting one in which to build his boats to start forth for his modest
+project of conquering England. He could watch their construction in the
+waters of Dives River--that flows still, out yonder, among the grasses
+of the sea-meadows. For some years the Norman dukes held to the inn, in
+memory of the success of that clever boat-building. Then for five
+centuries the inn became a manoir--the seigneurial residence of a
+certain Sieur de Semilly. It was his arms we saw yonder, joined to
+those of Savoy, in the door panel, one of the family having married
+into a branch of that great house.
+
+Of the famous ones of the world who had travelled along this Caen
+post-road and stopped the night here, humanly tired, like any other
+humble wayfarer, was a hurried visit from that king who loved his
+trade--Louis XI. He and his suite crowded into the low rooms, grateful
+for a bed and a fire, after the weary pilgrimage to the heights of Mont
+St. Michel. Louis's piety, however, was not as lasting in its
+physically exhaustive effects, as were the fleshly excesses of a
+certain other king--one Henri IV., whose over-appreciation of the
+oysters served him here, caused a royal attack of colic, as you may
+read at your pleasure in the State Archives in Paris--since, quite
+rightly, the royal secretary must write the court physician every
+detail of so important an event. What with these kingly travellers and
+such modern uncrowned kings as Puvis de Chavannes, Dumas, George Sand,
+Daubigny, and Troyon, together with a goodly number of lesser great
+ones, the famous little inn has had no reason to feel itself slighted
+by the great of any century. Of all this motley company of notabilities
+there were two whose visits seemed to have been indefinitely prolonged.
+There was nothing, in this present flowery, picturesque assemblage of
+buildings, to suggest a certain wild drama enacted here centuries ago.
+Nothing either in yonder tender sky, nor in the silvery foliage on a
+fair day, which should conjure up the image of William as he must have
+stood again and again beside the little river; nor of the fury of his
+impatience as the boats were building all too slowly for his hot hopes;
+nor of the strange and motley crew he had summoned there from all
+corners of Europe to cut the trees; to build and launch boats; to sail
+them, finally, across the strip of water to that England he was to meet
+at last, to grapple with, and overthrow, even as the English huscarles
+in their turn bore down on that gay Minstrel Taillefer, who rode so
+insolently forth to meet them, with a song in his throat, tossing his
+sword in English eyes, still chanting the song of Roland as he fell.
+None of the inn features were in the least informed with this great,
+impressive picture of its past. Yet does William seem by far the most
+realizable of all the personages who have inhabited the old house.
+
+There was another visitor whose presence Monsieur Paul declared was as
+entirely real as if she, also, had only just passed within the
+court-yard.
+
+"I know not why it is, but of all these great, _ces fameux_, Madame de
+Sevigne seems to me the nearest, in point of time. Her visit appears to
+have happened only yesterday. I never enter her room but I seem to see
+her moving about, talking, laughing, speaking in epigrams. She mentions
+the inn, you know, in her letters. She gives the details of her journey
+in full."
+
+I, also, knew not why; but, later, after Monsieur Paul had left us,
+when he had shut himself out, along with the pattering raindrops, and
+had closed us in with the warmth and the flickering fire-light, there
+came, with astonishing clearness, a vision of that lady's visit here.
+She and her company of friends might have been stopping, that very
+instant, without, in the open court. I, also, seemed to hear the very
+tones of their voices; their talk was as audible as the wind rustling
+in the vines. In the growing stillness the vision grew and grew, till
+this was what I saw and heard:
+
+
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY REVIVAL.
+
+
+Outside the inn, some two hundred years ago, there was a great noise
+and confusion; the cries of outriders, of mounted guardsmen and
+halberdiers, made the quiet village as noisy as a camp. An imposing
+cavalcade was being brought to a sharp stop; for the outriders had
+suddenly perceived the open inn entrance, with its raised portcullis,
+and they were shouting to the coachmen to turn in, beneath the archway,
+to the paved court-yard within.
+
+In an incredibly short space of time the open quadrangle presented a
+brilliant picture; the dashing guardsmen were dismounting; the maids
+and lackeys had quickly descended from their perches in the caleches
+and coaches; and the gentlemen of the household were dusting their wide
+hats and lace-trimmed coats. The halberdiers, ranging themselves in
+line, made a prismatic grouping beneath the low eaves of the
+picturesque old inn. In the very middle of the court-yard stood a
+coach, resplendent in painted panels and emblazoned with ducal arms.
+About this coach, as soon as the four horses which drew the vehicle
+were brought to a standstill, cavaliers, footmen, and maids swarmed
+with effusive zeal. One of the footmen made a rush for the door:
+another let down the steps; one cavalier was already presenting an
+outstretched, deferential hand, while still another held forth an arm,
+as rigid as a post, for the use of the occupants of the ducal carriage.
+
+Three ladies were seated within. Large and roomy as was the vehicle,
+their voluminous draperies and the paraphernalia of their belongings
+seemed completely to fill the wide, deep seats. The ladies were the
+Duchesse de Chaulnes, Madame de Kerman, and Madame de Sevigne. The
+faces of the Duchesse and of Madame de Kerman were invisible, being
+still covered with their masks, which, both as a matter of habit and of
+precaution against the sun's rays, they had religiously worn during the
+long day's journey. But Madame de Sevigne had torn hers off; she was
+holding it in her hand, as if glad to be relieved from its confinement.
+
+All three ladies were in the highest possible spirits, Madame de
+Sevigne obviously being the leader of the jests and the laughter.
+
+They were in a mood to find everything amusing and delightful. Even
+after they had left the coach and were carefully picking their way over
+the rough stones--walking on their high-heeled "mules" at best, was
+always a dangerous performance--their laughter and gayety continued in
+undiminished exuberance. Madame de Sevigne's keen sense of humor found
+so many things to ridicule. Could anything, for example, be more
+comical than the spectacle they presented as they walked, in state,
+with their long trains and high-heeled slippers, up these absurd little
+turret steps, feeling their way as carefully as if they were each
+a pickpocket or an assassin? The long line behind of maids carrying
+their muffs, and of lackeys with the muff-dogs, and of pages holding
+their trains, and the grinning innkeeper, bursting with pride and
+courtesying as if he had St. Vitus's dance, all this crowd coiling
+round the rude spiral stairway--it was enough to make one die of
+laughter. Such state in such savage surroundings!--they and their
+patch-boxes, and towering head-gears and trains, and dogs and fans, all
+crowded into a place fit only for peasants!
+
+When they reached their bedchambers the ridicule was turned into a
+condescending admiration; they found their rooms unexpectedly clean and
+airy. The furniture was all antique, of interesting design, and though
+rude, really astonishingly comfortable. Beds and dressing-tables,
+mostly of Henry III's time, were elaborately canopied in the hideous
+crude draperies of that primitive epoch. How different were the elegant
+shapes and brocades of their own time! Fortunately their women had
+suitable hangings and draperies with them, as well, of course, as any
+amount of linen and any number of mattresses. The settees and benches
+would do very well, with the aid of their own hassocks and cushions,
+and, after all, it was only for a night, they reminded the other.
+
+The toilet, after the heat and exposure of the day, was necessarily a
+long one. The Duchesse and Madame de Kerman had their faces to make
+up--all the paint had run, and not a patch was in its place. Hair,
+also, of this later de Maintenon period, with its elaborate artistic
+ranges of curls, to say nothing of the care that must be given to the
+coif and the "follette," these were matters that demanded the utmost
+nicety of arrangement.
+
+In an hour, however, the three ladies reassembled, in the panelled
+lower room--in "la Chambre de la Pucelle." In spite of the care her two
+companions had given to repairing the damages caused by their journey,
+of the three, Madame de Sevigne looked by far the freshest and
+youngest. She still wore her hair in the loosely flowing de Montespan
+fashion; a style which, though now out of date, was one that exactly
+suited her fair skin, her candid brow, and her brilliant eyes. These
+latter, when one examined them closely, were found to be of different
+colors; but this peculiarity, which might have been a serious defect in
+any other countenance, in Madame de Sevigne's brilliant face was
+perhaps one cause of its extraordinarily luminous quality. Not one
+feature was perfect in that fascinatingly mobile face: the chin was a
+trifle too long for a woman's chin; the lips, that broke into such
+delicious curves when she laughed, when at rest betrayed the firmness
+of her wit and the almost masculine quality of her reasoning judgment.
+Even her arms and hands and her shoulders were "_mal tailles_" as her
+contemporaries would have told you. But what a charm in those irregular
+features! What a seductiveness in the ensemble of that not too-well-
+proportioned figure! What an indescribable radiance seemed to emanate
+from the entire personality of this most captivating of women!
+
+As she moved about the low room, dark with the trembling shadows of
+light that flowed from the bunches of candles in the sconces, Madame de
+Sevigne's clear complexion, and her unpowdered chestnut curls, seemed
+to spot the room with light. Her companions, though dressed in the very
+height of the fashion, were yet not half as catching to the eye.
+Neither their minute waists, nor their elaborate underskirts and
+trains, nor their tall coffered coifs (the duchesse's was not unlike a
+bishop's mitre, studded as it was with ruby-headed pins), nor the
+correctness of these ladies' carefully placed patches, nor yet their
+painted necks and tinted eyebrows, could charm as did the unmodish
+figure of Madame de Sevigne--a figure so indifferently clad, and yet
+one so replete with its distinction of innate elegance and the subtle
+charm of her individuality.
+
+With the entrance of these ladies dinner was served at once. The talk
+flowed on; it was, however, more or less restrained by the presence of
+the always too curious lackeys, of the bustling innkeeper, and the
+gentlemen of the household in attendance on the party. As a spectacle,
+the little room had never boasted before of such an assemblage of
+fashion and greatness. Never before had the air under the rafters been
+so loaded with scents and perfumes--these ladies seeming, indeed, to
+breathe out odors. Never before had there been grouped there such
+splendor of toilet, nor had such courtly accents been heard, nor such
+finished laughter. The fire and the candlelight were in competition
+which should best light up the tall transparent caps, the lace fichus,
+the brocade bodices, and the long trains. The little muff-dogs,
+released from their prisons, since the muffs were laid aside at dinner
+time, blinked at the fire, curling their minute bodies--clipped
+lion-fashion--about the huge andirons, as they snored to kill time,
+knowing their own dinner would come only when their mistresses had
+done.
+
+After the dessert had been served the ladies withdrew; they were
+preceded by the ever-bowing innkeeper, who assured them, in his most
+reverential tones, that they would find the room opening on the other
+court-yard even warmer and more comfortable than the one they were in.
+In spite of the walk across the paved court-yard and the enormous
+height of their heels, always a fact to be remembered, the ladies
+voted to make the change, since by that means they could be assured
+the more entire seclusion. Mild as was the May air, Madame de Kerman's
+hand-glass hanging at her side was quickly lifted in the very middle of
+the open court-yard; she had scarcely passed the door when she had felt
+one of her patches blowing off.
+
+"I caught it just in time, dear duchesse," she cried, as she stood
+quite still, replacing it with a fresh one picked from her patch-box,
+as the others passed her.
+
+"The very best patch-maker I have found lives in the rue St. Denis, at
+the sign of La Perle des Mouches; have you discovered him, dear
+friend?" said the duchesse, as they walked on toward the low door
+beneath the galleries.
+
+"No, dear duchesse, I fear I have not even looked for him--the science
+of patches I have always found so much harder than the science of
+living!" gayly answered Madame de Sevigne.
+
+Madame de Kerman had now re joined them, and all three passed into la
+Chambre des Marmousets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE AFTER-DINNER TALK OF THREE GREAT LADIES.
+
+
+The three ladies grouped themselves about the fire, which they found
+already lighted. The duchesse chose a Henry II. carved aim chair, one,
+she laughingly remarked, quite large enough to have held both the King
+and Diana. A lackey carrying the inevitable muff-dogs, their fans, and
+scent-bottles, had followed the ladies; he placed a hassock at the
+duchesse's feet, two beneath the slender feet of Madame de Kerman, and,
+after having been bidden to open one of the casements, since it was
+still so light without, withdrew, leaving the ladies alone.
+
+Although Madame de Sevigne had comfortably ensconced herself in one of
+the deep window seats, piling the cushions behind her, no sooner was
+the window opened than with characteristic impetuosity she jumped up to
+look out into the country that lay beyond the leaded glass. In spite of
+the long day's drive in the open air, her appetite for blowing roses
+and sweet earth smells had not been sated. Madame de Sevigne all her
+life had been the victim of two loves and a passion; she adored society
+and she loved nature; these were her lesser delights, that gave way
+before the chief idolatry of her soul, her adoration for her daughter.
+
+[Illustration: MADAME DE SEVIGNE]
+
+As she stood by the open window, her charming face, always a mirror of
+her emotions, was suffused with a glow and a bloom that made it seem
+young again. Her eyes grew to twice their common size under the
+"wandering" eyelids, as her gaze roved over the meadows and across the
+tall grasses to the sea. A part of her youth was being, indeed, vividly
+brought back to her; the sight of this marine landscape recalled many
+memories; and with the recollection her whole face and figure seemed to
+irradiate something of the inward ardor that consumed her. She had
+passed this very road, through this same country before, long ago,
+in her youth, with her children. She half smiled at the remembrance of
+a description given of the impression produced by her appearance on the
+journey by her friend the Abbe Arnauld; he had ecstatically compared
+her to Latona seated in an open coach, between a youthful Apollo and a
+young Diana. In spite of the abbe's poetical extravagance, Madame de
+Sevigne recognized, in this moment of retrospect, the truth of the
+picture. That, indeed, had been a radiant moment! Her life at that time
+had been so full, and the rapture so complete--the rapture of
+possessing her children--that she could remember to have had the sense
+of fairly evaporating happiness. And now, the sigh came, how scattered
+was this gay group! her son in Brittany, her daughter in Provence, two
+hundred leagues away! And she, an elderly Latona, mourning her Apollo
+and her divine huntress, her incomparable Diana.
+
+The inextinguishable name of youth was burning still, however, in
+Madame de Sevigne's rich nature. This adventure, this amazing adventure
+of three ladies of the court having to pass the night in a rude little
+Normandy inn, she, for one, was finding richly seasoned with the spice
+of the unforeseen; it would be something to talk of and write about for
+a month hence at Chaulnes and at Paris. Their entire journey, in point
+of fact, had been a series of the most delightful episodes. It was now
+nearly a month since they had started from Picardy, from the castle of
+Chaulnes, going into Normandy _via_ Rouen. They had been on a driving
+tour, their destination being Rennes, which they would reach in a week
+or so. They had been travelling in great state, with the very best
+coach, the very best horses; and they had been guarded by a whole
+regiment of cavaliers and halberdiers. Every possible precaution had
+been taken \against their being disagreeably surprised on their route.
+Their chief fear on the journey had been, of course, the cry common in
+their day of "_Au voleur!_" and the meeting of brigands and assassins;
+for, once outside of Paris and the police reforms of that dear Colbert,
+and one must be prepared to take one's life in one's hand. Happily, no
+such misadventures had befallen them. The roads, it is true, they had
+found for the most part in a horrible condition; they had been pitched
+about from one end of their coach to the other they might easily have
+imagined themselves at sea. The dust also had nearly blinded them, in
+spite of their masks. The other nuisances most difficult to put up with
+had been the swarm of beggars that infested the roadsides; and worst of
+all had been the army of crippled, deformed, and mangy soldiers. These
+latter they had encountered everywhere; their whines and cries, their
+armless, legless bodies, their hideous filth, and their insolent
+importunities, they had found a veritable pest.
+
+Another annoyance had been the over-zealous courtesy of some of the
+upper middle-class. Only yesterday, in the very midst of the dust and
+under the burning noon sun, they had all been forced to alight, to
+receive the homage tendered the duchesse, of some thirty women and as
+many men. Each one of the sixty must, of course, kiss the duchesse's
+hand. It was really an outrage to have exposed them to such a form of
+torture! Poor Madame de Kerman, the delicate one of the party, had
+entirely collapsed after the ceremony. The duchesse also had been
+prostrated; it had wearied her more than all the rest of the journey.
+Madame de Sevigne alone had not suffered. She was possessed of a degree
+of physical fortitude which made her equal to any demand. The other two
+ladies, as well as she herself, were now experiencing the pleasant
+exhilaration which comes with the hour of rest after an excellent
+dinner. They were in a condition to remember nothing except the
+agreeable. Madame de Sevigne was the first to break the silence.
+
+She turned, with a brisk yet graceful abruptness, to the two ladies
+still seated before the low fire. With a charming outburst of
+enthusiasm she exclaimed aloud:
+
+"What a beauty, and youth, and tenderness this spring has, has it not?"
+
+"Yes," answered the duchesse, smiling graciously into Madame de
+Sevigne's brilliantly lit face; "yes, the weather in truth has been
+perfect."
+
+"What an adorable journey we have had!" continued Madame de Sevigne,
+in the same tone, her ardor undampened by the cooler accent of her
+friend--she was used to having her enthusiasm greeted with
+consideration rather than response. "What a journey!--only meeting
+with the most agreeable of adventures; not the slightest inconvenience
+anywhere; eating the very best of everything; and driving through
+the heart of this enchanting springtime!"
+
+Her listeners laughed quietly, with an accent of indulgence. It was the
+habit of her world to find everything Madame de Sevigne did or said
+charming. Even her frankness was forgiven her, her tact was so perfect;
+and her spontaneity had always been accounted as her chief excellence;
+in the stifled air of the court and the _ruelles_ it had been
+frequently likened to the blowing in of a fresh May breeze. Her present
+mood was one well known to both ladies.
+
+"Always 'pretty pagan,' dear madame," smiled Madame de Kerman,
+indulgently. "How well named--and what a happy hit of our friend
+Arnauld d'Audilly! You are in truth a delicious--an adorable pagan! You
+have such a sense of the joy of living! Why, even living in the country
+has, it appears, no terrors for you. We hear of your walking about in
+the moonlight-you make your very trees talk, they tell us, in
+Italian--in Latin; you actually pass whole hours alone with the
+hamadryads!" There was just a suspicion of irony in Madame de Kerman's
+tone, in spite of its caressing softness; it was so impossible to
+conceive of anyone really finding nature endurable, much less
+pretending to discover in trees and flowers anything amusing or
+suggestive of sentiment!
+
+But Madame de Sevigne was quite impervious to her friend's raillery.
+She responded, with perfect good humor:
+
+"Why not?--why not try to discover beauties in nature? One can be so
+happy in a wood! What a charming thing to hear a leaf sing! I know few
+things more delightful than to watch the triumph of the month of May
+when the nightingale, the cuckoo, and the lark open the spring in our
+forests! And then, later, come those beautiful crystal days of
+autumn--days that are neither warm, nor yet are they really cold! And
+then the trees--how eloquent they can be made; with a little teaching
+they may be made to converse so charmingly. _Bella cosa far aniente_,
+says one of my trees; and another answers, _Amor odit inertes_. Ah,
+when I had to bid farewell to all my leaves and trees; when my son had
+to dispose of the forest of Buron, to pay for some of his follies, you
+remember how I wept! It seemed to me I could actually feel the grief of
+those dispossessed sylvans and of all those homeless dryads!"
+
+"It is this, dear friend--this life you lead at Les Rochers--and your
+enthusiasm, which keep you so young. Yes, I am sure of it. How
+inconceivably young, for instance, you are looking this very evening!
+You and the glow out yonder make youth seem no longer a legend."
+
+The duchesse delivered her flattering little speech with a caressing
+tone. She moved gently forward in her chair, as if to gain a better
+view of the twilight and her friend. At the sound of the duchesse's
+voice Madame de Sevigne again turned, with the same charming smile and
+the quick impulsiveness of movement common to her. During her long
+monologue she had remained standing; but she left the window now to
+regain her seat amid the cushions of the window. There was something
+better than the twilight and the spring in the air; here, within, were
+two delightful friends-and listeners; there was before her, also, the
+prospect of one of those endless conversations that were the chief
+delight of her life.
+
+She laughed as she seated herself--a gay, frank, hearty little
+laugh--and she spread out her hands with the opening of her fan, as,
+with her usual vivacious spontaneity, her mood changed.
+
+"Fancy, dear duchesse, the punishment that comes to one who commits the
+crime of looking young--younger than one ought! My son-in-law, M. de
+Grignan, actually avows he is in daily terror lest I should give him a
+father-in-law!"
+
+All three ladies laughed gayly at this absurdity; the subject of Madame
+de Sevigne's remarrying had come to be a venerable joke now. It had
+been talked of at court and in society for nearly forty years; but such
+was the conquering power of her charms that these two friends, her
+listeners, saw nothing really extravagant in her son-in-law's fear; she
+was one of those rare women who, even at sixty, continue to suggest the
+altar rather than the grave. Madame de Kerman was the first to recover
+her breath after the laughter.
+
+"Dear friend, you might assure him that after a youth and the golden
+meridian of your years passed in smiling indifference to the sighs of a
+Prince de Conti, of a Turenne, of a Fouquet, of a Bussy de Rabutin, at
+sixty it is scarcely likely that--"
+
+"Ah, dear lady at sixty, when one has the complexion and the curls, to
+say nothing of the eyes of our dear enchantress, a woman is as
+dangerous as at thirty!" The duchesse's flattery was charmingly put,
+with just enough vivacity of tone to save it from the charge of
+insipidity. Madame de Sevigne bowed her curls to her waist.
+
+"Ah, dear duchesse, it isn't age," she retorted, quickly, "that could
+make me commit follies. It is the fact that that son-in-law of mine
+actually surrounds me with spies--he keeps me in perpetual
+surveillance. Such a state of captivity is capable of making me forget
+everything; I am beginning to develop a positive rage for follies. You
+know that has been my chief fault--always; discretion has been left out
+of my composition. But I say now, as I have always said, that if I
+could manage to live two hundred years, I should become the most
+delightful person in the world!"
+
+She herself was the first to lead in the laughter that followed her
+outburst; and then the duchesse broke in:
+
+"You talk of defects, dear friend; but reflect what a life yours has
+been. So surrounded and courted, and yet you were always so guarded; so
+free, and yet so wise! So gay, and yet so chaste!"
+
+"If you rubbed out all those flattering colors, dear duchesse, and
+wrote only, 'She worshipped her children, and preferred friends to
+lovers,' the portrait would be far nearer to the truth. It is easy to
+be chaste if one has only known one passion in one's life, and that the
+maternal one!"
+
+Again a change passed over Madame de Sevigne's mobile face; the
+bantering tone was lost in a note of deep feeling. This gift of
+sensibility had always been accounted as one of Madame de Sevigne's
+chief charms; and now, at sixty, she was as completely the victim of
+her moods as in her earlier youth.
+
+"Where is your daughter, and how is she?" sympathetically queried the
+duchesse.
+
+"Oh, she is still at Grignan, as usual; she is well, thank God. But,
+dear duchesse, after all these years of separation I suffer still,
+cruelly." The tears sprang to Madame de Sevigne's eyes, as she added,
+with passion and a force one would scarcely have expected in one whose
+manners were so finished, "the truth is, dear friends, I cannot live
+without her. I do not find I have made the least progress in that
+career. But, even now, believe me, these tears are sweeter than all
+else in life--more enrapturing than the most transporting joy!"
+
+Madame de Kerman smiled tenderly into the rapturous mother's face; but
+the duchesse moved, as if a little restless and uneasy under this
+shower of maternal feeling. For thirty years her friends had had to
+listen to Madame de Sevigne's rhapsodies over the perfections of her
+incomparable daughter. Although sensibility was not the emotional
+fashion of the day, maternity, in the person of Madame de Sevigne, had
+been apotheosized into the queen of the passions, if only because of
+its rarity; still, even this lady's most intimate friends sometimes
+wearied of banqueting off the feast of Madame de Grignan's virtues.
+
+"Have you heard from Madame de La Fayette recently?" asked the
+duchesse, allowing just time enough to elapse, before putting the
+question, for Madame de Sevigne's emotion to subside into composure.
+The duchesse was too exquisitely bred to allow her impatience to take
+the form of even the appearance of haste.
+
+"Oh, yes," was Madame de Sevigne's quiet reply; the turn in the
+conversation had been instantly understood, in spite of the delicacy of
+the duchesse's methods. "Oh, yes--I have had a line--only a line. You
+know how she detests writing, above all things. Her letters are all the
+same--two lines to say that she has no time in which to say it!"
+
+"Did she not once write you a pretty little series of epigrams about
+not writing?"
+
+"Oh, yes--some time ago, when I was with my daughter. I've quoted them
+so often, they have become famous. 'You are in Provence, my beauty;
+your hours are free, and your mind still more so. Your love for
+corresponding with everyone still endures within you, it appears; as
+for me, the desire to write to any human being has long since passed
+away-forever; and if I had a lover who insisted on a letter every
+morning, I should certainly break with him!'"
+
+"What a curious compound she is! And how well her soubriquet becomes
+her!"
+
+"Yes, it is perfect--'_Le Brouillard_'--the fog. It is indeed a fog
+that has always enveloped her, and what charming horizons are disclosed
+once it is lifted!"
+
+"And her sensibilities--of what an exquisite quality; and what a rare,
+precious type, indeed, is the whole of her nature! Do you remember how
+alarmed she would become when listening to music?"
+
+"And yet, with all this sensibility and delicacy of organization there
+was another side to her nature." Madame de Kerman paused a moment
+before she went on; she was not quite sure how far she dared go in her
+criticism; Madame de La Fayette was such an intimate friend of Madame
+de Sevigne's.
+
+"You mean," that lady broke out, with unhesitating candor, "that she is
+also a very selfish person. You know that is my daughter's theory of
+her--she is always telling me how Madame de La Fayette is making use of
+me; that while her sensitiveness is such that she cannot sustain the
+tragedy of a farewell visit--if I am going to Les Rochers or to
+Provence, when I go to pay my last visit I must pretend it is only an
+ordinary running-in; yet her delicacy does not prevent her from making
+very indelicate proposals, to suit her own convenience. You remember
+what one of her commands was, don't you?"
+
+"No," answered the duchesse, for both herself and her companion. "Pray
+tell us."
+
+Madame de Sevigne went on to narrate that once, when at Les Rochers,
+Madame de La Fayette was quite certain that she, Madame de Sevigne, was
+losing her mind, for no one could live in the provinces and remain
+sane, poring over stupid books and sitting over fires.
+
+"She was certain I should sicken and die, besides losing the tone of my
+mind," laughed Madame de Sevigne, as she called up the picture of her
+dissolution and rapid disintegration; "and therefore it was necessary
+at once that I should come up to Paris. This latter command was
+delivered in the tone of a judge of the Supreme Court. The penalty of
+my disobedience was to be her ceasing to love me. I was to come up to
+Paris directly--on the minute; I was to live with you, dear duchesse; I
+was not to buy any horses until spring; and, best of all, I was to
+find on my arrival a purse of a thousand crowns which would be lent me
+without interest! What a proposition, _mon Dieu_, what a proposition!
+To have no house of my own, to be dependent, to have no carriage, and
+to be in debt a thousand crowns!"
+
+As Madame de Sevigne lifted her hands the laces of her sleeves were
+fairly trembling with the force of her indignation. There were certain
+things that always put her in a passion, and Madame de La Fayette's
+peculiarities she had found at times unendurable. Her listeners had
+followed her narration with the utmost intensity and absorption. When
+she stopped, their eyes met in a look of assenting comment.
+
+"It was perfectly characteristic, all of it! She judged you, doubtless,
+by herself. She always seems to me, even now, to keep one eye on her
+comfort and the other on her purse!"
+
+"Ah, dear duchesse, how keen you are!" laughingly acquiesced Madame de
+Sevigne, as with a shrug she accepted the verdict--her indignation
+melting with the shrug. "And how right! No woman ever drives better
+bargains, without moving a finger. From her invalid's chair she can
+conduct a dozen lawsuits. She spends half her existence in courting
+death; she caresses her maladies; she positively hugs them; but she can
+always be miraculously resuscitated at the word money!"
+
+"Yes," added with a certain relish Madame de Kerman. "And this is the
+same woman who must be forever running away from Paris because she can
+no longer endure the exertion of talking, or of replying, or of
+listening; because she is wearied to extinction, as she herself admits,
+of saying good-morning and good-evening. She must hide herself in some
+pastoral retreat, where simply, as she says, 'to exist is enough;'
+where she can remain, as it were, miraculously suspended between
+heaven and earth!"
+
+A ripple of amused laughter went round the little group; there was
+nothing these ladies enjoyed so keenly as a delicate dish of gossip,
+seasoned with wit, and stuffed with epigrams. This talk was exactly to
+their taste. The silence and seclusion of their surroundings were an
+added stimulus to confidence and to a freer interchange of opinions
+about their world. Paris and Versailles seemed so very far away; it
+would appear safe to say almost anything about one's dearest friends.
+There was nothing to remind them of the restraints of levees, or the
+penalty indiscretion must pay for folly breathed in that whispering
+gallery--the _ruelle_. It was indeed a delightful hour; altogether an
+ideal situation.
+
+The fire had burned so low only a few embers were alive now, and the
+candles were beginning to flicker and droop in the sconces. But the
+three ladies refused to find the little room either cold or dark; their
+talk was not half done yet, and their muffs would keep them warm. The
+shadow of the deepening gloom they found delightfully provocative of
+confidences.
+
+After a short pause, while Madame de Kerman busied herself with the
+tongs and the fagots, trying to reinvigorate the dying flames, the
+duchesse asked, in a somewhat more intimate tone than she had used yet:
+
+"And the duke--do you really think she loved the Duke de La
+Rochefoucauld?"
+
+"She reformed him, dear duchesse; at least she always proclaims his
+reform as the justification of her love."
+
+"You--you esteemed him yourself very highly, did you not?"
+
+"Oh, I loved him tenderly; how could one help it? He was the best as
+well as the most brilliant of men! I never knew a tenderer heart;
+domestic joys and sorrows affected him in a way to render him
+incomparable. I have seen him weep over the death of his mother, who
+only died eight years before him, you know, with a depth of sincerity
+that made me adore him."
+
+"He must in truth have been a very sincere person."
+
+"Sincere!" cried Madame de Sevigne, her eyes flaming. "Had you but seen
+his deathbed! His bearing was sublime! Believe me, dear friend, it was
+not in vain that M. de La Rochefoucauld had written philosophic
+reflections all his life; he had already anticipated his last moments
+in such a way that there was nothing either new or strange in death
+when it came to him."
+
+"Madame de La Fayette truly mourned him--don't you think so? You were
+with her a great deal, were you not, after his death?"
+
+"I never left her. It was the most pitiable sight to see her in her
+loneliness and her misery. You see, their common ill-health and their
+sedentary habits, had made them so necessary to each other! It was, as
+it were, two souls in a single body. Nothing could exceed the
+confidence and charm of their friendship; it was incomparable. To
+Madame de La Fayette his loss came as her death-blow; life seems at an
+end for her; for where, indeed, can she find another such friend, or
+such intercourse, such sweetness and charm--such confidence and
+consideration?"
+
+There was a moment's silence after Madame de Sevigne's eloquent
+outburst. The eyes of the three friends were lost for a moment in the
+twinkling flames. The duchesse and Madame de Kerman exchanged meaning
+glances.
+
+"Since the duke's death her thoughts are more and more turned toward
+religion. I hear she has been fortunate in her choice of directors, has
+she not? Du Guet is said to be an ideal confessor for the authoress of
+'La Princesse de Cleves.'" There was just a suspicion of malice in the
+duchesse's tones.
+
+"Oh, he was born to take her in hand. He knew just when to speak
+with authority, and when to make use of the arts of persuasion. He
+wrote to her once, you remember: 'You, who have passed your life in
+dreaming--cease to dream! You, who have taken such pride unto yourself
+for being so true in all things, were very far, indeed, from the
+truth--you were only half true--falsely true. Your godless wisdom
+was in reality purely a matter of good taste!'"
+
+"What audacity! Bossuet himself could not have put the truth more
+nakedly." The duchesse was one of those to whom truths were novelties,
+and unpleasant ones.
+
+"Bossuet, if I remember rightly, was with the Duke de La Rochefoucauld
+at the last, was he not?"
+
+"Yes," responded Madame de Sevigne; "he was with him; he administered
+the supreme unction. The duke was in a beautiful state of grace. M,
+Vinet, you remember, said of him that he died with 'perfect decorum.'"
+
+"Speaking of dying reminds me"--cried suddenly Madame de Sevigne--"how
+are the duke's hangings getting on?"
+
+"They begin, the duke writes me, to hang again to-morrow," answered the
+duchesse, with a certain air of disdain, the first appearance of this
+weapon of the great now coming to the _grande dame's_ aid. Her husband,
+the Duke de Chaulnes' trouble with his revolutionary citizens at Rennes
+was a subject that never failed to arouse a feeling of angry contempt
+in her. It was too preposterous, the idea of those insolent creatures
+rising against him, their rightful duke and master!
+
+The duchesse's feeling in the matter was fully shared by her friends.
+In all the court there was but one opinion in the matter--hanging was
+really far too good for the wretched creatures.
+
+"Monsieur de Chaulnes," the duchesse went on, with ironical contempt in
+her voice, "still goes on punishing Rennes!"
+
+"This province and the duke's treatment of it will serve as a capital
+example to all others. It will teach those rascals," Madame de Kerman
+continued, in lower tones, "to respect their governors, and not to
+throw stones into their gardens!"
+
+"Fancy that--the audacity of throwing stones into their duke's garden!
+Why, did you know, they actually--those insolent creatures actually
+called him--called the duke--'_gros cochon?_'"
+
+All three ladies gasped in horror at this unparalleled instance of
+audacity; they threw up their hands, as they groaned over the picture,
+in low tones of finished elegance.
+
+"It is little wonder the duke hangs right and left! The dear duke--what
+a model governor! How I should like to have seen him sack that street
+at Rennes, with all the ridiculous old men, and the women in
+childbirth, and the children, turned out pele-mele! And the hanging,
+too--why, hanging now seems to me a positively refreshing performance!"
+And Madame de Sevigne laughed with unstinted gayety as at an excellent
+joke.
+
+The picture of Rennes and the cruelty dealt its inhabitants was a
+pleasant picture, in the contemplation of which these ladies evidently
+found much delectation. They were quiet for a longer period of time
+than usual; they continued silent, as they looked into the fire,
+smiling; the flames there made them think of other flames as forms of
+merited punishment.
+
+"A curious people those Bas Bretons," finally ejaculated Madame de
+Sevigne. "I never could understand how Bertrand Duguesclin made them
+the best soldiers of his day in France!"
+
+"You know Lower Brittany very well, do you not, dear friend?"
+
+"Not so well as the coast. Les Rochers is in Upper Brittany, you know.
+I know the south better still. Ah, what a charming journey I once took
+along the Loire with my friend _Bien-Bon_, the Abbe de Coulanges. We
+found it the most enchanting country in the world--the country of
+feasts and of famine; feasts for us and famine for the people. I
+remember we had to cross the river; our coach was placed on the barge,
+and we were rowed along by stout peasants. Through the glass windows of
+the coach we looked out at a series of changing pictures--the views
+were charming. We sat, of course, entirely at our ease, on our soft
+cushions. The country people, crowded together below, were--ugh!--like
+pigs in straw."
+
+"Was Bien-Bon with you when you made that little excursion to St.
+Germain?" queried the duchesse.
+
+"Ah, that was a gay night," joyously responded Madame de Sevigne. "How
+well we amused ourselves on that little visit that we paid Madame de
+Maintenon--when she was only Madame Scarron."
+
+"Was she so handsome then as they say she was--at that time?"
+
+"Very handsome; she was good, too, and amiable, and easy to talk to;
+one talked well and readily with her. She was then only the governess
+of the king's bastards, you know--of the children he had had by Madame
+de Montespan. That was the first step toward governing the king. Well,
+one night--the night to which you refer--I remember we were all supping
+with Madame de La Fayette. We had been talking endlessly! Suddenly it
+occurred to us it would be a most amusing adventure to take Madame
+Scarron home, to the very last end of the Faubourg Saint Germain, far
+beyond where Madame de La Fayette lived--near Vaugirard, out into the
+Bois, in the country. The Abbe came too. It was midnight when we
+started. The house, when at last we reached it, we found large and
+beautiful, with large and fine rooms and a beautiful garden; for Madame
+Scarron, as governess of the king's children, had a coach and a lot of
+servants and horses. She herself dressed then modestly and yet
+magnificently, as a woman should, who spent her life among people of
+the highest rank. We had a merry outing, returning in high spirits,
+blessed in having no end of lanterns, and thus assured against
+robbers."
+
+"She and Madame de La Fayette were very close friends, I remember,
+during that time," mused the duchesse, "when they were such near
+neighbors."
+
+"Yes," Madame de Sevigne went on, as unwearied now, although it was
+nearly midnight, as in the beginning of the long evening. "Yes; I
+always thought Madame de Maintenon's satirical little joke about Madame
+de La Fayette's bed festooned with gold--'I might have fifty thousand
+pounds income, and never should I live in the style of a great lady;
+never should I have a bed festooned with gold like Madame de La
+Fayette'--was the beginning of their rupture."
+
+"All the same, Madame de La Fayette, lying on that bed, beneath the
+gold hangings, was a much more simple person than ever was Madame de
+Maintenon!"
+
+"Your speaking of bed reminds me, dear ladies ours must be quite cold
+by this time. How we have chatted! What a delightful gossip! But we
+must not forget that our journey to-morrow is to be a long one!"
+
+The duchesse rose, the other two ladies rising instantly, observing, in
+spite of the intimate relations in which they stood toward the
+duchesse, the deference due to her more exalted rank. The latter
+clapped her hands; outside the door a shuffling and a low groan were
+heard--the groan came from the sleepy lackey, roused from his deep
+slumber, as he uncoiled himself from the close knot into which his legs
+and body were knit in the curve of the narrow stairs.
+
+The ladies, a few seconds later, were wending their way up the steep
+turret steps. They were preceded by torches and followed by quite a
+long train of maids and lackeys. For a long hour, at least, the little
+inn resounded with the sound of hurrying feet, of doors closing and
+shutting; with the echo of voices giving commands and of others purring
+in sleepy accents of obedience. Then one by one the sounds died away;
+the lights went out in the bedchambers; faint flickerings stole through
+the chinks of doors and windows. The watchman cried out the hour,
+and the gleam of a lantern flashed here and there, illuminating the
+open court-yard. The cocks crowed shrilly into the night air. A
+halberdier turned in his sleep where he lay, on some straw beneath the
+coach-shed, his halberd rattling as it struck the cobbles. And over the
+whole--over the gentle slumber of the great ladies and the sleep of
+beast and man--there fell the peace and the stillness of the
+midnight--of that midnight of long ago.
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A NINETEENTH-CENTURY BREAKFAST.
+
+
+The very next morning, after the rain, and the vision I had had of
+Madame de Sevigne, conjured up by my surroundings and the reading of
+her letters, Monsieur Paul paid us an early call. He came to beg the
+loan of our sitting-room, he said. He had had a despatch from a
+coaching-party from Trouville; they were to arrive for breakfast. The
+whip and owner of the coach was a great friend of his, he proffered by
+way of explanation--a certain count who had a genius for
+friendship--one who also had an artist's talent for admiring the
+beautiful. He was among those who were in a state of perpetual
+adoration before the inn's perfections. He made yearly pilgrimages from
+his chateau above Rouen to eat a noon breakfast in the Chambre des
+Marmousets. Now, a breakfast served elsewhere than in this chamber
+would be, from his point of view, to have journeyed to a shrine to find
+the niche empty. The gift that was begged of us, therefore, was the
+loan for a few hours of the famous little room.
+
+In less than a half hour we were watching the entrance of the coach by
+the side of Madame Le Mois. We were all three seated on the green
+bench.
+
+Faintly at first, and presently gaining in distinctness, came the fall
+of horses' hoofs and the rumble of wheels along the highway. A little
+cavalcade was soon passing beneath the archway. First there dashed in
+two horsemen, who had sprung to the ground almost as soon as their
+steeds' hoofs struck the paved court-yard. Then there swept by a jaunty
+dog cart, driven by a mannish figure radiantly robed in white. Swiftly
+following came the dash and jingle of four coach-horses, bathed in
+sweat, rolling the vehicle into the court as if its weight were a thing
+of air. All save one among the gay party seated on the high seats, were
+too busy with themselves and their chatter, to take heed of their
+surroundings. A lady beneath her deep parasol was busily engaged in a
+gay traffic of talk with the groups of men peopling the back seats of
+the coach. One of the men, however, was craning his neck beyond the
+heads of his companions; he was running his eye rapidly up and down the
+long inn facade. Finally his glance rested on us; and then, with a
+rush, a deep red mounted the man's cheek, as he tore off his derby to
+wave it, as if in a triumph of discovery. Renard had been true to his
+promise. He had come to see his friends and to test the famous
+Sauterne. He flung himself down from his lofty perch to take his seat,
+entirely as a matter of course, beside us on the green bench.
+
+"What luck, hey?--greatest luck in the world, finding you in, like
+this. I've been in no end of a tremble, fearing you'd gone to Caen, or
+Falaise, or somewhere, and that I shouldn't see you after all. Well,
+how are you? How goes it? What do you think of old Dives and Monsieur
+Paul, and the rest of it? I see you're settled; you took the palace
+chamber. Trust American women--they know the best, and get it."
+
+"But these people, who are they, and how did you--?" We were
+unfeignedly glad to see him, but curiosity is a passion not to be
+trifled with--after a month in the provinces.
+
+"Oh--the De Troisacs? Old friends of mine--known them years. Jolly lot.
+Charming fellow, De Troisac--only good Frenchman I've ever known.
+They're just off their yacht; saw them all yesterday at the Trouville
+Casino. Said they were running down here for breakfast to-day, asked
+me, and I came, of course." He laughed as he added: "I said I should
+come, you remember, to get some of that Sauterne. A man will go any
+distance for a good bottle of wine, you know."
+
+Meanwhile, in the court-yard, the party on the coach, by means of
+ladders and the helping of the grooms, were scrambling down from their
+seats. Renard's friend, the Comte de Troisac, was easily picked out
+from the group of men. He was the elder of the party--stoutish, with
+frank eyes and a smiling mouth; he was bustling about from the gaunt
+grooms to the ladder, and from ladder to the coach-seat, giving his
+commands right and left, and executing most of them himself. A tall,
+slim woman, with drooping eyelids, and an air of extreme elegance and
+of cultivated fatigue, was also easily recognizable as the countess. It
+took two grooms, two of the gentlemen guests, and her husband to
+assist her to the ground. Her passage down the steps of the ladder had
+been long enough, however, to enable her to display a series of pretty
+poses, each one more effective than the others. When one has an instep
+of ideal elevation, what is the use of being born a Frenchwoman, unless
+one knows how to make use of opportunity?
+
+From the dog-cart, that had rattled in across the cobbles with a dash
+and a spurt, there came quite a different accent and pose. The whitish
+personage, whom we had mistakenly supposed to be a man, wore
+petticoats; the male attire only held as far as the waist of the lady.
+The stiff white shirt-front, the knotted tie--a faultless male
+knot--the loose driving-jacket, with its sprig of white geranium, and
+the round straw-hat worn in mannish fashion, close to the level
+brows, was a costume that would have deceived either sex. Below the
+jacket flowed the straight lines of a straight skirt, that no further
+conjectures should be rendered necessary. This lady had a highbred air
+of singular distinction, accentuated by a tremendously knowing look.
+She was at once elegant and rakish; the _gamin_ in her was obviously
+the touch of _caviare_ to season the woman of fashion. The mixture made
+an extraordinarily attractive ensemble. As she jumped to the ground,
+throwing her reins to a groom, her jump was a master-stroke; it landed
+her squarely on her feet; even as she struck the ground her hands were
+thrust deeply into her pockets. The man seated beside her, who now
+leaped out after her, seemed timid and awkward by contrast with her
+alert precision. This couple moved at once toward the bench on which
+madame was seated. With the coming in of the coach and the cart she had
+risen, waddling forward to meet the party. Monsieur Paul was at the
+coach-wheels before the grooms had shot themselves down; De Troisac,
+with eager friendliness, stretched forth a hand from the top of his
+seat, exclaiming, with gay heartiness, "Ah, mon bon--comment ca va?"
+
+The mere was as eagerly greeted. Even the countess dismissed her
+indifference for the moment, as she held out her hand to Madame Le
+Mois.
+
+"Dear Madame Le Mois--and it goes well with you? And the gout and the
+rheumatism, they have ceased to torment you? Quelle bonne nouvelle! And
+here are the dear old cocks and the wounded bantam. The cockatoos--ah,
+there they are, still swinging in the air! Comme c'est joli--et
+frais--et que ca sent bon!"
+
+Madame and Monsieur Paul were equally effusive in their inquiries and
+exclamations--it was clearly a meeting of old friends. Madame Le Mois'
+face was meanwhile a study. The huge surface was glistening with
+pleasure; she was unfeignedly glad to see these Parisians:--but there
+was no elation at this meeting on such easy terms with greatness. Her
+shrewdness was as alive as ever; she was about to make money out of the
+visit--they were to have of her best, but they must pay for it. Between
+her rapid fire of questionings as to the countess's health and the
+history of her travels, there was as rapid a shower of commands,
+sometimes shouted out, above all the hubbub, to the cooks standing
+gaping in the kitchen doorway, or whispered hoarsely to Ernestine and
+Marianne, who were flying about like wild pigeons, a little drunk with
+the novelty of this first breakfast of the season.
+
+"_Allons, mon enfant--cours--cours_--get thy linen, my child, and the
+silver candelabres. It is to be laid in the Marmousets, thou knowest.
+Paul will come presently. And the salads, pluck them and bring them in
+to me--_cours--cours_."
+
+The great world was all very well, and it was well to be on friendly,
+even intimate terms, with it; but, _Dieu!_ one's own bread is of
+importance too! And the countess, for all her delicacy, was a _bonne
+fourchette_.
+
+The countess and her friend, after a moment of standing in the court-
+yard, of patting the pelican, of trying their blandishments on the
+flamingo, of catching up the bantam, and filling the air with their
+purring, and caressing, and incessant chatter, passed beneath the low
+door to the inner sanctum of madame. The two ladies were clearly bent
+on a few moments of unreserved gossip and that repairing of the toilet
+which is a religious act to women of fashion the world over.
+
+In the court-yard the scene was still a brilliant one. The gayly
+painted coach was now deserted. It stood, a chariot of state, as it
+were, awaiting royalty; its yellow sides gleamed like topaz in the sun.
+The grooms were unharnessing the leaders, that were still bathed in the
+white of their sweat. The count's dove-colored flannels were a soft
+mass against the snow of the _chef's_ apron and cap; the two were in
+deep consultation at the kitchen door. Monsieur Paul was showing, with
+all the absorption of the artist, his latest Jumieges carvings to the
+taller, more awkward of the gentlemen, to the one driven in by the
+mannish beauty.
+
+The cockatoos had not ceased shrieking from the very beginning of the
+hubbub; nor had the squirrels stopped running along the bars of their
+cage, a-flutter with excitement. The peacocks trailed their trains
+between the coach-wheels, announcing, squawkingly, their delight at the
+advent of a larger audience. Above the cries of the fowls and the
+shrieks of the cocks, the chatter of human tongues, the subdued murmur
+of the ladies' voices coming through the open lattice, and the stamp of
+horses' hoofs, there swept above it all the light June breeze, rustling
+in the vines, shaking the thick branches against the wooden facades.
+
+The two ladies soon made their appearance in the sunlit court-yard. The
+murmur of their talk and their laughter reached us, along with the
+froufrou of their silken petticoats.
+
+"You were not bored, _chere enfant_, driving Monsieur d'Agreste all
+that long distance?"
+
+The countess was smiling tenderly into her companion's face. She had
+stopped her to readjust the geranium sprig that was drooping in her
+friend's cover-coat. The smile was the smile of a sympathizing angel,
+but what a touch of hidden malice there was in the notes of her
+caressing voice! As she repinned the _boutonniere_, she gave the
+dancing eyes, that were brimming with the mirth of the coming retort,
+the searching inquest of her glance.
+
+"Bored! _Dieu, que non!_" The black little beauty threw back her
+throat, laughing, as she rolled her great eyes. "Bored--with all the
+tricks I was playing? Fernande! pity me, there was such a little time,
+and so much to do!"
+
+"So little time--only fourteen kilos!" The countess compressed her
+lips; they were smiling no longer.
+
+"Ah, but you see, I had so much to combat. You had a whole season, last
+summer, in which to play your game, your solemn game." Here the gay
+young widow rippled forth a pearly scale of treble laughter. "And I
+have had only a week, thus far!"
+
+"Yes, but what time you make!"
+
+And this time both ladies laughed, although, still, only one laughed
+well.
+
+"Ah! those women--how they love each other," commented Renard, as
+he sat on the bench, swinging his legs, with his eyes following
+the two vanishing figures. "Only women who are intimate--Parisian
+intimates--can cut to the bone like that, with a surgeon's dexterity."
+
+He explained then that the handsome brunette was a widow, a certain
+Baronne d'Autun, noted for her hunting and her conquests; the last on
+the latter list was Monsieur d'Agreste, a former admirer of the
+countess; he was somewhat famous as a scientist and socialist, so good
+a socialist as to refuse to wear his title of duke. The other two
+gentlemen of the party, who had joined them now, the two horsemen, were
+the Comtes de Mirant and de Fonbriant. These latter were two typical
+young swells of the Jockey Club model; their vacant, well-bred faces
+wore the correct degree of fashionable pallor, and their manners
+appeared to be also as perfect as their glances were insolent.
+
+Into these vacant faces the languid countess was breathing the
+inspiration of her smile. Enigmatic as was the latter, it was as simple
+as an infant's compared to the occult character of her glance. A wealth
+of complexities lay enfolded in the deep eyes, rimmed with their mystic
+darkened circlet--that circle in which the Parisienne frames her
+experience, and through which she pleads to have it enlarged!
+
+A Frenchwoman and cosmetics! Is there any other combination on this
+round earth more suggestive of the comedy of high life, of its elegance
+and of its perfidy, of its finish and of its emptiness?
+
+The men of the party wore costumes perilously suggestive of Opera
+Bouffe models. Their fingers were richly begemmed; their watch-chains
+were laden with seals and charms. Any one of the costumes was such as
+might have been chosen by a tenor in which to warble effectively to a
+_soubrette_ on the boards of a provincial theatre; and it was worn by
+these fops of the Jockey Club with the air of its being the last word
+in nautical fashions. Better than their costumes were their voices; for
+what speech from human lips pearls itself off with such crispness and
+finish as the delicate French idiom from a Parisian tongue?
+
+I never quite knew how it came about that we were added to this gay
+party of breakfasters. We found ourselves, however, after a high
+skirmish of preliminary presentations, among the number to take our
+places at the table.
+
+In the Chambre des Marmousets, Monsieur Paul, we found, had set the
+feast with the taste of an artist and the science of an archaeologist.
+The table itself was long and narrow, a genuine fifteenth century
+table. Down the centre ran a strip of antique altar-lace; the sides
+were left bare, that the lustre of the dark wood might be seen. In the
+centre was a deep old Caen bowl, with grapes and fuchsias to make a
+mound of soft color. A pair of seventeenth-century candelabres twisted
+and coiled their silver branches about their rich _repousse_ columns;
+here and there on the yellow strip of lace were laid bunches of June
+roses, those only of the rarer and older varieties having been chosen,
+and each was tied with a Louis XV love-knot. Monsieur Paul was himself
+an omniscient figure at the feast; he was by turns officiating as
+butler, carving, or serving from the side-tables; or he was crossing
+the court-yard with his careful, catlike tread, a bottle under each
+arm. He was also constantly appealed to by Monsieur d'Agreste or the
+count, to settle a dispute about the age of the china, or the original
+home of the various old chests scattered about the room.
+
+"Paul, your stained glass shows up well in this light," the count
+called out, wiping his mustache over his soup-plate.
+
+"Yes," answered Monsieur Paul, as he went on serving the sherry,
+pausing for a moment at the count's glass. "They always look well in
+full sunlight. It was a piece of pure luck, getting them. One can
+always count on getting hold of tapestries and carvings, but old glass
+is as rare as--"
+
+"A pretty woman," interpolated the gay young widow, with the air of a
+connoisseur."
+
+"Outside of Paris--you should have added," gallantly contributed the
+count. Everyone went on eating after the light laughter had died away.
+
+The countess had not assisted at this brief conversation; she was
+devoting her attention to receiving the devotion of the two young
+counts; one was on either side of her, and both gave every outward and
+visible sign of wearing her chains, and of wearing them with
+insistance. The real contest between them appeared to be, not so much
+which should make the conquest of the languid countess, as which
+should outflank the other in his compromising demeanor. The countess,
+beneath her drooping lids, watched them with the indulgent indolence of
+a lioness, too luxuriously lazy to spring.
+
+The countess, clearly, was not made for sunlight. In the courtyard her
+face had seemed chiefly remarkable as a triumph of cosmetic treatment;
+here, under this rich glow, the purity and delicacy of the features
+easily placed her among the beauties of the Parisian world. Her eyes,
+now that the languor of the lids was disappearing with the advent of
+the wines, were magnificent; her use of them was an open avowal of her
+own knowledge of their splendor. The young widow across the table was
+also using her eyes, but in a very different fashion. She had now
+taken off her straw hat; the curly crop of a brown mane gave the
+brilliant face an added accent of vigor. The _chien de race_ was the
+dominant note now in the muscular, supple body, the keen-edged
+nostrils, and the intent gaze of the liquid eyes. These latter were
+fixed with the fixity of a savage on Charm. She was giving, in a sweet
+sibilant murmur, the man seated next her--Monsieur d'Agreste, the man
+who refused to bear his title--her views of the girl.
+
+"Those Americans, the Americans of the best type, are a race apart, I
+tell you; we have nothing like them; we condemn them because we don't
+understand them. They understand us--they read us--"
+
+"Oh, they read our books--the worst of them."
+
+"Yes, but they read the best too; and the worst don't seem to hurt
+them. I'll warrant that Mees Gay--that is her name, is it not?--has
+read Zola, for instance; and yet, see how simple and innocent--yes--
+innocent, she looks."
+
+"Yes, the innocence of experience--which knows how to hide," said
+Monsieur d'Agreste, with a slight shrug.
+
+"Mees Gay!" the countess cried out across the table, suddenly waking
+from her somnolence; she had overheard the baroness in spite of the low
+tone in which the dialogue had been carried on; her voice was so
+mellifluously sweet, one instinctively scented a touch of hidden poison
+in it--"Mees Gay, there is a question being put at this side of the
+table you alone can answer. Pray pardon the impertinence of a personal
+question--but we hear that American young ladies read Zola; is it
+true?"
+
+"I am afraid that we do read him," was Charm's frank answer. "I have
+read him--but my reading is all in the past tense now."
+
+"Ah--you found him too highly seasoned?" one of the young counts asked,
+eagerly, with his nose in the air, as if scenting an indiscretion.
+
+"No, I did not go far enough to get a taste of his horrors; I stopped
+at his first period."
+
+"And what do you call his first period, dear mademoiselle?" The
+countess's voice was still freighted with honey. Her husband coughed
+and gave her a warning glance, and Renard was moving uneasily in his
+chair.
+
+"Oh," Charm answered lightly, "his best period--when he didn't sell."
+
+Everyone laughed. The little widow cried beneath her breath:
+
+"_Elle a de l'esprit, celle-la_---"
+
+"_Elle en a de trop_," retorted the countess.
+
+"Did you ever read Zola's 'Quatre Saisons?'" Renard asked, turning to
+the count, at the other end of the table.
+
+No, the count had not read it--but he could read the story of a
+beautiful nature when he encountered one, and presently he allowed
+Charm to see how absorbing he found its perusal.
+
+"_Ah, bien--et tout de meme_--Zola, yes, he writes terrible books; but
+he is a good man--a model husband and father," continued Monsieur
+d'Agreste, addressing the table.
+
+"And Daudet--he adores his wife and children," added the count, as if
+with a determination to find only goodness in the world.
+
+"I wonder how posterity will treat them? They'll judge their lives by
+their books, I presume."
+
+"Yes, as we judge Rabelais or Voltaire--"
+
+"Or the English Shakespeare by his 'Hamlet.'"
+
+"Ah! what would not Voltaire have done with Hamlet!" The countess was
+beginning to wake again.
+
+"And Moliere? What of _his_ 'Misanthrope?' There is a finished, a
+human, a possible Hamlet! a Hamlet with flesh and blood," cried out the
+younger count on her right. "Even Mounet-Sully could do nothing with
+the English Hamlet."
+
+"Ah, well, Mounet-Sully did all that was possible with the part. He
+made Hamlet at least a lover!"
+
+"Ah, love! as if, even on the stage, one believed in that absurdity any
+longer!" was the countess's malicious comment.
+
+"Then, if you have ceased to believe in love, why did you go so
+religiously to Monsieur Caro's lectures?" cried the baroness.
+
+"Oh, that dear Caro! He treated the passions so delicately, he handled
+them as if they were curiosities. One went to hear his lecture on Love
+as one might go to hear a treatise on the peculiarities of an extinct
+species," was the countess's quiet rejoinder.
+
+"One should believe in love, if only to prove one's unbelief in it,"
+murmured the young count on her left.
+
+"Ah, my dear comte, love, nowadays, like nature, should only be used
+for decoration, as a bit of stage setting, or as stage scenery."
+
+"A moonlight night can be made endurable, sometimes," whispered the
+count.
+
+"A _clair de lune_ that ends in _lune de miel_, that is the true use to
+which to put the charms of Diana." It was Monsieur d'Agreste's turn now
+to murmur in the baroness's ear.
+
+"Oh, honey, it becomes so cloying in time," interpolated the countess,
+who had overheard; she overheard everything. She gave a wearied glance
+at her husband, who was still talking vigorously to Charm and Renard.
+She went on softly: "It's like trying to do good. All goodness, even
+one's own, bores one in the end. At Basniege, for example, lovely as it
+is, ideally feudal, and with all its towers as erect as you please, I
+find this modern virtue, this craze for charity, as tiresome as all the
+rest of it. Once you've seen that all the old women have woollen
+stockings, and that each cottage has fagots enough for the winter, and
+your _role_ of benefactress is at an end. In Paris, at least, charity
+is sometimes picturesque; poverty there is tainted with vice. If one
+believed in anything, it might be worth while to begin a mission; but
+as it is--"
+
+"The gospel of life, according to you, dear comtesse, is that in modern
+life there is no real excitement except in studying the very best way
+to be rid of it," cried out Renard, from the bottom of the table.
+
+"True; but suicide is such a coarse weapon," the lady answered, quite
+seriously; "so vulgar now, since the common people have begun to use
+it. Besides, it puts your adversary, the world, in possession of your
+secret of discontent. No, no. Suicide, the invention of the nineteenth
+century, goes out with it. The only refined form of suicide is to bore
+one's self to death," and she smiled sweetly into the young man's eyes
+nearest her.
+
+"Ah, comtesse, you should not have parted so early in life with all
+your illusions," was Monsieur d'Agreste's protest across the table.
+
+"And, Monsieur d'Agreste, it isn't given to us all to go to the ends of
+the earth, as you do, in search of new ones! This friction of living
+doesn't wear on you as it does on the rest of us."
+
+"Ah, the ends of the earth, they are very much like the middle and the
+beginning of things. Man is not so very different, wherever you find
+him. The only real difference lies in the manner of approaching him.
+The scientist, for example, finds him eternally fresh, novel,
+inspiring; he is a mine only as yet half-worked." Monsieur d'Agreste
+was beginning to wake up; his eyes, hitherto, alone had been alive; his
+hands had been busy, crunching his bread; but his tongue had been
+silent.
+
+"Ah--h science! Science is only another anaesthetic--it merely helps to
+kill time. It is a hobby, like any other," was the countess's
+rejoinder.
+
+"Perhaps," courteously returned Monsieur d'Agreste, with perfect
+sweetness of temper. "But at least, it is a hobby that kills no one
+else. And if of a hobby you can make a principle--"
+
+"A principle?" The countess contracted her brows, as if she had heard a
+word that did not please her.
+
+"Yes, dear lady; the wise man lays out his life as a gardener does a
+garden, on the principle of selection, of order, and with a view to the
+succession of the seasons. You all bemoan the dulness of life; you, in
+Paris, the torpor of ennui stifles you, you cry. On the contrary, I
+would wish the days were weeks, and the weeks months. And why? Simply
+because I have discovered the philosopher's stone. I have grasped the
+secret of my era. The comedy of rank is played out; the life of the
+trifler is at an end; all that went out with the Bourbons.
+Individualism is the new order. To-day a man exists simply by virtue of
+his own effort--he stands on his own feet. It is the era of the
+republican, of the individual--science is the true republic. For us who
+are displaced from the elevation our rank gave us, work is the
+watchword, and it is the only battle-cry left us now. He only is
+strong, and therefore happy, who perceives this truth, and who
+marches in step with the modern movement."
+
+The serious turn given to the conversation had silenced all save the
+baroness. She had listened even more intently than the others to her
+friend's eloquence, nodding her head assentingly to all that he said.
+His philosophic reflections produced as much effect on her vivacious
+excitability as they might on a restless Skye-terrier.
+
+"Yes, yes--he's entirely right, is Monsieur d'Agreste; he has got to
+the bottom of things. One must keep in step with modernity--one must be
+_fin de siecle_. Comtesse, you should hunt; there is nothing like a fox
+or a boar to make life worth living. It's better, infinitely better,
+than a pursuit of hearts; a boar's more troublesome than a man."
+
+"Unless you marry him," the countess interrupted, ending with a
+thrush-like laugh. When she laughed she seemed to have a bird in her
+throat.
+
+"Oh, a man's heart, it's like the flag of a defenceless country--anyone
+may capture it."
+
+The countess smiled with ineffable grace into the vacant, amorous-eyed
+faces on either side of her, rising as she smiled. We had reached
+dessert now; the coffee was being handed round. Everyone rose; but the
+countess made no move to pass out from the room. Both she and the
+baroness took from their pockets dainty cigarette-cases.
+
+"_Vous permettez?_" asked the baroness, leaning over coquettishly to
+Monsieur d'Agreste's cigar. She accompanied her action with a charming
+glance, one in which all the woman in her was uppermost, and one which
+made Monsieur d'Agreste's pale cheeks flush like a boy's. He was a
+philosopher and a scientist; but all his science and philosophy had not
+saved him from the barbed shafts of a certain mischievous little god.
+He, also, was visibly hugging his chains.
+
+The party had settled themselves in the low divans and in the Henri IV
+arm-chairs; a few here and there remained, still grouped about the
+table, with the freedom of pose and in the comfort of attitude smoking
+and coffee bring with them.
+
+It was destined, however, that the hour was to be a short one. One of
+the grooms obsequiously knocked at the door; he whispered in the
+count's ear, who advanced quickly toward him, the news that the coach
+was waiting; one of the leaders.
+
+"Desolated, my dear ladies--but my man tells me the coach is in
+readiness, and I have an impertinent leader who refuses to stand, when
+he is waiting, on anything more solid than his hind legs. Fernande, my
+dear, we must be on the move. Desolated, dear ladies--desolated--but
+it's only _au revoir_. We must arrange a meeting later, in Paris--"
+
+The scene in the court-yard was once again gay with life and bristling
+with color. The coach and the dog-cart shone resplendent in the
+slanting sun's rays. In the brighter sunlight, the added glow in the
+eyes and the cheeks of the brilliantly costumed group, made both men
+and women seem younger and fresher than when they had appeared, two
+hours since. All were in high good humor--the wines and the talk had
+warmed the quick French blood. There was a merry scramble for the top
+coach-seats; the two young counts exchanged their seat in their
+saddles for the privilege of holding, one the countess's vinaigrette,
+and the other, her long-handled parasol. Renard was beside his friend
+De Troisac; the horn rang out, the horses started as if stung, dashing
+at their bits, and in another moment the great coach was being whirled
+beneath the archway.
+
+"_Au revoir--au revoir!_" was cried down to us from the throne-like
+elevation. There was a pretty waving of hands--for even the countess's
+dislike melted into sweetness as she bade us farewell. There were
+answering cries from the shrieking cockatoos, from the peacocks who
+trailed their tails sadly in the dust, from the cooks and the peasant
+serving-women who had assembled to bid the distinguished guests adieu.
+There was also a sweeping bow from Monsieur Paul, and a grunt of
+contented dismissal from Madame Le Mois.
+
+A moment after the departure of the coach the court yard was as still
+as a convent cloister.
+
+It was still enough to hear the click of madame's fingers, as she
+tapped her snuff-box.
+
+"The count doesn't see any better than he did--_toujours myope, lui_"
+the old woman murmured to her son, with a pregnant wink, as she took
+her snuff.
+
+"_C'est sa facon de tout voir, au contraire, ma mere_," significantly
+returned Monsieur Paul, with his knowing smile.
+
+The mother's shrug answered the smile, as both mother and son walked in
+different directions--across the sunlit court.
+
+
+
+
+A LITTLE JOURNEY ALONG THE COAST.
+
+CAEN, BAYEUX, ST. LO, COUTANCES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+A NIGHT IN A CAEN ATTIC.
+
+
+I have always found the act of going away contagious. Who really enjoys
+being left behind, to mope in a corner of the world others have
+abandoned? The gay company atop of the coach, as they were whirled
+beneath the old archway, had left discontent behind; the music of the
+horn, like that played by the Pied Piper, had the magic of making the
+feet ache to follow after.
+
+Monsieur Paul was so used to see his world go and come--to greeting it
+with civility, and to assist at its departure with smiling indifference
+that the announcement of our own intention to desert the inn within a
+day or so, was received with unflattering impassivity. We had decided
+to take a flight along the coast--the month and the weather were at
+their best as aids to such adventure. We hoped to see the Fete Dieu at
+Caen. Why not push on to Coutances, where the Fete was still celebrated
+with a mediaeval splendor? From thence to the great Mont, the Mont St.
+Michel, it was but the distance of a good steed's galloping--we could
+cover the stretch of country between in a day's driving, and catch, who
+knows?--perhaps the June pilgrims climbing the Mont.
+
+"Ah, mesdames! there are duller things in the world to endure than a
+glimpse of the Normandy coast and the scent of June roses!
+_Idylliquement belle, la cote a ce moment-ci!_"
+
+This was all the regret that seasoned Monsieur Paul's otherwise
+gracious and most graceful of farewells. Why cannot we all attain to an
+innkeeper's altitude, as a point of view from which to look out upon
+the world? Why not emulate his calm, when people who have done with us
+turn their backs and stalk away? Why not, like him, count the pennies
+as not all the payment received when a pleasure has come which cannot
+be footed up in the bill? The entire company of the inn household was
+assembled to see us start. Not a white mouse but was on duty. The
+cockatoos performed the most perilous of their trapeze accomplishments
+as a last tribute; the doves cooed mournfully; the monkeys ran like
+frenzied spirits along their gratings to see the very last of us.
+Madame Le Mois considerately carried the bantam to the archway, that
+the lost joy of strutting might be replaced by the pride of preferment
+above its fellows.
+
+"_Adieu_, mesdames."
+
+"_Au revoir_--you will return--_tout le monde revient_--Guillaume le
+Conquerant, like Caesar, conquers once to hold forever--remember--"
+
+[Illustration: CHATEAU FONTAINE LE HENRI, NEAR CAEN]
+
+From Monsieur Paul, in quieter, richer tones, came his true farewell,
+the one we had looked for:
+
+"The evenings in the Marmousets will seem lonely when it rains--you
+must give us the hope of a quick return. Hope is the food of those who
+remain behind, as we Normans say!"
+
+The archway darkened the sod for an instant; the next we had passed out
+into the broad highway. Jean, in his blouse, with Suzette beside him,
+both jolting along in the lumbering _char-a-banc_, stared out at us
+with a vacant-eyed curiosity. We were only two travellers like
+themselves, along a dusty roadway, on our way to Caen; we were of no
+particular importance in the landscape, we and our rickety little
+phaeton. Yet only a moment before, in the inn court-yard, we had felt
+ourselves to be the pivotal centre of a world wholly peopled with
+friends! This is what comes to all men who live under the modern
+curse--the double curse of restlessness and that itching for novelty,
+which made the old Greek longing for the unknown deity--which is also
+the only honest prayer of so many _fin de siecle_ souls!
+
+Besides the dust, there were other things abroad on the high-road. What
+a lot of June had got into the air! The meadows and the orchards were
+exuding perfumes; the hedge-rows were so many yards of roses and wild
+grape-vines in blossom. The sea-smells, aromatic, pungent, floated
+inland to be married, in hot haste, to a perfect harem of clover and
+locust scents. The charm of the coast was enriched by the homely,
+familiar scenes of farm-house life. All the country between Dives
+and Caen seemed one vast farm, beautifully tilled, with its
+meadow-lands dipping seaward. For several miles, perhaps, the
+agricultural note alone would be the dominant one, with the fields full
+of the old, the eternal surprise--the dawn of young summer rising over
+them. Down the sides of the low hills, the polychrome grain waved
+beneath the touch of the breeze like a moving sea. Many and vast
+were the flat-lands; they were wide vistas of color: there were fields
+that were scarlet with the pomp of poppies, others tinged to the yellow
+of a Celestial by the feathery mustard; and still others blue as a
+sapphire's heart from the dye of millions of bluets. A dozen small
+rivers--or perhaps it was only one--coiled and twisted like a cobra in
+sinuous action, in and out among the pasture and sea meadows.
+
+As we passed the low, bushy banks, we heard the babel of the
+washerwomen's voices as they gossiped and beat their clothes on the
+stones. A fisherman or two gave one a hint that idling was understood
+here, as elsewhere, as being a fine art for those who possess the
+talent of never being pressed for time. A peasant had brought his horse
+to the bank; the river, to both peasant and Percheron, was evidently
+considered as a personal possession--as are all rivers to those who
+live near them. There was a naturalness in all the life abroad in the
+fields that gave this Normandy highroad an incomparable charm. An
+Arcadian calm, a certain patriarchal simplicity reigned beneath the
+trees. Children trudged to the river bank with pails and pitchers to be
+filled; women, with rakes and scythes in hand, crept down from the
+upper fields to season their mid-day meal with the cooling whiff of the
+river and sea air. Children tugged at their skirts. In two feet of
+human life, with kerchief tied under chin, the small hands carrying a
+huge bunch of cornflowers, how much of great gravity there may be! One
+such rustic sketch of the future peasant was seriously carrying its
+bouquet to another small edition seated in a grove of poppies; it might
+have been a votive offering. Both the children seated themselves, a
+very earnest conversation ensuing. On the hill-top, near by, the father
+and mother were also conversing, as they bent over their scythes.
+Another picture was wheeling itself along the river bank; it was a
+farmer behind a huge load of green grass; atop of the grasses two
+moon-faced children had laps and hands crowded with field flowers.
+Behind them the mother walked, with a rake slung over her shoulder, her
+short skirts and scant draperies giving to her step a noble freedom.
+The brush of Vollon or of Breton would have seized upon her to embody
+the type of one of their rustic beauties, that type whose mingled
+fierceness and grace make their peasants the rude goddesses of the
+plough.
+
+Even a rustic river wearies at last of wandering, as an occupation.
+Miles back we had left the sea; even the hills had stopped a full hour
+ago, as if they had no taste for the rivalry of cathedral spires.
+Behold the river now, coursing as sedately as the high-road, between
+two interminable lines of poplars. Far as the eye could reach stretched
+a wide, great plain. It was flat as an old woman's palm; it was also as
+fertile as the city sitting in the midst of its luxuriance has been
+rich in history.
+
+"_Ce pays est tres beau, et Caen la plus jolie ville, la plus avenante,
+la plus gaie, la mieux situee, les plus belles rues, les plus beaux
+batiments, les plus belles eglises_--"
+
+There was no doubt, Charm added, as she repeated the lady's verdict, of
+the opinion Madame de Sevigne had formed of the town. As we drove, some
+two hundred years later, through the Caen streets, the charm we found
+had been perpetuated, but alas! not all of the beauty. At first we were
+entirely certain that Caen had retained its old loveliness; the
+outskirts were tricked out with the bloom of gardens and with old
+houses brave in their armor of vines. The meadows and the great trees
+of the plain were partly to blame for this illusion; they yielded
+their place grudgingly to the cobble-stoned streets and the height of
+dormer windows.
+
+To come back to the world, even to a provincial world, after having
+lived for a time in a corner, is certain to evoke a pleasurable feeling
+of elation. The streets of Caen were by no means the liveliest we had
+driven into; nor did the inhabitants, as at Villerville, turn out _en
+masse_ to welcome us. The streets, to be quite truthful, were as
+sedately quiet as any thoroughfares could well be, and proudly call
+themselves boulevards. The stony-faced gray houses presented a
+singularly chill front, considering their nationality. But neither
+the pallor of the streets nor their aspect of provincial calm had power
+to dampen the sense of our having returned to the world of cities. A
+girl issuing from a doorway with a netted veil drawn tightly over her
+rosy cheeks, and the curve of a Parisian bodice, immediately invested
+Caen with a metropolitan importance.
+
+The most courteous of innkeepers was bending over our carriage-door. He
+was desolated, but his inn was already full; it was crowded to
+repletion with people; surely these ladies knew it was the week of the
+races? Caen was as crowded as the inn; at night many made of the open
+street their bed; his own court-yard was as filled with men as with
+farm-wagons. It was altogether hopeless as a situation; as a welcome
+into a strange city, I have experienced none more arctic. I had,
+however, forgotten that I was travelling with a conqueror; that when
+Charm smiled she did as she pleased with her world. The innkeeper was
+only a man; and since Adam, when has any member of that sex been
+known to say "No" to a pretty woman? This French Adam, when Charm
+parted her lips, showing the snow of her teeth, found himself suddenly,
+miraculously, endowed with a fragment of memory. _Tiens_, he had
+forgotten! that very morning a corner of the attic--_un bout du
+toit_--had been vacated. If these ladies did not mind mounting to a
+_grenier_--an attic, comfortable, although still only an attic!
+
+The one dormer window was on a level with the roof-tops. We had a whole
+company of "belles voisines," a trick of neighborliness in windows the
+quick French wit, years ago, was swift to name. These "neighbors" were
+of every order and pattern. All the world and his mother-in-law were
+gone to the races;--and yet every window was playing a different scene
+in the comedy of this life in the sky. Who does not know and love a
+French window, the higher up in the world of air the better? There are
+certain to be plants, rows of them in pots, along the wide sill; one
+can count on a bullfinch or a parrot, as one can on the bebes that
+appear to be born on purpose to poke their fingers in the cages; there
+is certain also to be another cage hanging above the flowers--one
+filled with a fresh lettuce or a cabbage leaf. There is usually a snowy
+curtain, fringed; just at the parting of the draperies an old woman is
+always seated, with chin and nose-tip meeting, her bent figure rounding
+over the square of her knitting-needles.
+
+It was such a window as this that made us feel, before our bonnets were
+laid aside, that Caen was glad to see us. The window directly opposite
+was wide open. Instead of one there were half a dozen songsters aloft;
+we were so near their cages that the cat-bird whistled, to call his
+master and mistress to witness the intrusion of these strangers. The
+master brought a hot iron along--he was a tailor and was just in the
+act of pressing a seam. His wife was scraping carrots, and she tucked
+her bowl between her knees as she came to stand and gaze across. A cry
+rose up within the low room. Some one else wished to see the
+newcomers. The tailor laid aside his iron to lift proudly, far out
+beyond the cages, the fattest, rosiest offspring that ever was born in
+an attic. The babe smote its hands for pure joy. We were better than a
+broken doll--we were alive. The family as a family accepted us as one
+among them. The man smiled, and so did his wife. Presently both nodded
+graciously, as if, understanding the cause of our intrusion on their
+aerial privacy, they wished to present us with the compliment of their
+welcome. The manners among these garret-windows, we murmured, were
+really uncommonly good.
+
+"Bonjour, mesdames!" It was the third time the woman had passed, and we
+were still at the window. Her husband left his seam to join her.
+
+"Ces dames are not accustomed to such heights--_a ces hauteurs
+peut-etre?_"
+
+The ladies in truth were not, unhappily, always so well lodged; from
+this height at least one could hope to see a city.
+
+"_Ah! ha! c'est gai par ici, n'est-ce pas?_ One has the sun all to one's
+self, and air! Ah! for freshness one must climb to an attic in these
+days, it appears."
+
+It was impossible to be more contented on a height than was this family
+of tailors; for when not cooking, or washing, or tossing the "bebe" to
+the birds, the wife stitched and stitched all her husband cut, besides
+taking a turn at the family socks. Part of this contentment came, no
+doubt, from the variety of shows and amusements with which the family,
+as a family, were perpetually supplied. For workers, there were really
+too many social distractions abroad in the streets; it was almost
+impossible for the two to meet all the demands on their time. Now it
+was the jingle of a horse's bell-collar; the tailor, between two snips
+at a collar, must see who was stopping at the hotel door. Later a horn
+sounded; this was only the fish vender, the wife merely bent her head
+over the flowers to be quite sure. Next a trumpet, clear and strong,
+rang its notes up into the roof eaves; this was something _bebe_ must
+see and hear--all three were bending at the first throbbing touch of
+that music on the still air, to see whence it came. Thus you see, even
+in the provinces, in a French street, something is quite certain to
+happen; it all depends on the choice one makes in life of a window--of
+being rightly placed--whether or not one finds life dull or amusing.
+This tailor had the talent of knowing where to stand, at life's
+corner--for him there was a ceaseless procession of excitements.
+
+It may be that our neighbor's talent for seeing was catching. It is
+certain that no city we had ever before looked out upon had seemed as
+crowded with sights. The whole history of Caen was writ in stone
+against the blue of the sky. Here, below us, sat the lovely old town,
+seated in the grasses of her plain. Yonder was her canal, as an artery
+to keep her pulse bounding in response to the sea; the ship-masts and
+the drooping sails seemed strange companions for the great trees and
+the old garden walls. Those other walls William built to cincture the
+city, Froissart found three centuries later so amazingly "strong, full
+of drapery and merchandise, rich citizens, noble dames, damsels, and
+fine churches," for this girdle of the Conqueror's great bastions the
+eye looks in vain. But William's vow still proclaims its fulfilment;
+the spire of l'Abbaye aux Hommes, and the Romanesque towers of its
+twin, l'Abbaye aux Dames, face each other, as did William and Mathilde
+at the altar--that union that had to be expiated by the penance of
+building these stones in the air.
+
+Commend me to an attic window to put one in sympathetic relations with
+cathedral spires! At this height we and they, for a part of their
+flight upward, at least, were on a common level--and we all know what
+confidences come about from the accident of propinquity. They seemed to
+assure us as never before when sitting at their feet, the difficulties
+they had overcome in climbing heavenward. Every stone that looked down
+upon the city wore this look of triumph.
+
+In the end it was this Caen in the air--it was this aerial city of
+finials, of towers, of peaked spires, of carved chimneys, of tree-tops
+over which the clouds rode; of a plain, melting--like a sea--into the
+mists of the horizon; this high, bright region peopled with birds and
+pigeons; of a sky tender, translucent, and as variable as human
+emotions; of an air that was rapture to breathe, and of nights in which
+the stars were so close they might almost be handled; it was this free,
+hilly city of the roofs that is still the Caen I remember best.
+
+There were other features of Caen that were good to see, I also
+remember. Her street expression, on the whole, was very pleasing. It
+was singularly calm and composed, even for a city in a plain. But the
+quiet came, doubtless, from its population being away at the races. The
+few townspeople who, for obvious reasons, were stay-at-homes, were
+uncommonly civil; Caen had evidently preserved the tradition of good
+manners. An army of cripples was in waiting to point the way to the
+church doors; a regiment of beggars was within them, with nets cast
+already for the catching of the small fry of our pennies. In the gay,
+geranium-lit garden circling the side walls of St. Pierre there were
+many legless soldiers; the old houses we went to see later on in the
+high street seemed, by contrast, to have survived other wars, those of
+the Directory and the Mountain, with a really scandalous degree of good
+fortune. On our way to a still greater church than St. Pierre, to the
+Abbaye aux Dames, that, like the queen who built her, sits on the
+throne of a hill--on our way thither we passed innumerable other
+ancient mansions. None of these were down in the guide books; they
+were, therefore, invested with the deeper charm of personal discovery.
+Once away from the little city of the shops, the real Caen came out to
+greet us. It was now a gray, sad, walled town; behind the walls,
+level-browed Francis I. windows looked gravely over the tufts of
+verdure; here was an old gateway; there what might once have been a
+portcullis, now only an arched wreath of vines; still beyond, a group
+of severe-looking mansions with great iron bound windows presented the
+front of miniature fortresses. And everywhere gardens and gardens.
+
+Turn where you would, you would only turn to face verdure, foliage, and
+masses of flowers. The high walls could neither keep back the odors nor
+hide the luxuriance of these Caen gardens. These must have been the
+streets that bewitched Madame de Sevigne. Through just such a maze of
+foliage Charlotte Corday has also walked, again and again, with her
+wonderful face aflame with her great purpose, before the purpose
+ripened into the dagger thrust at Marat's bared breast--that avenging
+Angel of Beauty stabbing the Beast in his bath. Auber, with his
+Anacreontic ballads in his young head, would seem more fittingly
+framed in this old Caen that runs up a hill-side. But women as
+beautiful as Marie Stuart and the Corday can deal safely in the
+business of assassination, the world will always continue to aureole
+their pictures with a garland of roses.
+
+The Abbaye on its hill was reached at last. All Caen lay below us; from
+the hillside it flowed as a sea rolls away from a great ship's sides.
+Down below, far below, as if buttressing the town that seemed rushing
+away recklessly to the waste of the plains, stands the Abbaye's twin-
+brother, the Aux Hommes. Plains, houses, roof-tops, spires, all were
+swimming in a sea of golden light; nothing seemed quite real or solid,
+so vast was the prospect and so ethereal was the medium through which
+we saw it. Perhaps it was the great contrast between that shimmering,
+unstable city below, that reeked and balanced itself like some human
+creature whose dazzled vision had made its footing insecure--it may be
+that it was this note of contrast which invested this vast structure
+bestriding the hill, with such astonishing grandeur. I have known few,
+if any, other churches produce so instantaneous an effect of a beauty
+that was one with austerity. This great Norman is more Puritan than
+French: it is Norman Gothic with a Puritan severity.
+
+The sound of a deep sonorous music took us quickly within. It was as
+mysterious a music as ever haunted a church aisle. The vast and snowy
+interior was as deserted as a Presbyterian church on a week-day. Yet
+the sound of the rich, strong voices filled all the place. There was no
+sound of tingling accompaniment: there was no organ pipe, even, to add
+its sensuous note of color. There was only the sound of the voices, as
+they swelled, and broke, and began afresh.
+
+The singing went on.
+
+It was a slow "plain chant." Into the great arches the sonorous
+chanting beat upon the ear with a rhythmic perfection that, even
+without the lovely flavor of its sweetness, would have made a beauty of
+its own. In this still and holy place, with the company of the stately
+Norman arches soaring aloft--beneath the sombre glory of the giant
+aisle--the austere simplicity of this chant made the heart beat, one
+knew not why, and the eyes moisten, one also knew not why.
+
+We had followed the voices. They came, we found, from within the choir.
+A pattering of steps proclaimed we were to go no farther.
+
+"Not there, my ladies--step this way, one only enters the choir by
+going into the hospital."
+
+The voice was low and sweet; the smile, a spark of divinity set in a
+woman's face; and the whole was clothed in a nun's garb.
+
+We followed the fluttering robes; we passed out once more into the
+sunlit parvis. We spoke to the smile and it answered: yes, the choir
+was reserved for the Sisters--they must be able to approach it from the
+convent and the hospital; it had always, since the time of Mathilde,
+been reserved for the nuns; would we pass this way? The way took us
+into an open vaulted passage, past a grating where sat a white-capped
+Sister, past a group of girls and boys carrying wreaths and
+garlands--they were making ready for the _Fete-Dieu_, our nun
+explained--past, at the last, a series of corridors through which,
+faintly at first, and then sweeter and fuller, there struck once more
+upon our ears the sounds of the deep and resonant chanting.
+
+The black gown stopped all at once. The nun was standing in front of a
+green curtain. She lifted it. This was what we saw. The semicircle of a
+wide apse. Behind, rows upon rows of round arches. Below the arches, in
+the choir stalls, a long half-circle of stately figures. The figures
+were draped from head to foot. When they bent their heads not an inch
+of flesh was visible, except a few hands here and there that had
+escaped the long, wide sleeves. All these figures were motionless; they
+were as immobile as statues; occasionally, at the end of a "Gloria,"
+all turned to face the high altar. At the end of the "Amen" a cloud of
+black veils swept the ground. Then for several measures of the chant
+the figures were again as marble. In each of the low, round arches, a
+stately woman, tall and nobly planned, draped like a goddess turned
+saint, stood and chanted to her Lord. Had the Norman builders carved
+these women, ages ago, standing about Mathilde's tomb, those ancient
+sculptures could not have embodied, in more ideal image, the type of
+womanly renunciation and of a saint's fervor of exaltation.
+
+We left them, with the rich chant still full upon their lips, with
+heads bent low, calm as graven images. It was only the bloom on a
+cheek, here and there, that made one certain of the youth entombed
+within these nuns' garb.
+
+"Happy, _mesdames? Oh, mais tres heureuses, toutes_--there are no women
+so happy as we. See how they come to us, from all the country around.
+_En voila une_--did you remark the pretty one, with the book, seated,
+all in white? She is to be a full Sister in a month. She comes from a
+noble family in the south. She was here one day, she saw the life of
+the Sisters, of us all working here, among the poor soldiers--_elle a
+vu ca, et pour tout de bon, s'est donnee a Dieu!"
+
+The smile of our nun was rapturous. She was proving its source. Once
+more we saw the young countess who had given herself to her God. An
+hour later, when we had reached the hospital wards, her novice's robes
+were trailing the ground. She was on her knees in the very middle of
+the great bare room. She was repeating the office of the hour, aloud,
+with clasped hands and uplifted head. On her lovely young face there
+was the glow of a divine ecstasy. All the white faces from the long
+rows of the white beds were bending toward her; to one even in all
+fulness of strength and health that girlish figure, praying beside the
+great vase of the snowy daisies, with the glow that irradiated the
+sweet, pure face, might easily enough have seemed an angel's.
+
+As companions for our tour of the grounds we had two young Englishmen.
+Both eyed the nuns in the distance of the corridors and the gardens
+with the sharpened glances all men level at the women who have
+renounced them. It is a mystery no man ever satisfactorily fathoms.
+
+"Queer notion, this, a lot of women shutting themselves up," remarked
+the younger of the two. "In England, now, they'd all go in for being
+old maids, drinking tea and coddling cats, you know."
+
+"I wonder which are the happier, your countrywomen or these Sisters,
+who, in renouncing the world devote their lives to serving it. See,
+over yonder" and I nodded to a scene beneath the wide avenue of the
+limes. Two tall Augustines were supporting a crippled old man; they
+were showing him some fresh garden-beds. Beyond was a gayer group. Some
+of the lay sisters were tugging at a huge basket of clothes, fresh from
+the laundry. Running across the grass, with flying draperies, two nuns,
+laughing as they ran, each striving to outfoot the other, were
+hastening to their rescue.
+
+"They keep their bloom, running about like that; only healthy nuns I
+ever saw."
+
+"That's because they have something better than cats to coddle."
+
+"Ah, ha! that's not bad. It's a slow suicide, all the same. But here we
+are, at the top; it's a fine outlook, is it not?"
+
+The young man panted as he reached the top of the Maze, one of the
+chief glories of the old Abbaye grounds. He had a fair and sensitive
+face; a weak product on the whole, he seemed, compared with the
+nobly-built, vigorous-bodied nuns crowding the choir-stalls yonder.
+Instead of that long, slow suicide, surely these women should be doing
+their greater work of reproducing a race. Even an open-air cell seems
+to me out of place in our century. It will be entirely out of fashion
+in time, doubtless, as the mediaeval cell has gone along with the old
+castle life, whose princely mode of doing things made a nunnery the
+only respectable hiding-place for the undowered daughters.
+
+As we crept down into Caen, it was to find it thick with the dust of
+twilight. The streets were dense with other things besides the
+thickened light. The Caen world was crowding homeward; all the
+boulevards and side streets were alive with a moving throng of dusty,
+noisy, weary holidaymakers. The town was abroad in the streets to hear
+the news of the horses, and to learn the history of the betting.
+
+Although we had gone to church instead of doing the races, many of
+those who had peopled the gay race-track came back to us. The table
+d'hote, at our inn that night, was as noisy as a Parisian cafe. It was
+scarcely as discreet, I should say. On our way to our attic that night,
+the little corridors made us a really amazing number of confidences.
+
+It was strange, but all the shoes appeared to have come in pairs of
+twos. Never was there such a collection of boots in couples. Strange
+it was, also, to see how many little secrets these rows of candid
+shoe-leather disclosed. Here a pert, coquettish pair of ties were
+having as little in common as possible with the stout, somewhat clumsy
+walking-boots next them. In the two just beyond, at the next door, how
+the delicate, slender buttoned kids leaned over, floppingly, to rest on
+the coarse, yet strong, hobnailed clumpers!
+
+Shabbier and shabbier grew the shoes, as we climbed upward. With each
+pair of stairs we seemed to have left a rung in the ladder of fortune
+behind. But even the very poorest in pocket had brought his little
+extravagance with him to the races.
+
+The only genuine family party had taken refuge, like ourselves, in the
+attic.
+
+At the very next door to our own, Monsieur, Madame, et Bebe proclaimed,
+by the casting of their dusty shoes, that they also, like the rest of
+the world, had come to Caen to see the horses run.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A DAY AT BAYEUX AND ST. LO.
+
+
+Caen seated in its plain, wearing its crown of steeples--this was our
+last glimpse of the beautiful city. Our way to Bayeux was strewn thick
+with these Normandy jewels; with towns smaller than Caen; with Gothic
+belfries; with ruined priories, and with castles, stately even when
+tottering in decay. When the last castle was lost in a thicket, we
+discovered that our iron horse was stopping in the very middle of a
+field. If the guard had shouted out the name of any American city,
+built overnight, on a Western prairie, we should have felt entirely at
+home in this meadow; we should have known any clearing, with grass
+and daisies, was a very finished evidence of civilization at high
+pressure.
+
+But a lane as the beginning of a cathedral town!
+
+Evidently Bayeux has had a Ruskinian dread of steam-whistles, for this
+ancient seat of bishops has succeeded in retaining the charms of its
+old rustic approaches, whatever else it may have sacrificed on the
+altar of modernness.
+
+An harangue, at the door of the quaint old Normandy omnibus, by the
+driver of the same, was proof that the lesson of good oratory,
+administered by generations of bishops, had not been lost on the Bayeux
+inhabitants. Two rebellious English tourists furnished the text for the
+driver's sermon; they were showing, with all the naive pride of
+pedestrians, their intention of footing the distance between the
+station and the cathedral. This was an independence of spirit no Norman
+could endure to see. What? these gentlemen proposed to walk, in the
+sun, through clouds of dust, when here was a carriage, with ladies for
+companions, at their command? The coach had come down the hill on
+purpose to conduct _Messieurs les voyageurs;_ how did these gentlemen
+suppose _a pere de famille_ was to make his living if the fashion of
+walking came in? And the rusty red vest was thumbed by the gnarled hand
+of the father, who was also an orator; and a high-peaked hat swept the
+ground before the hard-hearted gentlemen. All the tragedy of the
+situation had come about from the fact that the tourists, also, had
+gotten themselves up in costume. When two fine youths have risen early
+in the day to put on checked stockings, leggings, russet walking-shoes,
+and a plaited coat with a belt, such attire is one to be lived up to.
+Once in knickerbockers and a man's getting into an omnibus is really
+too ignominious! With such a road before two sets of such well-shaped
+calves--a road all shaped and graded--this, indeed, would be flying in
+the face of a veritable providence of bishop-builders intent on
+maintaining pastoral effects.
+
+The knickerbockers relentlessly strode onward; the driver had addressed
+himself to hearts of stone. But he had not yet exhausted his quiver of
+appeal. Englishmen walk, well! there's no accounting for the taste of
+Britons who are also still half savages; but even a barbarian must eat.
+Half-way up the hill, the rattle of the loose-jointed vehicle came to a
+dead stop. With great gravity the guard descended from his seat; this
+latter he lifted to take from the entrails of the old vehicle a handful
+of hand-bills. He, the horse, the omnibus, and we, all waited for, what
+do you suppose? To besprinkle the walking Englishmen as they came
+within range with a shower of circulars announcing that at "_midi, chez
+Nigaud, il y aura un dejeuner chaud_."
+
+The driver turned to look in at the window--and to nod as he turned--he
+felt so certain of our sympathy; had he not made sure of them at last?
+
+A group of gossamer caps beneath a row of sad, gray-faced houses was
+our Bayeux welcome. The faces beneath the caps watched our approach
+with the same sobriety as did the old houses--they had the antique
+Norman seriousness of aspect. The noise we made with the clatter and
+rattle of our broken-down vehicle seemed an impertinence, in the face
+of such severe countenances. We might have been entering a deserted
+city, except for the presence of these motionless Normandy figures. The
+cathedral met us at the threshold of the city: magnificent, majestic, a
+huge gray mountain of stone, but severe in outline, as if the Norman
+builders had carved on the vast surface of its facade an imprint of
+their own grave earnestness.
+
+We were somewhat early for the hot breakfast at Nigaud's. There was,
+however, the appetizing smell of soup, with a flourishing pervasiveness
+of onion in the pot, to sustain the vigor of an appetite whetted by a
+start at dawn. The knickerbockers came in with the omelette. But one is
+not a Briton on his travels for nothing; one does not leave one's own
+island to be the dupe of French inn-keepers. The smell of the soup had
+not departed with our empty plates, and the voice of the walkers was
+not of the softest when they demanded their rights to be as odorous as
+we. There is always a curiously agreeable sensation, to an American, in
+seeing an Englishman angry; to get angry in public is one thing we
+do badly; and in his cup of wrath our British brother is sublime--he is
+so superbly unconscious--and so contemptuous--of the fact that the
+world sometimes finds anger ridiculous.
+
+At the other end of the long and narrow table two other travellers were
+seated, a man and a woman. But food, to them, it was made manifestly
+evident, was a matter of the most supreme indifference. They were at
+that radiant moment of life when eating is altogether too gross a form
+of indulgence. For these two were at the most interesting period of
+French courtship--just _after_ the wedding ceremony, when, with the
+priest's blessing, had come the consent of their world and of tradition
+to their making the other's acquaintance. This provincial bride and her
+husband of a day were beginning, as all rustic courting begins, by a
+furtive holding of hands; this particular couple, in view of our
+proximity and their own mutual embarrassment, had recourse to the
+subterfuge of desperate lunges at the other's fingers, beneath the
+table-cloth. The screen, as a screen, did not work. It deceived no
+one--as the bride's pale-gray dress and her flowery bonnet also
+deceived no one--save herself. This latter, in certain ranks of life,
+is the bride's travelling costume, the world over. And the world
+over, it is worn by the recently wedded with the profound conviction
+that in donning it they have discovered the most complete of all
+disguises.
+
+This bride and groom were obviously in the first rapture of mutual
+discovery. The honey in their moon was not fresher than their views of
+the other's tastes and predilections.
+
+"Ah--ah--you like to travel quickly--to see everything, to take it all
+in a gulp--so do I, and then to digest at one's leisure."
+
+The bride was entirely of this mind. Only, she murmured, there were
+other things one must not do too quickly--one must go slow in matters
+of the heart--to make quite sure of all the stages.
+
+But her husband was at her throat, that is, his eyes and lips were, as
+he answered, so that all the table might partake of his emotion--"No,
+no, the quicker the heart feels the quicker love comes. _Tiens,
+voyons, mon amie, toi-meme, tu m'as confie_"--and the rest was lost in
+the bride's ear.
+
+Apparently we were to have them, these brides, for the rest of our
+journey, in all stages and of all ages! Thus far none others had
+appeared as determined as were these two honey-mooners, that all the
+world should share their bliss. They were cracking filberts with their
+disengaged fingers, the other two being closely interlocked, in quite
+scandalous openness, when we left them.
+
+That was the only form of excitement that greeted us in the quiet
+Bayeux streets. The very street urchins invited repose; the few we saw
+were seated sedately on the threshold of their own door-steps, frequent
+sallies abroad into this quiet city having doubtless convinced them of
+the futility of all sorties. The old houses were their carved facades
+as old ladies wear rich lace--they had reached the age when the vanity
+of personal adornment had ceased to inflate. The great cathedral,
+towering above the tranquil town, wore a more conscious air; its
+significance was too great a contrast to the quiet city asleep at its
+feet. In these long, slow centuries the towers had grown to have the
+air of protectors.
+
+The famous tapestries we went to see later, might easily enough have
+been worked yesterday, in any one of the old mediaeval houses; Mathilde
+and her hand-maidens would find no more--not so much--to distract and
+disturb them now in this still and tranquil town, with its sad gray
+streets and its moss-grown door-steps, as they must in those earlier
+bustling centuries of the Conqueror. Even then, when Normandy was only
+beginning its career of importance among the great French provinces,
+Bayeux was already old. She was far more Norse then than Norman; she
+was Scandinavian to the core; even her nobles spoke in harsh Norse
+syllables; they were as little French as it was possible to be, and yet
+govern a people.
+
+Mathilde, when she toiled over her frame, like all great writers, was
+doubtless quite unconscious she was producing a masterpiece. She was,
+however, in point of fact, the very first among the great French
+realists. No other French writer has written as graphically as she did
+with her needle, of the life and customs of their day. That long scroll
+of tapestry, for truth and a naive perfection of sincerity--where will
+you find it equalled or even approached? It is a rude Homeric epic; and
+I am not quite certain that it ought not to rank higher than even some
+of the more famous epics of the world--since Mathilde had to create
+the mould of art into which she poured her story. For who had thought
+before her of making women's stitches write or paint a great historical
+event, crowded with homely details which now are dubbed archaeological
+veracities?
+
+Bayeux and its tapestry; its grave company of antique houses; its
+glorious cathedral dominating the whole--what a lovely old background
+against which poses the eternal modernness of the young noon sun! The
+history of Bayeux is commonly given in a paragraph. Our morning's walk
+had proved to us it was the kind of town that does more to re-create
+the historic past than all the pages of a Guizot or a Challamel.
+
+The bells that were ringing out the hour of high-noon from the
+cathedral towers at Bayeux were making the heights of St. Lo, two hours
+later, as noisy as a village fair. The bells, for rivals, had the
+clatter of women's tongues. I think I never, before or since, have
+beheld so lively a company of washerwomen as were beating their clothes
+in Vire River. The river bends prettily just below the St. Lo heights,
+as if it had gone out of its way to courtesy to a hill. But even the
+waters, in their haste to be polite, could not course beneath the great
+bridge as swiftly as ran those women's tongues. There were a good
+hundred of them at work beneath the washing-sheds. Now, these sheds,
+anywhere in France, are really the open-air club room of the French
+peasant woman; the whole dish of the village gossip is hung out to dry,
+having previously been well soused and aired, along with the blouses
+and the coarse chemises. The town of St. Lo had evidently furnished
+these club members of the washing-stones with some fat dish of
+gossip--the heads were as close as currants on a stem, as they bent in
+groups over the bright waters. They had told it all to the stream; and
+the stream rolled the volume of the talk along as it carried along also
+the gay, sparkling reflections of the life and the toil that bent over
+it--of the myriad reflections of those moving, bare-armed figures, of
+the brilliant kerchiefs, of the wet blue and gray jerseys, and of the
+long prismatic line of the damp, motley-hued clothes that were
+fluttering in the wind.
+
+The bells' clangor was an assurance that something was happening on top
+of the hill. Just what happened was as altogether pleasing a spectacle,
+after a long and arduous climb up a hillside, as it has often been my
+good fortune to encounter.
+
+The portals of the church of Notre Dame were wide open. Within, as we
+looked over the shoulders of the townspeople who, like us, had come to
+see what the bells meant by their ringing, within the church there was
+a rich and sombre dusk; out of this dusk, indistinctly at first, lit
+by the tremulous flicker of a myriad of candles, came a line of
+white-veiled heads; then another of young boys, with faces as pale
+as the nosegays adorning their brand-new black coats; next the
+scarlet-robed choristers, singing, and behind them still others
+swinging incense that thickened the dusk. Suddenly, like a vision, the
+white veils passed out into the sunlight, and we saw that the faces
+beneath the veils were young and comely. The faces were still
+alternately lighted by the flare of the burning tapers and the glare of
+the noon sun. The long procession ended at last in a straggling group
+of old peasants with fine tremulous mouths, a-tremble with pride and
+with feeling; for here they were walking in full sight of their town,
+in their holiday coats, with their knees treacherously unsteady from
+the thrill of the organ's thunder and the sweetness of the choir-boys'
+singing.
+
+Whether it was a pardon, or a _fete_, or a first communion, we never
+knew. But the town of St. Lo is ever gloriously lighted, for us, with a
+nimbus of young heads, such as encircled the earlier madonnas.
+
+After such a goodly spectacle, the rest of the town was a tame morsel.
+We took a parting sniff of the incense still left in the eastern end of
+the church's nave; there was a bit of good glass in a window to reward
+us. Outside the church, on the west from the Petite Place, was a wide
+outlook over the lovely vale of the Vire, with St. Lo itself twisting
+and turning in graceful postures down the hillside.
+
+On the same prospect two kings have looked, and before the kings a
+saint. St. Lo or St. Laudus himself, who gave his name to the town,
+must, in the sixth century, have gazed on virgin forests stretching
+away from the hill far as the eye could reach. Charlemagne, three
+hundred years later, in his turn, found the site a goodly one, one to
+tempt men to worship the Creator of such beauty, for here he founded
+the great Abbey of St. Croix, long since gone with the monks who
+peopled it. Louis XI, that mystic wearing the warrior's helmet, set his
+seal of approval on the hill, by sending the famous glass yonder in the
+cathedral, when the hill and the St. Lo people beat the Bretons who had
+come to capture both.
+
+Like saint, and kings, and monks, and warriors, we in our turn crept
+down the hill. For we also were done with the town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A DINNER AT COUTANCES.
+
+
+The way from St. Lo to Coutances is a pleasant way. There is no map of
+the country that will give you even a hint of its true character, any
+more than from a photograph you can hope to gain an insight into the
+moral qualities of a pretty woman.
+
+Here, at last, was the ideal Normandy landscape. It was a country with
+a savage look--a savage that had been trained to follow the plough.
+Even in its color it had retained the true barbarians' instinct for a
+good primary. Here were no melting-yellow mustard-fields, nor flame-lit
+poppied meadows, nor blue-bells lifting their baby-blue eyes out of the
+grain. All the land was green. Fields, meadows, forests, plains--all
+were green, green, green. The features of the landscape had changed
+with this change in coloring. The slim, fragile grace of slim trees and
+fragile cliffs had been replaced by trees of heroic proportions,
+and by outlines nobly rounded and full--like the breasts of a mother.
+The whole country had an astonishing look of vigor--of the vigor which
+comes with rude strength; and it had that charm which goes with all
+untamed beauty--the power to sting one into a sense of agitated
+enjoyment.
+
+Even the farm-houses had been suddenly transformed into fortresses.
+Each one of the groups of the farm enclosures had its outer walls, its
+miniature turrets, and here and there its rounded bastions. Each farm,
+apparently, in the olden days had been a citadel unto itself. The
+Breton had been a very troublesome neighbor for many a long century;
+every ploughman, until a few hundred years ago, was quite likely to
+turn soldier at a second's notice--every true Norman must look to his
+own sword to defend his hearth-stone. Such is the story those stone
+turrets that cap the farm walls tell you--each one of these turrets was
+an open lid through which the farmer could keep his eye on Brittany.
+
+Meanwhile, along the roads as we rushed swiftly by, a quieter life was
+passing. The farm wagons were jogging peacefully along on a high-road
+as smooth as a fine lady's palm--and as white. The horses were
+harnessed one before the other, in interminable length of line.
+Sometimes six, sometimes eight, even so many as ten, marched with great
+gravity, and with that majestic dignity only possible to full-blooded
+Percherons, one after the other. They each wore a saddle-cloth of
+blue sheepskin. On their mottled haunches this bit of color made their
+polished coats to gleam like unto a lizards' skin.
+
+Meanwhile, also, we were nearing Coutances. The farm-houses were
+fortresses no longer; the thatched roofs were one once more with the
+green of the high roads; for even in the old days there was a great
+walled city set up on a hill, to which refuge all the people about for
+miles could turn for protection.
+
+A city that is set on a hill! That for me is commonly recommendation
+enough. Such a city, so set, promises at the very least the dual
+distinction of looking up as well as looking down; it is the nearer
+heaven, and just so much the farther removed from earth.
+
+Coutances, for a city with its head in the air, was surprisingly
+friendly. It went out of its way to make us at home. At the very
+station, down below in the plain, it had sent the most loquacious of
+coach-drivers to put us in immediate touch with its present interests.
+All the city, as the coarse blue blouse, flourishing its whip, took
+pains to explain, was abroad in the fields; the forests, _tiens_, down
+yonder through the trees, we could see for ourselves how the young
+people were making the woods as crowded as a ball-room. The city, as a
+city, was stripping the land and the trees bare--it would be as bald as
+a new-born babe by the morrow. But then, of a certainty, we also had
+come for the _fete_--or, and here a puzzled look of doubt beclouded the
+provincial's eyes--might we, perchance, instead, have come for the
+trial? _Mais non, pas ca_, these ladies had never come for that, since
+they did not even know the court was sitting, now, this very instant,
+at Coutances. And--_sapristi!_ but there was a trial going on--one to
+make the blood curdle; he himself had not slept, the rustic coachman
+added, as he shivered beneath his blouse, all the night before--the
+blood had run so cold in his veins.
+
+The horse and the road were all the while going up the hill. The road
+was easily one that might have been the path of warriors; the walls,
+still lofty on the side nearest the town, bristled with a turret or a
+bastion to remind us Coutances had not been set on a hill for mere
+purposes of beauty. The ramparts of the old fortifications had been
+turned into a broad promenade. Even as we jolted past, beneath the
+great breadth of the trees' verdure we could see how gloriously the
+prospect widened--the country below reaching out to the horizon like
+the waters of a sea that end only in indefiniteness.
+
+The city itself seemed to grow out of the walls and the trees. Here and
+there a few scattered houses grouped themselves as if meaning to start
+a street; but a maze of foliage made a straight line impossible.
+Finally a large group of buildings, with severe stone faces, took a
+more serious plunge away from the vines; they had shaken themselves
+free and were soon soberly ranging themselves into the parallel lines
+of narrow city streets.
+
+It was a pleasant surprise to find that, for once, a Norman blouse had
+told the truth; for here were the people of Coutances coming up from
+the fields to prove it. In all these narrow streets a great multitude
+of people were passing us; some were laden with vines, others with
+young forest trees, and still others with rude garlands of flowers. The
+peasant women's faces, as the bent figures staggered beneath a young
+fir-tree, were purple, but their smiles were as gay as the wild flowers
+with which the stones were thickly strewn. Their words also were as
+rough:
+
+"_Diantre--mais c'e lourd!_"
+
+"_E-ben, e toi, tu n' bougeons point, toi!_"
+
+And the nearest fir-tree carrier to our carriage wheels cracked a swift
+blow over the head of a vine-bearer, who being but an infant of two,
+could not make time with the swift foot of its mother.
+
+The smell of the flowers was everywhere. Fir-trees perfumed the air.
+Every doorstep was a garden. The courtyards were alive with the squat
+figures of capped maidens, wreathing and twisting greens and garlands.
+And in the streets there was such a noise as was never before heard in
+a city on a hill-top.
+
+For Coutances was to hold its great _fete_ on the morrow.
+
+It was a relief to turn in from the noise and hubbub to the bright
+courtyard of our inn. The brightness thereof, and of the entire
+establishment, indeed, appeared to find its central source in the
+brilliant eyes of our hostess. Never was an inn-keeper gifted with a
+vision at once so omniscient and so effulgent. Those eyes were
+everywhere; on us, on our bags, our bonnets, our boots; they divined
+our wants, and answered beforehand our unuttered longings. We had come
+far? the eyes asked, burning a hole through our gossamer evasions; from
+Paris, perhaps--a glance at our bonnets proclaimed the eyes knew all;
+we were here for the _fete_, to see the bishop on the morrow; that was
+well; we were going on to the Mont; and the eyes scented the shortness
+of our stay by a swift glance at our luggage.
+
+"_Numero quatre, au troisieme!_"
+
+There was no appeal possible. The eyes had penetrated the disguise of
+our courtesy; we were but travellers of a night; the top story was
+built for such as we.
+
+But such a top story, and such a chamber therein! A great, wide, low
+room; beams deep and black, with here and there a brass bit hanging;
+waxed floors, polished to mirrory perfection; a great bed clad in snowy
+draperies, with a snow-white _duvet_ of gigantic proportions. The walls
+were gray with lovely bunches of faded rosebuds flung abroad on the
+soft surface; and to give a quaint and antique note to the whole, over
+the chimney was a bit of worn tapestry with formidable dungeon, a
+Norman keep in the background, and well up in front, a stalwart young
+master of the hounds, with dogs in leash, of the heavy Norman type of
+bulging muscle and high cheekbones.
+
+Altogether, there were worse fates in the world than to be travellers
+of a night, with the destiny of such a room as part of the fate.
+
+When we descended the steep, narrow spiral of steps to the dining-room,
+it was to find the eyes of our hostess brighter than ever. The noise in
+the streets had subsided. It was long after dusk, and Coutances was
+evidently a good provincial. But in the gay little dining-room there
+was an astonishing bustle and excitement.
+
+The _fete_ and the court had brought a crowd of diners to the inn-
+table; when we were all seated we made quite a company at the long,
+narrow board. The candles and lamps lit up any number of Vandyke
+pointed beards, of bald heads, of loosely-tied cravats, and a few
+matronly bosoms straining at the buttons of silk holiday gowns. For the
+_Fete-Dieu_ had brought visitors besides ourselves from all the country
+round; and then "a first communion is like a marriage, all the
+relatives must come, as doubtless we knew," was a baldhead's friendly
+beginning of his soup and his talk, as we took our seats beside him.
+
+With the appearance of the _potage_ conversation, like a battle between
+foes eager for contest, had immediately engaged itself. The setting of
+the table and the air of companionship pervading the establishment were
+aiders and abettors to immediate intercourse. Nothing could be prettier
+than the Caen bowls with their bunches of purple phlox and spiked
+blossoms. Even a metropolitan table might have taken a lesson from the
+perfection of the lighting of the long board. In order that her guests
+should feel the more entirely at home, our brilliant-eyed hostess came
+in with the soup; she took her place behind it at the head of the
+table.
+
+It was evident the merchants from Cherbourg who had come as witnesses
+to the trial, had had many a conversational bout before now with
+madame's ready wit. So had two of the town lawyers. Even the commercial
+gentlemen, for once, were experiencing a brief moment of armed
+suspense, before they flung themselves into the arena of talk. At
+first, or it would never have been in the provinces, this talk at the
+long table, everyone broke into speech at once. There was a flood of
+words; one's sense of hearing was stunned by the noise. Gradually, as
+the cider and the thin red wine were passed, our neighbors gave
+digestion a chance; the din became less thick with words; each listened
+when the other talked. But, as the volume of speech lessened, the
+interest thickened. It finally became concentrated, this interest, into
+true French fervor when the question of the trial was touched on.
+
+"They say D'Alencon is very clever. He pleads for Filon, the culprit,
+to-night, does he not?"
+
+"Yes, poor Filon--it will go hard with him. His crime is a black one."
+
+"I should think it was--implicating _le petit_!"
+
+"Dame! the judge doesn't seem to be of your mind."
+
+"Ah--h!" cried a florid Vandyke-bearded man, the dynamite bomb of
+the table, exploding with a roar of rage. "_Ah--h, cre nom de
+Dieu!--Messieurs les presidents_ are all like that; they are always
+on the side of the innocent--"
+
+"Till they prove them guilty."
+
+"Guilty! guilty!" the bomb exploded in earnest now. "How many times in
+the annals of crime is a man guilty--really guilty? They should search
+for the cause--and punish that. That is true justice. The instigator,
+the instigator--he is the true culprit. Inheritances--_voila les vrais
+coupables_. But when are such things investigated? It is ever the
+innocent who are punished. I know something of that--I do."
+
+"_Allons--allons!_" cried the table, laughing at the beard's vehemence.
+"When were you ever under sentence?"
+
+"When I was doing my duty," the beard hurled back with both arms in the
+air; "when I was doing my three years--I and my comrade; we were
+convicted--punished--for an act of insubordination we never committed.
+Without a trial, without a chance of defending ourselves, we were put
+on two crumbs of bread and a glass of water for two months. And we were
+innocent--as innocent as babes, I tell you."
+
+The table was as still as death. The beard had proved himself worthy of
+this compliment; his voice was the voice of drama, and his gestures
+such as every Frenchman delights in beholding and executing. Every ear
+was his, now.
+
+"I have no rancor. I am, by nature, what God made me, a peaceable man,
+but"--here the voice made a wild _crescendo_--"if I ever meet my
+colonel--_gare a lui_! I told him so. I waited two years, two long
+years, till I was released; then I walked up to him" (the beard rose
+here, putting his hand to his forehead), "I saluted" (the hand made the
+salute), "and I said to him, 'Mon colonel, you convicted me, on false
+evidence, of a crime I never committed. You punished me. It is two
+years since then. But I have never forgotten. Pray to God we may never
+meet in civil life, for then yours would end!"
+
+"_Allons, allons!_ A man after all must do his duty. A colonel--he
+can't go into details!" remonstrated the hostess, with her knife in the
+air.
+
+"I would stick him, I tell you, as I would a pig--or a Prussian! I live
+but for that!"
+
+"_Monstre!_" cried the table in chorus, with a laugh, as it took its
+wine. And each turned to his neighbor to prove the beard in the wrong.
+
+"Of what crime is the defendant guilty--he who is to be tried
+to-night?" Charm asked of a silent man, with sweet serious eyes and a
+rough gray beard, seated next her. Of all the beards at the table, this
+one alone had been content with listening.
+
+"Of fraud--mademoiselle--of fraud and forgery." The man had a voice as
+sweet as a church bell, and as deep. Every word he said rang out
+slowly, sonorously. The attention of the table was fixed in an instant.
+"It is the case of a Monsieur Filon, of Cherbourg. He is a cider
+merchant. He has cheated the state, making false entries, etc. But his
+worst crime is that he has used as his accomplice _un tout petit jeune
+homme_--a lad of barely fifteen--"
+
+"It is that that will make it go hard for him with the jury--"
+
+"Hard!" cried the ex-soldier, getting red at once with the passion of
+his protest--"hard--it ought to condemn him, to guillotine him. What
+are juries for if they don't kill such rascals as he?"
+
+"_Doucement, doucement, monsieur,_" interrupted the bell-note of the
+merchant. "One doesn't condemn people without hearing both sides. There
+may be extenuating circumstances!"
+
+"Yes--there are. He is a merchant. All merchants are thieves. He does
+as all others do--_only_ he was found out."
+
+A protesting murmur now rose from the table, above which rang once
+more, in clear vibrations, the deep notes of the merchant.
+
+"_Ah--h, mais--tous voleurs--non_, not all are thieves. Commerce
+conducted on such principles as that could not exist. Credit is not
+founded on fraud, but on trust."
+
+"_Tres bien, tres bien,_" assented the table. Some knives were thumped
+to emphasize the assent.
+
+"As for stealing"--the rich voice continued, with calm judicial
+slowness--"I can understand a man's cheating the state once,
+perhaps--yielding to an impulse of cupidity. But to do as _ce_
+Monsieur Filon has done--he must be a consummate master of his
+art--for his processes are organized robbery."
+
+"Ah--h, but robbery against the state isn't the same thing as robbing
+an individual," cried the explosive, driven into a corner.
+
+"It is quite the same--morally, only worse. For a man who robs the
+state robs everyone--including himself."
+
+"That's true--perfectly true--and very well put." All the heads about
+the table nodded admiringly; their hostess had expressed the views of
+them all. The company was looking now at the gray beard with glistening
+eyes; he had proved himself master of the argument, and all were
+desirous of proving their homage. Not one of the nice ethical points
+touched on had been missed; even the women had been eagerly listening,
+following, criticising. Here was a little company of people gathered
+together from rustic France, meeting, perhaps, for the first time at
+this board. And the conversation had, from the very beginning, been
+such as one commonly expects to hear only among the upper ranks of
+metropolitan circles. Who would have looked to see a company of Norman
+provincials talking morality, and handling ethics with the skill of
+rhetoricians?
+
+Most of our fellow-diners, meanwhile, were taking their coffee in the
+street. Little tables were ranged close to the house-wall. There was
+just room for a bench beside the table, and then the sidewalk ended.
+
+"Shall you be going to the trial to-night?" courteously asked the
+merchant who had proven himself a master in debate, of Charm. He had
+lifted his hat before he sat down, bowing to her as if he had been in a
+ball-room.
+
+"It will be fine to-night--it is the opening of the defence," he added,
+as he placed carefully two lumps of sugar in his cup.
+
+"It's always finer at night--what with the lights and the people,"
+interpolated the landlady, from her perch on the door-sill. "If _ces
+dames_ wish to go, I can show them the way to the galleries. Only," she
+added, with a warning tone, her growing excitement obvious at the sense
+of the coming pleasure, "it is like the theatre. The earlier we get
+there the better the seat. I go to get my hat." And the door swallowed
+her up.
+
+"She is right--it is like a theatre," soliloquized the merchant--"and
+so is life. Poor Filon!"
+
+We should have been very content to remain where we were. The night had
+fallen; the streets, as they lost themselves in dim turnings, in
+mysterious alleyways, and arches that seemed grotesquely high in the
+vague blur of things, were filled for us with the charm of a new and
+lovely beauty. At one end the street ended in a towering mass of stone;
+that doubtless was the cathedral. At the right, the narrow houses
+dipped suddenly; their roof-lines were lost in vagueness. Between
+the slit made by the street a deep, vast chasm opened; it was the night
+filling the great width of sky, and the mists that shrouded the hill,
+rising out of the sleeping earth. There was only one single line of
+light; a long deep glow was banding the horizon; it was a bit of flame
+the dusk held up, like a fading torch, to show where the sun had
+reigned.
+
+In and out of this dusk the townspeople came and went. Away from the
+mellow lights, streaming past the open inn doors, the shapes were only
+a part of the blur; they were vague, phantasmal masses, clad in coarse
+draperies. As they passed into the circle of light, the faces showed
+features we had grown to know--the high cheekbones, the ruddy tones,
+the deep-set, serious eyes, and firm mouths, with lips close together.
+The air on this hill-top must be of excellent quality; the life up here
+could scarcely be so hard as in the field villages. For the women
+looked less worn, and less hideously old, and in the men's eyes
+there was not so hard and miserly a glittering.
+
+Almost all, young or old, were bearing strange burdens. Some of the men
+were carrying huge floral crosses; the women were laden with every
+conceivable variety of object--with candlesticks, vases, urns, linen
+sheets, rugs, with chairs even.
+
+"They are helping to dress the reposoirs, they must all be in readiness
+for the morning," answered our friend, still beside us, when we asked
+the cause of this astonishing spectacle.
+
+Everywhere garlands and firs, leaves, flowers, and wreaths; people
+moving rapidly; the carriers of the crosses stopping to chat for an
+instant with groups working at some mysterious scaffolding--all shapes
+in darkness. Everywhere, also, there was the sweet, aromatic scent of
+the greens and the pines abroad in the still, clear air of the summer
+night.
+
+This was the perfume and these the dim pictures that were our company
+along the narrow Coutances streets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A SCENE IN A NORMAN COURT.
+
+
+The court-room was brightly lighted; the yellow radiance on the white
+walls made the eyes blink. We had turned, following our guide, from the
+gloom of the dim streets into the roomy corridors of the Prefecture.
+Even the gardens about the building were swarming with townspeople and
+peasants waiting for the court to open. When we entered it was to find
+the hallways and stairs blocked with a struggling mass of people, all
+eager to get seats. A voice that was softened to a purring note, the
+voice that goes with the pursuit of the five franc piece, spoke to our
+landlady. "The seats to be reserved in the tribune were for these
+ladies?"
+
+No time had been lost, you perceive. We were strangers; the courtesies
+of the town were to be extended to us. We were to have of their best,
+here in Coutances; and their best, just now, was this _mise en scene_
+in their court room.
+
+The stage was well set. The Frenchman's instinctive sense of fitness
+was obvious in the arrangements. Long lines of blue drapery from the
+tall windows brought the groups below into high relief; the scarlet of
+the judges' robes was doubly impressive against this background. The
+lawyers, in their flowing black gowns and white ties, gained added
+dignity from the marine note behind them. The bluish pallor of the
+walls made the accused and the group about him pathetically sombre.
+Each one of this little group was in black. The accused himself, a
+sharp, shrewd, too keen-eyed man of thirty or so, might have been
+following a corpse--so black was his raiment. Even the youth beside
+him, a dull, sodden-eyed lad, with an air of being here not on his own
+account, but because he had been forced to come, was clad in deepest
+mourning. By the side of the culprit sat the one really tragic figure
+in all the court--the culprit's wife. She also was in black. In happier
+times she must have been a fair, fresh-colored blonde. Now all the
+color was gone from her cheek. She was as pale as death, and in her
+sweet downcast eyes there were the tell-tale vigils of long nights of
+weeping. Beside her sat an elderly man who bent over her, talking,
+whispering, commenting as the trial went on.
+
+Every eye in the tribune was fixed on the slim young figure. A passing
+glance sufficed, as a rule, for the culprit and his accomplice; but it
+was on the wife that all the quick French sympathy, that volubly spoke
+itself out, was lavished. The blouses and peasants' caps, the tradesmen
+and their wives crowded close about the railing to pass their comment.
+
+"She looks far more guilty than he," muttered a wizened old man next to
+us, very crooked on his three-legged stool.
+
+"Yes," warmly added a stout capped peasant, with a basket once on her
+arm, now serving as a pedestal to raise the higher above the others her
+own curiosity. "Yes--she has her modesty--too--to speak for her--"
+
+"Bah--all put on--to soften the jury." It was our fiery one of the
+table d'hote who had wedged his way toward us.
+
+"And why not? A woman must make use of what weapons she has at hand--"
+
+_"Silence! Silence! messieurs!"_ The _huissier_ brought down his staff
+of office with a ring. The clatter of sabots over the wooden floor of
+the tribune and the loud talking were disturbing the court.
+
+This French court, as a court, sat in strange fashion, it seemed to us.
+The bench was on wonderfully friendly terms with the table about which
+the clerks sat, with the lawyers, with the foreman of the jury, with
+even the _huissiers_. Monsieur le President was in his robes, but he
+wore them as negligently as he did the dignity of his office. He and
+the lawyer for the defence, a noted Coutances orator, openly wrangled;
+the latter, indeed, took little or no pains to show him respect; now
+they joked together, next a retort flashed forth which began a quarrel,
+and the court and the trial looked on as both struggled for a mastery
+in the art of personal abuse. The lawyer made nothing of raising his
+finger, to shake it in open menace in the very teeth of the scarlet
+robes. And the robes clad a purple-faced figure that retorted
+angrily, like a fighting school-boy.
+
+But to Coutances, this, it appears, was a proper way for a court to
+sit.
+
+"_Ah, D'Alencon--il est fort, lui. C'est lui qui agace toujours
+monsieur le president_--"
+
+"He'll win--he'll make a great speech--he is never really fine unless
+it's a question of life or death--" Such were the criticisms that were
+poured out from the quick-speaking lips about us.
+
+Presently a simultaneous movement on the part of the jury brought the
+proceedings to confusion. A witness in the act of giving evidence
+stopped short in his sentence; he twisted his head; looking upward, he
+asked a question of the foreman, and the latter nodded, as if
+assenting. The judge then looked up. All the court looked up. All the
+heads were twisted. Something obviously was wrong. Then, presently the
+_concierge_ appeared with a huge bunch of keys.
+
+And all the court waited in perfect stillness while the windows were
+being closed!
+
+"_Il y avait un courant d'air_--there was a draught,"--gravely
+announced the crooked man, as he rose to let the _concierge_ pass. This
+latter had her views of a court so susceptible to whiffs of night air.
+
+"_Ces messieurs_ are delicate--pity they have to be out at
+night!"--whereat the tribune snickered.
+
+All went on bravely for a good half-hour. More witnesses were called;
+each answered with wonderful aptness, ease, and clearness; none were
+confused or timid; these were not men to be the playthings of others
+who made tortuous cross-questionings their trade. They, also, were
+Frenchmen; they knew how to speak. The judge and the Coutances lawyer
+continued their jokes and their squabblings. And still only the poor
+wife hung her head.
+
+Then all at once the judge began to mop his brow. The jury, to a man,
+mopped theirs. The witnesses and lawyers each brought forth their big
+silk handkerchiefs. All the court was wiping its brow.
+
+"It's the heat," cried the judge. "_Huissier_, call the _concierge_;
+tell her to open the windows."
+
+The _concierge_ reappeared. Flushed this time, and with anger in her
+eye. She pushed her way through the crowd; she took not the least pains
+in the world to conceal her opinion of a court as variable as this one.
+
+"_Ah mais_, this is too much! if the jury doesn't know its mind better
+than this!"--and in the fury of her wrath she well-nigh upset the
+crooked little old gentleman and his three-legged stool.
+
+"That's right--that's right. I'm not a fine lady, tip me over. You open
+and shut me as if I were a bureau drawer; _continuez_--_continuez_--"
+
+The _concierge_ had reached the windows now. She was opening and
+slamming them in the face of the judge, the jury, and _messieurs les
+huissiers_, with unabashed violence. The court, except for that one
+figure in sombre draperies, being men, suffered this violence as only
+men bear with a woman in a temper. With the letting in of the fresh
+air, fresh energy in the prosecution manifested itself. The witnesses
+were being subjected to inquisitorial torture; their answers were still
+glib, but the faces were studies of the passions held in the leash of
+self-control. Not twenty minutes had ticked their beat of time when
+once more the jury, to a man, showed signs of shivering. Half a dozen
+gravely took out their pocket-handkerchiefs, and as gravely covered
+their heads. Others knotted the square of linen, thus making a closer
+head-gear. The judge turned uneasily in his own chair; he gave a
+furtive glance at the still open windows; as he did so he caught sight
+of his jury thus patiently suffering. The spectacle went to his heart;
+these gentlemen were again in a draught? Where was the _concierge_?
+Then the _huissier_ whispered in the judge's ear; no one heard, but
+everyone divined the whisper. It was to remind monsieur le president
+that the _concierge_ was in a temper; would it not be better for him,
+the _huissier_, to close the windows? Without a smile the judge bent
+his head, assenting. And once more all proceedings were at a
+standstill; the court was patiently waiting, once more, for the
+windows to be closed.
+
+Now, in all this, no one, not even the wizened old man who was
+obviously the humorist of the tribune, had seen anything farcical. To
+be too hot--to be too cold! this is a serious matter in France. A jury
+surely has a right to protect itself against cold, against _la
+migraine_, and the devils of rheumatism and pleurisy. There is nothing
+ridiculous in twelve men sitting in judgment on a fellow-man, with
+their handkerchiefs covering their bare heads. Nor of a judge
+who gallantly remembers the temper of a _concierge_. Nor of a whole
+court sitting in silence, while the windows are opened and closed.
+There was nothing in all this to tickle the play of French humor. But
+then, we remembered, France is not the land of humorists, but of wits.
+Monsieur d'Alencon down yonder, as he rises from his chair to address
+the judge and jury, will prove to you and me, in the next two hours,
+how great an orator a Frenchman can be, without trenching an
+inch on the humorist's ground.
+
+The court-room was so still now that you could have heard the fall of a
+pin.
+
+At last the great moment had come-the moment and the man. There is
+nothing in life Frenchmen love better than a good speech--_un
+discours_; and to have the same pitched in the dramatic key, with a
+tragic result hanging on the effects of the pleading, this is the very
+climax of enjoyment. To a Norman, oratory is not second, but first,
+nature; all the men of this province have inherited the gift of a
+facile eloquence. But this Monsieur d'Alencon, the crooked man
+whispered, in hurried explanation, he was _un fameux_--even the
+Paris courts had to send for him when they wanted a great orator.
+
+The famous lawyer understood the alphabet of his calling. He knew the
+value of effect. He threw himself at once into the orator's pose. His
+gown took sculptural lines; his arms were waved majestically, as arms
+that were conscious of having great sleeves to accentuate the lines of
+gesture.
+
+Then he began to speak. The voice was soft; at first one was chiefly
+conscious of the music in its cadences. But as it warmed and grew with
+the ardor of the words, the room was filled with such vibrations as
+usually come only with the sounding of rich wind-instruments. With such
+a voice a man could do anything. D'Alencon played with it as a man
+plays with a power he has both trained and conquered. It was firmly
+modulated, with no accent of sympathy when he opened his plea for his
+client. It warmed slightly when he indignantly repelled the charges
+brought against the latter. It took the cadence of a lover when he
+pointed to the young wife's figure and asked if it were likely a
+husband could be guilty of such crimes, year after year, with such a
+woman as that beside him? It was tenderly explanatory as he went on
+enlarging on the young wife's perfections, on her character, so well
+known to them all here in Coutances, on the influence she had given the
+home-life yonder in Cherbourg. Even the children were not forgotten, as
+an aid to incidental testimony. Was it even conceivable a father of a
+young family would lead an innocent lad into error, fraud, and theft?
+"It is he who knows how to touch the heart!"
+
+"_Quel beau moment!_" cried the wizened man, in a transport.
+
+"See--the jury weep!"
+
+All the court was in tears, even monsieur le president sniffled, and
+yet there was no draught. As for the peasant women and the shop
+keepers, they could not have been more moved if the culprit had been a
+blood relation. How they enjoyed their tears! What a delight it was to
+thus thrill and shiver! The wife was sobbing now, with her head on her
+uncle's shoulder. And the culprit was acting his part, also, to
+perfection. He had been firmly stoical until now. But at this parade of
+his wife's virtues he broke down, his head was bowed at last. It was
+all the tribune could do to keep its applause from breaking forth. It
+was such a perfect performance! it was as good as the theatre--far
+better--for this was real--this play-with a man's whole future at
+stake!
+
+Until midnight the lawyer held all in the town in a trance. He ended at
+last with a Ciceronian, declamatory outburst. A great buzz of applause
+welled up from the court. The tribune was in transports; such a
+magnificent harangue he had not given them in years. It was one of his
+greatest victories.
+
+"And his victories, madame, they are the victories of all Coutances."
+
+The crooked man almost stood upright in the excitement of his
+enthusiasm. Great drops of sweat were on his wrinkled old brow. The
+evening had been a great event in his life, as his twisted frame, all
+a-tremble with pleasurable elation, exultingly proved. The women's caps
+were closer together than ever; they were pressing in a solid mass
+close to the railing of the tribune to gain one last look at the figure
+of the wife.
+
+"It is she who will not sleep--"
+
+"Poor soul, are her children with her?"
+
+"No--and no women either. There is only the uncle."
+
+"He is a good man, he will comfort her!"
+
+"_Faut prier le bon Dieu!_"
+
+At the court-room door there was a last glimpse of the stricken figure.
+She disappeared into the blackness of the night, bent and feeble,
+leaning with pitiful attempt at dignity on the uncle's arm. With the
+dawn she would learn her husband's fate. The jury would be out all
+night.
+
+"You see, madame, it is she who must really suffer in the end." We were
+also walking into the night, through the bushes of the garden, to the
+dark of the streets. Our landlady was guiding us, and talking volubly.
+She was still under the influence of the past hour's excitement. Her
+voice trembled audibly, and she was walking with brisk strides through
+the dim streets.
+
+"If Filon is condemned, what would happen to them?"
+
+"Oh, he would pass a few years in prison--not many. The jury is always
+easy on the rich. But his future is ruined. They--the family--would
+have to go away. But even then, rumor would follow them. It travels far
+nowadays--it has a thousand legs, as they say here. Wherever they go
+they will be known. But Monsieur d'Alencon, what did you think of him,
+_hein_? There's a great man--what an orator! One must go as far as
+Paris--to the theatre; one must hear a great play--and even there, when
+does an actor make you weep as he did? Henri, he was superb. I tell
+you, superb! _d'une eloquence!_" And to her husband, when we
+reached the inn door, our vivacious landlady was still narrating the
+chief points of the speech as we crawled wearily up to our beds.
+
+It was early the next morning when we descended into the inn
+dining-room. The lawyer's eloquence had interfered with our rest.
+Coffee and a bite of fresh air were best taken together, we agreed.
+Before the coffee came the news of the culprit's fate. Most of the inn
+establishment had been sent to court to learn the jury's verdict.
+Madame confessed to a sleepless night. The thought of that poor wife
+had haunted her pillow. She had deemed it best--but just to us all, in
+a word, to despatch Auguste--the one inn waiter, to hear the verdict.
+_Tiens_, there he was now, turning the street corner.
+
+"_Il est acquitte!_" rang through the streets.
+
+"He is acquitted--he is acquitted! _Le bon Dieu soit loue!_
+Henri--Ernest--Monsieur Terier, he is acquitted--he is acquitted!
+I tell you!"
+
+The cry rang through the house. Our landlady was shouting the news out
+of doors, through windows, to the passers-by, to the very dogs as they
+ran. But the townspeople needed no summoning. The windows were crowded
+full of eager heads, all asking the same question at once. A company of
+peasants coming up from the fields for breakfast stopped to hear the
+glad tidings. The shop-keepers all the length of the street gathered to
+join them. Everyone was talking at once. Every shade of opinion was
+aired in the morning sun. On one subject alone there was a universal
+agreement.
+
+"What good news for the poor wife!"
+
+"And what a night she must have passed!"
+
+All this sympathy and interest, be it remembered, was for one they
+barely knew. To be the niece of a Coutances uncle--this was enough, it
+appears, for the good people of this cathedral city, to insure the flow
+of their tears and the gift of their prayers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE FETE-DIEU--A JUNE CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+When we stepped forth into the streets, it was to find a flower strewn
+city. The paving stones were covered with the needles of pines, with
+fir boughs, with rose leaves, lily stocks, and with the petals of flock
+and clematis. One's feet sank into the odorous carpet as in the thick
+wool of an Oriental prayer rug. To tread upon this verdure was to crush
+out perfume. Yet the fragrance had a solemn flavor. There was a touch
+of consecration in the very aroma of the fir sap.
+
+Never was there a town so given over to its festival. Everything
+else--all trade, commerce, occupation, work, or pleasure even, was at a
+dead standstill. In all the city there was but one thought, one object,
+one end in view. This was the great day of the _Fete-Dieu_. To this
+blessed feast of the Sacrament the townspeople had been looking forward
+for weeks.
+
+It is their June Christmas. The great day brings families together.
+
+[Illustration: AN EXCITING MOMENT--A COUTANCES INTERIOR]
+
+From all the country round the farm wagons had been climbing the hill
+for hours. The peasants were in holiday dress. Gold crosses and amber
+beads encircled leathery old necks; the gossamer caps, real Normandy
+caps at last, crowned heads held erect today, with the pride of those
+who had come to town clad in their best. Even the younger women were in
+true peasant garb; there was a touch of a ribbon, brilliant red and
+blue stockings, and the sparkle of silver shoe-buckles and gold
+necklaces to prove they had donned their finery in honor of the
+_fete_. The men wore their blue and purple blouses over their holiday
+suits; but almost all had pinned a sprig of bright geranium or
+honeysuckle to brighten up the shiny cotton of the preservative blouse.
+Even the children carried bouquets; and thus many of the farm wagons
+were as gay as the streets.
+
+No, gay is not the word. Neither the city nor the streets were really
+gay. The city, as a city, was too dead in earnest, too absorbed, too
+intent, to indulge in gayety. It was the greatest of all the days of
+the year in Coutances. In the climaxic moments of life, one is solemn,
+not gay. It was not only the greatest, but the busiest, day of the year
+for this cathedral town. Here was a whole city to deck; every street,
+every alleyway must be as beautiful as a church on a feast-day. The
+city, in truth, must be changed from a bustling, trading, commercial
+entrepot into an altar. And this altar must be beautiful--as beautiful,
+as ingeniously picturesque as only the French instinct for beauty
+could make it.
+
+Think you, with such a task on hand, this city-ful of artists had time
+for frivolous idling? Since dawn these artists had been scrubbing their
+doors, washing windows, and sluicing the gutters. One is not a
+provincial for nothing; one is honest in the provinces; one does not
+drape finery over a filthy frame. The city was washed first, before it
+was adorned.
+
+Opposite, across from our inn door-sill, where we lingered a moment
+before we began our journey through the streets, we could see for
+ourselves how thorough was this cleansing. A shopkeeper and his wife
+were each mounted on a step-ladder. One washed the inside and the other
+the outside of the low shop-windows. They were in the greatest possible
+haste, for they were late in their preparations. In two hours the
+procession was to pass. Their neighbors stopped to cry up to them:
+
+"_Tendez vous, aujourd'hui?_" It is the universal question, heard
+everywhere.
+
+"_Mais oui_," croaked out the man, his voice sounding like the croak of
+a rook, from the height from which he spoke. "Only we are late, you
+see."
+
+It was his wife who was taking the question to heart. She saw in it
+just cause for affront.
+
+"Ah, those Espergnons, they're always on time, they are; they had their
+hangings out a week ago, and now they are as filthy as wash-rags. No
+wonder they have time to walk the streets!" and the indignant dame gave
+her window-pane an extra polish.
+
+"Here, Leon, catch hold, I'm ready now!"
+
+The woman was holding out one end of a long, snowy sheet. Leon meekly
+took his end; both hooked the stuff to some rings ready to secure the
+hanging; the facade of the little house was soon hidden behind the
+white fall of the family linen; and presently Leon and his wife began
+very gravely to pin tiny sprigs of purple clematis across the white
+surface. This latter decoration was performed with the sure touch of
+artists. No mediaeval designer of tapestry could have chosen, with
+more secure selection, the precise points of distance at which to place
+the bouquets; nor could the tones and tints of the greens and purples,
+and the velvet of the occasional heartsease, sparsely used, have been
+more correctly combined. When the task was ended, the commonplace house
+was a palace wall, hung with the sheen of fine linen, on which bloomed
+geometric figures beautifully spaced.
+
+All the city was thus draped. One walked through long walls of snow, in
+which flowers grew. Sometimes the floral decorations expanded from the
+more common sprig into wreaths and garlands. Here and there the
+Coutances fancy worked itself out in _fleur-de-lis_ emblems or in
+armorial bearings. But everywhere an astonishing, instinctive sense of
+beauty, a knowledge of proportion, and a natural sense for color were
+obvious. There was not, in all the town, a single offence committed
+against taste. Is it any wonder, with such an heredity at their
+fingers' ends, that the provinces feed Paris, and that Paris sets the
+fashions in beauty for the rest of the world?
+
+Come with us, and look upon this open-air chapel. It stands in the open
+street, in front of an old house of imposing aspect. The two
+commonplace-looking women who are putting--the finishing--touches to
+this beautiful creation tell us it is the reposoir of Madame la
+Baronne. They have been working on it since the day before. In the
+night the miracle was finished--nearly--they were so weary they had
+gone to bed at dawn. They do not tell you it is a miracle. They think
+it fine, oh, yes--"c'est beau--Madame la Baronne always has the most
+beautiful of all the reposoirs," but then they have decked these altars
+since they were born; their grandmothers built them before ever they
+saw the light. For always in Coutances "on la fete beaucoup;" this
+feast of the Sacrament has been a great day in Coutances for centuries
+past. But although they are so used to it, these natural architects
+love the day. "It's so fine to see--_si beau a voir_ all the
+reposoirs, and the children and the fine ladies walking--through the
+streets, and then, all kneeling--when Monseigneur l'Archeveque prays.
+Ah yes, it is a fine sight." They nod, and smile, and then they turn to
+light a taper, and to consult about the placing of a certain vase from
+out of which an Easter lily towers.
+
+At the foot of these miniature altars trees had been planted. Gardens
+had also been laid out; the parterres were as gravely watered as if
+they were to remain in the middle of a bustling high street in
+perpetuity. Steps lead up to the altar. These were covered with rugs
+and carpets; for the feet of the bishop must tread only on velvet and
+flowers. Candelabra, vases, banners, crosses, crucifixes, flowers, and
+tall thin tapers--all the altars were crowded with such adornments.
+Human vanity and the love of surpassing one's neighbors, these also
+figured conspicuously among the things the fitfully shining sun looks
+down upon. But what a charm there is in such a contest! Surely the
+desire to beautify the spot on which the Blessed Sacrament rests this
+is only another way of professing one's adoration.
+
+As we passed through the streets a multitude of pictures crowded upon
+the eyes. In an archway groups of young first communicants were
+forming; they were on their way to the cathedral. Their white veils
+against the gloom of the recessed archways were like sunlit clouds
+caught in an abyss. Priests in gorgeous vestments were walking quickly
+through the streets. All the peasants were going also toward the
+cathedral. A group stopped, as did we, to turn into a side-street. For
+there was a picture we should not see later on. Between some lovely
+old turrets, down from convent walls a group of nuns fluttered
+tremulously; they were putting the last touches to the reposoir of
+their own Sacre Coeur. Some were carrying huge gilt crosses, staggering
+as they walked; others were on tiptoe filling the tall vases; others
+were on their knees, patting into perfect smoothness the turf laid
+about the altar steps. There was an old cure among them and a young
+carpenter whom the cure was directing. Everyone of the nuns had her
+black skirts tucked up; their stout shoes must be free to fly over the
+ground with the swiftness of hounds. How pretty the faces were, under
+the great caps, in that moment of unwonted excitement! The cheeks, even
+of the older nuns, were pink; it was a pink that made their habitual
+pallor have a dazzling beauty. The eyes were lighted into a fresh flame
+of life, and the lips were temptingly crimson; they were only women,
+after all, these nuns, and once a year at least this feast of the
+Sacrament brings all their feminine activities into play.
+
+Still we moved on, for within the cathedral the procession had not yet
+formed. There was still time to make a tour of the town.
+
+To plunge into the side-streets away from the wide cathedral parvis,
+was to be confronted with a strange calm. These narrow thoroughfares
+had the stillness which broods over all ancient cities' by-ways. Here
+was no festival bustle; all was grave and sad. The only dwellers left
+in the antique fifteenth century houses were those who must remain at
+home till a still smaller house holds them. We passed several aged
+Coutancais couples. By twos they were seated at the low windows; they
+had been dressed and then left; they were sitting here, in the
+pathetic patience of old age; they were hoping something of the _fete_
+might come their way. Two women, in one of the low interiors, were more
+philosophic than their neighbors; if their stiffened knees would not
+carry them to the _fete_, at least their gnarled old hands could hold a
+pack of cards. They were seated close to the open casement, facing each
+other across a small round table; along the window-sill there were rows
+of flower-pots; a pewter tankard was set between them; and out of the
+shadowy interior came the topaz gleam of the Normandy brasses, the huge
+bed, with its snowy draperies, the great chests, and the flowery
+chintz-frill defining the width of the yawning fireplace. The two old
+faces, with the strong features, deep wrinkles, sunken mouths, and bald
+heads tied up in dazzling white coifs, were in full relief against the
+dim background. They were as motionless as statues; neither looked up
+as our footfall struck along the cobbles; it was an exciting moment in
+the game.
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN COUTANCES--EGLISE SAINT-PIERRE]
+
+Below these old houses stretched the public gardens. Here also there
+was a great stillness. For us alone the rose gardens bloomed, the
+tropical trees were shivering, and the palms were making a night of
+shade for wide acres of turf. Rarely does a city boast of such a
+garden. It was no surprise to learn, later, that these lovely paths and
+noble terraces had been the slow achievement of a lover of landscape
+gardening, one who, dying, had given this, his master-piece, to his
+native town.
+
+There is no better place from which to view the beautiful city. From
+the horizontal lines of the broad terraces flows the great sweep of the
+hillside; it takes a swift precipitous plunge, and rests below in wide
+stretches of meadow. The garden itself seemed, by virtue of this
+encompassing circle of green, to be only a more exquisitely cultivated
+portion of the lovely outlying hills and wooded depths. The cows,
+grazing below in the valleys, were whisking their tails, and from the
+farm-yards came the crow of the chanticleer.
+
+One turned to look upward--to follow heavenward the soaring glory of the
+cathedral towers. From the plane of the streets their geometric
+perfection had made their lines seem cold. Through this aerial
+perspective the eye followed, enraptured, the perfect Gothic of the
+spires and the lower central tower. The great nave roof and the choir
+lifted themselves above the turrets and the tiled house-tops of the
+city, as gray mountains of stone rise above the huts of pygmies.
+Coutances does well to be proud of its cathedral.
+
+The sound of a footstep, crunching the gravel of the garden-walk,
+caused us to turn. It was to find, face to face, the hero of the night
+before; the celebrated Coutances lawyer was also taking his
+constitutional. But not alone, some friends were with him, come up to
+town doubtless for the _fete_ or the trial. He was showing them his
+city. He stretched a hand forth, with the same magisterial gesture of
+the night before, to point out the glory of the prospect lying below
+the terrace. He faced the cathedral towers, explaining the points of
+their perfection. And then, for he was a Frenchman, he perceived the
+presence of two ladies. In an instant his hat was raised, and as
+quickly his eyes told us he had seen us before, in the courtroom. The
+bow was the lower because of this recognition, and the salute was
+accompanied by a grave smile.
+
+Manners in the provinces are still good, you perceive--if only you are
+far enough away from Paris.
+
+Someone else also bestowed on us the courtesy of a passing greeting. It
+was a cure who was saying his Ave, as he paced slowly, in the sun, up
+and down the yew path. He was old; one leg was already tired of
+life--it must be dragged painfully along, when one walked in the sun.
+The cure himself was not in the least tired of life. His smile was as
+warm as the sun as he lifted his _calotte_.
+
+"Surely, mesdames, you will not miss the _fete_? It must be forming
+now."
+
+He had taken an old man's, and a priest's, privilege. We were all three
+looking down into the valley, which lay below, a pool of freshness. He
+had spoken, first of the beauty of the prospect, and then of the great
+day. To be young and still strong, to be able to follow the procession
+from street to street, and yet to be lingering here among the
+roses!--this passed the simple cure's comprehension. The reproach in
+his mild old eyes was quickly changed to approval, however; for
+upon the announcement that the procession was already in motion we
+started, bidding him a hurried adieu.
+
+The huge cathedral portals yawned at the top of the hill; they were
+like a gaping chasm. The great place of the cathedral square was half
+filled; a part of the procession had passed already beyond the gloom of
+the vast aisles into the frank openness of day. Winding in and out of
+the white-hung streets a long line of figures was marching; part of the
+line had reached the first reposoir and gradually the swaying of the
+heads was slackening, as, by twos and twos, the figures stopped.
+
+Still, from between the cathedral doors an unending multitude of people
+kept pouring forth upon the cathedral square. Now it was an
+interminable line of young girls, first communicants, in their white
+veils and gowns; against the grays and browns of the cathedral facade
+this mass of snow was of startling purity--a great white rose of light.
+Closely following the dazzling line marched a grave company of nuns;
+with their black robes sweeping the flower-strewn streets, the pallor
+of their faces, and the white wings of their huge coifs, they might
+have been so many marble statues moving with slow, automatic step,
+repeating in life the statues in stone above their heads, incarnations
+of meek renunciation. With the free and joyous step of a vigorous youth
+not yet tamed to complete self-obliteration, next there stepped forth
+into the sun a group of seminarists. In the lace and scarlet of their
+bright robes they were like unto so many young kings. High in the
+summer air they swung their golden censers; from huge baskets, heaped
+with flowers, they scattered flowers as they swayed, in the grace of
+their youth, from side to side, with priestly rhythmic motion.
+
+In the days of Greece, under the Attic tent of sky, it was Jove that
+was thus worshipped; here in Coutances, under the paler, less ardent
+blue of France, it was the Christian God these youths were honoring. So
+men have continued to scatter flowers; to swing incense; to bend the
+knee; surely in all ages the long homage of men, like the procession
+here before us, has been but this--the longing to worship the
+Invisible, and to make the act one with beauty.
+
+Is it Greek, is it Christian, this festival? If it be Catholic, it is
+also pagan. It is as composite a union of religious ceremonials as man
+is himself an aggregate of lost types, for there is a subtle law of
+repetition which governs both men and ceremonials.
+
+How pagan was the color! how Greek the sense of beauty that lies in
+contrasts! how Jewish the splendor of the priestly vestments as the
+gold and silver tissues gleamed in the sun! How mediaeval this survival
+of an old miracle play! See this group of children, half-frightened,
+half-proud, wandering from side to side as children unused to walking
+soberly ever march. They were following the leadership of a huge
+Suisse. This latter was magnificently apparelled. He carried a great
+mace, and this he swung high in the air. The children, little John the
+Baptist, Christ, Mary the Mother, and Magdalen, were magnetized by his
+mighty skill. They were looking at the golden stick; they were thinking
+only of how high he, this splendid giant who terrified them so, would
+throw it the next time, and if he would always surely catch it. The
+small Virgin, in her long brown robes, tripped as she walked. The
+cherubic John the Baptist, with only his sheepskin and his cross,
+shivered as he stumbled after her.
+
+"At least they might have covered his arms, _le pauvre petit_," one
+stout peasant among the bystanders was Christian enough to mutter,
+"Poor little John!" Even in summer the sun is none too hot on this
+hill-top; and a sheepskin is a garment one must be used to, it appears.
+Christ, himself, was no better off. He was wearing his crown of thorns,
+but he had only his night-dress, bound with a girdle, to keep his naked
+little body warm. An angel, in gossamer wings and a huge rose-wreath,
+being of the other sex, had her innate woman's love of finery to make
+her oblivious to the light sting of the wind, as it passed through her
+draperies. As this group in the procession moved slowly along, the city
+took on a curiously antique aspect. In every lattice window a head was
+framed. The lines of the townspeople pressed closer and closer; they
+made a serried mass of blouses and caps, of shiny coats and bared
+heads. The very houses seemed to recognize that a part of their own
+youth was passing them by; these were the figures they had looked out
+upon, time after time, in the old fourteenth and fifteenth century
+days, when the great miracle plays drew the country around, for miles
+and miles, to this Coutances square.
+
+Across the square, in the long gray distance of the streets, the
+archbishop's canopy was motionless. A sweet groaning murmur rippled
+from lip to lip.
+
+Then a swift and mighty rustling filled the air, for the bones of
+thousands of knees were striking the stones of the street;--even
+heretic knees were bent when the Host was lifted. It was the moment of
+silent prayer. It was also, perhaps, the most beautiful, it was
+assuredly the most consummately picturesque moment of the day. The bent
+heads; the long vistas of kneeling figures; the lovely contrasts of the
+flowing draperies; the trailing splendor of the priests' robes dying
+into the black note made by the nuns' sombre skirts; the gossamer
+brilliance of the hundreds of white veils, through which the young
+rapture of religious awe on lips and brow made even commonplace
+features beautiful; the choristers' scarlet petticoats; the culminating
+note of splendor, the Archbishop, throned like some antique scriptural
+king under the feathers and velvets of his crimson canopy; then the
+long lines of the townspeople with the groups of peasants beside them,
+whose well-sunned skins made even their complexion seem pale by the
+side of cheeks that brought the burn of noon-suns in the valleys to
+mind; and behind this wall of kneeling figures, those other walls, the
+long white-hung house facades, with their pendent sprigs and wreaths
+and garlands above which hung the frieze of human heads beneath the
+carved cornices; surely this was indeed the culminating moment, both in
+point of beauty and in impressiveness, of the great day's festival.
+
+Thus was reposoir after reposoir visited. Again and again the multitude
+was on its knees. Again and again the Host was lifted. And still we
+followed. Sometimes all the line was in full light, a long perspective
+of color and of prismatic radiance. And then the line would be lost;
+some part of it was still in a side-street; and the rest were singing
+along the edges of the city's ramparts, under the great branches of the
+trees. Here, in the gray of the narrow streets, the choristers' gowns
+were startling in their richness. Yonder, in full sunlight, the
+brightness on the maidens' robes made the shadows in their white skirts
+as blue as light caught in a grotto's depth.
+
+Still they sang. In the dim streets or under the trees, where the gay
+banners were still fluttering, and the white veils, like airy sails,
+were bulging in the wind, the hymn went on. It was thin and
+pathetically weak in the mouths of the babes that walked. It was clear,
+as fresh and pure as a brooklet's ripple, from the mouths of the young
+communicants. It was of firm contralto strength from the throats of the
+grave nuns. The notes gained and gained in richness; the hymn was
+almost a chant with the priests; and in the mouths of the people it was
+as a ringing chorus. Together with the swelling music swung the incense
+into high air; and to the Host the rose-leaves were flung.
+
+Still we followed. Still the long line moved on from altar to altar.
+
+Then, when the noon was long past, wearily we climbed upward to our
+inn.
+
+In the high streets there was much going to and fro. The shop-keepers
+already were taking down their linen. Pouffe! Pouffe! there was much
+blowing through mouths and a great standing on tiptoes to reach the
+tall tapers on the reposoirs.
+
+Coutances was pious. Coutances was proud of its fete. But Coutances was
+also a thrifty city. Once the cortege had passed, it was high time to
+snuff out the tapers. Who could stand by and see good candles blowing
+uselessly in the wind, and one's money going along with the dripping?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+BY LAND TO MONT ST. MICHEL.
+
+
+Two hours later the usual collection of forces was assembled in our inn
+courtyard; for a question of importance was to be decided. Madame was
+there--chief of the council; her husband was also present, because he
+might be useful in case any dispute as to madame's word came up;
+Auguste, the one inn waiter, was an important figure of the group;
+for he, of them all, was the really travelled one; he had seen the
+world--he was to be counted on as to distances and routes; and above,
+from the upper windows, the two ladies of the bed-chamber looked down,
+to act as chorus to the brisk dialogue going on between madame and the
+owner of a certain victoria for which we were in treaty.
+
+"_Ces dames,_" madame said, with a shrug which was meant for the
+coachman, and a smile which was her gift to us--"these ladies wish to
+go to Mont St. Michel, to drive there. Have you your little victoria
+and Poulette?"
+
+Now, by the shrug madame had conveyed to the man and the assembled
+household generally, her own great scorn of us, and of our plans. What
+a whim this, of driving, forsooth, to the Mont! _Dieu sait_--French
+people were not given to any such follies; they were serious-minded,
+_always_, in matters of travel. To travel at all, was no light thing;
+one made one's will and took an honest and tearful farewell of one's
+family, when one went on a journey. But these English, these Americans,
+there's no foretelling to what point their folly will make them tempt
+fate! However, madame was one who knew on which side her bread was
+buttered, if ever a woman did, and the continuance of these mad follies
+helped to butter her own French roll. And so her shrug and wink
+conveyed to the tall Norman just how much these particular lunatics
+before them would be willing to pay for this their whim.
+
+"Have you Poulette?"
+
+"Yes--yes--Poulette is at home. I have made her repose herself all
+day--hearing these ladies had spoken of driving to the Mont--"
+
+Chorus from the upper window-sills. "The poor beast! it is _joliment
+longue--la distance_"
+
+"As these ladies observe," continued the owner of the doomed animal,
+not raising his head, but quickly acting on the hint, "it is long, the
+distance--one does not go for nothing." And though the man kept his
+mouth from betraying him, his keen eyes glittered with avarice.
+
+"And then--_ces dames_ must descend at Genets, to cross the _greve, tu
+sais_" interpolated the waiter, excitedly changing his napkin, his wand
+of office, from one armpit to the other. The thought of travel stirred
+his blood. It was fine--to start off thus, without having to make the
+necessary arrangements for a winter's service or a summer's season. And
+to drive, that would be new--yes that would be a change indeed from the
+stuffy third-class compartments. For Auguste, you see, approved of us
+and of the foolishness of our plans. His sympathy being gratis, was
+allied to the protective instinct--he would see the cheating was at
+least as honestly done as was compatible with French methods.
+
+"Another carriage--and why?" we meekly queried, warned by this friendly
+hint. A chorus now arose from the entire audience.
+
+"_Mais, madame!_--it is as much as five or six kilos over the sands to
+the Mont from Genets!" was cried out in a tone of universal reproach.
+
+"Through rivers, madame, through rivers as high as that!" and Auguste,
+striking in after the chorus, measured himself off at the breast.
+
+"Yes--the water comes to there, on the horse," added the driver,
+sweeping an imaginary horse's head, with a fine gesture, in the air.
+
+"Dame, that must be fine to see," cried down Leontine and Marie,
+gasping with little sighs of envy.
+
+"And so it is!" cried back Auguste, nodding upward with dramatic
+gesture. "One can get as wet as a duck splashing through those rivers.
+_Dieu! que c'est beau!_" And he clasped his hands as his eye, rolling
+heavenward, caught the blue and the velvet of the four feminine orbs on
+its upward way. Seeing which ecstasy, the courtyard visibly relented;
+Auguste's rapture and his envy had worked the common human miracle of
+turning contempt for a folly into belief in it.
+
+This quick firing of French people to a pleasurable elation in others'
+adventure is, I think we must all agree, one of the great charms of
+this excitable race: anything will serve as a pretext for setting this
+sympathetic vibration in motion. What they all crave as a nation is a
+daily, hourly diet of the unusual, the unforeseen.
+
+It is this passion for incident which makes a Frenchman's life not
+unlike his soups, since in the case of both, how often does he make
+something out of nothing!
+
+An hour later we were picking our way through the city's streets.
+Sweeter than the crushed flowers was the free air of the valley.
+
+There is no way of looking back so agreeable, on the whole, I think, as
+to look back upon a city.
+
+From the near distance of the first turn in the road, Coutances and its
+cathedral were at their very best. The hill on which both stood was
+only one of the many hills we now saw growing out of the green valley;
+among the dozen hill tops, this one we were leaving was only more
+crowded than the others, and more gloriously crowned. In giant height
+uprose, above the city's roofs and the lesser towers, the spires and
+the lovely lantern tower. This vast mass of stone, pricked into lacy
+apertures and with its mighty lines of grace-for how many a long
+century has it been in the eye of the valley? Tancrede de Hauteville
+saw it before William was born--before he, the Conqueror, rode in his
+turn through the green lanes to consecrate the church to One greater
+than he. From Tancrede to Boileau, what a succession of bishops, each
+in their turn, have had their eye on the great cathedral. There was a
+sort of viking bishop, one Geoffrey de Montbray, of the Conqueror's
+day, who, having a greater taste for men's blood than their
+purification, found Coutances a dull city; there was more war of the
+kind his stout arm rejoiced in across the Channel; and so he travelled
+a bit to do a little pleasant killing. From Geoffrey to Boileau and the
+latter's lacy ruffles--how many a rude Norman epic was acted out, here
+in the valley, beneath the soaring spires, before the Homeric combat
+was turned into the verse of a _chanso de geste_, a _Roman de Rou_, or
+a _Latrin!_
+
+As Poulette rolled the wheels along, instead of visored bishop, or mail
+rustling on strong breasts, there was the open face of the landscape,
+and the tremble of the grasses beneath the touch of the wind. Coming
+down the hill was a very peaceable company; doubtless, between wars in
+those hot fighting centuries, just such travellers went up and down the
+hill-road as unconcernedly as did these peasants. There was quite a
+variety among the present groups: some were strictly family parties;
+these talked little, giving their mind to stiff walking--the smell of
+the soup in the farmyard kitchen was in their nostrils. The women's
+ages were more legibly read in their caps than in their faces--the
+older the women the prettier the caps. Among these groups, queens of
+the party, were some first communicants. Their white kid slippers were
+brown now, from the long walk in the city streets and the dust of the
+highway. They held their veils with a maiden's awkwardness; with bent
+heads they leaned gravely on their fathers' arms. In this, their first
+supreme experience of self-consciousness, they had the self-absorption
+of young brides. The trail of their muslin gowns and the light cloud of
+their veils made dazzling spots of brightness in the delicate frame of
+the June landscape. Each of these white-clad figures was followed by a
+long train of friends and relatives. "_C'est joli a voir_--it's a
+pretty sight, _hein_, my ladies? these young girls are beautiful like
+that!" Our coachman took his eye off Poulette to turn in his seat,
+looking backward at the groups as they followed in our wake. "Ah--it
+was hard to leave my own--I had two like that, myself, in the
+procession to-day." And the full Norman eye filled with a sudden
+moisture. This was a more attractive glitter than the avarice of a
+moment before.
+
+"You see, mesdames," he went on, as if wishing to excuse the moistened
+eyelids, "you see--it's a great day in the family when our children
+take their first communion. It is the day the child dies and the man,
+the woman is born. When our children kneel at our feet, before the
+priest, before their comrades, and beg us to forgive them all the sin
+they have done since they were born--it is too much--the heart grows so
+big it is near to bursting. Ah--it is then we all weep!"
+
+Charm settled herself in her seat with a satisfied smile. "We are in
+luck--an emotional coachman who weeps and talks! The five hours will
+fly," she murmured. Then aloud, to Jacques--as we learned the now
+sniffling father was called--she presently asked, with the oil of
+encouragement in her tone:
+
+"You say your two were in the procession?"
+
+"Two! there were five in all. Even the babies walked. Did you see Jesu
+and the Magdalen? They were mine--_C'etait a moi, ca!_ For the priests
+will have them--as many as they can get."
+
+"They are right. If the children didn't walk, how could the procession
+be so fine?" "Fine--_beau--ca?_" And there was a deep scorn in
+Jacques's voice. "You should have seen the _fete_ twenty years ago!
+Now, its glory is as nothing. It's the priests themselves who are to
+blame. They've spoiled it all. Years ago, the whole town walked.
+_Dieu_--what a spectacle! The mayor, the mairie, all the firemen,
+municipal officers--yes, even the soldiers walked. And as for the
+singing--_dame_, all the young men were choristers then--we were
+trained for months. When we walked and sang in the open streets the
+singing filled all the town. It was like a great thunder."
+
+"And the change--why has it come?" persisted Charm.
+
+"Oh," Jacques replied, caressing Poulette's haunches with his
+whip-lash. "It's the priests; they were too grasping. They are
+avaricious, that's what they are. They want everything for themselves.
+And a _fete--ca coule, vous savez_. Besides, the spirit of the
+times has changed. People aren't so devout now. _Libres
+penseurs_--that's the fashion now. _Hola_, Poulette!"
+
+Poulette responded. She dashed into the valley, below us now, as if
+this rolling along of a heavy victoria, a lot of luggage, and three
+travellers, was an agreeable episode in her career of toil. But on the
+mind of her owner, the spectre of the free-thinkers was still hovering
+like an evil spirit. During the next hour he gave us a long and
+exhaustive exposition of the changes wrought by _ces messieurs qui
+nient le bon Dieu._ Among their crimes was to be numbered that of
+having disintegrated the morale of the peasantry. They--the
+peasants--no longer believed in miracles, and as for sorcery, for the
+good old superstitions, bah: they were looked upon as old wives' tales.
+Even here, in the heart of this rural country, you would have to walk
+far before you could find _vne vraie sorciere_, one who, by looking
+into a glass of water, for instance, could read the future as in a
+book, or one who, if your cow dried up, could name the evil spirit, the
+demon, who, among the peasants was exercising the curse. All this
+science was lost. A peasant would now be ashamed to bring his cow to a
+fortune-teller; all the village would laugh. Even the shepherds had
+lost the power of communing with the planets at night; and all the
+valley read the _Petit Journal_ instead of consulting the _vieilles
+meres_. One must go as far as Brittany to see a real peasant with the
+superstitions of a peasant. As for Normandy, it went in step with the
+rest of the world, _que diable!_ And again the whip lash descended.
+Poulette must suffer for Jacques's disgust.
+
+If the Norman peasant was a modern, his country, at least, had retained
+the charm of its ancient beauty. The road was as Norman a highway as
+one could wish to see. It had the most capricious of natures, turning
+and perversely twisting among the farms and uplands. The land was
+ribboned with growing grain, and the June grass was being cut. The
+farms stood close upon the roadway, as if longing for its
+companionship; and then, having done so much toward the establishment
+of neighborly gossip, promptly turned their backs upon it--true
+Normans, all of them, with this their appearance of frankness and their
+real reserves of secrecy.
+
+For a last time we caught a distant glimpse of the great cathedral. As
+we looked back across the bright-roofed villages, we saw the stately
+pile, gray, glorious, superb, dominating the scene, the hills, river,
+and fields, as in the old days the great city walls and the cathedral
+towers had dominated all the human life that played helplessly about
+them.
+
+We were out once more among the green and yellow broadlands; between
+our carriage-wheels and the horizon there was now spread a wide
+amphitheatre of wooded hills. The windings of the poplar-lined road
+serpentined in sinuous grace in and out of forests, meadows, hills, and
+islands. The afternoon lights were deepening; the shadows on the grain-
+fields cast by the oaks and beeches were a part of our company. The
+blue bloom of the distant hills was strengthening into purple. As the
+light was intensifying in color, the human life in the fields was
+relaxing its tension; the bent backs were straightening, the ploughmen
+were whipping their steeds toward the open road; for although it was
+Sunday, and a _fete_ day, the farmer must work. The women were
+gathering up some of the grasses, tying them into bundles, and tossing
+them on their heads as they moved slowly across the blackening earth.
+
+One field near us was peopled with a group of girls resting on their
+scythes. One or two among them were mopping their faces with their
+coarse blue aprons; the faces of all were aflame with the red of rude
+health. As we came upon them, some had flung away their scythes, the
+tallest among the group grasping a near companion, playfully, in the
+pose of a wrestler. In an instant the company was turned into a group
+of wrestlers. There was a great shout of laughter, as maiden after
+maiden was tumbled over on her back or face amid the grasses. Sabots,
+short skirts, kerchiefs, scarlet arms rose and fell to earth in the mad
+whirl of their gayety.
+
+"Stop, Jacques, I must see the end," cried Charm. "Will they fight or
+dance, I wonder!"
+
+"Oh, it is a pure Georgic--they'll dance." They were dancing already.
+The line, with dishevelled hair, aprons and kerchiefs askew, had formed
+into the square of a quadrille. A rude measure was tripped; a snatch of
+song, shouted amid the laughter, gave rhythm to the measure, and then
+the whole band, singing in chorus, linked arms and swept with a furious
+dash beneath the thatched roof of a low farm-house.
+
+"As you see, my ladies, sometimes the fields are gay--even now," was
+Jacques's comment. "But they should be getting their grasses in--for
+it'll rain before night. It's time to sing when the scythe sleeps--as
+we say here."
+
+To our eyes there were no signs of rain. The clouds rolling in the blue
+sea above us were only gloriously lighted. But the birds and the
+peasants knew their sky; there was a great fluttering of wings among
+the branches; and the peasants, as we rattled in and out of the
+hamlets, were pulling the _reposoirs_ to pieces in the haste that
+predicts bad weather. They had been "celebrating" all along the road;
+and besides the piety, the Norman thrift was abroad upon the highway.
+Women were tearing sheets off the house facades; the lads and girls
+were bearing crosses, china vases, and highly-colored Virgins from the
+wooden altars into the low houses.
+
+Presently the great drops fell; they beat upon the smooth roadway like
+so many hard bits of coin. In less than two ticks of the clock, the
+world was a wet world; there were masses of soft gray clouds that were
+like so much cotton, dripping with moisture. The earth was as drenched
+as if, half an hour ago, it had not been a jewel gleaming in the sun;
+and the very farm-houses had quickly assumed an air of having been
+caught out in the rain without an umbrella. The farm gardens alone
+seemed to rejoice in the suddenness of the shower. Flowers have a way
+of shining, when it rains, that proves flower-petals have a woman's
+love of solitaires.
+
+There were other dashes of color that made the gray landscape
+astonishingly brilliant. Some of the peasants on their way to the
+village _fetes_ were also caught in the passing shower. They had opened
+their wide blue and purple umbrellas; these latter made huge disks of
+color reflected in the glass of the wet macadam. The women had turned
+their black alpaca and cashmere skirts inside out, tucking the edges
+about their stout hips; beneath the wide vivid circles of the dripping
+umbrellas these brilliantly colored under-petticoats showed a liberal
+revelation of scarlet hose and thick ankles sunk in the freshly
+polished black sabots. The men's cobalt-blue blouses and their peaked
+felt hats spotted the landscape with contrasting notes and outlines.
+
+After the last peaked hat had disappeared into the farm enclosures, we
+and the wet landscape had the rain to ourselves. The trees now were
+spectral shapes; they could not be relied on as companions. Even the
+gardens and grain lands were mysteriously veiled, so close rolled the
+mists to our carriage-wheels. Beyond, at the farthest end of the road,
+these mists had formed themselves into a solid, compact mass.
+
+The clouds out yonder, far ahead, seemed to be enwrapping some part of
+earth that had lanced itself into the sky.
+
+After a little the eyes unconsciously watched those distant woolly
+masses. There was a something beyond, faint, vague, impalpable as yet,
+which the rolling mists begirt as sometimes they cincture an Alpine
+needle. Even as the thought came, a sudden lifting--of the gray mass
+showed the point of a high uplifted pinnacle. The point thereof pricked
+the sky. Then the wind, like a strong hand, swept the clouds into a
+mantle, and we saw the strange spectacle no more.
+
+For several miles our way led us through a dim, phantasmal landscape.
+All the outlines were blurred. Even the rain was a veil; it fell
+between us and the nearest hedgerows as if it had been a curtain. The
+jingling of Poulette's bell-collar and the gurgle of the water rushing
+in the gulleys--these were the only sounds that fell upon the ear.
+
+Still the clouds about that distant mass curled and rolled; they were
+now breaking, now re-forming--as if some strange and wondrous thing
+were hanging there--between heaven and earth.
+
+It was still far out, the mass; even the lower mists were not resting
+on any plain of earth. They also were moved by something that moved
+beneath them, as a thick cloak takes the shape and motion of the body
+it covers. Still we advanced, and still the great mountain of cloud
+grew and grew. And then there came a little lisping, hissing sound. It
+was the kiss of the sea as it met some unseen shore. And on our cheeks
+the sea-wind blew, soft and salty to the lips.
+
+The mass was taking shape and outline. The mists rolled along some
+wide, broad base that rested beneath the sea, and skyward they clasped
+the apexal point of a pyramid.
+
+This pyramid in the sky was Mont St. Michel.
+
+With its feet in the sea, and its head vanishing into infinity--here,
+at last, was this rock of rocks, caught, phantom-like, up into the very
+heavens above.
+
+It loomed out of the spectral landscape--itself the superlative
+spectre; it took its flight upward as might some genius of beauty
+enrobed in a shroud of mystery.
+
+Such has it been to generations of men. Beautiful, remote, mysterious!
+With its altars and its shrines, its miracle of stone carved by man on
+those other stones hewn by the wind and the tempest, Mont St. Michel
+has ever been far more a part of heaven than a thing of earth.
+
+Then, for us, the clouds suddenly lifted, as, for modern generations of
+men, the mists of superstition have also rolled themselves away.
+
+
+
+
+MONT ST. MICHEL:
+
+AN INN ON A ROCK.
+
+[Illustration: MONT SAINT MICHEL]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+BY SEA TO THE POULARD INN.
+
+
+We were being tossed in the air like so many balls. A Normandy _char a
+banc_ was proving itself no respecter of nice distinctions in
+conditions in life. It phlipped, dashed, and rolled us about with no
+more concern than if it were taking us to market to be sold by the
+pound. For we were on the _greve_. The promised rivers were before us.
+
+So was the Mont, spectral no longer, but nearing with every plunge
+forward of our sturdy young Percheron. Locomotion through any new or
+untried medium is certain to bring with the experiment a dash of
+elation. Now, driving through water appears to be no longer the fashion
+in our fastidious century; someone might get a wetting, possibly, has
+been the conclusion of the prudent. And thus a very innocent and
+exciting bit of fun has been gradually relegated among the lost arts of
+pleasure.
+
+We were taking water as we had never taken it before, and liking the
+method. We were as wet as ducks, but what cared we? We were being
+deluged with spray; the spume of the sea was spurting in our faces with
+the force of a strong wet breeze, and still we liked it. Besides,
+driving thus into the white foam of the waters, over the sand ridges,
+across the downs, into the wide plains of wet mud, this was the old
+classical way of going up to the Mont. Surely, what had been found good
+enough as a pathway for kings and saints and pilgrims should be good
+enough for two lovers of old-time methods. The dike yonder was built
+for those who believe in the devil of haste, and for those who also
+serve him faithfully.
+
+Someone else besides ourselves was enjoying our drive through the
+waves. Our gay young Normandy driver seemed to find an exquisite relish
+in the spectacle of our wet faces and unstable figures. He could not
+keep his eyes off us; they fairly glistened with the dew of his
+enjoyment. Two ladies pitched and rolled about, exactly as if they were
+peasants, and laughing as if they were children--this was a spectacle
+and a keen appreciation of a joke that brought joy to a rustic
+blouse.
+
+"Ah--ah! mesdames!" he cried, exultingly, between the gasps of his own
+laughter, as he tossed his own fine head in the air, sitting on his
+rude bench, covered with sheepskin, as if it had been an armchair. "Ah,
+ah! mesdames, you didn't expect this, _hein_? You hoped for a landau,
+and feathers and cushions, perhaps? But soft feathers and springs are
+not for the _greve_."
+
+"Is it dangerous? are there deep holes?"
+
+"Oh, the holes, they are as nothing. It is the quicksands we fear. But
+it is only a little danger, and danger makes the charm of travel, is it
+not so, my ladies? Adventure, that is what one travels for! _Hui!_ Fend
+l'Air!"
+
+It had occurred to us before that we had been uncommonly lucky in our
+coachmen, as well as in the names of the horses, that had brightened
+our journey. In spite of Juliet, whose disdain of the virtue or the
+charm that lies in a name is no more worthy of respect than is any
+lover's opinion when in the full-orbed foolishness of his lunacy, I
+believe names to be a very effective adjunct to life's scenic setting.
+Most of the horses we had had along these Normandy high-roads, had
+answered to names that had helped to italicize the features of the
+country. Could Poulette, the sturdy little mare, with whom only an hour
+ago we had parted forever, have been given a better sobriquet by which
+to have identified for us the fat landscape? And now here was Fend
+l'Air proving good his talent for cleaving through space, whatever of
+land or sea lay in his path.
+
+"And he merits his name, my lady," his driver announced with grave
+pride, as he looked at the huge haunches with a loving eye. "He can go,
+oh, but as the wind! It is he who makes of the crossing but as if it
+were nothing!"
+
+The crossing! That was the key-note of the way the coast spoke of the
+Mont. The rock out yonder was a country apart, a bit of land or stone
+the shore claimed not, had no part in, felt to be as remote as if it
+were a foreign province. At Genets the village spoke of the Mont as one
+talks of a distant land. Even the journey over the sands was looked
+upon with a certain seriousness. A starting forth was the signal for
+the village to assemble about the _char-a-banc's_ wheels. Quite a large
+company for a small village to muster was grouped about our own
+vehicle, to look on gravely as we mounted to the rude seat within. The
+villagers gave us their "_bonjours_" with as much fervor as if we were
+starting forth on a sea voyage.
+
+"You will have a good crossing!" cackled one of the old men, nodding
+toward the peak in the sky.
+
+"The sands may be wet, but they are firm already!" added a huge
+peasant--the fattest man in all the canton, whisperingly confided the
+landlady, as one proud of possessing a village curiosity.
+
+"_Hui_, Fend l'Air! _attention, toi!_" Fend l'Air tossed his fine mane,
+and struck out with a will over the cobbles. But his driver was only
+posing for the assembled village. He was in no real haste; there was a
+fresh voice singing yonder in his mother's tavern; the sentimentalist
+in him was on edge to hear the end of the song.
+
+"Do you hear that, mesdames? There's no such singing as that out of
+Paris. One must go to a cafe--"
+
+"_Allons, toi!_" shrieked his mother's voice, as her face darkened. "Do
+you think these ladies want to spend the night on the _greve_?
+_Depeches-toi, vaurien!_" And she gave the wheels a shove with her
+strong hand, whereat all the village laughed. But the good-for-nothing
+son made no haste as the song went on--
+
+  "_Le bon vin me fait dormir,
+  L'amour me reveil--_"
+
+He continued to cock his head on one side and to let his eyes dream a
+bit.
+
+Within, a group of peasants was gathered about the inn table. There
+were some young girls seated among the blouses; one of them, for the
+hour that we had sat waiting for Fend l'Air to be captured and
+harnessed, had been singing songs of questionable taste in a voice of
+such contralto sweetness as to have touched the heart of a bishop.
+"Some young girls from the factories at Avranches, mesdames, who come
+here Sundays to get a bit of fresh air; _Dieu soit si elles en ont
+besoin, pauvres enfants!_" was the landlady's charitable explanation.
+It appeared to us that the young ladies from Avranches were more in
+need of a moral than a climatic change. But then, we also charitably
+reflected, it makes all the difference in the world, in these nice
+questions of taste and morality, whether one has had as an inheritance
+a past of Francis I. and a Rabelais, or of Calvin and a Puritan
+conscience.
+
+The geese on the green downs, just below the village, had clearly never
+even heard of Calvin; they were luxuriating in a series of plunges into
+the deep pools in a way to prove complete ignorance of nice sabbatarian
+laws.
+
+With our first toss upon the downs, a world of new and fresh
+experiences began. Genets was quite right; the Mont over yonder was
+another country; even at the very beginning of the journey we learned
+so much. This breeze blowing in from the sea, that had swept the
+ramparts of the famous rock, was a double extract of the sea essence;
+it had all the salt of the sea and the aroma of firs and wild flowers;
+its lips had not kissed a garden in high air without the perfume
+lingering, if only to betray them. Even this strip of meadow marsh had
+a character peculiar to itself; half of it belonged to earth and half
+to the sea. You might have thought it an inland pasture, with its herds
+of cattle, its flocks of sheep, and its colonies of geese--patrolled by
+ragged urchins. But behold, somewhere out yonder the pasture was lost
+in high sea-waves; ships with bulging sails replaced the curve of the
+cattle's sides, and instead of bending necks of sheep, there were
+seagulls swooping down upon the foamy waves.
+
+As the incarnation of this dual life of sea and land, the rock stands.
+It also is both of the sea and the land. Its feet are of the
+waters--rocks and stones the sea-waves have used as playthings these
+millions of years. But earth regains possession as the rocks pile
+themselves into a mountain. Even from this distance, one can see the
+moving arms of great trees, the masses of yellow flower-tips that dye
+the sides of the stony hill, and the strips of green grass here and
+there. So much has nature done for this wonderful pyramid in the sea.
+Then man came and fashioned it to his liking. He piled the stones at
+its base into titanic walls; he carved about its sides the rounded
+breasts of bastions; he piled higher and higher up the dizzy heights a
+medley of palaces, convents, abbeys, cloisters, to lay at the very top
+the fitting crown of all, a jewelled Norman-Gothic cathedral.
+
+Earth and man have thrown their gauntlet down to the sea--this rock is
+theirs, they cry to the waves and the might of oceans. And the sea
+laughs--as strong men laugh when boys are angry or insistent. She has
+let them build and toil, and pray and fight; it is all one to her what
+is done on the rock--whether men carve its stones into lace, or rot and
+die in its dungeons; it is all the same to her whether each spring the
+daffodils creep up within the crevices and the irises nod to them from
+the gardens.
+
+It is all one to her. For twice a day she recaptures the Mont. She
+encircles it with the strong arm of her tides; with the might of her
+waters she makes it once more a thing of the sea.
+
+The tide was rising now.
+
+The fringe of the downs had dabbled in the shoals till they had become
+one. We had left behind the last of the shepherd lads, come out to the
+edge of the land to search for a wandering kid. We were all at once
+plunging into high water. Our road was sunk out of sight; we were
+driving through waves as high as our cart-wheels. Fend l'Air was
+shivering; he was as a-tremble as a woman. The height of the rivers was
+not to his liking.
+
+"_Sacre faineant!_" yelled his owner, treating the tremor to a mighty
+crack of the whip.
+
+"Is he afraid?"
+
+"Yes--when the water is as high as that, he is always afraid. Ah, there
+he is--_diantre_, but he took his time!" he growled, but the growl was
+set in the key of relief. He was pointing toward a figure that was
+leaping toward us through the water. "It is the guide!" he added, in
+explanation.
+
+The guide was at Fend l'Air's shoulder. Very little of him was above
+water, but that little was as brown as an Egyptian. He was puffing and
+blowing like unto a porpoise. In one hand he held a huge pitchfork--the
+trident of this watery Mercury.
+
+"Shall I conduct you?" he asked, dipping the trident as if in salute,
+into the water, as he still puffed and gasped.
+
+"If you please," as gravely responded our driver. For though up to our
+cart-wheels and breasts in deep water, the formalities were not to be
+dispensed with, you understand. The guide placed himself at once in
+front of Fend l'Air, whose shivers as quickly disappeared.
+
+"You see, mesdames--the guide gives him courage--and he now knows no
+fear," cried out with pride our whip on the outer bench. "And what
+news, Victor--is there any?" It was of the Mont he was asking. And the
+guide replied, taking an extra plunge into deep water:
+
+"Oh, not much. There's to be a wedding tomorrow and a pilgrimage the
+next day. Madame Poulard has only a handful as yet. _Ces dames_ descend
+doubtless at Madame Poulard's--_celle qui fait les omelettes?_" The
+ladies were ignorant as yet of the accomplishments of the said
+landlady; they had only heard of her beauty.
+
+"_C'est elle_," gravely chorussed the guide and the driver, both
+nodding their heads as their eyes met. "_Fameuse, sa beaute, comme son
+omelette_," as gravely added our driver.
+
+The beauty of this lady and the fame of her omelette were very
+sobering, apparently, in their effects on the mind; for neither guide
+nor driver had another word to say.
+
+Still the guide plunged into the rivers, and Fend l'Air followed him.
+Our cart still pitched and tossed--we were still rocked about in our
+rough cradle. But the sun, now freed from the banks of clouds, was
+lighting our way with a great and sudden glory. And for the rest of our
+watery journey we were conscious only of that lighting. Behind the
+Mont, lay a vast sea of saffron. But it was in the sky; against it the
+great rock was as black as if the night were upon it. Here and there,
+through the curve of a flying buttress, or the apertures of a pierced
+parapet, gay bits of this yellow world were caught and framed. The sea
+lay beneath like a quiet carpet; and over this carpet ships and sloops
+swam with easy gliding motion, with sails and cordage dipped in gold.
+The smaller craft, moored close to shore, seemed transfigured as in a
+fog of gold. And nearer still were the brown walls of the Mont making a
+great shadow, and in the shadow the waters were as black as the skin of
+an African. In the shoals there were lovely masses of turquoise and
+palest green; for here and there a cloudlet passed, to mirror their
+complexions in the translucent pools.
+
+But Fend l'Air's hoofs had struck a familiar note. His iron shoes were
+clicking along the macadam of the dike. There was a rapid dashing
+beneath the great walls; a sudden night of darkness as we plunged
+through an open archway into a narrow village street; a confused
+impression of houses built into side-walls; of machicolated gateways;
+of rocks and roof-tops tumbling about our ears; and within the street
+was sounding the babel of a shrieking troop of men and women. Porters,
+peasants, lads, and children were clamoring about our cart-wheels like
+unto so many jackals. The bedlam did not cease as we stopped before a
+wide, brightly-lit open doorway.
+
+Then through the doorway there came a tall, finely-featured brunette.
+She made her way through the yelling crowd as a duchess might cleave a
+path through a rabble. She was at the side of the cart in an instant.
+She gave us a bow and smile that were both a welcome and an act of
+appropriation. She held out a firm, soft, brown hand. When it closed on
+our own, we knew it to be the grasp of a friend, and the clasp of one
+who knew how to hold her world. But when she spoke the words were all
+of velvet, and her voice had the cadence of a caress.
+
+"I have been watching you, _cheres dames_--crossing the _greve_--but
+how wet and weary you must be! Come in by the fire, it is ablaze
+now--I have been feeding it for you!" And once more the beautifully
+curved lips parted over the fine teeth, and the exceeding brightness of
+the dark eyes smiled and glittered in our own. The caressing voice
+still led us forward, into the great gay kitchen; the touch of skilful,
+discreet fingers undid wet cloaks and wraps; the soft charm of a lovely
+and gracious woman made even the penetrating warmth of the huge
+fire-logs a secondary feature of our welcome. To those who have never
+crossed a _greve_; who have had no jolting in a Normandy _char-a-banc_;
+who, for hours, have not known the mixed pleasures and discomfort of
+being a part of sea-rivers; and who have not been met at the threshold
+of an Inn on a Rock by the smiling welcome of Madame Poulard--all such
+have yet a pleasant page to read in the book of travelled experience.
+
+Meanwhile somewhere, in an inner room, things sweet to the nostrils
+were cooking. Maids were tripping up and down stairs with covered
+dishes; there was the pleasant clicking in the ear of the lids of
+things; dishes or pans or jars were being lifted. And more delicious to
+the ear than even the promise to starving mouths of food, and of red
+wine to the lip, was the continuing music of madame's voice, as she
+stood over us purring with content at seeing her travellers drying and
+being thoroughly warmed. "The dinner-bell must soon be rung, dear
+ladies; I delayed it as long as I dared--I gauged your progress
+across from the terrace--I have kept all my people waiting; for your
+first dinner here must be hot! But now it rings! Shall I conduct you to
+your rooms?"
+
+I have no doubt that, even without this brunette beauty, with her olive
+cheek and her comely figure as guides, we should have gone the way she
+took us in a sort of daze. One cannot pass under machicolated gateways;
+rustle between the walls of fourteenth century fortifications; climb a
+stone stairway that begins in a watch-tower and ends in a rampart, with
+a great sea view, and with the breadth of all the land shoreward; walk
+calmly over the top of a king's gate, with the arms of a bishop and the
+shrine of the Virgin beneath one's feet; and then, presently, begin to
+climb the side of a rock in which rude stone steps have been cut, till
+one lands on a miniature terrace, to find a preposterously
+sturdy-looking house affixed to a ridiculous ledge of rock that has the
+presumption to give shelter to a hundred or more travellers--ground
+enough, also, for rows of plane-trees, for honeysuckles, and rose-vine,
+with a full coquettish equipment of little tables and iron chairs--no
+such journey as that up a rock was ever taken with entirely sober eyes.
+
+Although her people were waiting below, and the dinner was on its way
+to the cloth, Madame Poulard had plenty of time to give to the beauty
+about her. How fine was the outlook from the top of the ramparts! What
+a fresh sensation, this, of standing on a terrace in mid-air and
+looking down on the sea, and across to the level shores! The
+rose-vines--we found them sweet--_tiens_--one of the branches had
+fallen--she had full time to re-adjust the loosened support. And
+"Marianne, give these ladies their hot water, and see to their bags--"
+even this order was given with courtesy. It was only when the supple,
+agile figure had left us to fly down the steep rock-cut steps; when it
+shot over the top of the gateway and slid with the grace of a lizard
+into the street far below us, that we were made sensible of there
+having been any especial need of madame's being in haste.
+
+That night, some three hours later, a picturesque group was assembled
+about this same supple figure. A pretty, and unlooked-for ceremony was
+about to take place.
+
+It was the ceremony of the lighting of the lanterns.
+
+In the great kitchen, in the dance of the firelight and the glow of the
+lamps, some seven or eight of us were being equipped with Chinese
+lanterns. This of itself was an engaging sight. Madame Poulard was
+always gay at this performance--for it meant much innocent merriment
+among her guests, and with the lighting of the last lantern, her own
+day was done. So the brilliant eyes flashed with a fresh fire, and the
+olive cheek glowed anew. All the men and women laughed as children
+sputter laughter, when they are both pleased and yet a little ashamed
+to show their pleasure. It was so very ridiculous, this journey up a
+rock with a Chinese lantern! But just because it was ridiculous, it was
+also delightful. One--two--three--seven--eight--they were all lit. The
+last male guest had touched his cap to madame, exchanging the "_bonne
+nuit_" a man only gives to a pretty woman, and that which a woman
+returns who feels that her beauty has received its just meed of homage;
+madame's figure stood, still smiling, a radiant benedictory presence,
+in the doorway, with the great glow of the firelight behind her; the
+last laugh echoed down the street--and behold, darkness was upon us!
+The street was as black as a cavern. The strip of sky and the stars
+above seemed almost day, by contrast. The great arch of the Porte du
+Roi engulphed us, and then, slowly groping our way, we toiled up the
+steps to the open ramparts. Here the keen night air swept rudely
+through our cloaks and garments; the sea tossed beneath the bastions
+like some restless tethered creature, that showed now a gray and now a
+purple coat, and the stars were gold balls that might drop at any
+instant, so near they were. The men shivered and buttoned their coats,
+and the women laughed, a trifle shrilly, as they grasped the floating
+burnous closer about their faces and shoulders.
+
+And the lanterns' beams danced a strange dance on the stone flagging.
+
+Once more we were lost in darkness. We were passing through the old
+guard-house. And then slowly, more slowly than ever, the lanterns were
+climbing the steps cut in the rock. Hands groped in the blackness to
+catch hold of the iron railing; the laughter had turned into little
+shouts and gasps for help. And then one of the lanterns played a
+treacherous trick; it showed the backs of two figures groping upward
+together--about one of the girlish figures a man's arm was flung.
+As suddenly the noise of the cries was stilled.
+
+The lanterns played their fitful light on still other objects. They
+illumined now a vivid yellow shrub; they danced upon a roof-top; they
+flooded, with a sudden circlet of brilliance, the awful depths below of
+the swirling waters and of rocks that were black as a bottomless pit.
+
+Then the terrace was reached. And the lanterns danced a last gay little
+dance among the roses and the vines before, Pouffe! Pouffe! and behold!
+they were all blown out.
+
+Thus it was we went to bed on the Mont.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+AN HISTORICAL OMELETTE--THE PILGRIMS AND THE SHRINE.
+
+
+To awake on a hill-top at sea. This was what morning brought.
+
+Crowd this hill with houses plastered to the sides of rocks, with great
+walls girdling it, with tiny gardens lodged in crevices, and with a
+forest tumbling seaward. Let this hill yield you a town in which to
+walk, with a street of many-storied houses; with other promenades along
+ramparts as broad as church aisles; with dungeons, cloisters, halls,
+guard-rooms, abbatial gateways, and a cathedral whose flying buttresses
+seemed to spring from mid-air and to end in a cloud--such was the world
+into which we awoke on the heights of Mont St. Michel.
+
+The verdict of the shore on the hill had been a just one; this world on
+a rock was a world apart. This hill in the sea had a detached air--as
+if, though French, at heart a true Gaul, it had had from the beginning
+of things a life of adventure peculiar to itself. The shore, at best,
+had been only a foster-mother; the hill was the true child of the sea.
+Since its birth it has had a more or less enforced separateness, in
+experience, from the country to which it belonged. Whether temple or
+fortress, whether forest-clad in virginal fierceness of aspect, or
+subdued into beauty by the touch of man's chisel, its destiny has
+ever been the same--to suffice unto itself--to be, in a word, a world
+in miniature.
+
+The Mont proved by its appearance its history in adventure; it had the
+grim, grave, battered look that comes only to features, whether of rock
+or of more plastic human mould--that have been carved by the rough
+handling of experience.
+
+It is the common habit of hills and mountains, as we all know, to turn
+disdainful as they grow skyward; they only too eagerly drop, one by
+one, the things by which man has marked the earth for his own. To stand
+on a mountain top and to go down to your grave are alike, at least in
+this--that you have left everything, except yourself, behind you. But
+it is both the charm and the triumph of Mont St. Michel, that it
+carries so much of man's handiwork up into the blue fields of air; this
+achievement alone would mark it as unique among hills. It appears as if
+for once man and nature had agreed to work in concert to produce a
+masterpiece in stone. The hill and the architectural beauties it
+carries aloft, are like a taunt flung out to sea and to the upper
+heights of air; for centuries they appear to have been crying aloud,
+"See what we can do, against your tempests and your futile tides--when
+we try."
+
+On that particular morning, the taunt seemed more like an
+epithalamium--such marriage-lines did sea and sky appear to be reading
+over the glistening face of the rock. June had pitched its tent of blue
+across the seas; all the world was blue, except where the sun smote it
+into gold. To eyes in love with beauty, what a world at one's feet!
+Beneath that azure roof, toward the west, was the world of water,
+curling, dimpling, like some human thing charged with the conscious
+joy of dancing in the sun. Shoreward, the more stable earth was in the
+Moslem's ideal posture--that of perpetual prostration. The Brittany
+coast was a long, flat, green band; the rocks of Cancale were brown,
+but scarcely higher in point of elevation than the sand-hills; the
+Normandy forests and orchards were rippling lines that focussed into
+the spiral of the Avranches cathedral spires: floating between the two
+blues, hung the aerial shapes of the Chaunsey and the Channel Islands;
+and nearer, along the coast-line, were the fringing edges of the shore,
+broken with shoals and shallows--earth's fingers, as it were, touching
+the sea--playing, as Coleridge's Abyssinian maid fingered the dulcimer,
+that music that haunts the poet's ear.
+
+We were seated at the little iron tables, on the terrace. We were
+sipping our morning coffee, beneath the plane-trees. The terrace, a
+foot beyond our coffee-cups, instantly began its true career as a
+precipice. We, ourselves, seemed to have begun as suddenly our own
+flight heavenward--on such astonishing terms of intimacy were we with
+the sky. The clapping close to our ears of large-winged birds; the
+swirling of the circling sea-gulls; the amazing nearness of the cloud
+drapery--all this gave us the sense of being in a new world, and of its
+being a strangely pleasant one.
+
+Suddenly a cock's crow, shrill and clear, made us start from the
+luxurious languor of our contentment; for we had scarcely looked to
+find poultry on this Hill of Surprises. Turning in the direction of the
+homely, familiar note, we beheld a garden. In this garden walked the
+cock--a two-legged gentleman of gorgeous plumage. If abroad for purely
+constitutional purposes, the crowing chanticleer must be forced to pass
+the same objects many times in review. Of all infinitesimal,
+microscopic gardens, this one, surely, was a model in minuteness.
+Yet it was an entirely self-respecting little garden. It was not much
+larger than a generous-sized pocket handkerchief; yet how much
+talent--for growing--may be hidden in a yard of soil--if the soil have
+the right virtue in it. Here were two rocks forming, with a fringe of
+cliff, a triangle; in that tri-cornered bit of earth a lively crop of
+growing vegetables was offering flattering signs of promise to the
+owner's eye. Where all land runs aslant, as all land does on this
+Mont, not an inch was to be wasted; up the rocks peach and pear-split
+trees were made to climb--and why should they not, since everything
+else--since man himself must climb from the moment he touches the base
+of the hill?
+
+Following the cock's call, came the droning sweetness of bees; the rose
+and the honeysuckle vines were loading the morning air with the perfume
+of their invitations. Then a human voice drowned the bees' whirring,
+and a face as fresh and as smiling as the day stood beside us. It was
+the voice and the face of Madame Poulard, on the round of her morning
+inspections. Our table and the radiant world at her feet were included
+in this, her line of observations.
+
+"_Ah, mesdames, comme vous savez bien vous placer!_--how admirably you
+understand how to place yourselves! Under such a sky as this--before
+such a spectacle--one should be in the front row, as at a theatre!"
+
+And that was the beginning of our deeds finding favor in the eyes of
+Madame Poulard.
+
+It was our happy fate to drink many a morning cup of coffee at those
+little iron tables; to have many a prolonged chat with the charming
+landlady of the famous inn; to become as familiar with the glories and
+splendors of the historical hill as with the habits and customs of the
+world that came up to view them.
+
+For here our journey was to end.
+
+The comedy of life, as it had played itself out in Normandy inns, was
+here, in this Inn on a Rock, to give us a series of farewell
+performances. On no other stage, we were agreed, could the versatile
+French character have had as admirable and picturesque a setting; and
+surely, on no other bit of French soil could such an astonishing and
+amazing variety of types be assembled for a final appearance, as came
+up, day after day, to make the tour of the Mont.
+
+To the shore, and for the whole of the near-lying Breton and Norman
+rustic world, the Mont is still the Hill of Delight. It is their Alp,
+their shrine, the tenth wonder of the world, a prison, a palace, and a
+temple still. In spite of Parisian changes in religious fashions, the
+blouse is still devout; for curiosity is the true religion of the
+provincial, and all love of adventure did not die out with the
+Crusades.
+
+Therefore it is that rustic France along this coast still makes
+pilgrimages to the shrine of the Archangel St. Michael. No marriage is
+rightly arranged which does not include a wedding-journey across the
+_greve_; no nuptial breakfast is aureoled with the true halo of romance
+which is eaten elsewhere than on these heights in mid-air. The young
+come to drink deep of wonders; the old, to refresh the depleted
+fountains of memory; and the tourist, behold, he is as a plague of
+locusts let loose upon the defenceless hill!
+
+After a fortnight's sojourn, Charm and I held many a grave
+consultation; close observation of this world that climbed the
+heights had bred certain strange misgivings. What was it this world of
+sight-seers came up to the Mont for to see? Was it to behold the great
+glories thereof, or was it, oh, human eye of man! to look on the face
+of a charming woman I It was impossible, after sojourning a certain
+time upon the hill, not to concede that there were two equally strong
+centres of attractions, that drew the world hither-ward. One remained,
+indeed, gravely suspended between the doubt and the fear, as to which
+of these potential units had the greater pull, in point of actual
+attraction. The impartial historian, given to a just weighing of
+evidence, would have been startled to find how invariably the scales
+tipped; how lightly an historical Mont, born of a miracle, crowned by
+the noblest buildings, a pious Mecca for saints and kings innumerable,
+shot up like feathers in lightness when over-weighted by the modern
+realities of a perfectly appointed inn, the cooking and eating of an
+omelette of omelettes, and the all-conquering charms of Madame
+Poulard. The fog of doubt thickened as, day after day, the same scenes
+were enacted; when one beheld all sorts and conditions of men similarly
+affected; when, again and again, the potentiality in the human magnet
+was proved true. Doubt turned to conviction, at the last, that the holy
+shrine of St. Michael had, in truth, been, violated; that the Mont had
+been desecrated; that the latter exists now solely as a setting for a
+pearl of an inn; and that within the shrine--it is Madame Poulard
+herself who fills the niche!
+
+The pilgrims come from darkest Africa and the sunlit Yosemite, but they
+remain to pray at the Inn of the Omelette. Yonder, on the _greves,_ as
+we ourselves had proved, one crosses the far seas and one is wet to the
+skin, only to hear the praises sung of madame's skill in the handling
+of eggs in a pan; it is for this the lean guide strides before the
+pilgrim tourist, and that he dippeth his trident in the waters. At the
+great gates of the fortifications the pilgrim descends, and behold, a
+howling chorus of serving-people take up the chant of: "_Chez Madame
+Poulard, a gauche, a la renommee de l'omelette!_" The inner walls of
+the town lend themselves to their last and best estate, that of
+proclaiming the glory of "_L'Omelette_." Placards, rich in indicative
+illustrations of hands all forefingers, point, with a directness never
+vouchsafed the sinner eager to find the way to right and duty, to the
+inn of "_L'Incomparable, la Fameuse Omelette!_" The pilgrims meekly
+descend at that shrine. They bow low to the worker of the modern
+miracle; they pass with eager, trembling foot, into the inner
+sanctorum, to the kitchen, where the presiding deity receives them with
+the grace of a queen and the simplicity of a saint.
+
+Life on the Mont, as we soon found, resolved itself into this--into so
+arranging one's day as to be on hand for the great, the eventful hour.
+In point of fact there were two such hours in the Mont St. Michel day.
+There was the hour of the cooking of the omelette. There was always the
+other really more tragic hour, of the coming across the dike, of the
+huge lumbering omnibuses. For you see, that although one may be
+beautiful enough to compete successfully against dead-and-gone saints,
+against worn out miracles, and wonders in stone, human nature, when
+it is alive, is human nature still. It is the curse of success, the
+world over, to arouse jealousy; and we all have lived long enough to
+know that jealousy's evil-browed offspring are named Hate and
+Competition. Up yonder, beyond the Porte du Roi, rivalry has set up a
+counter-shrine, with a competing saint, with all the hateful
+accessories of a pretty face, a younger figure, and a graceful
+if less skilled aptitude in the making of omelettes in public.
+
+The hour of the coming in of the coaches, was, therefore, a tragic
+hour.
+
+On the arrival of the coaches Madame was at her post long before the
+pilgrims came up to her door. Being entirely without personal vanity--
+since she felt her beauty, her cleverness, her grace, and her charm to
+be only a part of the capital of the inn trade--a higher order of the
+stock in trade, as it were--she made it a point to look handsomer on
+the arrival of coaches than at any other time. Her cheeks were certain
+to be rosier; her bird's head was always carried a trifle more
+takingly, perched coquettishly sideways, that the caressing smile of
+welcome might be the more personal; and as the woman of business,
+lining the saint, so to speak, was also present, into the deep pockets
+of the blue-checked apron, the calculating fingers were thrust, that
+the quick counting of the incoming guests might not be made too obvious
+an action. After such a pose, to see a pilgrim escape! To see him pass
+by, unmoved by that smile, turning his feelingless back on the true
+shrine! It was enough to melt the stoutest heart. Madame's welcome of
+the captured, after such an affront, was set in the minor key; and her
+smile was the smile of a suffering angel.
+
+"_Cours, mon enfant_, run, see if he descends or if he pushes on; tell
+him _I_ am Madame Poulard!" This, a low command murmured between a
+hundred orders, still in the minor key, would be purred to Clementine,
+a peasant in a cap, exceeding fleet of foot, and skilled in the capture
+of wandering sheep.
+
+And Clementine would follow that stray pilgrim: she would attack him in
+the open street; would even climb after him, if need be, up the steep
+rock steps, till, proved to be following strange gods, he would be
+brought triumphantly back to the kitchen-shrine, by Clementine,
+puffing, but exultant.
+
+"Ah, monsieur, how could you pass us by?" madame's soft voice would
+murmur reproachfully in the pilgrim's ear. And the pilgrim, abashed,
+ashamed, would quickly make answer, if he were born of the right
+parents: "_Chere_ madame, how was I to believe my eyes? It is ten years
+since I was here, and you are younger, more beautiful than ever! I was
+going in search of your mother!" at which needless truism all the
+kitchen would laugh. Madame Poulard herself would find time for one of
+her choicest smiles, although this was the great moment of the working
+of the miracle. She was beginning to cook the omelette.
+
+The head-cook was beating the eggs in a great yellow bowl. Madame had
+already taken her stand at the yawning Louis XV. fireplace; she was
+beginning gently to balance the huge _casserole_ over the glowing logs.
+And all the pilgrims were standing about, watching the process. Now,
+the group circling about the great fireplace was scarcely ever the
+same; the pilgrims presented a different face and garb day after
+day--but in point of hunger they were as one man; they were each and
+all as unvaryingly hungry as only tourists could be, who, clamoring for
+food, have the smell of it in their nostrils, with the added ache of
+emptiness gnawing within. But besides hunger, each one of the pilgrims
+had brought with him a pair of eyes; and what eyes of man can be pure
+savage before the spectacle of a pretty woman cooking, _for him_,
+before an open fire? Therefore it was that still another miracle was
+wrought, that of turning a famished mob into a buzzing swarm of
+admirers.
+
+"_Mais si, monsieur_, in this pan I can cook an omelette large enough
+for you all; you will see. Ah, madame, you are off already? Celestine!
+Madame's bill, in the desk yonder. And you, monsieur, you too leave us?
+_Deux cognacs?_ Victor--_deux cognacs et une demi-tasse pour monsieur!_"
+
+These and a hundred other answers and questions and orders, were
+uttered in a fluted voice or in a tone of sharp command, by the
+miracle-worker, as the pan was kept gently turning, and the eggs were
+poured in at just the right moment--not one of the pretty poses of head
+and wrist being forgotten. Madame Poulard, like all clever women who
+are also pretty, had two voices: one was dedicated solely to the
+working of her charms; this one was soft, melodious, caressing,
+the voice of dove when cooing; the other, used for strictly business
+purposes, was set in the quick, metallic _staccato_ tones proper for
+such occasions.
+
+The dove's voice was trolling its sweetness, as she went on--
+
+"Eggs, monsieur? How many I use? Ah, it is in the season that counting
+the dozens becomes difficult--seventy dozen I used one day last year!"
+
+"Seventy dozen!" the pilgrim-chorus ejaculated, their eyes growing the
+wider as their lips moistened. For behold, the eggs were now cooked to
+a turn; the long-handled pan was being lifted with the effortless skill
+of long practice, the omelette was rolled out at just the right instant
+of consistency, and was being as quickly turned into its great flat
+dish.
+
+There was a scurrying and scampering up the wide steps to the dining
+room, and a hasty settling into the long rows of chairs. Presently
+madame herself would appear, bearing the huge dish. And the
+omelette--the omelette, unlike the pilgrims, would be found to be
+always the same--melting, juicy, golden, luscious, and above all _hot!_
+
+The noon-day table d'hote was always a sight to see. Many of the
+pilgrim-tourists came up to the Mont merely to pass the day, or to stop
+the night; the midday meal was therefore certain to be the liveliest of
+all the repasts.
+
+The cloth was spread in a high, white, sunlit room. It was a trifle
+bare, this room, in spite of the walls being covered with pictures, the
+windows with pretty draperies, and the spotless linen that covered the
+long table. But all temples, however richly adorned, have a more or
+less unfurnished aspect; and this room served not only as the
+dining-table, but also as a foreshadowing of the apotheosis of Madame
+Poulard. Here were grouped together all the trophies and tributes of a
+grateful world; there were portraits of her charming brunette face
+signed by famous admirers; there were sonnets to her culinary skill and
+her charms as hostess, framed; these alternated with gifts of horned
+beasts that had been slain in her honor, and of stuffed birds who, in
+life, had beguiled the long winters for her with their songs. About the
+wide table, the snow of the linen reflected always the same picture;
+there were rows of little palms in flower-pots, interspersed with fruit
+dishes, with the butter pats, the almonds, and raisins, in their flat
+plates.
+
+The rows of faces above the cloth were more varied. The four corners of
+the earth were sometimes to be seen gathered together about the
+breakfast-table. Frenchmen of the Midi, with the skin of Spaniards and
+the buzz of Tartarin's _ze ze_ in their speech; priests, lean and fat;
+Germans who came to see a French stronghold as defenceless as a woman's
+palm; the Italian, a rarer type, whose shoes, sufficiently pointed to
+prick, and whose choice for decollete collars betrayed his nationality
+before his lisping French accent could place him indisputably beyond
+the Alps; herds of English--of all types--from the aristocrat, whose
+open-air life had colored his face with the hues of a butcher, to the
+pale, ascetic clerk, off on a two weeks' holiday, whose bending at his
+desk had given him the stoop of a scholar; with all these were mixed
+hordes of French provincials, chiefly of the _bourgeois type,_ who
+singly, or in family parties, or in the nuptial train of sons or
+daughters, came up to the shrine of St. Michel.
+
+To listen to the chatter of these tourists was to learn the last word
+of the world's news. As in the days before men spoke to each other
+across continents, and the medium of cold type had made the event of
+to-day the history of to-morrow, so these pilgrims talked through the
+one medium that alone can give a fact the real essence of
+freshness--the ever young, the perdurably charming human voice. It was
+as good as sitting out a play to watch the ever-recurring
+characteristics, which made certain national traits as marked as the
+noses on the faces of the tourists. The question, for example, on which
+side the Channel a pilgrim was born, was settled five seconds after he
+was seated at table. The way in which the butter was passed was one
+test; the manner of the eating of the famous omelette was another. If
+the tourist were a Frenchman, the neat glass butter-dish was turned
+into a visiting-card--a letter of introduction, a pontoon-bridge, in a
+word, hastily improvised to throw across the stream of conversation.
+"_Madame_" (this to the lady at the tourist's left), "_me permet-elle de
+lui offrir le beurre?_" Whereat madame bowed, smiled, accepted the
+golden balls as if it were a bouquet, returning the gift, a few seconds
+later, by the proffer of the gravy dish. Between the little ceremony of
+the two bows and the smiling _mercis_, a tentative outbreak of speech
+ensued, which at the end of a half-hour, had spread from _bourgeois_ to
+countess, from cure to Parisian _boulevardier_, till the entire side of
+the table was in a buzz of talk. These genial people of a genial land
+finding themselves all in search of the same adventure, on top of a
+hill, away from the petty world of conventionality, remembered that
+speech was given to man to communicate with his fellows. And though
+neighbors for a brief hour, how charming such an hour can be made when
+into it are crowded the effervescence of personal experience, the witty
+exchange of comment and observation, and the agreeable conflict of
+thought and opinion!
+
+On the opposite side of the table, what a contrast! There the English
+were seated. There was the silence of the grave. All the rigid figures
+sat as upright as posts. In front of these severe countenances, the
+butter-plates remained as fixtures; the passing of them to a neighbor
+would be a frightful breach of good form--besides being dangerous. Such
+practices, in public places, had been known to lead to things--to
+unspeakable things--to knowing the wrong people, to walks afterward
+with cads one couldn't shake off, even to marriages with the
+impossible! Therefore it was that the butter remained a fixture. Even
+between those who formed the same tourist-party, there was rarely such
+an act of self-forgetfulness committed as an indulgence in talk--in
+public. The eye is the only active organ the Englishman carries abroad
+with him; his talking is done by staring. What fierce scowls, what dark
+looks of disapproval, contempt, and dislike were levelled at the
+chattering Frenchmen opposite.
+
+[Illustration: MONT SAINT MICHEL SNAIL-GATHERERS]
+
+Across the table, the national hate perpetuated itself. It appears to
+be a test of patriotism, this hatred between Frenchmen and Englishmen.
+That strip of linen might easily have been the Channel itself; it could
+scarcely more effectually have separated the two nations. A whole
+comedy of bitterness, a drama of rivalry, and a five-act tragedy of
+scorn were daily played between the Briton who sat facing the south,
+and the Frenchman who faced north. Both, as they eyed their neighbor
+over the foam of their napkins, had the Island in their eye!--the
+Englishman to flaunt its might and glory in the teeth of the hated
+Gaul, and the Frenchman to return his contempt for a nation of moist
+barbarians.
+
+Meanwhile, the omelette was going its rounds. It was being passed at
+that moment to Monsieur le Cure. He had been watching its progress with
+glistening eye and moistening lips. Madame Poulard, as she slipped the
+melting morsel beneath his elbow, had suddenly assumed the role of the
+penitent. Her tone was a reminder of the confessional, as of one who
+passed her masterpiece apologetically. She, forsooth, a sinner, to have
+the honor of ministering to the carnal needs of a son of the Church!
+
+The son of the Church took two heaping spoonfuls. His eye gave her,
+with his smile, the benediction of his gratitude, even before he had
+tasted of the luscious compound.
+
+"_Ah, chere madame! il n'y a que vous_--it is only you who can make the
+ideal omelette! I have tried, but Suzette has no art in her fingers;
+your receipt doesn't work away from the Mont!" And the good man sighed
+as he chuckled forth his praises.
+
+He had come up to the hill in company with the two excellent ladies
+beside him, of his flock, to make a little visit to his brethren
+yonder, to the priests who were still here, wrecks of the once former
+flourishing monastery. He had come to see them, and also to gaze on La
+Merveille. It was a good five years since he had looked upon its
+dungeons and its lace-work. But after all, in his secret soul of souls,
+he had longed to eat of the omelette. _Dieu!_ how often during those
+slow, quiet years in the little hamlet yonder on the plain, had its
+sweetness and lightness mocked his tongue with illusive tasting! Little
+wonder, therefore, that the good cure's praises were sweet in madame's
+ear, for they had the ring of truth--and of envy! And madame herself
+was only mortal, for what woman lives but feels herself uplifted by the
+sense of having found favor in the eyes of her priest?
+
+The omelette next came to a halt between the two ladies of the cure's
+flock. These were two _bourgeoises_ with the deprecating, mistrustful
+air peculiar to commonplace the world over. The walk up the steep
+stairs was still quickening their breath their compressed bosoms were
+straining the hooks of their holiday woollen bodices--cut when they
+were of slenderer build. Their bonnets proclaimed the antique fashions
+of a past decade; but the edge of their tongues had the keenness that
+comes with daily practice--than which none has been found surer than
+adoration of one's pastor, and the invigorating gossip of small towns.
+
+These ladies eyed the omelette with a chilled glance. Naturally, they
+could not see as much to admire in Madame Poulard or in her dish as did
+their cure. There was nothing so wonderful after all in the turning of
+eggs over a hot fire. The omelette!--after all, an omelette is an
+omelette! Some are better--some are worse; one has one's luck in
+cooking as in anything else. They had come up to the Mont with their
+good cure to see its wonders and for a day's outing; admiration of
+other women had not been anticipated as a part of the programme.
+_Tiens_--who was he talking to now? To that tall blonde--a foreigner, a
+young girl--_tiens_--who knows?--possibly an American--those Americans
+are terrible, they say--bold, immodest, irreverent. And the two ladies'
+necks were screwed about their over-tight collars, to give Charm the
+verdict of their disapproval.
+
+"Monsieur le Cure, they are passing you the fish!" cried the stouter,
+more aggressive parishioner, who boasted a truculent mustache.
+
+"Monsieur le Cure, the roast is at your elbow!" interpolated the
+second, with the more timid voice of a second in action; this protector
+of the good cure had no mustache, but her face was mercifully protected
+by nature from a too-disturbing combination of attractions, by being
+plentifully punctuated with moles from which sprouted little tufts of
+hair. The rain of these ladies' interruption was incessant; but the
+cure was a man of firm mind; their efforts to recapture his attention
+were futile. For the music of Charm's foreign voice was in his ear.
+Worship of the cloth is not a national, it is a more or less universal
+cult, I take it. It is in the blood of certain women. Opposite the two
+fussy, jealous _bourgeoises_, were others as importunate and
+aggressive. They were of fair, lean, lank English build, with the
+shifting eyes and the persistent courage which come to certain maidens
+in whose lives there is but one fixed and certain fact--that of having
+missed the matrimonial market. The shrine of their devotions, and the
+present citadel of their attack, was seated between them--he also being
+lean, pale, high-arched of brow, high anglican by choice, and
+noticeably weak of chin, in whose sable garments there was framed the
+classical clerical tie.
+
+To this curate Madame was now passing her dish. She still wore her fine
+sweet smile, but there was always a discriminating reserve in its edge
+when she touched the English elbow. The curate took his spoonful with
+the indifference of a man who had never known the religion of good
+eating. He put up his one eye-glass; it swept Madame's bending face,
+its smile, and the yellow glory floating beneath both. "Ah-h--ya-as--
+an omelette!" The glass was dropped; he took a meagre spoonful which he
+cut, presently, with his knife. He turned then to his neighbors--to
+both his neighbors! They had been talking of the parish church on
+the hill.
+
+"Ah-h-h, ya-as--lovely porch--isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, lovely--lovely!" chorussed the two maidens, with assenting fervor.
+"_Were_ you there this morning?" and they lifted eyes swimming with the
+rapture of their admiration.
+
+"Ya-as."
+
+"Only fancy--our missing you! We were _both_ there!"
+
+"Dear me! Really, were you?"
+
+"_Could_ you go this afternoon? I do want so to hear your criticism of
+my drawing--I'm working on the arch now."
+
+"So sorry--can't--possibly. I promised what's his name to go over to
+Tombelaine, don't you know!"
+
+"Oh-h! We do so want to go to Tombelaine!"
+
+"Ah-h--do you, really? One ought to start a little before the tide
+drops--they tell me!" and the clerical eye, through its correctly
+adjusted glass, looked into those four pleading eyes with no hint of
+softening. The dish that was the masterpiece of the house, meanwhile,
+had been despatched as if it were so much leather.
+
+The omelette fared no better with the brides, as a rule, than with the
+English curates. Such a variety of brides as came up to the Mont! You
+could have your choice, at the midday meal, of almost any nationality,
+age, or color. The attempt among these bridal couples to maintain the
+distant air of a finished indifference only made their secret the more
+open. The British phlegm, on such a journey, did not always serve as a
+convenient mask; the flattering, timid glance, the ripple of the tender
+whispers, and the furtive touching of fingers beneath the table, made
+even these English couples a part of the great human marrying family;
+their superiority to their fellows would return, doubtless, when the
+honey had dried out of their moon. The best of our adventures into this
+tender country were with the French bridal tourists; they were certain
+to be delightfully human. As we had had occasion to remark before, they
+were off, like ourselves, on a little voyage of discovery; they had
+come to make acquaintance with the being to whom they were mated for
+life. Various degrees of progress could be read in the air and manner
+of the hearty young _bourgeoises_ and their paler or even ruddier
+partners, as they crunched their bread or sipped their thin wine. Some
+had only entered as yet upon the path of inquiry; others had already
+passed the mile-stone of criticism; and still others had left the
+earth and were floating in full azure of intoxication. Of the many
+wedding parties that sat down to breakfast, we soon made the
+commonplace discovery that the more plebeian the company, the more
+certain-orbed appeared to be the promise of happiness.
+
+Some of the peasant weddings were noisy, boisterous performances;
+but how gay were the brides, and how bloated with joy the hardy,
+knotty-handied grooms! These peasant wedding guests all bore a striking
+family likeness; they might easily all have been brothers and sisters,
+whether they had come from the fields near Pontorson, or Cancale, or
+Dol, or St. Malo. The older the women, the prettier and the more
+gossamer were the caps; but the younger maidens were always delightful
+to look upon, such was the ripe vigor of their frames, and the liquid
+softness of eyes that, like animals, were used to wide sunlit fields
+and to great skies full of light. The bride, in her brand-new stuff
+gown, with a bonnet that recalled the bridal wreath only just laid
+aside, was also certain to be of a general universal type with the
+broad hips, wide waist, muscular limbs, and the melting sweetness of
+lips and eyes that only abundant health and a rich animalism of nature
+bring to maidenhood.
+
+Madame Poulard's air with this, her world, was as full of tact as with
+the tourists. Many of the older women would give her the Norman kiss,
+solemnly, as if the salute were a part of the ceremony attendant on the
+eating of a wedding breakfast at Mont St. Michel. There would be a
+three times' clapping of the wrinkled or the ruddy peasant cheeks
+against the sides of Madame Poulard's daintier, more delicately
+modelled face. Then all would take their seats noisily at table. It was
+Madame Poulard who then would bring us news of the party; at the end of
+a fortnight, Charm and I felt ourselves to be in possession of the
+hidden and secret reasons for all the marrying that had been done along
+the coast, that year. "_Tiens, ce n'est pas gai, la noce!_ I must learn
+the reason!" Madame would then flutter over the bridal breakfasters as
+a delicate plumaged bird hovers over a mass of stuff out of which it
+hopes to make a respectable meal. She presently would return to murmur
+in a whisper, "it is a _mariage de raison_. They, the bride and groom,
+love elsewhere, but they are marrying to make a good partnership; they
+are both hair-dressers at Caen. They have bought a new and fine shop
+with their earnings." Or it would be, "Look, madame, at that _jolie
+personne_; see how sad she looks. She is in love with her cousin who
+sits opposite, but the groom is the old one. He has a large farm and a
+hundred cows." To look on such a trio would only be to make the
+acquaintance anew of Sidonie and Risler and of Froment Jeune. Such
+brides always had the wandering gaze of those in search of fresh
+horizons, or of those looking already for the chance of escape. For
+such "unhappies," _ces malheureuses_, Madame's manner had an added
+softness and tenderness; she passed the frosted bridal cake as if it
+were a propitiatory offering to the God of Hymen. However melancholy
+the bride, the cake and Madame's caressing smiles wrought ever the same
+spell; for an instant, at least, the newly-made wife was in love with
+matrimony and with the cake, accepting the latter with the pleased
+surprise of one who realizes that, at least, on one's wedding day, one
+is a person of importance; that even so far as Mont St. Michel the news
+of their marriage had turned the ovens into a baking of wedding-cakes.
+This was destined to be the first among the deceptions that greeted
+such brides; for there were hundreds of such cakes, alas! kept
+constantly on hand. They were the same--a glory of sugar-mouldings and
+devices covering a mountain of richness--that were sent up yearly at
+Christmas time to certain mansard studios in the Latin quarter, where
+the artist recipients, like the brides, eat of the cake as did Adam
+when partaking of the apple, believing all the woman told them!
+
+There were other visitors who came up to the Mont, not as welcome as
+were these tourist parties.
+
+One morning, as we looked toward Pontorson, a small black cloud
+appeared to be advancing across the bay. The day was windy; the sky was
+crowded with huge white mountains--round, luminous clouds that moved in
+stately sweeps. And the sea was the color one loves to see in an
+earnest woman's eye, the dark-blue sapphire that turns to blue-gray.
+This was a setting that made that particular cloud, making such slow
+progress across from the shore, all the more conspicuous. Gradually, as
+the black mass neared the dike, it began to break and separate; and we
+saw plainly enough that the scattering particles were human beings.
+
+It was, in point of fact, a band of pilgrims; a peasant pilgrimage was
+coming up to the Mont. In wagons, in market carts, in _char-a-bancs_,
+in donkey-carts, on the backs of monster Percherons--the pilgrimage
+moved in slow processional dignity across the dike. Some of the younger
+black gowns and blue blouses attempted to walk across over the sands;
+we could see the girls sitting down on the edge of the shore, to take
+off their shoes and stockings and to tuck up their thick skirts. When
+they finally started they were like unto so many huge cheeses hoisted
+on stilts. The bare legs plunged boldly forward, keeping ahead of the
+slower-moving peasant-lads; the girls' bravery served them till they
+reached the fringe of the incoming tide; not until their knees went
+under water did they forego their venture. A higher wave came in,
+deluging the ones farthest out; and then ensued a scampering toward the
+dike and a climbing up of the stone embankment. The old route across
+the sands, that had been the only one known to kings and barons, was
+not good enough for a modern Norman peasant. The religion of personal
+comfort has spread even as far as the fields.
+
+At the entrance gate a tremendous hubbub and noise announced the
+arrival of the pilgrimage. Wagons, carts, horses, and peasants were
+crowded together as only such a throng is mixed in pilgrimages, wars,
+and fairs. Women were taking down hoods, unharnessing the horses,
+fitting slats into outsides of wagons, rolling up blankets, unpacking
+from the _char-a-bancs_ cooking utensils, children, grain-bags, long
+columns of bread, and hard-boiled eggs. For the women, darting hither
+and thither in their blue petticoats, their pink and red kerchiefs, and
+the stiff white Norman caps, were doing all the work. The men appeared
+to be decorative adjuncts, plying the Norman's gift of tongue across
+wagon-wheels and over the back of their vigorous wives and daughters.
+For them the battle of the day was over; the hour of relaxation had
+come. The bargains they had made along the route were now to be
+rehearsed, seasoned with a joke.
+
+"_Allons, toi, on ne fait pas de la monnaie blanche comme ca!_"
+
+"_Je t'ai offert huit sous, tu sais, lapin!_"
+
+"_Farceur, va-t'en--_"
+
+"Come, are you never going to have done fooling?" cried a tan-colored,
+wide-hipped peasant to her husband, who was lounging against the wagon
+pole, sporting a sprig of gentian pinned to his blouse. He was fat and
+handsome; and his eye proclaimed, as he was making it do heavy work at
+long range at a cluster of girls descending from an antique gig, that
+the knowledge of the same was known unto him.
+
+"That's right, growl ahead, thou, _tes beaux jours sont passes_, but
+for me _l'amour, l'amour--que c'est gai, que c'est frais!_" he half
+sung, half shouted.
+
+The moving mass of color, the Breton caps, and the Norman faces, the
+gold crosses that fell from dented bead necklaces, the worn hooped
+earrings, the clean bodices and home-spun skirts, streamed out past our
+windows as we looked down upon them. How pretty were some of the faces,
+of the younger women particularly! and with what gay spirits they were
+beginning their day! It had begun the night before, almost; many of the
+carts had been driven in from the forests beyond Avranches; some of the
+Brittany groups had started the day before. But what can quench the
+fountain of French vivacity? To see one's world, surely, there is
+nothing in that to tire one; it only excites and exhilarates; and so a
+fair or market day, and above all a pilgrimage, are better than balls,
+since they come more regularly; they are the peasant's opera, his
+Piccadilly and Broadway, club, drawing-room, Exchange, and parade, all
+in one.
+
+A half-hour after a landing of the pilgrims at the outer gates of the
+fortifications, the hill was swarming with them. The single street of
+the town was choked with the black gowns and the cobalt-blue blouses.
+Before these latter took a turn at their devotions they did homage to
+Bacchus. Crowds of peasants were to be seen seated about the long,
+narrow inn-tables, lifting huge pewter tankards to bristling beards.
+Some of these taverns were the same that had fed and sheltered bands of
+pilgrims that are now mere handfuls of dust in country churchyards.
+Those sixteenth century pilgrims, how many of them, had found this
+same arched doorway of La Licorne as cool as the shade of great trees
+after the long hot climb up to the hill! What a pleasant face has the
+timbered facade of the Tete d'Or, and the Mouton Blanc, been to the
+weary-limbed: and how sweet to the dead lips has been the first taste
+of the acid cider!
+
+Other aspects of the hill, on this day of the pilgrimage, made those
+older dead-and-gone bands of pilgrims astonishingly real. On the tops
+of bastions, in the clefts of the rocks, beneath the glorious walls of
+La Merveille, or perilously lodged on the crumbling cornice of a
+tourelle, numerous rude altars had been hastily erected. The crude
+blues and scarlets of banners were fluttering, like so many pennants,
+in the light breeze. Beneath the improvised altar-roofs--strips of gay
+cloth stretched across poles stuck into the ground--were groups not
+often seen in these less fervent centuries. High up, mounted on the
+natural pulpit formed of a bit of rock, with the rude altar before him,
+with its bit of scarlet cloth covered with cheap lace, stood or knelt
+the priest. Against the wide blue of the open heaven his figure took
+on an imposing splendor of mien and an unmodern impressiveness of
+action. Beneath him knelt, with bowed heads, the groups of the
+peasant-pilgrims; the women, with murmuring lips and clasped hands,
+their strong, deeply-seamed faces outlined, with the precision of a
+Francesco painting, against the gray background of a giant mass of
+wall, or the amazing breadth of a vast sea-view; children, squat and
+chubby, with bulging cheeks starting from the close-fitting French
+_bonnet_; and the peasant-farmers, mostly of the older varieties, whose
+stiffened or rheumatic knees and knotty hands made their kneeling real
+acts of devotional zeal. There were a dozen such altars and groups
+scattered over the perpendicular slant of the hill. The singing of the
+choir-boys, rising like skylark notes into the clear space of heaven,
+would be floating from one rocky-nested chapel, while below, in the one
+beneath which we, for a moment, were resting, there would be the
+groaning murmur of the peasant groups in prayer.
+
+All day little processions were going up and down the steep stone steps
+that lead from fortified rock to parish church, and from the town to
+the abbatial gateway. The banners and the choir-boys, the priests in
+their embroideries and lace, the peasants in cap and blouse, were
+incessantly mounting and descending, standing on rock edges, caught for
+an instant between a medley of perpendicular roofs, of giant gateways,
+and a long perspective of fortified walls, only to be lost in the curve
+of a bastion, or a flying buttress, that, in their turn, would be found
+melting into a distant sea-view.
+
+All the hours of a pilgrimage, we discovered, were not given to prayer;
+nor yet is an incessant bowing at the shrine of St. Michel the sole
+other diversion in a true pilgrim's round of pious devotions. Later on
+in this eventful day, we stumbled on a somewhat startling variation to
+the penitential order of the performances. In a side alley, beneath a
+friendly overhanging rock and two protecting roof-eaves, an acrobat was
+making her professional toilet. When she emerged to lay a worn strip of
+carpet on the rough cobbles of the street, she presented a pathetic
+figure in the gold of the afternoon sun. She was old and wrinkled; the
+rouge would no longer stick to the sunken cheeks; the wrinkles were
+become clefts; the shrunken but still muscular legs were clad in a pair
+of tights, a very caricature of the silken webs that must once have
+encased the poor old creature's limbs, for these were knitted of the
+coarse thread the commonest peasant uses for the rough field stocking.
+Over these obviously home-made coverings was a single skirt of azure
+tarlatan, plentifully besprinkled with golden stars. The gossamer skirt
+and its spangles turned, for their _debut_, a somersault in the air,
+and the knitted tights took strange leaps from the bars of a rude
+trapeze. The groups of peasants were soon thicker about this spectacle
+than they had gathered about the improvised altars. All the men
+who had passed the day in the taverns came out at the sound of the
+hoarse cracked voice of the aged acrobat. As she hurled her poor old
+twisted shape from swinging bar to pole, she cried aloud, "_Ah,
+messieurs, essayez ca seulement!_" The men's hands, when she had
+landed on her feet after an uncommonly venturous whirl of the blue
+skirts in mid-air, came out of their deep pockets; but they seasoned
+their applause with coarse jokes which they flung, with a cruel relish,
+into the pitifully-aged face. A cracked accordion and a jingling
+tambourine were played by two hardened-looking ruffians, seated on
+their heels beneath a window--a discordant music that could not drown
+the noise of the peasants' derisive laughter. But the latter's pennies
+rattled a louder jingle into the ancient acrobat's tin cup than it had
+into the priest's green netted contribution box.
+
+"No, madame, as for us, we do not care for pilgrimages," was Madame
+Poulard's verdict on such survivals of past religious enthusiasms. And
+she seasoned her comments with an enlightening shrug. "We see too well
+how they end. The men go home dead drunk, the women are dropping with
+fatigue, _et les enfants meme se grisent de cidre!_ No; pilgrimages are
+bad for everyone. The priests should not allow them."
+
+This was at the end of the day, after the black and blue swarm had
+passed, a weary, uncertain-footed throng, down the long street, to take
+its departure along the dike. At the very end of the straggling
+procession came the three acrobats; they had begged, or bought, a drive
+across the dike from some of the pilgrims. The lady of the knitted
+tights, in her conventional skirts and womanly fichu, was scarcely
+distinguishable from the peasant women who eyed her askance; though
+decently garbed now, they looked at her as if she were some plague or
+vice walking in their midst.
+
+The verdict of Madame Poulard seemed to be the verdict of all Mont St.
+Michel. The whole town was abroad that evening, on its doorsteps and in
+its garden beds, repairing the ravages committed by the band of the
+pilgrims. Never had the town, as a town, been so dirty; never had the
+street presented so shocking a collection of abominations; never had
+flowers and shrubs been so mercilessly robbed and plundered--these were
+the comments that flowed as freely as the water that was rained over
+the dusty cobbles, thick with refuse of luncheon and the shreds of torn
+skirts and of children's socks.
+
+At any hour of the day, of even an ordinary, uneventful day, to take a
+walk in the town is to encounter a surprise at every turning. Would you
+call it a town--this one straggling street that begins in a King's
+gateway and ends--ah, that is the point, just where does it end? I, for
+one, was never once quite certain at just what precise point this one
+single Mont St. Michel street stopped--lost itself, in a word, and
+became something else. That was also true of so many other things on
+the hill; all objects had such an astonishing way of suddenly becoming
+something else. A house, for example, that you had passed on your
+upward walk, had a beguiling air of sincerity. It had its cellar
+beneath the street front like any other properly built house; it
+continued its growth upward, showing the commonplace features of a
+door, of so many windows--queerly spaced, and of an amazing variety of
+shapes, but still unmistakably windows. Then, assured of so much
+integrity of character, you looked to see the roof covering the house,
+and instead-like the eggs in a Chinese juggler's fingers, that are
+turned in a jiffy into a growing plant--behold the roof miraculously
+transformed into a garden, or lost in a rampart, or, with quite
+shameless effrontery, playing deserter, and serving as the basement of
+another and still fairer dwelling. That was a sample of the way all
+things played you the trick of surprise on this hill. Stairways began
+on the cobbles of the streets, only to lose themselves in a side wall;
+a turn on the ramparts would land you straight into the privacy of a
+St. Michelese interior, with an entire household, perchance, at the
+mercy of your eye, taken at the mean disadvantage of morning
+dishabille. As for doors that flew open where you looked to find a
+bastion; or a school--house that flung all the Michelese _voyous_ over
+the tops of the ramparts at play-time; or of fishwives that sprung, as
+full-armed in their kit as Minerva from her sire's brows, from the very
+forehead of fortified places; or of beds and settees and wardrobes
+(surely no Michelese has ever been able, successfully, to maintain in
+secret the ghost of a family skeleton!) into which you were innocently
+precipitated on your way to discover the minutest of all
+cemeteries--these were all commonplace occurrences once your foot was
+set on this Hill of Surprises.
+
+There are two roads that lead one to the noble mass of buildings
+crowning the hill. One may choose the narrow street with its moss-grown
+steps, its curves, and turns; or one may have the broader path along
+the ramparts, with its glorious outlook over land and sea. Whichever
+approach one chooses, one passes at last beneath the great doors of the
+Barbican.
+
+Three times did the vision of St. Michel appear to Saint Aubert, in his
+dream, commanding the latter to erect a church on the heights of Mont
+St. Michel to his honor. How many a time must the modern pilgrim
+traverse the stupendous mass that has grown out of that command before
+he is quite certain that the splendor of Mont St. Michel is real, and
+not a part of a dream! Whether one enters through the dark magnificence
+of the great portals of the Chatelet; whether one mounts the fortified
+stairway, passing into the Salle des Gardes, passing onward from
+dungeon to fortified bridge, to gain the abbatial residence; whether
+one leaves the vaulted splendor of oratories for aerial passage-ways,
+only to emerge beneath the majestic roof of the Cathedral--that marvel
+of the early Norman, ending in the Gothic choir of the fifteenth
+century; or, as one penetrates into the gloom of the mighty dungeons
+where heroes and the brothers of kings, and saints and scientists have
+died their long death--as one gropes through the black night of the
+Crypt, where a faint, mysterious glint of light falls aslant the
+mystical face of the Black Virgin; as one climbs to the light beneath
+the ogive arches of the Aumonerie, through the wide-lit aisles of the
+Salle des Chevaliers, past the slender Gothic columns of the Refectory,
+up at last to the crowning glory of all the glories of La Merveille, to
+the exquisitely beautiful colonnades of the open Cloister the
+impressions and emotions excited by these ecclesiastical and military
+masterpieces are ever the same, however many times one may pass them in
+review. A charm, indefinable, but replete with subtle attractions,
+lurks in every one of these dungeons. The great halls have a power to
+make one retraverse their space, I have yet to find under other vaulted
+chambers. The grass that is set, like a green jewel, in the arabesques
+of the Cloister, is a bit of greensward the feet press with a different
+tread to that which skips lightly over other strips of turf. And the
+world, that one looks out upon through prison bars, that is so
+gloriously arched in the arm of a flying buttress, or that lies prone
+at your feet from the dizzy heights of the rock clefts, is not the
+world in which you, daily, do your petty stretch of toil, in which you
+laugh and ache, sorrow, sigh, and go down to your grave in. The secret
+of this deep attraction may lie in the fact of one's being in a world
+that is built on a height. Much, doubtless, of the charm lies, also, in
+the reminders of all the human life that, since the early dawn of
+history, has peopled this hill. One has the sense of living at
+tremendously high mental pressure; of impressions, emotions, sensations
+crowding upon the mind; of one's whole meagre outfit of memory, of
+poetic equipment, and of imaginative furnishing, being unequal to the
+demand made by even the most hurried tour of the great buildings, or
+the most flitting review of the noble massing of the clouds and the
+hilly seas.
+
+The very emptiness and desolation of all the buildings on the hill help
+to accentuate their splendor. The stage is magnificently set; the
+curtain, even, is lifted. One waits for the coming on of kingly shapes,
+for the pomp of trumpets, for the pattering of a mighty host. But,
+behold, all is still. And one sits and sees only a shadowy company pass
+and repass across that glorious _mise-en-scene._ For, in a certain
+sense, I know no other mediaeval mass of buildings as peopled as are
+these. The dead shapes seem to fill the vast halls. The Salle des
+Chevaliers is crowded, daily, with a brilliant gathering of knights,
+who sweep the trains of their white damask mantles, edged with ermine,
+over the dulled marble of the floor; two by two they enter the hall;
+the golden shells on their mantles make the eyes blink, as the groups
+gather about the great chimneys, or wander through the column-broken
+space. Behind this dazzling _cortege_, up the steep steps of the narrow
+street, swarm other groups--the mediaeval pilgrim host that rushes into
+the cathedral aisles, and that climbs the ramparts to watch the stately
+procession as it makes its way toward the church portals. There are
+still other figures that fill every empty niche and deserted
+watch-tower. Through the lancet windows of the abbatial gateways the
+yeomanry of the vassal villages are peering; it is the weary time of
+the Hundred Years' War, and all France is watching, through sentry
+windows, for the approach of her dread enemy. On the shifting sands
+below, as on brass, how indelibly fixed are the names of the hundred
+and twenty-nine knights whose courage drove, step by step, over that
+treacherous surface, the English invaders back to their island
+strongholds. Will you have a less stormy and belligerent company to
+people the hill? In the quieter days of the fourteenth century, on any
+bright afternoon, you could have sat beside some friendly artist-monk,
+and watched him color and embellish those wondrous missals that made
+the manuscripts of the Brothers famous throughout France. Earlier yet,
+in those naive centuries, Robert de Torigny, that "bouche des Papes,"
+would doubtless have discoursed to you on any subject dear to this
+"counsellor of kings"--on books, or architecture, or the science of
+fortifications, or on the theology of Lanfranc; from the helmeted
+locks of Rollon to the veiled tresses of the lovely Tiphaine Raguenel,
+Duguesclin's wife; from the ghastly rat-eaten body of the Dutch
+journalist, who offended that tyrant King, Louis XIV., to the
+Revolutionary heroes, as pitilessly doomed to an odious death under the
+gentle Louis Philippe--there is no shape or figure in French history
+which cannot be summoned at will to refill either a dungeon or a palace
+chamber at Mont St. Michel.
+
+Even in these, our modern days, one finds strange relics of past
+fashions in thought and opinion. The various political, religious, and
+ethical forms of belief to be met with in a fortnight's sojourn on the
+hill, give one a sense of having passed in review a very complete
+gallery of ancient and modern portraits of men's minds. In time one
+learns to traverse even a dozen or more centuries with ease. To be in
+the dawn of the eleventh century in the morning; at high noon to be in
+the flood-tide of the fifteenth; and, as the sun dipped, to hear the
+last word of our own dying century--such were the flights across the
+abysmal depths of time Charm and I took again and again.
+
+One of our chosen haunts was in a certain watch-tower. From its top
+wall, the loveliest prospect of Mont St. Michel was to be enjoyed. Day
+after day and sunset after sunset, we sat out the hours there. Again
+and again the world, as it passed, came and took its seat beside us.
+Pilgrims of the devout and ardent type would stop, perchance, would
+proffer a preliminary greeting, would next take their seat along the
+parapet, and, quite unconsciously, would end by sitting for their
+portrait. One such sitter, I remember, was clad in carmine crepe shawl;
+she was bonneted in the shape of a long-ago decade. She had climbed
+the hill in the morning before dawn, she said; she had knelt in prayer
+as the sun rose. For hers was a pilgrimage made in fulfilment of a vow.
+St. Michel had granted her wish, and she in return had brought her
+prayers to his shrine.
+
+"Ah, mesdames! how good is God! How greatly He rewards a little self-
+sacrifice. Figure to yourselves the Mont in the early mists, with the
+sun rising out of the sea and the hills. I was on my knees, up there. I
+had eaten nothing since yesterday at noon. I was full of the Holy
+Ghost. When the sun broke at last, it was God Himself in all His glory
+come down to earth! The whole earth seemed to be listening--_pretait
+l'oreille_--and with the great stillness, and the sea, and the light
+breaking everywhere, it was as if I were being taken straight up into
+Paradise. Saint Michel himself must have been supporting me."
+
+The carmine crepe shawl covered a poet, you see, as well as a devotee.
+
+Up yonder, in the little shops and stalls tucked away within the walls
+of the Barbican, a lively traffic, for many a century now, has been
+going on in relics and _plombs de pelerinage_. Some of these mediaeval
+impressions have been unearthed in strange localities, in the bed of
+the Seine, as far away as Paris. Rude and archaic are many of these
+early essays in the sculptor's art. But they preserve for us, in quaint
+intensity, the fervor of adoration which possessed that earlier, more
+devout time and period. On the mind of this nineteenth century pilgrim,
+the same lovely old forms of belief and superstition were imprinted as
+are still to be seen in some of those winged figures of St. Michel,
+with feet securely set on the back of the terrible dragon, staring,
+with triumphant gaze, through stony or leaden eyes.
+
+On the evening of the pilgrimage our friend, the Parisian, joined us on
+our high perch. The Mont seemed strangely quiet after the noise and
+confusion the peasants had brought in their train. The Parisian, like
+ourselves, had been glad to escape into the upper heights of the wide
+air, after the bustle and hurry of the day at our inn.
+
+"You permit me, mesdames?" He had lighted his after-dinner cigar; he
+went on puffing, having gained our consent. He curled a leg comfortably
+about the railings of a low bridge connecting a house that sprang out
+of a rock, with the rampart. Below, there was a clean drop of a few
+hundred feet, more or less. In spite of the glories of a spectacular
+sunset, yielding ceaseless changes and transformations of cloud and sea
+tones, the words of Madame Poulard alone had power to possess our
+companion. She had uttered her protest against the pilgrimage, as she
+had swept the Parisian's _pousse-cafe_ from his elbow. He took up the
+conversation where it had been dropped.
+
+"It is amusing to hear Madame Poulard talk of the priests stopping the
+pilgrimages! The priests? Why, that's all they have left them to live
+upon now. These peasants' are the only pockets in which they can fumble
+nowadays."
+
+"All the same, one can't help being grateful to those peasants,"
+retorted Charm. "They are the only creatures who have made these things
+seem to have any meaning. How dead it all seems! The abbey, the
+cloisters, the old prisons, the fortifications, it is like wandering
+through a splendid tomb!
+
+"Yes, as the cure said yesterday, '_l'ame n'y est plus_,'--since the
+priests have been dislodged, it is the house of the dead."
+
+"The priests"--the Parisian snorted at the very sound of the
+word--"they have only themselves to blame. They would have been
+here still, if they had not so abused their power."
+
+"How did they abuse it?" Charm asked.
+
+"In every possible way. I am, myself, not of the country. But my
+brother was stationed here for some years, when the Mont was
+garrisoned. The priests were in full possession then, and they
+conducted a lively commerce, mademoiselle. The Mont was turned into a
+show--to see it or any part of it, everyone had to pay toll. On the
+great fete-days, when St. Michel wore his crown, the gold ran like
+water into the monks' treasury. It was still then a fashionable
+religious fad to have a mass said for one's dead, out here among the
+clouds and the sea. Well, try to imagine fifty masses all dumped on the
+altar together; that is, one mass would be scrambled through, no names
+would be mentioned, no one save _le bon Dieu_ himself knew for whom it
+was being said; but fifty or more believed they had bought it, since
+they had paid for it. And the priests laughed in their sleeves, and
+then sat down, comfortably, to count the gold. Ah, mesdames, those
+were, literally, the golden days of the priesthood! What with the
+pilgrimages, and the sale of relics, and _les benefices_--together with
+the charges for seeing the wonders of the Mont--what a trade they did!
+It is only the Jews, who, in their turn, now own us, up in Paris, who
+can equal the priests as commercial geniuses!" And our pessimistic
+Parisian, during the next half-hour, gave us a prophetic picture of the
+approaching ruin of France, brought about by the genius for plunder and
+organization that is given to the sons of Moses.
+
+Following the Parisian, a figure, bent and twisted, opened a door in a
+side-wall, and took his seat beside us. One became used, in time, to
+these sudden appearances; to vanish down a chimney, or to emerge from
+the womb of a rock, or to come up from the bowels of what earth there
+was to be found--all such exits and entrances became as commonplace as
+all the other extraordinary phases of one's life on the hill. This
+particular shape had emerged from a hut, carved, literally, out of the
+side of the rock; but, for a hut, it was amazingly snug--as we could
+see for ourselves; for the venerable shape hospitably opened the low
+wooden door, that we might see how much of a home could be made out of
+the side of a rock. Only, when one had been used to a guard-room, and
+to great and little dungeons, and to a rattling of keys along dark
+corridors, a hut, and the blaze of the noon sun, were trying things to
+endure, as the shape, with a shrug, gave us to understand.
+
+"You see, mesdames, I was jailor here, years ago, when all La Merveille
+was a prison. Ah! those were great days for the Mont! There were
+soldiers and officers who came up to look at the soldiers, and the
+soldiers--it was their business to look after the prisoners. The
+Emperor himself came here once--I saw him. What a sight!--Dieu! all the
+monks and priests and nuns, and the archbishop himself were out. What
+banners and crosses and flags! The cannon was like a great thunder--and
+the greve was red with soldiers. Ah, those were days! Dieu--why
+couldn't the republic have continued those glories--_ces gloires?
+Aujourd'hui nous ne sommes que des morts_--instead of prisoners to
+handle--to watch and work, like so many good machines there is only the
+dike yonder to keep in repair! What changes--mon Dieu! what changes!"
+And the shape wrung his hands. It was, in truth, a touching spectacle
+of grief for a good old past.
+
+An old priest, with equally saddened vision, once came to take his
+seat, quite easily and naturally, beside us, on our favorite perch. He
+was one of the little band of priests who had remained faithful to the
+Mont after the government had dispersed his brothers--after the
+monastery had been broken up. He and his four or five companions had
+taken refuge in a small house, close by the cemetery; it was they who
+conducted the services in the little parish church; who had gathered
+the treasures still grouped together in that little interior--the
+throne of St. Michel, with its blue draperies and the golden
+fleur-de-lis, the floating banners and the shields of the Knights of
+St. Michel, the relics, and wondrous bits of carving rescued from the
+splendors of the cathedral.
+
+"_Ah, mesdames--que voulez-vous?_" was the old priest's broken chant;
+he was bewailing the woes that had come to his order, to religion, to
+France. "What will you have? The history of nations repeats itself, as
+we all know. We, of our day, are fallen on evil times; it is the reign
+of image-breakers--nothing is sacred, except money."
+
+"France has worn herself out. She is like an old man, the hero of many
+battles, who cares only for his easy chair and his slippers. She does
+not care about the children who are throwing stones at the windows. She
+likes to snooze, in the sun, and count her money-bags. France is too
+old to care about religion, or the future--she is thinking how best to
+be comfortable--here in this world, when she has rheumatism and a cramp
+in the stomach!" And the old priest wrapped his own _soutane_ about his
+lean knees, suiting his gesture to his inward convictions.
+
+Was the priest's summary the last word of truth about modern France? On
+the sands that lay below at our feet, we read a different answer.
+
+The skies were still brilliantly lighted. The actual twilight had not
+come yet, with its long, deep glow, a passion of color that had a
+longer life up here on the heights than when seen from a lower level.
+This twilight hour was always a prolonged moment of transfiguration for
+the Mont.
+
+The very last evening of our stay, we chose this as the loveliest light
+in which to see the last of the hill. On that evening, I remember, the
+reds and saffrons in the sky were of an astonishing richness. The sea
+wall, the bastions, the faces of the great rocks, the yellow broom that
+sprang from the clefts therein, were dyed as in a carmine bath. In that
+mighty glow of color, all things took on something of their old, their
+stupendous splendor. The giant walls were paved with brightness. The
+town, climbing the hill, assumed the proportions of a mighty citadel;
+the forest tree-tops were prismatic, emerald balls flung beneath the
+illumined Merveille; and the Cathedral was set in a daffodil frame; its
+aerial _escalier de dentelle_, like Jacob's ladder, led one easily
+heavenward. The circling birds, in the lace-work of the spiral finials,
+sang their night songs, as the glow in the sky changed, softened,
+deepened.
+
+This was the world that was in the west.
+
+Toward the east, on the flat surface of the sands, this world cast a
+strange and wondrous shadow. Jagged rocks, a pyramidal city, a Gothic
+cathedral in mid-air--behold the rugged outlines of Mont St. Michel
+carving their giant features on the shifting, sensitive surface of the
+mirroring sands.
+
+In the little pools and the trickling rivers, the fishermen--from this
+height, Liliputians grappling with Liliputian meshes--were setting
+their nets for the night. Across the river-beds, peasant women and
+fishwives, with bared legs and baskets clasped to their bending backs,
+appeared and disappeared--shapes that emerged into the light only to
+vanish into the gulf of the night.
+
+In was in these pictures that we read our answer.
+
+Like Mont St. Michel, so has France carried into the heights of history
+her glory and her power. On every century, she, like this world in
+miniature, has also cast her shadow, dwarfing some, illuminating
+others. And, as on those distant sands the toiling shapes of the
+fishermen are to be seen, early and late, in summer and winter, so can
+France point to her people, whose industry and amazing talent for toil
+have made her, and maintain her, great.
+
+Some of these things we have learned, since, in Normandy Inns, we have
+sat at meat with her peasants, and have grown to be friends with her
+fishwives.
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of In and Out of Three Normady Inns
+by Anna Bowman Dodd
+
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+Title: In and Out of Three Normady Inns
+
+Author: Anna Bowman Dodd
+
+Release Date: April, 2005  [EBook #7961]
+[This file was first posted on June 5, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, IN AND OUT OF THREE NORMADY INNS ***
+
+
+
+
+John Roberts, Anne Soulard, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+IN AND OUT OF THREE NORMANDY INNS
+
+BY
+
+ANNA BOWMAN DODD
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT-DIVES]
+
+
+TO EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
+
+_My Dear Mr. Stedman:
+
+To this little company of Norman men and women, you will, I know,
+extend a kindly greeting, if only because of their nationality. To your
+courtesy, possibly, you will add the leaven of interest, when you
+perceive--as you must--that their qualities are all their own, their
+defects being due solely to my own imperfect presentment.
+
+With sincere esteem_,
+
+ANNA BOWMAN DODD.
+
+_New York_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+VILLERVILLE.
+
+I.      A LANDING ON THE COAST OF FRANCE
+II.     A SPRING DRIVE
+III.    FROM AN INN WINDOW
+IV.     OUT ON A MUSSEL-BED
+V.      THE VILLAGE
+VI.     A PAGAN COBBLER
+VII.    SOME NORMAN LANDLADIES
+VIII.   THE QUARTIER LATIN ON THE BEACH
+IX.     A NORMAN HOUSEHOLD
+X.      ERNESTINE
+
+ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD.
+
+XI.     TO AN OLD MANOIR
+XII.    A NORMAN CURE
+XIII.   HONFLEUR--NEW AND OLD
+
+DIVES.
+
+XIV.    A COAST DRIVE
+XV.     GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT
+XVI.    THE GREEN BENCH
+XVII.   THE WORLD THAT CAME TO DIVES
+XVIII.  THE CONVERSATION OF PATRIOTS
+XIX.    IN LA CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS
+
+TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES.
+
+XX.     A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY REVIVAL
+XXI.    THE AFTER-DINNER TALK OF THREE GREAT LADIES
+XXII.   A NINETEENTH CENTURY BREAKFAST
+
+A LITTLE JOURNEY ALONG THE COAST.
+
+XXIII.  A NIGHT IN A CAEN ATTIC
+XXIV.   A DAY AT BAYEUX AND ST. LO
+XXV.    A DINNER AT COUTANCES
+XXVI.   A SCENE IN A NORMAN COURT
+XXVII.  THE FETE-DIEU--A JUNE CHRISTMAS
+XXVIII. BY LAND TO MONT ST. MICHEL
+
+MONT ST. MICHEL.
+
+XXIX.   BY SEA TO THE POULARD INN
+XXX.    THE PILGRIMS AND THE SHRINE--AN HISTORICAL OMELETTE
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT--DIVES
+A VILLAGE STREET--VILLERVILLE
+ON THE BEACH--VILLERVILLE
+A SALE OF MUSSELS--VILLERVILLE
+A VILLERVILLE FISH-WIFE
+A DEPARTURE--VILLERVILLE
+THE INN AT DIVES--GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT
+CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES
+CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS--DIVES
+MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ
+CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES
+CHATEAU FONTAINE LE HENRI, NEAR CAEN
+AN EXCITING MOMENT--A COUTANCES INTERIOR
+A STREET IN COUTANCES--EGLISE SAINT-PIERRE
+MONT SAINT MICHEL
+MONT SAINT MICHEL SNAIL-GATHERERS
+
+
+
+
+VILLERVILLE.
+
+AN INN BY THE SEA.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A LANDING ON THE COAST OF FRANCE.
+
+
+Narrow streets with sinuous curves; dwarfed houses with minute shops
+protruding on inch-wide sidewalks; a tiny casino perched like a
+bird-cage on a tiny scaffolding; bath-houses dumped on the beach;
+fishing-smacks drawn up along the shore like so many Greek galleys;
+and, fringing the cliffs--the encroachment of the nineteenth
+century--a row of fantastic sea-side villas.
+
+This was Villerville.
+
+Over an arch of roses; across a broad line of olives, hawthorns,
+laburnums, and syringas, straight out to sea--
+
+This was the view from our windows.
+
+Our inn was bounded by the sea on one side, and on the other by a
+narrow village street. The distance between good and evil has been
+known to be quite as short as that which lay between these two
+thoroughfares. It was only a matter of a strip of land, an edge of
+cliff, and a shed of a house bearing the proud title of Hôtel-sur-Mer.
+
+Two nights before, our arrival had made quite a stir in the village
+streets. The inn had given us a characteristic French welcome; its eye
+had measured us before it had extended its hand. Before reaching the
+inn and the village, however, we had already tasted of the flavor of a
+genuine Norman welcome. Our experience in adventure had begun on the
+Havre quays.
+
+Our expedition could hardly be looked upon as perilous; yet it was one
+that, from the first, evidently appealed to the French imagination;
+half Havre was hanging over the stone wharves to see us start.
+
+"_Dame_, only English women are up to that!"--for all the world is
+English, in French eyes, when an adventurous folly is to be committed.
+
+This was one view of our temerity; it was the comment of age and
+experience of the world, of the cap with the short pipe in her mouth,
+over which curved, downward, a bulbous, fiery-hued nose that met the
+pipe.
+
+"_C'est beau, tout de même_, when one is young--and rich." This was a
+generous partisan, a girl with a miniature copy of her own round
+face--a copy that was tied up in a shawl, very snug; it was a bundle
+that could not possibly be in any one's way, even on a somewhat
+prolonged tour of observation of Havre's shipping interests.
+
+"And the blonde one--what do you think of her, _hein_?"
+
+This was the blouse's query. The tassel of the cotton night-cap nodded,
+interrogatively, toward the object on which the twinkling ex-mariner's
+eye had fixed itself--on Charm's slender figure, and on the yellow
+half-moon of hair framing her face. There was but one verdict
+concerning the blonde beauty; she was a creature made to be stared at.
+The staring was suspended only when the bargaining went on; for Havre,
+clearly, was a sailor and merchant first; its knowledge of a woman's
+good points was rated merely as its second-best talent.
+
+Meanwhile, our bargaining for the sailboat was being conducted on the
+principles peculiar to French traffic; it had all at once assumed the
+aspect of dramatic complication. It had only been necessary for us to
+stop on our lounging stroll along the stone wharves, diverting our gaze
+for a moment from the grotesque assortment of old houses that, before
+now, had looked down on so many naval engagements, and innocently to
+ask a brief question of a nautical gentleman, picturesquely attired in
+a blue shirt and a scarlet beret, for the quays immediately to swarm
+with jerseys and red caps. Each beret was the owner of a boat; and each
+jersey had a voice louder than his brother's. Presently the battle of
+tongues was drowning all other sounds.
+
+In point of fact, there were no other sounds to drown. All other
+business along the quays was being temporarily suspended; the most
+thrilling event of the day was centring in us and our treaty. Until
+this bargain was closed, other matters could wait. For a Frenchman has
+the true instinct of the dramatist; business he rightly considers as
+only an _entr'acte_ in life; the serious thing is the _scene de
+theatre_, wherever it takes place. Therefore it was that the black,
+shaky-looking houses, leaning over the quays, were now populous with
+frowsy heads and cotton nightcaps. The captains from the adjacent
+sloops and tug-boats formed an outer circle about the closer ring made
+by the competitors for our favors, while the loungers along the
+parapets, and the owners of top seats on the shining quay steps, may be
+said to have been in possession of orchestra stalls from the first
+rising of the curtain.
+
+A baker's boy and two fish-wives, trundling their carts, stopped to
+witness the last act of the play. Even the dogs beneath the carts, as
+they sank, panting, to the ground, followed, with red-rimmed eyes, the
+closing scenes of the little drama.
+
+"_Allons_, let us end this," cried a piratical-looking captain, in a
+loud, masterful voice. And he named a price lower than the others had
+bid. He would take us across--yes, us and our luggage, and land
+us--yes, at Villerville, for that.
+
+The baker's boy gave a long, slow whistle, with relish.
+
+"_Dame!_" he ejaculated, between his teeth, as he turned away.
+
+The rival captains at first had drawn back; they had looked at their
+comrade darkly, beneath their berets, as they might at a deserter with
+whom they meant to deal--later on. But at his last words they smiled a
+smile of grim humor. Beneath the beards a whisper grew; whatever its
+import, it had the power to move all the hard mouths to laughter. As
+they also turned away, their shrugging shoulders and the scorn in their
+light laughter seemed to hand us over to our fate.
+
+In the teeth of this smile, our captain had swung his boat round and we
+were stepping into her.
+
+"_Au revoir--au revoir et à bientôt!_"
+
+The group that was left to hang over the parapets and to wave us its
+farewell, was a thin one. Only the professional loungers took part in
+this last act of courtesy. There was a cluster of caps, dazzlingly
+white against the blue of the sky; a collection of highly decorated
+noses and of old hands ribboned with wrinkles, to nod and bob and wave
+down the cracked-voiced "_bonjours_." But the audience that had
+gathered to witness the closing of the bargain had melted away with the
+moment of its conclusion. Long ere this moment of our embarkation
+the wide stone street facing the water had become suddenly deserted.
+The curious-eyed heads and the cotton nightcaps had been swallowed up
+in the hollows of the dark, little windows. The baker's boy had long
+since mounted his broad basket, as if it were an ornamental head-dress,
+and whistling, had turned a sharp corner, swallowed up, he also, by the
+sudden gloom that lay between the narrow streets. The sloop-owners had
+linked arms with the defeated captains, and were walking off toward
+their respective boats, whistling a gay little air.
+
+  "_Colinette au bois s'en alla
+  En sautillant par-ci, par-là;
+  Trala deridera, trala, derid-er-a-a._"
+
+One jersey-clad figure was singing lustily as he dropped with a spring
+into his boat. He began to coil the loose ropes at once, as if the
+disappointments in life were only a necessary interruption, to be
+accepted philosophically, to this, the serious business of his days.
+
+We were soon afloat, far out from the land of either shores. Between
+the two, sea and river meet; is the river really trying to lose itself
+in the sea, or is it hopelessly attempting to swallow the sea? The
+green line that divides them will never give you the answer: it changes
+hour by hour, day by day; now it is like a knife-cut, deep and
+straight; and now like a ribbon that wavers and flutters, tying
+together the blue of the great ocean and the silver of the Seine. Close
+to the lips of the mighty mouth lie the two shores. In that fresh May
+sunshine Havre glittered and bristled, was aglow with a thousand tints
+and tones; but we sailed and sailed away from her, and behold, already
+she had melted into her cliffs. Opposite, nearing with every dip of the
+dun-colored sail into the blue seas, was the Calvados coast; in its
+turn it glistened, and in its young spring verdure it had the lustre of
+a rough-hewn emerald.
+
+"_Que voulez-vous, mesdames?_ Who could have told that the wind would
+play us such a trick?"
+
+The voice was the voice of our captain. With much affluence of gesture
+he was explaining--his treachery! Our nearness to the coast had made
+the confession necessary. To the blandness of his smile, as he
+proceeded in his unabashed recital, succeeded a pained expression. We
+were not accepting the situation with the true phlegm of philosophers;
+he felt that he had just cause for protest. What possible difference
+could it make to us whether we were landed at Trouville or at
+Villerville? But to him--to be accused of betraying two ladies--to
+allow the whole of the Havre quays to behold in him a man disgraced,
+dishonored!
+
+His was a tragic figure as he stood up, erect on the poop, to clap
+hands to a blue-clad breast, and to toss a black mane of hair in the
+golden air.
+
+"_Dame! Toujours été galant homme, moi!_ I am known on both shores as
+the most gallant of men. But the most gallant of men cannot control the
+caprice of the wind!" To which was added much abuse of the muddy
+bottoms, the strength of the undertow, and other marine disadvantages
+peculiar to Villerville.
+
+It was a tragic figure, with gestures and voice to match. But it was
+evident that the Captain had taken his own measure mistakenly. In him
+the French stage had lost a comedian of the first magnitude. Much,
+therefore, we felt, was to be condoned in one who doubtless felt so
+great a talent itching for expression. When next he smiled, we had
+revived to a keener appreciation of baffled genius ever on the scent
+for the capture of that fickle goddess, opportunity.
+
+The captain's smile was oiling a further word of explanation. "See,
+mesdames, they come! they will soon land you on the beach!"
+
+He was pointing to a boat smaller than our own, that now ran alongside.
+There had been frequent signallings between the two boats, a running up
+and down of a small yellow flag which we had thought amazingly becoming
+to the marine landscape, until we learned the true relation of the flag
+to the treachery aboard our own craft.
+
+"You see, mesdames," smoothly continued our talented traitor, "you see
+how the waves run up on the beach. We could never, with this great
+sail, run in there. We should capsize. But behold, these are bathers,
+accustomed to the water--they will carry you--but as if you were
+feathers!" And he pointed to the four outstretched, firmly-muscled
+arms, as if to warrant their powers of endurance. The two men had left
+their boat; it was dancing on the water, at anchor. They were standing
+immovable as pillars of stone, close to the gunwales of our craft. They
+were holding out their arms to us.
+
+Charm suddenly stood upright. She held out her hands like a child, to
+the least impressionable boatman. In an instant she was clasping his
+bronze throat.
+
+"All my life I've prayed for adventure. And at last it has come!" This
+she cried, as she was carried high above the waves.
+
+"That's right, have no fear," answered her carrier as he plunged
+onward, ploughing his way through the waters to the beach.
+
+Beneath my own feet there was a sudden swish and a swirl of restless,
+tumbling waters. The motion, as my carrier buried his bared legs in the
+waves, was such as accompanies impossible flights described in dreams,
+through some unknown medium. The surging waters seemed struggling to
+submerge us both; the two thin, tanned legs of the fisherman about
+whose neck I was clinging, appeared ridiculously inadequate to cleave a
+successful path through a sea of such strength as was running
+shoreward.
+
+"Madame does not appear to be used to this kind of travelling," puffed
+out my carrier, his conversational instinct, apparently, not in the
+least dampened by his strenuous plunging through the spirited sea. "It
+happens every day--all the aristocrats land this way, when they come
+over by the little boats. It distracts and amuses them, they say. It
+helps to kill the ennui."
+
+"I should think it might, my feet are soaking; sometimes wet feet--"
+
+"Ah, that's a pity, you must get a better hold," sympathetically
+interrupted my fisherman, as he proceeded to hoist me higher up on his
+shoulder. I, or a sack of corn, or a basket of fish, they were all one
+to this strong back and to these toughened sinews. When he had adjusted
+his present load at a secure height, above the dashing of the spray, he
+went on talking. "Yes, when the rich suffer a little it is not such a
+bad thing, it makes a pleasant change--_cela leur distrait_. For
+instance, there is the Princess de L----, there's her villa, close by,
+with green blinds. She makes little excuses to go over to Havre, just
+for this--to be carried in the arms like an infant. You should hear
+her, she shouts and claps her hands! All the beach assembles to see her
+land. When she is wet she cries for joy. It is so difficult to amuse
+one's self, it appears, in the great world."
+
+"But, _tiens_, here we are, I feel the dry sands." I was dropped as
+lightly on them as if it had been indeed a bunch of feathers my
+fisherman had been carrying.
+
+And meanwhile, out yonder, across the billows, with airy gesture
+dramatically executed, our treacherous captain was waving us a
+theatrical salute. The infant mate was grinning like a gargoyle. They
+were both delightfully unconscious, apparently, of any event having
+transpired, during the afternoon's pleasuring, which could possibly
+tinge the moment of parting with the hues of regret.
+
+"_Pour les bagages, mesdames_--"
+
+Two dripping, outstretched hands, two berets doffed, two picturesque
+giants bowing low, with a Frenchman's grace--this, on the Trouville
+sands, was the last act of this little comedy of our landing on the
+coast of France.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A SPRING DRIVE.
+
+
+The Trouville beach was as empty as a desert. No other footfall, save
+our own, echoed along the broad board walks; this Boulevard des
+Italiens of the Normandy coast, under the sun of May was a shining
+pavement that boasted only a company of jelly-fishes as loungers.
+
+Down below was a village, a white cluster of little wooden houses; this
+was the village of the bath houses. The hotels might have been
+monasteries deserted and abandoned, in obedience to a nod from Rome or
+from the home government. Not even a fisherman's net was spread
+a-drying, to stay the appetite with a sense of past favors done by the
+sea to mortals more fortunate than we. The whole face of nature was as
+indifferent as a rich relation grown callous to the voice of entreaty.
+There was no more hope of man apparently, than of nature, being moved
+by our necessity; for man, to be moved, must primarily exist, and he
+was as conspicuously absent on this occasion as Genesis proves him to
+have been on the fourth day of creation.
+
+Meanwhile we sat still, and took counsel together. The chief of the
+council suddenly presented himself. It was a man in miniature. The
+masculine shape, as it loomed up in the distance, gradually separating
+itself from the background of villa roofs and casino terraces, resolved
+itself into a figure stolid and sturdy, very brown of leg, and insolent
+of demeanor--swaggering along as if conscious of there being a
+full-grown man buttoned up within a boy's ragged coat. The swagger was
+accompanied by a whistle, whose neat crispness announced habits of
+leisure and a sense of the refined pleasures of life; for an artistic
+rendering of an aria from "La Fille de Madame Angot" was cutting the
+air with clear, high notes.
+
+The whistle and the brown legs suddenly came to a dead stop. The round
+blue eyes had caught sight of us:
+
+"_Ouid-a-a!_" was this young Norman's salutation. There was very little
+trouser left, and what there was of it was all pocket, apparently. Into
+the pockets the boy's hands were stuffed, along with his amazement; for
+his face, round and full though it was, could not hold the full measure
+of his surprise.
+
+"We came over by boat--from Havre," we murmured meekly; then, "Is there
+a cake-shop near?" irrelevantly concluded Charm with an unmistakable
+ring of distress in her tone. There was no need of any further
+explanation. These two hearty young appetites understood each other;
+for hunger is a universal language, and cake a countersign common among
+the youth of all nations.
+
+"Until you came, you see, we couldn't leave the luggage," she went on.
+
+The blue eyes swept the line of our boxes as if the lad had taken his
+afternoon stroll with no other purpose than to guard them. "There are
+eight, and two umbrellas. _Soyez tranquille, je vous attendrai._"
+
+It was the voice and accent of a man of the world, four feet high--a
+pocket edition, so to speak, in shabby binding. The brown legs hung,
+the next instant, over the tallest of the trunks. The skilful whistling
+was resumed at once; our appearance and the boy's present occupation
+were mere interludes, we were made to understand; his real business,
+that afternoon, was to do justice to the Lecoq's entire opera, and to
+keep his eye on the sea.
+
+Only once did he break down; he left a high _C_ hanging perilously in
+mid-air, to shout out "I like madeleines, I do!" We assured him he
+should have a dozen.
+
+"_Bien!_" and we saw him settling himself to await our return in
+patience.
+
+Up in the town the streets, as we entered them, were as empty as was
+the beach. Trouville might have been a buried city of antiquity. Yet,
+in spite of the desolation, it was French and foreign; it welcomed us
+with an unmistakably friendly, companionable air. Why is it that one is
+made to feel the companionable element, by instantaneous process, as it
+were, in a Frenchman and in his towns? And by what magic also does a
+French village or city, even at its least animated period, convey to
+one the fact of its nationality? We made but ten steps progress through
+these silent streets, fronting the beach, and yet, such was the subtle
+enigma of charm with which these dumb villas and mute shops were
+invested, that we walked along as if under the spell of fascination.
+Perhaps the charm is a matter of sex, after all: towns are feminine, in
+the wise French idiom, that idiom so delicate in discerning qualities
+of sex in inanimate objects, as the Greeks before them were clever in
+discovering sex distinctions in the moral qualities. Trouville was so
+true a woman, that the coquette in her was alive and breathing even in
+this her moment of suspended animation. The closed blinds and iron
+shutters appeared to be winking at us, slyly, as if warning us not to
+believe in this nightmare of desolation; she was only sleeping, she
+wished us to understand; the touch of the first Parisian would wake her
+into life. The features of her fashionable face, meanwhile, were
+arranged with perfect composure; even in slumber she had preserved her
+woman's instinct of orderly grace; not a sign was awry, not a window-
+blind gave hint of rheumatic hinges, or of shattered vertebrae; all the
+machinery was in order; the faintest pressure on the electrical button,
+the button that connects this lady of the sea with the Paris Bourse and
+the Boulevards, and how gayly, how agilely would this Trouville of the
+villas and the beaches spring into life!
+
+The listless glances of the few tailors and cobblers who, with
+suspended thread, now looked after us, seemed dazed--as if they could
+not believe in the reality of two early tourists. A woman's head, here
+and there, leaned over to us from a high window; even these feminine
+eyes, however, appeared to be glued with the long winter's lethargy of
+dull sleep; they betrayed no edge of surprise or curiosity. The sun
+alone, shining with spendthrift glory, flooding the narrow streets and
+low houses with a late afternoon stream of color, was the sole
+inhabitant who did not blink at us, bovinely, with dulled vision.
+
+Half an hour later we were speeding along the roadway. Half an
+hour--and Trouville might have been a thousand miles away. Inland, the
+eye plunged over nests of clover, across the tops of the apple and
+peach trees, frosted now with blossoms, to some farm interiors. The
+familiar Normandy features could be quickly spelled out, one by one.
+
+It was the milking-hour.
+
+The fields were crowded with cattle and women; some of the cows were
+standing immovable, and still others were slowly defiling, in
+processional dignity, toward their homes. Broad-hipped, lean-busted
+figures, in coarse gowns and worsted kerchiefs, toiled through the
+fields, carrying full milk-jugs; brass _amphorae_ these latter might
+have been, from their classical elegance of shape. Ploughmen appeared
+and disappeared, they and their teams rising and sinking with the
+varying heights and depressions of the more distant undulations. In the
+nearer cottages the voices of children would occasionally fill the air
+with a loud clamor of speech; then our steed's bell-collar would
+jingle, and for the children's cries, a bird-throat, high above, from
+the heights of a tall pine would pour forth, as if in uncontrollable
+ecstasy, its rapture into the stillness of this radiant Normandy
+garden. The song appeared to be heard by other ears than ours. We were
+certain the dull-brained sheep were greatly affected by the strains of
+that generous-organed songster--they were so very still under the pink
+apple boughs. The cows are always good listeners; and now, relieved of
+their milk, they lifted eyes swimming with appreciative content above
+the grasses of their pasture. Two old peasants heard the very last of
+the crisp trills, before the concert ended; they were leaning forth
+from the narrow window-ledges of a straw-roofed cottage; the music gave
+to their blinking old eyes the same dreamy look we had read in the
+ruminating cattle orbs. For an aeronaut on his way to bed, I should
+have felt, had I been in that blackbird's plumed corselet, that I had
+had a gratifyingly full house.
+
+Meanwhile, toward the west, a vast marine picture, like a panorama on
+wheels, was accompanying us all the way. Sometimes at our feet, beneath
+the seamy fissures of a hillside, or far removed by sweep of meadow,
+lay the fluctuant mass we call the sea. It was all a glassy yellow
+surface now; into the liquid mirror the polychrome sails sent down long
+lines of color. The sun had sunk beyond the Havre hills, but the flame
+of his mantle still swept the sky. And into this twilight there crept
+up from the earth a subtle, delicious scent and smell--the smell and
+perfume of spring--of the ardent, vigorous, unspent Normandy spring.
+
+[Illustration: A VILLAGE STREET--VILLERVILLE]
+
+Suddenly a belfry grew out of the grain-fields.
+
+"_Nous voici_--here's Villerville!" cried lustily into the twilight our
+coachman's thick peasant voice. With the butt-end of his whip he
+pointed toward the hill that the belfry crowned. Below the little
+hamlet church lay the village. A high, steep street plunged recklessly
+downward toward the cliff; we as recklessly were following it. The
+snapping of our driver's whip had brought every inhabitant of the
+street upon the narrow sidewalks. A few old women and babies hung forth
+from the windows, but the houses were so low, that even this portion of
+the population, hampered somewhat by distance and comparative
+isolation, had been enabled to join in the chorus of voices that filled
+the street. Our progress down the steep, crowded street was marked by a
+pomp and circumstance which commonly attend only a royal entrance into
+a town; all of the inhabitants, to the last man and infant, apparently,
+were assembled to assist at the ceremonial of our entry.
+
+A chorus of comments arose from the shadowy groups filling the low
+doorways and the window casements.
+
+"_Tiens_--it begins to arrive--the season!"
+
+"Two ladies--alone--like that!"
+
+"_Dame! Anglaises, Américaines_--they go round the world thus, _à
+deux_!"
+
+"And why not, if they are young and can pay?"
+
+"Bah! old or poor, it's all one--they're never still, those English!" A
+chorus of croaking laughter rattled down the street along with the
+rolling of our carriage-wheels.
+
+Above, the great arch of sky had shrunk, all at once, into a narrow
+scallop; with the fields and meadows the glow of twilight had been left
+behind. We seemed to be pressing our way against a great curtain, the
+curtain made by the rich dusk that filled the narrow thoroughfare.
+Through the darkness the sinuous street and rickety houses wavered in
+outline, as the bent shapes of the aged totter across dimly-lit
+interiors. A fisherman's bare legs, lit by some dimly illumined
+interior; a line of nets in the little yards; here and there a white
+kerchief or cotton cap, dazzling in whiteness, thrown out against the
+black facades, were spots of light here and there. There was a glimpse
+of the village at its supper--in low-raftered interiors a group of
+blouses and women in fishermen's rig were gathered about narrow tables,
+the coarse-featured faces and the seamed foreheads lit up by the feeble
+flame of candles that ended in long, thin lines of smoke.
+
+"_Ohé--Mère Mouchard!--des voyageurs!_" cried forth our coachman into
+the darkness. He had drawn up before a low, brightly-lit interior. In
+response to the call a figure appeared on the threshold of the open
+door. The figure stood there for a long instant, rubbing its hands, as
+it peered out into the dusk of the night to take a good look at us. The
+brown head was cocked on one side thoughtfully; it was an attitude that
+expressed, with astonishingly clear emphasis, an unmistakable
+professional conception of hospitality. It was the air and manner, in a
+word, of one who had long since trimmed the measurement of its
+graciousness to the price paid for the article.
+
+"_Ces dames_ wished rooms, they desired lodgings and board--_ces
+dames_ were alone?" The voice finally asked, with reticent dignity.
+"From Havre--from Trouville, _par p'tit bateau!_" called out lustily our
+driver, as if to furnish us, _gratis_, with a passport to the
+landlady's not too effusive cordiality.
+
+What secret spell of magic may have lain hidden in our friendly
+coachman's announcement we never knew. But the "p'tit bateau" worked
+magically. The figure of Mère Mouchard materialized at once into such
+zeal, such effusion, such a zest of welcome, that we, our bags, and our
+coachman were on the instant toiling up a pair of spiral wooden stairs.
+There was quite a little crowd to fill the all-too-narrow landing at
+the top of the steep steps, a crowd that ended in a long line of
+waiters and serving-maids, each grasping a remnant of luggage. Our
+hostess, meanwhile, was fumbling at a door-lock--an obstinate door that
+refused to be wrenched open.
+
+"Augustine--run--I've taken the wrong key. _Cours, mon enfant_, it is
+no farther away than the kitchen."
+
+The long line pressed itself against the low walls. Augustine, a blond-
+haired, neatly-garmented shape, sped down the rickety stairs with the
+step of youth and a dancer; for only the nimble ankles of one
+accomplished in waltzing could have tripped as dexterously downward as
+did Augustine.
+
+"How she lags! what an idiot of a child!" fumed Mère Mouchard as she
+peered down into the round blackness about which the curving staircase
+closed like an embrace. "One must have patience, it appears, with
+people made like that. _Ah, tiens,_ here she comes. How could you keep
+_ces dames_ waiting like this? It is shameful, shameful!" cried the
+woman, as she half shook the panting girl, in anger. "If _ces dames_
+will enter,"--her voice changing at once to a caressing falsetto, as the
+door flew open, opened by Augustine's trembling fingers--"they will
+find their rooms in readiness."
+
+The rooms were as bare as a soldier's barrack, but they were spotlessly
+clean. There was the pale flicker of a sickly candle to illumine the
+shadowy recesses of the curtained beds and the dark little
+dressing-rooms.
+
+A few moments later we wound our way downward, spirally, to find
+ourselves seated at a round table in a cosy, compact dining-room.
+Directly opposite, across the corridor, was the kitchen, from which
+issued a delightful combination of vinous, aromatic odors. The light of
+a strong, bright lamp made it as brilliant as a ball-room; it was a
+ball-room which for decoration had rows of shining brass and copper
+kettles--each as burnished as a jewel--a mass of sunny porcelain, and
+for carpet the satin of a wooden floor. There was much bustling
+to and fro. Shapes were constantly passing and repassing across the
+lighted interior. The Mère's broad-hipped figure was an omniscient
+presence: it hovered at one instant over a steaming saucepan, and the
+next was lifting a full milk-jug or opening a wine-bottle. Above the
+clatter of the dishes and the stirring of spoons arose the thick
+Normandy voices, deep alto tones, speaking in strange jargon of
+speech--a world of patois removed from our duller comprehension. It was
+made somewhat too plain in this country, we reflected, that a man's
+stomach is of far more importance than the rest of his body. The
+kitchen yonder was by far the most comfortable, the warmest, and
+altogether the prettiest room in the whole house.
+
+Augustine crossed the narrow entry just then with a smoking pot of
+soup. She was followed, later, by Mère Mouchard, who bore a sole au vin
+blanc, a bottle of white Burgundy, and a super-naturally ethereal
+soufflé. And an hour after, even the curtainless, carpetless bed
+chambers above were powerless to affect the luxurious character of our
+dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FROM AN INN WINDOW.
+
+
+One travels a long distance, sometimes, to make the astonishing
+discovery that pleasure comes with the doing of very simple things. We
+had come from over the seas to find the act of leaning on a window
+casement as exciting as it was satisfying. It is true that from our two
+inn windows there was a delightful variety of nature and of human
+nature to look out upon. From the windows overlooking the garden there
+was only the horizon to bound infinity. The Atlantic, beginning with
+the beach at our feet, stopped at nothing till it met the sky. The sea,
+literally, was at our door; it and the Seine were next-door neighbors.
+Each hour of the day these neighbors presented a different face, were
+arrayed in totally different raiment, were grave or gay, glowing with
+color or shrouded in mists, according to the mood and temper of the
+sun, the winds, and the tides.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE BEACH--VILLERVILLE]
+
+The width of the sky overhanging this space was immense; not a scrap,
+apparently, was left over to cover, decently, the rest of the earth's
+surface--of that one was quite certain in looking at this vast inverted
+cup overflowing with ether. What there was of land was a very sketchy
+performance. Opposite ran the red line of the Havre headlands.
+
+Following the river, inland, there was a pretence of shore, just
+sufficiently outlined, like a youth's beard, to give substance to one's
+belief in its future growth and development. Beneath these windows the
+water, hemmed in by this edge of shore, panted, like a child at play;
+its sighs, liquid, lisping, were irresistible; one found oneself
+listening for the sound of them as if they had issued from a human
+throat. The humming of the bees in the garden, the cry of a fisherman
+calling across the water, the shout of the children below on the beach,
+or, at twilight, the chorusing birds, carolling at full concert pitch;
+this, at most, was all the sound and fury the sea beach yielded.
+
+The windows opening on the village street let in a noise as tumultuous
+as the sea was silent. The hubbub of a perpetual babble, all the louder
+for being compressed within narrow space, was always to be heard; it
+ceased only when the village slept. There was an incessant clicking
+accompaniment to this noisy street life; a music played from early dawn
+to dusk over the pavement's rough cobbles--the click clack, click clack
+of the countless wooden sabots.
+
+Part of this clamor in the streets was due to the fact that the
+village, as a village, appeared to be doing a tremendous business with
+the sea.
+
+Men and women were perpetually going to and coming from the beach.
+Fishermen, sailors, women bearing nets, oars, masts, and sails,
+children bending beneath the weight of baskets filled with kicking
+fish; wheelbarrows stocked high with sea-food and warm clothing; all
+this commerce with the sea made the life in these streets a more
+animated performance than is commonly seen in French villages.
+
+In time, the provincial mania began to work in our veins.
+
+To watch our neighbors, to keep an eye on this life--this became, after
+a few days, the chief occupation of our waking hours.
+
+The windows of our rooms fronting on the street were peculiarly well
+adapted for this unmannerly occupation. By merely opening the blinds,
+we could keep an eye on the entire village. Not a cat could cross the
+street without undergoing inspection. Augustine, for example, who, once
+having turned her back on the inn windows, believed herself entirely
+cut off from observation, was perilously exposed to our mercy. We knew
+all the secrets of her thieving habits; we could count, to a second,
+the time she stole from the Mere, her employer, to squander in smiles
+and dimples at the corner creamery. There a tall Norman rained
+admiration upon her through wide blue eyes, as he patted, caressingly,
+the pots of blond butter, just the color of her hair, before laying
+them, later, tenderly in her open palm. Soon, as our acquaintance with
+our neighbors deepened into something like intimacy, we came to know
+their habits of mind as we did their facial peculiarities; certain of
+their actions made an event in our day. It became a serious matter of
+conjecture as to whether Madame de Tours, the social swell of the town,
+would or would not offer up her prayer to Deity, accompanied by
+Friponne, her black poodle. If Friponne issued forth from the narrow
+door, in company with her austere mistress, the shining black silk
+gown, we knew, would not decorate the angular frame of this
+aristocratic provincial; a sober beige was best fitted to resist the
+dashes made by Friponne's sharply-trimmed nails. It was for this, to
+don a silk gown in full sight of her neighbors; to set up as companion
+a dog of the highest fashion, the very purest of _caniches_, that
+twenty years of patient nursing a paralytic husband--who died all too
+slowly--had been counted as nothing!
+
+Once we were summoned to our outlook by the vigorous beating of a drum.
+Madame Mouchard and Augustine were already at their own post of
+observation--the open inn door. The rest of the village was in full
+attendance, for it was not every day in the week that the "tambour,"
+the town-crier, had business enough to render his appearance, in his
+official capacity, necessary; as a mere townsman he was to be seen any
+hour of the day, as drunk as a lord, at the sign of "L'Ami Fidèle." His
+voice, as it rolled out the words of his cry, was as _staccato_ in
+pitch as any organ can be whose practice is largely confined to
+unceasing calls for potations. To the listening crowd, the thick voice
+was shouting:
+
+"_Madame Tricot--à la messe--dimanche--a--perdu une broche--or et
+perles--avec cheveux--Madame Merle a perdu--sur la plage--un panier
+avec--un chat noir--_"
+
+We ourselves, to our astonishment, were drummed the very next morning.
+Augustine had made the discovery of a missing shoulder-cape; she had
+taken it upon herself to call in the drummer. So great was the
+attendance of villagers, even the abstractors of the lost garment must,
+we were certain, be among the crowd assembled to hear our names shouted
+out on the still air. We were greatly affected by the publicity of the
+occasion; but the village heard the announcement, both of our names and
+of our loss, with the phlegm of indifference. "Vingt francs pour avoir
+tambouriné mademoiselle!" This was an item which a week later, in
+madame's little bill, was not confronted with indifference.
+
+"It gives one the feeling of having had relations with a wandering
+circus," remarked the young philosopher at my side.
+
+"But it is really a great convenience, that system," she continued;
+"I'm always mislaying things--and through the drummer there's a whole
+village as aid to find a lost article. I shall, doubtless, always have
+that, now, in my bills!" And Charm, with an air of serene confidence in
+the village, adjusted her restored shoulder-cape.
+
+Down below, in our neighbor's garden--the one adjoining our own and
+facing the sea--a new and old world of fashion in capes and other
+garments were a-flutter in the breeze, morning after morning. Who and
+what was this neighbor, that he should have so curious and eccentric a
+taste in clothes? No woman was to be seen in the garden-paths; a man,
+in a butler's apron and a silk skullcap, came and went, his arms piled
+high with gowns and scarves, and all manner of strange odds and ends.
+Each morning some new assortment of garments met our wondering eyes.
+Sometimes it was a collection of Empire embroidered costumes that were
+hung out on the line; faded fleur-de-lis, sprigs of dainty lilies and
+roses, gold-embossed Empire coats, strewn thick with seed-pearls on
+satins softened by time into melting shades. When next we looked the
+court of Napoleon had vanished, and the Bourbon period was, literally,
+in full swing. A frou-frou of laces, coats with deep skirts, and
+beribboned trousers would be fluttering airily in the soft May air.
+Once, in fine contrast to these courtly splendors, was a wondrous
+assortment of flannel petticoats. They were of every hue--red, yellow,
+brown, pink, patched, darned, wide-skirted, plaited, ruffled--they
+appeared to represent the taste and requirement of every climate and
+country, if one could judge by the thickness of some and the gossamer
+tissues of others; but even the smartest were obviously, unmistakably,
+effrontedly, flannel petticoats.
+
+It was a mystery that greatly intrigued us. One morning the mystery was
+solved. A whiff of tobacco from an upper window came along with a puff
+of wind. It was a heated whiff, in spite of the cooling breeze. It was
+from a pipe, a short, black pipe, owned by some one in the Mansard
+window next door. There was the round disk of a dark-blue beret
+drooping over the pipe. "Good--" I said to myself--"I shall see now--at
+last--this maniac with a taste for darned petticoats!"
+
+The pipe smoked peacefully, steadily on. The beret was motionless.
+Between the pipe and the cap was a man's profile; it was too much in
+shadow to be clearly defined.
+
+The next instant the man's face was in full sunlight. The face turned
+toward me--with the quick instinct of knowing itself watched--and
+then--
+
+"Pas--possible!"
+
+"You--here!"
+
+"Been here a year--but you, when did you arrive? What luck! What luck!"
+
+It was John Renard, the artist; after the first salutations question
+followed question.
+
+"Are you alone?--"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is she--young?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Pretty?"
+
+"Judge for yourself--that is she--in the garden yonder."
+
+The beret dipped itself perilously out into the sky--to take a full
+view.
+
+"Hem--I'll come in at once."
+
+It was as a trio that the conversation was continued later, in the
+garden. But Renard was still chief questioner.
+
+"Have you been out on the mussel-beds?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"We'll go this afternoon--Have you been to Honfleur? Not yet?--We'll
+go to-morrow. The tide will be in to-day about four--I'll call for
+you--wear heavy boots and old clothes. It's jolly dirty. Where do you
+breakfast?"
+
+The breakfast was eaten, as a trio, at our inn, an hour later. It was
+so warm a day, it was served under one of the arbors. Augustine was
+feeding and caressing the doves as we entered the inn garden. At sight
+of Renard she dropped a quiet courtesy, smiles and roses struggling for
+a supremacy on her round peasant face. She let the doves loose at once,
+saying: "Allez, allez," as if they quite understood that with Monsieur
+Renard's advent their hour of success was at an end.
+
+Why does a man's presence always seem to communicate such surprising
+animation to a woman--to any woman? Why does his appearance, for
+instance, suddenly, miraculously stiffen the sauces, lure from the
+cellar bottles incrusted with the gray of thick cobwebs, give an added
+drop of the lemon to the mayonnaise, and make an omelette to swim in a
+sea of butter? All these added touches to our commonly admirable
+breakfast were conspicuous that day--it was a breakfast for a prince
+and a gourmet.
+
+"The Mère can cook--when she gives her mind to it," was Renard's meagre
+masculine comment, as the last morsel of the golden omelette
+disappeared behind his mustache.
+
+It was a gay little breakfast, with the circling above of the birds and
+the doves. There are duller forms of pleasure than to eat a repast in
+the company of an artist. I know not why it is, but it has always
+seemed to me that the man who lives only to copy life appears to get
+far more out of it than those who make a point of seeing nothing in it
+save themselves.
+
+Renard, meanwhile, was taking pains to assure us that in less than a
+month the Villerville beaches would be crowded; only the artists of the
+brushes were here now; the artists of high life would scarcely be found
+deserting the Avenue des Acacias before June.
+
+"French people are always coming to the seashore, you know--or trying
+to come. It's a part of their emotional religion to worship the sea.
+'La mer! la mer!' they cry, with eyes all whites; then they go into
+little swoons of rapture--I can see them now, attitudinizing in salons
+and at tables-d'hôte!" To which comment we could find no more original
+rejoinder than our laughter.
+
+It was a day when laughter was good; it put one in closer relations
+with the universal smiling. There are certain days when nature seems to
+laugh aloud; in this hour of noon the entire universe, all we could see
+of it, was on a broad grin. Everything moved, or danced, or sang; the
+leaves were each alive, trembling, quivering, shaking; the insect hum
+was like a Wagnerian chorus, deafening to the ear; there was a brisk,
+light breeze stirring--a breeze that moved the higher branches of the
+trees as if it had been an arm; that rippled the grass; that tossed the
+wavelets of the sea into such foam that they seemed over-running with
+laughter; and such was still its unspent energy that it sent the Seine
+with a bound up through its shores, its waters clanging like a sheet
+of mail armor worn by some lusty warrior. We were walking in the narrow
+lane that edged the cliff; it was a lane that was guarded with a
+sentinel row of osiers, syringas, and laburnums. This was the guard of
+the cliffs. On the other side was the high garden wall, over which we
+caught dissolving views of dormer-windows, of gabled roofs, vine-clad
+walls, and a maze of peach and pear blossoms. This was not precisely
+the kind of lane through which one hurried. One needed neither to be
+sixteen nor even in love to find it a delectable path, very agreeable
+to the eye, very suggestive to the imaginative faculty, exceedingly
+satisfactory to the most fastidious of all the senses, to that
+aristocrat of all the five, the sense of smell. Like all entirely
+perfect experiences in life, the lane ended almost as soon as it began;
+it ended in a steep pair of steps that dropped, precipitously, on the
+pebbles of the beach.
+
+For some reason best known to the day and the view, we all, with one
+accord, proceeded to seat ourselves on the topmost step of this
+stairway. We were waiting for the tide to fall, to go out to the
+mussel-bed. Meanwhile the prospect to be seen from this improvised seat
+was one made to be looked at. There is a certain innate compelling
+quality in all great beauty. When nature or woman presents a really
+grandiose appearance, they are singularly reposeful, if you notice;
+they have the calm which comes with a consciousness of splendor. It
+is only prettiness which is tormented with the itching for display; and
+therefore this prospect, which rolled itself out beneath our feet,
+curling in a half-moon of beach, broadening into meadows that dropped
+to the river edge, lifting its beauty upward till the hills met the
+sky. and the river was lost in the clasp of the shore--this aspect of
+nature, in this moment of beauty, was as untroubled as if Chateaubriand
+had not found her a lover, and had flattered man by persuading him that,
+
+"La voix de l'univers, c'est mon intelligence."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OUT ON A MUSSEL-BED.
+
+
+That same afternoon we were out on the mussel bed.
+
+The tide was at its lowest. Before us, for an acre or more, there lay a
+wide, wet, stretch of brown mud. Near the beach was a strip of yellow
+sand; here and there it had contracted into narrow ridges, elsewhere it
+had expanded into scroll-like patterns. The bed of mud and slime ran
+out from this yellow sand strip--a surface diversified by puddles of
+muddy water, by pools, clear, ribbed with wavelets, and by little heaps
+of stones covered with lichens. The surface of the bed, whether pools
+or puddles, or rock-heaps, or sea-weeds massed, was covered by
+thousands and thousands of black, lozenge-shaped bivalves. These
+bivalves were the mussels. Over this bed of shells and slime there
+moved and toiled a whole villageful of old women. Where the sea met the
+edges of the mud-flat the throng of women was thickest. The line of the
+ever-receding shore was marked by the shapes of countless bent figures.
+The heads of these stooping women were on a level with their feet, not
+one stood upright. All that the eye could seize for outline was the
+dome made by the bent hips, and the backs that closed against the knees
+as a blade is clasped into a knife handle. The oblong masses that were
+lifted now and then, from the level of the sabots, resolved themselves
+into the outlines of women's heads and women's faces. These heads
+were tied up in cotton kerchiefs or in cotton nightcaps; these being
+white, together with the long, thick, aprons also white, were in
+startling contrast to the blue of the sky and to the changing sea-
+tones.
+
+Between these women and the incoming tide, twice daily, was fought a
+persistent, unrelenting duel. It was a duel, on the part of the fish-
+wives, against time, against the fate of the tides, against the blind
+forces of nature. For this combat the women were armed to the teeth,
+clad as they were in their skeleton muscular leanness; helmeted with
+their heads of iron; visored in the bronze of their skin and in
+wrinkles that laughed at the wind. In these sinewy, toughened
+bodies there was a grim strength that appeared to know neither ache nor
+fatigue nor satiety.
+
+High, clear, strong, came their voices. The tones were the tones that
+come from deep chests, and with a prolonged, sustained capacity for
+enduring the toil of men. But the high-pitched laughter proved them
+women, as did their loud and unceasing gossip. The battle of the voices
+rose above the swash of the waves, above, also, another sound, as
+incessant as the women's chatter and the swish of the water as it
+hissed along the mud-flat's edges.
+
+[Illustration: A SALE OF MUSSELS--VILLERVILLE]
+
+This was the swift, sharp, saw-like cutting among the stones and the
+slime, the scrape, scrape of the hundred of knives into the moist
+earth. This ceaseless scraping, lunging, digging, made a new world of
+sound--strange, sinister, uncanny. It was neither of the sea nor yet of
+the land--it was a noise that seemed inseparable from this tongue of
+mud, that also appeared to be neither of the heavens above nor of the
+earth, from the bowels out of which it had sprung.
+
+The mussels cling to their slime with extraordinary tenacity; only an
+expert, who knows the exact point of attachment between the hard shell
+and its soil, can remove a mussel with dexterity. These women, as they
+dipped their knives into the thick mud, swept the diminutive black
+bivalve with a trenchant movement, as a Moor might cleave a human head
+with one turn of his moon-shaped sword. Into the bronzed, wrinkled old
+hands the mussels then were slipped as if they had been so many dainty
+sweets.
+
+New and pungent smells were abroad on this strip of slime. Sea smells,
+strong and salty; smells of the moist and damp soil, the bitter-sweet
+of wetted weeds, the aromatic flavor that shell-life yields, and the
+smells also of rotten and decaying fish--all these were inextricably
+blended in the air, that was of the keenness of a frost-blight for
+freshness, and yet was warm with the softness of a June sun.
+
+Meanwhile the voices of the women were nearing. Some of the bent heads
+were lifted as we approached. Here and there a coif, or cotton cap,
+nodded, and the slit of a smile would gape between the nose and the
+meeting chin. A high good humor appeared to reign among the groups; a
+carnival of merriment laughed itself out in coarse, cracked laughter;
+loud was the play of the jests, hoarse and guttural the gibes that were
+abroad on the still air, from old mouths that uttered strong, deep
+notes.
+
+"Why should they all be old?" we queried. We were near enough to see
+the women face to face now, since we were far out along the outer edges
+of the bed; we were so near the sea that the tide was beginning to wash
+us back, along with the fringe of the diggers.
+
+"They're not--they only look old," replied Renard, stopping a moment to
+sketch in a group directly in front. "This life makes old women of them
+in no time. How old, for instance, should you think that girl was, over
+there?"
+
+The girl whom he designated was the only figure of youth we had seen on
+the bed. She was working alone and remote from the others. She wore no
+coif. Her masses of red, wavy hair shaded a face already deeply seamed
+with lines of premature age. A moment later she passed close to us. She
+was bent almost double beneath a huge, reeking basket, heaped with its
+pile of wet mussels. She was carrying it to a distant pool. Once beside
+the pool, with swift, dexterous movement the heavy basket was slipped
+from the bent back, the load of mussels falling in a shower into the
+miniature lake. The next instant she was stamping on the heap, to
+plunge them with her sabot still further into the pool. She was washing
+her load. Soon she shouldered the basket again, filling it with the
+cleansed mussels. A moment later she joined the long, toiling line of
+women that were perpetually forming and reforming on their way to the
+carts. These latter were drawn up near the beach, their contents
+guarded by boys and old men, who received the loads the women had dug,
+dragging the whole, later, up the hill.
+
+"She has the Venus de Milo lines, that girl," Renard continued,
+critically, with his eyes on her, as she now repassed us. The figure
+was drawn up at its full height. It had in truth a noble dignity of
+outline. There was a Spartan vigor and severity in the lean, uncorseted
+shape, with the bust thrown out against the sky--the bust of a young
+warrior rather than a woman. There was a hardy, masculine freedom in
+the pliable motion of her straight back, a ripple with muscles that
+played easily beneath the close bodice, in her arms, and her finely
+turned ankles and legs, that were bared below the knee. The very
+simplicity of her costume helped to mark the Greek severity of her
+figure. She wore a short skirt of some coarse hempen stuff, covered
+with a thick apron made of sail-cloth, her feet thrust into black
+sabots, while the upper part of her body was covered with an unbleached
+chemise, widely open at the throat.
+
+She had the Phidian breadth and the modern charm--that charm which
+troubles and disturbs, haunting the mind with vague, unsatisfied
+suggestions of something finer than is seen, something nobler than the
+gross physical envelope reveals.
+
+"I must have her--for my Salon picture," calmly remarked Renard, after
+a long moment of scrutiny, his eyes following the lean, stately figure
+in its grave walk across the weeds and slime. "Yes, I must have her."
+
+"Won't she be hard to get? How can she be made to sit, a stiffened
+image of clay, after this life of freedom, this athletic struggle out
+here--with these winds and tides?"
+
+One of us, at least, was stirred at Renard's calm assumption--the
+assumption so common to artists, who, when they see a good thing at
+once count on its possessorship, as if the whole world, indeed, were
+eternally sitting, agape with impatience, awaiting the advent of some
+painter to sketch in its portrait.
+
+"Oh, it'll be easy enough. She makes two francs a day with her six
+basketfuls. I'll offer her three, and she'll drop like a shot."
+
+"I'll make it a red picture," he continued, dipping his brushes into a
+little case of paints he held on his thumb; "the mussel-bed a reddish
+violet, the sky red in the horizon, and the girl in the foreground,
+with that torrent of hair as the high light. I've been hunting for that
+hair all over Europe." And he began sketching her in at once.
+
+"_Bonjour, mère_, how goes it?" He nodded as he sketched at a wrinkled,
+bent figure, who was smiling out at him from beneath her load of
+mussels.
+
+"_Pas mal--e' vous, M'sieur Renard?_"
+
+"All right--and the mortgage, how goes that?"
+
+"Pas si mal--it'll be paid off next year."
+
+"Who is she? One of your models?"
+
+"Yes, last year's: she was my belle--the belle of the mussel-bed for
+me, a year ago. Now there's a lesson in patience for you. She's sixty-
+five, if she's a minute; she's been working here, on this mussel-bed,
+for five years, to pay the mortgage off her farm; when that is done,
+her daughter Augustine can marry; Augustine's _dot_ is the farm."
+
+"Augustine--at our inn?"
+
+"The very same."
+
+"And the blonde--the handsome man at the creamery, he is the future--?"
+
+"I'm sorry to hear such things of Augustine," smiled Renard, as he
+worked; "she must be indulging in an entr'acte. No, the gentleman of
+Augustine's--well, perhaps not of her affections, but of her mother's
+choice, is a peasant who works the farm; the creamery is only an
+incidental diversion. Again, I'm sorry to hear such sad things of
+Augustine--"
+
+"Horrors!"
+
+"Exactly. That's the way it's done--over here. Will you join me--over
+there?" Renard blushed a little. "I mean I wish to follow that
+girl--she's going to dig out yonder. Will you come?"
+
+Meanwhile the light was changing, and so was the tide. The women were
+coming inward, washed up to the shore along with the grasses and
+seaweeds. A band of diggers suddenly started, with full basket loads,
+toward a fishing boat that had dropped anchor close in to the shore; it
+was a Honfleur craft, come to buy mussels for the Paris market. The
+women trudged through the water, up to their waists; they clustered
+about the boats like so many laden beasts. But their shrill bargaining
+proved them women.
+
+Meanwhile that gentle hissing along the level stretch of brown mud
+was the tide. It was pushing the women upward, as if it had been a
+hand--the hand of a relentless fate--instead of a little, liquid kiss.
+
+The sun, as it dipped, made a glory of splendor out of this commonplace
+bank. It soaked the mud in gold; it was in a royal mood, throwing its
+largess with reckless abundance to this poor of earth--to the slime and
+the mud. The long, yellow, lichen leaves massed on the rocks were dyed
+as if lying in a yellow bath. The sands were richly colored; the ridges
+were brown in the shadows and burnished at the tops. In the distance
+the sea weeds were black, sable furs, covering the velvet robes of
+earth. The sea out beyond was as rosy as a babe, and the sails were
+dazzlingly white as they floated past, between the sky and the distant
+purple line of the horizon.
+
+Meanwhile the tide is coming in.
+
+The procession of the women toward the carts grows in numbers. The
+thick sabots plunge into the mud, the water squirts out of the wooden
+shoes as the strong heels press into them. The straw, the universal
+stocking of these women-diggers, is reeking with dirt. Volumes of slush
+are splashed on the bared skinny ankles, on the wet skirts, wet to the
+waists, and on the coarse sail-cloth aprons tied beneath the hanging
+bosoms. The women are all drenched now in a bath of filth. The baskets
+are reeking with filth also, they rain showers of dirt along the bent
+backs. A long line of the bent figures has formed on their way to the
+carts. There is, however, a thick fringe of diggers left who still
+dispute their rights with the sea.
+
+But the tide is pushing them inward, upward. And all the while the
+light is getting more and more golden, shimmery, radiant. Under this
+light, beneath this golden mantel of color, these creatures appear
+still more terrible. As they bend over, their faces tirelessly held
+downward on a level with their hands, they seem but gnomes; surely they
+are huge, undeveloped embryos of women, with neither head nor trunk.
+For this light is pitiless. It makes them even more a part of this
+earth, out of which they seem to have sprung, a strange amorphous
+growth. The bronzed skins are dyed in the gold as if to match with the
+hue of the mud; the wet skirts are shreds, gray and brown tatters, not
+so good in texture as the lichens, and the ragged jerseys seem only
+bits of the more distant weeds woven into tissues to hide mercifully
+the lean, sinewy backs.
+
+The tide is almost in.
+
+In the shallows the sunset is fading. Here and there are brilliant
+little pools, each pool a mirror, and each mirror reflects a different
+picture. Here is a second sky--faintly blue, with a trailing saffron
+scarf of cloud; there, the inverted silhouettes of two fish-wives are
+conical shapes, their coifs and wet skirts startlingly distinct in
+tones; beyond, sails a fantastic fleet, with polychrome sails, each
+spar, masthead, and wrinkled sail as sharply outlined as if chiselled
+in relief. Presently these miniature pictures fade as the light fades.
+Blacker grows the mud, and there is less and less of it; the
+silhouetted shapes of the diggers are seen no more; they are following
+the carts up the steep cliffs; even the sky loses its color and fades
+also. And the little pools that have been a burning orange, then a
+darkening violet, gay with pictured worlds, in turn pale to gray, and
+die into the universal blackness.
+
+The tide is in.
+
+It is flowing, rich and full, crested with foam beneath the osier
+hedges. We hear it break with a sudden dash and splutter against the
+cliff parapets. And the mud-bank is no more.
+
+Half an hour later, from our chamber windows we looked forth through
+the dusk across at the mussel bed. The great mud-bank, all that black
+acreage of slime and sea-weed, the eager, struggling band of toiling
+fish wives, all was gone; it was all as if it had not been--would never
+be again. The water hissed along the beach; it broke in rhythmic,
+sonorous measure against the parapet. Surely there had never been any
+beds, or any mussels, or any toiling fish-wives; or if there had, it
+was all a world that the sea had washed up, and then as quietly, as
+heedlessly, as pitilessly had obliterated.
+
+It was the very epitome of life itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE VILLAGE.
+
+
+Our visit to the mussel-bed, as we soon found, had been our formal
+introduction to the village. Henceforth every door step held a friend;
+not a coif or a blouse passed without a greeting. The village, as a
+village, lived in the open street. Villerville had the true French
+genius for society; the very houses were neighborly, crowding close
+upon the narrow sidewalk. Conversation, to be carried on from a
+dormer-window or from opposite sides of the street, had evidently been
+the first architectural consideration in the mind of the builders; doors
+and windows must be as open and accessible as the lives of the
+inhabitants. The houses themselves appeared to be regarded in the light
+of pockets, into which the old women and fishermen plunged to drag
+forth a net or a knife; also as convenient, if rude, little caverns into
+which the village crawled at night, to take its heavy slumber.
+
+The door-step was the drawing-room, and the open street was the club of
+this Villerville world.
+
+The door-way, the yard, or the bit of garden tucked in between two high
+walls--it was here, under the tent of sky rather than beneath the
+stuffy roofs, that the village lived, talked, quarrelled, bargained,
+worked, and more or less openly made love.
+
+To the door-step everything was brought that was portable. There was
+nothing, from the small boy to the brass kettle, that could not be more
+satisfactorily polished off, in full view of one's world, than by one's
+self, in seclusion and solitude. Justice, at least, appeared to gain by
+this passion for open-air ministration, if one were to judge by the
+frequency with which the Villerville boy was laid across the parental
+knee. We were repeatedly called upon to coincide, at the very instant
+of flagellation, with the verdict pronounced against the youthful
+offender.
+
+"_S'il est assez méchant, lui?_ Ah, mesdames, what do you think of one
+who goes forth dry, with clean sabots, that I, myself, have washed, and
+behold him returned, _après un tout p'tit quart d'heure_, stinking with
+filth? Bah! it's he that will catch it when his father comes home!" And
+meanwhile the mother's hand descends, lest justice should cool ere
+night.
+
+[Illustration: A VILLERVILLE FISH-WIFE]
+
+There were other groups that crowded the doorsteps; there were young
+mothers that sat there, with their babes clasped to the full breasts,
+in whose eyes was to be read the satisfied passion of recent
+motherhood; there were gay clusters of young Norman maidens, whose
+glances, brilliant and restless, were pregnant with all the meaning of
+unspent youth. The figures of the fishermen, toiling up the street with
+bared legs and hairy breast, bending beneath their baskets alive with
+fish, stopped to have a word or two, seasoned with a laugh, with these
+latter groups. There were also knots of patient old men, wrecks that
+the sea had tossed back to earth, to rot and die there, that came out
+of the black little houses to rest their bones in the sun. And
+everywhere there were groups of old women, or of women still young, to
+whom the look of age had come long before its due time.
+
+The village seemed peopled with women, sexless creatures for the most
+part, whom toil and the life on the mussel-bed or in the field had
+dried and hardened into mummy shapes. Only these, the old and the
+useless, were left at home to rear the younger generation and to train
+them to take up the same heavy burden of life. The coifs of these old
+hags made dazzling spots of brightness against the gray of the walls
+and the stuccoed houses; clustered together, the high caps that nodded
+in unison to the chatter were in startling contrast to the bronzed
+faces bending over the fish-nets, and to the blue-veined, leathery
+hands that flew in and out of the coarse meshes with the fluent ease of
+long practice.
+
+With one of these old women we became friends. We had made her
+acquaintance at a poetic moment, under romantic circumstances. We were
+all three watching a sunset, under a pink sky; we were sitting far out
+on the grasses of the cliff. Her house was in the midst of the grasses,
+some little distance from the village, attached to it only as a ragged
+fringe might edge a garment. It was a thatched hut; yet there were
+circumstances in the life of the owner which had transformed the
+interior into a luxurious apartment. The owner of the hut was herself
+hanging on the edge of life; she was a toothless, bent, and withered
+old remnant; but her vigor and vivacity were those of a witch. Her
+hands and eyes were ceaselessly active; she was forever busy, fingering
+a fish-net, or polishing her Normandy brasses, or stirring some dark
+liquid in an iron pot over the dim fire.
+
+At our first meeting, conversation had immediately engaged itself; it
+had ended, as all right talk should, in friendship. On this morning of
+our visit, many a gay one having preceded it, we found our friend
+arrayed as if for an outing. She had mounted her best coif, and tied
+across her shrivelled old breast was a vivid purple silk kerchief.
+
+"_Tiens, mes enfants, soyez les bienvenues_," was her gay greeting,
+seasoned with a high cackling laugh, as she waved us to two rickety
+chairs. "No, I'm not going out, not yet; there is plenty of time,
+plenty of time. It is you who are good, _si aimables_, to come out here
+to see me. And tired, too, _hein_, with the long walk? _Tiens_, I had
+nearly forgotten; there's a bottle of wine open below--you must take a
+glass."
+
+She never forgot. The bottle of wine had always just been opened; the
+cork was always also miraculously rebellious for a cork that had been
+previously pulled. Although our ancient friend was a peasant, her
+cellar was the cellar of a gourmet. Wonderful old wines were hers!
+Port, Bordeaux, white wines, of vintages to make the heart warm; each
+was produced in turn, a different vintage and wine on each one of our
+visits, but no champagne. This was no wine for women--for the right
+women. Champagne was a bad, fast wine, for fast, disreputable people.
+"_C'est un vrai poison, qui vous infecte_," she had declared again and
+again, and when she saw her daughter drinking it, it made her shudder;
+she confessed to having a moment of doubt; had Paris, indeed, really
+brought her child no harm? Then the old mere would shrug her bent
+shoulders and rub her hands, and for a moment she would be lost in
+thought. Presently the cracked old laugh would peal forth again, and,
+as she threw back her head, she would shake it as if to dispel some
+dark vision.
+
+To-day she had dropped, almost as soon as we entered, into a narrow
+trap-door, descending a flight of stone steps. We could hear a clicking
+of bottles and a rustling of straw; and then, behold, a veritable fairy
+issuing from the bowels of the earth, with flushes of red suffusing the
+ribbed, bewrinkled face, as the old figure straightens its crookedness
+to carry the dusty bottle securely, steadily, lest the cloudy settling
+at the bottom should be disturbed. What a merry little feast then
+began! We had learned where the glasses were kept; we had been busily
+scouring them while our hostess was below. Then wine and glasses, along
+with three chairs, were quickly placed on the pine table at the door of
+the old house. Here, on the grass of the cliffs, we sat, sipping our
+wine, enjoying the sea that lay at our feet, and above, the sunlit sky.
+To our friend both sky and sea were familiar companions; but the fichu
+was a new friend.
+
+"Yes, it is very beautiful, as you say," she said, in answer to our
+admiring comments. "It came from Paris, from my daughter. She sent it
+to me; she is always making me gifts; she is one who remembers her old
+mother! Figure to yourselves that last year, in midwinter, she sent me
+no less than three gowns, all wool! What can I do with them? _C'est
+pour me flatter, c'est sa manière de me dire qu'il faut vivre pour
+longtemps! Ah, la chère folle!_ But she spoils me, the darling!"
+
+This daughter had become the most mysterious of all our Villerville
+discoveries. Our old friend was a peasant, the child of peasant
+farmers. She would always remain a peasant; and yet her daughter was a
+Parisian, and lived in a _bonbonnière_. She was also married; but that
+only served to thicken the web of mystery enshrouding her. How could a
+daughter of a peasant, brought up as a peasant, who had lived here, a
+tiller of the fields till her nineteenth year, suddenly be transformed
+into a woman of the Parisian world, gain the position of a banker's
+wife, and be dancing, as the old mere kept telling us, at balls at the
+Elysée? Her mother never answered this riddle for us; and, more amazing
+still, neither could the village. The village would shrug its
+shoulders, when we questioned it, with discretion, concerning this
+enigma. "Ah, dame! It was she--the old mere--who had had chances in
+life, to marry her daughter like that! Victorine was pretty--yes, there
+was no gainsaying she was pretty--but not so beautiful as all that, to
+entrap a banker, _un homme sérieux, qui vit de ses rentes!_ and who was
+generous, too, for the old mere needn't work now, since she was always
+receiving money." Gifts were perpetually pouring into the low
+rooms--wines, and Parisian delicacies, and thick garments.
+
+The tie between the two, between the mother and daughter, appeared to
+be as strong and their relations as complete, as if one were not clad
+in homespun and the other in Worth gowns. There was no shame, that was
+easily seen, on either side; each apparently was full of pride in the
+other; their living apart was entirely due to the old mère's preference
+for a life on the cliffs, alone in the midst of all her old peasant
+belongings.
+
+"_C'est plus chez-soi, ici!_ Victorine feels that, too. She loves the
+smell of the old wood, and of the peat burning there in the fireplace.
+When she comes down to see me, I must shut fast all the doors and
+windows; she wants the whole of the smell, _pour faire le vrai
+bouquet_, as she says. If she had had children--ah!--I don't say but
+what I might have consented; but as it is, I love my old fire, and my
+view out there, and the village, best!"
+
+At this point in the conversation, the old eyes, bright as they were,
+turned dim and cloudy; the inward eye was doubtless seeing something
+other than the view; it was resting on a youthful figure, clad in
+Parisian draperies, and on a face rising above the draperies, that bent
+lovingly over the deep-throated fireplace, basking in its warmth, and
+revelling in its homely perfume. We were silent also, as the picture of
+that transfigured daughter of the house flitted across our own mental
+vision.
+
+"The village?" suddenly broke in the old mère. "_Dieu de Dieu!_ that
+reminds me. I must go, my children, I must go. Loisette is waiting; _la
+pauvre enfant_--perhaps suffering too--how do I know? And here am I,
+playing, like a lazy clout! Did you know she had had un _nini_ this
+morning? The little angel came at dawn. That's a good sign! And what
+news for Auguste! He was out last night--fishing; she was at her
+washing when he left her. _Tiens_, there they are, looking for him!
+They've brought the spy-glass."
+
+The old mère shaded her eyes, as she looked out into the dazzling
+sunlight. We followed her finger, that pointed to a projection on the
+cliffs. Among the grasses, grouped on top of the highest rock, was a
+family party. An old fish-wife was standing far out against the sky;
+she also was shading her eyes. A child's round head, crowded into a
+white knit cap, was etched against the wide blue; and, kneeling,
+holding in both hands a seaman's long glass, was a girl, sweeping the
+horizon with swift, skilful stretches of arm and hand. The sun
+descended in a shower of light on the old grandam's seamy face, on the
+red, bulging cheeks of the chubby child, and on the bent figure of the
+girl, whose knees were firmly implanted in the deep, tall grasses.
+Beyond the group there was nothing but sea and sky.
+
+"Yes," the mere went on, garrulously, as she recorked the bottle of
+old port, carrying table and glasses within doors. "Yes, they're
+looking for him. It ought to be time, now; he's due about now. There's
+a man for you--good--_bon comme le bon Dieu_. Sober, saving too--good
+father--in love with Loisette as on the wedding night--_ah, mes
+enfants!_--there are few like him, or this village would be a paradise!"
+
+She shut the door of the little cabin. And then she gave us a broad
+wink. The wink was entirely by way of explanation; it was to enlighten
+us as to why a certain rare bottle of port--a fresh one--was being
+secreted beneath her fichu. It was a wink that conveyed to us a really
+valuable number of facts; chief among them being the very obvious fact
+that the French Government was an idiot, and a tyrant into the bargain,
+since it imposed stupid laws no one meant to carry out; least of all a
+good Norman. What? pay two _sous octroi_ on a bottle of one's own wine,
+that one had had in one's cellar for half a lifetime? To cheat the town
+out of those twopence becomes, of course, the true Norman's chief
+pleasure in life. What is his reputation worth, as a shrewd, sharp man
+of business, if a little thing like cheating stops him? It is even
+better fun than bargaining, to cheat thus one's own town, since nothing
+is to be risked, and one is so certain of success.
+
+The mere nodded to us gayly, in farewell, as we all three re-entered
+the town. She disappeared all at once into a narrow door way, her arms
+still clasping her old port, that lay in the folds of her shawl. On her
+shrewd kindly old face came a light that touched it all at once with a
+glow of divinity; the mother in her had sprung into life with sharp,
+sweet suddenness; she had caught the wail of the new-born babe through
+the open door.
+
+The village itself seemed to have caught something of the same glow. It
+was not only the splendor of the noon sun that made the faces of the
+worn fish-wives and the younger women softer and kindlier than common;
+the groups, as we passed them, were all talking of but one thing--of
+this babe that had come in the night, of Auguste's absence, and of
+Loisette's sharp pains and her cries, that had filled the street, so
+that none could sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A PAGAN COBBLER.
+
+
+At dusk that evening the same subject, with variations, was the
+universal topic of the conversational groups. Still Auguste had not
+come; half the village was out watching for him on the cliffs. The
+other half was crowding the streets and the doorsteps.
+
+Twilight is the classic time, in all French towns and villages, for the
+_al fresco_ lounge. The cool breath of the dusk is fresh, then, and
+restful; after the heat and sweat of the long noon the air, as it
+touches brow and lip, has the charm of a caress. So the door ways and
+streets were always crowded at this hour, groups moved, separated,
+formed and re formed, and lingered to exchange their budget of gossip,
+to call out their "_Bonne nuit_," the girls to clasp hands, looking
+longingly over their shoulders at the younger fishermen
+and farmers; the latter to nod, carelessly, gayly back at them; and
+then--as men will--to fling an arm about a comrade's shoulder as they,
+in their turn, called out into the dusk,
+
+"_Allons, mon brave; de l'absinthe, toi?_" as the cabaret swallowed
+them up.
+
+Great and mighty were the cries and the oaths that issued from the
+cabaret's open doors and windows. The Villerville fisherman loved
+Bacchus only, second to Neptune; when he was not out casting his net
+into the Channel he was drinking up his spoils. It was during the
+sobering process only that affairs of a purely domestic nature engaged
+his attention. Some of the streets were permeated with noxious odors,
+with the poison of absinthe and the fumes of cheap brandy. Noisy,
+reeling groups came out of the tavern doors, to shout and sing, or to
+fight their way homeward. One such figure was filling a narrow alley,
+swaying from right to left, with a jeering crowd at his heels.
+
+"_Est-il assez ridicule, lui?_ with his cap over his nose, and his
+knees knocking at everyone's door? _Bah! ça pue! _" the group of lads
+following him went on, shouting about the poor sot, as they pelted him
+with their rain of pebbles and paper bullets.
+
+"Ah--h, he will beat her, in his turn, poor soul; she always gets it
+when he's full, as full as that--"
+
+The voice was so close to our ears that we started. The words appeared
+addressed to us; they were, in a way, since they were intended for the
+street, as a street, and for the benefit of the groups that filled it.
+The voice was gruff yet mellow; despite its gruffness it had the ring
+of a latent kindliness in its deep tones. The man who owned it was
+seated on a level with our elbows, at a cobbler's bench. We stopped to
+let the crowd push on beyond us. The man had only lifted his head from
+his work, but involuntarily one stopped to salute the power in it.
+
+"_Bonsoir, mesdames_"--the head gravely bowed as the great frame of the
+body below the head rose from the low seat. The room within seemed to
+contain nothing else save this giant figure, now that it had risen and
+was moving toward us. The half-door was courteously opened.
+
+"Will not _ces dames_ give themselves the trouble of entering? The
+streets are not gay at this hour."
+
+We went in. A dog and a woman came forth from a smaller inner room to
+greet us; of the two the dog was obviously the personage next in point
+of intelligence and importance to the master. The woman had a snuffed-
+out air, as of one whose life had died out of her years ago. She
+blinked at us meekly as she dropped a timid courtesy; at a low word of
+command she turned a pitifully patient back on us all. There were years
+of obedience to orders written on its submissive curves; and she bent
+it once more over her kettles; both she and the kettles were on the
+bare floor. It was the poorest of all the Villerville interiors we had
+as yet seen; the house was also, perhaps, the oldest in the village. It
+and the old church had been opposite neighbors for several centuries.
+The shop and the living-room were all in one; the low window was a
+counter by day and a shutter by night. Within, the walls were bare as
+were the floors. Three chairs with sunken leather covers, and a bed
+with a mattress also sunken--a hollow in a pine frame, was the
+equipment in furniture. The poverty was brutal; it was the naked,
+unabashed poverty of the middle ages, with no hint of shame or effort
+of concealment. The colossus whom the low roof covered was as
+unconscious of the barrenness of his surroundings as were his own
+walls. This hovel was his home; he had made us welcome with the manners
+of a king.
+
+Meanwhile the dog was sniffing at our skirts. After a tour of
+observation and inspection he wagged his tail, gave a short bark, and
+seated himself by Charm. The giant's eyes twinkled.
+
+"You see, mesdames, it is a dog with a mind--he knows in an instant who
+are the right sort. And eloquence, also--he is one who can make
+speeches with his tail. A dog's tongue is in his tail, and this one
+wags his like an orator!"
+
+Some one else, as well as the dog, possessed the oratorical gift. The
+cobbler's voice was the true speaker's voice--rich, vibrating,
+sonorous, with a deep note of melody in it. Pose and gestures matched
+with the voice; they were flexible and picturesquely suggestive.
+
+"If you care for oratory--" Charm smiled out upon the huge but mobile
+face--"you are well placed. The village lies before you. You can always
+see the play going on, and hear the speeches--of the passers-by."
+
+The large mouth smiled back. But at Charm's first sentence the keen
+Norman eyes had fixed their twinkling glitter on the girl's face. They
+seemed to be reading to the very bottom of her thought and being. The
+scrutiny was not relaxed as he answered.
+
+"Yes, yes, it is very amusing. One sees a little of everything here.
+_Le monde qui passe_--it makes life more diverting; it helps to kill
+the time. I look out from my perch, like a bird--a very old one, and
+caged"--and he shook forth a great laugh from beneath the wide leather
+apron.
+
+The woman, hearing the laugh, came out into the room.
+
+"_E'ben--et toi_--what do you want?"
+
+The giant stopped laughing long enough to turn tyrant. The woman, at
+the first of his growl, smiled feebly, going back with unresisting
+meekness to her knees, to her pots, and her kettles. The dog growled in
+imitation of his master; obviously the soul of the dog was in the wrong
+body.
+
+Meanwhile the master of the dog and the woman had forgotten both now;
+he was continuing, in a masterful way, to enlighten us about the
+peculiarities of his native village. The talk had now reached the
+subject of the church.
+
+"Oh, yes, it is fine, very, and old; it and this old house are the
+oldest of all the inhabitants of this village. The church came first,
+though, it was built by the English, when they came over, thinking to
+conquer us with their Hundred Years' War. Little they knew France and
+Frenchmen. The church was thoroughly French, although the English did
+build it; on the ground many times, but up again, only waiting the hand
+of the builder and the restorer."
+
+Again the slim-waisted shape of the old wife ventured forth into the
+room.
+
+"Yes, as he says"--in a voice that was but an echo--"the church has
+been down many times."
+
+"_Tais-toi--c'est moi qui parle_," grumbled anew her husband, giving
+the withered face a terrific scowl.
+
+"_Ohé, oui, c'est toi_," the echo bleated. The thin hands meekly folded
+themselves across her apron. She stood quite still, as if awaiting more
+punishment.
+
+"It is our good curé who wishes to pull it down once more," her
+terrible husband went on, not heeding her quiet presence. "Do you know
+our curé? Ah, ha, he's a fine one. It's he that rules us now--he's our
+king--our emperor. Ugh, he's a bad one, he is."
+
+"Ah, yes, he's a bad one, he is," his wife echoed, from the side wall.
+
+"Well, and who asked you to talk?" cried her husband, with a face as
+black as when the curé's name had first been mentioned. The echo shrank
+into the wall. "As I was telling these ladies"--he resumed here his
+boot work, clamping the last between his great knees--"as I was saying,
+we have not been fortunate in cures, we of our parish. There are curés
+and curés, as there are fagots and fagots--and ours is a bad lot. We've
+had nothing but trouble since he came to rule over us. We get poorer
+day by day, and he richer. There he is now, feeding his hens and his
+doves--look, over there--with the ladies of his household gathered
+about him--his mother, his aunt, and his niece--a perfect harem. Oh, he
+keeps them all fat and sleek, like himself! Bah!"
+
+The grunt of disgust the cobbler gave filled the room like a
+thunder-clap. He was peering over his last, across the open counter, at
+a little house adjoining the church green, with a great hatred in his
+face. From one of the windows of the house there was leaning forth a
+group of three heads; there was the tonsured head of a priest, round,
+pink-tinted, and the figures of two women, one youthful, with a long,
+sad-featured face, and the other ruddy and vigorous in outline. They
+were watching the priest as he scattered corn to the hens and geese in
+the garden below the window.
+
+The cobbler was still eying them fiercely, as he continued to give vent
+to his disgust.
+
+"_Méchant homme--lui_," he here whipped his thread, venomously, through
+the leather he was sewing. "Figure to yourselves, mesdames, that
+besides being wicked, our curé is a very shrewd man; it is not for the
+pure good of the parish he works, not he."
+
+"Not he," the echo repeated, coming forth again from the wall. This
+time the whisper passed unnoticed; her master's hatred of the curé was
+greater than his passion for showing his own power.
+
+"Religion--religion is a very good way of making money, better than
+most, if one knows how to work the machine. The soul, it is a fine
+instrument on which to play, if one is skilful. Our curé has a grand
+touch on this instrument. You should see the good man take up a
+collection, it is better than a comedy."
+
+Here the cobbler turned actor; he rose, scattering his utensils right
+and left; he assumed a grand air and a mincing, softly tread, the tread
+of a priest. His flexible voice imitated admirably the rounded,
+unctuous, autocratic tone peculiar to the graduates of St. Sulpice.
+
+"You should hear him, when the collection does not suit him: '_Mes
+frères et mes soeurs_, I see that _le bon Dieu_ isn't in your minds and
+your hearts to-day; you are not listening to his voice; the Saviour is
+then speaking in vain?' Then he prays--" the cobbler folded his hands
+with a great parade of reference, lifting his eyes as he rolled his
+lids heavenward hypocritically--"yes, he prays--and then he passes the
+plate himself! He holds it before your very nose, there is no pushing
+it aside; he would hold it there till you dropped--till Doomsday. Ah,
+he's a hard crust, he is! There's a tyrant for you--_la monarchie
+absolue_--that's what he believes in. He must have this, he must have
+that. Now it is a new altar-cloth, or a fresh Virgin of the modern
+make, from Paris, with a robe of real lace; the old one was black and
+faded, too black to pray to. Now it is a _huissier_, forsooth, that we
+must have, we, a parish of a few hundred souls, who know our seats in
+the church as well as we know our own noses. One would think a 'suisse'
+would have done; but we are swells now--_avec ce gaillard-là_, only the
+tiptop is good enough. So, if you grace our poor old church with your
+presence you will be shown to your bench by a very splendid gentleman
+in black, in knee-breeches, with silver chains, with a three-cornered
+hat, who strikes with his stick three times as he seats you. Bah!
+ridiculous!"
+
+"Ridiculous!" the woman repeated, softly.
+
+"They had the curé once, though. One day in church he announced a
+subscription to be taken up for restorations, from fifty centimes
+to--to anything; he will take all you give him, avaricious that he
+is! He believes in the greasing of the palm, he does. Well, think you
+the subscription was for restorations, _mesdames_? It was for
+demolition--that's what it was for--to make the church level with the
+ground. To do this would cost a little matter of twenty thousand
+francs, which would pass through his hands, you understand. Well, that
+staggered the parish. Our mayor--a man _pas trop fin_, was terribly
+upset. He went about saying the curé claimed the church as his; he
+could do as he liked with it, he said, and he proposed to make it a
+fine modern one. All the village was weeping. The church was the oldest
+friend of the village, except for such as I, whom these things have
+turned pagan. Well, one of our good citizens reminds the mayor that the
+church, under the new laws, belongs to the commune. The mayor tells
+this timidly to the curé. And the curé retorts, 'Ah, _bien_, at least
+one-half belongs to me.' And the good citizen answers--he has gone with
+the mayor to prop him up--'Which half will you take? The cemetery,
+doubtless, since your charge is over the souls of the parish.' Ah! ah!
+he pricked him well then! he pricked him well!"
+
+The low room rang with the great shout of the cobbler's laughter. The
+dog barked furiously in concert. Our own laughter was drowned in the
+thunder of our host's loud guffaws. The poor old wife shook herself
+with a laugh so much too vigorous for her frail frame, one feared its
+after-effects.
+
+The after-effects were a surprise. After the first of her husband's
+spasms of glee the old woman spoke out, but in trembling tones no
+longer.
+
+"Ah, the cemetery, it is I who forgot to go there this week."
+
+Her husband stopped, the laugh dying on his lip as he turned to her.
+
+"_Ah, ma bonne_, how came that? You forgot?" His own tones trembled at
+the last word.
+
+"Yes, you had the cramps again, you remember, and there was no money
+left for the bouquet."
+
+"Yes, I remember," and the great chest heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"You have children--you have lost someone?"
+
+"_Hélas!_ no living children, mademoiselle. No, no--one daughter we had,
+but she died twenty years ago. She lies over there--where we can see
+her. She would have been thirty-eight years now--the fourteenth of this
+very month!"
+
+"Yes, this very month."
+
+Then the old woman, for the first time, left her refuge along the wall;
+she crept softly, quietly near to her husband to put her withered hand
+in his. His large palm closed over it. Both of the old faces turned
+toward the cemetery; and in the old eyes a film gathered, as they
+looked toward all that was left of the hope that was buried away from
+them.
+
+We left them thus, hand in hand, with many promises to renew the
+acquaintance.
+
+The village was no longer abroad in the streets. During our talk in the
+shop the night had fallen; it had cast its shadow, as trees cast
+theirs, in a long, slow slant. Lights were trembling in the dim
+interiors; the shrill cries of the children were stilled; only a
+muffled murmur came through the open doors and windows. The villagers
+were pattering across the rough floors, talking, as their sabots
+clattered heavily over the wooden surface, as they washed the dishes,
+as they covered their fires, shoving back the tables and chairs. As we
+walked along, through the nearer windows came the sound of steps on the
+creaking old stairs, then a rustling of straw and the heavy fall of
+weary bodies, as the villagers flung themselves on the old oaken beds,
+that groaned as they received their burden. Presently all was still.
+Only our steps resounded through the streets. The stars filled the sky;
+and beneath them the waves broke along the beach. In the closely packed
+little streets the heavy breathing of the sleeping village broke also
+in short, quick gasps.
+
+Only we and the night were awake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SOME NORMAN LANDLADIES.
+
+
+Quite a number of changes came about with our annexation of an artist
+and his garden. Chief among these changes was the surprising discovery
+of finding ourselves, at the end of a week, in possession of a villa.
+
+"It's next door," Renard remarked, in the casual way peculiar to
+artists. "You are to have the whole house to yourselves, all but the
+top floor; the people who own it keep that to live in. There's a garden
+of the right sort, with espaliers, also rose trees, and a tea house;
+quite the right sort of thing altogether."
+
+The unforeseen, in its way, is excellent and admirable. _De l'imprévu,_
+surely this is the dash of seasoning--the caviare we all crave in
+life's somewhat too monotonous repasts. But as men have been known to
+admire the still life in wifely character, and then repented their
+choice, marrying peace only to court dissension, so we, incontinently
+deserting our humble inn chambers to take possession of a grander
+state, in the end found the capital of experience drained to pay for
+our little infidelity.
+
+[Illustration: A DEPARTURE--VILLERVILLE]
+
+The owners of the villa Belle Etoile, our friend announced, he had
+found greatly depressed; of this, their passing mood, he had taken such
+advantage as only comes to the knowing. "They speak of themselves
+drearily as 'deux pauvres malheureux' with this villa still on their
+hands, and here they are almost 'touching June,' as they put it. They
+also gave me to understand that only the finest flowers of the
+aristocracy had had the honor of dwelling in this villa. They have been
+able, I should say, more or less successfully to deflower this
+'fine fleur' of some of their gold. But they are very meek just
+now--they were willing to listen to reason."
+
+The "two poor unhappies" were looking surprisingly contented an hour
+later, when we went in to inspect our possessions. They received us
+with such suave courtesy, that I was quite certain Renard's skill in
+transactions had not played its full gamut of capacity.
+
+Civility is the Frenchman's mask; he wears it as he does his skin--as a
+matter of habit. But courtesy is his costume de bal; he can only afford
+to don his bravest attire of smiles and graciousness when his pocket is
+in holiday mood. Madame Fouchet we found in full ball-room toilet; she
+was wreathed in smiles. Would _ces dames_ give themselves the trouble of
+entering? would they see the house or the garden first? would they
+permit their trunks to be sent for? Monsieur Fouchet, meanwhile, was
+making a brave second to his wife's bustling welcome; he was rubbing
+his hands vigorously, a somewhat suspicious action in a Frenchman, I
+have had occasion to notice, after the completion of a bargain.
+Nature had cast this mild-eyed individual for the part of accompanyist
+in the comedy we call life; a _rôle_ he sometimes varied as now, with
+the office of _claqueur_, when an uncommonly clever proof of madame's
+talent for business drew from him this noiseless tribute of applause.
+His weak, fat contralto called after us, as we followed madame's quick
+steps up the waxed stairway; he would be in readiness, he said, to show
+us the garden, "once the chambers were visited."
+
+"It wasn't a real stroke, mesdames, it was only a warning!" was the
+explanation conveyed to us in loud tones, with no reserve of whispered
+delicacy, when we expressed regret at monsieur's detention below
+stairs; a partially paralyzed leg, dragged painfully after the latter's
+flabby figure, being the obvious cause of this detention.
+
+The stairway had the line of beauty, describing a pretty curve before
+its glassy steps led us to a narrow entry; it had also the brevity
+which is said to be the very soul, _l'anima viva_, of all true wit; but
+it was quite long and straight enough to serve Madame Fouchet as a
+stage for a prolonged monologue, enlivened with much affluence of
+gesture. Fouchet's seizure, his illness, his convalescence, and present
+physical condition--a condition which appeared to be bristling with the
+tragedy of danger, "un vrai drame d'anxiété"--was graphically conveyed
+to us. The horrors of the long winter also, so sad for a Parisian--"si
+triste pour la Parisienne, ces hivers de province"--together with the
+miseries of her own home life, between this paralytic of a husband
+below stairs, and above, her mother, an old lady of eighty, nailed to
+her sofa with gout. "You may thus figure to yourselves, mesdames, what
+a melancholy season is the winter! And now, with this villa still on
+our hands, and the season already announcing itself, ruin stares us in
+the face, mesdames--ruin!"
+
+It was a moving picture. Yet we remained strangely unaffected by this
+tale of woe. Madame Fouchet herself, the woman, not the actress, was to
+blame, I think, for our unfeelingness. Somehow, to connect woe, ruin,
+sadness, melancholy, or distress, in a word, of any kind with our
+landlady's opulent figure, we found a difficult acrobatic mental feat.
+She presented to the eye outlines and features that could only be
+likened, in point of prosperity, to a Dutch landscape. Like certain of
+the mediaeval saints presented by the earlier delineators of the
+martyrs as burning above a slow fire, while wearing smiles of purely
+animal content, as if in full enjoyment of the temperature, this lady's
+sufferings were doubtless an invisible discipline, the hair shirt which
+her hardened cuticle felt only to be a pleasurable itching.
+
+"_Voilà, mesdames!_" It was with a magnificent gesture that madame opened
+doors and windows. The drama of her life was forgotten for the moment
+in the conscious pride of presenting us with such a picture as her gay
+little house offered.
+
+Inside and out, summer and the sun were blooming and shining with
+spendthrift luxuriance. The salon opened directly on the garden; it
+would have been difficult to determine just where one began and the
+domain of the other ended, with the pinks and geraniums that nodded in
+response to the peach and pear blossoms in the garden. A bit of faded
+Aubusson and a print representing Madame Geoffrin's salon in full
+session, with a poet of the period transporting the half-moon grouped
+listeners about him to the point of tears, were evidences of the
+refined tastes of our landlady in the arts; only a sentimentalist would
+have hung that picture in her salon. Other decorations further proved
+her as belonging to both worlds. The chintzes gay with garlands of
+roses, with which walls, beds, and chairs were covered, revealed the
+mundane element, the woman of decorative tastes, possessed of a hidden
+passion for effective backgrounds. Two or three wooden crucifixes, a
+_prie-dieu_, and a couple of saints in plaster, went far to prove that
+this excellent _bourgeoise_ had thriftily made her peace with Heaven.
+It was a curious mixture of the sacred and the profane.
+
+Down below, beneath the windows overlooking the sea, lay the garden.
+All the houses fronting the cliff had similar little gardens, giving,
+as the French idiom so prettily puts it, upon the sea. But compared to
+these others, ours was as a rose of Sharon blooming in the midst of
+little deserts. Renard had been entirely right about this particular
+bit of earth attached to our villa. It was a gem of a garden. It was a
+French garden, and therefore, entirely as a matter of course, it had
+walls. It was as cut off from the rest of the world as if it had been a
+prison or a fortification.
+
+The Frenchman, above all others, appears to have the true sentiment of
+seclusion, when the society of trees and flowers is to be enjoyed. Next
+to woman, nature is his fetish. True to his national taste in dress, he
+prefers that both should be costumed _à la Parisienne_; but as poet and
+lover, it is his instinct to build a wall about his idol, that he may
+enjoy his moments of expansion unseen and unmolested. This square of
+earth, for instance, was not much larger than the space covered by the
+chamber roof above us; and yet, with the high walls towering over the
+rose-stalks, it was as secluded as a monk's cloister. We found it,
+indeed, on later acquaintance, as poetic and delicately sensuous a
+retreat as the romance-writers would wish us to believe did those
+mediaeval connoisseurs of comfort, when, with sandalled feet, they
+paced their own convent garden-walks. Fouchet was a broken-down
+shopkeeper; but somewhere hidden within, there lurked the soul of a
+Maecenas; he knew how to arrange a feast--of roses. The garden was a
+bit of greensward, not much larger than a pocket handkerchief; but the
+grass had the right emerald hue, and one's feet sank into the rich turf
+as into the velvet of an oriental rug. Small as was the enclosure,
+between the espaliers and the flower-beds serpentined minute paths of
+glistening pebbles. Nothing which belonged to a garden had been
+forgotten, not even a pine from the tropics, and a bench under the pine
+that was just large enough for two. This latter was an ideal little
+spot in which to bring a friend or a book. One could sit there and
+gorge one's self with sweets; a dance was perpetually going on--the
+gold-and-purple butterflies fluttering gayly from morning till night;
+and the bees freighted the air with their buzzing. If one tired of
+perfumes and dancing, there was always music to be enjoyed, from a full
+orchestra. The sea, just the other side of the wall of osiers, was
+always in voice, whether sighing or shouting. The larks and blackbirds
+had a predilection for this nest of color, announcing their preference
+loudly in a combat of trills. And once or twice, we were quite certain,
+a nightingale with Patti notes had been trying its liquid scales in the
+dark.
+
+It was in this garden that our acquaintance with our landlord deepened
+into something like friendship. Monsieur Fouchet was always to be found
+there, tying up the rose-trees, or mending the paths, or shearing the
+bit of turf.
+
+_"Mon jardin, c'est un peu moi, vous savez_--it is my pride and my
+consolation." At the latter word, Fouchet was certain to sigh.
+
+Then we fell to wondering just what grief had befallen this amiable
+person which required Horatian consolation. Horace had need of
+rose-leaves to embalm his disappointments, for had he not cooled his
+passions by plunging into the bath of literature? Besides, Horace was
+bitten by the modern rabies: he was as restless as an American. When at
+Rome was he not always sighing for his Sabine farm, and when at the
+farm always regretting Rome? But this harmless, innocent-eyed,
+benevolent-browed old man, with his passive brains tied up in a
+foulard, o' morning's, and his _bourgeois_ feet adorned with carpet
+slippers, what grief in the past had bitten his poor soul and left its
+mark still sore?
+
+"It isn't monsieur--it is madame who has made the past dark," was
+Renard's comment, when we discussed our landlord's probable
+acquaintance with regret--or remorse.
+
+Whatever secret of the past may have hovered over the Fouchet
+household, the evil bird had not made its nest in madame's breast, that
+was clear; her smooth, white brow was the sign of a rose-leaf
+conscience; that dark curtain of hair, looped madonna-wise over each
+ear, framed a face as unruffled as her conscience.
+
+She was entirely at peace with her world, and with heaven as well, that
+was certain. Whatever her sins, the confessional had purged her. Like
+others, doubtless, she had found a husband and the provinces excellent
+remedies for a damaged reputation. She lived now in the very odor of
+sanctity; the cure had a pipe in her kitchen, with something more
+sustaining, on certain bright afternoons. Although she was daily
+announcing to us her approaching dissolution--"I die, mesdames--I die
+of ennui"--it seemed to me there were still signs, at times, of a
+vigorous resuscitation. The cure's visits were wont to produce a
+deeper red in the deep bloom of her cheek; the mayor and his wife, who
+drank their Sunday coffee in the arbor, brought, as did Beatrix's
+advent to Dante, _vita nuova_ to this homesick Parisian.
+
+There were other pleasures in her small world, also, which made life
+endurable. Bargaining, when one teems with talent, may be as exciting
+as any other form of conquest. Madame's days were chiefly passed in
+imitation of the occupation so dear to an earlier, hardier race, that
+race kings have knighted for their powers in dealing mightily with
+their weaker neighbors. Madame, it is true, was only a woman, and
+Villerville was somewhat slimly populated. But in imitation of her
+remote feudal lords, she also fell upon the passing stranger, demanding
+tribute. When the stranger did not pass, she kept her arm in practice,
+so to speak, by extracting the last _sou_ in a transaction from a
+neighbor, or by indulging in a drama in which the comedy of insult was
+matched by the tragedy of contempt.
+
+One of these mortal combats it was my privilege to witness. The war
+arose on our announcement to Mère Mouchard, the lady of the inn by the
+sea, of our decision to move next door. To us Mère Mouchard presented
+the unruffled plumage of a dove; her voice also was as the voice of the
+same, mellowed by sucking. Ten minutes later the town was assembled to
+lend its assistance at the encounter between our two landladies. Each
+stood on their respective doorsteps with arms akimbo and head thrust
+forward, as geese protrude head and tongue in moments of combat. And it
+was thus, the mere hissed, that her boarders were stolen from
+her--under her very nose--while her back was turned, with no more
+thought of honesty or shame than a----. The word was never uttered.
+The mère's insult was drowned in a storm of voices? for there came a
+loud protest from the group of neighbors. Madame Fouchet, meanwhile,
+was sustaining her own role with great dignity. Her attitude of
+self-control could only have been learned in a school where insult was
+an habitual weapon. She smiled, an infuriating, exasperating,
+successful smile. She showed a set of defiant white teeth, and to her
+proud white throat she gave a boastful curve. Was it her fault if _ces
+dames_ knew what comfort and cleanliness were? if they preferred "_des
+chambres garnies avec goût, vraiment artistiques_"--to rooms fit only
+for peasants? _Ces dames_ had just come from Paris; doubtless, they
+were not yet accustomed to provincial customs--_aux moeurs
+provinciales_. Then there were exchanged certain melodious acerbities,
+which proved that these ladies had entered the lists on previous
+occasions, and that each was well practised in the other's methods of
+warfare. Opportunely, Renard appeared on the scene; his announcement
+that we proposed still to continue taking our repasts with the mere,
+was as oil on the sea of trouble. A reconciliation was immediately
+effected, and the street as immediately lost all interest in the play,
+the audience melting away as speedily as did the wrath of the
+disputants.
+
+"_Le bon Dieu soit loué_," cried Madame Fouchet, puffing, as she
+mounted the stairs a few moments later--"God be praised"--she hadn't
+come here to the provinces to learn her rights--to be taught her
+alphabet. Mère Mouchard, forsooth, who wanted a week's board as
+indemnity for her loss of us! A week's board--for lodgings scorned by
+peasants!
+
+"Ah, these Normans! what a people, what a people! They would peel the
+skin off your back! They would sell their children! They would cheat
+the devil himself!"
+
+"You, madame, I presume, are from Paris." Madame smiled as she
+answered, a thin fine smile, richly seasoned with scorn. "Ah, mesdames!
+All the world can't boast of Paris as a birthplace, unfortunately. I
+also, I am a Norman, _mais je ne m'en fiche pas!_ Most of my life,
+however, I've lived in Paris, thank God!" She lifted her head as she
+spoke, and swept her hands about her waist to adjust the broad belt, an
+action pregnant with suggestions. For it was thus conveyed to us,
+delicately, that such a figure as hers was not bred on rustic diet;
+also, that the Parisian glaze had not failed of its effect on the
+coarser provincial clay.
+
+Meanwhile, below in the garden, her husband was meekly tying up his
+rose-trees.
+
+Neither of the landladies' husbands had figured in the street-battle.
+It had been a purely Amazonian encounter, bloodless but bitter. Both
+the husbands of these two belligerent landladies appeared singularly
+well trained. Mouchard, indeed, occupied a comparatively humble sphere
+in his wife's _ménage_. He was perpetually to be seen in the court-yard,
+at the back of the house, washing dogs, or dishes, in a costume in
+which the greatest economy of cloth compatible with decency had been
+triumphantly solved. His wife ran the house, and he ran the errands, an
+arrangement which, apparently, worked greatly to the satisfaction of
+both. But Mouchard was not the first or the second French husband who,
+on the threshold of his connubial experience, had doubtless had his
+role in life appointed to him, filling the same with patient
+acquiescence to the very last of the lines.
+
+There is something very touching in the subjection of French husbands.
+In point of meekness they may well serve, I think, as models to their
+kind. It is a meekness, however, which does not hint of humiliation;
+for, after all, what humiliation can there be in being thoroughly
+understood? The Frenchwoman, by virtue of centuries of activity, in the
+world and in the field, has become an expert in the art of knowing her
+man; she has not worked by his side, under the burn of the noon sun, or
+in the cimmerian darkness of the shop-rear, counting the pennies, for
+nothing. In exchanging her illusions for the bald front of fact, man
+himself has had to pay the penalty of this mixed gain. She tests him
+by purely professional standards, as man tests man, or as he has tested
+her, when in the ante-matrimonial days he weighed her _dot_ in the
+scale of his need. The Frenchwoman and Shakespeare are entirely of one
+mind; they perceive the great truth of unity in the scheme of things:
+
+  "Woman's test is man's taste."
+
+This is the first among the great truths in the feminine grammar of
+assent. French masculine taste, as its criterion, has established the
+excellent doctrine of utilitarianism. With quick apprehension the
+Frenchwoman has mastered this fact; she has cleverly taken a lesson
+from ophidian habits--she can change her skin, quickly shedding the
+sentimentalist, when it comes to serious action, to don the duller
+raiment of utility. She has accepted her world, in other words,
+as she finds it, with a philosopher's shrug. But the philosopher is
+lined with the logician; for this system of life has accomplished the
+miracle of making its women logical; they have grasped the subtleties
+of inductive reasoning. Marriage, for example, they know is entered
+into solely on the principle of mutual benefit; it is therefore a
+partnership, _bon_; now, in partnerships sentiments and the emotions
+are out of place, they only serve to dim the eye; those commodities,
+therefore, are best conveyed to other markets than the matrimonial one;
+for in purely commercial transactions one has need of perfect clearness
+of vision, if only to keep one well practised in that simple game
+called looking out for one's own interest. In Frenchwomen, the
+ratiocinationist is extraordinarily developed; her logic penetrates to
+the core of things.
+
+Hence it is that Mouchard washes dishes.
+
+Monsieur Jourdain, in Molière's comedy, who expressed such surprise at
+finding that he had been talking prose for forty years without knowing
+it, was no more amazed than would Mère Mouchard have been had you
+announced to her that she was a logician; or that her husband's daily
+occupations in the bright little court-yard were the result of a
+system. Yet both facts were true.
+
+In that process we now know as the survival of the fittest, the mère's
+capacity had snuffed out her weaker spouse's incompetency; she had
+taken her place at the helm, because she belonged there by virtue of
+natural fitness. There were no tender illusions which would suffer, in
+seeing the husband allotted to her, probably by her parents and the
+_dot_ system, relegated to the ignominy of passing his days washing
+dishes--dishes which she cooked and served--dishes, it should be added,
+which she was entirely conscious were cooked by the hand of genius, and
+which she garnished with a sauce and served with a smile, such as only
+issue from French kitchens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE QUARTIER LATIN ON THE BEACH.
+
+
+The beach, one morning, we found suddenly peopled with artists. It was
+a little city of tents. Beneath striped awnings and white umbrellas a
+multitude of flat-capped heads sat immovably still on their
+three-legged stools, or darted hither and thither. Paris was evidently
+beginning to empty its studios; the Normandy beaches now furnished the
+better model.
+
+One morning we were in luck. A certain blonde beard had counted early
+in the day on having the beach to himself. He had posed his model in
+the open daylight, that he might paint her in the sun. He had placed
+her, seated on an edge of seawall; for a background there was the curve
+of the yellow sands and the flat breadth of the sea, with the droop of
+the sky meeting the sea miles away. The girl was a slim, fair shape,
+with long, thin legs and delicately moulded arms; she was dressed in
+the fillet and chiton of Greece. During her long poses she was as
+immovable as an antique marble; her natural grace and prettiness were
+transfigured into positive beauty by the flowing lines and the pink
+draperies of her Attic costume. Seated thus, she was a breathing
+embodiment of the best Greek period. When the rests came, her jump from
+the wall landed her square on her feet and at the latter end of the
+nineteenth century. Once free, she bounded from her perch on the high
+sea-wall. In an instant she had tucked her tinted draperies within the
+slender girdle; her sandalled feet must be untrammelled, she was about
+to take her run on the beach. Soon she was pelting, irreverently,
+her painter with a shower of loose pebbles. Next she had challenged him
+to a race; when she reached the goal, her thin, bare arms were uplifted
+as she clapped and shouted for glee; the Quartier Latin in her blood
+was having its moment of high revelry in the morning sun.
+
+This little grisette, running about free and unshackled in her loose
+draperies, quite unabashed in her state of semi-nudity--gay, reckless,
+wooing pleasure on the wing, surely she might have posed as the
+embodied archetype of France itself. So has this pagan among modern
+nations borrowed something of the antique spirit of wantonness. Along
+with its theft of the Attic charm and grace, it has captured, also,
+something of its sublime indifference; in the very teeth of the
+dull modern world, France has laughed opinion to scorn.
+
+At noon the tents were all deserted. It was at this hour that the inn
+garden was full. The gayety and laughter overflowed the walls. Everyone
+talked at once; the orders were like a rattle of artillery--painting
+for hours in the open air gives a fine edge to appetite, and patience
+is never the true twin of hunger. Everything but the _potage_ was
+certain to be on time.
+
+Colinette, released from her Greek draperies, with her Parisian bodice
+had recovered the _blague_ of the studios.
+
+"_Sacré nom de--on reste donc claquemuré ainsi toute la matinée!_ And all
+for an _omelette_--a puny, good-for-nothing _omelette_. And you--you've
+lost your tongue, it seems?" And a shrill voice pierced the air as
+Colinette gave her painter the hint of her prodding elbow. With the
+appearance of the _omelette_ the reign of good humor would return.
+Everything then went as merrily as that marriage-bell which,
+apparently, is the only one absent in Bohemia's gay chimes.
+
+These arbors had obviously been built out of pure charity: they
+appeared to have been constructed on the principle that since man,
+painting man, is often forced to live alone, from economic necessity,
+it is therefore only the commonest charity to provide him with the
+proper surroundings for eating _à deux._ The little tables beneath the
+kiosks were strictly _tête-à-tête_ tables; even the chairs, like the
+visitors, appeared to come only in couples.
+
+The Frenchman has been reproached with the sin of ingratitude; has
+been convicted, indeed, as possessed of more of that pride that comes
+late--the day after the gift of bounty has been given--than some other
+of his fellow-mortals. Yet here were a company of Frenchmen--and
+Frenchwomen--proving in no ordinary fashion their equipment in this
+rare virtue. It was early in May; up yonder, where the Seine flows
+beneath the Parisian bridges, the pulse of the gay Paris world was
+beating in time to the spring in the air. Yet these artists had
+deserted the asphalt of the boulevards for the cobbles of a village
+street, the delights of the _café chantant_ had been exchanged for the
+miracle of the moon rising over the sea, and for the song of the thrush
+in the bush.
+
+The Frenchman, more easily and with simpler art than any of his modern
+brethren, can change the prose of our dull, practical life into poetry;
+he can turn lyrical at a moment's notice. He possesses the power of
+transmuting the commonplace into the idyllic, by merely clapping on his
+cap and turning his back on the haunts of men. He has retained a
+singular--an almost ideal sensitiveness, of mental cuticle--such
+acuteness of sensation, that a journey to a field will oftentimes yield
+him all the flavor of a long voyage, and a sudden introduction to a
+forest, the rapture that commonly comes only with some unwonted aspect
+of nature. Perhaps it is because of this natural poet indwelling in a
+Frenchman, that makes him content to remain so much at home. Surely the
+extraordinary is the costly necessity for barren minds; the richly-
+endowed can see the beauty that lies the other side of their own door-
+step.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A NORMAN HOUSEHOLD.
+
+
+There were two paths in the village that were well worn. One was that
+which led the village up into the fields. The other was the one that
+led the tillers of the soil down into the village, to the door step of
+the justice of the peace.
+
+A good Norman is no Norman who has not a lawsuit on hand.
+
+Anything will serve as a pretext for a quarrel No sum of money is so
+small as not to warrant a breaking of the closest blood ties, if
+thereby one's rights may be secured. Those beautiful stripes of rye,
+barley, corn, and wheat up yonder in the fields, that melt into one
+another like sea-tones--down here on the benches before the _juge de
+paix_--what quarrels, what hatreds, what evil passions these few acres
+of land have brought their owners, facing each other here like
+so many demons, ready to spring at the others' throats! Brothers on
+these benches forget they are brothers, and sisters that they have
+suckled the same mother. Two more yards of the soil that should have
+been Fillette's instead of Jeanne's, and the grave will enclose both
+before the clenched fist of either is relaxed, and the last _sous_ in
+the stocking will be spent before the war between their respective
+lawyers will end.
+
+Many and many were the tales told us of the domestic tragedies, born of
+wills mal-administered, of the passions of hate, ambition, and despair
+kept at a white heat because half the village owned, up in the fields,
+what the other half coveted. Many, also, and fierce were the heated
+faces we looked in upon at the justice's door, in the very throes of
+the great moment of facing justice, and their adversary.
+
+Our own way, by preference, took us up into the fields. Here, in the
+broad open, the farms lay scattered like fortifications over a plain.
+Doubtless, in the earlier warlike days they had served as such.
+
+Once out of the narrow Villerville streets, and the pastoral was in
+full swing.
+
+The sea along this coast was not in the least insistant; it allowed the
+shore to play its full gamut of power. There were no tortured shapes of
+trees or plants, or barren wastes, to attest the fierce ways of the sea
+with the land. Reminders of the sea and of the life that is lived in
+ships were conspicuous features everywhere, in the pastoral scenes that
+began as soon as the town ended. Women carrying sails and nets toiled
+through the green aisles of the roads and lanes. Fishing-tackle hung in
+company with tattered jerseys outside of huts hidden in grasses and
+honeysuckle. The shepherdesses, as they followed the sheep inland
+into the heart of the pasture land, were busy netting the coarse cages
+that trap the finny tribe. Long-limbed, vigorous-faced, these
+shepherdesses were Biblical figures. In their coarse homespun, with
+only a skirt and a shirt, with their bare legs, half-open bosoms, and
+the fine poise of their blond heads, theirs was a beauty that commanded
+the homage accorded to a rude virginity.
+
+In some of the fields, in one of our many walks, the grass was being
+cut. In these fields the groups of men and women were thickest. The
+long scythes were swung mightily by both; the voices, a gay treble of
+human speech, rose above the metallic swish of the sharp blades cutting
+into the succulent grasses.
+
+The fat pasture lands rose and sank in undulations as rounded as the
+nascent breasts of a young Greek maiden. A medley of color played its
+charming variations over fields, over acres of poppies, over plains of
+red clover, over the backs of spotted cattle, mixing, mingling,
+blending a thousand twists and turns into one exquisite, harmonious
+whole. There was no discordant note, not one harsh contrast; even the
+hay-ricks seemed to have been modelled rather than pitched into shape;
+their sloping sides and finely pointed apexes giving them the dignity
+of structural intent.
+
+Why should not a peasant, in blouse and sabots, with a grinning idiot
+face, have put the picture out? But he did not. He was walking, or
+rather waddling, toward us, between two green walls that rose to be
+arched by elms that hid the blue of the sky. This lane was the kind of
+lane one sees only in Devonshire and in Normandy. There are lanes and
+lanes, as, to quote our friend the cobbler, there are cures and cures.
+But only in these above-named countries can one count on walking
+straight into the heart of an emerald, if one turns from the high-road
+into a lane. The trees, in these Devonshire and Normandy by-paths, have
+ways of their own of vaulting into space; the hedges are thicker,
+sweeter, more vocal with insect and song notes than elsewhere; the
+roadway itself is softer to the foot, and narrower--only two are
+expected to walk therein.
+
+It was through such a lane as this that the coarse, animal shape of a
+peasant was walking toward us. His legs and body were horribly twisted;
+the dangling arms and crooked limbs appeared as if caricaturing the
+gnarled and tortured boughs and trunks of the apple-trees. The
+peasant's blouse was filthy; his sabots were reeking with dirty straw;
+his feet and ankles, bare, were blacker than the earth over which he
+was painfully crawling; and on his face there was the vacuous, sensuous
+deformity of the smile idiocy wears. Again I ask, why did he not
+disfigure this fair scene, and put out something of the beauty of the
+day? Is it because the French peasant seems now to be an inseparable
+adjunct of the Frenchman's landscape? That even deformity has been so
+handled by the realists as to make us see beauty in ugliness? Or is it
+that, as moderns, we are all bitten by the rabies of the picturesque;
+that all things serve and are acceptable so long as we have our
+necessary note of contrast? Certain it is that it appears to be the
+peasant's blouse that perpetuates the Salon, and perhaps--who
+knows?--when over-emigration makes our own American farmer too poor to
+wear a boiled shirt when he ploughs, we also may develop a school of
+landscape, with figures.
+
+Meanwhile the walk and the talk had made Charm thirsty. "Why should we
+not go," she asked, "across the next field, into that farm house
+yonder, and beg for a glass of milk?"
+
+The farm-house might have been waiting for us, it was so still. Even
+the grasses along its sloping roof nodded, as if in welcome. The house,
+as we approached it, together with its out-buildings, assumed a more
+imposing aspect than it had from the road. Its long, low facade, broken
+here and there by a miniature window or a narrow doorway, appeared to
+stretch out into interminable length beneath the towering beeches and
+the snarl of the peach-tree boughs.
+
+The stillness was ominous--it was so profound.
+
+The only human in sight was a man in a distant field; he was raking the
+ploughed ground. He was too far away to hear the sound of our voices.
+
+"Perhaps the entire establishment is in the fields," said Charm, as we
+neared the house.
+
+Just then a succession of blows fell on our ear.
+
+"Someone is beating a mattress within, we shall have our glass after
+all."
+
+We knocked. But no one answered our knock.
+
+The beating continued; the sound of the blows fell as regularly as if
+machine-impelled. Then a cry rose up; it was the cry of a young, strong
+voice, and it was followed by a low wail of anguish.
+
+The door stood half-open, and this is what we saw: A man--tall, strong,
+powerful, with a face purple with passion--bending over the crouching
+form of a girl, whose slender body was quivering, shrinking, and
+writhing as the man's hand, armed with a short stick, fell, smiting her
+defenceless back and limbs.
+
+Her wail went on as each blow fell.
+
+In a corner, crouched in a heap, sitting on her heels, was a woman. She
+was clapping her hands. Her eyes were starting from her head; she
+clapped as the blows came, and above the girl's wail her strong,
+exultant voice arose--calling out:
+
+"_Tue-la! Tue-la!_"
+
+It was the voice of a triumphant fury.
+
+The backs of all these people were turned upon us; they had not seen,
+much less heard, our entrance.
+
+Someone else had seen us, however. A man with a rake over his shoulder
+rushed in through the open door; it was the peasant we had seen in the
+field. He seized Charm by the arm, and then my own hand was grasped as
+in a grip of iron. Before we had time for resistance he had pushed us
+out before him into the entry, behind the outer door. This latter he
+slammed. He put his broad back against it; then he dropped his rake and
+began to mop his face, violently, with a filthy handkerchief he plucked
+from beneath his blouse.
+
+"_Que chance! Nom de Dieu, que chance! Je v'avions vue_, I saw you just
+in time--just in time--"
+
+"But, I must go in--I wish to go back!" But Charm might as well have
+attempted to move a pillar of stone.
+
+The peasant's coarse, good-humored face broke into a broad laugh.
+
+"Pardon, mam'selle--_j'n bougeons pas. Not' maitre e encoléré; e' son
+jour--faut pas l'irriter--aujou'hui."_
+
+Meantime, during the noise of our forced exit and the ensuing dialogue,
+the scene within had evidently changed in character, for the blows had
+ceased. Steps could be heard crossing and recrossing the wooden floor.
+A creaking sound succeeded to the beating--it was the creaking and
+groaning of a wooden staircase bending beneath the weight of a human
+figure. In an upper chamber there came the sound of a quiet, subdued
+sobbing now. They were the sobs of the girl. She at least had been
+released.
+
+A face, cruel, pinched, hardened, with flaming agate eyes and an
+insolent smile, stood looking out at us through the dulled, dusty
+window-pane. It was the fury.
+
+Meanwhile the peasant was still defending his post. A moment later the
+tall frame of the farmer suddenly filled the open doorway. The peasant
+well-nigh fell into his master's arms. The farmer's face was still
+terrible to look upon, but the purple stain of passion was now turned
+to red. There was a mocking insolence in his tone as he addressed us,
+that matched with the woman's unconcealed glee.
+
+"Will you not come in, mesdames? Will you not rest a while after your
+long walk?" On the man's hard face there was still the shadow of a
+sinister cruelty as he waved his hand toward the room within.
+
+The peasant's good-humored, loutish smile, and his stupid, cow-like
+eyes, by contrast, were the eyes and smile of a benevolent deity.
+
+The smile told us we were right, as we slunk away toward the open road.
+The head kept nodding approval as we vanished presently beneath the
+shade of the protecting trees.
+
+The fields, as we swept rapidly past them, were as bathed in peace as
+when we had left them; there was even a more voluptuous content abroad:
+for the twilight was wrapping about the landscape its poppied dusk of
+gloom and shadow. Above, the birds were swirling in sweeping circles,
+raining down the ecstasy of their night-song; still above, far beyond
+them, across a zenith pure, transparent, ineffably pink, illumined
+wisps of clouds were trailing their scarf-like shapes. It was a scene
+of beatific peace. Across the fields came the sound of a distant
+bell. It was the _Angelus_. The ploughmen stopped to doff their hats,
+the women to bend their heads in prayer.
+
+And in our ears, louder than the vibrations of the hamlet bell, louder
+than the bird-notes and the tumult of the voluptuous insect whirr,
+there rang the thud, thud of cruel blows falling on quivering human
+flesh.
+
+The curtain that hid the life of the peasant-farmer had indeed been
+lifted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ERNESTINE.
+
+
+"Ah, mesdames, what will you have? The French peasant is like that.
+When he is in a rage nothing stops him--he beats anything, everything;
+whatever his hand encounters must suffer when he is angry; his wife,
+his child, his servant, his horse, they are all alike to him when he
+sees red."
+
+Monsieur Fouchet was tying up his rose-trees; we were watching him from
+our seat on the green bench. Here in the garden, beneath the blue
+vault, the roses were drooping from very heaviness of glory; they gave
+forth a scent that made the head swim. It was a healthy, virile
+intoxication, however, the salt in the air steadying one's nerves.
+
+Nature, not being mortal and cursed with a conscience, had risen that
+morning in a mood for carousal; at this hour of noon she had reached
+the point of ecstatic stupor. No state of trance was ever so exquisite.
+The air was swooning, but how delicate its gasps, as if it fell away
+into calm! How adorably blue the sky in its debauch of sun-lit ether!
+The sea, too, although it reeled slightly, unsteadily rising only to
+fall away, what a radiance of color it maintained! Here in the garden
+the drowsy air would lift a flower petal, as some dreamer sunk in
+hasheesh slumber might touch a loved hand, only to let it slip away in
+nerveless impotence. Never had the charm of this Normandy sea-coast
+been as compelling; never had the divine softness of this air, this
+harmonious marriage of earth-scents and sea-smells seemed as perfect;
+never before had the delicacy of the foliage and color-gradations of
+the sky as triumphantly proved that nowhere else, save in France, can
+nature be at once sensuous and poetic.
+
+We looked for something other than pure enjoyment from this golden
+moment; we hoped its beauty would help us to soften our landlord. This
+was the moment we had chosen to excite his sympathies, also to gain
+counsel from him concerning the tragedy we had witnessed the day
+before. He listened to our tale with evident interest, but there was a
+disappointing coolness in his eye. As the narrative proceeded, the
+brutality of the situation failed to sting him to even a mild form of
+indignation. He went on tying his rose-trees, his ardor expending
+itself in choice snippings of the stray stalks and rebellious tendrils.
+
+"This Guichon," he said, after a brief moment, in the tone that goes
+with the pursuance of an occupation that has become a passion. "This
+Guichon--I know him. He is a hard man, but no harder than many others,
+and he has had his losses, which don't always soften a man. '_Qui terre
+a guerre a_,' Molière says, and Guichon has had many lawsuits, losing
+them all. He has been twice married; that was his daughter by his first
+wife he was touching up like that. He married only the other day Madame
+Tier, a rich woman, a neighbor, their lands join. It was a great match
+for him, and she, the wife, and his daughter don't hit it off, it
+appears. There was some talk of a marriage for the girl lately; a good
+match presented itself, but the girl will have none of it; perhaps that
+accounts for the beating."
+
+A rose, overblown with its fulness of splendor, dropped in a shower at
+Fouchet's feet just then.
+
+"_Tiens, elle est finie, celle-là_" he cried, with an accent of regret,
+and he stooped over the fallen petals as if they had been the remains
+of a friend. Then he sighed as he swept the mass into his broad palm.
+
+"Come, let us leave him to the funeral of his roses; he hasn't the
+sensibilities of an insect;" and Charm grasped my arm to lead me over
+the turf, across the gravel paths, toward the tea-house.
+
+This tottering structure had become one of our favorite retreats; in
+the poetic _mise-en-scène_ of the garden it played the part of Ruin. It
+was absurdly, ridiculously out of repair; its gaping beams and the
+sunken, dejected floor could only be due to intentional neglect.
+Fouchet evidently had grasped the secrets of the laws of contrast; the
+deflected angle of the tumbling roof made the clean-cut garden beds
+doubly true. Nature had had compassion on the aged little building,
+however; the clustering, fragrant vines, in their hatred of nudity, had
+invested the prose of a wreck with the poetry of drapery. The
+tip-tilted settee beneath the odorous roof became, in time, our chosen
+seat; from that perch we could overlook the garden-walls, the beach,
+the curve of the shore, the grasses and hollyhocks in our neighbor's
+garden, the latter startlingly distinct against the great arch of the
+sky.
+
+It was here Renard found us an hour later. To him, likewise, did Charm
+narrate our extraordinary experience of yesterday, with much adjunct of
+fiery comment, embellishment of gesture, and imitative pose.
+
+"Ye gods, what a scene to paint! You were in luck--in luck; why wasn't
+I there?" was Renard's tribute to human pity.
+
+"Oh, you are all alike, all--nothing moves you--you haven't common
+human sympathies--you haven't the rudiments of a heart! You are
+terrible--all of you--terrible!" A moment after she had left us, as if
+the narrowness of the little house stifled her. With long, swinging
+steps she passed out, to air her indignation, apparently, beneath the
+wall of the espaliers.
+
+"Splendid creature, isn't she?" commented Renard, following the long
+lines of the girl's fluttering muslin gown, as he plucked at his
+mustache. "She should always wear white and gold--what is that
+stuff?--and be lit up like that with a kind of goddess-like anger. She
+is wrong, however," he went on, a moment later; "those of us who live
+here aren't really barbarians, only we get used to things. It's the
+peasants themselves that force us; they wouldn't stand interference. A
+peasant is a kind of king on his own domain; he does anything he likes,
+short of murder, and he doesn't always stop at that."
+
+"But surely the Government--at least their Church, ought to teach
+them--"
+
+"Oh, their Church! they laugh at their curés--till they come to die.
+He's a heathen, that's what the French peasant is--there's lots of the
+middle ages abroad up there in the country. Along here, in the coast
+villages, the nineteenth century has crept in a bit, humanizing them,
+but the _fonds_ is always the same; they're by nature avaricious,
+sordid, cruel; they'll do anything for money; there isn't anything
+sacred for them except their pocket."
+
+A few days later, in our friend the cobbler we found a more sympathetic
+listener. "Dame! I also used to beat my wife," he said,
+contemplatively, as he scratched his herculean head, "but that was when
+I was a Christian, when I went to confession; for the confessional was
+made for that, _c'est pour laver le linge sale des consciences, çà_"
+(interjecting his epigram). "But now--now that I am a free-thinker, I
+have ceased all that; I don't beat her," pointing to his old wife, "and
+neither do I drink or swear."
+
+"It's true, he's good--he is, now," the old wife nodded, with her slit
+of a smile; "but," she added, quickly, as if even in her husband's
+religious past there had been some days of glory, "he was always
+just--even then--when he beat me."
+
+"_C'est très femme, çà--hein, mademoiselle?_" And the cobbler cocked
+his head in critical pose, with a philosopher's smile.
+
+The result of the interview, however, although not entirely
+satisfactory, was illuminating, besides this light which had been
+thrown on the cobbler's reformation. For the cobbler was a cousin,
+distant in point of kinship, but still a cousin, of the brutal farmer
+and father. He knew all the points of the situation, the chief of
+which was, as Fouchet had hinted, that the girl had refused to wed
+the _bon parti_, who was a connection of the step-mother. As for the
+step-mother's murderous outcry, "Kill her! kill her!" the cobbler
+refused to take a dramatic view of this outburst.
+
+"In such moments, you understand, one loses one's head; brutality
+always intoxicates; she was a little drunk, you see."
+
+When we proposed our modest little scheme, that of sending for the girl
+and taking her, for a time at least, into our service, merely as a
+change of scene, the cobbler had found nothing but admiration for the
+project. "It will be perfect, mesdames. They, the parents, will ask
+nothing better. To have the girl out at service, away, and yet not
+disgracing them by taking a place with any other farmer; yes, they will
+like that, for they are rich, you see, and wealth always respects
+itself. Ah, yes, it's perfect; I'll arrange all that--all the
+details."
+
+Two days later the result of the arrangement stood before us. She was
+standing with her arms crossed, her fingers clasping her elbows--with
+her very best peasant manner. She was neatly, and, for a peasant,
+almost fashionably attired in her holiday dress--a short, black skirt,
+white stockings, a flowery kerchief crossed over her broad bosom, and
+on her pretty hair a richly tinted blue _foulard_. She was very well
+dressed for a peasant, and, from the point of view of two travellers,
+of about as much use as a plough.
+
+"It's a beautiful scheme, and it's as dramatic as the fifth act of a
+play; but what shall we do with her?"
+
+"Oh." replied Charm, carelessly, "there isn't anything in particular
+for her to do. I mean to buy her a lot of clothes, like those she has
+on, and she can walk about in the garden or in the fields."
+
+"Ah, I see; she's to be a kind of a perambulating figure-piece."
+
+"Yes, that's about it. I dare say she will be very useful at sunset, in
+a dim street; so few peasants wear anything approaching to costume
+nowadays."
+
+Ernestine herself, however, as we soon discovered, had an entirely
+different conception of her vocation. She was a vigorous, active young
+woman, with the sap of twenty summers in her lusty young veins. Her
+energies soon found vent in a continuous round of domestic excitements.
+There were windows and floors that cried aloud to Heaven to be
+scrubbed; there were holes in the sheets to make mam'zelle's lying
+between them _une honte, une vraie honte_. As for Madame Fouchet's
+little weekly bill, _Dieu de Dieu_, it was filled with such extortions
+as to make the very angels weep. Madame and Ernestine did valiant
+battle over those bills thereafter. Ernestine was possessed of the
+courage of a true martyr; she could suffer and submit to the scourge,
+in the matter of personal persecution, for the religion of her own
+convictions; but in the service of her rescuer, she could fight with
+the fierceness of a common soldier.
+
+"When Norman meets Norman--" Charm began one day, the sound of voices,
+in a high treble of anger, coming in to us through the windows.
+
+But Ernestine was knocking at the door, with a note in her hand.
+
+"An answer is asked, mesdames," she said, in a voice of honey, as she
+dropped her low courtesy.
+
+This was the missive:
+
+
+ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD.
+
+TO HONFLEUR AND TROUVILLE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+TO AN OLD MANOR.
+
+
+"Will _ces dames_ join me in a marauding expedition? Like the poet
+Villon, I am about to turn marauder, house breaker, thief. I shall hope
+to end the excursion by one act, at least, of highway robbery. I shall
+lose courage without the enlivening presence of _ces dames._ We will
+start when the day is at its best, we will return when the moon smiles.
+In case of finding none to rob, the coach of the desperadoes will be
+garrisoned with provisions; Henri will accompany us as counsellor,
+purveyor, and bearer of arms and costumes. The carriage for _ces dames_
+will stop the way at the hour of eleven.
+
+"I have the honor to sign myself their humble servant and
+co-conspirator.
+
+"John Renard."
+
+"This, in plain English," was Charm's laconic translation of this note,
+"means that he wishes us to be ready at eleven for the excursion to
+P----, to spend the day, you may remember, at that old manor. He wants
+to paint in a background, he said yesterday, while we stroll about and
+look at the old place. What shall I wear?"
+
+In an hour we were on the road.
+
+A jaunty yellow cart, laden with a girl on the front seat; with a man,
+tawny of mustache, broad of shoulder, and dark of eye, with face
+shining to match the spring in the air and that fair face beside him;
+laden also with another lady on the back seat, beside whom, upright and
+stiff, with folded arms, sat Henri, costumer, valet, cook, and groom.
+It was in the latter capacity that Henri was now posing. The role of
+groom was uppermost in his orderly mind, although at intervals, when
+his foot chanced to touch a huge luncheon-basket with which the cart
+was also laden, there were betraying signs of anxiety; it was then that
+the chef crept back to life. This spring in the air was all very well,
+but how would it affect the sauces? This great question was written on
+Henri's brow in a network of anxious wrinkles.
+
+"Henri," I remarked, as we were wheeling down the roadway, "I am quite
+certain you have put up enough luncheon for a regiment."
+
+"Madame has said it, for a regiment; Monsieur Renard, when he works,
+eats with the hunger of a wolf."
+
+"Henri, did you get in all the rags?" This came from Renard on the
+front seat, as he plied his steed with the whip.
+
+"The costume of Monsieur le Marquis, and also of Madame la Marquise de
+Pompadour, are beneath my feet in the valise, Monsieur Renard. I have
+the sword between my legs," replied Henri, the costumer coming to the
+surface long enough to readjust the sword.
+
+"Capital fellow, Henri, never forgets anything," said Renard, in
+English.
+
+"Couldn't we offer a libation or something, on such a morning--"
+
+"On such a morning," interrupted the painter, "one should be seated
+next to a charming young lady who has the genius to wear Nile green and
+white; even a painter with an Honorable Mention behind him and fame
+still ahead, in spite of the Mention, is satisfied. You know a Greek
+deity was nothing to a painter, modern, and of the French school, in
+point of fastidiousness."
+
+"Nonsense! it's the American woman who is fastidious, when it comes to
+clothes."
+
+Meanwhile, there was one of the party who was looking at the road; that
+also was arrayed in Nile green and white; the tall trees also held
+umbrellas above us, but these coverings were woven of leaves and sky.
+This bit of roadway appeared to have slipped down from the upper
+country, and to have carried much of the upper country with it. It was
+highway posing as pure rustic. It had brought all its pastoral
+paraphernalia along. Nothing had been forgotten: neither the hawthorn
+and the osier hedges, nor the tree-trunks, suddenly grown modest at
+sight of the sea, burying their nudity in nests of vines, nor the trick
+which elms and beeches have, of growing arches in the sky. Timbered
+farm-houses were here, also thatched huts, to make the next villa-gate
+gain in stateliness; apple orchards were dotted about with such a
+knowing air of wearing the long line of the Atlantic girdled about
+their gnarled trunks, that one could not believe pure accident had
+carried them to the edge of the sea. There were several miles of this
+driving along beneath these green aisles. Through the screen of the
+hedges and the crowded tree-trunks, picture succeeded picture; bits of
+the sea were caught between slits of cliff; farmhouses, huts, and
+villas lay smothered in blossoms; above were heights whereon poplars
+seemed to shiver in the sun, as they wrapped about them their shroud-
+like foliage; meadows slipped away from the heights, plunging seaward,
+as if wearying for the ocean; and through the whole this line of green
+roadway threaded its path with sinuous grace, serpentining, coiling,
+braiding in land and sea in one harmonious, inextricable blending of
+incomparable beauty. One could quite comprehend, after even a short
+acquaintance with this road, that two gentlemen of Paris, as difficult
+to please as Daubigny and Isabey, should have seen points of excellence
+in it.
+
+There are all sorts of ways of being a painter. Perhaps as good as any,
+if one cares at all about a trifling matter like beauty, is to know a
+good thing when one sees it. That poet of the brush, Daubigny, not only
+was gifted with this very unusual talent in a painter, but a good thing
+could actually be entrusted in his hands after its discovery. And
+herein, it appears to me, lies all the difference between good and bad
+painting; not only is an artist--any artist--to be judged by what he
+sees, but also by what he does with a fact after he's acquired
+it--whether he turns it into poetry or prose.
+
+I might incautiously have sprung these views on the artist on the front
+seat, had he not wisely forestalled my outburst by one of his own.
+
+"By the way," he broke in; "by the way, I'm not doing my duty as
+cicerone. There's a church near here--we're coming to it in a
+moment--famous--eleventh or twelfth century, Romanesque
+style--yes--that's right, although I'm somewhat shaky when it comes to
+architecture--and an old manoir, museum now, with lots of old furniture
+in it--in the manoir, I mean."
+
+"There's the church now. Oh, let us stop!"
+
+In point of fact there were two churches before us. There was one of
+ivy: nave, roof, aisles, walls, and conic-shaped top, as perfectly
+defined in green as if the beautiful mantle had been cut and fitted to
+the hidden stone structure. Every few moments the mantle would be
+lifted by the light breeze, as might a priest's vestment; it would move
+and waver, as if the building were a human frame, changing its posture
+to ease its long standing. Between this church of stone and this church
+of vines there were signs of the fight that had gone on for ages
+between them. The stones were obviously fighting decay, fighting ruin,
+fighting annihilation; the vines were also struggling, but both time
+and the sun were on their side. The stone edifice was now, it is true,
+as Renard told us, protected by the Government--it was classed as a
+"monument historique"--but the church of greens was protected by the
+god of nature, and seemed to laugh aloud, as if with conscious gleeful
+strength. This gay, triumphant laugh was reflected, as if to emphasize
+its mockery of man's work, in the tranquil waters of a little pond,
+lily-leaved, garlanded in bushes, that lay hidden beyond the roadway.
+Through the interstices of the vines one solitary window from the
+tower, like a sombre eye, looked down into the pond; it saw there,
+reflected as in a mirror, the old, the eternal picture of a dead ruin
+clasped by the arms of living beauty.
+
+This Criqueboeuf church presents the ideal picturesque accessories. It
+stands at the corner of two meeting roadways. It is set in an ideal
+pastoral frame--a frame of sleeping fields, of waving tree-tops, of an
+enchanting, indescribable snarl of bushes, vines, and wild flowers. In
+the adjoining fields, beneath the tree-boughs, ran the long, low line
+of the ancient manoir--now turned into a museum.
+
+We glanced for a few brief moments at the collection of antiquities
+assembled beneath the old roof--at the Henry II. chairs, at the
+Pompadour-wreathed cabinets, at the long rows of panels on which are
+presented the whole history of France--the latter an amazing record of
+the industry of a certain Dr. Le Goupils.
+
+"Criqueboeuf doesn't exactly hide its light under a bushel, you know,
+although it doesn't crown a hill. No end of people know it; it sits for
+its portrait, I should say at least twice a week regularly, on an
+average, during the season. English water-colorists go mad over
+it--they cross over on purpose to `do' it, and they do it extremely
+badly, as a rule."
+
+This was Renard's last comment of a biographical and critical nature,
+concerning the "historical monument," as we reseated ourselves to
+pursue our way to P----.
+
+"Why don't you show them how it can be done?"
+
+"Would," coolly returned Renard, "if it were worth while, but it isn't
+in my line. Henri, did you bring any ice?"
+
+Henri, I had noticed, when we had reseated ourselves in the cart, had
+greeted us with an air of silent sadness; he clearly had not approved
+of ruins that interfered with the business of the day.
+
+"_Oui, monsieur_, I did bring some ice, but as monsieur can imagine to
+himself--a two hours' sun--"
+
+"Nonsense, this sun wouldn't melt a pat of butter; the ice is all
+right, and so is the wine."
+
+Then he continued in English: "Now, ladies, as I should begin if I were
+a politician, or an auctioneer; now, ladies, the time for confession
+has arrived; I can no longer conceal from you my burglarious scheme. In
+the next turn that we shall make to the right, the park of the P----
+manoir will disclose itself. But, between us and that Park, there is a
+gate. That gate is locked. Now, gates, from the time of the Garden of
+Eden, I take it, have been an invention of--of--the other fellow, to
+keep people out. I know a way--but it's not the way you can follow.
+Henri and I will break down a few bars, we'll cross a few fields over
+yonder, and will present ourselves, with all the virtues written on our
+faces, to you in the Park. Meanwhile you must enter, as queens
+should--through the great gates. Behold, there is a curé yonder, a
+great friend of mine. You will step along the roadway; you will ring a
+door-bell; the curé will appear; you will ask him if it be true that
+the manoir of P---- is to rent, you have heard that he has the keys; he
+will present you the keys; you will open the big gate and find me."
+
+"But--but, Mr. Renard, I really don't see how that scheme will work."
+
+"Work! It will work to a charm. You will see. Henri, just help the
+ladies, will you?"
+
+Henri, with decisive gravity, was helping the ladies to alight; in
+another instant he had regained his seat, and he and Renard were flying
+down the roadway, out of sight.
+
+"Really--it's the coolest proceeding," Charm began. Then we looked
+through the bars of the park gate. The park was as green and as still
+as a convent garden; a pink brick mansion, with closed window-blinds,
+was standing, surrounded by a terrace on one side, and by glittering
+parterres on the other.
+
+"Where did he say the old curé was?" asked Charm, quite briskly, all at
+once. Everything had turned out precisely as Renard had predicted.
+Doubtless he had also counted on the efficacy of the old fable of the
+Peri at the Gate--one look had been sufficient to turn us into arrant
+conspirators; to gain an entrance into that tranquil paradise any ruse
+would serve.
+
+"Here's a church--he said nothing about a church, did he?"
+
+Across the avenue, above the branches of a row of tall trees, rose the
+ivied facade of a rude hamlet church; a flight of steep weedy steps led
+up to its Norman doorway. The door was wide open; through the arched
+aperture came the sounds of footfalls, of a heavy, vigorous tread;
+Charm ran lightly up a few of the lower steps, to peer into the open
+door.
+
+"It's the curé dusting the altar--shall I go in?"
+
+"No, we had best ring--this must be his house."
+
+The clatter of the curé's sabots was the response that answered to the
+bell we pulled, a bell attached to a diminutive brick house lying at
+the foot of the churchyard. The tinkling of the cracked-voiced bell had
+hardly ceased when the door opened.
+
+But the curé had already taken his first glance at us over the garden
+hedges.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A NORMAN CURE.
+
+
+"Mesdames!"
+
+The priest's massive frame filled the narrow door; the tones of his
+mellow voice seemed also suddenly to fill the air, drowning all other
+sounds. The grace of his manner, a grace that invested the simple act
+of his uncovering and the holding of his _calotte_ in hand, with an air
+of homage, made also our own errand the more difficult.
+
+I had already begun to murmur the nature of our errand: we were
+passing, we had seen the manoir opposite, we had heard it was to rent,
+also that he, Monsieur le Curé, had the keys.
+
+Yes, the keys were here. Then the velvet in Monsieur le Curé's eyes
+turned to bronze, as they looked out at us from beneath the fine dome
+of brow.
+
+"I have the keys of the garden only, mesdames," he replied, with
+perfect but somewhat distant courtesy; "the gardener, down the road
+yonder, has the keys of the house. Do you really wish to rent the
+house?"
+
+He had seen through our ruse with quick Norman penetration. He had not,
+from the first, been in the least deceived.
+
+It became the more difficult to smooth the situation into shape. "We
+had thought perhaps to rent a villa, we were in one now at Villerville.
+If Monsieur le curé would let us look at the garden. Monsieur Renard,
+whom perhaps he remembered--
+
+"M. Renard! Oh ho! Oh ho! I see it all now," and a deep, mellow laugh
+smote the air. The keenness in the fine eyes melted into mirth, a mirth
+that laid the fine head back on the broad shoulders, that the laugh
+that shook the powerful frame might have the fuller play.
+
+"Ah, _mes enfants_, I see it all now--it is that scoundrel of a boy.
+I'll warrant he's there, over yonder, already. He was here yesterday,
+he was here the day before, and he is afraid, he is ashamed to ask
+again for the keys. But come, _mes enfants_, come, let us go in search
+of him." And the little door was closed with a slam. Down the broad
+roadway the next instant fluttered the old curé's soutane. We followed,
+but could scarcely keep pace with the brisk, vigorous strides. The
+sabots ploughed into the dust. The cane stamped along in company with
+the sabots, all three in a fury of impatience. The curé's step and his
+manner might have been those of a boy, burning with haste to discover a
+playmate in hiding. All the keenness and shrewdness on the fine, ruddy
+face had melted into sweetness; an exuberance of mirth seemed to be the
+sap that fed his rich nature. It was easy to see he had passed the
+meridian of his existence in a realm of high spirits; an irrepressible
+fountain within, the fountain of an unquenchable good-humor, bathed the
+whole man with the hues of health. Ripe red lips curved generously over
+superb teeth; the cheeks were glowing, as were the eyes, the crimson
+below them deepening to splendor the velvet in the iris. The one severe
+line in the face, the thin, straight nose, ended in wide nostrils in
+the quivering, mobile nostrils of the humorist. The swell of the
+gourmand's paunch beneath the soutane was proof that the curé was a
+true Norman he had not passed a lifetime in these fertile gardens
+forgetful of the fact that the fine art of good living is the one
+indulgence the Church has left to its celibate sons.
+
+Meanwhile, our guide was peering with quick, excited gaze, through the
+thick foliage of the park; his fine black eyes were sweeping the
+parterre and terrace.
+
+"Ah-h!" his rich voice cried out, mockingly; and he stopped, suddenly,
+to plant his cane in the ground with mock fierceness.
+
+"_Tiens_, Monsieur le Curé!" cried Renard, from behind a tree, in a
+beautiful voice. It was a voice that matched with his well-acted
+surprise, when he appeared, confronting us, on the other side of the
+tree-trunk.
+
+The curé opened his arms.
+
+"_Ah, mon enfant, viens, viens!_ how good it is to see thee once
+again!"
+
+They were in each other's arms. The curé was pressing his lips to
+Renard's cheek, in hearty French fashion. The priest, however,
+administered his reproof before he released him. Renard's broad
+shoulders received a series of pats, which turned to blows, dealt by
+the curé's herculean hand.
+
+"Why didn't you let me know you were here, yesterday, _Hein_? Answer me
+that. How goes the picture? Is it set up yet? You see, mesdames,"
+turning with a reddened cheek and gleaming eyes, "it is thus I punish
+him--for he has no heart, no sensibilities--he only understands
+severities! And he defrauded me yesterday, he cheated me. I didn't even
+know of his being here till he had gone. And the picture, where is it?"
+
+It was on an easel, sunning itself beneath the park trees. The old
+priest clattered along the gravelly walk, to take a look at it.
+
+"_Tiens_--it grows--the figures begin to move--they are almost alive.
+There should be a trifle more shadow under the chin, what do you
+think?"
+
+Henri raised his chin. Henri had undergone the process of
+transformation in our absence. He was now M. le Marquis de
+Pompadour--under the heart-shaped arch of the great trees, he was
+standing, resplendent in laces, in glistening satins, leaning on a
+rusty, dull-jewelled sword. Renard had mounted his palette; he was
+dipping already into the mounds of color that dotted the palette-board,
+with his long brushes. On the canvas, in colors laid on by the touch of
+genius, this archway beneath which we were standing reared itself
+aloft; the park trees were as tall and noble, transfixed in their image
+of immutable calm, on that strip of linen, as they towered now above
+us; even the yellow cloud of the laburnum blossoms made the sunshine of
+the shaded grass, as it did here, where else no spot of sun might
+enter, so dense was the night of shade. The life of another day and
+time lived, however, beneath that shade; Charm and the curé, as they
+drooped over the canvas, confronted a graceful, attenuated courtier,
+sickening in a languor of adoration, and a sprightly coquette, whose
+porcelain beauty was as finished as the feathery edges of her lacy
+sleeves.
+
+"_Très bien très bien_" said the curé, nodding his head in critical
+commendation. "It will be a little masterpiece. And now," waving his
+hand toward us, "what do you propose to do with these ladies while you
+are painting?"
+
+"Oh, they can wander about," Renard replied, abstractedly. He had
+already reseated himself and had begun to ply his brushes; he now saw
+only Henri and the hilt of the sword he was painting in.
+
+"I knew it, I could have told you--a painter hasn't the manners of a
+peasant when he's painting," cried the priest, lifting cane and hands
+high in air, in mock horror. "But all the better, all the better, I
+shall have you all to myself. Come, come with me. You can see the house
+later. I'll send for the gardener. It's too fine a day to be indoors.
+What a day, _hein_? Le bon Dieu_ sends us such days now and then, to
+make us ache for paradise. This way, this way--we'll go through the
+little door--my little door; it was made for me, you know, when the
+manoir was last inhabited. I and the children were too impatient--we
+suffered from that malady--all of us--we never could wait for the
+great gates yonder to be opened. So Monsieur de H---- built us this
+one." The little door opened directly on the road, and on the curé's
+house. There was a tangle of underbrush barring the way; but the curé
+pushed the briars apart with his strong hands, beating them down with
+his cane.
+
+When the door opened, we passed directly beyond the roadway, to the
+steep steps leading to the church. The curé, before mounting the steps,
+swept the road, upward and downward, with his keen glance. It was the
+instinctive action of the provincial, scenting the chance of novelty.
+Some distant object, in the meeting of two distant roadways, arrested
+the darting eyes; this time, at least, he was to be rewarded for his
+prudence in looking about him. The object slowly resolved itself into
+two crutches between which hung the limp figure of a one-legged man.
+
+"_Bonjour, Monsieur le curé_." The crutches came to a standstill; the
+cripple's hand went up to doff a ragged worsted cap.
+
+"Good-day, good-day, my friend; how goes it? Not quite so stiff,
+_hein_--in such a bath of sunlight as this? Good-day, good-day."
+
+The crutches and their burden passed on, kicking a little cloud of dust
+about the lean figure.
+
+"_Un peu cassé, le bonhomme_" he said, as he nodded to the cripple in a
+tone of reflection, as if the breakage that bad befallen his humble
+friend were a fresh incident in his experience. "Yes, he's a little
+broken, the poor old man; but then," he added, quickly renewing his
+tone of unquenchable high spirits--"one doesn't die of it. No, one
+doesn't die, fortunately. Why, we're all more or less cracked, or
+broken up here."
+
+He shook another laugh out, as he preceded us up the stone steps. Then
+he turned to stop for a moment to point his cane toward the small house
+with whose chimneys we were now on a level. "There, mesdames, there is
+the proof that more breaking doesn't signify in this matter of life
+and death, _Tenez_, madame--" and with a charming gesture he laid
+his richly-veined, strong old hand on my arm--a hand that ended in
+beautiful fingers, each with its rim of moon-shaped dirt;
+"_tenez_--figure to yourself, madame, that I myself have been here
+twenty years, and I came for two! I bought out the _bonhomme_ who lived
+over yonder.
+
+"I bought him and his furniture out. I said to myself, 'I'll buy it for
+eight hundred, and I'll sell it for four hundred, in a year.'" Here he
+laid his finger on his nose--lengthwise, the Norman in him supplanting
+the priest in his remembrance of a good bargain. "And now it is twenty
+years since then. Everything creaks and cracks over there: all of us
+creak and crack. You should hear my chairs, _elles se cassent les
+reins_--they break their thighs continually. Ah! there goes another, I
+cry out, as I sit down in one in winter and hear them groan. Poor old
+things, they are of the Empire, no wonder they groan. You should see
+us, when our brethren come to take a cup of soup with me. Such a
+collection of antiquities as we are! I catch them, my brothers, looking
+about, slyly peering into the secrets of my little ménage. 'From his
+ancestors, doubtless, these old chairs and tables, say these good
+frères, under their breath. And then I wink slyly at the chairs, and
+they never let on."
+
+Again the mellow laugh broke forth. He stopped again to puff and blow a
+little, from his toil up the steep steps. Then all at once, as the
+rough music of his clicking sabots and the playful taps of his cane
+ceased, the laugh on his mobile lips melted into seriousness. He lifted
+his cane, pointing to the cemetery just above us, and to the
+gravestones looking down over the hillsides between a network of roses.
+
+"We are old, madame--we are old, but, alas! we never die! It is
+difficult to people, that cemetery. There are only sixty of us in the
+parish, and we die--we die hard. For example, here is my old
+servant"--and he covered a grave with a sweep of his cane--for we were
+leisurely sauntering through the little cemetery now. The grave to
+which he pointed was a garden; heliotrope, myosotis, hare-bells and
+mignonette had made of the mound a bed of perfume--"see how quietly
+she lies--and yet what a restless soul the flowers cover! She, too,
+died hard. It took her years to make up her mind; finally _le bon Dieu_
+had to decide it for her, when she was eighty-four. She complained to
+the last--she was poor, she was in my way, she was blind. '_Eh bien, tu
+n'as pas besoin de me faire les beaux yeux, toi_'--I used to say to
+her. Ah, the good soul that she was!" and the dark eye glistened with
+moisture. A moment later the curé was blowing vigorously the note of
+his grief, in trumpet-tones, through the organ that only a Frenchman
+can render an effective adjunct to moments of emotion.
+
+"You see, _mes enfants_, I am like that--I weep over my friends--when
+they are gone! But see," he added quickly, recovering himself--"see,
+over yonder there is my predecessor's grave. He lies well, _hein?_--
+comfortable, too--looking his old church in the face and the sun on his
+old bones all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will have
+company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a friend." The humorous smile
+was again curving his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were
+beginning to quiver. "When my friend and I lie there, we shall be a
+little crowded, perhaps. I said to him, when he proposed it, proposed
+to lie there with us, 'but we shall be crunching each other's bones!'
+'No,' he replied, 'only falling into each other's arms!' So it was
+settled. He comes over from Havre, every now and then, to talk our
+tombstones over; we drink a glass of wine together, and take a pipe and
+talk about our future--in eternity! Ah, how gay we are! It is so good
+to be friends with God!"
+
+The voice deepened into seriousness. He went on in a quieter key:
+
+"But why am I always preaching and talking about death and eternity to
+two such ladies--two such children? Ah--I know, I am really old--I only
+deceive myself into pretending I'm young. You will do the same, both of
+you, some day. But come and see my good works. You know everyone has
+his little corner of conceit--I have mine. I like to do good, and then
+to boast of it. You shall see--you shall see."
+
+He was hurrying us along the narrow paths now, past the little company
+of grave-stones, graves that were bearing their barbaric burdens of
+mortuary wreaths, of beaded crosses, and the motley assemblage, common
+to all French graveyards, of hideous shrines encasing tin saints and
+madonnas in plaster.
+
+Above the sunken graves and the tin effigies of the martyrs behind the
+church, arose a fair and glittering marble tomb. It was strangely out
+of keeping with the meagre and paltry surroundings of the peasant
+grave-stones. As we approached the tomb it grew in imposingness. It was
+a circular mortuary chapel, with carved pediment and iron-wrought
+gateway.
+
+"It's fine, _hein_, and beautiful, _hein?_ It is the Duke's!" The curé,
+it was easy to see, considered the chapel in the light of a personal
+possession. He stood before it, bare-headed, with a new earnestness on
+his mobile face. "It is the Duke's. Yes, the Duke's. I saved his soul,
+blessed be God! and he--he rebuilds my cellars for me: See"--and he
+pointed to the fine new base of stone, freshly cemented, on which the
+church rested--"see, I save his soul, and he preserves my buildings for
+me. It's a fair deal, isn't it? How does it come about, that he is
+converted? Ah, you see, although I am a man without science, without
+knowledge, devoid of pretensions and learning, the good God sometimes
+makes use of such humble instruments to work His will. It came about in
+the usual way. The Duke came here carrying his religion lightly, as one
+may say, not thinking of his soul. I--I dine with him. We talk, we
+argue; he does, that is--I only preach from my Bible. And behold! one
+day he is converted. He is devout. And from gratitude, he repairs my
+crumbling old stones. And now see how solid, how strong is my church
+cellar!"
+
+Again the fountain of his irrepressible merriment bubbled forth. For
+all the gayety, however, the severe line deepened as one grew to know
+the face better; the line in profile running from the nose into the
+firm upper lip and into the still more resolute chin, matched the
+impress of authority marked on the noble brow. It was the face of one
+who might have infinite charity and indulgence for a sin, and yet would
+make no compromise with it.
+
+We had resumed our walk. It led us at last into the interior of the
+little church. The gloom and silence within, after the dazzling
+brilliancy of the noon-day sun and the noisy insect hum, invested the
+narrow nave and dim altar with an added charm. The old priest knelt for
+the briefest instant in reverence to the altar. When he turned there
+was surprise as well as a gentle reproach in the changeable eyes.
+
+"And you, mesdames! How is this? You are not Catholics? And I was so
+sure of it! Quite sure of it, you were so sympathetic, so full of
+reverence. And you, my child"--turning to Charm--"you speak our tongue
+so well, with the very accent of a good Catholic. What! you are
+Protestant? La! La! What do I hear?" He shook his cane over the backs
+of the straw-bottomed chairs; the sweet, mellow accents of his voice
+melted into loving protest--a protest in which the fervor was not
+quenched in spite of the merry key in which it was pitched.
+
+"Protestants? Pouffe! pouffe! What is that? What is it to be a
+Protestant? Heretics, heretics, that is what you are. So you are _deux
+affreuses hérétiques_? Ah, la! la! Horrible! horrible! I must cure you
+of all that. I must cure you!" He dropped his cane in the enthusiasm of
+his attack; it fell with a clanging sound on the stone pavement. He let
+it lie. He had assumed, unconsciously, the orator's, the preacher's
+attitude. He crowded past the chairs, throwing back his head as he
+advanced, striking into argumentative gesture:
+
+"_Tenez_, listen, there is so little difference, after all. As I was
+saying to M. le comte de Chermont the other day, no later than
+Thursday--he has married an English wife, you know--can't understand
+that either, how they can marry English wives. However, that's none of
+my business--we have nothing to do with marrying, we priests, except as
+a sacrament for others. I said to M. le comte, who, you know, shows
+tendencies toward anglicism--astonishing the influence of women--I
+said: 'But, my dear M. le comte, why change? You will only exchange
+certainty for uncertainty, facts for doubts, truth for lies.' 'Yes,
+yes,' the comte replied, 'but there are so many new truths introduced
+now into our blessed religion--the infallibility of the pope--the--'
+'_Ah, mon cher comte--ne m'en parlez pas_. If that is all that stands
+in your way--_faites comme le bon Dieu! Lui--il ferme les yeux et tend
+les bras._ That is all we ask--we his servants--to have you close your
+eyes and open your arms.'"
+
+The good curé was out of breath; he was panting. After a moment, in a
+deeper tone, he went on:
+
+"You, too, my children, that is what I say to you--you need only to
+open your arms and to close your eyes. God is waiting for you."
+
+For a long instant there was a great stillness--a silence during which
+the narrow spaces of the dim aisles were vibrating with the echoes of
+the rich voice.
+
+The rustle of a light skirt sweeping the stone flooring broke the
+moment's silence. Charm was crossing the aisles. She paused before a
+little wooden box, nailed to the wall. There came suddenly on the ear
+the sound of coin rattling down into the empty box; she had emptied
+into it the contents of her purse.
+
+"For your poor, monsieur le curé," she smiled up, a little tremulously,
+into the burning, glowing eyes. The priest bent over the fair head,
+laying his hand, as if in benediction, upon it.
+
+"My poor need it sadly, my child, and I thank you for them. God will
+bless you."
+
+It was a touching little scene, and I preferred, for one, to look out
+just then at Henri's figure advancing toward us, up the stone steps.
+
+When the priest spoke again, it was in a husky tone, the gold in his
+voice dusted with moisture; but the bantering spirits in him had
+reappeared.
+
+"What a pity, that you must burn! For you must, dreadful heretics that
+you are! And this dear child, she seems to belong to us--I can never
+sit by, now, in Paradise, happy and secure, and see her burn!" The
+laugh that followed was a mingled caress and a blessing. Henri came in
+for a part of the indulgence of the good curé's smile as he came up the
+steps.
+
+"Ah, Henri, you have come for these ladies?"
+
+"_Oui_, monsieur le curé, luncheon is served."
+
+Our friend followed us to the topmost step, and to the very edge of the
+step. He stood there, talking down to us, as we continued to press him
+to return with us.
+
+"No, my children--no--no, I can't join you; don't urge me; I can't, I
+must not. I must say my prayers instead; besides the children come
+soon, for their catechism. No, don't beg me, I don't need to be
+importuned; I know what that dear Renard's wine is. _Au revoir et a
+bientôt_--and remember," and here he lifted his arms--cane and all,
+high in the air--"all you need do is to close your eyes and to open
+your arms. God himself is doing the same."
+
+High up he stood, with uplifted hands, the smile irradiating a face
+that glowed with a saint's simplicity. Behind the black lines of his
+robe, the sunlight lay streaming in noon glory; it aureoled him as
+never saint was aureoled by mortal brush. A moment only he lingered
+there, to raise his cap in parting salute. Then he turned, the trail of
+his gown sweeping the gravel paths, and presently the low church door
+swallowed him up. Through the door, as we crossed the road, there came
+out to us the click of sabots striking the rude flagging; and a
+moment after, the murmuring echo of a deep, rich voice, saying the
+office of the hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+HONFLEUR--NEW AND OLD.
+
+
+The stillness of the park trees, as we passed beneath them, was like
+the silence that comes after a blessing. The sun, flooding the
+landscape with a deluge of light, lost something of its effulgence, by
+contrast with the fulness of the priest's rich nature. This fair world
+of beauty that lay the other side of the terrace wall, beneath which
+our luncheon was spread, was fair and lovely still--but how unimportant
+the landscape seemed compared to the varied scenery of the curé's
+soul-lit character! Of all kinds of nature, human nature is assuredly
+the best; it is at least the most perdurably interesting. When we tire
+of it, when we weary of our fellow-man and turn the blasé cheek on the
+fresh pillow of mother-earth, how quickly is the pillow deserted once
+the mental frame is rested or renewed! The history of all human
+relations has the same ending--we all of us only fall out of love with
+man to fall as swiftly in again.
+
+The remainder of the afternoon passed with the rapidity common to all
+phases of enchantment.
+
+How could one eat seriously, with vulgar, gluttonous hunger, of a feast
+spread on the parapet of a terrace-wall? The white foam of napkins, the
+mosaic of the _patties_, the white breasts of chicken, the salads in
+their bath of dew--these spoke the language of a lost cause. For there
+was an open-air concert going on in full swing, and the performance was
+one that made the act of eating seem as gross as the munching of apples
+at an oratorio--the music being, indeed, of a highly refined order of
+perfection. One's ears needed to be highly attuned to hear the pricking
+of the locusts in the leaves; even the breeze kept uncommonly still,
+that the brushing of the humming-birds' and bees' wings against the
+flower-petals might be the more distinctly heard.
+
+I never knew which one of the party it was that decided we were to see
+the day out and the night in; that we were to dine at the Cheval Blanc,
+on the Honfleur quays, instead of sedately breaking bread at the Mère
+Mouchard's. Even our steed needed very little urging to see the
+advantages of such a scheme. Henri alone wore a grim air of
+disapproval. His aspect was an epitome of rigid protest. As he took his
+seat in the cart, he held the sword between his legs with the air of
+one burning with a pent-up anguish of protest. His eye gloomed on the
+day; his head was held aloft, reared on a column of bristling vertebra,
+and on his brow was written the sign of mutiny.
+
+"Henri--you think we should go back; you think going on to Honfleur a
+mistake?"
+
+"Madame has said it"--Henri was a fatalist--in his speech, at least, he
+lived up to his creed. "Honfleur is far--Monsieur Renard has not the
+good digestion when he is tired--he suffers. _Il passe des nuits
+d'angoisse. Il souffre des fatigues de l'estomac. Il se fatigue
+aujourd'hui!_" This, with an air of stern conviction, was accompanied
+by a glance at his master in which compassion was not the most obvious
+note to be read. He went on, remorselessly:
+
+"And, as madame knows, the work but begins for me when we are at home.
+There are the costumes to be dusted and put away, the paintbrushes to
+clean, the dishes and lunch-basket to be attended to. As madame says,
+monsieur is sometimes lacking in consideration. _Mais, que voulez-vous?
+le génie, c'est fait comme ça._"
+
+Madame had not expressed the feeblest echo of a criticism on the
+composition of the genius in front; but the short dialogue had helped,
+perceptibly, to lift the weight of Henri's gloom; he was beginning to
+accept the fate of the day with a philosopher's phlegm. Already he had
+readjusted a little difficulty between his feet and the lunch basket,
+making his religious care of the latter compatible with the open sin of
+improved personal comfort.
+
+Meanwhile the two on the front seat were a thousand miles away. Neither
+we, nor the day, nor the beauty of the drive had power to woo their
+glances from coming back to the focal point of interest they had found
+in each other. They were beginning to talk, not about each other but of
+themselves--the danger-signal of all tête-à-tête adventures.
+
+When two young people have got into the personal-pronoun stage of human
+intercourse, there is but one thing left for the unfortunate third in
+the party to do. Yes, now that I think of it, there are two roles to be
+played. The usual conception of the part is to turn marplot--to spoil
+and ruin the others' dialogue--to put an end to it, if possible, by
+legitimate or illegitimate means; a very successful way, I have
+observed, of prolonging, as a rule, such a duet indefinitely. The more
+enlightened actor in any such little human comedy, if he be gifted with
+insight, will collapse into the wings, and let the two young idiots
+have the whole stage to themselves. As like as not they'll weary of the
+play, and of themselves, if left alone. No harm will come of all the
+sentimental strutting and the romantic attitudinizing, other than
+viewing the scene, later, in perspective, as a rather amusing bit of
+emotional farce.
+
+Besides being in the very height of the spring fashion, in the matter
+of the sentiments, these two were also busily treading, at just this
+particular moment, the most alluring of all the paths leading to what
+may be termed the outlying territorial domain of the emotions; they
+were wandering through the land called Mutual Discovery. Now, this, I
+have always held, is among the most delectable of all the roads of
+life; for it may lead one--anywhere or nowhere.
+
+Therefore it was from a purely generous impulse that I continued to
+look at the view. The surroundings were, in truth, in conspiracy with
+the sentimentalists on the front seat; the extreme beauty of the road
+would have made any but sentimental egotists oblivious to all else. The
+road was a continuation of the one we had followed in the morning's
+drive. Again, all the greenness of field and grass was braided,
+inextricably, into the blue of river and ocean. Above, as before, in
+that earlier morning drive, towered the giant aisles of the beaches
+and elms. Through those aisles the radiant Normandy landscape flowed
+again, as music from rich organ-piped throats flows through cathedral
+arches. Out yonder, on the Seine's wide mouth, the boats were balancing
+themselves, as if they also were half divided between a doubt and a
+longing; a freshening spurt of breeze filled their flapping sails, and
+away they sped, skipping through the waters with all the gayety which
+comes with the vigor of fresh resolutions. The light that fell over the
+land and waters was dazzling, and yet of an astonishing limpidity; only
+a sun about to drop and end his reign could be at once so brilliant and
+so tender--the diffused light had the sparkle of gold made soft by
+usage. Wherever the eye roved, it was fed as on a banquet of light and
+color. Nothing could be more exquisite, for depth of green swimming in
+a bath of shadow, than the meadows curled beneath the cliffs; nothing
+more tempting, to the painter's brush, than the arabesque of blossoms
+netted across the sky; and would you have the living eye of nature,
+bristling with animation, alive with winged sails, and steeped in the
+very soul of yellow sunshine, look out over the great sheet of the
+waters, and steep the senses in such a breadth of aqueous splendor as
+one sees only in one or two of the rare shows of earth.
+
+Then, all at once, all too soon, the great picture seemed to shrink;
+the quivering pulsation of light and color gave way to staid,
+commonplace gardens. Instead of hawthorn hedges there was the stench of
+river smells--we were driving over cobble-paved streets and beneath
+rows of crooked, crumbling houses. A group of noisy street urchins
+greeted us in derision. And then we had no doubt whatsoever that we
+were already in Honfleur town.
+
+"Honfleur is an evil-smelling place," I remarked.
+
+"Oh, well, after all, the smells of antiquity are a part of the show;
+we should refuse to believe in ancientness, all of us, I fancy, if
+mustiness wasn't served along with it."
+
+"How can any town have such a stench with all this river and water and
+verdure to sweeten it?" I asked, with a woman's belief in the morality
+of environment--a belief much cherished by wives and mothers, I have
+noticed.
+
+"Wait till you see the inhabitants--they'll enlighten you--the hags and
+the nautical gentlemen along the basins and quays. They've discovered
+the secret that if cleanliness is next to godliness, dirt and the devil
+are likewise near neighbors. Awful set--those Honfleur sailors The
+Havre and Seine people call them Chinamen, they are so unlike the rest
+of France and Frenchmen."
+
+"Why are they so unlike?" asked Charm.
+
+"They're so low down, so hideously wicked; they're like the old houses,
+a rotten, worm-eaten set--you'll see."
+
+Charm stopped him then, with a gesture. She stopped the horse also; she
+brought the whole establishment to a standstill; and then she nodded
+her head briskly forward. We were in the midst of the Honfleur
+streets--streets that were running away from a wide open space, in all
+possible directions. In the centre of the square rose a curious, an
+altogether astonishing structure. It was a tower, a belfry doubtless, a
+house, a shop, and a warehouse, all in one; such a picturesque medley,
+in fact, as only modern irreverence, in its lawless disregard of
+original purpose and design, can produce. The low-timbered sub-base of
+the structure was pierced by a lovely doorway with sculptured lintel,
+and also with two impertinent modern windows, flaunting muslin
+curtains, and coquettishly attired with rows of flowering carnations.
+Beneath these windows was a shop. Above the whole rose, in beautiful
+symmetrical lines, a wooden belfry, tapering from a square tower into a
+delicately modelled spire. To complete and accentuate the note of the
+picturesque, the superstructure was held in its place by rude modern
+beams, propping the tower with a naive disregard of decorative
+embellishment. We knew it at once as the quaint and famous Belfry of
+St. Catherine,
+
+As we were about to turn away to descend the high street, a Norman
+maiden, with close-capped face, leaned over the carnations to look down
+upon us.
+
+"That's the daughter of the bell-ringer, doubtless. Economical idea
+that," Renard remarked, taking his cap off to the smiling eyes.
+
+"Economical?"
+
+"Yes, can't you see? Bell-ringer sends pretty daughter to window, just
+before vespers or service, and she rings in the worshippers; no need to
+make the bells ring."
+
+"What nonsense!"--but we laughed as flatteringly as if his speech had
+been a genuine coin of wit.
+
+A turn down the street, and the famous Honfleur of the wharves and
+floating docks lay before us. About us, all at once, was the roar and
+hubbub of an extraordinary bustle and excitement; all the life of the
+town, apparently, was centred upon the quays. The latter were swarming
+with a tattered, ragged, bare-footed, bare-legged assemblage of old
+women, of gamins, and sailors. The collection, as a collection, was one
+gifted with the talent of making itself heard. Everyone appeared to be
+shrieking, or yelling, or crying aloud, if only to keep the others in
+voice. Sailors lying on the flat parapets shouted hoarsely to their
+fellows in the rigging of the ships that lay tossing in the docks;
+fishermen's families tossed their farewells above the hubbub to the
+captain-fathers launching their fishing-smacks; one shrieking infant
+was being passed, gayly, from the poop of a distant deck, across the
+closely lying shipping, to the quay's steps, to be hushed by the
+generous opening of a peasant mother's bodice. One could hear the
+straining of cordage, the creak of masts, the flap of the sails, all
+the noises peculiar to shipping riding at anchor. The shriek of
+steam-whistles broke out, ever and anon, above all the din and uproar.
+Along the quay steps and the wharves there were constantly forming and
+re-forming groups of wretched, tattered human beings; of men with
+bloated faces and a dull, sodden look, strikingly in contrast with the
+vivacity common among French people. Even the children and women had a
+depraved, shameless appearance, as if vice had robbed them of the last
+vestige of hope and ambition. Along the parapet a half-dozen drunkards
+sprawled, asleep or dozing. At the legs of one a child was pulling,
+crying:
+
+"_Viens--mère t'battra, elle est soûle aussi._"
+
+The sailors out yonder, busy in the rigging, and the men on the decks
+of the smart brigs and steamships, whistled and shouted and sang, as
+indifferent to this picture of human misery and degradation as if they
+had no kinship with it.
+
+As a frame to the picture, Honfleur town lay beneath the crown of its
+hills; on the tops and sides of the latter, villa after villa shot
+through the trees, a curve of roof-line, with rows of daintily draped
+windows. At the right, close to the wharves, below the wooded heights,
+there loomed out a quaint and curious gateway flanked by two
+watchtowers, grim reminders of the Honfleur of the great days. And
+above and about the whole, encompassing villa-crowded hills and
+closely packed streets, and the forest of masts trembling against the
+sky, there lay a heaven of spring and summer.
+
+Renard had driven briskly up to a low, rambling facade parallel with
+the quays. It was the "Cheval Blanc." A crowd assembled on the instant,
+as if appearing according to command.
+
+"_Allons--n'encombrez pas ces dames!_" cried a very smart individual,
+in striking contrast to the down at-heel air of the hotel--a personage
+who took high-handed possession of us and our traps. "Will _ces dames_
+desire a salon--there is _un vrai petit bijou_ empty just now,"
+murmured a voice in a purring soprano, through the iron opening of the
+cashier's desk.
+
+Another voice was crying out to us, as we wound our way upward in
+pursuit of the jewel of a salon. "And the widow, _La Veuve_, shall she
+be dry or sweet?"
+
+When we entered the low dining-room, a little later, we found that the
+artist as well as the epicure has been in active conspiracy to make the
+dinner complete; the choice of the table proclaimed one accomplished in
+massing effects. The table was parallel with the low window, and
+through the latter was such a picture as one travels hundreds of miles
+to look upon, only to miss seeing it, as a rule. There was a great
+breadth of sky through the windows; against the sky rose the mastheads;
+and some red and brown sails curtained the space, bringing into relief
+the gray line of the sad-faced old houses fringing the shoreline.
+
+"Couldn't have chosen better if we'd tried, could we? It's just the
+right hour, and just the right kind of light. Those basins are
+unendurable--sinks of iniquitous ugliness, unless the tide's in and
+there's a sunset going on. Just look now! Who cares whether Honfleur
+has been done to death by the tourist horde or not? and been painted
+until one's art-stomach turns? I presume I ought to beg your pardon,
+but I can't stand the abomination of modern repetitions; the
+hand-organ business in art, I call it. But at this hour, at this time
+of the year, before this rattle-trap of an inn is as packed with
+Baedeker attachments as a Siberian prison is with Nihilists--to run out
+here and look at these quays and basins, and old Honfleur lying here,
+beneath her green cliffs--well, short of Cairo, I don't know any better
+bit of color. Look out there, now! See those sails, dripping with
+color, and that fellow up there, letting the sail down--there, splash
+it goes into the water, I knew it would; now tell me where will
+you get better blues or yellows or browns, with just the right purples
+in the shore line, than you'll get here?"
+
+Renard was fairly started; he had the bit of the born monologist
+between his teeth; he stopped barely long enough to hear even an
+echoing assent. We were quite content; we continued to sip our
+champagne and to feast our eyes. Meanwhile Renard talked on.
+
+"Guide-books--what's the use of guide-books? What do they teach you,
+anyway? Open any one of the cursed clap-trap things. Yes, yes, I know I
+oughtn't to use vigorous language."
+
+"Do," bleated Charm, smiling sweetly up at him. "Do, it makes you seem
+manly."
+
+Even Renard had to take time to laugh.
+
+"Thank you! I'm not above making use of any aids to create that
+illusion. Well, as I was saying, what guide-book ever really helped
+anyone to _see?_--that's what one travels for, I take it. Here, for
+instance, Murray or Baedeker would give you this sort of thing:
+'Honfleur, an ancient town, with pier, beaches, three floating docks,
+and a good deal of trade in timber, cod, etc.; exports large quantities
+of eggs to England.' Good heavens! it makes one boil! Do sane,
+reasonable mortals travel three thousand miles to read ancient history
+done up in modern binding, served up a la Murray, a la Baedeker?"
+
+"Oh, you do them injustice, I think--the guides do go in for a little
+more of the picturesque than that--"
+
+"And how--how do they do it? This is the sort of thing they'll give
+you: 'Church of St. Catherine is large and remarkable, entirely of
+timber and plaster, the largest of its kind in France.' Ah! ha! that's
+the picturesque with a vengeance. No, no, my friends, throw the
+guide-books into the river, pitch them overboard through the port
+holes, along with the flowers, and letters _to be read three days out_,
+and the nasty novels people send you to make the crossing pleasant. And
+when you travel, really travel, mind, never make a plan--just go--go
+anywhere, whenever the impulse seizes you--and you may hope to get
+there, in the right way, possibly."
+
+Here Renard stopped to finish his glass, draining-the last drop of the
+yellow liquid. Then he went on: "To travel! To start when an impulse
+seizes one! To go--anywhere! Why not! It was for this, after all, that
+all of us have come our three thousand miles." Perhaps it was the
+restless tossing of the shipping out yonder in the basins that awoke an
+answering impatience within, in response to Renard's outburst. Where
+did they go, those ships, and, up beyond this mouth of the Seine, how
+looked the shores, and what life lived itself out beneath the rustling
+poplars? Is it the mission of all flowing water to create an unrest in
+men's minds?
+
+Meanwhile, though the talk was not done, the dinner was long since
+eaten. We rose to take a glimpse of Honfleur and its famous old basin.
+The quays and the floating docks, in front of which we had been dining,
+are a part of the nineteenth century; the great ships ride in to them
+from the sea. But here, in this inner quadrangular dock, beside which
+we were soon standing, traced by Duquesne when Louis the Great
+discovered the maritime importance of Honfleur, we found still
+reminders of the old life. Here were the same old houses that, in
+the seventeenth century, upright and brave in their brand new carvings,
+saw the high-decked, picturesquely painted Spanish and Portuguese ships
+ride in to dip their flag to the French fleur-de-lis. There are but few
+of the old streets left to crowd about the shipping life that still
+floats here, as in those bygone days of Honfleur pride;--when Havre was
+but a yellow strip of sand; when the Honfleur merchants would have
+laughed to scorn any prophet's cry of warning that one day that
+sand-bar opposite, despised, disregarded, boasting only a chapel and a
+tavern, would grow and grow, and would steal year by year and inch by
+inch bustling Honfleur's traffic, till none was left.
+
+In the old adventurous days, along with the Spanish ships came others,
+French trading and fishing vessels, with the salty crustations of long
+voyages on their hulls and masts. The wharves were alive then with
+fish-wives, whom Evelyn will tell you wore "useful habits made of
+goats' skin." The captains' daughters were in quaint Normandy costumes;
+and the high-peaked coifs and the stiff woollen skirts, as well as the
+goat-skin coats, trembled as the women darted hither and thither among
+the sailors--whose high cries filled the air as they picked out mother
+and wife. Then were bronzed beards buried in the deeply-wrinkled old
+mères' faces, and young, strong arms clasped about maidens' waists. The
+whole town rang with gayety and with the mad joy of reunion. On the
+morrow, coiling its way up the steep hillsides, wound the long lines of
+the grateful company, one composed chiefly of the crews of these
+vessels happily come to port. The procession would mount up to the
+little church of Notre Dame de Grâce perched on the hill overlooking
+the harbor. Some even--so deep was their joy at deliverance from
+shipwreck and so fervent their piety--crawled up, bare-footed, with
+bared head, wives and children following, weeping for joy, as the rude
+_ex-votos_ were laid by the sailors' trembling hands at the feet of the
+Virgin Lady.
+
+As reminders of this old life, what is left? Within the stone
+quadrangle we found clustered a motley fleet of wrecks and
+fishing-vessels; the nets, flung out to dry in the night air, hung like
+shrouds from the mastheads; here and there a figure bestrode a deck, a
+rough shape, that seemed endowed with a double gift of life, so still
+and noiseless was the town. Around the silent dock, grouped in
+mysterious medley and confusion, were tottering roof lines, projecting
+eaves, narrow windows, all crazily tortured and out of shape. Here
+and there, beneath the broad beams of support, a little interior, dimly
+lighted, showed a knot of sailors gathered, drinking or lounging. Up
+high beneath a chimney perilously overlooking a rude facade, a quaint
+shape emerged, one as decrepit and forlorn of life and hope as the
+decaying houses it overlooked. Silence, poverty, wretchedness, the
+dregs of life, to this has Honfleur fallen. These old houses, in their
+slow decay, hiding in their dark bosom the gaunt secrets of this
+poverty and human misery, seemed to be dancing a dance of drunken
+indifference. Some day the dance will end in a fall, and then the
+Honfleur of the past will not even boast of a ghost, as reminder of its
+days of splendor.
+
+An artist quicker than anyone else, I think, can be trusted to take one
+out of history and into the picturesque. Renard refused to see anything
+but beauty in the decay about us; for him the houses were at just the
+right drooping angle; the roof lines were delightful in their
+irregularity; and the fluttering tremor of the nets, along the rigging,
+was the very poetry of motion.
+
+"We'll finish the evening on the pier," he exclaimed, suddenly; "the
+moon will soon be up--we can sit it out there and see it begin to color
+things."
+
+The pier was more popular than the quaint old dock. It was crowded with
+promenaders, who, doubtless, were taking a bite of the sea-air. Through
+the dusk the tripping figures of gentlemen in white flannels and jaunty
+caps brushed the provincial Honfleur swells. Some gentle English voices
+told us some of the villa residents had come down to the pier, moved by
+the beauty of the night. Groups of sailors, with tanned faces and
+punctured ears hooped with gold rings, sat on the broad stone parapets,
+talking unintelligible Breton _patois_. The pier ran far out, almost to
+the Havre cliffs, it seemed to us, as we walked along in the dusk of
+the young night. The sky was slowly losing its soft flame. A tender,
+mellow half light was stealing over the waters, making the town a rich
+mass of shade. Over the top of the low hills the moon shot out, a
+large, globular mass of beaten gold. At first it was only a part and
+portion of the universal lighting, of the still flushed sky, of the red
+and crimson harbor lights, of the dim twinkling of lamps and candles in
+the rude interiors along the shore. But slowly, triumphantly, the great
+lamp swung up; it rose higher and higher into the soft summer sky, and
+as it mounted, sky and earth began to pale and fade. Soon there was
+only a silver world to look out upon--a wealth of quivering silver over
+the breast of the waters, and a deeper, richer gray on cliffs and
+roof tops. Out of this silver world came the sound of waters, lapping
+in soft cadence against the pier; the rise and fall of sails, stirring
+in the night wind; the tread of human footsteps moving in slow,
+measured beat, in unison with the rhythm of the waters. Just when the
+stars were scattering their gold on the bosom of the sea-river, a voice
+rang out, a rich, full baritone. Quite near, two sailors were seated,
+with their arms about each other's shoulders. They also were looking at
+the moonlight, and one of them was singing to it:
+
+ _"Te souviens-tu, Marie,
+  De notre enfance aux champs?
+
+ "Te souviens-tu?
+  Le temps que je regrette
+  C'est le temps qui n'est plus._"
+
+[Illustration: THE INN AT DIVES--GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT]
+
+
+
+
+DIVES: AN INN ON A HIGH-ROAD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A COAST DRIVE.
+
+
+On our return to Villerville we found that the charm of the place, for
+us, was a broken one. We had seen the world; the effect of that
+experience was to produce the common result--there was a fine deposit
+of discontent in the cup of our pleasure.
+
+Madame Fouchet had made use of our absence to settle our destiny; she
+had rented her villa. This was one of the bitter dregs. Another was to
+find that the life of the village seemed to pass us by; it gave us to
+understand, with unflattering frankness, that for strangers who made no
+bargains for the season, it had little or no civility to squander. For
+the Villerville beach, the inn, and the villas were crowded. Mere
+Mouchard was tossing omelettes from morning till night; even Augustine
+was far too hurried to pay her usual visit to the creamery. A
+detachment of Parisian costumes and beribboned nursery maids was
+crowding out the fish-wives and old hags from their stations on the low
+door-steps and the grasses on the cliffs.
+
+Even Fouchet was no longer a familiar figure in the foreground of his
+garden; his roses were blooming now for the present owners of his
+villa. He and madame had betaken themselves to a box of a hut on the
+very outskirts of the village--a miserable little hovel with two rooms
+and a bit of pasture land being the substitute, as a dwelling, for the
+gay villa and its garden along the sea-cliffs. Pity, however, would
+have been entirely wasted on the Fouchet household and their change of
+habitation. Tucked in, cramped, and uncomfortable beneath the low eaves
+of their cabin ceilings, they could now wear away the summer in
+blissful contentment: Were they not living on nothing--on less than
+nothing, in this dark pocket of a _chaumière_, while their fine house
+yonder was paying for itself handsomely, week after week? The heart
+beats high, in a Norman breast, when the pocket bulges; gold--that is
+better than bread to feel in one's hand.
+
+The whole village wore this triumphant expression--now that the season
+was beginning. Paris had come down to them, at last, to be shorn of its
+strength; angling for pennies in a Parisian pocket was better, far,
+than casting nets into the sea. There was also more contentment in such
+fishing--for true Norman wit.
+
+Only once did the village change its look of triumph to one of polite
+regret; for though it was Norman, it was also French. It remembered, on
+the morning of our departure, that the civility of the farewell costs
+nothing, and like bread prodigally scattered on the waters, may
+perchance bring back a tenfold recompense.
+
+Even the morning arose with a flattering pallor. It was a gray day. The
+low houses were like so many rows of pale faces; the caps of the
+fishwives, as they nodded a farewell, seemed to put the village in half
+mourning.
+
+"You will have a perfect day for your drive--there's nothing better
+than these grays in the French landscape," Renard was saying, at our
+carriage wheels; "they bring out every tone. And the sea is wonderful.
+Pity you're going. Grand day for the mussel-bed. However, I shall see
+you, I shall see you. Remember me to Monsieur Paul; tell him to save me
+a bottle of his famous old wine. Good-by, good-by."
+
+There was a shower of rose-leaves flung out upon us; a great sweep of
+the now familiar beret; a sonorous "Hui!" from our driver, with an
+accompaniment of vigorous whip-snapping, and we were off.
+
+The grayness of the closely-packed houses was soon exchanged for the
+farms lying beneath the elms. With the widening of the distance between
+our carriage-wheels and Villerville, there was soon a great expanse of
+mouse-colored sky and the breath of a silver sea. The fields and
+foliage were softly brilliant; when the light wind stirred the grain,
+the poppies and bluets were as vivid as flowers seen in dreams.
+
+It is easy to understand, I think, why French painters are so enamoured
+of their gray skies--such a background makes even the commonplace wear
+an air of importance. All the tones of the landscape were astonishingly
+serious; the features of the coast and the inland country were as
+significant as if they were meditating an outbreak into speech. It was
+the kind of day that bred reflection; one could put anything one liked
+into the picture with a certainty of its fitting the frame. We were
+putting a certain amount of regret into it; for though Villerville has
+seen us depart with civilized indifference or the stolidity of
+the barbarian--for they are one, we found our own attainments in the
+science of unfeelingness deficient: to look down upon the village from
+the next hill top was like facing a lost joy.
+
+Once on the highroad, however, the life along the shore gave us little
+time for the futility of regret. Regret, at best, is a barren thing:
+like the mule, it is incapable of perpetuating its own mistakes; it
+appears to apologize, indeed, for its stupidity by making its exit as
+speedily as possible. With the next turn of the road we were in fitting
+condition to greet the wildest form of adventure.
+
+Pedlars' carts and the lumbering Normandy farm wagons were, at first,
+our chief companions along the roadway. Here and there a head would
+peep forth from a villa window, or a hand be stretched out into the air
+to see if any rain was falling from the moist sky. The farms were
+quieter than usual; there was an air of patient waiting in the
+courtyards, among the blouses and standing cattle, as though both man
+and beast were there in attendance on the day and the weather,
+till the latter could come to the point of a final decision in regard
+to the rain.
+
+Finally, as we were nearing Trouville, the big drops fell. The
+grain-fields were soon bent double beneath the spasmodic shower. The
+poppies were drenched, so were the cobble paved courtyards; only the
+geese and the regiment of the ducks came abroad to revel in the
+downpour. The villas were hermetically sealed now--their summer finery
+was not made for a wetting. The landscape had no such reserves; it gave
+itself up to the light summer shower as if it knew that its raiment,
+like Rachel's, when dampened the better to take her plastic outlines,
+only gained in tone and loveliness the closer it fitted the recumbent
+figure of mother earth.
+
+Our coachman could never have been mistaken for any other than a good
+Norman. He was endowed with the gift of oratory peculiar to the
+country; and his profanity was enriched with all the flavor of the
+provincial's elation in the committing of sin. From the earliest moment
+of our starting, the stream of his talk had been unending. His
+vocabulary was such as to have excited the envy and despair of a French
+realist, impassioned in the pursuit of "the word."
+
+"_Hui!--b-r-r-r!_"--This was the most common of his salutations to his
+horse. It was the Norman coachman's familiar apostrophe, impossible of
+imitation; it was also one no Norman horse who respects himself moves
+an inch without first hearing. Chat Noir was a horse of purest Norman
+ancestry; his Percheron blood was as untainted as his intelligence was
+unclouded by having no mixtures of tongues with which to deal. His
+owner's "_Hui!_" lifted him with arrowy lightness to the top of a hill.
+The deeper "_Bougre_" steadied his nerve for a good mile of unbroken
+trotting. Any toil is pleasant in the gray of a cool morning, with a
+friend holding the reins who is a gifted monologist; even imprecations,
+rightly administered, are only lively punctuations to really talented
+speech.
+
+"Come, my beauty, take in thy breath--courage! The hill is before thee!
+Curse thy withered legs, and is it thus thou stumbleth? On--up with
+thee and that mountain of flesh thou carriest about with thee." And the
+mountain of flesh would be lifted--it was carried as lightly by the
+finely-feathered legs and the broad haunches as if the firm avoirdupois
+were so much gossamer tissue. On and on the neat, strong hoofs rang
+their metallic click, clack along the smooth macadam. They had carried
+us past the farm-houses, the cliffs, the meadows, and the Norman roofed
+manoirs buried in their apple-orchards. These same hoofs were now
+carefully, dexterously picking their way down the steep hill that leads
+directly into the city of the Trouville villas.
+
+Presently, the hoofs came to a sudden halt, from sheer amazement. What
+was this order, this command the quick Percheron hearing had overheard?
+Not to go any farther into this summer city--not to go down to its
+sand-beach--not to wander through the labyrinth of its gay little
+streets?--Verily, it is the fate of a good horse, how often! to carry
+fools, and the destiny of intelligence to serve those deficient in mind
+and sense.
+
+The criticism on our choice of direction was announced by the hoofs
+turning resignedly, with the patient assent of the fatigue that is bred
+of disgust, into one of the upper Trouville by-streets. Our coachman
+contented himself with a commiserating shrug and a prolonged flow of
+explanation. Perhaps _ces dames_, being strangers, did not know that
+Trouville was now beginning its real season--its season of baths? The
+Casino, in truth, was only opened a week since; but we could hear the
+band even now playing above the noise of the waves. And behold, the
+villas were filling; each day some _grande dame_ came down to take
+possession of her house by the sea.
+
+How could we hope to make a Frenchman comprehend an instinctive impulse
+to turn our backs on the Trouville world? What, pray, had we just now
+to do with fashion--with the purring accents of boudoirs, with all the
+life we had run away from? Surely the romance--the charm of our present
+experiences would be put to flight once we exchanged salutations with
+the _beau monde_--with that world that is so sceptical of any pleasure
+save that which blooms in its own hot-houses, and so disdainful of all
+forms of life save those that are modelled on fashion's types. We had
+fled from cities to escape all this; were we, forsooth, to be pushed
+into the motley crowd of commonplace pleasure-seekers because of the
+scorn of a human creature, and the mute criticism of a beast that was
+hired to do the bidding of his betters? The world of fashion was one to
+be looked out upon as a part of the general _mise-en-scène_--as a bit
+of the universal decoration of this vast amphitheatre of the Normandy
+beaches.
+
+Chat noir had little reverence for philosophic reflections; he turned a
+sharp corner just then; he stopped short, directly in front of the
+broad windows of a confectioner's shop. This time he did not appeal in
+vain to the strangers with a barbarian's contempt for the great world.
+The brisk drive and the salt in the air were stimulants to appetite to
+be respected; it is not every day the palate has so fine an edge.
+
+"_Du thé, mesdames--à l'Anglaise?_" a neatly-corsetted shape, in black,
+to set off a pair of dazzling pink cheeks, shone out behind rows of
+apricot tarts. There was also a cap that conveyed to one, through the
+medium of pink bows, the capacities of coquetry that lay in the depths
+of the rich brown eyes beneath them. The attractive shape emerged at
+once from behind the counter, to set chairs about the little table. We
+were bidden to be seated with an air of smiling grace, one that
+invested the act with the emphasis of genuine hospitality. Soon a great
+clatter arose in the rear of the shop; opinions and counter-opinions
+were being volubly exchanged in shrill French, as to whether the water
+should or should not come to a boil; also as to whether the leaves of
+oolong or of green should be chosen for our beverage. The cap fluttered
+in several times to ask, with exquisite politeness--a politeness which
+could not wholly veil the hidden anxiety--our own tastes and
+preferences. When the cap returned to the battling forces behind the
+screen, armed with the authority of our confessed prejudices, a new war
+of tongues arose. The fate of nations, trembling on the turn of a
+battle, might have been settled before that pot of water, so watched
+and guarded over, was brought to a boil. When, finally, the little tea
+service was brought in, every detail was perfect in taste and
+appointment, except the tea; the action that had held out valiantly,
+that the water should not boil, had prevailed, as the half-soaked tea-
+leaves floating on top of our full cups triumphantly proclaimed.
+
+We sipped the beverage, agreeing Balzac had well named it _ce boisson
+fade et mélancolique_; the novelist's disdain being the better
+understood as we reflected he had doubtless only tasted it as concocted
+by French ineptitude. We were very merry over the liver-colored liquid,
+as we sipped it and quoted Balzac. But not for a moment had our
+merriment deceived the brown eyes and the fluttering cap-ribbons. A
+little drama of remorse was soon played for our benefit. It was she,
+her very self, the cap protested--as she pointed a tragic finger at the
+swelling, rounded line of her firm bodice--it was she who had insisted
+that the water should _not_ boil; there had been ladies--_des vraies
+anglaises_--here, only last summer, who would not that the water should
+boil, when their tea was made. And now, it appears that they were
+wrong, "_c'etait probablement une fantaisie de la part de ces dames_."
+Would we wait for another cup? It would take but an instant, it was a
+little mistake, so easy to remedy. But this mistake, like many another,
+like crime, for instance, could never be remedied, we smilingly told
+her; a smile that changed her solicitous remorse to a humorist's view
+of the situation.
+
+Another humorist, one accustomed to view the world from heights known
+as trapeze elevations, we met a little later on our way out of the
+narrow upper streets; he was also looking down over Trouville. It was a
+motley figure in a Pierrot garb, with a smaller striped body, both in
+the stage pallor of their trade. These were somewhat startling objects
+to confront on a Normandy high-road. For clowns, however, taken by
+surprise, they were astonishingly civil. They passed their "_bonjour_"
+to us and to the coachman as glibly as though accosting us from the
+commoner circus distance.
+
+"They have come to taste of the fresh air, they have," laconically
+remarked our driver, as his round Norman eyes ran over the muscled
+bodies of the two athletes. "I had a brother who was one--I had; he was
+a famous one--he was; he broke his neck once, when the net had been
+forgotten. They all do it--_ils se cassent le cou tous, tôt ou tard!
+Allons toi t'as peur, toi?_" Chat noir's great back was quivering with
+fear; he had no taste, himself, for shapes like these, spectral and wan
+as ghosts, walking about in the sun. He took us as far away as
+possible, and as quickly, from these reminders of the thing men call
+pleasure.
+
+We, meanwhile, were asking Pierre for a certain promised chateau, one
+famous for its beauty, between Trouville and Cabourg.
+
+"It is here, madame--the château," he said, at last.
+
+Two lions couchant, seated on wide pedestals beneath a company of
+noble trees, were the only visible inhabitants of the dwelling.
+There was a sweep of gardens: terraces that picked their way daintily
+down the cliffs toward the sea, a mansard roof that covered a large
+mansion--these were the sole aspects of chateau life to keep the trees
+company. In spite of Pierre's urgent insistence that the view was even
+more beautiful than the one from the hill, we refused to exchange our
+first experiences of the beauty of the prospect for a second which
+would be certain to invite criticism; for it is ever the critic in us
+that plays the part of Bluebeard to our many-wived illusions.
+
+We passed between the hedgerows with not even a sigh of regret. We were
+presently rewarded by something better than an illusion--by reality,
+which, at its best, can afford to laugh at the spectral shadow of
+itself. Near the château there lived on, the remnant of a hamlet. It
+was a hamlet, apparently, that boasted only one farm-house; and the
+farm-house could show but a single hayrick. Beneath the sloping roof,
+modelled into shape by a pitchfork and whose symmetrical lines put
+Mansard's clumsy creation yonder to the blush, sat an old couple--a man
+and a woman. Both were old, with the rounded backs of the laborer;
+the woman's hand was lying in the man's open palm, while his free arm
+was clasped about her neck with all the tenderness of young love. Both
+of the old heads were laid back on the pillow made by the freshly-piled
+grasses. They had done a long day's work already, before the sun had
+reached its meridian; they were weary and resting here before they went
+back to their toil.
+
+This was better than the view; it made life seem finer than nature; how
+rich these two poor old things looked, with only their poverty about
+them!
+
+Meanwhile Pierre had quickly changed the rural _mise-en-scène_; instead
+of pink hawthorn hedges we were in the midst of young forest trees. Why
+is it that a forest is always a surprise in France? Is it that we have
+such a respect for French thrift, that a real forest seems a waste of
+timber? There are forests and forests; this one seemed almost a
+stripling in its tentative delicacy, compared to the mature splendor of
+Fontainebleau, for example. This forest had the virility of a young
+savage; it was neither dense nor vast; yet, in contrast to the ribbony
+grain fields, and to the finish of the villa parks, was as refreshing
+to the eye as the right chord that strikes upon the ear after a
+succession of trills.
+
+In all this fair Normandy sea-coast, with its wonderful inland
+contrasts, there was but one disappointing note. One looked in vain for
+the old Normandy costumes. The blouse and the close white cap--this is
+all that is left of the wondrous headgear, the short brilliant
+petticoats, the embroidered stomacher, and the Caen and Rouen jewels,
+abroad in the fields only a decade ago.
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulders when asked a question concerning these
+now pre-historic costumes.
+
+ "Ah! mademoiselle, you must see for yourself, that the peasant who
+doesn't despise himself dresses now in the fields as he would in
+Paris."
+
+As if in confirmation of Pierre's news of the fashions, there stepped
+forth from an avenue of trees, fringing a near farm-house, a wedding-
+party. The bride was in the traditional white of brides; the little
+cortege following the trail of her white gown, was dressed in costumes
+modelled on Bon Marché styles. The coarse peasant faces flamed from
+bonnets more flowery than the fields into which they were passing. The
+men seemed choked in their high collars; the agony of new boots was
+written on faces not used to concealing such form of torture. Even the
+groom was suffering; his bliss was something the gay little bride
+hanging on his arm must take entirely for granted. It was enough
+greatness for the moment to wear broadcloth and a white vest in the
+face of men.
+
+"_Laissez, laissez, Marguerite_, it is clean here; it will look fine on
+the green!" cried the bride to an improvised train-bearer, who had been
+holding up the white alpaca. Then the full splendor of the bridal skirt
+trailed across the freshly mown grasses. An irrepressible murmur of
+admiration welled up from the wedding guests; even Pierre made part of
+the chorus. The bridegroom stopped to mop his face, and to look forth
+proudly, through starting eyeballs, on the splendor of his possessions.
+
+"Ah! Lizette, thou art pretty like that, thou knowest. _Faut
+l'embrasser, tu sais_."
+
+He gave her a kiss full on the lips. The little bride returned the kiss
+with unabashed fervor. Then she burst into a loud fit of laughter.
+
+"How silly you look, Jean, with your collar burst open."
+
+The groom's enthusiasm had been too much for his toilet; the noon sun
+and the excitements of the marriage service had dealt hardly with his
+celluloid fastenings. All the wedding cortege rushed to the rescue.
+Pins, shouts of advice, pieces of twine, rubber fastenings, even
+knives, were offered to the now exploding bridegroom; everyone was
+helping him repair the ravages of his moment of bliss; everyone
+excepting the bride. She sat down upon her train and wept from pure
+rapture of laughter.
+
+Pierre shook his head gravely, as he whipped up his steed.
+
+"Jean will repent it; he'll lose worse things than a button, with
+Lizette. A woman who laughs like that on the threshold of marriage will
+cry before the cradle is rocked, and will make others weep. However,
+Jean won't be thinking of that--to-night."
+
+"Where are they going--along the highroad?"
+
+"Only a short distance. They turn in there," and he pointed with his
+whip to a near lane; "they go to the farm-house now--for the wedding
+dinner. Ah! there'll be some heavy heads to-morrow. For you know, a
+Norman peasant only really eats and drinks well twice in his life--when
+he marries himself and when his daughter marries. Lizette's father is
+rich--the meat and the wines will be good to-night."
+
+Our coachman sighed, as if the thought of the excellence of the coming
+banquet had disturbed his own digestion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT.
+
+
+The wedding party was lost in a thicket. Pierre gave his whip so
+resounding a snap, it was no surprise to find ourselves rolling over
+the cobbles of a village street.
+
+"This is Dives, mesdames, this is the inn!"
+
+Pierre drew up, as he spoke, before a long, low facade.
+
+Now, no one, I take it, in this world enjoys being duped. Surely
+disappointment is only a civil term for the varying degrees of fraud
+practised on the imagination. This inn, apparently, was to be classed
+among such frauds. It did not in the least, externally at least, fulfil
+Renard's promises. He had told us to expect the marvellous and the
+mediaeval in their most approved period. Yet here we were, facing a
+featureless exterior! The facade was built yesterday--that was writ
+large, all over the low, rambling structure. One end, it is true,
+had a gabled end; there was also an old shrine niched in glass beneath
+the gable, and a low Norman gateway with rude letters carved over the
+arch. June was in its glory, and the barrenness of the commonplace
+structure was mercifully hidden by a wreath of pink and amber roses.
+But one scarcely drives twenty miles in the sun to look upon a facade
+of roses!
+
+Chat noir, meanwhile, was becoming restless. Pierre had managed to keep
+his own patience well in hand. Now, however, he broke forth:
+
+"Shall we enter, my ladies?"
+
+Pierre drove us straight into paradise; for here, at last, within the
+courtyard, was the inn we had come to seek.
+
+A group of low-gabled buildings surrounded an open court. All of the
+buildings were timbered, the diagonal beams of oak so old they were
+black in the sun, and the snowy whiteness of fresh plaster made them
+seem blacker still. The gabled roofs were of varying tones and tints;
+some were red, some mossy green, some as gray as the skin of a mouse;
+all were deeply, plentifully furrowed with the washings of countless
+rains, and they were bearded with moss. There were outside galleries,
+beginning somewhere and ending anywhere. There were open and covered
+outer stairways so laden with vines they could scarce totter to the
+low heights of the chamber doors on which they opened; and there were
+open sheds where huge farm-wagons were rolled close to the most modern
+of Parisian dog-carts. That not a note of contrast might be lacking,
+across the courtyard, in one of the windows beneath a stairway, there
+flashed the gleam of some rich stained glass, spots of color that were
+repeated, with quite a different lustre, in the dappled haunches
+of rows of sturdy Percherons munching their meal in the adjacent
+stalls. Add to such an ensemble a vagrant multitude of rose,
+honeysuckle, clematis, and wistaria vines, all blooming in full rivalry
+of perfume and color; insert in some of the corners and beneath some of
+the older casements archaic bits of sculpture--strange barbaric
+features with beards of Assyrian correctness and forms clad in the
+rigid draperies of the early Jumièges period of the sculptor's
+art; lance above the roof ridges the quaint polychrome finials of the
+earlier Palissy models; and crowd the rough cobble-paved courtyard with
+a rare and distinguished assemblage of flamingoes, peacocks, herons,
+cockatoos swinging from gabled windows, and game-cocks that strut about
+in company with pink doves--and you have the famous inn of Guillaume le
+Conquérant!
+
+Meanwhile an individual, with fine deep-gray eyes, and a face grave,
+yet kindly, over which a smile was humorously breaking, was patiently
+waiting at our carriage door. He could be no other than Monsieur Paul,
+owner and inn-keeper, also artist, sculptor, carver, restorer, to whom,
+in truth, this miracle of an inn owed its present perfection and
+picturesqueness.
+
+"We have been long expecting you, mesdames," Monsieur Paul's grave
+voice was saying. "Monsieur Renard had written to announce your coming.
+You took the trouble to drive along the coast this fine day? It is
+idyllically lovely, is it not--under such a sun?"
+
+Evidently the moment of enchantment was not to be broken by the worker
+of the spell. Monsieur Paul and his inn were one; if one was a poem the
+other was a poet. The poet was also lined with the man of the practical
+moment. He had quickly summoned a host of serving-people to take charge
+of us and our luggage.
+
+"Lizette, show these ladies to the room of Madame de Sévigné. If they
+desire a sitting-room--to the Marmousets."
+
+The inn-keeper gave his commands in the quiet, well-bred tone of a man
+of the world, to a woman in peasant's dress. She led us past the open
+court to an inner one, where we were confronted with a building still
+older, apparently, than those grouped about the outer quadrangle. The
+peasant passed quickly beneath an overhanging gallery, draped in vines.
+She was next preceding us up a spiral turret stairway; the adjacent
+walls were hung here and there with faded bits of tapestry. Once more
+she turned to lead us along an open gallery; on this several rooms
+appeared to open. On each door a different sign was painted in rude
+Gothic letters. The first was "Chambre de l'Officier;" the second,
+"Chambre du Curé," and the next was flung widely open. It was the room
+of the famous lady of the incomparable Letters. The room might have
+been left--in the yesterday of two centuries--by the lady whose name it
+bore. There was a beautiful Seventeenth century bedstead, a couple of
+wide arm-chairs, with down pillows for seats, and a clothes press with
+the carvings and brass work peculiar to the epoch of Louis XIV. The
+chintz hangings and draperies were in keeping, being copies of the
+brocades of that day. There were portraits in miniature of the
+courtiers and the ladies of the Great Reign on the very ewers and
+basins. On the flounced dressing-table, with its antique glass and a
+diminutive patch-box, now the receptacle of Lubin's powder, a sprig of
+the lovely Rose The was exhaling a faint, far-away century perfume. It
+was surely a stage set for a real comedy; some of these high-coiffed
+ladies, who knows? perhaps Madame de Sévigné herself would come to
+life, and give to the room the only thing it lacked--the living
+presence of that old world grace and speech.
+
+Presently, we sallied forth on a further voyage of discovery. We had
+reached the courtyard when Monsieur Paul crossed it; it was to ask if,
+while waiting for the noon breakfast, we would care to see the kitchen;
+it was, perhaps, different to those now commonly seen in modern
+taverns.
+
+The kitchen which was thus modestly described as unlike those of our
+own century might easily, except for the appetizing smell of the
+cooking fowls and the meats, have been put under lock and key and
+turned over to a care-taker as a full-fledged culinary museum of
+antiquities. One entire side of the crowded but orderly little room was
+taken up by a huge open fireplace. The logs resting on the great
+andirons were the trunks of full-grown trees. On two of the spits were
+long rows of fowl and legs of mutton roasting; the great chains were
+being slowly turned by a _chef_ in the paper cap of his profession. In
+deep burnished brass bowls lay water-cresses; in Caen dishes of an age
+to make a bric-a-brac collector turn green with envy, a _Béarnaise_
+sauce was being beaten by another gallic master-hand. Along the beams
+hung old Rouen plates and platters; in the numberless carved Normandy
+cupboards gleamed rare bits of Delft and Limoges; the walls may be said
+to have been hung with Normandy brasses, each as burnished as a jewel.
+The floor was sanded and the tables had attained that satiny finish
+which comes only with long usage and tireless use of the brush. There
+was also a shrine and a clock, the latter of antique Norman make and
+design.
+
+The smell of the roasting fowls and the herbs used by the maker of the
+sauces, a hungry palate found even more exciting than this most
+original of kitchens. There was a wine that went with the sauce; this
+fact Monsieur Paul explained, on our sitting down to the noonday meal;
+one which, in remembrance of Monsieur Renard's injunctions, he would
+suggest our trying. He crossed the courtyard and disappeared into the
+bowels of the earth, beneath one of the inn buildings, to bring forth a
+bottle incrusted with layers of moist dirt. This Sauterne was by
+some, Monsieur Paul smilingly explained, considered as among the real
+treasures of the inn. Both it and the sauce, we were enabled to assure
+him a moment later, had that golden softness which make French wines
+and French sauces at their best the rapture of the palate.
+
+In the courtyard, as our breakfast proceeded, a variety of incidents
+was happening. We were facing the open archway; through it one looked
+out upon the high-road. A wheelbarrow passed, trundled by a peasant-
+girl; the barrow stopped, the girl leaving it for an instant to cross
+the court.
+
+"_Bonjour, mère--_"
+
+"_Bonjour, ma fille_--it goes well?" a deep guttural voice responded,
+just outside of the window.
+
+"_Justement_--I came to tell you the mare has foaled and Jean will be
+late to-night."
+
+"_Bien._"
+
+"And Barbarine is still angry--"
+
+"Make up with her, my child--anger is an evil bird to take to one's
+heart," the deep voice went on.
+
+"It is my mother," explained Monsieur Paul. "It is her favorite seat,
+out yonder, on the green bench in the courtyard. I call it her judge's
+bench," he smiled, indulgently, as he went on. "She dispenses justice
+with more authority than any other magistrate in town. I am Mayor, as
+it happens, just now; but madame my mother is far above me, in real
+power. She rules the town and the country about, for miles. Everyone
+comes to her sooner or later for counsel and command. You will soon see
+for yourselves."
+
+A murmur of assent from all the table accompanied Monsieur Paul's
+prophecy.
+
+"_Femme vraiment remarquable_," hoarsely whispered a stout breakfaster,
+behind his napkin, between two spoonsful of his soup.
+
+"Not two in a century like her," said my neighbor.
+
+"No--nor two in all France--_non plus_," retorted the stout man.
+
+"She could rule a kingdom--hey, Paul?"
+
+"She rules me--as you see--and a man is harder to govern than a
+province, they say," smiled Monsieur Paul with a humorous relish,
+obviously the offspring of experience. "In France, mesdames," he added,
+a sweeter look of feeling coming into the deep eyes, "you see we are
+always children--_toujours enfants_--as long as the mother lives. We
+are never really old till she dies. May the good God preserve her!" and
+he lifted his glass toward the green bench. The table drank the toast,
+in silence.
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLES--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE GREEN BENCH.
+
+
+In the course of the first few days we learned what all Dives had known
+for the past fifty years or so--that the focal point of interest in the
+inn was centred in Madame Le Mois. She drew us, as she had the country
+around for miles, to circle close about her green bench.
+
+The bench was placed at the best possible point for one who, between
+dawn and darkness, made it the business of her life to keep her eye on
+her world. Not the tiniest mouse nor the most spectral shade could
+enter or slip away beneath the open archway without undergoing
+inspection from that omniscient eye, that seemed never to blink nor to
+grow weary. This same eye could keep its watch, also, over the entire
+establishment, with no need of the huge body to which it was attached
+moving a hair's-breadth. Was it Nitouche, the head-cook, who was
+grumbling because the kitchen-wench had not scoured the brass saucepans
+to the last point of mirrory brightness? Behold both Nitouche and the
+trembling peasant-girl, together with the brasses as evidence, all
+could be brought at an instant's call, into the open court. Were the
+maids--were Marianne or Lizette neglecting their work to flirt with the
+coachmen in the sheds yonder?
+
+"_Allons, mes filles--doucement, là-bas--et vos lits? qui les
+fait--les bons saints du paradis, peut-être?_" And Marianne and Lizette
+would slink away to the waiting beds. Nothing escaped this eye. If the
+_poule sultane_ was gone lame, limping in the inner quadrangle,
+madame's eye saw the trouble--a thorn in the left claw, before the
+feathered cripple had had time to reach her objective point, her
+mistress's capacious lap, and the healing touch of her skilful
+surgeon's fingers. Neither were the cockatoes nor the white parrots
+given license to make all the noise in the court-yard. When madame had
+an unusually loquacious moment, these more strictly professional
+conversationists were taught their place.
+
+"_E'ben, toi_--and thou wishest to proclaim to the world what a gymnast
+thou art--swinging on thy perch? Quietly, quietly, there are also
+others who wish to praise themselves! And now, my child, you were
+telling me how good you had been to your old grandmother, and how she
+scolded you. Well, and how about obedience to our parents, _hein_--how
+about that?" This, as the old face bent to the maiden beside her.
+
+There was one, assuredly, who had not failed in his duty to his
+parents. Monsieur Paul's whole life, as we learned later, had been a
+willing sacrifice to the unconscious tyranny of his mother's affection.
+The son was gifted with those gifts which, in a Parisian atelier, would
+easily have made him successful, if not famous. He had the artistic
+endowment in an unusual degree; it was all one to him, whether he
+modelled in clay, or carved in wood, or stone, or built a house, or
+restored old bric-a-brac. He had inherited the old world roundness of
+artistic ability--his was the plastic renascent touch that might have
+developed into that of a Giotto or a Benvenuto.
+
+It was such a sacrifice as this that he had lain at his mother's feet.
+
+Think you for an instant the clever, witty, canny woman in Madame Le
+Mois looked upon her son's renouncing the world of Paris, and holding
+to the glories of Dives and their famous inn in the light of a
+sacrifice? "_Parbleu!_" she would explode, when the subject was touched
+on, "it was a lucky thing for him that Paul had had an old mother to
+keep him from burning his fingers. Paris! What did the provinces want
+with Paris? Paris had need enough of them, the great, idle, shiftless,
+dissipated, cruel old city, that ground all their sons to powder, and
+then scattered their ashes abroad like so many cinders. Oh, yes, Paris
+couldn't get along without the provinces, to plunder and rob, to seduce
+their sons away from living good, pure lives, and to suck these lives
+as a pig would a trough of fresh water! But the provinces, if they
+valued their souls, shunned Paris as they would the devil. And as for
+artists--when it came to the young of the provinces, who thought they
+could paint or model--
+
+"_Tenez, madame_--this is what Paris does for our young. My neighbor
+yonder," and she pointed, as only Frenchwomen point, sticking her thumb
+into the air to designate a point back of her bench, "my neighbor had
+a son like Paul. He too was always niggling at something. He niggled
+so well a rich cousin sent him up to Paris. Well, in ten years he
+comes back, famous, rich, too, with a wife and even a child. The
+establishment is complete. Well, they come here to breakfast one fine
+morning, with his mother, whom he put at a side table, with his
+nurse--he is ashamed of his mother, you see. Well, then his wife talks
+and I hear her. '_Mais, mon Charles, c'est toi qui est le plus
+fameux--il n'y a que toi! Tu es un dieu, tu sais--il n'y a pas deux
+comme toi!_' The famous one deigns to smile then, and to eat of his
+breakfast. His digestion had gone wrong, it appears. The _Figaro_ had
+placed his name second on a certain list, _after_ a rival's! He alone
+must be great--there must not be another god of painting save him! He!
+He! that's fine, that's greatness--to lose one's appetite because
+another is praised, and to be ashamed of one's old mother!"
+
+Madame Le Mois's face, for a moment, was terrible to look upon. Even in
+her kindliest moments hers was a severe countenance, in spite of the
+true Norman curves in mouth and nostril--the laughter-loving curves.
+Presently, however, the fierceness of her severity melted; she had
+caught sight of her son. He was passing her, now, with the wine bottles
+for dinner piled up in his arms.
+
+"You see," croaked the mother, in an exultant whisper, "I've saved him
+from all that--he's happy, for he still works. In the winter he can
+amuse himself, when he likes, with his carving and paintbrushes. Ah,
+_tiens, du monde qui arrive!_" And the old woman seated herself, with
+an air of great dignity, to receive the new-comers.
+
+The world that came in under the low archway was of an altogether
+different character from any we had as yet seen. In a satin-lined
+victoria, amid the cushions, lay a young and lovely-eyed Anonyma.
+Seated beside her was a weak-featured man, with a huge flower
+decorating his coat lappel. This latter individual divided the seat
+with an army of small dogs who leaped forth as the carriage stopped.
+
+Madame Le Mois remained immovable on her bench. Her face was as
+enigmatic as her voice, as it gave Suzette the order to show the lady
+to the salon bleu. The high Louis XV. slipper, as it picked its way
+carefully after Suzette, never seemed more distinctly astray than when
+its fair wearer confided her safety to the insecure footing of the
+rough, uneven cobbles. In a brief half-hour the frou-frou of her silken
+skirts was once more sweeping the court-yard. She and her companion
+and the dogs chose the open air and a tent of sky for their
+banqueting-hall. Soon all were seated at one of the many tables placed
+near the kitchen, beneath the rose-vines.
+
+Madame gave the pair a keen, dissecting glance. Her verdict was
+delivered more in the emphasis of her shrug and the humor of her broad
+wink than in the loud-whispered "_Comme vous voyez, chère dame, de
+toutes sortes ici, chez nous--mais--toujours bon genre!_"
+
+The laughter of one who could not choose her world was stopped,
+suddenly, by the dipping of the thick fingers into an old snuff-box.
+That very afternoon the court-yard saw another arrival; this one was
+treated in quite a different spirit.
+
+A dog-cart was briskly driven into the yard by a gentleman who did not
+appear to be in the best of humor. He drew his horse up with a sudden
+fierceness; he as fiercely called out for the hostler. Monsieur Paul
+bit his lip; but he composedly confronted the disturbed countenance
+perched on the driver's seat. The gentleman wished.
+
+"I want indemnity--that is what I want. Indemnity for my horse," cried
+out a thick, coarse voice, with insolent authority.
+
+"For your horse? I do not think I understand--"
+
+"O--h, I presume not," retorted the man, still more insolently; "people
+don't usually understand when they have to pay. I came here a week ago,
+and stayed two days; and you starved my horse--and he died--that is
+what happened--he died!"
+
+The whole court-yard now rang with the cries of the assembled
+household. The high, angry tones had called together the last
+serving-man and scullery-maid; the cooks had come out from their
+kitchens; they were brandishing their long-handled saucepans. The
+peasant-women were shrieking in concert with the hostlers, who were
+raising their arms to heaven in proof of their innocence. Dogs, cats,
+cockatoes swinging on their perches, peacocks, parrots, pelicans, and
+every one of the cocks swarmed from the barnyards and garden and
+cellars, to add their shrill cries and shrieks to the universal babel.
+
+Meanwhile, calm and unruffled as a Hindoo goddess, and strikingly
+similar in general massiveness of structure and proportion to the
+common reproduction of such deities, sat Madame Le Mois. She went on
+with her usual occupation; she was dipping fresh-cut salad leaves into
+great bowls of water as quietly as if only her own little family were
+assembled before her. Once only she lifted her heavily-moulded,
+sagacious eyebrow at the irate dog-cart driver, as if to measure his
+pitiful strength. She allowed the fellow, however, to touch the
+point of abuse before she crushed him.
+
+Her first sentence reduced him to the ignominy of silence. All her
+people were also silent. What, the deep sarcastic voice chanted on the
+still air--what, this gentleman's horse had died--and yet he had waited
+a whole week to tell them of the great news? He was, of a truth,
+altogether too considerate. His own memory, perhaps, was also a short
+one, since it told him nothing of the condition in which the poor beast
+had arrived, dropping with fatigue, wet with sweat, his mouth all
+blood, and an eye as of one who already was past the consciousness of
+his suffering? Ah no, monsieur should go to those who also had short
+memories.
+
+"For we use our eyes--we do. We are used to deal with gentlemen--with
+Christians" (the Hebrew nose of the owner of the dead horse, even more
+plainly abused the privilege of its pedigree in proving its race, by
+turning downward, at this onslaught of the mère's satire), "as I said,
+with Christians," continued the mere, pitilessly. "And do those
+gentlemen complain and put upon us the death of their horses? No, my
+fine sir, they return--_ils reviennent, et sont revenus depuis la
+Conquête!_"
+
+With this fine climax madame announced the court as closed. She bowed
+disdainfully, with a grand and magisterial air, to the defeated
+claimant, who crept away, sulkily, through the low archway.
+
+"That is the way to deal with such vermin, Paul; whip them, and they
+turn tail." And the mere shook out a great laugh from her broad bosom,
+as she regaled her wide nostrils with a fresh pinch of snuff. The
+assembled household echoed the laugh, seasoning it with the glee of
+scorn, as each went to his allotted place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE WORLD THAT CAME TO DIVES.
+
+
+It was a world of many mixtures, of various ranks and habits of life
+that found its way under the old archway, and sat down at the table
+d'hôte breakfasts and dinners. Madame and her gifted son were far too
+clever to attempt to play the mistaken part of Providence; there was no
+pointed assortment made of the sheep and the goats; at least, not in a
+way to suggest the most remote intention of any such separation being
+premeditated. Such separation as there was came about in the most
+natural and in the pleasantest possible fashion. When Petitjean, the
+pedler, and his wife drove in under the Gothic sign, the huge lumbering
+vehicle was as quickly surrounded as when any of the neighboring
+notabilities arrived in emblazoned chariots. Madame was the first to
+waddle forward, nodding up toward the open hood as, with a short,
+brisk, business "_Bonjour_," she welcomed the head of Petitjean and his
+sharp-eyed spouse looking over the aprons.
+
+The pedler is always popular with his world and Dives knew Petitjean to
+be as honest as a pedler can ever hope to be in a world where small
+pence are only made large by some one being sacrificed on the altar of
+duplicity. Therefore it was that Petitjean's hearse-like cart was
+always a welcome visitor;--one could at least be as sure of a just
+return for one's money in trading with a pedler as from any other
+source in this thieving world. In the end, one always got something
+else besides the bargain to carry away with one. For Petitjean knew
+all the gossip of the province; after dinner, when the stiff cider was
+working in his veins, he would be certain to tell all one wanted to
+know. Even Madame Le Mois, whose days were too busy in summer to
+include the daily reading of her newspaper, had grown dependent, in
+these her later years, on such sources of information as the peddler's
+garrulous tongue supplied. In the end she had found his talent for
+fiction quite as reliable as that of the journalists, besides
+being infinitely more entertaining, abounding in personalities which
+were the more racy, as the pedler felt himself to be exempt from that
+curse of responsibility, which, in French journalism, is so often a
+barrier to the full play of one's talent.
+
+Therefore it was that Petitjean and his bright-eyed spouse were always
+made welcome at Dives.
+
+"It goes well, Madame Jean? Ah, there you are. Well, _hein_, also? It
+is long since we saw you."
+
+"Ah, madame, centuries, it is centuries since we were here. But what
+will you have? with the bad season, the rains, the banks failing,
+the--but you, madame, are well? And Monsieur Paul?" "_Ah, ça va tout
+doucement_ Paul is well, the good God be praised, but I--I perish day
+by day" At which the entire court-yard was certain to burst into
+laughing protest. For the whole household of Guillaume le Conquérant
+was quite sure to be assembled about the great wheels of the pedler's
+wagon--only to look, not to buy, not yet. Petitjean, and his wife had
+not dined yet, and a pedler's hunger is something to be respected--one
+made money by waiting for the hour of digestion. The little crowd of
+maids, hostlers, cooks, and scullery wenches, were only here to whet
+their appetite, and to greet Petitjean. Nitouche, the head _chef_, put
+a little extra garlic in his sauces that day. But in spite of this
+compliment to their palate, the pedler and his wife dined in the
+smaller room off the kitchen;--Madame was desolated, but the
+_salle-à-manger_ was crowded just now. One was really suffocated in
+there these days! Therefore it was that the two ate the herbaceous
+sauces with an extra relish, as those conscious of having a larger
+space for the play of vagrant elbows than their less fortunate
+brethren. The gossip and trading came later. On the edge of the fading
+daylight there was still time to see; the chosen articles could easily
+be taken into the brightly lit kitchen to be passed before the lamps.
+After the buying and bargaining came the talking. All the household
+could find time to spend the evening on the old benches; these latter
+lined the sidewalk just beneath the low kitchen casements. They had
+been here for many a long year.
+
+What a history of Dives these old benches could have told! What
+troopers, and beggars, and cowled monks, and wayfarers had sat
+there!--each sitter helping to wear away the wood till it had come to
+have the depressions of a drinking-trough. Night after night in the
+long centuries, as the darkness fell upon the hamlet--what tales and
+confidences, and what murmured anguish of remorse, what cries for help,
+what gay talk and light song must have welled up into the dome of sky!
+
+Once, as we sat within the court-yard, under the stars, a young voice
+sang out. It was so still and quiet every word the youth phrased was as
+clear as his fresh young voice.
+
+"_Tiens_--it is Mathieu--he is singing _Les Oreillers!_" cried Monsieur
+Paul, with an accent of pride in his own tone.
+
+The young voice sang on:
+
+  "_J'arrive en ce pays
+  De Basse Normandie,
+  Vous dire une chanson,
+  S'il plaît la compagnie!_"
+
+"It is an old Norman bridal song," Monsieur Paul went on, lowering his
+voice. "One I taught a lot of young boys and lads last winter--for a
+wedding held here--in the inn."
+
+Still the fresh notes filled the air:
+
+  "_Les amours sont partis
+  Dans un bateau de verre;
+  Le bateau a cassé
+  a cassé--
+  Les amours sont parterre._"
+
+"How the old women laughed--and cried--at once! It was years since they
+had heard it--the old song. And when these boys--their sons and
+grandsons--sang it, and I had trained them well--they wept for pure
+delight."
+
+Again the song went on:
+
+  "_Ouvrez la porte, ouvrez!
+  Nouvelle mariée,
+  Car si vous ne l'ouvrez
+  Vous serez accusée_"
+
+"I dressed all the young girls in old costumes," our friend continued,
+still in a whisper. "I ransacked all the old chests and closets about
+here. I got the ladies of the chateaux near by to aid me; they were so
+interested that many came down from Paris to see the wedding. It was a
+pretty sight, each in a different dress! Every century since the
+thirteenth was represented."
+
+  "_Attendez à demain,
+  La fraîche matinée,
+  Quand mon oiseau privé
+  Aura pris sa volée!_"
+
+Clear, strong, free rang the young tenor's voice--and then it broke
+into "_Comment--tu dis que Claire est là?_" whereat Monsieur Paul
+smiled.
+
+"That will be the next wedding--what shall I devise for that? That will
+also be the ending of a long lawsuit. But he should have sung the last
+verse--the prettiest of all. Mathieu!" Paul lifted his voice, calling
+into the dark.
+
+_"Oui, Monsieur Paul!"_
+
+"Sing us the last verse--"
+
+  "_Dans ce jardin du Roi
+  A pris sa reposée,
+  Cueillant le romarin
+  La--vande--bouton--née--_"
+
+The last notes were but faint vibrations, coming from a lengthening
+distance.
+
+"Ah!" and Monsieur Paul breathed a sigh. "They don't care about
+singing. They are doing it all the time they are so much in love. The
+fathers' lawsuit ended only last month. They've waited three years--
+happy Claire--happy Mathieu!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE CONVERSATION OF PATRIOTS.
+
+
+The world that found its way to the mayor's table at this early period
+of the summer season was largely composed of the class that travels
+chiefly to amuse others. The commercial gentlemen in France, however,
+have the outward bearing of those who travel to amuse themselves. The
+selling of other people's goods--it is surely as good an excuse as any
+other for seeing the world! Such an occupation offers an orator, one
+gifted in conversational talents--talents it would be a pity to see
+buried in the domestic napkin--a fine arena for display.
+
+The French commercial traveller is indeed a genus apart; he makes a
+fetish of his trade; he preaches his propaganda. The fat and the lean,
+the tall and the little, the well or meanly dressed representatives of
+the great French houses who sat down to dine, as our neighbors or
+_vis-à-vis_, night after night, were, on the whole, a great credit to
+their country. Their manners might have been mistaken for those of a
+higher rank; their gifts as talkers were of such an order as to make
+listening the better part of discretion.
+
+Dining is always a serious act in France. At this inn the sauces of the
+_chef_, with their reputation behind them, and the proof of their real
+excellence before one, the dinner-hour was elevated to the importance
+of a ceremony. How the petty merchants and the commercial gentlemen
+ate, at first in silence, as if respecting the appeal imposed by a
+great hunger, and then warming into talk as the acid cider was passed
+again and again! What crunching of the sturdy, dark-colored bread
+between the great knuckles! What huge helps of the famous sauces! What
+insatiable appetites! What nice appreciation of the right touch of the
+tricksy garlic! What nodding of heads, clinking of glasses, and
+warmth of friendship established over the wine-cups! At dessert
+everyone talked at once. On one occasion the subject of Gambetta's
+death was touched on; all the table, as one man, broke out into an
+effervescence of political babble.
+
+"What a loss! What a death-blow to France was his death!" exclaimed a
+heavy young man in a pink cravat.
+
+"If Gambetta had lived, Alsace and Lorraine would be ours now, without
+the firing of a gun!" added an elderly merchant at the foot of the
+table.
+
+"Ah--h! without the firing of a gun they will come to us yet. I tell
+you, without the firing of a gun--unless we insist on a battle,"
+explosively rejoined a fiery-hued little man sitting next to Monsieur
+Paul; "but you will see--we shall insist. There is between us and
+Germany an inextinguishable hate--and we must kill, kill, right and
+left!"
+
+"_Allons--allons!_" protested the table, in chorus.
+
+"Yes, yes, a general massacre, that is what we want; that is what we
+must have. Men, women, and children--all must fall. I am a married
+man--but not a woman or a child shall escape--when the time comes,"
+continued the fiery-eyed man, getting more and more ferocious as he
+warmed with the thought of his revenge.
+
+"What a monster!" broke in Madame Le Mois, her deep base notes
+unruffled by the spectacle of her bloodthirsty neighbor's violence;
+"you--to bayonet a woman with a child in her arms!"
+
+"I would--I would--"
+
+"Then you would be more cruel than they were. They treated our women
+with respect."
+
+There was a murmur of assenting applause, at this sentiment of justice,
+from the table. But the fiery-eyed man was not to be put down.
+
+"Oh, yes, they were generous enough in '71, but I should remember their
+insults of 1815!"
+
+"_Ancienne histoire--çà_" said the mère, dismissing the subject, with a
+humorous wink at the table.
+
+"As you see," was Monsieur Paul's comment on the conversation, as we
+were taking our after-dinner stroll in the garden--"as you see, that
+sort of person is the bad element in our country--the dangerous
+element--unreasoning, revengeful, and ignorant. It is such men as he
+who still uphold hatreds and keep the flame alive. It is better to have
+no talent at all for politics--to be harmless like me, for instance,
+whose worst vice is to buy up old laces and carvings."
+
+"And roses--"
+
+"Yes--that is another of my vices--to perpetuate the old varieties.
+They call me along our coast the millionnaire--of roses! Will you have
+a 'Marie Louise,' mademoiselle?"
+
+The garden was as complete in its old time aspect as the rest of the
+inn belongings. Only the older, rarer varieties of flowers and rose
+stalks had been chosen to bloom within the beautifully arranged
+inclosure. _Citronnelle_, purple irises, fringed asters, sage,
+lavender, _rose-pêche_, bachelor's-button, _the d'Horace_, and the
+wonderful electric fraxinelle, these and many other shrubs and plants
+of the older centuries were massed here with the taste of one difficult
+to please in horticultural arrangements. Our after-dinner walks became
+an event in our day. At that hour the press of the day's work was over,
+and Madame Mère or Monsieur Paul were always ready to join us for a
+stroll.
+
+"For myself, I do not like large gardens," Monsieur Paul remarked,
+during one of these after-dinner saunters. "The monks, in the old days,
+knew just the right size a garden should be--small and sheltered, with
+walls--like a strong arm about a pretty woman--to protect the shrubs
+and flowers. One should enter the garden, also, by a gate which must
+click as it closes--the click tickles the imagination--it is the sound
+henceforth connected with silence, with perfumes and seclusion. How far
+away we seem now, do we not?--from the bustle of the inn court-yard--and
+yet I could throw a stone into it."
+
+The only saunterers besides ourselves were the flamingo, who,
+cautiously, timorously picked his way--as if he were conscious he was
+only a bunch of feathers hoisted on stilts; the white parrot, who was
+wabbling across the lawn to a favorite perch in the leaves of a
+tropical palm; and the peacock, whose train had been spread with a due
+regard to effect across a bed of purple irises, with a view to
+annihilating the brilliancy of their rival hues.
+
+The bit of sky framed by these four garden walls always seemed more
+delicate in tone than that which covered the open court-yard. The birds
+in the bushes had moments of melodious outbursts they did not,
+apparently, indulge in along the high-road. And what with the fading
+lights, the stars pricking their way among the palms, the scents of
+flowers, and the talk of a poet, it is little wonder that this twilight
+hour in the old garden was certain to be the most lyrical of the
+twenty-four.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+IN LA CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS.
+
+
+"It is the winters, mesdames, that are hard to bear. They are long--they
+are dull. No one passes along the high-road. It is then, when sometimes
+the snow is piled knee-deep in the court-yard, it is then I try to
+amuse myself a little. Last year I did the Jumièges sculptures; they fit
+in well, do they not?"
+
+It was raining; and Monsieur Paul was paying us an evening call. A
+great fire was burning in the beautiful Francois I. fireplace of our
+sitting-room, the famous Chambre des Marmousets. We had not consented
+that any of the lights should be lit, although the lovely little Louis
+XIV. chandelier and the antique brass sconces were temptingly filled
+with fresh candles. The flames of the great logs would suffer no rival
+illuminations; if the trunks of full-grown trees could not suffice to
+light up an old room, with low-raftered ceilings, and a mass of bric-à-
+brac, what could a few thin waxen candles hope to do?
+
+On many other occasions we had thought our marvellous sitting-room had
+had exceptional moments of beauty. To turn in from the sunlit, open
+court-yard; to pass beneath, the vine-hung gallery; to lift the great
+latch of the low Gothic door and to enter the rich and sumptuous
+interior, where the light came, as in cathedral aisles, only through
+the jewels of fourteenth-century glass; to close the door; to sit
+beneath the prismatic shower, ensconced in a nest of old tapestried
+cushions, and to let the eye wander over the wealth of carvings, of
+ceramics, of Spanish and Normandy trousseaux chests, on the collection
+of antique chairs, Dutch porcelains, and priceless embroideries--all
+the riches of a museum in a living-room--such a moment in the
+Marmousets we had tested again and again with delectable results. At
+twilight, also, when the garden was submerged in dew, this old
+seigneurial chamber was a retreat fit for a sybarite or a modern
+aesthete. The stillness, the soft luxurious cushions, the rich dusk
+thickening in the corners, the complete isolation of the old room from
+the noise and tumult of the inn life, its curious, its delightful
+unmodernness, made this Marmouset room an ideal setting for any
+mediaeval picture. Even a sentiment tinctured with modern cynicism
+would, I think, have borrowed a little antique fervor, if, like the
+photographic negative our nineteenth-century emotionalism somewhat too
+closely resembles, in its colorless indefiniteness, the sentiment
+were sufficiently exposed, in point of time and degree of
+sensitiveness, to the charm of these old surroundings.
+
+On this particular evening, however, the pattering of the rain without
+on the cobbles and the great blaze of the fire within, made the old
+room seem more beautiful than we had yet seen it. Perhaps the capture
+of our host as a guest was the added treasure needed to complete our
+collection. Monsieur Paul himself was in a mood of prodigal liberality;
+he was, as he himself neatly termed the phrase, ripe for confession;
+not a secret should escape revelation; all the inn mysteries should
+yield up the fiction of their frauds; the full nakedness of fact should
+be given to us.
+
+"You see, _chères dames_, it is not so difficult to create the beautiful,
+if one has a little taste and great patience. My inn--it has become my
+hobby, my pride, my wife, my children. Some men marry their art, I
+espoused my inn. I found her poor, tattered, broken-down, in health, if
+you will; verily, as your Shakespeare says of some country wench: 'a
+poor thing but mine own.'" Monsieur Paul's possession of the English
+language was scarcely as complete as the storehouse of his memory. He
+would have been surprised, doubtless, to learn he had called poor
+Audrey, "a pure ting, buttaire my noon!"
+
+"She was, however," he continued, securely, in his own richer Norman,
+"though a wench, a beautiful one. And I vowed to make her glorious.
+'She shall be famous,' I vowed, and--and--better than most men I have
+kept my vow. All France now has heard of Guillaume le Conquérant!"
+
+The pride Monsieur Paul took in his inn was indeed a fine thing to see.
+The years of toil he had spent on its walls and in its embellishment
+had brought him the recompense much giving always brings; it had
+enriched him quite as much as the wealth of his taste and talent had
+bequeathed to the inn. Latterly, he said, he had travelled much, his
+collection of curios and antiquities having called him farther afield
+than many Frenchmen care to wander. His love of Delft had taken him to
+Holland; his passion for Spanish leather to the country of Velasquez;
+he must have a Virgin, a genuine fifteenth-century Virgin, all his
+own; behold her there, in her stiff wooden skirts, a Neapolitan
+captive. The brass braziers yonder, at which the courtiers of the
+Henris had warmed their feet, stamping the night out in cold ante
+chambers, had been secured at Blois; and his collection of tapestries,
+of stained glass, of Normandy brasses, and Breton carvings had made his
+own coast as familiar as the Dives streets.
+
+"The priests who sold me these, madame," he went on, as he picked up a
+priest's chasuble, now doing duty as a table covering "would sell their
+fathers and their mothers. It is all a question of price."
+
+After a review of the curios came the history of the human collection
+of antiquities who had peopled the inn and this old room.
+
+Many and various had been the visitors who had slept and dined here and
+gone forth on their travels along the high-road.
+
+The inn had had a noble origin; it had been built by no less a
+personage than the great William himself. He had deemed the spot a
+fitting one in which to build his boats to start forth for his modest
+project of conquering England. He could watch their construction in the
+waters of Dives River--that flows still, out yonder, among the grasses
+of the sea-meadows. For some years the Norman dukes held to the inn, in
+memory of the success of that clever boat-building. Then for five
+centuries the inn became a manoir--the seigneurial residence of a
+certain Sieur de Sémilly. It was his arms we saw yonder, joined to
+those of Savoy, in the door panel, one of the family having married
+into a branch of that great house.
+
+Of the famous ones of the world who had travelled along this Caen
+post-road and stopped the night here, humanly tired, like any other
+humble wayfarer, was a hurried visit from that king who loved his
+trade--Louis XI. He and his suite crowded into the low rooms, grateful
+for a bed and a fire, after the weary pilgrimage to the heights of Mont
+St. Michel. Louis's piety, however, was not as lasting in its
+physically exhaustive effects, as were the fleshly excesses of a
+certain other king--one Henri IV., whose over-appreciation of the
+oysters served him here, caused a royal attack of colic, as you may
+read at your pleasure in the State Archives in Paris--since, quite
+rightly, the royal secretary must write the court physician every
+detail of so important an event. What with these kingly travellers and
+such modern uncrowned kings as Puvis de Chavannes, Dumas, George Sand,
+Daubigny, and Troyon, together with a goodly number of lesser great
+ones, the famous little inn has had no reason to feel itself slighted
+by the great of any century. Of all this motley company of notabilities
+there were two whose visits seemed to have been indefinitely prolonged.
+There was nothing, in this present flowery, picturesque assemblage of
+buildings, to suggest a certain wild drama enacted here centuries ago.
+Nothing either in yonder tender sky, nor in the silvery foliage on a
+fair day, which should conjure up the image of William as he must have
+stood again and again beside the little river; nor of the fury of his
+impatience as the boats were building all too slowly for his hot hopes;
+nor of the strange and motley crew he had summoned there from all
+corners of Europe to cut the trees; to build and launch boats; to sail
+them, finally, across the strip of water to that England he was to meet
+at last, to grapple with, and overthrow, even as the English huscarles
+in their turn bore down on that gay Minstrel Taillefer, who rode so
+insolently forth to meet them, with a song in his throat, tossing his
+sword in English eyes, still chanting the song of Roland as he fell.
+None of the inn features were in the least informed with this great,
+impressive picture of its past. Yet does William seem by far the most
+realizable of all the personages who have inhabited the old house.
+
+There was another visitor whose presence Monsieur Paul declared was as
+entirely real as if she, also, had only just passed within the
+court-yard.
+
+"I know not why it is, but of all these great, _ces fameux_, Madame de
+Sévigné seems to me the nearest, in point of time. Her visit appears to
+have happened only yesterday. I never enter her room but I seem to see
+her moving about, talking, laughing, speaking in epigrams. She mentions
+the inn, you know, in her letters. She gives the details of her journey
+in full."
+
+I, also, knew not why; but, later, after Monsieur Paul had left us,
+when he had shut himself out, along with the pattering raindrops, and
+had closed us in with the warmth and the flickering fire-light, there
+came, with astonishing clearness, a vision of that lady's visit here.
+She and her company of friends might have been stopping, that very
+instant, without, in the open court. I, also, seemed to hear the very
+tones of their voices; their talk was as audible as the wind rustling
+in the vines. In the growing stillness the vision grew and grew, till
+this was what I saw and heard:
+
+
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY REVIVAL.
+
+
+Outside the inn, some two hundred years ago, there was a great noise
+and confusion; the cries of outriders, of mounted guardsmen and
+halberdiers, made the quiet village as noisy as a camp. An imposing
+cavalcade was being brought to a sharp stop; for the outriders had
+suddenly perceived the open inn entrance, with its raised portcullis,
+and they were shouting to the coachmen to turn in, beneath the archway,
+to the paved court-yard within.
+
+In an incredibly short space of time the open quadrangle presented a
+brilliant picture; the dashing guardsmen were dismounting; the maids
+and lackeys had quickly descended from their perches in the caleches
+and coaches; and the gentlemen of the household were dusting their wide
+hats and lace-trimmed coats. The halberdiers, ranging themselves in
+line, made a prismatic grouping beneath the low eaves of the
+picturesque old inn. In the very middle of the court-yard stood a
+coach, resplendent in painted panels and emblazoned with ducal arms.
+About this coach, as soon as the four horses which drew the vehicle
+were brought to a standstill, cavaliers, footmen, and maids swarmed
+with effusive zeal. One of the footmen made a rush for the door:
+another let down the steps; one cavalier was already presenting an
+outstretched, deferential hand, while still another held forth an arm,
+as rigid as a post, for the use of the occupants of the ducal carriage.
+
+Three ladies were seated within. Large and roomy as was the vehicle,
+their voluminous draperies and the paraphernalia of their belongings
+seemed completely to fill the wide, deep seats. The ladies were the
+Duchesse de Chaulnes, Madame de Kerman, and Madame de Sévigné. The
+faces of the Duchesse and of Madame de Kerman were invisible, being
+still covered with their masks, which, both as a matter of habit and of
+precaution against the sun's rays, they had religiously worn during the
+long day's journey. But Madame de Sévigné had torn hers off; she was
+holding it in her hand, as if glad to be relieved from its confinement.
+
+All three ladies were in the highest possible spirits, Madame de
+Sévigné obviously being the leader of the jests and the laughter.
+
+They were in a mood to find everything amusing and delightful. Even
+after they had left the coach and were carefully picking their way over
+the rough stones--walking on their high-heeled "mules" at best, was
+always a dangerous performance--their laughter and gayety continued in
+undiminished exuberance. Madame de Sévigné's keen sense of humor found
+so many things to ridicule. Could anything, for example, be more
+comical than the spectacle they presented as they walked, in state,
+with their long trains and high-heeled slippers, up these absurd little
+turret steps, feeling their way as carefully as if they were each
+a pickpocket or an assassin? The long line behind of maids carrying
+their muffs, and of lackeys with the muff-dogs, and of pages holding
+their trains, and the grinning innkeeper, bursting with pride and
+courtesying as if he had St. Vitus's dance, all this crowd coiling
+round the rude spiral stairway--it was enough to make one die of
+laughter. Such state in such savage surroundings!--they and their
+patch-boxes, and towering head-gears and trains, and dogs and fans, all
+crowded into a place fit only for peasants!
+
+When they reached their bedchambers the ridicule was turned into a
+condescending admiration; they found their rooms unexpectedly clean and
+airy. The furniture was all antique, of interesting design, and though
+rude, really astonishingly comfortable. Beds and dressing-tables,
+mostly of Henry III's time, were elaborately canopied in the hideous
+crude draperies of that primitive epoch. How different were the elegant
+shapes and brocades of their own time! Fortunately their women had
+suitable hangings and draperies with them, as well, of course, as any
+amount of linen and any number of mattresses. The settees and benches
+would do very well, with the aid of their own hassocks and cushions,
+and, after all, it was only for a night, they reminded the other.
+
+The toilet, after the heat and exposure of the day, was necessarily a
+long one. The Duchesse and Madame de Kerman had their faces to make
+up--all the paint had run, and not a patch was in its place. Hair,
+also, of this later de Maintenon period, with its elaborate artistic
+ranges of curls, to say nothing of the care that must be given to the
+coif and the "follette," these were matters that demanded the utmost
+nicety of arrangement.
+
+In an hour, however, the three ladies reassembled, in the panelled
+lower room--in "la Chambre de la Pucelle." In spite of the care her two
+companions had given to repairing the damages caused by their journey,
+of the three, Madame de Sévigné looked by far the freshest and
+youngest. She still wore her hair in the loosely flowing de Montespan
+fashion; a style which, though now out of date, was one that exactly
+suited her fair skin, her candid brow, and her brilliant eyes. These
+latter, when one examined them closely, were found to be of different
+colors; but this peculiarity, which might have been a serious defect in
+any other countenance, in Madame de Sévigné's brilliant face was
+perhaps one cause of its extraordinarily luminous quality. Not one
+feature was perfect in that fascinatingly mobile face: the chin was a
+trifle too long for a woman's chin; the lips, that broke into such
+delicious curves when she laughed, when at rest betrayed the firmness
+of her wit and the almost masculine quality of her reasoning judgment.
+Even her arms and hands and her shoulders were "_mal taillés_" as her
+contemporaries would have told you. But what a charm in those irregular
+features! What a seductiveness in the ensemble of that not too-well-
+proportioned figure! What an indescribable radiance seemed to emanate
+from the entire personality of this most captivating of women!
+
+As she moved about the low room, dark with the trembling shadows of
+light that flowed from the bunches of candles in the sconces, Madame de
+Sévigné's clear complexion, and her unpowdered chestnut curls, seemed
+to spot the room with light. Her companions, though dressed in the very
+height of the fashion, were yet not half as catching to the eye.
+Neither their minute waists, nor their elaborate underskirts and
+trains, nor their tall coffered coifs (the duchesse's was not unlike a
+bishop's mitre, studded as it was with ruby-headed pins), nor the
+correctness of these ladies' carefully placed patches, nor yet their
+painted necks and tinted eyebrows, could charm as did the unmodish
+figure of Madame de Sévigné--a figure so indifferently clad, and yet
+one so replete with its distinction of innate elegance and the subtle
+charm of her individuality.
+
+With the entrance of these ladies dinner was served at once. The talk
+flowed on; it was, however, more or less restrained by the presence of
+the always too curious lackeys, of the bustling innkeeper, and the
+gentlemen of the household in attendance on the party. As a spectacle,
+the little room had never boasted before of such an assemblage of
+fashion and greatness. Never before had the air under the rafters been
+so loaded with scents and perfumes--these ladies seeming, indeed, to
+breathe out odors. Never before had there been grouped there such
+splendor of toilet, nor had such courtly accents been heard, nor such
+finished laughter. The fire and the candlelight were in competition
+which should best light up the tall transparent caps, the lace fichus,
+the brocade bodices, and the long trains. The little muff-dogs,
+released from their prisons, since the muffs were laid aside at dinner
+time, blinked at the fire, curling their minute bodies--clipped
+lion-fashion--about the huge andirons, as they snored to kill time,
+knowing their own dinner would come only when their mistresses had
+done.
+
+After the dessert had been served the ladies withdrew; they were
+preceded by the ever-bowing innkeeper, who assured them, in his most
+reverential tones, that they would find the room opening on the other
+court-yard even warmer and more comfortable than the one they were in.
+In spite of the walk across the paved court-yard and the enormous
+height of their heels, always a fact to be remembered, the ladies
+voted to make the change, since by that means they could be assured
+the more entire seclusion. Mild as was the May air, Madame de Kerman's
+hand-glass hanging at her side was quickly lifted in the very middle of
+the open court-yard; she had scarcely passed the door when she had felt
+one of her patches blowing off.
+
+"I caught it just in time, dear duchesse," she cried, as she stood
+quite still, replacing it with a fresh one picked from her patch-box,
+as the others passed her.
+
+"The very best patch-maker I have found lives in the rue St. Denis, at
+the sign of La Perle des Mouches; have you discovered him, dear
+friend?" said the duchesse, as they walked on toward the low door
+beneath the galleries.
+
+"No, dear duchesse, I fear I have not even looked for him--the science
+of patches I have always found so much harder than the science of
+living!" gayly answered Madame de Sévigné.
+
+Madame de Kerman had now re joined them, and all three passed into la
+Chambre des Marmousets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE AFTER-DINNER TALK OF THREE GREAT LADIES.
+
+
+The three ladies grouped themselves about the fire, which they found
+already lighted. The duchesse chose a Henry II. carved aim chair, one,
+she laughingly remarked, quite large enough to have held both the King
+and Diana. A lackey carrying the inevitable muff-dogs, their fans, and
+scent-bottles, had followed the ladies; he placed a hassock at the
+duchesse's feet, two beneath the slender feet of Madame de Kerman, and,
+after having been bidden to open one of the casements, since it was
+still so light without, withdrew, leaving the ladies alone.
+
+Although Madame de Sévigné had comfortably ensconced herself in one of
+the deep window seats, piling the cushions behind her, no sooner was
+the window opened than with characteristic impetuosity she jumped up to
+look out into the country that lay beyond the leaded glass. In spite of
+the long day's drive in the open air, her appetite for blowing roses
+and sweet earth smells had not been sated. Madame de Sévigné all her
+life had been the victim of two loves and a passion; she adored society
+and she loved nature; these were her lesser delights, that gave way
+before the chief idolatry of her soul, her adoration for her daughter.
+
+[Illustration: MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ]
+
+As she stood by the open window, her charming face, always a mirror of
+her emotions, was suffused with a glow and a bloom that made it seem
+young again. Her eyes grew to twice their common size under the
+"wandering" eyelids, as her gaze roved over the meadows and across the
+tall grasses to the sea. A part of her youth was being, indeed, vividly
+brought back to her; the sight of this marine landscape recalled many
+memories; and with the recollection her whole face and figure seemed to
+irradiate something of the inward ardor that consumed her. She had
+passed this very road, through this same country before, long ago,
+in her youth, with her children. She half smiled at the remembrance of
+a description given of the impression produced by her appearance on the
+journey by her friend the Abbé Arnauld; he had ecstatically compared
+her to Latona seated in an open coach, between a youthful Apollo and a
+young Diana. In spite of the abbe's poetical extravagance, Madame de
+Sévigné recognized, in this moment of retrospect, the truth of the
+picture. That, indeed, had been a radiant moment! Her life at that time
+had been so full, and the rapture so complete--the rapture of
+possessing her children--that she could remember to have had the sense
+of fairly evaporating happiness. And now, the sigh came, how scattered
+was this gay group! her son in Brittany, her daughter in Provence, two
+hundred leagues away! And she, an elderly Latona, mourning her Apollo
+and her divine huntress, her incomparable Diana.
+
+The inextinguishable name of youth was burning still, however, in
+Madame de Sévigné's rich nature. This adventure, this amazing adventure
+of three ladies of the court having to pass the night in a rude little
+Normandy inn, she, for one, was finding richly seasoned with the spice
+of the unforeseen; it would be something to talk of and write about for
+a month hence at Chaulnes and at Paris. Their entire journey, in point
+of fact, had been a series of the most delightful episodes. It was now
+nearly a month since they had started from Picardy, from the castle of
+Chaulnes, going into Normandy _via_ Rouen. They had been on a driving
+tour, their destination being Rennes, which they would reach in a week
+or so. They had been travelling in great state, with the very best
+coach, the very best horses; and they had been guarded by a whole
+regiment of cavaliers and halberdiers. Every possible precaution had
+been taken \against their being disagreeably surprised on their route.
+Their chief fear on the journey had been, of course, the cry common in
+their day of "_Au voleur!_" and the meeting of brigands and assassins;
+for, once outside of Paris and the police reforms of that dear Colbert,
+and one must be prepared to take one's life in one's hand. Happily, no
+such misadventures had befallen them. The roads, it is true, they had
+found for the most part in a horrible condition; they had been pitched
+about from one end of their coach to the other they might easily have
+imagined themselves at sea. The dust also had nearly blinded them, in
+spite of their masks. The other nuisances most difficult to put up with
+had been the swarm of beggars that infested the roadsides; and worst of
+all had been the army of crippled, deformed, and mangy soldiers. These
+latter they had encountered everywhere; their whines and cries, their
+armless, legless bodies, their hideous filth, and their insolent
+importunities, they had found a veritable pest.
+
+Another annoyance had been the over-zealous courtesy of some of the
+upper middle-class. Only yesterday, in the very midst of the dust and
+under the burning noon sun, they had all been forced to alight, to
+receive the homage tendered the duchesse, of some thirty women and as
+many men. Each one of the sixty must, of course, kiss the duchesse's
+hand. It was really an outrage to have exposed them to such a form of
+torture! Poor Madame de Kerman, the delicate one of the party, had
+entirely collapsed after the ceremony. The duchesse also had been
+prostrated; it had wearied her more than all the rest of the journey.
+Madame de Sévigné alone had not suffered. She was possessed of a degree
+of physical fortitude which made her equal to any demand. The other two
+ladies, as well as she herself, were now experiencing the pleasant
+exhilaration which comes with the hour of rest after an excellent
+dinner. They were in a condition to remember nothing except the
+agreeable. Madame de Sévigné was the first to break the silence.
+
+She turned, with a brisk yet graceful abruptness, to the two ladies
+still seated before the low fire. With a charming outburst of
+enthusiasm she exclaimed aloud:
+
+"What a beauty, and youth, and tenderness this spring has, has it not?"
+
+"Yes," answered the duchesse, smiling graciously into Madame de
+Sévigné's brilliantly lit face; "yes, the weather in truth has been
+perfect."
+
+"What an adorable journey we have had!" continued Madame de Sévigné,
+in the same tone, her ardor undampened by the cooler accent of her
+friend--she was used to having her enthusiasm greeted with
+consideration rather than response. "What a journey!--only meeting
+with the most agreeable of adventures; not the slightest inconvenience
+anywhere; eating the very best of everything; and driving through
+the heart of this enchanting springtime!"
+
+Her listeners laughed quietly, with an accent of indulgence. It was the
+habit of her world to find everything Madame de Sévigné did or said
+charming. Even her frankness was forgiven her, her tact was so perfect;
+and her spontaneity had always been accounted as her chief excellence;
+in the stifled air of the court and the _ruelles_ it had been
+frequently likened to the blowing in of a fresh May breeze. Her present
+mood was one well known to both ladies.
+
+"Always 'pretty pagan,' dear madame," smiled Madame de Kerman,
+indulgently. "How well named--and what a happy hit of our friend
+Arnauld d'Audilly! You are in truth a delicious--an adorable pagan! You
+have such a sense of the joy of living! Why, even living in the country
+has, it appears, no terrors for you. We hear of your walking about in
+the moonlight-you make your very trees talk, they tell us, in
+Italian--in Latin; you actually pass whole hours alone with the
+hamadryads!" There was just a suspicion of irony in Madame de Kerman's
+tone, in spite of its caressing softness; it was so impossible to
+conceive of anyone really finding nature endurable, much less
+pretending to discover in trees and flowers anything amusing or
+suggestive of sentiment!
+
+But Madame de Sévigné was quite impervious to her friend's raillery.
+She responded, with perfect good humor:
+
+"Why not?--why not try to discover beauties in nature? One can be so
+happy in a wood! What a charming thing to hear a leaf sing! I know few
+things more delightful than to watch the triumph of the month of May
+when the nightingale, the cuckoo, and the lark open the spring in our
+forests! And then, later, come those beautiful crystal days of
+autumn--days that are neither warm, nor yet are they really cold! And
+then the trees--how eloquent they can be made; with a little teaching
+they may be made to converse so charmingly. _Bella cosa far aniente_,
+says one of my trees; and another answers, _Amor odit inertes_. Ah,
+when I had to bid farewell to all my leaves and trees; when my son had
+to dispose of the forest of Buron, to pay for some of his follies, you
+remember how I wept! It seemed to me I could actually feel the grief of
+those dispossessed sylvans and of all those homeless dryads!"
+
+"It is this, dear friend--this life you lead at Les Rochers--and your
+enthusiasm, which keep you so young. Yes, I am sure of it. How
+inconceivably young, for instance, you are looking this very evening!
+You and the glow out yonder make youth seem no longer a legend."
+
+The duchesse delivered her flattering little speech with a caressing
+tone. She moved gently forward in her chair, as if to gain a better
+view of the twilight and her friend. At the sound of the duchesse's
+voice Madame de Sévigné again turned, with the same charming smile and
+the quick impulsiveness of movement common to her. During her long
+monologue she had remained standing; but she left the window now to
+regain her seat amid the cushions of the window. There was something
+better than the twilight and the spring in the air; here, within, were
+two delightful friends-and listeners; there was before her, also, the
+prospect of one of those endless conversations that were the chief
+delight of her life.
+
+She laughed as she seated herself--a gay, frank, hearty little
+laugh--and she spread out her hands with the opening of her fan, as,
+with her usual vivacious spontaneity, her mood changed.
+
+"Fancy, dear duchesse, the punishment that comes to one who commits the
+crime of looking young--younger than one ought! My son-in-law, M. de
+Grignan, actually avows he is in daily terror lest I should give him a
+father-in-law!"
+
+All three ladies laughed gayly at this absurdity; the subject of Madame
+de Sévigné's remarrying had come to be a venerable joke now. It had
+been talked of at court and in society for nearly forty years; but such
+was the conquering power of her charms that these two friends, her
+listeners, saw nothing really extravagant in her son-in-law's fear; she
+was one of those rare women who, even at sixty, continue to suggest the
+altar rather than the grave. Madame de Kerman was the first to recover
+her breath after the laughter.
+
+"Dear friend, you might assure him that after a youth and the golden
+meridian of your years passed in smiling indifference to the sighs of a
+Prince de Conti, of a Turenne, of a Fouquet, of a Bussy de Rabutin, at
+sixty it is scarcely likely that--"
+
+"Ah, dear lady at sixty, when one has the complexion and the curls, to
+say nothing of the eyes of our dear enchantress, a woman is as
+dangerous as at thirty!" The duchesse's flattery was charmingly put,
+with just enough vivacity of tone to save it from the charge of
+insipidity. Madame de Sévigné bowed her curls to her waist.
+
+"Ah, dear duchesse, it isn't age," she retorted, quickly, "that could
+make me commit follies. It is the fact that that son-in-law of mine
+actually surrounds me with spies--he keeps me in perpetual
+surveillance. Such a state of captivity is capable of making me forget
+everything; I am beginning to develop a positive rage for follies. You
+know that has been my chief fault--always; discretion has been left out
+of my composition. But I say now, as I have always said, that if I
+could manage to live two hundred years, I should become the most
+delightful person in the world!"
+
+She herself was the first to lead in the laughter that followed her
+outburst; and then the duchesse broke in:
+
+"You talk of defects, dear friend; but reflect what a life yours has
+been. So surrounded and courted, and yet you were always so guarded; so
+free, and yet so wise! So gay, and yet so chaste!"
+
+"If you rubbed out all those flattering colors, dear duchesse, and
+wrote only, 'She worshipped her children, and preferred friends to
+lovers,' the portrait would be far nearer to the truth. It is easy to
+be chaste if one has only known one passion in one's life, and that the
+maternal one!"
+
+Again a change passed over Madame de Sévigné's mobile face; the
+bantering tone was lost in a note of deep feeling. This gift of
+sensibility had always been accounted as one of Madame de Sévigné's
+chief charms; and now, at sixty, she was as completely the victim of
+her moods as in her earlier youth.
+
+"Where is your daughter, and how is she?" sympathetically queried the
+duchesse.
+
+"Oh, she is still at Grignan, as usual; she is well, thank God. But,
+dear duchesse, after all these years of separation I suffer still,
+cruelly." The tears sprang to Madame de Sévigné's eyes, as she added,
+with passion and a force one would scarcely have expected in one whose
+manners were so finished, "the truth is, dear friends, I cannot live
+without her. I do not find I have made the least progress in that
+career. But, even now, believe me, these tears are sweeter than all
+else in life--more enrapturing than the most transporting joy!"
+
+Madame de Kerman smiled tenderly into the rapturous mother's face; but
+the duchesse moved, as if a little restless and uneasy under this
+shower of maternal feeling. For thirty years her friends had had to
+listen to Madame de Sévigné's rhapsodies over the perfections of her
+incomparable daughter. Although sensibility was not the emotional
+fashion of the day, maternity, in the person of Madame de Sévigné, had
+been apotheosized into the queen of the passions, if only because of
+its rarity; still, even this lady's most intimate friends sometimes
+wearied of banqueting off the feast of Madame de Grignan's virtues.
+
+"Have you heard from Madame de La Fayette recently?" asked the
+duchesse, allowing just time enough to elapse, before putting the
+question, for Madame de Sévigné's emotion to subside into composure.
+The duchesse was too exquisitely bred to allow her impatience to take
+the form of even the appearance of haste.
+
+"Oh, yes," was Madame de Sévigné's quiet reply; the turn in the
+conversation had been instantly understood, in spite of the delicacy of
+the duchesse's methods. "Oh, yes--I have had a line--only a line. You
+know how she detests writing, above all things. Her letters are all the
+same--two lines to say that she has no time in which to say it!"
+
+"Did she not once write you a pretty little series of epigrams about
+not writing?"
+
+"Oh, yes--some time ago, when I was with my daughter. I've quoted them
+so often, they have become famous. 'You are in Provence, my beauty;
+your hours are free, and your mind still more so. Your love for
+corresponding with everyone still endures within you, it appears; as
+for me, the desire to write to any human being has long since passed
+away-forever; and if I had a lover who insisted on a letter every
+morning, I should certainly break with him!'"
+
+"What a curious compound she is! And how well her soubriquet becomes
+her!"
+
+"Yes, it is perfect--'_Le Brouillard_'--the fog. It is indeed a fog
+that has always enveloped her, and what charming horizons are disclosed
+once it is lifted!"
+
+"And her sensibilities--of what an exquisite quality; and what a rare,
+precious type, indeed, is the whole of her nature! Do you remember how
+alarmed she would become when listening to music?"
+
+"And yet, with all this sensibility and delicacy of organization there
+was another side to her nature." Madame de Kerman paused a moment
+before she went on; she was not quite sure how far she dared go in her
+criticism; Madame de La Fayette was such an intimate friend of Madame
+de Sévigné's.
+
+"You mean," that lady broke out, with unhesitating candor, "that she is
+also a very selfish person. You know that is my daughter's theory of
+her--she is always telling me how Madame de La Fayette is making use of
+me; that while her sensitiveness is such that she cannot sustain the
+tragedy of a farewell visit--if I am going to Les Rochers or to
+Provence, when I go to pay my last visit I must pretend it is only an
+ordinary running-in; yet her delicacy does not prevent her from making
+very indelicate proposals, to suit her own convenience. You remember
+what one of her commands was, don't you?"
+
+"No," answered the duchesse, for both herself and her companion. "Pray
+tell us."
+
+Madame de Sévigné went on to narrate that once, when at Les Rochers,
+Madame de La Fayette was quite certain that she, Madame de Sévigné, was
+losing her mind, for no one could live in the provinces and remain
+sane, poring over stupid books and sitting over fires.
+
+"She was certain I should sicken and die, besides losing the tone of my
+mind," laughed Madame de Sévigné, as she called up the picture of her
+dissolution and rapid disintegration; "and therefore it was necessary
+at once that I should come up to Paris. This latter command was
+delivered in the tone of a judge of the Supreme Court. The penalty of
+my disobedience was to be her ceasing to love me. I was to come up to
+Paris directly--on the minute; I was to live with you, dear duchesse; I
+was not to buy any horses until spring; and, best of all, I was to
+find on my arrival a purse of a thousand crowns which would be lent me
+without interest! What a proposition, _mon Dieu_, what a proposition!
+To have no house of my own, to be dependent, to have no carriage, and
+to be in debt a thousand crowns!"
+
+As Madame de Sévigné lifted her hands the laces of her sleeves were
+fairly trembling with the force of her indignation. There were certain
+things that always put her in a passion, and Madame de La Fayette's
+peculiarities she had found at times unendurable. Her listeners had
+followed her narration with the utmost intensity and absorption. When
+she stopped, their eyes met in a look of assenting comment.
+
+"It was perfectly characteristic, all of it! She judged you, doubtless,
+by herself. She always seems to me, even now, to keep one eye on her
+comfort and the other on her purse!"
+
+"Ah, dear duchesse, how keen you are!" laughingly acquiesced Madame de
+Sévigné, as with a shrug she accepted the verdict--her indignation
+melting with the shrug. "And how right! No woman ever drives better
+bargains, without moving a finger. From her invalid's chair she can
+conduct a dozen lawsuits. She spends half her existence in courting
+death; she caresses her maladies; she positively hugs them; but she can
+always be miraculously resuscitated at the word money!"
+
+"Yes," added with a certain relish Madame de Kerman. "And this is the
+same woman who must be forever running away from Paris because she can
+no longer endure the exertion of talking, or of replying, or of
+listening; because she is wearied to extinction, as she herself admits,
+of saying good-morning and good-evening. She must hide herself in some
+pastoral retreat, where simply, as she says, 'to exist is enough;'
+where she can remain, as it were, miraculously suspended between
+heaven and earth!"
+
+A ripple of amused laughter went round the little group; there was
+nothing these ladies enjoyed so keenly as a delicate dish of gossip,
+seasoned with wit, and stuffed with epigrams. This talk was exactly to
+their taste. The silence and seclusion of their surroundings were an
+added stimulus to confidence and to a freer interchange of opinions
+about their world. Paris and Versailles seemed so very far away; it
+would appear safe to say almost anything about one's dearest friends.
+There was nothing to remind them of the restraints of levees, or the
+penalty indiscretion must pay for folly breathed in that whispering
+gallery--the _ruelle_. It was indeed a delightful hour; altogether an
+ideal situation.
+
+The fire had burned so low only a few embers were alive now, and the
+candles were beginning to flicker and droop in the sconces. But the
+three ladies refused to find the little room either cold or dark; their
+talk was not half done yet, and their muffs would keep them warm. The
+shadow of the deepening gloom they found delightfully provocative of
+confidences.
+
+After a short pause, while Madame de Kerman busied herself with the
+tongs and the fagots, trying to reinvigorate the dying flames, the
+duchesse asked, in a somewhat more intimate tone than she had used yet:
+
+"And the duke--do you really think she loved the Duke de La
+Rochefoucauld?"
+
+"She reformed him, dear duchesse; at least she always proclaims his
+reform as the justification of her love."
+
+"You--you esteemed him yourself very highly, did you not?"
+
+"Oh, I loved him tenderly; how could one help it? He was the best as
+well as the most brilliant of men! I never knew a tenderer heart;
+domestic joys and sorrows affected him in a way to render him
+incomparable. I have seen him weep over the death of his mother, who
+only died eight years before him, you know, with a depth of sincerity
+that made me adore him."
+
+"He must in truth have been a very sincere person."
+
+"Sincere!" cried Madame de Sévigné, her eyes flaming. "Had you but seen
+his deathbed! His bearing was sublime! Believe me, dear friend, it was
+not in vain that M. de La Rochefoucauld had written philosophic
+reflections all his life; he had already anticipated his last moments
+in such a way that there was nothing either new or strange in death
+when it came to him."
+
+"Madame de La Fayette truly mourned him--don't you think so? You were
+with her a great deal, were you not, after his death?"
+
+"I never left her. It was the most pitiable sight to see her in her
+loneliness and her misery. You see, their common ill-health and their
+sedentary habits, had made them so necessary to each other! It was, as
+it were, two souls in a single body. Nothing could exceed the
+confidence and charm of their friendship; it was incomparable. To
+Madame de La Fayette his loss came as her death-blow; life seems at an
+end for her; for where, indeed, can she find another such friend, or
+such intercourse, such sweetness and charm--such confidence and
+consideration?"
+
+There was a moment's silence after Madame de Sévigné's eloquent
+outburst. The eyes of the three friends were lost for a moment in the
+twinkling flames. The duchesse and Madame de Kerman exchanged meaning
+glances.
+
+"Since the duke's death her thoughts are more and more turned toward
+religion. I hear she has been fortunate in her choice of directors, has
+she not? Du Guet is said to be an ideal confessor for the authoress of
+'La Princesse de Clèves.'" There was just a suspicion of malice in the
+duchesse's tones.
+
+"Oh, he was born to take her in hand. He knew just when to speak
+with authority, and when to make use of the arts of persuasion. He
+wrote to her once, you remember: 'You, who have passed your life in
+dreaming--cease to dream! You, who have taken such pride unto yourself
+for being so true in all things, were very far, indeed, from the
+truth--you were only half true--falsely true. Your godless wisdom
+was in reality purely a matter of good taste!'"
+
+"What audacity! Bossuet himself could not have put the truth more
+nakedly." The duchesse was one of those to whom truths were novelties,
+and unpleasant ones.
+
+"Bossuet, if I remember rightly, was with the Duke de La Rochefoucauld
+at the last, was he not?"
+
+"Yes," responded Madame de Sévigné; "he was with him; he administered
+the supreme unction. The duke was in a beautiful state of grace. M,
+Vinet, you remember, said of him that he died with 'perfect decorum.'"
+
+"Speaking of dying reminds me"--cried suddenly Madame de Sévigné--"how
+are the duke's hangings getting on?"
+
+"They begin, the duke writes me, to hang again to-morrow," answered the
+duchesse, with a certain air of disdain, the first appearance of this
+weapon of the great now coming to the _grande dame's_ aid. Her husband,
+the Duke de Chaulnes' trouble with his revolutionary citizens at Rennes
+was a subject that never failed to arouse a feeling of angry contempt
+in her. It was too preposterous, the idea of those insolent creatures
+rising against him, their rightful duke and master!
+
+The duchesse's feeling in the matter was fully shared by her friends.
+In all the court there was but one opinion in the matter--hanging was
+really far too good for the wretched creatures.
+
+"Monsieur de Chaulnes," the duchesse went on, with ironical contempt in
+her voice, "still goes on punishing Rennes!"
+
+"This province and the duke's treatment of it will serve as a capital
+example to all others. It will teach those rascals," Madame de Kerman
+continued, in lower tones, "to respect their governors, and not to
+throw stones into their gardens!"
+
+"Fancy that--the audacity of throwing stones into their duke's garden!
+Why, did you know, they actually--those insolent creatures actually
+called him--called the duke--'_gros cochon?_'"
+
+All three ladies gasped in horror at this unparalleled instance of
+audacity; they threw up their hands, as they groaned over the picture,
+in low tones of finished elegance.
+
+"It is little wonder the duke hangs right and left! The dear duke--what
+a model governor! How I should like to have seen him sack that street
+at Rennes, with all the ridiculous old men, and the women in
+childbirth, and the children, turned out pêle-mêle! And the hanging,
+too--why, hanging now seems to me a positively refreshing performance!"
+And Madame de Sévigné laughed with unstinted gayety as at an excellent
+joke.
+
+The picture of Rennes and the cruelty dealt its inhabitants was a
+pleasant picture, in the contemplation of which these ladies evidently
+found much delectation. They were quiet for a longer period of time
+than usual; they continued silent, as they looked into the fire,
+smiling; the flames there made them think of other flames as forms of
+merited punishment.
+
+"A curious people those Bas Bretons," finally ejaculated Madame de
+Sévigné. "I never could understand how Bertrand Duguesclin made them
+the best soldiers of his day in France!"
+
+"You know Lower Brittany very well, do you not, dear friend?"
+
+"Not so well as the coast. Les Rochers is in Upper Brittany, you know.
+I know the south better still. Ah, what a charming journey I once took
+along the Loire with my friend _Bien-Bon_, the Abbé de Coulanges. We
+found it the most enchanting country in the world--the country of
+feasts and of famine; feasts for us and famine for the people. I
+remember we had to cross the river; our coach was placed on the barge,
+and we were rowed along by stout peasants. Through the glass windows of
+the coach we looked out at a series of changing pictures--the views
+were charming. We sat, of course, entirely at our ease, on our soft
+cushions. The country people, crowded together below, were--ugh!--like
+pigs in straw."
+
+"Was Bien-Bon with you when you made that little excursion to St.
+Germain?" queried the duchesse.
+
+"Ah, that was a gay night," joyously responded Madame de Sévigné. "How
+well we amused ourselves on that little visit that we paid Madame de
+Maintenon--when she was only Madame Scarron."
+
+"Was she so handsome then as they say she was--at that time?"
+
+"Very handsome; she was good, too, and amiable, and easy to talk to;
+one talked well and readily with her. She was then only the governess
+of the king's bastards, you know--of the children he had had by Madame
+de Montespan. That was the first step toward governing the king. Well,
+one night--the night to which you refer--I remember we were all supping
+with Madame de La Fayette. We had been talking endlessly! Suddenly it
+occurred to us it would be a most amusing adventure to take Madame
+Scarron home, to the very last end of the Faubourg Saint Germain, far
+beyond where Madame de La Fayette lived--near Vaugirard, out into the
+Bois, in the country. The Abbé came too. It was midnight when we
+started. The house, when at last we reached it, we found large and
+beautiful, with large and fine rooms and a beautiful garden; for Madame
+Scarron, as governess of the king's children, had a coach and a lot of
+servants and horses. She herself dressed then modestly and yet
+magnificently, as a woman should, who spent her life among people of
+the highest rank. We had a merry outing, returning in high spirits,
+blessed in having no end of lanterns, and thus assured against
+robbers."
+
+"She and Madame de La Fayette were very close friends, I remember,
+during that time," mused the duchesse, "when they were such near
+neighbors."
+
+"Yes," Madame de Sévigné went on, as unwearied now, although it was
+nearly midnight, as in the beginning of the long evening. "Yes; I
+always thought Madame de Maintenon's satirical little joke about Madame
+de La Fayette's bed festooned with gold--'I might have fifty thousand
+pounds income, and never should I live in the style of a great lady;
+never should I have a bed festooned with gold like Madame de La
+Fayette'--was the beginning of their rupture."
+
+"All the same, Madame de La Fayette, lying on that bed, beneath the
+gold hangings, was a much more simple person than ever was Madame de
+Maintenon!"
+
+"Your speaking of bed reminds me, dear ladies ours must be quite cold
+by this time. How we have chatted! What a delightful gossip! But we
+must not forget that our journey to-morrow is to be a long one!"
+
+The duchesse rose, the other two ladies rising instantly, observing, in
+spite of the intimate relations in which they stood toward the
+duchesse, the deference due to her more exalted rank. The latter
+clapped her hands; outside the door a shuffling and a low groan were
+heard--the groan came from the sleepy lackey, roused from his deep
+slumber, as he uncoiled himself from the close knot into which his legs
+and body were knit in the curve of the narrow stairs.
+
+The ladies, a few seconds later, were wending their way up the steep
+turret steps. They were preceded by torches and followed by quite a
+long train of maids and lackeys. For a long hour, at least, the little
+inn resounded with the sound of hurrying feet, of doors closing and
+shutting; with the echo of voices giving commands and of others purring
+in sleepy accents of obedience. Then one by one the sounds died away;
+the lights went out in the bedchambers; faint flickerings stole through
+the chinks of doors and windows. The watchman cried out the hour,
+and the gleam of a lantern flashed here and there, illuminating the
+open court-yard. The cocks crowed shrilly into the night air. A
+halberdier turned in his sleep where he lay, on some straw beneath the
+coach-shed, his halberd rattling as it struck the cobbles. And over the
+whole--over the gentle slumber of the great ladies and the sleep of
+beast and man--there fell the peace and the stillness of the
+midnight--of that midnight of long ago.
+
+[Illustration: CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A NINETEENTH-CENTURY BREAKFAST.
+
+
+The very next morning, after the rain, and the vision I had had of
+Madame de Sévigné, conjured up by my surroundings and the reading of
+her letters, Monsieur Paul paid us an early call. He came to beg the
+loan of our sitting-room, he said. He had had a despatch from a
+coaching-party from Trouville; they were to arrive for breakfast. The
+whip and owner of the coach was a great friend of his, he proffered by
+way of explanation--a certain count who had a genius for
+friendship--one who also had an artist's talent for admiring the
+beautiful. He was among those who were in a state of perpetual
+adoration before the inn's perfections. He made yearly pilgrimages from
+his chateau above Rouen to eat a noon breakfast in the Chambre des
+Marmousets. Now, a breakfast served elsewhere than in this chamber
+would be, from his point of view, to have journeyed to a shrine to find
+the niche empty. The gift that was begged of us, therefore, was the
+loan for a few hours of the famous little room.
+
+In less than a half hour we were watching the entrance of the coach by
+the side of Madame Le Mois. We were all three seated on the green
+bench.
+
+Faintly at first, and presently gaining in distinctness, came the fall
+of horses' hoofs and the rumble of wheels along the highway. A little
+cavalcade was soon passing beneath the archway. First there dashed in
+two horsemen, who had sprung to the ground almost as soon as their
+steeds' hoofs struck the paved court-yard. Then there swept by a jaunty
+dog cart, driven by a mannish figure radiantly robed in white. Swiftly
+following came the dash and jingle of four coach-horses, bathed in
+sweat, rolling the vehicle into the court as if its weight were a thing
+of air. All save one among the gay party seated on the high seats, were
+too busy with themselves and their chatter, to take heed of their
+surroundings. A lady beneath her deep parasol was busily engaged in a
+gay traffic of talk with the groups of men peopling the back seats of
+the coach. One of the men, however, was craning his neck beyond the
+heads of his companions; he was running his eye rapidly up and down the
+long inn facade. Finally his glance rested on us; and then, with a
+rush, a deep red mounted the man's cheek, as he tore off his derby to
+wave it, as if in a triumph of discovery. Renard had been true to his
+promise. He had come to see his friends and to test the famous
+Sauterne. He flung himself down from his lofty perch to take his seat,
+entirely as a matter of course, beside us on the green bench.
+
+"What luck, hey?--greatest luck in the world, finding you in, like
+this. I've been in no end of a tremble, fearing you'd gone to Caen, or
+Falaise, or somewhere, and that I shouldn't see you after all. Well,
+how are you? How goes it? What do you think of old Dives and Monsieur
+Paul, and the rest of it? I see you're settled; you took the palace
+chamber. Trust American women--they know the best, and get it."
+
+"But these people, who are they, and how did you--?" We were
+unfeignedly glad to see him, but curiosity is a passion not to be
+trifled with--after a month in the provinces.
+
+"Oh--the De Troisacs? Old friends of mine--known them years. Jolly lot.
+Charming fellow, De Troisac--only good Frenchman I've ever known.
+They're just off their yacht; saw them all yesterday at the Trouville
+Casino. Said they were running down here for breakfast to-day, asked
+me, and I came, of course." He laughed as he added: "I said I should
+come, you remember, to get some of that Sauterne. A man will go any
+distance for a good bottle of wine, you know."
+
+Meanwhile, in the court-yard, the party on the coach, by means of
+ladders and the helping of the grooms, were scrambling down from their
+seats. Renard's friend, the Comte de Troisac, was easily picked out
+from the group of men. He was the elder of the party--stoutish, with
+frank eyes and a smiling mouth; he was bustling about from the gaunt
+grooms to the ladder, and from ladder to the coach-seat, giving his
+commands right and left, and executing most of them himself. A tall,
+slim woman, with drooping eyelids, and an air of extreme elegance and
+of cultivated fatigue, was also easily recognizable as the countess. It
+took two grooms, two of the gentlemen guests, and her husband to
+assist her to the ground. Her passage down the steps of the ladder had
+been long enough, however, to enable her to display a series of pretty
+poses, each one more effective than the others. When one has an instep
+of ideal elevation, what is the use of being born a Frenchwoman, unless
+one knows how to make use of opportunity?
+
+From the dog-cart, that had rattled in across the cobbles with a dash
+and a spurt, there came quite a different accent and pose. The whitish
+personage, whom we had mistakenly supposed to be a man, wore
+petticoats; the male attire only held as far as the waist of the lady.
+The stiff white shirt-front, the knotted tie--a faultless male
+knot--the loose driving-jacket, with its sprig of white geranium, and
+the round straw-hat worn in mannish fashion, close to the level
+brows, was a costume that would have deceived either sex. Below the
+jacket flowed the straight lines of a straight skirt, that no further
+conjectures should be rendered necessary. This lady had a highbred air
+of singular distinction, accentuated by a tremendously knowing look.
+She was at once elegant and rakish; the _gamin_ in her was obviously
+the touch of _caviare_ to season the woman of fashion. The mixture made
+an extraordinarily attractive ensemble. As she jumped to the ground,
+throwing her reins to a groom, her jump was a master-stroke; it landed
+her squarely on her feet; even as she struck the ground her hands were
+thrust deeply into her pockets. The man seated beside her, who now
+leaped out after her, seemed timid and awkward by contrast with her
+alert precision. This couple moved at once toward the bench on which
+madame was seated. With the coming in of the coach and the cart she had
+risen, waddling forward to meet the party. Monsieur Paul was at the
+coach-wheels before the grooms had shot themselves down; De Troisac,
+with eager friendliness, stretched forth a hand from the top of his
+seat, exclaiming, with gay heartiness, "Ah, mon bon--comment ça va?"
+
+The mere was as eagerly greeted. Even the countess dismissed her
+indifference for the moment, as she held out her hand to Madame Le
+Mois.
+
+"Dear Madame Le Mois--and it goes well with you? And the gout and the
+rheumatism, they have ceased to torment you? Quelle bonne nouvelle! And
+here are the dear old cocks and the wounded bantam. The cockatoos--ah,
+there they are, still swinging in the air! Comme c'est joli--et
+frais--et que ça sent bon!"
+
+Madame and Monsieur Paul were equally effusive in their inquiries and
+exclamations--it was clearly a meeting of old friends. Madame Le Mois'
+face was meanwhile a study. The huge surface was glistening with
+pleasure; she was unfeignedly glad to see these Parisians:--but there
+was no elation at this meeting on such easy terms with greatness. Her
+shrewdness was as alive as ever; she was about to make money out of the
+visit--they were to have of her best, but they must pay for it. Between
+her rapid fire of questionings as to the countess's health and the
+history of her travels, there was as rapid a shower of commands,
+sometimes shouted out, above all the hubbub, to the cooks standing
+gaping in the kitchen doorway, or whispered hoarsely to Ernestine and
+Marianne, who were flying about like wild pigeons, a little drunk with
+the novelty of this first breakfast of the season.
+
+"_Allons, mon enfant--cours--cours_--get thy linen, my child, and the
+silver candélabres. It is to be laid in the Marmousets, thou knowest.
+Paul will come presently. And the salads, pluck them and bring them in
+to me--_cours--cours_."
+
+The great world was all very well, and it was well to be on friendly,
+even intimate terms, with it; but, _Dieu!_ one's own bread is of
+importance too! And the countess, for all her delicacy, was a _bonne
+fourchette_.
+
+The countess and her friend, after a moment of standing in the court-
+yard, of patting the pelican, of trying their blandishments on the
+flamingo, of catching up the bantam, and filling the air with their
+purring, and caressing, and incessant chatter, passed beneath the low
+door to the inner sanctum of madame. The two ladies were clearly bent
+on a few moments of unreserved gossip and that repairing of the toilet
+which is a religious act to women of fashion the world over.
+
+In the court-yard the scene was still a brilliant one. The gayly
+painted coach was now deserted. It stood, a chariot of state, as it
+were, awaiting royalty; its yellow sides gleamed like topaz in the sun.
+The grooms were unharnessing the leaders, that were still bathed in the
+white of their sweat. The count's dove-colored flannels were a soft
+mass against the snow of the _chef's_ apron and cap; the two were in
+deep consultation at the kitchen door. Monsieur Paul was showing, with
+all the absorption of the artist, his latest Jumièges carvings to the
+taller, more awkward of the gentlemen, to the one driven in by the
+mannish beauty.
+
+The cockatoos had not ceased shrieking from the very beginning of the
+hubbub; nor had the squirrels stopped running along the bars of their
+cage, a-flutter with excitement. The peacocks trailed their trains
+between the coach-wheels, announcing, squawkingly, their delight at the
+advent of a larger audience. Above the cries of the fowls and the
+shrieks of the cocks, the chatter of human tongues, the subdued murmur
+of the ladies' voices coming through the open lattice, and the stamp of
+horses' hoofs, there swept above it all the light June breeze, rustling
+in the vines, shaking the thick branches against the wooden facades.
+
+The two ladies soon made their appearance in the sunlit court-yard. The
+murmur of their talk and their laughter reached us, along with the
+froufrou of their silken petticoats.
+
+"You were not bored, _chère enfant_, driving Monsieur d'Agreste all
+that long distance?"
+
+The countess was smiling tenderly into her companion's face. She had
+stopped her to readjust the geranium sprig that was drooping in her
+friend's cover-coat. The smile was the smile of a sympathizing angel,
+but what a touch of hidden malice there was in the notes of her
+caressing voice! As she repinned the _boutonnière_, she gave the
+dancing eyes, that were brimming with the mirth of the coming retort,
+the searching inquest of her glance.
+
+"Bored! _Dieu, que non!_" The black little beauty threw back her
+throat, laughing, as she rolled her great eyes. "Bored--with all the
+tricks I was playing? Fernande! pity me, there was such a little time,
+and so much to do!"
+
+"So little time--only fourteen kilos!" The countess compressed her
+lips; they were smiling no longer.
+
+"Ah, but you see, I had so much to combat. You had a whole season, last
+summer, in which to play your game, your solemn game." Here the gay
+young widow rippled forth a pearly scale of treble laughter. "And I
+have had only a week, thus far!"
+
+"Yes, but what time you make!"
+
+And this time both ladies laughed, although, still, only one laughed
+well.
+
+"Ah! those women--how they love each other," commented Renard, as
+he sat on the bench, swinging his legs, with his eyes following
+the two vanishing figures. "Only women who are intimate--Parisian
+intimates--can cut to the bone like that, with a surgeon's dexterity."
+
+He explained then that the handsome brunette was a widow, a certain
+Baronne d'Autun, noted for her hunting and her conquests; the last on
+the latter list was Monsieur d'Agreste, a former admirer of the
+countess; he was somewhat famous as a scientist and socialist, so good
+a socialist as to refuse to wear his title of duke. The other two
+gentlemen of the party, who had joined them now, the two horsemen, were
+the Comtes de Mirant and de Fonbriant. These latter were two typical
+young swells of the Jockey Club model; their vacant, well-bred faces
+wore the correct degree of fashionable pallor, and their manners
+appeared to be also as perfect as their glances were insolent.
+
+Into these vacant faces the languid countess was breathing the
+inspiration of her smile. Enigmatic as was the latter, it was as simple
+as an infant's compared to the occult character of her glance. A wealth
+of complexities lay enfolded in the deep eyes, rimmed with their mystic
+darkened circlet--that circle in which the Parisienne frames her
+experience, and through which she pleads to have it enlarged!
+
+A Frenchwoman and cosmetics! Is there any other combination on this
+round earth more suggestive of the comedy of high life, of its elegance
+and of its perfidy, of its finish and of its emptiness?
+
+The men of the party wore costumes perilously suggestive of Opera
+Bouffe models. Their fingers were richly begemmed; their watch-chains
+were laden with seals and charms. Any one of the costumes was such as
+might have been chosen by a tenor in which to warble effectively to a
+_soubrette_ on the boards of a provincial theatre; and it was worn by
+these fops of the Jockey Club with the air of its being the last word
+in nautical fashions. Better than their costumes were their voices; for
+what speech from human lips pearls itself off with such crispness and
+finish as the delicate French idiom from a Parisian tongue?
+
+I never quite knew how it came about that we were added to this gay
+party of breakfasters. We found ourselves, however, after a high
+skirmish of preliminary presentations, among the number to take our
+places at the table.
+
+In the Chambre des Marmousets, Monsieur Paul, we found, had set the
+feast with the taste of an artist and the science of an archaeologist.
+The table itself was long and narrow, a genuine fifteenth century
+table. Down the centre ran a strip of antique altar-lace; the sides
+were left bare, that the lustre of the dark wood might be seen. In the
+centre was a deep old Caen bowl, with grapes and fuchsias to make a
+mound of soft color. A pair of seventeenth-century candélabres twisted
+and coiled their silver branches about their rich _repoussé_ columns;
+here and there on the yellow strip of lace were laid bunches of June
+roses, those only of the rarer and older varieties having been chosen,
+and each was tied with a Louis XV love-knot. Monsieur Paul was himself
+an omniscient figure at the feast; he was by turns officiating as
+butler, carving, or serving from the side-tables; or he was crossing
+the court-yard with his careful, catlike tread, a bottle under each
+arm. He was also constantly appealed to by Monsieur d'Agreste or the
+count, to settle a dispute about the age of the china, or the original
+home of the various old chests scattered about the room.
+
+"Paul, your stained glass shows up well in this light," the count
+called out, wiping his mustache over his soup-plate.
+
+"Yes," answered Monsieur Paul, as he went on serving the sherry,
+pausing for a moment at the count's glass. "They always look well in
+full sunlight. It was a piece of pure luck, getting them. One can
+always count on getting hold of tapestries and carvings, but old glass
+is as rare as--"
+
+"A pretty woman," interpolated the gay young widow, with the air of a
+connoisseur."
+
+"Outside of Paris--you should have added," gallantly contributed the
+count. Everyone went on eating after the light laughter had died away.
+
+The countess had not assisted at this brief conversation; she was
+devoting her attention to receiving the devotion of the two young
+counts; one was on either side of her, and both gave every outward and
+visible sign of wearing her chains, and of wearing them with
+insistance. The real contest between them appeared to be, not so much
+which should make the conquest of the languid countess, as which
+should outflank the other in his compromising demeanor. The countess,
+beneath her drooping lids, watched them with the indulgent indolence of
+a lioness, too luxuriously lazy to spring.
+
+The countess, clearly, was not made for sunlight. In the courtyard her
+face had seemed chiefly remarkable as a triumph of cosmetic treatment;
+here, under this rich glow, the purity and delicacy of the features
+easily placed her among the beauties of the Parisian world. Her eyes,
+now that the languor of the lids was disappearing with the advent of
+the wines, were magnificent; her use of them was an open avowal of her
+own knowledge of their splendor. The young widow across the table was
+also using her eyes, but in a very different fashion. She had now
+taken off her straw hat; the curly crop of a brown mane gave the
+brilliant face an added accent of vigor. The _chien de race_ was the
+dominant note now in the muscular, supple body, the keen-edged
+nostrils, and the intent gaze of the liquid eyes. These latter were
+fixed with the fixity of a savage on Charm. She was giving, in a sweet
+sibilant murmur, the man seated next her--Monsieur d'Agreste, the man
+who refused to bear his title--her views of the girl.
+
+"Those Americans, the Americans of the best type, are a race apart, I
+tell you; we have nothing like them; we condemn them because we don't
+understand them. They understand us--they read us--"
+
+"Oh, they read our books--the worst of them."
+
+"Yes, but they read the best too; and the worst don't seem to hurt
+them. I'll warrant that Mees Gay--that is her name, is it not?--has
+read Zola, for instance; and yet, see how simple and innocent--yes--
+innocent, she looks."
+
+"Yes, the innocence of experience--which knows how to hide," said
+Monsieur d'Agreste, with a slight shrug.
+
+"Mees Gay!" the countess cried out across the table, suddenly waking
+from her somnolence; she had overheard the baroness in spite of the low
+tone in which the dialogue had been carried on; her voice was so
+mellifluously sweet, one instinctively scented a touch of hidden poison
+in it--"Mees Gay, there is a question being put at this side of the
+table you alone can answer. Pray pardon the impertinence of a personal
+question--but we hear that American young ladies read Zola; is it
+true?"
+
+"I am afraid that we do read him," was Charm's frank answer. "I have
+read him--but my reading is all in the past tense now."
+
+"Ah--you found him too highly seasoned?" one of the young counts asked,
+eagerly, with his nose in the air, as if scenting an indiscretion.
+
+"No, I did not go far enough to get a taste of his horrors; I stopped
+at his first period."
+
+"And what do you call his first period, dear mademoiselle?" The
+countess's voice was still freighted with honey. Her husband coughed
+and gave her a warning glance, and Renard was moving uneasily in his
+chair.
+
+"Oh," Charm answered lightly, "his best period--when he didn't sell."
+
+Everyone laughed. The little widow cried beneath her breath:
+
+"_Elle a de l'esprit, celle-là_---"
+
+"_Elle en a de trop_," retorted the countess.
+
+"Did you ever read Zola's 'Quatre Saisons?'" Renard asked, turning to
+the count, at the other end of the table.
+
+No, the count had not read it--but he could read the story of a
+beautiful nature when he encountered one, and presently he allowed
+Charm to see how absorbing he found its perusal.
+
+"_Ah, bien--et tout de même_--Zola, yes, he writes terrible books; but
+he is a good man--a model husband and father," continued Monsieur
+d'Agreste, addressing the table.
+
+"And Daudet--he adores his wife and children," added the count, as if
+with a determination to find only goodness in the world.
+
+"I wonder how posterity will treat them? They'll judge their lives by
+their books, I presume."
+
+"Yes, as we judge Rabelais or Voltaire--"
+
+"Or the English Shakespeare by his 'Hamlet.'"
+
+"Ah! what would not Voltaire have done with Hamlet!" The countess was
+beginning to wake again.
+
+"And Molière? What of _his_ 'Misanthrope?' There is a finished, a
+human, a possible Hamlet! a Hamlet with flesh and blood," cried out the
+younger count on her right. "Even Mounet-Sully could do nothing with
+the English Hamlet."
+
+"Ah, well, Mounet-Sully did all that was possible with the part. He
+made Hamlet at least a lover!"
+
+"Ah, love! as if, even on the stage, one believed in that absurdity any
+longer!" was the countess's malicious comment.
+
+"Then, if you have ceased to believe in love, why did you go so
+religiously to Monsieur Caro's lectures?" cried the baroness.
+
+"Oh, that dear Caro! He treated the passions so delicately, he handled
+them as if they were curiosities. One went to hear his lecture on Love
+as one might go to hear a treatise on the peculiarities of an extinct
+species," was the countess's quiet rejoinder.
+
+"One should believe in love, if only to prove one's unbelief in it,"
+murmured the young count on her left.
+
+"Ah, my dear comte, love, nowadays, like nature, should only be used
+for decoration, as a bit of stage setting, or as stage scenery."
+
+"A moonlight night can be made endurable, sometimes," whispered the
+count.
+
+"A _clair de lune_ that ends in _lune de miel_, that is the true use to
+which to put the charms of Diana." It was Monsieur d'Agreste's turn now
+to murmur in the baroness's ear.
+
+"Oh, honey, it becomes so cloying in time," interpolated the countess,
+who had overheard; she overheard everything. She gave a wearied glance
+at her husband, who was still talking vigorously to Charm and Renard.
+She went on softly: "It's like trying to do good. All goodness, even
+one's own, bores one in the end. At Basniège, for example, lovely as it
+is, ideally feudal, and with all its towers as erect as you please, I
+find this modern virtue, this craze for charity, as tiresome as all the
+rest of it. Once you've seen that all the old women have woollen
+stockings, and that each cottage has fagots enough for the winter, and
+your _role_ of benefactress is at an end. In Paris, at least, charity
+is sometimes picturesque; poverty there is tainted with vice. If one
+believed in anything, it might be worth while to begin a mission; but
+as it is--"
+
+"The gospel of life, according to you, dear comtesse, is that in modern
+life there is no real excitement except in studying the very best way
+to be rid of it," cried out Renard, from the bottom of the table.
+
+"True; but suicide is such a coarse weapon," the lady answered, quite
+seriously; "so vulgar now, since the common people have begun to use
+it. Besides, it puts your adversary, the world, in possession of your
+secret of discontent. No, no. Suicide, the invention of the nineteenth
+century, goes out with it. The only refined form of suicide is to bore
+one's self to death," and she smiled sweetly into the young man's eyes
+nearest her.
+
+"Ah, comtesse, you should not have parted so early in life with all
+your illusions," was Monsieur d'Agreste's protest across the table.
+
+"And, Monsieur d'Agreste, it isn't given to us all to go to the ends of
+the earth, as you do, in search of new ones! This friction of living
+doesn't wear on you as it does on the rest of us."
+
+"Ah, the ends of the earth, they are very much like the middle and the
+beginning of things. Man is not so very different, wherever you find
+him. The only real difference lies in the manner of approaching him.
+The scientist, for example, finds him eternally fresh, novel,
+inspiring; he is a mine only as yet half-worked." Monsieur d'Agreste
+was beginning to wake up; his eyes, hitherto, alone had been alive; his
+hands had been busy, crunching his bread; but his tongue had been
+silent.
+
+"Ah--h science! Science is only another anaesthetic--it merely helps to
+kill time. It is a hobby, like any other," was the countess's
+rejoinder.
+
+"Perhaps," courteously returned Monsieur d'Agreste, with perfect
+sweetness of temper. "But at least, it is a hobby that kills no one
+else. And if of a hobby you can make a principle--"
+
+"A principle?" The countess contracted her brows, as if she had heard a
+word that did not please her.
+
+"Yes, dear lady; the wise man lays out his life as a gardener does a
+garden, on the principle of selection, of order, and with a view to the
+succession of the seasons. You all bemoan the dulness of life; you, in
+Paris, the torpor of ennui stifles you, you cry. On the contrary, I
+would wish the days were weeks, and the weeks months. And why? Simply
+because I have discovered the philosopher's stone. I have grasped the
+secret of my era. The comedy of rank is played out; the life of the
+trifler is at an end; all that went out with the Bourbons.
+Individualism is the new order. To-day a man exists simply by virtue of
+his own effort--he stands on his own feet. It is the era of the
+republican, of the individual--science is the true republic. For us who
+are displaced from the elevation our rank gave us, work is the
+watchword, and it is the only battle-cry left us now. He only is
+strong, and therefore happy, who perceives this truth, and who
+marches in step with the modern movement."
+
+The serious turn given to the conversation had silenced all save the
+baroness. She had listened even more intently than the others to her
+friend's eloquence, nodding her head assentingly to all that he said.
+His philosophic reflections produced as much effect on her vivacious
+excitability as they might on a restless Skye-terrier.
+
+"Yes, yes--he's entirely right, is Monsieur d'Agreste; he has got to
+the bottom of things. One must keep in step with modernity--one must be
+_fin de siècle_. Comtesse, you should hunt; there is nothing like a fox
+or a boar to make life worth living. It's better, infinitely better,
+than a pursuit of hearts; a boar's more troublesome than a man."
+
+"Unless you marry him," the countess interrupted, ending with a
+thrush-like laugh. When she laughed she seemed to have a bird in her
+throat.
+
+"Oh, a man's heart, it's like the flag of a defenceless country--anyone
+may capture it."
+
+The countess smiled with ineffable grace into the vacant, amorous-eyed
+faces on either side of her, rising as she smiled. We had reached
+dessert now; the coffee was being handed round. Everyone rose; but the
+countess made no move to pass out from the room. Both she and the
+baroness took from their pockets dainty cigarette-cases.
+
+"_Vous permettez?_" asked the baroness, leaning over coquettishly to
+Monsieur d'Agreste's cigar. She accompanied her action with a charming
+glance, one in which all the woman in her was uppermost, and one which
+made Monsieur d'Agreste's pale cheeks flush like a boy's. He was a
+philosopher and a scientist; but all his science and philosophy had not
+saved him from the barbed shafts of a certain mischievous little god.
+He, also, was visibly hugging his chains.
+
+The party had settled themselves in the low divans and in the Henri IV
+arm-chairs; a few here and there remained, still grouped about the
+table, with the freedom of pose and in the comfort of attitude smoking
+and coffee bring with them.
+
+It was destined, however, that the hour was to be a short one. One of
+the grooms obsequiously knocked at the door; he whispered in the
+count's ear, who advanced quickly toward him, the news that the coach
+was waiting; one of the leaders.
+
+"Desolated, my dear ladies--but my man tells me the coach is in
+readiness, and I have an impertinent leader who refuses to stand, when
+he is waiting, on anything more solid than his hind legs. Fernande, my
+dear, we must be on the move. Desolated, dear ladies--desolated--but
+it's only _au revoir_. We must arrange a meeting later, in Paris--"
+
+The scene in the court-yard was once again gay with life and bristling
+with color. The coach and the dog-cart shone resplendent in the
+slanting sun's rays. In the brighter sunlight, the added glow in the
+eyes and the cheeks of the brilliantly costumed group, made both men
+and women seem younger and fresher than when they had appeared, two
+hours since. All were in high good humor--the wines and the talk had
+warmed the quick French blood. There was a merry scramble for the top
+coach-seats; the two young counts exchanged their seat in their
+saddles for the privilege of holding, one the countess's vinaigrette,
+and the other, her long-handled parasol. Renard was beside his friend
+De Troisac; the horn rang out, the horses started as if stung, dashing
+at their bits, and in another moment the great coach was being whirled
+beneath the archway.
+
+"_Au revoir--au revoir!_" was cried down to us from the throne-like
+elevation. There was a pretty waving of hands--for even the countess's
+dislike melted into sweetness as she bade us farewell. There were
+answering cries from the shrieking cockatoos, from the peacocks who
+trailed their tails sadly in the dust, from the cooks and the peasant
+serving-women who had assembled to bid the distinguished guests adieu.
+There was also a sweeping bow from Monsieur Paul, and a grunt of
+contented dismissal from Madame Le Mois.
+
+A moment after the departure of the coach the court yard was as still
+as a convent cloister.
+
+It was still enough to hear the click of madame's fingers, as she
+tapped her snuff-box.
+
+"The count doesn't see any better than he did--_toujours myope, lui_"
+the old woman murmured to her son, with a pregnant wink, as she took
+her snuff.
+
+"_C'est sa façon de tout voir, au contraire, ma mère_," significantly
+returned Monsieur Paul, with his knowing smile.
+
+The mother's shrug answered the smile, as both mother and son walked in
+different directions--across the sunlit court.
+
+
+
+
+A LITTLE JOURNEY ALONG THE COAST.
+
+CAEN, BAYEUX, ST. LO, COUTANCES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+A NIGHT IN A CAEN ATTIC.
+
+
+I have always found the act of going away contagious. Who really enjoys
+being left behind, to mope in a corner of the world others have
+abandoned? The gay company atop of the coach, as they were whirled
+beneath the old archway, had left discontent behind; the music of the
+horn, like that played by the Pied Piper, had the magic of making the
+feet ache to follow after.
+
+Monsieur Paul was so used to see his world go and come--to greeting it
+with civility, and to assist at its departure with smiling indifference
+that the announcement of our own intention to desert the inn within a
+day or so, was received with unflattering impassivity. We had decided
+to take a flight along the coast--the month and the weather were at
+their best as aids to such adventure. We hoped to see the Fête Dieu at
+Caen. Why not push on to Coutances, where the Fête was still celebrated
+with a mediaeval splendor? From thence to the great Mont, the Mont St.
+Michel, it was but the distance of a good steed's galloping--we could
+cover the stretch of country between in a day's driving, and catch, who
+knows?--perhaps the June pilgrims climbing the Mont.
+
+"Ah, mesdames! there are duller things in the world to endure than a
+glimpse of the Normandy coast and the scent of June roses!
+_Idylliquement belle, la côte à ce moment-ci!_"
+
+This was all the regret that seasoned Monsieur Paul's otherwise
+gracious and most graceful of farewells. Why cannot we all attain to an
+innkeeper's altitude, as a point of view from which to look out upon
+the world? Why not emulate his calm, when people who have done with us
+turn their backs and stalk away? Why not, like him, count the pennies
+as not all the payment received when a pleasure has come which cannot
+be footed up in the bill? The entire company of the inn household was
+assembled to see us start. Not a white mouse but was on duty. The
+cockatoos performed the most perilous of their trapeze accomplishments
+as a last tribute; the doves cooed mournfully; the monkeys ran like
+frenzied spirits along their gratings to see the very last of us.
+Madame Le Mois considerately carried the bantam to the archway, that
+the lost joy of strutting might be replaced by the pride of preferment
+above its fellows.
+
+"_Adieu_, mesdames."
+
+"_Au revoir_--you will return--_tout le monde revient_--Guillaume le
+Conquérant, like Caesar, conquers once to hold forever--remember--"
+
+[Illustration: CHATEAU FONTAINE LE HENRI, NEAR CAEN]
+
+From Monsieur Paul, in quieter, richer tones, came his true farewell,
+the one we had looked for:
+
+"The evenings in the Marmousets will seem lonely when it rains--you
+must give us the hope of a quick return. Hope is the food of those who
+remain behind, as we Normans say!"
+
+The archway darkened the sod for an instant; the next we had passed out
+into the broad highway. Jean, in his blouse, with Suzette beside him,
+both jolting along in the lumbering _char-à-banc_, stared out at us
+with a vacant-eyed curiosity. We were only two travellers like
+themselves, along a dusty roadway, on our way to Caen; we were of no
+particular importance in the landscape, we and our rickety little
+phaeton. Yet only a moment before, in the inn court-yard, we had felt
+ourselves to be the pivotal centre of a world wholly peopled with
+friends! This is what comes to all men who live under the modern
+curse--the double curse of restlessness and that itching for novelty,
+which made the old Greek longing for the unknown deity--which is also
+the only honest prayer of so many _fin de siècle_ souls!
+
+Besides the dust, there were other things abroad on the high-road. What
+a lot of June had got into the air! The meadows and the orchards were
+exuding perfumes; the hedge-rows were so many yards of roses and wild
+grape-vines in blossom. The sea-smells, aromatic, pungent, floated
+inland to be married, in hot haste, to a perfect harem of clover and
+locust scents. The charm of the coast was enriched by the homely,
+familiar scenes of farm-house life. All the country between Dives
+and Caen seemed one vast farm, beautifully tilled, with its
+meadow-lands dipping seaward. For several miles, perhaps, the
+agricultural note alone would be the dominant one, with the fields full
+of the old, the eternal surprise--the dawn of young summer rising over
+them. Down the sides of the low hills, the polychrome grain waved
+beneath the touch of the breeze like a moving sea. Many and vast
+were the flat-lands; they were wide vistas of color: there were fields
+that were scarlet with the pomp of poppies, others tinged to the yellow
+of a Celestial by the feathery mustard; and still others blue as a
+sapphire's heart from the dye of millions of bluets. A dozen small
+rivers--or perhaps it was only one--coiled and twisted like a cobra in
+sinuous action, in and out among the pasture and sea meadows.
+
+As we passed the low, bushy banks, we heard the babel of the
+washerwomen's voices as they gossiped and beat their clothes on the
+stones. A fisherman or two gave one a hint that idling was understood
+here, as elsewhere, as being a fine art for those who possess the
+talent of never being pressed for time. A peasant had brought his horse
+to the bank; the river, to both peasant and Percheron, was evidently
+considered as a personal possession--as are all rivers to those who
+live near them. There was a naturalness in all the life abroad in the
+fields that gave this Normandy highroad an incomparable charm. An
+Arcadian calm, a certain patriarchal simplicity reigned beneath the
+trees. Children trudged to the river bank with pails and pitchers to be
+filled; women, with rakes and scythes in hand, crept down from the
+upper fields to season their mid-day meal with the cooling whiff of the
+river and sea air. Children tugged at their skirts. In two feet of
+human life, with kerchief tied under chin, the small hands carrying a
+huge bunch of cornflowers, how much of great gravity there may be! One
+such rustic sketch of the future peasant was seriously carrying its
+bouquet to another small edition seated in a grove of poppies; it might
+have been a votive offering. Both the children seated themselves, a
+very earnest conversation ensuing. On the hill-top, near by, the father
+and mother were also conversing, as they bent over their scythes.
+Another picture was wheeling itself along the river bank; it was a
+farmer behind a huge load of green grass; atop of the grasses two
+moon-faced children had laps and hands crowded with field flowers.
+Behind them the mother walked, with a rake slung over her shoulder, her
+short skirts and scant draperies giving to her step a noble freedom.
+The brush of Vollon or of Breton would have seized upon her to embody
+the type of one of their rustic beauties, that type whose mingled
+fierceness and grace make their peasants the rude goddesses of the
+plough.
+
+Even a rustic river wearies at last of wandering, as an occupation.
+Miles back we had left the sea; even the hills had stopped a full hour
+ago, as if they had no taste for the rivalry of cathedral spires.
+Behold the river now, coursing as sedately as the high-road, between
+two interminable lines of poplars. Far as the eye could reach stretched
+a wide, great plain. It was flat as an old woman's palm; it was also as
+fertile as the city sitting in the midst of its luxuriance has been
+rich in history.
+
+"_Ce pays est très beau, et Caen la plus jolie ville, la plus avenante,
+la plus gaie, la mieux située, les plus belles rues, les plus beaux
+bâtiments, les plus belles églises_--"
+
+There was no doubt, Charm added, as she repeated the lady's verdict, of
+the opinion Madame de Sévigné had formed of the town. As we drove, some
+two hundred years later, through the Caen streets, the charm we found
+had been perpetuated, but alas! not all of the beauty. At first we were
+entirely certain that Caen had retained its old loveliness; the
+outskirts were tricked out with the bloom of gardens and with old
+houses brave in their armor of vines. The meadows and the great trees
+of the plain were partly to blame for this illusion; they yielded
+their place grudgingly to the cobble-stoned streets and the height of
+dormer windows.
+
+To come back to the world, even to a provincial world, after having
+lived for a time in a corner, is certain to evoke a pleasurable feeling
+of elation. The streets of Caen were by no means the liveliest we had
+driven into; nor did the inhabitants, as at Villerville, turn out _en
+masse_ to welcome us. The streets, to be quite truthful, were as
+sedately quiet as any thoroughfares could well be, and proudly call
+themselves boulevards. The stony-faced gray houses presented a
+singularly chill front, considering their nationality. But neither
+the pallor of the streets nor their aspect of provincial calm had power
+to dampen the sense of our having returned to the world of cities. A
+girl issuing from a doorway with a netted veil drawn tightly over her
+rosy cheeks, and the curve of a Parisian bodice, immediately invested
+Caen with a metropolitan importance.
+
+The most courteous of innkeepers was bending over our carriage-door. He
+was desolated, but his inn was already full; it was crowded to
+repletion with people; surely these ladies knew it was the week of the
+races? Caen was as crowded as the inn; at night many made of the open
+street their bed; his own court-yard was as filled with men as with
+farm-wagons. It was altogether hopeless as a situation; as a welcome
+into a strange city, I have experienced none more arctic. I had,
+however, forgotten that I was travelling with a conqueror; that when
+Charm smiled she did as she pleased with her world. The innkeeper was
+only a man; and since Adam, when has any member of that sex been
+known to say "No" to a pretty woman? This French Adam, when Charm
+parted her lips, showing the snow of her teeth, found himself suddenly,
+miraculously, endowed with a fragment of memory. _Tiens_, he had
+forgotten! that very morning a corner of the attic--_un bout du
+toit_--had been vacated. If these ladies did not mind mounting to a
+_grenier_--an attic, comfortable, although still only an attic!
+
+The one dormer window was on a level with the roof-tops. We had a whole
+company of "belles voisines," a trick of neighborliness in windows the
+quick French wit, years ago, was swift to name. These "neighbors" were
+of every order and pattern. All the world and his mother-in-law were
+gone to the races;--and yet every window was playing a different scene
+in the comedy of this life in the sky. Who does not know and love a
+French window, the higher up in the world of air the better? There are
+certain to be plants, rows of them in pots, along the wide sill; one
+can count on a bullfinch or a parrot, as one can on the bébés that
+appear to be born on purpose to poke their fingers in the cages; there
+is certain also to be another cage hanging above the flowers--one
+filled with a fresh lettuce or a cabbage leaf. There is usually a snowy
+curtain, fringed; just at the parting of the draperies an old woman is
+always seated, with chin and nose-tip meeting, her bent figure rounding
+over the square of her knitting-needles.
+
+It was such a window as this that made us feel, before our bonnets were
+laid aside, that Caen was glad to see us. The window directly opposite
+was wide open. Instead of one there were half a dozen songsters aloft;
+we were so near their cages that the cat-bird whistled, to call his
+master and mistress to witness the intrusion of these strangers. The
+master brought a hot iron along--he was a tailor and was just in the
+act of pressing a seam. His wife was scraping carrots, and she tucked
+her bowl between her knees as she came to stand and gaze across. A cry
+rose up within the low room. Some one else wished to see the
+newcomers. The tailor laid aside his iron to lift proudly, far out
+beyond the cages, the fattest, rosiest offspring that ever was born in
+an attic. The babe smote its hands for pure joy. We were better than a
+broken doll--we were alive. The family as a family accepted us as one
+among them. The man smiled, and so did his wife. Presently both nodded
+graciously, as if, understanding the cause of our intrusion on their
+aerial privacy, they wished to present us with the compliment of their
+welcome. The manners among these garret-windows, we murmured, were
+really uncommonly good.
+
+"Bonjour, mesdames!" It was the third time the woman had passed, and we
+were still at the window. Her husband left his seam to join her.
+
+"Ces dames are not accustomed to such heights--_à ces hauteurs
+peut-être?_"
+
+The ladies in truth were not, unhappily, always so well lodged; from
+this height at least one could hope to see a city.
+
+"_Ah! ha! c'est gai par ici, n'est-ce pas?_ One has the sun all to one's
+self, and air! Ah! for freshness one must climb to an attic in these
+days, it appears."
+
+It was impossible to be more contented on a height than was this family
+of tailors; for when not cooking, or washing, or tossing the "bébé" to
+the birds, the wife stitched and stitched all her husband cut, besides
+taking a turn at the family socks. Part of this contentment came, no
+doubt, from the variety of shows and amusements with which the family,
+as a family, were perpetually supplied. For workers, there were really
+too many social distractions abroad in the streets; it was almost
+impossible for the two to meet all the demands on their time. Now it
+was the jingle of a horse's bell-collar; the tailor, between two snips
+at a collar, must see who was stopping at the hotel door. Later a horn
+sounded; this was only the fish vender, the wife merely bent her head
+over the flowers to be quite sure. Next a trumpet, clear and strong,
+rang its notes up into the roof eaves; this was something _bébé_ must
+see and hear--all three were bending at the first throbbing touch of
+that music on the still air, to see whence it came. Thus you see, even
+in the provinces, in a French street, something is quite certain to
+happen; it all depends on the choice one makes in life of a window--of
+being rightly placed--whether or not one finds life dull or amusing.
+This tailor had the talent of knowing where to stand, at life's
+corner--for him there was a ceaseless procession of excitements.
+
+It may be that our neighbor's talent for seeing was catching. It is
+certain that no city we had ever before looked out upon had seemed as
+crowded with sights. The whole history of Caen was writ in stone
+against the blue of the sky. Here, below us, sat the lovely old town,
+seated in the grasses of her plain. Yonder was her canal, as an artery
+to keep her pulse bounding in response to the sea; the ship-masts and
+the drooping sails seemed strange companions for the great trees and
+the old garden walls. Those other walls William built to cincture the
+city, Froissart found three centuries later so amazingly "strong, full
+of drapery and merchandise, rich citizens, noble dames, damsels, and
+fine churches," for this girdle of the Conqueror's great bastions the
+eye looks in vain. But William's vow still proclaims its fulfilment;
+the spire of l'Abbaye aux Hommes, and the Romanesque towers of its
+twin, l'Abbaye aux Dames, face each other, as did William and Mathilde
+at the altar--that union that had to be expiated by the penance of
+building these stones in the air.
+
+Commend me to an attic window to put one in sympathetic relations with
+cathedral spires! At this height we and they, for a part of their
+flight upward, at least, were on a common level--and we all know what
+confidences come about from the accident of propinquity. They seemed to
+assure us as never before when sitting at their feet, the difficulties
+they had overcome in climbing heavenward. Every stone that looked down
+upon the city wore this look of triumph.
+
+In the end it was this Caen in the air--it was this aerial city of
+finials, of towers, of peaked spires, of carved chimneys, of tree-tops
+over which the clouds rode; of a plain, melting--like a sea--into the
+mists of the horizon; this high, bright region peopled with birds and
+pigeons; of a sky tender, translucent, and as variable as human
+emotions; of an air that was rapture to breathe, and of nights in which
+the stars were so close they might almost be handled; it was this free,
+hilly city of the roofs that is still the Caen I remember best.
+
+There were other features of Caen that were good to see, I also
+remember. Her street expression, on the whole, was very pleasing. It
+was singularly calm and composed, even for a city in a plain. But the
+quiet came, doubtless, from its population being away at the races. The
+few townspeople who, for obvious reasons, were stay-at-homes, were
+uncommonly civil; Caen had evidently preserved the tradition of good
+manners. An army of cripples was in waiting to point the way to the
+church doors; a regiment of beggars was within them, with nets cast
+already for the catching of the small fry of our pennies. In the gay,
+geranium-lit garden circling the side walls of St. Pierre there were
+many legless soldiers; the old houses we went to see later on in the
+high street seemed, by contrast, to have survived other wars, those of
+the Directory and the Mountain, with a really scandalous degree of good
+fortune. On our way to a still greater church than St. Pierre, to the
+Abbaye aux Dames, that, like the queen who built her, sits on the
+throne of a hill--on our way thither we passed innumerable other
+ancient mansions. None of these were down in the guide books; they
+were, therefore, invested with the deeper charm of personal discovery.
+Once away from the little city of the shops, the real Caen came out to
+greet us. It was now a gray, sad, walled town; behind the walls,
+level-browed Francis I. windows looked gravely over the tufts of
+verdure; here was an old gateway; there what might once have been a
+portcullis, now only an arched wreath of vines; still beyond, a group
+of severe-looking mansions with great iron bound windows presented the
+front of miniature fortresses. And everywhere gardens and gardens.
+
+Turn where you would, you would only turn to face verdure, foliage, and
+masses of flowers. The high walls could neither keep back the odors nor
+hide the luxuriance of these Caen gardens. These must have been the
+streets that bewitched Madame de Sévigné. Through just such a maze of
+foliage Charlotte Corday has also walked, again and again, with her
+wonderful face aflame with her great purpose, before the purpose
+ripened into the dagger thrust at Marat's bared breast--that avenging
+Angel of Beauty stabbing the Beast in his bath. Auber, with his
+Anacreontic ballads in his young head, would seem more fittingly
+framed in this old Caen that runs up a hill-side. But women as
+beautiful as Marie Stuart and the Corday can deal safely in the
+business of assassination, the world will always continue to aureole
+their pictures with a garland of roses.
+
+The Abbaye on its hill was reached at last. All Caen lay below us; from
+the hillside it flowed as a sea rolls away from a great ship's sides.
+Down below, far below, as if buttressing the town that seemed rushing
+away recklessly to the waste of the plains, stands the Abbaye's twin-
+brother, the Aux Hommes. Plains, houses, roof-tops, spires, all were
+swimming in a sea of golden light; nothing seemed quite real or solid,
+so vast was the prospect and so ethereal was the medium through which
+we saw it. Perhaps it was the great contrast between that shimmering,
+unstable city below, that reeked and balanced itself like some human
+creature whose dazzled vision had made its footing insecure--it may be
+that it was this note of contrast which invested this vast structure
+bestriding the hill, with such astonishing grandeur. I have known few,
+if any, other churches produce so instantaneous an effect of a beauty
+that was one with austerity. This great Norman is more Puritan than
+French: it is Norman Gothic with a Puritan severity.
+
+The sound of a deep sonorous music took us quickly within. It was as
+mysterious a music as ever haunted a church aisle. The vast and snowy
+interior was as deserted as a Presbyterian church on a week-day. Yet
+the sound of the rich, strong voices filled all the place. There was no
+sound of tingling accompaniment: there was no organ pipe, even, to add
+its sensuous note of color. There was only the sound of the voices, as
+they swelled, and broke, and began afresh.
+
+The singing went on.
+
+It was a slow "plain chant." Into the great arches the sonorous
+chanting beat upon the ear with a rhythmic perfection that, even
+without the lovely flavor of its sweetness, would have made a beauty of
+its own. In this still and holy place, with the company of the stately
+Norman arches soaring aloft--beneath the sombre glory of the giant
+aisle--the austere simplicity of this chant made the heart beat, one
+knew not why, and the eyes moisten, one also knew not why.
+
+We had followed the voices. They came, we found, from within the choir.
+A pattering of steps proclaimed we were to go no farther.
+
+"Not there, my ladies--step this way, one only enters the choir by
+going into the hospital."
+
+The voice was low and sweet; the smile, a spark of divinity set in a
+woman's face; and the whole was clothed in a nun's garb.
+
+We followed the fluttering robes; we passed out once more into the
+sunlit parvis. We spoke to the smile and it answered: yes, the choir
+was reserved for the Sisters--they must be able to approach it from the
+convent and the hospital; it had always, since the time of Mathilde,
+been reserved for the nuns; would we pass this way? The way took us
+into an open vaulted passage, past a grating where sat a white-capped
+Sister, past a group of girls and boys carrying wreaths and
+garlands--they were making ready for the _Fête-Dieu_, our nun
+explained--past, at the last, a series of corridors through which,
+faintly at first, and then sweeter and fuller, there struck once more
+upon our ears the sounds of the deep and resonant chanting.
+
+The black gown stopped all at once. The nun was standing in front of a
+green curtain. She lifted it. This was what we saw. The semicircle of a
+wide apse. Behind, rows upon rows of round arches. Below the arches, in
+the choir stalls, a long half-circle of stately figures. The figures
+were draped from head to foot. When they bent their heads not an inch
+of flesh was visible, except a few hands here and there that had
+escaped the long, wide sleeves. All these figures were motionless; they
+were as immobile as statues; occasionally, at the end of a "Gloria,"
+all turned to face the high altar. At the end of the "Amen" a cloud of
+black veils swept the ground. Then for several measures of the chant
+the figures were again as marble. In each of the low, round arches, a
+stately woman, tall and nobly planned, draped like a goddess turned
+saint, stood and chanted to her Lord. Had the Norman builders carved
+these women, ages ago, standing about Mathilde's tomb, those ancient
+sculptures could not have embodied, in more ideal image, the type of
+womanly renunciation and of a saint's fervor of exaltation.
+
+We left them, with the rich chant still full upon their lips, with
+heads bent low, calm as graven images. It was only the bloom on a
+cheek, here and there, that made one certain of the youth entombed
+within these nuns' garb.
+
+"Happy, _mesdames? Oh, mais très heureuses, toutes_--there are no women
+so happy as we. See how they come to us, from all the country around.
+_En voilà une_--did you remark the pretty one, with the book, seated,
+all in white? She is to be a full Sister in a month. She comes from a
+noble family in the south. She was here one day, she saw the life of
+the Sisters, of us all working here, among the poor soldiers--_elle a
+vu ça, et pour tout de bon, s'est donnée à Dieu!"
+
+The smile of our nun was rapturous. She was proving its source. Once
+more we saw the young countess who had given herself to her God. An
+hour later, when we had reached the hospital wards, her novice's robes
+were trailing the ground. She was on her knees in the very middle of
+the great bare room. She was repeating the office of the hour, aloud,
+with clasped hands and uplifted head. On her lovely young face there
+was the glow of a divine ecstasy. All the white faces from the long
+rows of the white beds were bending toward her; to one even in all
+fulness of strength and health that girlish figure, praying beside the
+great vase of the snowy daisies, with the glow that irradiated the
+sweet, pure face, might easily enough have seemed an angel's.
+
+As companions for our tour of the grounds we had two young Englishmen.
+Both eyed the nuns in the distance of the corridors and the gardens
+with the sharpened glances all men level at the women who have
+renounced them. It is a mystery no man ever satisfactorily fathoms.
+
+"Queer notion, this, a lot of women shutting themselves up," remarked
+the younger of the two. "In England, now, they'd all go in for being
+old maids, drinking tea and coddling cats, you know."
+
+"I wonder which are the happier, your countrywomen or these Sisters,
+who, in renouncing the world devote their lives to serving it. See,
+over yonder" and I nodded to a scene beneath the wide avenue of the
+limes. Two tall Augustines were supporting a crippled old man; they
+were showing him some fresh garden-beds. Beyond was a gayer group. Some
+of the lay sisters were tugging at a huge basket of clothes, fresh from
+the laundry. Running across the grass, with flying draperies, two nuns,
+laughing as they ran, each striving to outfoot the other, were
+hastening to their rescue.
+
+"They keep their bloom, running about like that; only healthy nuns I
+ever saw."
+
+"That's because they have something better than cats to coddle."
+
+"Ah, ha! that's not bad. It's a slow suicide, all the same. But here we
+are, at the top; it's a fine outlook, is it not?"
+
+The young man panted as he reached the top of the Maze, one of the
+chief glories of the old Abbaye grounds. He had a fair and sensitive
+face; a weak product on the whole, he seemed, compared with the
+nobly-built, vigorous-bodied nuns crowding the choir-stalls yonder.
+Instead of that long, slow suicide, surely these women should be doing
+their greater work of reproducing a race. Even an open-air cell seems
+to me out of place in our century. It will be entirely out of fashion
+in time, doubtless, as the mediaeval cell has gone along with the old
+castle life, whose princely mode of doing things made a nunnery the
+only respectable hiding-place for the undowered daughters.
+
+As we crept down into Caen, it was to find it thick with the dust of
+twilight. The streets were dense with other things besides the
+thickened light. The Caen world was crowding homeward; all the
+boulevards and side streets were alive with a moving throng of dusty,
+noisy, weary holidaymakers. The town was abroad in the streets to hear
+the news of the horses, and to learn the history of the betting.
+
+Although we had gone to church instead of doing the races, many of
+those who had peopled the gay race-track came back to us. The table
+d'hôte, at our inn that night, was as noisy as a Parisian cafe. It was
+scarcely as discreet, I should say. On our way to our attic that night,
+the little corridors made us a really amazing number of confidences.
+
+It was strange, but all the shoes appeared to have come in pairs of
+twos. Never was there such a collection of boots in couples. Strange
+it was, also, to see how many little secrets these rows of candid
+shoe-leather disclosed. Here a pert, coquettish pair of ties were
+having as little in common as possible with the stout, somewhat clumsy
+walking-boots next them. In the two just beyond, at the next door, how
+the delicate, slender buttoned kids leaned over, floppingly, to rest on
+the coarse, yet strong, hobnailed clumpers!
+
+Shabbier and shabbier grew the shoes, as we climbed upward. With each
+pair of stairs we seemed to have left a rung in the ladder of fortune
+behind. But even the very poorest in pocket had brought his little
+extravagance with him to the races.
+
+The only genuine family party had taken refuge, like ourselves, in the
+attic.
+
+At the very next door to our own, Monsieur, Madame, et Bébé proclaimed,
+by the casting of their dusty shoes, that they also, like the rest of
+the world, had come to Caen to see the horses run.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A DAY AT BAYEUX AND ST. LO.
+
+
+Caen seated in its plain, wearing its crown of steeples--this was our
+last glimpse of the beautiful city. Our way to Bayeux was strewn thick
+with these Normandy jewels; with towns smaller than Caen; with Gothic
+belfries; with ruined priories, and with castles, stately even when
+tottering in decay. When the last castle was lost in a thicket, we
+discovered that our iron horse was stopping in the very middle of a
+field. If the guard had shouted out the name of any American city,
+built overnight, on a Western prairie, we should have felt entirely at
+home in this meadow; we should have known any clearing, with grass
+and daisies, was a very finished evidence of civilization at high
+pressure.
+
+But a lane as the beginning of a cathedral town!
+
+Evidently Bayeux has had a Ruskinian dread of steam-whistles, for this
+ancient seat of bishops has succeeded in retaining the charms of its
+old rustic approaches, whatever else it may have sacrificed on the
+altar of modernness.
+
+An harangue, at the door of the quaint old Normandy omnibus, by the
+driver of the same, was proof that the lesson of good oratory,
+administered by generations of bishops, had not been lost on the Bayeux
+inhabitants. Two rebellious English tourists furnished the text for the
+driver's sermon; they were showing, with all the naive pride of
+pedestrians, their intention of footing the distance between the
+station and the cathedral. This was an independence of spirit no Norman
+could endure to see. What? these gentlemen proposed to walk, in the
+sun, through clouds of dust, when here was a carriage, with ladies for
+companions, at their command? The coach had come down the hill on
+purpose to conduct _Messieurs les voyageurs;_ how did these gentlemen
+suppose _a père de famille_ was to make his living if the fashion of
+walking came in? And the rusty red vest was thumbed by the gnarled hand
+of the father, who was also an orator; and a high-peaked hat swept the
+ground before the hard-hearted gentlemen. All the tragedy of the
+situation had come about from the fact that the tourists, also, had
+gotten themselves up in costume. When two fine youths have risen early
+in the day to put on checked stockings, leggings, russet walking-shoes,
+and a plaited coat with a belt, such attire is one to be lived up to.
+Once in knickerbockers and a man's getting into an omnibus is really
+too ignominious! With such a road before two sets of such well-shaped
+calves--a road all shaped and graded--this, indeed, would be flying in
+the face of a veritable providence of bishop-builders intent on
+maintaining pastoral effects.
+
+The knickerbockers relentlessly strode onward; the driver had addressed
+himself to hearts of stone. But he had not yet exhausted his quiver of
+appeal. Englishmen walk, well! there's no accounting for the taste of
+Britons who are also still half savages; but even a barbarian must eat.
+Half-way up the hill, the rattle of the loose-jointed vehicle came to a
+dead stop. With great gravity the guard descended from his seat; this
+latter he lifted to take from the entrails of the old vehicle a handful
+of hand-bills. He, the horse, the omnibus, and we, all waited for, what
+do you suppose? To besprinkle the walking Englishmen as they came
+within range with a shower of circulars announcing that at "_midi, chez
+Nigaud, il y aura un dejeuner chaud_."
+
+The driver turned to look in at the window--and to nod as he turned--he
+felt so certain of our sympathy; had he not made sure of them at last?
+
+A group of gossamer caps beneath a row of sad, gray-faced houses was
+our Bayeux welcome. The faces beneath the caps watched our approach
+with the same sobriety as did the old houses--they had the antique
+Norman seriousness of aspect. The noise we made with the clatter and
+rattle of our broken-down vehicle seemed an impertinence, in the face
+of such severe countenances. We might have been entering a deserted
+city, except for the presence of these motionless Normandy figures. The
+cathedral met us at the threshold of the city: magnificent, majestic, a
+huge gray mountain of stone, but severe in outline, as if the Norman
+builders had carved on the vast surface of its facade an imprint of
+their own grave earnestness.
+
+We were somewhat early for the hot breakfast at Nigaud's. There was,
+however, the appetizing smell of soup, with a flourishing pervasiveness
+of onion in the pot, to sustain the vigor of an appetite whetted by a
+start at dawn. The knickerbockers came in with the omelette. But one is
+not a Briton on his travels for nothing; one does not leave one's own
+island to be the dupe of French inn-keepers. The smell of the soup had
+not departed with our empty plates, and the voice of the walkers was
+not of the softest when they demanded their rights to be as odorous as
+we. There is always a curiously agreeable sensation, to an American, in
+seeing an Englishman angry; to get angry in public is one thing we
+do badly; and in his cup of wrath our British brother is sublime--he is
+so superbly unconscious--and so contemptuous--of the fact that the
+world sometimes finds anger ridiculous.
+
+At the other end of the long and narrow table two other travellers were
+seated, a man and a woman. But food, to them, it was made manifestly
+evident, was a matter of the most supreme indifference. They were at
+that radiant moment of life when eating is altogether too gross a form
+of indulgence. For these two were at the most interesting period of
+French courtship--just _after_ the wedding ceremony, when, with the
+priest's blessing, had come the consent of their world and of tradition
+to their making the other's acquaintance. This provincial bride and her
+husband of a day were beginning, as all rustic courting begins, by a
+furtive holding of hands; this particular couple, in view of our
+proximity and their own mutual embarrassment, had recourse to the
+subterfuge of desperate lunges at the other's fingers, beneath the
+table-cloth. The screen, as a screen, did not work. It deceived no
+one--as the bride's pale-gray dress and her flowery bonnet also
+deceived no one--save herself. This latter, in certain ranks of life,
+is the bride's travelling costume, the world over. And the world
+over, it is worn by the recently wedded with the profound conviction
+that in donning it they have discovered the most complete of all
+disguises.
+
+This bride and groom were obviously in the first rapture of mutual
+discovery. The honey in their moon was not fresher than their views of
+the other's tastes and predilections.
+
+"Ah--ah--you like to travel quickly--to see everything, to take it all
+in a gulp--so do I, and then to digest at one's leisure."
+
+The bride was entirely of this mind. Only, she murmured, there were
+other things one must not do too quickly--one must go slow in matters
+of the heart--to make quite sure of all the stages.
+
+But her husband was at her throat, that is, his eyes and lips were, as
+he answered, so that all the table might partake of his emotion--"No,
+no, the quicker the heart feels the quicker love comes. _Tiens,
+voyons, mon amie, toi-même, tu m'as confié_"--and the rest was lost in
+the bride's ear.
+
+Apparently we were to have them, these brides, for the rest of our
+journey, in all stages and of all ages! Thus far none others had
+appeared as determined as were these two honey-mooners, that all the
+world should share their bliss. They were cracking filberts with their
+disengaged fingers, the other two being closely interlocked, in quite
+scandalous openness, when we left them.
+
+That was the only form of excitement that greeted us in the quiet
+Bayeux streets. The very street urchins invited repose; the few we saw
+were seated sedately on the threshold of their own door-steps, frequent
+sallies abroad into this quiet city having doubtless convinced them of
+the futility of all sorties. The old houses were their carved facades
+as old ladies wear rich lace--they had reached the age when the vanity
+of personal adornment had ceased to inflate. The great cathedral,
+towering above the tranquil town, wore a more conscious air; its
+significance was too great a contrast to the quiet city asleep at its
+feet. In these long, slow centuries the towers had grown to have the
+air of protectors.
+
+The famous tapestries we went to see later, might easily enough have
+been worked yesterday, in any one of the old mediaeval houses; Mathilde
+and her hand-maidens would find no more--not so much--to distract and
+disturb them now in this still and tranquil town, with its sad gray
+streets and its moss-grown door-steps, as they must in those earlier
+bustling centuries of the Conqueror. Even then, when Normandy was only
+beginning its career of importance among the great French provinces,
+Bayeux was already old. She was far more Norse then than Norman; she
+was Scandinavian to the core; even her nobles spoke in harsh Norse
+syllables; they were as little French as it was possible to be, and yet
+govern a people.
+
+Mathilde, when she toiled over her frame, like all great writers, was
+doubtless quite unconscious she was producing a masterpiece. She was,
+however, in point of fact, the very first among the great French
+realists. No other French writer has written as graphically as she did
+with her needle, of the life and customs of their day. That long scroll
+of tapestry, for truth and a naive perfection of sincerity--where will
+you find it equalled or even approached? It is a rude Homeric epic; and
+I am not quite certain that it ought not to rank higher than even some
+of the more famous epics of the world--since Mathilde had to create
+the mould of art into which she poured her story. For who had thought
+before her of making women's stitches write or paint a great historical
+event, crowded with homely details which now are dubbed archaeological
+veracities?
+
+Bayeux and its tapestry; its grave company of antique houses; its
+glorious cathedral dominating the whole--what a lovely old background
+against which poses the eternal modernness of the young noon sun! The
+history of Bayeux is commonly given in a paragraph. Our morning's walk
+had proved to us it was the kind of town that does more to re-create
+the historic past than all the pages of a Guizot or a Challamel.
+
+The bells that were ringing out the hour of high-noon from the
+cathedral towers at Bayeux were making the heights of St. Lo, two hours
+later, as noisy as a village fair. The bells, for rivals, had the
+clatter of women's tongues. I think I never, before or since, have
+beheld so lively a company of washerwomen as were beating their clothes
+in Vire River. The river bends prettily just below the St. Lo heights,
+as if it had gone out of its way to courtesy to a hill. But even the
+waters, in their haste to be polite, could not course beneath the great
+bridge as swiftly as ran those women's tongues. There were a good
+hundred of them at work beneath the washing-sheds. Now, these sheds,
+anywhere in France, are really the open-air club room of the French
+peasant woman; the whole dish of the village gossip is hung out to dry,
+having previously been well soused and aired, along with the blouses
+and the coarse chemises. The town of St. Lo had evidently furnished
+these club members of the washing-stones with some fat dish of
+gossip--the heads were as close as currants on a stem, as they bent in
+groups over the bright waters. They had told it all to the stream; and
+the stream rolled the volume of the talk along as it carried along also
+the gay, sparkling reflections of the life and the toil that bent over
+it--of the myriad reflections of those moving, bare-armed figures, of
+the brilliant kerchiefs, of the wet blue and gray jerseys, and of the
+long prismatic line of the damp, motley-hued clothes that were
+fluttering in the wind.
+
+The bells' clangor was an assurance that something was happening on top
+of the hill. Just what happened was as altogether pleasing a spectacle,
+after a long and arduous climb up a hillside, as it has often been my
+good fortune to encounter.
+
+The portals of the church of Notre Dame were wide open. Within, as we
+looked over the shoulders of the townspeople who, like us, had come to
+see what the bells meant by their ringing, within the church there was
+a rich and sombre dusk; out of this dusk, indistinctly at first, lit
+by the tremulous flicker of a myriad of candles, came a line of
+white-veiled heads; then another of young boys, with faces as pale
+as the nosegays adorning their brand-new black coats; next the
+scarlet-robed choristers, singing, and behind them still others
+swinging incense that thickened the dusk. Suddenly, like a vision, the
+white veils passed out into the sunlight, and we saw that the faces
+beneath the veils were young and comely. The faces were still
+alternately lighted by the flare of the burning tapers and the glare of
+the noon sun. The long procession ended at last in a straggling group
+of old peasants with fine tremulous mouths, a-tremble with pride and
+with feeling; for here they were walking in full sight of their town,
+in their holiday coats, with their knees treacherously unsteady from
+the thrill of the organ's thunder and the sweetness of the choir-boys'
+singing.
+
+Whether it was a pardon, or a _fête_, or a first communion, we never
+knew. But the town of St. Lo is ever gloriously lighted, for us, with a
+nimbus of young heads, such as encircled the earlier madonnas.
+
+After such a goodly spectacle, the rest of the town was a tame morsel.
+We took a parting sniff of the incense still left in the eastern end of
+the church's nave; there was a bit of good glass in a window to reward
+us. Outside the church, on the west from the Petite Place, was a wide
+outlook over the lovely vale of the Vire, with St. Lo itself twisting
+and turning in graceful postures down the hillside.
+
+On the same prospect two kings have looked, and before the kings a
+saint. St. Lo or St. Laudus himself, who gave his name to the town,
+must, in the sixth century, have gazed on virgin forests stretching
+away from the hill far as the eye could reach. Charlemagne, three
+hundred years later, in his turn, found the site a goodly one, one to
+tempt men to worship the Creator of such beauty, for here he founded
+the great Abbey of St. Croix, long since gone with the monks who
+peopled it. Louis XI, that mystic wearing the warrior's helmet, set his
+seal of approval on the hill, by sending the famous glass yonder in the
+cathedral, when the hill and the St. Lo people beat the Bretons who had
+come to capture both.
+
+Like saint, and kings, and monks, and warriors, we in our turn crept
+down the hill. For we also were done with the town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A DINNER AT COUTANCES.
+
+
+The way from St. Lo to Coutances is a pleasant way. There is no map of
+the country that will give you even a hint of its true character, any
+more than from a photograph you can hope to gain an insight into the
+moral qualities of a pretty woman.
+
+Here, at last, was the ideal Normandy landscape. It was a country with
+a savage look--a savage that had been trained to follow the plough.
+Even in its color it had retained the true barbarians' instinct for a
+good primary. Here were no melting-yellow mustard-fields, nor flame-lit
+poppied meadows, nor blue-bells lifting their baby-blue eyes out of the
+grain. All the land was green. Fields, meadows, forests, plains--all
+were green, green, green. The features of the landscape had changed
+with this change in coloring. The slim, fragile grace of slim trees and
+fragile cliffs had been replaced by trees of heroic proportions,
+and by outlines nobly rounded and full--like the breasts of a mother.
+The whole country had an astonishing look of vigor--of the vigor which
+comes with rude strength; and it had that charm which goes with all
+untamed beauty--the power to sting one into a sense of agitated
+enjoyment.
+
+Even the farm-houses had been suddenly transformed into fortresses.
+Each one of the groups of the farm enclosures had its outer walls, its
+miniature turrets, and here and there its rounded bastions. Each farm,
+apparently, in the olden days had been a citadel unto itself. The
+Breton had been a very troublesome neighbor for many a long century;
+every ploughman, until a few hundred years ago, was quite likely to
+turn soldier at a second's notice--every true Norman must look to his
+own sword to defend his hearth-stone. Such is the story those stone
+turrets that cap the farm walls tell you--each one of these turrets was
+an open lid through which the farmer could keep his eye on Brittany.
+
+Meanwhile, along the roads as we rushed swiftly by, a quieter life was
+passing. The farm wagons were jogging peacefully along on a high-road
+as smooth as a fine lady's palm--and as white. The horses were
+harnessed one before the other, in interminable length of line.
+Sometimes six, sometimes eight, even so many as ten, marched with great
+gravity, and with that majestic dignity only possible to full-blooded
+Percherons, one after the other. They each wore a saddle-cloth of
+blue sheepskin. On their mottled haunches this bit of color made their
+polished coats to gleam like unto a lizards' skin.
+
+Meanwhile, also, we were nearing Coutances. The farm-houses were
+fortresses no longer; the thatched roofs were one once more with the
+green of the high roads; for even in the old days there was a great
+walled city set up on a hill, to which refuge all the people about for
+miles could turn for protection.
+
+A city that is set on a hill! That for me is commonly recommendation
+enough. Such a city, so set, promises at the very least the dual
+distinction of looking up as well as looking down; it is the nearer
+heaven, and just so much the farther removed from earth.
+
+Coutances, for a city with its head in the air, was surprisingly
+friendly. It went out of its way to make us at home. At the very
+station, down below in the plain, it had sent the most loquacious of
+coach-drivers to put us in immediate touch with its present interests.
+All the city, as the coarse blue blouse, flourishing its whip, took
+pains to explain, was abroad in the fields; the forests, _tiens_, down
+yonder through the trees, we could see for ourselves how the young
+people were making the woods as crowded as a ball-room. The city, as a
+city, was stripping the land and the trees bare--it would be as bald as
+a new-born babe by the morrow. But then, of a certainty, we also had
+come for the _fête_--or, and here a puzzled look of doubt beclouded the
+provincial's eyes--might we, perchance, instead, have come for the
+trial? _Mais non, pas çà_, these ladies had never come for that, since
+they did not even know the court was sitting, now, this very instant,
+at Coutances. And--_sapristi!_ but there was a trial going on--one to
+make the blood curdle; he himself had not slept, the rustic coachman
+added, as he shivered beneath his blouse, all the night before--the
+blood had run so cold in his veins.
+
+The horse and the road were all the while going up the hill. The road
+was easily one that might have been the path of warriors; the walls,
+still lofty on the side nearest the town, bristled with a turret or a
+bastion to remind us Coutances had not been set on a hill for mere
+purposes of beauty. The ramparts of the old fortifications had been
+turned into a broad promenade. Even as we jolted past, beneath the
+great breadth of the trees' verdure we could see how gloriously the
+prospect widened--the country below reaching out to the horizon like
+the waters of a sea that end only in indefiniteness.
+
+The city itself seemed to grow out of the walls and the trees. Here and
+there a few scattered houses grouped themselves as if meaning to start
+a street; but a maze of foliage made a straight line impossible.
+Finally a large group of buildings, with severe stone faces, took a
+more serious plunge away from the vines; they had shaken themselves
+free and were soon soberly ranging themselves into the parallel lines
+of narrow city streets.
+
+It was a pleasant surprise to find that, for once, a Norman blouse had
+told the truth; for here were the people of Coutances coming up from
+the fields to prove it. In all these narrow streets a great multitude
+of people were passing us; some were laden with vines, others with
+young forest trees, and still others with rude garlands of flowers. The
+peasant women's faces, as the bent figures staggered beneath a young
+fir-tree, were purple, but their smiles were as gay as the wild flowers
+with which the stones were thickly strewn. Their words also were as
+rough:
+
+"_Diantre--mais c'e lourd!_"
+
+"_E-ben, e toi, tu n' bougeons point, toi!_"
+
+And the nearest fir-tree carrier to our carriage wheels cracked a swift
+blow over the head of a vine-bearer, who being but an infant of two,
+could not make time with the swift foot of its mother.
+
+The smell of the flowers was everywhere. Fir-trees perfumed the air.
+Every doorstep was a garden. The courtyards were alive with the squat
+figures of capped maidens, wreathing and twisting greens and garlands.
+And in the streets there was such a noise as was never before heard in
+a city on a hill-top.
+
+For Coutances was to hold its great _fête_ on the morrow.
+
+It was a relief to turn in from the noise and hubbub to the bright
+courtyard of our inn. The brightness thereof, and of the entire
+establishment, indeed, appeared to find its central source in the
+brilliant eyes of our hostess. Never was an inn-keeper gifted with a
+vision at once so omniscient and so effulgent. Those eyes were
+everywhere; on us, on our bags, our bonnets, our boots; they divined
+our wants, and answered beforehand our unuttered longings. We had come
+far? the eyes asked, burning a hole through our gossamer evasions; from
+Paris, perhaps--a glance at our bonnets proclaimed the eyes knew all;
+we were here for the _fête_, to see the bishop on the morrow; that was
+well; we were going on to the Mont; and the eyes scented the shortness
+of our stay by a swift glance at our luggage.
+
+"_Numéro quatre, au troisième!_"
+
+There was no appeal possible. The eyes had penetrated the disguise of
+our courtesy; we were but travellers of a night; the top story was
+built for such as we.
+
+But such a top story, and such a chamber therein! A great, wide, low
+room; beams deep and black, with here and there a brass bit hanging;
+waxed floors, polished to mirrory perfection; a great bed clad in snowy
+draperies, with a snow-white _duvet_ of gigantic proportions. The walls
+were gray with lovely bunches of faded rosebuds flung abroad on the
+soft surface; and to give a quaint and antique note to the whole, over
+the chimney was a bit of worn tapestry with formidable dungeon, a
+Norman keep in the background, and well up in front, a stalwart young
+master of the hounds, with dogs in leash, of the heavy Norman type of
+bulging muscle and high cheekbones.
+
+Altogether, there were worse fates in the world than to be travellers
+of a night, with the destiny of such a room as part of the fate.
+
+When we descended the steep, narrow spiral of steps to the dining-room,
+it was to find the eyes of our hostess brighter than ever. The noise in
+the streets had subsided. It was long after dusk, and Coutances was
+evidently a good provincial. But in the gay little dining-room there
+was an astonishing bustle and excitement.
+
+The _fête_ and the court had brought a crowd of diners to the inn-
+table; when we were all seated we made quite a company at the long,
+narrow board. The candles and lamps lit up any number of Vandyke
+pointed beards, of bald heads, of loosely-tied cravats, and a few
+matronly bosoms straining at the buttons of silk holiday gowns. For the
+_Fête-Dieu_ had brought visitors besides ourselves from all the country
+round; and then "a first communion is like a marriage, all the
+relatives must come, as doubtless we knew," was a baldhead's friendly
+beginning of his soup and his talk, as we took our seats beside him.
+
+With the appearance of the _potage_ conversation, like a battle between
+foes eager for contest, had immediately engaged itself. The setting of
+the table and the air of companionship pervading the establishment were
+aiders and abettors to immediate intercourse. Nothing could be prettier
+than the Caen bowls with their bunches of purple phlox and spiked
+blossoms. Even a metropolitan table might have taken a lesson from the
+perfection of the lighting of the long board. In order that her guests
+should feel the more entirely at home, our brilliant-eyed hostess came
+in with the soup; she took her place behind it at the head of the
+table.
+
+It was evident the merchants from Cherbourg who had come as witnesses
+to the trial, had had many a conversational bout before now with
+madame's ready wit. So had two of the town lawyers. Even the commercial
+gentlemen, for once, were experiencing a brief moment of armed
+suspense, before they flung themselves into the arena of talk. At
+first, or it would never have been in the provinces, this talk at the
+long table, everyone broke into speech at once. There was a flood of
+words; one's sense of hearing was stunned by the noise. Gradually, as
+the cider and the thin red wine were passed, our neighbors gave
+digestion a chance; the din became less thick with words; each listened
+when the other talked. But, as the volume of speech lessened, the
+interest thickened. It finally became concentrated, this interest, into
+true French fervor when the question of the trial was touched on.
+
+"They say D'Alençon is very clever. He pleads for Filon, the culprit,
+to-night, does he not?"
+
+"Yes, poor Filon--it will go hard with him. His crime is a black one."
+
+"I should think it was--implicating _le petit_!"
+
+"Dame! the judge doesn't seem to be of your mind."
+
+"Ah--h!" cried a florid Vandyke-bearded man, the dynamite bomb of
+the table, exploding with a roar of rage. "_Ah--h, cré nom de
+Dieu!--Messieurs les presidents_ are all like that; they are always
+on the side of the innocent--"
+
+"Till they prove them guilty."
+
+"Guilty! guilty!" the bomb exploded in earnest now. "How many times in
+the annals of crime is a man guilty--really guilty? They should search
+for the cause--and punish that. That is true justice. The instigator,
+the instigator--he is the true culprit. Inheritances--_voilà les vrais
+coupables_. But when are such things investigated? It is ever the
+innocent who are punished. I know something of that--I do."
+
+"_Allons--allons!_" cried the table, laughing at the beard's vehemence.
+"When were you ever under sentence?"
+
+"When I was doing my duty," the beard hurled back with both arms in the
+air; "when I was doing my three years--I and my comrade; we were
+convicted--punished--for an act of insubordination we never committed.
+Without a trial, without a chance of defending ourselves, we were put
+on two crumbs of bread and a glass of water for two months. And we were
+innocent--as innocent as babes, I tell you."
+
+The table was as still as death. The beard had proved himself worthy of
+this compliment; his voice was the voice of drama, and his gestures
+such as every Frenchman delights in beholding and executing. Every ear
+was his, now.
+
+"I have no rancor. I am, by nature, what God made me, a peaceable man,
+but"--here the voice made a wild _crescendo_--"if I ever meet my
+colonel--_gare à lui_! I told him so. I waited two years, two long
+years, till I was released; then I walked up to him" (the beard rose
+here, putting his hand to his forehead), "I saluted" (the hand made the
+salute), "and I said to him, 'Mon colonel, you convicted me, on false
+evidence, of a crime I never committed. You punished me. It is two
+years since then. But I have never forgotten. Pray to God we may never
+meet in civil life, for then yours would end!"
+
+"_Allons, allons!_ A man after all must do his duty. A colonel--he
+can't go into details!" remonstrated the hostess, with her knife in the
+air.
+
+"I would stick him, I tell you, as I would a pig--or a Prussian! I live
+but for that!"
+
+"_Monstre!_" cried the table in chorus, with a laugh, as it took its
+wine. And each turned to his neighbor to prove the beard in the wrong.
+
+"Of what crime is the defendant guilty--he who is to be tried
+to-night?" Charm asked of a silent man, with sweet serious eyes and a
+rough gray beard, seated next her. Of all the beards at the table, this
+one alone had been content with listening.
+
+"Of fraud--mademoiselle--of fraud and forgery." The man had a voice as
+sweet as a church bell, and as deep. Every word he said rang out
+slowly, sonorously. The attention of the table was fixed in an instant.
+"It is the case of a Monsieur Filon, of Cherbourg. He is a cider
+merchant. He has cheated the state, making false entries, etc. But his
+worst crime is that he has used as his accomplice _un tout petit jeune
+homme_--a lad of barely fifteen--"
+
+"It is that that will make it go hard for him with the jury--"
+
+"Hard!" cried the ex-soldier, getting red at once with the passion of
+his protest--"hard--it ought to condemn him, to guillotine him. What
+are juries for if they don't kill such rascals as he?"
+
+"_Doucement, doucement, monsieur,_" interrupted the bell-note of the
+merchant. "One doesn't condemn people without hearing both sides. There
+may be extenuating circumstances!"
+
+"Yes--there are. He is a merchant. All merchants are thieves. He does
+as all others do--_only_ he was found out."
+
+A protesting murmur now rose from the table, above which rang once
+more, in clear vibrations, the deep notes of the merchant.
+
+"_Ah--h, mais--tous voleurs--non_, not all are thieves. Commerce
+conducted on such principles as that could not exist. Credit is not
+founded on fraud, but on trust."
+
+"_Très bien, très bien,_" assented the table. Some knives were thumped
+to emphasize the assent.
+
+"As for stealing"--the rich voice continued, with calm judicial
+slowness--"I can understand a man's cheating the state once,
+perhaps--yielding to an impulse of cupidity. But to do as _ce_
+Monsieur Filon has done--he must be a consummate master of his
+art--for his processes are organized robbery."
+
+"Ah--h, but robbery against the state isn't the same thing as robbing
+an individual," cried the explosive, driven into a corner.
+
+"It is quite the same--morally, only worse. For a man who robs the
+state robs everyone--including himself."
+
+"That's true--perfectly true--and very well put." All the heads about
+the table nodded admiringly; their hostess had expressed the views of
+them all. The company was looking now at the gray beard with glistening
+eyes; he had proved himself master of the argument, and all were
+desirous of proving their homage. Not one of the nice ethical points
+touched on had been missed; even the women had been eagerly listening,
+following, criticising. Here was a little company of people gathered
+together from rustic France, meeting, perhaps, for the first time at
+this board. And the conversation had, from the very beginning, been
+such as one commonly expects to hear only among the upper ranks of
+metropolitan circles. Who would have looked to see a company of Norman
+provincials talking morality, and handling ethics with the skill of
+rhetoricians?
+
+Most of our fellow-diners, meanwhile, were taking their coffee in the
+street. Little tables were ranged close to the house-wall. There was
+just room for a bench beside the table, and then the sidewalk ended.
+
+"Shall you be going to the trial to-night?" courteously asked the
+merchant who had proven himself a master in debate, of Charm. He had
+lifted his hat before he sat down, bowing to her as if he had been in a
+ball-room.
+
+"It will be fine to-night--it is the opening of the defence," he added,
+as he placed carefully two lumps of sugar in his cup.
+
+"It's always finer at night--what with the lights and the people,"
+interpolated the landlady, from her perch on the door-sill. "If _ces
+dames_ wish to go, I can show them the way to the galleries. Only," she
+added, with a warning tone, her growing excitement obvious at the sense
+of the coming pleasure, "it is like the theatre. The earlier we get
+there the better the seat. I go to get my hat." And the door swallowed
+her up.
+
+"She is right--it is like a theatre," soliloquized the merchant--"and
+so is life. Poor Filon!"
+
+We should have been very content to remain where we were. The night had
+fallen; the streets, as they lost themselves in dim turnings, in
+mysterious alleyways, and arches that seemed grotesquely high in the
+vague blur of things, were filled for us with the charm of a new and
+lovely beauty. At one end the street ended in a towering mass of stone;
+that doubtless was the cathedral. At the right, the narrow houses
+dipped suddenly; their roof-lines were lost in vagueness. Between
+the slit made by the street a deep, vast chasm opened; it was the night
+filling the great width of sky, and the mists that shrouded the hill,
+rising out of the sleeping earth. There was only one single line of
+light; a long deep glow was banding the horizon; it was a bit of flame
+the dusk held up, like a fading torch, to show where the sun had
+reigned.
+
+In and out of this dusk the townspeople came and went. Away from the
+mellow lights, streaming past the open inn doors, the shapes were only
+a part of the blur; they were vague, phantasmal masses, clad in coarse
+draperies. As they passed into the circle of light, the faces showed
+features we had grown to know--the high cheekbones, the ruddy tones,
+the deep-set, serious eyes, and firm mouths, with lips close together.
+The air on this hill-top must be of excellent quality; the life up here
+could scarcely be so hard as in the field villages. For the women
+looked less worn, and less hideously old, and in the men's eyes
+there was not so hard and miserly a glittering.
+
+Almost all, young or old, were bearing strange burdens. Some of the men
+were carrying huge floral crosses; the women were laden with every
+conceivable variety of object--with candlesticks, vases, urns, linen
+sheets, rugs, with chairs even.
+
+"They are helping to dress the reposoirs, they must all be in readiness
+for the morning," answered our friend, still beside us, when we asked
+the cause of this astonishing spectacle.
+
+Everywhere garlands and firs, leaves, flowers, and wreaths; people
+moving rapidly; the carriers of the crosses stopping to chat for an
+instant with groups working at some mysterious scaffolding--all shapes
+in darkness. Everywhere, also, there was the sweet, aromatic scent of
+the greens and the pines abroad in the still, clear air of the summer
+night.
+
+This was the perfume and these the dim pictures that were our company
+along the narrow Coutances streets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A SCENE IN A NORMAN COURT.
+
+
+The court-room was brightly lighted; the yellow radiance on the white
+walls made the eyes blink. We had turned, following our guide, from the
+gloom of the dim streets into the roomy corridors of the Prefecture.
+Even the gardens about the building were swarming with townspeople and
+peasants waiting for the court to open. When we entered it was to find
+the hallways and stairs blocked with a struggling mass of people, all
+eager to get seats. A voice that was softened to a purring note, the
+voice that goes with the pursuit of the five franc piece, spoke to our
+landlady. "The seats to be reserved in the tribune were for these
+ladies?"
+
+No time had been lost, you perceive. We were strangers; the courtesies
+of the town were to be extended to us. We were to have of their best,
+here in Coutances; and their best, just now, was this _mise en scène_
+in their court room.
+
+The stage was well set. The Frenchman's instinctive sense of fitness
+was obvious in the arrangements. Long lines of blue drapery from the
+tall windows brought the groups below into high relief; the scarlet of
+the judges' robes was doubly impressive against this background. The
+lawyers, in their flowing black gowns and white ties, gained added
+dignity from the marine note behind them. The bluish pallor of the
+walls made the accused and the group about him pathetically sombre.
+Each one of this little group was in black. The accused himself, a
+sharp, shrewd, too keen-eyed man of thirty or so, might have been
+following a corpse--so black was his raiment. Even the youth beside
+him, a dull, sodden-eyed lad, with an air of being here not on his own
+account, but because he had been forced to come, was clad in deepest
+mourning. By the side of the culprit sat the one really tragic figure
+in all the court--the culprit's wife. She also was in black. In happier
+times she must have been a fair, fresh-colored blonde. Now all the
+color was gone from her cheek. She was as pale as death, and in her
+sweet downcast eyes there were the tell-tale vigils of long nights of
+weeping. Beside her sat an elderly man who bent over her, talking,
+whispering, commenting as the trial went on.
+
+Every eye in the tribune was fixed on the slim young figure. A passing
+glance sufficed, as a rule, for the culprit and his accomplice; but it
+was on the wife that all the quick French sympathy, that volubly spoke
+itself out, was lavished. The blouses and peasants' caps, the tradesmen
+and their wives crowded close about the railing to pass their comment.
+
+"She looks far more guilty than he," muttered a wizened old man next to
+us, very crooked on his three-legged stool.
+
+"Yes," warmly added a stout capped peasant, with a basket once on her
+arm, now serving as a pedestal to raise the higher above the others her
+own curiosity. "Yes--she has her modesty--too--to speak for her--"
+
+"Bah--all put on--to soften the jury." It was our fiery one of the
+table d'hôte who had wedged his way toward us.
+
+"And why not? A woman must make use of what weapons she has at hand--"
+
+_"Silence! Silence! messieurs!"_ The _huissier_ brought down his staff
+of office with a ring. The clatter of sabots over the wooden floor of
+the tribune and the loud talking were disturbing the court.
+
+This French court, as a court, sat in strange fashion, it seemed to us.
+The bench was on wonderfully friendly terms with the table about which
+the clerks sat, with the lawyers, with the foreman of the jury, with
+even the _huissiers_. Monsieur le President was in his robes, but he
+wore them as negligently as he did the dignity of his office. He and
+the lawyer for the defence, a noted Coutances orator, openly wrangled;
+the latter, indeed, took little or no pains to show him respect; now
+they joked together, next a retort flashed forth which began a quarrel,
+and the court and the trial looked on as both struggled for a mastery
+in the art of personal abuse. The lawyer made nothing of raising his
+finger, to shake it in open menace in the very teeth of the scarlet
+robes. And the robes clad a purple-faced figure that retorted
+angrily, like a fighting school-boy.
+
+But to Coutances, this, it appears, was a proper way for a court to
+sit.
+
+"_Ah, D'Alençon--il est fort, lui. C'est lui qui agace toujours
+monsieur le président_--"
+
+"He'll win--he'll make a great speech--he is never really fine unless
+it's a question of life or death--" Such were the criticisms that were
+poured out from the quick-speaking lips about us.
+
+Presently a simultaneous movement on the part of the jury brought the
+proceedings to confusion. A witness in the act of giving evidence
+stopped short in his sentence; he twisted his head; looking upward, he
+asked a question of the foreman, and the latter nodded, as if
+assenting. The judge then looked up. All the court looked up. All the
+heads were twisted. Something obviously was wrong. Then, presently the
+_concierge_ appeared with a huge bunch of keys.
+
+And all the court waited in perfect stillness while the windows were
+being closed!
+
+"_Il y avait un courant d'air_--there was a draught,"--gravely
+announced the crooked man, as he rose to let the _concierge_ pass. This
+latter had her views of a court so susceptible to whiffs of night air.
+
+"_Ces messieurs_ are delicate--pity they have to be out at
+night!"--whereat the tribune snickered.
+
+All went on bravely for a good half-hour. More witnesses were called;
+each answered with wonderful aptness, ease, and clearness; none were
+confused or timid; these were not men to be the playthings of others
+who made tortuous cross-questionings their trade. They, also, were
+Frenchmen; they knew how to speak. The judge and the Coutances lawyer
+continued their jokes and their squabblings. And still only the poor
+wife hung her head.
+
+Then all at once the judge began to mop his brow. The jury, to a man,
+mopped theirs. The witnesses and lawyers each brought forth their big
+silk handkerchiefs. All the court was wiping its brow.
+
+"It's the heat," cried the judge. "_Huissier_, call the _concierge_;
+tell her to open the windows."
+
+The _concierge_ reappeared. Flushed this time, and with anger in her
+eye. She pushed her way through the crowd; she took not the least pains
+in the world to conceal her opinion of a court as variable as this one.
+
+"_Ah mais_, this is too much! if the jury doesn't know its mind better
+than this!"--and in the fury of her wrath she well-nigh upset the
+crooked little old gentleman and his three-legged stool.
+
+"That's right--that's right. I'm not a fine lady, tip me over. You open
+and shut me as if I were a bureau drawer; _continuez_--_continuez_--"
+
+The _concierge_ had reached the windows now. She was opening and
+slamming them in the face of the judge, the jury, and _messieurs les
+huissiers_, with unabashed violence. The court, except for that one
+figure in sombre draperies, being men, suffered this violence as only
+men bear with a woman in a temper. With the letting in of the fresh
+air, fresh energy in the prosecution manifested itself. The witnesses
+were being subjected to inquisitorial torture; their answers were still
+glib, but the faces were studies of the passions held in the leash of
+self-control. Not twenty minutes had ticked their beat of time when
+once more the jury, to a man, showed signs of shivering. Half a dozen
+gravely took out their pocket-handkerchiefs, and as gravely covered
+their heads. Others knotted the square of linen, thus making a closer
+head-gear. The judge turned uneasily in his own chair; he gave a
+furtive glance at the still open windows; as he did so he caught sight
+of his jury thus patiently suffering. The spectacle went to his heart;
+these gentlemen were again in a draught? Where was the _concierge_?
+Then the _huissier_ whispered in the judge's ear; no one heard, but
+everyone divined the whisper. It was to remind monsieur le president
+that the _concierge_ was in a temper; would it not be better for him,
+the _huissier_, to close the windows? Without a smile the judge bent
+his head, assenting. And once more all proceedings were at a
+standstill; the court was patiently waiting, once more, for the
+windows to be closed.
+
+Now, in all this, no one, not even the wizened old man who was
+obviously the humorist of the tribune, had seen anything farcical. To
+be too hot--to be too cold! this is a serious matter in France. A jury
+surely has a right to protect itself against cold, against _la
+migraine_, and the devils of rheumatism and pleurisy. There is nothing
+ridiculous in twelve men sitting in judgment on a fellow-man, with
+their handkerchiefs covering their bare heads. Nor of a judge
+who gallantly remembers the temper of a _concierge_. Nor of a whole
+court sitting in silence, while the windows are opened and closed.
+There was nothing in all this to tickle the play of French humor. But
+then, we remembered, France is not the land of humorists, but of wits.
+Monsieur d'Alençon down yonder, as he rises from his chair to address
+the judge and jury, will prove to you and me, in the next two hours,
+how great an orator a Frenchman can be, without trenching an
+inch on the humorist's ground.
+
+The court-room was so still now that you could have heard the fall of a
+pin.
+
+At last the great moment had come-the moment and the man. There is
+nothing in life Frenchmen love better than a good speech--_un
+discours_; and to have the same pitched in the dramatic key, with a
+tragic result hanging on the effects of the pleading, this is the very
+climax of enjoyment. To a Norman, oratory is not second, but first,
+nature; all the men of this province have inherited the gift of a
+facile eloquence. But this Monsieur d'Alençon, the crooked man
+whispered, in hurried explanation, he was _un fameux_--even the
+Paris courts had to send for him when they wanted a great orator.
+
+The famous lawyer understood the alphabet of his calling. He knew the
+value of effect. He threw himself at once into the orator's pose. His
+gown took sculptural lines; his arms were waved majestically, as arms
+that were conscious of having great sleeves to accentuate the lines of
+gesture.
+
+Then he began to speak. The voice was soft; at first one was chiefly
+conscious of the music in its cadences. But as it warmed and grew with
+the ardor of the words, the room was filled with such vibrations as
+usually come only with the sounding of rich wind-instruments. With such
+a voice a man could do anything. D'Alençon played with it as a man
+plays with a power he has both trained and conquered. It was firmly
+modulated, with no accent of sympathy when he opened his plea for his
+client. It warmed slightly when he indignantly repelled the charges
+brought against the latter. It took the cadence of a lover when he
+pointed to the young wife's figure and asked if it were likely a
+husband could be guilty of such crimes, year after year, with such a
+woman as that beside him? It was tenderly explanatory as he went on
+enlarging on the young wife's perfections, on her character, so well
+known to them all here in Coutances, on the influence she had given the
+home-life yonder in Cherbourg. Even the children were not forgotten, as
+an aid to incidental testimony. Was it even conceivable a father of a
+young family would lead an innocent lad into error, fraud, and theft?
+"It is he who knows how to touch the heart!"
+
+"_Quel beau moment!_" cried the wizened man, in a transport.
+
+"See--the jury weep!"
+
+All the court was in tears, even monsieur le president sniffled, and
+yet there was no draught. As for the peasant women and the shop
+keepers, they could not have been more moved if the culprit had been a
+blood relation. How they enjoyed their tears! What a delight it was to
+thus thrill and shiver! The wife was sobbing now, with her head on her
+uncle's shoulder. And the culprit was acting his part, also, to
+perfection. He had been firmly stoical until now. But at this parade of
+his wife's virtues he broke down, his head was bowed at last. It was
+all the tribune could do to keep its applause from breaking forth. It
+was such a perfect performance! it was as good as the theatre--far
+better--for this was real--this play-with a man's whole future at
+stake!
+
+Until midnight the lawyer held all in the town in a trance. He ended at
+last with a Ciceronian, declamatory outburst. A great buzz of applause
+welled up from the court. The tribune was in transports; such a
+magnificent harangue he had not given them in years. It was one of his
+greatest victories.
+
+"And his victories, madame, they are the victories of all Coutances."
+
+The crooked man almost stood upright in the excitement of his
+enthusiasm. Great drops of sweat were on his wrinkled old brow. The
+evening had been a great event in his life, as his twisted frame, all
+a-tremble with pleasurable elation, exultingly proved. The women's caps
+were closer together than ever; they were pressing in a solid mass
+close to the railing of the tribune to gain one last look at the figure
+of the wife.
+
+"It is she who will not sleep--"
+
+"Poor soul, are her children with her?"
+
+"No--and no women either. There is only the uncle."
+
+"He is a good man, he will comfort her!"
+
+"_Faut prier le bon Dieu!_"
+
+At the court-room door there was a last glimpse of the stricken figure.
+She disappeared into the blackness of the night, bent and feeble,
+leaning with pitiful attempt at dignity on the uncle's arm. With the
+dawn she would learn her husband's fate. The jury would be out all
+night.
+
+"You see, madame, it is she who must really suffer in the end." We were
+also walking into the night, through the bushes of the garden, to the
+dark of the streets. Our landlady was guiding us, and talking volubly.
+She was still under the influence of the past hour's excitement. Her
+voice trembled audibly, and she was walking with brisk strides through
+the dim streets.
+
+"If Filon is condemned, what would happen to them?"
+
+"Oh, he would pass a few years in prison--not many. The jury is always
+easy on the rich. But his future is ruined. They--the family--would
+have to go away. But even then, rumor would follow them. It travels far
+nowadays--it has a thousand legs, as they say here. Wherever they go
+they will be known. But Monsieur d'Alençon, what did you think of him,
+_hein_? There's a great man--what an orator! One must go as far as
+Paris--to the theatre; one must hear a great play--and even there, when
+does an actor make you weep as he did? Henri, he was superb. I tell
+you, superb! _d'une éloquence!_" And to her husband, when we
+reached the inn door, our vivacious landlady was still narrating the
+chief points of the speech as we crawled wearily up to our beds.
+
+It was early the next morning when we descended into the inn
+dining-room. The lawyer's eloquence had interfered with our rest.
+Coffee and a bite of fresh air were best taken together, we agreed.
+Before the coffee came the news of the culprit's fate. Most of the inn
+establishment had been sent to court to learn the jury's verdict.
+Madame confessed to a sleepless night. The thought of that poor wife
+had haunted her pillow. She had deemed it best--but just to us all, in
+a word, to despatch Auguste--the one inn waiter, to hear the verdict.
+_Tiens_, there he was now, turning the street corner.
+
+"_Il est acquitté!_" rang through the streets.
+
+"He is acquitted--he is acquitted! _Le bon Dieu soit loué!_
+Henri--Ernest--Monsieur Terier, he is acquitted--he is acquitted!
+I tell you!"
+
+The cry rang through the house. Our landlady was shouting the news out
+of doors, through windows, to the passers-by, to the very dogs as they
+ran. But the townspeople needed no summoning. The windows were crowded
+full of eager heads, all asking the same question at once. A company of
+peasants coming up from the fields for breakfast stopped to hear the
+glad tidings. The shop-keepers all the length of the street gathered to
+join them. Everyone was talking at once. Every shade of opinion was
+aired in the morning sun. On one subject alone there was a universal
+agreement.
+
+"What good news for the poor wife!"
+
+"And what a night she must have passed!"
+
+All this sympathy and interest, be it remembered, was for one they
+barely knew. To be the niece of a Coutances uncle--this was enough, it
+appears, for the good people of this cathedral city, to insure the flow
+of their tears and the gift of their prayers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE FETE-DIEU--A JUNE CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+When we stepped forth into the streets, it was to find a flower strewn
+city. The paving stones were covered with the needles of pines, with
+fir boughs, with rose leaves, lily stocks, and with the petals of flock
+and clematis. One's feet sank into the odorous carpet as in the thick
+wool of an Oriental prayer rug. To tread upon this verdure was to crush
+out perfume. Yet the fragrance had a solemn flavor. There was a touch
+of consecration in the very aroma of the fir sap.
+
+Never was there a town so given over to its festival. Everything
+else--all trade, commerce, occupation, work, or pleasure even, was at a
+dead standstill. In all the city there was but one thought, one object,
+one end in view. This was the great day of the _Fête-Dieu_. To this
+blessed feast of the Sacrament the townspeople had been looking forward
+for weeks.
+
+It is their June Christmas. The great day brings families together.
+
+[Illustration: AN EXCITING MOMENT--A COUTANCES INTERIOR]
+
+From all the country round the farm wagons had been climbing the hill
+for hours. The peasants were in holiday dress. Gold crosses and amber
+beads encircled leathery old necks; the gossamer caps, real Normandy
+caps at last, crowned heads held erect today, with the pride of those
+who had come to town clad in their best. Even the younger women were in
+true peasant garb; there was a touch of a ribbon, brilliant red and
+blue stockings, and the sparkle of silver shoe-buckles and gold
+necklaces to prove they had donned their finery in honor of the
+_fête_. The men wore their blue and purple blouses over their holiday
+suits; but almost all had pinned a sprig of bright geranium or
+honeysuckle to brighten up the shiny cotton of the preservative blouse.
+Even the children carried bouquets; and thus many of the farm wagons
+were as gay as the streets.
+
+No, gay is not the word. Neither the city nor the streets were really
+gay. The city, as a city, was too dead in earnest, too absorbed, too
+intent, to indulge in gayety. It was the greatest of all the days of
+the year in Coutances. In the climaxic moments of life, one is solemn,
+not gay. It was not only the greatest, but the busiest, day of the year
+for this cathedral town. Here was a whole city to deck; every street,
+every alleyway must be as beautiful as a church on a feast-day. The
+city, in truth, must be changed from a bustling, trading, commercial
+entrepôt into an altar. And this altar must be beautiful--as beautiful,
+as ingeniously picturesque as only the French instinct for beauty
+could make it.
+
+Think you, with such a task on hand, this city-ful of artists had time
+for frivolous idling? Since dawn these artists had been scrubbing their
+doors, washing windows, and sluicing the gutters. One is not a
+provincial for nothing; one is honest in the provinces; one does not
+drape finery over a filthy frame. The city was washed first, before it
+was adorned.
+
+Opposite, across from our inn door-sill, where we lingered a moment
+before we began our journey through the streets, we could see for
+ourselves how thorough was this cleansing. A shopkeeper and his wife
+were each mounted on a step-ladder. One washed the inside and the other
+the outside of the low shop-windows. They were in the greatest possible
+haste, for they were late in their preparations. In two hours the
+procession was to pass. Their neighbors stopped to cry up to them:
+
+"_Tendez vous, aujourd'hui?_" It is the universal question, heard
+everywhere.
+
+"_Mais oui_," croaked out the man, his voice sounding like the croak of
+a rook, from the height from which he spoke. "Only we are late, you
+see."
+
+It was his wife who was taking the question to heart. She saw in it
+just cause for affront.
+
+"Ah, those Espergnons, they're always on time, they are; they had their
+hangings out a week ago, and now they are as filthy as wash-rags. No
+wonder they have time to walk the streets!" and the indignant dame gave
+her window-pane an extra polish.
+
+"Here, Leon, catch hold, I'm ready now!"
+
+The woman was holding out one end of a long, snowy sheet. Leon meekly
+took his end; both hooked the stuff to some rings ready to secure the
+hanging; the facade of the little house was soon hidden behind the
+white fall of the family linen; and presently Leon and his wife began
+very gravely to pin tiny sprigs of purple clematis across the white
+surface. This latter decoration was performed with the sure touch of
+artists. No mediaeval designer of tapestry could have chosen, with
+more secure selection, the precise points of distance at which to place
+the bouquets; nor could the tones and tints of the greens and purples,
+and the velvet of the occasional heartsease, sparsely used, have been
+more correctly combined. When the task was ended, the commonplace house
+was a palace wall, hung with the sheen of fine linen, on which bloomed
+geometric figures beautifully spaced.
+
+All the city was thus draped. One walked through long walls of snow, in
+which flowers grew. Sometimes the floral decorations expanded from the
+more common sprig into wreaths and garlands. Here and there the
+Coutances fancy worked itself out in _fleur-de-lis_ emblems or in
+armorial bearings. But everywhere an astonishing, instinctive sense of
+beauty, a knowledge of proportion, and a natural sense for color were
+obvious. There was not, in all the town, a single offence committed
+against taste. Is it any wonder, with such an heredity at their
+fingers' ends, that the provinces feed Paris, and that Paris sets the
+fashions in beauty for the rest of the world?
+
+Come with us, and look upon this open-air chapel. It stands in the open
+street, in front of an old house of imposing aspect. The two
+commonplace-looking women who are putting--the finishing--touches to
+this beautiful creation tell us it is the reposoir of Madame la
+Baronne. They have been working on it since the day before. In the
+night the miracle was finished--nearly--they were so weary they had
+gone to bed at dawn. They do not tell you it is a miracle. They think
+it fine, oh, yes--"c'est beau--Madame la Baronne always has the most
+beautiful of all the reposoirs," but then they have decked these altars
+since they were born; their grandmothers built them before ever they
+saw the light. For always in Coutances "on la fête beaucoup;" this
+feast of the Sacrament has been a great day in Coutances for centuries
+past. But although they are so used to it, these natural architects
+love the day. "It's so fine to see--_si beau à voir_ all the
+reposoirs, and the children and the fine ladies walking--through the
+streets, and then, all kneeling--when Monseigneur l'Archevêque prays.
+Ah yes, it is a fine sight." They nod, and smile, and then they turn to
+light a taper, and to consult about the placing of a certain vase from
+out of which an Easter lily towers.
+
+At the foot of these miniature altars trees had been planted. Gardens
+had also been laid out; the parterres were as gravely watered as if
+they were to remain in the middle of a bustling high street in
+perpetuity. Steps lead up to the altar. These were covered with rugs
+and carpets; for the feet of the bishop must tread only on velvet and
+flowers. Candelabra, vases, banners, crosses, crucifixes, flowers, and
+tall thin tapers--all the altars were crowded with such adornments.
+Human vanity and the love of surpassing one's neighbors, these also
+figured conspicuously among the things the fitfully shining sun looks
+down upon. But what a charm there is in such a contest! Surely the
+desire to beautify the spot on which the Blessed Sacrament rests this
+is only another way of professing one's adoration.
+
+As we passed through the streets a multitude of pictures crowded upon
+the eyes. In an archway groups of young first communicants were
+forming; they were on their way to the cathedral. Their white veils
+against the gloom of the recessed archways were like sunlit clouds
+caught in an abyss. Priests in gorgeous vestments were walking quickly
+through the streets. All the peasants were going also toward the
+cathedral. A group stopped, as did we, to turn into a side-street. For
+there was a picture we should not see later on. Between some lovely
+old turrets, down from convent walls a group of nuns fluttered
+tremulously; they were putting the last touches to the reposoir of
+their own Sacré Coeur. Some were carrying huge gilt crosses, staggering
+as they walked; others were on tiptoe filling the tall vases; others
+were on their knees, patting into perfect smoothness the turf laid
+about the altar steps. There was an old curé among them and a young
+carpenter whom the curé was directing. Everyone of the nuns had her
+black skirts tucked up; their stout shoes must be free to fly over the
+ground with the swiftness of hounds. How pretty the faces were, under
+the great caps, in that moment of unwonted excitement! The cheeks, even
+of the older nuns, were pink; it was a pink that made their habitual
+pallor have a dazzling beauty. The eyes were lighted into a fresh flame
+of life, and the lips were temptingly crimson; they were only women,
+after all, these nuns, and once a year at least this feast of the
+Sacrament brings all their feminine activities into play.
+
+Still we moved on, for within the cathedral the procession had not yet
+formed. There was still time to make a tour of the town.
+
+To plunge into the side-streets away from the wide cathedral parvis,
+was to be confronted with a strange calm. These narrow thoroughfares
+had the stillness which broods over all ancient cities' by-ways. Here
+was no festival bustle; all was grave and sad. The only dwellers left
+in the antique fifteenth century houses were those who must remain at
+home till a still smaller house holds them. We passed several aged
+Coutançais couples. By twos they were seated at the low windows; they
+had been dressed and then left; they were sitting here, in the
+pathetic patience of old age; they were hoping something of the _fête_
+might come their way. Two women, in one of the low interiors, were more
+philosophic than their neighbors; if their stiffened knees would not
+carry them to the _fête_, at least their gnarled old hands could hold a
+pack of cards. They were seated close to the open casement, facing each
+other across a small round table; along the window-sill there were rows
+of flower-pots; a pewter tankard was set between them; and out of the
+shadowy interior came the topaz gleam of the Normandy brasses, the huge
+bed, with its snowy draperies, the great chests, and the flowery
+chintz-frill defining the width of the yawning fireplace. The two old
+faces, with the strong features, deep wrinkles, sunken mouths, and bald
+heads tied up in dazzling white coifs, were in full relief against the
+dim background. They were as motionless as statues; neither looked up
+as our footfall struck along the cobbles; it was an exciting moment in
+the game.
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN COUTANCES--EGLISE SAINT-PIERRE]
+
+Below these old houses stretched the public gardens. Here also there
+was a great stillness. For us alone the rose gardens bloomed, the
+tropical trees were shivering, and the palms were making a night of
+shade for wide acres of turf. Rarely does a city boast of such a
+garden. It was no surprise to learn, later, that these lovely paths and
+noble terraces had been the slow achievement of a lover of landscape
+gardening, one who, dying, had given this, his master-piece, to his
+native town.
+
+There is no better place from which to view the beautiful city. From
+the horizontal lines of the broad terraces flows the great sweep of the
+hillside; it takes a swift precipitous plunge, and rests below in wide
+stretches of meadow. The garden itself seemed, by virtue of this
+encompassing circle of green, to be only a more exquisitely cultivated
+portion of the lovely outlying hills and wooded depths. The cows,
+grazing below in the valleys, were whisking their tails, and from the
+farm-yards came the crow of the chanticleer.
+
+One turned to look upward--to follow heavenward the soaring glory of the
+cathedral towers. From the plane of the streets their geometric
+perfection had made their lines seem cold. Through this aerial
+perspective the eye followed, enraptured, the perfect Gothic of the
+spires and the lower central tower. The great nave roof and the choir
+lifted themselves above the turrets and the tiled house-tops of the
+city, as gray mountains of stone rise above the huts of pygmies.
+Coutances does well to be proud of its cathedral.
+
+The sound of a footstep, crunching the gravel of the garden-walk,
+caused us to turn. It was to find, face to face, the hero of the night
+before; the celebrated Coutances lawyer was also taking his
+constitutional. But not alone, some friends were with him, come up to
+town doubtless for the _fête_ or the trial. He was showing them his
+city. He stretched a hand forth, with the same magisterial gesture of
+the night before, to point out the glory of the prospect lying below
+the terrace. He faced the cathedral towers, explaining the points of
+their perfection. And then, for he was a Frenchman, he perceived the
+presence of two ladies. In an instant his hat was raised, and as
+quickly his eyes told us he had seen us before, in the courtroom. The
+bow was the lower because of this recognition, and the salute was
+accompanied by a grave smile.
+
+Manners in the provinces are still good, you perceive--if only you are
+far enough away from Paris.
+
+Someone else also bestowed on us the courtesy of a passing greeting. It
+was a curé who was saying his Ave, as he paced slowly, in the sun, up
+and down the yew path. He was old; one leg was already tired of
+life--it must be dragged painfully along, when one walked in the sun.
+The curé himself was not in the least tired of life. His smile was as
+warm as the sun as he lifted his _calotte_.
+
+"Surely, mesdames, you will not miss the _fête_? It must be forming
+now."
+
+He had taken an old man's, and a priest's, privilege. We were all three
+looking down into the valley, which lay below, a pool of freshness. He
+had spoken, first of the beauty of the prospect, and then of the great
+day. To be young and still strong, to be able to follow the procession
+from street to street, and yet to be lingering here among the
+roses!--this passed the simple curé's comprehension. The reproach in
+his mild old eyes was quickly changed to approval, however; for
+upon the announcement that the procession was already in motion we
+started, bidding him a hurried adieu.
+
+The huge cathedral portals yawned at the top of the hill; they were
+like a gaping chasm. The great place of the cathedral square was half
+filled; a part of the procession had passed already beyond the gloom of
+the vast aisles into the frank openness of day. Winding in and out of
+the white-hung streets a long line of figures was marching; part of the
+line had reached the first reposoir and gradually the swaying of the
+heads was slackening, as, by twos and twos, the figures stopped.
+
+Still, from between the cathedral doors an unending multitude of people
+kept pouring forth upon the cathedral square. Now it was an
+interminable line of young girls, first communicants, in their white
+veils and gowns; against the grays and browns of the cathedral facade
+this mass of snow was of startling purity--a great white rose of light.
+Closely following the dazzling line marched a grave company of nuns;
+with their black robes sweeping the flower-strewn streets, the pallor
+of their faces, and the white wings of their huge coifs, they might
+have been so many marble statues moving with slow, automatic step,
+repeating in life the statues in stone above their heads, incarnations
+of meek renunciation. With the free and joyous step of a vigorous youth
+not yet tamed to complete self-obliteration, next there stepped forth
+into the sun a group of seminarists. In the lace and scarlet of their
+bright robes they were like unto so many young kings. High in the
+summer air they swung their golden censers; from huge baskets, heaped
+with flowers, they scattered flowers as they swayed, in the grace of
+their youth, from side to side, with priestly rhythmic motion.
+
+In the days of Greece, under the Attic tent of sky, it was Jove that
+was thus worshipped; here in Coutances, under the paler, less ardent
+blue of France, it was the Christian God these youths were honoring. So
+men have continued to scatter flowers; to swing incense; to bend the
+knee; surely in all ages the long homage of men, like the procession
+here before us, has been but this--the longing to worship the
+Invisible, and to make the act one with beauty.
+
+Is it Greek, is it Christian, this festival? If it be Catholic, it is
+also pagan. It is as composite a union of religious ceremonials as man
+is himself an aggregate of lost types, for there is a subtle law of
+repetition which governs both men and ceremonials.
+
+How pagan was the color! how Greek the sense of beauty that lies in
+contrasts! how Jewish the splendor of the priestly vestments as the
+gold and silver tissues gleamed in the sun! How mediaeval this survival
+of an old miracle play! See this group of children, half-frightened,
+half-proud, wandering from side to side as children unused to walking
+soberly ever march. They were following the leadership of a huge
+Suisse. This latter was magnificently apparelled. He carried a great
+mace, and this he swung high in the air. The children, little John the
+Baptist, Christ, Mary the Mother, and Magdalen, were magnetized by his
+mighty skill. They were looking at the golden stick; they were thinking
+only of how high he, this splendid giant who terrified them so, would
+throw it the next time, and if he would always surely catch it. The
+small Virgin, in her long brown robes, tripped as she walked. The
+cherubic John the Baptist, with only his sheepskin and his cross,
+shivered as he stumbled after her.
+
+"At least they might have covered his arms, _le pauvre petit_," one
+stout peasant among the bystanders was Christian enough to mutter,
+"Poor little John!" Even in summer the sun is none too hot on this
+hill-top; and a sheepskin is a garment one must be used to, it appears.
+Christ, himself, was no better off. He was wearing his crown of thorns,
+but he had only his night-dress, bound with a girdle, to keep his naked
+little body warm. An angel, in gossamer wings and a huge rose-wreath,
+being of the other sex, had her innate woman's love of finery to make
+her oblivious to the light sting of the wind, as it passed through her
+draperies. As this group in the procession moved slowly along, the city
+took on a curiously antique aspect. In every lattice window a head was
+framed. The lines of the townspeople pressed closer and closer; they
+made a serried mass of blouses and caps, of shiny coats and bared
+heads. The very houses seemed to recognize that a part of their own
+youth was passing them by; these were the figures they had looked out
+upon, time after time, in the old fourteenth and fifteenth century
+days, when the great miracle plays drew the country around, for miles
+and miles, to this Coutances square.
+
+Across the square, in the long gray distance of the streets, the
+archbishop's canopy was motionless. A sweet groaning murmur rippled
+from lip to lip.
+
+Then a swift and mighty rustling filled the air, for the bones of
+thousands of knees were striking the stones of the street;--even
+heretic knees were bent when the Host was lifted. It was the moment of
+silent prayer. It was also, perhaps, the most beautiful, it was
+assuredly the most consummately picturesque moment of the day. The bent
+heads; the long vistas of kneeling figures; the lovely contrasts of the
+flowing draperies; the trailing splendor of the priests' robes dying
+into the black note made by the nuns' sombre skirts; the gossamer
+brilliance of the hundreds of white veils, through which the young
+rapture of religious awe on lips and brow made even commonplace
+features beautiful; the choristers' scarlet petticoats; the culminating
+note of splendor, the Archbishop, throned like some antique scriptural
+king under the feathers and velvets of his crimson canopy; then the
+long lines of the townspeople with the groups of peasants beside them,
+whose well-sunned skins made even their complexion seem pale by the
+side of cheeks that brought the burn of noon-suns in the valleys to
+mind; and behind this wall of kneeling figures, those other walls, the
+long white-hung house facades, with their pendent sprigs and wreaths
+and garlands above which hung the frieze of human heads beneath the
+carved cornices; surely this was indeed the culminating moment, both in
+point of beauty and in impressiveness, of the great day's festival.
+
+Thus was reposoir after reposoir visited. Again and again the multitude
+was on its knees. Again and again the Host was lifted. And still we
+followed. Sometimes all the line was in full light, a long perspective
+of color and of prismatic radiance. And then the line would be lost;
+some part of it was still in a side-street; and the rest were singing
+along the edges of the city's ramparts, under the great branches of the
+trees. Here, in the gray of the narrow streets, the choristers' gowns
+were startling in their richness. Yonder, in full sunlight, the
+brightness on the maidens' robes made the shadows in their white skirts
+as blue as light caught in a grotto's depth.
+
+Still they sang. In the dim streets or under the trees, where the gay
+banners were still fluttering, and the white veils, like airy sails,
+were bulging in the wind, the hymn went on. It was thin and
+pathetically weak in the mouths of the babes that walked. It was clear,
+as fresh and pure as a brooklet's ripple, from the mouths of the young
+communicants. It was of firm contralto strength from the throats of the
+grave nuns. The notes gained and gained in richness; the hymn was
+almost a chant with the priests; and in the mouths of the people it was
+as a ringing chorus. Together with the swelling music swung the incense
+into high air; and to the Host the rose-leaves were flung.
+
+Still we followed. Still the long line moved on from altar to altar.
+
+Then, when the noon was long past, wearily we climbed upward to our
+inn.
+
+In the high streets there was much going to and fro. The shop-keepers
+already were taking down their linen. Pouffe! Pouffe! there was much
+blowing through mouths and a great standing on tiptoes to reach the
+tall tapers on the reposoirs.
+
+Coutances was pious. Coutances was proud of its fête. But Coutances was
+also a thrifty city. Once the cortege had passed, it was high time to
+snuff out the tapers. Who could stand by and see good candles blowing
+uselessly in the wind, and one's money going along with the dripping?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+BY LAND TO MONT ST. MICHEL.
+
+
+Two hours later the usual collection of forces was assembled in our inn
+courtyard; for a question of importance was to be decided. Madame was
+there--chief of the council; her husband was also present, because he
+might be useful in case any dispute as to madame's word came up;
+Auguste, the one inn waiter, was an important figure of the group;
+for he, of them all, was the really travelled one; he had seen the
+world--he was to be counted on as to distances and routes; and above,
+from the upper windows, the two ladies of the bed-chamber looked down,
+to act as chorus to the brisk dialogue going on between madame and the
+owner of a certain victoria for which we were in treaty.
+
+"_Ces dames,_" madame said, with a shrug which was meant for the
+coachman, and a smile which was her gift to us--"these ladies wish to
+go to Mont St. Michel, to drive there. Have you your little victoria
+and Poulette?"
+
+Now, by the shrug madame had conveyed to the man and the assembled
+household generally, her own great scorn of us, and of our plans. What
+a whim this, of driving, forsooth, to the Mont! _Dieu sait_--French
+people were not given to any such follies; they were serious-minded,
+_always_, in matters of travel. To travel at all, was no light thing;
+one made one's will and took an honest and tearful farewell of one's
+family, when one went on a journey. But these English, these Americans,
+there's no foretelling to what point their folly will make them tempt
+fate! However, madame was one who knew on which side her bread was
+buttered, if ever a woman did, and the continuance of these mad follies
+helped to butter her own French roll. And so her shrug and wink
+conveyed to the tall Norman just how much these particular lunatics
+before them would be willing to pay for this their whim.
+
+"Have you Poulette?"
+
+"Yes--yes--Poulette is at home. I have made her repose herself all
+day--hearing these ladies had spoken of driving to the Mont--"
+
+Chorus from the upper window-sills. "The poor beast! it is _joliment
+longue--la distance_"
+
+"As these ladies observe," continued the owner of the doomed animal,
+not raising his head, but quickly acting on the hint, "it is long, the
+distance--one does not go for nothing." And though the man kept his
+mouth from betraying him, his keen eyes glittered with avarice.
+
+"And then--_ces dames_ must descend at Genets, to cross the _grève, tu
+sais_" interpolated the waiter, excitedly changing his napkin, his wand
+of office, from one armpit to the other. The thought of travel stirred
+his blood. It was fine--to start off thus, without having to make the
+necessary arrangements for a winter's service or a summer's season. And
+to drive, that would be new--yes that would be a change indeed from the
+stuffy third-class compartments. For Auguste, you see, approved of us
+and of the foolishness of our plans. His sympathy being gratis, was
+allied to the protective instinct--he would see the cheating was at
+least as honestly done as was compatible with French methods.
+
+"Another carriage--and why?" we meekly queried, warned by this friendly
+hint. A chorus now arose from the entire audience.
+
+"_Mais, madame!_--it is as much as five or six kilos over the sands to
+the Mont from Genets!" was cried out in a tone of universal reproach.
+
+"Through rivers, madame, through rivers as high as that!" and Auguste,
+striking in after the chorus, measured himself off at the breast.
+
+"Yes--the water comes to there, on the horse," added the driver,
+sweeping an imaginary horse's head, with a fine gesture, in the air.
+
+"Dame, that must be fine to see," cried down Léontine and Marie,
+gasping with little sighs of envy.
+
+"And so it is!" cried back Auguste, nodding upward with dramatic
+gesture. "One can get as wet as a duck splashing through those rivers.
+_Dieu! que c'est beau!_" And he clasped his hands as his eye, rolling
+heavenward, caught the blue and the velvet of the four feminine orbs on
+its upward way. Seeing which ecstasy, the courtyard visibly relented;
+Auguste's rapture and his envy had worked the common human miracle of
+turning contempt for a folly into belief in it.
+
+This quick firing of French people to a pleasurable elation in others'
+adventure is, I think we must all agree, one of the great charms of
+this excitable race: anything will serve as a pretext for setting this
+sympathetic vibration in motion. What they all crave as a nation is a
+daily, hourly diet of the unusual, the unforeseen.
+
+It is this passion for incident which makes a Frenchman's life not
+unlike his soups, since in the case of both, how often does he make
+something out of nothing!
+
+An hour later we were picking our way through the city's streets.
+Sweeter than the crushed flowers was the free air of the valley.
+
+There is no way of looking back so agreeable, on the whole, I think, as
+to look back upon a city.
+
+From the near distance of the first turn in the road, Coutances and its
+cathedral were at their very best. The hill on which both stood was
+only one of the many hills we now saw growing out of the green valley;
+among the dozen hill tops, this one we were leaving was only more
+crowded than the others, and more gloriously crowned. In giant height
+uprose, above the city's roofs and the lesser towers, the spires and
+the lovely lantern tower. This vast mass of stone, pricked into lacy
+apertures and with its mighty lines of grace-for how many a long
+century has it been in the eye of the valley? Tancrède de Hauteville
+saw it before William was born--before he, the Conqueror, rode in his
+turn through the green lanes to consecrate the church to One greater
+than he. From Tancrède to Boileau, what a succession of bishops, each
+in their turn, have had their eye on the great cathedral. There was a
+sort of viking bishop, one Geoffrey de Montbray, of the Conqueror's
+day, who, having a greater taste for men's blood than their
+purification, found Coutances a dull city; there was more war of the
+kind his stout arm rejoiced in across the Channel; and so he travelled
+a bit to do a little pleasant killing. From Geoffrey to Boileau and the
+latter's lacy ruffles--how many a rude Norman epic was acted out, here
+in the valley, beneath the soaring spires, before the Homeric combat
+was turned into the verse of a _chanso de geste_, a _Roman de Rou_, or
+a _Latrin!_
+
+As Poulette rolled the wheels along, instead of visored bishop, or mail
+rustling on strong breasts, there was the open face of the landscape,
+and the tremble of the grasses beneath the touch of the wind. Coming
+down the hill was a very peaceable company; doubtless, between wars in
+those hot fighting centuries, just such travellers went up and down the
+hill-road as unconcernedly as did these peasants. There was quite a
+variety among the present groups: some were strictly family parties;
+these talked little, giving their mind to stiff walking--the smell of
+the soup in the farmyard kitchen was in their nostrils. The women's
+ages were more legibly read in their caps than in their faces--the
+older the women the prettier the caps. Among these groups, queens of
+the party, were some first communicants. Their white kid slippers were
+brown now, from the long walk in the city streets and the dust of the
+highway. They held their veils with a maiden's awkwardness; with bent
+heads they leaned gravely on their fathers' arms. In this, their first
+supreme experience of self-consciousness, they had the self-absorption
+of young brides. The trail of their muslin gowns and the light cloud of
+their veils made dazzling spots of brightness in the delicate frame of
+the June landscape. Each of these white-clad figures was followed by a
+long train of friends and relatives. "_C'est joli à voir_--it's a
+pretty sight, _hein_, my ladies? these young girls are beautiful like
+that!" Our coachman took his eye off Poulette to turn in his seat,
+looking backward at the groups as they followed in our wake. "Ah--it
+was hard to leave my own--I had two like that, myself, in the
+procession to-day." And the full Norman eye filled with a sudden
+moisture. This was a more attractive glitter than the avarice of a
+moment before.
+
+"You see, mesdames," he went on, as if wishing to excuse the moistened
+eyelids, "you see--it's a great day in the family when our children
+take their first communion. It is the day the child dies and the man,
+the woman is born. When our children kneel at our feet, before the
+priest, before their comrades, and beg us to forgive them all the sin
+they have done since they were born--it is too much--the heart grows so
+big it is near to bursting. Ah--it is then we all weep!"
+
+Charm settled herself in her seat with a satisfied smile. "We are in
+luck--an emotional coachman who weeps and talks! The five hours will
+fly," she murmured. Then aloud, to Jacques--as we learned the now
+sniffling father was called--she presently asked, with the oil of
+encouragement in her tone:
+
+"You say your two were in the procession?"
+
+"Two! there were five in all. Even the babies walked. Did you see Jésu
+and the Magdalen? They were mine--_C'était à moi, çà!_ For the priests
+will have them--as many as they can get."
+
+"They are right. If the children didn't walk, how could the procession
+be so fine?" "Fine--_beau--ca?_" And there was a deep scorn in
+Jacques's voice. "You should have seen the _fête_ twenty years ago!
+Now, its glory is as nothing. It's the priests themselves who are to
+blame. They've spoiled it all. Years ago, the whole town walked.
+_Dieu_--what a spectacle! The mayor, the mairie, all the firemen,
+municipal officers--yes, even the soldiers walked. And as for the
+singing--_dame_, all the young men were choristers then--we were
+trained for months. When we walked and sang in the open streets the
+singing filled all the town. It was like a great thunder."
+
+"And the change--why has it come?" persisted Charm.
+
+"Oh," Jacques replied, caressing Poulette's haunches with his
+whip-lash. "It's the priests; they were too grasping. They are
+avaricious, that's what they are. They want everything for themselves.
+And a _fête--ça coule, vous savez_. Besides, the spirit of the
+times has changed. People aren't so devout now. _Libres
+penseurs_--that's the fashion now. _Holà_, Poulette!"
+
+Poulette responded. She dashed into the valley, below us now, as if
+this rolling along of a heavy victoria, a lot of luggage, and three
+travellers, was an agreeable episode in her career of toil. But on the
+mind of her owner, the spectre of the free-thinkers was still hovering
+like an evil spirit. During the next hour he gave us a long and
+exhaustive exposition of the changes wrought by _ces messieurs qui
+nient le bon Dieu._ Among their crimes was to be numbered that of
+having disintegrated the morale of the peasantry. They--the
+peasants--no longer believed in miracles, and as for sorcery, for the
+good old superstitions, bah: they were looked upon as old wives' tales.
+Even here, in the heart of this rural country, you would have to walk
+far before you could find _vne vraie sorcière_, one who, by looking
+into a glass of water, for instance, could read the future as in a
+book, or one who, if your cow dried up, could name the evil spirit, the
+demon, who, among the peasants was exercising the curse. All this
+science was lost. A peasant would now be ashamed to bring his cow to a
+fortune-teller; all the village would laugh. Even the shepherds had
+lost the power of communing with the planets at night; and all the
+valley read the _Petit Journal_ instead of consulting the _vieilles
+mères_. One must go as far as Brittany to see a real peasant with the
+superstitions of a peasant. As for Normandy, it went in step with the
+rest of the world, _que diable!_ And again the whip lash descended.
+Poulette must suffer for Jacques's disgust.
+
+If the Norman peasant was a modern, his country, at least, had retained
+the charm of its ancient beauty. The road was as Norman a highway as
+one could wish to see. It had the most capricious of natures, turning
+and perversely twisting among the farms and uplands. The land was
+ribboned with growing grain, and the June grass was being cut. The
+farms stood close upon the roadway, as if longing for its
+companionship; and then, having done so much toward the establishment
+of neighborly gossip, promptly turned their backs upon it--true
+Normans, all of them, with this their appearance of frankness and their
+real reserves of secrecy.
+
+For a last time we caught a distant glimpse of the great cathedral. As
+we looked back across the bright-roofed villages, we saw the stately
+pile, gray, glorious, superb, dominating the scene, the hills, river,
+and fields, as in the old days the great city walls and the cathedral
+towers had dominated all the human life that played helplessly about
+them.
+
+We were out once more among the green and yellow broadlands; between
+our carriage-wheels and the horizon there was now spread a wide
+amphitheatre of wooded hills. The windings of the poplar-lined road
+serpentined in sinuous grace in and out of forests, meadows, hills, and
+islands. The afternoon lights were deepening; the shadows on the grain-
+fields cast by the oaks and beeches were a part of our company. The
+blue bloom of the distant hills was strengthening into purple. As the
+light was intensifying in color, the human life in the fields was
+relaxing its tension; the bent backs were straightening, the ploughmen
+were whipping their steeds toward the open road; for although it was
+Sunday, and a _fête_ day, the farmer must work. The women were
+gathering up some of the grasses, tying them into bundles, and tossing
+them on their heads as they moved slowly across the blackening earth.
+
+One field near us was peopled with a group of girls resting on their
+scythes. One or two among them were mopping their faces with their
+coarse blue aprons; the faces of all were aflame with the red of rude
+health. As we came upon them, some had flung away their scythes, the
+tallest among the group grasping a near companion, playfully, in the
+pose of a wrestler. In an instant the company was turned into a group
+of wrestlers. There was a great shout of laughter, as maiden after
+maiden was tumbled over on her back or face amid the grasses. Sabots,
+short skirts, kerchiefs, scarlet arms rose and fell to earth in the mad
+whirl of their gayety.
+
+"Stop, Jacques, I must see the end," cried Charm. "Will they fight or
+dance, I wonder!"
+
+"Oh, it is a pure Georgic--they'll dance." They were dancing already.
+The line, with dishevelled hair, aprons and kerchiefs askew, had formed
+into the square of a quadrille. A rude measure was tripped; a snatch of
+song, shouted amid the laughter, gave rhythm to the measure, and then
+the whole band, singing in chorus, linked arms and swept with a furious
+dash beneath the thatched roof of a low farm-house.
+
+"As you see, my ladies, sometimes the fields are gay--even now," was
+Jacques's comment. "But they should be getting their grasses in--for
+it'll rain before night. It's time to sing when the scythe sleeps--as
+we say here."
+
+To our eyes there were no signs of rain. The clouds rolling in the blue
+sea above us were only gloriously lighted. But the birds and the
+peasants knew their sky; there was a great fluttering of wings among
+the branches; and the peasants, as we rattled in and out of the
+hamlets, were pulling the _reposoirs_ to pieces in the haste that
+predicts bad weather. They had been "celebrating" all along the road;
+and besides the piety, the Norman thrift was abroad upon the highway.
+Women were tearing sheets off the house facades; the lads and girls
+were bearing crosses, china vases, and highly-colored Virgins from the
+wooden altars into the low houses.
+
+Presently the great drops fell; they beat upon the smooth roadway like
+so many hard bits of coin. In less than two ticks of the clock, the
+world was a wet world; there were masses of soft gray clouds that were
+like so much cotton, dripping with moisture. The earth was as drenched
+as if, half an hour ago, it had not been a jewel gleaming in the sun;
+and the very farm-houses had quickly assumed an air of having been
+caught out in the rain without an umbrella. The farm gardens alone
+seemed to rejoice in the suddenness of the shower. Flowers have a way
+of shining, when it rains, that proves flower-petals have a woman's
+love of solitaires.
+
+There were other dashes of color that made the gray landscape
+astonishingly brilliant. Some of the peasants on their way to the
+village _fêtes_ were also caught in the passing shower. They had opened
+their wide blue and purple umbrellas; these latter made huge disks of
+color reflected in the glass of the wet macadam. The women had turned
+their black alpaca and cashmere skirts inside out, tucking the edges
+about their stout hips; beneath the wide vivid circles of the dripping
+umbrellas these brilliantly colored under-petticoats showed a liberal
+revelation of scarlet hose and thick ankles sunk in the freshly
+polished black sabots. The men's cobalt-blue blouses and their peaked
+felt hats spotted the landscape with contrasting notes and outlines.
+
+After the last peaked hat had disappeared into the farm enclosures, we
+and the wet landscape had the rain to ourselves. The trees now were
+spectral shapes; they could not be relied on as companions. Even the
+gardens and grain lands were mysteriously veiled, so close rolled the
+mists to our carriage-wheels. Beyond, at the farthest end of the road,
+these mists had formed themselves into a solid, compact mass.
+
+The clouds out yonder, far ahead, seemed to be enwrapping some part of
+earth that had lanced itself into the sky.
+
+After a little the eyes unconsciously watched those distant woolly
+masses. There was a something beyond, faint, vague, impalpable as yet,
+which the rolling mists begirt as sometimes they cincture an Alpine
+needle. Even as the thought came, a sudden lifting--of the gray mass
+showed the point of a high uplifted pinnacle. The point thereof pricked
+the sky. Then the wind, like a strong hand, swept the clouds into a
+mantle, and we saw the strange spectacle no more.
+
+For several miles our way led us through a dim, phantasmal landscape.
+All the outlines were blurred. Even the rain was a veil; it fell
+between us and the nearest hedgerows as if it had been a curtain. The
+jingling of Poulette's bell-collar and the gurgle of the water rushing
+in the gulleys--these were the only sounds that fell upon the ear.
+
+Still the clouds about that distant mass curled and rolled; they were
+now breaking, now re-forming--as if some strange and wondrous thing
+were hanging there--between heaven and earth.
+
+It was still far out, the mass; even the lower mists were not resting
+on any plain of earth. They also were moved by something that moved
+beneath them, as a thick cloak takes the shape and motion of the body
+it covers. Still we advanced, and still the great mountain of cloud
+grew and grew. And then there came a little lisping, hissing sound. It
+was the kiss of the sea as it met some unseen shore. And on our cheeks
+the sea-wind blew, soft and salty to the lips.
+
+The mass was taking shape and outline. The mists rolled along some
+wide, broad base that rested beneath the sea, and skyward they clasped
+the apexal point of a pyramid.
+
+This pyramid in the sky was Mont St. Michel.
+
+With its feet in the sea, and its head vanishing into infinity--here,
+at last, was this rock of rocks, caught, phantom-like, up into the very
+heavens above.
+
+It loomed out of the spectral landscape--itself the superlative
+spectre; it took its flight upward as might some genius of beauty
+enrobed in a shroud of mystery.
+
+Such has it been to generations of men. Beautiful, remote, mysterious!
+With its altars and its shrines, its miracle of stone carved by man on
+those other stones hewn by the wind and the tempest, Mont St. Michel
+has ever been far more a part of heaven than a thing of earth.
+
+Then, for us, the clouds suddenly lifted, as, for modern generations of
+men, the mists of superstition have also rolled themselves away.
+
+
+
+
+MONT ST. MICHEL:
+
+AN INN ON A ROCK.
+
+[Illustration: MONT SAINT MICHEL]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+BY SEA TO THE POULARD INN.
+
+
+We were being tossed in the air like so many balls. A Normandy _char a
+banc_ was proving itself no respecter of nice distinctions in
+conditions in life. It phlipped, dashed, and rolled us about with no
+more concern than if it were taking us to market to be sold by the
+pound. For we were on the _grève_. The promised rivers were before us.
+
+So was the Mont, spectral no longer, but nearing with every plunge
+forward of our sturdy young Percheron. Locomotion through any new or
+untried medium is certain to bring with the experiment a dash of
+elation. Now, driving through water appears to be no longer the fashion
+in our fastidious century; someone might get a wetting, possibly, has
+been the conclusion of the prudent. And thus a very innocent and
+exciting bit of fun has been gradually relegated among the lost arts of
+pleasure.
+
+We were taking water as we had never taken it before, and liking the
+method. We were as wet as ducks, but what cared we? We were being
+deluged with spray; the spume of the sea was spurting in our faces with
+the force of a strong wet breeze, and still we liked it. Besides,
+driving thus into the white foam of the waters, over the sand ridges,
+across the downs, into the wide plains of wet mud, this was the old
+classical way of going up to the Mont. Surely, what had been found good
+enough as a pathway for kings and saints and pilgrims should be good
+enough for two lovers of old-time methods. The dike yonder was built
+for those who believe in the devil of haste, and for those who also
+serve him faithfully.
+
+Someone else besides ourselves was enjoying our drive through the
+waves. Our gay young Normandy driver seemed to find an exquisite relish
+in the spectacle of our wet faces and unstable figures. He could not
+keep his eyes off us; they fairly glistened with the dew of his
+enjoyment. Two ladies pitched and rolled about, exactly as if they were
+peasants, and laughing as if they were children--this was a spectacle
+and a keen appreciation of a joke that brought joy to a rustic
+blouse.
+
+"Ah--ah! mesdames!" he cried, exultingly, between the gasps of his own
+laughter, as he tossed his own fine head in the air, sitting on his
+rude bench, covered with sheepskin, as if it had been an armchair. "Ah,
+ah! mesdames, you didn't expect this, _hein_? You hoped for a landau,
+and feathers and cushions, perhaps? But soft feathers and springs are
+not for the _grève_."
+
+"Is it dangerous? are there deep holes?"
+
+"Oh, the holes, they are as nothing. It is the quicksands we fear. But
+it is only a little danger, and danger makes the charm of travel, is it
+not so, my ladies? Adventure, that is what one travels for! _Hui!_ Fend
+l'Air!"
+
+It had occurred to us before that we had been uncommonly lucky in our
+coachmen, as well as in the names of the horses, that had brightened
+our journey. In spite of Juliet, whose disdain of the virtue or the
+charm that lies in a name is no more worthy of respect than is any
+lover's opinion when in the full-orbed foolishness of his lunacy, I
+believe names to be a very effective adjunct to life's scenic setting.
+Most of the horses we had had along these Normandy high-roads, had
+answered to names that had helped to italicize the features of the
+country. Could Poulette, the sturdy little mare, with whom only an hour
+ago we had parted forever, have been given a better sobriquet by which
+to have identified for us the fat landscape? And now here was Fend
+l'Air proving good his talent for cleaving through space, whatever of
+land or sea lay in his path.
+
+"And he merits his name, my lady," his driver announced with grave
+pride, as he looked at the huge haunches with a loving eye. "He can go,
+oh, but as the wind! It is he who makes of the crossing but as if it
+were nothing!"
+
+The crossing! That was the key-note of the way the coast spoke of the
+Mont. The rock out yonder was a country apart, a bit of land or stone
+the shore claimed not, had no part in, felt to be as remote as if it
+were a foreign province. At Genets the village spoke of the Mont as one
+talks of a distant land. Even the journey over the sands was looked
+upon with a certain seriousness. A starting forth was the signal for
+the village to assemble about the _char-à-banc's_ wheels. Quite a large
+company for a small village to muster was grouped about our own
+vehicle, to look on gravely as we mounted to the rude seat within. The
+villagers gave us their "_bonjours_" with as much fervor as if we were
+starting forth on a sea voyage.
+
+"You will have a good crossing!" cackled one of the old men, nodding
+toward the peak in the sky.
+
+"The sands may be wet, but they are firm already!" added a huge
+peasant--the fattest man in all the canton, whisperingly confided the
+landlady, as one proud of possessing a village curiosity.
+
+"_Hui_, Fend l'Air! _attention, toi!_" Fend l'Air tossed his fine mane,
+and struck out with a will over the cobbles. But his driver was only
+posing for the assembled village. He was in no real haste; there was a
+fresh voice singing yonder in his mother's tavern; the sentimentalist
+in him was on edge to hear the end of the song.
+
+"Do you hear that, mesdames? There's no such singing as that out of
+Paris. One must go to a café--"
+
+"_Allons, toi!_" shrieked his mother's voice, as her face darkened. "Do
+you think these ladies want to spend the night on the _grève_?
+_Depêches-toi, vaurien!_" And she gave the wheels a shove with her
+strong hand, whereat all the village laughed. But the good-for-nothing
+son made no haste as the song went on--
+
+  "_Le bon vin me fait dormir,
+  L'amour me réveil--_"
+
+He continued to cock his head on one side and to let his eyes dream a
+bit.
+
+Within, a group of peasants was gathered about the inn table. There
+were some young girls seated among the blouses; one of them, for the
+hour that we had sat waiting for Fend l'Air to be captured and
+harnessed, had been singing songs of questionable taste in a voice of
+such contralto sweetness as to have touched the heart of a bishop.
+"Some young girls from the factories at Avranches, mesdames, who come
+here Sundays to get a bit of fresh air; _Dieu soit si elles en ont
+besoin, pauvres enfants!_" was the landlady's charitable explanation.
+It appeared to us that the young ladies from Avranches were more in
+need of a moral than a climatic change. But then, we also charitably
+reflected, it makes all the difference in the world, in these nice
+questions of taste and morality, whether one has had as an inheritance
+a past of Francis I. and a Rabelais, or of Calvin and a Puritan
+conscience.
+
+The geese on the green downs, just below the village, had clearly never
+even heard of Calvin; they were luxuriating in a series of plunges into
+the deep pools in a way to prove complete ignorance of nice sabbatarian
+laws.
+
+With our first toss upon the downs, a world of new and fresh
+experiences began. Genets was quite right; the Mont over yonder was
+another country; even at the very beginning of the journey we learned
+so much. This breeze blowing in from the sea, that had swept the
+ramparts of the famous rock, was a double extract of the sea essence;
+it had all the salt of the sea and the aroma of firs and wild flowers;
+its lips had not kissed a garden in high air without the perfume
+lingering, if only to betray them. Even this strip of meadow marsh had
+a character peculiar to itself; half of it belonged to earth and half
+to the sea. You might have thought it an inland pasture, with its herds
+of cattle, its flocks of sheep, and its colonies of geese--patrolled by
+ragged urchins. But behold, somewhere out yonder the pasture was lost
+in high sea-waves; ships with bulging sails replaced the curve of the
+cattle's sides, and instead of bending necks of sheep, there were
+seagulls swooping down upon the foamy waves.
+
+As the incarnation of this dual life of sea and land, the rock stands.
+It also is both of the sea and the land. Its feet are of the
+waters--rocks and stones the sea-waves have used as playthings these
+millions of years. But earth regains possession as the rocks pile
+themselves into a mountain. Even from this distance, one can see the
+moving arms of great trees, the masses of yellow flower-tips that dye
+the sides of the stony hill, and the strips of green grass here and
+there. So much has nature done for this wonderful pyramid in the sea.
+Then man came and fashioned it to his liking. He piled the stones at
+its base into titanic walls; he carved about its sides the rounded
+breasts of bastions; he piled higher and higher up the dizzy heights a
+medley of palaces, convents, abbeys, cloisters, to lay at the very top
+the fitting crown of all, a jewelled Norman-Gothic cathedral.
+
+Earth and man have thrown their gauntlet down to the sea--this rock is
+theirs, they cry to the waves and the might of oceans. And the sea
+laughs--as strong men laugh when boys are angry or insistent. She has
+let them build and toil, and pray and fight; it is all one to her what
+is done on the rock--whether men carve its stones into lace, or rot and
+die in its dungeons; it is all the same to her whether each spring the
+daffodils creep up within the crevices and the irises nod to them from
+the gardens.
+
+It is all one to her. For twice a day she recaptures the Mont. She
+encircles it with the strong arm of her tides; with the might of her
+waters she makes it once more a thing of the sea.
+
+The tide was rising now.
+
+The fringe of the downs had dabbled in the shoals till they had become
+one. We had left behind the last of the shepherd lads, come out to the
+edge of the land to search for a wandering kid. We were all at once
+plunging into high water. Our road was sunk out of sight; we were
+driving through waves as high as our cart-wheels. Fend l'Air was
+shivering; he was as a-tremble as a woman. The height of the rivers was
+not to his liking.
+
+"_Sacré fainéant!_" yelled his owner, treating the tremor to a mighty
+crack of the whip.
+
+"Is he afraid?"
+
+"Yes--when the water is as high as that, he is always afraid. Ah, there
+he is--_diantre_, but he took his time!" he growled, but the growl was
+set in the key of relief. He was pointing toward a figure that was
+leaping toward us through the water. "It is the guide!" he added, in
+explanation.
+
+The guide was at Fend l'Air's shoulder. Very little of him was above
+water, but that little was as brown as an Egyptian. He was puffing and
+blowing like unto a porpoise. In one hand he held a huge pitchfork--the
+trident of this watery Mercury.
+
+"Shall I conduct you?" he asked, dipping the trident as if in salute,
+into the water, as he still puffed and gasped.
+
+"If you please," as gravely responded our driver. For though up to our
+cart-wheels and breasts in deep water, the formalities were not to be
+dispensed with, you understand. The guide placed himself at once in
+front of Fend l'Air, whose shivers as quickly disappeared.
+
+"You see, mesdames--the guide gives him courage--and he now knows no
+fear," cried out with pride our whip on the outer bench. "And what
+news, Victor--is there any?" It was of the Mont he was asking. And the
+guide replied, taking an extra plunge into deep water:
+
+"Oh, not much. There's to be a wedding tomorrow and a pilgrimage the
+next day. Madame Poulard has only a handful as yet. _Ces dames_ descend
+doubtless at Madame Poulard's--_celle qui fait les omelettes?_" The
+ladies were ignorant as yet of the accomplishments of the said
+landlady; they had only heard of her beauty.
+
+"_C'est elle_," gravely chorussed the guide and the driver, both
+nodding their heads as their eyes met. "_Fameuse, sa beauté, comme son
+omelette_," as gravely added our driver.
+
+The beauty of this lady and the fame of her omelette were very
+sobering, apparently, in their effects on the mind; for neither guide
+nor driver had another word to say.
+
+Still the guide plunged into the rivers, and Fend l'Air followed him.
+Our cart still pitched and tossed--we were still rocked about in our
+rough cradle. But the sun, now freed from the banks of clouds, was
+lighting our way with a great and sudden glory. And for the rest of our
+watery journey we were conscious only of that lighting. Behind the
+Mont, lay a vast sea of saffron. But it was in the sky; against it the
+great rock was as black as if the night were upon it. Here and there,
+through the curve of a flying buttress, or the apertures of a pierced
+parapet, gay bits of this yellow world were caught and framed. The sea
+lay beneath like a quiet carpet; and over this carpet ships and sloops
+swam with easy gliding motion, with sails and cordage dipped in gold.
+The smaller craft, moored close to shore, seemed transfigured as in a
+fog of gold. And nearer still were the brown walls of the Mont making a
+great shadow, and in the shadow the waters were as black as the skin of
+an African. In the shoals there were lovely masses of turquoise and
+palest green; for here and there a cloudlet passed, to mirror their
+complexions in the translucent pools.
+
+But Fend l'Air's hoofs had struck a familiar note. His iron shoes were
+clicking along the macadam of the dike. There was a rapid dashing
+beneath the great walls; a sudden night of darkness as we plunged
+through an open archway into a narrow village street; a confused
+impression of houses built into side-walls; of machicolated gateways;
+of rocks and roof-tops tumbling about our ears; and within the street
+was sounding the babel of a shrieking troop of men and women. Porters,
+peasants, lads, and children were clamoring about our cart-wheels like
+unto so many jackals. The bedlam did not cease as we stopped before a
+wide, brightly-lit open doorway.
+
+Then through the doorway there came a tall, finely-featured brunette.
+She made her way through the yelling crowd as a duchess might cleave a
+path through a rabble. She was at the side of the cart in an instant.
+She gave us a bow and smile that were both a welcome and an act of
+appropriation. She held out a firm, soft, brown hand. When it closed on
+our own, we knew it to be the grasp of a friend, and the clasp of one
+who knew how to hold her world. But when she spoke the words were all
+of velvet, and her voice had the cadence of a caress.
+
+"I have been watching you, _chères dames_--crossing the _grève_--but
+how wet and weary you must be! Come in by the fire, it is ablaze
+now--I have been feeding it for you!" And once more the beautifully
+curved lips parted over the fine teeth, and the exceeding brightness of
+the dark eyes smiled and glittered in our own. The caressing voice
+still led us forward, into the great gay kitchen; the touch of skilful,
+discreet fingers undid wet cloaks and wraps; the soft charm of a lovely
+and gracious woman made even the penetrating warmth of the huge
+fire-logs a secondary feature of our welcome. To those who have never
+crossed a _grève_; who have had no jolting in a Normandy _char-à-banc_;
+who, for hours, have not known the mixed pleasures and discomfort of
+being a part of sea-rivers; and who have not been met at the threshold
+of an Inn on a Rock by the smiling welcome of Madame Poulard--all such
+have yet a pleasant page to read in the book of travelled experience.
+
+Meanwhile somewhere, in an inner room, things sweet to the nostrils
+were cooking. Maids were tripping up and down stairs with covered
+dishes; there was the pleasant clicking in the ear of the lids of
+things; dishes or pans or jars were being lifted. And more delicious to
+the ear than even the promise to starving mouths of food, and of red
+wine to the lip, was the continuing music of madame's voice, as she
+stood over us purring with content at seeing her travellers drying and
+being thoroughly warmed. "The dinner-bell must soon be rung, dear
+ladies; I delayed it as long as I dared--I gauged your progress
+across from the terrace--I have kept all my people waiting; for your
+first dinner here must be hot! But now it rings! Shall I conduct you to
+your rooms?"
+
+I have no doubt that, even without this brunette beauty, with her olive
+cheek and her comely figure as guides, we should have gone the way she
+took us in a sort of daze. One cannot pass under machicolated gateways;
+rustle between the walls of fourteenth century fortifications; climb a
+stone stairway that begins in a watch-tower and ends in a rampart, with
+a great sea view, and with the breadth of all the land shoreward; walk
+calmly over the top of a king's gate, with the arms of a bishop and the
+shrine of the Virgin beneath one's feet; and then, presently, begin to
+climb the side of a rock in which rude stone steps have been cut, till
+one lands on a miniature terrace, to find a preposterously
+sturdy-looking house affixed to a ridiculous ledge of rock that has the
+presumption to give shelter to a hundred or more travellers--ground
+enough, also, for rows of plane-trees, for honeysuckles, and rose-vine,
+with a full coquettish equipment of little tables and iron chairs--no
+such journey as that up a rock was ever taken with entirely sober eyes.
+
+Although her people were waiting below, and the dinner was on its way
+to the cloth, Madame Poulard had plenty of time to give to the beauty
+about her. How fine was the outlook from the top of the ramparts! What
+a fresh sensation, this, of standing on a terrace in mid-air and
+looking down on the sea, and across to the level shores! The
+rose-vines--we found them sweet--_tiens_--one of the branches had
+fallen--she had full time to re-adjust the loosened support. And
+"Marianne, give these ladies their hot water, and see to their bags--"
+even this order was given with courtesy. It was only when the supple,
+agile figure had left us to fly down the steep rock-cut steps; when it
+shot over the top of the gateway and slid with the grace of a lizard
+into the street far below us, that we were made sensible of there
+having been any especial need of madame's being in haste.
+
+That night, some three hours later, a picturesque group was assembled
+about this same supple figure. A pretty, and unlooked-for ceremony was
+about to take place.
+
+It was the ceremony of the lighting of the lanterns.
+
+In the great kitchen, in the dance of the firelight and the glow of the
+lamps, some seven or eight of us were being equipped with Chinese
+lanterns. This of itself was an engaging sight. Madame Poulard was
+always gay at this performance--for it meant much innocent merriment
+among her guests, and with the lighting of the last lantern, her own
+day was done. So the brilliant eyes flashed with a fresh fire, and the
+olive cheek glowed anew. All the men and women laughed as children
+sputter laughter, when they are both pleased and yet a little ashamed
+to show their pleasure. It was so very ridiculous, this journey up a
+rock with a Chinese lantern! But just because it was ridiculous, it was
+also delightful. One--two--three--seven--eight--they were all lit. The
+last male guest had touched his cap to madame, exchanging the "_bonne
+nuit_" a man only gives to a pretty woman, and that which a woman
+returns who feels that her beauty has received its just meed of homage;
+madame's figure stood, still smiling, a radiant benedictory presence,
+in the doorway, with the great glow of the firelight behind her; the
+last laugh echoed down the street--and behold, darkness was upon us!
+The street was as black as a cavern. The strip of sky and the stars
+above seemed almost day, by contrast. The great arch of the Porte du
+Roi engulphed us, and then, slowly groping our way, we toiled up the
+steps to the open ramparts. Here the keen night air swept rudely
+through our cloaks and garments; the sea tossed beneath the bastions
+like some restless tethered creature, that showed now a gray and now a
+purple coat, and the stars were gold balls that might drop at any
+instant, so near they were. The men shivered and buttoned their coats,
+and the women laughed, a trifle shrilly, as they grasped the floating
+burnous closer about their faces and shoulders.
+
+And the lanterns' beams danced a strange dance on the stone flagging.
+
+Once more we were lost in darkness. We were passing through the old
+guard-house. And then slowly, more slowly than ever, the lanterns were
+climbing the steps cut in the rock. Hands groped in the blackness to
+catch hold of the iron railing; the laughter had turned into little
+shouts and gasps for help. And then one of the lanterns played a
+treacherous trick; it showed the backs of two figures groping upward
+together--about one of the girlish figures a man's arm was flung.
+As suddenly the noise of the cries was stilled.
+
+The lanterns played their fitful light on still other objects. They
+illumined now a vivid yellow shrub; they danced upon a roof-top; they
+flooded, with a sudden circlet of brilliance, the awful depths below of
+the swirling waters and of rocks that were black as a bottomless pit.
+
+Then the terrace was reached. And the lanterns danced a last gay little
+dance among the roses and the vines before, Pouffe! Pouffe! and behold!
+they were all blown out.
+
+Thus it was we went to bed on the Mont.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+AN HISTORICAL OMELETTE--THE PILGRIMS AND THE SHRINE.
+
+
+To awake on a hill-top at sea. This was what morning brought.
+
+Crowd this hill with houses plastered to the sides of rocks, with great
+walls girdling it, with tiny gardens lodged in crevices, and with a
+forest tumbling seaward. Let this hill yield you a town in which to
+walk, with a street of many-storied houses; with other promenades along
+ramparts as broad as church aisles; with dungeons, cloisters, halls,
+guard-rooms, abbatial gateways, and a cathedral whose flying buttresses
+seemed to spring from mid-air and to end in a cloud--such was the world
+into which we awoke on the heights of Mont St. Michel.
+
+The verdict of the shore on the hill had been a just one; this world on
+a rock was a world apart. This hill in the sea had a detached air--as
+if, though French, at heart a true Gaul, it had had from the beginning
+of things a life of adventure peculiar to itself. The shore, at best,
+had been only a foster-mother; the hill was the true child of the sea.
+Since its birth it has had a more or less enforced separateness, in
+experience, from the country to which it belonged. Whether temple or
+fortress, whether forest-clad in virginal fierceness of aspect, or
+subdued into beauty by the touch of man's chisel, its destiny has
+ever been the same--to suffice unto itself--to be, in a word, a world
+in miniature.
+
+The Mont proved by its appearance its history in adventure; it had the
+grim, grave, battered look that comes only to features, whether of rock
+or of more plastic human mould--that have been carved by the rough
+handling of experience.
+
+It is the common habit of hills and mountains, as we all know, to turn
+disdainful as they grow skyward; they only too eagerly drop, one by
+one, the things by which man has marked the earth for his own. To stand
+on a mountain top and to go down to your grave are alike, at least in
+this--that you have left everything, except yourself, behind you. But
+it is both the charm and the triumph of Mont St. Michel, that it
+carries so much of man's handiwork up into the blue fields of air; this
+achievement alone would mark it as unique among hills. It appears as if
+for once man and nature had agreed to work in concert to produce a
+masterpiece in stone. The hill and the architectural beauties it
+carries aloft, are like a taunt flung out to sea and to the upper
+heights of air; for centuries they appear to have been crying aloud,
+"See what we can do, against your tempests and your futile tides--when
+we try."
+
+On that particular morning, the taunt seemed more like an
+epithalamium--such marriage-lines did sea and sky appear to be reading
+over the glistening face of the rock. June had pitched its tent of blue
+across the seas; all the world was blue, except where the sun smote it
+into gold. To eyes in love with beauty, what a world at one's feet!
+Beneath that azure roof, toward the west, was the world of water,
+curling, dimpling, like some human thing charged with the conscious
+joy of dancing in the sun. Shoreward, the more stable earth was in the
+Moslem's ideal posture--that of perpetual prostration. The Brittany
+coast was a long, flat, green band; the rocks of Cancale were brown,
+but scarcely higher in point of elevation than the sand-hills; the
+Normandy forests and orchards were rippling lines that focussed into
+the spiral of the Avranches cathedral spires: floating between the two
+blues, hung the aerial shapes of the Chaunsey and the Channel Islands;
+and nearer, along the coast-line, were the fringing edges of the shore,
+broken with shoals and shallows--earth's fingers, as it were, touching
+the sea--playing, as Coleridge's Abyssinian maid fingered the dulcimer,
+that music that haunts the poet's ear.
+
+We were seated at the little iron tables, on the terrace. We were
+sipping our morning coffee, beneath the plane-trees. The terrace, a
+foot beyond our coffee-cups, instantly began its true career as a
+precipice. We, ourselves, seemed to have begun as suddenly our own
+flight heavenward--on such astonishing terms of intimacy were we with
+the sky. The clapping close to our ears of large-winged birds; the
+swirling of the circling sea-gulls; the amazing nearness of the cloud
+drapery--all this gave us the sense of being in a new world, and of its
+being a strangely pleasant one.
+
+Suddenly a cock's crow, shrill and clear, made us start from the
+luxurious languor of our contentment; for we had scarcely looked to
+find poultry on this Hill of Surprises. Turning in the direction of the
+homely, familiar note, we beheld a garden. In this garden walked the
+cock--a two-legged gentleman of gorgeous plumage. If abroad for purely
+constitutional purposes, the crowing chanticleer must be forced to pass
+the same objects many times in review. Of all infinitesimal,
+microscopic gardens, this one, surely, was a model in minuteness.
+Yet it was an entirely self-respecting little garden. It was not much
+larger than a generous-sized pocket handkerchief; yet how much
+talent--for growing--may be hidden in a yard of soil--if the soil have
+the right virtue in it. Here were two rocks forming, with a fringe of
+cliff, a triangle; in that tri-cornered bit of earth a lively crop of
+growing vegetables was offering flattering signs of promise to the
+owner's eye. Where all land runs aslant, as all land does on this
+Mont, not an inch was to be wasted; up the rocks peach and pear-split
+trees were made to climb--and why should they not, since everything
+else--since man himself must climb from the moment he touches the base
+of the hill?
+
+Following the cock's call, came the droning sweetness of bees; the rose
+and the honeysuckle vines were loading the morning air with the perfume
+of their invitations. Then a human voice drowned the bees' whirring,
+and a face as fresh and as smiling as the day stood beside us. It was
+the voice and the face of Madame Poulard, on the round of her morning
+inspections. Our table and the radiant world at her feet were included
+in this, her line of observations.
+
+"_Ah, mesdames, comme vous savez bien vous placer!_--how admirably you
+understand how to place yourselves! Under such a sky as this--before
+such a spectacle--one should be in the front row, as at a theatre!"
+
+And that was the beginning of our deeds finding favor in the eyes of
+Madame Poulard.
+
+It was our happy fate to drink many a morning cup of coffee at those
+little iron tables; to have many a prolonged chat with the charming
+landlady of the famous inn; to become as familiar with the glories and
+splendors of the historical hill as with the habits and customs of the
+world that came up to view them.
+
+For here our journey was to end.
+
+The comedy of life, as it had played itself out in Normandy inns, was
+here, in this Inn on a Rock, to give us a series of farewell
+performances. On no other stage, we were agreed, could the versatile
+French character have had as admirable and picturesque a setting; and
+surely, on no other bit of French soil could such an astonishing and
+amazing variety of types be assembled for a final appearance, as came
+up, day after day, to make the tour of the Mont.
+
+To the shore, and for the whole of the near-lying Breton and Norman
+rustic world, the Mont is still the Hill of Delight. It is their Alp,
+their shrine, the tenth wonder of the world, a prison, a palace, and a
+temple still. In spite of Parisian changes in religious fashions, the
+blouse is still devout; for curiosity is the true religion of the
+provincial, and all love of adventure did not die out with the
+Crusades.
+
+Therefore it is that rustic France along this coast still makes
+pilgrimages to the shrine of the Archangel St. Michael. No marriage is
+rightly arranged which does not include a wedding-journey across the
+_grève_; no nuptial breakfast is aureoled with the true halo of romance
+which is eaten elsewhere than on these heights in mid-air. The young
+come to drink deep of wonders; the old, to refresh the depleted
+fountains of memory; and the tourist, behold, he is as a plague of
+locusts let loose upon the defenceless hill!
+
+After a fortnight's sojourn, Charm and I held many a grave
+consultation; close observation of this world that climbed the
+heights had bred certain strange misgivings. What was it this world of
+sight-seers came up to the Mont for to see? Was it to behold the great
+glories thereof, or was it, oh, human eye of man! to look on the face
+of a charming woman I It was impossible, after sojourning a certain
+time upon the hill, not to concede that there were two equally strong
+centres of attractions, that drew the world hither-ward. One remained,
+indeed, gravely suspended between the doubt and the fear, as to which
+of these potential units had the greater pull, in point of actual
+attraction. The impartial historian, given to a just weighing of
+evidence, would have been startled to find how invariably the scales
+tipped; how lightly an historical Mont, born of a miracle, crowned by
+the noblest buildings, a pious Mecca for saints and kings innumerable,
+shot up like feathers in lightness when over-weighted by the modern
+realities of a perfectly appointed inn, the cooking and eating of an
+omelette of omelettes, and the all-conquering charms of Madame
+Poulard. The fog of doubt thickened as, day after day, the same scenes
+were enacted; when one beheld all sorts and conditions of men similarly
+affected; when, again and again, the potentiality in the human magnet
+was proved true. Doubt turned to conviction, at the last, that the holy
+shrine of St. Michael had, in truth, been, violated; that the Mont had
+been desecrated; that the latter exists now solely as a setting for a
+pearl of an inn; and that within the shrine--it is Madame Poulard
+herself who fills the niche!
+
+The pilgrims come from darkest Africa and the sunlit Yosemite, but they
+remain to pray at the Inn of the Omelette. Yonder, on the _grèves,_ as
+we ourselves had proved, one crosses the far seas and one is wet to the
+skin, only to hear the praises sung of madame's skill in the handling
+of eggs in a pan; it is for this the lean guide strides before the
+pilgrim tourist, and that he dippeth his trident in the waters. At the
+great gates of the fortifications the pilgrim descends, and behold, a
+howling chorus of serving-people take up the chant of: "_Chez Madame
+Poulard, à gauche, à la renommée de l'omelette!_" The inner walls of
+the town lend themselves to their last and best estate, that of
+proclaiming the glory of "_L'Omelette_." Placards, rich in indicative
+illustrations of hands all forefingers, point, with a directness never
+vouchsafed the sinner eager to find the way to right and duty, to the
+inn of "_L'Incomparable, la Fameuse Omelette!_" The pilgrims meekly
+descend at that shrine. They bow low to the worker of the modern
+miracle; they pass with eager, trembling foot, into the inner
+sanctorum, to the kitchen, where the presiding deity receives them with
+the grace of a queen and the simplicity of a saint.
+
+Life on the Mont, as we soon found, resolved itself into this--into so
+arranging one's day as to be on hand for the great, the eventful hour.
+In point of fact there were two such hours in the Mont St. Michel day.
+There was the hour of the cooking of the omelette. There was always the
+other really more tragic hour, of the coming across the dike, of the
+huge lumbering omnibuses. For you see, that although one may be
+beautiful enough to compete successfully against dead-and-gone saints,
+against worn out miracles, and wonders in stone, human nature, when
+it is alive, is human nature still. It is the curse of success, the
+world over, to arouse jealousy; and we all have lived long enough to
+know that jealousy's evil-browed offspring are named Hate and
+Competition. Up yonder, beyond the Porte du Roi, rivalry has set up a
+counter-shrine, with a competing saint, with all the hateful
+accessories of a pretty face, a younger figure, and a graceful
+if less skilled aptitude in the making of omelettes in public.
+
+The hour of the coming in of the coaches, was, therefore, a tragic
+hour.
+
+On the arrival of the coaches Madame was at her post long before the
+pilgrims came up to her door. Being entirely without personal vanity--
+since she felt her beauty, her cleverness, her grace, and her charm to
+be only a part of the capital of the inn trade--a higher order of the
+stock in trade, as it were--she made it a point to look handsomer on
+the arrival of coaches than at any other time. Her cheeks were certain
+to be rosier; her bird's head was always carried a trifle more
+takingly, perched coquettishly sideways, that the caressing smile of
+welcome might be the more personal; and as the woman of business,
+lining the saint, so to speak, was also present, into the deep pockets
+of the blue-checked apron, the calculating fingers were thrust, that
+the quick counting of the incoming guests might not be made too obvious
+an action. After such a pose, to see a pilgrim escape! To see him pass
+by, unmoved by that smile, turning his feelingless back on the true
+shrine! It was enough to melt the stoutest heart. Madame's welcome of
+the captured, after such an affront, was set in the minor key; and her
+smile was the smile of a suffering angel.
+
+"_Cours, mon enfant_, run, see if he descends or if he pushes on; tell
+him _I_ am Madame Poulard!" This, a low command murmured between a
+hundred orders, still in the minor key, would be purred to Clémentine,
+a peasant in a cap, exceeding fleet of foot, and skilled in the capture
+of wandering sheep.
+
+And Clémentine would follow that stray pilgrim: she would attack him in
+the open street; would even climb after him, if need be, up the steep
+rock steps, till, proved to be following strange gods, he would be
+brought triumphantly back to the kitchen-shrine, by Clémentine,
+puffing, but exultant.
+
+"Ah, monsieur, how could you pass us by?" madame's soft voice would
+murmur reproachfully in the pilgrim's ear. And the pilgrim, abashed,
+ashamed, would quickly make answer, if he were born of the right
+parents: "_Chère_ madame, how was I to believe my eyes? It is ten years
+since I was here, and you are younger, more beautiful than ever! I was
+going in search of your mother!" at which needless truism all the
+kitchen would laugh. Madame Poulard herself would find time for one of
+her choicest smiles, although this was the great moment of the working
+of the miracle. She was beginning to cook the omelette.
+
+The head-cook was beating the eggs in a great yellow bowl. Madame had
+already taken her stand at the yawning Louis XV. fireplace; she was
+beginning gently to balance the huge _casserole_ over the glowing logs.
+And all the pilgrims were standing about, watching the process. Now,
+the group circling about the great fireplace was scarcely ever the
+same; the pilgrims presented a different face and garb day after
+day--but in point of hunger they were as one man; they were each and
+all as unvaryingly hungry as only tourists could be, who, clamoring for
+food, have the smell of it in their nostrils, with the added ache of
+emptiness gnawing within. But besides hunger, each one of the pilgrims
+had brought with him a pair of eyes; and what eyes of man can be pure
+savage before the spectacle of a pretty woman cooking, _for him_,
+before an open fire? Therefore it was that still another miracle was
+wrought, that of turning a famished mob into a buzzing swarm of
+admirers.
+
+"_Mais si, monsieur_, in this pan I can cook an omelette large enough
+for you all; you will see. Ah, madame, you are off already? Célestine!
+Madame's bill, in the desk yonder. And you, monsieur, you too leave us?
+_Deux cognacs?_ Victor--_deux cognacs et une demi-tasse pour monsieur!_"
+
+These and a hundred other answers and questions and orders, were
+uttered in a fluted voice or in a tone of sharp command, by the
+miracle-worker, as the pan was kept gently turning, and the eggs were
+poured in at just the right moment--not one of the pretty poses of head
+and wrist being forgotten. Madame Poulard, like all clever women who
+are also pretty, had two voices: one was dedicated solely to the
+working of her charms; this one was soft, melodious, caressing,
+the voice of dove when cooing; the other, used for strictly business
+purposes, was set in the quick, metallic _staccato_ tones proper for
+such occasions.
+
+The dove's voice was trolling its sweetness, as she went on--
+
+"Eggs, monsieur? How many I use? Ah, it is in the season that counting
+the dozens becomes difficult--seventy dozen I used one day last year!"
+
+"Seventy dozen!" the pilgrim-chorus ejaculated, their eyes growing the
+wider as their lips moistened. For behold, the eggs were now cooked to
+a turn; the long-handled pan was being lifted with the effortless skill
+of long practice, the omelette was rolled out at just the right instant
+of consistency, and was being as quickly turned into its great flat
+dish.
+
+There was a scurrying and scampering up the wide steps to the dining
+room, and a hasty settling into the long rows of chairs. Presently
+madame herself would appear, bearing the huge dish. And the
+omelette--the omelette, unlike the pilgrims, would be found to be
+always the same--melting, juicy, golden, luscious, and above all _hot!_
+
+The noon-day table d'hôte was always a sight to see. Many of the
+pilgrim-tourists came up to the Mont merely to pass the day, or to stop
+the night; the midday meal was therefore certain to be the liveliest of
+all the repasts.
+
+The cloth was spread in a high, white, sunlit room. It was a trifle
+bare, this room, in spite of the walls being covered with pictures, the
+windows with pretty draperies, and the spotless linen that covered the
+long table. But all temples, however richly adorned, have a more or
+less unfurnished aspect; and this room served not only as the
+dining-table, but also as a foreshadowing of the apotheosis of Madame
+Poulard. Here were grouped together all the trophies and tributes of a
+grateful world; there were portraits of her charming brunette face
+signed by famous admirers; there were sonnets to her culinary skill and
+her charms as hostess, framed; these alternated with gifts of horned
+beasts that had been slain in her honor, and of stuffed birds who, in
+life, had beguiled the long winters for her with their songs. About the
+wide table, the snow of the linen reflected always the same picture;
+there were rows of little palms in flower-pots, interspersed with fruit
+dishes, with the butter pats, the almonds, and raisins, in their flat
+plates.
+
+The rows of faces above the cloth were more varied. The four corners of
+the earth were sometimes to be seen gathered together about the
+breakfast-table. Frenchmen of the Midi, with the skin of Spaniards and
+the buzz of Tartarin's _ze ze_ in their speech; priests, lean and fat;
+Germans who came to see a French stronghold as defenceless as a woman's
+palm; the Italian, a rarer type, whose shoes, sufficiently pointed to
+prick, and whose choice for décolleté collars betrayed his nationality
+before his lisping French accent could place him indisputably beyond
+the Alps; herds of English--of all types--from the aristocrat, whose
+open-air life had colored his face with the hues of a butcher, to the
+pale, ascetic clerk, off on a two weeks' holiday, whose bending at his
+desk had given him the stoop of a scholar; with all these were mixed
+hordes of French provincials, chiefly of the _bourgeois type,_ who
+singly, or in family parties, or in the nuptial train of sons or
+daughters, came up to the shrine of St. Michel.
+
+To listen to the chatter of these tourists was to learn the last word
+of the world's news. As in the days before men spoke to each other
+across continents, and the medium of cold type had made the event of
+to-day the history of to-morrow, so these pilgrims talked through the
+one medium that alone can give a fact the real essence of
+freshness--the ever young, the perdurably charming human voice. It was
+as good as sitting out a play to watch the ever-recurring
+characteristics, which made certain national traits as marked as the
+noses on the faces of the tourists. The question, for example, on which
+side the Channel a pilgrim was born, was settled five seconds after he
+was seated at table. The way in which the butter was passed was one
+test; the manner of the eating of the famous omelette was another. If
+the tourist were a Frenchman, the neat glass butter-dish was turned
+into a visiting-card--a letter of introduction, a pontoon-bridge, in a
+word, hastily improvised to throw across the stream of conversation.
+"_Madame_" (this to the lady at the tourist's left), "_me permet-elle de
+lui offrir le beurre?_" Whereat madame bowed, smiled, accepted the
+golden balls as if it were a bouquet, returning the gift, a few seconds
+later, by the proffer of the gravy dish. Between the little ceremony of
+the two bows and the smiling _mercis_, a tentative outbreak of speech
+ensued, which at the end of a half-hour, had spread from _bourgeois_ to
+countess, from curé to Parisian _boulevardier_, till the entire side of
+the table was in a buzz of talk. These genial people of a genial land
+finding themselves all in search of the same adventure, on top of a
+hill, away from the petty world of conventionality, remembered that
+speech was given to man to communicate with his fellows. And though
+neighbors for a brief hour, how charming such an hour can be made when
+into it are crowded the effervescence of personal experience, the witty
+exchange of comment and observation, and the agreeable conflict of
+thought and opinion!
+
+On the opposite side of the table, what a contrast! There the English
+were seated. There was the silence of the grave. All the rigid figures
+sat as upright as posts. In front of these severe countenances, the
+butter-plates remained as fixtures; the passing of them to a neighbor
+would be a frightful breach of good form--besides being dangerous. Such
+practices, in public places, had been known to lead to things--to
+unspeakable things--to knowing the wrong people, to walks afterward
+with cads one couldn't shake off, even to marriages with the
+impossible! Therefore it was that the butter remained a fixture. Even
+between those who formed the same tourist-party, there was rarely such
+an act of self-forgetfulness committed as an indulgence in talk--in
+public. The eye is the only active organ the Englishman carries abroad
+with him; his talking is done by staring. What fierce scowls, what dark
+looks of disapproval, contempt, and dislike were levelled at the
+chattering Frenchmen opposite.
+
+[Illustration: MONT SAINT MICHEL SNAIL-GATHERERS]
+
+Across the table, the national hate perpetuated itself. It appears to
+be a test of patriotism, this hatred between Frenchmen and Englishmen.
+That strip of linen might easily have been the Channel itself; it could
+scarcely more effectually have separated the two nations. A whole
+comedy of bitterness, a drama of rivalry, and a five-act tragedy of
+scorn were daily played between the Briton who sat facing the south,
+and the Frenchman who faced north. Both, as they eyed their neighbor
+over the foam of their napkins, had the Island in their eye!--the
+Englishman to flaunt its might and glory in the teeth of the hated
+Gaul, and the Frenchman to return his contempt for a nation of moist
+barbarians.
+
+Meanwhile, the omelette was going its rounds. It was being passed at
+that moment to Monsieur le Curé. He had been watching its progress with
+glistening eye and moistening lips. Madame Poulard, as she slipped the
+melting morsel beneath his elbow, had suddenly assumed the role of the
+penitent. Her tone was a reminder of the confessional, as of one who
+passed her masterpiece apologetically. She, forsooth, a sinner, to have
+the honor of ministering to the carnal needs of a son of the Church!
+
+The son of the Church took two heaping spoonfuls. His eye gave her,
+with his smile, the benediction of his gratitude, even before he had
+tasted of the luscious compound.
+
+"_Ah, chère madame! il n'y a que vous_--it is only you who can make the
+ideal omelette! I have tried, but Suzette has no art in her fingers;
+your receipt doesn't work away from the Mont!" And the good man sighed
+as he chuckled forth his praises.
+
+He had come up to the hill in company with the two excellent ladies
+beside him, of his flock, to make a little visit to his brethren
+yonder, to the priests who were still here, wrecks of the once former
+flourishing monastery. He had come to see them, and also to gaze on La
+Merveille. It was a good five years since he had looked upon its
+dungeons and its lace-work. But after all, in his secret soul of souls,
+he had longed to eat of the omelette. _Dieu!_ how often during those
+slow, quiet years in the little hamlet yonder on the plain, had its
+sweetness and lightness mocked his tongue with illusive tasting! Little
+wonder, therefore, that the good curé's praises were sweet in madame's
+ear, for they had the ring of truth--and of envy! And madame herself
+was only mortal, for what woman lives but feels herself uplifted by the
+sense of having found favor in the eyes of her priest?
+
+The omelette next came to a halt between the two ladies of the curé's
+flock. These were two _bourgeoises_ with the deprecating, mistrustful
+air peculiar to commonplace the world over. The walk up the steep
+stairs was still quickening their breath their compressed bosoms were
+straining the hooks of their holiday woollen bodices--cut when they
+were of slenderer build. Their bonnets proclaimed the antique fashions
+of a past decade; but the edge of their tongues had the keenness that
+comes with daily practice--than which none has been found surer than
+adoration of one's pastor, and the invigorating gossip of small towns.
+
+These ladies eyed the omelette with a chilled glance. Naturally, they
+could not see as much to admire in Madame Poulard or in her dish as did
+their curé. There was nothing so wonderful after all in the turning of
+eggs over a hot fire. The omelette!--after all, an omelette is an
+omelette! Some are better--some are worse; one has one's luck in
+cooking as in anything else. They had come up to the Mont with their
+good curé to see its wonders and for a day's outing; admiration of
+other women had not been anticipated as a part of the programme.
+_Tiens_--who was he talking to now? To that tall blonde--a foreigner, a
+young girl--_tiens_--who knows?--possibly an American--those Americans
+are terrible, they say--bold, immodest, irreverent. And the two ladies'
+necks were screwed about their over-tight collars, to give Charm the
+verdict of their disapproval.
+
+"Monsieur le Curé, they are passing you the fish!" cried the stouter,
+more aggressive parishioner, who boasted a truculent mustache.
+
+"Monsieur le Curé, the roast is at your elbow!" interpolated the
+second, with the more timid voice of a second in action; this protector
+of the good curé had no mustache, but her face was mercifully protected
+by nature from a too-disturbing combination of attractions, by being
+plentifully punctuated with moles from which sprouted little tufts of
+hair. The rain of these ladies' interruption was incessant; but the
+curé was a man of firm mind; their efforts to recapture his attention
+were futile. For the music of Charm's foreign voice was in his ear.
+Worship of the cloth is not a national, it is a more or less universal
+cult, I take it. It is in the blood of certain women. Opposite the two
+fussy, jealous _bourgeoises_, were others as importunate and
+aggressive. They were of fair, lean, lank English build, with the
+shifting eyes and the persistent courage which come to certain maidens
+in whose lives there is but one fixed and certain fact--that of having
+missed the matrimonial market. The shrine of their devotions, and the
+present citadel of their attack, was seated between them--he also being
+lean, pale, high-arched of brow, high anglican by choice, and
+noticeably weak of chin, in whose sable garments there was framed the
+classical clerical tie.
+
+To this curate Madame was now passing her dish. She still wore her fine
+sweet smile, but there was always a discriminating reserve in its edge
+when she touched the English elbow. The curate took his spoonful with
+the indifference of a man who had never known the religion of good
+eating. He put up his one eye-glass; it swept Madame's bending face,
+its smile, and the yellow glory floating beneath both. "Ah-h--ya-as--
+an omelette!" The glass was dropped; he took a meagre spoonful which he
+cut, presently, with his knife. He turned then to his neighbors--to
+both his neighbors! They had been talking of the parish church on
+the hill.
+
+"Ah-h-h, ya-as--lovely porch--isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, lovely--lovely!" chorussed the two maidens, with assenting fervor.
+"_Were_ you there this morning?" and they lifted eyes swimming with the
+rapture of their admiration.
+
+"Ya-as."
+
+"Only fancy--our missing you! We were _both_ there!"
+
+"Dear me! Really, were you?"
+
+"_Could_ you go this afternoon? I do want so to hear your criticism of
+my drawing--I'm working on the arch now."
+
+"So sorry--can't--possibly. I promised what's his name to go over to
+Tombelaine, don't you know!"
+
+"Oh-h! We do so want to go to Tombelaine!"
+
+"Ah-h--do you, really? One ought to start a little before the tide
+drops--they tell me!" and the clerical eye, through its correctly
+adjusted glass, looked into those four pleading eyes with no hint of
+softening. The dish that was the masterpiece of the house, meanwhile,
+had been despatched as if it were so much leather.
+
+The omelette fared no better with the brides, as a rule, than with the
+English curates. Such a variety of brides as came up to the Mont! You
+could have your choice, at the midday meal, of almost any nationality,
+age, or color. The attempt among these bridal couples to maintain the
+distant air of a finished indifference only made their secret the more
+open. The British phlegm, on such a journey, did not always serve as a
+convenient mask; the flattering, timid glance, the ripple of the tender
+whispers, and the furtive touching of fingers beneath the table, made
+even these English couples a part of the great human marrying family;
+their superiority to their fellows would return, doubtless, when the
+honey had dried out of their moon. The best of our adventures into this
+tender country were with the French bridal tourists; they were certain
+to be delightfully human. As we had had occasion to remark before, they
+were off, like ourselves, on a little voyage of discovery; they had
+come to make acquaintance with the being to whom they were mated for
+life. Various degrees of progress could be read in the air and manner
+of the hearty young _bourgeoises_ and their paler or even ruddier
+partners, as they crunched their bread or sipped their thin wine. Some
+had only entered as yet upon the path of inquiry; others had already
+passed the mile-stone of criticism; and still others had left the
+earth and were floating in full azure of intoxication. Of the many
+wedding parties that sat down to breakfast, we soon made the
+commonplace discovery that the more plebeian the company, the more
+certain-orbed appeared to be the promise of happiness.
+
+Some of the peasant weddings were noisy, boisterous performances;
+but how gay were the brides, and how bloated with joy the hardy,
+knotty-handied grooms! These peasant wedding guests all bore a striking
+family likeness; they might easily all have been brothers and sisters,
+whether they had come from the fields near Pontorson, or Cancale, or
+Dol, or St. Malo. The older the women, the prettier and the more
+gossamer were the caps; but the younger maidens were always delightful
+to look upon, such was the ripe vigor of their frames, and the liquid
+softness of eyes that, like animals, were used to wide sunlit fields
+and to great skies full of light. The bride, in her brand-new stuff
+gown, with a bonnet that recalled the bridal wreath only just laid
+aside, was also certain to be of a general universal type with the
+broad hips, wide waist, muscular limbs, and the melting sweetness of
+lips and eyes that only abundant health and a rich animalism of nature
+bring to maidenhood.
+
+Madame Poulard's air with this, her world, was as full of tact as with
+the tourists. Many of the older women would give her the Norman kiss,
+solemnly, as if the salute were a part of the ceremony attendant on the
+eating of a wedding breakfast at Mont St. Michel. There would be a
+three times' clapping of the wrinkled or the ruddy peasant cheeks
+against the sides of Madame Poulard's daintier, more delicately
+modelled face. Then all would take their seats noisily at table. It was
+Madame Poulard who then would bring us news of the party; at the end of
+a fortnight, Charm and I felt ourselves to be in possession of the
+hidden and secret reasons for all the marrying that had been done along
+the coast, that year. "_Tiens, ce n'est pas gai, la noce!_ I must learn
+the reason!" Madame would then flutter over the bridal breakfasters as
+a delicate plumaged bird hovers over a mass of stuff out of which it
+hopes to make a respectable meal. She presently would return to murmur
+in a whisper, "it is a _mariage de raison_. They, the bride and groom,
+love elsewhere, but they are marrying to make a good partnership; they
+are both hair-dressers at Caen. They have bought a new and fine shop
+with their earnings." Or it would be, "Look, madame, at that _jolie
+personne_; see how sad she looks. She is in love with her cousin who
+sits opposite, but the groom is the old one. He has a large farm and a
+hundred cows." To look on such a trio would only be to make the
+acquaintance anew of Sidonie and Risler and of Froment Jeune. Such
+brides always had the wandering gaze of those in search of fresh
+horizons, or of those looking already for the chance of escape. For
+such "unhappies," _ces malheureuses_, Madame's manner had an added
+softness and tenderness; she passed the frosted bridal cake as if it
+were a propitiatory offering to the God of Hymen. However melancholy
+the bride, the cake and Madame's caressing smiles wrought ever the same
+spell; for an instant, at least, the newly-made wife was in love with
+matrimony and with the cake, accepting the latter with the pleased
+surprise of one who realizes that, at least, on one's wedding day, one
+is a person of importance; that even so far as Mont St. Michel the news
+of their marriage had turned the ovens into a baking of wedding-cakes.
+This was destined to be the first among the deceptions that greeted
+such brides; for there were hundreds of such cakes, alas! kept
+constantly on hand. They were the same--a glory of sugar-mouldings and
+devices covering a mountain of richness--that were sent up yearly at
+Christmas time to certain mansard studios in the Latin quarter, where
+the artist recipients, like the brides, eat of the cake as did Adam
+when partaking of the apple, believing all the woman told them!
+
+There were other visitors who came up to the Mont, not as welcome as
+were these tourist parties.
+
+One morning, as we looked toward Pontorson, a small black cloud
+appeared to be advancing across the bay. The day was windy; the sky was
+crowded with huge white mountains--round, luminous clouds that moved in
+stately sweeps. And the sea was the color one loves to see in an
+earnest woman's eye, the dark-blue sapphire that turns to blue-gray.
+This was a setting that made that particular cloud, making such slow
+progress across from the shore, all the more conspicuous. Gradually, as
+the black mass neared the dike, it began to break and separate; and we
+saw plainly enough that the scattering particles were human beings.
+
+It was, in point of fact, a band of pilgrims; a peasant pilgrimage was
+coming up to the Mont. In wagons, in market carts, in _char-à-bancs_,
+in donkey-carts, on the backs of monster Percherons--the pilgrimage
+moved in slow processional dignity across the dike. Some of the younger
+black gowns and blue blouses attempted to walk across over the sands;
+we could see the girls sitting down on the edge of the shore, to take
+off their shoes and stockings and to tuck up their thick skirts. When
+they finally started they were like unto so many huge cheeses hoisted
+on stilts. The bare legs plunged boldly forward, keeping ahead of the
+slower-moving peasant-lads; the girls' bravery served them till they
+reached the fringe of the incoming tide; not until their knees went
+under water did they forego their venture. A higher wave came in,
+deluging the ones farthest out; and then ensued a scampering toward the
+dike and a climbing up of the stone embankment. The old route across
+the sands, that had been the only one known to kings and barons, was
+not good enough for a modern Norman peasant. The religion of personal
+comfort has spread even as far as the fields.
+
+At the entrance gate a tremendous hubbub and noise announced the
+arrival of the pilgrimage. Wagons, carts, horses, and peasants were
+crowded together as only such a throng is mixed in pilgrimages, wars,
+and fairs. Women were taking down hoods, unharnessing the horses,
+fitting slats into outsides of wagons, rolling up blankets, unpacking
+from the _char-à-bancs_ cooking utensils, children, grain-bags, long
+columns of bread, and hard-boiled eggs. For the women, darting hither
+and thither in their blue petticoats, their pink and red kerchiefs, and
+the stiff white Norman caps, were doing all the work. The men appeared
+to be decorative adjuncts, plying the Norman's gift of tongue across
+wagon-wheels and over the back of their vigorous wives and daughters.
+For them the battle of the day was over; the hour of relaxation had
+come. The bargains they had made along the route were now to be
+rehearsed, seasoned with a joke.
+
+"_Allons, toi, on ne fait pas de la monnaie blanche comme ca!_"
+
+"_Je t'ai offert huit sous, tu sais, lapin!_"
+
+"_Farceur, va-t'en--_"
+
+"Come, are you never going to have done fooling?" cried a tan-colored,
+wide-hipped peasant to her husband, who was lounging against the wagon
+pole, sporting a sprig of gentian pinned to his blouse. He was fat and
+handsome; and his eye proclaimed, as he was making it do heavy work at
+long range at a cluster of girls descending from an antique gig, that
+the knowledge of the same was known unto him.
+
+"That's right, growl ahead, thou, _tes beaux jours sont passés_, but
+for me _l'amour, l'amour--que c'est gai, que c'est frais!_" he half
+sung, half shouted.
+
+The moving mass of color, the Breton caps, and the Norman faces, the
+gold crosses that fell from dented bead necklaces, the worn hooped
+earrings, the clean bodices and home-spun skirts, streamed out past our
+windows as we looked down upon them. How pretty were some of the faces,
+of the younger women particularly! and with what gay spirits they were
+beginning their day! It had begun the night before, almost; many of the
+carts had been driven in from the forests beyond Avranches; some of the
+Brittany groups had started the day before. But what can quench the
+fountain of French vivacity? To see one's world, surely, there is
+nothing in that to tire one; it only excites and exhilarates; and so a
+fair or market day, and above all a pilgrimage, are better than balls,
+since they come more regularly; they are the peasant's opera, his
+Piccadilly and Broadway, club, drawing-room, Exchange, and parade, all
+in one.
+
+A half-hour after a landing of the pilgrims at the outer gates of the
+fortifications, the hill was swarming with them. The single street of
+the town was choked with the black gowns and the cobalt-blue blouses.
+Before these latter took a turn at their devotions they did homage to
+Bacchus. Crowds of peasants were to be seen seated about the long,
+narrow inn-tables, lifting huge pewter tankards to bristling beards.
+Some of these taverns were the same that had fed and sheltered bands of
+pilgrims that are now mere handfuls of dust in country churchyards.
+Those sixteenth century pilgrims, how many of them, had found this
+same arched doorway of La Licorne as cool as the shade of great trees
+after the long hot climb up to the hill! What a pleasant face has the
+timbered facade of the Tête d'Or, and the Mouton Blanc, been to the
+weary-limbed: and how sweet to the dead lips has been the first taste
+of the acid cider!
+
+Other aspects of the hill, on this day of the pilgrimage, made those
+older dead-and-gone bands of pilgrims astonishingly real. On the tops
+of bastions, in the clefts of the rocks, beneath the glorious walls of
+La Merveille, or perilously lodged on the crumbling cornice of a
+tourelle, numerous rude altars had been hastily erected. The crude
+blues and scarlets of banners were fluttering, like so many pennants,
+in the light breeze. Beneath the improvised altar-roofs--strips of gay
+cloth stretched across poles stuck into the ground--were groups not
+often seen in these less fervent centuries. High up, mounted on the
+natural pulpit formed of a bit of rock, with the rude altar before him,
+with its bit of scarlet cloth covered with cheap lace, stood or knelt
+the priest. Against the wide blue of the open heaven his figure took
+on an imposing splendor of mien and an unmodern impressiveness of
+action. Beneath him knelt, with bowed heads, the groups of the
+peasant-pilgrims; the women, with murmuring lips and clasped hands,
+their strong, deeply-seamed faces outlined, with the precision of a
+Francesco painting, against the gray background of a giant mass of
+wall, or the amazing breadth of a vast sea-view; children, squat and
+chubby, with bulging cheeks starting from the close-fitting French
+_bonnet_; and the peasant-farmers, mostly of the older varieties, whose
+stiffened or rheumatic knees and knotty hands made their kneeling real
+acts of devotional zeal. There were a dozen such altars and groups
+scattered over the perpendicular slant of the hill. The singing of the
+choir-boys, rising like skylark notes into the clear space of heaven,
+would be floating from one rocky-nested chapel, while below, in the one
+beneath which we, for a moment, were resting, there would be the
+groaning murmur of the peasant groups in prayer.
+
+All day little processions were going up and down the steep stone steps
+that lead from fortified rock to parish church, and from the town to
+the abbatial gateway. The banners and the choir-boys, the priests in
+their embroideries and lace, the peasants in cap and blouse, were
+incessantly mounting and descending, standing on rock edges, caught for
+an instant between a medley of perpendicular roofs, of giant gateways,
+and a long perspective of fortified walls, only to be lost in the curve
+of a bastion, or a flying buttress, that, in their turn, would be found
+melting into a distant sea-view.
+
+All the hours of a pilgrimage, we discovered, were not given to prayer;
+nor yet is an incessant bowing at the shrine of St. Michel the sole
+other diversion in a true pilgrim's round of pious devotions. Later on
+in this eventful day, we stumbled on a somewhat startling variation to
+the penitential order of the performances. In a side alley, beneath a
+friendly overhanging rock and two protecting roof-eaves, an acrobat was
+making her professional toilet. When she emerged to lay a worn strip of
+carpet on the rough cobbles of the street, she presented a pathetic
+figure in the gold of the afternoon sun. She was old and wrinkled; the
+rouge would no longer stick to the sunken cheeks; the wrinkles were
+become clefts; the shrunken but still muscular legs were clad in a pair
+of tights, a very caricature of the silken webs that must once have
+encased the poor old creature's limbs, for these were knitted of the
+coarse thread the commonest peasant uses for the rough field stocking.
+Over these obviously home-made coverings was a single skirt of azure
+tarlatan, plentifully besprinkled with golden stars. The gossamer skirt
+and its spangles turned, for their _début_, a somersault in the air,
+and the knitted tights took strange leaps from the bars of a rude
+trapeze. The groups of peasants were soon thicker about this spectacle
+than they had gathered about the improvised altars. All the men
+who had passed the day in the taverns came out at the sound of the
+hoarse cracked voice of the aged acrobat. As she hurled her poor old
+twisted shape from swinging bar to pole, she cried aloud, "_Ah,
+messieurs, essayez ça seulement!_" The men's hands, when she had
+landed on her feet after an uncommonly venturous whirl of the blue
+skirts in mid-air, came out of their deep pockets; but they seasoned
+their applause with coarse jokes which they flung, with a cruel relish,
+into the pitifully-aged face. A cracked accordion and a jingling
+tambourine were played by two hardened-looking ruffians, seated on
+their heels beneath a window--a discordant music that could not drown
+the noise of the peasants' derisive laughter. But the latter's pennies
+rattled a louder jingle into the ancient acrobat's tin cup than it had
+into the priest's green netted contribution box.
+
+"No, madame, as for us, we do not care for pilgrimages," was Madame
+Poulard's verdict on such survivals of past religious enthusiasms. And
+she seasoned her comments with an enlightening shrug. "We see too well
+how they end. The men go home dead drunk, the women are dropping with
+fatigue, _et les enfants même se grisent de cidre!_ No; pilgrimages are
+bad for everyone. The priests should not allow them."
+
+This was at the end of the day, after the black and blue swarm had
+passed, a weary, uncertain-footed throng, down the long street, to take
+its departure along the dike. At the very end of the straggling
+procession came the three acrobats; they had begged, or bought, a drive
+across the dike from some of the pilgrims. The lady of the knitted
+tights, in her conventional skirts and womanly fichu, was scarcely
+distinguishable from the peasant women who eyed her askance; though
+decently garbed now, they looked at her as if she were some plague or
+vice walking in their midst.
+
+The verdict of Madame Poulard seemed to be the verdict of all Mont St.
+Michel. The whole town was abroad that evening, on its doorsteps and in
+its garden beds, repairing the ravages committed by the band of the
+pilgrims. Never had the town, as a town, been so dirty; never had the
+street presented so shocking a collection of abominations; never had
+flowers and shrubs been so mercilessly robbed and plundered--these were
+the comments that flowed as freely as the water that was rained over
+the dusty cobbles, thick with refuse of luncheon and the shreds of torn
+skirts and of children's socks.
+
+At any hour of the day, of even an ordinary, uneventful day, to take a
+walk in the town is to encounter a surprise at every turning. Would you
+call it a town--this one straggling street that begins in a King's
+gateway and ends--ah, that is the point, just where does it end? I, for
+one, was never once quite certain at just what precise point this one
+single Mont St. Michel street stopped--lost itself, in a word, and
+became something else. That was also true of so many other things on
+the hill; all objects had such an astonishing way of suddenly becoming
+something else. A house, for example, that you had passed on your
+upward walk, had a beguiling air of sincerity. It had its cellar
+beneath the street front like any other properly built house; it
+continued its growth upward, showing the commonplace features of a
+door, of so many windows--queerly spaced, and of an amazing variety of
+shapes, but still unmistakably windows. Then, assured of so much
+integrity of character, you looked to see the roof covering the house,
+and instead-like the eggs in a Chinese juggler's fingers, that are
+turned in a jiffy into a growing plant--behold the roof miraculously
+transformed into a garden, or lost in a rampart, or, with quite
+shameless effrontery, playing deserter, and serving as the basement of
+another and still fairer dwelling. That was a sample of the way all
+things played you the trick of surprise on this hill. Stairways began
+on the cobbles of the streets, only to lose themselves in a side wall;
+a turn on the ramparts would land you straight into the privacy of a
+St. Michelese interior, with an entire household, perchance, at the
+mercy of your eye, taken at the mean disadvantage of morning
+dishabille. As for doors that flew open where you looked to find a
+bastion; or a school--house that flung all the Michelese _voyous_ over
+the tops of the ramparts at play-time; or of fishwives that sprung, as
+full-armed in their kit as Minerva from her sire's brows, from the very
+forehead of fortified places; or of beds and settees and wardrobes
+(surely no Michelese has ever been able, successfully, to maintain in
+secret the ghost of a family skeleton!) into which you were innocently
+precipitated on your way to discover the minutest of all
+cemeteries--these were all commonplace occurrences once your foot was
+set on this Hill of Surprises.
+
+There are two roads that lead one to the noble mass of buildings
+crowning the hill. One may choose the narrow street with its moss-grown
+steps, its curves, and turns; or one may have the broader path along
+the ramparts, with its glorious outlook over land and sea. Whichever
+approach one chooses, one passes at last beneath the great doors of the
+Barbican.
+
+Three times did the vision of St. Michel appear to Saint Aubert, in his
+dream, commanding the latter to erect a church on the heights of Mont
+St. Michel to his honor. How many a time must the modern pilgrim
+traverse the stupendous mass that has grown out of that command before
+he is quite certain that the splendor of Mont St. Michel is real, and
+not a part of a dream! Whether one enters through the dark magnificence
+of the great portals of the Châtelet; whether one mounts the fortified
+stairway, passing into the Salle des Gardes, passing onward from
+dungeon to fortified bridge, to gain the abbatial residence; whether
+one leaves the vaulted splendor of oratories for aerial passage-ways,
+only to emerge beneath the majestic roof of the Cathedral--that marvel
+of the early Norman, ending in the Gothic choir of the fifteenth
+century; or, as one penetrates into the gloom of the mighty dungeons
+where heroes and the brothers of kings, and saints and scientists have
+died their long death--as one gropes through the black night of the
+Crypt, where a faint, mysterious glint of light falls aslant the
+mystical face of the Black Virgin; as one climbs to the light beneath
+the ogive arches of the Aumônerie, through the wide-lit aisles of the
+Salle des Chevaliers, past the slender Gothic columns of the Refectory,
+up at last to the crowning glory of all the glories of La Merveille, to
+the exquisitely beautiful colonnades of the open Cloister the
+impressions and emotions excited by these ecclesiastical and military
+masterpieces are ever the same, however many times one may pass them in
+review. A charm, indefinable, but replete with subtle attractions,
+lurks in every one of these dungeons. The great halls have a power to
+make one retraverse their space, I have yet to find under other vaulted
+chambers. The grass that is set, like a green jewel, in the arabesques
+of the Cloister, is a bit of greensward the feet press with a different
+tread to that which skips lightly over other strips of turf. And the
+world, that one looks out upon through prison bars, that is so
+gloriously arched in the arm of a flying buttress, or that lies prone
+at your feet from the dizzy heights of the rock clefts, is not the
+world in which you, daily, do your petty stretch of toil, in which you
+laugh and ache, sorrow, sigh, and go down to your grave in. The secret
+of this deep attraction may lie in the fact of one's being in a world
+that is built on a height. Much, doubtless, of the charm lies, also, in
+the reminders of all the human life that, since the early dawn of
+history, has peopled this hill. One has the sense of living at
+tremendously high mental pressure; of impressions, emotions, sensations
+crowding upon the mind; of one's whole meagre outfit of memory, of
+poetic equipment, and of imaginative furnishing, being unequal to the
+demand made by even the most hurried tour of the great buildings, or
+the most flitting review of the noble massing of the clouds and the
+hilly seas.
+
+The very emptiness and desolation of all the buildings on the hill help
+to accentuate their splendor. The stage is magnificently set; the
+curtain, even, is lifted. One waits for the coming on of kingly shapes,
+for the pomp of trumpets, for the pattering of a mighty host. But,
+behold, all is still. And one sits and sees only a shadowy company pass
+and repass across that glorious _mise-en-scène._ For, in a certain
+sense, I know no other mediaeval mass of buildings as peopled as are
+these. The dead shapes seem to fill the vast halls. The Salle des
+Chevaliers is crowded, daily, with a brilliant gathering of knights,
+who sweep the trains of their white damask mantles, edged with ermine,
+over the dulled marble of the floor; two by two they enter the hall;
+the golden shells on their mantles make the eyes blink, as the groups
+gather about the great chimneys, or wander through the column-broken
+space. Behind this dazzling _cortège_, up the steep steps of the narrow
+street, swarm other groups--the mediaeval pilgrim host that rushes into
+the cathedral aisles, and that climbs the ramparts to watch the stately
+procession as it makes its way toward the church portals. There are
+still other figures that fill every empty niche and deserted
+watch-tower. Through the lancet windows of the abbatial gateways the
+yeomanry of the vassal villages are peering; it is the weary time of
+the Hundred Years' War, and all France is watching, through sentry
+windows, for the approach of her dread enemy. On the shifting sands
+below, as on brass, how indelibly fixed are the names of the hundred
+and twenty-nine knights whose courage drove, step by step, over that
+treacherous surface, the English invaders back to their island
+strongholds. Will you have a less stormy and belligerent company to
+people the hill? In the quieter days of the fourteenth century, on any
+bright afternoon, you could have sat beside some friendly artist-monk,
+and watched him color and embellish those wondrous missals that made
+the manuscripts of the Brothers famous throughout France. Earlier yet,
+in those naive centuries, Robert de Torigny, that "bouche des Papes,"
+would doubtless have discoursed to you on any subject dear to this
+"counsellor of kings"--on books, or architecture, or the science of
+fortifications, or on the theology of Lanfranc; from the helmeted
+locks of Rollon to the veiled tresses of the lovely Tiphaine Raguenel,
+Duguesclin's wife; from the ghastly rat-eaten body of the Dutch
+journalist, who offended that tyrant King, Louis XIV., to the
+Revolutionary heroes, as pitilessly doomed to an odious death under the
+gentle Louis Philippe--there is no shape or figure in French history
+which cannot be summoned at will to refill either a dungeon or a palace
+chamber at Mont St. Michel.
+
+Even in these, our modern days, one finds strange relics of past
+fashions in thought and opinion. The various political, religious, and
+ethical forms of belief to be met with in a fortnight's sojourn on the
+hill, give one a sense of having passed in review a very complete
+gallery of ancient and modern portraits of men's minds. In time one
+learns to traverse even a dozen or more centuries with ease. To be in
+the dawn of the eleventh century in the morning; at high noon to be in
+the flood-tide of the fifteenth; and, as the sun dipped, to hear the
+last word of our own dying century--such were the flights across the
+abysmal depths of time Charm and I took again and again.
+
+One of our chosen haunts was in a certain watch-tower. From its top
+wall, the loveliest prospect of Mont St. Michel was to be enjoyed. Day
+after day and sunset after sunset, we sat out the hours there. Again
+and again the world, as it passed, came and took its seat beside us.
+Pilgrims of the devout and ardent type would stop, perchance, would
+proffer a preliminary greeting, would next take their seat along the
+parapet, and, quite unconsciously, would end by sitting for their
+portrait. One such sitter, I remember, was clad in carmine crepe shawl;
+she was bonneted in the shape of a long-ago decade. She had climbed
+the hill in the morning before dawn, she said; she had knelt in prayer
+as the sun rose. For hers was a pilgrimage made in fulfilment of a vow.
+St. Michel had granted her wish, and she in return had brought her
+prayers to his shrine.
+
+"Ah, mesdames! how good is God! How greatly He rewards a little self-
+sacrifice. Figure to yourselves the Mont in the early mists, with the
+sun rising out of the sea and the hills. I was on my knees, up there. I
+had eaten nothing since yesterday at noon. I was full of the Holy
+Ghost. When the sun broke at last, it was God Himself in all His glory
+come down to earth! The whole earth seemed to be listening--_prêtait
+l'oreille_--and with the great stillness, and the sea, and the light
+breaking everywhere, it was as if I were being taken straight up into
+Paradise. Saint Michel himself must have been supporting me."
+
+The carmine crepe shawl covered a poet, you see, as well as a devotee.
+
+Up yonder, in the little shops and stalls tucked away within the walls
+of the Barbican, a lively traffic, for many a century now, has been
+going on in relics and _plombs de pèlerinage_. Some of these mediaeval
+impressions have been unearthed in strange localities, in the bed of
+the Seine, as far away as Paris. Rude and archaic are many of these
+early essays in the sculptor's art. But they preserve for us, in quaint
+intensity, the fervor of adoration which possessed that earlier, more
+devout time and period. On the mind of this nineteenth century pilgrim,
+the same lovely old forms of belief and superstition were imprinted as
+are still to be seen in some of those winged figures of St. Michel,
+with feet securely set on the back of the terrible dragon, staring,
+with triumphant gaze, through stony or leaden eyes.
+
+On the evening of the pilgrimage our friend, the Parisian, joined us on
+our high perch. The Mont seemed strangely quiet after the noise and
+confusion the peasants had brought in their train. The Parisian, like
+ourselves, had been glad to escape into the upper heights of the wide
+air, after the bustle and hurry of the day at our inn.
+
+"You permit me, mesdames?" He had lighted his after-dinner cigar; he
+went on puffing, having gained our consent. He curled a leg comfortably
+about the railings of a low bridge connecting a house that sprang out
+of a rock, with the rampart. Below, there was a clean drop of a few
+hundred feet, more or less. In spite of the glories of a spectacular
+sunset, yielding ceaseless changes and transformations of cloud and sea
+tones, the words of Madame Poulard alone had power to possess our
+companion. She had uttered her protest against the pilgrimage, as she
+had swept the Parisian's _pousse-café_ from his elbow. He took up the
+conversation where it had been dropped.
+
+"It is amusing to hear Madame Poulard talk of the priests stopping the
+pilgrimages! The priests? Why, that's all they have left them to live
+upon now. These peasants' are the only pockets in which they can fumble
+nowadays."
+
+"All the same, one can't help being grateful to those peasants,"
+retorted Charm. "They are the only creatures who have made these things
+seem to have any meaning. How dead it all seems! The abbey, the
+cloisters, the old prisons, the fortifications, it is like wandering
+through a splendid tomb!
+
+"Yes, as the curé said yesterday, '_l'âme n'y est plus_,'--since the
+priests have been dislodged, it is the house of the dead."
+
+"The priests"--the Parisian snorted at the very sound of the
+word--"they have only themselves to blame. They would have been
+here still, if they had not so abused their power."
+
+"How did they abuse it?" Charm asked.
+
+"In every possible way. I am, myself, not of the country. But my
+brother was stationed here for some years, when the Mont was
+garrisoned. The priests were in full possession then, and they
+conducted a lively commerce, mademoiselle. The Mont was turned into a
+show--to see it or any part of it, everyone had to pay toll. On the
+great fête-days, when St. Michel wore his crown, the gold ran like
+water into the monks' treasury. It was still then a fashionable
+religious fad to have a mass said for one's dead, out here among the
+clouds and the sea. Well, try to imagine fifty masses all dumped on the
+altar together; that is, one mass would be scrambled through, no names
+would be mentioned, no one save _le bon Dieu_ himself knew for whom it
+was being said; but fifty or more believed they had bought it, since
+they had paid for it. And the priests laughed in their sleeves, and
+then sat down, comfortably, to count the gold. Ah, mesdames, those
+were, literally, the golden days of the priesthood! What with the
+pilgrimages, and the sale of relics, and _les benefices_--together with
+the charges for seeing the wonders of the Mont--what a trade they did!
+It is only the Jews, who, in their turn, now own us, up in Paris, who
+can equal the priests as commercial geniuses!" And our pessimistic
+Parisian, during the next half-hour, gave us a prophetic picture of the
+approaching ruin of France, brought about by the genius for plunder and
+organization that is given to the sons of Moses.
+
+Following the Parisian, a figure, bent and twisted, opened a door in a
+side-wall, and took his seat beside us. One became used, in time, to
+these sudden appearances; to vanish down a chimney, or to emerge from
+the womb of a rock, or to come up from the bowels of what earth there
+was to be found--all such exits and entrances became as commonplace as
+all the other extraordinary phases of one's life on the hill. This
+particular shape had emerged from a hut, carved, literally, out of the
+side of the rock; but, for a hut, it was amazingly snug--as we could
+see for ourselves; for the venerable shape hospitably opened the low
+wooden door, that we might see how much of a home could be made out of
+the side of a rock. Only, when one had been used to a guard-room, and
+to great and little dungeons, and to a rattling of keys along dark
+corridors, a hut, and the blaze of the noon sun, were trying things to
+endure, as the shape, with a shrug, gave us to understand.
+
+"You see, mesdames, I was jailor here, years ago, when all La Merveille
+was a prison. Ah! those were great days for the Mont! There were
+soldiers and officers who came up to look at the soldiers, and the
+soldiers--it was their business to look after the prisoners. The
+Emperor himself came here once--I saw him. What a sight!--Dieu! all the
+monks and priests and nuns, and the archbishop himself were out. What
+banners and crosses and flags! The cannon was like a great thunder--and
+the grève was red with soldiers. Ah, those were days! Dieu--why
+couldn't the republic have continued those glories--_ces gloires?
+Aujourd'hui nous ne sommes que des morts_--instead of prisoners to
+handle--to watch and work, like so many good machines there is only the
+dike yonder to keep in repair! What changes--mon Dieu! what changes!"
+And the shape wrung his hands. It was, in truth, a touching spectacle
+of grief for a good old past.
+
+An old priest, with equally saddened vision, once came to take his
+seat, quite easily and naturally, beside us, on our favorite perch. He
+was one of the little band of priests who had remained faithful to the
+Mont after the government had dispersed his brothers--after the
+monastery had been broken up. He and his four or five companions had
+taken refuge in a small house, close by the cemetery; it was they who
+conducted the services in the little parish church; who had gathered
+the treasures still grouped together in that little interior--the
+throne of St. Michel, with its blue draperies and the golden
+fleur-de-lis, the floating banners and the shields of the Knights of
+St. Michel, the relics, and wondrous bits of carving rescued from the
+splendors of the cathedral.
+
+"_Ah, mesdames--que voulez-vous?_" was the old priest's broken chant;
+he was bewailing the woes that had come to his order, to religion, to
+France. "What will you have? The history of nations repeats itself, as
+we all know. We, of our day, are fallen on evil times; it is the reign
+of image-breakers--nothing is sacred, except money."
+
+"France has worn herself out. She is like an old man, the hero of many
+battles, who cares only for his easy chair and his slippers. She does
+not care about the children who are throwing stones at the windows. She
+likes to snooze, in the sun, and count her money-bags. France is too
+old to care about religion, or the future--she is thinking how best to
+be comfortable--here in this world, when she has rheumatism and a cramp
+in the stomach!" And the old priest wrapped his own _soutane_ about his
+lean knees, suiting his gesture to his inward convictions.
+
+Was the priest's summary the last word of truth about modern France? On
+the sands that lay below at our feet, we read a different answer.
+
+The skies were still brilliantly lighted. The actual twilight had not
+come yet, with its long, deep glow, a passion of color that had a
+longer life up here on the heights than when seen from a lower level.
+This twilight hour was always a prolonged moment of transfiguration for
+the Mont.
+
+The very last evening of our stay, we chose this as the loveliest light
+in which to see the last of the hill. On that evening, I remember, the
+reds and saffrons in the sky were of an astonishing richness. The sea
+wall, the bastions, the faces of the great rocks, the yellow broom that
+sprang from the clefts therein, were dyed as in a carmine bath. In that
+mighty glow of color, all things took on something of their old, their
+stupendous splendor. The giant walls were paved with brightness. The
+town, climbing the hill, assumed the proportions of a mighty citadel;
+the forest tree-tops were prismatic, emerald balls flung beneath the
+illumined Merveille; and the Cathedral was set in a daffodil frame; its
+aerial _escalier de dentelle_, like Jacob's ladder, led one easily
+heavenward. The circling birds, in the lace-work of the spiral finials,
+sang their night songs, as the glow in the sky changed, softened,
+deepened.
+
+This was the world that was in the west.
+
+Toward the east, on the flat surface of the sands, this world cast a
+strange and wondrous shadow. Jagged rocks, a pyramidal city, a Gothic
+cathedral in mid-air--behold the rugged outlines of Mont St. Michel
+carving their giant features on the shifting, sensitive surface of the
+mirroring sands.
+
+In the little pools and the trickling rivers, the fishermen--from this
+height, Liliputians grappling with Liliputian meshes--were setting
+their nets for the night. Across the river-beds, peasant women and
+fishwives, with bared legs and baskets clasped to their bending backs,
+appeared and disappeared--shapes that emerged into the light only to
+vanish into the gulf of the night.
+
+In was in these pictures that we read our answer.
+
+Like Mont St. Michel, so has France carried into the heights of history
+her glory and her power. On every century, she, like this world in
+miniature, has also cast her shadow, dwarfing some, illuminating
+others. And, as on those distant sands the toiling shapes of the
+fishermen are to be seen, early and late, in summer and winter, so can
+France point to her people, whose industry and amazing talent for toil
+have made her, and maintain her, great.
+
+Some of these things we have learned, since, in Normandy Inns, we have
+sat at meat with her peasants, and have grown to be friends with her
+fishwives.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, IN AND OUT OF THREE NORMADY INNS ***
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