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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2159.txt b/2159.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd6f7e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/2159.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8650 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext A Little Tour In France, by Henry James +#20 in our series by Henry James + + +******************************************************************* +THIS EBOOK WAS ONE OF PROJECT GUTENBERG'S EARLY FILES PRODUCED AT A +TIME WHEN PROOFING METHODS AND TOOLS WERE NOT WELL DEVELOPED. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Nigel Lacey, Leicestershire, UK. +Email comments to: laceynr@hotmail.com + + + + + +A Little Tour In France + +by Henry James, + + + + +We good Americans - I say it without presumption +- are too apt to think that France is Paris, just as we +are accused of being too apt to think that Paris is the +celestial city. This is by no means the case, fortun- +ately for those persons who take an interest in modern +Gaul, and yet are still left vaguely unsatisfied by that +epitome of civilization which stretches from the Arc +de Triomphe to the Gymnase theatre. It had already +been intimated to the author of these light pages that +there are many good things in the _doux pays de France_ +of which you get no hint in a walk between those +ornaments of the capital; but the truth had been re- +vealed only in quick-flashing glimpses, and he was +conscious of a desire to look it well in the face. To +this end he started, one rainy morning in mid-Septem- +ber, for the charming little city of Tours, from which +point it seemed possible to make a variety of fruitful +excursions. His excursions resolved themselves ulti- +mately into a journey through several provinces, - a +journey which had its dull moments (as one may defy +any journey not to have), but which enabled him to feel +that his proposition was demonstrated. France may +be Paris, but Paris is not France; that was perfectly +evident on the return to the capital. + +I must not speak, however, as if I had discovered +the provinces. They were discovered, or at least re- +vealed by BaIzac, if by any one, and are now easily +accessible to visitors. It is true, I met no visitors, or +only one or two, whom it was pleasant to meet. +Throughout my little tour I was almost the only tourist. +That is perhaps one reason why it was so successful. + + + +I. + +I am ashamed to begin with saying that Touraine +is the garden of France; that remark has long ago lost +its bloom. The town of Tours, however, has some +thing sweet and bright, which suggests that it is sur- +rounded by a land of fruits. It is a very agreeable +little city; few towns of its size are more ripe, more +complete, or, I should suppose, in better humor with +themselves and less disposed to envy the responsibili- +ties of bigger places. It is truly the capital of its smil- +ing province; a region of easy abundance, of good +living, of genial, comfortable, optimistic, rather indolent +opinions. Balzac says in one of his tales that the real +Tourangeau will not make an effort, or displace him- +self even, to go in search of a pleasure; and it is not +difficult to understand the sources of this amiable +cynicism. He must have a vague conviction that he +can only lose by almost any change. Fortune has +been kind to him: he lives in a temperate, reasonable, +sociable climate, on the banks, of a river which, it is +true, sometimes floods the country around it, but of +which the ravages appear to be so easily repaired that +its aggressions may perhaps be regarded (in a region +where so many good things are certain) merely as an +occasion for healthy suspense. He is surrounded by +fine old traditions, religious, social, architectural, culi- +nary; and he may have the satisfaction of feeling that +he is French to the core. No part of his admirable +country is more characteristically national. Normandy +is Normandy, Burgundy is Burgundy, Provence is Pro- +vence; but Touraine is essentially France. It is the +land of Rabelais, of Descartes, of Balzac, of good +books and good company, as well as good dinners and +good houses. George Sand has somewhere a charm- +ing passage about the mildness, the convenient quality, +of the physical conditions of central France, - "son +climat souple et chaud, ses pluies abondantes et courtes." +In the autumn of 1882 the rains perhaps were less +short than abundant; but when the days were fine it +was impossible that anything in the way of weather +could be more charming. The vineyards and orchards +looked rich in the fresh, gay light; cultivation was +everywhere, but everywhere it seemed to be easy. +There was no visible poverty; thrift and success pre- +sented themselves as matters of good taste. The white +caps of the women glittered in the sunshire, and their +well-made sabots clicked cheerfully on the hard, clean +roads. Touraine is a land of old chateaux, - a gallery +of architectural specimens and of large hereditary pro- +perties. The peasantry have less of the luxury of +ownership than in most other parts of France; though +they have enough of it to give them quite their share +of that shrewdly conservative look which, in the little, +chaffering, _place_ of the market-town, the stranger ob- +serves so often in the wrinkled brown masks that sur- +mount the agricultural blouse. This is, moreover, the +heart of the old French monarchy; and as that monarchy +was splendid and picturesque, a reflection of the splen- +dor still glitters in the current of the Loire. Some of +the most striking events of French history have occurred +on the banks of that river, and the soil it waters +bloomed for a while with the flowering of the Renais- +sance. The Loire gives a great "style" to a landscape +of which the features are not, as the phrase is, promi- +nent, and carries the eye to distances even more poetic +than the green horizons of Touraine. It is a very fit- +ful stream, and is sometimes observed to run thin and +expose all the crudities of its channel, - a great defect +certainly in a river which is so much depended upon +to give an air to the places it waters. But I speak of +it as I saw it last; full, tranquil, powerful, bending in +large slow curves, and sending back half the light of +the sky. Nothing can be finer than the view of its +course which you get from the battlements and ter- +races of Amboise. As I looked down on it from that +elevation one lovely Sunday morning, through a mild +glitter of autumn sunshine, it seemed the very model +of a generous, beneficent stream. The most charming +part of Tours is naturally the shaded quay that over- +looks it, and looks across too at the friendly faubourg +of Saint Symphorien and at the terraced heights which +rise above this. Indeed, throughout Touraine, it is +half the charm of the Loire that you can travel beside +it. The great dike which protects it, or, protects the +country from it, from Blois to Angers, is an admirable +road; and on the other side, as well, the highway con- +stantly keeps it company. A wide river, as you follow +a wide road, is excellent company; it heightens and +shortens the way. + +The inns at Tours are in another quarter, and one +of them, which is midway between the town and the +station, is very good. It is worth mentioning for the +fact that every one belonging to it is extraordinarily +polite, - so unnaturally polite as at first to excite your +suspicion that the hotel has some hidden vice, so that +the waiters and chambermaids are trying to pacify +you in advance. There was one waiter in especial who +was the most accomplished social being I have ever +encountered; from morning till night he kept up an +inarticulate murmur of urbanity, like the hum of a +spinning-top. I may add that I discovered no dark +secrets at the Hotel de l'Univers; for it is not a secret +to any traveller to-day that the obligation to partake +of a lukewarm dinner in an overheated room is as +imperative as it is detestable. For the rest, at Tours, +there is a certain Rue Royale which has pretensions +to the monumental; it was constructed a hundred +years ago, and the houses, all alike, have on a +moderate scale a pompous eighteenth-century look. It +connects the Palais de Justice, the most important +secular building in the town, with the long bridge +which spans the Loire, - the spacious, solid bridge +pronounced by Balzac, in "Le Cure de Tours," "one of +the finest monuments of French architecture." The +Palais de Justice was the seat of the Government of +Leon Gambetta in the autumn of 1870, after the +dictator had been obliged to retire in his balloon from +Paris, and before the Assembly was constituted at +Bordeaux. The Germans occupied Tours during that +terrible winter; it is astonishing, the number of +places the Germans occupied. It is hardly too much +to say that wherever one goes in, certain parts of +France, one encounters two great historic facts: one +is the Revolution; the other is the German invasion. +The traces of the Revolution remain in a hundred +scars and bruises and mutilations, but the visible +marks of the war of 1870 have passed away. The +country is so rich, so living, that she has been able to +dress her wounds, to hold up her head, to smile again; +so that the shadow of that darkness has ceased to rest +upon her. But what you do not see you still may +hear; and one remembers with a certain shudder that +only a few short years ago this province, so intimately +French, was under the heel of a foreign foe. To be +intimately French was apparently not a safeguard; for +so successful an invader it could only be a challenge. +Peace and plenty, however, have succeeded that +episode; and among the gardens and vineyards of +Touraine it seems, only a legend the more in a country +of legends. + +It was not, all the same, for the sake of this check- +ered story that I mentioned the Palais de Justice and +the Rue Royale. The most interesting fact, to my +mind, about the high-street of Tours was that as you +walked toward the bridge on the right-hand _trottoir_ +you can look up at the house, on the other side of +the way, in which Honore de Balzac first saw the +light. That violent and complicated genius was a +child of the good-humored and succulent Touraine. +There is something anomalous in the fact, though, if +one thinks about it a little, one may discover certain +correspondences between his character and that of his +native province. Strenuous, laborious, constantly in +felicitous in spite of his great successes, he suggests +at times a very different set of influences. But he had +his jovial, full-feeding side, - the side that comes out +in the "Contes Drolatiques," which are the romantic +and epicurean chronicle of the old manors and abbeys +of this region. And he was, moreover, the product +of a soil into which a great deal of history had been +trodden. Balzac was genuinely as well as affectedly +monarchical, and he was saturated with, a sense of the +past. Number 39 Rue Royale - of which the base +ment, like all the basements in the Rue Royale, is +occupied by a shop - is not shown to the public; and +I know not whether tradition designates the chamber +in which the author of "Le Lys dans la Vallee" +opened his eyes into a world in which he was to see +and to imagine such extraordinary things. If this +were the case, I would willingly have crossed its +threshold; not for the sake of any relic of the great +novelist which it may possibly contain, nor even for +that of any mystic virtue which may be supposed to +reside within its walls, but simply because to look at +those four modest walls can hardly fail to give one a +strong impression of the force of human endeavour. +Balzac, in the maturity of his vision, took in more of +human life than any one, since Shakspeare, who has +attempted to tell us stories about it; and the very +small scene on which his consciousness dawned is one +end of the immense scale that he traversed. I confess +it shocked me a little to find that he was born in a +house "in a row," - a house, moreover, which at the +date of his birth must have been only about twenty +years old. All that is contradictory. If the tenement +selected for this honour could not be ancient and em- +browned, it should at least have been detached. + +There is a charming description, in his little tale +of "La Grenadiere," of the view of the opposite side +of the Loire as you have it from the square at the end +of the Rue Royale, - a square that has some preten- +sions to grandeur, overlooked as it is by the Hotel de +Ville and the Musee, a pair of edifices which directly +contemplate the river, and ornamented with marble +images of Francois Rabelais and Rene Descartes. +The former, erected a few years since, is a very honor- +able production; the pedastal of the latter could, as +a matter of course, only be inscribed with the _Cogito +ergo Sum._ The two statues mark the two opposite +poles to which the brilliant French mind has travelled; +and if there were an effigy of Balzac at Tours, it ought +to stand midway between them. Not that he, by any +means always struck the happy mean between the +sensible and the metaphysical; but one may say of +him that half of his genius looks in one direction +and half in the other. The side that turns toward +Francois Rabelais would be, on the whole, the side +that takes the sun. But there is no statue of Balzac +at Tours; there is only, in one of the chambers of +the melancholy museum, a rather clever, coarse bust. +The description in "La Grenadiere," of which I just +spoke, is too long to quote; neither have I space for +any one of the brilliant attempts at landscape paint- +ing which are woven into the shimmering texture of +"Le Lys dans la Vallee." The little manor of Cloche- +gourde, the residence of Madame de Mortsauf, the +heroine of that extraordinary work, was within a +moderate walk of Tours, and the picture in the novel is +presumably a copy from an original which it would be +possible to-day to discover. I did not, however, even +make the attempt. There are so many chateaux in +Touraine commemorated in history, that it would take +one too far to look up those which have been com- +memorated in fiction. The most I did was to endeavor +to identify the former residence of Mademoiselle +Gamard, the sinister old maid of "Le Cure de Tours." +This terrible woman occupied a small house in the +rear of the cathedral, where I spent a whole morning +in wondering rather stupidly which house it could be. +To reach the cathedral from the little _place_ where we +stopped just now to look across at the Grenadiere, +without, it must be confessed, very vividly seeing it, +you follow the quay to the right, and pass out of sight +of the charming _coteau_ which, from beyond the river, +faces the town, - a soft agglomeration of gardens, vine- +yards, scattered villas, gables and turrets of slate- +roofed chateaux, terraces with gray balustrades, moss- +grown walls draped in scarlet Virginia-creeper. You +turn into the town again beside a great military +barrack which is ornamented with a rugged mediaeval +tower, a relic of the ancient fortifications, known to +the Tourangeaux of to-day as the Tour de Guise. +The young Prince of Joinville, son of that Duke of +Guise who was murdered by the order of Henry II. at +Blois, was, after the death of his father, confined here +for more than two years, but made his escape one +summer evening in 1591, under the nose of his keepers, +with a gallant audacity which has attached the memory +of the exploit to his sullen-looking prison. Tours has +a garrison of five regiments, and the little red-legged +soldiers light up the town. You see them stroll upon +the clean, uncommercial quay, where there are no +signs of navigation, not even by oar, no barrels nor +bales, no loading nor unloading, no masts against the +sky nor booming of steam in the air. The most active +business that goes on there is that patient and fruitless +angling in, which the French, as the votaries of art for +art, excel all other people. The little soldiers, weighed +down by the contents of their enormous pockets, pass +with respect from one of these masters of the rod to +the other,as he sits soaking an indefinite bait in the +large, indifferent stream. After you turn your back to +the quay you have only to go a little way before you +reach the cathedral. + + + +II. + +It is a very beautiful church of the second order +of importance, with a charming mouse-colored com- +plexion and a pair of fantastic towers. There is a +commodious little square in front of it, from which +you may look up at its very ornamental face; but for +purposes of frank admiration the sides and the rear +are perhaps not sufficiently detached. The cathedral +of Tours, which is dedicated to Saint Gatianus, took +a long time to build. Begun in 1170, it was finished +only in the first half of the sixteenth century; but the +ages and the weather have interfused so well the tone +of the different parts, that it presents, at first at least, +no striking incongruities, and looks even exception- +ally harmonious and complete. There are many +grander cathedrals, but there are probably few more +pleasing; and this effect of delicacy and grace is at +its best toward the close of a quiet afternoon, when the +densely decorated towers, rising above the little Place +de l'Archeveche, lift their curious lanterns into the +slanting light, and offer a multitudinous perch to +troops of circling pigeons. The whole front, at such +a time, has an appearance of great richness, although +the niches which surround the three high doors (with +recesses deep enough for several circles of sculpture) +and indent the four great buttresses that ascend beside +the huge rose-window, carry no figures beneath their +little chiselled canopies. The blast of the great Revo- +lution blew down most of the statues in France, and +the wind has never set very strongly toward putting +them up again. The embossed and crocketed cupolas +which crown the towers of Saint Gatien are not very +pure in taste; but, like a good many impurities, they +have a certain character. The interior has a stately +slimness with which no fault is to be found, and +which in the choir, rich in early glass and surrounded +by a broad passage, becomes very bold and noble. +Its principal treasure, perhaps, is the charming little tomb +of the two children (who died young) of Charles VIII. and +Anne of Brittany, in white marble, embossed with sym- +bolic dolphins and exquisite arabesques. The little +boy and girl lie side by side on a slab of black marble, +and a pair of small kneeling angels, both at their head +and at their feet, watch over them. Nothing could be +more perfect than this monument, which is the work +of Michel Colomb, one of the earlier glories of the +French Renaissance; it is really a lesson in good taste. +Originally placed in the great abbey-church of Saint +Martin, which was for so many ages the holy place of +Tours, it happily survived the devastation to which +that edifice, already sadly shattered by the wars of +religion and successive profanations, finally succumbed +in 1797. In 1815 the tomb found an asylum in a +quiet corner of the cathedral. + +I ought, perhaps, to be ashamed to acknowledge, +that I found the profane name of Balzac capable of +adding an interest even to this venerable sanctuary. +Those who have read the terrible little story of "Le +Cure de Tours" will perhaps remember that, as I +have already mentioned, the simple and childlike old +Abbe Birotteau, victim of the infernal machinations +of the Abbe Troubert and Mademoiselle Gamard, had +his quarters in the house of that lady (she had a +speciality of letting lodgings to priests), which stood +on the north side of the cathedral, so close under its +walls that the supporting pillar of one of the great +flying buttresses was planted in the spinster's garden. +If you wander round behind the church, in search of +this more than historic habitation, you will have oc- +casion to see that the side and rear of Saint Gatien +make a delectable and curious figure. A narrow lane +passes beside the high wall which conceals from sight +the palace of the archbishop, and beneath the flying +buttresses, the far-projecting gargoyles, and the fine +south porch of the church. It terminates in a little, +dead, grass-grown square entitled the Place Gregoire +de Tours. All this part of the exterior of the cathe- +dral is very brown, ancient, Gothic, grotesque; Balzac +calls the whole place "a desert of stone." A battered +and gabled wing, or out-house (as it appears to be) +of the hidden palace, with a queer old stone pulpit +jutting out from it, looks down on this melancholy +spot, on the other side of which is a seminary for +young priests, one of whom issues from a door in a +quiet corner, and, holding it open a moment behind +him, shows a glimpse of a sunny garden, where you +may fancy other black young figures strolling up and +down. Mademoiselle Gamard's house, where she took +her two abbes to board, and basely conspired with +one against the other, is still further round the cathe- +dral. You cannot quite put your hand upon it to- +day, for the dwelling which you say to yourself that +it _must_ have been Mademoiselle Gamard's does not +fulfil all the conditions mentioned in BaIzac's de- +scription. The edifice in question, however, fulfils con- +ditions enough; in particular, its little court offers +hospitality to the big buttress of the church. Another +buttress, corresponding with this (the two, between +them, sustain the gable of the north transept), is +planted in the small cloister, of which the door on the +further side of the little soundless Rue de la Psalette, +where nothing seems ever to pass, opens opposite to +that of Mademoiselle Gamard. There is a very genial +old sacristan, who introduced me to this cloister from +the church. It is very small and solitary, and much +mutilated; but it nestles with a kind of wasted friend- +liness beneath the big walls of the cathedral. Its +lower arcades have been closed, and it has a small +plot of garden in the middle, with fruit-trees which I +should imagine to be too much overshadowed. In +one corner is a remarkably picturesque turret, the +cage of a winding staircase which ascends (no great +distance) to an upper gallery, where an old priest, the +_chanoine-gardien_ of the church, was walking to and fro +with his breviary. The turret, the gallery, and even +the chanoine-gardien, belonged, that sweet September +morning, to the class of objects that are dear to paint- +ers in water-colors. + + + +III. + +I have mentioned the church of Saint Martin, +which was for many years the sacred spot, the shrine +of pilgrimage, of Tours. Originally the simple burial- +place of the great apostle who in the fourth century +Christianized Gaul, and who, in his day a brilliant +missionary and worker of miracles, is chiefly known +to modem fame as the worthy that cut his cloak in +two at the gate of Amiens to share it with a beggar +(tradition fails to say, I believe, what he did with the +other half), the abbey of Saint Martin, through the +Middle Ages, waxed rich and powerful, till it was +known at last as one of the most luxurious religious +houses in Christendom, with kings for its titular ab- +bots (who, like Francis I., sometimes turned and +despoiled it) and a great treasure of precious things. +It passed, however, through many vicissitudes. Pillaged +by the Normans in the ninth century and by the +Huguenots in the sixteenth, it received its death-blow +from the Revolution, which must have brought to +bear upon it an energy of destruction proportionate +to its mighty bulk. At the end of the last century +a huge group of ruins alone remained, and what we +see to-day may be called the ruin of a ruin. It is +difficult to understand how so vast an ediface can +have been so completely obliterated. Its site is given +up to several ugly streets, and a pair of tall towers, +separated by a space which speaks volumes as to the +size of the church, and looking across the close-pressed +roofs to the happier spires of the cathedral, preserved +for the modern world the memory of a great fortune, +a great abuse, perhaps, and at all events a great pen- +alty. One may believe that to this day a consider- +able part of the foundations of the great abbey is +buried in the soil of Tours. The two surviving towers, +which are dissimilar in shape, are enormous; with +those of the cathedral they form the great landmarks +of the town. One of them bears the name of the Tour +de l'Horloge; the other, the so-called Tour Charle- +magne, was erected (two centuries after her death) +over the tomb of Luitgarde, wife of the great Em- +peror, who died at Tours in 800. I do not pretend to +understand in what relation these very mighty and +effectually detached masses of masonry stood to each +other, but in their gray elevation and loneliness they +are striking and suggestive to-day; holding their hoary +heads far above the modern life of the town, and +looking sad and conscious, as they had outlived all +uses. I know not what is supposed to have become +of the bones of the blessed saint during the various +scenes of confusion in which they may have got mis- +laid; but a mystic connection with his wonder-working +relics may be perceived in a strange little sanctuary +on the left of the street, which opens in front of the +Tour Charlemagne, - the rugged base of which, by +the way, inhabited like a cave, with a diminutive +doorway, in which, as I passed, an old woman stood +cleaning a pot, and a little dark window decorated +with homely flowers, would be appreciated by a +painter in search of "bits." The present shrine of +Saint Martin is enclosed (provisionally, I suppose) in +a very modem structure of timber, where in a dusky +cellar, to which you descend by a wooden staircase +adorned with votive tablets and paper roses, is placed +a tabernacle surrounded by twinkling tapers and pros- +trate worshippers. Even this crepuscular vault, how- +ever, fails, I think, to attain solemnity; for the whole +place is strangely vulgar and garish. The Catholic +church, as churches go to-day, is certainly the most +spectacular; but it must feel that it has a great fund +of impressiveness to draw upon when it opens such +sordid little shops of sanctity as this. It is impos- +sible not to be struck with the grotesqueness of such +an establishment, as the last link in the chain of a +great ecclesiastical tradition. + +In the same street, on the other side, a little below, +is something better worth your visit than the shrine +of Saint Martin. Knock at a high door in a white +wall (there is a cross above it), and a fresh-faced +sister of the convent of the Petit Saint Martin will +let you into the charming little cloister, or rather +fragment of a cloister. Only one side of this exqui- +site structure remains, but the whole place is effective. +In front of the beautiful arcade, which is terribly +bruised and obliterated, is one of those walks of inter- +laced _tilleuls_ which are so frequent in Touraine, and +into which the green light filters so softly through a +lattice of clipped twigs. Beyond this is a garden, +and beyond the garden are the other buildings of the +Convent, - where the placid sisters keep a school, - a +test, doubtless, of placidity. The imperfect arcade, +which dates from the beginning of the sixteenth cen- +tury (I know nothing of it but what is related in Mrs. +Pattison's "Rennaissance in France") is a truly en- +chanting piece of work; the cornice and the angles of +the arches, being covered with the daintiest sculpture +of arabesques, flowers, fruit, medallions, cherubs, griffins, +all in the finest and most attenuated relief. It is like +the chasing of a bracelet in stone. The taste, the +fancy, the elegance, the refinement, are of those things +which revive our standard of the exquisite. Such +a piece of work is the purest flower of the French +Renaissance; there is nothing more delicate in all +Touraine. + +There is another fine thing at Tours which is not +particularly delicate, but which makes a great impres- +sion, - the- very interesting old church of Saint Julian, +lurking in a crooked corner at the right of the Rue +Royale, near the point at which this indifferent thorough- +fare emerges, with its little cry of admiration, on the +bank of the Loire. Saint Julian stands to-day in a +kind of neglected hollow, where it is much shut in by +houses; but in the year 1225, when the edifice was +begun, the site was doubtless, as the architects say, +more eligible. At present, indeed, when once you have +caught a glimpse of the stout, serious Romanesque +tower, - which is not high, but strong, - you feel that +the building has something to say, and that you must +stop to listen to it. Within, it has a vast and splendid +nave, of immense height, - the nave of a cathedral, - +with a shallow choir and transepts, and some admir- +able old glass. I spent half an hour there one morn- +ing, listening to what the church had to say, in perfect +solitude. Not a worshipper entered, - not even an old +man with a broom. I have always thought there is a +sex in fine buildings; and Saint Julian, with its noble +nave, is of the gender of the name of its patron. + +It was that same morning, I think, that I went in +search of the old houses of Tours; for the town con- +tains several goodly specimens of the domestic archi- +tecture of the past. The dwelling to which the average +Anglo-Saxon will most promptly direct his steps, and +the only one I have space to mention, is the so-called +Maison de Tristan l'Hermite, - a gentleman whom the +readers of "Quentin Durward" will not have forgotten, +- the hangman-in-ordinary to the great King Louis XI. +Unfortunately the house of Tristan is not the house of +Tristan at all; this illusion has been cruelly dispelled. +There are no illusions left, at all, in the good city of +Tours, with regard to Louis XI. His terrible castle of +Plessis, the picture of which sends a shiver through +the youthful reader of Scott, has been reduced to sub- +urban insignificance; and the residence of his _triste +compere,_ on the front of which a festooned rope figures +as a motive for decoration, is observed to have been +erected in the succeeding century. The Maison de +Tristan may be visited for itself, however, if not for +Walter Scott; it is an exceedingly picturesque old +facade, to which you pick your way through a narrow +and tortuous street, - a street terminating, a little be- +yond it, in the walk beside the river. An elegant +Gothic doorway is let into the rusty-red brick-work, +and strange little beasts crouch at the angles of the +windows, which are surmounted by a tall graduated +gable, pierced with a small orifice, where the large +surface of brick, lifted out of the shadow of the street, +looks yellow and faded. The whole thing is disfigured +and decayed; but it is a capital subject for a sketch +in colors. Only I must wish the sketcher better luck +- or a better temper - than my own. If he ring the +bell to be admitted to see the court, which I believe +is more sketchable still, let him have patience to wait +till the bell is answered. He can do the outside while +they are coming. + +The Maison de Tristan, I say, may be visited for +itself; but I hardly know what the remnants of Plessis- +les-Tours may be visited for. To reach them you +wander through crooked suburban lanes, down the +course of the Loire, to a rough, undesirable, incon- +gruous spot, where a small, crude building of red +brick is pointed out to you by your cabman (if you +happen to drive) as the romantic abode of a super- +stitious king, and where a strong odor of pigsties and +other unclean things so prostrates you for the moment +that you have no energy to protest against the obvious +fiction. You enter a yard encumbered with rubbish +and a defiant dog, and an old woman emerges from a +shabby lodge and assures you that you are indeed in +an historic place. The red brick building, which looks +like a small factory, rises on the ruins of the favorite +residence of the dreadful Louis. It is now occupied +by a company of night-scavengers, whose huge carts +are drawn up in a row before it. I know not whether +this be what is called the irony of fate; at any rate, +the effect of it is to accentuate strongly the fact (and +through the most susceptible of our senses) that there +is no honor for the authors of great wrongs. The +dreadful Louis is reduced simply to an offence to the +nostrils. The old woman shows you a few fragments, +- several dark, damp, much-encumbered vaults, de- +nominated dungeons, and an old tower staircase, +in good condition. There are the outlines of the old +moat; there is also the outline of the old guard-room, +which is now a stable; and there are other vague out- +lines and inconsequent lumps, which I have forgotten. +You need all your imagination, and even then you +cannot make out that Plessis was a castle of large ex- +tent, though the old woman, as your eye wanders over +the neighboring _potagers,_ talks a good deal about the +gardens and the park. The place looks mean and +flat; and as you drive away you scarcely know whether +to be glad or sorry that all those bristling horrors have +been reduced to the commonplace. + +A certain flatness of impression awaits you also, I +think, at Marmoutier, which is the other indisuensable +excursion in the near neighborhood of Tours. The +remains of this famous abbey lie on the other bank of +the stream, about a mile and a half from the town. +You follow the edge of the big brown river; of a fine +afternoon you will be glad to go further still. The +abbey has gone the way of most abbeys; but the place +is a restoration as well as a ruin, inasmuch as the +sisters of the Sacred Heart have erected a terribly +modern convent here. A large Gothic doorway, in a +high fragment of ancient wall, admits you to a garden- +like enclosure, of great extent, from which you are +further introduced into an extraordinarily tidy little +parlor, where two good nuns sit at work. One of these +came out with me, and showed me over the place, - +a very definite little woman, with pointed features, an +intensely distinct enunciation, and those pretty man- +ners which (for whatever other teachings it may be +responsible) the Catholic church so often instils into +its functionaries. I have never seen a woman who had +got her lesson better than this little trotting, murmur- +ing, edifying nun. The interest, of Marmoutier to-day +is not so much an interest of vision, so to speak, as an +interest of reflection, - that is, if you choose to reflect +(for instance) upon the wondrous legend of the seven +sleepers (you may see where they lie in a row), who +lived together - they were brothers and cousins - in +primitive piety, in the sanctuary constructed by the +blessed Saint Martin (emulous of his precursor, Saint +Gatianus), in the face of the hillside that overhung the +Loire, and who, twenty-five years after his death, +yielded up their seven souls at the same moment, and +enjoyed the curious privilege of retaining in their faces, +in spite of this process, the rosy tints of life. The +abbey of Marmoutier, which sprung from the grottos in +the cliff to which Saint Gatianus and Saint Martin re- +tired to pray, was therefore the creation of the latter +worthy, as the other great abbey, in the town proper, +was the monument of his repose. The cliff is still +there; and a winding staircase, in the latest taste, en- +ables you conveniently to explore its recesses. These +sacred niches are scooped out of the rock, and will +give you an impression if you cannot do without one. +You will feel them to be sufficiently venerable when +you learn that the particular pigeon-hole of Saint +Gatianus, the first Christian missionary to Gaul, dates +from the third century. They have been dealt with as +the Catholic church deals with most of such places to- +day; polished and furnished up; labelled and ticketed, +- _edited,_ with notes, in short, like an old book. The +process is a mistake, - the early editions had more +sanctity. The modern buildings (of the Sacred Heart), +on which you look down from these points of vantage, +are in the vulgar taste which seems doomed to stamp +itself on all new Catholic work; but there was never- +theless a great sweetness in the scene. The afternoon +was lovely, and it was flushing to a close. The large +garden stretched beneath us, blooming with fruit and +wine and succulent vegetables, and beyond it flowed +the shining river. The air was still, the shadows were +long, and the place, after all, was full of memories, +most of which might pass for virtuous. It certainly +was better than Plessis-les-Tours. + + + +IV. + +Your business at Tours is to make excursions; and +if you make them all, you will be very well occupied. +Touraine is rich in antiquities; and an hour's drive +from the town in almost any direction will bring you +to the knowledge of some curious fragment of domestic +or ecclesiastical architecture, some turreted manor, +some lonely tower, some gabled village, or historic +site. Even, however, if you do everything, - which was +not my case, - you cannot hope to relate everything, +and, fortunately for you, the excursions divide them- +selves into the greater and the less. You may achieve +most of the greater in a week or two; but a summer +in Touraine (which, by the way must be a charming +thing) would contain none too many days for the others. +If you come down to Tours from Paris, your best +economy is to spend a few days at Blois, where a +clumsy, but rather attractive little inn, on the edge of +the river, will offer you a certain amount of that +familiar and intermittent hospitality which a few weeks +spent in the French provinces teaches you to regard +as the highest attainable form of accommodation. Such +an economy I was unable to practise. I could only go +to Blois (from Tours) to spend the day; but this feat +I accomplished twice over. It is a very sympathetic +little town, as we say nowadays, and one might easily +resign one's self to a week there. Seated on the north +bank of the Loire, it presents a bright, clean face to +the sun, and has that aspect of cheerful leisure which +belongs to all white towns that reflect, themselves in +shining waters. It is the water-front only of Blois, +however, that exhibits, this fresh complexion; the in- +terior is of a proper brownness, as befits a signally +historic city. The only disappointment I had there +was the discovery that the castle, which is the special +object of one's pilgrimage, does not overhang the river, +as I had always allowed myself to understand. It +overhangs the town, but it is scarcely visible from the +stream. That peculiar good fortune is reserved for +Amboise and Chaurnont. + +The Chateau de Blois is one of the most beautiful +and elaborate of all the old royal residences of this +part of France, and I suppose it should have all the +honors of my description. As you cross its threshold, +you step straight into the brilliant movement of the +French Renaissance. But it is too rich to describe, - +I can only touch it here and there. It must be pre- +mised that in speaking of it as one sees it to-day, +one speaks of a monument unsparingly restored. The +work of restoration has been as ingenious as it is pro- +fuse, but it rather chills the imagination. This is +perhaps almost the first thing you feel as you ap- +proach the castle from the streets of the town. These +little streets, as they, leave the river, have pretensions +to romantic steepness; one of them, indeed, which +resolves itself into a high staircase with divergent +wings (the _escalier monumental_), achieved this result +so successfully as to remind me vaguely - I hardly +know why - of the great slope of the Capitol, beside +the Ara Coeli, at Rome. The view of that part of the +castle which figures to-day as the back (it is the only +aspect I had seen reproduced) exhibits the marks of +restoration with the greatest assurance. The long +facade, consisting only of balconied windows deeply +recessed, erects itself on the summit of a considerable +hill, which gives a fine, plunging movement to its +foundations. The deep niches of the windows are all +aglow with color. They have been repainted with red +and blue, relieved with gold figures; and each of them +looks more like the royal box at a theatre than like +the aperture of a palace dark with memories. For all +this, however, and in spite of the fact that, as in some +others of the chateaux of Touraine, (always excepting +the colossal Chambord, which is not in Touraine!) +there is less vastness than one had expected, the least +hospitable aspect of Blois is abundantly impressive. +Here, as elsewhere, lightness and grace are the key- +note; and the recesses of the windows, with their +happy proportions, their sculpture, and their color, are +the empty frames of brilliant pictures. They need +the figure of a Francis I. to complete them, or of a +Diane de Poitiers, or even of a Henry III. The base +of this exquisite structure emerges from a bed of light +verdure, which has been allowed to mass itself there, +and which contributes to the springing look of the +walls; while on the right it joins the most modern +portion of the castle, - the building erected, on founda- +tions of enormous height and solidity, in 1635, by +Gaston d'Orleans. This fine, frigid mansion - the proper +view of it is from the court within - is one of the +masterpieces of Francois Mansard, whom. a kind pro- +vidence did not allow to make over the whole palace +in the superior manner of his superior age. This had +been a part of Gaston's plan, - he was a blunderer +born, and this precious project was worthy of him. +This execution of it would surely have been one of +the great misdeeds of history. Partially performed, +the misdeed is not altogether to be regretted; for as +one stands in the court of the castle, and lets one's +eye wander from the splendid wing of Francis I. - +which is the last work of free and joyous invention - +to the ruled lines and blank spaces of the ponderous +pavilion of Mansard, one makes one's reflections upon +the advantage, in even the least personaI of the arts, +of having something to say, and upon the stupidity of +a taste which had ended by becoming an aggregation +of negatives. Gaston's wing, taken by itself, has much +of the _bel air_ which was to belong to the architecture +of Louis XIV.; but, taken in contrast to its flowering, +laughing, living neighbor, it marks the difference be- +tween inspiration and calculation. We scarcely grudge +it its place, however, for it adds a price to the rest of +the chateau. + +We have entered the court, by the way, by jump- +ing over the walls. The more orthodox method is to +follow a modern, terrace, which leads to the left, from +the side of the chateau that I began by speaking of, +and passes round, ascending, to a little square on a +considerably higher level, which is not, like a very +modern square on which the back (as I have called +it) looks out, a thoroughfare. This small, empty _place,_ +oblong in form, at once bright and quiet, with a cer- +tain grass-grown look, offers an excellent setting to the +entrance-front of the palace, - the wing of Louis XII. +The restoration here has been lavish; but it was per- +haps but an inevitable reaction against the injuries, +still more lavish, by which the unfortunate building +had long been overwhelmed. It had fallen into a state +of ruinous neglect, relieved only by the misuse pro- +ceeding from successive generations of soldiers, for +whom its charming chambers served as barrack-room. +Whitewashed, mutilated, dishonored, the castle of Blois +may be said to have escaped simply with its life. This +is the history of Amboise as well, and is to a certain +extent the history of Chambord. Delightful, at any +rate, was the refreshed facade of Louis XII. as I stood +and looked at it one bright September morning. In +that soft, clear, merry light of Touraine, everything +shows, everything speaks. Charming are the taste, the +happy proportions, the color of this beautiful front, to +which the new feeling for a purely domestic architec- +ture - an architecture of security and tranquillity, in +which art could indulge itself - gave an air of youth +and gladness. It is true that for a long time to come +the castle of Blois was neither very safe nor very +quiet; but its dangers came from within, from the evil +passions of its inhabitants, and not from siege or in- +vasion. The front of Louis XII. is of red brick, crossed +here and there with purple; and the purple slate of +the high roof, relieved with chimneys beautifully +treated, and with the embroidered caps of pinnacles +and arches, with the porcupine of Louis, the ermine +and the festooned rope which formed the devices of +Anne of Brittany, - the tone of this rich-looking roof +carries out the mild glow of the wall. The wide, fair +windows look as if they had expanded to let in the +rosy dawn of the Renaissance. Charming, for that +matter, are the windows of all the chateaux of Touraine, +with their squareness corrected (as it is not in the +Tudor architecture) by the curve of the upper corners, +which makes this line look - above the expressive +aperture - like a pencilled eyebrow. The low door of +this front is crowned by a high, deep niche, in which, +under a splendid canopy, stiffly astride of a stiffly +draped charger, sits in profile an image of the good +King Louis. Good as he had been, - the father of +his people, as he was called (I believe he remitted +various taxes), - he was not good enough to pass +muster at the Revolution; and the effigy I have just +described is no more than a reproduction of the +primitive statue demolished at that period. + +Pass beneath it into the court, and the sixteenth +century closes round you. It is a pardonable flight +of fancy to say that the expressive faces of an age +in which human passions lay very near the surface +seem to look out at you from the windows, from the +balconies, from the thick foliage of the sculpture. The +portion of the wing of Louis XII. that looks toward +the court is supported on a deep arcade. On your +right is the wing erected by Francis I., the reverse of +the mass of building which you see on approaching +the castle. This exquisite, this extravagant, this trans- +cendent piece of architecture is the most joyous ut- +terance of the French Renaissance. It is covered with +an embroidery of sculpture, in which every detail is +worthy of the hand of a goldsmith. In the middle of +it, or rather a little to the left, rises the famous wind- +ing staircase (plausibly, but I believe not religiously, +restored), which even the ages which most misused it +must vaguely have admired. It forms a kind of chiselled +cylinder, with wide interstices, so that the stairs are +open to the air. Every inch of this structure, of its +balconies, its pillars, its great central columns, is +wrought over with lovely images, strange and ingenious +devices, prime among which is the great heraldic sala- +mander of Francis I. The salamander is everywhere +at Blois, - over the chimneys, over the doors, on the +walls. This whole quarter , of the castle bears the +stamp of that eminently pictorial prince. The run- +ning cornice along the top of the front is like all un- +folded, an elongated, bracelet. The windows of the +attic are like shrines for saints. The gargoyles, the +medallions, the statuettes, the festoons, are like the +elaboration of some precious cabinet rather than the +details of a building exposed to the weather and to +the ages. In the interior there is a profusion of res- +toration, and it is all restoration in color. This has +been, evidently, a work of great energy and cost, but +it will easily strike you as overdone. The universal +freshness is a discord, a false note; it seems to light +up the dusky past with an unnatural glare. Begun in +the reign of Louis Philippe, this terrible process - the +more terrible always the more you admit that it has +been necessary - has been carried so far that there is +now scarcely a square inch of the interior that has the +color of the past upon it. It is true that the place +had been so coated over with modern abuse that +something was needed to keep it alive; it is only, per- +haps, a pity that the restorers, not content with saving +its life, should have undertaken to restore its youth. +The love of consistency, in such a business, is a +dangerous lure. All the old apartments have been +rechristened, as it were; the geography of the castle +has been re-established. The guardrooms, the bed- +rooms, the closets, the oratories, have recovered their +identity. Every spot connected with the murder of +the Duke of Guise is pointed out by a small, shrill +boy, who takes you from room to room, and who has +learned his lesson in perfection. The place is full of +Catherine de' Medici, of Henry III., of memories, of +ghosts, of echoes, of possible evocations and revivals. +It is covered with crimson and gold. The fireplaces +and the ceilings are magnificent; they look like ex- +pensive "sets" at the grand opera. + +I should have mentioned that below, in the court, +the front of the wing of Gaston d'Orleans faces you +as you enter, so that the place is a course of French +history. Inferior in beauty and grace to the other +portions of the castle, the wing is yet a nobler monu- +ment than the memory of Gaston deserves. The second +of the sons of Henry IV., - who was no more fortunate as +a father than as a husband, - younger brother of Louis +XIII., and father of the great Mademoiselle, the most +celebrated, most ambitious, most self-complacent, and +most unsuccessful _fille a marier_ in French history, +passed in enforced retirement at the castle of Blois +the close of a life of clumsy intrigues against Cardinal +Richelieu, in which his rashness was only equalled by +his pusillanimity and his ill-luck by his inaccessibility +to correction, and which, after so many follies and +shames, was properly summed up in the project - be- +gun, but not completed - of demolishing the beautiful +habitation of his exile in order to erect a better one. +With Gaston d'Orleans, however, who lived there with- +out dignity, the history of the Chateau de Blois de- +clines. Its interesting period is that of the wars of +religion. It was the chief residence of Henry III., and +the scene of the principal events of his depraved and +dramatic reign. It has been restored more than enough, +as I have said, by architects and decorators; the visitor, +as he moves through its empty rooms, which are at +once brilliant and ill-lighted (they have not been re- +furnished), undertakes a little restoration of his own. +His imagination helps itself from the things that re- +main; he tries to see the life of the sixteenth century +in its form and dress, - its turbulence, its passions, its +loves and hates, its treacheries, falsities, touches of +faith, its latitude of personal development, its presen- +tation of the whole nature, its nobleness of costume, +charm of speech, splendor of taste, unequalled pic- +turesqueness. The picture is full of movement, of +contrasted light and darkness, full altogether of abomi- +nations. Mixed up with them all is the great name of +religion, so that the drama wants nothing to make it +complete. What episode was ever more perfect - looked +at as a dramatic occurrence - than the murder of the +Duke of Guise? The insolent prosperity of the victim; +the weakness, the vices, the terrors, of the author of +the deed; the perfect execution of the plot; the accu- +mulation of horror in what followed it, - give it, as a +crime, a kind of immortal solidity. + +But we must not take the Chateau de Blois too +hard: I went there, after all, by way of entertainment. +If among these sinister memories your visit should +threaten to prove a tragedy, there is an excellent way +of removing the impression. You may treat yourself +at Blois to a very cheerful afterpiece. There is a +charming industry practised there, and practised in +charming conditions. Follow the bright little quay +down the river till you get quite out of the town, and +reach the point where the road beside the Loire be- +comes sinuous and attractive, turns the corner of dimi- +nutive headlands, and makes you wonder what is be- +yond. Let not your curiosity induce you, however, to +pass by a modest white villa which overlooks the +stream, enclosed in a fresh little court; for here dwells +an artist, - an artist in faience. There is no sort of +sign, and the place looks peculiarly private. But if +you ring at the gate, you will not be turned away. +You will, on the contrary, be ushered upstairs into a +parlor - there is nothing resembling a shop- encum- +bered with specimens - of remarkably handsome pottery. +The work is of the best, - a careful reproduction of +old forms, colors, devices; and the master of the +establishment is one of those completely artistic types +that are often found in France. His reception is as +friendly as his work is ingenious; and I think it is not +too much to say that you like the work the better be- +cause he has produced it. His vases, cups and jars, +lamps, platters, _plaques,_ with their brilliant glaze, their +innumerable figures, their family likeness, and wide +variations, are scattered, through his occupied rooms; +they serve at once as his stock-in-trade and as house- +hold ornament. As we all know, this is an age of +prose, of machinery, of wholesale production, of coarse +and hasty processes. But one brings away from the +establishment of the very intelligent M. Ulysse the +sense of a less eager activity and a greater search for +perfection. He has but a few workmen, and he gives +them plenty of time. The place makes a little vignette, +leaves an impression, - the quiet white house in its +garden on the road by the wide, clear river, without +the smoke, the bustle, the ugliness, of so much of our +modern industry. It ought to gratify Mr. Ruskin. + + + +V. + +The second time I went to Blois I took a carriage +for Chambord, and came back by the Chateau de +Cheverny and the forest of Russy, - a charming little +expedition, to which the beauty of the afternoon (the +finest in a rainy season that was spotted with bright +days) contributed not a little. To go to Chambord, +you cross the Loire, leave it on one side, and strike +away through a country in which salient features be- +come less and less numerous, and which at last has +no other quality than a look of intense, and peculiar +rurality, - the characteristic, even when it is not the +charm, of so much of the landscape of France. This +is not the appearance of wildness, for it goes with +great cultivation; it is simply the presence of the +delving, drudging, economizing peasant. But it is a +deep, unrelieved rusticity. It is a peasant's landscape; +not, as in England, a landlord's. On the way to Cham- +bord you enter the flat and sandy Sologne. The wide +horizon opens out like a great _potager,_ without inter- +ruptions, without an eminence, with here and there a +long, low stretch of wood. There is an absence of +hedges, fences, signs of property; everything is ab- +sorbed in the general flatness, - the patches of vine- +yard, the scattered cottages, the villages, the children +(planted and staring and almost always pretty), the +women in the fields, the white caps, the faded blouses, +the big sabots. At the end of an hour's drive (they +assure you at Blois that even with two horses you will +spend double that time), I passed through a sort of +gap in a wall, which does duty as the gateway of the +domain of an exiled pretender. I drove along a +straight avenue, through a disfeatured park, - the park +of Chambord has twenty-one miles of circumference, - +a very sandy, scrubby, melancholy plantation, in which +the timber must have been cut many times over and +is to-day a mere tangle of brushwood. Here, as in so +many spots in France, the traveller perceives that he +is in a land of revolutoins. Nevertheless, its great ex- +tent and the long perspective of its avenues give this +desolate boskage a certain majesty; just as its shabbi- +ness places it in agreement with one of the strongest +impressions of the chateau. You follow one of these +long perspectives a proportionate time, and at last you +see the chimneys and pinnacles of Chambord rise ap- +parently out of the ground. The filling-in of the wide +moats that formerly surrounded it has, in vulgar par- +lance, let it down, bud given it an appearance of top- +heaviness that is at the same time a magnificent Orien- +talism. The towers, the turrets, the cupolas, the gables, +the lanterns, the chimneys, look more like the spires +of a city than the salient points of a single building. +You emerge from the avenue and find yourself at the +foot of an enormous fantastic mass. Chambord has a +strange mixture of society and solitude. A little village +clusters within view of its stately windows, and a couple +of inns near by offer entertainment to pilgrims. These +things, of course, are incidents of the political pro- +scription which hangs its thick veil over the place. +Chambord is truly royal, - royal in its great scale, its +grand air, its indifference to common considerations. +If a cat may look at a king, a palace may lock at a +tavern. I enjoyed my visit to this extraordinary struc- +ture as much as if I had been a legitimist; and indeed +there is something interesting in any monument of a +great system, any bold presentation of a tradition. + +You leave your vehicle at one of the inns, which +are very decent and tidy, and in which every one is +very civil, as if in this latter respect the influence of +the old regime pervaded the neighborhood, and you +walk across the grass and the gravel to a small door, +- a door infinitely subordinate and conferring no title +of any kind on those who enter it. Here you ring a +bell, which a highly respectable person answers (a per- +son perceptibly affiliated, again, to the old regime), +after which she ushers you across a vestibule into an +inner court. Perhaps the strongest impression I got +at Chambord came to me as I stood in this court. +The woman who admitted me did not come with +me; I was to find my guide somewhere else. The +specialty of Chambord is its prodigious round towers. +There are, I believe, no less than eight of them, +placed at each angle of the inner and outer square of +buildings; for the castle is in the form of a larger +structure which encloses a smaller one. One of these +towers stood before me in the court; it seemed to +fling its shadow over the place; while above, as I +looked up, the pinnacles and gables, the enormous +chimneys, soared into the bright blue air. The place +was empty and silent; shadows of gargoyles, of extra- +ordinary projections, were thrown across the clear +gray surfaces. One felt that the whole thing was +monstrous. A cicerone appeared, a languid young +man in a rather shabby livery, and led me about with +a mixture of the impatient and the desultory, of con- +descension and humility. I do not profess to under- +stand the plan of Chambord, and I may add that I +do not even desire to do so; for it is much more +entertaining to think of it, as you can so easily, as an +irresponsible, insoluble labyrinth. Within, it is a +wilderness of empty chambers, a royal and romantic +barrack. The exiled prince to whom it gives its title +has not the means to keep up four hundred rooms; +he contents himself with preserving the huge outside. +The repairs of the prodigious roof alone must absorb +a large part of his revenue. The great feature of +the interior is the celebrated double staircase, rising +straight through the building, with two courses of +steps, so that people may ascend and descend without +meeting. This staircase is a truly majestic piece of +humor; it gives you the note, as it were, of Chambord. +It opens on each landing to a vast guard-room, in +four arms, radiations of the winding shaft. My guide +made me climb to the great open-work lantern which, +springing from the roof at the termination of the +rotund staircase (surmounted here by a smaller one), +forms the pinnacle of the bristling crown of Cham- +bord. This lantern is tipped with a huge _fleur-de-lis_ +in stone, - the only one, I believe, that the Revolution +did not succeed in pulling down. Here, from narrow +windows, you look over the wide, flat country and the +tangled, melancholy park, with the rotation of its +straight avenues. Then you walk about the roof, in +a complication of galleries, terraces, balconies, through +the multitude of chimneys and gables. This roof, +which is in itself a sort of castle in the air, has an +extravagant, faboulus quality, and with its profuse +ornamentation, - the salamander of Francis I. is a con- +tant motive, - its lonely pavements, its sunny niches, +the balcony that looks down over the closed and +grass-grown main entrance, a strange, half-sad, half- +brilliant charm. The stone-work is covered with fine +mould. There are places that reminded me of some +of those quiet, mildewed corners of courts and ter- +races, into which the traveller who wanders through +the Vatican looks down from neglected windows. They +show you two or three furnished rooms, with Bourbon +portraits, hideous tapestries from the ladies of France, +a collection of the toys of the _enfant du miracle,_ all +military and of the finest make. "Tout cela fonc- +tionne," the guide said of these miniature weapons; +and I wondered, if he should take it into his head to +fire off his little canon, how much harm the Comte de +Chambord would do. + +From below, the castle would look crushed by +the redundancy of its upper protuberances if it were +not for the enormous girth of its round towers, which +appear to give it a robust lateral development. These +towers, however, fine as they are in their way, struck +me as a little stupid; they are the exaggeration of +an exaggeration. In a building erected after the days +of defence, and proclaiming its peaceful character from +its hundred embroideries and cupolas, they seem +to indicate a want of invention. I shall risk the ac- +cusation of bad taste if I say that, impressive as it is, +the Chateau de Chambord seemed to me to have al- +together a little of that quality of stupidity. The +trouble is that it represents nothing very particular; +it has not happened, in spite of sundry vicissitudes, +to have a very interesting history. Compared with +that of Blois and Amboise, its past is rather vacant; +and one feels to a certain extent the contrast between +its pompous appearance and its spacious but some- +what colorless annals. It had indeed the good for- +tune to be erected by Francis I., whose name by itself +expresses a good deal of history. Why he should +have built a palace in those sandy plains will ever +remain an unanswered question, for kings have never +been obliged to give reasons. In addition to the fact +that the country was rich in game and that Francis +was a passionate hunter, it is suggested by M. de la +Saussaye, the author of the very complete little history +of Chambord which you may buy at the bookseller's +at Blois, that he was govemed in his choice of the +site by the accident of a charming woman having +formerly lived there. The Comtesse de Thoury had +a manor in the neighborhood, and the Comtesse de +Thoury had been the object of a youthful passion on +the part of the most susceptible of princes before his +accession to the throne. This great pile was reared, +therefore, according to M. de la Saussaye, as a _souvenir +de premieres amours!_ It is certainly a very massive +memento; and if these tender passages were propor- +tionate to the building that commemorates them, they +were tender indeed. There has been much discus- +sion as to the architect employed by Francis I., and +the honor of having designed this splendid residence +has been claimed for several of the Italian artists who +early in the sixteenth century came to seek patronage +in France. It seems well established to-day, however, +that Chambord was the work neither of Primaticcio, +of Vignola, nor of Il Rosso, all of whom have left +some trace of their sojourn in France; but of an +obscure yet very complete genius, Pierre Nepveu, +known as Pierre Trinqueau, who is designated in the +papers which preserve in some degree the history of +the origin of the edifice, as the _maistre de l'oeuvre de +maconnerie._ Behind this modest title, apparently, we +must recognize one of the most original talents of +the French Renaissance; and it is a proof of the vigor +of the artistic life of that period that, brilliant pro- +duction being everywhere abundant, an artist of so +high a value should not have been treated by his con- +temporaries as a celebrity. We manage things very +differently to-day. + +The immediate successors of Francis I. continued +to visit, Chambord; but it was neglected by Henry IV., +and was never afterwards a favorite residence of any +French king. Louis XIV. appeared there on several +occasions, and the apparition was characteristically +brilliant; but Chambord could not long detain a +monarch who had gone to the expense of creating a +Versailles ten miles from Paris. With Versailles, Fon- +tainebleau, Saint-Germain, and Saint-Cloud within easy +reach of their capital, the later French sovereigns had +little reason to take the air in the dreariest province +of their kingdom. Chambord therefore suffered from +royal indifference, though in the last century a use +was found for its deserted halls. In 1725 it was oc- +cupied by the luckless Stanislaus Leszczynski, who +spent the greater part of his life in being elected +King of Poland and being ousted from his throne, +and who, at this time a refugee in France, had found +a compensation for some of his misfortunes in marry- +ing his daughter to Louis XV. He lived eight years +at Chambord, and filled up the moats of the castle. +In 1748 it found an illustrious tenant in the person +of Maurice de Saxe, the victor of Fontenoy, who, how- +ever, two years after he had taken possession of it, +terminated a life which would have been longer had +he been less determined to make it agreeable. The +Revolution, of course, was not kind to Chambord. +It despoiled it in so far as possible of every vestige +of its royal origin, and swept like a whirlwind through +apartments to which upwards of two centuries had +contributed a treasure of decoration and furniture. In +that wild blast these precious things were destroyed +or forever scattered. In 1791 an odd proposal was +made to the French Government by a company of +English Quakers who had conceived the bold idea of +establishing in the palace a manufacture of some +peaceful commodity not to-day recorded. Napoleon +allotted Chambord, as a "dotation," to one of his +marshals, Berthier, for whose benefit it was converted, +in Napoleonic fashion, into the so-called principality +of Wagram. By the Princess of Wagram, the marshal's +widow, it was, after the Restoration, sold to the +trustees of a national subscription which had been +established for the purpose of presenting it to the in- +fant Duke of Bordeaux, then prospective King of +France. The presentation was duly made; but the +Comte de Chambord, who had changed his title in +recognition of the gift, was despoiled of his property +by the Government of Louis Philippe. He appealed +for redress to the tribunals of his country; and the +consequence of his appeal was an interminable litiga- +tion, by which, however, finally, after the lapse of +twenty-five years, he was established in his rights. In +1871 he paid his first visit to the domain which had +been offered him half a century before, a term of +which he had spent forty years in exile. It was from +Chambord that he dated his famous letter of the 5th +of July of that year, - the letter, directed to his so- +called subjects, in which he waves aloft the white +flag of the Bourbons. This amazing epistle, which is +virtually an invitation to the French people to re- +pudiate, as their national ensign, that immortal tricolor, +the flag of the Revolution and the Empire, under +which they have, won the glory which of all glories +has hitherto been dearest to them, and which is as- +sociated with the most romantic, the most heroic, the +epic, the consolatory, period of their history, - this +luckless manifesto, I say, appears to give the measure +of the political wisdom of the excellent Henry V. It +is the most factitious proposal ever addressed to an +eminently ironical nation. + +On the whole, Chambord makes a great impression; +and the hour I was, there, while the yellow afternoon +light slanted upon the September woods, there was a +dignity in its desolation. It spoke, with a muffled +but audible voice, of the vanished monarchy, which +had been so strong, so splendid, but to-day has be- +come a sort of fantastic vision, like the cupolas and +chimneys that rose before me. I thought, while I +lingered there, of all the fine things it takes to make +up such a monarchy; and how one of them is a su- +perfluity of mouldering, empty, palaces. Chambord is +touching, - that is the best word for it; and if the +hopes of another restoration are in the follies of the +Republic, a little reflection on that eloquence of ruin +ought to put the Republic on its guard. A sentimental +tourist may venture to remark that in the presence of +several chateaux which appeal in this mystical manner +to the retrospective imagination, it cannot afford to be +foolish. I thought of all this as I drove back to Blois +by the way of the Chateau de Cheverny. The road +took us out of the park of Chambord, but through a +region of flat woodland, where the trees were not +mighty, and again into the prosy plain of the Sologne, +- a thankless soil, all of it, I believe, but lately much +amended by the magic of cheerful French industry +and thrift. The light had already begun to fade, and +my drive reminded me of a passage in some rural +novel of Madame Sand. I passed a couple of timber +and plaster churches, which looked very old, black, +and crooked, and had lumpish wooden porches and +galleries encircling the base. By the time I reached +Cheverny, the clear twilight had approached. It was +late to ask to be allowed to visit an inhabited house; +but it was the hour at which I like best to visit almost +anything. My coachman drew up before a gateway, +in a high wall, which opened upon a short avenue, +along which I took my way on foot; the coachmen in +those parts being, for reasons best known to them- +selves, mortally averse to driving up to a house. I +answered the challenge of a very tidy little portress, +who sat, in company with a couple of children, en- +joying the evening air in, front of her lodge, and who +told me to walk a little further and turn to the right. +I obeyed her to the letter, and my turn brought me +into sight of a house as charming as an old manor in +a fairy tale. I had but a rapid and partial view of +Cheverny; but that view was a glimpse of perfection. +A light, sweet mansion stood looking over a wide green +lawn, over banks of flowers and groups of trees. It +had a striking character of elegance, produced partly +by a series of Renaissance busts let into circular niches +in the facade. The place looked so private, so reserved, +that it seemed an act of violence to ring, a stranger +and foreigner, at the graceful door. But if I had not +rung I should be unable to express - as it is such a +pleasure to do - my sense of the exceeding courtesy +with which this admirable house is shown. It was +near the dinner-hour, - the most sacred hour of the +day; but I was freely conducted into the inhabited +apartments. They are extremely beautiful. What I +chiefly remember is the charming staircase of white +embroidered stone, and the great _salle des gardes_ and +_chambre a coucher du roi_ on the second floor. Che- +verny, built in 1634, is of a much later date than the +other royal residences of this part of France; it be- +longs to the end of the Renaissance, and has a touch +of the rococo. The guard-room is a superb apartment; +and as it contains little save its magnificent ceiling +and fireplace and certain dim tapestries on its walls, +you the more easily take the measure of its noble +proportions. The servant opened the shutters of a +single window, and the last rays of the twilight slanted +into the rich brown gloom. It was in the same pic- +turesque fashion that I saw the bedroom (adjoining) of +Henry IV., where a legendary-looking bed, draped in +folds long unaltered, defined itself in the haunted +dusk. Cheverny remains to me a very charming, a +partly mysterious vision. I drove back to Blois in the +dark, some nine miles, through the forest of Russy, +which belongs to the State, and which, though con- +sisting apparently of small timber, looked under the +stars sufficiently vast and primeval. There was a damp +autumnal smell and the occasional sound of a stirring +thing; and as I moved through the evening air I +thought of Francis I. and Henry IV. + + + +VI. + +You may go to Amboise either from Blois or from +Tours; it is about half-way between these towns. The +great point is to go, especially if you have put it off +repeatedly; and to go, if possible, on a day when the +great view of the Loire, which you enjoy from the +battlements and terraces, presents itself under a friendly +sky. Three persons, of whom the author of these +lines was one, spent the greater part of a perfect +Sunday morning in looking at it. It was astonishing, +in the course of the rainiest season in the memory of +the oldest Tourangeau, how many perfect days we +found to our hand. The town of Amboise lies, like +Tours, on the left bank of the river, a little white- +faced town, staring across an admirable bridge, and +leaning, behind, as it were, against the pedestal of +rock on which the dark castle masses itself. The town +is so small, the pedestal so big, and the castle so high +and striking, that the clustered houses at the base of +the rock are like the crumbs that have fallen from a +well-laden table. You pass among them, however, to +ascend by a circuit to the chateau, which you attack, +obliquely, from behind. It is the property of the +Comte de Paris, another pretender to the French +throne; having come to him remotely, by inheritance, +from his ancestor, the Duc de Penthievre, who toward +the close of the last century bought it from the crown, +which had recovered it after a lapse. Like the castle +of Blois it has been injured and defaced by base uses, +but, unlike the castle of Blois, it has not been com- +pletely restored. "It is very, very dirty, but very +curious," - it is in these terms that I heard it described +by an English lady, who was generally to be found +engaged upon a tattered Tauchnitz in the little _salon +de lecture_ of the hotel at Tours. The description is +not inaccurate; but it should be said that if part of +the dirtiness of Amboise is the result of its having +served for years as a barrack and as a prison, part of +it comes from the presence of restoring stone-masons, +who have woven over a considerable portion of it a +mask of scaffolding. There is a good deal of neatness +as well, and the restoration of some of the parts seems +finished. This process, at Amboise, consists for the +most part of simply removing the vulgar excrescences +of the last two centuries. + +The interior is virtually a blank, the old apart- +ments having been chopped up into small modern +rooms; it will have to be completely reconstructed. A +worthy woman, with a military profile and that sharp, +positive manner which the goodwives who show you +through the chateaux of Touraine are rather apt to +have, and in whose high respectability, to say nothing +of the frill of her cap and the cut of her thick brown +dress, my companions and I thought we discovered +the particular note, or _nuance_, of Orleanism, - a com- +petent, appreciative, peremptory person, I say, - at- +tended us through the particularly delightful hour we +spent upon the ramparts of Amboise. Denuded and +disfeatured within, and bristling without with brick- +layers' ladders, the place was yet extraordinarily im- +pressive and interesting. I should confess that we +spent a great deal of time in looking at the view. +Sweet was the view, and magnificent; we preferred it +so much to certain portions of the interior, and to oc- +casional effusions of historical information, that the +old lady with the prove sometimes lost patience with +us. We laid ourselves open to the charge of pre- +ferring it even to the little chapel of Saint Hubert, +which stands on the edge of the great terrace, and +has, over the portal, a wonderful sculpture of the mi- +raculous hunt of that holy man. In the way of plastic +art this elaborate scene is the gem of Amboise. It +seemed to us that we had never been in a place where +there are so many points of vantage to look down +from. In the matter of position Amboise is certainly +supreme among the old houses of the Loire; and I +say this with a due recollection of the claims of Chau- +mont and of Loches, - which latter, by the way (ex- +cuse the afterthought), is not on the Loire. The plat- +forms, the bastions, the terraces, the high-perched +windows and balconies, the hanging gardens and dizzy +crenellations, of this complicated structure, keep you +in perpetual intercourse with an immense horizon. +The great feature of the-place is the obligatory round +tower which occupies the northern end of it, and +which has now been, completely restored. It is of +astounding size, a fortress in itself, and contains, +instead of a staircase, a wonderful inclined plane, so +wide and gradual that a coach and four may be driven +to the top. This colossal cylinder has to-day no +visible use; but it corresponds, happily enough, with +the great circle of the prospect. The gardens of Am- +boise, perched in the air, covering the irregular rem- +nants of the platform on which the castle stands, and +making up in picturesqueness what they lack in ex- +tent, constitute of come but a scanty domain. But +bathed, as we found them, in the autumn sunshine, +and doubly private from their aerial site, they offered +irresistible opportunities for a stroll, interrupted, as +one leaned against their low parapets, by long, con- +templative pauses. I remember, in particular, a certain +terrace, planted with clipped limes, upon which we +looked down from the summit of the big tower. It +seemed from that point to be absolutely necessary to +one's happiness to go down and spend the rest of the +morning there; it was an ideal place to walk to and +fro and talk. Our venerable conductress, to whom +our relation had gradually become more filial, per- +mitted us to gratify this innocent wish, - to the extent, +that is, of taking a turn or two under the mossy _tilleuls._ +At the end of this terrace is the low door, in a wall, +against the top of which, in 1498, Charles VIII., ac- +cording to an accepted tradition, knocked his head to +such good purpose that he died. It was within the +walls of Amboise that his widow, Anne of Brittany, +already in mourning for three children, two of whom +we have seen commemorated in sepulchral marble at +Tours, spent the first violence of that grief which was +presently dispelled by a union with her husband's +cousin and successor, Louis XII. Amboise was a fre- +quent resort of the French Court during the sixteenth +century; it was here that the young Mary Stuart spent +sundry hours of her first marriage. The wars of re- +ligion have left here the ineffaceable stain which they +left wherever they passed. An imaginative visitor at +Amboise to-day may fancy that the traces of blood +are mixed with the red rust on the crossed iron bars +of the grim-looking balcony, to which the heads of +the Huguenots executed on the discovery of the con- +spiracy of La Renaudie are rumored to have been +suspended. There was room on the stout balustrade - +an admirable piece of work - for a ghastly array. The +same rumor represents Catherine de' Medici and the +young queen as watching from this balcony the _noyades_ +of the captured Huguenots in the Loire. The facts of +history are bad enough; the fictions are, if possible, +worse; but there is little doubt that the future Queen +of Scots learnt the first lessons of life at a horrible +school. If in subsequent years she was a prodigy of +innocence and virtue, it was not the fault of her whilom ??? +mother-in-law, of her uncles of the house of Guise, or +of the examples presented to her either at the +windows of the castle of Amboise or in its more pri- +vate recesses. + +It was difficult to believe in these dark deeds, how- +ever, as we looked through the golden morning at the +placidity of the far-shining Loire. The ultimate con- +sequence of this spectacle was a desire to follow the +river as far as the castle of Chaumont. It is true +that the cruelties practised of old at Amboise might +have seemed less phantasmal to persons destined to +suffer from a modern form of inhumanity. The mis- +tress of the little inn at the base of the castle-rock - +it stands very pleasantly beside the river, and we had +breakfasted there - declared to us that the Chateau de +Chaumont, which is often during the autumn closed +to visitors, was at that particular moment standing so +wide open to receive us that it was our duty to hire +one of her carriages and drive thither with speed. +This assurance was so satisfactory that we presently +found ourselves seated in this wily woman's most com- +modious vehicle, and rolling, neither too fast nor too +slow, along the margin of the Loire. The drive of +about an hour, beneath constant clumps of chestnuts, +was charming enough to have been taken for itself; +and indeed, when we reached Chaumont, we saw that +our reward was to be simply the usual reward of +virtue, - the consciousness of having attempted the +right. The Chateau de Chaumont was inexorably +closed; so we learned from a talkative lodge-keeper, +who gave what grace she could to her refusal. This +good woman's dilemma was almost touching; she +wished to reconcile two impossibles. The castle was +not to be visited, for the family of its master was +staying there; and yet she was loath to turn away a +party of which she was good enough to say that it had +a _grand genre;_ for, as she also remarked, she had her +living to earn. She tried to arrange a compromise, +one of the elements of which was that we should +descend from our carriage and trudge up a hill which +would bring us to a designated point, where, over the +paling of the garden, we might obtain an oblique and +surreptitious view of a small portion of the castle walls. +This suggestion led us to inquire (of each other) to +what degree of baseness it is allowed to an enlightened +lover of the picturesque to resort, in order to catch a +glimpse of a feudal chateau. One of our trio decided, +characteristically, against any form of derogation; so +she sat in the carriage and sketched some object that +was public property, while her two companions, who +were not so proud, trudged up a muddy ascent which +formed a kind of back-stairs. It is perhaps no more +than they deserved that they were disappointed. Chau- +mont is feudal, if you please; but the modern spirit is +in possession. It forms a vast clean-scraped mass, +with big round towers, ungarnished with a leaf of ivy +or a patch of moss, surrounded by gardens of moderate +extent (save where the muddy lane of which I speak +passes near it), and looking rather like an enormously +magnified villa. The great merit of Chaumont is its +position, which almost exactly resembles that of Am- +boise; it sweeps the river up and down, and seems to +look over half the province. This, however, was better +appreciated as, after coming down the hill and re- +entering the carriage, we drove across the long sus- +pension-bridge which crosses the Loire just beyond +the village, and over which we made our way to the +small station of Onzain, at the farther end, to take +the train back to Tours. Look back from the middle +of this bridge; the whole picture composes, as the +painters say. The towers, the pinnacles, the fair front +of the chateau, perched above its fringe of garden and +the rusty roofs of the village, and facing the afternoon +sky, which is reflected also in the great stream that +sweeps below, - all this makes a contribution to your +happiest memories of Touraine. + + + +VII. + +We never went to Chinon; it was a fatality. We +planned it a dozen times; but the weather interfered, +or the trains didn't suit, or one of the party was +fatigued with the adventures of'the day before. This +excursion was so much postponed that it was finally +postponed to everything. Besides, we had to go to +Chenonceaux, to Azay-le-Rideau, to Langeais, to Loches. +So I have not the memory of Chinon; I have only the +regret. But regret, as well as memory, has its visions; +especially when, like memory, it is assisted by photo- +graphs. The castle of Chinon in this form appears +to me as an enormous ruin, a mediaeval fortress, of +the extent almost of a city. It covers a hill above the +Vienne, and after being impregnable in its time is in- +destructible to-day. (I risk this phrase in the face of +the prosaic truth. Chinon, in the days when it was a +prize, more than once suflered capture, and at present +it is crumbling inch by inch. It is apparent, however, +I believe, that these inches encroach little upon acres +of masonry.) It was in the castle that Jeanne Darc ????? +had her first interview with Charles VII., and it is in +the town that Francois Rabelais is supposed to have +been born. To the castle, moreover, the lover of the +picturesque is earnestly recommended to direct his +steps. But one cannot do everything, and I would +rather have missed Chinon than Chenonceaux. For- +tunate exceedingly were the few hours that we passed +at this exquisite residence. + +"In 1747," says Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his +"Confessions," "we went to spend the autumn in Tou- +raine, at the Chateau, of Chenonceaux, a royal resi- +dence upon the Cher, built by Henry II. for Diana of +Poitiers, whose initials are still to be seen there, and +now in possession of M. Dupin, the farmer-general. +We amused ourselves greatly in this fine spot; the liv- +ing was of the best, and I became as fat as a monk. +We made a great deal of music, and acted comedies." + +This is the only description that Rousseau gives +of one of the most romantic houses in France, and of +an episode that must have counted as one of the most +agreeable in his uncomfortable career. The eighteenth +century contented itself with general epithets; and +when Jean-Jacques has said that Chenonceaux was a +"beau lieu," he thinks himself absolved from further +characterization. We later sons of time have, both for +our pleasure and our pain, invented the fashion of +special terms, and I am afraid that even common +decency obliges me to pay some larger tribute than +this to the architectural gem of Touraine. Fortunately +I can discharge my debt with gratitude. In going +from Tours you leave the valley of the Loire and enter +that of the Cher, and at the end of about an hour you +see the turrets of the castle on your right, among the +trees, down in the meadows, beside the quiet little +river. The station and the village are about ten +minutes' walk from the chateau, and the village con- +tains a very tidy inn, where, if you are not in too +great a hurry to commune with the shades of the royal +favorite and the jealous queen, you will perhaps stop +and order a dinner to be ready for you in the evening. +A straight, tall avenue leads to the grounds of the +castle; what I owe to exactitude compels me to add +that it is crossed by the railway-line. The place is so +arranged, however, that the chateau need know nothing +of passing trains, - which pass, indeed, though the +grounds are not large, at a very sufficient distance. +I may add that the trains throughout this part of +France have a noiseless, desultory, dawdling, almost +stationary quality, which makes them less of an offence +than usual. It was a Sunday afternoon, and the light +was yellow, save under the trees of the avenue, where, +in spite of the waning of September, it was duskily +green. Three or four peasants, in festal attire, were +strolling about. On a bench at the beginning of the +avenue, sat a man with two women. As I advanced +with my companions he rose, after a sudden stare, +and approached me with a smile, in which (to be +Johnsonian for a moment) certitude was mitigated by +modesty and eagerness was embellished with respect. +He came toward me with a salutation that I had seen +before, and I am happy to say that after an instant I +ceased to be guilty of the brutality of not knowing +where. There was only one place in the world where +people smile like that, - only one place where the art +of salutation has that perfect grace. This excellent +creature used to crook his arm, in Venice, when I +stepped into my gondola; and I now laid my hand on +that member with the familiarity of glad recognition; +for it was only surprise that had kept me even for a +moment from accepting the genial Francesco as an +ornament of the landscape of Touraine. What on +earth - the phrase is the right one - was a Venetian +gondolier doing at Chenonceaux? He had been +brought from Venice, gondola and all, by the mistress +of the charming house, to paddle about on the Cher. +Our meeting was affectionate, though there was a kind +of violence in seeing him so far from home. He was +too well dressed, too well fed; he had grown stout, +and his nose had the tinge of good claret. He re- +marked that the life of the household to which he had +the honor to belong was that of a _casa regia;_ which +must have been a great change for poor Checco, whose +habits in Venice were not regal. However, he was +the sympathetic Checco still; and for five minutes +after I left him I thought less about the little plea- +sure-house by the Cher than about the palaces of the +Adriatic. + +But attention was not long in coming round to the +charming structure that presently rose before us. The +pale yellow front of the chateau, the small scale of +which is at first a surprise, rises beyond a consider- +able court, at the entrance of which a massive and +detached round tower, with a turret on its brow (a +relic of the building that preceded the actual villa), +appears to keep guard. This court is not enclosed - +or is enclosed, at least, only by the gardens, portions +of which are at present in a state of violent reforma- +tion. Therefore, though Chenonceaux has no great +height, its delicate facade stands up boldly enough. +This facade, one of the most finished things in Tou- +raine, consists of two stories, surmounted by an attic +which, as so often in the buildings of the French +Renaissance, is the richest part of the house. The +high-pitched roof contains three windows of beautiful +design, covered with embroidered caps and flowering +into crocketed spires. The window above the door +is deeply niched; it opens upon a balcony made in +the form of a double pulpit, - one of the most charm- +ing features of the front. Chenonceaux is not large, +as I say, but into its delicate compass is packed a +great deal of history, - history which differs from that +of Amboise and Blois in being of the private and sen- +timental kind. The echoes of the place, faint and far +as they are to-day, are not political, but personal. +Chenonceaux dates, as a residence, from the year 1515, +when the shrewd Thomas Bohier, a public functionary +who had grown rich in handling the finances of Nor- +mandy, and had acquired the estate from a family +which, after giving it many feudal lords, had fallen +into poverty, erected the present structure on the +foundations of an old mill. The design is attributed, +with I know not what justice, to Pierre Nepveu, _alias_ +Trinqueau, the audacious architect of Chambord. On +the death of Bohier the house passed to his son, who, +however, was forced, under cruel pressure, to surrender +it to the crown, in compensation for a so-called deficit +in the accounts of the late superintendent of the trea- +sury. Francis I. held the place till his death; but +Henry II., on ascending the throne, presented it out of +hand to that mature charmer, the admired of two +generations, Diana of Poitiers. Diana enjoyed it till +the death of her protector; but when this event oc- +curred, the widow of the monarch, who had been +obliged to submit in silence, for years, to the ascend- +ency of a rival, took the most pardonable of all the +revenges with which the name of Catherine de' Medici +is associated, and turned her out-of-doors. Diana was +not in want of refuges, and Catherine went through +the form of giving her Chaumont in exchange; but +there was only one Chenonceaux. Catherine devoted +herself to making the place more completely unique. +The feature that renders it sole of its kind is not ap- +preciated till you wander round to either side of the +house. If a certain springing lightness is the charac- +teristic of Chenonceaux, if it bears in every line the +aspect of a place of recreation, - a place intended for +delicate, chosen pleasures, - nothing can confirm this +expression better than the strange, unexpected move- +ment with which, from behind, it carries itself across +the river. The earlier building stands in the water; +it had inherited the foundations of the mill destroyed +by Thomas Bohier. The first step, therefore, had been +taken upon solid piles of masonry; and the ingenious +Catherine - she was a _raffinee_ - simply proceeded to +take the others. She continued the piles to the op- +posite bank of the Cher, and over them she threw a +long, straight gallery of two stories. This part of the +chateau, which looks simply like a house built upon a +bridge and occupying its entire length, is of course +the great curiosity of Chenonceaux. It forms on each +floor a charming corridor, which, within, is illuminated +from either side by the flickering river-light. The +architecture of these galleries, seen from without, is +less elegant than that of the main building, but the +aspect of the whole thing is delightful. I have spoken +of Chenonceaux as a "villa," using the word ad- +visedly, for the place is neither a castle nor a palace. +It is a very exceptional villa, but it has the villa- +quality, - the look of being intended for life in com- +mon. This look is not at all contradicted by the wing +across the Cher, which only suggests intimate pleasures, +as the French say, - walks in pairs, on rainy days; +games and dances on autumn nights; together with as +much as may be of moonlighted dialogue (or silence) +in the course, of evenings more genial still, in the well- +marked recesses of windows. + +It is safe to say that such things took place there +in the last century, during the kindly reign of Mon- +sieur and Madame Dupin. This period presents itself +as the happiest in the annals of Chenonceaux. I know +not what festive train the great Diana may have led, +and my imagination, I am afraid, is only feebly kindled +by the records of the luxurious pastimes organized on +the banks of the Cher by the terrible daughter of the +Medici, whose appreciation of the good things of life +was perfectly consistent with a failure to perceive why +others should live to enjoy, them. The best society +that ever assembled there was collected at Chenon- +ceaux during the middle of the eighteenth century. +This was surely, in France at least, the age of good +society, the period when it was well for appreciative +people to have been born. Such people should of +course have belonged to the fortunate few, and not to +the miserable many; for the prime condition of a +society being good is that it be not too large. The +sixty years that preceded the French Revolution were +the golden age of fireside talk and of those pleasures +which proceed from the presence of women in whom +the social art is both instinctive and acquired. The +women of that period were, above all, good company; +the fact is attested by a thousand documents. Chenon- +ceaux offered a perfect setting to free conversation; +and infinite joyous discourse must have mingled with +the liquid murmur of the Cher. Claude Dupin was +not only a great man of business, but a man of honor +and a patron of knowledge; and his wife was gracious, +clever, and wise. They had acquired this famous pro- +perty by purchase (from one of the Bourbons; for +Chenonceaux, for two centuries after the death of +Catherine de' Medici, remained constantly in princely +hands), and it was transmitted to their son, Dupin de +Francueil, grandfather of Madame George Sand. This +lady, in her Correspondence, lately published, describes +a visit that she paid, more than thirty years ago, to +those members of her family who were still in posses- +sion. The owner of Chenonceaux to-day is the daughter +of an Englishman naturalized in France. But I have +wandered far from my story, which is simply a sketch +of the surface of the place. Seen obliquely, from either +side, in combination with its bridge and gallery, the +chateau is singular and fantastic, a striking example +of a wilful and capricious conception. Unfortunately, +all caprices are not so graceful and successful, and I +grudge the honor of this one to the false and blood- +polluted Catherine. (To be exact, I believe the arches +of the bridge were laid by the elderly Diana. It was +Catherine, however, who completed the monument.) +Within, the house has been, as usual, restored. The +staircases and ceilings, in all the old royal residences +of this part of France, are the parts that have suffered +least; many of them have still much of the life of the +old time about them. Some of the chambers of Che- +nonceaux, however, encumbered as they are with mo- +dern detail, derive a sufficiently haunted and suggestive +look from the deep setting of their beautiful windows, +which thickens the shadows and makes dark, corners. +There is a charming little Gothic chapel, with its apse +hanging over the water, fastened to the left flank of +the house. Some of the upper balconies, which look +along the outer face of the gallery, and either up or +down the river, are delightful protected nooks. We +walked through the lower gallery to the other bank of +the Cher; this fine apartment appeared to be for the +moment a purgatory of ancient furniture. It terminates +rather abruptly; it simply stops, with a blank wall. +There ought, of course, to have been a pavilion here, +though I prefer very much the old defect to any mo- +dern remedy. The wall is not so blank, however, but +that it contains a door which opens on a rusty draw- +bridge. This drawbridge traverses the small gap which +divides the end of the gallery from the bank of the +stream. The house, therefore, does not literally rest +on opposite edges of the Cher, but rests on one and +just fails to rest on the other. The pavilion would +have made that up; but after a moment we ceased to +miss this imaginary feature. We passed the little +drawbridge, and wandered awhile beside the river. +From this opposite bank the mass of the chateau looked +more charming than ever; and the little peaceful, lazy +Cher, where two or three men were fishing in the +eventide, flowed under the clear arches and between +the solid pedestals of the part that spanned it, with +the softest, vaguest light on its bosom. This was the +right perspective; we were looking across the river of +time. The whole scene was deliciously mild. The +moon came up; we passed back through the gallery +and strolled about a little longer in the gardens. It +was very still. I met my old gondolier in the twilight. +He showed me his gondola; but I hated, somehow, to +see it there. I don't like, as the French say, to _meler +les genres_. A gondola in a little flat French river? +The image was not less irritating, if less injurious, than +the spectacle of a steamer in the Grand Canal, which +had driven me away from Venice a year and a half +before. We took our way back to the Grand Monarque, +and waited in the little inn-parlor for a late train to +Tours. We were not impatient, for we had an ex- +cellent dinner to occupy us; and even after we had +dined we were still content to sit awhile and exchange +remarks upon, the superior civilization of France. +Where else, at a village inn, should we have fared so +well? Where else should we have sat down to our +refreshment without condescension? There were two +or three countries in which it would not have been +happy for us to arrive hungry, on a Sunday evening, +at so modest an hostelry. At the little inn at Chenon- +ceaux the _cuisine_ was not only excellent, but the ser- +vice was graceful. We were waited on by mademoiselle +and her mamma; it was so that mademoiselle alluded +to the elder lady, as she uncorked for us a bottle of +Vouvray mousseux. We were very comfortable, very +genial; we even went so far as to say to each other +that Vouvray mousseux was a delightful wine. From +this opinion, indeed, one of our trio differed; but this +member of the party had already exposed herself to +the charge of being too fastidious, by declining to de- +scend from the carriage at Chaumont and take that +back-stairs view of the castle. + + + +VIII. + +Without fastidiousness, it was fair to declare, on +the other hand, that the little inn at Azay-le-Rideau +was very bad. It was terribly dirty, and it was in +charge of a fat _megere_ whom the appearance of four +trustful travellers - we were four, with an illustrious +fourth, on that occasion - roused apparently to fury. +I attached great importance to this incongruous +hostess, for she uttered the only uncivil words I heard +spoken (in connection with any business of my own) +during a tour of some six weeks in France. Breakfast +not at Azay-le-Rideau, therefore, too trustful traveller; +or if you do so, be either very meek or very bold. +Breakfast not, save under stress of circumstance; but +let no circumstance whatever prevent you from going +to see the admirable chateau, which is almost a rival +of Chenonceaux. The village lies close to the gates, +though after you pass these gates you leave it well +behind. A little avenue, as at Chenonceaux, leads to +the house, making a pretty vista as you approach the +sculptured doorway. Azay is a most perfect and +beautiful thing; I should place it third in any list of +the great houses of this part of France in which these +houses should be ranked according to charm. For +beauty of detail it comes after Blois and Chenon- +ceaux; but it comes before Amboise and Chambord. +On the other hand, of course, it is inferior in majesty +to either of these vast structures. Like Chenonceaux, +it is a watery place, though it is more meagrely +moated than the little chateau on the Cher. It consists +of a large square _corps de logis_, with a round tower +at each angle, rising out of a somewhat too slumberous +pond. The water - the water of the Indre - sur- +rounds it, but it is only on one side that it bathes its +feet in the moat. On one of the others there is a +little terrace, treated as a garden, and in front there +is a wide court, formed by a wing which, on the right, +comes forward. This front, covered with sculptures, +is of the richest, stateliest effect. The court is ap- +proachcd by a bridge over the pond, and the house +would reflect itself in this wealth of water if the water +were a trifle less opaque. But there is a certain +stagnation - it affects more senses than one - about +the picturesque pools of Azay. On the hither side of +the bridge is a garden, overshadowed by fine old +sycamores, - a garden shut in by greenhouses and by +a fine last-century gateway, flanked with twin lodges. +Beyond the chateau and the standing waters behind +it is a so-called _parc_, which, however, it must be con- +fessed, has little of park-like beauty. The old houses +(many of them, that is) remain in France; but the old +timber does not remain, and the denuded aspect of +the few acres that surround the chateaux of Touraine +is pitiful to the traveller who has learned to take the +measure of such things from the manors and castles +of England. The domain of the lordly Chaumont is +that of an English suburban villa; and in that and +in other places there is little suggestion, in the +untended aspect of walk and lawns, of the vigilant +British gardener. The manor of Azay, as seen to-day, +dates from the early part of the sixteenth century; +and the industrious Abbe Chevalier, in his very +entertaining though slightly rose-colored book on +Touraine,* (* Promenades pittoresque en Touraine. +Tours: 1869.) speaks of it as, "perhaps the purest expres- +sion of the _belle Renaissance francaise_." "Its height," +he goes on, "is divided between two stories, terminat- +ing under the roof in a projecting entablature which +imitates a row of machicolations. Carven chimneys +and tall dormer windows, covered with imagery, rise +from the roofs; turrets on brackets, of elegant shape, +hang with the greatest lightness from the angles of +the building. The soberness of the main lines, the +harmony of the empty spaces and those that are +filled out, the prominence of the crowning parts, the +delicacy of all the details, constitute an enchanting +whole." And then the Abbe speaks of the admirable +staircase which adorns the north front, and which, +with its extention, inside, constitutes the principal +treasure of Azay. The staircase passes beneath one +of the richest of porticos, - a portico over which a +monumental salamander indulges in the most deco- +rative contortions. The sculptured vaults of stone +which cover the windings of the staircase within, the +fruits, flowers, ciphers, heraldic signs, are of the +noblest effect. The interior of the chateau is rich, +comfortable, extremely modern; but it makes no +picture that compares with its external face, about +which, with its charming proportions, its profuse yet +not extravagant sculpture, there is something very +tranquil and pure. I took particular fancy to the +roof, high, steep, old, with its slope of bluish slate, +and the way the weather-worn chimneys seemed to +grow out of it, like living things out of a deep soil. +The only defect of the house is the blankness and +bareness of its walls, which have none of those delicate +parasites attached to them that one likes to see on the +surface of old dwellings. It is true that this bareness +results in a kind of silvery whiteness of complexion, +which carries out the tone of the quiet pools and even +that of the scanty and shadeless park. + + + +IX. + +I hardly know what to say about the tone of +Langeais, which, though I have left it to the end of +my sketch, formed the objective point of the first ex- +cursion I made from Tours. Langeais is rather dark +and gray; it is perhaps the simplest and most severe +of all the castles of the Loire. I don't know why I +should have gone to see it before any other, unless it +be because I remembered the Duchesse de Langeais, +who figures in several of Balzac's novels, and found +this association very potent. The Duchesse de Lan- +geais is a somewhat transparent fiction; but the +castle from which Balzac borrowed the title of his +heroine is an extremely solid fact. My doubt just +above as to whether I should pronounce it excep- +tionally grey came from my having seen it under a +sky which made most things look dark. I have, how- +ever, a very kindly memory of that moist and melan- +choly afternoon, which was much more autumnal than +many of the days that followed it. Langeais lies +down the Loire, near the river, on the opposite side +from Tours, and to go to it you will spend half an +hour in the train. You pass on the way the Chateau +de Luynes, which, with its round towers catching +the afternoon light, looks uncommonly well on a hill +at a distance; you pass also the ruins of the castle +of Cinq-Mars, the ancestral dwelling of the young +favorite of Louis XIII., the victim, of Richelieu, the +hero of Alfred de Vigny's novel, which is usually re- +commended to young ladies engaged in the study of +French. Langeais is very imposing and decidedly +sombre; it marks the transition from the architecture +of defence to that of elegance. It rises, massive and +perpendicular, out of the centre of the village to +which it gives its name, and which it entirely domi- +nates; so that, as you stand before it, in the crooked +and empty street, there is no resource for you but to +stare up at its heavy overhanging cornice and at the +huge towers surmounted with extinguishers of slate. +If you follow this street to the end, however, you +encounter in abundance the usual embellishments of +a French village: little ponds or tanks, with women +on their knees on the brink, pounding and thumping +a lump of saturated linen; brown old crones, the tone +of whose facial hide makes their nightcaps (worn by +day) look dazzling; little alleys perforating the thick- +ness of a row of cottages, and showing you behind, +as a glimpse, the vividness of a green garden. In +the rear of the castle rises a hill which must formerly +have been occupied by some of its appurtenances, +and which indeed is still partly enclosed within its +court. You may walk round this eminence, which, +with the small houses of the village at its base, shuts +in the castle from behind. The enclosure is not +defiantly guarded, however; for a small, rough path, +which you presently reach, leads up to an open gate. +This gate admits you to a vague and rather limited +_parc_, which covers the crest of the hill, and through +which you may walk into the gardens of castle. +These gardens, of small extent, confront the dark +walls with their brilliant parterres, and, covering the +gradual slope of the hill, form, as it were, the fourth +side of the court. This is the stateliest view of the +chateau, which looks to you sufficiently grim and gray +as, after asking leave of a neat young woman who +sallies out to learn your errand, you sit there on a +garden bench and take the measure of the three tall +towers attached to this inner front and forming sever- +ally the cage of a staircase. The huge bracketed cor- +nice (one of the features of Langeais) which is merely +ornamental, as it is not machicolated, though it looks +so, is continued on the inner face as well. The whole +thing has a fine feudal air, though it was erected on +the rains of feudalism. + +The main event in the history of the castle is the +marriage of Anne of Brittany to her first husband, +Charles VIII., which took place in its great hall in +1491. Into this great hall we were introduced by +the neat young woman, - into this great hall and +into sundry other halls, winding staircases, galleries, +chambers. The cicerone of Langeais is in too great a +hurry; the fact is pointed out in the excellent Guide- +Joanne. This ill-dissimulated vice, however, is to be +observed, in the country of the Loire, in every one +who carries a key. It is true that at Langeais there +is no great occasion to indulge in the tourist's weak- +ness of dawdling; for the apartments, though they +contain many curious odds and ends of, antiquity, are +not of first-rate interest. They are cold and musty, +indeed, with that touching smell of old furniture, as +all apartments should be through which the insatiate +American wanders in the rear of a bored domestic, +pausing to stare at a faded tapestry or to read the +name on the frame of some simpering portrait. + +To return to Tours my companion and I had counted +on a train which (as is not uncommon in France) +existed only in the "Indicateur des Chemins de Fer;" +and instead of waiting for another we engaged a vehicle +to take us home. A sorry _carriole_ or _patache_ it proved +to be, with the accessories of a lumbering white mare +and a little wizened, ancient peasant, who had put on, +in honor of the occasion, a new blouse of extraordinary +stiffness and blueness. We hired the trap of an energetic +woman who put it "to" with her own hands; women +in Touraine and the B1esois appearing to have the +best of it in the business of letting vehicles, as well as +in many other industries. There is, in fact, no branch +of human activity in which one is not liable, in France, +to find a woman engaged. Women, indeed, are not +priests; but priests are, more or less; women. They +are not in the army, it may be said; but then they _are_ +the army. They are very formidable. In France one +must count with the women. The drive back from +Langeais to Tours was long, slow, cold; we had an +occasional spatter of rain. But the road passes most +of the way close to the Loire, and there was some- +thing in our jog-trot through the darkening land, beside +the flowing, river, which it was very possible to enjoy. + + + +X. + +The consequence of my leaving to the last my little +mention of Loches is that space and opportunity fail +me; and yet a brief and hurried account of that extra- +ordinary spot would after all be in best agreement with +my visit. We snatched a fearful joy, my companion +and I, the afternoon we took the train for Loches. +The weather this time had been terribly against us: +again and again a day that promised fair became hope- +lessly foul after lunch. At last we determined that if +we could not make this excursion in the sunshine, we +would make it with the aid of our umbrellas. We +grasped them firmly and started for the station, where +we were detained an unconscionable time by the evolu- +tions, outside, of certain trains laden with liberated +(and exhilarated) conscripts, who, their term of service +ended, were about to be restored to civil life. The +trains in Touraine are provoking; they serve as little +as possible for excursions. If they convey you one +way at the right hour, it is on the condition of bring- +ing you back at the wrong; they either allow you far +too little time to examine the castle or the ruin, or +they leave you planted in front of it for periods that +outlast curiosity. They are perverse, capricious, ex- +asperating. It was a question of our having but an +hour or two at Loches, and we could ill afford to sacri- +fice to accidents. One of the accidents, however, was +that the rain stopped before we got there, leaving be- +hind it a moist mildness of temperature and a cool +and lowering sky, which were in perfect agreement +with the gray old city. Loches is certainly one of the +greatest impressions of the traveller in central France, +- the largest cluster of curious things that presents +itself to his sight. It rises above the valley of the +Indre, the charming stream set in meadows and sedges, +which wanders through the province of Berry and +through many of the novels of Madame George Sand; +lifting from the summit of a hill, which it covers to +the base, a confusion of terraces, ramparts, towers, and +spires. Having but little time, as I say, we scaled +the hill amain, and wandered briskly through this +labyrinth of antiquities. The rain had decidedly +stopped, and save that we had our train on our minds, +we saw Loches to the best advantage. We enjoyed +that sensation with which the conscientious tourist is +- or ought to be - well acquainted, and for which, at +any rate, he has a formula in his rough-and-ready +language. We "experienced," as they say, (most odious +of verbs!) an "agreeable disappointment." We were +surprised and delighted; we had not suspected that +Loches was so good. + +I hardly know what is best there: the strange and +impressive little collegial church, with its romanesque +atrium or narthex, its doorways covered with primitive +sculpture of the richest kind, its treasure of a so-called +pagan altar, embossed with fighting warriors, its three +pyramidal domes, so unexpected, so sinister, which I +have not met elsewhere, in church architecture; or the +huge square keep, of the eleventh century, - the most +cliff-like tower I remember, whose immeasurable thick- +ness I did not penetrate; or the subterranean mysteries +of two other less striking but not less historic dungeons, +into which a terribly imperative little cicerone intro- +duced us, with the aid of downward ladders, ropes, +torches, warnings, extended hands; and, many, fearful +anecdotes, - all in impervious darkness. These horrible +prisons of Loches, at an incredible distance below the +daylight, were a favorite resource of Louis XI., and +were for the most part, I believe, constructed by him. +One of the towers of the castle is garnished with the +hooks or supports of the celebrated iron cage in which +he confined the Cardinal La Balue, who survived so +much longer than might have been expected this extra- +ordinary mixture of seclusion and exposure. All these +things form part of the castle of Loches, whose enorm- +ous _enceinte_ covers the whole of the top of the hill, and +abounds in dismantled gateways, in crooked passages, +in winding lanes that lead to postern doors, in long +facades that look upon terraces interdicted to the +visitor, who perceives with irritation that they com- +mand magnificent views. These views are the property +of the sub-prefect of the department, who resides at +the Chateau de Loches, and who has also the enjoy- +ment of a garden - a garden compressed and curtailed, +as those of old castles that perch on hill-tops are apt +to be - containing a horse-chestnut tree of fabulous +size, a tree of a circumference so vast and so perfect +that the whole population of Loches might sit in con- +centric rows beneath its boughs. The gem of the place, +however, is neither the big _marronier_, nor the collegial +church, nor the mighty dungeon, nor the hideous prisons +of Louis XI.; it is simply the tomb of Agnes Sorel, _la +belle des belles_, so many years the mistress of Charles VII. +She was buried, in 1450, in the collegial church, +whence, in the beginning of the present century, her +remains, with the monument that marks them, were +transferred to one of the towers of the castle. She has +always, I know not with what justice, enjoyed a fairer +fame than most ladies who have occupied her position, +and this fairness is expressed in the delicate statue +that surmounts her tomb. It represents her lying there +in lovely demureness, her hands folded with the best +modesty, a little kneeling angel at either side of her +head, and her feet, hidden in the folds of her decent +robe, resting upon a pair of couchant lambs, innocent +reminders of her name. Agnes, however, was not +lamb-like, inasmuch as, according to popular tradition +at least, she exerted herself sharply in favor of the ex- +pulsion of the English from France. It is one of the +suggestions of Loches that the young Charles VII., +hard put to it as he was for a treasury and a capital, +- "le roi de Bourges," he was called at Paris, - was +yet a rather privileged mortal, to stand up as he does +before posterity between the noble Joan and the _gentille +Agnes_; deriving, however much more honor from one +of these companions than from the other. Almost as +delicate a relic of antiquity as this fascinating tomb is +the exquisite oratory of Anne of Brittany, among the +apartments of the castle the only chamber worthy of +note. This small room, hardly larger than a closet, +and forming part of the addition made to the edifice +by Charles VIII., is embroidered over with the curious +and remarkably decorative device of the ermine and +festooned cord. The objects in themselves are not +especially graceful; but the constant repetition of the +figure on the walls and ceiling produces an effect of +richness, in spite of the modern whitewash with which, +if I remember rightly, they have been endued. The +little streets of Loches wander crookedly down the hill, +and are full of charming pictorial "bits:" an old town- +gate, passing under a mediaeval tower, which is orna- +mented by Gothic windows and the empty niches of +statues; a meagre but delicate _hotel de ville_, of the +Renaissance, nestling close beside it; a curious _chancel- +lerie_ of the middle of the sixteenth century, with +mythological figures and a Latin inscription on the +front, - both of these latter buildings being rather un- +expected features of the huddled and precipitous little +town. Loches has a suburb on the other side of the +Indre, which we had contented ourselves with looking +down at from the heights, while we wondered whether, +even if it had not been getting late and our train were +more accommodating, we should care to take our way +across the bridge and look up that bust, in terra-cotta, +of Francis I., which is the principal ornament of the +Chateau de Sansac and the faubourg of Beaulieu. I +think we decided that we should not; that we were +already quite well enough acquainted with the nasal +profile of that monarch. + + + +XI. + +I know not whether the exact limits of an excur- +sion, as distinguished from a journey, have ever been +fixed; at any rate, it seemed none of my business, at +Tours, to settle the question. Therefore, though the +making of excursions had been the purpose of my +stay, I thought it vain, while I started for Bourges, to +determine to which category that little expedition +might belong. It was not till the third day that I re- +turned to Tours; and the distance, traversed for the +most part after dark, was even greater than I had sup- +posed. That, however, was partly the fault of a tire- +some wait at Vierzon, where I had more than enough +time to dine, very badly, at the _buffet_, and to observe +the proceedings of a family who had entered my rail- +way carriage at Tours and had conversed unreservedly, +for my benefit, all the way from that station, - a family +whom it entertained me to assign to the class of _petite +noblesse de province_. Their noble origin was confirmed +by the way they all made _maigre_ in the refreshment +oom (it happened to be a Friday), as if it had been +possible to do anything else. They ate two or three +omelets apiece, and ever so many little cakes, while +the positive, talkative mother watched her children as +the waiter handed about the roast fowl. I was destined +to share the secrets of this family to the end; for +when I had taken place in the empty train that was +in waiting to convey us to Bourges, the same vigilant +woman pushed them all on top of me into my com- +partment, though the carriages on either side con- +tained no travellers at all. It was better, I found, to +have dined (even on omelets and little cakes) at the +station at Vierzon than at the hotel at Bourges, which, +when I reached it at nine o'clock at night, did not +strike me as the prince of hotels. The inns in the +smaller provincial towns in France are all, as the term +is, commercial, and the _commis-voyageur_ is in triumphant +possession. I saw a great deal of him for several +weeks after this; for he was apparently the only traveller +in the southern provinces, and it was my daily fate to +sit opposite to him at tables d'hote and in railway +trains. He may be known by two infallible signs, - +his hands are fat, and he tucks his napkin into his +shirt-collar. In spite of these idiosyncrasies, he seemed +to me a reserved and inoffensive person, with singularly +little of the demonstrative good-humor that he has +been described as possessing. I saw no one who re- +minded me of Balzac's "illustre Gaudissart;" and in- +deed, in the course of a month's journey through a +large part of France, I heard so little desultory con- +versation that I wondered whether a change had not +come over the spirit of the people. They seemed to +me as silent as Americans when Americans have not +been "introduced," and infinitely less addicted to ex- +changing remarks in railway trains and at tables d'hote +the colloquial and cursory English; a fact per- +haps not worth mentioning were it not at variance +with that reputation which the French have long en- +joyed of being a pre-eminently sociable nation. The +common report of the character of a people is, how- +ever, an indefinable product; and it is, apt to strike +the traveller who observes for himself as very wide of +the mark. The English, who have for ages been de- +scribed (mainly by the French) as the dumb, stiff, +unapproachable race, present to-day a remarkable ap- +pearance of good-humor and garrulity, and are dis- +tinguished by their facility of intercourse. On the +other hand, any one who has seen half a dozen +Frenchmen pass a whole day together in a railway- +carriage without breaking silence is forced to believe +that the traditional reputation of these gentlemen is +simply the survival of some primitive formula. It was +true, doubtless, before the Revolution; but there have +been great changes since then. The question of which +is the better taste, to talk to strangers or to hold your +tongue, is a matter apart; I incline to believe that the +French reserve is the result of a more definite con- +ception of social behavior. I allude to it only be- +came it is at variance with the national fame, and at +the same time is compatible with a very easy view of +life in certain other directions. On some of these +latter points the Boule d'Or at Bourges was full of +instruction; boasting, as it did, of a hall of reception +in which, amid old boots that had been brought to be +cleaned, old linen that was being sorted for the wash, +and lamps of evil odor that were awaiting replenish- +ment, a strange, familiar, promiscuous household life +went forward. Small scullions in white caps and aprons +slept upon greasy benches; the Boots sat staring at +you while you fumbled, helpless, in a row of pigeon- +holes, for your candlestick or your key; and, amid the +coming and going of the _commis-voyageurs_, a little +sempstress bent over the under-garments of the hostess, +- the latter being a heavy, stem, silent woman, who +looked at people very hard. + +It was not to be looked at in that manner that one +had come all the way from Tours; so that within ten +minutes after my arrival I sallied out into the dark- +ness to get somehow and somewhere a happier im- +pression. However late in the evening I may arrive +at a place, I cannot go to bed without an impression. +The natural place, at Bourges, to look for one seemed +to be the cathedral; which, moreover, was the only +thing that could account for my presence _dans cette +galere_. I turned out of a small square, in front of the +hotel, and walked up a narrow, sloping street, paved +with big, rough stones and guiltless of a foot-way. +It was a splendid starlight night; the stillness of a +sleeping _ville de province_ was over everything; I had +the whole place to myself. I turned to my right, at +the top of the street, where presently a short, vague +lane brought me into sight of the cathedral. I ap- +proached it obliquely, from behind; it loomed up in +the darkness above me, enormous and sublime. It +stands on the top of the large but not lofty eminence +over which Bourges is scattered, - a very good position, +as French cathedrals go, for they are not all so nobly +situated as Chartres and Laon. On the side on which +I approached it (the south) it is tolerably well ex- +posed, though the precinct is shabby; in front, it is +rather too much shut in. These defects, however, it +makes up for on the north side and behind, where it +presents itself in the most admirable manner to the +garden of the Archeveche, which has been arranged +as a public walk, with the usual formal alleys of the +_jardin francais_. I must add that I appreciated these +points only on the following day. As I stood there in +the light of the stars, many of which had an autumnal +sharpness, while others were shooting over the heavens, +the huge, rugged vessel of the church overhung me in +very much the same way as the black hull of a ship +at sea would overhang a solitary swimmer. It seemed +colossal, stupendous, a dark leviathan. + +The next morning, which was lovely, I lost no +time in going back to it, and found, with satisfaction, +that the daylight did it no injury. The cathedral of +Bourges is indeed magnificently huge; and if it is a +good deal wanting in lightness and grace it is perhaps +only the more imposing. I read in the excellent hand- +book of M. Joanne that it was projected "_des_ 1172," +but commenced only in the first years of the thirteenth +century. "The nave" the writer adds, "was finished +_tant bien que mal, faute de ressources;_ the facade is of +the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in its lower +part, and of the fourteenth in its upper." The allusion +to the nave means the omission of the transepts. The +west front consists of two vast but imperfect towers; +one of which (the south) is immensely buttressed, so +that its outline slopes forward, like that of a pyramid, +being the taller of the two. If they had spires, these +towers would be prodigious; as it is, given the rest +of the church, they are wanting in elevation. There +are five deeply recessed portals, all in a row, each +surmounted with a gable; the gable over the central +door being exceptionally high. Above the porches, +which give the measure of its width, the front rears +itself, piles itself, on a great scale, carried up by gal- +leries, arches, windows, sculptures, and supported by +the extraordinarily thick buttresses of which I have +spoken, and which, though they embellish it with deep +shadows thrown sidewise, do not improve its style. +The portals, especially the middle one, are extremely +interesting; they are covered with curious early sculp- +tures. The middle one, however, I must describe +alone. It has no less than six rows of figures, - the +others have four, - some of which, notably the upper +one, are still in their places. The arch at the top has +three tiers of elaborate imagery. The upper of these +is divided by the figure of Christ in judgment, of great +size, stiff and terrible, with outstretched arms. On +either side of him are ranged three or four angels, +with the instruments of the Passion. Beneath him, in +the second frieze, stands the angel of justice, with his +scales; and on either side of him is the vision of the +last judgment. The good prepare, with infinite titilla- +tion and complacency, to ascend to the skies; while +the bad are dragged, pushed, hurled, stuffed, crammed, +into pits and caldrons of fire. There is a charming +detail in this section. Beside the angel, on, the right, +where the wicked are the prey of demons, stands a +little female figure, that of a child, who, with hands +meekly folded and head gently raised, waits for the +stern angel to decide upon her fate. In this fate, how- +ever, a dreadful, big devil also takes a keen interest; +he seems on the point of appropriating the tender +creature; he has a face like a goat and an enormous +hooked nose. But the angel gently lays a hand upon +the shoulder of the little girl - the movement is full +of dignity - as if to say, "No; she belongs to the other +side." The frieze below represents the general re- +surrection, with the good and the wicked emerging from +their sepulchres. Nothing can be more quaint and +charming than the difference shown in their way of +responding to the final trump. The good get out of +their tombs with a certain modest gayety, an alacrity +tempered by respect; one of them kneels to pray as +soon as he has disinterred himself. You may know +the wicked, on the other hand, by their extreme shy- +ness; they crawl out slowly and fearfully; they hang +back, and seem to say, "Oh, dear!" These elaborate +sculptures, full of ingenuous intention and of the +reality of early faith, are in a remarkable state of pre- +servation; they bear no superficial signs of restoration, +and appear scarcely to have suffered from the centu- +ries. They are delightfully expressive; the artist had +the advantage of knowing exactly the effect he wished +to produce. + +The interior of the cathedral has a great simplicity +and majesty, and, above all, a tremendous height. The +nave is extraordinary in this respect; it dwarfs every- +thing else I know. I should add, however, that I am, +in architecture, always of the opinion of the last +speaker. Any great building seems to me, while I +look at it, the ultimate expression. At any rate, during +the hour that I sat gazing along the high vista of +Bourges, the interior of the great vessel corresponded +to my vision of the evening before. There is a tranquil +largeness, a kind of infinitude, about such an edifice: +it soothes and purifies the spirit, it illuminates the +mind. There are two aisles, on either side, in addi- +tion to the nave, - five in all, - and, as I have said, +there are no transepts; an omission which lengthens +the vista, so that from my place near the door the +central jewelled window in the depths of the perpen- +dicular choir seemed a mile or two away. The second, +or outward, of each pair of aisles is too low, and the +first too high; without this inequality the nave would +appear to take an even more prodigious flight. The +double aisles pass all the way round the choir, the +windows of which are inordinately rich in magnificent +old glass. I have seen glass as fine in other churches; +but I think I have never seen so much of it at once. + +Beside the cathedral, on the north, is a curious +structure of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, which +looks like an enormous flying buttress, with its sup- +port, sustaining the north tower. It makes a massive +arch, high in the air, and produces a romantic effect +as people pass under it to the open gardens of the +Archeveche, which extend to a considerable distance +in the rear of the church. The structure supporting +the arch has the girth of a largeish house, and con- +tains chambers with whose uses I am unacquainted, +but to which the deep pulsations of the cathedral, the +vibration of its mighty bells, and the roll of its organ- +tones must be transmitted even through the great arm +of stone. + +The archiepiscopal palace, not walled in as at Tours, +is visible as a stately habitation of the last century, +now in course of reparation in consequence of a fire. +From this side, and from the gardens of the palace, +the nave of the cathedral is visible in all its great +length and height, with its extraordinary multitude of +supports. The gardens aforesaid, accessible through +tall iron gates, are the promenade - the Tuileries - of +the town, and, very pretty in themselves, are immensely +set off by the overhanging church. It was warm and +sunny; the benches were empty; I sat there a long +time, in that pleasant state of mind which visits the +traveller in foreign towns, when he is not too hurried, +while he wonders where he had better go next. The +straight, unbroken line of the roof of the cathedral +was very noble; but I could see from this point how +much finer the effect would have been if the towers, +which had dropped almost out of sight, might have +been carried still higher. The archiepiscopal gardens +look down at one end over a sort of esplanade or +suburban avenue lying on a lower level, on which they +open, and where several detachments of soldiers +(Bourges is full of soldiers) had just been drawn up. +The civil population was also collecting, and I saw +that something was going to happen. I learned that +a private of the Chasseurs was to be "broken" for +stealing, and every one was eager to behold the cere- +mony. Sundry other detachments arrived on the +ground, besides many of the military who had come +as a matter of taste. One of them described to me +the process of degradation from the ranks, and I felt +for a moment a hideous curiosity to see it, under the +influence of which I lingered a little. But only a +little; the hateful nature of the spectacle hurried me +away, at the same time that others were hurrying for- +ward. As I turned my back upon it I reflected that +human beings are cruel brutes, though I could not +flatter myself that the ferocity of the thing was ex- +clusively French. In another country the concourse +would have been equally great, and the moral of it all +seemed to be that military penalties are as terrible as +military honors are gratifying. + + + +XII. + +The cathedral is not the only lion of Bourges; the +house of Jacques Coeur is an object of interest scarcely +less positive. This remarkable man had a very strange +history, and he too was "broken," like the wretched +soldier whom I did not stay to see. He has been re- +habilitated, however, by an age which does not fear +the imputation of paradox, and a marble statue of +him ornaments the street in front of his house. To +interpret him according to this image - a womanish +figure in a long robe and a turban, with big bare arms +and a dramatic pose - would be to think of him as a +kind of truculent sultana. He wore the dress of his +period, but his spirit was very modern; he was a Van- +derbilt or a Rothschild of the fifteenth century. He +supplied the ungrateful Charles VII. with money to pay +the troops who, under the heroic Maid, drove the +English from French soil. His house, which to-day is +used as a Palais de Justice, appears to have been re- +garded at the time it was built very much as the resi- +dence of Mr. Vanderbilt is regarded in New York to-day. +It stands on the edge of the hill on which most of the +town is planted, so that, behind, it plunges down to a +lower level, and, if you approach it on that side, as I +did, to come round to the front of it, you have to +ascend a longish flight of steps. The back, of old, +must have formed a portion of the city wall; at any +rate, it offers to view two big towers, which Joanne +says were formerly part of the defence of Bourges. +From the lower level of which I speak - the square in +front of the post-office - the palace of Jacques Coeur +looks very big and strong and feudal; from the upper +street, in front of it, it looks very handsome and deli- +cate. To this street it presents two stories and a con- +siderable length of facade; and it has, both within and +without, a great deal of curious and beautiful detail. +Above the portal, in the stonework, are two false win- +dows, in which two figures, a man and a woman, ap- +parently household servants, are represented, in sculp- +ture, as looking down into the street. The effect is +homely, yet grotesque, and the figures are sufficiently +living to make one commiserate them for having been +condemned, in so dull a town, to spend several cen- +turies at the window. They appear to be watching for +the return of their master, who left his beautiful house +one morning and never came back. + +The history of Jacques Coeur, which has been +written by M. Pierre Clement, in a volume crowned +by the French Academy, is very wonderful and in- +teresting, but I have no space to go into it here. +There is no more curious example, and few more +tragical, of a great fortune crumbling from one day to +the other, or of the antique superstition that the gods +grow jealous of human success. Merchant, million- +naire, banker, ship-owner, royal favorite, and minister +of finance, explorer of the East and monopolist of the +glittering trade between that quarter of the globe and +his own, great capitalist who had anticipated the +brilliant operations of the present time, he expiated +his prosperity by poverty, imprisonment, and torture. +The obscure points in his career have been elucidated +by M. Clement, who has drawn, moreover, a very vivid +picture of the corrupt and exhausted state of France +during the middle of the fifteenth century. He has +shown that the spoliation of the great merchant was a +deliberately calculated act, and that the king sacrificed +him without scruple or shame to the avidity of a sin- +gularly villanous set of courtiers. The whole story is +an extraordinary picture of high-handed rapacity, - +the crudest possible assertion of the right of the stronger. +The victim was stripped of his property, but escaped +with his life, made his way out of France, and, betak- +ing himself to Italy, offered his services to the Pope. +It is proof of the consideration that he enjoyed in +Europe, and of the variety of his accomplishments, +that Calixtus III. should have appointed him to take +command of a fleet which his Holiness was fitting out +against the Turks. Jacques Coeur, however, was not +destined to lead it to victory. He died shortly after +the expedition had started, in the island of Chios, in +1456. The house of Bourges, his native place, testifies +in some degree to his wealth and splendor, though it +has in parts that want of space which is striking in +many of the buildings of the Middle Ages. The court, +indeed, is on a large scale, ornamented with turrets +and arcades, with several beautiful windows, and with +sculptures inserted in the walls, representing the various +sources of the great fortune of the owner. M. Pierre +Clement describes this part of the house as having +been of an "incomparable richesse," - an estimate of its +charms which seems slightly exaggerated to-day. There +is, however, something delicate and familiar in the +bas-reliefs of which I have spoken, little scenes of +agriculture and industry, which show, that the pro- +prietor was not ashamed of calling attention to his +harvests and enterprises. To-day we should question +the taste of such allusions, even in plastic form, in +the house of a "merchant prince" (say in the Fifth +Avenue). Why is it, therefore, that these quaint little +panels at Bourges do not displease us? It is perhaps +because things very ancient never, for some mysterious +reason, appear vulgar. This fifteenth-century million- +naire, with his palace, his egotistical sculptures, may +have produced that impression on some critical spirits +of his own day. + +The portress who showed me into the building was +a dear litte old woman, with the gentlest, sweetest, +saddest face - a little white, aged face, with dark, +pretty eyes - and the most considerate manner. She +took me up into an upper hall, where there were a +couple of curious chimney-pieces and a fine old oaken +roof, the latter representing the hollow of a long boat. +There is a certain oddity in a native of Bourges - an +inland town if there ever was one, without even a river +(to call a river) to encourage nautical ambitions - hav- +ing found his end as admiral of a fleet; but this boat- +shaped roof, which is extremely graceful and is re- +peated in another apartment, would suggest that the +imagination of Jacques Coeur was fond of riding the +waves. Indeed, as he trafficked in Oriental products +and owned many galleons, it is probable that he was +personally as much at home in certain Mediterranean +ports as in the capital of the pastoral Berry. If, when +he looked at the ceilings of his mansion, he saw his +boats upside down, this was only a suggestion of the +shortest way of emptying them of their treasures. He +is presented in person above one of the great stone +chimney-pieces, in company with his wife, Macee de +Leodepart, - I like to write such an extraordinary name. +Carved in white stone, the two sit playing at chess at +an open window, through which they appear to give +their attention much more to the passers-by than to +the game. They are also exhibited in other attitudes; +though I do not recognize them in the composition on +top of one of the fireplaces which represents the battle- +ments of a castle, with the defenders (little figures be- +tween the crenellations) hurling down missiles with a +great deal of fury and expression. It would have been +hard to believe that the man who surrounded himself +with these friendly and humorous devices had been +guilty of such wrong-doing as to call down the heavy +hand of justice. + +It is a curious fact, however, that Bourges contains +legal associations of a purer kind than the prosecution +of Jacques Coeur, which, in spite of the rehabilitations +of history, can hardly be said yet to have terminated, +inasmuch as the law-courts of the city are installed in +his quondam residence. At a short distance from it +stands the Hotel Cujas, one of the curiosities of Bourges +and the habitation for many years of the great juris- +consult who revived in the sixteenth century the study +of the Roman law, and professed it during the close +of his life in the university of the capital of Berry. +The learned Cujas had, in spite of his sedentary pur- +suits, led a very wandering life; he died at Bourges in +the year 1590. Sedentary pursuits is perhaps not +exactly what I should call them, having read in the +"Biographie Universelle" (sole source of my knowledge +of the renowned Cujacius) that his usual manner of +study was to spread himself on his belly on the floor. +He did not sit down, he lay down; and the "Biographie +Universelle" has (for so grave a work) an amusing pic- +ture of the short, fat, untidy scholar dragging himself +_a plat ventre_ across his room, from one pile of books +to the other. The house in which these singular gym- +nastics took place, and which is now the headquarters +of the gendarmerie, is one of the most picturesque at +Bourges. Dilapidated and discolored, it has a charm- +ing Renaissance front. A high wall separates it from +the street, and on this wall, which is divided by a +large open gateway, are perched two overhanging +turrets. The open gateway admits you to the court, +beyond which the melancholy mansion erects itself, +decorated also with turrets, with fine old windows, and +with a beautiful tone of faded red brick and rusty +stone. It is a charming encounter for a provincial by- +street; one of those accidents in the hope of which +the traveller with a propensity for sketching (whether +on a little paper block or on the tablets of his brain) +decides to turn a corner at a venture. A brawny gen- +darme, in his shirt-sleeves, was polishing his boots in +the court; an ancient, knotted vine, forlorn of its +clusters, hung itself over a doorway, and dropped its +shadow on the rough grain of the wall. The place +was very sketchable. I am sorry to say, however, that +it was almost the only "bit." Various other curious +old houses are supposed to exist at Bourges, and I +wandered vaguely about in search of them. But I had +little success, and I ended by becoming sceptical. +Bourges is a _ville de province_ in the full force of the +term, especially as applied invidiously. The streets, +narrow, tortuous, and dirty, have very wide cobble- +stones; the houses for the most part are shabby, with- +out local color. The look of things is neither modern +nor antique, - a kind of mediocrity of middle age. +There is an enormous number of blank walls, - walls +of gardens, of courts, of private houses - that avert +themselves from the street, as if in natural chagrin at +there being so little to see. Round about is a dull, +flat, featureless country, on which the magnificent +cathedral looks down. There is a peculiar dulness +and ugliness in a French town of this type, which, I +must immediately add, is not the most frequent one. +In Italy, everything has a charm, a color, a grace; even +desolation and _ennui_. In England a cathedral city +may be sleepy, but it is pretty sure to be mellow. In +the course of six weeks spent _en province_, however, I +saw few places that had not more expression than +Bourges. + +I went back to the cathedral; that, after all, was +a feature. Then I returned to my hotel, where it was +time to dine, and sat down, as usual, with the _commis- +voyageurs_, who cut their bread on their thumb and +partook of every course; and after this repast I re- +paired for a while to the cafe, which occupied a part +of the basement of the inn and opened into its court. +This cafe was a friendly, homely, sociable spot, where +it seemed the habit of the master of the establishment +to _tutoyer_ his customers, and the practice of the cus- +tomers to _tutoyer_ the waiter. Under these circum- +stances the waiter of course felt justified in sitting +down at the same table with a gentleman who had +come in and asked him for writing materials. He +served this gentleman with a horrible little portfolio, +covered with shiny black cloth and accompanied with +two sheets of thin paper, three wafers, and one of +those instruments of torture which pass in France for +pens, - these being the utensils invariably evoked by +such a request; and then, finding himself at leisure, +he placed himself opposite and began to write a letter +of his own. This trifling incident reminded me afresh +that France is a democratic country. I think I re- +ceived an admonition to the same effect from the free, +familiar way in which the game of whist was going +on just behind me. It was attended with a great deal +of noisy pleasantry, flavored every now and then with +a dash of irritation. There was a young man of whom +I made a note; he was such a beautiful specimen of +his class. Sometimes he was very facetious, chatter- +ing, joking, punning, showing off; then, as the game +went on and he lost, and had to pay the _consomma- +tion_, he dropped his amiability, slanged his partner, +declared he wouldn't play any more, and went away +in a fury. Nothing could be more perfect or more +amusing than the contrast. The manner of the +whole affair was such as, I apprehend, one would not +have seen among our English-speaking people; both +the jauntiness of the first phase and the petulance of +the second. To hold the balance straight, however, +I may remark that if the men were all fearful "cads," +they were, with their cigarettes and their inconsistency, +less heavy, less brutal, than our dear English-speaking +cad; just as the bright little cafe where a robust mater- +familias, doling out sugar and darning a stocking, sat +in her place under the mirror behind the _comptoir_, +was a much more civilized spot than a British public- +house, or a "commercial room," with pipes and whiskey, +or even than an American saloon. + + + +XIII. + +It is very certain that when I left Tours for Le +Mans it was a journey and not an excursion; for I +had no intention of coming back. The question, in- +deed, was to get away, - no easy matter in France, in +the early days of October, when the whole _jeunesse_ +of the country is going back to school. It is accom- +panied, apparently, with parents and grandparents, +and it fills the trains with little pale-faced _lyceens_, +who gaze out of the windows with a longing, lingering +air, not unnatural on the part of small members of a +race in which life is intense, who are about to be +restored to those big educative barracks that do such +violence to our American appreciation of the oppor- +tunities of boyhood. The train stopped every five +minutes; but, fortunately, the country was charming, - +hilly and bosky, eminently good-humored, and dotted +here and there with a smart little chateau. The old +capital of the province of the Maine, which has given +its name to a great American State, is a fairly interest- +ing town, but I confess that I found in it less than I +expected to admire. My expectations had doubtless +been my own fault; there is no particular reason why +Le Mans should fascinate. It stands upon a hill, +indeed, - a much better hill than the gentle swell of +Bourges. This hill, however, is not steep in all direc- +tions; from the railway, as I arrived, it was not even +perceptible. Since I am making comparisons, I may +remark that, on the other hand, the Boule d'Or at Le +Mans is an appreciably better inn than the Boule d'Or +at Bourges. It looks out upon a small market-place +which has a certain amount of character and seems +to be slipping down the slope on which it lies, though +it has in the middle an ugly _halle_, or circular market- +house, to keep it in position. At Le Mans, as at +Bourges, my first business was with the cathedral, to +which, I lost no time in directing my steps. It suf- +fered by juxta-position to the great church I had seen +a few days before; yet it has some noble features. It +stands on the edge of the eminence of the town, which +falls straight away on two sides of it, and makes a +striking mass, bristling behind, as you see it from +below, with rather small but singularly numerous flying +buttresses. On my way to it I happened to walk +through the one street which contains a few ancient +and curious houses, - a very crooked and untidy lane, +of really mediaeval aspect, honored with the denomina- +tion of the Grand' Rue. Here is the house of Queen +Berengaria, - an absurd name, as the building is of a +date some three hundred years later than the wife of +Richard Coeur de Lion, who has a sepulchral monu- +ment in the south aisle of the cathedral. The structure +in question - very sketchable, if the sketcher could get +far enough away from it - is an elaborate little dusky +facade, overhanging the street, ornamented with panels +of stone, which are covered with delicate Renaissance +sculpture. A fat old woman, standing in the door of +a small grocer's shop next to it, - a most gracious old +woman, with a bristling moustache and a charming +manner, - told me what the house was, and also in- +dicated to me a rotten-looking brown wooden mansion, +in the same street, nearer the cathedral, as the Maison +Scarron. The author of the "Roman Comique," and +of a thousand facetious verses, enjoyed for some years, +in the early part of his life, a benefice in the cathedral +of Le Mans, which gave him a right to reside in one +of the canonical houses. He was rather an odd canon, +but his history is a combination of oddities. He wooed +the comic muse from the arm-chair of a cripple, and +in the same position - he was unable even to go down +on his knees - prosecuted that other suit which made +him the first husband of a lady of whom Louis XIV. +was to be the second. There was little of comedy in +the future Madame de Maintenon; though, after all, +there was doubtless as much as there need have been +in the wife of a poor man who was moved to compose +for his tomb such an epitaph as this, which I quote +from the "Biographie Universelle":- + + "Celui qui cy maintenant dort, + Fit plus de pitie que d'envie, + Et souffrit mille fois la mort, + Avant que de perdre la vie. + Passant, ne fais icy de bruit, + Et garde bien qu'il ne s'eveille, + Car voicy la premiere nuit, + Que le Pauvre Scarron sommeille." + + + +There is rather a quiet, satisfactory _place_ in front +of the cathedral, with some good "bits" in it; notably +a turret at the angle of one of the towers, and a very +fine, steep-roofed dwelling, behind low walls, which it +overlooks, with a tall iron gate. This house has two +or three little pointed towers, a big, black, precipitous +roof, and a general air of having had a history. There +are houses which are scenes, and there are houses +which are only houses. The trouble with the domestic +architecture of the United States is that it is not +scenic, thank Heaven! and the good fortune of an old +structure like the turreted mansion on the hillside of +Le Mans is that it is not simply a house. It is a per- +son, as it were, as well. It would be well, indeed, if +it might have communicated a little of its personality +to the front of the cathedral, which has none of its +own. Shabby, rusty, unfinished, this front has a +romanesque portal, but nothing in the way of a tower. +One sees from without, at a glance, the peculiarity of +the church, - the disparity between the romanesque +nave, which is small and of the twelfth century, and +the immense and splendid transepts and choir, of a +period a hundred years later. Outside, this end of +the church rises far above the nave, which looks merely +like a long porch leading to it, with a small and curious +romanesque porch in its own south flank. The transepts, +shallow but very lofty, display to the spectators in the +_place_ the reach of their two clere-story windows, which +occupy, above, the whole expanse of the wall. The +south transept terminates in a sort of tower, which is +the only one of which the cathedral can boast. Within, +the effect of the choir is superb; it is a church in it- +self, with the nave simply for a point of view. As I +stood there, I read in my Murray that it has the stamp +of the date of the perfection of pointed Gothic, and I +found nothing to object to the remark. It suffers little +by confrontation with Bourges, and, taken in itself, +seems to me quite as fine. A passage of double aisles +surrounds it, with the arches that divide them sup- +ported on very thick round columns, not clustered. +There are twelve chapels in this passage, and a charm- +ing little lady chapel, filled with gorgeous old glass. +The sustained height of this almost detached choir is +very noble; its lightness and grace, its soaring sym- +metry, carry the eye up to places in the air from +which it is slow to descend. Like Tours, like Chartres, +like Bourges (apparently like all the French cathedrals, +and unlike several English ones) Le Mans is rich in +splendid glass. The beautiful upper windows of the +choir make, far aloft, a sort of gallery of pictures, +blooming with vivid color. It is the south transept +that contains the formless image - a clumsy stone +woman lying on her back - which purports to represent +Queen Berengaria aforesaid. + +The view of the cathedral from the rear is, as usual, +very fine. A small garden behind it masks its base; +but you descend the hill to a large _place de foire_, ad- +jacent to a fine old pubic promenade which is known +as Les Jacobins, a sort of miniature Tuileries, where I +strolled for a while in rectangular alleys, destitute of +herbage, and received a deeper impression of vanished +things. The cathedral, on the pedestal of its hill, looks +considerably farther than the fair-ground and the +Jacobins, between the rather bare poles of whose +straightly planted trees you may admire it at a con- +venient distance. I admired it till I thought I should +remember it (better than the event has proved), and +then I wandered away and looked at another curious +old church, Notre-Dame-de-la-Couture. This sacred +edifice made a picture for ten minutes, but the picture +has faded now. I reconstruct a yellowish-brown facade, +and a portal fretted with early sculptures; but the +details have gone the way of all incomplete sensations. +After you have stood awhile in the choir of the +cathedral, there is no sensation at Le Mans that goes +very far. For some reason not now to be traced, I +had looked for more than this. I think the reason +was to some extent simply in the name of the place; +for names, on the whole, whether they be good reasons +or not, are very active ones. Le Mans, if I am not +mistaken, has a sturdy, feudal sound; suggests some- +thing dark and square, a vision of old ramparts and +gates. Perhaps I had been unduly impressed by the +fact, accidentally revealed to me, that Henry II., first +of the English Plantagenets, was born there. Of course +it is easy to assure one's self in advance, but does it +not often happen that one had rather not be assured? +There is a pleasure sometimes in running the risk of +disappointment. I took mine, such as it was, quietly +enough, while I sat before dinner at the door of one +of the cafes in the market-place with a _bitter-et-curacao_ +(invaluable pretext at such an hour!) to keep me com- +pany. I remember that in this situation there came +over me an impression which both included and ex- +cluded all possible disappointments. The afternoon +was warm and still; the air was admirably soft. The +good Manceaux, in little groups and pairs, were seated +near me; my ear was soothed by the fine shades of +French enunciation, by the detached syllables of that +perfect tongue. There was nothing in particular in +the prospect to charm; it was an average French view. +Yet I felt a charm, a kind of sympathy, a sense of the +completeness of French life and of the lightness and +brightness of the social air, together with a desire to +arrive at friendly judgments, to express a positive +interest. I know not why this transcendental mood +should have descended upon me then and there; but +that idle half-hour in front of the cafe, in the mild +October afternoon, suffused with human sounds, is +perhaps the most definite thing I brought away from +Le Mans. + + + +XIV. + +I am shocked at finding, just after this noble de- +claration of principles that in a little note-book which +at that time I carried about with me, the celebrated +city of Angers is denominated a "sell." I reproduce +this vulgar term with the greatest hesitation, and only +because it brings me more quickly to my point. This +point is that Angers belongs to the disagreeable class +of old towns that have been, as the English say, "done +up." Not the oldness, but the newness, of the place +is what strikes the sentimental tourist to-day, as he +wanders with irritation along second-rate boulevards, +looking vaguely about him for absent gables. "Black +Angers," in short, is a victim of modern improvements, +and quite unworthy of its admirable name, - a name +which, like that of Le Mans, had always had, to my +eyes, a highly picturesque value. It looks particularly +well on the Shakspearean page (in "King John"), where +we imagine it uttered (though such would not have +been the utterance of the period) with a fine old in- +sular accent. Angers figures with importance in early +English history: it was the capital city of the Plantagenet +race, home of that Geoffrey of Anjou who married, as +second husband, the Empress Maud, daughter of +Henry I. and competitor of Stephen, and became father +of Henry II., first of the Plantagenet kings, born, as we +have seen, at Le Mans. The facts create a natural +presumption that Angers will look historic; I turned +them over in my mind as I travelled in the train from +Le Mans, through a country that was really pretty, and +looked more like the usual English than like the usual +French scenery, with its fields cut up by hedges and +a considerable rotundity in its trees. On my way +from the station to the hotel, however, it became plain +that I should lack a good pretext for passing that night +at the Cheval Blanc; I foresaw that I should have con- +tented myself before th e end of the day. I remained +at the White Horse only long enough to discover that +it was an exceptionally good provincial inn, one of the +best that I encountered during six weeks spent in +these establishments. + +"Stupidly and vulgarly rnodernized," - that is an- +other phrase from my note-book, and note-books are +not obliged to be reasonable. "There are some narrow +and tortuous-streets, with a few curious old houses," - I +continue to quote; "there is a castle, of which the ex- +terior is most extraordinary, and there is a cathedral +of moderate interest. It is fair to say that the +Chateau d'Angers is by itself worth a pilgrimage; the +only drawback is that you have seen it in a quarter of +an hour. You cannot do more than look at it, and +one good look does your business. It has no beauty, +no grace, no detail, nothing that charms or detains +you; it is simply very old and very big, - so big and +so old that this simple impression is enough, and it +takes its place in your recollections as a perfect specimen +of a superannuated stronghold. It stands at one end +of the town, surrounded by a huge, deep moat, which +originally contained the waters of the Maine, now +divided from it by a quay. The water-front of Angers +is poor, - wanting in color and in movement; and there +is always an effect of perversity in a town lying near a +great river and, yet not upon it. The Loire is a few +miles off; but Angers contents itself with a meagre +affluent of that stream. The effect was naturally much +better when the huge, dark mass of the castle, with its +seventeen prodigious towers, rose out of the protecting +flood. These towers are of tremendous girth and soli- +dity; they are encircled with great bands, or hoops, of +white stone, and are much enlarged at the base. +Between them hang vast curtains of infinitely old-look- +ing masonry, apparently a dense conglomeration of +slate, the material of which the town was originally +built (thanks to rich quarries in the neighborhood), +and to which it owed its appellation of the Black. +There are no windows, no apertures, and to-day no +battlements nor roofs. These accessories were removed +by Henry III., so that, in spite of its grimness and +blackness, the place has not even the interest of look- +ing like a prison; it being, as I supposed, the essence +of a prison not to be open to the sky. The only +features of the enormous structure are the black, sombre +stretches and protrusions of wall, the effect of which, +on so large a scale, is strange and striking. Begun by +Philip Augustus, and terminated by St. Louis, the +Chateau d'Angers has of course a great deal of history. +The luckless Fouquet, the extravagant minister of +finance of Louis XIV., whose fall from the heights of +grandeur was so sudden and complete, was confined +here in 1661, just after his arrest, which had taken +place at Nantes. Here, also, Huguenots and Vendeans +have suffered effective captivity. + +I walked round the parapet which protects the +outer edge of the moat (it is all up hill, and the moat +deepens and deepens), till I came to the entrance +which faces the town, and which is as bare and +strong as the rest. The concierge took me into the +court; but there was nothing to see. The place is +used as a magazine of ammunition, and the yard con- +tains a multitude of ugly buildings. The only thing +to do is to walk round the bastions for the view; but +at the moment of my visit the weather was thick, and +the bastions began and ended with themselves. So I +came out and took another look at the big, black ex- +terior, buttressed with white-ribbed towers, and per- +ceived that a desperate sketcher might extract a +picture from it, especially if he were to bring in, as +they say, the little black bronze statue of the good +King Rene (a weak production of David d'Angers), +which, standing within sight, ornaments the melancholy +faubourg. He would do much better, however, with +the very striking old timbered house (I suppose of the +fifteenth century) which is called the Maison d'Adam, +and is easily the first specimen at Angers of the +domestic architecture of the past. This admirable +house, in the centre of the town, gabled, elaborately +timbered, and much restored, is a really imposing +monument. The basement is occupied by a linen- +draper, who flourishes under the auspicious sign of +the Mere de Famille; and above his shop the tall +front rises in five overhanging stories. As the house +occupies the angle of a little _place_, this front is double, +and the black beams and wooden supports, displayed +over a large surface and carved and interlaced, have +a high picturesqueness. The Maison d'Adam is quite +in the grand style, and I am sorry to say I failed to +learn what history attaches to its name. If I spoke just +above of the cathedral as "moderate," I suppose I +should beg its pardon; for this serious charge was +probably prompted by the fact that it consists only of +a nave, without side aisles. A little reflection now +convinces me that such a form is a distinction; and, +indeed, I find it mentioned, rather inconsistently, in +my note-book, a little further on, as "extremely simple +and grand." The nave is spoken of in the same +volume as "big, serious, and Gothic," though the choir +and transepts are noted as very shallow. But it is not +denied that the air of the whole thing is original and +striking; and it would therefore appear, after all, that +the cathedral of Angers, built during the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries, is a sufficiently honorable church; +the more that its high west front, adorned with a very +primitive Gothic portal, supports two elegant tapering +spires, between which, unfortunately, an ugly modern +pavilion has been inserted. + +I remember nothing else at Angers but the curious +old Cafe Serin, where, after I had had my dinner at +the inn, I went and waited for the train which, at nine +o'clock in the evening, was to convey me, in a couple +of hours, to Nantes, - an establishment remarkable for +its great size and its air of tarnished splendor, its +brown gilding and smoky frescos, as also for the fact +that it was hidden away on the second floor of an un- +assuming house in an unilluminated street. It hardly +seemed a place where you would drop in; but when +once you had found it, it presented itself, with the +cathedral, the castle, and the Maison d'Adam, as one +of the historical monuments of Angers. + + + +XV. + +If I spent two nights at Nantes, it was for reasons +of convenience rather than of sentiment; though, in- +deed, I spent them in a big circular room which had +a stately, lofty, last-century look, - a look that con- +soled me a little for the whole place being dirty. The +high, old-fashioned, inn (it had a huge, windy _porte- +cochere_, and you climbed a vast black stone staircase +to get to your room) looked out on a dull square, sur- +rounded with other tall houses, and occupied on one +side by the theatre, a pompous building, decorated +with columns and statues of the muses. Nantes be- +longs to the class of towns which are always spoken +of as "fine," and its position near the mouth of the +Loire gives it, I believe, much commercial movement. +It is a spacious, rather regular city, looking, in the +parts that I traversed, neither very fresh nor very +venerable. It derives its principal character from the +handsome quays on the Loire, which are overhung +with tall eighteenth-century houses (very numerous, +too, in the other streets), - houses, with big _entresols_ +marked by arched windows, classic pediments, balcony- +rails of fine old iron-work. These features exist in +still better form at Bordeaux; but, putting Bordeaux +aside, Nantes is quite architectural. The view up and +down the quays has the cool, neutral tone of color +that one finds so often in French water-side places, - +the bright grayness which is the tone of French land- +scape art. The whole city has rather a grand, or at +least an eminently well-established air. During a day +passed in it of course I had time to go to the Musee; +the more so that I have a weakness for provincial +museums, - a sentiment that depends but little on the +quality of the collection. The pictures may be bad, +but the place is often curious; and, indeed, from bad +pictures, in certain moods of the mind, there is a +degree of entertainment to be derived. If they are +tolerably old they are often touching; but they must +have a relative antiquity, for I confess I can do no- +thing with works of art of which the badness is of +receat origin. The cool, still, empty chambers in +which indifferent collections are apt to be preserved, +the red brick tiles, the diffused light, the musty odor, +the mementos around you of dead fashions, the snuffy +custodian in a black skull cap, who pulls aside a +faded curtain to show you the lustreless gem of the +museum, - these things have a mild historical quality, +and the sallow canvases after all illustrate something. +Many of those in the museum of Nantes illustrate the +taste of a successful warrior; having been bequeathed +to the city by Napoleon's marshal, Clarke (created +Duc de Feltre). In addition to these there is the +usual number of specimens of the contemporary French +school, culled from the annual Salons and presented +to the museum by the State. Wherever the traveller +goes, in France, he is reminded of this very honorable +practice, - the purchase by the Government of a cer- +tain number of "pictures of the year," which are pre- +sently distributed in the provinces. Governments suc- +ceed each other and bid for success by different +devices; but the "patronage of art" is a plank, as we +should say here, in every platform. The works of art +are often ill-selected, - there is an official taste which +you immediately recognize, - but the custom is essen- +tially liberal, and a government which should neglect +it would be felt to be painfully common. The only +thing in this particular Musee that I remember is a +fine portrait of a woman, by Ingres, - very flat and +Chinese, but with an interest of line and a great deal +of style. + +There is a castle at Nantes which resembles in +some degree that of Angers, but has, without, much +less of the impressiveness of great size, and, within, +much more interest of detail. The court contains the +remains of a very fine piece of late Gothic, a tall ele- +gant building of the sixteenth century. The chateau +is naturally not wanting in history. It was the residence +of the old Dukes of Brittany, and was brought, with +the rest of the province, by the Duchess Anne, the last +representative of that race, as her dowry, to Charles +VIII. I read in the excellent hand-book of M. Joanne +that it has been visited by almost every one of the +kings of France, from Louis XI. downward; and also +that it has served as a place of sojourn less voluntary +on the part of various other distinguished persons, +from the horrible Merechal de Retz, who in the fifteenth +century was executed at Nantes for the murder of a +couple of hundred young children, sacrificed in abomin- +able rites, to the ardent Duchess of Berry, mother of +the Count of Chambord, who was confined there for a +few hours in 1832, just after her arrest in a neigh- +boring house. I looked at the house in question - you +may see it from the platform in front of the chateau +- and tried to figure to myself that embarrassing scene. +The duchess, after having unsuccessfully raised the +standard of revolt (for the exiled Bourbons), in the +legitimist Bretagne, and being "wanted," as the phrase +is, by the police of Louis Philippe, had hidden herself +in a small but loyal house at Nantes, where, at the end +of five months of seclusion, she was betrayed, for gold, +to the austere M. Guizot, by one of her servants, an +Alsatian Jew named Deutz. For many hours before +her capture she had been compressed into an inter- +stice behind a fireplace, and by the time she was +drawn forth into the light she had been ominously +scorched. The man who showed me the castle in- +dicated also another historic spot, a house with little +_tourelles_, on the Quai de la Fosse, in which Henry IV. +is said to have signed the Edict of Nantes. I am, +however, not in a position to answer for this pedigree. + +There is another point in the history of the fine +old houses which command the Loire, of which, I sup- +pose, one may be tolerably sure; that is, their having, +placid as they stand there to-day, looked down on the +horrors of the Terror of 1793, the bloody reign of the +monster Carrier and his infamous _noyades_. The most +hideous episode of the Revolution was enacted at +Nantes, where hundreds of men and women, tied to- +gether in couples, were set afloat upon rafts and sunk +to the bottom of the Loire. The tall eighteenth-century +house, full of the _air noble_, in France always reminds +me of those dreadful years, - of the street-scenes of the +Revolution. Superficially, the association is incongru- +ous, for nothing could be more formal and decorous +than the patent expression of these eligible residences. +But whenever I have a vision of prisoners bound on +tumbrels that jolt slowly to the scaffold, of heads car- +ried on pikes, of groups of heated _citoyennes_ shaking +their fists at closed coach-windows, I see in the back- +ground the well-ordered features of the architecture of +the period, - the clear gray stone, the high pilasters, +the arching lines of the _entresol_, the classic pediment, +the slate-covered attic. There is not much architecture +at Nantes except the domestic. The cathedral, with a +rough west front and stunted towers, makes no im- +pression as you approach it. It is true that it does its +best to recover its reputation as soon as you have +passed the threshold. Begun in 1434 and finished +about the end of the fifteenth century, as I discover in +Murray, it has a magnificent nave, not of great length, +but of extraordinary height and lightness. On the +other hand, it has no choir whatever. There is much +entertainment in France in seeing what a cathedral +will take upon itself to possess or to lack; for it is +only the smaller number that have the full complement +of features. Some have a very fine nave and no choir; +others a very fine choir and no nave. Some have a +rich outside and nothing within; others a very blank +face and a very glowing heart. There are a hundred +possibilities of poverty and wealth, and they make the +most unexpected combinations. + +The great treasure of Nantes is the two noble se- +pulchral monuments which occupy either transept, and +one of which has (in its nobleness) the rare distinction +of being a production of our own time. On the south +side stands the tomb of Francis II., the last of the +Dukes of Brittany, and of his second wife, Margaret +of Foix, erected in 1507 by their daughter Anne, whom +we have encountered already at the Chateau de Nantes, +where she was born; at Langeais, where she married +her first husband; at Amboise, where she lost him; at +Blois, where she married her second, the "good" +Louis XII., who divorced an impeccable spouse to +make room for her, and where she herself died. Trans- +ferred to the cathedral from a demolished convent, +this monument, the masterpiece of Michel Colomb, +author of the charming tomb of the children of Charles +VIII. and the aforesaid Anne, which we admired at +Saint Gatien of Tours, is one of the most brilliant +works of the French Renaissance. It has a splendid +effect, and is in perfect preservation. A great table of +black marble supports the reclining figures of the duke +and duchess, who lie there peacefully and majestically, +in their robes and crowns, with their heads each on a +cushion, the pair of which are supported, from behind, +by three, charming little kneeling angels; at the foot of +the quiet couple are a lion and a greyhound, with +heraldic devices. At each of the angles of the table +is a large figure in white marble of a woman elaborately +dressed, with a symbolic meaning, and these figures, +with their contemporary faces and clothes, which give +them the air of realistic portraits, are truthful and liv- +ing, if not remarkably beautiful. Round the sides of +the tomb are small images of the apostles. There is a +kind of masculine completeness in the work, and a +certain robustness of taste. + +In nothing were the sculptors of the Renaissance +more fortunate than in being in advance of us with +their tombs: they have left us noting to say in regard +to the great final contrast, - the contrast between the +immobility of death and the trappings and honors that +survive. They expressed in every way in which it was +possible to express it the solemnity, of their conviction +that the Marble image was a part of the personal +greatness of the defunct, and the protection, the re- +demption, of his memory. A modern tomb, in com- +parison, is a sceptical affair; it insists too little on the +honors. I say this in the face of the fact that one has +only to step across the cathedral of Nantes to stand in +the presence of one of the purest and most touching +of modern tombs. Catholic Brittany has erected in +the opposite transept a monument to one of the most +devoted of her sons, General de Lamoriciere, the de- +fender of the Pope, the vanquished of Castelfidardo. +This noble work, from the hand of Paul Dubois, one +of the most interesting of that new generation of sculp- +tors who have revived in France an art of which our +overdressed century had begun to despair, has every +merit but the absence of a certain prime feeling. It +is the echo of an earlier tune, - an echo with a beauti- +ful cadence. Under a Renaissance canopy of white +marble, elaborately worked with arabesques and che- +rubs, in a relief so low that it gives the work a cer- +tain look of being softened and worn by time, lies the +body of the Breton soldier, with, a crucifix clasped to +his breast and a shroud thrown over his body. At +each of the angles sits a figure in bronze, the two best +of which, representing Charity and Military Courage, +had given me extraordinary pleasure when they were +exhibited (in the clay) in the Salon of 1876. They +are admirably cast, and they have a certain greatness: +the one, a serene, robust young mother, beautiful in +line and attitude; the other, a lean and vigilant young +man, in a helmet that overshadows his serious eyes, +resting an outstretched arm, an admirable military +member, upon the hilt of a sword. These figures con- +tain abundant assurance that M. Paul Dubois has been +attentive to Michael Angelo, whom we have all heard +called a splendid example but a bad model. The +visor-shadowed face of his warrior is more or less a +reminiscence of the figure on the tomb of Lorenzo de' +Medici at Florence; but it is doubtless none the worse +for that. The interest of the work of Paul Dubois is +its peculiar seriousness, a kind of moral good faith +which is not the commonest feature of French art, and +which, united as it is in this case with exceeding +knowledge and a remarkable sense of form, produces +an impression, of deep refinement. The whole monu- +ment is a proof of exquisitely careful study; but I am +not sure that this impression on the part of the spec- +tator is altogether a happy one. It explains much of +its great beauty, and it also explains, perhaps, a little +of a certain weakness. That word, however, is scarcely +in place; I only mean that M. Dubois has made a vi- +sible effort, which has been most fruitful. Simplicity +is not always strength, and our complicated modern +genius contains treasures of intention. This fathomless +modern element is an immense charm on the part of +M. Paul Dubois. I am lost in admiration of the deep +aesthetic experience, the enlightenment of taste, re- +vealed by such work. After that, I only hope that +Giuseppe Garibaldi may have a monument as fair. + + + +XVI. + +To go from Nantes to La Rochelle you travel +straight southward, across the historic _bocage_ of La +Vendee, the home of royalist bush-fighting. The +country, which is exceedingly pretty, bristles with +copses, orchards, hedges, and with trees more spread- +ing and sturdy than the traveller is apt to deem the +feathery foliage of France. It is true that as I pro- +ceeded it flattened out a good deal, so that for an +hour there was a vast featureless plain, which offered +me little entertainment beyond the general impression +that I was approaching the Bay of Biscay (from which, +in reality, I was yet far distant). As we drew near +La Rochelle, however, the prospect brightened con- +siderably, and the railway kept its course beside a +charming little canal, or canalized river, bordered +with trees, and with small, neat, bright-colored, and +yet old-fashioned cottages and villas, which stood +back on the further side, behind small gardens, hedges, +painted palings, patches of turf. The whole effect +was Dutch and delightful; and in being delightful, +though not in being Dutch, it prepared me for the +charms of La Rochelle, which from the moment I +entered it I perceived to be a fascinating little town, +a most original mixture of brightness and dulness. +Part of its brightness comes from its being extra- +ordinarily clean, - in which, after all, it _is_ Dutch; a +virtue not particularly noticeable at Bourges, Le Mans, +and Angers. Whenever I go southward, if it be only +twenty miles, I begin to look out for the south, pre- +pared as I am to find the careless grace of those lati- +tudes even in things of which it may, be said that +they may be south of something, but are not southern. +To go from Boston to New York (in this state of +mind) is almost as soft a sensation as descending the +Italian side, of the Alps; and to go from New York to +Philadelphia is to enter a zone of tropical luxuriance +and warmth. Given this absurd disposition, I could +not fail to flatter myself, on reaching La Rochelle, +that I was already in the Midi, and to perceive in +everything, in the language of the country, the _ca- +ractere meridional._ Really, a great many things had +a hint of it. For that matter, it seems to me that to +arrive in the south at a bound - to wake up there, as +it were - would be a very imperfect pleasure. The +full pleasure is to approach by stages and gradations; +to observe the successive shades of difference by +which it ceases to be the north. These shades are +exceedingly fine, but your true south-lover has an eye +for them all. If he perceive them at New York and +Philadelphia, - we imagine him boldly as liberated +from Boston, - how could he fail to perceive them at +La Rochelle? The streets of this dear little city are +lined with arcades, - good, big, straddling arcades of +stone, such as befit a land of hot summers, and which +recalled to me, not to go further, the dusky portions +of Bayonne. It contains, moreover, a great wide +_place d'armes_, which looked for all the world like the +piazza of some dead Italian town, empty, sunny, +grass-grown, with a row of yellow houses overhanging +it, an unfrequented cafe, with a striped awning, a tall, +cold, florid, uninteresting cathedral of the eighteenth +century on one side, and on the other a shady walk, +which forms part of an old rampart. I followed this +walk for some time, under the stunted trees, beside +the grass-covered bastions; it is very charming, wind- +ing and wandering, always with trees. Beneath the +rampart is a tidal river, and on the other side, for a +long distance, the mossy walls of the immense garden +of a seminary. Three hundred years ago, La Rochelle +was the great French stronghold of Protestantism; but +to-day it appears to be a'nursery of Papists. + +The walk upon the rampart led me round to one +of the gatesi of the town, where I found some small +modern, fortifications and sundry red-legged soldiers, +and, beyond the fortifications, another shady walk, - +a _mail_, as the French say, as well as a _champ de +manoeuvre_, - on which latter expanse the poor little +red-legs were doing their exercise. It was all very +quiet and very picturesque, rather in miniature; and +at once very tidy and a little out of repair. This, +however, was but a meagre back-view of La Rochelle, +or poor side-view at best. There are other gates than +the small fortified aperture just mentioned; one of +them, an old gray arch beneath a fine clock-tower, I +had passed through on my way from the station. +This picturesque Tour de l'Horloge separates the town +proper from the port; for beyond the old gray arch, +the place presents its bright, expressive little face to +the sea. I had a charming walk about the harbor, +and along the stone piers and sea-walls that shut it +in. This indeed, to take things in their order, was +after I had had my breakfast (which I took on arriv- +ing) and after I had been to the _hotel de ville_. The +inn had a long narrow garden behind it, with some +very tall trees; and passing through this garden to a +dim and secluded _salle a manger_, buried in the heavy +shade, I had, while I sat at my repast, a feeling of +seclusion which amounted almost to a sense of in- +carceration. I lost this sense, however, after I had +paid my bill, and went out to look for traces of the +famous siege, which is the principal title of La Rochelle +to renown. I had come thither partly because I +thought it would be interesting to stand for a few +moments in so gallant a spot, and partly because, I +confess, I had a curiosity to see what had been the +starting-point of the Huguenot emigrants who founded +the town of New Rochelle in the State of New York, +a place in which I had passed certain memorable +hours. It was strange to think, as I strolled through +the peaceful little port, that these quiet waters, during +the wars of religion, had swelled with a formidable +naval power. The Rochelais had fleets and admirals, +and their stout little Protestant bottoms carried de- +fiance up and down. + +To say that I found any traces of the siege would +be to misrepresent the taste for vivid whitewash by +which La Rochelle is distinguished to-day. The only +trace is the dent in the marble top of the table on +which, in the _hotel de ville_, Jean Guiton, the mayor of +the city, brought down his dagger with an oath, when +in 1628 the vessels and regiments of Richelieu closed +about it on sea and land. This terrible functionary +was the soul of the resistance; he held out from +February to October, in the midst of pestilence and +famine. The whole episode has a brilliant place +among the sieges of history; it has been related a +hundred times, and I may only glance at it and pass. +I limit my ambition, in these light pages, to speaking +of those things of which I have personally received an +impression; and I have no such impression of the +defence of La Rochelle. The hotel de ville is a +pretty little building, in the style of the Renaissance +of Francis I.; but it has left much of its interest in +the hands of the restorers. It has been "done up" +without mercy; its natural place would be at Rochelle +the New. A sort of battlemented curtain, flanked +with turrets, divides it from the street and contains +a low door (a low door in a high wall is always +felicitous), which admits you to an inner court, where +you discover the face of the building. It has statues +set into it, and is raised upon a very low and very +deep arcade. The principal function of the deferential +old portress who conducts you over the place is to call +your attention to the indented table of Jean Guiton; +but she shows you other objects of interest besides. +The interior is absolutely new and extremely sump- +tuous, abounding in tapestries, upholstery, morocco, +velvet, satin. This is especially the case with a really +beautiful _grande salle_, where, surrdunded with the +most expensive upholstery, the mayor holds his official +receptions. (So at least, said my worthy portress.) +The mayors of La Rochelle appear to have changed a +good deal since the days of the grim Guiton; but +these evidences of municipal splendor are interesting +for the light they throw on French manners. Imagine +the mayor of an English or an American town of +twenty thousand inhabitants holding magisterial soirees +in the town-hall! The said _grande salle_, which is un- +changed in form and its larger features, is, I believe, +the room in which the Rochelais debated as to whether +they should shut themselves up, and decided in the +affirmative. The table and chair of Jean Guiton have +been restored, Iike everything else, and are very +elegant and coquettish pieces of furniture, - incongruous +relics of a season of starvation and blood. I believe +that Protestantism is somewhat shrunken to-day at La +Rochelle, and has taken refuge mainly in. the _haute +societe_ and in a single place of worship. There was +nothing particular to remind me of its supposed austerity +as, after leaving the hotel de ville, I walked along the +empty portions and cut out of the Tour de l'Horloge, +which I have already mentioned. If I stopped and +looked up at this venerable monument, it was not to +ascertain the hour, for I foresaw that I should have +more time at La Rochelle than I knew what to do +with; but because its high, gray, weather-beaten face +was an obvious subject for a sketch. +The little port, which has two basins, and is ac- +cessible only to vessels of light tonnage, had a certain +gayety and as much local color as you please. Fisher +folk of pictuesque type were strolling about, most +of them Bretons; several of the men with handsome, +simple faces, not at all brutal, and with a splendid +brownness, - the golden-brown color, on cheek and +beard, that you see on an old Venetian sail. It was +a squally, showery day, with sudden drizzles of sun- +shine; rows of rich-toned fishing-smacks were drawn +up along the quays. The harbor is effective to the +eye by reason of three battered old towers which, at +different points, overhang it and look infinitely weather- +washed and sea-silvered. The most striking of these, +the Tour de la Lanterne, is a big gray mass, of the +fifteenth century, flanked with turrets and crowned +with a Gothic steeple. I found it was called by the +people of the place the Tour des Quatre Sergents, +though I know not what connection it has with the +touching history of the four young sergeants of the +garrison of La Rochelle, who were arrested in 1821 +as conspirators against the Government of the Bour- +bons, and executed, amid general indignation, in Paris +in the following year. The quaint little walk, with +its label of Rue sur les Murs, to which one ascends +from beside the Grosse Horloge, leads to this curious +Tour de la Lanterne and passes under it. This walk +has the top of the old town-wall, toward the sea, for +a parapet on one side, and is bordered on the other +with decent but irregular little tenements of fishermen, +where brown old women, whose caps are as white as +if they were painted, seem chiefly in possession. In +this direction there is a very pretty stretch of shore, +out of the town, through the fortifications (which are +Vauban's, by the way); through, also, a diminutive +public garden or straggling shrubbery, which edges +the water and carries its stunted verdure as far as a +big Etablissernent des Bains. It was too late in the +year to bathe, and the Etablissement had the bank- +rupt aspect which belongs to such places out of the +season; so I turned my back upon it, and gained, by +a circuit in the course of which there were sundry +water-side items to observe, the other side of the +cheery little port, where there is a long breakwater +and a still longer sea-wall, on which I walked awhile, +to inhale the strong, salt breath of the Bay of Biscay. +La Rochelle serves, in the months of July and August, +as a _station de bains_ for a modest provincial society; +and, putting aside the question of inns, it must be +charming on summer afternoons. + + + +XVII. + +It is an injustice to Poitiers to approach her by +night, as I did some three hours after leaving La +Rochelle; for what Poitiers has of best, as they would +say at Poitiers, is the appearance she presents to the +arriving stranger who puts his head out of the window +of the train. I gazed into the gloom from such an +aperture before we got into the station, for I re- +membered the impression received on another occa- +sion; but I saw nothing save the universal night, +spotted here and there with an ugly railway lamp. +It was only as I departed, the following day, that I +assured myself that Poitiers still makes something of +the figure she ought on the summit of her consider- +able bill. I have a kindness for any little group of +towers, any cluster of roofs and chimneys, that lift +themselves from an eminence over which a long road +ascends in zigzags; such a picture creates for the mo- +ment a presumption that you are in Italy, and even +leads you to believe that if you mount the winding +road you will come to an old town-wall, an expanse +of creviced brownness, and pass under a gateway sur- +mounted by the arms of a mediaeval despot. Why +I should find it a pleasure, in France, to imagine my- +self in Italy, is more than I can say; the illusion has +never lasted long enough to be analyzed. From the +bottom of its perch Poitiers looks large and high; +and indeed, the evening I reached it, the interminiable +climb of the omnibus of the hotel I had selected, +which I found at the station, gave me the measure of +its commanding position. This hotel, "magnifique +construction ornee de statues," as the Guide-Joanne, +usually so reticent, takes the trouble to announce, has +an omnibus, and, I suppose, has statues, though I +didn't perceive them; but it has very little else save +immemorial accumulations of dirt. It is magnificent, +if you will, but it is not even relatively proper; and +a dirty inn has always seemed to me the dirtiest of +human things, - it has so many opportunities to betray +itself. + +Poiters covers a large space, and is as crooked +and straggling as you please; but these advantages are +not accompanied with any very salient features or any +great wealth of architecture. Although there are few +picturesque houses, however, there are two or three +curious old churches. Notre Dame la Grande, in the +market-place, a small romanesque structure of the +twelfth century, has a most interesting and venerable +exterior. Composed, like all the churches of Poitiers, +of a light brown stone with a yellowish tinge, it is +covered with primitive but ingenious sculptures, and is +really an impressive monument. Within, it has lately +been daubed over with the most hideous decorative +painting that was ever inflicted upon passive pillars +and indifferent vaults. This battered yet coherent +little edifice has the touching look that resides in +everything supremely old: it has arrived at the age at +which such things cease to feel the years; the waves +of time have worn its edges to a kind of patient dul- +ness; there is something mild and smooth, like the +stillness, the deafness, of an octogenarian, even in its +rudeness of ornament, and it has become insensible +to differences of a century or two. The cathedral +interested me much less than Our Lady the Great, +and I have not the spirit to go into statistics about it. +It is not statistical to say that the cathedral stands +half-way down the hill of Poitiers, in a quiet and +grass-grown _place_, with an approach of crooked lanes +and blank garden-walls, and that its most striking +dimension is the width of its facade. This width is +extraordinary, but it fails, somehow, to give nobleness +to the edifice, which looks within (Murray makes the +remark) like a large public hall. There are a nave +and two aisles, the latter about as high as the nave; +and there are some very fearful modern pictures, +which you may see much better than you usually see +those specimens of the old masters that lurk in glow- +ing side-chapels, there being no fine old glass to dif- +fuse a kindly gloom. The sacristan of the cathedral +showed me something much better than all this bright +bareness; he led me a short distance out of it to the +small Temple de Saint-Jean, which is the most curious +object at Poitiers. It is an early Christian chapel, +one of the earliest in France; originally, it would seem, +- that is, in the sixth or seventh century, - a bap- +tistery, but converted into a church while the Christian +era was still comparatively young. The Temple de +Saint-Jean is therefore a monument even more vener- +able than Notre Dame la Grande, and that numbness +of age which I imputed to Notre Dame ought to reside +in still larger measure in its crude and colorless little +walls. I call them crude, in spite of their having +been baked through by the centuries, only because, +although certain rude arches and carvings are let +into them, and they are surmounted at either end with +a small gable, they have (so far as I can remember) +little fascination of surface. Notre Dame is still ex- +pressive, still pretends to be alive; but the Temple +has delivered its message, and is completely at rest. +It retains a kind of atrium, on the level of the street, +from which you descend to the original floor, now un- +covered, but buried for years under a false bottom. +A semicircular apse was, apparently at the time of its +conversion into a church, thrown out from the east +wall. In the middle is the cavity of the old baptismal +font. The walls and vaults are covered with traces +of extremely archaic frescos, attributed, I believe, to +the twelfth century. These vague, gaunt, staring +fragments of figures are, to a certain extent, a reminder +of some of the early Christian churches in Rome; they +even faintly recalled to me the great mosaics of +Ravenna. The Temple de Saint-Jean has neither the +antiquity nor the completeness of those extraordinary +monuments, nearly the most impressive in Europe; +but, as one may say, it is very well for Poitiers. + +Not far from it, in a lonely corner which was ani- +mated for the moment by the vociferations of several +old, women who were selling tapers, presumably for +the occasion of a particular devotion, is the graceful +romanesque church erected in the twelfth century to +Saint Radegonde, - a lady who found means to be a +saint even in the capacity of a Merovingian queen. +It bears a general resemblance to Notre Dame la +Grande, and, as I remember it, is corrugated in some- +what the same manner with porous-looking carvings; +but I confess that what I chiefly recollect is the row +of old women sitting in front of it, each with a tray +of waxen tapers in her lap, and upbraiding me for +my neglect of the opportunity to offer such a tribute to +the saint. I know not whether this privilege is oc- +casional or constant; within the church there was no +appearance of a festival, and I see that the name- +day of Saint Radegonde occurs in August, so that the +importunate old women sit there always, perhaps, and +deprive of its propriety the epithet I just applied to +this provincial corner. In spite of the old women, +however, I suspect that the place is lonely; and in- +deed it is perhaps the old women that have made the +desolation. + +The lion of Poitiers, in the eyes of the natives, is +doubtless the Palais de Justice, in the shadow of which +the statue-guarded hotel, just mentioned, erects itself; +and the gem of the court-house, which has a prosy +modern front, with pillars and a high flight of steps, +is the curious _salle des pas perdus_, or central hall, out +of which the different tribunals open. This is a +feature of every French court-house, and seems the +result of a conviction that a palace of justice - the +French deal in much finer names than we - should be +in some degree palatial. The great hall at Poitiers +has a long pedigree, as its walls date back to the +twelfth century, and its open wooden roof, as well as +the remarkable trio of chimney-pieces at the right end +of the room as you enter, to the fifteenth. The three +tall fireplaces, side by side, with a delicate gallery +running along the top of them, constitute the originality +of this ancient chamber, and make one think of the +groups that must formerly have gathered there, - of +all the wet boot-soles, the trickling doublets, the +stiffened fingers, the rheumatic shanks, that must have +been presented to such an incomparable focus of +heat. To-day, I am afraid, these mighty hearts are +forever cold; justice it probably administered with the +aid of a modern _calorifere_, and the walls of the palace +are perforated with regurgitating tubes. Behind and +above the gallery that surmounts the three fireplaces +are high Gothic windows, the tracery of which masks, +in some sort, the chimneys; and in each angle of this +and of the room to the right and left of the trio of +chimneys, is all open-work spiral staircase, ascending +to - I forget where; perhaps to the roof of the edifice. +This whole side of the _salle_ is very lordly, and seems +to express an unstinted hospitality, to extend the +friendliest of all invitations, to bid the whole world +come and get warm. It was the invention of John, +Duke of Berry and Count of Poitou, about 1395. I +give this information on the authority of the Guide- +Joanne, from which source I gather much other curious +learning; for instance, that it was in this building, +when it had surely a very different front, that Charles VII. +was proclaimed king, in 1422; and that here Jeanne +Darc was subjected, in 1429, to the inquisition of +certain doctors and matrons. + +The most charming thing at Poitiers is simply the +Promenade de Blossac, - a small public garden at one +end of the flat top of the hill. It has a happy look +of the last century (having been arranged at that +period), and a beautiful sweep of view over the sur- +rounding country, and especially of the course of the +little river Clain, which winds about a part of the base +of the big mound of Poitiers. The limit of this dear +little garden is formed, on the side that turns away +from the town, by the rampart erected in the fourteenth +century, and by its big semicircular bastions. This +rampart, of great length, has a low parapet; you look +over it at the charming little vegetable-gardens with +which the base of the hill appears exclusively to be +garnished. The whole prospect is delightful, especially +the details of the part just under the walls, at the end +of the walk. Here the river makes a shining twist, +which a painter might have invented, and the side of +the hill is terraced into several ledges, - a sort of +tangle of small blooming patches and little pavillions +with peaked roofs and green shutters. It is idle to +attempt to reproduce all this in words; it should be +reproduced only in water-colors. The reader, how- +ever, will already have remarked that disparity in +these ineffectual pages, which are pervaded by the +attempt to sketch without a palette or brushes. He will +doubtless, also, be struck with the grovelling vision +which, on such a spot as the ramparts of Poitiers, +peoples itself with carrots and cabbages rather than +with images of the Black Prince and the captive king. +I am not sure that in looking out from the Promenade +de Blossac you command the old battle-field; it is +enough that it was not far off, and that the great rout +of Frenchmen poured into the walls of Poitiers, leav- +ing on the ground a number of the fallen equal to +the little army (eight thousand) of the invader. I did +think of the battle. I wondered, rather helplessly, +where it had taken place; and I came away (as the +reader will see from the preceding sentence) without +finding out. This indifference, however, was a result +rather of a general dread of military topography than +of a want of admiration of this particular victory, +which I have always supposed to be one of the most +brilliant on record. Indeed, I should be almost +ashamed, and very much at a loss, to say what light +it was that this glorious day seemed to me to have +left forever on the horizon, and why the very name of +the place had always caused my blood gently to tingle. +It is carrying the feeling of race to quite inscrutable +lengths when a vague American permits himself an +emotion because more than five centuries ago, on +French soil, one rapacious Frenchman got the better +of another. Edward was a Frenchman as well as +John, and French were the cries that urged each of +the hosts to the fight. French is the beautiful motto +graven round the image of the Black Prince, as he +lies forever at rest in the choir of Canterbury: _a la +mort ne pensai-je mye_. Nevertheless, the victory of +Poitiers declines to lose itself in these considerations; +the sense of it is a part of our heritage, the joy of it +a part of our imagination, and it filters down through +centuries and migrations till it titillates a New Yorker +who forgets in his elation that he happens at that +moment to be enjoying the hospitality of France. It +was something done, I know not how justly, for Eng- +land; and what was done in the fourteenth century +for England was done also for New York. + + + +XVIII. + +If it was really for the sake of the Black Prince +that I had stopped at Poitiers (for my prevision of +Notre Dame la Grande and of the little temple of St. +John was of the dimmest), I ought to have stopped at +Angouleme for the sake of David and Eve Sechard, +of Lucien de Rubempre and of Madame de Bargeton, +who when she wore a _toilette etudiee_ sported a Jewish +turban ornamented with an Eastern brooch, a scarf of +gauze, a necklace of cameos, and a robe of "painted +muslin," whatever that may be; treating herself to +these luxuries out of an income of twelve thousand +francs. The persons I have mentioned have not that +vagueness of identity which is the misfortune of his- +torical characters; they are real, supremely real, thanks +to their affiliation to the great Balzac, who had invented +an artificial reality which was as much better than the +vulgar article as mock-turtle soup is than the liquid it +emulates. The first time I read "Les Illusions Perdues" +I should have refused to believe that I was capable of +passing the old capital of Anjou without alighting to +visit the Houmeau. But we never know what we are +capable of till we are tested, as I reflected when I +found myself looking back at Angouleme from the +window of the train, just after we had emerged from +the long tunnel that passes under the town. This +tunnel perforates the hill on which, like Poitiers, +Angouleme rears itself, and which gives it an eleva- +tion still greater than that of Poitiers. You may have +a tolerable look at the cathedral without leaving the +railway-carriage; for it stands just above the tunnel, +and is exposed, much foreshortened, to the spectator +below. There is evidently a charming walk round the +plateau of the town, commanding those pretty views +of which Balzac gives an account. But the train +whirled me away, and these are my only impressions. +The truth is that I had no need, just at that moment, +of putting myself into communication with Balzac; for +opposite to me in the compartment were a couple of +figures almost as vivid as the actors in the "Comedie +Humaine." One of these was a very genial and dirty +old priest, and the other was a reserved and concen- +trated young monk, - the latter (by which I mean a +monk of any kind) being a rare sight to-day in France. +This young man, indeed, was mitigatedly monastic. +He had a big brown frock and cowl, but he had also +a shirt and a pair of shoes; he had, instead of a +hempen scourge round his waist, a stout leather thong, +and he carried with him a very profane little valise. +He also read, from beginning to end, the "Figaro" +which the old priest, who had done the same, presented +to him; and he looked altogether as if, had he not +been a monk, he would have made a distinguished +officer of engineers. When he was not reading the +"Figaro" he was conning his breviary or answering, +with rapid precision and with a deferential but dis- +couraging dryness, the frequent questions of his com- +panion, who was of quite another type. This worthy +had a bored, good-natured, unbuttoned, expansive +look; was talkative, restless, almost disreputably human. +He was surrounded by a great deal of small luggage, +and had scattered over the carriage his books, his +papers, the fragments of his lunch, and the contents +of an extraordinary bag, which he kept beside him - +a kind of secular reliquary - and which appeared to +contain the odds and ends of a lifetime, as he took +from it successively a pair of slippers, an old padlock +(which evidently didn't belong to it), an opera-glass, a +collection of almanacs, and a large sea-shell, which he +very carefully examined. I think that if he had not +been afraid of the young monk, who was so much +more serious than he, he would have held the shell to +his ear, like a child. Indeed, he was a very childish +and delightful old priest, and his companion evidently +thought him most frivolous. But I liked him the better +of the two. He was not a country cure, but an eccle- +siastic of some rank, who had seen a good deal both +of the church and of the world; and if I too had not +been afraid of his colleague, who read the "Figaro" +as seriously as if it had been an encyclical, I should +have entered into conversation with him. + +All this while I was getting on to Bordeaux, where +I permitted myself to spend three days. I am afraid +I have next to nothing to show for them, and that +there would be little profit in lingering on this episode, +which is the less to be justified as I had in former +years examined Bordeaux attentively enough. It con- +tains a very good hotel, - an hotel not good enough, +however, to keep you there for its own sake. For the +rest, Bordeaux is a big, rich, handsome, imposing com- +mercial town, with long rows of fine old eighteenth- +century houses, which overlook the yellow Garonne. I +have spoken of the quays of Nantes as fine, but those +of Bordeaux have a wider sweep and a still more +architectural air. The appearance of such a port as +this makes the Anglo-Saxon tourist blush for the sor- +did water-fronts of Liverpool and New York, which, +with their larger activity, have so much more reason +to be stately. Bordeaux gives a great impression of +prosperous industries, and suggests delightful ideas, +images of prune-boxes and bottled claret. As the focus +of distribution of the best wine in the world, it is in- +deed a sacred city, - dedicated to the worship of +Bacchus in the most discreet form. The country all +about it is covered with precious vineyards, sources of +fortune to their owners and of satisfaction to distant +consumers; and as you look over to the hills beyond +the Garonne you see them in the autumn sunshine, +fretted with the rusty richness of this or that immortal +_clos_. But the principal picture, within the town, is that +of the vast curving quays, bordered with houses that +look like the _hotels_ of farmers-general of the last cen- +tury, and of the wide, tawny river, crowded with ship- +ping and spanned by the largest of bridges. Some of +the types on the water-side are of the sort that arrest +a sketcher, - figures of stalwart, brown-faced Basques, +such as I had seen of old in great numbers at Biarritz, +with their loose circular caps, their white sandals, their +air of walking for a wager. Never was a tougher, a +harder race. They are not mariners, nor watermen, +but, putting questions of temper aside, they are the +best possible dock-porters. "Il s'y fait un commerce +terrible," a _douanier_ said to me, as he looked up and +down the interminable docks; and such a place has +indeed much to say of the wealth, the capacity for +production, of France, - the bright, cheerful, smokeless +industry of the wonderful country which produces, +above all, the agreeable things of life, and turns even +its defeats and revolutions into gold. The whole town +has an air of almost depressing opulence, an appear- +ance which culminates in the great _place_ which sur- +rounds the Grand-Theatre, - an establishment in the +highest style, encircled with columns, arcades, lamps, +gilded cafes. One feels it to be a monument to the +virtue of the well-selected bottle. If I had not for- +bidden myself to linger, I should venture to insist on +this, and, at the risk of being considered fantastic, +trace an analogy between good claret and the best +qualities of the French mind; pretend that there is a +taste of sound Bordeaux in all the happiest manifes- +tations of that fine organ, and that, correspondingly, +there is a touch of French reason, French complete- +ness, in a glass of Pontet-Canet. The danger of such +an excursion would lie mainly in its being so open to +the reader to take the ground from under my feet by +saying that good claret doesn't exist. To this I should +have no reply whatever. I should be unable to tell +him where to find it. I certainly didn't find it at +Bordeaux, where I drank a most vulgar fluid; and it +is of course notorious that a large part of mankind is +occupied in vainly looking for it. There was a great +pretence of putting it forward at the Exhibition which +was going on at Bordeaux at the time of my visit, an +"exposition philomathique," lodged in a collection of +big temporary buildings in the Allees d'Or1eans, and +regarded by the Bordelais for the moment as the most +brilliant feature of their city. Here were pyramids of +bottles, mountains of bottles, to say nothing of cases +and cabinets of bottles. The contemplation of these +glittering tiers was of course not very convincing; and +indeed the whole arrangement struck me as a high +impertinence. Good wine is not an optical pleasure, +it is an inward emotion; and if there was a chamber +of degustation on the premises, I failed to discover it. +It was not in the search for it, indeed, that I spent +half an hour in this bewildering bazaar. Like all +"expositions," it seemed to me to be full of ugly +things, and gave one a portentous idea of the quantity +of rubbish that man carries with him on his course +through the ages. Such an amount of luggage for a +journey after all so short! There were no individual +objects; there was nothing but dozens and hundreds, +all machine-made and expressionless, in spite of the +repeated grimace, the conscious smartness, of "the last +new thing," that was stamped on all of them. The +fatal facility, of the French _article_ becomes at last as +irritating as the refrain of a popular song. The poor +"Indiens Galibis" struck me as really more interesting, +- a group of stunted savages who formed one of the +attractions of the place, and were confined in a pen +in the open air, with a rabble of people pushing and +squeezing, hanging over the barrier, to look at them. +They had no grimace, no pretension to be new, no +desire to catch your eye. They looked at their visitors +no more than they looked at each other, and seemed +ancient, indifferent, terribly bored. + + + +XIX. + +There is much entertainment in the journey through +the wide, smiling garden of Gascony; I speak of it as +I took it in going from Bordeaux to Toulouse. It is +the south, quite the south, and had for the present +narrator its full measure of the charm he is always +determined to find in countries that may even by +courtesy be said to appertain to the sun. It was, +moreover, the happy and genial view of these mild +latitudes, which, Heaven knows, often have a dreari- +ness of their own; a land teeming with corn and wine, +and speaking everywhere (that is, everywhere the phyl- +loxera had not laid it waste) of wealth and plenty. +The road runs constantly near the Garonne, touching +now and then its slow, brown, rather sullen stream, a +sullenness that encloses great dangers and disasters. +The traces of the horrible floods of 1875 have dis- +appeared, and the land smiles placidly enough while +it waits for another immersion. Toulouse, at the period +I speak of, was up to its middle (and in places above +it) in water, and looks still as if it had been thoroughly +soaked, - as if it had faded and shrivelled with a long +steeping. The fields and copses, of course, are more +forgiving. The railway line follows as well the charm- +ing Canal du Midi, which is as pretty as a river, bar- +ring the straightness, and here and there occupies the +foreground, beneath a screen of dense, tall trees, while +the Garonne takes a larger and more irregular course +a little way beyond it. People who are fond of canals +- and, speaking from the pictorial standpoint, I hold +the taste to be most legitimate - will delight in this +admirable specimen of the class, which has a very in- +teresting history, not to be narrated here. On the +other side of the road (the left), all the way, runs a +long, low line of hills, or rather one continuous hill, +or perpetual cliff, with a straight top, in the shape of +a ledge of rock, which might pass for a ruined wall. +I am afraid the reader will lose patience with my habit +of constantly referring to the landscape of Italy, as if +that were the measure of the beauty of every other. +Yet I am still more afraid that I cannot apologize for +it, and must leave it in its culpable nakedness. It is +an idle habit; but the reader will long since have dis- +covered that this was an idle journey, and that I give +my impressions as they came to me. It came to me, +then, that in all this view there was something trans- +alpine with a greater smartness and freshness and +much less elegance and languor. This impression was +occasionally deepened by the appearance, on the long +eminence of which I speak, of a village, a church, or +a chateau, which seemed to look down at the plain +from over the ruined wall. The perpetual vines, the +bright-faced flat-roofed houses, covered with tiles, the +softness and sweetness of the light and air, recalled +the prosier portions of the Lombard plain. Toulouse +itself has a little of this Italian expression, but not +enough to give a color to its dark, dirty, crooked streets, +which are irregular without being eccentric, and which, +if it were not for the, superb church of Saint-Sernin, +would be quite destitute of monuments. + +I have already alluded to the way in which the +names of certain places impose themselves on the +mind, and I must add that of Toulouse to the list of +expressive appellations. It certainly evokes a vision, +- suggests something highly _meridional_. But the city, +it must be confessed, is less pictorial than the word, +in spite of the Place du Capitole, in spite of the quay +of the Garonne, in spite of the curious cloister of the +old museum. What justifies the images that are latent +in the word is not the aspect, but the history, of the +town. The hotel to which the well-advised traveller +will repair stands in a corner of the Place du Capitole, +which is the heart and centre of Toulouse, and which +bears a vague and inexpensive resemblance to Piazza +Castello at Turin. The Capitol, with a wide modern +face, occupies one side, and, like the palace at Turin, +looks across at a high arcade, under which the hotels, +the principal shops, and the lounging citizens are +gathered. The shops are probably better than the +Turinese, but the people are not so good. Stunted, +shabby, rather vitiated looking, they have none of the +personal richness of the sturdy Piedmontese; and I +will take this occasion to remark that in the course of +a journey of several weeks in the French provinces I +rarely encountered a well-dressed male. Can it be +possible the republics are unfavorable to a certain +attention to one's boots and one's beard? I risk this +somewhat futile inquiry because the proportion of mens ??? +coats and trousers seemed to be about the same in +France and in my native land. It was notably lower +than in England and in Italy, and even warranted +the supposition that most good provincials have their +chin shaven and their boots blacked but once a week. +I hasten to add, lest my observation should appear to +be of a sadly superficial character, that the manners +and conversation of these gentlemen bore (whenever +I had occasion to appreciate them) no relation to the +state of their chin and their boots. They were almost +always marked by an extreme amenity. At Toulouse +there was the strongest temptation to speak to people, +simply for the entertainment of hearing them reply +with that curious, that fascinating accent of the +Languedoc, which appears to abound in final con- +sonants, and leads the Toulousains to say _bien-g_ and +_maison-g_, like Englishmen learning French. It is as +if they talked with their teeth rather than with their +tongue. I find in my note-book a phrase in regard to +Toulouse which is perhaps a little ill-natured, but +which I will transcribe as it stands: "The oddity is +that the place should be both animated and dull. A +big, brown-skinned population, clattering about in a +flat, tortuous town, which produces nothing whatever +that I can discover. Except the church of Saint- +Sernin and the fine old court of the Hotel d'Assezat, +Toulouse has no architecture; the houses are for the +most part of brick, of a grayish-red color, and have no +particular style. The brick-work of the place is in fact +very poor, - inferior to that of the north Italian towns, +and quite wanting in the richness of tone which this +homely material takes on in the damp climates of the +north." And then my note-book goes on to narrate a +little visit to the Capitol, which was soon made, as the +building was in course of repair and half the rooms +were closed. + + + +XX. + +The history of Toulouse is detestable, saturated +with blood and perfidy; and the ancient custom of +the Floral Games, grafted upon all sorts of internecine +traditions, seems, with its false pastoralism, its mock +chivalry, its display of fine feelings, to set off rather +than to mitigate these horrors. The society was +founded in the fourteenth century, and it has held +annual meetings ever since, - meetings at which poems +in the fine old _langue d'oc_ are declaimed and a +blushing laureate is chosen. This business takes place +in the Capitol, before the chief magistrate of the town, +who is known as the _capitoul_, and of all the pretty +women as well, - a class very numerous at Toulouse. +It was impossible to have a finer person than that of +the portress who pretended to show me the apart- +ments in which the Floral Games are held; a big, +brown, expansive woman, still in the prime of life, +with a speaking eye, an extraordinary assurance, and +a pair of magenta stockings, which were inserted into +the neatest and most polished little black sabots, +and which, as she clattered up the stairs before me, +lavishly displaying them, made her look like the +heroine of an _opera-bouffe_. Her talk was all in _n_'s, +_g_'s, and _d_'s, and in mute _e_'s strongly accented, as +_autre_, _theatre_, _splendide_, - the last being an epithet +she applied to everything the Capitol contained, and +especially to a horrible picture representing the famous +Clemence Isaure, the reputed foundress of the poetical +contest, presiding on one of these occasions. I won- +dered whether Clemence Isaure had been anything +like this terrible Toulousaine of to-day, who would +have been a capital figure-head for a floral game. +The lady in whose honor the picture I have just men- +tioned was painted is a somewhat mythical personage, +and she is not to be found in the "Biographie Uni- +verselle." She is, however, a very graceful myth; and +if she never existed, her statue does, at least, - a +shapeless effigy, transferred to the Capitol from the +so-called tomb of Clemence in the old church of La +Daurade. The great hall in which the Floral Games +are held was encumbered with scaffoldings, and I +was unable to admire the long series of busts of the +bards who have won prizes and the portraits of all +the capitouls of Toulouse. As a compensation I was +introduced to a big bookcase, filled with the poems +that have been crowned since the days of the trou- +badours (a portentous collection), and the big butcher's +knife with which, according to the legend, Henry, +Duke of Montmorency, who had conspired against the +great cardinal with Gaston of Orleans and Mary de ?????? +Medici, was, in 1632, beheaded on this spot by the +order of Richelieu. With these objects the interest of +the Capitol was exhausted. The building, indeed, +has not the grandeur of its name, which is a sort +of promise that the visitor will find some sensible +embodiment of the old Roman tradition that once +flourished in this part of France. It is inferior in +impressiveness to the other three famous Capitols of +the modern world, - that of Rome (if I may call the +present structure modern) and those of Washington +and Albany! + +The only Roman remains at Toulouse are to be +found in the museum, - a very interesting establish- +ment, which I was condemned to see as imperfectly +as I had seen the Capitol. It was being rearranged; +and the gallery of paintings, which is the least in- +teresting feature, was the only part that was not +upside-down. The pictures are mainly of the mo- +dern French school, and I remember nothing but a +powerful, though disagreeable specimen of Henner, +who paints the human body, and paints it so well, +with a brush dipped in blackness; and, placed among +the paintings, a bronze replica of the charming young +David of Mercie. These things have been set out in +the church of an old monastery, long since suppressed, +and the rest of the collection occupies the cloisters. +These are two in number, - a small one, which you +enter first from the street, and a very vast and ele- +gant one beyond it, which with its light Gothic arches +and slim columns (of the fourteenth century), its broad +walk its little garden, with old tombs and statues in +the centre, is by far the most picturesque, the most +sketchable, spot in Toulouse. It must be doubly so +when the Roman busts, inscriptions, slabs and sarco- +phagi, are ranged along the walls; it must indeed (to +compare small things with great, and as the judicious +Murray remarks) bear a certain resemblance to the +Campo Santo at Pisa. But these things are absent +now; the cloister is a litter of confusion, and its trea- +sures have been stowed away, confusedly, in sundry +inaccessible rooms. The custodian attempted to con- +sole me by telling me that when they are exhibited +again it will be on a scientific basis, and with an +order and regularity of which they were formerly +innocent. But I was not consoled. I wanted simply +the spectacle, the picture, and I didn't care in the +least for the classification. Old Roman fragments, ex- +posed to light in the open air, under a southern sky, +in a quadrangle round a garden, have an immortal +charm simply in their general effect; and the charm +is all the greater when the soil of the very place has +yielded them up. + + + +XXI. + +My real consolation was an hour I spent in Saint- +Sernin, one of the noblest churches in southern France, +and easily the first among those of Toulouse. This +great structure, a masterpiece of twelfth-century ro- +manesque, and dedicated to Saint Saturninus, - the +Toulousains have abbreviated, - is, I think, alone worth +a journey to Toulouse. What makes it so is the +extraordinary seriousness of its interior; no other term +occurs to me as expressing so well the character of +its clear gray nave. As a general thing, I do not +favor the fashion of attributing moral qualities to +buildings; I shrink from talking about tender porticos +and sincere campanili; but I find I cannot get on at +all without imputing some sort of morality to Saint- +Sernin. As it stands to-day, the church has been +completely restored by Viollet-le-Duc. The exterior is +of brick, and has little charm save that of a tower of +four rows of arches, narrowing together as they ascend. +The nave is of great length and height, the barrel-roof +of stone, the effect of the round arches and pillars in +the triforium especially fine. There are two low aisles +on either side. The choir is very deep and narrow; +it seems to close together, and looks as if it were +meant for intensely earnest rites. The transepts are +most noble, especially the arches of the second tier. +The whole church is narrow for its length, and is +singularly complete and homogeneous. As I say all +this, I feel that I quite fail to give an impression of +its manly gravity, its strong proportions or of the lone- +some look of its renovated stones as I sat there while +the October twilight gathered. It is a real work of +art, a high conception. The crypt, into which I was +eventually led captive by an importunate sacristan, is +quite another affair, though indeed I suppose it may +also be spoken of as a work of art. It is a rich museum +of relics, and contains the head of Saint Thomas +Aquinas, wrapped up in a napkin and exhibited in a +glass case. The sacristan took a lamp and guided me +about, presenting me to one saintly remnant after an- +other. The impression was grotesque, but sorne of +the objects were contained in curious old cases of +beaten silver and brass; these things, at least, which +looked as if they had been transmitted from the early +church, were venerable. There was, however, a kind +of wholesale sanctity about the place which overshot +the mark; it pretends to be one of the holiest spots +in the world. The effect is spoiled by the way the +sacristans hang about and offer to take you into it for +ten sous, - I was accosted by two and escaped from +another, - and by the familiar manner in which you +pop in and out. This episode rather broke the charm +of Saint-Sernin, so that I took my departure and went +in search of the cathedral. It was scarcely worth find- +ing, and struck me as an odd, dislocated fragment. +The front consists only of a portal, beside which a tall +brick tower, of a later period, has been erected. The +nave was wrapped in dimness, with a few scattered +lamps. I could only distinguish an immense vault, +like a high cavern, without aisles. Here and there in +the gloom was a kneeling figure; the whole place was +mysterious and lop-sided. The choir was curtained +off; it appeared not to correspond with the nave, - that +is, not to have the same axis. The only other ec- +clesiastical impression I gathered at Toulouse came to +me in the church of La Daurade, of which the front, +on the quay by the Garonne, was closed with scaffold- +ings; so that one entered it from behind, where it is +completely masked by houses, through a door which +has at first no traceable connection with it. It is a +vast, high, modernised, heavily decorated church, dimly +lighted at all times, I should suppose, and enriched +by the shades of evening at the time I looked into it. +I perceived that it consisted mainly of a large square, +beneath a dome, in the centre of which a single person +- a lady - was praying with the utmost absorption. +The manner of access to the church interposed such +an obstacle to the outer profanities that I had a sense +of intruding, and presently withdrew, carrying with me +a picture of the, vast, still interior, the gilded roof +gleaming in the twilight, and the solitary worshipper. +What was she praying for, and was she not almost +afraid to remain there alone? + +For the rest, the picturesque at Toulouse consists +principally of the walk beside the Garonne, which is +spanned, to the faubourg of Saint-Cyprien, by a stout +brick bridge. This hapless suburb, the baseness of +whose site is noticeable, lay for days under the water +at the time of the last inundations. The Garonne +had almost mounted to the roofs of the houses, and +the place continues to present a blighted, frightened +look. Two or three persons, with whom I had some +conversation, spoke of that time as a memory of horror. +I have not done with my Italian comparisons; I shall +never have done with them. I am therefore free to +say that in the way in which Toulouse looks out on +the Garonne there was something that reminded me +vaguely of the way in which Pisa looks out on the +Arno. The red-faced houses - all of brick - along the +quay have a mixture of brightness and shabbiness, as +well as the fashion of the open _loggia_ in the top- +story. The river, with another bridge or two, might +be the Arno, and the buildings on the other side of +it - a hospital, a suppressed convent - dip their feet +into it with real southern cynicism. I have spoken of +the old Hotel d'Assezat as the best house at Toulouse; +with the exception of the cloister of the museum, it is +the only "bit" I remember. It has fallen from the +state of a noble residence of the sixteenth century to +that of a warehouse and a set of offices; but a certain +dignity lingers in its melancholy court, which is divided +from the street by a gateway that is still imposing, +and in which a clambering vine and a red Virginia- +creeper were suspended to the rusty walls of brick +stone. + +The most interesting house at Toulouse is far from +being the most striking. At the door of No. 50 Rue +des Filatiers, a featureless, solid structure, was found +hanging, one autumn evening, the body of the young +Marc-Antoine Calas, whose ill-inspired suicide was to +be the first act of a tragedy so horrible. The fana- +ticism aroused in the townsfolk by this incident; the +execution by torture of Jean Calas, accused as a +Protestant of having hanged his son, who had gone +over to the Church of Rome; the ruin of the family; +the claustration of the daughters; the flight of the +widow to Switzerland; her introduction to Voltaire; +the excited zeal of that incomparable partisan, and +the passionate persistence with which, from year to +year, he pursued a reversal of judgment, till at last he +obtained it, and devoted the tribunal of Toulouse to +execration and the name of the victims to lasting +wonder and pity, - these things form part of one of +the most interesting and touching episodes of the social +history of the eighteenth century. The story has the +fatal progression, the dark rigidity, of one of the tragic +dramas of the Greeks. Jean Calas, advanced in life, +blameless, bewildered, protesting. his innocence, had +been broken on the wheel; and the sight of his decent +dwelling, which brought home to me all that had been +suflered there, spoiled for me, for half an hour, the +impression of Toulouse. + + + +XXII. + +I spent but a few hours at Carcassonne; but those +hours had a rounded felicity, and I cannot do better +than transcribe from my note-book the little record +made at the moment. Vitiated as it may be by +crudity and incoherency, it has at any rate the fresh- +ness of a great emotion. This is the best quality that +a reader may hope to extract from a narrative in +which "useful information" and technical lore even of +the most general sort are completely absent. For +Carcassonne is moving, beyond a doubt; and the +traveller who, in the course of a little tour in France, +may have felt himself urged, in melancholy moments, +to say that on the whole the disappointments are as +numerous as the satisfactions, must admit that there +can be nothing better than this. + +The country, after you leave Toulouse, continues +to be charming; the more so that it merges its flatness +in the distant Cevennes on one side, and on the other, +far away on your right, in the richer range of the +Pyrenees. Olives and cypresses, pergolas and vines, +terraces on the roofs of houses, soft, iridescent moun- +tains, a warm yellow light, - what more could the dif- +ficult tourist want? He left his luggage at the station, +warily determined to look at the inn before committing +himself to it. It was so evident (even to a cursory +glance) that it might easily have been much better +that he simply took his way to the town, with the +whole of a superb afternoon before him. When I say +the town, I mean the towns; there being two at Car- +cassonne, perfectly distinct, and each with excellent +claims to the title. They have settled the matter be- +tween them, however, and the elder, the shrine of +pilgrimage, to which the other is but a stepping-stone, +or even, as I may say, a humble door-mat, takes the +name of the Cite. You see nothing of the Cite from +the station; it is masked by the agglomeration of the +_ville-basse_, which is relatively (but only relatively) new. +A wonderful avenue of acacias leads to it from the +station, - leads past, rather, and conducts you to a +little high-backed bridge over the Aude, beyond which, +detached and erect, a distinct mediaeval silhouette, the +Cite presents itself. Like a rival shop, on the in- +vidious side of a street, it has "no connection" with +the establishment across the way, although the two +places are united (if old Carcassonne may be said to be +united to anything) by a vague little rustic fau- +bourg. Perched on its solid pedestal, the perfect de- +tachment of the Cite is what first strikes you. To take +leave, without delay, of the _ville-basse_, I may say that +the splendid acacias I have mentioned flung a sum- +merish dusk over the place, in which a few scattered +remains of stout walls and big bastions looked vener- +able and picturesque. A little boulevard winds round +the town, planted with trees and garnished with more +benches than I ever saw provided by a soft-hearted +municipality. This precinct had a warm, lazy, dusty, +southern look, as if the people sat out-of-doors a great +deal, and wandered about in the stillness of summer +nights. The figure of the elder town, at these hours, +must be ghostly enough on its neighboring hill. Even +by day it has the air of a vignette of Gustave Dore, a +couplet of Victor Hugo. It is almost too perfect, - as +if it were an enormous model, placed on a big green +table at a museum. A steep, paved way, grass-grown +like all roads where vehicles never pass, stretches up +to it in the sun. It has a double enceinte, complete +outer walls and complete inner (these, elaborately forti- +fied, are the more curious); and this congregation of +ramparts, towers, bastions, battlements, barbicans, is +as fantastic and romantic as you please. The approach +I mention here leads to the gate that looks toward +Toulouse, - the Porte de l'Aude. There is a second, +on the other side, called, I believe, the Porte Nar- +bonnaise, a magnificent gate, flanked with towers thick +and tall, defended by elaborate outworks; and these +two apertures alone admit you to the place, - putting +aside a small sally-port, protected by a great bastion, +on the quarter that looks toward the Pyrenees. + +As a votary, always, in the first instance, of a +general impression, I walked all round the outer en- +ceinte, - a process on the very face of it entertaining. +I took to the right of the Porte de l'Aude, without +entering it, where the old moat has been filled in. +The filling-in of the moat has created a grassy level +at the foot of the big gray towers, which, rising at +frequent intervals, stretch their stiff curtain of stone +from point to point. The curtain drops without a +fold upon the quiet grass, which was dotted here and +there with a humble native, dozing away the golden +afternoon. The natives of the elder Carcassonne are +all humble; for the core of the Cite has shrunken and +decayed, and there is little life among the ruins. A +few tenacious laborers, who work in the neighboring +fields or in the _ville-basse_, and sundry octogenarians +of both sexes, who are dying where they have lived, +and contribute much to the pictorial effect, - these +are the principal inhabitants. The process of con- +verting the place from an irresponsible old town into +a conscious "specimen" has of course been attended +with eliminations; the population has, as a general +thing, been restored away. I should lose no time in +saying that restoration is the great mark of the Cite. +M. Viollet-le-Duc has worked his will upon it, put it +into perfect order, revived the fortifications in every +detail. I do not pretend to judge the performance, +carried out on a scale and in a spirit which really +impose themselves on the imagination. Few archi- +tects have had such a chance, and M. Viollet-le-Duc +must have been the envy of the whole restoring fra- +ternity. The image of a more crumbling Carcassonne +rises in the mind, and there is no doubt that forty +years ago the place was more affecting. On the other +hand, as we see it to-day, it is a wonderful evocation; +and if there is a great deal of new in the old, there +is plenty of old in the new. The repaired crenella- +tions, the inserted patches, of the walls of the outer +circle sufficiently express this commixture. My walk +brought me into full view of the Pyrenees, which, now +that the sun had begun to sink and the shadows to +grow long, had a wonderful violet glow. The platform +at the base of the walls has a greater width on this +side, and it made the scene more complete. Two or +three old crones had crawled out of the Porte Nar- +bonnaise, to examine the advancing visitor; and a +very ancient peasant, lying there with his back against +a tower, was tending half a dozen lean sheep. A poor +man in a very old blouse, crippled and with crutches +lying beside him, had been brought out and placed +on a stool, where he enjoyed the afternoon as best he +might. He looked so ill and so patient that I spoke +to him; found that his legs were paralyzed and he was +quite helpless. He had formerly been seven years in +the army, and had made the campaign of Mexico with +Bazaine. Born in the old Cite, he had come back +there to end his days. It seemed strange, as he sat +there, with those romantic walls behind him and the +great picture of the Pyrenees in front, to think that he +had been across the seas to the far-away new world, +had made part of a famous expedition, and was now +a cripple at the gate of the mediaeval city where he +had played as a child. All this struck me as a great +deal of history for so modest a figure, - a poor little +figure that could only just unclose its palm for a small +silver coin. + +He was not the only acquaintance I made at Car- +cassonne. I had not pursued my circuit of the walls +much further when I encountered a person of quite +another type, of whom I asked some question which +had just then presented, itself, and who proved to be +the very genius of the spot. He was a sociable son +of the _ville-basse_, a gentleman, and, as I afterwards +learned, an employe at the prefecture, - a person, in +short, much esteemed at Carcassonne. (I may say all +this, as he will never read these pages.) He had been +ill for a month, and in the company of his little dog +was taking his first airing; in his own phrase he was +_amoureux-fou de la Cite_, - he could lose no time in +coming back to it. He talked of it, indeed, as a lover, +and, giving me for half an hour the advantage of his +company, showed me all the points of the place. (I +speak here always of the outer enceinte; you penetrate +to the inner - which is the specialty of Carcassonne, +and the great curiosity - only by application at the +lodge of the regular custodian, a remarkable func- +tionary, who, half an hour later, when I had been in- +troduced to him by my friend the amateur, marched +me over the fortifications with a tremendous accompani- +ment of dates and technical terms.) My companion +pointed out to me in particular the traces of different +periods in the structure of the walls. There is a por- +tentous amount of history embedded in them, begin- +ning with Romans and Visigoths; here and there are +marks of old breaches, hastily repaired. We passed +into the town, - into that part of it not included in the +citadel. It is the queerest and most fragmentary little +place in the world, as everything save the fortifications +is being suffered to crumble away, in order that the +spirit of M. Viollet-le-Duc alone may pervade it, and +it may subsist simply as a magnificent shell. As the +leases of the wretched little houses fall in, the ground +is cleared of them; and a mumbling old woman ap- +proached me in the course of my circuit, inviting me +to condole with her on the disappearance of so many +of the hovels which in the last few hundred years +(since the collapse of Carcassonne as a stronghold) +had attached themselves to the base of the walls, in +the space between the two circles. These habitations, +constructed of materials taken from the ruins, nestled +there snugly enough. This intermediate space had +therefore become a kind of street, which has crumbled +in turn, as the fortress has grown up again. There +are other streets, beside, very diminutive and vague, +where you pick your way over heaps of rubbish and +become conscious of unexpected faces looking at you +out of windows as detached as the cherubic heads. +The most definite thing in the place was the little +cafe, where. the waiters, I think, must be the ghosts of +the old Visigoths; the most definite, that is, after the +little chateau and the little cathedral. Everything in +the Cite is little; you can walk round the walls in +twenty minutes. On the drawbridge of the chateau, +which, with a picturesque old face, flanking towers, +and a dry moat, is to-day simply a bare _caserne_, +lounged half a dozen soldiers, unusually small. No- +thing could be more odd than to see these objects en- +closed in a receptacle which has much of the appear- +ance of an enormous toy. The Cite and its population +vaguely reminded me of an immense Noah's ark. + + + +XXIII. + +Carcassonne dates from the Roman occupation of +Gaul. The place commanded one of the great roads +into Spain, and in the fourth century Romans and +Franks ousted each other from such a point of vantage. +In the year 436, Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, +superseded both these parties; and it is during his oc- +cupation that the inner enceinte was raised upon the +ruins of the Roman fortifications. Most of the Visigoth +towers that are still erect are seated upon Roman sub- +structions which appear to have been formed hastily, +probably at the moment of the Frankish invasion. +The authors of these solid defences, though occasionally +disturbed, held Carcassonne and the neighboring coun- +try, in which they had established their kingdom of +Septimania, till the year 713, when they were expelled +by the Moors of Spain, who ushered in an unillumined +period of four centuries, of which no traces remain. +These facts I derived from a source no more recondite +than a pamphlet by M. Viollet-le-Duc, - a very luminous +description of the fortifications, which you may buy +from the accomplished custodian. The writer makes +a jump to the year 1209, when Carcassonne, then +forming part of the realm of the viscounts of Beziers +and infected by the Albigensian heresy, was besieged, +in the name of the Pope, by the terrible Simon de +Montfort and his army of crusaders. Simon was ac- +customed to success, and the town succumbed in the +course of a fortnight. Thirty-one years later, having +passed into the hands of the King of France, it was +again besieged by the young Raymond de Trincavel, +the last of the viscounts of Beziers; and of this siege +M. Viollet-le-Duc gives a long and minute account, +which the visitor who has a head for such things may +follow, with the brochure in hand, on the fortifications +themselves. The young Raymond de Trincavel, baffled +and repulsed, retired at the end of twenty-four days. +Saint Louis and Philip the Bold, in the thirteenth cen- +tury, multiplied the defences of Carcassonne, which +was one of the bulwarks of their kingdom on the +Spanish quarter; and from this time forth, being re- +garded as impregnable, the place had nothing to fear. +It was not even attacked; and when, in 1355, Edward +the Black Prince marched into it, the inhabitants had +opened the gates to the conqueror before whom all +Languedoc was prostrate. I am not one of those who, +as I said just now, have a head for such things, and +having extracted these few facts had made all the +use of M. Viollet-le-Duc's, pamphlet of which I was cap- +able. + +I have mentioned that my obliging friend the +_amoureux-fou_ handed me over to the door-keeper of +the citadel. I should add that I was at first committed +to the wife of this functionary, a stout peasant-woman, +who took a key down from a nail, conducted me to a +postern door, and ushered me into the presence of her +husband. Having just begun his rounds with a party +of four persons, he was not many steps in advance. I +added myself perforce to this party, which was not +brilliantly composed, except that two of its members +were gendarmes in full toggery, who announced in the +course of our tour that they had been stationed for a +year at Carcassonne, and had never before had the +curiosity to come up to the Cite. There was something +brilliant, certainly, in that. The _gardien_ was an extra- +ordinarily typical little Frenchman, who struck me even +more forcibly than the wonders of the inner enceinte; +and as I am bound to assume, at whatever cost to my +literary vanity, that there is not the slightest danger +of his reading these remarks, I may treat him as public +property. With his diminutive stature and his per- +pendicular spirit, his flushed face, expressive protuber- +ant eyes, high peremptory voice, extreme volubility, +lucidity, and neatness of utterance, he reminded me of +the gentry who figure in the revolutions of his native +land. If he was not a fierce little Jacobin, he ought +to have been, for I am sure there were many men of +his pattern on the Committee of Public Safety. He +knew absolutely what he was about, understood the +place thoroughly, and constantly reminded his audience +of what he himself had done in the way of excavations +and reparations. He described himself as the brother +of the architect of the work actually going forward +(that which has been done since the death of M. Viol- +let-le-Duc, I suppose he meant), and this fact was more +illustrative than all the others. It reminded me, as +one is reminded at every turn, of the democratic con- +ditions of French life: a man of the people, with a +wife _en bonnet_, extremely intelligent, full of special +knowledge, and yet remaining essentially of the people, +and showing his intelligence with a kind of ferocity, +of defiance. Such a personage helps one to under- +stand the red radicalism of France, the revolutions, +the barricades, the sinister passion for theories. (I do +not, of course, take upon myself to say that the indi- +vidual I describe - who can know nothing of the +liberties I am taking with him - is actually devoted to +these ideals; I only mean that many such devotees +must have his qualities.) In just the _nuance_ that I +have tried to indicate here, it is a terrible pattern of +man. Permeated in a high degree by civilization, it +is yet untouched by the desire which one finds in the +Englishman, in proportion as he rises in the world, to +approximate to the figure of the gentleman. On the +other hand, a _nettete_, a faculty of exposition, such as +the English gentleman is rarely either blessed or cursed +with. + +This brilliant, this suggestive warden of Carcas- +sonne marched us about for an hour, haranguing, ex- +plaining, illustrating, as he went; it was a complete +little lecture, such as might have been delivered at +the Lowell Institute, on the manger in which a first- +rate _place forte_ used to be attacked and defended +Our peregrinations made it very clear that Carcassone +was impregnable; it is impossible to imagine, without +having seen them, such refinements of immurement, +such ingenuities of resistance. We passed along the +battlements and _chemins de ronde_, ascended and de- +scended towers, crawled under arches, peered out of +loop-holes, lowered ourselves into dungeons, halted in +all sorts of tight places, while the purpose of some- +thing or other was described to us. It was very +curious, very interesting; above all, it was very pic- +torial, and involved perpetual peeps into the little +crooked, crumbling, sunny, grassy, empty Cite. In +places, as you stand upon it, the great towered and +embattled enceinte produces an illusion; it looks as +if it were still equipped and defended. One vivid +challenge, at any rate, it flings down before you; it +calls upon you to make up your mind on the matter +of restoration. For myself, I have no hesitation; I +prefer in every case the ruined, however ruined, to +the reconstructed, however splendid. What is left is +more precious than what is added: the one is history, +the other is fiction; and I like the former the better of +the two, - it is so much more romantic. One is posi- +tive, so far as it goes; the other fills up the void with +things more dead than the void itself, inasmuch as +they have never had life. After that I am free to +say that the restoration of Carcassonne is a splendid +achievement. The little custodian dismissed us at +last, after having, as usual, inducted us into the inevi- +table repository of photographs. These photographs +are a great nuisance, all over the Midi. They are +exceedingly bad, for the most part; and the worst - +those in the form of the hideous little _album-pano- +rama_ - are thrust upon you at every turn. They +are a kind of tax that you must pay; the best way is +to pay to be let off. It was not to be denied that +there was a relief in separating from our accomplished +guide, whose manner of imparting information re- +minded me of the energetic process by which I have +seen mineral waters bottled. All this while the after- +noon had grown more lovely; the sunset had deepened, +the horizon of hills grown purple; the mass of the +Canigou became more delicate, yet more distinct. The +day had so far faded that the interior of the little +cathedral was wrapped in twilight, into which the +glowing windows projected something of their color. +This church has high beauty and value, but I will +spare the reader a presentation of details which I my- +self had no opportunity to master. It consists of a +romanesque nave, of the end of the eleventh century, +and a Gothic choir and transepts of the beginning of +the fourteenth; and, shut up in its citadel like a precious +casket in a cabinet, it seems - or seemed at that hour +- to have a sort of double sanctity. After leaving it +and passing out of the two circles of walls, I treated +myself, in the most infatuated manner, to another walk +round the Cite. It is certainly this general impression +that is most striking, - the impression from outside, +where the whole place detaches itself at once from +the landscape. In the warm southern dusk it looked +more than ever like a city in a fairy-tale. To make +the thing perfect, a white young moon, in its first +quarter, came out and hung just over the dark sil- +houette. It was hard to come away, - to incommode +one's self for anything so vulgar as a railway-train; I +would gladly have spent the evening in revolving +round the walls of Carcassonne. But I had in a +measure engaged to proceed to Narborme, and there +was a certain magic that name which gave me +strength, - Narbonne, the richest city in Roman Gaul. + + + +XXIV. + +At Narbonne I took up my abode at the house of +a _serrurier mecanicien_, and was very thankful for the +accommodation. It was my misfortune to arrive at +this ancient city late at night, on the eve of market- +day; and market-day at Narbonne is a very serious +affair. The inns, on this occasion, are stuffed with +wine-dealers; for the country roundabout, dedicated +almost exclusively to Bacchus, has hitherto escaped +the phylloxera. This deadly enemy of the grape is +encamped over the Midi in a hundred places; blighted +vineyards and ruined proprietors being quite the order +of the day. The signs of distress are more frequent +as you advance into Provence, many of the vines being +laid under water, in the hope of washing the plague +away. There are healthy regions still, however, and +the vintners find plenty to do at Narbonne. The +traffic in wine appeared to be the sole thought of the +Narbonnais; every one I spoke to had something to +say about the harvest of gold that bloomed under its +influence. "C'est inoui, monsieur, l'argent qu'il y a +dans ce pays. Des gens a qui la vente de leur vin +rapporte jusqu'a 500,000 francs par an." That little +speech, addressed to me by a gentleman at the inn, +gives the note of these revelations. It must be said +that there was little in the appearance either of the +town or of its population to suggest the possession of +such treasures. Narbonne is a _sale petite ville_ in all +the force of the term, and my first impression on ar- +riving there was an extreme regret that I had not +remained for the night at the lovely Carcassonne. My +journey from that delectable spot lasted a couple of +hours, and was performed in darkness, - a darkness +not so dense, however, but that I was able to make +out, as we passed it, the great figure of Beziers, whose +ancient roofs and towers, clustered on a goodly hill- +top, looked as fantastic as you please. I know not +what appearance Beziers may present by day; but by +night it has quite the grand air. On issuing from the +station at Narbonne, I found that the only vehicle in +waiting was a kind of bastard tramcar, a thing shaped +as if it had been meant to go upon rails; that is, +equipped with small wheels, placed beneath it, and +with a platform at either end, but destined to rattle +over the stones like the most vulgar of omnibuses. +To complete the oddity of this conveyance, it was +under the supervision, not of a conductor, but of a +conductress. A fair young woman, with a pouch sus- +pended from her girdle, had command of the platform; +and as soon as the car was full she jolted us into the +town through clouds of the thickest dust I ever have +swallowed. I have had occasion to speak of the activity +of women in France, - of the way they are always in +the ascendant; and here was a signal example of their +general utility. The young lady I have mentioned +conveyed her whole company to the wretched little +Hotel de France, where it is to be hoped that some +of them found a lodging. For myself, I was informed +that the place was crowded from cellar to attic, and +that its inmates were sleeping three or four in a room. +At Carcassonne I should have had a bad bed, but at +Narbonne, apparently, I was to have no bed at all. I +passed an hour or two of flat suspense, while fate +settled the question of whether I should go on to +Perpignan, return to Beziers, or still discover a modest +couch at Narbonne. I shall not have suffered in vain, +however, if my example serves to deter other travellers +from alighting unannounced at that city on a Wednes- +day evening. The retreat to Beziers, not attempted +in time, proved impossible, and I was assured that at +Perpignan, which I should not reach till midnight, the +affluence of wine-dealers was not less than at Nar- +bonne. I interviewed every hostess in the town, and +got no satisfaction but distracted shrugs. Finally, at +an advanced hour, one of the servants of the Hotel +de France, where I had attempted to dine, came to +me in triumph to proclaim that he had secured for +me a charming apartment in a _maison bourgeoise_. I +took possession of it gratefully, in spite of its having +an entrance like a stable, and being pervaded by an +odor compared with which that of a stable would +have been delicious. As I have mentioned, my land- +lord was a locksmith, and he had strange machines +which rumbled and whirred in the rooms below my +own. Nevertheless, I slept, and I dreamed of Car- +cassonne. It was better to do that than to dream of +the Hotel de France. + +I was obliged to cultivate relations with the cuisine +of this establishment. Nothing could have been more +_meridional_; indeed, both the dirty little inn and Nar- +bonne at large seemed to me to have the infirmities +of the south, without its usual graces. Narrow, noisy, +shabby, belittered and encumbered, filled with clatter +and chatter, the Hotel de France would have been +described in perfection by Alphonse Daudet. For what +struck me above all in it was the note of the Midi, +as he has represented it, - the sound of universal talk. +The landlord sat at supper with sundry friends, in a +kind of glass cage, with a genial indifference to arriv- +ing guests; the waiters tumbled over the loose luggage +in the hall; the travellers who had been turned away +leaned gloomily against door-posts; and the landlady, +surrounded by confusion, unconscious of responsibility, +and animated only by the spirit of conversation, bandied +high-voiced compliments with the _voyageurs de com- +merce_. At ten o'clock in the morning there was a +table d'hote for breakfast, - a wonderful repast, which +overflowed into every room and pervaded the whole +establishment. I sat down with a hundred hungry +marketers, fat, brown, greasy men, with a good deal of +the rich soil of Languedoc adhering to their hands +and their boots. I mention the latter articles because +they almost put them on the table. It was very hot, +and there were swarms of flies; the viands had the +strongest odor; there was in particular a horrible mix- +ture known as _gras-double_, a light gray, glutinous, +nauseating mess, which my companions devoured in +large quantities. A man opposite to me had the dir- +tiest fingers I ever saw; a collection of fingers which +in England would have excluded him from a farmers' +ordinary. The conversation was mainly bucolic; though +a part of it, I remember, at the table at which I sat, +consisted of a discussion as to whether or no the maid- +servant were _sage_, - a discussion which went on under +the nose of this young lady, as she carried about the +dreadful _gras-double_, and to which she contributed +the most convincing blushes. It was thoroughly _meri- +dional_. + +In going to Narbonne I had of course counted upon +Roman remains; but when I went forth in search of +them I perceived that I had hoped too fondly. There +is really nothing in the place to speak of; that is, on +the day of my visit there was nothing but the market, +which was in complete possession. "This intricate, +curious, but lifeless town," Murray calls it; yet to me +it appeared overflowing with life. Its streets are mere +crooked, dirty lanes, bordered with perfectly insignifi- +cant houses; but they were filled with the same clatter +and chatter that I had found at the hotel. The market +was held partly in the little square of the hotel de +ville, a structure which a flattering wood-cut in the +Guide-Joanne had given me a desire to behold. The +reality was not impressive, the old color of the front +having been completely restored away. Such interest +as it superficially possesses it derives from a fine +mediaeval tower which rises beside it, with turrets at +the angles, - always a picturesque thing. The rest of +the market was held in another _place_, still shabbier +than the first, which lies beyond the canal. The Canal +du Midi flows through the town, and, spanned at this +point by a small suspension-bridge, presented a cer- +tain sketchability. On the further side were the venders +and chafferers, - old women under awnings and big um- +brellas, rickety tables piled high with fruit, white caps +and brown faces, blouses, sabots, donkeys. Beneath +this picture was another, - a long row of washerwomen, +on their knees on the edge of the canal, pounding +and wringing the dirty linen of Narbonne, - no great +quantity, to judge by the costume of the people. In- +numerable rusty men, scattered all over the place, +were buying and selling wine, straddling about in +pairs, in groups, with their hands in their pockets, and +packed together at the doors of the cafes. They were +mostly fat and brown and unshaven; they ground their +teeth as they talked; they were very _meridionaux_. + +The only two lions at Narbonne are the cathedral +and the museum, the latter of which is quartered in +the hotel de ville. The cathedral, closely shut in by +houses, and with the west front undergoing repairs, is +singular in two respects. It consists exclusively of a +choir, which is of the end of the thirteenth century +and the beginning of the next, and of great magnifi- +cence. There is absolutely nothing else. This choir, +of extraordinary elevation, forms the whole church. I +sat there a good while; there was no other visitor. I +had taken a great dislike to poor little Narbonne, +which struck me as sordid and overheated, and this +place seemed to extend to me, as in the Middle Ages, +the privilege of sanctuary. It is a very solemn corner. +The other peculiarity of the cathedral is that, exter- +nally, it bristles with battlements, having anciently +formed part of the defences of the _archeveche_, which +is beside it and which connects it with the hotel de +ville. This combination of the church and the for- +tress is very curious, and during the Middle Ages was +not without its value. The palace of the former arch- +bishops of Narbonne (the hotel de ville of to-day +forms part of it) was both an asylum and an arsenal +during the hideous wars by which the Languedoc was +ravaged in the thirteenth century. The whole mass +of buildings is jammed together in a manner that +from certain points of view makes it far from apparent +which feature is which. The museum occupies several +chambers at the top of the hotel de ville, and is not +an imposing collection. It was closed, but I induced +the portress to let me in, - a silent, cadaverous person, +in a black coif, like a _beguine_, who sat knitting in one +of the windows while I went the rounds. The number +of Roman fragments is small, and their quality is not +the finest; I must add that this impression was hastily +gathered. There is indeed a work of art in one of +the rooms which creates a presumption in favor of the +place, - the portrait (rather a good one) of a citizen +of Narbonne, whose name I forget, who is described +as having devoted all his time and his intelligence to +collecting the objects by which the. visitor is sur- +rounded. This excellent man was a connoisseur, and +the visitor is doubtless often an ignoramus. + + + +XXV. + + "Cette, with its glistening houses white, + Curves with the curving beach away + To where the lighthouse beacons bright, + Far in the bay." + +That stanza of Matthew Arnold's, which I hap- +pened to remember, gave a certain importance to the +half-hour I spent in the buffet of the station at Cette +while I waited for the train to Montpellier. I had left +Narbonne in the afternoon, and by the time I reached +Cette the darkness had descended. I therefore missed +the sight of the glistening houses, and had to console +myself with that of the beacon in the bay, as well as +with a _bouillon_ of which I partook at the buffet afore- +said; for, since the morning, I had not ventured to +return to the table d'hote at Narbonne. The Hotel +Nevet, at Montpellier, which I reached an hour later, +has an ancient renown all over the south of France, - +advertises itself, I believe, as _le plus vaste du midi_. It +seemed to me the model of a good provincial inn; a +big rambling, creaking establishment, with brown, +labyrinthine corridors, a queer old open-air vestibule, +into which the diligence, in the _bon temps_, used to +penetrate, and an hospitality more expressive than +that of the new caravansaries. It dates from the days +when Montpellier was still accounted a fine winter re- +sidence for people with weak lungs; and this rather +melancholy tradition, together with the former celebrity +of the school of medicine still existing there, but from +which the glory has departed, helps to account for its +combination of high antiquity and vast proportions. +The old hotels were usually more concentrated; but +the school of medicine passed for one of the attrac- +tions of Montpellier. Long before Mentone was dis- +covered or Colorado invented, British invalids travelled +down through France in the post-chaise or the public +coach to spend their winters in the wonderful place +which boasted both a climate and a faculty. The air +is mild, no doubt, but there are refinements of mild- +ness which were not then suspected, and which in a +more analytic age have carried the annual wave far +beyond Montpellier. The place is charming, all the +same; and it served the purpose of John Locke; who +made a long stay there, between 1675 and 1679, and +became acquainted with a noble fellow-visitor, Lord +Pembroke, to whom he dedicated the famous Essay. +There are places that please, without your being able +to say wherefore, and Montpellier is one of the num- +ber. It has some charming views, from the great pro- +menade of the Peyrou; but its position is not strikingly +fair. Beyond this it contains a good museum and the +long facades of its school, but these are its only de- +finite treasures. Its cathedral struck me as quite the +weakest I had seen, and I remember no other monu- +ment that made up for it. The place has neither the +gayety of a modern nor the solemnity of an ancient +town, and it is agreeable as certain women are agree- +able who are neither beautiful nor clever. An Italian +would remark that it is sympathetic; a German would +admit that it is _gemuthlich_. I spent two days there, +mostly in the rain, and even under these circum- +stances I carried away a kindly impression. I think +the Hotel Nevet had something to do with it, and the +sentiment of relief with which, in a quiet, even a +luxurious, room that looked out on a garden, I reflected +that I had washed my hands of Narbonne. The phyl- +loxera has destroyed the vines in the country that sur- +rounds Montpellier, and at that moment I was capable +of rejoicing in the thought that I should not breakfast +with vintners. + +The gem of the place is the Musee Fabre, one of +the best collections of paintings in a provincial city. +Francois Fabre, a native of Montpellier, died there in +1837, after having spent a considerable part of his +life in Italy, where he had collected a good many +valuable pictures and some very poor ones, the latter +class including several from his own hand. He was +the hero of a remarkable episode, having succeeded +no less a person than Vittorio Alfieri in the affections +of no less a person than Louise de Stolberg, Countess +of Albany, widow of no less a person than Charles +Edward Stuart, the second pretender to the British +crown. Surely no woman ever was associated senti- +mentally with three figures more diverse, - a disqualified +sovereign, an Italian dramatist, and a bad French +painter. The productions of M. Fabre, who followed +in the steps of David, bear the stamp of a cold me- +diocrity; there is not much to be said even for the +portrait of the genial countess (her life has been written +by M. Saint-Rene-Taillandier, who depicts her as de- +lightful), which hangs in Florence, in the gallery of +the Uffizzi, and makes a pendant to a likeness of +Alfieri by the same author. Stendhal, in his "Me- +moires d'un Touriste," says that this work of art +represents her as a cook who has pretty hands. I am +delighted to have an opportunity of quoting Stendhal, +whose two volumes of the "Memoires d'un Touriste" +every traveller in France should carry in his port- +manteau. I have had this opportunity more than once, +for I have met him at Tours, at Nantes, at Bourges; +and everywhere he is suggestive. But he has the de- +fect that he is never pictorial, that he never by any +chance makes an image, and that his style is per- +versely colorless, for a man so fond of contemplation. +His taste is often singularly false; it is the taste of the +early years of the present century, the period that +produced clocks surmounted with sentimental "sub- +jects." Stendhal does not admire these clocks, but +he almost does. He admires Domenichino and Guer- +cino, and prizes the Bolognese school of painters be- +cause they "spoke to the soul." He is a votary of the +new classic, is fond of tall, squire, regular buildings, +and thinks Nantes, for instance, full of the "air noble." +It was a pleasure to me to reflect that five-and-forty +years ago he had alighted in that city, at the very inn +in which I spent a night, and which looks down on +the Place Graslin and the theatre. The hotel that was +the best in 1837 appears to be the best to-day. On +the subject of Touraine, Stendhal is extremely refresh- +ing; he finds the scenery meagre and much overrated, +and proclaims his opinion with perfect frankness. He +does, however, scant justice to the banks of the Loire; +his want of appreciation of the picturesque - want of +the sketcher's sense - causes him to miss half the +charm of a landscape which is nothing if not "quiet," +as a painter would say, and of which the felicities +reveal themselves only to waiting eyes. He even +despises the Indre, the river of Madame Sand. The +"Memoires d'un Touriste" are written in the character +of a commercial traveller, and the author has nothing +to say about Chenonceaux or Chambord, or indeed +about any of the chateaux of that part of France; his +system being to talk only of the large towns, where he +may be supposed to find a market for his goods. It +was his ambition to pass for an ironmonger. But in +the large towns he is usually excellent company, though +as discursive as Sterne, and strangely indifferent, for a +man of imagination, to those superficial aspects of +things which the poor pages now before the reader are +mainly an attempt to render. It is his conviction that +Alfieri, at Florence, bored the Countess of Albany ter- +ribly; and he adds that the famous Gallophobe died +of jealousy of the little painter from Montpellier. The +Countess of Albany left her property to Fabre; and I +suppose some of the pieces in the museum of his +native town used to hang in the sunny saloons of that +fine old palace on the Arno which is still pointed out +to the stranger in Florence as the residence of Alfieri. + +The institution has had other benefactors, notably +a certain M. Bruyas, who has enriched it with an extra- +ordinary number of portraits of himself. As these, +however, are by different hands, some of them dis- +tinguished, we may suppose that it was less the model +than the artists to whom M. Bruyas wished to give +publicity. Easily first are two large specimens of +David Teniers, which are incomparable for brilliancy +and a glowing perfection of execution. I have a weak- +ness for this singular genius, who combined the delicate +with the grovelling, and I have rarely seen richer +examples. Scarcely less valuable is a Gerard Dow +which hangs near them, though it must rank lower as +having kept less of its freshness. This Gerard Dow +did me good; for a master is a master, whatever he +may paint. It represents a woman paring carrots, +while a boy before her exhibits a mouse-trap in which +he has caught a frightened victim. The good-wife has +spread a cloth on the top of a big barrel which serves +her as a table, and on this brown, greasy napkin, of +which the texture is wonderfully rendered, lie the raw +vegetables she is preparing for domestic consumption. +Beside the barrel is a large caldron lined with copper, +with a rim of brass. The way these things are painted +brings tears to the eyes; but they give the measure of +the Musee Fabre, where two specimens of Teniers and +a Gerard Dow are the jewels. The Italian pictures are +of small value; but there is a work by Sir Joshua Rey- +nolds, said to be the only one in France, - an infant +Samuel in prayer, apparently a repetition of the pic- +ture in England which inspired the little plaster im- +age, disseminated in Protestant lands, that we used to +admire in our childhood. Sir Joshua, somehow, was +an eminently Protestant painter; no one can forget +that, who in the National Gallery in London has looked +at the picture in which he represents several young +ladies as nymphs, voluminously draped, hanging gar- +lands over a statue, - a picture suffused indefinably +with the Anglican spirit, and exasperating to a mem- +ber of one of the Latin races. It is an odd chance, +therefore, that has led him into that part of France +where Protestants have been least _bien vus_. This is the +country of the dragonnades of Louis XIV. and of the +pastors of the desert. From the garden of the Peyrou, +at Montpellier, you may see the hills of the Cevennes, +to which they of the religion fled for safety, and out +of which they were hunted and harried. + +I have only to add, in regard to the Musee Fabre, +that it contains the portrait of its founder, - a little, +pursy, fat-faced, elderly man, whose countenance con- +tains few indications of the power that makes distin- +guished victims. He is, however, just such a personage +as the mind's eye sees walking on the terrace of the +Peyrou of an October afternoon in the early years of +the century; a plump figure in a chocolate-colored coat +and a _culotte_ that exhibits a good leg, - a culotte pro- +vided with a watch-fob from which a heavy seal is +suspended. This Peyrou (to come to it at last) is a +wonderful place, especially to be found in a little pro- +vincial city. France is certainly the country of towns +that aim at completeness; more than in other lands, +they contain stately features as a matter of course. We +should never have ceased to hear about the Peyrou, if +fortune had placed it at a Shrewsbury or a Buffalo. It +is true that the place enjoys a certain celebrity at +home, which it amply deserves, moreover; for nothing +could be more impressive and monumental. It consists +of an "elevated platform," as Murray says, - an im- +mense terrace, laid out, in the highest part of the town, +as a garden, and commanding in all directions a view +which in clear weather must be of the finest. I strolled +there in the intervals of showers, and saw only the +nearer beauties, - a great pompous arch of triumph in +honor of Louis XIV. (which is not, properly speaking, +in the garden, but faces it, straddling across the _place_ +by which you approach it from the town), an equestrian +statue of that monarch set aloft in the middle of the +terrace, and a very exalted and complicated fountain, +which forms a background to the picture. This foun- +tain gushes from a kind of hydraulic temple, or _cha- +teau d'eau_, to which you ascend by broad flights of +steps, and which is fed by a splendid aqueduct, +stretched in the most ornamental and unexpected +manner across the neighboring valley. All this work +dates from the middle of the last century. The com- +bination of features - the triumphal arch, or gate; the +wide, fair terrace, with its beautiful view; the statue +of the grand monarch; the big architectural fountain, +which would not surprise one at Rome, but goes sur- +prise one at Montpellier; and to complete the effect, +the extraordinary aqueduct, charmingly fore-shortened, +- all this is worthy of a capital, of a little court-city. +The whole place, with its repeated steps, its balus- +trades, its massive and plentiful stone-work, is full of +the air of the last century, - _sent bien son dix-huitieme +siecle_; none the less so, I am afraid, that, as I read in +my faithful Murray, after the revocation of the Edict +of Nantes, the block, the stake, the wheel, had been +erected here for the benefit of the desperate Camisards. + + + +XXVI. + +It was a pleasure to feel one's self in Provence +again, - the land where the silver-gray earth is im- +pregnated with the light of the sky. To celebrate +the event, as soon as I arrived at Nimes I engaged +a caleche to convey me to the Pont du Gard. The +day was yet young, and it was perfectly fair; it ap- +peared well, for a longish drive, to take advantage, +without delay, of such security. After I had left the +town I became more intimate with that Provencal +charm which I had already enjoyed from the window +of the train, and which glowed in the sweet sunshine +and the white rocks, and lurked in the smoke-puffs +of the little olives. The olive-trees in Provence are +half the landscape. They are neither so tall, so stout, +nor so richly contorted as I have seen them beyond +the Alps; but this mild colorless bloom seems the +very texture of the country. The road from Nimes, +for a distance of fifteen miles, is superb; broad enough +for an army, and as white and firm as a dinner-table. +It stretches away over undulations which suggest a +kind of harmony; and in the curves it makes through +the wide, free country, where there is never a hedge +or a wall, and the detail is always exquisite, there is +something majestic, almost processional. Some twenty +minutes before I reached the little inn that marks the +termination of the drive, my vehicle met with an ac- +cident which just missed being serious, and which +engaged the attention of a gentleman, who, followed +by his groom and mounted on a strikingly handsome +horse happened to ride up at the moment. This young +man, who, with his good looks and charming manner, +might have stepped out of a novel of Octave Feuillet, +gave me some very intelligent advice in reference to +one of my horses that had been injured, and was so +good as to accompany me to the inn, with the re- +sources of which he was acquainted, to see that his +recommendations were carried out. The result of our +interview was that he invited me to come and look at +a small but ancient chateau in the neighborhood, +which he had the happiness - not the greatest in the +world, he intimated - to inhabit, and at which I en- +gaged to present myself after I should have spent an +hour at the Pont du Gard. For the moment, when +we separated, I gave all my attention to that great +structure. You are very near it before you see it; the +ravine it spans suddenly opens and exhibits the +picture. The scene at this point grows extremely +beautiful. The ravine is the valley of the Gardon, +which the road from Nimes has followed some time +without taking account of it, but which, exactly at the +right distance from the aqueduct, deepens and ex- +pands, and puts on those characteristics which are best +suited to give it effect. The gorge becomes romantic, +still, and solitary, and, with its white rocks and wild +shrubbery, hangs over the clear, colored river, in whose +slow course there is here and there a deeper pool. +Over the valley, from side to side, and ever so high +in the air, stretch the three tiers of the tremendous +bridge. They are unspeakably imposing, and nothing +could well be more Roman. The hugeness, the soli- +dity, the unexpectedness, the monumental rectitude of +the whole thing leave you nothing to say - at the time +- and make you stand gazing. You simply feel that +it is noble and perfect, that it has the quality of +greatness. A road, branching from the highway, de- +scends to the level of the river and passes under one +of the arches. This road has a wide margin of grass +and loose stones, which slopes upward into the bank +of the ravine. You may sit here as long as you please, +staring up at the light, strong piers; the spot is ex- +tremely natural, though two or three stone benches +have been erected on it. I remained there an hour +and got a cornplete impression; the place was per- +fectly soundless, and for the time, at least, lonely; +the splendid afternoon had begun to fade, and there +was a fascination in the object I had come to see. It +came to pass that at the same time I discovered in it +a certain stupidity, a vague brutality. That element +is rarely absent from great Roman work, which is +wanting in the nice adaptation of the means to the +end. The means are always exaggerated; the end is +so much more than attained. The Roman rigidity +was apt to overshoot the mark, and I suppose a race +which could do nothing small is as defective as a race +that can do nothing great. Of this Roman rigidity +the Pont du Gard is an admirable example. It would +be a great injustice, however, not to insist upon its +beauty, - a kind of manly beauty, that of an object +constructed not to please but to serve, and impressive +simply from the scale on which it carries out this +intention. The number of arches in each tier is dif- +ferent; they are smaller and more numerous as they +ascend. The preservation of the thing is extra- +ordinary; nothing has crumbled or collapsed; every +feature remains; and the huge blocks of stone, of a +brownish-yellow, (as if they had been baked by the +Provencal sun for eighteen centuries), pile themselves, +without mortar or cement, as evenly as the day they +were laid together. All this to carry the water of a +couple of springs to a little provincial city! The con- +duit on the top has retained its shape and traces of +the cement with which it was lined. When the vague +twilight began to gather, the lonely valley seemed to +fill itself with the shadow of the Roman name, as if +the mighty empire were still as erect as the supports +of the aqueduct; and it was open to a solitary tourist, +sitting there sentimental, to believe that no people has +ever been, or will ever be, as great as that, measured, +as we measure the greatness of an individual, by the +push they gave to what they undertook. The Pont du +Gard is one of the three or four deepest impressions +they have left; it speaks of them in a manner with +which they might have been satisfied. + +I feel as if it were scarcely discreet to indicate the +whereabouts of the chateau of the obliging young +man I had met on the way from Nimes; I must con- +tent myself with saying that it nestled in an en- +chanting valley, - _dans le fond_, as they say in France, +- and that I took my course thither on foot, after +leaving the Pont du Gard. I find it noted in my +journal as "an adorable little corner." The principal +feature of the place is a couple of very ancient towers, +brownish-yellow in hue, and mantled in scarlet Vir- +ginia-creeper. One of these towers, reputed to be +of Saracenic origin, is isolated, and is only the more +effective; the other is incorporated in the house, +which is delightfully fragmentary and irregular. It +had got to be late by this time, and the lonely _castel_ +looked crepuscular and mysterious. An old house- +keeper was sent for, who showed me the rambling +interior; and then the young man took me into a +dim old drawing-room, which had no less than four +chimney-pieces, all unlighted, and gave me a refec- +tion of fruit and sweet wine. When I praised the +wine and asked him what it was, he said simply, +"C'est du vin de ma mere!" Throughout my little +joumey I had never yet felt myself so far from Paris; +and this was a sensation I enjoyed more than my +host, who was an involuntary exile, consoling him- +self with laying out a _manege_, which he showed me +as I walked away. His civility was great, and I was +greatly touched by it. On my way back to the little +inn where I had left my vehicle, I passed the Pont +du Gard, and took another look at it. Its great arches +made windows for the evening sky, and the rocky +ravine, with its dusky cedars and shining river, was +lonelier than before. At the inn I swallowed, or tried +to swallow,a glass of horrible wine with my coach- +man; after which, with my reconstructed team, I drove +back to Nimes in the moonlight. It only added a +more solitary whiteness to the constant sheen of the +Provencal landscape. + + + +XXVII. + +The weather the next day was equally fair, so that +it seemed an imprudence not to make sure of Aigues- +Mortes. Nimes itself could wait; at a pinch, I could +attend to Nimes in the rain. It was my belief that +Aigues-Mortes was a little gem, and it is natural to +desire that gems should have an opportunity to sparkle. +This is an excursion of but a few hours, and there is +a little friendly, familiar, dawdling train that will con- +vey you, in time for a noonday breakfast, to the small +dead town where the blessed Saint-Louis twice em- +barked for the crusades. You may get back to Nimes +for dinner; the run - or rather the walk, for the train +doesn't run - is of about an hour. I found the little +journey charming, and looked out of the carriage win- +dow, on my right, at the distant Cevennes, covered +with tones of amber and blue, and, all around, at +vineyards red with the touch of October. The grapes +were gone, but the plants had a color of their own. +Within a certain distance of Aigues-Mortes they give +place to wide salt-marshes, traversed by two canals; +and over this expanse the train rumbles slowly upon +a narrow causeway, failing for some time, though you +know you are near the object of your curiosity, to +bring you to sight of anything but the horizon. Sud- +denly it appears, the towered and embattled mass, +lying so low that the crest of its defences seems to +rise straight out of the ground; and it is not till the +train stops, close before them, that you are able to +take the full measure of its walls. + +Aigues-Mortes stands on the edge of a wide _etang_, +or shallow inlet of the sea, the further side of which +is divided by a narrow band of coast from the Gulf +of Lyons. Next after Carcassonne, to which it forms +an admirable _pendant_, it is the most perfect thing of +the kind in France. It has a rival in the person of +Avignon, but the ramparts of Avignon are much less +effective. Like Carcassonne, it is completely sur- +rounded with its old fortifications; and if they are far +simpler in character (there is but one circle), they are +quite as well preserved. The moat has been filled +up, and the site of the town might be figured by a +billiard-table without pockets. On this absolute level, +covered with coarse grass, Aigues-Mortes presents quite +the appearance of the walled town that a school-boy +draws upon his slate, or that we see in the background +of early Flemish pictures, - a simple parallelogram, of +a contour almost absurdly bare, broken at intervals by +angular towers and square holes. Such, literally speak- +ing, is this delightful little city, which needs to be seen +to tell its full story. It is extraordinarily pictorial, +and if it is a very small sister of Carcassonne, it has +at least the essential features of the family. Indeed, +it is even more like an image and less like a reality +than Carcassonne; for by position and prospect it +seems even more detached from the life of the present +day. It is true that Aigues-Mortes does a little busi- +ness; it sees certain bags of salt piled into barges +which stand in a canal beside it, and which carry their +cargo into actual places. But nothing could well be +more drowsy and desultory than this industry as I +saw it practised, with the aid of two or three brown +peasants and under the eye of a solitary douanier, +who strolled on the little quay beneath the western +wall. "C'est bien plaisant, c'est bien paisible," said +this worthy man, with whom I had some conversa- +tion; and pleasant and peaceful is the place indeed, +though the former of these epithets may suggest an +element of gayety in which Aigues-Mortes is deficient. +The sand, the salt, the dull sea-view, surround it with +a bright, quiet melancholy. There are fifteen towers +and nine gates, five of which are on the southern side, +overlooking the water. I walked all round the place +three times (it doesn't take long), but lingered most +under the southern wall, where the afternoon light +slept in the dreamiest, sweetest way. I sat down on +an old stone, and looked away to the desolate salt- +marshes and the still, shining surface of the _etang_, +and, as I did so, reflected that this was a queer little +out-of-the-world corner to have been chosen, in the +great dominions of either monarch, for that pompous +interview which took place, in 1538, between Francis I. +and Charles V. It was also not easy to perceive how +Louis IX., when in 1248 and 1270 he started for the +Holy Land, set his army afloat in such very undeveloped +channels. An hour later I purchased in the town a +little pamphlet by M. Marius Topin, who undertakes +to explain this latter anomaly, and to show that there +is water enough in the port, as we may call it by +courtesy, to have sustained a fleet of crusaders. I was +unable to trace the channel that he points out, but +was glad to believe that, as he contends, the sea has +not retreated from the town since the thirteenth century. +It was comfortable to think that things are not so +changed as that. M. Topin indicates that the other +French ports of the Mediterranean were not then _dis- +ponsibles_, and that Aigues-Mortes was the most eligible +spot for an embarkation. + +Behind the straight walls and the quiet gates the +little town has not crumbled, like the Cite of Carcas- +sonne. It can hardly be said to be alive; but if it is +dead it has been very neatly embalmed. The hand +of the restorer rests on it constantly; but this artist +has not, as at Carcassonne, had miracles to accomplish. +The interior is very still and empty, with small stony, +whitewashed streets, tenanted by a stray dog, a stray +cat, a stray old woman. In the middle is a little _place_, +with two or three cafes decorated by wide awnings, - +a little _place_ of which the principal feature is a very +bad bronze statue of Saint Louis by Pradier. It is +almost as bad as the breakfast I had at the inn that +bears the name of that pious monarch. You may walk +round the enceinte of Aigues-Mortes, both outside and +in; but you may not, as at Carcassonne, make a por- +tion of this circuit on the _chemin de ronde_, the little +projecting footway attached to the inner face of the +battlements. This footway, wide enough only for a +single pedestrian, is in the best order, and near each +of the gates a flight of steps leads up to it; but a +locked gate, at the top of the steps, makes access im- +possible, or at least unlawful. Aigues-Mortes, however, +has its citadel, an immense tower, larger than any of +the others, a little detached, and standing at the north- +west angle of the town. I called upon the _casernier_, +the custodian of the walls, - and in his absence I was +conducted through this big Tour de Constance by his +wife, a very mild, meek woman, yellow with the traces +of fever and ague, - a scourge which, as might be ex- +pected in a town whose name denotes "dead waters," +enters freely at the nine gates. The Tour de Con- +stance is of extraordinary girth and solidity, divided +into three superposed circular chambers, with very fine +vaults, which are lighted by embrasures of prodigious +depth, converging to windows little larger than loop- +holes. The place served for years as a prison to many +of the Protestants of the south whom the revocation +of the Edict of Nantes had exposed to atrocious +penalties, and the annals of these dreadful chambers +during the first half of the last century were written +in tears and blood. Some of the recorded cases of +long confinement there make one marvel afresh at +what man has inflicted and endured. In a country in +which a policy of extermination was to be put into +practice this horrible tower was an obvious resource. +From the battlements at the top, which is surmounted +by an old disused light-house, you see the little com- +pact rectangular town, which looks hardly bigger than +a garden-patch, mapped out beneath you, and follow +the plain configuration of its defences. You take +possession of it, and you feel that you will remember +it always. + + + +XXVIII. + +After this I was free to look about me at Nimes, +and I did so with such attention as the place appeared +to require. At the risk of seeming too easily and too +frequently disappointed, I will say that it required +rather less than I had been prepared to give. It is a +town of three or four fine features, rather than a town +with, as I may say, a general figure. In general, +Nimes is poor; its only treasures are its Roman re- +mains, which are of the first order. The new French +fashions prevail in many of its streets; the old houses +are paltry, and the good houses are new; while beside +my hotel rose a big spick-and-span church, which +had the oddest air of having been intended for +Brooklyn or Cleveland. It is true that this church +looked out on a square completely French, - a square +of a fine modern disposition, flanked on one side by a +classical _palais de justice_ embellished with trees and +parapets, and occupied in the centre with a group of +allegorical statues, such as one encounters only in the +cities of France, the chief of these being a colossal +figure by Pradier, representing Nimes. An English, +an American, town which should have such a monu- +ment, such a square, as this, would be a place of +great pretensions; but like so many little _villes de +province_ in the country of which I write, Nimes is +easily ornamental. What nobler ornament can there +be than the Roman baths at the foot of Mont Cavalier, +and the delightful old garden that surrounds them? +All that quarter of Nimes has every reason to be +proud of itself; it has been revealed to the world at +large by copious photography. A clear, abundant +stream gushes from the foot of a high hill (covered +with trees and laid out in paths), and is distributed +into basins which sufficiently refer themselves to the +period that gave them birth, - the period that has +left its stamp on that pompous Peyrou which we ad- +mired at Montpellier. Here are the same terraces and +steps and balustrades, and a system of water-works +less impressive, perhaps, but very ingenious and charm- +ing. The whole place is a mixture of old Rome and +of the French eighteenth century; for the remains of +the antique baths are in a measure incorporated in +the modern fountains. In a corner of this umbrageous +precinct stands a small Roman ruin, which is known +as a temple of Diana, but was more apparently a +_nymphaeum_, and appears to have had a graceful con- +nection with the adjacent baths. I learn from Murray +that this little temple, of the period of Augustus, +"was reduced to its present state of ruin in 1577;" +the moment at which the townspeople, threatened +with a siege by the troops of the crown, partly +demolished it, lest it should serve as a cover to the +enemy. The remains are very fragmentary, but they +serve to show that the place was lovely. I spent half +an hour in it on a perfect Sunday morning (it is en- +closed by a high _grille_, carefully tended, and has a +warden of its own), and with the help of my imagina- +tion tried to reconstruct a little the aspect of things +in the Gallo-Roman days. I do wrong, perhaps, to +say that 1 _tried_; from a flight so deliberate I should +have shrunk. But there was a certain contagion of +antiquity in the air; and among the ruins of baths +and temples, in the very spot where the aqueduct that +crosses the Gardon in the wondrous manner I had +seen discharged itself, the picture of a splendid +paganism seemed vaguely to glow. Roman baths, - +Roman baths; those words alone were a scene. Every- +thing was changed: I was strolling in a _jardin francais_; +the bosky slope of the Mont Cavalier (a very modest +mountain), hanging over the place, is crowned with a +shapeless tower, which is as likely to be of mediaeval +as of antique origin; and yet, as I leaned on the +parapet of one of the fountains, where a flight of +curved steps (a hemicycle, as the French say) descended +into a basin full of dark, cool recesses, where the slabs +of the Roman foundations gleam through the clear +green water, - as in this attitude I surrendered myself +to contemplation and reverie, it seemed to me that I +touched for a moment the ancient world. Such mo- +ments are illuminating, and the light of this one mingles, +in my memory, with the dusky greenness of the Jardin +de la Fontaine. + +The fountain proper - the source of all these dis- +tributed waters - is the prettiest thing in the world, a +reduced copy of Vaucluse. It gushes up at the foot +of the Mont Cavalier, at a point where that eminence +rises with a certain cliff-like effect, and, like other +springs in the same circumstances, appears to issue +from the rock with a sort of quivering stillness. I +trudged up the Mont Cavalier, - it is a matter of five +minutes, - and having committed this cockneyism en- +hanced it presently by another. I ascended the stupid +Tour Magne, the mysterious structure I mentioned a +moment ago. The only feature of this dateless tube, +except the inevitable collection of photographs to +which you are introduced by the door-keeper, is the +view you enjoy from its summit. This view is, of +course, remarkably fine, but I am ashamed to say I +have not the smallest recollection of it; for while I +looked into the brilliant spaces of the air I seemed +still to see only what I saw in the depths of the Roman +baths, - the image, disastrously confused and vague, of +a vanished world. This world, however, has left at +Nimes a far more considerable memento than a few +old stones covered with water-moss. The Roman arena +is the rival of those of Verona and of Arles; at a +respectful distance it emulates the Colosseum. It is a +small Colosseum, if I may be allowed the expression, +and is in a much better preservation than the great +circus at Rome. This is especially true of the external +walls, with their arches, pillars, cornices. I must add +that one should not speak of preservation, in regard +to the arena at Nimes, without speaking also of repair. +After the great ruin ceased to be despoiled, it began +to be protected, and most of its wounds have been +dressed with new material. These matters concern +the archaeologist; and I felt here, as I felt afterwards +at Arles, that one of the profane, in the presence of +such a monument, can only admire and hold his +tongue. The great impression, on the whole, is an +impression of wonder that so much should have sur- +vived. What remains at Nimes, after all dilapidation +is estimated, is astounding. I spent an hour in the +Arenes on that same sweet Sunday morning, as I +came back from the Roman baths, and saw that the +corridors, the vaults, the staircases, the external casing, +are still virtually there. Many of these parts are +wanting in the Colosseum, whose sublimity of size, +however, can afford to dispense with detail. The seats +at Nimes, like those at Verona, have been largely +renewed; not that this mattered much, as I lounged +on the cool surface of one of them, and admired the +mighty concavity of the place and the elliptical sky- +line, broken by uneven blocks and forming the rim of +the monstrous cup, - a cup that had been filled with +horrors. And yet I made my reflections; I said to +myself that though a Roman arena is one of the most +impressive of the works of man, it has a touch of that +same stupidity which I ventured to discover in the +Pont du Gard. It is brutal; it is monotonous; it is +not at all exquisite. The Arenes at Nimes were ar- +ranged for a bull-fight, - a form of recreation that, as +I was informed, is much _dans les habitudes Nimoises_, +and very common throughout Provence, where (still +according to my information) it is the usual pastime +of a Sunday afternoon. At Arles and Nimes it has a +characteristic setting, but in the villages the patrons +of the game make a circle of carts and barrels, on +which the spectators perch themselves. I was sur- +prised at the prevalence, in mild Provence, of the +Iberian vice, and hardly know whether it makes the +custom more respectable that at Nimes and Arles the +thing is shabbily and imperfectly done. The bulls +are rarely killed, and indeed often are bulls only in +the Irish sense of the term, - being domestic and +motherly cows. Such an entertainment of course does +not supply to the arena that element of the exquisite +which I spoke of as wanting. The exquisite at Nimes +is mainly represented by the famous Maison Carree. +The first impression you receive from this delicate +little building, as you stand before it, is that you have +already seen it many times. Photographs, engravings, +models, medals, have placed it definitely in your eye, +so that from the sentiment with which you regard it +curiosity and surprise are almost completely, and per- +haps deplorably, absent. Admiration remains, how- +ever, - admiration of a familiar and even slightly +patronizing kind. The Maison Carree does not over- +whelm you; you can conceive it. It is not one of the +great sensations of the antique art; but it is perfectly +felicitous, and, in spite of having been put to all sorts +of incongruous uses, marvellously preserved. Its slender +columns, its delicate proportions, its charming com- +pactness, seemed to bring one nearer to the century +that built it than the great superpositions of arenas +and bridges, and give it the interest that vibrates from +one age to another when the note of taste is struck. +If anything were needed to make this little toy-temple +a happy production, the service would be rendered by +the second-rate boulevard that conducts to it, adorned +with inferior cafes and tobacco-shops. Here, in a +respectable recess, surrounded by vulgar habitations, +and with the theatre, of a classic pretension, opposite, +stands the small "square house," so called because it +is much longer than it is broad. I saw it first in the +evening, in the vague moonlight, which made it look +as if it were cast in bronze. Stendhal says, justly, +that it has the shape of a playing-card, and he ex- +presses his admiration for it by the singular wish +that an "exact copy" of it should be erected in Paris. +He even goes so far as to say that in the year 1880 +this tribute will have been rendered to its charms; +nothing would be more simple, to his mind, than to +"have" in that city "le Pantheon de Rome, quelques +temples de Grece." Stendhal found it amusing to +write in the character of a _commis-voyageur_, and some- +times it occurs to his reader that he really was one. + + + +XXIX. + +On my way from Nimes to Arles, I spent three +hours at Tarascon; chiefly for the love of Alphonse +Daudet, who has written nothing more genial than +"Les Aventures Prodigieuses de Taitarin," and the +story of the "siege" of the bright, dead little town +(a mythic siege by the Prussians) in the "Conies du +Lundi." In the introduction which, for the new +edition of his works, he has lately supplied to "Tar- +tarin," the author of this extravagant but kindly +satire gives some account of the displeasure with +which he has been visited by the ticklish Tarascon- +nais. Daudet relates that in his attempt to shed a +humorous light upon some of the more erratic phases +of the Provencal character, he selected Tarascon at a +venture; not because the temperament of its natives +is more vainglorious than that of their neighbors, or +their rebellion against the "despotism of fact" more +marked, but simply because he had to name a par- +ticular Provencal city. Tartarin is a hunter of lions +and charmer of women, a true "_produit du midi_," as +Daudet says, who has the most fantastic and fabulous +adventures. He is a minimized Don Quixote, with +much less dignity, but with equal good faith; and the +story of his exploits is a little masterpiece of the +light comical. The Tarasconnais, however, declined to +take the joke, and opened the vials of their wrath +upon the mocking child of Nimes, who would have +been better employed, they doubtless thought, in show- +ing up the infirmities of his own family. I am bound +to add that when I passed through Tarascon they did +not appear to be in the least out of humor. Nothing +could have been brighter, softer, more suggestive of +amiable indifference, than the picture it presented to +my mind. It lies quietly beside the Rhone, looking +across at Beaucaire, which seems very distant and in- +dependent, and tacitly consenting to let the castle of +the good King Rene of Anjou, which projects very +boldly into the river, pass for its most interesting feature. +The other features are, primarily, a sort of vivid sleepi- +ness in the aspect of the place, as if the September +noon (it had lingered on into October) lasted longer +there than elsewhere; certain low arcades, which make +the streets look gray and exhibit empty vistas; and a +very curious and beautiful walk beside the Rhone, +denominated the Chaussee, - a long and narrow cause- +way, densely shaded by two rows of magnificent old +trees, planted in its embankment, and rendered doubly +effective, at the moment I passed over it, by a little +train of collegians, who had been taken out for mild +exercise by a pair of young priests. Lastly, one may +say that a striking element of Tarascon, as of any town +that lies on the Rhone, is simply the Rhone itself: the +big brown flood, of uncertain temper, which has never +taken time to forget that it is a child of the mountain +and the glacier, and that such an origin carries with it +great privileges. Later, at Avignon, I observed it in +the exercise of these privileges, chief among which was +that of frightening the good people of the old papal +city half out of their wits. + +The chateau of King Rene serves to-day as the +prison of a district, and the traveller who wishes to +look into it must obtain his permission at the _Mairie +of Tarascon_. If he have had a certain experience of +French manners, his application will be accompanied +with the forms of a considerable obsequiosity, and in +this case his request will be granted as civilly as it +has been made. The castle has more of the air of a +severely feudal fortress than I should suppose the +period of its construction (the first half of the fifteenth +century) would have warranted; being tremendously +bare and perpendicular, and constructed for comfort +only in the sense that it was arranged for defence. It +is a square and simple mass, composed of small yellow +stones, and perched on a pedestal of rock which easily +commands the river. The building has the usual cir- +cular towers at the corners, and a heavy cornice at +the top, and immense stretches of sun-scorched wall, +relieved at wide intervals by small windows, heavily +cross-barred. It has, above all, an extreme steepness +of aspect; I cannot express it otherwise. The walls +are as sheer and inhospitable as precipices. The castle +has kept its large moat, which is now a hollow filled +with wild plants. To this tall fortress the good Rene +retired in the middle of the fifteenth century, finding +it apparently the most substantial thing left him in a +dominion which had included Naples and Sicily, +Lorraine and Anjou. He had been a much-tried +monarch and the sport of a various fortune, fighting +half his life for thrones he didn't care for, and exalted +only to be quickly cast down. Provence was the +country of his affection, and the memory of his troubles +did not prevent him from holding a joyous court at +Tarascon and at Aix. He finished the castle at +Tarascon, which had been begun earlier in the century, +- finished it, I suppose, for consistency's sake, in the +manner in which it had originally been designed rather +than in accordance with the artistic tastes that formed +the consolation of his old age. He was a painter, a +writer, a dramatist, a modern dilettante, addicted to +private theatricals. There is something very attractive +in the image that he has imprinted on the page of +history. He was both clever and kind, and many +reverses and much suffering had not imbittered him +nor quenched his faculty of enjoyment. He was fond +of his sweet Provence, and his sweet Provence has +been grateful; it has woven a light tissue of legend +around the memory of the good King Rene. + +I strolled over his dusky habitation - it must have +taken all his good-humor to light it up - at the heels +of the custodian, who showed me the usual number of +castle-properties: a deep, well-like court; a collection of +winding staircases and vaulted chambers, the embra- +sures of whose windows and the recesses of whose +doorways reveal a tremendous thickness of wall. These +things constitute the general identity of old castles; +and when one has wandered through a good many, +with due discretion of step and protrusion of head, +one ceases very much to distinguish and remember, +and contents one's self with consigning them to the +honorable limbo of the romantic. I must add that this +reflection did not the least deter me from crossing the +bridge which connects Tarascon with Beaucaire, in +order to examine the old fortress whose ruins adorn +the latter city. It stands on a foundation of rock much +higher than that of Tarascon, and looks over with a +melancholy expression at its better-conditioned brother. +Its position is magnificent, and its outline very gallant. +I was well rewarded for my pilgrimage; for if the castle +of Beaucaire is only a fragment, the whole place, with +its position and its views, is an ineffaceable picture. It +was the stronghold of the Montmorencys, and its last +tenant was that rash Duke Francois, whom Richelieu, +seizing every occasion to trample on a great noble, +caused to be beheaded at Toulouse, where we saw, in +the Capitol, the butcher's knife with which the cardinal +pruned the crown of France of its thorns. The castle, +after the death of this victim, was virtually demolished. +Its site, which Nature to-day has taken again to herself, +has an extraordinary charm. The mass of rock that it +formerly covered rises high above the town, and is as +precipitous as the side of the Rhone. A tall rusty iron +gate admits you from a quiet corner of Beaucaire to a +wild tangled garden, covering the side of the hill, - +for the whole place forms the public promenade of the +townsfolk, - a garden without flowers, with little steep, +rough paths that wind under a plantation of small, +scrubby stone-pines. Above this is the grassy platform +of the castle, enclosed on one side only (toward the +river) by a large fragment of wall and a very massive +dungeon. There are benches placed in the lee of the +wall, and others on the edge of the platform, where +one may enjoy a view, beyond the river, of certain +peeled and scorched undulations. A sweet desolation, +an everlasting peace, seemed to hang in the air. A +very old man (a fragment, like the castle itself) emerged +from some crumbling corner to do me the honors, - a +very gentle, obsequious, tottering, toothless, grateful old +man. He beguiled me into an ascent of the solitary +tower, from which you may look down on the big +sallow river and glance at diminished Tarascon, and +the barefaced, bald-headed hills behind it. It may +appear that I insist too much upon the nudity of the +Provencal horiion, - too much, considering that I have +spoken of the prospect from the heights of Beaucaire as +lovely. But it is an exquisite bareness; it seems to +exist for the purpose of allowing one to follow the de- +licate lines of the hills, and touch with the eyes, as it +were, the smallest inflections of the landscape. It +makes the whole thing seem wonderfully bright and +pure. + +Beaucaire used to be the scene of a famous fair, +the great fair of the south of France. It has gone the +way of most fairs, even in France, where these delight- +ful exhibitions hold their own much better than might +be supposed. It is still held in the month of July; +but the bourgeoises of Tarascon send to the Magasin +du Louvre for their smart dresses, and the principal +glory of the scene is its long tradition. Even now, +however, it ought to be the prettiest of all fairs, for it +takes place in a charming wood which lies just beneath +the castle, beside the Rhone. The booths, the barracks, +the platforms of the mountebanks, the bright-colored +crowd, diffused through this midsummer shade, and +spotted here and there with the rich Provencal sun- +shine must be of the most pictorial effect. It is highly +probable, too, that it offers a large collection of pretty +faces; for even in the few hours that I spent at +Tarascon I discovered symptoms of the purity of +feature for which the women of the _pays d'Arles_ are +renowned. The Arlesian head-dress, was visible in the +streets; and this delightful coiffure is so associated with +a charming facial oval, a dark mild eye, a straight +Greek nose, and a mouth worthy of all the rest, that +it conveys a presumption of beauty which gives the +wearer time either to escape or to please you. I have +read somewhere, however, that Tarascon is supposed +to produce handsome men, as Arles is known to deal +in handsome women. It may be that I should have +found the Tarasconnais very fine fellows, if I had en- +countered enough specimens to justify an induction. +But there were very few males in the streets, and the +place presented no appearance of activity. Here and +there the black coif of an old woman or of a young +girl was framed by a low doorway; but for the rest, as +I have said, Tarascon was mostly involved in a siesta. +There was not a creature in the little church of Saint +Martha, which I made a point of visiting before I re- +turned to the station, and which, with its fine Romanesque +sideportal and its pointed and crocketed Gothic spire, +is as curious as it need be, in view of its tradition. It +stands in a quiet corner where the grass grows between +the small cobble-stones, and you pass beneath a deep +archway to reach it. The tradition relates that Saint +Martha tamed with her own hands, and attached to +her girdle, a dreadful dragon, who was known as the +Tarasque, and is reported to have given his name to +the city on whose site (amid the rocks which form the +base of the chateau) he had his cavern. The dragon, +perhaps, is the symbol of a ravening paganism, dis- +pelled by the eloquence of a sweet evangelist. The +bones of the interesting saint, at all events, were found, +in the eleventh century, in a cave beneath the spot on +which her altar now stands. I know not what had be- +come of the bones of the dragon. + + + +XXX. + +There are two shabby old inns at Arles, which +compete closely for your custom. I mean by this that +if you elect to go to the Hotel du Forum, the Hotel +du Nord, which is placed exactly beside it (at a right +angle) watches your arrival with ill-concealed dis- +approval; and if you take the chances of its neighbor, +the Hotel du Forum seems to glare at you invidiously +from all its windows and doors. I forget which of +these establishments I selected; whichever it was, I +wished very much that, it had been the other. The +two stand together on the Place des Hommes, a little +public square of Arles, which somehow quite misses +its effect. As a city, indeed, Arles quite misses its +effect in every way; and if it is a charming place, as +I think it is, I can hardly tell the reason why. The +straight-nosed Arlesiennes account for it in some degree; +and the remainder may be charged to the ruins of the +arena and the theatre. Beyond this, I remember with +affection the ill-proportioned little Place des Hommes; +not at all monumental, and given over to puddles and +to shabby cafes. I recall with tenderness the tortuous +and featureless streets, which looked like the streets of +a village, and were paved with villanous little sharp +stones, making all exercise penitential. Consecrated +by association is even a tiresome walk that I took the +evening I arrived, with the purpose of obtaining a +view of the Rhone. I had been to Arles before, years +ago, and it seemed to me that I remembered finding +on the banks of the stream some sort of picture. I +think that on the evening of which I speak there was +a watery moon, which it seemed to me would light up +the past as well as the present. But I found no pic- +ture, and I scarcely found the Rhone at all. I lost +my way, and there was not a creature in the streets to +whom I could appeal. Nothing could be more pro- +vincial than the situation of Arles at ten o'clock at +night. At last I arrived at a kind of embankment, +where I could see the great mud-colored stream slip- +ping along in the soundless darkness. It had come +on to rain, I know not what had happened to the +moon, and the whole place was anything but gay. It +was not what I had looked for; what I had looked for +was in the irrecoverable past. I groped my way back +to the inn over the infernal _cailloux_, feeling like a dis- +comfited Dogberry. I remember now that this hotel +was the one (whichever that may be) which has the +fragment of a Gallo-Roman portico inserted into one +of its angles. I had chosen it for the sake of this ex- +ceptional ornament. It was damp and dark, and the +floors felt gritty to the feet; it was an establishment at +which the dreadful _gras-double_ might have appeared +at the table d'hote, as it had done at Narbonne. Never- +theless, I was glad to get back to it; and nevertheless, +too, - and this is the moral of my simple anecdote, - +my pointless little walk (I don't speak of the pave- +ment) suffuses itself, as I look back upon it, with a +romantic tone. And in relation to the inn, I suppose +I had better mention that I am well aware of the in- +consistency of a person who dislikes the modern cara- +vansary, and yet grumbles when he finds a hotel of +the superannuated sort. One ought to choose, it would +seem, and make the best of either alternative. The +two old taverns at Arles are quite unimproved; such +as they must have been in the infancy of the modern +world, when Stendhal passed that way, and the lum- +bering diligence deposited him in the Place des +Hommes, such in every detail they are to-day. _Vieilles +auberges de France_, one ought to enjoy their gritty +floors and greasy window-panes. Let it be put on re- +cord, therefore, that I have been, I won't say less com- +fortable, but at least less happy, at better inns. + +To be really historic, I should have mentioned that +before going to look for the Rhone I had spent part +of the evening on the opposite side of the little place, +and that I indulged in this recreation for two definite +reasons. One of these was that I had an opportunity +of conversing at a cafe with an attractive young Eng- +lishman, whom I had met in the afternoon at Tarascon, +and more remotely, in other years, in London; the +other was that there sat enthroned behind the counter +a splendid mature Arlesienne, whom my companion +and I agreed that it was a rare privilege to contem- +plate. There is no rule of good manners or morals +which makes it improper, at a cafe, to fix one's eyes +upon the _dame de comptoir_; the lady is, in the nature +of things, a part of your _consommation_. We were there- +fore feee to admire without restriction the handsomest +person I had ever seen give change for a five-franc +piece. She was a large quiet woman, who would never +see forty again; of an intensely feminine type, yet +wonderfully rich and robust, and full of a certain phy- +sical nobleness. Though she was not really old, she +was antique, and she was very grave, even a little sad. +She had the dignity of a Roman empress, and she +handled coppers as if they had been stamped with +the head of Caesar. I have seen washerwomen in the +Trastevere who were perhaps as handsome as she; but +even the head-dress of the Roman contadina con- +tributes less to the dignity of the person born to wear +it than the sweet and stately Arlesian cap, which sits +at once aloft and on the back of the head; which is +accompanied with a wide black bow covering a con- +siderable part of the crown; and which, finally, accom- +modates itself indescribably well to the manner in +which the tresses of the front are pushed behind the +cars. + +This admirable dispenser of lumps of sugar has +distracted me a little; for I am still not sufficiently +historical. Before going to the cafe I had dined, and +before dining I had found time to go and look at the +arena. Then it was that I discovered that Arles has +no general physiognomy, and, except the delightful +little church of Saint Trophimus, no architecture, and +that the rugosities of its dirty lanes affect the feet +like knife-blades. It was not then, on the other hand, that +I saw the arena best. The second day of my stay at +Arles I devoted to a pilgrimage to the strange old hill +town of Les Baux, the mediaeval Pompeii, of which I +shall give myself the pleasure of speaking. The even- +ing of that day, however (my friend and I returned in +time for a late dinner), I wandered among the Roman +remains of the place by the light of a magnificent +moon, and gathered an impression which has lost little +of its silvery glow. The moon of the evening before +had been aqueous and erratic; but if on the present +occasion it was guilty of any irregularity, the worst it +did was only to linger beyond its time in the heavens, +in order to let us look at things comfortably. The +effect was admirable; it brought back the impression +of the way, in Rome itself, on evenings like that, the +moonshine rests upon broken shafts and slabs of an- +tique pavement. As we sat in the theatre, looking at +the two lone columns that survive - part of the decora- +tion of the back of the stage - and at the fragments +of ruin around them, we might have been in the +Roman forum. The arena at Arles, with its great +magnitude, is less complete than that of Nimes; it has +suffered even more the assaults of time and of the +children of time, and it has been less repaired. The +seats are almost wholly wanting; but the external walls +minus the topmost tier of arches, are massively, rug- +gedly, complete; and the vaulted corridors seem as +solid as the day they were built. The whole thing is +superbly vast, and as monumental, for place of light +amusement - what is called in America a "variety- +show" - as it entered only into the Roman mind to +make such establishments. The _podium_ is much higher +than at Nimes, and many of the great white slabs that +faced it have been recovered and put into their places. +The proconsular box has been more or less recon- +structed, and the great converging passages of approach +to it are still majestically distinct: so that, as I sat +there in the moon-charmed stillness, leaning my elbows +on the battered parapet of the ring, it was not im- +possible - to listen to the murmurs and shudders, the +thick voice of the circus, that died away fifteen hun- +dred years ago. + +The theatre has a voice as well, but it lingers on +the ear of time with a different music. The Roman +theatre at Arles seemed to me one of the most charm- +ing and touching ruins I had ever beheld; I took a +particular fancy to it. It is less than a skeleton, - the +arena may be called a skeleton; for it consists only of +half a dozen bones. The traces of the row of columns +which formed the scene - the permanent back-scene - +remain; two marble pillars - I just mentioned them - +are upright, with a fragment of their entablature. Be +fore them is the vacant space which was filled by the +stage, with the line of the prosoenium distinct, marked +by a deep groove, impressed upon slabs of stone, which +looks as if the bottom of a high screen had been in- +tended to fit into it. The semicircle formed by the +seats - half a cup - rises opposite; some of the rows +are distinctly marked. The floor, from the bottom of +the stage, in the shape of an arc of which the chord +is formed by the line of the orchestra, is covered by +slabs of colored marble - red, yellow, and green - +which, though terribly battered and cracked to-day, +give one an idea of the elegance of the interior. Every- +thing shows that it was on a great scale: the large +sweep of its enclosing walls, the massive corridors that +passed behind the auditorium, and of which we can +still perfectly take the measure. The way in which +every seat commanded the stage is a lesson to the +architects of our epoch, as also the immense size of +the place is a proof of extraordinary power of voice +on the part of the Roman actors. It was after we had +spent half an hour in the moonshine at the arena that +we came on to this more ghostly and more exquisite +ruin. The principal entrance was locked, but we +effected an easy _escalade_, scaled a low parapet, and +descended into the place behind file scenes. It was +as light as day, and the solitude was complete. The +two slim columns, as we sat on the broken benches, +stood there like a pair of silent actors. What I called +touching, just now, was the thought that here the +human voice, the utterance of a great language, had +been supreme. The air was full of intonations and +cadences; not of the echo of smashing blows, of riven +armor, of howling victims and roaring beasts. The +spot is, in short, one of the sweetest legacies of the +ancient world; and there seems no profanation in the +fact that by day it is open to the good people of +Arles, who use it to pass, by no means in great num- +bers, from one part of the town to the other; treading +the old marble floor, and brushing, if need be, the +empty benches. This familiarity does not kill the +place again; it makes it, on the contrary, live a little, +- makes the present and the past touch each other. + + + +XXXI. + +The third lion of Arles has nothing to do with the +ancient world, but only with the old one. The church +of Saint Trophimus, whose wonderful Romanesque +porch is the principal ornament of the principal _place_, +- a _place_ otherwise distinguished by the presence of +a slim and tapering obelisk in the middle, as well as +by that of the Hotel de Ville and the museum - the +interesting church of Saint Trophimus swears a little, +as the French say, with the peculiar character of +Arles. It is very remarkable, but I would rather it +were in another place. Arles is delightfully pagan, +and Saint Trophimus, with its apostolic sculptures, is +rather a false note. These sculptures are equally re- +markable for their primitive vigor and for the perfect +preservation in which they have come down to us. +The deep recess of a round-arched porch of the +twelfth century is covered with quaint figures, which +have not lost a nose or a finger. An angular, Byzan- +tine-looking Christ sits in a diamond-shaped frame at +the summit of the arch, surrounded by little angels, +by great apostles, by winged beasts, by a hundred +sacred symbols and grotesque ornaments. It is a +dense embroidery of sculpture, black with time, but as +uninjured as if it had been kept under glass. One +good mark for the French Revolution! Of the in- +terior of the church, which has a nave of the twelfth +century, and a choir three hundred years more recent, +I chiefly remember the odd feature that the Romanesque +aisles are so narrow that you literally - or almost - +squeeze through them. You do so with some eager- +ness, for your natural purpose is to pass out to the +cloister. This cloister, as distinguished and as per- +fect as the porch, has a great deal of charm. Its four +sides, which are not of the same period (the earliest +and best are of the twelfth century), have an elaborate +arcade, supported on delicate pairs of columns, the +capitals of which show an extraordinary variety of +device and ornament. At the corners of the quadrangle +these columns take the form of curious human figures. +The whole thing is a gem of lightness and preserva- +tion, and is often cited for its beauty; but - if it +doesn't sound too profane - I prefer, especially at +Arles, the ruins of the Roman theatre. The antique +element is too precious to be mingled with anything +less rare. This truth was very present to my mind +during a ramble of a couple of hours that I took just +before leaving the place; and the glowing beauty of +the morning gave the last touch of the impression. I +spent half an hour at the Museum; then I took an- +other look at the Roman theatre; after which I walked +a little out of the town to the Aliscamps, the old +Elysian Fields, the meagre remnant of the old pagan +place of sepulture, which was afterwards used by the +Christians, but has been for ages deserted, and now +consists only of a melancholy avenue of cypresses, +lined with a succession of ancient sarcophagi, empty, +mossy, and mutilated. An iron-foundry, or some hor- +rible establishment which is conditioned upon tall +chimneys and a noise of hammering and banging, has +been established near at hand; but the cypresses shut +it out well enough, and this small patch of Elysium is +a very romantic corner. + +The door of the Museum stands ajar, and a vigilant +custodian, with the usual batch of photographs on +his mind, peeps out at you disapprovingly while you +linger opposite, before the charming portal of Saint +Trophimus, which you may look at for nothing. +When you succumb to the silent influence of his eye, +and go over to visit his collection, you find yourself +in a desecrated church, in which a variety of ancient +objects, disinterred in Arlesian soil, have been ar- +ranged without any pomp. The best of these, I be- +lieve, were found in the ruins of the theatre. Some of +the most curious of them are early Christian sar- +cophagi, exactly on the pagan model, but covered with +rude yet vigorously wrought images of the apostles, +and with illustrations of scriptural history. Beauty +of the highest kind, either of conception or of execu- +tion, is absent from most of the Roman fragments, +which belong to the taste of a late period and a +provincial civilization. But a gulf divides them from +the bristling little imagery of the Christian sarcophagi, +in which, at the same time, one detects a vague +emulation of the rich examples by which their authors +were surrounded. There is a certain element of style +in all the pagan things; there is not a hint of it in +the early Christian relics, among which, according to +M. Joanne, of the Guide, are to be found more fine +sarcophagi than in any collection but that of St. John +Lateran. In two or three of the Roman fragments +there is a noticeable distinction; principally in a +charming bust of a boy, quite perfect, with those +salient eyes that one sees in certain antique busts, and +to which the absence of vision in the marble mask +gives a look, often very touching, as of a baffled effort +to see; also in the head of a woman, found in the +ruins of the theatre, who, alas! has lost her nose, and +whose noble, simple contour, barring this deficiency, +recalls the great manner of the Venus of Milo. There +are various rich architectural fragments which in- +dicate that that edifice was a very splendid affair. +This little Museum at Arles, in short, is the most Ro- +man thing I know of, out of Rome. + + + +XXXII. + +I find that I declared one evening, in a little +journal I was keeping at that time, that I was weary +of writing (I was probably very sleepy), but that it +was essential I should make some note of my visit to +Les Baux. I must have gone to sleep as soon as I +had recorded this necessity, for I search my small diary +in vain for any account of that enchanting spot. I +have nothing but my memory to consult, - a memory +which is fairly good in regard to a general impression, +but is terribly infirm in the matter of details and +items. We knew in advance, my companion and I +that Les Baus was a pearl of picturesqueness; for +had we not read as much in the handbook of Murray, +who has the testimony of an English nobleman as to +its attractions? We also knew that it lay some miles +from Aries, on the crest of the Alpilles, the craggy +little mountains which, as I stood on the breezy plat- +form of Beaucaire, formed to my eye a charming, if +somewhat remote, background to Tarascon; this as- +surance having been given us by the landlady of the +inn at Arles, of whom we hired a rather lumbering +conveyance. The weather was not promising, but it +proved a good day for the mediaeval Pompeii; a gray, +melancholy, moist, but rainless, or almost rainless +day, with nothing in the sky to flout, as the poet +says, the dejected and pulverized past. The drive +itself was charming; for there is an inexhaustible +sweetness in the gray-green landscape of Provence. +It is never absolutely flat, and yet is never really +ambitious, and is full both of entertainment and re- +pose. It is in constant undulation, and the bareness +of the soil lends itself easily to outline and profile. +When I say the bareness, I mean the absence of +woods and hedges. It blooms with heath and scented +shrubs and stunted olive; and the white rock shining +through the scattered herbage has a brightness which +answers to the brightness of the sky. Of course it +needs the sunshine, for all southern countries look a +little false under the ground glass of incipient bad +weather. This was the case on the day of my pil- +grimage to Les Baux. Nevertheless, I was as glad +to keep going as I was to arrive; and as I went it +seemed to me that true happiness would consist in +wandering through such a land on foot, on September +afternoons, when one might stretch one's self on the +warm ground in some shady hollow, and listen to the +hum of bees and the whistle of melancholy shepherds; +for in Provence the shepherds whistle to their flocks. +I saw two or three of them, in the course of this drive +to Les Baux, meandering about, looking behind, and +calling upon the sheep in this way to follow, which +the sheep always did, very promptly, with ovine +unanimity. Nothing is more picturesque than to see +a slow shepherd threading his way down one of the +winding paths on a hillside, with his flock close be- +hind him, necessarily expanded, yet keeping just at +his heels, bending and twisting as it goes, and looking +rather like the tail of a dingy comet. + +About four miles from Arles, as you drive north- +ward toward the Alpilles, of which Alphonse Daudet +has spoken so often, and, as he might say, so in- +timately, stand on a hill that overlooks the road +the very considerable ruins of the abbey of Mont- +majour, one of the innumerable remnants of a feudal +and ecclesiastical (as well as an architectural) past +that one encounters in the South of France; remnants +which, it must be confessed, tend to introduce a cer- +tain confusion and satiety into the passive mind of +the tourist. Montmajour, however, is very impressive +and interesting; the only trouble with it is that, +unless you have stopped and retumed to Arles, you +see it in memory over the head of Les Baux, which +is a much more absorbing picture. A part of the +mass of buildings (the monastery) dates only from the +last century; and the stiff architecture of that period +does not lend itself very gracefully to desolation: it +looks too much as if it had been burnt down the year +before. The monastery was demolished during the +Revolution, and it injures a little the effect of the +very much more ancient fragments that are connected +with it. The whole place is on a great scale; it was +a rich and splendid abbey. The church, a vast +basilica of the eleventh century, and of the noblest +proportions, is virtually intact; I mean as regards +its essentials, for the details have completely vanished. +The huge solid shell is full of expression; it looks +as if it had been hollowed out by the sincerity of +early faith, and it opens into a cloister as impressive +as itself. Wherever one goes, in France, one meets, +looking backward a little, the spectre of the great +Revolution; and one meets it always in the shape of +the destruction of something beautiful and precious. +To make us forgive it at all, how much it must also +have destroyed that was more hateful than itself! +Beneath the church of Montmajour is a most extra- +ordinary crypt, almost as big as the edifice above +it, and making a complete subterranean temple, sur- +rounded with a circular gallery, or deambulatory, +which expands it intervals into five square chapels. +There are other things, of which I have but a con- +fused memory: a great fortified keep; a queer little +primitive chapel, hollowed out of the rock, beneath +these later structures, and recommended to the +visitor's attention as the confessional of Saint Tro- +phimus, who shares with so many worthies the glory +of being the first apostle of the Gauls. Then there +is a strange, small church, of the dimmest antiquity, +standing at a distance from the other buildings. I +remember that after we had let ourselves down a +good many steepish places to visit crypts and con- +fessionals, we walked across a field to this archaic +cruciform edifice, and went thence to a point further +down the road, where our carriage was awaiting +us. The chapel of the Holy Cross, as it is called, +is classed among the historic monuments of France; +and I read in a queer, rambling, ill-written book +which I picked up at Avignon, and in which the +author, M. Louis de Lainbel, has buried a great deal +of curious information on the subject of Provence, +under a style inspiring little confidence, that the +"delicieuse chapelle de Sainte-Croix" is a "veritable +bijou artistique." He speaks of "a piece of lace in +stone," which runs from one end of the building to +the other, but of which I am obliged to confess that +I have no recollection. I retain, however, a suf- +ficiently clear impression of the little superannuated +temple, with its four apses and its perceptible odor of +antiquity, - the odor of the eleventh century. + +The ruins of Les Baux remain quite indistinguish- +able, even when you are directly beneath them, at +the foot of the charming little Alpilles, which mass +themselves with a kind of delicate ruggedness. Rock +and ruin have been so welded together by the con- +fusions of time, that as you approach it from behind +- that is, from the direction of Arles - the place +presents simply a general air of cragginess. Nothing +can be prettier than the crags of Provence; they are +beautifully modelled, as painters say, and they have +a delightful silvery color. The road winds round the +foot of the hills on the top of which Lea Baux is +planted, and passes into another valley, from which +the approach to the town is many degrees less pre- +cipitous, and may be comfortably made in a carriage. +Of course the deeply inquiring traveller will alight as +promptly as possible; for the pleasure of climbing +into this queerest of cities on foot is not the least +part of the entertainment of going there. Then you +appreciate its extraordinary position, its picturesque- +ness, its steepness, its desolation and decay. It +hangs - that is, what remains of it - to the slanting +summit of the mountain. Nothing would be more +natural than for the whole place to roll down into +the valley. A part of it has done so - for it is not +unjust to suppose that in the process of decay the +crumbled particles have sought the lower level; +while the remainder still clings to its magnificent +perch. + +If I called Les Baux a city, just, above, it was not +that I was stretching a point in favor of the small +spot which to-day contains but a few dozen inhabi- +tants. The history of the plate is as extraordinary +as its situation. It was not only a city, but a state; +not only a state, but an empire; and on the crest of +its little mountain called itself sovereign of a territory, +or at least of scattered towns and counties, with which +its present aspect is grotesquely out of relation. The +lords of Les Baux, in a word, were great feudal pro- +prietors; and there-was a time during which the island +of Sardinia, to say nothing of places nearer home, +such as Arles and Marseilles, paid them homage. The +chronicle of this old Provencal house has been written, +in a style somewhat unctuous and flowery, by M. Jules +Canonge. I purchased the little book - a modest +pamphlet - at the establishment of the good sisters, +just beside the church, in one of the highest parts of +Les Baux. The sisters have a school for the hardy little +Baussenques, whom I heard piping their lessons, while +I waited in the cold _parloir_ for one of the ladies to +come and speak to me. Nothing could have been +more perfect than the manner of this excellent woman +when she arrived; yet her small religious house +seemed a very out-of-the-way corner of the world. It +was spotlessly neat, and the rooms looked as if they +had lately been papered and painted: in this respect, +at the mediaeval Pompeii, they were rather a discord. +They were, at any rate, the newest, freshest thing at +Les Baux. I remember going round to the church, +after I had left the good sisters, and to a little quiet +terrace, which stands in front of it, ornamented with +a few small trees and bordered with a wall, breast- +high, over which you look down steep hillsides, off +into the air and all about the neighbouring country. +I remember saying to myself that this little terrace +was one of those felicitous nooks which the tourist +of taste keeps in his mind as a picture. The church +was small and brown and dark, with a certain rustic +richness. All this, however, is no general description +of Les Baux. + +I am unable to give any coherent account of the +place, for the simple reason that it is a mere con- +fusion of ruin. It has not been preserved in lava like +Pompeii, and its streets and houses, its ramparts and +castle, have become fragmentary, not through the +sudden destruction, but through the gradual with- +drawal, of a population. It is not an extinguished, +but a deserted city; more deserted far than even +Carcassonne and Aigues-Mortes, where I found so +much entertainment in the grass-grown element. It +is of very small extent, and even in the days of its +greatness, when its lords entitled themselves counts +of Cephalonia and Neophantis, kings of Arles and +Vienne, princes of Achaia, and emperors of Constan- +tinople, - even at this flourishing period, when, as M. +Jules Canonge remarks, "they were able to depress +the balance in which the fate of peoples and kings is +weighed," the plucky little city contained at the most +no more than thirty-six hundred souls. Yet its lords +(who, however, as I have said, were able to present +a long list of subject towns, most of them, though a +few are renowned, unknown to fame) were seneschals +and captains-general of Piedmont and Lombardy, +grand admirals of the kingdom of Naples, and its +ladies were sought in marriage by half the first +princes in Europe. A considerable part of the little +narrative of M. Canonge is taken up with the great +alliances of the House of Baux, whose fortunes, ma- +trimonial and other, he traces from the eleventh cen- +tury down to the sixteenth. The empty shells of a +considerable number of old houses, many of which +must have been superb, the lines of certain steep +little streets, the foundations of a castle, and ever so +many splendid views, are all that remains to-day of +these great titles. To such a list I may add a dozen +very polite and sympathetic people, who emerged from +the interstices of the desultory little town to gaze at +the two foreigners who had driven over from Arles, +and whose horses were being baited at the modest +inn. The resources of this establishment we did not +venture otherwise to test, in spite of the seductive +fact that the sign over the door was in the Provencal +tongue. This little group included the baker, a rather +melancholy young man, in high boots and a cloak, +with whom and his companions we had a good deal +of conversation. The Baussenques of to-day struck +me as a very mild and agreeable race, with a good +deal of the natural amenity which, on occasions like +this one, the traveller, who is, waiting for his horses +to be put in or his dinner to be prepared, observes +in the charming people who lend themselves to con- +versation in the hill-towns of Tuscany. The spot +where our entertainers at Les Baux congregated was +naturally the most inhabited portion of the town; as +I say, there were at least a dozen human figures +within sight. Presently we wandered away from them, +scaled the higher places, seated ourselves among the +ruins of the castle, and looked down from the cliff +overhanging that portion of the road which I have +mentioned as approaching Les Baux from behind. I +was unable to trace the configuration of the castle as +plainly as the writers who have described it in the +guide-books, and I am ashamed to say that I did not +even perceive the three great figures of stone (the +three Marys, as they are called; the two Marys of +Scripture, with Martha), which constitute one of the +curiosities of the place, and of which M. Jules Canonge +speaks with almost hyperbolical admiration. A brisk +shower, lasting some ten minutes, led us to take refuge +in a cavity, of mysterious origin, where the melancholy +baker presently discovered us, having had the _bonne +pensee_ of coming up for us with an umbrella which +certainly belonged, in former ages, to one of the Ste- +phanettes or Berangeres commemorated by M. Canonge. +His oven, I am afraid, was cold so long as our visit +lasted. When the rain was over we wandered down +to the little disencumbered space before the inn, +through a small labyrinth of obliterated things. They +took the form of narrow, precipitous streets, bordered +by empty houses, with gaping windows and absent +doors, through which we had glimpses of sculptured +chimney-pieces and fragments of stately arch and vault. +Some of the houses are still inhabited; but most of +them are open to the air and weather. Some of them +have completely collapsed; others present to the street +a front which enables one to judge of the physiognomy +of Les Baux in the days of its importance. This im- +portance had pretty well passed away in the early part +of the sixteenth century, when the place ceased to be +an independent principality. It became - by bequest +of one of its lords, Bernardin des Baux, a great cap- +tain of his time - part of the appanage of the kings of +France, by whom it was placed under the protection +of Arles, which had formerly occupied with regard to +it a different position. I know not whether the Arle- +sians neglected their trust; but the extinction of the +sturdy little stronghold is too complete not to have +begun long ago. Its memories are buried under its +ponderous stones. As we drove away from it in the +gloaming, my friend and I agreed that the two or three +hours we had spent there were among the happiest +impressions of a pair of tourists very curious in the +picturesque. We almost forgot that we were bound to +regret that the shortened day left us no time to drive +five miles further, above a pass in the little mountains +- it had beckoned to us in the morning, when we +came in sight of it, almost irresistibly - to see the Ro- +man arch and mausoleum of Saint Remy. To compass +this larger excursion (including the visit to Les Baux) +you must start from Arles very early in the morning; +but I can imagine no more delightful day. + + + +XXXIII. + +I had been twice at Avignon before, and yet I was +not satisfied. I probably am satisfied now; neverthe- +less, I enjoyed my third visit. I shall not soon forget +the first, on which a particular emotion set indelible +stamp. I was travelling northward, in 1870, after four +months spent, for the first time, in Italy. It was the +middle of January, and I had found myself, unexpected- +ly, forced to return to England for the rest of the +winter. It was an insufferable disappointment; I was +wretched and broken-hearted. Italy appeared to me +at that time so much better than anything else in the +world, that to rise from table in the middle of the +feast was a prospect of being hungry for the rest of +my days. I had heard a great deal of praise of the +south of France; but the south of France was a poor +consolation. In this state of mind I arrived at Avignon, +which under a bright, hard winter sun was tingling - +fairly spinning - with the _mistral_. I find in my journal +of the other day a reference to the acuteness of my +reluctance in January, 1870. France, after Italy, ap- +peared, in the language of the latter country, _poco sim- +patica_; and I thought it necessary, for reasons now in- +conceivable, to read the "Figaro," which was filled +with descriptions of the horrible Troppmann, the mur- +derer of the _famille_ Kink. Troppmann, Kink, _le crime +do Pantin_, very names that figured in this episode +seemed to wave me back. Had I abandoned the so- +norous south to associate with vocables so base? + +It was very cold, the other day, at Avignon; for +though there was no mistral, it was raining as it rains +in Provence, and the dampness had a terrible chill in +it. As I sat by my fire, late at night - for in genial +Avignon, in October, I had to have a fire - it came +back to me that eleven years before I had at that +same hour sat by a fire in that same room, and, writ- +ing to a friend to whom I was not afraid to appear +extravagant, had made a vow that at some happier +period of the future I would avenge myself on the _ci- +devant_ city of the Popes by taking it in a contrary +sense. I suppose that I redeemed my vow on the oc- +casion of my second visit better than on my third; for +then I was on my way to Italy, and that vengeance, of +course, was complete. The only drawback was that I +was in such a hurry to get to Ventimiglia (where the +Italian custom-house was to be the sign of my triumph), +that I scarcely took time to make it clear to myself at +Avignon that this was better than reading the "Figaro." +I hurried on almost too fast to enjoy the consciousness +of moving southward. On this last occasion I was un- +fortunately destitute of that happy faith. Avignon was +my southernmost limit; after which I was to turn round +and proceed back to England. But in the interval I +had been a great deal in Italy, and that made all the +difference. + +I had plenty of time to think of this, for the rain +kept me practically housed for the first twenty-four +hours. It had been raining in, these regions for a +month, and people had begun to look askance at the +Rhone, though as yet the volume of the river was not +exorbitant. The only excursion possible, while the +torrent descended, was a kind of horizontal dive, ac- +companied with infinite splashing, to the little _musee_ +of the town, which is within a moderate walk of the +hotel. I had a memory of it from my first visit; it +had appeared to me more pictorial than its pictures. +I found that recollection had flattered it a little, and +that it is neither better nor worse than most provincial +museums. It has the usual musty chill in the air, the +usual grass-grown fore-court, in which a few lumpish +Roman fragments are disposed, the usual red tiles on +the floor, and the usual specimens of the more livid +schools on the walls. I rang up the _gardien_, who ar- +rived with a bunch of keys, wiping his mouth; he un- +locked doors for me, opened shutters, and while (to +my distress, as if the things had been worth lingering +over) he shuffled about after me, he announced the +names of the pictures before which I stopped, in a +voice that reverberated through the melancholy halls, +and seemed to make the authorship shameful when it +was obscure, and grotesque when it pretended to be +great. Then there were intervals of silence, while I +stared absent-mindedly, at hap-hazard, at some indis- +tinguishable canvas, and the only sound was the down- +pour of the rain on the skylights. The museum of +Avignon derives a certain dignity from its Roman frag- +ments. The town has no Roman monuments to show; +in this respect, beside its brilliant neighbors, Arles and +Nimes, it is a blank. But a great many small objects +have been found in its soil, - pottery, glass, bronzes, +lamps, vessels and ornaments of gold and silver. The +glass is especially chaming, - small vessels of the most +delicate shape and substance, many of them perfectly +preserved. These diminutive, intimate things bring +one near to the old Roman life; they seem like pearls +strung upon the slender thread that swings across the +gulf of time. A little glass cup that Roman lips have +touched says more to us than the great vessel of an +arena. There are two small silver _casseroles_, with chi- +selled handles, in the museum of Avignon, that struck +me as among the most charming survivals of anti- +quity. + +I did wrong just above, to speak of my attack on +this establishment as the only recreation I took that +first wet day; for I remember a terribly moist visit to +the former palace of the Popes, which could have +taken place only in the same tempestuous hours. It is +true that I scarcely know why I should have gone out +to see the Papal palace in the rain, for I had been +over it twice before, and even then had not found the +interest of the place so complete as it ought to be; the +fact, nevertheless, remains that this last occasion is +much associated with an umbrella, which was not +superfluous even in some of the chambers and cor- +ridors of the gigantic pile. It had already seemed to +me the dreariest of all historical buildings, and my +final visit confirmed the impression. The place is as +intricate as it is vast, and as desolate as it is dirty. +The imagination has, for some reason or other, to +make more than the effort usual in such cases to re- +store and repeople it. The fact, indeed, is simply that +the palace has been so incalculably abused and altered. +The alterations have been so numerous that, though I +have duly conned the enumerations, supplied in guide- +books, of the principal perversions, I do not pretend +to carry any of them in my head. The huge bare +mass, without ornament, without grace, despoiled of its +battlements and defaced with sordid modern windows, +covering the Rocher des Doms, and looking down over +the Rhone and the broken bridge of Saint-Benazet +(which stops in such a sketchable manner in mid- +stream), and across at the lonely tower of Philippe le +Bel and the ruined wall of Villeneuve, makes at a dis- +tance, in spite of its poverty, a great figure, the effect +of which is carried out by the tower of the church be- +side it (crowned though the latter be, in a top-heavy +fashion, with an immense modern image of the Virgin) +and by the thick, dark foliage of the garden laid out +on a still higher portion of the eminence. This garden +recalls, faintly and a trifle perversely, the grounds of +the Pincian at Rome. I know not whether it is the +shadow of the Papal name, present in both places, +combined with a vague analogy between the churches, +- which, approached in each case by a flight of steps, +seemed to defend the precinct, - but each time I have +seen the Promenade des Doms it has carried my +thoughts to the wider and loftier terrace from which +you look away at the Tiber and Saint Peter's. + +As you stand before the Papal palace, and espe- +cially as you enter it, you are struck with its being a +very dull monument. History enough was enacted +here: the great schism lasted from 1305 to 1370, dur- +ing which seven Popes, all Frenchmen, carried on the +court of Avignon on principles that have not com- +mended themselves to the esteem of posterity. But +history has been whitewashed away, and the scandals +of that period have mingled with the dust of dilapi- +dations and repairs. The building has for many years +been occupied as a barrack for regiments of the line, +and the main characteristics of a barrack - an extreme +nudity and a very queer smell - prevail throughout its +endless compartments. Nothing could have been more +cruelly dismal than the appearance it presented at the +time of this third visit of mine. A regiment, changing +quarters, had departed the day before, and another +was expected to arrive (from Algeria) on the morrow. +The place had been left in the befouled and belittered +condition which marks the passage of the military after +they have broken carnp, and it would offer but a me- +lancholy welcome to the regiment that was about to +take possession. Enormous windows had been left +carelessly open all over the building, and the rain and +wind were beating into empty rooms and passages; +making draughts which purified, perhaps, but which +scarcely cheered. For an arrival, it was horrible. A +handful of soldiers had remained behind. In one of +the big vaulted rooms several of them were lying on +their wretched beds, in the dim light, in the cold, in +the damp, with the bleak, bare walls before them, and +their overcoats, spread over them, pulled up to their +noses. I pitied them immensely, though they may +have felt less wretched than they looked. I thought +not of the old profligacies and crimes, not of the +funnel-shaped torture-chamber (which, after exciting +the shudder of generations, has been ascertained now, +I believe, to have been a mediaeval bakehouse), not of +the tower of the _glaciere_ and the horrors perpetrated +here in the Revolution, but of the military burden of +young France. One wonders how young France en- +dures it, and one is forced to believe that the French +conscript has, in addition to his notorious good-humor, +greater toughness than is commonly supposed by those +who consider only the more relaxing influences of +French civilization. I hope he finds occasional com- +pensation for such moments as I saw those damp +young peasants passing on the mattresses of their +hideous barrack, without anything around to remind +them that they were in the most civilized of countries. +The only traces of former splendor now visible in +the Papal pile are the walls and vaults of two small +chapels, painted in fresco, so battered and effaced as +to be scarcely distinguishable, by Simone Memmi. It +offers, of course, a peculiarly good field for restoration, +and I believe the government intend to take it in +hand. I mention this fact without a sigh; for they +cannot well make it less interesting than it is at +present. + + + +XXXIV. + +Fortunately, it did not rain every day (though I +believe it was raining everywhere else in the depart- +ment); otherwise I should not have been able to go +to Villeneuve and to Vaucluse. The afternoon, indeed, +was lovely when I walked over the interminable bridge +that spans the two arms of the Rhone, divided here +by a considerable island, and directed my course, like +a solitary horseman - on foot, to the lonely tower +which forms one of the outworks of Villeneuve-les- +Avignon. The picturesque, half-deserted little town +lies a couple of miles further up the river. The im- +mense round towers of its old citadel and the long +stretches of ruined wall covering the slope on which +it lies, are the most striking features of the nearer +view, as you look from Avignon across the Rhone. I +spent a couple of hours in visiting these objects, and +there was a kind of pictorial sweetness in the episode; +but I have not many details to relate. The isolated +tower I just mentioned has much in common with the +detached donjon of Montmajour, which I had looked +at in going to Les Baux, and to which I paid my +respects in speaking of that excursion. Also the work +of Philippe le Bel (built in 1307), it is amazingly big +and stubborn, and formed the opposite limit of the +broken bridge, whose first arches (on the side of +Avignon) alone remain to give a measure of the oc- +casional volume of the Rhone. Half an hour's walk +brought me to Villeneuve, which lies away from the +river, looking like a big village, half depopulated, and +occupied for the most part by dogs and cats, old +women and small children; these last, in general, re- +markably pretty, in the manner of the children of +Provence. You pass through the place, which seems +in a singular degree vague and unconscious, and come +to the rounded hill on which the ruined abbey lifts +its yellow walls, - the Benedictine abbey of Saint- +Andre, at once a church, a monastery, and a fortress. +A large part of the crumbling enceinte disposes itself +over the hill; but for the rest, all that has preserved +any traceable cohesion is a considerable portion, of +the citadel. The defence of the place appears to have +been intrusted largely to the huge round towers that +flank the old gate; one of which, the more complete, +the ancient warden (having first inducted me into his +own dusky little apartment, and presented me with +a great bunch of lavender) enabled me to examine in +detail. I would almost have dispensed with the privi- +lege, for I think I have already mentioned that an ac- +quaintance with many feudal interiors has wrought a +sad confusion in my mind. The image of the outside +always remains distinct; I keep it apart from other +images of the same sort; it makes a picture sufficiently +ineffaceable. But the guard-rooms, winding staircases, +loop-holes, prisons, repeat themselves and intermingle; +they have a wearisome family likeness. There are +always black passages and corners, and walls twenty +feet thick; and there is always some high place to +climb up to for the sake of a "magnificent" view. +The views, too, are apt to get muddled. These dense +gate-towers of Philippe le Bel struck me, however, as +peculiarly wicked and grim. Their capacity is of the +largest, and they contain over so many devilish little +dungeons, lighted by the narrowest slit in the pro- +digious wall, where it comes over one with a good +deal of vividness and still more horror that wretched +human beings ever lay there rotting in the dark. The +dungeons of Villeneuve made a particular impression +on me, - greater than any, except those of Loches, +which must surely be the most grewsome in Europe. +I hasten to add that every dark hole at Villeneuve is +called a dungeon; and I believe it is well established +that in this manner, in almost all old castles and +towers, the sensibilities of the modern tourist are un- +scrupulously played upon. There were plenty of black +holes in the Middle Ages that were not dungeons, but +household receptacles of various kinds; and many a +tear dropped in pity for the groaning captive has really +been addressed to the spirits of the larder and the +faggot-nook. For all this, there are some very bad +corners in the towers of Villeneuve, so that I was not +wide of the mark when I began to think again, as I +had often thought before, of the stoutness of the human +composition in the Middle Ages, and the tranquillity +of nerve of people to whom the groaning captive and +the blackness of a "living tomb" were familiar ideas, +which did not at all interfere with their happiness or +their sanity. Our modern nerves, our irritable sym- +pathies, our easy discomforts and fears, make one think +(in some relations) less respectfully of human nature. +Unless, indeed, it be true, as I have heard it main- +tained, that in the Middle Ages every one did go mad, +- every one _was_ mad. The theory that this was a +period of general insanity is not altogether indefensible. + +Within the old walls of its immense abbey the +town of Villeneuve has built itself a rough faubourg; +the fragments with which the soil was covered having +been, I suppose, a quarry of material. There are no +streets; the small, shabby houses, almost hovels, straggle +at random over the uneven ground. The only im- +portant feature is a convent of cloistered nuns, who +have a large garden (always within the walls) behind +their house, and whose doleful establishment you look +down into, or down at simply, from the battlements of +the citadel. One or two of the nuns were passing in +and out of the house; they wore gray robes, with a +bright red cape. I thought their situation most pro- +vincial. I came away, and wandered a little over the +base of the hill, outside the walls. Small white stones +cropped through the grass, over which low olive-trees +were scattered. The afternoon had a yellow bright- +ness. I sat down under one of the little trees, on the +grass, - the delicate gray branches were not much +above my head, - and rested, and looked at Avignon +across the Rhone. It was very soft, very still and +pleasant, though I am not sure it was all I once should +have expected of that combination of elements: an old +city wall for a background, a canopy of olives, and, +for a couch, the soil of Provence. + +When I came back to Avignon the twilight was +already thick; but I walked up to the Rocher des +Doms. Here I again had the benefit of that amiable +moon which had already lighted up for me so many +romantic scenes. She was full, and she rose over the +Rhone, and made it look in the distance like a silver +serpent. I remember saying to myself at this mo- +ment, that it would be a beautiful evening to walk +round the walls of Avignon, - the remarkable walls, +which challenge comparison with those of Carcassonne +and Aigues-Mortes, and which it was my duty, as an +observer of the picturesque, to examine with some at- +tention. Presenting themselves to that silver sheen, +they could not fail to be impressive. So, at least, I +said to myself; but, unfortunately, I did not believe +what I said. It is a melancholy fact that the walls of +Avignon had never impressed me at all, and I had +never taken the trouble to make the circuit. They +are continuous and complete, but for some mysterious +reason they fail of their effect. This is partly because +they are very low, in some places almost absurdly so; +being buried in new accumulations of soil, and by +the filling in of the moat up to their middle. Then +they have been too well tended; they not only look at +present very new, but look as if they had never been +old. The fact that their extent is very much greater +makes them more of a curiosity than those of Carcas- +sonne; but this is exactly, as the same time, what is +fatal to their pictorial unity. With their thirty-seven +towers and seven gates they lose themselves too much +to make a picture that will compare with the ad- +mirable little vignette of Carcassonne. I may mention, +now that I am speaking of the general mass of Avignon, +that nothing is more curious than the way in which, +viewed from a distance, it is all reduced to nought by +the vast bulk of the palace of the Popes. From across +the Rhone, or from the train, as you leave the place, +this great gray block is all Avignon; it seems to occupy +the whole city, extensive, with its shrunken population, +as the city is. + + + +XXXV. + +It was the morning after this, I think (a certain +Saturday), that when I came out of the Hotel de +l'Europe, which lies in a shallow concavity just within +the city gate that opens on the Rhone, - came out to +look at the sky from the little _place_ before the inn, +and see how the weather promised for the obligatory +excursion to Vaucluse, - I found the whole town in a +terrible taking. I say the whole town advisedly; for +every inhabitant appeared to have taken up a position +on the bank of the river, or on the uppermost parts +of the promenade of the Doms, where a view of its +course was to be obtained. It had risen surprisingly +in the night, and the good people of Avignon had +reason to know what a rise of the Rhone might signify. +The town, in its lower portions, is quite at the mercy +of the swollen waters; and it was mentioned to me +that in 1856 the Hotel de l'Europe, in its convenient +hollow, was flooded up to within a few feet of the +ceiling of the dining-room, where the long board which +had served for so many a table d'hote floated dis- +reputably, with its legs in the air. On the present +occasion the mountains of the Ardeche, where it had +been raining for a month, had sent down torrents +which, all that fine Friday night, by the light of the +innocent-looking moon, poured themselves into the +Rhone and its tributary, the Durance. The river was +enormous, and continued to rise; and the sight was +beautiful and horrible. The water in many places +was already at the base of the city walls; the quay, +with its parapet just emerging, being already covered. +The country, seen from the Plateau des Doms, re- +sembled a vast lake, with protrusions of trees, houses, +bridges, gates. The people looked at it in silence, as +I had seen people before - on the occasion of a rise +of the Arno, at Pisa - appear to consider the prospects +of an inundation. "Il monte; il monte toujours," - +there was not much said but that. It was a general +holiday, and there was an air of wishing to profit, for +sociability's sake, by any interruption of the common- +place (the popular mind likes "a change," and the +element of change mitigates the sense of disaster); but +the affair was not otherwise a holiday. Suspense and +anxiety were in the air, and it never is pleasant to be +reminded of the helplessness of man. In the presence +of a loosened river, with its ravaging, unconquerable +volume, this impression is as strong as possible; and +as I looked at the deluge which threatened to make +an island of the Papal palace, I perceived that the +scourge of water is greater than the scourge of fire. +A blaze may be quenched, but where could the flame +be kindled that would arrest the quadrupled Rhone? +For the population of Avignon a good deal was at +stake, and I am almost ashamed to confess that in the +midst of the public alarm I considered the situation +from the point of view of the little projects of a senti- +mental tourist. Would the prospective inundation inter- +fere with my visit to Vaucluse, or make it imprudent +to linger twenty-four hours longer at Avignon? I must +add that the tourist was not perhaps, after all, so +sentimental. I have spoken of the pilgrimage to the +shrine of Petrarch as obligatory, and that was, in fact, +the light in which it presented itself to me; all the +more that I had been twice at Avignon without under- +taking it. This why I was vexed at the Rhone - if +vexed I was - for representing as impracticable an ex- +cursion which I cared nothing about. How little I +cared was manifest from my inaction on former oc- +casions. I had a prejudice against Vancluse, against +Petrarch, even against the incomparable Laura. I was +sure that the place was cockneyfied and threadbare, +and I had never been able to take an interest in the +poet and the lady. I was sure that I had known many +women as charming and as handsome as she, about +whom much less noise had been made; and I was +convinced that her singer was factitious and literary, +and that there are half a dozen stanzas in Wordsworth +that speak more to the soul than the whole collection +of his _fioriture_. This was the crude state of mind in +which I determined to go, at any risk, to Vaucluse. +Now that I think it over, I seem to remember that I +had hoped, after all, that the submersion of the roads +would forbid it. Since morning the clouds had gathered +again, and by noon they were so heavy that there was +every prospect of a torrent. It appeared absurd to +choose such a time as this to visit a fountain - a +fountain which, would be indistinguishable in the +general cataract. Nevertheless I took a vow that if +at noon the rain should not have begun to descend +upon Avignon I would repair to the head-spring of the +Sorgues. When the critical moment arrived, the clouds +were hanging over Avignon like distended water-bags, +which only needed a prick to empty themselves. The +prick was not given, however; all nature was too much +occupied in following the aberration of the Rhone to +think of playing tricks elsewhere. Accordingly, I started +for the station in a spirit which, for a tourist who +sometimes had prided himself on his unfailing supply +of sentiment, was shockingly perfunctory. + + "For tasks in hours of insight willed + May be in hours of gloom fulfilled." + +I remembered these lines of Matthew Arnold (written, +apparently, in an hour of gloom), and carried out the +idea, as I went, by hoping that with the return of in- +sight I should be glad to have seen Vaucluse. Light +has descended upon me since then, and I declare that +the excursion is in every way to be recommended. +The place makes a great impression, quite apart from +Petrarch and Laura. + +There was no rain; there was only, all the after- +noon, a mild, moist wind, and a sky magnificently +black, which made a _repoussoir_ for the paler cliffs of +the fountain. The road, by train, crosses a flat, ex- +pressionless country, toward the range of arid hills +which lie to the east of Avignon, and which spring +(says Murray) from the mass of the Mont-Ventoux. At +Isle-sur-Sorgues, at the end of about an hour, the fore- +ground becomes much more animated and the distance +much more (or perhaps I should say much less) actual. +I descended from the train, and ascended to the top +of an omnibus which was to convey me into the re- +cesses of the hills. It had not been among my pre- +visions that I should be indebted to a vehicle of that +kind for an opportunity to commune with the spirit of +Petrarch; and I had to borrow what consolation I +could from the fact that at least I had the omnibus to +myself. I was the only passenger; every one else was +at Avignon, watching the Rhone. I lost no time in +perceiving that I could not have come to Vaucluse at +a better moment. The Sorgues was almost as full as +the Rhone, and of a color much more romantic. Rush- +ing along its narrowed channel under an avenue of +fine _platanes_ (it is confined between solid little embank- +ments of stone), with the good-wives of the village, on +the brink, washing their linen in its contemptuous +flood, it gave promise of high entertainment further on. + +The drive to Vaucluse is of about three quarters of +an hour; and though the river, as I say, was promis- +ing, the big pale hills, as the road winds into them, +did not look as if their slopes of stone and shrub were +a nestling-place for superior scenery. It is a part of +the merit of Vaucluse, indeed, that it is as much as +possible a surprise. The place has a right to its name, +for the valley appears impenetrable until you get fairly +into it. One perverse twist follows another, until the +omnibus suddenly deposits you in front of the "cabinet" +of Petrarch. After that you have only to walk along +the left bank of the river. The cabinet of Petrarch is +to-day a hideous little _cafe_, bedizened, like a sign- +board, with extracts from the ingenious "Rime." The +poet and his lady are, of course, the stock in trade of +the little village, which has had for several generations +the privilege of attracting young couples engaged in +their wedding-tour, and other votaries of the tender +passion. The place has long been familiar, on festal +Sundays, to the swains of Avignon and their attendant +nymphs. The little fish of the Sorgues are much +esteemed, and, eaten on the spot, they constitute, for +the children of the once Papal city, the classic sub- +urban dinner. Vaucluse has been turned to account, +however, not only by sentiment, but by industry; the +banks of the stream being disfigured by a pair of +hideous mills for the manufacture of paper and of +wool. In an enterprising and economical age the +water-power of the Sorgues was too obvious a motive; +and I must say that, as the torrent rushed past them, +the wheels of the dirty little factories appeared to turn +merrily enough. The footpath on the left bank, of +which I just spoke, carries one, fortunately, quite out +of sight of them, and out of sound as well, inasmuch +as on the day of my visit the stream itself, which was +in tremendous force, tended more and more, as one +approached the fountain, to fill the valley with its own +echoes. Its color was magnificent, and the whole +spectacle more like a corner of Switzerland than a +nook in Provence. The protrusions of the mountain +shut it in, and you penetrate to the bottom of the re- +cess which they form. The Sorgues rushes and rushes; +it is almost like Niagara after the jump of the cataract. +There are dreadful little booths beside the path, for +the sale of photographs and _immortelles_, - I don't know +what one is to do with the immortelles, - where you +are offered a brush dipped in tar to write your name +withal on the rocks. Thousands of vulgar persons, of +both sexes, and exclusively, it appeared, of the French +nationality, had availed themselves of this implement; +for every square inch of accessible stone was scored +over with some human appellation. It is not only we +in America, therefore, who besmirch our scenery; the +practice exists, in a more organized form (like every- +thing else in France), in the country of good taste. +You leave the little booths and stalls behind; but the +bescribbled crag, bristling with human vanity, keeps +you company even when you stand face to face with +the fountain. This happens when you find yourself +at the foot of the enormous straight cliff out of which +the river gushes. It rears itself to an extraordinary +height, - a huge forehead of bare stone, - looking as +if it were the half of a tremendous mound, split open +by volcanic action. The little valley, seeing it there, +at a bend, stops suddenly, and receives in its arms +the magical spring. I call it magical on account of +the mysterious manner in which it comes into the +world, with the huge shoulder of the mountain rising +over it, as if to protect the secret. From under the +mountain it silently rises, without visible movement, +filling a small natural basin with the stillest blue +water. The contrast between the stillness of this basin +and the agitation of the water directly after it has +overflowed, constitutes half the charm of Vaucluse. +The violence of the stream when once it has been set +loose on the rocks is as fascinating and indescribable +as that of other cataracts; and the rocks in the bed of +the Sorgues have been arranged by a master-hand. +The setting of the phenomenon struck me as so simple +and so fine - the vast sad cliff, covered with the after- +noon light, still and solid forever, while the liquid ele- +ment rages and roars at its base - that I had no diffi- +culty in understanding the celebrity of Vaucluse. I +understood it, but I will not say that I understood +Petrarch. He must have been very self-supporting, and +Madonna Laura must indeed have been much to him. + +The aridity of the hills that shut in the valley is +complete, and the whole impression is best conveyed +by that very expressive French epithet _morne_. There +are the very fragmentary ruins of a castle (of one of +the bishops of Cavaillon) on a high spur of the moun- +tain, above the river; and there is another remnant of +a feudal habitation on one of the more accessible +ledges. Having half an hour to spare before my +omnibus was to leave (I must beg the reader's pardon +for this atrociously false note; call the vehicle a _dili- +gence_, and for some undiscoverable reason the offence +is minimized), I clambered up to this latter spot, and +sat among the rocks in the company of a few stunted +olives. The Sorgues, beneath me, reaching the plain, +flung itself crookedly across the meadows, like an un- +rolled blue ribbon. I tried to think of the _amant de +Laure_, for literature's sake; but I had no great success, +and the most I could, do was to say to myself that I +must try again. Several months have elapsed since +then, and I am ashamed to confess that the trial has +not yet come off. The only very definite conviction I +arrived at was that Vaucluse is indeed cockneyfied, +but that I should have been a fool, all the same, not +to come. + + + +XXXVI. + +I mounted into my diligence at the door of the +Hotel de Petrarque et de Laure, and we made our +way back to Isle-sur-Sorgues in the fading light. This +village, where at six o'clock every one appeared to +have gone to bed, was fairly darkened by its high, +dense plane-trees, under which the rushing river, on +a level with its parapets, looked unnaturally, almost +wickedly blue. It was a glimpse which has left a +picture in my mind: the little closed houses, the place +empty and soundless in the autumn dusk but for the +noise of waters, and in the middle, amid the blackness +of the shade, the gleam of the swift, strange tide. At +the station every one was talking of the inundation +being in many places an accomplished fact, and, in +particular, of the condition of the Durance at some +point that I have forgotten. At Avignon, an hour +later, I found the water in some of the streets. The +sky cleared in the evening, the moon lighted up the +submerged suburbs, and the population again collected +in the high places to enjoy the spectacle. It exhibited +a certain sameness, however, and by nine o'clock there +was considerable animation in the Place Crillon, where +there is nothing to be seen but the front of the theatre +and of several cafes - in addition, indeed, to a statue +of this celebrated brave, whose valor redeemed some +of the numerous military disasters of the reign of +Louis XV. The next morning the lower quarters of +the town were in a pitiful state; the situation seemed +to me odious. To express my disapproval of it, I lost +no time in taking the train for Orange, which, with its +other attractions, had the merit of not being seated on +the Rhone. It was my destiny to move northward; +but even if I had been at liberty to follow a less un- +natural course I should not then have undertaken it, +inasmuch, as the railway between Avignon and Mar- +seilles was credibly reported to be (in places) under +water. This was the case with almost everything but +the line itself, on the way to Orange. The day proved +splendid, and its brilliancy only lighted up the desola- +tion. Farmhouses and cottages were up to their middle +in the yellow liquidity; haystacks looked like dull little +islands; windows and doors gaped open, without faces; +and interruption and flight were represented in the +scene. It was brought home to me that the _popula- +tions rurales_ have many different ways of suffering, +and my heart glowed with a grateful sense of cockney- +ism. It was under the influence of this emotion that +I alighted at Orange, to visit a collection of eminently +civil monuments. + +The collection consists of but two objects, but these +objects are so fine that I will let the word pass. One +of them is a triumphal arch, supposedly of the period +of Marcus Aurelius; the other is a fragment, magnifi- +cent in its ruin, of a Roman theatre. But for these +fine Roman remains and for its name, Orange is a +perfectly featureless little town; without the Rhone - +which, as I have mentioned, is several miles distant - +to help it to a physiognomy. It seems one of the +oddest things that this obscure French borough - +obscure, I mean, in our modern era, for the Gallo- +Roman Arausio must have been, judging it by its +arches and theatre, a place of some importance - +should have given its name to the heirs apparent of +the throne of Holland,and been borne by a king of +England who had sovereign rights over it. During +the Middle Ages it formed part of an independent +principality; but in 1531 it fell, by the marriage of +one of its princesses, who had inherited it, into the +family of Nassau. I read in my indispensable Mur- +ray that it was made over to France by the treaty of +Utrecht. The arch of triumph, which stands a little +way out of the town, is rather a pretty than an im- +posing vestige of the Romans. If it had greater purity +of style, one might say of it that it belonged to the +same family of monuments as the Maison Carree at +Nimes. It has three passages, - the middle much +higher than the others, - and a very elevated attic. +The vaults of the passages are richly sculptured, and +the whole monument is covered with friezes and +military trophies. This sculpture is rather mixed; +much of it is broken and defaced, and the rest seemed +to me ugly, though its workmanship is praised. The +arch is at once well preserved and much injured. Its +general mass is there, and as Roman monuments go +it is remarkably perfect; but it has suffered, in patches, +from the extremity of restoration. It is not, on the +whole, of absorbing interest. It has a charm, never- +theless, which comes partly from its soft, bright yellow +color, partly from a certain elegance of shape, of ex- +pression; and on that well-washed Sunday morning, +with its brilliant tone, surrounded by its circle of thin +poplars, with the green country lying beyond it and a +low blue horizon showing through its empty portals, +it made, very sufficiently, a picture that hangs itself +to one of the lateral hooks of the memory. I can +take down the modest composition, and place it before +me as I write. I see the shallow, shining puddles in +the hard, fair French road; the pale blue sky, diluted +by days of rain; the disgarnished autumnal fields; the +mild sparkle of the low horizon; the solitary figure in +sabots, with a bundle under its arm, advancing along +the _chaussee_; and in the middle I see the little ochre- +colored monument, which, in spite of its antiquity, +looks bright and gay, as everything must look in +France of a fresh Sunday morning. + +It is true that this was not exactly the appearance +of the Roman theatre, which lies on the other side of +the town; a fact that did not prevent me from making +my way to it in less than five minutes, through a suc- +cession of little streets concerning which I have no +observations to record. None of the Roman remains +in the south of France are more impressive than this +stupendous fragment. An enormous mound rises above +the place, which was formerly occupied - I quote from +Murray - first by a citadel of the Romans, then by a +castle of the princes of Nassau, razed by Louis XIV. +Facing this hill a mighty wall erects itself, thirty-six +metres high, and composed of massive blocks of dark +brown stone, simply laid one on the other; the whole +naked, rugged surface of which suggests a natural cliff +(say of the Vaucluse order) rather than an effort of +human, or even of Roman labor. It is the biggest +thing at Orange, - it is bigger than all Orange put to- +gether, - and its permanent massiveness makes light +of the shrunken city. The face it presents to the town +- the top of it garnished with two rows of brackets, +perforated with holes to receive the staves of the _vela- +rium_ - bears the traces of more than one tier of orna- +mental arches; though how these flat arches were +applied, or incrusted, upon the wall, I do not profess +to explain. You pass through a diminutive postern - +which seems in proportion about as high as the en- +trance of a rabbit-hutch - into the lodge of the custo- +dian, who introduces you to the interior of the theatre. +Here the mass of the hill affronts you, which the in- +genious Romans treated simply as the material of their +auditorium. They inserted their stone seats, in a +semicircle, in the slope of the lull, and planted their +colossal wall opposite to it. This wall, from the inside, +is, if possible, even more imposing. It formed the +back of the stage, the permanent scene, and its +enormous face was coated with marble. It contains +three doors, the middle one being the highest, and +having above it, far aloft, a deep niche, apparently +intended for an imperial statue. A few of the benches +remain on the hillside which, however, is mainly a +confusion of fragments. There is part of a corridor +built into the hill, high up, and on the crest are the +remnants of the demolished castle. The whole place +is a kind of wilderness of ruin; there are scarcely any +details; the great feature is the overtopping wall. This +wall being the back of the scene, the space left be- +tween it and the chord of the semicircle (of the audi- +torium) which formed the proscenium is rather less +than one would have supposed. In other words, the +stage was very shallow, and appears to have been ar- +ranged for a number of performers standing in a line, +like a company of soldiers. There stands the silent +skeleton, however, as impressive by what it leaves you +to guess and wonder about as by what it tells you. +It has not the sweetness, the softness of melancholy, +of the theatre at Arles; but it is more extraordinary, +and one can imagine only tremendous tragedies being +enacted there, - + + "Presenting Thebes' or Pelops' line." + +At either end of the stage, coming forward, is an +immense wing, - immense in height, I mean, as it +reaches to the top of the scenic wall; the other dimen- +sions are not remarkable. The division to the right, +as you face the stage, is pointed out as the green- +room; its portentous attitude and the open arches at +the top give it the air of a well. The compartment +on the left is exactly similar, save that it opens into +the traces of other chambers, said to be those of a +hippodrome adjacent to the theatre. Various fragments +are visible which refer themselves plausibly to such an +establishment; the greater axis of the hippodrome would +appear to have been on a line with the triumphal +arch. This is all I saw, and all there was to see, of +Orange, which had a very rustic, bucolic aspect, and +where I was not even called upon to demand break- +fast at the hotel. The entrance of this resort might +have been that of a stable of the Roman days. + + + +XXXVII. + +I have been trying to remember whether I fasted +all the way to Macon, which I reached at an advanced +hour of the evening, and think I must have done so +except for the purchase of a box of nougat at Monte- +limart (the place is famous for the manufacture of +this confection, which, at the station, is hawked at the +windows of the train) and for a bouillon, very much +later, at Lyons. The journey beside the Rhone - +past Valence, past Tournon, past Vienne - would +have been charming, on that luminous Sunday, but +for two disagreeable accidents. The express from +Marseilles, which I took at Orange, was full to over- +flowing; and the only refuge I could find was an +inside angle in a carriage laden with Germans, who +had command of the windows, which they occupied +as strongly as they have been known to occupy other +strategical positions. I scarcely know, however, why +I linger on this particular discomfort, for it was but +a single item in a considerable list of grievances, - +grievances dispersed through six weeks of constant +railway travel in France. I have not touched upon +them at an earlier stage of this chronicle, but my re- +serve is not owing to any sweetness of association. +This form of locomotion, in the country of the ameni- +ties, is attended with a dozen discomforts; almost all +the conditions of the business are detestable. They +force the sentimental tourist again and again to ask +himself whether, in consideration of such mortal an- +noyances, the game is worth the candle. Fortunately, +a railway journey is a good deal like a sea voyage; +its miseries fade from the mind as soon as you arrive. +That is why I completed, to my great satisfaction, +my little tour in France. Let this small effusion of +ill-nature be my first and last tribute to the whole +despotic _gare_: the deadly _salle d'attente_, the insuffer- +able delays over one's luggage, the porterless platform, +the overcrowded and illiberal train. How many a +time did I permit myself the secret reflection that it +is in perfidious Albion that they order this matter +best! How many a time did the eager British mer- +cenary, clad in velveteen and clinging to the door of +the carriage as it glides into the station, revisit my +invidious dreams! The paternal porter and the re- +sponsive hansom are among the best gifts of the Eng- +lish genius to the world. I hasten to add, faithful +to my habit (so insufferable to some of my friends) of +ever and again readjusting the balance after I have +given it an honest tip, that the bouillon at Lyons, +which I spoke of above, was, though by no means an +ideal bouillon, much better than any I could have +obtained at an English railway station. After I had +imbibed it, I sat in the train (which waited a long +time at Lyons) and, by the light of one of the big +lamps on the platform, read all sorts of disagreeable +things in certain radical newspapers which I had +bought at the book-stall. I gathered from these sheets +that Lyons was in extreme commotion. The Rhone +and the Saone, which form a girdle for the splendid +town, were almost in the streets, as I could easily be- +lieve from what I had seen of the country after leav- +ing Orange. The Rhone, all the way to Lyons, had +been in all sorts of places where it had no business +to be, and matters were naturally not improved by +its confluence with the charming and copious stream +which, at Macon, is said once to have given such a +happy opportunity to the egotism of the capital. A +visitor from Paris (the anecdote is very old), being +asked on the quay of that city whether he didn't ad- +mire the Saone, replied good-naturedly that it was +very pretty, but that in Paris they spelled it with +the _ei_. This moment of general alarm at Lyons had +been chosen by certain ingenious persons (I credit +them, perhaps, with too sure a prevision of the rise +of the rivers) for practising further upon the appre- +hensions of the public. A bombshell filled with +dynamite had been thrown into a cafe, and various +votaries of the comparatively innocuous _petit verre_ +had been wounded (I am not sure whether any one +had been killed) by the irruption. Of course there had +been arrests and incarcerations, and the "Intransi- +geant" and the "Rappel" were filled with the echoes +of the explosion. The tone of these organs is rarely +edifying, and it had never been less so than on this +occasion. I wondered, as I looked through them, +whether I was losing all my radicalism; and then I +wondered whether, after all, I had any to lose. Even +in so long await as that tiresome delay at Lyons I +failed to settle the question, any more than I made +up my mind as to the probable future of the militant +democracy, or the ultimate form of a civilization which +should have blown up everything else. A few days +later, the waters went down it Lyons; but the de- +mocracy has not gone down. + +I remember vividly the remainder of that evening +which I spent at Macon, - remember it with a chatter- +ing of the teeth. I know not what had got into the +place; the temperature, for the last day of October, +was eccentric and incredible. These epithets may +also be applied to the hotel itself, - an extraordinary +structure, all facade, which exposes an uncovered rear +to the gaze of nature. There is a demonstrative, +voluble landlady, who is of course part of the facade; +but everything behind her is a trap for the winds, +with chambers, corridors, staircases, all exhibited to +the sky, as if the outer wall of the house had been +lifted off. It would have been delightful for Florida, +but it didn't do for Burgundy, even on the eve of +November 1st, so that I suffered absurdly from the +rigor of a season that had not yet begun. There was +something in the air; I felt it the next day, even on +the sunny quay of the Saone, where in spite of a fine +southerly exposure I extracted little warmth from the +reflection that Alphonse de Lamartine had often trod- +den the flags. Macon struck me, somehow, as suffer- +ing from a chronic numbness, and there was nothing +exceptionally cheerful in the remarkable extension of +the river. It was no longer a river, - it had become +a lake; and from my window, in the painted face of +the inn, I saw that the opposite bank had been moved +back, as it were, indefinitely. Unfortunately, the various +objects with which it was furnished had not been +moved as well, the consequence of which was an +extraordinary confusion in the relations of thing. +There were always poplars to be seen, but the poplar +had become an aquatic plant. Such phenomena, +however, at Macon attract but little attention, as the +Saone, at certain seasons of the year, is nothing if not +expansive. The people are as used to it as they ap- +peared to be to the bronze statue of Lamartine, which +is the principal monument of the _place_, and which, re- +presenting the poet in a frogged overcoat and top- +boots, improvising in a high wind, struck me as even +less casual in its attitude than monumental sculpture +usually succeeds in being. It is true that in its pre- +sent position I thought better of this work of art, which +is from the hand of M. Falquiere, than when I had +seen it through the factitious medium of the Salon of +1876. I walked up the hill where the older part of +Macon lies, in search of the natal house of the _amant +d'Elvire_, the Petrarch whose Vaucluse was the bosom +of the public. The Guide-Joanne quotes from "Les +Confidences" a description of the birthplace of the +poet, whose treatment of the locality is indeed poetical. +It tallies strangely little with the reality, either as re- +gards position or other features; and it may be said +to be, not an aid, but a direct obstacle, to a discovery +of the house. A very humble edifice, in a small back +street, is designated by a municipal tablet, set into its +face, as the scene of Lamartine's advent into the world. +He himself speaks of a vast and lofty structure, at the +angle of a _place_, adorned with iron clamps, with a +_porte haute et large_ and many other peculiarities. The +house with the tablet has two meagre stories above +the basement, and (at present, at least) an air of ex- +treme shabbiness; the _place_, moreover, never can have +been vast. Lamartine was accused of writing history +incorrectly, and apparently he started wrong at first: +it had never become clear to him where he was born. +Or is the tablet wrong? If the house is small, the +tablet is very big. + + + +XXXVIII. + +The foregoing reflections occur, in a cruder form, +as it were, in my note-book, where I find this remark +appended to them: "Don't take leave of Lamartine on +that contemptuous note; it will be easy to think of +something more sympathetic!" Those friends of mine, +mentioned a little while since, who accuse me of always +tipping back the balance, could not desire a paragraph +more characteristic; but I wish to give no further evi- +dence of such infirmities, and will therefore hurry away +from the subject, - hurry away in the train which, very +early on a crisp, bright morning, conveyed. me, by way +of an excursion, to the ancient city of Bourg-en-Bresse. +Shining in early light, the Saone was spread, like a +smooth, white tablecloth, over a considerable part of +the flat country that I traversed. There is no provision +made in this image for the long, transparent screens +of thin-twigged trees which rose at intervals out of +the watery plain; but as, under the circumstances, +there seemed to be no provision for them in fact, I +will let my metaphor go for what it is worth. My +journey was (as I remember it) of about an hour and +a half; but I passed no object of interest, as the phrase +is, whatever. The phrase hardly applies even to Bourg +itself, which is simply a town _quelconque_, as M. Zola +would say. Small, peaceful, rustic, it stands in the +midst of the great dairy-feeding plains of Bresse, of +which fat county, sometime property of the house of +Savoy, it was the modest capital. The blue masses +of the Jura give it a creditable horizon, but the only +nearer feature it can point to is its famous sepulchral +church. This edifice lies at a fortunate distance from +the town, which, though inoffensive, is of too common +a stamp to consort with such a treasure. All I ever +knew of the church of Brou I had gathered, years +ago, from Matthew Arnold's beautiful poem, which +bears its name. I remember thinking, in those years, +that it was impossible verses could be more touching +than these; and as I stood before the object of my +pilgrimage, in the gay French light (though the place +was so dull), I recalled the spot where I had first read +them, and where I read them again and yet again, +wondering whether it would ever be my fortune to +visit the church of Brou. The spot in question was +an armchair in a window which looked out on some +cows in a field; and whenever I glanced at the cows +it came over me - I scarcely know why - that I should +probably never behold the structure reared by the +Duchess Margaret. Some of our visions never come +to pass; but we must be just, - others do. "So sleep, +forever sleep, O princely pair!" I remembered that +line of Matthew Arnold's, and the stanza about the +Duchess Margaret coming to watch the builders on +her palfry white. Then there came to me something +in regard to the moon shining on winter nights through +the cold clere-story. The tone of the place at that +hour was not at all lunar; it was cold and bright, but +with the chill of an autumn morning; yet this, even +with the fact of the unexpected remoteness of the +church from the Jura added to it, did not prevent me +from feeling that I looked at a monument in the pro- +duction of which - or at least in the effect of which +on the tourist mind of to-day - Matthew Arnold had +been much concerned. By a pardonable license he +has placed it a few miles nearer to the forests of the +Jura than it stands at present. It is very true that, +though the mountains in the sixteenth century can +hardly have been in a different position, the plain +which separates the church from them may have been +bedecked with woods. The visitor to-day cannot help +wondering why the beautiful building, with its splendid +works of art, is dropped down in that particular spot, +which looks so accidental and arbitrary. But there +are reasons for most things, and there were reasons +why the church of Brou should be at Brou, which is +a vague little suburb of a vague little town. + +The responsibility rests, at any rate, upon the +Duchess Margaret, - Margaret of Austria, daughter of +the Emperor Maximilian and his wife Mary of Bur- +gundy, daughter of Charles the Bold. This lady has +a high name in history, having been regent of the +Netherlands in behalf of her nephew, the Emperor +Charles V., of whose early education she had had the +care. She married in 1501 Philibert the Handsome, +Duke of Savoy, to whom the province of Bresse be- +longed, and who died two years later. She had been +betrothed, is a child, to Charles VIII. of France, and +was kept for some time at the French court, - that of +her prospective father-in-law, Louis XI.; but she was +eventually repudiated, in order that her _fiance_ might +marry Anne of Brittany, - an alliance so magnificently +political that we almost condone the offence to a +sensitive princess. Margaret did not want for hus- +bands, however, inasmuch as before her marriage to +Philibert she had been united to John of Castile, son +of Ferdinand V., King of Aragon, - an episode ter- +minated, by the death of the Spanish prince, within a +year. She was twenty-two years regent of the Nether- +lands, and died at fifty-one, in 1530. She might have +been, had she chosen, the wife, of Henry VII. of Eng- +land. She was one of the signers of the League of +Cambray, against the Venetian republic, and was a +most politic, accomplished, and judicious princess. +She undertook to build the church of Brou as a mau- +soleum, for her second husband and herself, in fulfil- +ment of a vow made by Margaret of Bourbon, mother +of Philibert, who died before she could redeem her +pledge, and who bequeathed the duty to her son. He +died shortly afterwards, and his widow assumed the +pious task. According to Murray, she intrusted the +erection of the church to "Maistre Loys von Berghem," +and the sculpture to "Maistre Conrad." The author +of a superstitious but carefully prepared little Notice, +which I bought at Bourg, calls the architect and +sculptor (at once) Jehan de Paris, author (sic) of the +tomb of Francis II. of Brittany, to which we gave some +attention at Nantes, and which the writer of my +pamphlet ascribes only subordinately to Michel Colomb. +The church, which is not of great size, is in the last +and most flamboyant phase of Gothic, and in admirable +preservation; the west front, before which a quaint old +sun-dial is laid out on the ground, - a circle of num- +bers marked in stone, like those on a clock face, let +into the earth, - is covered with delicate ornament. +The great feature, however (the nave is perfectly bare +and wonderfully new-looking, though the warden, a +stolid yet sharp old peasant, in a blouse, who looked +more as if his line were chaffering over turnips than +showing off works of art, told me that it has never +been touched, and that its freshness is simply the +quality of the stone), - the great feature is the ad- +mirable choir, in the midst of which the three monu- +ments have bloomed under the chisel, like exotic +plants in a conservatory. I saw the place to small +advantage, for the stained glass of the windows, which +are fine, was under repair, and much of it was masked +with planks. + +In the centre lies Philibert-le-Bel, a figure of white +marble on a great slab of black, in his robes and his +armor, with two boy-angels holding a tablet at his +head, and two more at his feet. On either side of +him is another cherub: one guarding his helmet, the +other his stiff gauntlets. The attitudes of these charm- +ing children, whose faces are all bent upon him in +pity, have the prettiest tenderness and respect. The +table on which he lies is supported by elaborate +columns, adorned with niches containing little images, +and with every other imaginable elegance; and be- +neath it he is represented in that other form, so com- +mon in the tombs of the Renaissance, - a man naked +and dying, with none of the state and splendor of the +image above. One of these figures embodies the duke +the other simply the mortal; and there is something +very strange and striking in the effect of the latter, +seen dimly and with difficulty through the intervals +of the rich supports of the upper slab. The monu- +ment of Margaret herself is on the left, all in white +merble, tormented into a multitude of exquisite pat- +terns, the last extravagance of a Gothic which had +gone so far that nothing was left it but to return upon +itself. Unlike her husband, who has only the high +roof of the church above him, she lies under a canopy +supported and covered by a wilderness of embroidery, +- flowers, devices, initials, arabesques, statuettes. +Watched over by cherubs, she is also in her robes +and ermine, with a greyhound sleeping at her feet +(her husband, at his, has a waking lion); and the +artist has not, it is to be presumed, represented her +as more beautiful than she was. She looks, indeed, +like the regent of a turbulent realm. Beneath her +couch is stretched another figure, - a less brilliant +Margaret, wrapped in her shroud, with her long hair +over her shoulders. Round the tomb is the battered +iron railing placed there originally, with the myste- +rious motto of the duchess worked into the top, - +_fortune infortune fort une_. The other two monuments +are protected by barriers of the same pattern. That +of Margaret of Bourbon, Philibert's mother, stands on +the right of the choir; and I suppose its greatest dis- +tinction is that it should have been erected to a +mother-in-law. It is but little less florid and sump- +tuous than the others; it has, however, no second re- +cumbent figure. On the other hand, the statuettes +that surround the base of the tomb are of even more +exquisite workmanship: they represent weeping wo- +men, in long mantles and hoods, which latter hang +forward over the small face of the figure, giving the +artist a chance to carve the features within this hollow +of drapery, - an extraordinary play of skill. There is +a high, white marble shrine of the Virgin, as extra- +ordinary as all the rest (a series of compartments, re- +presenting the various scenes of her life, with the +Assumption in the middle); and there is a magnifi- +cent series of stalls, which are simply the intricate +embroidery of the tombs translated into polished oak. +All these things are splendid, ingenious, elaborate, +precious; it is goldsmith's work on a monumental +scale, and the general effect is none the less beautiful +and solemn because it is so rich. But the monuments +of the church of Brou are not the noblest that one +may see; the great tombs of Verona are finer, and +various other early Italian work. These things are +not insincere, as Ruskin would say; but they are pre- +tentious, and they are not positively _naifs_. I should +mention that the walls of the choir are embroidered +in places with Margaret's tantalizing device, which - +partly, perhaps, because it is tantalizing - is so very +decorative, as they say in London. I know not whether +she was acquainted with this epithet; but she had +anticipated one of the fashions most characteristic of +our age. + +One asks one's self how all this decoration, this +luxury of fair and chiselled marble, survived the +French Revolution. An hour of liberty in the choir +of Brou would have been a carnival for the image- +breakers. The well-fed Bressois are surely a good- +natured people. I call them well-fed both on general +and on particular grounds. Their province has the +most savory aroma, and I found an opportunity to +test its reputation. I walked back into the town from +the church (there was really nothing to be seen by +the way), and as the hour of the midday breakfast +had struck, directed my steps to the inn. The table +d'hote was going on, and a gracious, bustling, talkative +landlady welcomed me. I had an excellent repast - +the best repast possible - which consisted simply of +boiled eggs and bread and butter. It was the quality +of these simple ingredients that made the occasion +memorable. The eggs were so good that I am ashamed +to say how many of them I consumed. "La plus +belle fille du monde," as the French proverb says, +"ne peut donner que ce qu'elle a;" and it might +seem that an egg which has succeeded in being fresh +has done all that can reasonably be expected of it. +But there was a bloom of punctuality, so to speak, +about these eggs of Bourg, as if it had been the in- +tention of the very hens themselves that they should +be promptly served. "Nous sommes en Bresse, et le +beurre n'est pas mauvais," the landlady said, with a +sort of dry coquetry, as she placed this article before +me. It was the poetry of butter, and I ate a pound +or two of it; after which I came away with a strange +mixture of impressions of late Gothic sculpture and +thick _tartines_. I came away through the town, where, +on a little green promenade, facing the hotel, is a +bronze statue of Bichat, the physiologist, who was a +Bressois. I mention it, not on account of its merit +(though, as statues go, I don't remember that it is +bad), but because I learned from it - my ignorance, +doubtless, did me little honor - that Bichat had died +at thirty years of age, and this revelation was almost +agitating. To have done so much in so short a life +was to be truly great. This reflection, which looks +deplorably trite as I write it here, had the effect of +eloquence as I uttered it, for my own benefit, on the +bare little mall at Bourg. + + + +XXXIX. + +On my return to Macon I found myself fairly face +to face with the fact that my little tour was near its +end. Dijon had been marked by fate as its farthest +limit, and Dijon was close at hand. After that I was +to drop the tourist, and re-enter Paris as much as pos- +sible like a Parisian. Out of Paris the Parisian never +loiters, and therefore it would be impossible for me to +stop between Dijon and the capital. But I might be +a tourist a few hours longer by stopping somewhere +between Macon and Dijon. The question was where +I should spend these hours. Where better, I asked +myself (for reasons not now entirely clear to me) than +at Beaune? On my way to this town I passed the +stretch of the Cote d'Or, which, covered with a mel- +low autumn haze, with the sunshine shimmering +through, looked indeed like a golden slope. One +regards with a kind of awe the region in which the +famous _crus_ of Burgundy (Yougeot, Chambertin, Nuits, +Beaune) are, I was going to say, manufactured. Adieu, +paniers; vendanges sont faites! The vintage was +over; the shrunken russet fibres alone clung to their +ugly stick. The horizon on the left of the road had +a charm, however, there is something picturesque +in the big, comfortable shoulders of the Cote. That +delicate critic, M. Emile Montegut, in a charming +record of travel through this region, published some +years ago, praises Shakspeare for having talked (in +"Lear") of "waterish Burgundy." Vinous Burgundy +would surely be more to the point. I stopped at +Beaune in pursuit of the picturesque, but I might +almost have seen the little I discovered without stop- +ping. It is a drowsy little Burgundian town, very +old and ripe, with crooked streets, vistas always ob- +lique, and steep, moss-covered roofs. The principal +lion is the Hopital-Saint-Esprit, or the Hotel-Dieu, +simply, as they call it there, founded in 1443 by +Nicholas Rollin, Chancellor of Burgundy. It is ad- +ministered by the sisterhood of the Holy Ghost, and +is one of the most venerable and stately of hospitals. +The face it presents to the street is simple, but strik- +ing, - a plain, windowless wall, surmounted by a vast +slate roof, of almost mountainous steepness. Astride +this roof sits a tall, slate-covered spire, from which, +as I arrived, the prettiest chimes I ever heard (worse +luck to them, as I will presently explain) were ring- +ing. Over the door is a high, quaint canopy, without +supports, with its vault painted blue and covered +with gilded stars. (This, and indeed the whole build- +ing, have lately been restored, and its antiquity is +quite of the spick-and-span order. But it is very +delightful.) The treasure of the place is a precious +picture, - a Last Judgment, attributed equally to John +van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden, - given to the +hospital in the fifteenth century by Nicholas Rollin +aforesaid. + +I learned, however, to my dismay, from a sympa- +thizing but inexorable concierge, that what remained +to me of the time I had to spend at Beaune, between +trains, - I had rashly wasted half an hour of it in +breakfasting at the station, - was the one hour of the +day (that of the dinner of the nuns; the picture is in +their refectory) during which the treasure could not +be shown. The purpose of the musical chimes to +which I had so artlessly listened was to usher in this +fruitless interval. The regulation was absolute, and +my disappointment relative, as I have been happy to +reflect since I "looked up" the picture. Crowe and +Cavalcaselle assign it without hesitation to Roger van +der Weyden, and give a weak little drawing of it in +their "Flemish Painters." I learn from them also - +what I was ignorant of - that Nicholas Ronin, Chan- +cellor of Burgundy and founder of the establishment +at Beaune, was the original of the worthy kneeling +before the Virgin, in the magnificent John van Eyck +of the Salon Carre. All I could see was the court of +the hospital and two or three rooms. The court, with +its tall roofs, its pointed gables and spires, its wooden +galleries, its ancient well, with an elaborate superstruc- +ture of wrought iron, is one of those places into which +a sketcher ought to be let loose. It looked Flemish +or English rather than French, and a splendid tidiness +pervaded it. The porter took me into two rooms on +the ground-floor, into which the sketcher should also +be allowed to penetrate; for they made irresistible +pictures. One of them, of great proportions, painted +in elaborate "subjects," like a ball-room of the seven- +teenth century, was filled with the beds of patients, +all draped in curtains of dark red cloth, the tradi- +tional uniform of these, eleemosynary couches. Among +them the sisters moved about, in their robes of white +flannel, with big white linen hoods. The other room +was a strange, immense apartment, lately restored +with much splendor. It was of great length and +height, had a painted and gilded barrel-roof, and one +end of it - the one I was introduced to - appeared +to serve as a chapel, as two white-robed sisters were +on their knees before an altar. This was divided by +red curtains from the larger part; but the porter lifted +one of the curtains, and showed me that the rest +of it, a long, imposing vista, served as a ward, lined +with little red-draped beds. "C'est l'heure de la +lecture," remarked my guide; and a group of conva- +lescents - all the patients I saw were women - were +gathered in the centre around a nun, the points of +whose white hood nodded a little above them, and +whose gentle voice came to us faintly, with a little +echo, down the high perspective. I know not what +the good sister was reading, - a dull book, I am afraid, +- but there was so much color, and such a fine, rich +air of tradition about the whole place, that it seemed +to me I would have risked listening to her. I turned +away, however, with that sense of defeat which is +always irritating to the appreciative tourist, and pot- +tered about Beaune rather vaguely for the rest of my +hour: looked at the statue of Gaspard Monge, the +mathematician, in the little _place_ (there is no _place_ in +France too little to contain an effigy to a glorious son); +at the fine old porch - completely despoiled at the +Revolution - of the principal church; and even at the +meagre treasures of a courageous but melancholy little +museum, which has been arranged - part of it being +the gift of a local collector - in a small hotel de ville. +I carried away from Beaune the impression of some- +thing mildly autumnal, - something rusty yet kindly, +like the taste of a sweet russet pear. + + + +XL. + +It was very well that my little tour was to termi- +nate at Dijon; for I found, rather to my chagrin, that +there was not a great deal, from the pictorial point of +view, to be done with Dijon. It was no great matter, +for I held my proposition to have been by this time +abundantly demonstrated, - the proposition with which +I started: that if Paris is France, France is by no +means Paris. If Dijon was a good deal of a disap- +pointment, I felt, therefore, that I could afford it. It +was time for me to reflect, also, that for my disap- +pointments, as a general thing, I had only myself to +thank. They had too often been the consequence of +arbitrary preconceptions, produced by influences of +which I had lost the trace. At any rate, I will say +plumply that the ancient capital of Burgundy is want- +ing in character; it is not up to the mark. It is old +and narrow and crooked, and it has been left pretty +well to itself: but it is not high and overhanging; it is +not, to the eye, what the Burgundian capital should +be. It has some tortuous vistas, some mossy roofs, +some bulging fronts, some gray-faced hotels, which +look as if in former centuries - in the last, for instance, +during the time of that delightful President de Brosses, +whose Letters from Italy throw an interesting side-light +on Dijon - they had witnessed a considerable amount +of good living. But there is nothing else. I speak as +a man who for some reason which he doesn't remem- +ber now, did not pay a visit to the celebrated Puits +de Moise, an ancient cistern, embellished with a sculp- +tured figure of the Hebrew lawgiver. + +The ancient palace of the Dukes of Burgundy, long +since converted into an hotel de ville, presents to a +wide, clean court, paved with washed-looking stones, +and to a small semicircular _place_, opposite, which +looks as if it had tried to be symmetrical and had +failed, a facade and two wings, characterized by the +stiffness, but not by the grand air, of the early part of +the eighteenth century. It contains, however, a large +and rich museum, - a museum really worthy of a capi- +tal. The gem of this exhibition is the great banquet- +ing-hall of the old palace, one of the few features of +the place that has not been essentially altered. Of +great height, roofed with the old beams and cornices, +it contains, filling one end, a colossal Gothic chimney- +piece, with a fireplace large enough to roast, not an ox, +but a herd of oxen. In the middle of this striking +hall, the walls of which. are covered with objects more +or less precious, have been placed the tombs of Philippe- +le-Hardi and Jean-sans-Peur. These monuments, very +splendid in their general effect, have a limited interest. +The limitation comes from the fact that we see them +to-day in a transplanted and mutilated condition. +Placed originally in a church which has disappeared +from the face of the earth, demolished and dispersed +at the Revolution, they have been reconstructed and +restored out of fragments recovered and pieced to- +gether. The piecing his been beautifully done; it is +covered with gilt and with brilliant paint; the whole +result is most artistic. But the spell of the old mor- +tuary figures is broken, and it will never work again. +Meanwhile the monuments are immensely decorative. + +I think the thing that pleased me best at Dijon +was the little old Parc, a charming public garden, +about a mile from the town, to which I walked by a +long, straight autumnal avenue. It is a _jardin fran- +cais_ of the last century, - a dear old place, with little +blue-green perspectives and alleys and _rondpoints_, in +which everything balances. I went there late in the +afternoon, without meeting a creature, though I had +hoped I should meet the President de Brosses. At the +end of it was a little river that looked like a canal, +and on the further bank was an old-fashioned villa, +close to the water, with a little French garden of its +own. On the hither side was a bench, on which I +seated myself, lingering a good while; for this was just +the sort of place I like. It was the furthermost point +of my little tour. I thought that over, as I sat there, +on the eve of taking the express to Paris; and as the +light faded in the Parc the vision of some of the things +I had seen became more distinct. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext A Little Tour In France, by Henry James + diff --git a/2159.zip b/2159.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e29a62 --- /dev/null +++ b/2159.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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