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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of East of Paris, by Matilda Betham-Edwards
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: East of Paris
+       Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne
+
+Author: Matilda Betham-Edwards
+
+
+Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8734]
+This file was first posted on August 5, 2003
+Last Updated: May 20, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST OF PARIS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Carlo Traverso, Debra Storr, Sandra Brown,
+Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+EAST OF PARIS
+
+SKETCHES IN THE GATINAIS, BOURBONNAIS, AND CHAMPAGNE
+
+
+By Miss Betham-Edwards
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+Chap.
+
+    INTRODUCTION
+
+I.--MELUN
+
+II.--MORET-SUR-LOING
+
+III.--BOURRON
+
+IV.--BOURRON--_continued_
+
+V.--BOURRON--_continued_
+
+VI.--LARCHANT
+
+VII.--RECLOSES
+
+VIII.--NEMOURS
+
+IX.--LA CHARITE-SUR-LOIRE
+
+X.--POUGUES
+
+XL.--NEVERS AND MOULINS
+
+XII.--SOUVIGNY AND SENS
+
+XIII.--ARCIS-SUR-AUBE
+
+XIV.--ARCIS-SUR-AUBE--_continued_
+
+XV.--RHEIMS
+
+XVI.--RHEIMS--_continued_
+
+XVII.--SOULAINES AND BAR-SUR-AUBE
+
+XVIII.--ST. JEAN DE LOSNE
+
+XIX.--NANCY
+
+XX.--IN GERMANISED LORRAINE
+
+XXI.--IN GERMANISED ALSACE
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+I here propose to zig-zag with my readers through regions of Eastern
+France not described in any of my former works. The marvels of French
+travel, no more than the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of French literature, are
+unlimited. Short of saluting the tricolour on Mont Blanc, or of echoing
+the Marseillaise four hundred and odd feet underground in the cave of
+Padirac, I think I may fairly say that I have exhausted France as
+a wonder-horn. But quiet beauties and homely graces have also their
+seduction, just as we turn with a sense of relief from "Notre Dame de
+Paris" or "Le Pere Goriot," to a domestic story by Rod or Theuriet, so
+the sweet little valley of the Loing refreshes after the awful Pass of
+Gavarni, and soothing to the ear is the gentle flow of its waters after
+the thundering Rhone. Majestic is the panorama spread before our eyes
+as we pic-nic on the Puy de Dome. More fondly still my memory clings
+to many a narrower perspective, the view of my beloved Dijon from its
+vine-clad hills or of Autun as approached from Pre Charmoy, to me, the
+so familiar home of the late Philip Gilbert Hamerton. If, however,
+the natural marvels of France, like those of any other country, can be
+catalogued, French scenery itself offers inexhaustible variety. And so,
+having visited, re-visited, and re-visited again this splendid hexagon
+on the European map, I yet find in the choice of holiday resorts a
+veritable _embarras de richesses_. And many of the spots here described
+will, I have no doubt, be as new to my readers as they have been to
+myself--_Larchant_ with its noble tower rising from the plain,
+recalling the still nobler ruin of Tclemcen on the borders of the
+Sahara--_Recloses_ with its pictorial interiors and grand promontory
+overlooking a panorama of forest, sombre purplish green ocean unflecked
+by a single sail--_Moret_ with its twin water-ways, one hardly knows
+which of the two being the more attractive--_Nemours_, favourite haunt
+of Balzac, memoralized in "Ursule Mirouet"--_La Charite_, from
+whose old-world dwellings you may throw pebbles into the broad blue
+Loire--_Pougues_, the prettiest place with the ugliest name, frequented
+by Mme. de Sevigne and valetudinarians of the Valois race generations
+before her time--_Souvigny_, cradle of the Bourbons, now one vast
+congeries of abbatial ruins--_Arcis-sur-Aube_, the sweet riverside home
+of Danton--its near neighbour, _Bar-sur-Aube_, connected with a bitterer
+enemy of Marie Antoinette than the great revolutionary himself, the
+infamous machinator of the Diamond Necklace. These are a few of the
+sweet nooks and corners to which of late years I have returned again and
+again, ever finding "harbour and good company." And these journeys, I
+should rather say visits, East of Paris led me once more to that sad
+yearning France beyond the frontier, to homes as French, to hearts as
+devoted to the motherland as when I first visited the annexed provinces
+twenty years ago!
+
+
+
+
+
+EAST OF PARIS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+MELUN
+
+Scores upon scores of times had I steamed past Melun in the Dijon
+express, ever eyeing the place wistfully, ever too hurried, perhaps too
+lazy, to make a halt. Not until September last did I carry out a long
+cherished intention. It is unpardonable to pass and re-pass any French
+town without alighting for at least an hour's stroll!
+
+Melun, capital of the ancient Gatinais, now chef-lieu of the Department
+of Seine and Marne, well deserves a visit. Pretty as Melun looks from
+the railway it is prettier still on nearer approach. The Seine here
+makes a loop, twice curling round the town with loving embrace, its
+walls and old world houses to-day mirrored in the crystal-clear river.
+Like every other French town, small or great, Melun possesses its outer
+ring of shady walks, boulevards lying beyond the river-side quarters.
+The place has a busy, prosperous, almost metropolitan look, after the
+village just left. [Footnote: For symmetry's sake I begin these records
+at Melun, although I halted at the place on my way from my third sojourn
+at Bourron.] The big, bustling Hotel du Grand Monarque too, with its
+brisk, obliging landlady, invited a stay. Dr. Johnson, perhaps the
+wittiest if the completest John Bull who ever lived, was not far wrong
+when he glorified the inn. "Nothing contrived by man," he said, "has
+produced so much happiness (relaxation were surely the better word?) as
+a good tavern." Do we not all, to quote Falstaff, "take our ease at our
+inn," under its roof throwing off daily cares, assuming a holiday mood?
+
+A survey of the yard awoke another train of reflections. It really seems
+as if the invention of the motor car were bringing back ante-railway
+days for the tourist and the travelling world, recalling family coach
+and post-chaise. The place was crowded with motor cars of all shapes
+and sizes, some of these were plain, shabby gigs and carts of commercial
+travellers, others, landaus, waggonettes and victorias of rich folks
+seeing the world in their own carriage as their ancestors had done
+generations before; one turn-out suggested royalty or a Rothschild, I
+was about to say, rather I should name a Chicago store-keeper, since
+American millionaires are the Haroun-el-Raschids of the twentieth
+century. This last was a sumptuously fitted up carriage having a seat
+behind for servants, accommodating eight persons in all. There was
+also a huge box for luggage. It would be interesting to know how much
+petroleum, electricity, or alcohol such a vehicle would consume in a
+day. The manufacture of motor cars must be a very flourishing business
+in France, next, I should say, to that of bicycles. Of these also there
+was a goodly supply in the entrance hall of the inn, and the impetus
+given to travel by both motor car and bicycle was here self-evident.
+The Hotel du Grand Monarque literally swarmed with tourists, one and all
+French folks taking their ease at their inn. And our neighbours do not
+take their pleasure solemnly after the manner of the less impressionable
+English. Stay-at-home as they have hitherto been, home-loving as they
+essentially are, the atmosphere of an inn, the aroma of a holiday, fill
+the Frenchman's cup of hilarity to overflowing, rendering gayer the
+gayest.
+
+The invention and rapidly spreading use of the motor car in France shows
+the French character under its revolutionary aspect, yet no people on
+the face of the earth are in many respects so conservative. We English
+folks want a new "Where is it?" for social purposes every year, the
+majority of our friends and acquaintances changing their houses almost
+as often as milliners and tailors change the fashion in bonnets and
+coats. A single address book for France supplies a life-time. The
+explanation is obvious. For the most part we live in other folks' houses
+whilst French folks, the military and official world excepted, occupy
+their own. Revisit provincial gentry or well-to-do bourgeoisie after
+an interval of a quarter of a century, you always find them where they
+were. Interiors show no more change than the pyramids of Egypt. Not so
+much as sixpence has been laid out upon new carpets or curtains. Could
+grandsires and granddames return to life like the Sleeping Beauty, they
+would find that the world had stood still during their slumber.
+
+Melun possesses perhaps one of the few statues that may not be called
+superfluous, and I confess I had been attracted thither rather by
+memories of its greatest son than by its picturesque scenery and fine
+old churches. The first translator of Plutarch into his native tongue
+was born here, and as we should expect, has been worthily commemorated
+by his fellow citizens. A most charming statue of Amyot stands in front
+of the grey, turreted Hotel de Ville. In sixteenth century doctoral
+dress, loose flowing robes and square flat cap, sits the great
+scholiast, as intently absorbed in his book as St. Jerome in the
+exquisite canvas of our own National Gallery.
+
+Behind the Hotel de Ville an opening shows a small, beautifully kept
+flower garden, just now a blaze of petunias, zinnias, and a second crop
+of roses. Long I lingered before this noble monument, one only of the
+many raised to Amyot's memory, of whom Montaigne wrote:--
+
+"Ignoramuses that we are, we should all have been lost, had not this
+book (the translation of Plutarch) dragged us out of the mire; thanks to
+it, we now venture to write and to discourse."
+
+And musing on the scholar and his kindred, a favourite line of
+Browning's came into my mind--
+
+"This man decided not to live but to know."
+
+Indeed the whole of "A Grammarian's Funeral" were here appropriate. Is
+it not men after this type of whom we feel
+
+     "Our low life was the level's and the night's.
+     He's for the morning"?
+
+To my surprise I found the church of St. Aspais locked. A courteous
+hair-dresser thereupon told me that all churches in Melun were closed
+from noon till half past one, but that, as noon had only just struck,
+if I were brisk I might possibly catch the sacristan. After a pretty hot
+chase I succeeded in finding a deaf, decrepit, dingy old man who showed
+me round the church, although evidently very impatient for his mid-day
+meal. He informed me that this closing of churches at Melun had been
+necessitated of late years by a series of robberies. From twelve till
+half past one o'clock no worshippers are present as a rule, hence the
+thieves' opportunity. Unfortunately marauders do not strip beautiful
+interiors of the tinselly gew-gaws that so often deface them; in this
+respect, however, St. Aspais being comparatively an exception. Alike
+within and without the proportions are magnificent, and the old stained
+glass is not marred by modern crudities. I do not here by any means
+exhaust the sights of this ancient town, from which, by the way,
+Barbizon is now reached in twenty minutes, an electric tramway plying
+regularly between Melun and that famous art pilgrimage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+MORET-SUR-LOING.
+
+The valley of the Loing abounds in captivating spots, Moret-sur-Loing
+bearing the palm. Over the ancient town, bird-like broods a majestic
+church, as out-spread wings its wide expanse of roof, while below by
+translucent depths and foliage richly varied, stretch quarters old and
+new, the canal intersecting the river at right angles. Lovely as is the
+river on which all who choose may spend long summer days, the canal to
+my thinking is lovelier still. Straight as an arrow it saunters between
+avenues of poplar, the lights and shadows of wood and water, the
+sunburnt, stalwart barge folk, their huge gondoliers affording endless
+pictures. Hard as is undoubtedly the life of the rope tower, rude as
+may appear this amphibious existence, there are cheerful sides to the
+picture. Many of these floating habitations possess a fireside nook cosy
+as that of a Parisian concierge, I was never tired of strolling along
+the canal and watching the barge folk. One day a friend and myself found
+a large barge laden with coal at the head of the canal, the huge dark
+framework and its sombre burden lighted up with touches of grace and
+colour. At the farther end of the vessel was hung a cage of canaries, at
+the other end was a stand of pot-flowers, geraniums and petunias in full
+bloom and all the more brilliant by virtue of contrast. A neighbour
+of the bargeman, a bright, intelligent woman, brown as a gipsy but
+well-spoken and of tidy appearance, invited us to enter. Imagine the
+neatest, prettiest little room in the world, parlour, bedchamber and
+kitchen in one, every object so placed as to make the most of available
+space. On a small side-table--and of course under such circumstances
+each article must be sizable--stood a sewing machine, in the corner was
+a bedstead with exquisitely clean bedding, in another a tiny cooking
+stove. Vases of flowers, framed pictures and ornamental quicksilver
+balls had been found place for, this bargewoman's home aptly
+illustrating Shakespeare's adage--"Order gives all things view." The
+brisk, weather-beaten mistress now came up, no little gratified by our
+interest and our praises.
+
+"You ladies would perhaps like to make a little journey with me?" she
+asked, "nothing easier, we start to-morrow morning at six o'clock for
+Nevers, you could take the train back."
+
+Never perhaps in our lives had myself and my companion received an
+invitation so out of the way, so bewilderingly tempting! And we felt
+too, with a pang, that never again in all probability should we receive
+such another. But on this especial day we were not staying at Moret,
+only running over for the afternoon from our headquarters at Bourron.
+Acceptance was thus hemmed round with small impediments. And by way
+of consolation, next morning the glorious weather broke. A downpour
+recalling our own lakeland would anyhow have kept us ashore.
+
+"Another time then!" had said the kind hostess of the barge at parting.
+She seemed as sorry as ourselves that the little project she had mooted
+so cordially could not be carried out.
+
+The Loing canal joins the Seine at Saint Mammes, a few kilometres lower
+down, continuing its course of thirty kilometres to Bleneau in the
+Nievre. Canal life in Eastern France is a characteristic feature, the
+whole region being intersected by a network of waterways, those _chemins
+qui marchent_, or walking roads as Michelet picturesquely calls them.
+And strolling on the banks of the canal here you may be startled by
+an astonishing sight, you see folks walking, or apparently walking, on
+water. Standing bolt upright on a tiny raft, carefully maintaining their
+balance, country people are towed from one side to the other.
+
+These suburban and riverside quarters are full of charm. The soft reds
+and browns of the houses, the old-world architecture and romantic sites,
+tempt an artist at every turn. And all in love with a Venetian existence
+may here find it nearer home.
+
+A few villas let furnished during the summer months have little lawns
+winding down to the water's edge and a boat moored alongside. Thus their
+happy inmates can spend hot, lazy days on the river.
+
+Turning our backs on the canal, by way of ivy-mantled walls, ancient
+mills and tumbledown houses, we reach the Porte du Pont or Gate of the
+Bridge. With other towns of the period, Moret was fortified. The girdle
+of walls is broken and dilapidated, whilst firm as when erected in the
+fourteenth century still stand the city gates.
+
+Of the two the Porte du Pont is the least imposing and ornamental, but
+it possesses a horrifying interest. In an upper storey is preserved one
+of those man-cages said to have been invented for the gratification of
+Louis XI, that strange tyrant to whose ears were equally acceptable the
+shrieks of his tortured victims and the apt repartee of ready-witted
+subjects.
+
+"How much do you earn a day?" he once asked a little scullion, as
+incognito he entered the royal kitchen.
+
+"By God's grace as much as the King," replied the lad; "I earn my bread
+and he can do no more."
+
+So pleased was the King with this saying that it made the speaker's
+fortune.
+
+We climb two flights of dark, narrow stone stairs reaching a bare
+chamber having small apertures, enlargements of the mere slits formerly
+admitting light and air. The man-cage occupies one corner. It is made of
+stout oaken ribs strongly bound together with iron, its proportions just
+allowing the captive to lie down at full length and take a turn of two
+or three steps. De Commines tells us that the cage invented by Cardinal
+Balue, and in which he languished for eleven years, was narrower still.
+An average sized man could not stand therein upright.
+
+The bolts and bars are still in perfect order. Nothing more brings home
+to us the abomination of the whole thing than to see the official draw
+these Brobdingnagian bolts and turn these gigantic keys. The locksmith's
+art was but too well understood in those days. By whom and for whom this
+living tomb was made or brought hither local records do not say.
+
+From a stage higher up a magnificent panorama is obtained, Moret, old
+and new, set round with the green and the blue, its greenery and bright
+river, far away its noble aqueduct, further still looking eastward
+the valley of the Loing spread out as a map, the dark ramparts of
+Fontainebleau forest half framing the scene.
+
+The town itself is a trifle unsavoury and unswept. Municipal authorities
+seem particularly stingy in the matter of brooms, brushes and
+water-carts. Such little disagreeables must not prevent the traveller
+from exploring every corner. But the real, the primary attraction of
+Moret lies less in its historic monuments and antiquated streets than
+in its _chemins qui marchent_, its ever reposeful water-ways. Like most
+French towns Moret is linked with English history. Its fine old church
+was consecrated by Thomas a-Becket in 1166. Three hundred years later
+the town was taken by Henry V., and re-taken by Charles VII. a decade
+after. Not long since five hundred skulls supposed to have been those
+of English prisoners were unearthed here; as they were all found massed
+together, the theory is that the entire number had surrendered and been
+summarily decapitated, methods of warfare that have apparently found
+advocates in our own day.
+
+Most visitors to Paris will have had pointed out to them the so-called
+"Maison Francois Premier" on the Cour La Reine. This richly ornate and
+graceful specimen of Renaissance architecture formerly stood at Moret,
+and bit by bit was removed to the capital in 1820. A spiral stone
+staircase and several fragments of heraldic sculpture were left behind.
+Badly placed as the house was here, it seems a thousand pities that
+Moret should have thus been robbed of an architectural gem Paris could
+well have spared.
+
+My first stay at Moret three years ago lasted several weeks. I had
+joined friends occupying a pretty little furnished house belonging
+to the officiating Mayor. We lived after simplest fashion but to our
+hearts' content. One of those indescribably obliging women of all work,
+came every day to cook, clean and wait on us. Most of our meals were
+taken among our flower beds and raspberry bushes. The only drawback to
+enjoyment may at first sight appear unworthy of mention, but it was not
+so. We had no latchkey. Now as every-one of all work knows, they are
+constantly popping in and out of doors, one moment they are off to
+market, the next to warm up their husbands' soup, and so on and so on.
+As for ourselves, were we not at Moret on purpose to be perpetually
+running about also? Thus it happened that somebody or other was always
+being locked out or locked in; either Monsieur finding the household
+abroad had pocketed the key and instead of returning in ten minutes'
+time had lighted upon a subject he must absolutely sketch then and
+there; or Madame could not get through her shopping as expeditiously as
+she had hoped; or their guest returned from her walk long before she
+was due; what with one miscalculation and another, now one of us had to
+knock at a neighbour's door, now another effected an entrance by means
+of a ladder, and now the key would be wholly missing and for the time
+being we were roofless, as if burnt out of house and home. Sometimes we
+were locked in, sometimes we were locked out, a current "Open Sesame" we
+never had.
+
+But no "regrettable incidents" marred a delightful holiday. Imbroglios
+such as these only leave memories to smile at, and add zest to
+recollection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+BOURRON.
+
+Two years ago some Anglo-French friends joyfully announced their
+acquisition of a delightful little property adjoining Fontainebleau
+forest. "Come and see for yourself," they wrote, "we are sure that
+you will be charmed with our purchase!" A little later I journeyed to
+Bourron, half an hour from Moret on the Bourbonnais line, on arriving
+hardly less disconcerted than Mrs. Primrose by the gross of green
+spectacles. No trim, green verandahed villa, no inviting vine-trellised
+walk, no luxuriant vegetable garden or brilliant flower beds greeted my
+eyes; instead, dilapidated walls, abutting on these a peasant's cottage,
+and in front an acre or two of bare dusty field! My friends had indeed
+become the owners of a dismantled bakery and its appurtenances, to the
+uninitiated as unpromising a domain as could well be imagined. But
+I discovered that the purchasers were wiser in their generation than
+myself. Noticing my crestfallen look they had said:--
+
+"Only wait till next year, and you will see what a bargain we have made.
+You will find us admirably housed and feasting on peaches and grapes."
+
+True enough, twelve months later, I found a wonderful transformation.
+That a substantial dwelling now occupied the site of the dismantled
+bakery was no matter for surprise, the change out of doors seemed
+magical. Nothing could have looked more unpromising than that stretch
+of field, a mere bit of waste, your feet sinking into the sand as if you
+were crossing the desert. Now, the longed-for _tonnelle_ or vine-covered
+way offered shade, petunias made a splendid show, choice roses scented
+the air, whilst the fruit and vegetables would have done credit to a
+market-gardener. Peaches and grapes ripened on the wall, big turnips and
+tomatoes brilliant as vermilion took care of themselves. It was not only
+a case of the wilderness made to blossom as the rose, but of the horn
+of plenty filled to overflowing, prize flowers, fruit and vegetables
+everywhere. For the soil hereabouts, if indeed soil it can be called,
+and the climate of Bourron, possess very rare and specific qualities. On
+this light, dry sand, or dust covering a substratum of rock, vegetation
+springs up all but unbidden, and when once above ground literally takes
+care of itself. As to climate, its excellence may be summed up in
+the epithet, anti-asthmatic. Although we are on the very hem of forty
+thousand acres of forest, the atmosphere is one of extraordinary
+dryness. Rain may fall in torrents throughout an entire day. The sandy
+soil is so thorough an absorbent that next morning the air will be as
+dry as usual.
+
+This house reminded me of a tiny side door opening into some vast
+cathedral. We cross the threshold and find ourselves at once in the
+forest, in close proximity moreover to its least-known but not least
+majestic sites. We may turn either to right or left, gradually climbing
+a densely wooded headland. The first ascent lands us in an hour on the
+Redoute de Bourron, the second, occupying only half the time, on a
+spur of the forest offering a less famous but hardly less magnificent
+perspective, nothing to mar the picture as a whole, sunny plain, winding
+river and scattered townlings looking much as they must have done to
+Balzac when passing through three-quarters of a century ago.
+
+This eastern verge of the Fontainebleau forest is of especial beauty;
+the frowning headlands seem set there as sentinels jealously guarding
+its integrity, on the watch against human encroachments, defying time
+and change and cataclysmal upheaval. Boldly stands out each wooded crag,
+the one confronting the rising, the other the sinking sun, behind both
+massed the world of forest, spread before them as a carpet, peaceful
+rural scenes.
+
+I must now describe a spot, the name of which will probably be new to
+all excepting close students of Balzac. The great novelist loved the
+valley of the Loing almost as fondly as his native Touraine; and if
+these pastoral scenes did not inspire a _chef d'oeuvre_, they have
+thereby immensely gained in interest. "Ursule Mirouet," of which I shall
+have more to say further on, is not to be compared to such masterpieces
+as "Eugenie Grandet." But a leading incident of "Ursule Mirouet" occurs
+at Bourron--a sufficient reason for recalling the story here.
+
+The beauty of our village, like the beauty of French women, to quote
+Michelet, "is made up of little nothings." There are a hundred and
+one pretty things to see but very few to describe. Who could wish it
+otherwise? Little nothings of an engaging kind better agree with us
+as daily fare than the seven wonders of the world. With forty thousand
+acres of forest at our doors we do not want M. Mattel's newly discovered
+underground river within reach as well.
+
+From our garden we yet look upon scenes not of every day. Those sweeps
+of bluish-green foliage strikingly contrasted with the brilliant vine
+remind us that we are in France, and in a region with most others having
+its specialities. Asparagus, not literally but figuratively, nourishes
+the entire population of Bourron. Everyone here is a market gardener on
+his own account, and the cultivation of asparagus for the Paris markets
+is a leading feature of local commerce.
+
+There is no more graceful foliage than that of this plant, and
+gratefully the eye rests upon these waves of delicate green under a
+blazing, grape-ripening sky. Making gold-green lines between are vines,
+a succession of asparagus beds and vineyards separating our village from
+its better known and more populous neighbour, Marlotte. In the opposite
+direction we see brown-roofed, white-walled houses surmounted by a
+pretty little spire. This is Bourron. To reach it we pass a double row
+of homesteads, rustic interiors of small farmer or market gardener,
+the one, as our French neighbours say, more picturesque than the other.
+Each, no matter how ill kept, is set off by an ornamental border,
+zinnias, begonias, roses and petunias as obviously showing signs of care
+and science. Oddly enough the finest display of flowers often adorns
+the least tidy premises. And oddly enough, rather perhaps as we should
+expect it, in not one, but in every respect, this French village is the
+exact opposite of its English counterpart. In England every tenant of
+a cottage pays rent, there, not an inhabitant, however poor, but sits
+under his own vine and his own fig-tree. In England the farm-house faces
+the road and the premises lie behind. Here manure-heap, granary and pig
+styes open on the highway, the dwellings being at the back. In England
+a man's home, called his castle, is no more defended than the Bedouin's
+tent. Here at nightfall the small peasant proprietor is as securely
+entrenched within walls as a feudal baron in his moated chateau. In
+England ninety-nine householders out of a hundred are perpetually
+changing their domicile. Here folks live and die under the paternal
+roof that has sheltered generations. Nor does diversity end with
+circumstances and surroundings. As will be seen in another chapter,
+habits of life, modes of thought and standards of duty show contrasts
+equally marked.
+
+Bourron possesses twelve hundred and odd souls, most of whom are
+peasants who make a living out of their small patrimony. Destined
+perhaps one day to rival its neighbour Marlotte in popularity--even
+to become a second Barbizon--it is as yet the sleepiest, most
+rustic retreat imaginable. The climate would appear to be not only
+anti-asthmatic but anti-everything in the shape of malady. Anyhow,
+if folks fall ill they have to send elsewhere for a doctor. Minor
+complaints--cuts, bruises and snake bites--are attended to by a
+Fontainebleau chemist. Every day we hear the horn of his messenger who
+cycles through the village calling for prescriptions and leaving drugs
+and draughts.
+
+A post office, of course, Bourron possesses, but let no one imagine
+that a post office in out of the way country places implies a supply of
+postage stamps. English people are the greatest scribblers by post in
+the world, whilst our wiser French neighbours appear to be the laziest.
+An amusing dilemma had occurred here just before my arrival. One day my
+friends applied to the post office for stamps, but none were to be had
+for love or money. Off somebody cycled to Marlotte, which possesses not
+only a post and telegraph, but a money order office as well--same
+reply, next the adjoining village of Grez was visited and with no better
+result--"Supplies have not yet reached us from headquarters," said the
+third postmistress.
+
+Perhaps instead of smiling contemptuously we should take a moral to
+heart. The amount of time, money, eyesight and handcraft expended among
+ourselves on letter writing so-called is simply appalling. Was it
+not Napoleon who said that all letters if left unanswered for a month
+answered themselves? Too many Englishwomen spend the greater portion
+of the day in what is no longer a delicate art, but mere time-killing,
+after the manner of patience, games of cards and similar pastimes.
+
+Bourron is a most orderly village; within its precincts liberty is not
+allowed to degenerate into licence. As in summer-time folks are fond of
+spending their evenings abroad, a municipal law has enforced quiet after
+ten o'clock. Thus precisely on the stroke of ten, alike cafe, garden,
+private summer-house or doorstep are deserted, everyone betakes himself
+indoors, leaving his neighbours to enjoy unbroken repose. A most
+salutary by-law! Would it were put in force throughout the length and
+breadth of France! At Chatouroux I have been kept awake all night by
+the gossip of a _sergeant de ville_ and a lounger close to my window. At
+Tours, La Chatre and Bourges my fellow-traveller and myself could get
+no sleep on account of street revellers, whilst at how many other places
+have not holiday trips been spoiled by unquiet nights? All honour then
+to the aediles of dear little Bourron!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+BOURRON--_continued_.
+
+Forty thousand acres of woodland at one's doors would seem a fact
+sufficiently suggestive; to particularize the attractions of Bourron
+after this statement were surely supererogation. Yet, for my own
+pleasure as much as for the use of my readers, I must jot down one or
+two especially persistent memories, impressions of solemnity, beauty and
+repose never to be effaced.
+
+Of course it is only the cyclist who can realise such an immensity as
+the Fontainebleau forest. From end to end these vast sweeps are now
+intersected by splendid roads and by-roads. Old-fashioned folks, for
+whom the horseless vehicle came too late, can but envy wheelmen and
+wheelwomen as they skim through vista after vista, outstripping one's
+horse and carriage as a greyhound outstrips a decrepit poodle. On the
+other hand only inveterate loiterers, the Lazy Lawrences of travel,
+can appreciate the subtler beauties of this woodland world. There
+are certain sights and sounds not to be caught by hurried observers,
+evanescent aspects of cloud-land and tree-land, rock and undergrowth,
+passing notes of bird and insect, varied melodies, if we may so express
+it, of summer breeze and autumn wind--in fine, a dozen experiences
+enjoyed one day, not repeated on the next. The music of the forest is
+a quiet music and has to be listened for, hardly on the cyclist's ear
+falls the song or rather accompaniment of the grasshopper, "the Muse of
+the wayside," a French poet has so exquisitely apostrophized.
+
+One's forest companion should be of a taciturn and contemplative turn.
+Only thus can we drink in the sense of such solitude and immensity;
+realizing to the full what indeed these words may mean, he may wander
+for hours without encountering a soul, very few birds are heard by the
+way, but the hum of the insect world, that dreamy go-between, hardly
+silence, hardly to be called noise, keeps us perpetual company, and our
+eyes must ever be open for beautiful little living things. Now a green
+and gold lizard flashes across a bit of grey rock, now a dragon-fly
+disports its sapphire wings amid the yellowing ferns or purple ling,
+butterflies, white, blue, and black and orange, flit hither and
+thither, whilst little beetles, blue as enamel beads, enliven the mossy
+undergrowth.
+
+One pre-eminent charm indeed of the Fontainebleau forest is this wealth
+of undergrowth, bushes, brambles and ferns making a second lesser
+thicket on all sides. In sociable moods delightful it is to go
+a-blackberrying here. I am almost tempted to say that if you want
+to realise the lusciousness of a hedgerow dessert you must cater for
+yourself in these forty thousand acres of blackberry orchard.
+
+But the foremost, the crowning excellence of Fontainebleau forest
+consists in its variety. France itself, the "splendid hexagon," with its
+mountains, rivers and plains, is hardly more varied than this vast area
+of rock and woodland. We can choose between sites, savage or idyllic,
+pastoral or grandiose, here finding a sunny glade, the very spot for a
+picnic, there break-neck declivities and gloomy chasms. The magnificent
+ruggedness of Alpine scenery is before our eyes, without the awfulness
+of snow-clad peaks or the blinding dazzle of glacier. In more than one
+place we could almost fancy that some mountain has been upheaved and
+split asunder, the clefts formed by these gigantic fragments being now
+filled with veteran trees.
+
+The formation of the forest has puzzled geologists, to this day the
+origin of its rocky substratum remaining undetermined.
+
+Within half an hour's stroll of Bourron lies the so-called "Mare aux
+Fees" or Fairies' Mere, as sweet a spot to boil one's kettle in as
+holiday makers can desire, at the same time affording the best possible
+illustration of what I have just insisted upon. For this favourite
+resort is in a certain sense microcosmic, giving in miniature those
+characteristics for which the forest is remarkable. Smooth and sunny as
+a garden plot is the open glade wherein we now halt for tea, and while
+the kettle boils we have time for a most suggestive bird's eye view. It
+is a little world that we survey from the borders of this rock-hemmed,
+forest-girt lake, one perspective after another with varying gradations
+of colour making us realize the many-featured, chequered area spread
+before us. From this coign of vantage are discerned alike the sterner
+and the more smiling beauties of the forest, rocky defiles, gloomy
+passes, sunlit lawns and mossy dells, scenery varied in itself and
+yet varying again with the passing hour and changing month. And such
+suggestion of almost infinite variety is not gained only from the
+Fairies' Mere. From a dozen points, not the same view but the same kind
+of view may be obtained, each differing from the other, except in charm
+and immensity. Within a walk of home also stands one of the numerous
+monuments scattered throughout the forest. The Croix de Saint Herem, now
+a useful landmark for cyclists, has a curious history. It was erected in
+1666 by a certain Marquis de Saint-Herem, celebrated for his ugliness,
+and centuries later was the scene of the most extraordinary rendezvous
+on record. Here, in 1804, every detail having been theatrically arranged
+beforehand, took place the so-called chance meeting of Napoleon and Pope
+Pius VII. The Emperor had arranged a grand hunt for that day, and in
+hunting dress, his dogs at his heels, awaited the pontiff by the cross
+of Saint Herem. As the pair lovingly embraced each other the Imperial
+horses ran away; this apparent escapade formed part of the programme,
+and Napoleon stepped into the Pope's carriage, seating himself on his
+visitor's, rather his prisoner's, right. A few years later another
+rencontre not without historic irony took place here. In 1816, Louis
+XVIII. received on this spot the future mother, so it was hoped, of
+French Kings, the adventurous Caroline of Naples, afterwards Duchesse de
+Berri.
+
+The crosses monuments of the forest are usefully catalogued in local
+guide-books, and many have historic associations. The most interesting
+of these--readers will excuse the Irish bull--is a monument that may be
+said never to have existed!
+
+The great Polish patriot Kosciusko spent the last fifteen years of his
+life in a hamlet near Nemours, and on his death the inhabitants of that
+and neighbouring villages projected a double memorial, in other words,
+a tiny chapel, the ruins of which are still seen near Episy, and a mound
+to be added to every year and to be called "La Montagne de Kosciusko,"
+or Kosciusko's mountain. Particulars of this generous and romantic
+scheme are preserved in the archives of Montigny. The inauguration
+of the mound took place on the ninth of October 1836. To the sound
+of martial music, drums and cannon, the first layers of earth were
+deposited, men, women and children taking part in the proceedings.
+A year later no less than ten thousand French friends of Poland with
+mattock and spade added several feet to Kosciusko's mountain. But the
+celebration got noised abroad. Afraid of anti-Russian manifestations the
+government of Louis Philippe prohibited any further Polish fetes. Thus
+it came about that, as I have said, the most interesting monument in the
+forest remains an idea. And all things considered, neither French nor
+English admirers of the exiled hero could to-day very well carve on the
+adjoining rock,
+
+  "And Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell."
+
+Some time or other the Russian Imperial pair may visit Fontainebleau,
+whilst an English tourist with _The Daily Mail_ in his pocket would
+naturally and sheepishly look the other way.
+
+Another half hour's stroll and we find ourselves in an atmosphere of
+art, fashion and sociability. Only a mile either of woodland, field path
+or high road separates Bourron from its more populous and highly popular
+neighbour, Marlotte. Here every house has an artist's north window, the
+road is alive with motor cars, you can even buy a newspaper! Marlotte
+possesses a big, I should say comfortable, hotel, is very cosmopolitan
+and very pretty. Anglo-French households here, as at Bourron, favour
+Anglo-French relations. In Marlotte drawing-rooms we are in France,
+but always with a pleasant reminder of England and of true English
+hospitality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+BOURRON--_continued._
+
+I will now say something about my numerous acquaintances at Bourron.
+After three summer holidays spent in this friendly little spot I can
+boast of a pretty large visiting list, the kind of list requiring no
+cards or ceremonious procedure. My hostess, a Frenchwoman, and myself
+used to drop in for a chat with this neighbour and that whenever we
+passed their way, always being cheerily welcomed and always pressed to
+stay a little longer.
+
+The French peasant is the most laborious, at the same time the most
+leisurely, individual in the world. Urgent indeed must be those
+farming operations that prevent him from enjoying a talk. Conversation,
+interchange of ideas, give and take by word of mouth, are as necessary
+to the Frenchman's well-being as oxygen to his lungs.
+
+"Man," writes Montesquieu, "is described as a sociable animal." From
+this point of view it appears to me that the Frenchman may be called
+more of a man than others; he is first and foremost a man, since he
+seems especially made for society.
+
+Elsewhere the same great writer adds:--"You may see in Paris individuals
+who have enough to live upon for the rest of their days, yet they labour
+so arduously as to shorten their days, in order, as they say, to assure
+themselves of a livelihood." These two marked characteristics are as
+true of the French peasant now-a-days as of the polite society described
+in the "Lettres Persanes." In the eighteenth century cultivated people
+did little else but talk. Morning, noon and night, their epigrammatic
+tongues were busy. Conversation in historic salons became a fine
+art. There are no such literary coteries in our time. What with one
+excitement and another, the Parisian world chats but has no time for
+real conversation. Perhaps for _Gauloiseries_, true Gallic salt, we must
+now go to the unlettered, the sons of the soil, whose ancestors were
+boors when wit sparkled among their social superiors.
+
+Here are one or two types illustrating both characteristics, excellent
+types in their way of the small peasant proprietor hereabouts, a class
+having no counterpart or approximation to a counterpart in England.
+
+The first visit I describe was paid one evening to an old gardener whom
+I will call the Pere A--. Bent partly with toil, partly with age,
+you would have at once supposed that his working days were well over,
+especially on learning his circumstances, for sole owner he was of the
+little domain to which he had now retired for the day. Of benevolent
+aspect, shrewd, every inch alive despite infirmities, he received his
+neighbour and her English guest with rustic but cordial urbanity, at
+once entering into conversation. With evident pride and pleasure he
+watched my glances at premises and garden, house and outbuildings
+ramshackle enough, even poverty-stricken to look at, here not an
+indication of comfortable circumstances much less of independent means;
+the bit of land half farm, half garden, however, was fairly well kept
+and of course productive.
+
+"Yes, this dwelling is mine and the two hectares (four acres four
+hundred and odd feet), aye," he added self-complacently, "and I have a
+little money besides."
+
+"Yet you live here all by yourself and still work for wages?" I asked.
+His reply was eminently characteristic. "I work for my children." These
+children he told me were two grown up sons, one of them being like
+himself a gardener, both having work. Thus in order to hoard up a little
+more for two able-bodied young men, here was a bent, aged man living
+penuriously and alone, his only companion being a beautiful and
+evidently much petted donkey. I ventured to express an English view
+of the matter, namely, the undesirability of encouraging idleness and
+self-indulgence in one's children by toiling and moiling for them in old
+age.
+
+He nodded his head.
+
+"You are right, all that you say is true, but so it is with me. I must
+work for my children."
+
+And thus blindly are brought about the parricidal tragedies that Zola,
+Guy de Maupassant and other novelists have utilized in fiction, and
+with which we are familiarized in French criminal reports--parents and
+grandparents got rid of for the sake of their coveted hoardings.
+
+Thus also are generated in the rich and leisured classes that intense
+selfishness of the rising generation so movingly portrayed in M.
+Hervieu's play, "La Course du Flambeau." No one who has witnessed Mme.
+Rejane's presentment of the adoring, disillusioned mother can ever
+forget it.
+
+On leaving, the Pere A---- presented us with grapes and pears, carefully
+selecting the finest for his English visitor.
+
+At the gate I threw a Parthian dart.
+
+"Don't work too hard," I said, whereupon came the burden of his song:
+
+"One must work for one's children."
+
+This good neighbour could neither read nor write, a quite exceptional
+case in these days. Our second visit was made to a person similarly
+situated, but belonging to a different order.
+
+Madame B----, a widow, was also advanced in years and also lived by
+herself on her little property, consisting of walled-in cottage and
+outhouses, with straggling garden or rather orchard, garden and field in
+one.
+
+This good woman is what country folks in these parts call rich. I have
+no doubt that an English farmeress in her circumstances would have the
+neatest little parlour, a tidy maid to wait upon her, and most likely
+take afternoon tea in a black silk gown. Our hostess here wore the dress
+of a poor but respectable working woman. Her interior was almost as bare
+and primitive as that of the Boer farmhouse in the Paris Exhibition.
+Although between six and seven o'clock, there was no sign whatever of
+preparation for an evening meal. Indeed on every side things looked
+poverty-stricken. Not a penny had evidently been spent upon kitchen or
+bedrooms for years and years, the brick floor of both being bare, the
+furniture having done duty for generations.
+
+This "rentiere," or person living upon independent means, did not match
+her sordid surroundings. Although toil-worn, tanned and wrinkled, her
+face "brown as the ribbed sea-sand," there was a certain refinement
+about look, speech and manner, distinguishing her from the good man her
+neighbour. After a little conversation I soon found out that she had
+literary tastes.
+
+"Living alone and finding the winter evenings long I hire books from a
+lending library at Fontainebleau," she said.
+
+I opened my eyes in amazement. Seldom indeed had I heard of a peasant
+proprietor in France caring for books, much less spending money upon
+them.
+
+"And what do you read?" I asked.
+
+"Anything I can get," was the reply. "Madame's husband," here she looked
+at my friend, "has kindly lent me several."
+
+Among these I afterwards found had been Zola's "Rome" and "Le Desastre"
+by the brothers Margueritte.
+
+Like the Pere A---- she had married children and entertained precisely
+the same notion of parental duty. The few sous spent upon such
+beguilement of long winter nights were most likely economized by some
+little deprivation. There is something extremely pathetic in this
+patriarchal spirit, this uncompromising, ineradicable resolve to hand
+down a little patrimony not only intact but enlarged.
+
+"Our peasants live too sordidly," observed a Frenchman to me a day or
+two later. "They carry thrift to the pitch of avarice and vice. Zola's
+'La Terre' is not without foundation on fact."
+
+And excellent as is the principle of forethought, invaluable as is
+the habit of laying by for a rainy day, I have at last come to the
+conclusion that of the two national weaknesses, French avarice
+and English lavishness and love of spending, the latter is more in
+accordance with progress and the spirit of the age.
+
+In another part of the village we called upon a hale old body of
+seventy-seven, who not only lived alone and did everything for herself
+indoors but the entire work of a market garden, every inch of the two
+and a half acres being, of course, her own. Piled against an inner
+wall we saw a dozen or so faggots each weighing, we were told, half a
+hundredweight. Will it be believed that this old woman had picked up
+and carried from the forest on her back every one of these faggots? The
+poor, or rather those who will, are allowed to glean firewood in all the
+State forests of France. Let no tourist bestow a few sous upon aged men
+and women bearing home such treasure-trove! Quite possibly the dole may
+affront some owner of houses and lands.
+
+As we inspected her garden, walls covered with fine grapes, tomatoes and
+melons, of splendid quality, to say nothing of vegetables in profusion,
+it seemed all the more difficult to reconcile facts so incongruous. Here
+was a market gardener on her own account, mistress of all she surveyed,
+glad as a gipsy to pick up sticks for winter use. But the burden of her
+story was the same:
+
+"Il faut travailler pour ses enfants" (one must work for one's
+children), she said.
+
+All these little farm-houses are so many homely fortresses, cottage and
+outhouses being securely walled in, a precaution necessary with aged,
+moneyed folks living absolutely alone.
+
+A fourth visit was paid to a charming old Philemon and Baucis, the best
+possible specimens of their class. The husband lay in bed, ill of an
+incurable malady, and spotlessly white were his tasselled nightcap,
+shirt and bedclothes. Very clean and neat too was the bedroom opening
+on to the little front yard, beneath each window of the one-storeyed
+dwelling being a brilliant border of asters. The housewife also was a
+picture of tidiness, her cotton gown carefully patched and scrupulously
+clean. This worthy couple are said to be worth fifty thousand francs.
+The wife, a sexagenarian, does all the work of the house besides
+waiting on her good man, to whom she is devoted, but a married son
+and daughter-in-law share her duties at night. Here was no touch of
+sordidness or suggestion of "La Terre," instead a delightful picture of
+rustic dignity and ease. The housewife sold us half a bushel of pears,
+these two like their neighbours living by the produce of their small
+farm and garden.
+
+I often dropped in upon Madame B---- to whom even morning calls were
+acceptable.
+
+On the occasion of my farewell visit she had something pretty to
+say about one of my own novels, a French translation of which I had
+presented her.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "that you have some books of your own?"
+
+"Here they are," she said, depositing an armful on the table. "But I
+have never read much, and mostly _bibelots_" (trifles.)
+
+Her poor little library consisted of _bibelots_ indeed, a history of
+Jeanne d'Arc for children, and half a dozen other works, mostly school
+prizes of the kind awarded before school prizes in France were worth the
+paper on which they were printed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+LARCHANT.
+
+There is a certain stimulating quality of elasticity and crispness in
+the French atmosphere which our own does not possess. France, moreover,
+with its seven climates--for the description of these, see Reclus'
+Geography--does undoubtedly offer longer, less broken, spells of hot
+summer weather than the United Kingdom. But let me for once and for all
+dispel a widespread illusion. The late Lord Lytton, when Ambassador
+in Paris, used to say that in the French capital you could procure any
+climate you pleased. And experience proves that without budging an inch
+you may in France get as many and as rapid climatic changes as anywhere
+else under the sun. At noon in mid-May last I was breakfasting with
+friends on the Champs Elysees, when my hostess put a match to the fire
+and my host jumped up and lighted six wax candles. So dense had become
+the heavens that we could no longer see to handle knives and forks!
+Hail, wind, darkness and temperature recalled a November squall at home.
+Yet the day before I had enjoyed perfect summer weather in the Jardin
+d'Acclimitation. Invariableness is no more an attribute of the French
+climate than our own. Wherever we go we must take a change of dress, for
+all the world as if we were bound for the other side of the Tweed.
+
+My first Sunday at Bourron, on this third visit, was of perfect
+stillness, unclouded brilliance and southern languor, heralding, so we
+fondly imagined, the very morrow for an excursion.
+
+In the night a strong wind rose up, but as we had ordered a carriage for
+Larchant, and as carriages in these parts are not always to be had,
+as, moreover, grown folks no more than children like to defer their
+pleasure, off we set, two of the party on cycles forming a body guard.
+There seemed no likelihood of rain and in the forest we should not feel
+the wind.
+
+For the first mile or two all went well. Far ahead of us our cyclists
+bowled gaily along in the forest avenues, all of us being sheltered from
+the wind. It was not till we skirted a wide opening that we felt the
+full force of the tornado, soon overtaking our blowzed, dishevelled
+companions, both on foot and looking miserable enough.
+
+We re-entered the forest, and a little later, emerging from the fragrant
+depths of a pine wood, got our first view of Larchant, coming suddenly
+upon what looks like a cathedral towering above the plain, at its base
+a clustering village, whitewashed brown-roofed houses amid vineyards and
+orchards.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A grandiose view it is, recalling the minaret of Mansourah near Tclemcen
+in Algeria, that gigantic monolith apparently carved out of Indian gold
+and cleft in two like a pomegranate.
+
+Slowly we wound up towards the village, the wind, or rather hurricane,
+gathering in force as we went. It was indeed no easy task to get a
+nearer view of the church; more than once we were compelled to beat
+a retreat, whilst it seemed really unsafe to linger underneath such a
+ruin.
+
+Imagine the tower of St. Jacques in the Rue de Rivoli split in two,
+the upright half standing in a bare wind-swept level, and you have
+some faint notion of Larchant. On nearer approach such an impression of
+grandeur is by no means diminished. This magnificent parish church,
+in part a ruin, in part restored, rather grows upon one upon closer
+inspection. Reparation, for want of funds, has stopped short at the
+absolutely necessary. The body of the church has been so far restored as
+to be fit for use, but its crowning glory, the tower, remains a torso.
+
+The front view suggests no such dilapidation. How long will the shell
+of that lofty twelfth century tower remain standing? To my mind it hangs
+over the low, one-storeyed houses at its feet, a veritable sword of
+Damocles, sooner or later sure to fall with crushing force. The porch
+shows much beautiful carving, unfortunately defaced, and the interior
+some perfect specimens of pure Gothic arches, the whole whitewashed and
+bare as a barn.
+
+Larchant in the middle ages was a famous pilgrimage, and in the days of
+Charles IX. a halting stage on the road to Italy. It does not seem to
+attract many English pilgrims at the present time. Anyhow tea-making
+here seems a wholly unknown art. In a fairly clean inn, however, a
+good-natured landlady allowed us to make ourselves at home alike
+in kitchen and pantry. One of our party unearthed a time-honoured
+tea-pot--we had of course taken the precaution of carrying tea with
+us--one by one milk and sugar were forthcoming in what may be called
+wholesale fashion, milk-jugs and sugar-basins being apparently articles
+of superfluity, and in company of a charming old dog and irresistible
+kitten, also of some quiet wayfarers, we five-o'clocked merrily enough.
+
+Our business at Larchant was not wholly archaeological. Buffeted as we
+were by the hurricane, we managed to pay a visit in search of eggs and
+poultry for the table at home.
+
+If peasant and farming life in France certainly from time to time
+reminds us of Zola's "La Terre," we are also reminded of an aspect which
+the great novelist ignores. As will be seen from the following sketch
+sordidness and aspiration oft times, I am almost tempted to say, and
+most often, go hand in hand.
+
+We see one generation addicted to an existence so laborious and material
+as to have no counterpart in England; under the same roof growing up
+another, sharing all the advantages of social and intellectual progress.
+
+Not far from the church we called upon a family of large and wealthy
+farmers, owners of the soil they cultivate, millionaires by comparison
+with our neighbours at Bourron.
+
+We arrived in the midst of a busy time, a steam corn thresher plying in
+the vast farm-yard. The interior of the big, straggling farm-house we
+did not see, but two aged women dressed like poor peasants received
+us in the kitchen, a dingy, unswept, uninviting place, as are most
+farm-house kitchens in France. These old ladies were respectively
+mother-in-law and aunt of the farmer, whose wife, the real mistress of
+the house, soon came in. This tall, stout, florid, brawny-armed woman
+was evidently what French folks call _une maitresse femme_, a first-rate
+housewife and manager; a somewhat awe-inspiring person she looked as she
+stood before us, arms akimbo, her short coarse serge skirt showing shoes
+well acquainted with stable and neat-house, one dirty blue cotton apron
+worn over another equally dirty. Now, my hostess, as I have said, wanted
+to purchase some poultry for the table, and here comes in the moral
+of my story. Vainly the lady begged and begged again for a couple of
+chickens. "But we want them for our Parisians," the three farming women
+reiterated, one echoing the other. "Our Parisians, our Parisians,"
+the words were repeated a dozen times. And as was explained to me
+afterwards, "our Parisians," for whom the pick of the poultry yard
+was being reserved, were the two sons of the rather forbidding-looking
+matron before us, young gentlemen being educated in a Paris Lycee, and
+both of them destined for the learned professions!
+
+This side of rural life, this ambition, akin to what we see taking
+quite another form among ourselves, Zola does not sufficiently realize.
+Shocking indeed were the miserliness and materialism of such existences
+but for the element of self-denial, this looking ahead for those to
+follow after. How differently, for instance, the farm-house and its
+group must have appeared, but for the evident pride and hopes centred in
+_nos Parisiens_, who knows?--perhaps youths destined to attain the first
+rank in official or political callings!
+
+The farther door of the smoke-dried kitchen opened on to the farm-yard,
+around which were stables and neat-houses. In the latter the mistress
+of the house proudly drew our attention to a beautiful blue cow, grey
+in our ignorance we had called it, one of a score or more of superb kine
+all now reclining on their haunches before being turned out to pasture.
+In front, cocks and hens disported themselves on a dunghill, whilst
+beyond, the steam corn thresher was at work, every hand being called
+into requisition. No need here for particulars and figures. The
+superabundant wealth, so carefully husbanded for the two youths in
+Paris, was self-evident.
+
+The tornado, with threatening showers and the sight of a huge tree just
+uprooted by the road side, necessitated the shortest possible cut home.
+In fair weather a prolongation of our drive would have given us a sight
+of some famous rocks of this rocky forest. But we carried home memories
+enough for one day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+RECLOSES.
+
+This ancient village, reached by the forest, is one of the most
+picturesque of the many picturesque places hereabouts. Quitting a
+stretch of pinewood we traverse flat cultivated land, gradually winding
+up towards a long straggling village surmounted by a lofty church tower
+of grey stone. On either side of this street are enclosed farm-houses,
+the interiors being as pictorial as can be imagined. Untidy as are most
+French homesteads, for peasant farmers pay little court to the Graces,
+there is always a bit of flower garden. Sometimes this flower garden
+is aerial, a bower of roses on the roof sometimes amid the incongruous
+surroundings of pig styes or manure heaps. This region is a petunia
+land; wherever we go we find a veritable blaze of petunia blossoms, pale
+mauve, deepest rose, purple and white massed together without order or
+view to effect. In one of the little fortresses--for so these antique
+farmhouses may be called--we saw a rustic piazza, pillars and roof of
+rude unhewn stone blazing with petunias, no attempt whatever at making
+the structure whole, symmetrical or graceful to the eye. It seems as if
+these homely though rich farmers, or rather farmers' wives, could not do
+without flowers, above the street jutting many aerial gardens, the only
+touch of beauty in the work-a-day picture. These interiors would supply
+artists with the most captivating subjects. The women, their skins brown
+and wrinkled as ripe, shelled walnuts, their head-dress a blue and white
+kerchief neatly folded and knotted, the expression of their faces shrewd
+and kindly, all contribute to the charm of the scene.
+
+Here as elsewhere the young women and girls affect a little fashion and
+finery on Sundays.
+
+We should not know unless we were told that Recloses was one of the
+richest villages in these parts. On this Sunday, September 1st, 1901, in
+one place a steam thresher was at work, although for the most part
+folks seemed to be taking their ease in their holiday garb. Perhaps the
+difficulty of procuring the machine accounted for the fact of seeing it
+on a Sunday.
+
+One of the farm-yards showed a charming menagerie of poultry and the
+prettiest rabbits in the world, all disporting themselves in most
+amicable fashion. Here, as elsewhere, when we stopped to admire, the
+housewife came out, pleased to interchange a few words with us. The
+sight of Recloses is not, however, its long line of little walled-in
+farm-houses, but the curious rocky platform at the end of the village,
+perforated with holes always full of water, and the stupendous view
+thence obtained--an ocean of sombre green unrelieved by a single sail.
+
+Already the vast panorama of forest shows signs of autumn, light touches
+of yellow relieving the depths of solemn green. On such a day of varied
+cloudland the perspective must be quite different, and perhaps even more
+beautiful than under a burning cloudless sky, no soft gradations between
+the greens and the blues. The little pools or perforations breaking
+the surface of the broad platform, acres of rocks, are, I believe,
+unexplained phenomena. In the driest season these openings contain
+water, presumably forced upwards from hidden springs. The pools, just
+now covered with green slime, curiously spot the grey surface of the
+rocks.
+
+If, leaving the world of forest to our right, we continue our journey
+in the direction of Chapelle la Reine, we overlook a vast plain the
+population of which is very different from that of the smiling fertile
+prosperous valley of the Loing. This plain, extending to Etampes and
+Pithiviers, might, I am told, possibly have suggested to Zola some
+scenes and characters of "La Terre." A French friend of mine, well
+acquainted with these parts, tells me that at any rate there, if
+anywhere, the great novelist might have found suggestions for such a
+work. The soil is arid, the cultivation is primitive in the extreme and
+the people are rough and uncouth. The other day an English resident at
+Marlotte, when cycling among these villages of the plain inquired his
+way of a countryman.
+
+"You are not a Frenchman?" quoth the latter before giving the desired
+information.
+
+"No I am not" was the reply.
+
+"You are not an American?"
+
+"No, I am an Englishman."
+
+"Ah!" was the answer, "I smelt you out sure enough" (_Je vous ai bien
+senti_). Whereupon he proceeded to put the wayfarer on his right road.
+
+As a rule French peasants are exceedingly courteous to strangers, but
+these good people of the plain seldom come in contact with the tourist
+world, their country not being sufficiently picturesque even to attract
+the cyclist.
+
+The curious thirteenth-century church of Recloses had long been an art
+pilgrimage. It contains, or at least should contain, some of the most
+wonderful wood carvings in France; figures and groups of figures
+highly realistic in the best sense of the word. These sculptures,
+unfortunately, we were not able to inspect a second time; exhibited in
+the Paris Exhibition they had not yet been replaced.
+
+It is a beautiful drive from Recloses to Bourron by the Croix de Saint
+Herem. A little way out of the village we came upon a pretty scene,
+people, in family groups, playing croquet under the trees. Dancing also
+goes on in summer as in the olden time. It was curious as we drove along
+to note the behaviour of my friend's dog: it never for a moment closed
+its eyes, and yet there was nothing to look at but avenue after avenue
+of trees. What could the little animal find so fascinating in the
+somewhat monotonous sight? A friend at home assures me that a pet of her
+own enjoyed drives from purely snobbish motives; his great gratification
+arising from the sense of superiority over fellow dogs compelled to
+trudge on foot. But in these woodland solitudes there was no room for
+such a sentiment, not a dog being visible, only now and then a cyclist
+flashing by.
+
+There is no more splendid cycling ground in the world than this forest
+of Fontainebleau.
+
+Shakespeare says:--
+
+                          "This guest of summer,
+  The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
+  By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath
+  Smells wooingly here: no jutty frieze, buttress,
+  Nor coigne of vantage, but this bird hath made
+  His pendent bed, and procreant cradle: Where they
+  Most breed and haunt, I have observed the air
+  Is delicate."
+
+About this time at Bourron the village street was alive with swallows
+preparing, I presume, for departure southwards. A beautiful sight it
+was to see these winged congregations evidently concerting their future
+movements.
+
+Another feature to be mentioned is the number of large handsome moths
+frequenting these regions. One beautiful creature as large as a swallow
+used to fly into our dining room every evening for warmth; fastening
+itself to the wall it would there remain undisturbed until the morning.
+
+I finish these reminiscences of Bourron by the following citation from
+Balzac's "Ursule Mirouet":--
+
+
+"On entering Nemours at five o'clock in the morning, Ursule woke up
+feeling quite ashamed of her untidiness, and of encountering Savinien's
+look of admiration. During the time that the diligence took to come
+from Bouron (_sic_), where it stopped a few minutes, the young man had
+observed Ursule. He had noted the candour of her mind, the beauty of her
+person, the whiteness of her complexion, the delicacy of her features,
+the charm of the voice which had uttered the short and expressive
+sentence, in which the poor child said everything, while wishing to say
+nothing. In short I do not know what presentiment made him see in Ursule
+the woman whom the doctor had depicted, framed in gold, with these magic
+words:--'Seven to eight hundred thousand francs!'"
+
+Holiday tourists in these parts cannot do better than put this
+love-story in their pockets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+NEMOURS.
+
+"Who knows Nemours," wrote Balzac, "knows that nature there is as
+beautiful as art," and again he dwells upon the charm of the sleepy
+little town memorialized in "Ursule Mirouet."
+
+The delicious valley of Loing indeed fascinated Balzac almost as much as
+his beloved Touraine.
+
+As his recently published letters to Madame Hanska have shown us,
+several of his greatest novels were written in this neighbourhood,
+whilst in the one named above we have a setting as striking as that of
+"Eugenie Grandet" or "Beatrix." A ten minutes' railway journey brings
+us to Nemours, one of the few French towns, by the way, in which Arthur
+Young lost his temper. Here is his own account of the incident:--
+
+"Sleep at Nemours, where we met with an innkeeper who exceeded in
+knavery all we had met with, either in France or Italy: for supper,
+we had a _soupe maigre_, a partridge and a chicken roasted, a plate of
+celery, a small cauliflower, two bottles of poor _vin du Pays_, and a
+dessert of two biscuits and four apples: here is the bill:--Potage
+1 liv. 10f.--Perdrix 2 liv. 10f.--Poulet 2 liv.--Celeri 1 liv.
+4f.--Choufleur 2 liv.--Pain et dessert 2 liv.--Feu et appartement 6
+liv.--Total 19 liv. 8f. Against so impudent an extortion we remonstrated
+severely but in vain. We then insisted on his signing the bill, which,
+after many evasions, he did, _a l'etoile, Foulliare_. But having
+been carried to the inn, not as the star, but the _ecu de France_, we
+suspected some deceit: and going out to examine the premises, we found
+the sign to be really the _ecu_, and learned on enquiry that his own
+name was Roux, instead of _Foulliare_: he was not prepared for this
+detection, or for the execration we poured on such infamous conduct; but
+he ran away in an instant and hid himself till we were gone. In justice
+to the world, however, such a fellow ought to be marked out."
+
+I confess I do not myself find such charges excessive. From a very
+different motive, Nemours put me as much out of temper as it had done
+my great predecessor a hundred years before. Will it be believed that a
+town memorialized by the great, perhaps _the_ greatest, French novelist,
+could not produce its title of honour, in other words a copy of "Ursule
+Mirouet"?
+
+This town of 4,000 and odd souls and chef-lieu of department does not
+possess a bookseller's shop. We did indeed see in a stationer's window
+one or two penny books, among these an abridged translation of "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin." But a friendly wine merchant, who seemed to take my
+reproaches very much to heart, assured us that in the municipal library
+all Balzac's works were to be found, besides many valuable books dealing
+with local history.
+
+Cold comfort this for tourists who want to buy a copy of the Nemours
+story! As we stroll about the grass-grown streets, we feel that
+railways, telephones and the rest have very little changed Nemours since
+Balzac's descriptions, written three-quarters of a century ago.
+
+The sweet and pastoral surroundings of the place are in strong contrast
+with the sordid next-of-kin peopling the pages of his romance. Beyond
+the fine old church of rich grey stone, you obtain as enchanting a
+view as the valley of the Loing can show, a broad, crystal-clear river
+winding amid picturesque architecture, richest and most varied foliage,
+ash and weeping willow mingling with deeper-hued beech and alder. It is
+difficult, almost impossible, to describe the charm of this riverside
+scenery. In one passage of his novel, Balzac compares the view to the
+scenery of an opera, and in very truth every feature forms a whole so
+harmonious as to suggest artistic arrangement.
+
+Nature and accident have effected the happiest possible combination
+of wood, water and building stone. Nothing is here to mar the complete
+picture. Grandly the cathedral-like church and fine old chateau stand
+out to-day against the brilliant sky, soft grey stone and dark brown
+making subdued harmonies. Formerly Nemours was surrounded by woods,
+hence its name. People are said to attain here a very great age, life
+being tranquil and the nature of the people somewhat lethargic.
+
+Amongst the more energetic inhabitants are a lady dentist and her
+sister, who between them do a first rate business.
+
+French peasants never dream of indulging in false teeth; such an idea
+would never enter the head of even the richest. But an aching tooth
+interferes with the labours of the farm, and must be got rid of at
+any cost. This young lady _chirurgien et dentiste_, such is the name
+figuring on her door plate, is not only most expert in using the
+forceps, but is attractive and pretty.
+
+Her charges are two francs for a visit or operation; in partnership
+with her is a sister who does the accounts, and as nuns and sisters
+of charity unprovided with certificates are no longer allowed to draw
+teeth, act as midwives and cut off limbs, country doctors and dentists
+of either sex have now a fair chance.
+
+No town in this part of France suffered more during the German invasion.
+The municipal authorities had at first decided upon making a bold stand,
+thus endeavouring to check the enemy's advance on Paris. Differences
+of opinion arose, prudential counsels prevailed, and it was through a
+mistaken order that a Prussian detachment was attacked near the town.
+The consequences were appalling. The station was burned to the ground,
+enormous contributions in money and material were exacted from the town,
+some of the authorities were made to travel on the railways with
+the invaders, and others were carried off to remote fortresses of
+Brandenburg and there kept as prisoners for nine months.
+
+The account of all these incidents, written by a victim, may be
+consulted in a volume of the town library.
+
+If people frequently attain the age of a hundred in Nemours, as I was
+assured, it is rather due to placid temperament than to intellectual
+torpor. The town possesses learned societies, and a member of its
+archaeological association has published a book of great local interest
+and value, viz:--"Nemours, Temps Geologiques, Temps Prehistoriques,
+Temps Historiques, par E. Doigneau, Membre de la Societe Archeologique
+de Seine-et-Marne, Ancien Vice President de la section de Fontainebleau,
+Paris."
+
+Strange to say, although this neighbourhood has offered a rich field for
+prehistoric research, Nemours as yet possesses no museum, I do verily
+believe the first French town of any size I have ever found in France
+without one at least in embryo. For the cyclist the run from Bourron
+to Nemours is delightful, on the hottest day in the year spinning along
+broad well-wooded roads, with lovely perspectives from time to time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+LA CHARITE-SUR-LOIRE.
+
+From Bourron, in September, 1900, I journeyed with a friend to La
+Charite, a little town four hours off.
+
+It is ever with feelings of pleasurable anticipation that I approach
+any French town for the first time. The number of these, alas! now being
+few, I have of late years been compelled to restrain curiosity, leaving
+one or two dreamed-of spots for the future, saying with Wordsworth:--
+
+  "Should life be dull and spirits low,
+   'Twill soothe us in our sorrow,
+  That earth has something yet to show,
+   The bonny holms of Yarrow."
+
+La Charite, picturesque of the picturesque--according to French
+accounts, English, we have none--for many years had been a Yarrow to me,
+a reserve of delight, held back from sheer Epicureanism.
+
+As, on the 12th of September, the cumbersome old omnibus rattled over
+the unpaved streets, both to myself and fellow traveller came a feeling
+of disenchantment. We had apparently reached one more of those sleepy
+little _chefs-lieux_ familiar to both, places of interest certainly, the
+sleepiest having some architectural gem or artistic treasure. But here
+was surely no Yarrow!
+
+A few minutes later we discovered our error. Hardly had we reached our
+rooms in the more than old-fashioned Hotel du Grand Monarque, than from
+a side window, we caught sight of the Loire; so near, indeed, lay the
+bright, blue river, that we could almost have thrown pebbles into its
+clear depths; quitting the hotel, half a dozen steps, no more were
+needed, an enchanting scene burst upon the view.
+
+Most beautiful is the site of La Charite, built terrace-wise, not on the
+skirts but on the very hem of the Loire, here no revolutionary torrent,
+sweeping away whole villages, leaving only church steeples visible above
+the engulfing waters, as I had once seen it at Nantes, but a broad,
+smooth, crystal expanse of sky-blue. Over against the handsome stone
+bridge to-day having its double in the limpid water, we see a little
+islanded hamlet crowned with picturesque church tower; and, placing
+ourselves midway between the town and its suburban twin, obtain vast and
+lovely perspectives. Westward, gradually purpling as evening wears on,
+rises the magnificent height of Sancerre, below, amid low banks bordered
+with poplar, flowing the Loire. Eastward, looking towards Nevers, our
+eyes rest on the same broad sheet of blue; before us, straight as
+an arrow, stretches the French road of a pattern we know so well, an
+apparently interminable avenue of plane or poplar trees. The river is
+low at this season, and the velvety brown sands recall the sea-shore
+when the tide is out. Exquisite, at such an hour are the reflections,
+every object having its mirrored self in the transparent waves, the
+lights and shadows of twilight making lovely effects.
+
+As is the case with Venice, La Charite should be reached by river, and a
+pity it seems that little steamers do not ply between all the principal
+towns on the Loire. How enchanting, like the immortal Vert-Vert, of
+Gresset's poem, to travel from Nevers to the river's mouth!
+
+If I had headed this paper merely with the words "La Charite," I should
+surely be supposed to treat of some charitable institution in France,
+or of charity as worked out in the abstract, for this first of Christian
+virtues has given the place its name, presumably perpetuating the
+charitableness of its abbatial founders. Just upon two thousand years
+ago, some pious monks of the order of Cluny settled here, calling their
+foundation La Charite. Gradually a town grew around the abbey walls, and
+what better name for any than this? So La Charite it was in early feudal
+times, and La Charite it remains in our own.
+
+The place itself is as antiquated and behindhand as any I have seen in
+France, which is saying a good deal. A French gentleman, native of
+these parts, told me that in his grandfather's time our Hotel du Grand
+Monarque enjoyed a fine reputation. In many respects it deserves the
+same still, excellent beds, good cooking, quietude and low prices not
+being so common as they might be in French provincial inns. The house,
+too, is curious, what with its spiral stone staircases, little passages
+leading to one room here, to another there--as if in former days
+travellers objected to walls that adjoined those of other people--and
+unaccountable levels, it is impossible to understand whether you were
+on the first floor or the second floor, house-top, or basement. Our
+bedrooms, for instance, reached by one of the spiral stone staircases
+just named never used by myself without apprehension, landed us on the
+edge of a poultry yard; I suppose a wide bit of roof had been converted
+into this use, but it was quite impossible to make out any architectural
+plan. These rooms adjoining this _basse-cour_, hens and chicks
+would enter unceremoniously and pick up the crumbs we threw to them.
+Fastidious tourists might resent so primitive a state of things, the
+hotel, I should say, remaining exactly what it was under the Ancien
+Regime. The beauty and interest of various kinds around, more than make
+up for small drawbacks. Here the archaeologist will not grudge several
+days. Ruined as it is, the ancient abbey may be reconstructed in the
+mind's eye by the help of what we see before us. The fragments of
+crumbling wall, the noble tower and portal, the delicately sculptured
+pillars, cornices, and arches, enable us to build up the whole, just
+as Cuvier made out an entire skeleton from the examination of a single
+bone. These grand architectural fragments have not been neglected by the
+learned. Unfortunately, and exceptionally, La Charite possesses neither
+public library nor museum, but at Nevers the traveller would surely find
+a copy of Prosper Merimee's "Notes Archeologiques" in which is a minute
+account of these.
+
+Alike without and within the ruins show a medley of styles and richest
+ornamentation.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The superb north-west tower, that forms so striking an object from the
+river, is said to be in the Burgundian style; rather should we put it
+after a Burgundian style, so varied and heterogeneous are the churches
+coming under this category. Again, the guide books inform us that
+the open space between this tower and the church was occupied by the
+narthex, a vast outer portico of ancient Burgundian churches used for
+the reception of penitents, catechumens, and strangers. All interested
+in ecclesiastical architecture should visit the abbey church of Vezelay,
+which possesses a magnificent narthex of two storeys, restored by the
+late Viollet le Duc. Vezelay, by the way, may be easily reached from La
+Charite.
+
+Next to the elaborate sculptures of this grand tower, will be noted the
+superb colour of the building stone, carved out of deep-hued gold it
+looks under the burning blue sky. And of a piece are arch, portico and
+column, one and all helping us to reconstruct the once mighty abbey,
+home of a brotherhood so powerful as to necessitate disciplinary
+measures on the part of the Pope.
+
+The interior of the church shows the same elaborateness of detail, and
+the same mixture of styles, the Romanesque-Burgundian predominating, so,
+at least, affirm authorities.
+
+The idler and lover of the picturesque will not find time hang heavy on
+his hands here. Very sweet are the riverside views, no matter on which
+side we obtain them, and the quaintest little staircases of streets run
+from base to summit of the pyramidally-built town. A climb of a quarter
+of an hour takes us to an admirable coign of vantage just above the
+abbey church, and commanding a view of Sancerre and the river. That
+little town, so splendidly placed, is celebrated for its eight months'
+defence as a Huguenot stronghold.
+
+La Charite, with most mediaeval towns, was fortified, one old city gate
+still remaining.
+
+To-day, as when that charming writer, Emile Montegut visited the
+place more than a generation ago, the townspeople ply their crafts and
+domestic callings abroad. In fine weather, no work that can possibly be
+done in the open air is done within four walls. Another curious feature
+of these engaging old streets, is the number of blacksmiths' shops. It
+would seem as if all the horses, mules, and donkeys of the Nievre were
+brought hither to be shod, the smithy fires keeping up a perpetual
+illumination.
+
+A third and still more noteworthy point is the infrequency--absence, I
+am inclined to say--of cabarets. Soberest of the sober, orderliest of
+the orderly, appear these good folks of La Charite, les Caritates as
+they are called, nor, apparently, has tradition demoralised them. One
+might expect that a town dedicated to the virtue of almsgiving would
+abound in beggars. Not one did we see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+POUGUES.
+
+If an ugly name could kill a place, Pougues must surely have been ruined
+as a health resort centuries ago. Coming, too, after that soothing,
+harmoniously named La Charite, could any configuration of letters grate
+more harshly on the ear? Truth to tell, my travelling companion and
+myself had a friendly little altercation about Pougues. It seemed
+impossible to believe pleasant things of a town so labelled. But the
+reputation of Pougues dates from Hercules and Julius Caesar, both
+heroes, it is said, having had recourse to its mineral springs! Coming
+from legend to history, we find that Pougues, or, at least, the waters
+of Pougues, were patronised by the least objectionable son of Catherine
+de Medicis, Henri II. of France and runaway King of Poland. Imputing
+his disorders to sorcery, he was thus reassured by a sensible physician
+named Pidoux: "Sire, the malady from which you suffer is due to no
+witchcraft. Lead a quiet life for ten weeks, and drink the water of
+Pougues." The best king France ever had, namely, the gay Gascon, and
+after him Louis XIII., by no means one of the worst, had recourse to
+Pougues waters; also that arch-voluptuary and arch-despot, the Sun-King,
+who imagined that even syntax and prosody must bow to his will.
+[Footnote: One day the young king ordered his carriage, saying, "_mon_
+carrosse," instead of "_ma_ carrosse," the French word being derived
+from the Italian feminine, _carrozza_. On being gently corrected, the
+king flew into a passion, declaring that masculine he had called it, and
+masculine it should remain, which it has done to this day, so the story
+runs. Let the Republic look to it!] And Madame de Sevigne--for whom,
+however, I have scant love, for did she not hail the revocation of the
+Edict of Nantes?--Madame de Sevigne honoured Pougues with an epigram.
+
+A second Purgatory she styled the douches, and, doubtless, in those
+non-washing days, a second Purgatory it would have been to most folks.
+
+To Pougues, nevertheless, we went, and if these notes induce the more
+enterprising of my countrypeople to do the same next summer, they are
+not likely to repent of the experiment. Never, indeed, was a little
+Eden of coolness, freshness, and greenery more abominably used by its
+sponsors, whilst the name of so many French townlings are a poem in
+themselves!
+
+From a view of sky blue waters and smooth brown sands we were
+transported to a world of emerald green verdure and richest foliage,
+interpenetrated with golden light. On this 14th of September the warmth
+and dazzlingness of mid-summer still reigned at Pougues; and the scenery
+in which we suddenly found ourselves, bosquets, dells, and glades, with
+all the charm but without the savageness of the forest, recalled the
+loveliest lines of the laziest poet:--
+
+  "Was naught around but images of rest,
+  And flowery beds, that slumberous influence kest[1],
+  Sleep-soothing groves and quiet lawns between,
+  From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green."
+
+[Footnote 1: Cast]
+
+A drive of a few minutes had landed us in the heart of this little
+Paradise, baths and Casino standing in the midst of park-like grounds.
+Apparently Pougues, that is to say, the Pougues-les-Eaux of later
+days, has been cut out of natural woodland, the Casino gardens and
+its surroundings being rich in forest trees of superb growth and
+great variety. The wealth of foliage gives this new fashionable little
+watering-place an enticingly rural appearance, nor is the attraction
+of water wholly wanting. To quote once more a most quotable, if little
+read, poet:--
+
+  "Meantime, unnumbered glittering streamlets played,
+  And hurled everywhere their water's sheen,
+  That, as they bickered through the sunny glade,
+  Though restless still, themselves a lulling murmur made."
+
+A pretty little lake, animated with swans, varies the woodland scenery,
+and tropical birds in an aviary lend brilliant bits of colour. The
+usual accessories of a health resort are, of course, here--reading room,
+concert hall, theatre, and other attractions, rapidly turning the place
+into a lesser Vichy. The number and magnificence of the hotels, the
+villas and _cottages_, that have sprung up on every side, bespeak the
+popularity of Pougues-les-Eaux, as it is now styled, the surname adding
+more dignity than harmoniousness. One advantage Pougues possesses over
+its rivals, is position. At Aix-les-Bains, Plombieres, Salins, and how
+many other inland spas, you are literally wedged in between shelving
+hills. If you want to enjoy wide horizons, and anything like a breeze,
+you must get well outside the town. Never in hot, dusty, crowded
+cities have I felt so half-suffocated as at the two first named places.
+Pougues, on the contrary, lies in a broad expanse of beautifully varied
+woodland and champaign, no more appropriate site conceivable for the now
+popular air-cure. "Pougues-les-Eaux, Cure d'Eau and Cure d'Air," is
+now its proud title, folks flocking hither, not only to imbibe its
+delicious, ice-cold, sparkling waters, but to drink in its highly
+nourishing air. The iron-gaseous waters resemble in properties those of
+Spa and Vichy. From one to five tumblers are ordered a day, according
+to the condition of the drinker, a little stroll between each dose being
+advisable. With regard to the air-cure, visitors are reminded that at
+Pougues they find the four kinds of walking exercise recommended by a
+German specialist, namely, that on quite level ground; secondly, a
+very gradual climb; thirdly, a somewhat steeper bit of up-hill; and,
+fourthly, the really arduous ascent of Mont Givre. In order to entice
+health-seekers, all kinds of gratifications await them on the summit,
+restaurant, dairy, reading room, tennis court, and croquet ground, to
+say nothing of a panorama almost unrivalled in eastern France. We have,
+indeed, climbed the Eiffel Tower, in other words, are on a level with
+that final stage from which floats the Tricolour. Looking east we behold
+the sombre Morvan and Nevers rising above the Loire, whilst westward,
+beyond the plain and the Loire, may be descried the cathedral of
+Bourges. How many regions visited and revisited by myself now lie before
+my eyes as on a map--the Berri, Georges Sand's country, the little
+Celtic kingdom of the Morvan, on the borders of which, for so many
+years, that charming writer, Philip Gilbert Hamerton, made his home;
+the Nivernais, with its souvenirs of Vert-Vert and Mazarin, or, rather,
+Mazarin and Vert-Vert, the Department of the Allier made from the
+ancient province of the Bourbonnais.
+
+A wanderer in France should never be without his Arthur Young. That
+"wise and honest traveller," of course, had been before us, but
+travelling in a contrary direction. "From the hill that descends to
+Pougues," he wrote on his way from Nevers to Fontainebleau, in 1790,
+"is an extensive view to the north, and after Pouilly a (_sic_) fine
+scenery, with the Loire doubling through it." But the great farmer made
+this journey in mid-winter, thus missing its charm. And Arthur Young
+was ever too intent upon crops and roots to notice wild flowers. Had
+he traversed this region earlier in the year, he might have missed an
+exquisite feature, namely, the sweeps of autumn crocus. Just now the
+rich pastures around Pougues, as well as suburban lawns and wayside
+spaces, were tinted with delicate mauve, the ground being literally
+carpeted with these flowers. It was as if the lightest possible veil of
+pale purple covered the turf, the same profusion being visible on every
+side.
+
+One final word about this sweet and most unmusically named place. On no
+occasion and nowhere have I been received with more cordiality than
+at dear little Pougues, a place I was told there utterly ignored by my
+country people. I do honestly believe, indeed, that myself and fellow
+traveller were the first English folk to wander about those delicious
+gardens, and taste the incomparable waters, cool, sparkling,
+invigorating as those of Spa.
+
+One enterprising proprietor of an excellent hotel was so anxious to
+secure an English _clientele_, the best _clientele_ in the world, so
+hotel keepers aver, that she offered me a handsome percentage on any
+visitors I would send her. In the most delicate manner I could command,
+I gave her to understand that my inquiries about Pougues were not made
+from a business point of view, but that I should certainly proclaim its
+many attractions on the house-tops.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+NEVERS AND MOULINS.
+
+I found the well-remembered Hotel de France much as I had left it, just
+upon twenty years before, every whit as quiet, comfortable, and moderate
+in price, indeed, one of the best provincial hotels of France. The dear
+old woman then employed as waitress, had, of course, long since gone
+to her rest, and the landlord and landlady were new to me. But, the
+traditions of an excellent house were evidently kept up, accommodation,
+meanwhile, having been greatly enlarged.
+
+A place is like a book; if worth knowing at all, to be returned to again
+and again. After the first brief visit so many years ago, I wrote,
+"I envy the traveller who for the first time stands on the bridge of
+Nevers." And more imposing, more exhilarating still, seemed the
+view from the same spot now; under the brilliant sky, in the clear
+atmosphere, every feature standing out as in a mosaic proudly dominating
+all, the Cathedral, with its mass of sombre architecture; stretching
+wide to right and left, the gay, prosperous-looking city; white villas
+rising one above the other, hanging gardens and terraced lawns, making
+greenery and verdure in mid-air. On the occasion of my first visit in
+August, 1881, the Loire was so low as to appear a mere thread of palest
+blue amid white sands; at the time I now write of, broad and beautiful
+it flowed beneath the noble bridge, a deep twilight sky reflected in its
+limpid waters.
+
+How well I remember the first sight of this scene years ago! Then it was
+early morning of market day, and, pouring in from the country, I had
+met crowds of peasants with their products, the men in blue blouses, the
+women in neat white coiffes, some bearing huge baskets on their heads,
+others drawing heavily laden barrows, driving donkey-carts, the piled-up
+fruit and vegetables making a blaze of colour. For three sous I recorded
+the purchase of more wild strawberries, peaches, and greengages than I
+knew what to do with, each grower doing business on his own account, no
+middleman to share his profits; choicest fruit and vegetables to be had
+almost for the asking. On this lovely Sunday evening plenty of peasant
+folk were about, the men fishing in the Loire, the women minding their
+children under the trees. But I noted here, as elsewhere, a gradual
+disappearance of the blue blouse and white coiffe. Broadcloth and
+bonnets are fast superseding the homely, picturesque dress of former
+days.
+
+The aerial residences just mentioned are characteristic of riverside
+Nevers. Craning our necks as we strolled to and fro, we remarked how
+much life in such altitudes must resemble that of a balloon, folks
+being thus lifted above the hubbub, malodours, and microbes of the human
+bee-hive below. For my own part I prefer a turnpike level, despite the
+engaging aspect of those rose-girt verandahs, bowers, and lawns on a
+level with the cathedral tower.
+
+"Nevers makes a fine appearance, rising proudly from the Loire," wrote
+Arthur Young, "but on the first entrance it is like a thousand other
+places."
+
+But the indefatigable apostle of the turnip had no time for archaeology
+on his great tour, or he would have discovered that Nevers possesses
+more than one architectural gem of the first water. The cathedral
+certainly, alike without and within, must take rank after those of
+Chartres, Le Mans, Reims, and how many others! but the exquisite little
+church of St. Etienne and the Ducal Palace, are both perfect in their
+way, and will enchant all lovers of harmony and proportion. The first,
+another specimen of so-called Romanesque-Burgundian, has to be looked
+for, standing as it does in a kind of _cul de sac_; the second occupies
+a conspicuous site, forms, indeed, the centre-piece and crowning
+ornament of the town. Daintiest of the dainty, this fairy-like Italian
+palace in the heart of France, reminds us that once upon a time Nevers
+was the seat of Italian dukes, the last of whom was a nephew of Mazarin.
+The great Cardinal, "whose heart was more French than his speech," and
+who served France so well, despite his nationality and his nepotism,
+having purchased the Nivernais of a Gonzague, finally incorporated it
+into the French crown in 1659.
+
+To this day, Nevers remains true to its Italian traditions. Go into the
+tiniest suburban street, enter the poorest little general shop, and you
+are reminded of the art that made the city famous hundreds of years ago,
+an art introduced by a Duke of Mantua, relation of Catherine de Medicis.
+It was in the sixteenth century, that this feudal lord of the Nivernais
+summoned Italian potters hither, among these a native of Faenza.
+Under his direction a manufactory of faience was established, the ware
+resembling that of his native city, scriptural and allegorical subjects
+traced in manganese. The unrivalled blue glaze of Nevers is of later
+date. Just as Rouen potters were celebrated for their reds, the
+Nivernais surpassed them in blues. No French or foreign potters ever
+achieved an azure of equal depth and purity.
+
+The golden age of Nevers majolica belongs to that early period, but the
+highly ornamented faience now produced in its ateliers, shows taste and
+finish, and in the town itself may be found charming things as cheap as,
+if not cheaper than, our commonest earthenware.
+
+As I write, I have before me some purchases made at a small general
+dealer's, a plate, and two small amphora-shaped vases, costing a few
+sous each. The colouring of this cheap pottery is very harmonious, and
+the glaze remarkable for its brilliance. The shopwoman, with whom we
+had a pleasant chat, did not seem astonished at our admiration for her
+goods.
+
+"I sell lots of such things as you have just bought, to folks like
+you" _(de votre genre)_, she said, "strangers who like to carry away a
+souvenir of the place, and all my ware comes from the same manufacture."
+
+To-day Nevers thrives upon ornamental majolica. A hundred and ten years
+ago it throve upon plates and dishes commemorating the Revolution. In
+the upper storey of the Ducal Palace we may read revolutionary annals in
+faience, every event being memorialised by a piece of porcelain.
+
+Curious enough is this record in earthenware, one stormy day after
+another being thus commemorated; and perhaps more curious still is
+the evident care with which these fragile objects have been preserved.
+Throughout the Napoleonic era they might pass--had not gold pieces
+then on one side the portrait of "Napoleon Empereur," on the obverse
+"Republique Francais"?--but when Louis XVIII was brought back by his
+foreign friends, how was it that there came no general smashing, a great
+flinging of revolutionary potsherds to the dunghill? Safe enough now is
+the Nivernais collection, under the roof of the Ducal Palace, the
+rude designs and commonness of the ware strikingly contrasted with the
+exquisite things around.
+
+In close proximity to these cheap plates, dedicated to the Phrygian cap
+and sans-culottism, are the very choicest specimens of Nevers faience of
+priceless value. Why the municipality, as a rule so generous towards the
+public, should thus inconveniently house its treasure, is inconceivable.
+
+The museum is reached by a long spiral staircase, without banister or
+support, and a false step must certainly result in a broken leg, or,
+perhaps, neck! The room also contains a striking portrait of Theodore de
+Beze, the great French reformer, who, then an aged man, penned a letter,
+sublime in its force and simplicity, to Henry IV., conjuring him not
+to abandon the Protestant faith. The mention of this fact recalls an
+interesting experience. I here allude to the incontestable advance
+of Protestantism in France. The traveller whose acquaintance with the
+country began a quarter of a century ago, cannot fail to be impressed
+with this fact. Alike in towns large and small, new places of worship
+have sprung up, Nevers now possessing an Evangelical church. And good
+was it to hear the appreciation of the little Protestant community from
+my Catholic landlady.
+
+"Yes," she said, "the Protestants here are worthy of all respect
+(_dignes gens_) and the pastor also; I esteem him much." Evidently the
+Lemaitre-Coppee-Deroulede dictum, "Only the Catholic can be called a
+Frenchman," is not accepted at Nevers.
+
+In dazzlingly brilliant weather, and amid glowing scenery, we continued
+our journey to Moulins, as we travelled by rail, and not by road unable
+to identify "the little opening in the road leading to a thicket" where
+Sterne discovered Maria. Has anyone ever identified the spot I wonder,
+poplar, small brook and the rest?
+
+Too soon were we also for "the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is
+pouring her abundance into everyone's lap." For the vintage, indeed,
+one must go farther. Sterne must have been thinking of Burgundy when he
+penned that line, or the phylloxera has brought about a transformation,
+vineyards here being changed into pastures. The scenery of the Allier,
+like that around Autun, recalls many parts of England. Meadows set
+around with hedges; little rises of green hill here and there; cattle
+browsing by quiet streams; just such pictures as we may see in our own
+Midlands. I well remember a remark of the late Philip Gilbert Hamerton
+on this subject. We were strolling near his home, in the neighbourhood
+of Autun, one day, when he pointed to the landscape over against us.
+
+"How like that is to many an English scene," he said; "and maybe it was
+the English aspect of this region that tempted me to settle here." I had
+paid Moulins a hasty visit many years before, but, unlike Nevers and so
+many French towns, the _chef-lieu_ of the Allier does not improve upon
+further acquaintance. And I surmise, that such is the impression of my
+country people generally. English travellers must be few and far between
+at Moulins, or why should the appearance of two English ladies attract
+so much curiosity? Wherever we went, the good folks of Moulins, alike
+rich and poor, turned round to have a good look at us, even stopping
+short to stare. All this was done without any rudeness or remark, but
+such extraordinary behaviour can only be accounted for by the foregoing
+supposition. For some reason or other our compatriots do not, like
+Sterne and Maria go to Moulins.
+
+Why should an essentially aristocratic place be so ill-kept, not to say
+dirty? The town is no centre of industry. Tall factory chimneys do
+not disfigure its silhouette or blacken its walls. Handsome equipages
+enliven the streets. But the municipality, like certain saints of
+old, seem to have taken vows of perpetual uncleanliness. Alike the
+scavenger's broom and the dust-cart appear to be unknown.
+
+Whilst a riverside walk at Nevers presents nothing but cheerful bustle
+and an aspect of prosperity, here you approach the Allier through scenes
+of squalor and torpid neglect. The poorer inhabitants, too, are very
+un-French in appearance, wanting that personal tidiness characteristic
+of their country people in general. An aristocratic place, means an
+Ultramontane place, and every third man you meet in Moulins wears a
+soutane. What so many cures, Jesuits and Christian Brothers can find to
+do passes the ordinary comprehension.
+
+However interesting twins may be in the human family, monumental duality
+is far from successful. Unfortunately for this delightfully picturesque
+old town, its graceful Cathedral has, in the grand new church of
+Sacre-Coeur, a double. But--
+
+  "As moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine,"
+
+is the second self, the never to be obliterated shadow of the first and
+far more beautiful church.
+
+Two towers of equal height, twice two spires like as cherries and
+in close juxtaposition rise above the town, an ensemble spoiling the
+symmetry of outline and general effect.
+
+How much better off was Moulins when, instead of four spires, she
+gloried in two? Then, of a verity, the city would have presented as
+noble a view as those of La Charite and Nevers from the Loire.
+
+The ancient chateau now used as a prison and the Jacquemart or clock
+tower are rare old bits of architecture, of themselves worth the journey
+to Moulins. Jacquemart, it may be here explained, is a corruption of
+Jacques Marques, the name of a famous Flemish clockmaker who lived in
+the fourteenth century. Amongst other achievements of this artist is
+the clock of Notre Dame, Dijon, as curious in its way as the still
+more celebrated cock-crowing time-piece of Strasburg, and declared
+by Froissart to be the wonder of Christendom. World-wide became the
+reputation of Jacques Marques, and thus it came about that clock towers
+generally were called after his masterpieces.
+
+On my former hurried visit to Moulins, as was the case with my
+predecessor, Arthur Young over a hundred years before, "other
+occupations" had "driven even Maria and the poplar from my head, and
+left me no room for the Tombeau de Montmorenci." In other words, I had
+visited Rome without seeing the Pope.
+
+On this second, and more leisurely visit, I had ample opportunity of
+making up for the omission. Truly, the tomb of the last Montmorency
+deserves a deliberate examination. It is one of the most sumptuous
+monuments in the world and as a testimony of wifely devotion worthy to
+be ranked with that of the Carian Queen to her lord, the Mausolus, whose
+name is perpetuated in the word mausoleum.
+
+French history cannot be at everyone's fingers' ends, so a word here
+about the last of the Montmorencys, victim not so much of Richelieu's
+policy as of a kinsman's meanness.
+
+When the dashing, devil-me-care, hitherto fortunate Henri de
+Montmorency, Marshal of France and Governor of Languedoc, plotted
+against Richelieu or rather against the Royal supremacy, it was mainly
+at the instigation of Gaston of Orleans. No more abject figure in French
+annals than this unworthy son of the great Gascon, Henri IV., thus
+portrayed by one whose tongue was as sharp as his sword: "Gaston of
+Orleans," wrote Richelieu, "engaged in every enterprise because he had
+not the will to resist persuasion, dishonourably drawing back from want
+of courage to support his associates."
+
+In the conspiracy of Montmorency, Gaston had played the part of
+instigator, leaving the other to his fate as soon as the situation
+became perilous. Every effort was made to save the duke, but in vain,
+and at the age of thirty-seven he ended a brilliant, adventuresome life
+on the scaffold at Toulouse.
+
+One thought was uppermost in my mind when, a few years ago, I visited
+that city, the only French city that welcomed the Inquisition. As I
+stood in the elegant Capitol, musing on Montmorency's story, it occurred
+to me how few of us realise what a respecter of persons was French law
+under the ancien regime. Hard as seems the fate of this dashing young
+duke, we must remember what would have been his punishment, but for
+his titles of nobility. Death swift and sudden, in other words, by
+decapitation, was the choicest prerogative of the nobility; tortures
+before and after condemnation, breaking on the wheel, burning alive, and
+other hideous ends, being the lot of the people.
+
+This monument, so noteworthy alike from a historic and artistic point of
+view, was saved from destruction by ready wit. When, in the ferment of
+revolution, the iconoclastic spirit had got the upper hand, a citizen of
+Moulins met a mob, bent on destroying what they supposed to be the
+tomb of some hated grand seigneur, oppressor of the poor. Following the
+rabble to the convent, no sooner did he see the mallet and hammer raised
+than this worthy bourgeois, who himself deserves a monument, shouted,
+"Hands off, citizens! Yonder reposes no aristocrat, but as good a
+citizen as any man-jack of you, aye, who had the honour of losing his
+head for having conspired against a King."
+
+The crowd melted away without a word, the monument remains intact, and
+generations have had bequeathed to them an example of what presence of
+mind may effect, not with nerve, sinew, or bodily prowess, but with
+the tongue. The Convent of the Visitation, to which Montmorency's widow
+retired, and in the chapel of which she raised this memorial, is now
+converted into a Lycee. It is a handsome building and was built by
+Madame de Chantal, foundress of the Order of Visitadines, or nuns whose
+office it was to visit the sick. This pious lady, the friend of St.
+Francois de Sales, and herself canonised by Pope Benoit XIV., was the
+bosom friend of Felicia Orsini, Montmorency's wife, who succeeded her as
+Superior of the convent on her death.
+
+But even an abbess, who had taken the veil, could not refuse visits,
+some of which must have been as a second entering of iron into this
+proud woman's soul. The coward Gaston, when passing through Moulins,
+sought an interview. Richelieu, also, whose emissary received the
+following message: "Tell your master, that my tears reply for me and
+that I am his humble servant." Years after, Louis XIV. visited the once
+beautiful and high-spirited Italian, now an aged abbess occupying a
+bare cell and from his lips, despot and voluptuary though he was, might
+always be expected the right word in the right place. "Madame," he said,
+on taking leave, "we may learn something here. I need not ask you to
+pray for the King."
+
+[Illustration: TOMB OF MONTMORENCY, MOULINS.]
+
+But interest in personalities is leading me from what I have set myself
+to describe, namely, portraiture in marble. For this magnificent work
+thus perpetuates the last of the Montmorencys and his wife as they were
+when separated for ever in their prime. Imposing although the monument
+is as a whole, these two figures in white marble, standing out against
+a dark background, engross attention. The entire work covers the wall
+behind the high altar, the sculptures being in pure white marble, the
+framework in black. Dismissing the niched Mars and Hercules on the one
+side, the allegorised Religion and Charity on the other, we study the
+central figures both offering interest of quite different kind.
+
+Why a dashing soldier and courtier of the Renaissance should
+be represented in the guise of a Roman warrior, is an anomaly,
+irreconcilable as that of pagan gods and the personification of
+Christian attributes here placed vis-a-vis. Perhaps the grief-stricken
+wife, who was, as it appears, of a highly romantic and adventuresome
+turn, wished thus to commemorate the heroic qualities of her husband;
+she might also have wished to dissociate him altogether from his own
+time, a period of which, in her eyes, he would be the victim. Be this
+as it may, the Roman undress and accoutrements do not harmonise with a
+physiognomy essentially French and French of a given epoch. Whilst the
+interest aroused by the Duchess's effigy is purely artistic, that of her
+husband excites curiosity rather than admiration. The head is
+strangely poised, much as if the artist intended to suggest the fact
+of decapitation; obliquity of vision, a defect hereditary in the
+Montmorencys, is also indicated, adding singularity. The half-recumbent
+figure by the Duke's side, is of rare pathos and beauty. Almost angelic
+in its resignation and religious fervour is the upturned face. The
+drapery, too, shows classic grace and simplicity, as strongly contrasted
+with the martial travesty opposite as are the two countenances in
+expression.
+
+Long will art-lovers linger before this monument raised by wifely
+devotion, a monument, with so many another, perpetuating rather the
+devotion of the survivor than claims on posterity of the dead. And let
+not hasty travellers follow Arthur Young's example, jotting down, after
+a visit to Moulins, "No room for the Tombeau de Montmorenci."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+SOUVIGNY AND SENS.
+
+A quarter of an hour by rail, an hour and a quarter by road, from
+Moulins lies Souvigny, the cradle of the Bourbons, and as interesting
+and delightful a little excursion as travellers can desire. On a glowing
+September morning the scenery of the Allier looked its very best. Never
+as long as I live shall I forget the beauty of that drive. Lightest,
+loveliest cumuli floated athwart a pure, not too dazzlingly blue sky,
+before us stretched avenue after avenue of poplar or plane trees,
+veritable aisles of green letting in the azure, reminding me of the
+famous Hobbema in our National Gallery. At many points the landscape
+recalled our native land; but for the white oxen of the Morvan, we
+might have fancied ourselves in Sussex or the Midlands. And cloudage,
+to borrow an expression of Coleridge, suggested England, too. Clouds and
+skies of the Midlands, none more poetic or pictorial throughout England
+seemed here--those skies above the vast sweeps of undulating chalk
+having a peculiar depth and tenderness, the clouds a marvellous
+brilliance, transparence, and variety of form! So beautiful are those
+cloud-pictures that we hardly needed beauty below. Here on the road to
+Moulins we had both, the landscape, if not romantic or striking, being
+rich in pastoral charm. Arthur Young, who looked at every bit of country
+first and foremost from the farmer's point of view, was so much struck
+with the neighbourhood of Moulins that, but for the Revolution, he would
+very probably have become a French landowner. Just eight miles from the
+city he visited in August, 1789, an estate was offered for sale by its
+possessor, the Marquis de Goutte. "The finest climate in France, perhaps
+in Europe," he wrote, "a beautiful and healthy country, excellent roads,
+and navigation to Paris; wine, game, fish, and everything appears on the
+table except the produce of the tropics; a good house, a fine garden,
+with ready markets for every kind of produce; and, above all the rest,
+three thousand acres of enclosed land, capable in a very little time of
+being, without expense, quadrupled in its produce--altogether formed a
+picture sufficient to tempt a man who had been twenty-five years in the
+constant practice of husbandry adapted to the soil." The price of the
+whole was only thirteen thousand and odd pounds, and the seller took
+care to explain that "all seigneurial rights _haute justice_" (that is
+to say, the privilege of hanging poachers, and others, at the chateau
+gates), were included in the purchase money. But the country was already
+in a ferment, and had our countryman struck a bargain then and there,
+the last-named extras would have proved a dead letter. Seigneurial
+rights were being abolished, or rather surrendered, at the very time
+that this transaction was under consideration. As Arthur Young tells
+us, he might as well have asked for an elephant at Moulins as for a
+newspaper. No one knew, or apparently cared to know, what was taking
+place in Paris. On asking his landlady for a newspaper, she replied she
+had none, they were too dear. Whereupon the irate traveller wrote down
+in his diary: "it is a great pity that there is not a camp of _brigands_
+in your coffee room, Madame Bourgeau."
+
+This part of France is not a region of prosperous peasant farmers, nor
+is it a chess-board of tiny crops, the four or five acre freeholds of
+small owners cut up into miniature fields. I had a long talk with a
+countryman, and he informed me that, as in Arthur Young's time, the land
+belongs to large owners, and is still, as in his time, cultivated by
+_metayers_ on the half-profit system. At the present day, however,
+another class has sprung up, that of tenant farmers on a considerable
+scale; these, in their turn, sublet to peasants who give their labour
+and with whom they divide the profits. Now, the half-profit system does
+certainly answer elsewhere; in the Indre, for example, it has proved a
+stepping-stone to the position of small capitalist. Here I learned, with
+regret, that such is not the case. Land, even in the highly-favoured
+Allier, cannot afford a triple revenue. In the Indre, on the contrary,
+there is no intermediary between land-owners and _metayers_, the former
+even selling small holdings to their labourers as soon as they have
+saved a little capital.
+
+"No; folks are not prosperous hereabouts," said my informant. "There are
+no manufacturers at Moulins to enrich the people, and, what with high
+rents and low prices, the half-profit system does not pay. If money is
+made, it is by the tenant-farmer, not by the _metayer_." Curious and
+instructive is the fact that the most Catholic and aristocratic centres
+in France should often be the poorest; Moulins and the Allier afford but
+one example out of many.
+
+A beautiful drive of an hour and a quarter brought us within sight of
+Souvigny. Towering above the bright landscape rose the Abbey Church,
+its sober dun, red and brown hues, the quaint houses of similar colour
+huddled around it, contrasted with the dazzling brightness of sky and
+verdure.
+
+Still more striking the contrast between the pile so majestic and
+surroundings so homely! Here, as at La Charite, nothing is in keeping
+with the mass of architecture, which, in its apogee, stood for the town
+itself, what of town, indeed, there was being the merest accessory,
+inevitable but unimposing entourage, growing up bit by bit. The present
+population of Souvigny is something over three thousand, doubtless, as
+in the case of La Charite, less than that of its former monastery and
+dependencies. As we wind upwards, thus flanking the town and abbey,
+we realise the superb position of this cradle and mausoleum of the
+Bourbons. For Souvigny was both. Two thousand and odd years ago, here,
+in the very heart of France, Adhemar, a brave soldier, nothing more,
+became the first "Sire de Bourbon," Charles le Simple having given
+him the fief of Bourbon as a reward for military services, its chief
+establishing himself at Souvigny, and of course founding a religious
+house. The Benedictine abbey, being enriched with the bones of two
+saints, former Abbots of Cluny, became a famous pilgrimage. Adhemar's
+successors transferred their seat of seigneurial government to
+Bourbon l'Archimbault, but for centuries here they found their last
+resting-place, and here they are commemorated in marble.
+
+Indescribably picturesque is this whilom capital of the tiny feudal
+kingdom; topsy-turvy, higgledy-piggledy, coated of many colours are its
+zig-zag little streets, one house tumbling on the back of its neighbour,
+another having contrived to wedge itself between two of portlier bulk,
+a third coolly taking possession of some inviting frontage, shutting out
+its fellow's light, air, and sunshine; here, meeting the eye, breakneck
+alley, there aerial terrace, and on all sides architectural reminders of
+the Souvigny passed away, the Souvigny once so splendid and important,
+now reduced to nothingness, as is, politically speaking, the so-called
+House of France.
+
+The Abbey Church, like that of La Charite, shows a mixture of many
+styles, the general effect being magnificent in the extreme. Throughout
+eastern France you find no more imposing facade. But, as observes M.
+Emile Montegut, in the work before quoted, the church has been created
+as Nature creates a soil, each age contributing its layer; Byzantine,
+Roman, Gothic, each style is here seen, the latter in its purity.
+
+Whilst the church itself stands taut and trim, a mass of sculptured
+masonry in rich browns and reds, the interior shows melancholy
+dilapidation. But, indeed, for the stern lessons of history, how sad
+were the spectacle of these mutilated effigies in marble, exquisite
+sculptures when fresh from the artist's hand, to-day torsos so hideously
+hacked and hewn as hardly to look human! We cannot, however, forget that
+the history of races, as of nations and individuals, is retributive.
+When the 'Roi-Soleil,' that incarnation of the Bourbon spirit, was
+so inflated with his own personality as to forbid the erection of
+any statue throughout France but his own, he paved the way for the
+revolutionary iconoclasts of a century later. It was simply a recurrence
+of the old fatality, the inevitable moral, since History began.
+
+For here, defaced to such a point that sculptures they can be called
+no longer, are memorialised not only Louis XIV.'s ancestors, but his
+offspring, namely, Louise Marie, one of his seven children by Madame
+de Montespan, all, as we know, with those of Madame de la Valliere,
+legitimised, ennobled and enriched. Pierre de Beaujeu, husband of the
+great Anne of France, was also buried here. Anne it was who, on the
+death of Louis XI., governed France with all her father's astuteness,
+but without his cruelty, and pleasant and comforting it is to find that
+Duke Pierre, her husband, seconded her in every way, himself remaining
+in the background, acting to perfection the difficult role of Prince
+Consort. The sight of these once exquisite marbles may perhaps awaken
+in other minds the reflection that crossed my own. Heretical as I shall
+seem, I venture to express the opinion, that in such cases one of two
+courses are advisable, either the removal of the torsos, or restoration;
+why should not some genius be able in this field to do what Viollet
+le Duc has so successfully achieved in another? But for that great
+architect, the cathedral of Moulins--and how many other beautiful French
+churches?--would long ago have tumbled to pieces, been handed over as
+storage to corn merchants, or brewers! Is it so much more difficult to
+restore a marble effigy, whether of human being or animal, than a facade
+or an altar-piece? If impossible, then, I say, let broken marbles like
+those of Souvigny be hidden from view.
+
+The agreeable town of Sens on the Yonne is here described for
+completeness' sake. Although not lying in the Bourbonnais, Sens formed
+the last stage of our little tour in this direction, a direct line of
+railway connecting the town with Moulins. What a change we found here!
+Instead of unswept, malodorous streets, and sordid riverside quarters,
+all was clean, trim, and cared for, one wholly uncommon feature lending
+especial charm.
+
+For the tutelar goddess of Sens, benignant genius presiding over the
+city, is a stream, or rather parent of many streams, that water the
+streets of their own free will, supplying thirsty beasts with copious
+draughts in torrid weather, and keeping up a perpetual air of rusticity
+and coolness.
+
+Wherever you go you are followed by the musical ripple of these
+runlets, purling brooks so crystalline that you are tempted to look for
+forget-me-nots.
+
+The voluntariness of this street watering constitutes its witchery. Post
+haste flows each tiny course; not having a moment to spare seems every
+current. Need we wonder at the fabled Arethusas and Sabrinas of more
+youthful worlds?
+
+Of itself Sens is very engaging. We can easily understand the fact of
+the late Mr. Hamerton having made his first French home here. In the
+memoir of her husband, affixed to his autobiography, Mrs. Hamerton gives
+us particulars, not only of individual, but of super-personal interest.
+I use the last expression because the idiosyncrasy described is common
+to most men and women of genius or exceptional talent. The charming
+essayist then, the art-critic, gifted with so much insight and
+feeling settled down at Sens we are told, for the purpose of painting
+'commission pictures.' His career was to be decided by the brush and not
+by the pen. The author of "The Intellectual Life," with how many other
+works of distinction, had, at the outset, wholly mistaken his vocation.
+"The first thing considered by Gilbert when he settled at Sens," writes
+Mrs. Hamerton, "was the choice of subjects for his commission pictures,
+which he intended to paint directly from nature; and he soon selected
+panoramic views from the top of a vine-clad hill, called Saint Bon,
+which commands an extensive view of the river Yonne, and of the plains
+about it." Unfortunately, rather we should say fortunately, anyhow,
+for the reading world, the 'commission pictures' were declined. The
+disappointed artist, out of humour with Sens, made a series of journeys
+in search of an ideal home, the result being that most entertaining and
+successful book, "Round My House," and the final devotion of its author
+to letters.
+
+Sens might well seem an ideal place of abode to many. Formed from the
+ancient Province of Burgundy, the Department of the Yonne has the charm
+of Burgundian scenery, with the addition of a wide, lovely river.
+All travellers on the Lyons-Marseilles Railway will recall the noble
+appearance of the town from the railway--the Cathedral, with its one
+lofty tower, rising above grey roofs, no factory chimneys marring the
+outline, and, between bright stretches of country, the Yonne, not least
+enchanting of French rivers, if not the most striking or romantic,
+perhaps the sweetest and most soothing in the world. The favourable
+impression of Sens gained by this fleeting view, is more than justified
+on nearer acquaintance. The Cathedral, externally less imposing than
+those of Bourges, Rheims, or even Rodez and Beauvais, is of a piece
+alike without and within, no tasteless excrescence disfiguring its
+outer walls, little or no modern tawdriness to be seen inside, an
+architectural gem of great purity. For the curious in such matters, the
+sacristy offers many wonders, among others a large fragment of the
+true cross, presented to Sens by Charlemagne. Less apocryphal are the
+vestments of our own Archbishop Thomas, alb, girdle, stole, and the
+rest, all most carefully preserved and exhibited in a glass case. It
+will be remembered that, when the turbulent Thomas of London, afterwards
+known as Becket, was condemned as a traitor, he fled to France. "This is
+a fearful day," said one of his attendants on hearing the sentence. "The
+Day of Judgment will be more fearful," replied Thomas. It was not at
+Sens, however, that the refugee took up his abode, but in the Abbey of
+St. Colombe, now in ruins hard by.
+
+On the other side of the bridge, crowning an islet, stands one of those
+curious church_lets_, or churc_lings_ I was about to say, that possess
+so powerful a fascination for the archaeological mind. Particularly
+striking was the little Romanesque interior in the September twilight,
+a picturesque group of Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, rehearsing
+canticles with their pupils at one end, the subdued light just enabling
+us to realise the harmony of proportions. This little church of
+St. Maurice dating from the twelfth century, partly restored in the
+sixteenth, must not on any account be missed. Its pretty spire crowns
+the Isle d'Yonne, or island of the Yonne.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII.
+
+
+ARCIS-SUR-AUBE.
+
+Late and tired, I arrived, one September evening, at Arcis-sur-Aube,
+birthplace and home of the great Danton.
+
+I had brought with me letters of introduction to friends' friends,
+unaware that at such a moment the sign-manual of the President of the
+Republic himself would hardly have secured me a night's lodging. For
+at this especial moment the little town, from end to end, was in the
+possession of the military headquarters of that year's manoeuvres.
+
+Every private dwelling showed a notice of the officers in command
+sheltered under its roof. Here and there, the presence of sentinels
+indicated the location of generals. The hotels were crowded from
+basement to attic, folks who let lodgings for hire had made bargains
+long before, whilst the very poorest made up beds, or turned out of
+their own, to accommodate the rank and file. At the extreme end of the
+town, close to the ancestral home of the Dantons, stands the straggling
+old-fashioned Hotel de la Poste, a hostelry, I should suppose, not in
+the least changed since the days of the great conventionnel. All here
+was bustle and excitement. Mine host was spitting game in the kitchen,
+and could hardly find time to answer my application; soldiers and
+officers' servants, scullions and men of all-work, almost knocked
+each other down in the inn-yard, the landlady, generally so affable a
+personage in provincial France, gave me the cold shoulder. I turned out
+in the forlorn hope of finding a good Samaritan. Of course, to present
+a letter of introduction under such circumstances, was quite out of the
+question, my errand would have been the last hair to break the camel's
+back, final embarrassment of an already overdone hostess. But night was
+at hand; the last train to Troyes, the nearest town, had gone, no other
+would pass through Arcis-sur-Aube until the small hours of the morning.
+Unless I could procure a room, therefore, I should be in the position of
+a homeless vagrant. Well, not to be dismayed, I set out making inquiries
+right and left, to my astonishment being rebuffed rather surlily and
+with looks of suspicion. The fact is, during these manoeuvres, a
+lady arriving at head-quarters alone is apt to be looked upon with no
+favourable eye. Especially do people wonder what on earth can bring a
+foreigner to an out of the way country place at such a time--she must
+surely be a spy, pickpocket or something worse!
+
+After having vainly made inquiries to no purpose along the principal
+street, I turned into a grocer's shop in a smaller thoroughfare; two
+young assistants were chatting without anything to do, and they looked
+so good-natured that I entered and begged them to help me.
+
+Very likely an English hobbledehoy similarly appealed to would have
+blushed, giggled, and got rid of the stranger as quickly as possible;
+French youths of all ranks have rather more of the man of the world in
+them. The elder of the lads became at once interested in my case, and
+manifested a keen desire to be serviceable. Hailing a little girl from
+without, he bade her conduct me to a certain Mademoiselle D---- who let
+rooms and might have one vacant. The little maid, fetching a companion
+to accompany us--here also was a French trait; whatever is done, must be
+done sociably--took me to the address given; the demoiselle in question
+was, however, not at home, but the concierge said that, another
+demoiselle living near would probably be able to accommodate me, which
+she did. Before I proceed with my narrative, however, I must mention the
+ill fortune that befell my useful little cicerone.
+
+On taking leave I had given her half a franc, a modest recompense enough
+as I thought. The following story would seem to show that the good
+people of Arcis have not yet become imbued with modern ideas about
+money, also that they have a high notion of the value of truth. To my
+dismay I learnt next morning that the poor little girl had been soundly
+slapped, her mother refusing to believe that she had come honestly by so
+much money; as my hostess observed, the good woman might at least have
+waited for corroboration of the child's statement. A box of chocolate,
+transmitted by a third hand, I have no doubt acted as a consolation.
+
+Dear kind mademoiselle Jenny M---- How warmly she welcomed me to her
+homely hearth! My little purple rosette, insignia of an officer of
+Public Instruction of France, proved a bond of union. This excellent
+woman was the daughter of a schoolmaster who had himself worn the
+academic ribbon, a French schoolmaster's crowning ambition. He had left
+his daughter, in comfortable circumstances, that is to say, she enjoyed
+an annuity of L40 a year, the possession of a large, roomy house, part
+of which she let, and half an acre of garden full as it could be of
+flowers, fruit and vegetables. We at once became excellent friends.
+
+"Now," she said, "I am very sorry that my best bedroom is given up
+to soldiers, two poor young fellows I took in the other night out of
+compassion. You can, however, have the little back room looking on
+to the garden, it is rather in disorder, but you will find the bed
+comfortable. I cannot offer to do much for you in the way of waiting,
+having a lame foot, but a woman brings me milk early in the morning and
+she shall put a cupful outside your door; bread and butter you will find
+in the little kitchen next to your room."
+
+I assured her that such an arrangement would suit me very well, as I
+had my own spirit lamp and could make tea for myself; then we went
+downstairs. The great difficulty that night was to get anything to eat.
+The soldiers had eaten every body out of house and home, she assured me
+there was not such a thing as a chop or an egg to be had in the town for
+love or money. Fortunately, I had the remains of a cold chicken in my
+lunch basket, and this did duty for supper, my hostess pressing upon me
+some excellent Bordeaux.
+
+As we chatted, she mentioned the fact that two or three friends, much
+in the same situation as herself, occupied the little houses running
+alongside her garden.
+
+"We are all old maids," she informed me.
+
+"Old maids," quoth I, "how is that? I thought there were no single women
+out of convents in France."
+
+"The thing," she said, "has come about in this way--we have all enough
+to live upon, and so many women worsen their condition by marriage,
+instead of bettering it, that we made up our minds to live comfortably
+on what we have got, and not trouble our heads about the men. We
+live very happily together, and are all socialists, radicals, _libres
+penseuses_ and the rest. We read a great deal, and, as you will see
+to-morrow, my father left me a good library."
+
+As we sat at table in the somewhat untidy kitchen, my fellow guests, the
+conscripts, came in, they were pleasant, civil young fellows belonging
+to different classes of life. One was a middle-class civilian from an
+industrial city of the north, the other a homely peasant, son of the
+soil.
+
+These conscripts, however poorly fed in barracks, fare like aldermen
+during these manoeuvres, everybody giving them to eat and drink of their
+best. They had just dined plentifully, but for all that, managed to get
+down a bumper of wine immediately offered by Mademoiselle Jenny; a hunk
+of Dijon gingerbread they did evidently find some difficulty in getting
+through. We toasted each other in friendliest fashion, and the civilian,
+out of compliment to myself, drank to the health of the English army.
+
+Next morning I fared no less sumptuously than a soldier during the
+manoeuvres. A savoury steam had announced game for our mid-day meal.
+
+"Now," said my hostess, as she dished up and began to carve a fat
+partridge cooked to a turn--"this bird that came so apropos, is a
+present from a great-nephew of Danton. He is the _juge de paix_ here and
+a good neighbour of mine. We will pay him a visit this afternoon."
+
+Of this gentleman, of Danton's home and family, I shall say something
+later on. We made a round of visits that day, but the _juge de paix_,
+who seemed to share the tastes of his great ancestor, was in the country
+in search of more partridges. Other friends and acquaintances we found
+at home; among these was a retired confectioner, who had once kept a
+shop in Regent Street, and had told Mademoiselle Jenny that she would be
+delighted to talk English with me.
+
+Warmly welcomed I was by the portly, prosperous looking pastry-cook,
+who was reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette in a well-furnished,
+comfortable parlour. But alas! thirty years had elapsed since his
+departure from England, and during the interval he had never once
+interchanged a word with any of my country-people. To his intense
+mortification, he had completely lost hold of the English tongue!
+Another acquaintance, an elderly woman, who seemed to be living on small
+independent means, had a curious house pet. This, once a pretty little
+frisking lamb, had now reached the proportions of a big fat sheep. So
+docile and affectionate, however, was the animal, and so attached had
+the good soul become to it, that a pet it seemed likely to remain to the
+end of its days; the creature followed its mistress about like a dog.
+
+The little town of Arcis-sur-Aube, like many another, is now deserted by
+all who can get to livelier and more bustling centres. Tanneries, vest,
+stocking and glove weaving and stitching, are the only resources of the
+place.
+
+During my stay, I made the acquaintance of a charming family engaged in
+the latter trade. Stopping one day in front of a weaver's open door to
+watch him at work, I was cordially invited to enter. The head of the
+house, one of those quiet, intelligent, dignified artisans so typical of
+his class in France, was weaving vest sleeves at a hand loom, just as
+I had seen, at St. Etienne, ribbon weavers pursuing their avocations at
+home. As we chatted about his handicraft and its modest emoluments,
+his little son came in from school, a bright lad who, to his father's
+delight, had lately gained prizes. It is curious that only one part of
+a vest, stocking or glove is done by a single hand; some goods I found
+came to this house to be finished and others were sent away to be
+made ready for sale elsewhere. By-and-by, a pretty, refined girl, the
+daughter of the house, came in and asked me if I would like to see what
+she was doing.
+
+Forthwith she took me to a neat, cheerful little room upstairs
+overlooking a garden.
+
+On a table by the open window was a hand-sewing machine, and her
+occupation was the ornamental stitching of silk and cotton gloves by
+machinery. The pay seemed excessively low I thought, I believe something
+like twopence per dozen pair, but the young machinist seemed perfectly
+contented and happy.
+
+"It is pleasant," she said, "to be able to earn something at home and to
+live with papa and mamma and my little brother."
+
+Before leaving, with the prettiest grace in the world, she begged my
+acceptance of a dainty pair of lavender silk gloves knitted by her own
+hands.
+
+Some day I hope to revisit Arcis-sur-Aube, and meantime I hold
+occasional intercourse by post with my friends in Danton's town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+ARCIS-SUR-AUBE--(_continued_).
+
+But by far the most interesting acquaintance at this most historic
+little town was the great-nephew of Danton. Middle-aged, unpretentious
+of aspect, yet with that unmistakable look partly of dignified
+self-possession, partly of authority, seldom absent from the French
+official, I looked in vain for any likeness to the portraits of his
+great kinsman. Yet perhaps in the stalwart figure, manly proportions and
+bronzed complexion, might be traced some suggestion of the athlete, the
+strong swimmer, the bold sportsman, whose mighty voice once made Europe
+tremble. The brother of this gentleman also lived at Arcis-sur-Aube, but
+was absent during my visit. The _juge de paix_ and his family were on
+friendliest terms with my hostess, and he would often drop in for a
+chat.
+
+From him and other residents I gathered some interesting particulars
+about the Danton family. The great tribune left two little sons, George
+and Antoine, who grew up and resided in their ancestral home, hiding
+themselves from the world. Their young step-mother it was whose memory,
+when on the way to the guillotine, evoked from Danton the only betrayal
+of personal emotion throughout his stormy career: "Must I leave thee for
+ever, my beloved," then, quickly recovering himself, cried "Danton, no
+weakness!"
+
+Madame Danton married again and is lost sight of. One of Danton's
+sisters entered a convent, as it was supposed hoping to expiate by a
+life given up to prayer the crimes, as she deemed them, of her brother.
+Meantime, appalled by the shadow of their father's memory, George and
+Antoine decided to remain celibate, a pair marked out for solitude and
+obloquy.
+
+"Let the name of Danton perish from the recollection of man," they said.
+
+The elder, however, afterwards acknowledged and, I believe, legitimised
+a daughter according to the merciful French law. Mademoiselle Danton
+became Madame Menuel, and, strange as it may seem, at the time of my
+visit, this direct descendant of Danton was still living. President
+Carnot had given her a small pension in the form of a _bureau de tabac_
+at Troyes, where she died in 1896, leaving a son, who some years ago was
+divorced from his wife, emigrated to Buenos Ayres, and has never been
+heard of since. It is supposed that he is dead. The two great-nephews
+have each a son and a daughter living.
+
+The _juge de paix_ and his brother are now among the most respected
+citizens of Arcis, and have lived to witness the rehabilitation of their
+great ancestor. Neither of the pair inhabit the house in which Danton
+was born, and to which he ever returned with joy and satisfaction.
+
+A sight of Danton's house is sufficient to disprove the calumnies of
+that noble woman, but inveterate hater, Madame Roland.
+
+From her memoirs we might gather that Danton was a poverty-stricken,
+pettifogging lawyer of the basest class. That Danton's family belong to
+the well-to-do upper middle ranks, we see from the object lesson before
+us. At the time of my visit, this large, roomy, well-built house, with
+coach-house, stables and half-a-dozen acres of garden, orchard and wood,
+was to let for 700 francs a year. But so low a rent now-a-days is no
+indication of its value a hundred years ago.
+
+[Illustration: DANTON'S HOME AT ARCIS-SUR-AUBE.]
+
+The owner of the house most kindly showed me over every part.
+
+It is two-storeyed, plainly but solidly constructed, and evidently
+arranged, according to French fashion, for a combined tenancy. Two or
+three families could here well be accommodated under the same roof, each
+having separate establishments. I found myself in a covered carriageway,
+cool dark corridors leading to outhouses and stables, a wide staircase
+with handsome oak balustrade to upstair kitchen and bed-chambers, on
+either side of the ground floor were spacious salon and dining room,
+fronting town and river, water-mills and quays. In the vast kitchen was
+an enormous chopping block, suggestive of large family joints.
+
+My kind cicerone allowed me to linger in Danton's bed-chamber. I now
+looked out from the window at which the fallen leader was often seen
+by his townsfolk during the last days of his stormy career. In his
+night-cap the colossal figure might be descried gazing out into the
+night, as if peering into futurity, trying to read the future. Did he
+perhaps from time to time waver in his decision to abide his doom?
+We know that again and again his friends urged him to seek safety in
+flight.
+
+"Does a man carry his country on the sole of his shoe?" he retorted
+fiercely, but it may well be that he here envied weaker men. Danton's
+character was thoroughly French. His ambition was as he said to retire
+to Arcis-sur-Aube and there plant cabbages. A devoted son, husband and
+father, his affections were also centred upon others not of his blood
+and name. He tenderly loved his old nurse, and left her a small pension.
+Within the last thirty years, thanks to M. Aulard and his collaborators,
+the history of the Revolution has been written anew, or rather for the
+first time. The gigantic figure of Danton stands forth to-day in its
+true light, as the saviour of France from the fate of Poland, and as a
+founder of the democratic idea. He succumbed less because he was a rival
+of Robespierre than because he was a friend of humanity.
+
+"I would rather be guillotined than guillotine," he repeated, and it was
+mainly his effort to stay the Terror that made him its victim.
+
+The study adjoining contained that suggestive library of English,
+Spanish, Italian, and ancient classics of which his biographers have
+given us a catalogue, but which are now, alas! dispersed for ever.
+
+The house stands conspicuous, rearing a proud front to the world, if
+world could be used appropriately of so quiet, humdrum a little place.
+A few hundred yards off we reach the Church, Hotel de Ville and open
+square. In 1886, a monument to Danton was inaugurated here with much
+ceremony. A bronze statue represents the great tribune in the fiery
+attitude of an orator, pronouncing his immortal phrase:--
+
+_"De l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!"_
+
+Arcis-sur-Aube is a little town of three thousand souls, within an
+hour's railway journey from Troyes. The river Aube (Alba), so called
+from its silveriness flows by Danton's house. In his time and up to the
+opening of the railways the place was a port of some importance. Boats
+and barges carried goods to Troyes, Bar-sur-Aube and other towns.
+
+Of late years Arcis has been partially surrounded with pleasant shady
+walks greatly appreciated by the townsfolk. Regretfully I quitted my
+circle of acquaintances here, little dreaming under what interesting
+circumstances I should next meet Danton's great-nephew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+RHEIMS.
+
+The grandest of all the grand cathedrals in France has been so fully
+described elsewhere, that I will not attempt to do justice to the
+subject myself. During one of my numerous visits to Rheims, however, it
+was my good fortune to enjoy a very rare experience. On the occasion of
+President Faure's funeral, the great _bourdon_ or bell, formerly only
+tolled for the death of monarchs, was now heard for the second time
+during the Third Republic. Standing under the shadow of that vast
+minster the sound seemed to come from east and west, from above and
+below, dwarfing the hum of the city to nothingness, as if echoing from
+the remotest corners of France. It was no heroic figure now knelled by
+the deepest-voiced bell in the country, but in the person of the Havre
+tanner raised to the dignity of a ruler, was embodied a magnificent
+idea, the sovereignty of the people and the overthrow of privilege.
+Never as long as I live shall I forget the boom of that great bell, and
+long the solemn sound lingered on my ears.
+
+A few days later the interior of the vast Cathedral echoed with sound
+almost as overwhelming in its force and solemnity. A grand mass was
+given in honour of the dead President.
+
+In front of the high altar stood a lofty catafalque, the rich purple
+drapery blazing with gold. The nave was filled with dazzling uniforms
+and embroidered vestments. In especially reserved seats sat the officers
+of the Legion of Honour, among these in civilian dress figuring the
+honoured citizen of Rheims who has ever retained English nationality,
+Mr. Jonathan Holden.
+
+What with beating drums, clashing cymbals, blaring trumpets and pealing
+organ, the tremendous vault seemed hardly capacious enough for the
+deafening combination of sound. As a relief came the funeral march of
+Chopin, the more subdued strains seeming almost inaudible after the
+tumult of the moment before. Never surely had plebeian requiem so
+imperial!
+
+The rich, artistic and archaeological treasures of Rheims are well
+known. I will now describe one or two sights which do not come in the
+way of the tourist.
+
+One of these is the so-called "Maison de Retraite" or associated
+home for people of small means. The handsome building, with its large
+grounds, accommodating three hundred tenants, is neither a hotel nor a
+boarding establishment, least of all an almshouse.
+
+Under municipal patronage and support the "Maison de Retraite" offers
+rooms, board, attendance, laundress and even a small plot of garden for
+the annual sum of L16 to L24 per inmate, the second sum procuring
+larger rooms and more liberal fare. Personal independence is absolutely
+unhampered except by the fact that the lodge gate is closed at 10 p.m.
+As most of the tenants of the home are elderly folks, such a rule is
+no hardship. One great advantage of the system is the protection thus
+afforded to single women and old people, and the immunity from
+household cares. Meals are taken in common, but otherwise intercourse is
+voluntary. The French temperament is so sociable, however, and chat
+is such a necessity of existence, that we saw many groups on garden
+benches, and also in the recreation and reading rooms. When the
+number of small _rentiers_ is considered, i.e., men and women of
+the middle-class living upon a minimum income, we can understand
+the usefulness of this home. I learned that the establishment is
+self-supporting, the initiatory expense having been borne by the town
+and philanthropists.
+
+We strolled about with one of the managing staff finding the inmates
+very sociable; one elderly gentleman invited us to sit down in his bit
+of garden, very proud, as he might well be, of all the flowers he had
+contrived to crowd into so small a space. We were also welcomed into
+some of the neat interiors, these varying in size according to the scale
+of payment. The class profiting by this associated home was evidently
+that of the small _bourgeoisie_.
+
+Children there seemed to be none, one and all of the tenants being
+elderly widows, widowers, bachelors or spinsters. There were, however,
+a few married couples, who, if they preferred it, could cook their
+own meals at home. For single, middle-class women here was a refuge
+answering to the conventual boarding house of the upper classes.
+
+Unmarried women in France are not nearly so numerous as in England,
+and I must say they may well envy their English and American sisters
+in spinsterhood. An unmarried French lady belonging to genteel society
+cannot cross the street unaccompanied till she has passed her fortieth
+year, nor till then may she open the pages of Victor Hugo or read a
+newspaper. Even in this "Maison de Retraite" special provision was made
+for the privacy of single ladies; whether they liked it or not they were
+expected to eat in a separate dining room, and meet for social purposes
+in a separate salon. As there is no limit to the emotional period and
+the age of sentiment, perhaps these safeguards of propriety are not
+wholly superfluous.
+
+Of course the economy of such an arrangement is very great. Think of
+a respectable fairly-educated young woman getting what good old John
+Bunyan calls "harbour and good company," in other words, all the other
+necessaries of life, with society into the bargain, for L16 a year! The
+attendance is of course somewhat rough and ready. We saw a stalwart,
+rough-haired, rather masculine-looking female setting one of the
+dinner-tables with a clatter that would drive the fastidious to
+distraction. But the good soul had evidently her heart in her work, and
+I dare aver that single-handed she got through as much as three English
+housemaids with ourselves. Would such a scheme answer in England? I
+doubt it. The Anglo-Saxon character is the reverse of sociable, and
+class distinctions are so in-rooted in the English nature that it would
+be very difficult to get ten English women together who considered
+themselves belonging to precisely the same class.
+
+Furthermore, are there with us many widows or spinsters of the same
+class enjoying even such small independent means as the sums above
+mentioned? In France, teachers, tradeswomen, female clerks and others,
+by dint of rigid economy, usually insure for themselves a small income
+before reaching old age. Fortunately habits of thrift are increasing
+in England, and our women workers have a larger field and earn higher
+wages. I had also the privilege of seeing the great wool-combing factory
+of our countryman Mr. Jonathan Holden, for upwards of forty years a
+citizen of Rheims. This town has been for centuries one of the foremost
+seats of industry in France. Mr. Holden's chimneys are kept going night
+and day, Sundays excepted, with alternating shifts of workmen. All
+the hands employed are of French nationality and--a fact speaking
+volumes--no strike has ever disturbed the amicable relations of English
+employer and French employed. The great drawback to an inspection of
+these workshops is the din of the machinery and the odour of the
+skins. But there is something that takes hold of the imagination in the
+perfection to which machinery has been carried. As we gaze upon these
+huge engines, only occasionally touched by a woman's hand, we are
+reminded of man, the pigmy guiding an elephant. We seem conscious,
+moreover, of what almost approaches human intelligence, so much of the
+work achieved appearing voluntary rather than automatic. The skins reach
+Rheims direct from Australia and are here dressed, cleaned and prepared
+for working up into cloth. If machinery is brought almost to the
+perfection of manual dexterousness, human beings attain the precision of
+machinery.
+
+I saw a neatly dressed girl at work whose sole occupation it was to tie
+up the wool, now white as snow and soft as silk, into small parcels. The
+wool already weighed came down by a little trough, and as swiftly and
+methodically as wheels set in motion, the girl's fingers folded the
+paper and tied the string. I should not like to guess how many of these
+parcels she turned off in half a minute.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+RHEIMS--(_continued_).
+
+Rheims possesses a handsome theatre, the acquaintance of which I
+was enabled to make under exceptional circumstances. At the risk of
+appearing slightly egotistical, I will here describe an incident which
+has other than personal interest. My visit to Damon's country, the
+particulars of which were given in a former chapter, had an especial
+object, viz., the setting of a novel of my own having the great
+conventionnel for its hero. The story was dramatised by two French
+collaborators, one of whom was at that time stage manager of the Grand
+Theatre, Rheims. What, then, was my delight to see one morning placarded
+throughout the town the announcement of the Anglo-French play? A few
+days before the first representation I had witnessed a rehearsal, and as
+I was guided through the dusky labyrinths of the theatre I could realise
+the excessive, the appalling, combustibility of such buildings. It
+is difficult, moreover, for those who have never penetrated into such
+recesses--whose only acquaintance is with the representation on the
+stage--to imagine how gloomy and sepulchral "behind the scenes"
+may appear. However, by-and-by it was all cheerful enough, and the
+rehearsal, I must say, although of a tragedy, abounded in touches of
+humour. My friend and myself were accommodated with chairs just in
+front of the stage near the prompter, a very friendly personage, who
+was evidently interested in the fact of my presence. The actors and
+actresses dropped in one by one and we exchanged a cordial handshake.
+There was nothing theatrical about the dress or manners of these ladies,
+whose ages ranged from extreme youth to middle age. They all looked
+pleasant, lady-like, ordinary women, who might have quitted their
+housekeeping or any other occupation of a domestic nature. The men, too,
+impressed me agreeably as they greeted myself and their colleagues. Very
+amusing was the commencement of proceedings.
+
+"Come, my children, put yourselves into position," said the stage
+manager, making corrections or suggestions as he went on; now somebody
+spoke too loud, and now somebody was too inarticulate, now an arm was
+held too forward, and now a leg dragged too much. Excessively diverting,
+also, the dummy show. In one scene of the play, a village schoolmaster
+is holding a class of little boys and girls. To-day, a row of chairs
+did duty for the scholars and were duly harangued, catechised, and even
+admonished with a cane. In another scene, a peasant woman appears with
+her donkey, to whom she confides a long tirade of troubles, the donkey
+for the moment being like the showman's hero in the famous story, "round
+the corner." A third and still more amusing piece of dumb show occurred
+later, when an ex-abbess acting as housekeeper to the village cure, let
+fall a basket of potatoes which were supposed to roll about the stage.
+All went well and the prompter, to whom I appealed for an opinion,
+assured me that I need be under no uneasiness, for the piece would go
+off like a house on fire.
+
+In spite of that favourable prognostic an author's first night is always
+a nervous affair, especially when that author is a foreigner, and her
+piece a translation from the original.
+
+However, everything went merry as a marriage bell, my kind friends
+filled several boxes, and perhaps one of the most interesting
+incidents of the evening was the fact that just underneath sat Danton's
+great-nephew with his clerk, who had come from Arcis-sur-Aube expressly
+for the occasion. Between the acts I went down and chatted with these
+two gentlemen, also with a French friend who had travelled from Dijon--a
+six hours' railway journey--in order to witness the piece. To the best
+of my knowledge now for the first time Danton figured on the French
+stage.
+
+It must be confessed that the theatre on this especial night was not a
+crowded house. In the first place, three large soirees, which had been
+postponed on account of the President's funeral, coincided with the
+representation. In the second place, as a rule, the wealthier and more
+fashionable classes do not patronise provincial theatres, especially
+when residing within easy reach of Paris. However, the pit and gallery
+were packed, and loud was the applause with which the appearance
+of Danton in a blue tail coat, top boots and sash, and his vehement
+utterances were greeted.
+
+It had never crossed my mind that under such circumstances an author
+would be called for; when, indeed, at the close of the piece, cries of
+"Auteur! auteur!" were heard throughout the theatre, my friends begged
+me to show myself. Which, proudly enough, I did, first saluting the
+sovereign people in the gallery, then bowing less beamingly to the
+scantier audience in the boxes, finally acknowledging the acclamations
+from the pit. If "Danton a Arcis" brought its author neither fame nor
+fortune, it certainly repaid her in another and most agreeable fashion.
+Two or three days later, a second representation of the piece at
+popular prices was given, and upon that occasion the house was full to
+overflowing.
+
+The Grand Theatre, Rheims, is a very handsome building, and like most
+other provincial houses maintains a company of its own, although from
+time to time it is visited by the best Paris troupes.
+
+Yet another uncommon recollection of Rheims must here be recorded. In
+September of last year, I witnessed such a spectacle as my military
+friends assured me had never before been afforded to the marvel-loving;
+in other words, the sight of a hundred and sixty thousand men--a host
+perhaps more numerous than any ever commanded by Napoleon--performing
+evolutions within range of vision.
+
+By half-past five in the morning I was off from Paris with my host and
+hostess in their motor car for the Northern railway station. The day
+of the great review broke dull and grey, and deserted indeed looked the
+usually gay and lively Paris streets. We reached the station at five
+minutes to six, i.e., five minutes before the starting of our train, and
+at once realised the neatness with which the day's programme had been
+arranged, both by the railway companies and the Government. The tens
+of thousands of sightseers had been despatched to Rheims by relays of
+trains during the night, and the station was now kept clear for the
+numerous specials conveying members of the Senate, the Chamber, and the
+Press. Here, therefore, was no crowding whatever, only a quiet stream
+of deputies, wearing their tricolour badges accompanied by their ladies,
+each deputy having the privilege of taking two.
+
+Precisely on the stroke of six, our long and well-filled train
+consisting of first-class carriages only steamed out of the station,
+taking the northern route and only making a short halt at Soissons. No
+sooner had we joined the Compiegne line than we realised the tremendous
+precautions necessary in the case of visitors so august; double rows of
+soldiers were placed at short intervals on either side of the railway
+and detachments of mounted troops stationed at a distance guarded the
+route. The arrangements for our own comfort were perfect. Our train set
+us down, not at Rheims, but at Betheny itself the scene of the review, a
+temporary station having been there erected. We were, therefore within a
+hundred yards or so of our tribune, or raised stage, and of the luncheon
+tents, roads having been laid down to each by the Genie or engineering
+body. Numbered indications conspicuously placed quite prevented any
+confusion whatever, and, indeed, it was literally impossible for
+anyone to miss his way. The only eventuality that could have spoiled
+everything, wet weather, fortunately held off until the show was over.
+The review itself was a magnificent spectacle, surely not without irony
+when we consider that this great military display, one of the greatest
+on record, was got up in honour of the first Sovereign in the world who
+had dared to propose a general disarmament! Another line of thought was
+awakened by the fact of our isolation. The specially invited guests
+of the French Government upon this occasion numbered three thousand
+persons, and it seemed that for the Czar, his train, and these, the
+great show was got up. The thousands of outsiders, sightseers, and
+excursionists, brought to Rheims by cheap trains from all parts of
+France, were nowhere; in other words, invisible.
+
+Whether or no such spectators got anything like a view of the evolutions
+I do not know. I should be inclined to think that from the distance at
+which they were kept the moving masses were mere blurs and nothing
+more. From our own tribune, adjoining that of the Presidential party,
+we commanded a view of the entire forces covering the vast plain,
+surrounded by rising ground.
+
+Amazing it was to see the dark immovable lines slowly break up, and
+as if set in motion by machinery, deploy according to orders. The vast
+plain before us was a veritable sea of men, an army, one would think,
+sufficient for the military needs of all Europe.
+
+One striking feature of these superb regiments, cavalry as well as
+infantry, was the excellence of the bands. Never before had I realised
+the inspiriting thing that martial music might be. Another interesting
+point was that afforded by the cyclists, several regiments having these
+newly formed companies. Whenever a flag was borne past, whether by foot
+or mounted soldier, the cheering was tremendous, but it was reserved for
+a regiment of Lorrainers to receive a veritable ovation. Still so fondly
+yearns the heart of France after her lost and mutilated provinces! On
+the whole, and speaking as a naive amateur, I should say that no country
+in the world could show a grander military spectacle. Enthusiasm reigned
+amongst all beholders, but there was no display of political bias or any
+discordant note. Cries of "Vive la France!" were as frequent as those of
+"Vive l'armee!"
+
+Not a policeman was to be seen anywhere, the deputies keeping order for
+themselves. And not always without an effort! People would rise from
+their seats, even stand on benches, despite the thundered out "Remain
+seated!" on all sides. On the whole, and with this exception, nothing
+could surpass the general good humour. And when the splendid cortege
+filed by at the close, delight and satisfaction beamed on every face. M.
+Loubet was so dignified, folks said, Madame Loubet was so well dressed,
+the deportment of M. Waldeck Rousseau was perfect, M. Deschanel
+handsomer than ever, and so on, every member of the Czar's, or rather
+the President's, entourage winning approval. General Andre and M.
+Delcasse were very warmly received. The slim, pale, fastidious looking
+young man in flat, white cap, green tunic, and high boots, seated beside
+the portly, genial figure wearing the broad Presidential ribbon, set me
+thinking. How at the bottom of his heart does the Autocrat of All The
+Russias view these representatives of the great French Republic! How
+does he really feel towards France, the first nation of the western
+world to set the example of officially recognised self-government, the
+initiator of a system as opposed to Russian despotism as is white
+to black? Whatever may be the secret of this strange Franco-Russian
+alliance, it is apparently in the interest of peace, and, as such,
+should be warmly welcomed by all advocates of progress.
+
+The luncheon was superabundant, consisting of wines, cold meat, and
+bread in plenty. The task of finding refreshment for three thousand
+people had been satisfactorily solved. The only thing wanting was
+water. It seems that upon such an occasion no one was expected to drink
+anything short of Bordeaux, Burgundy, or pale ale.
+
+All the special trains were crowded for the return journey, made by way
+of Meaux, but everyone made way for everyone, and we reached Paris at
+eight o'clock, almost as fresh and quite as good-humoured as we had
+quitted it at dawn. If this great review was interesting from one point
+more than another, it was from the manner in which it displayed the
+wonderful organising faculty of the French mind. The most trifling
+details no more than the largest combinations can disconcert this
+pre-eminently national aptitude.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+SOULAINES AND BAR-SUR-AUBE.
+
+The first of these places mentioned is a Champenois village twelve miles
+from a railway station. From the windows of my friends' chateau I look
+upon a magnificent deer park, where during the oft-time torrid heat of
+summer delicious shade is to be found.
+
+Far away vast forests bound the horizon, to the north a hot open road
+leading to Brienne-le-Chateau, where Napoleon studied as a military
+cadet; eastward, lies varied scenery between Soulaines and Bar-sur-Aube,
+there woodland ending and the vine country beginning.
+
+On one especial visit during September, not even these acres of
+closely-serried forest could induce more than a suggestion of shadow and
+coolness. Although screened from view the sun was there. Throughout a
+vast region--half a province of woodland--folks breathed the hot air of
+the Soudan. The tropic temperature admitted of no exercise during the
+day, but after four o'clock tea we broke up into parties--drove, rode,
+strolled, called upon homelier neighbours, visited quaint old churches
+hidden in the trees or forest nooks, the solitude only broken by
+pattering of deer and rabbits, or nut-cracking squirrel aloft. Here
+and there we would come upon huts of charcoal-burner and wood-cutter,
+gamekeepers and foresters, too, had their scattered lodges; such signs
+of human habitation being few and far between.
+
+We are here in the remnant of the great Celtic forest of Der. The
+straggling village of Soulaines is one long street, a little stream
+running behind the picturesque, timbered houses, many of these have
+outer wooden staircases leading to grange or storehouse. Church and
+presbytery, convent and Mairie were conspicuous.
+
+In the opposite direction, another church rose above the horizon, the
+centre of what in France is called not a village but a hamlet. Bare as
+a barn seen from far and near showed this little church, and we often
+walked thither for the sake of its picturesque surroundings. The portal
+of the quaint old building is a mass of ancient sculpture, close round
+it being grouped a few mud-built, timbered, one-storeyed dwellings all
+of a pattern.
+
+Even in France are to be found day labourers, only the very poorest,
+however, being without a cottage, plot of ground, a cow and of poultry
+their own. Many of their interiors are far neater and cleaner than those
+of the farm-houses, their occupants not being so tied to the soil from
+morning to night, not, in fact, incited to Herculean labours by the spur
+of larger possession. We visited one of the poorest villages hereabouts,
+of not quite a hundred souls, but of course, provided with church,
+school and Mairie. Many a group of potato diggers we saw in the
+exquisite twilight, suggestive of Millet, many a landscape recalling
+other masters. This handful of woodlanders--for the village is
+surrounded by forests--is perhaps as poor as any rural population to be
+found throughout France. Yet here surprises await us. Some of the better
+off hire a little land, keep cows, rear poultry, most likely in time to
+become owners of a plot. They are paid for harvest work in kind, several
+we talked to having earned enough corn for the winter's consumption--as
+they put it--our winter's bread. They are a fine, sunburnt, well-formed
+race and seem cheerful enough. In one of the poorest houses, a huge
+pipkin on the fire emitted savoury steam, and rows of small cheeses
+garnished the shelves. Good oak bedsteads, linen presses and
+old-fashioned clocks were general. Every mantel-piece had its framed
+photograph and ornamental crockery. New milk was always freely offered
+us.
+
+Within the precincts of this hamlet we find ourselves in a bluish-green
+land of mingled wood and water; above the reedy marsh, haunt of wild
+fowl, willows grew thick; here and there the water flowed freely, its
+surface broken by the plash of carp and trout. At this season all hands
+hereabouts were busy with threshing out the newly garnered corn and
+getting in potatoes. The crops are very varied, wheat, barley, lucerne,
+beetroot, buckwheat, colza, potatoes; we see a little of everything.
+Artificial manures are not much used, nor agricultural machinery to a
+great extent, except by large farmers, but the land is clean and in a
+high state of cultivation. Peasant property is the rule; labouring for
+hire, the condition of non-possession, very rare. And whether the times
+are good or evil, land dirt cheap or dear, the year's savings go to
+the purchase of a field or two and, as a necessary consequence, to
+the consolidation of the Republic and the maintenance of Parliamentary
+institutions.
+
+I will now say something of our neighbours. One of these was the parish
+priest, who had the care of between six and seven hundred souls. The
+fact may be new to some readers that a village cure, even in these days,
+receives on an average little more than Goldsmith's country parson,
+"counted rich on forty pounds a year." This cure's stipend, including
+perquisites amounted to just sixty pounds yearly, in addition to which
+he had a good house, large garden and paddock. But compare such a
+position with that of one of our own rectors and vicars!
+
+The Protestant clergy in France are better paid than those belonging
+to the orthodox faith. Being heads of families, they are supposed, and
+justly, to need more. Let it not be imagined, however, that the priest
+receives less under the Republic than under the Empire. But the cost of
+living has increased.
+
+Of course there are black sheep in the Romish fold as elsewhere; perhaps
+even the simplicity, learning and devotion to duty of the individual I
+here write of, are rare. Yet one cannot help feeling how much more
+money the Government would have at command with which to remunerate
+good workers in pacific fields if disarmament were practicable. This
+excellent priest, like other men of education and taste, would have
+relished a little travel as much as do our own vicars and curates their
+annual outing to Norway or Switzerland. What remains for recreation and
+charity after defraying household expenses and cost of a housekeeper out
+of sixty pounds a year?
+
+Next, let me say a word about the _juge de paix_ in France, as I presume
+most readers are aware, a modest functionary, yet better paid than that
+of a priest. The average stipend of a justice of the peace is about a
+hundred pounds a year, with lodging, but although his duties often take
+him far afield he is not provided with a vehicle, and must either
+cycle or defray the cost of carriage hire. I know many of these rural
+magistrates, and have ever found them men of education and intelligence.
+I, now, for the first time, found one well read in English literature,
+not only able to discuss Shakespeare and Walter Scott, but the latest
+English novel appearing in translation as a feuilleton. It is well that
+these small officials should have such resources. Tied down as they are
+to remote country spots, their existence is often monotonous enough,
+especially during the winter months.
+
+It seems to be a canon of French faith that you cannot have too much
+of a good thing, anyhow in the matter of wedding festivities. Parisian
+society is beginning to adopt English saving of time and money,
+fashionable marriages there now being followed by a brief lunch and
+reception. Country-folks stick to tradition, preferring to make the
+most of an event which as a rule happens only once during a lifetime.
+Gratifying as was the experience to an English guest, especially that
+guest being a devoted admirer of France, I must honestly confess that my
+share in such a celebration constituted probably the hardest day's work
+I ever performed. Here I will explain that the bride's father was head
+forester of my host and hostess, the great folks of the place, and
+adored by their humbler neighbours. Chateau and cottage were thus
+closely, nay affectionately, interested in the important event I am
+about to describe, and this aspect of it is fully as noteworthy as the
+truly Gallic character of the long drawn out fete itself.
+
+By nine a.m. horses and carriages of the chateau, adorned with wedding
+favours, were flying madly about in all directions conveying the wedding
+party to and from the Mairie for the civil ceremony. An hour later we
+were ourselves off to the village church, the house party including
+three English guests. The enormously long religious ceremony over, a
+procession was formed headed by musicians, bride and bridegroom leading
+the way, fifty and odd couples following and the round of the village
+was made. At the door of the festive house we formed a circle, the
+newly-wedded pair embracing everyone and receiving congratulations;
+this is a somewhat lachrymose ceremony. The marriage was in every way
+satisfactory, but the nice-looking young bride, a general favourite, was
+quitting for ever her childhood's home. After some little delay we
+all took our places in two banqueting rooms, the tables being arranged
+horse-shoe wise. Facing bride and bridegroom sat my host, the second
+room being presided over by the bride's father, of whom I shall have
+something to say later. Here I give the bill of fare, merely adding that
+the festive board was neatly, even elegantly, spread, and that every
+dish was excellent:--
+
+          Hors d'oeuvre                  Salade de saison
+   Radis, beurre frais, Langue fumee            Fruits
+      Bouchees a la Reine                Brioche. Nougat
+      Daim, sauce chassuer               Desserts varies
+       Galantine truffee                       Vins
+       Salmis de canards             Pineau, Bordeaux, Champagne
+         Choux-fleurs                     Cafe, Liqueurs.
+         Dinde truffee.
+
+
+Looking down the lines of well-dressed people, all with the exception of
+ourselves belonging to the same rank as the bride, I could but be struck
+with the good looks, gentle bearing, and general appearance of everyone.
+As to the head forester, he was one of Nature's gentlemen, and might
+easily have passed for a general or senator. At the table sat several
+young girls of the village, each having a cavalier, all these dressed
+very neatly and comporting themselves like well-bred young ladies
+without presumption or awkwardness. During the inevitable pauses between
+dish and dish, one after another of these pretty girls stood up and
+gratified the company with a song, the performance costing perhaps an
+effort, but being got through simply and naturally. In the midst of the
+banquet, which lasted over three hours, two professionals came to sing
+and recite. From the breakfast table, after toasts,--the afternoon being
+now well advanced--we again formed a procession to the Mairie, in front
+of which _al fresco_ dancing commenced. Add that this out-of-door ball
+lasted till a second dinner, the dinner being followed by a second ball
+lasting far into the small hours. Nor did the celebration end here.
+The following day was equally devoted to visits, feasts, toasts, and
+dancing. What a national heritage is this capacity for fellowship,
+gaiety, and harmless mirth!
+
+Bar-sur-Aube lies twelve miles off and a beautiful drive it is thither
+from Soulaines. We gradually leave forest, pasture and arable
+land, finding ourselves amid vineyards. At the little village of
+Ville-sur-Terre, we one day halted at a farm-house for a chat, the
+housewife most kindly presenting me with two highly decorative plates.
+
+As we approach Bar-sur-Aube we come upon a wide and beautiful prospect,
+wooded hills dominating the plain.
+
+This little town is very prettily situated, and like every other in
+France possesses some old churches. Perhaps its most famous child is
+Bombonnel, the great panther-slayer, born close by, who died at Dijon
+and whose souvenirs bequeathed to me as a legacy I have given elsewhere.
+The son of a working glazier, he made a little fortune as hawker of
+stockings in the streets of New Orleans, returned to France, cleared
+the Algerian Tell of panthers, for a time enjoyed ease with dignity in
+Burgundy; on the outbreak of the Franco-German War in 1870, as leader
+of a thousand _francs-tireurs_, gave the Germans more trouble than any
+commander of an army corps, twice had a price of L1,000 set upon his
+head, was glorified by Victor Hugo, received the decoration of the
+Legion of Honour, and as a reward for his patriotic services several
+hundred acres of land in Algeria. A gigantic statue of Sant Hubert, the
+patron of hunters, now commemorates the great little man, for he was
+short of statue, in the cemetery of Dijon.
+
+Bar-sur-Aube is connected with another notoriety, the infamous Madame
+de la Motte, the arch-adventuress, who, a descendant herself of Valois
+kings, proved the undoing of Marie Antoinette. As was truly said by
+a great contemporary:--"The affair of the Diamond Necklace," wrote
+Mirabeau, "has been the forerunner of the Revolution."
+
+This Jeanne de Valois, rescued from the gutter by a benovolent lady of
+title and a charitable priest, presents a psychological study rare even
+in the annals of crime. Never, perhaps, were daring, unscrupulousness,
+and the faculty of combination linked with so complete a disregard to
+consequences. The moving spring of her actions, often so complicated and
+foolhardy, was love of money and display. It seemed as if in her person,
+was accumulated the lavishness of French Royal mistresses from Diane
+de Poitiers down to Madame Dubarry. There was a good deal of the Becky
+Sharp about her too, although there is nothing in her history to show
+that, like Thackeray's heroine, "she had no objection to pay people if
+she had the money." If, indeed, anything in the shape of ethics guided
+the most astoundingly ingenious swindler we know of, it was some such
+principle as this: she ought to have been at Versailles, there being
+received as a recognised Princess of the Royal House; since, through
+no fault whatever of her own, she was not, she had a perfect right to
+avenge herself upon royalty and society in general.
+
+How she wormed herself into the confidence of the Cardinal de Rohan, a
+man of the world and of education, would seem wholly unaccountable
+but for one fact. The Prince Primate had faith in Cagliostro and
+his nostrums, and when an individual has recourse to astrologers
+and fortune-tellers, we are quite in a position to gauge his mental
+condition. Like Mdlle. Couesdon of contemporary fame, Cagliostro held
+intercourse with the angel Gabriel, but his occult powers and privileges
+far exceeded those of the Parisian lady-seer. He was actually in the
+habit of dining with Henri IV., and two days before the Cardinal's
+arrest made his client believe that he had just accepted such an
+invitation!
+
+It had been Rohan's ambition to obtain the favour of the Queen and a
+foremost position at court, hence the readiness with which he fell into
+the trap. For "the Valois orphan," now Comtesse de la Motte, not only
+possessed great personal attractions, but an extraordinary gift of
+persuasiveness. Without much apparent trouble she made the Cardinal
+believe that she was in the Queen's favour, and indeed in her
+confidence. Having got so far the rest was easy.
+
+How the acquisition of the already celebrated Diamond Necklace was first
+thought of, how, by the aid of willing tools, she matured and carried
+out her deep-laid and diabolical scheme, reads like an adventure from
+the "Arabian Nights." The personification of the Queen by a little
+dressmaker who happened to resemble her, the forgery of the Royal
+signature, the final attainment of the diamonds, all seemed so easy to
+this consummate trickster that it is small wonder she became intoxicated
+with success and blind to consequences. No sooner was the necklace in
+her possession than, of course, as fast as possible it was turned, not
+into money, but into money's worth. Houses and lands, equipages and
+furniture, costly apparel, and delicacies for the table were purchased,
+not with louis d'or, but with diamonds.
+
+We read of her triumphant entry into the little town of Bar-sur-Aube,
+cradle of the Saint Remy-Valois family, in a berline with white
+trappings and the Valois armorials, before and behind the carriage,
+which was drawn by "four English horses with short tails," rode
+lacqueys, whilst on the footboard ready to open the door stood a negro,
+"covered, from head to foot with silver." Still more dazzling was the
+dress of Madame la Comtesse, richest brocade trimmed with rubies and
+emeralds. As to the Count, not content with having rings on every finger
+he wore four gold watch chains! Besides holding open house when at home,
+the pair had a table always spread with dainties for those who chose to
+partake in their hosts' absence. Among the toys paid for in diamonds was
+an automatic bird that warbled and flapped its wings. This was intended
+for the amusement of visitors.
+
+The carnival proved of short duration. It was on the 1st of February,
+1783, that the diamond necklace was handed over to Madame de la Motte,
+Rohan receiving in return the forged signature of "Marie-Antoinette de
+France." On August of the same year, in the midst of a banquet given
+at Bar-sur-Aube, a visitor arrived with startling news. "The Prince
+Cardinal de Rohan, Grand Almoner of France, was on the Festival of
+Assumption, arrested in pontifical robes, charged with having purchased
+a diamond necklace in the name of the Queen."
+
+The charm of these little French towns and rustic spots lies in their
+remoteness, the feeling they give us of being so entirely aloof from
+familiar surroundings. In many a small Breton or Norman town we hear
+little else but English speech, and in the one general shop of tiny
+villages see _The New York Herald_ on sale. But from the time of leaving
+Nemours to that of reaching the farthest point mentioned in these
+sketches we encounter no English or American tourists. This essentially
+foreign atmosphere is not less agreeable than conducive to instruction.
+We are thus thrown into direct contact with the country people and are
+enabled to realise French modes of life and thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+ST. JEAN DE LOSNE.
+
+Within the last twenty-five years so many new lines of railway have been
+opened in France that there is no longer any inducement--I am inclined
+to say excuse--for keeping to the main road. Yet, strangely
+enough, English tourists mostly ignore such opportunities. For one
+fellow-countryman we meet on the route described here, hundreds are
+encountered on the time-honoured roads running straight from Paris to
+Switzerland. Quit Dijon by any other way and the English-speaking world
+is lost sight of, perhaps more completely than anywhere else on the
+civilised globe. Again and again it has happened to myself to be
+regarded in rural France as a kind of curiosity, the first subject of
+Queen Victoria ever met with; again and again I have spent days, nay
+weeks, on French soil, the sole reminder of my native land being the
+daily paper posted in London. It is now many years since I first visited
+St. Jean de Losne, in company of a French acquaintance, a notary, both
+of us being bound to a country-house on the Saone. At that time the
+railway did not connect it with Dijon, and in brilliant September
+weather we jogged along by diligence, a pleasant five hours' journey
+enough. My companion, a native of the Cote d'Or, seemed to know everyone
+we passed on the way, whenever we stopped to change horses getting out
+for a gossip with this friend and that he had taken the precaution to
+provide himself with a huge loaf of bread, from which he hacked off
+morsels for us both from time to time. As we had started at seven
+o'clock in the morning, and got no dejeuner till past noon, the doles
+were acceptable. The fellow-traveller of that first journey--alas! With
+how many friends of the wine country!--has long since gone to his rest.
+The second time I set forth alone, taking my seat in the slow--the very
+slow--train running alongside the Canal de Bourgogne. On the central
+platforms of the Dijon railway station, crowds of English and American
+tourists were hurrying to their trains, bound respectively for Paris and
+Geneva. No sooner was I fairly off, my fellow travellers being two or
+three country-folks, than the conventionalities of travel had vanished.
+Surroundings as well as scenery became entirely French.
+
+The Burgundian character is very affable, and although people may
+wonder what can be your errand in remote regions, they never show their
+curiosity after disagreeable fashion. They are delighted to discover
+that interest in France--artistic, economic, or industrial--has led you
+thither, and will afford any assistance or information in their power.
+They seem to regard the wayfaring Britisher as whimsical, that is all.
+
+A train that crawls has this advantage, we can see everything by the
+way, villages, crops, and methods of cultivation. The landscape soon
+changes. The familiar characteristics of the wine country disappear.
+Instead of vine-clad hills, nurseries of young plants grafted on
+American stocks, and vineyard after vineyard in rich maturity, we now
+see hop gardens, colza fields, and wide pastures. Here and there we
+obtain a glimpse of some walled-in farmhouse, recalling the granges of
+our own Isle of Wight.
+
+Alongside the railway runs the canal, that important waterway connecting
+the Seine with the Saone; but the Saone itself, Mr. Hamerton's favourite
+river, is not seen till we reach our destination.
+
+The little town of St. Jean de Losne, although unknown to English
+readers, is one of the most historic of France. No other, indeed, boasts
+of more honourable renown. As Jeanne d'Arc had done just two centuries
+before, St. Jean de Losne saved the country in 1636. When the Imperial
+forces under Galas attempted the occupation of Burgundy, the dauntless
+townsfolk long held the enemy at bay and compelled final retreat. After
+generations profited by this heroism. Until the great year of 1789, the
+town, by royal edict, enjoyed complete immunity from taxation. On the
+outbreak of the Revolution, with true patriotic spirit, the citizens
+surrendered those privileges, of their own free will sharing the public
+burdens.
+
+The first sight that meets the eye on entering St. Jean de Losne is
+the monument erected in commemoration of the siege. "Better late than
+never," is a proverb applicable to public as well as private affairs of
+conscience.
+
+A little farther, and we reach the church of St. Jean. It contains a
+magnificent pulpit, carved from a single block of rich red marble, the
+niches ornamented with charming statuettes of the apostles. Close by is
+the Hotel de Ville, in which are some interesting historic relics. As I
+passed through the courtyard, I saw an odd sight. One might have fancied
+that a second Imperial army threatened a siege, and that the townsfolk
+were laying in stores. The pavement was piled with bread and meat,
+whilst butchers and bakers were busily engaged in dividing these into
+portions, authorities, municipal, military and police, looking on.
+
+I learned that these rations were for the regiments quartered in the
+town during the autumn manoeuvres. Every day such distributions take
+place; in country places the troops have recourse to the peasants, very
+often being treated as guests. A young friend, serving his three years,
+told me that nowhere had he found country folk more hospitable than in
+the Cote d'Or. No sooner did the soldiers make their appearance in a
+village, than forth came the inhabitants to welcome them, officers being
+carried off to chateaux, men by twos and threes to the home of cure or
+small owner. "Not a peasant," he said, "but would bring up a bottle
+of good wine from his cellar, and often after dinner we would get up a
+dance out of doors. On the saddle sometimes from two in the morning till
+twelve at noon, the kind reception and the jollity of the evening made
+up for the hardship and fatigue. We have just had several days of bad
+weather, and had to sleep on straw in barns and outhouses, wherever
+indeed shelter was to be had. Not one of us ever lost heart or temper;
+we remained gay as larks all the time."
+
+An hour's railway journey from St. Jean de Losne takes the traveller to
+Lons-le-Saulnier, beautifully situated at the foot of the Jura range on
+the threshold of wild and romantic scenery.
+
+A decade had not robbed this little town of its old-world look familiar
+to me, but meantime a new Lons-le-Saulnier had sprung up. Since my first
+visit a handsome bathing establishment has been built, with casino,
+concert-room, and all the other essentials of an inland watering-place.
+The waters are especially recommended for skin affections, gout, and
+rheumatism. Formerly the mineral springs of Lons, as the townsfolk
+lazily call the place, were chiefly frequented by residents and near
+neighbours. Improved accommodation, increased accessibility, cheapened
+travel and additional attractions, have changed matters. The season
+opening in May, and lasting till the end of October, is now patronised
+by hundreds of visitors from all parts of eastern France. These health
+resorts are much more sociable than our own. Folks drop alike social,
+political, and religious differences for the time being, and cultivate
+the art of being agreeable as only French people can. Excursions,
+picnics, and pleasure parties are arranged; in the evening the young
+folks dance whilst their elders play a rubber of whist, chat, look on,
+or make marriages. Many a wedding is arranged during the _Saison des
+Bains_, nor can such unions be called _mariages de convenance_, as in
+holiday-time intercourse is comparatively unrestricted. Grown-up or
+growing-up sons and daughters then meet as those on English or American
+soil.
+
+Lons-le-Saulnier possesses little of interest except its Museum, rich
+in modern sculpture, and its quaint arcades, recalling the period of
+Spanish rule in Franche Comte. The excursions lying within easy reach
+are numerous and delightful. Foremost of these is a visit to the
+marvellous rock-shut valley of Baume-les-Messieurs, so called to
+distinguish it from Baume-les-Dames near Besancon. The descent is made
+on foot, and at first sight appears not only perilous but impracticable,
+the zigzag path being cut in almost perpendicular shelves of rock.
+This mountain staircase, or the "Echelle des Baumes," is not to be
+recommended to those afflicted with giddiness. Little sunshine reaches
+the heart of the gorge, yet below the turf is brilliant, a veritable
+islet of green threaded by a tiny river. The natural walls shutting us
+in have a majestic aspect, but playful and musical is the Seille as it
+ripples at our feet. Travellers of an adventuresome turn can explore the
+stalactite caverns and other marvels around; not the least of these is
+a tiny lake, the depth of which has never been sounded. For half-a-mile
+the valley winds towards the straggling village of Baume, and there the
+marvels abruptly end.
+
+Nothing finer in the way of scenery is to be found throughout eastern
+France. In the ancient Abbey Church are two masterpieces, a retable in
+carved wood and a tomb ornamented with exquisite statuettes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+NANCY.
+
+It is a pleasant six hours' journey from Dijon via Chalindrey to Nancy.
+We pass the little village of Gemeaux, in which amongst French friends I
+have spent so many happy days.
+
+From the railway we catch sight of the monticule crowned by an obelisk;
+surmounting the vine-clad slopes, we also obtain a glimpse of its "Ormes
+de Sully," or group of magnificent elms, one of many in France supposed
+to have been planted by the great Sully. Since my first acquaintance
+with this neighbourhood, more than twenty years ago, the aspect of the
+country hereabouts has in no small degree changed. Hop gardens in
+many spots have replaced vineyards, owing to the devastation of the
+phylloxera. It was in the last years of the third Empire that the
+inhabitants of Roquemaure on the Rhone found their vines mysteriously
+withering.
+
+A little later the left bank was attacked, and about the same time the
+famous brandy producing region of Cognac in the Charente showed
+similar symptoms. The cause of the mischief, the terrible Phylloxera
+devastatrix, was brought to light in 1868. This tiny insect is hardly
+visible to the naked eye, yet so formed by Nature as to be a wholesale
+engine of destruction, its phenomenal productiveness being no less fatal
+than its equally phenomenal powers of locomotion. One of these tiny
+parasites alone propagates at the rate of millions of eggs in a season,
+a thousand alone sufficing to destroy two acres and a half of vineyard.
+As formidable as this terrible fertility is the speed of the insect's
+wings or rather sails according extraordinary ease of movement. A gust
+of wind, a mere breath of air, and like a grain of dust or a tuft of
+thistledown, this germ of destruction is borne whither chance directs,
+to the certain ruin of any vineyard on which it lights. The havoc spread
+with terrible rapidity. From every vine-growing region of France arose
+cries of consternation. Within the space of a few years hundreds of
+thousands of acres were hopelessly blighted. In 1878 the invader was
+first noticed at Meursault in Burgundy; a few days later it appeared in
+the Botanical Gardens of Dijon. The cost of replanting vineyards with
+American stocks is so heavy, viz.: twenty pounds per hectare, that even
+many rich vintagers have preferred to cultivate other crops. Some owners
+have sold their lands outright.
+
+On quitting Is-sur-Tille we enter the so-called Plat de Langres, or
+richly cultivated plains stretching between that town and Toul, in the
+Department of the Meurthe and Moselle.
+
+With the almost sudden change of landscape--woods, winding rivers, and
+hayfields in which peasants are getting in their autumn crop, literally
+mauve-tinted from the profusion of autumn crocuses--we encounter
+sharp contrasts, the events of 1870-1 changing the French frontier,
+necessitating the transformation we now behold--once quiet, old-world
+towns now wearing the aspect of a vast camp, everywhere to be seen
+military defences on a wholly inconceivable scale. It is comforting to
+hear from the lips of those who should know, that at the present time
+war is impossible, the engines of warfare being so tremendous that the
+result of a conflict would be simply annihilation on both sides. After
+ten years' absence, and in spite of radical changes, the elegant,
+exquisitely kept town of Nancy appears little altered to me. The ancient
+capital of Lorraine is now one of the largest garrisons on the eastern
+frontier, but the military aspect is not too obtrusive. Except for the
+perpetual roll of the heavy artillery waggons and perpetual sight of the
+red pantalon, we are apt to forget the present position of Nancy from a
+strategic point of view.
+
+Other changes are pleasanter to dwell on. The Facultes, or schools of
+medicine, science, and law, removed hither from Strasburg after the
+annexation, have immensely increased the intellectual status of Nancy,
+whilst from the commercial and industrial side the advance has been
+no less. Its population has doubled since the events of 1870-1, and is
+constantly increasing. Why so few English travellers visit this dainty
+and attractive little capital is not easy to explain. More interesting
+even than the artistic and historic collections of Nancy is the
+celebrated School of Forestry. Formerly a few young Englishmen
+were out-students of this school, but since the study had been made
+accessible at home the foreign element at the time of my visit,
+consisted of a few Roumanians, sent by their Government. The Ecole
+Forestiere, courteously shown to visitors, was founded sixty years ago
+and is conducted on almost a military system. Only twenty-four students
+are received annually, and these must have passed severe examinations
+either at the Ecole Agronomique of Paris, or at the Ecole Polytechnique.
+The staff consists of a director and six professors, all paid by the
+State. Two or three years form the curriculum and successful students
+are sure of obtaining good Government appointments. Forestry being a
+most important service, every branch of natural science connected with
+the preservation of forests, and afforesting is taught, the school
+collections forming a most interesting and wholly unique museum. Here we
+see, exquisitely arranged as books on library shelves, specimens of
+wood of all countries, whilst elsewhere sections from the tiniest to
+the gigantic stems of America. Very instructive, too, are the models of
+those regions in France already afforested, and of those undergoing
+the process; we also see the system by means of which the soil is so
+consolidated as to render plantation possible, namely, the arresting of
+mountain torrents by dams and barrages. In the Dauphine, and French
+Alps generally, many denuded tracks are in course of transformation, the
+expense being partly borne by the State and partly by the communes. It
+is impossible to over-estimate the importance of such works, alike
+from a climatic, economic, and hygienic point of view. The extensive
+eucalyptus plantations in Algeria, teach us the value of afforesting,
+vast tracks having been thereby rendered healthful and cultivable.
+
+A strikingly beautiful city, sad of aspect withal, is this ancient
+capital of Lorraine, ever wearing half mourning, as it seems, for the
+loss of its sister Alsace.
+
+Unforgettable is the glimpse of the Place Stanislas, with its bronze
+gates, fountains, and statue, worthy of a great capital; of the
+beautiful figure of Duke Antonio of Lorraine on horseback, under
+an archway of flamboyant Gothic; of the Ducal Palace and its airy
+colonnade; lastly, of the picturesque old city gate, the Porte de la
+Crafie, one of the most striking monuments of the kind in France.
+
+All these things may be glanced at in an hour, but in order to enjoy
+Nancy thoroughly, a day or two should be devoted to it, and creature
+comforts are to be had in the hotels.
+
+In the Ducal Palace are shown the rich tapestries found in the tent of
+Charles le Temeraire after his defeat before Nancy, and other relics of
+that Haroun-al-Raschid of his epoch, who bivouacked off gold and silver
+plate, and wore on the battle-field diamonds worth half a million. The
+cenotaphs of the Dukes of Lorraine are in a little church outside
+the town--the _chapelle ronde_, as the splendid little mausoleum is
+designated, its imposing monuments of black marble and richly-decorated
+octagonal dome, making up a solemn and beautiful whole. Graceful and
+beautiful also are the monuments in the church itself, and those of
+another church, des Cordeliers, close to the Ducal Palace.
+
+Nancy is especially rich in monumental sculpture, but it is in the
+cathedral that we are enchanted by the marble statues of the four
+doctors of the church--St. Augustine, St. Gregoire, St. Leon, and St.
+Jerome. These are the work of Nicholas Drouin, a native of the town,
+and formerly ornamented a tomb in the church of the Cordeliers just
+mentioned. The physiognomy, expression, and pose of St. Augustine are
+well worthy of a sculptor's closest study, but it is rather as a
+whole than in detail that this exquisite statue delights the ordinary
+observer.
+
+All four sculptures are noble works of art; the beautiful, dignified
+figure of St. Augustine somehow takes strongest hold of the imagination.
+We would fain return to it again and again, as indeed we would fain
+return to all else we have seen in the fascinating city of Nancy.
+
+From Nancy, by way of Epinal, we may easily reach the heart of the
+Vosges.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+IN GERMANISED LORRAINE.
+
+At the railway station of Nancy, I was met by a French family party, my
+hosts to be in a chateau on the other side of the French frontier.
+
+We had jogged on pleasantly enough for about half an hour, when the
+gentlemen of the party, with (to me) perplexing smiles, briskly folded
+their newspapers and consigned them, not to their pockets or rugs, but
+to their ladies, by whom the journals were secreted in underskirts.
+
+"We are approaching the frontier," said Madame to me.
+
+I afterwards learned that only one or two French newspapers are allowed
+to circulate in the annexed provinces, the _Temps_ and others, the
+names of which I forget; for the first and second offence of smuggling
+prohibited newspapers, the offender is subjected to a reprimand, the
+third offence is punished by a fine, the fourth involves imprisonment.
+Now, as all of us know who have lived in France, the _Figaro_ is a
+veritable necessity to the better-off classes in France, the _Times_ to
+John Bull not more so. Similarly, to the peasant and the artisan, the
+_Petit Journal_ takes the place of the half-penny newspaper in England.
+This deprivation is cruelly felt, and is part of the system introduced
+by William II.
+
+Custom-house dues are at all times vexatious, but on the French-Prussian
+frontier they are so arranged as to provoke patriotic feeling. It may
+seem a foolish fancy for French folks, German subjects of the Kaiser,
+to prefer French soap and stationery, yet what more natural than the
+purchase of such things when within easy reach? Thus, on alighting at
+the frontier, not only were trunks and baskets turned out, we were
+all eyed from head to foot suspiciously. My hosts' newspapers were
+not unearthed, certainly; perhaps their rank and position counted for
+something. But one country girl had to pay duty on a shilling box of
+writing paper, another was mulcted to half the value of a bottle of
+scent, and so on. There was something really pathetic in the forced
+display of these trifles, the purchasers being working people and
+peasants. All French goods and productions are exorbitantly taxed. Thus
+a lady must pay three or four shillings duty on a bonnet perhaps costing
+twenty in France. On a cask of wine, the duty often exceeds the price of
+its contents, and, according to an inexorable law of human nature, the
+more inaccessible are these patriotic luxuries, so the more persistently
+will they be coveted and indulged in.
+
+Custom House officials on the Prussian side have no easy time of it,
+ladies especially giving them no little trouble. The duty on a new dress
+sent or brought from France across the frontier is ten francs; and
+we were told an amusing story of a French lady, who thought to neatly
+circumvent the douane. She was going from Nancy to Strasburg to a
+wedding, and in the ladies' waiting-room on the French side changed her
+dress, putting on the new, a rich costume bought for the ceremony.
+The officials got wind of the matter. The dress was seized and finally
+redeemed after damages of a thousand francs!
+
+Persons in indifferent circumstances, however patriotic they may be, can
+subsist upon German beer, soap, and writing paper. The blood tax, upon
+which I shall say something further on, is a wholly different matter.
+
+A short drive brought us to a noble chateau, inside a beautifully wooded
+park, the iron gateway showing armorial bearings. Indoors there
+was nothing to remind me that I had exchanged Republican France for
+autocratic Prussia. Guests, servants, speech, usages, books, were
+French, or, in the case of the three latter, English. Every member of
+the family spoke English, afternoon tea was served as at home, and the
+latest Tauchnitz volumes lay on the table.
+
+Difficult indeed it seemed to realise that I had crossed the frontier,
+that though within easy reach, almost in sight of it, the miss, alas!
+Was as good as a mile.
+
+Alsace-Lorraine, I may here mention, is a verbal annexation dating
+from 1871. Whilst Alsace was German until its conquest by Louis XIV.,
+Lorraine, the country of Jeanne d'Arc, had been in part French and
+French-speaking for centuries. Alsace under French _regime_ retained
+alike Protestantism and Teutonic speech. We can easily understand that
+the changes of 1871 should come much harder to the Catholic Lorrainers
+than to their Protestant Alsatian neighbours.
+
+Bitterness of feeling does not seem to me to diminish with time. On the
+occasion of my third visit to Germanised France, I found things much
+the same, the clinging to France ineradicable as ever, nothing like the
+faintest sign of reconciliation with Imperial rule.
+
+One might suppose that, after a generation, some slight approach to
+intercourse would exist among the French and Prussian populations. By
+the upper classes the Germans, no matter what their rank or position,
+remain tabooed as were Jews in the Ghetto of former days.
+
+At luncheon next day, my host smilingly informed me that he had filled
+up the paper left by the commissary of police, concerning their newly
+arrived English visitor. We are here, it must be remembered, in a
+perpetual state of siege.
+
+"I put down Canterbury as your birthplace--" he began.
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed I, "I was born near Ipswich."
+
+"Oh!" he said, smiling, "I just put down the first name that occurred to
+me, and filled in particulars as to age, etc.," here he bowed, "after a
+fashion which I felt would be satisfactory to yourself."
+
+This kind of domiciliary visit may appear a joking matter, but to live
+under a state of siege is no subject for pleasantry, as I shall show
+further on. Here is another instance of the comic side of annexation, if
+the adjective could be applied to such a subject. In the salon I noticed
+a sofa cushion, covered, as I thought to my astonishment, with the
+Prussian flag. But my hostess smilingly informed me that, as the
+Tricolour was forbidden in Germanised Lorraine, by way of having the
+next best thing to it, she had used the Russian colours, symbol of the
+new ally of France.
+
+Another vexation of unfortunate _annexes_ is in the matter of
+bookbinding. French people naturally like to have their books bound in
+French style, but it is next to impossible to get this done in Alsace.
+If the books are bound in France, there is the extra cost of carriage
+and duty.
+
+A very pleasant time I had under this French roof on German soil. Our
+days were spent in walks and drives, our evenings entertained with music
+and declamation. Now we had the Kreutzer Sonata exquisitely performed by
+amateur musicians, now we listened to selections from Lamartine, Nadaud,
+Victor Hugo and others, as admirably rendered by a member of this
+accomplished family, all the members of which were now gathered
+together. I saw something alike of their poorer and richer neighbours,
+all of course being their country-people. This social circle, including
+the household staff, was rigorously French.
+
+Let me now describe a Lorraine lunch, as the French _gouter_ or
+afternoon collation is universally called, our hosts being a family of
+peasant farmers, their guests the house party from the chateau. We had
+only to drive a mile or two before quitting annexed France for France
+proper, the respective frontiers indicated by tall posts bearing the
+name and eagle of the German Empire and the R.F. of France.
+
+"You are now on French soil," said my host to me with a smile of
+satisfaction, and the very horses seemed to realise the welcome fact.
+Right merrily they trotted along, joyfully sniffing the air of home.
+
+The Lorraine villages are very unlike their spick and span neighbours of
+Alsace, visited by me two years before. Why Catholic villages should be
+dirty and Protestant ones clean, I will not attempt to explain. Such,
+however, is the case. As we drove through the line of dung-heaps and
+liquid manure rising above what looked like barns, I was ill-prepared
+for the comfort and tidiness prevailing within. What a change when the
+door opened, and our neatly dressed entertainers ushered us into their
+dining-room! Here, looking on to a well-kept garden was a table spread
+with spotless linen, covers being laid as in a middle-class house.
+An armchair, invariable token of respect, was placed for the English
+visitor; then we sat down to table, two blue-bloused men, uncle and
+nephew, and three elderly women in mob caps and grey print gowns,
+dispensing hospitality to their guests, belonging to the _noblesse_
+of Lorraine. There was no show of subservience on the one part, or of
+condescension on the other. Conversation flowed easily and gaily as at
+the chateau itself.
+
+I here add that whilst the French _noblesse_ and _bourgeoisie_ remain
+apart as before the Revolution, with the peasant folk it is not so.
+These good people were not tenants or in any way dependents on my
+hosts. They were simply humble friends, the great tie being that of
+nationality. The order of the feast was peculiar. Being Friday no
+delicacy in the shape of a raised game pie could be offered; we
+were, therefore, first of all served with bread and butter and _vin
+ordinaire_. Then a dish of fresh honey in the comb was brought out;
+next, a huge open plum tart. When the tart had disappeared, cakes
+of various kinds and a bottle of good Bordeaux were served; finally,
+grapes, peaches, and pears with choice liqueurs. Healths were drunk,
+glasses chinked, and when at last the long lunch came to an end, we
+visited dairy, bedrooms, and garden, all patterns of neatness. This
+family of small peasant owners is typical of the very best rural
+population in France. The united capital of the group--uncle, aunts and
+nephew--would not perhaps exceed a few thousand pounds, but the land
+descending from generation to generation had increased in value owing to
+improved cultivation. Hops form the most important crop hereabouts. This
+village of French Lorraine testified to the educational liberality of
+the Republic. For the three hundred and odd souls the Government here
+provides schoolmaster, schoolmistress, and a second female teacher for
+the infant school, their salaries being double those paid under the
+Empire.
+
+Now a word concerning the blood-tax. Rich and well-to-do French
+residents in the annexed provinces can afford to send their sons across
+the frontier and pay the heavy fines imposed for default. With the
+artisan and peasant the case is otherwise. Here defection from military
+service means not only lifelong separation but worldly ruin. To the
+wealthy an occasional sight of their young soldiers in France is an easy
+matter. A poor man must stay at home. If his sons quit Alsace-Lorraine
+in order to go through their military service on French soil, they
+cannot return until they have attained their forty-fifth year, and the
+penalty of default is so high that it means, and is intended to mean,
+ruin. There is also another crying evil of the system. French conscripts
+forced into the German Army are always sent as far as possible from
+home. If they fall ill and die, kith or kin can seldom reach them.
+Again, as French is persistently spoken in the home, and German only
+learnt under protest at the primary school, the young _annexe_ enters
+upon his enforced military service with an imperfect knowledge of the
+latter language, the hardships of his position being thereby immensely
+enhanced. No one here hinted to me of any especial severity being shown
+to French conscripts on this account, but we can easily understand the
+disadvantage under which they labour. I visited a tenant farmer on the
+other side of the frontier, whose only son had lately died in hospital
+at Berlin. The poor father was telegraphed for but arrived too late, the
+blow saddening for ever an honest and laborious life. This farmer was
+well-to-do, but had other children. How then could he pay the fine
+imposed upon the defaulter? And, of course, French service involved
+lifelong separation. Cruel, indeed, is the dilemma of the unfortunate
+_annexe_. But the blood-tax is felt in other ways. During my third stay
+in Germanised Lorraine the autumn manoeuvres were taking place. This
+means that alike rich and poor are compelled to lodge and cook for
+as many soldiers as the authorities choose to impose upon them. I was
+assured by a resident that poor people often bid the worn-out men to
+their humble board, the conscripts' fare being regulated according to
+the strictest economy. In rich houses, German officers receive similar
+hospitality, but we can easily understand under what conditions.
+
+The annexed provinces are of course being Germanised by force.
+Immigration continues at a heavy cost. Here is an instance in point.
+
+When Alsace was handed over to the German Government it boasted of
+absolute solvency. It is now burdened with debt, owing, among many other
+reasons, to the high salaries received by the more important German
+officials; the explanation of this being that the position of these
+functionaries is so unpleasant they have to be bribed into such
+expatriation. Thus their salaries are double what they were under
+French rule. Not that friction often occurs between the German
+civil authorities and French subjects; everyone bears witness to the
+politeness of the former, but it is impossible for them not to feel the
+distastefulness of their own presence. On the other hand, the perpetual
+state of siege is a grievance daily felt. Free speech, liberty of the
+press, rights of public meeting, are unknown. Not long since, a peasant
+just crossed the frontier, and as he touched French soil, shouted "Vive
+la France!" On his return he was convicted of _lese majeste_ and sent
+to prison. Another story points to the same moral. At a meeting of a
+village council an aged peasant farmer, who cried "We are not subjects
+but servants of William II." Was imprisoned for six weeks. The occasion
+that called forth the protest was an enforced levy for some public
+works of no advantage whatever to the inhabitants. Sad indeed is the
+retrospect, sadder still the looking forward, with which we quit French
+friends in the portions of territory now known as Alsace-Lorraine.
+And when we say "Adieu" the word has additional meaning. Epistolary
+intercourse, no more than table-talk, is sacred.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+IN GERMANISED ALSACE.
+
+Who would quit Alsace without a pilgrimage to Saverne and the country
+home in which Edmond About wrote his most delightful pages and in which
+he dispensed such princely hospitality? The author of "Le Fellah " was
+forced to forsake his beloved retreat after the events of 1870-1; the
+experiences of this awful time are given in his volume "Alsace," and
+dedicated to his son--_pour qu'il se souvienne_--in order that he might
+remember. Here also as under that Lorraine roof I felt myself in France.
+At the time of my visit the property was for sale. French people,
+however, are loth to purchase estates in the country they may be said
+to inhabit on sufferance, while rich Germans prefer to build palatial
+villas within the triple fortifications and thirteen newly constructed
+forts which are supposed to render Strasburg impregnable.
+
+The railway takes us from Strasburg in an hour to the picturesque old
+town of Saverne, beautifully placed above the Zorn. Turning our backs
+upon the one long street winding upwards to the chateau, we follow a
+road leading into the farthermost recesses of the valley, from which
+rise on either side the wooded spurs of the lower Vosges. Here in
+a natural _cul-de-sac_, wedged in between pine-clad slopes, is as
+delightful a retreat as genius or a literary worker could desire. On the
+superb September day of my visit the place looked its best, and warm
+was the welcome we received from the occupiers, a cultivated and
+distinguished French Protestant family, formerly living at Srasburg, but
+since the events of 1870-1 removed to Nancy. They hired this beautiful
+place from year to year, merely spending a few weeks here during the
+Long Vacation. The intellectual atmosphere still recalled bygone days,
+when Edmond About used to gather round him literary brethren, alike
+French and foreign. Pleasant it was to find here English-speaking,
+England-loving, French people. Nothing can be simpler than the house
+itself, in spite of its somewhat pretentious tower of which About wrote
+so fondly. His study is a small, low-pitched room, not too well lighted,
+but having a lovely outlook; beyond, the long, narrow gardens, fruit,
+flower and vegetable, one leading out of another, rising pine woods and
+the lofty peaks of the Vosges. So remote is this spot that wild deer
+venture into the gardens, whilst squirrels make themselves at home
+close to the house doors. Our host gave me much information about the
+peasants. Although not nearly so prosperous as before the annexation,
+they are doing fairly well. Some, indeed, are well off, possessing
+capital to the amount of several thousand pounds, whilst a millionaire,
+that is, the possessor of a million francs or forty thousand pounds, is
+found here and there. The severance from France entailed, however, one
+enormous loss on the farmer. This was the withdrawal of tobacco culture,
+a monopoly of the French State which afforded maximum profits to the
+cultivator. With regard to the indebtedness of the peasant-owner, my
+informant said that it certainly existed, but not to any great extent,
+usury having been prohibited by the local Reichstag a few years before.
+Again I found myself among French surroundings, French traditions,
+French speech. Let me add, however, that I heard none of the passionate
+regrets, recriminations, and wishes that had constantly fallen on my
+ears ten years before. One prayer, and one only, seems in every heart,
+on every lip, "Peace, peace--only let us have peace!" It must be borne
+in mind that 20,000 French Alsatians quitted Strasburg alone, and that
+those of the better classes who were unable to emigrate sent their young
+sons across the frontier before the age of seventeen. Thus, by a gradual
+process, the French element is being eliminated from the towns, whilst
+in the country annexation came in a very different guise.
+
+This will be seen from the account of another excursion made with French
+friends living in Strasburg.
+
+It is a beautiful drive to Blaesheim, southwest of the city, in a direct
+line with the Vosges and Oberlin's country. We pass the enormous public
+slaughterhouses and interminable lines of brand-new barracks, then under
+one of the twelve stone gates with double portals that now protect the
+city, leaving behind us the tremendous earthworks and powder magazines,
+and are soon in the open plain. This vast plain is fertile and well
+cultivated. On either side we see narrow, ribbon-like strips of maize,
+potatoes, clover, hops, beetroot, and hemp. There are no apparent
+boundaries of the various properties and no trees or houses to break
+the uniformity. The farm-houses and premises, as in the Pyrenees, are
+grouped together, forming the prettiest, neatest villages imaginable.
+Entzheim is one of these. The broad, clean street, the large
+white-washed timber houses, with projecting porches and roofs, may stand
+for a type of the Alsatian "Dorf." The houses are white-washed outside
+once a year, the mahogany-coloured rafters, placed crosswise, forming
+effective ornamentation. No manure heaps before the door are seen
+here, as in Brittany, all is clean and sightly. We meet numbers of
+pedestrians, the women mostly wearing the Alsatian head-dress, an
+enormous bow of broad black ribbon with long ends, worn fan-like on
+the head, and lending an air of great severity. The remainder of the
+costume--short blue or red skirt (the colours distinguishing Protestant
+and Catholic), gay kerchief, and apron--have all but vanished. As
+we approach our destination the outlines of the Vosges become more
+distinct, and the plain is broken by sloping vineyards and fir woods.
+We see no labourers afield, and, with one exception, no cattle. It is
+strange how often cattle are cooped up in pastoral regions. The farming
+here is on the old plan, and milch cows are stabled from January to
+December, only being taken out to water. Agricultural machinery and new
+methods are penetrating these villages at a snail's pace. The division
+of property is excessive. There are no lease-holds, and every farmer,
+alike on a small or large scale, is an owner.
+
+Two classes in Alsace have been partly won over to the German rule; one
+is that of the Protestant clergy, the other that of the peasants.
+
+The Third Empire persistently snubbed its Protestant subjects, then,
+as at the time of the Revocation, numbering many most distinguished
+citizens. No attempts, moreover, were made to Gallicise the
+German-speaking population of the Rhine provinces. Thus the wrench was
+much less felt here than in Catholic, French-speaking Lorraine. Higher
+stipends, good dwelling-houses and schools, have done much to soften
+annexation to the clergy. An afternoon "at home" in a country parsonage
+a few miles from Strasburg, reminded me of similar functions in an
+English rectory.
+
+At the parsonage of Blaesheim we were warmly welcomed by friends, and
+in their pretty garden found a group of ladies and gentlemen playing at
+croquet, among them two nice-looking girls wearing the Alsatian _coiffe_
+that enormous construction of black ribbon just mentioned. These young
+ladies were daughters of the village mayor, a rich peasant, and had been
+educated in Switzerland, speaking French correctly and fluently. Many
+daughters of wealthy peasants marry civilians at Strasburg, when they
+for once and for all cast off the last feature of traditional costume.
+After a little chat, and being bidden to return to tea in half an hour,
+we visited some other old acquaintances of my friends, a worthy peasant
+family residing close by. Here also a surprise was in store for me. The
+head of the house and his wife--both far advanced in the sixties and
+who might have walked out of one of Erckman-Chatrian's novels--could not
+speak a word of French, although throughout the best part of their lives
+they had been French subjects!
+
+Admirable types they were, but by no means given to sentiment or
+romance. The good man assured me in his quaint patois that he did not
+mind whether he was French, German, or, for the matter of that, English,
+so long as he could get along comfortably and peacefully! He added,
+however, that under the former _regime_ taxes had been much lower and
+farming much more profitable. The good folk brought out bread and wine,
+and we toasted each other in right hearty fashion. Over the sideboard
+of their clean, well-furnished sitting room hung a small photograph of
+William II. On our return to our first host we found a sumptuous five
+o'clock tea prepared for the ladies, whilst more solid refreshments
+awaited the gentlemen in the garden.
+
+Even in a remote corner of Alsace, memorialized by Germany's greatest
+poet, we find pathetic clinging to France.
+
+Everyone has read the story of Goethe and Frederika, how the great poet,
+then a student at the Strasburg University, was taken by a comrade to
+the simple parsonage of Sesenheim, how the artless daughter of the house
+with her sweet Alsatian songs, enchanted the brilliant youth, how he
+found himself, as he tells us in his autobiography, suddenly in the
+immortal family of the Vicar of Wakefield. "And here comes Moses too!"
+cried Goethe, as Frederika's brother appeared. That accidental visit has
+in turn immortalised Sesenheim. The place breathes of Frederika. It has
+become a shrine dedicated to pure, girlish love.
+
+A new line of railway takes us from Strasburg in about an hour over the
+flat, monotonous stretch of country, so slowly crossed by diligence in
+Goethe's time. The appearance of the city from this side--the French
+side--is truly awful: we see fortification after fortification, with
+vast powder magazines at intervals, on the outer earthworks bristling
+rows of cannon, beyond, several of the thirteen forts constructed since
+the war. The bright greenery of the turf covering these earthworks does
+not detract from their dreadful appearance. Past the vast workshops
+and stores of the railway station--a small town in itself--past market
+gardens, hop gardens, hayfields, beech-woods, all drenched with a
+week of rain, past old-world villages, the railway runs to Sesenheim,
+alongside the high road familiar to Goethe. We alight at the neat,
+clean, trim station (in the matter of cleanliness the new _regime_ bears
+the palm over the old), and take the flooded road to the village. An
+old, bent, wrinkled peasant woman, speaking French, directs us for full
+information about Frederique--thus is the name written in French--to the
+auberge. First, with no little interest and pride, she unhooks from
+her own wall a framed picture, containing portraits of Goethe, and
+Frederika, and drawings of church and parsonage as they were. The former
+has been restored and the latter wholly rebuilt.
+
+As we make our way to the little inn over against these, we pass a
+new handsome communal school in course of erection. On questioning two
+children in French, they shake their heads and pass on. The thought
+naturally arises--did the various French Governments, throughout the
+period of a hundred and odd years ending in 1870, do much in the way of
+assimilating the German population of Alsace?
+
+It would not seem so, seeing that up till the Franco-Prussian war the
+country folk retained their German speech, or at least patois. Under
+the present rule only German is taught in communal schools, and in
+the gymnasiums or lycees, two hours a week only being allowed for the
+teaching of French. At the Auberge du Bouf, over against the church and
+parsonage, we chat with the master in French about Goethe and Frederika;
+his womankind, however, only spoke patois. Here, nevertheless, we find
+French hearts, French sympathies, and occasionally French gaiety.
+
+Unidyllic, yet full of instruction, is the drive in the opposite
+direction to Kehl. We are here approaching friendly frontiers, yet the
+aspect is hardly less dreadful. True that cannon do not bristle on the
+outer line of the triple fortifications; otherwise the state of things
+is similar. We see lines of vast powder magazines, enormous barracks
+of recent construction, preparations for defence, on a scale altogether
+inconceivable and indescribable. Little wonder that meat is a shilling
+a pound, instead of fourpence as before the annexation, that bread has
+doubled in price, taxation also, and, to make matters worse, that trade
+has remained persistently dull!
+
+A tremendous triple-arched, stone gate, guarded by sentinels, has been
+erected on this side of the lower Rhine, over against the Duchy of
+Baden. No sooner are we through than our hearts are rejoiced with signs
+of peace and innocent enjoyment, restaurants and coffee gardens, family
+groups resting under the trees. Beyond, flowing briskly amid wooded
+banks to right and left, is the Rhine, a glorious sight, compensating
+for so many that have just given us the heartache.
+
+Of Strasburg I will say little. Full descriptions of the new city, for
+such an expression is no figure of speech, are given in the English,
+French, and German guide books. The first care of the German Government
+after coming into possession was to repair the havoc caused by the
+bombardment, the rebuilding of public buildings, monuments and streets
+that had been partially or entirely destroyed in 1871. Among these were
+the Museum and Public Library, the Protestant church, several orphanages
+and hospitals, lastly, incredible as it may seem, the beautiful
+octagonal tower of the Cathedral. The incidents of this vandalism have
+just been graphically described in the new volume of the brothers'
+Margueritte prose epic, dealing with the Franco-Prussian War, entitled
+"Les Braves Gens."
+
+I remember writing on the occasion of my first visit to Strasburg, a few
+years after these events--"There is very little to see at Strasburg now.
+The Library with its priceless treasures of books and manuscripts, the
+Museum of painting and sculpture, rich in _chefs d'oeuvre_ of the French
+school, the handsome Protestant church, the theatre, the Palais de
+Justice, were all completely destroyed by the Prussian bombardment,
+not to speak of buildings of lesser importance, four hundred private
+dwellings, and hundreds of civilians killed and wounded by the shells.
+Nor was the cathedral spared, and would doubtless have perished
+altogether also but for the enforced surrender of the heroic city."
+
+Since that sad time a new Strasburg has sprung up, of which the
+University is the central feature. A thousand students now frequent this
+great school of learning, the professorial staff numbering a hundred.
+One noteworthy point is the excessive cheapness of a learned or
+scientific education. Autocratic Prussia emulates democratic France.
+I was assured by an Alsatian who had graduated here that a year's fees
+need not exceed ten pounds! Students board and lodge themselves outside
+the University, and, of course, as economically as they please. They
+consist chiefly of Germans, for sons of French parents of the middle and
+upper ranks are sent over the frontier before the age of seventeen in
+order to evade the German military service. They thus exile themselves
+for ever. This cruel severance of family ties is, as I have said, one
+of the saddest effects of annexation. Without and within, the group
+of buildings forming the University is of great splendour. Alike
+architecture and decoration are on a costly scale; the vast corridors
+with tesselated marble floors, marble columns, domes covered with
+frescoes, statuary, stained glass, and gilded panels, must impress the
+mind of the poorer students. Less agreeable is the reflection of the
+taxpayer. This new Imperial quarter represents millions of marks, whilst
+the defences of Strasburg alone represent many millions more. One of
+the five facultes is devoted to Natural Science. The Museum of Natural
+History, the mineralogical collections, and the chemical laboratories
+have each their separate building, whilst at the extreme end of the
+University gardens is the handsome new observatory, with covered way
+leading to the equally handsome residence of the astronomer in charge.
+Thus the learned star-gazer can reach his telescope under cover in
+wintry weather. In addition to the University library described above,
+the various class-rooms have each small separate libraries, sections
+of history, literature, etc., on which the students can immediately lay
+their hands. All the buildings are heated with gas or water.
+
+Just beyond these precincts we come upon a striking contrast--row after
+row of brand-new barracks, military bakeries, foundries, and stores;
+piles of cannon balls, powder magazines, war material, one would
+think, sufficient to blow up all Europe. Incongruous indeed is
+this juxtaposition of a noble seat of learning and militarism only
+commensurate with barbaric times. A good way off is the School of
+Medicine. This, indeed, owes little or nothing to the new regime, having
+been founded by the French Government long before 1870. It is a vast
+group of buildings, one of which can only be glanced at with a shudder.
+My friend pointed out to me an annexe or "vivisection department." Here,
+as he expressed it, is maintained quite a menagerie of unhappy animals
+destined for the tortures of the vivisector's knife. The very thought
+sickened me, and I was glad to give up sight-seeing and drop in for
+half-an-hour's chat with a charming old lady, French to the backbone,
+living under the mighty shadow of the Cathedral. She entertained me with
+her experiences during the bombardment, when cooped up with a hundred
+persons, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, all passing fifteen days in a
+dark, damp cellar. Many horrible stories she related, but somehow
+they seemed less horrible than the thought of tame, timid, and even
+affectionate and intelligent creatures, slowly and deliberately tortured
+to death, for the sake, forsooth, of what? Of this corporeal frame
+man himself has done his best to vitiate and dishonour, mere clayey
+envelope--so theologians tell us--of an immortal soul!
+
+Strasburg, like Metz, is one vast camp, at the time of this second
+visit the forty thousand soldiers in garrison here were away for the
+manoeuvres. In another week or two the town would swarm with them.
+
+I will now say a few words about the administration of the annexed
+provinces, a subject on which exists much misapprehension.
+
+As I have explained, no liberty, as we understand it, exists for the
+French subjects of the German Emperor, neither freedom of speech, nor of
+the press, nor of public meeting are enjoyed in Alsace and the portion
+of Lorraine no longer French. A rigorous censorship of books as well
+as newspapers is carried on. Even religious worship is under perpetual
+surveillance. One by one French pastors and priests are supplanted
+by their German brethren. A much respected pastor of Mulhouse, long
+resident in that city and ardently French, told me some years ago that
+he expected to be the last of his countrymen permitted to officiate.
+Police officers wearing plain clothes attend the churches in which
+French is still permitted on Sunday. There is nothing that can be called
+representative or real parliamentary government. The Stadtholder or
+Governor is in reality a dictator armed with autocratic powers. He
+can, at a moment's notice, expel citizens, or stop newspapers. As to
+administration, it rests in the hands of the State Secretariat or body
+of Ministers, three in number. There is a pretence at home rule, but
+one fact suffices to explain its character and working. Of the thirty
+members forming the local Reichstag, sitting at Strasburg, fifteen are
+always named by the Stadtholder himself. This little Chamber of Deputies
+deliberates upon provincial affairs, all Bills having to pass the
+Chamber at Berlin and receive the Imperial sanction before becoming law.
+As to the party of protest in the Reichstag itself, formerly headed by
+the late Jean Dollfuss, I was assured that it had ceased to exist.
+Years before, then burdened with the weight of care and years, the great
+patriot of Mulhouse had said to me, "I no longer take my seat at Berlin.
+Of what good?" And were he living still, that great and good man,
+burning as was his patriotism, inextinguishable as was his love for
+France, would doubtless echo the words I now heard on every lip, "Peace,
+peace; only let us have peace!"
+
+Whilst at Strasburg German has crowded out French, at Mulhouse I found
+French still universally spoken. The prohibition of native speech in
+schools is not only a domestic but a commercial grievance. As extensive
+business relations exist between the two countries, especially near the
+frontier, a knowledge of both French and German is really necessary
+to all classes. Even tourists in Alsace-Lorraine nowadays fare badly
+without some smattering of the latter language. Hotel-keepers especially
+look to the winning side, and do their very utmost to Germanise their
+establishments. Shopkeepers must live, and find it not only advantageous
+but necessary to follow the same course. Sad indeed is the spectacle
+of Germanised France! Nemesis here faces us in militarism, crushing
+the people with taxation and profoundly shocking the best instincts of
+humanity.
+
+In conclusion I must do justice to the extreme courtesy of German
+railway and other officials. Many employes of railways and post
+offices--all, be it remembered, Government officials--do not speak any
+French at all, especially in out-of-the-way places. At the same time,
+all officials, down to the rural postman, will do their very best to
+help out French-speaking strangers with their own scant vocabulary of
+French words.
+
+My Alsatian hosts, one and all, I found quite ready to do justice to
+the authorities and their representatives, but, as I have insisted
+upon before, an insuperable barrier, the fathomless gulf created by
+injustice, exists between conquerors and conquered. And only last year
+dining with my hosts of Germanised Lorraine in Paris, I asked them if in
+this respect matters had changed for the better. The answer I received
+was categoric--"Nothing is changed since your visit to us. French and
+Germans remain apart as before."
+
+"East of Paris" has led me somewhat farther than I intended, but to
+a lover of France, no less than to a French heart, France beyond the
+Vosges is France still!
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of East of Paris, by Matilda Betham-Edwards
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