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The Roof of France; Or, the Causses of the Lozère

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Title: The Roof of France; Or, the Causses of the Lozère

Author: Matilda Betham-Edwards


        
Release date: October 1, 2005 [eBook #9073]
                Most recently updated: April 25, 2014

Language: English

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THE ROOF OF FRANCE

OR

THE CAUSSES OF THE LOZÈRE


BY

M. BETHAM-EDWARDS



To M. SADI CARNOT.

THIS VOLUME, THE THIRD OF MY PUBLISHED TRAVELS IN FRANCE, IS INSCRIBED
WITH ALL RESPECT TO HER HONOURED PRESIDENT.




CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY

PART I.

_MY FIRST JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES_.

CHAP.

    I. FROM LE PUY TO MENDE
   II. MENDE
  III. A GLIMPSE OF THE CAUSSES
   IV. ON THE TOP OF THE ROOF
    V. RODEZ AND AURILLAC
   VI. THE LAND OF THE BURON

PART II.

_MY SECOND JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES._

    I. THROUGH THE MORVAN
   II. THROUGH THE MORVAN (_continued_)
  III. FROM LYONS TO AVIGNON BY THE RHÔNE
   IV. AVIGNON AND ORANGE
    V. LE VIGAN
   VI. NANT (AVEYRON)
  VII. MILLAU (AVEYRON)
 VIII. FROM MENDE TO ST. ÉNIMIE
   IX. ST. ÉNIMIE
    X. THE CAÑON OF THE TARN
   XI. SHOOTING THE RAPIDS
  XII. LE ROZIER
 XIII. MONTPELLIER-LE-VIEUX
  XIV. MONTPELLIER-LE-VIEUX (_continued_)
   XV. LE ROZIER TO MILLAU AND RODEZ
  XVI. RODEZ, VIC-SUR-CÈRE REVISITED.--A BREAKFAST ON THE BANKS OF THE
       SAÔNE




INTRODUCTORY.


It is upon this occasion my rare and happy privilege to introduce the
reader to something absolutely new. How many English-speaking tourists
have found their way to the Roof of France--in other words, the ancient
Gévaudan, the romantic department of the Lozère? How many English--or
for the matter of that French travellers either--have so much as heard
of the Causses, [Footnote: From calx, lime] those lofty tablelands of
limestone, groups of a veritable archipelago, once an integral whole,
now cleft asunder, forming the most picturesque gorges and magnificent
defiles; offering contrasts of scenery as striking as they are sublime,
and a phenomenon unique in geological history? On the plateau of the
typical Causse, wide in extent as Dartmoor, lofty as Helvellyn, we
realize all the sombreness and solitude of the Russian steppe. These
stony wastes, aridity itself, yet a carpet of wild-flowers in spring,
are sparsely peopled by a race having a peculiar language, a
characteristic physique, and primitive customs. Here are laboriously
cultivated oats, rye, potatoes--not a blade of wheat, not an apple-tree
is to be discerned; no spring or rivulet freshens the parched soil. The
length and severity of the winter are betokened by the trees and poles
seen at intervals on either side of the road. But for such precautions,
even the native wayfarer would be lost when six feet of snow cover the
ground. Winter lasts eight months, and the short summer is tropical.

But descend these grandiose passes, dividing one limestone promontory
from another--go down into the valleys, each watered by lovely rivers,
and we are, as if by magic, transported into the South! The peach, the
almond, the grape ripen out of doors; all is smilingness, fertility,
and grace. The scenery of the Causses may be described as a series of
exhilarating surprises, whilst many minor attractions contribute to the
stranger's enjoyment.

The affability, dignity, and uprightness of these mountaineers, their
freedom from vulgarity, subservience, or habits of extortion, their
splendid physique and great personal beauty, form novel experiences of
travel. The general character of the people--here I do not allude to
the 'Caussenard,' or dweller on the Causse alone, but to the Lozérien
as a type--may be gathered from one isolated fact. The summer sessions
of 1888 were what is called _assizes blanches_, there being not a
single cause to try. Such an occurrence is not unusual in this
department.

The Lozère, hitherto the Cinderella, poorest of the poor of French
provinces, is destined to become one of the richest. Not only the
Causses, but the Cañon du Tarn, may be regarded in the light of a
discovery by the tourist world. A few years ago the famous geographer,
Joanne, was silent on both. Chance-wise, members of the French Alpine
Club lighted upon this stupendous defile between the Causse de
Sauveterre and the Causse Méjean; their glorious find became noised
abroad, and now the Tarn is as a Pactolus flowing over golden sands--a
mine of wealth to the simple country folk around. The river, springing
from a cleft in the Lozère chain, winding its impetuous way, enriched
by many a mountain torrent, through the Aveyron, Tarn, and Garonne,
finally disemboguing into the Garonne, has lavished all its witchery on
its native place.

Every inch of the way between the little towns of St. Énimie and Le
Rozier is enchanted ground by virtue of unrivalled scenery. In time the
influx of tourists must make the river-side population rich. The sandy
bed of the Tarn must attain the preciousness of a building site near
Paris. This materialistic view of the question affords mixed feelings.
I have in mind the frugality of these country folks, their
laboriousness, their simple, upright, sturdy ways. I can but wish them
well, even at the price of terrible disenchantment. Instead of rustic
hostelries at St. Énimie, gigantic hotels after the manner of Swiss
tourist barracks; the solitude of the Causses broken by enthusiastic
tittle-tattle; tourist-laden flotillas bearing the ensign of Cook or
Gaze skimming the glassy waters of the majestically environed Tarn!

On the threshold of the Lozère, just outside the limits of the
department, lies another newly-discovered marvel, more striking,
stranger than the scenery of the Causses--as beautiful, though in quite
another way, as the Cañon or Gorge of the Tarn. This is the fantastic,
the unique, the eerie Cité du Diable, or Montpellier-le-Vieux, with its
citadel, ramparts, watch-towers, amphitheatres, streets, arcades,
terraces--a vast metropolis in the wilderness, a Babylon untenanted
from the beginning, a Nineveh fashioned only by the great builder
Nature. Little wonder that the peasants formerly spoke of the dolomite
city, when forced to speak at all, with bated breath, and gave it so
ill-omened a name. The once uncanny, misprized, even accursed city,
since surnamed Montpellier-le-Vieux, from a fancied resemblance to
Montpellier, is now very differently regarded by its humble owners.

Literally discovered in 1882, its first explorers being two members of
the French Alpine Club, the Cité du Diable is already bringing in a
revenue. French tourists, who first came by twos and threes, may now be
counted by the hundred a month during the holiday season. Alert to the
unmistakable rat-tat-tat of Dame Fortune at their front-doors, the good
folks are preparing for the welcome invasions to come. The auberge is
being transformed into an inn, roads are improving, a regular service
of guides has been organized, and all charges for guides, carriages,
and mules have been regulated by tariff. It is hardly possible to
exaggerate the weird fascination and eldritch charm of this once
dreaded, ill-omened place. Only one pen--that, alas! at rest for
ever--could have done justice to such a theme. In the hands of the
great Sand, Montpellier-le-Vieux might have afforded us a chef d'œuvre
to set beside 'La Ville Noire' or the adorable 'Jeanne.'

Fresh and interesting as is a sojourn on the Roof of France, a name in
verity accorded to the Lozère, I have not restricted myself within such
limits. The climbing up and the getting down offer many a racy and
novel experience. I have given not only the middle of my journey, but
the beginning and the end. Those of my country-folk who have traversed
the picturesque little land of the French Morran, who have steamed from
Lyons to Avignon, made their way by road through the Gard and the
Aveyron, and sojourned in the cheese-making region of the Cantal--I
fancy their number is not legion--may pass over my chapters thus
headed. Had I one object in view only, to sell my book, I must have
reversed the usual order of things, and put the latter half in place of
the first. I prefer the more methodical plan, and comfort myself with
the reflection that France, excepting Brittany, Normandy, the Pyrenees,
the Riviera and the Hotel du Jura, Dijon, is really much less familiar
to English travellers than Nijni-Novgorod or Jerusalem. I no more
encountered anyone British born during my two journeys in the Lozère
than I did a beggar. This privileged corner of the earth enjoys an
absolute immunity from excursionists and mendicants. Strong
enthusiasts, lovers of France, moved to tread in my footsteps, will
hardly accuse me of exaggerating either the scenery, the good qualities
and good looks of the people, or the flawless charm of Lozérien travel.
In years to come I may here be found too eulogistic of all classes with
whom I came in contact, who shall say? A long period of increasing
prosperity, a perpetually swelling stream of holiday-makers, may by
degrees change, and perhaps ultimately pervert, the character of the
peasants, so glowingly delineated in the following pages. Let us hope
that such a contingency is at least very far off, and that many another
may bring home the same cordial recollections of the boatmen of the
Tarn, the aubergistes and voituriers of the Causses, the peasant owners
of the Cité du Diable. I need hardly add that I give a mere record of
travel. The geology of the strange district visited, its rich and
varied flora, its wealth of prehistoric remains, are only touched upon.
For further information the reader is referred to other writers. On the
subject of agriculture I have occasionally dwelt at more length, being
somewhat of a farmeress, as Arthur Young styles it, and having now
studied a considerable portion of France from an agricultural point of
view. The noble dictum of 'that wise and honest traveller'--thus aptly
does our great critic describe the Suffolk squire--'the magic of
property turns sands to gold,' will be here as amply illustrated as in
my works on Eastern and Western France.

One word more. No one must undertake a journey in the Lozère with a
scantily-furnished purse. A well-known artist lately contributed a
paper to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in which he set forth--in the
strangest English surely ever penned by man, woman, or child--the
facilities and delights of cycling in France on seven francs a day. Why
anyone in his sober senses should dream of travelling abroad on seven
francs a day passes my comprehension. Money means to the traveller not
only health, enjoyment, comfort, but knowledge. Why should we expect,
moreover, to be wholesomely housed and fed in a foreign country upon a
sum altogether inadequate to the tourist's needs at home? The little
wayside inns in out-of-the-way places mentioned by me were indeed very
cheap, but taking into account horses, carriages and guides, the
exploration of the Causses, the Cañon du Tarn and Montpellier-le-Vieux
will certainly cost twenty-five francs per diem, this outlay being
slightly reduced in the case of two or more persons. Of course, when
not absolutely making excursions, when settling down for days or weeks
in some rural retreat, expenses will be moderate enough as far as inns
are concerned. But carriage-hire is costly all the world over, and the
inquiring traveller must have his carriage. There will also be a daily
call upon his purse in the matter of pourboire to guides and
conductors. A pound a day is by no means too liberal an allowance for
the wise bent upon having the best, of everything. Those content to put
up with the worst may exist upon the half.




THE ROOF OF FRANCE


PART I.

_MY FIRST JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES._




CHAPTER I.

FROM LE PUY TO MENDE.


The traveller in France will not unseldom liken his fortunes to those
of Saul the son of Kish, who, setting forth in search of his father's
asses, found a kingdom; or, to use a homelier parable, will compare his
case to that of the donkey between two equally-tempting bundles of hay.

Such, at least, was my luck when starting for my annual French tour in
1887. I had made up my mind to see something of the Lozère and the
Cantal, settling down in two charming spots respectively situated in
these departments, when, fortunately for myself, I was tempted
elsewhere. Instead of rusticating for a few weeks in the country nooks
alluded to, there observing leisurely the condition of the peasants and
of agriculture generally, I took a contrary direction, thus ultimately
becoming acquainted with one of the most romantic and least-known
regions of Central France.

'Since you intend to visit the Lozère' wrote a correspondent to me,
'why not explore the Causses? The scenery is, I believe, very
remarkable, and the geology deeply interesting.'

The Causses? the Causses? I had travelled east, west, north, south on
French soil for upwards of thirteen years, yet the very name was new to
me. Having once heard of the Causses, it was, of course, quite certain
that I should hear of them twice.

Meeting by chance a fellow-countryman at Dijon, as enthusiastic a lover
of French scenery as myself, and comparing our experiences, he suddenly
asked:

'But the Causses? Have you seen the wonderful Causses of the Lozère?'

It was a curious and highly-characteristic fact that both my informants
should be English, thus bearing out the assertion of an old French
writer, author of the first real tourist's guide for his own country,
that we are 'le peuple le plus curieux de l'Europe'; he adds, 'le plus
observateur,' perhaps a compliment rather paid to Arthur Young than to
the English as a nation. The work I refer to ('Itinéraire descriptif de
la France,' by Vaysse de Villiers, 1816) was evidently written under
the inspiration of our great agriculturist.

From French friends and acquaintances I could learn absolutely nothing
of the Causses. The region was a _terra incognita_ to one and all. I
might every whit as well have asked my way to Swift's Liliputia or
Cloud Cuckoo Town, and the Island of Cheese of his precursor, the witty
Lucian. People _had_ heard of l'Ecosse; oh yes! but why an Englishwoman
should seek information about Scotland in the heart of France, they
could not quite make out.

There was nothing for me to do but trust to happy chance and the
guide-book, and set out; and as a stray swallow is the precursor of
myriads, so no sooner had I got an inkling of one marvel than I was
destined to hear of half a dozen.

Wonderful the scenery of the Causses, still more wonderful the cañon or
gorge of the Tarn and the dolomite city of Montpellier-le-Vieux, so I
now learned.

There were difficulties in the way of seeing all these. I had been
unexpectedly detained at Dijon. It was the second week in September,
and the Roof of France--in other words, the department of the
Lozère--is ofttimes covered with snow before that month is out. My
travelling companion was a young French lady, permitted by her parents
to travel with me, and for whose health, comfort and safety I felt
responsible. It seemed doubtful whether this year at least I should be
able to realize my new-formed project, and penetrate into the solitudes
of the Causses. However, I determined to try.

My journey begins at the ancient town of Le Puy, former capital of the
Vivarais, chef-lieu of the department of the Haute Loire, and, it is
unnecessary to say, one of the most curious towns in the world. We had
journeyed thither by way of St. Étienne, and were bound for Mende, the
little mountain-girt bishopric and capital of the Lozère.

We had to be up betimes, as our train for Langogne, corresponding with
the Mende diligence, started at five in the morning. It might have been
midnight when we quitted the Hôtel Gamier--would that I could say a
single word in its favour!--so blue black the frosty heavens, so
brilliant the stars, the keen September air biting sharply.

More fortunate than a friend whose pocket was lately picked of
twenty-five pounds at the railway-station here, I waited whilst the
terribly slow business of ticket-taking and registration was got over,
thankful enough that I had breakfasted overnight--that is to say, had
made tea at three o'clock in the morning. Not a cup of milk, not a
crust of bread, would that inhospitable inn offer its over-charged
guests before setting out. As I have nothing but praise to bestow upon
the hostelries of the Lozère and the Cantal, I must give vent to a
well-deserved malediction here.

By slow degrees the perfect day dawned, a glorious sun rising in a
cloudless sky. We now discovered that our travelling companions were
two sisters--the one, an admirable specimen of the belle villageoise,
in her charming lace coiffe; the other, equally good-looking, but as
much vulgarized by her Parisian costume as Lamartine's sea-heroine,
Graziella, when she had exchanged her contadine's dress for modern
millinery. These pretty and becoming head-dresses of Auvergne, made
often of the richest lace and ribbon, may now be described as
survivals, the bonnet, as well as the chimney-pot hat, making the round
of the civilized world.

From Le Puy to Langogne, viâ Langeac, we traversed a region familiar to
many a tourist as he has journeyed from Clermont-Ferrand to Nîmes. The
shifting scenes of gorge and ravine are truly of Alpine grandeur,
whilst the railway is one of those triumphs of engineering skill to
which Alpine travellers are also accustomed.

One remark only I make by the way. The sarcasms levelled against the
system of peasant proprietorship, that would be cruel were they not
silly, are here silenced for once and for all. Nothing can be more
self-evident than the beneficial result of small holdings to the State,
wholly setting aside the superiority of the peasant-owner's position,
moral, social and material, to that of the English farm labourer. Even
a prejudiced observer must surely be touched by the indomitable
perseverance, the passionate love of the soil, evinced by the small
cultivators in the valley of the Allier, and, indeed, witnessed
throughout every stage of our day's journey.

Wherever exists a patch of cultivable soil, we see crops of rye,
buckwheat and potatoes, some of these plots being only a few yards
square, and to all appearances inaccessible. In many places earth has
been carried by the basketful to narrow, lofty ledges of rock, an
astounding instance of toil, hopefulness and patience. No matter the
barrenness of the spot, no matter its isolation or the difficulty of
approach, wherever root or seed will grow, there the French peasant
owner plies hoe and spade, and gradually causes the wilderness to
blossom as the rose.

So true it is, as Arthur Young wrote a hundred years ago, 'Give a man
secure possession of a black rock, and he will turn it into a garden.'
A considerable proportion of the land hereabouts has been quite
recently laid under cultivation, and on every side we see bits of waste
being ploughed up.

At Langeac, a little junction between Le Puy and St. Georges d'Aurac,
we had a halt of over two hours, easily spent amid charming scenery.
The air is sweet and fresh, everyone is busy in the fields, and as we
saunter here and there, people look up from their work to greet us with
a smile of contentment and bonhomie. It is a scene of peace and homely
prosperity. A short railway jaunt to Langogne; a bustling breakfast at
the little restaurant; then begins the final packing of the diligence.
The crazy old berline looks as full as it can be before our four boxes
and numerous small packages are taken from the railway van, and the
group of bag and basket laden folks standing round, priests, nuns, and
commis-voyageurs, evidently waiting for a place. Surely room can never
be found for all these! Just then a French tourist came up and accosted
us, smiling ruefully.

'Ah!' he said, shaking his head with affected malice, 'just like you
English--you have secured the best places.'

True enough, the English when they travel are as the wise virgins, and
secure the best places. The French are as the foolish virgins, and
trust ofttimes to chance.

I had, of course, telegraphed from Le Puy the day before for two seats
in the coupé. Our interlocutor, an army surgeon, making a holiday trip
with his wife, was obliged to relinquish the third good place to
madame, placing himself beside the driver on the banquette. The little
disappointment over, we became the best of friends, a highly desirable
contingency in such terribly close quarters.

Once securely packed, we stood no more chance of being unpacked than
potted anchovies on their way from Nantes to Southampton. There we
were, and there perforce we must remain till we reached our
destination. To move a finger, to stir an inch, was out of the
question. Nothing short of physical torture for the space of six hours
seemed in store for us--for the three occupants of that narrow coupé,
like fashionable ladies of old,

           'Close mewed in their sedans for fear of air.'

We could at least enjoy the selfish satisfaction of faring better than
our neighbours. The unlucky occupants inside were as short of
elbow-room as ourselves, and had not the enjoyment of the view; the
passengers of the banquette were literally perched on a knife-board,
whilst one old man, a cheery old fellow, supernumerary of the service,
hung mid-air on one side of the vehicle, literally sitting on nothing.
Like the Indian jugglers and the Light Princess of George Macdonald's
wonderful fairy-tale, he had found means to set at nought the law of
gravity.

There he hung, and as the sturdy horses set off at a fast trot, and we
were whirled round one sharp corner after another, I at first expected
to see him lose balance and fall with terrible risk to life and limb.
But we soon discovered that he had mastered the accomplishment of
sitting on air, and was as safe on his invisible seat as we on our hard
benches; old as he was, he seemed to glory in the exploit--exploit, it
must be allowed, of the first water.

Once fairly off, our own bodily discomforts were entirely forgotten, so
splendid the sunshine, so exhilarating the air, so romantic the
scenery. The forty miles' drive passed like a dream.

Our companion, like her husband, was full of health, spirits and
information. She could see nothing of the military surgeon but a pair
of neat, well-polished boots, as he sat aloft beside the driver; every
now and then she craned forward her neck with wifely solicitude and
interrogated the boots:

'Well, love, how do you get on?'

And the boots would make affectionate reply:

'As well as possible, my angel--and you?'

'We couldn't be better off,' answered the enthusiastic little lady
cheerily. Nor in one sense could we; earth could hardly show fairer or
more striking scenes than these highlands of the Lozère.

The first part of our way lay amid wild mountain passes, deep ravines,
dusky with pine and fir, lofty granite peaks shining like blocks of
diamond against an amethyst heaven. Alternating with such scenes of
savage magnificence are idyllic pictures, verdant dells and glades,
rivers bordered by alder-trees wending even course through emerald
pastures, or making cascade after cascade over a rocky bed. On little
lawny spaces about the sharp spurs of the Alps, we see cattle browsing,
high above, as if in cloudland. Excepting an occasional cantonnier at
work by the roadside, or a peasant woman minding her cows, the region
is utterly deserted. Tiny hamlets lie half hidden in the folds of the
hills or skirting the edges of the lower mountain slopes; none border
the way.

During the long winter these fine roads, winding between steep
precipices and abrupt rocks, are abandoned on account of the snow. The
diligence ceases to run, and letters and newspapers are distributed
occasionally by experienced horsemen familiar with the country and able
to trust to short cuts.

What the icy blasts of January are like on these stupendous heights we
can well conceive. At one point of our journey we reach an altitude
above the sea equal to that of the Puy de Dôme. This is the lofty
plateau of granitic formation called Le Palais du Roi, a portion of the
Margéride chain, and as the old writer before mentioned writes, 'la
partie la plus neigeuse de la route'--the snowiest bit of the road. On
this superb September day, although winter might be at hand, the
temperature was of an English July. As we travelled on, amid scenes of
truly Alpine grandeur and loveliness, the thought arose to my mind, how
little even the much-travelled English dream of the wealth of scenery
in France! Our cumbersome old diligence carried only French passengers.
Nowhere else in Europe does the English tourist find himself more
isolated from the common-place of travel.

Many of the landscapes now passed recall scenes in Algeria, especially
as we get within sight of the purple, porphyritic chain of the Lozère.
We gaze on undulations of delicate violet and gray, as in Kabylia,
whilst deep down below lie oases of valley and pasture, the dazzling
golden green contrasting, with the aerial hues of distant mountain and
cloud.

Nothing under heaven could be more beautiful than the shifting lights
and shadows on the remoter hills, or the crimson and rosy flush of
sunset on the nearer rocks; at our feet we see well-watered dales and
luxuriant meadows, whilst on the higher ground, here as in the valley
of the Allier, we have proofs of the astounding, the unimaginable
patience and laboriousness of peasant owners.

In many places rings of land have been cleared round huge blocks of
granite, the smaller stones, wrenched up, forming a fence or border,
whilst between the immovable, columnar masses of rock, potatoes, rye,
or other hardy crops, have been planted. Not an inch of available soil
is wasted. These scenes of mingled sternness and grace are not marred
by any eyesore: no hideous chimney of factory with its column of black
smoke, as in the delicious valleys of the Jura; no roar of millwheel or
of steam-engine breaks the silence of forest depths. The very genius of
solitude, the very spirit of beauty, broods over the woods and
mountains of the Lozère. The atmospheric effects are very varied and
lovely, owing to the purity of the air. As evening approaches, the vast
porphyry range before us is a cloud of purple and ruddy gold against
the sky. And what a sky! That warm, ambered glow recalls Sorrento. By
the time we wind down into the valley of the Lot night has overtaken
us. We dash into the little city too hungry and too tired, it must be
confessed, to think of anything else but of beds and dinner; both of
which, and of excellent quality, awaited us at the old-fashioned Hôtel
Chabert.




CHAPTER II.

MENDE.


Mende was the last but one of French bishoprics and chef-lieux to be
connected with the great highroads of railway.

That tardy piece of justice only remained due to St. Claude in the Jura
when, owing to the Republic, Mende obtained its first iron road. Much
time and fatigue will henceforth be spared the traveller by these new
lines of railway, now spreading like a network over every part of
France; yet who can but regret the supersession of the diligence--that
antiquated vehicle recalling the good old days of travel, when folks
journeyed at a jog-trot pace, seeing not only places, but people, and
being brought into contact with wholly new ideas and modes of life?

The benefits of the railway in the Lozère and the Jura are incalculable
from an economic point of view, to say nothing of the convenience and
comfort thereby placed within reach of all classes. It is an English
habit to rail at the lavish expenditure of the French Government.
Cavillers of this kind wholly lose sight of the tremendous strides made
during the last fifteen years in the matter of communication. Surely
money thus laid out is a justifiable expenditure on the part of any
State?

I lately revisited the Vendée after twelve years' absence. I found the
country absolutely transformed--new lines of railway intersecting every
part, increased commercial activity in the towns, improved agriculture
in rural districts, schools opened, buildings of public utility erected
on all sides-evidences of an almost incredible progress. In Anjou the
same rapid advance, social, intellectual, material, strikes the
traveller whose first acquaintance with that province was made, say,
fifteen years ago. Take Segré by way of example; compare its condition
in 1888 with the state of things before the Franco-Prussian War. And
this little town is one instance out of hundreds.

It was high time that something should be done for Mende. No town ever
suffered more from wolves and wolf-like enemies in human shape. Down
almost to our own day the depredations of wolves were frightful. The
old French traveller before cited, writing in 1816, speaks of the large
number of children annually devoured by these animals in the Lozère.
The notorious 'Bête du Gévaudan,' at an earlier period, was the terror
of the country. It is an exciting narrative, that of the gigantic
four-footed demon of mischief, how, after proving the scourge of the
country for years, desolating home after home, in all devouring no less
than a hundred old men, women, and children, he was at last caught in
1767 by a brave monster-destroying baron, the Hercules and the Perseus
of local story. The ravages of wild beasts were a trifle compared to
the enormities committed by human foes.

It is not my intention to do more than touch upon the religious wars of
the Cévennes. Those blood-stained chronicles have been given again and
again elsewhere. No one, however, can make a sojourn at Mende without
recalling the atrocities perpetrated in the name of religion, and
compared to which the excesses of the Jacquerie and the Terror sink
into insignificance. If any of my readers doubt this, let them turn to
the impartial pages of the eminent French historian, the late M. Henri
Martin; or, to take a shorter road to conviction, get up the history of
the Gévaudan, or of this same little town of Mende.

On a smaller scale, the horrors of the siege of Magdeburgh were here
repeated, the Tilly of the campaign being the Calvinist leader Merle.

Devastated in turn by Catholic and Protestant, Royalist and Huguenot,
Mende was taken by assault on Christmas Day, 1579, and during three
days given up to fire, pillage, and slaughter. A general massacre took
place; the cathedral was fired and partially destroyed, the bells,
thirteen in number--one of these called the 'Nonpareil,' and reputed
the most sonorous in Christendom--being melted down for cannon. All
that fiendish cruelty and the demon of destruction could do was done.
In vain Henry of Navarre tried to put down atrocities committed in his
name. A second time Merle possessed himself of Mende, only consenting
to go forth on payment of a large sum in gold.

The history of Mende is the history of Marvéjols, of one town after
another visited by the traveller in the Cévennes; and in the wake of
the burnings, pillagings and massacres of that horrible period follows
the more horrible period still of the guerilla warfare of the
Camisards, quelled by means of the rack, the stake, and the wheel.

The Revolution, be it ever remembered, abolished all these; torture
ended with the Ancien Régime; and, although M. Taine seems of opinion
that the new state of things could have been brought about by a few
gentlemen quietly discussing affairs in dress-coats and white gloves,
we read of no great social upheaval being thus bloodlessly effected. At
such times a spirit of lawlessness and vengeance will break loose
beyond the power of leaders to hold in check.

The approach to Mende is very fine, and the little city is most
romantically placed; above gray spires, slated roofs and verdant
valley, framing it in on all sides, rise bare, brown and purple
mountains.

The cathedral presents an incongruity. Its twin-towers, each crowned
with a spire, recall two roses on a single stem, the one full-blown,
beautiful, a floral paragon, the other withered, dwarfed, abortive.

The first towers over its brother by a third, and is a lovely specimen
of Gothic architecture in the period of later efflorescence. The second
is altogether unbeautiful, and we wonder why such a work should ever
have been undertaken at all. Far better to have left the cathedral
one-towered, as those of Sens and Auxerre.

The town itself would be pleasant enough if its ædiles were more alive
to the importance of sanitation. It never seems to occur to the
authorities in these regions to have the streets scoured and swept.
Just outside Mende is a delicious little mountain-path, commanding a
wondrous panorama: although this walk to the hermitage of St. Privât is
evidently the holiday-stroll of the inhabitants, accumulations of filth
lie on either side. [Footnote: The same remark might be made by a
Frenchman of the lanes near Hastings!] No one takes any notice. As
Mende has without doubt an important future before it, let us hope that
these drawbacks will not afflict travellers in years to come. The
little capital of the Lozère must by virtue of position become a
tourist centre; surely the townsfolk will at last wake up to the
importance of making their streets clean and wholesome.

To obtain the prettiest view of this charming, albeit tatterdemalion,
little city, we follow a walk bordered with venerable willows to the
railway station. Here is seen a belt of beautifully kept vegetable
gardens and orchards, all fresh and green as if just washed by April
showers. These are the property of peasant-owners, who dispose of their
crops here and at Langogne. As yet the good townsfolk are hardly alive
to the benefits of a railway. One of our drivers complained that it
ruined the trades alike of carriage proprietor, conductor, and carter;
another averred that the local manufacture of woollen goods, formerly
of considerable account, was at a standstill owing to the importations
of cheaper cloths. These grumblers will doubtless erelong take a
different tone, as the glorious scenery of the Lozère becomes more
widely known and Mende is made the tourists' headquarters. Our hotel,
situated in the middle of the town, offers good beds, good food, dirty
floors, charges low enough to please Mr. Joseph Pennell, and a total
absence of anything in the shape of modern ideas. The people are
charming, and the house is a mousy, ratty, ramshackle place hundreds of
years old.

It may be as well to mention that folk assured me I was the first
English-speaking lady ever seen at Mende. A short time before no little
excitement had been created by the appearance of six young Englishmen
in knickerbockers, footing it with knapsack on shoulder. But
lady-tourists from the other side of La Manche? Never! Be this as it
may, it is as well for my country-women, if any follow me hither, to
avoid insular eccentricities of dress. The best plan, before exploring
wholly remote regions of France, is to buy the neatest possible
head-gear and travelling-costume in Paris. Without meaning to be
impertinent, bystanders will stand agape at the sight of any strangers,
English or French. Even my young French companion was stared at, just
because she was not a native of the place. Very obligingly, she offered
to fetch my letters from the poste restante, and look out for
photographs. As she had spent some time in England and acquired certain
habits of independence, I accepted. But not twice!

The poor girl found so many eyes following her, that she took refuge in
the cathedral. As there chanced to be an abbé in the confessional
handy, she very sensibly seized the opportunity by the forelock, and
performed the duty of confession. But I did not permit her to roam
about alone after that.

Meantime, the médécin militaire and his wife had set out for the
Causses and the Cañon du Tarn, and their enthusiasm but served to
heighten my own. That shooting of the rapids, too, I now heard of for
the first time, lent a spice of exhilarating hazard and adventure to
the excursion. They were going to shoot the rapids of the Tarn. Why
should I not follow their example?

Sorely tempted as I was to carry out the same programme, once more I
hesitated. I could obtain very little precise information as to the
real difficulties, if any, that beset the way, but everyone agreed that
it was not at all a commonplace journey--in other words, not a very
easy one. The long drive across the solitary Causse to St. Éminie or
Florac, the four relays of boatmen necessary for the descent of the
Tarn, the doubtfulness of the accommodation at the different
halting-places--all these details had to be considered. Touring it
through the Causses seemed, indeed, beset with difficulties. You have
not only to take food with you for horse and man, but water also--ay,
and make sure that your driver, besides being trustworthiness and
sobriety itself, carries a revolver in his pocket. The Caussenards, or
dwellers on these steppes, are said to be harmless enough, but
suspicious-looking tramps from a distance, who always go in pairs, may
sometimes be met. Wayside inns there are none, and as relays are
therefore unattainable, the traveller must quit civilization as soon as
dawn breaks, and contrive to reach it before overtaken by nightfall.
Lastly, during the brief summer, the heat is torrid, and if you start
on your travels towards its close, say the middle or end of September,
today's scorching sun may be followed by tomorrow's snowstorm. And to
be caught in a snowstorm on the Causses would be an Alpine adventure
with no chance of a rescuing St. Bernard.

Had I been alone I might have ventured, but, as before-mentioned, my
companion was a young French lady confided to my care by her parents.
On the whole, therefore, and with keenest regret, I felt it more
prudent to defer the undertaking, for undertaking it undoubtedly was,
till another year. Next summer, I said to myself, as soon as the snows
were melted, I would again climb the Roof of France. And delightful as
was the society of a bright, amiable, ready-witted girl, I would
instead find a travelling companion of maturer years, and responsible
for her own safety.

There was one compensation within reach. If we could not enter the land
of Canaan, we could at least behold it from Mount Pisgah. So I engaged
a carriage with sturdy horses and a trustworthy driver, and we set off
for the plateau rising over against Mende in a south-easterly
direction, the veritable threshold of the Causses.




CHAPTER III.

A GLIMPSE OF THE CAUSSES.


The drive from Mende to the plateau of Sauveterre is a curious
experience. Here the Virgilian and Dantesque schemes are reversed:
Pluto's dread domain, the horrible Inferno, lies above; deep down below
are the Fields of the Blest and the celestial Paradise.

Dazzlingly bright the verdure, fertile and sunny the valleys we now
leave behind--arid and desolate beyond the power of words to express
the tableland reached so laboriously.

Between these two extremes, Elysium and Tartarus, we pass shifting,
panoramic scenes of wondrous beauty, stage upon stage of pastoral
charm, picture after picture of idyllic sweetness and grace. Long we
can glance behind us and see the little gray town, its spires outlined
in steely gray against the embracing hills, its gardens and orchards
bright as emerald--towering above all, the bare, purple,
wide-stretching Lozère.

The weather is superlative, and the clear, gemlike lines of sky and
foliage are as brilliantly contrasted as in an Algerian spring.

All this time we seemed to be climbing a mountain; we are, in reality,
ascending the steep, wooded sides or walls of the Causse de Mende,
prototype on a smaller scale of the rest--a vast mass of limestone, its
summit a wilderness, its shelving sides a marvel of luxuriant
vegetation.

Every step has to be made at a snail's pace, the precipitous slopes
close under our horses' hoofs being frightful to contemplate. This
drive is an excellent preparation for an exploration of the Lozère. We
are always, metaphorically, going up or coming down in a balloon.

After two hours' climb, the features of the landscape change. One by
one are left behind meandering river, chestnut and acacia groves,
meadows fragrant with newly-mown hay, grazing cattle, and cheerful
homesteads.

We now behold a scene grandiose indeed as a panorama, but unspeakably
wild and dreary.

Here and there are patches of potatoes, buckwheat and rye, the yellow
and green breaking the gray surface of the rocky waste; not a
habitation, not a living creature, is in sight. Before us and around
stretch desert upon desert of bare limestone, the nearer undulations
cold and slaty in tone, the remoter taking the loveliest, warmest
dyes--gold brown, deep orange, just tinted with crimson, reddish purple
and pale rose. We are on the threshold of the true Caussien region.
Sterility of soil, a Siberian climate, geographical isolation, here
reach their climax, whilst at the base of these lofty calcareous
tablelands lie sequestered valleys fertile fields and flowery gardens,
oases of the Lozérien Sahara.

Above, not a rill, not a beck, refreshes the spongy, crumbling earth;
we must travel far, penetrate the openings just indicated by the
dark-blue shadows in the distance, and descend the lofty walls of the
Causses to find silvery cascades, impetuous rivers, and fountains
gushing from mossy clefts. The showers of spring, the torrential rains
of autumn, the snows of winter, have filtered to a depth of several
thousand feet.

We are not within sight of the grand Causse Méjean, nor of the Black
Causse, or Causse Noir, and only on the threshold of Sauveterre, yet
some idea may be gathered here of what M. E. Réclus calls a 'Jurassic
archipelago,' once a vast Jurassic island. Imagine, then, a group of
promontories, their area equal to that of Salisbury Plain, Dartmoor and
Exmoor combined, with the varying altitudes of the loftiest Devonshire
tor and Cumberland hill.

Such a comparison may convey some feeble notion of the three Causses
just named, two of which belong to the Lozère. The Causse Noir is
partly in the Aveyron. Their extraordinary conformation must be seen
and studied by all who would familiarize themselves with this
geological phenomenon.

No solitude can be more complete than these wastes, except when a
leaden sky replaces the warm sunshine of to-day, and a deep,
impenetrable mantle of snow covers the plateau from end to end. Then
the little life that animates it is hushed, and none from the outer
world penetrates the fastnesses of the Causses.

We drive on for a mile or two till we reach the summit of the plateau.
Here, at a height of 2,952 feet above the sea-level, is a ruined
château turned into a farmhouse, where we rest our horses a little and
prepare to make tea. The farmer's wife and two children come out to
chat with our driver and look at us, evidently welcoming such a
distraction. And no wonder! I brought out our bonbon box--one must
never take a drive in France unprovided with sweetmeats--and tried to
tame the children; but they clung to mother's skirts, and only
consented to have the bonbons popped into their mouths, with faces
shyly hidden in her apron.

'Would you like a cup of tea?' I asked.

But madame shook her head, giggling, and I do not suppose ever heard of
such an infusion in her life.

Meantime, tea-making on that breezy eminence was no easy matter. The
little flames of my spirit-lamp were blown hither and thither--anywhere
but in the right direction. At last our excellent driver, resourceful
as a true son of Gaul is bound to be, lifted up the tiny machine, all
afire as it was, and thrust it into that convenient box behind the
calèche all travellers know of. The good man burnt his fingers, but had
the satisfaction of making the water boil, and there for the first
time, without doubt, tea was made after the English fashion. No place
could be better adapted for a holiday resort. In summer these sweeps
are one gorgeous mosaic of wild-flowers, and the short stunted grass
shoots up, making verdure everywhere.

As I sipped tea, squatted gipsy-wise on the ground, the thought
occurred to my mind what a delightful, a unique villegiatura this spot
might make. A clean, comfortable inn on the site of the ruined château,
a sympathetic companion, a trusty guide, plenty of tea and one
book--the book absolutely necessary to existence--perhaps mine would be
Spinoza's Ethics or Schiller's 'Letters on the Æsthetic Education of
Mankind'--under these conditions, months would glide by like an hour in
such eerie, poetic, inspiring solitudes.

The existence of a château on the borders of a veritable desert need
not surprise us. The entire department of the Lozère was devastated by
religious and seigneurial wars, and although the Causses themselves
were not invaded, offering as they did no temptation to the thirsters
after blood and spoil, the feudal freebooters had their strongholds
near.

The treeless condition of the Lozère chain and other once well-wooded
regions was thus brought about. The Government is replanting many bare
mountain-sides here, as in the Hautes Alpes, in order to improve the
soil and climate. The barrenness of the Causses arises, as will be
seen, from natural causes.

Even in autumn--at least, on such a day as this--with these wild scenes
is mingled much fairy charm and loveliness. Just as the distant scenery
is made up of sharp contrasts--on the lofty plateaux, weird solitude
and desolation; below, almost a southern luxuriance--so every square
yard of rocky waste shows fragrant plant and sweet flower. We have only
to stretch out our hands as we lie to gather half a dozen spikes of
lavender, wild thyme, rosemary, Deptford pink, melilot, blue pimpernel,
and white scabious. But the afternoon is wearing on. We must collect
our tea-things, give the children a farewell sweetmeat, cast a last
look round, and depart.

It cost me many a pang to turn my back upon that farmhouse,
boundary-mark between savagery and civilization, romance and the
terre-à-terre of daily existence.

Yonder diverging roads both led to fairy land and worlds of marvel--the
one to Florac, so majestically placed under the colossal shadow of the
Causse Méjean and above the lovely valley of the Jonte; the other
across the steppe of Sauveterre and by the strange dwellings of the
Caussenards to the picturesque little town of St. Éminie, the rapids of
the Tarn, and the dolomite city.

There was, however, the consolatory hope of seeing all the following
year. Who could tell? Perhaps that very day twelve months later I might
delight the children with my bonbon box, and a second time make tea on
their breezy playground. At any rate, I entertained the project, and

                   '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.'

We are overtaken by two pedestrians only on our way home--ill-looking
fellows enough, strangers in these parts, our driver assured us. 'No
Caussenards, they,' he said. 'The Caussenard is harmless enough, only a
trifle slow.'

We get magnificent views of Mende and the Valley of the Lot--some
slight recompense for having had to retrace our footsteps--and what was
equally valuable, much useful information.

'Is the land cut up into small parcels here?' I asked.

We were just then on the outskirts of the town, and he pointed with his
whip to a large, well-built farmhouse, with solid, walled-in buildings.

'Most of the land round about Mende is farmed by the monsieur who lives
there,' he replied. 'There he is, true enough, with his wife and
children.'

Just then we passed a hooded carriage, in which were seated father,
mother, two little ones, and nursemaid, all taking a holiday jaunt, the
day being Sunday.

'That is the owner of the farm,' he went on: 'several hundred acres--I
can't say how many--but it is stocked with two hundred sheep, ten oxen,
besides cows and pigs. There you have an idea of the size.'

'Are there no small farms here, then?'

'There are all sorts: little farms, big ones, and betwixt and between,'
he replied. 'Everybody has his little bit' (Tout le monde a son petit
lot); 'but the land immediately round the town is farmed by the
neighbour you saw in the calèche.'

'Is he a peasant?' I asked.

'A peasant if you like. He is a cultivator' (Un paysan si vous voulez.
C'est un cultivateur), was the answer.

When a French peasant becomes what in rustic phraseology is called a
substantial man, owning or hiring a considerable extent of land, he
ceases to be called 'paysan,' and is designated 'cultivateur.' The very
word 'peasant,' as I have shown elsewhere, will, in process of time,
become a survival, so steady and sure is the social upheaval of rural
France. The most eminent Frenchmen of the day, witness the late Paul
Bert, are often peasant-born; and hardly a village throughout the
country but sends some promising son of the soil to Paris, destined for
one of the learned professions. I know of a village baker's son near
Dijon now studying for the Bar--one instance out of many. In one of her
clever novelettes, 'Un Gascon,' Madame Th. Bentzon gives us for hero
the village doctor, son of a peasant. The portrait of this young man,
devoted to duty, high-minded, self-sacrificing, is no mere ideal, as
experience proves. But if readers, compelled to make the acquaintance
of French peasants on paper, will accept Zola and certain English
writers as a guide to his moral and material condition, they will be
landed on some conclusions strangely at variance with experience.
[Footnote: I may add that I have received appreciative testimony from
various French journals--_L'Economiste_, and others--also from no less
an authority than M. Henri Baudrillart, of the Institut, of my studies
of the French peasant, notably the contribution to the _Fortnightly
Review_, August, 1887, in which I have summed up the experiences of
twelve years' French residence and travel.]




CHAPTER IV.

ON THE TOP OF THE ROOF.


The temperature of the Lozère is excessively variable. The traveller
must always be provided with winter wraps and the lightest summer
clothing. We had enjoyed almost tropic sunshine on the plateau of
Sauveterre. Next day (September 19th), when half-way to St. Flour, the
very blasts of Siberia seemed to overtake us. The weather was splendid
at starting, and for some hours we had a brisk air only, and unclouded
skies; but there were signs of a change, and I began to doubt whether I
should accomplish even my second programme. Having relinquished the
Causses, the rapids of the Tarn, and Montpellier-le-Vieux for this
year, I had hired a carriage, intending to drive straight across the
Lozère, sleeping at St. Chély, to St. Flour, chef-lieu of the Cantal,
thence making excursions to the two departments. I wanted especially to
see Condat-és-Feniers and La Chaldette, the two sweet spots already
alluded to. The hire of the carriage with two good horses was eighty
francs--forty for the two days' drive thither, and forty for the return.

It is a striking journey from Mende to St. Amans-la-Lozère, half-way
halting-place between Mende and St. Chély. The region traversed is very
solitary, the Causse itself hardly more so, and now, as yesterday, we
follow a road wonderfully cut round the mountain-sides. Here also we
find certain English notions concerning peasant property entirely
disproved. So far is French territory from being cut into minute
portions of land, that on this side of Mende farms are let, not by the
hectare, but by the tract, many tenant farmers being unable to tell you
of how many hectares their occupation consists. The extent of land is
reckoned not by acreage, but by the heads of cattle it will keep.

Much of the soil between Mende and St. Amans-la-Lozère is very stony
and unproductive; we heard even of a farm of several hundred acres let
at a rental of fifty pounds a year. And here, as in the valley of the
Allier, and on the road from Langogne to Mende, it is wonderful to see
the uncompromising devotion of the French peasant to Mother
Earth--neither stones, brushwood, nor morass daunting his energy. These
tenant farmers are almost invariably small freeholders also, but to
read certain English writers one might suppose that no such thing as a
tenant farm, much less one of a thousand acres, existed in France at
all, the entire superficies of the country, according to their account,
being cut up into minute patches, each by a process of subdivision,
growing smaller by degrees and beautifully less; in fact, the French
peasant owner of the future, according to these theorists, will possess
about as much of his native soil as can be got into a flower-pot, the
contents of the said flower-pot being mortgaged for a hundred times its
value.

By the time we have driven for an hour and a half we obtain a most
beautiful view, looking back upon Mende, the gray and purple hills set
in a glowing semicircle round it, showing loveliest light and shadow.
The verdure of the valley is fresh as in May, and sweet scents of newly
mown hay, the autumn crop, reach us as we go. We look down on smooth,
lawn-like meadows, little rivers winding between alder-trees,
tan-coloured cows and orange-brown sheep browsing at their ease. The
contours of the pine and fir clad hills are bold and varied, whilst
deep gorges and ravines alternate with the more smiling aspects.
Fruit-trees and flowers are wholly absent from the sparsely scattered
villages, and there is little in the way of farming going on, only the
second hay-crops being turned, and the land ploughed for autumn sowing.
Buckwheat, rye, oats and hay form the chief crops. The road is set on
either side by young trees, service berry and mountain ash, or granite
pillars almost the height of a man. These columns, recalling Druidic
stones, are completely hidden by snow in winter.

Fortunately, in another year or two the Lozère will be traversed by
railway, and its comparative isolation during several months of the
year cease for once and for all.

Meantime we were anxiously looking out for St. Amans and our promised
breakfast, and here let me note a failing of the French rustic. His
notions of time and distance are often not in the very least to be
relied on. Thus, a countryman will tell you such and such a place lies
at a distance of 'une petite lieue,' and you will find you have to walk
or drive six miles instead of three. Again, a village conductor will
assure you that you will arrive at your destination 'dans une petite
demi-heure,' and you find on arriving that an hour and a half have
elapsed since putting the question. We were terribly tried by this
habit now. Our old driver--not the master, who had accompanied us to
the plateau, but his employé--seemed to have no more idea of the real
distance of St. Amans than of Spitzbergen. Again and again my young
companion put her head out of the window and cried: 'Well, driver, how
many kilomètres _now_ to St. Amans?'

And the reply would be:

'Three more' or 'Two more--just two, mademoiselle.'

Whereas mademoiselle laughingly counted half a dozen by the milestones
between each inquiry. We had fondly looked forward to a fair inn and a
good meal at noon--it was nearly two o'clock when our driver
triumphantly deposited us before the dirtiest, most repulsive-looking
hostelry it was ever my fate to enter.

In the kitchen, with walls blackened by smoke, hens and chickens
disported at will; the uneven, floor was innocent of broom or
scrubbing-brush as the road; in the salle-à-manger, gendarmes,
soldiers, carters, and gamekeepers were smoking, drinking and
discussing at the tops of their voices.

The old man whispered a word in the ear of the patrone--a veritable hag
to look at--and she immediately begged us to walk upstairs.

'You will find no elegance, but comfort here' ('Vous ne trouvez pas le
luxe, mais le confortable ici),' she said.

Then, with evident pride, she threw open the door of what was evidently
the public bedchamber of the inn.

Let not the reader take alarm. In these out-of-the-way places such
accommodation is often all that is offered the traveller, namely, a
spacious room, set round with four posters, each well curtained, so as
to form a tiny room in itself. As women never, or very rarely, travel
in such regions, the chief patrons being commis-voyageurs and soldiers,
the inconvenience is not great. The bedding looked good and clean, and
the room was airy.

We opened the window. Madame complacently spread a snowy cloth, then,
with the airy aplomb of a head waiter of some famous restaurant, say,
the Chapeau Rouge at Bordeaux, asked:

'And what would these ladies like for breakfast?'

There seemed cruel, double-edged irony in the question. What could we
expect in such a place but just something to stay the cravings of
hunger: that something rendered uneatable by the terribly dirty--no,
let me say, smoke-dried--look of the speaker, who seemed to be cook and
waitress in one?

'Suppose we have an omelette?' suggested my young friend.

An omelette cooked by those hands! The very notion took away my
appetite; however, there were new-laid eggs, and no matter the unwashed
condition of the cook, the inside of a boiled egg may always be eaten
with impunity. We could have anything we chose by waiting a little, our
hostess said--mutton cutlets, roast chicken, partridges, fish,
vegetables; the resources of that rustic larder seemed inexhaustible.
Then she had choice wine, Burgundy and Bordeaux, besides liqueurs, in
the cellar.

We had no time or inclination for a feast, but made an excellent
meal--what with the eggs and a tiny leg of cold-boiled mutton, I do
honestly believe the very best I ever tasted in my life.

The mountain-fed mutton of these regions is renowned, and the country
folk boil it with just a slice of garlic by way of a flavour.

This dingy little wayside hostelry could really offer a first-rate
ordinary, and, on principles not to be controverted, guests here pay,
not according to what they order, but the quantity they eat. Would that
all restaurant-keepers were equally conscientious!

When we went downstairs and asked for the reckoning, the old woman, who
was all obligingness and good-nature, charming, indeed, but for her
neglected personal appearance, replied:

'I must first see how much you have eaten, of course.'

And true enough we were charged so much per item. Here let me give the
traveller a hint: never venture in out of-the-way parts of France
without a well-filled muffineer and pepper-box; but for our dry clean
pepper and salt brought from England, even the eggs would have been
swallowed with a painful effort.

In the large kitchen I took note of extensive preparations going on for
dinner, huge caldrons bubbling above the wood fire; heaps of
vegetables, leeks, onions, garlic predominating, prepared for the pot,
with ample provision in the shape of flesh and fowl.

At St. Amans the sun shone warm and bright, and the blue sky was of
extraordinary depth and softness. I was reminded of Italy. As we
sauntered about the long straggling village, a scene of indescribable
contentment and repose met our eyes. We are in one of the poorest
departments of France, but no signs of want or vagrancy are seen. The
villagers, all neatly and suitably dressed, were getting in their hay
or minding their flocks and herds, with that look of cheerful
independence imparted by the responsibilities of property. Many greeted
us in the friendliest manner, but as we could not understand their
patois, a chat was impossible. They laughed, nodded, and passed on.

No sooner were we fairly on our way to St. Chély than the weather
changed. The heavens clouded over, and the air blew keenly. We got out
our wraps one by one, wanting more. If the scenery is less wildly
beautiful here than between Mende and St. Amans, it is none the less
charming, were we only warm enough to enjoy it. The pastoralness of
many a landscape is Alpine, with brilliant stretches of turf, scattered
châlets, groups of haymakers, herds and flocks browsing about the
rocks. Enormous blocks of granite are seen everywhere superimposed
after the manner of dolmens, and everywhere the peasant's spade and hoe
is gradually redeeming the waste. It is nightfall when we reach St.
Chély d'Apcher, reputed the coldest spot in France, and certainly well
worthy of its reputation.

It stands on an elevation of 980 mètres--_i.e._, over 3,000 feet above
the sea-level. If the Lozère is aptly termed the Roof of France, then
St. Chély may be regarded as its Chimney top. Summer here lasts only
two months. No wonder that the searching wind seemed as if it would
blow not merely the clothes off our shoulders, but the flesh off our
bones. Yet the people of the inn smiled and said: 'Wait here another
month, and you will find out what WE call cold.'

The little Hôtel Bardol wore a look of cheerfulness and welcome,
nevertheless. There were white and pink oleanders before the door,
geraniums in the window, testifying to the fact that winter this year,
at all events, had not yet begun. Men and maids bustled about intent on
our comfort. Soon the big logs crackled on the hearth; with curtains
drawn, tea and a good fire, the discomforts of the last hour or two
were soon forgotten. Needless, perhaps, to say that we found in this
small old-fashioned inn beds of first-rate quality, a good dinner, and
really fine old Bordeaux.

St. Chély will necessarily become a junction town of considerable
importance when the new line of railway, by way of St. Flour, is
completed to Neussargues. As the proprietor of the Hôtel Bardol seems
fully alive to the requirements of tourists and the progress of ideas,
future visitors will doubtless find many improvements--well-appointed
rooms, bells, and other comforts. I hope myself to pay this obliging
host another visit ere long.

The rain poured down all night, and next morning it was evident that
the projected journey by road to St. Flour must be given up. A long
day's drive across country in the teeth of biting wind and downpour was
not to be thought of, though both my young friend and myself had set
our minds upon seeing the wonderful Pont de Garabit, a tour de force of
engineering, worthy to be set beside the Eiffel Tower, and an
achievement of the same genius. But we were now within reach of the
railway. At the cost of a great disappointment and a forfeiture of
sixty francs, I determined to send the carriage back to Mende, and
reach the Cantal by way of Rodez, in the Aveyron. The Pont de Garabit,
like the Causses, all well, should be seen another year.

Never shall I forget the amazement of my host.

'To make a round-about journey like that by rail, when you have your
own carriage and horses!' he cried. 'Are you mad? Are you a
millionaire,' his face said, 'to pay eighty francs for one day's drive?
And the weather--the rain? you have glass windows; you can shut
yourselves in; you won't take any harm.'

Say what I would, I could not convince him that it was wiser to forfeit
sixty francs than drive across the Lozère in a storm of wind and rain,
with the thermometer rapidly falling to freezing-point.




CHAPTER V.

RODEZ AND AURILLAC.


To travel from St. Chély d'Apcher to Rodez is like descending a
snow-capped Alpine peak for the flowery, sunbright valley below.
Instead of the stern grandeur of the Lozère, frowning peaks, sombre
pine-forests, vast stony deserts and wintry blasts, we glide swiftly
into a balmy region of golden vineyards, rich chestnut woods, softly
murmuring streams, and the temperature of July. The transformation is
magical. It is like closing a volume of Ossian and opening the pages of
Theocritus.

We had spent our morning indoors at St. Chély, cloaked and shawled over
a blazing wood fire, quitting at one o'clock p.m. ice-cold rain, biting
winds, and a gloomy sky. By sundown we had reached the chef-lieu of the
Aveyron; we were in the South indeed! The scenery during the latter
part of the way is beautiful and exhilarating, every feature showing
the ripest, most brilliant tints--hills clothed with the yellowing
chestnut, soil of deep purplish red, the bright gold foliage of the
vine, and between spring-like greenery and azure sky, close to the
railway, the crystal-clear Aveyron.

And here all is new and fresh; no familiar tourist element enters into
the day's experience. As our train stops at one picturesque village
after another, we see young soldiers, réservistes, alight, returning
home after the twenty-eight days' service, nuns, curés, village folks,
family groups, not an English traveller but myself.

Rodez is superbly situated on a lofty, sunny plateau, surrounded by
hills and far mountain chains; but between these and the city, which is
almost encircled by the Aveyron, lies a broad belt of fertile country,
the soil of a deep claret colour.

Just as Venice should be approached by sea at dawn, so all travellers
should reach Rodez at sunset.

Never shall I forget the first enchanting view of its glorious
cathedral that September afternoon, the three-storied tower of
Flamboyant Gothic dominating the vast landscape, the rich red stone
flushed to a warmer dye, the noble masonry of the whole glowing with
the lustre and solidity of copper against the clear heavens.

This lofty, triple-terraced tower is called the marvel of Southern
France, and no wonder. The cathedral of Antwerp itself is not more
captivatingly lightsome and lovely. High above the ancient city, with
its encompassing river and wide-stretched plain, confronting the
far-off mountains, almost on a level with their summits, visible from
afar as a lighthouse in mid-ocean, rises this belfry of Rodez.

Certain places, as well as certain individualities, exercise
extraordinary fascination. The old capital of Rouergne, and later of
the Comté of Rodez, is one. Many and many a French city I have visited
of far greater architectural and historic importance; Poitiers among
these--Troyes is another; yet I should never go out of my way to
revisit Poitiers or Troyes, whilst certain other towns in France I
visit regularly once a year. They are like old friends, and every visit
makes them more precious. I determined to revisit Rodez during the
following summer. The cathedral is rich within and without. Its
rood-loft, carved stalls, altar screen, and monuments require a chapter
to themselves. Let us hope that some future traveller, more learned
than myself in such matters, will give us their history in detail. The
town, too, possesses some fine remains of Renaissance architecture, and
the views from the ancient ramparts are magnificent.

But the memory I carry away is of that lovely three-storied tower, the
whole carved delicately as lace-work; the colour, deep terra-cotta;
above it a warm southern sky.

Such a sight is worth a long journey, and the discomforts of a dingy
hotel, dirty floors, foul-smelling passages, broken chairs, scant
toilet appliances, as usual, in part compensated by excellent beds,
good food, good wine, and very moderate charges. The oddest part of
these experiences is that the dirtier the inn the better the fare.
Wherever we found a little smartness and tidiness, there we were sure
to find also a decided falling-off in the cuisine.

Perhaps herein is to be found the true philosophical cause of our own
poor cookery. English cooks and housewives are ready to go mad on the
subject of scouring pots and pans, but pay scant heed to what goes
into, much less what comes out of them. In France the quality of the
dinner is the first question of national importance, after the recovery
of Alsace-Lorraine!

The railway takes us direct to Aurillac, chef-lieu of the Cantal, and
ancient capital of Haute Auvergne. At first the scenery resembles that
passed through the day before, close under the embankment, the river
flowing clear and bright between green slopes, hanging chestnut-woods,
and sweeps of vineyards. The earth everywhere seems soaked with claret;
and this wine-red colour of the soil, contracted with the golden-leafed
vine, makes a landscape of wonderful brilliance.

The aspect of the country changes as we quit the bright valley of the
Aveyron, and enter the department of the Cantal at Capdenac, where we
join the main line from Clermont-Ferrand to Toulouse. We just touch the
department of the Lot at Figeac, a quaint town, birthplace of the great
Orientalist Champollion, then enter the valley of the Cère, and are
soon at Aurillac.

A bit of dull prose after a glorious poem! Whilst it is difficult to
tear one's self away from Rodez, despite its ill-kept hotel, there is
nothing whatever to detain the ordinary tourist at Aurillac beyond an
hour or two. It is prettily situated in a fair open country, watered by
the river Jordanne, and is an excellent centre for the study of rural
life.

I had come hither provided with a letter introductory to the State-paid
professor of agriculture, and here let me explain matters a little. The
French State, stanch to the maxim of the great Sully, 'Le labourage et
le pâturage sont les deux mamelles de France,' is making tremendous
efforts on behalf of agricultural progress throughout the country. A
few years since, professorships of agriculture were appointed by the
Government in the various departments. The duties of these professors
is two-fold: they hold classes on the theory and practice of
agriculture in the Ecole Normale, or training-school for male teachers,
in winter, and in summer give free lectures, out of doors, in the
various towns and villages. Recruited from the great agricultural
schools of Grand Jouan, near Nantes, Grignan in the Seine, and Oise and
Montpellier, these lecturers have had the benefit of a thoroughly
practical training, and by little and little will doubtless effect
quite a revolution in out-of-the-way places.

Among the least progressive regions, agriculturally speaking, must be
pronounced the Cantal. As yet the use of machinery and artificial
manure is almost unknown. The professor gets the peasants together on a
Sunday afternoon and discourses to them in an easy, colloquial way on
the advantages of scientific methods. The conference over, he shows
specimens of superphosphates, top-dressings, new seeds, roots, etc.,
and here and there succeeds in inducing the more adventurous than the
rest to try an experiment.

The agricultural shows have much effect in stimulating progress. The
country folks delight to obtain prizes for their cattle, cheese and
other products. They are, as a rule, averse to innovation, especially
when it involves expenditure. The departmental professor will have to
bring proof positive to bear out his theories ere he can induce his
listeners to spend their savings--in French phrase, 'argent
mignon'--upon unknown good, instead of investing in Government three
per cents.

Other interesting facts I learned here, all confirmatory of my former
accounts of the French peasant. These Cantal farmers, many of them
hiring land on lease, others small owners, are well-to-do; £1,200 is
not infrequently given as a dowry to the daughter of a small
proprietor; I was told of one, possessor of a few hectares only, who
had just before invested in the funds £80, one year's savings.

Avarice, I admit, is not infrequently the besetting sin of the French
peasant in these parts, but other characteristics of the Auvergnat,
such as roughness of manner, suspiciousness of strangers, a habit of
extortion, did not come under my notice during this stay in the Cantal.

One of my pleasantest experiences, indeed, of French rural life, is
that of an afternoon visit paid to a farmer in the neighbourhood of
Aurillac. No well-bred gentleman, no lady accustomed to society, could
have received an entire stranger with more urbanity, kindliness and
grace, than did this peasant of the Cantal and his wife. A charming
drive of an hour through well-wooded and neatly cultivated country
brought us to the farmstead called Le Croizet, a group of buildings
lying a hundred yards or so from the roadside.

In front of the well-built, roomy dwelling-house was a fruit and
vegetable garden, with a border of flowers and ornamental shrubs. The
place was not perhaps so neatly kept as English farm premises, but the
general look betokened comfort and well-being.

The farmer and his wife were absent, and their daughter-in-law received
us somewhat awkwardly. She seemed puzzled by the fact of English ladies
wanting to see a farm, but after a little her shyness vanished. Her
husband, she told us, was just then minding his own farm; he was a
small proprietor, possessing a bit of land and a cow or two. Two cows,
she informed us, as we chatted on, would suffice for the maintenance of
a family of five persons. Such reckoning, of course, only holds good of
thrifty, homely France. The magic of property not only turns sands to
gold: it teaches the great lesson of looking forward, of confronting
the morrow--realizing 'the unseen time.'

Soon the housewife came up, all cheeriness and hospitality. She made us
sit down in the large, airy, well-furnished kitchen--hitherto we had
chatted outside--and my curiosity being explained by the fact that I
was an English author, travelling for information, she readily answered
any questions I put to her.

'My husband will be here in a minute. He can tell you much more about
farming than I can,' she said.

She was a pleasant-looking, well-mannered, intelligent woman--a peasant
born and bred. Meantime I glanced round the kitchen.

The floor certainly was of uncarpeted stone and uneven, but the place
was clean and tidy, and everything in order. Against the wall were rows
of well-scoured cooking vessels; also shelves of china--evidently
reserved for high days and holidays--and a few pictures for further
adornment.

True, the curtained bedstead of master and mistress stood in one
corner, but leading out of the kitchen was a second room for the son
and son's wife; whilst the hired women-servants occupied in the dairy
slept upstairs.

It may here be mentioned that the habit of sleeping in the kitchen
arises from the excessive cold. I found on lately revisiting Anjou, and
in the Berri, that the better-off peasants are building houses with
upper bedrooms.

'It is tidier' (C'est plus propre), said a Berrichon to me. This
custom, therefore, of turning the kitchen into a bedchamber may be
considered as on the wane.

Our hostess now brought out one local dainty after another--galettes,
or flat cakes of rye and oaten flour, peculiar in flavour, and said to
be extremely nutritious; cream, curds and whey, fresh butter, and
wine--and was quite distressed that we could not make a hearty
afternoon meal. Then the master came in, one of Nature's gentlemen, if
ever any existed--stalwart, sunburnt to the complexion of an Arab, with
a frank, manly, shrewd face. He wore sabots, and, like his wife, was
stockingless. Stockings are objected to by French country-folks in hot
weather, and it seems to me on good grounds. His clothes were clean,
neat, and appropriate, and all of the material that goes into the
weekly wash-tub. Like his wife, he was most willing to give me any
information, and a pleasant and instructive time I had of it.

My host leased his farm. He was a tenant farmer precisely as the name
is understood here, with this difference--he owned a little land as
well. He could not tell me the exact size of his occupation in
hectares; land here, as in the Lozère, being computed instead by heads
of cattle, one hectare and a half of pasture allowed for each cow. Some
notion of its extent may be gathered from the fact that he possessed
120 cows. Besides these 200 hectares of pasturage, the farm comprised
arable land, the whole making up a total of nearly 1,000 acres. Much
larger farms, he told me, were to be found in the Cantal. The notion of
France being cut up into tiny parcels of land amused him not a little.
The crops here consist of wheat, barley, maize, rye, oats, buckwheat,
clover--a little of everything.

'But this is a cheese-making country. We don't grow anything like corn
enough for ourselves in the Cantal,' he said. 'Large quantities are
imported every year. It is our cows that pay.'

The principal stock kept is this beautiful Cantal cow, a small, red,
glossy-coated breed, very gentle, and very shy. The enormous quantities
of milk afforded by these dairy farms are sold in part at Aurillac for
home consumption. By far the larger proportion is used in the
cheese-makers' huts, or 'burons,' on the surrounding hills. The
pleasant, mild-flavoured Cantal cheese has hitherto not been an article
of export. It is decidedly inferior to Roquefort, fabricated from ewes'
milk in the Aveyron, and to the Gruyère of the French Jura. As the
quality of the milk is first-rate, a delicious flavour being imparted
by the fragrant herbs that abound here, this inferiority doubtless
arises from want of skill, or, perhaps, want of cleanliness in the
preparation. The numerous schools for dairy-farming that now exist in
France, and the new State-paid teachers of agriculture, will most
likely ere long revolutionize the art of cheese-making throughout the
department. We may then expect to find Cantal cheese at every English
grocer's.

Many more interesting facts I learned, my host chatting leisurely.

'It is usual in these parts,' he said, 'for the eldest son to inherit
an extra fourth part of land, he, in return, being bound to maintain
his parents in old age. A heritage is often thus divided during the
life-time of father and mother, the old folks not caring any longer to
be burdened with the toil of business.'

Much he told me also concerning the rights of 'pacage,' or pasturage on
commons--privileges upheld rather by custom than law. These rights of
pasturing cattle on common-grounds date from the earliest times, and we
read in French history of certain communes being ruined by the mortgage
of their 'pacage.'

After a stay of more than an hour we took leave, our host accompanying
us to the road, where the carriage waited.

I have before alluded to the excessive timidity of the cattle here,
perhaps arising from the infrequency of strangers in these regions. As
we now walked up the narrow lane separating the farm from the road, we
met three separate droves of cows returning to their stalls. It was
curious to note the suspiciousness of the gentle creatures, also their
quickness of observation. Had we been a couple of peasant women from a
distance, they would have passed us without hesitation. I had evidently
an outlandish look in their eyes. Only by dint of coaxing and calling
each animal by name could the master get them to go by.

'It is always well to be careful with beasts that don't know you,' he
said, as he planted himself between us and each drove. 'Gentle as my
cows are, they might give a stranger a kick.'

When all were gone, he extricated my gown from a bramble, then, baring
his head, bade us adieu with the courtesy of a polished gentleman.




CHAPTER VI.

THE LAND OF THE BURON.


Vic-sur-Cère, half an hour distant from Aurillac, is an earthly
paradise, a primitive Eden, as yet unspoiled by fashion and
utilitarianism. The large 'Etablissement des Bains,' described in
French and English guide-books, has long ceased to exist; bells,
carpets, curtains, and other luxuries are unknown; but the unfastidious
traveller, who prefers homeliness and honesty to elegance and
extortion, may here drink waters rivalling those of Spa without being
exposed to the exorbitant prices and insolence of the Spa
hotel-keepers. Rustic inns, or rather pensions, may be had at
Vic-sur-Cère, in which the tourist is wholesomely lodged and handsomely
'tabled' at a cost that would enrapture Mr. Joseph Pennell. Two or
three hundred visitors, chiefly from the neighbouring towns, spend the
summer holidays here, one and all disappearing about the middle of
September.

When we arrived, we had the entire place to ourselves--inn, river-side
walks, and dazzlingly green hills. No palm island in mid-Pacific could
offer a sweeter, more pastoral halting-place. It is indeed a perfect
little corner of earth, beauty of the quiet kind here reaching its
acme; and neither indoors nor abroad is there any drawback to mar the
traveller's enjoyment.

From the windows of our hotel, close to the station, we enjoy a
prospect absolutely flawless--Nature in one of her daintiest moods is
here left to herself. The inn stands amid its large vegetable, fruit
and flower gardens; looking beyond these, we see the prettiest little
town imaginable nestled in a beautiful valley, around it rising
romantic crags, wooded heights, and gentle slopes, fresh and verdant as
if the month were May. Through the smooth meadows between the
encompassing hills winds the musically-named stream, the Iraliot, and
from end to end the broad expanse of green is scented with newly-mown
hay. The delightful scenery, the purity of the air, the excellent
quality of the waters, ought to turn Vic-sur-Cère into a miniature
Vichy. Fortunately for the lovers of rusticity and calm, such has not
as yet been the case, and the simple, straightforward character of the
people is still unspoiled by contact with the outer world. Here, also,
the pervading aspect is of well-being and contentment. 'Everybody can
live here,' we were told by an intelligent resident; 'only the idle,
the drunkard, and the thriftless need come to want.'

Vagrancy is altogether absent; the children are neatly dressed and very
clean; the men and women have all a look of cheerful independence as
they toil on their little farms or mind their small flocks and herds.

Here also, as elsewhere, the greatest variety exists in the matter of
holdings. We find tiny freeholds and large tenant farms side by side.
With few exceptions, all possess a house and bit of land. Folks toil
hard and fare hard, but live in no terror of sickness or old age. The
house and bit of land will not support a family; with the savings of a
man's best years, it is the harbour of refuge when work is past.

Without meeting here the urbanity and hospitable welcome that awaited
us near Aurillac, we found the peasant farmers exceedingly civil to
strangers; and when once made to understand the motives of my
inquisitiveness, they were quite ready to give me any information I
required.

One farm I visited in the neighbourhood was a tenant-holding of about
1,000 acres, let at a fixed rental of £600 a year, and this is far from
the largest farm hereabouts. The stock consisted of seventy-eight cows,
five horses, four pair of team oxen, besides large numbers of sheep,
pigs, and poultry. Five women-servants were boarded in the house, and
several cheese-makers employed on the alps during summer.

The farmer's wife received us pleasantly, and after a little
explanation, when she quite understood the reason of my visit, answered
all questions with ease and intelligence. She was resting from the
labours of the day, a piece of knitting in her hands, which she
politely laid aside whilst chatting.

The kitchen was large, clean, and airy, its principal ornaments
consisting of rows of prize medals on tablets, awarded at different
agricultural shows. On the shelves were rows of copper cooking vessels,
burnished as those of a Dutch interior. The bed-chambers were apart.

Certainly, the housewife's personal appearance left something to
desire, but we were assured that on Sundays she turned out for Mass
gloved, veiled and bonneted like any town lady. French peasants will
not set about the day's labour in smart or shabby-genteel clothes.

Here, as near Aurillac, modern agricultural methods, machinery and
artificial manures are not yet the order of the day. As an instance of
what peasant farmers in France can effect whilst following old plans,
let me cite the predecessor of my hostess's husband. This man had
lately retired, having saved up enough money to live upon. He had, in
fact, become a rentier.

Another tenant farm near consisted of 1,000 acres, stocked with 120
cows, eight pair of team oxen, besides sheep, horses and pigs.
Adjoining such large holdings are small freeholds farmed by their
peasant owners--dairy farms of a few acres, market-gardens of one or
two, and so on.

Métayage, or the system of half-profits, is rarely found in the Cantal.
Tenancy at a fixed rental is preferred, as less complicated and
troublesome. [Footnote: I have described the métayage of Berri in a
contribution to _Macmillan's Magazine_, 'In George Sand's Country,'
1886.] It was pleasant to see the people working in their little field
or garden, or minding their goats and sheep, their decent appearance,
cheerfulness and healthful looks testifying to the satisfactory
conditions of existence.

I do not for a moment aver that such a state of things exists in every
part of France; but everywhere we find the same
qualities--independence, thrift and foresight--called forth by the
all-potent agency of possession. I have somewhere seen the fact
mentioned, and adduced as an argument against peasant property, that
the owner of seven cows had not a wardrobe in which to hang so much as
his wife's clothes; they were suspended on a rope. Was the writer aware
of the money-value of seven cows, the capital thereby represented, and
could she point to any farm-labourer in England, however well off in
the matter of cupboards and clothes-pegs, possessed of seven cows,
their stalls and pasture-ground--in other words, a capitalist to the
extent of several hundred pounds? Few French peasants, we fancy, would
exchange their house, land and stock for the furniture of an English
labourer's cottage, wardrobe included. As a matter of fact, most of
these small farmers own furniture, clothes and house-linen in abundance.

Cheese-making is the chief industry of the place. Far away on the
summit of every green hill may be descried the red-roofed hut, or
buron, of the cheese-maker. Here, with his dog, and sometimes a
shepherd, he spends the summer months, descending to the valleys before
the first snow falls. The dairyman, or fromager, is generally a hired
workman, specially trained for the work. He is paid at the rate of £25
or £30 a year, besides board and lodging. As soon as the snows melt and
the cows can be driven afield, he betakes himself to his buron on the
alp, if married, leaving his wife in the valley below.

Have the fromager of the Cantal hills and the Caussenard of the
Lozérien steppe their legends, folklore, songs? Have their love-stories
been chronicled by some French Auerbach, their ballads found a
translator in a French Hebel? Without doubt this sequestered life of
shepherd and mountain has its vein of poetry and romance as well as any
other. To reach one of these cheese-makers' huts is quite an
expedition, and on foot is only practicable to hardy pedestrians. It is
a beautiful drive from the valley of the Cère to the open
pasture-ground, dotted with burons, behind its steep green hills on the
southern side. As the road winds upwards, we see the crags and slopes
clothed with the delicate greenery of young fir and pine. These are
seedlings planted by the State; here, as in other departments, some
strenuous efforts being made to replant the ancient forests. Goats are
no longer permitted to browse on the mountain-sides promiscuously, as
in former days, and thus slowly, but surely, not only the soil, but the
climate and products of these re-wooded districts, will undergo
complete transformation. And who can tell? Perhaps the Causse itself
will, generations hence, cease to exist, and the Roof of France become
a vast flowery garden. The country people here all speak a patois, and
the fromager is not communicative. It is always well to be accompanied
by a blue-bloused native on these visits. The dogs, too, that keep
guard over the buron, like the cows, are very suspicious of strangers.

More attractive than the interior of the cheese-maker's hut--often
dark, ill-ventilated, and malodorous--is the scene without, a wide
prospect of pastoral, idyllic charm. The Cantal offers many a superb
mountain panorama and grandiose scene. Nowhere is to be found more
sweetness, graciousness and repose than in the valley of the Cère.

After a few days' sojourn we journeyed to Clermont-Ferrand, which I
found much embellished since my long stay in that city, just ten years
before. Thence, seeing the Puy de Dôme flushed with the red light of
the rising sun, a sight compensating for much insolence and discomfort
at the Hôtel de l'Univers, we proceeded to St. Germain-des-Fossés,
where we parted, my young companion taking the train to Autun, I
proceeding by way of Lyons to Gap, on a visit to a beloved French
friend.

The weather had remained brilliantly fine throughout our expedition,
although the cold of early morning was now piercing. And brilliantly
fine it remained till my departure for England, early in October.




PART II


MY SECOND JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES.


CHAPTER I.

THROUGH THE MORVAN.


Of the four hundred and fifty passengers who crossed with us from Dover
to Calais, in August, 1888, we lost every trace when quitting the
Paris-Lyon-Mediterranée line at La Roche. Writing a hundred years ago,
the great agriculturist, Arthur Young, gave his countrymen the
following excellent piece of advice, which, it need hardly be said, has
been generally neglected from that day to this: 'It may be useful to
those who see no more of France than by once passing to Italy, to
remark that if they would view the finest parts of the kingdom they
should land at Dieppe, and follow the Seine to Paris, then take the
great road to Moulins, and thence quit it for Auvergne, and pass to
Viviers, the Rhône, and so by Aix to Italy. By such a variation from
the frequented road the traveller might suffer for want of good inns,
but would be repaid by the sight of a much finer and more singular
country than the common road by Dijon offers, which passes in a great
measure through the worst parts of France.'

The Suffolk squire who rode through France on the eve of the Great
Revolution, in spite of his conscientious desire to see all that the
country had to show, lost much from want of roads, maps, and any kind
of accommodation. Nowadays, as will be seen from the following pages,
good food and good beds await the traveller in the most remote
districts; but in vain! Ninety-nine tourists out of a hundred remain of
the poet Shelley's opinion--there is nothing to see in France--and
hurry on as fast as the express can carry them to Geneva.

At the clean, bright, friendly little town of Auxerre we find ourselves
as isolated from the beaten track as well can be. We are free to roam,
sketch, stare at will, and no one notices us; not even an importunate
beggar molests the sketcher as she brings out her book in the middle of
the street.

This immunity from observation and annoyance forms a minor charm of
French travel.

Auxerre possesses a beautiful little cathedral. It is one-towered, as
that of Sens, a circumstance probably due to want of funds for the
completion.

We always carry away in the memory some striking characteristic of
French cathedrals, and no one can forget the exquisite tint of the
building-stone here, a ruddy hue as of gold lighting up the dark,
richly-sculptured mass without, nor the charming cluster of airy
columns joining the Lady Chapel to the choir within, daintiest bit of
architectural fancy. Whilst we were revelling in the contrast afforded
by the intense glow of the stained glass and the pure white marble--the
interior being one of the loveliest, if least spacious, in France--the
sacristan's wife came up and said that if we waited a few minutes
longer we should see a wedding.

'Although,' she added with an air of apology, 'a wedding of the third
class.'

Now, whilst fairly familiar with French ways, I had never heard of
marriages being divided after the manner of railway-carriages, into
first, second, and third class. Our informant hastened to enlighten us.
It seems that only wedding-parties of the first and second classes are
entitled to enter by the front-door, to music of the full church
orchestra, and to carpets laid down from porch to altar, every detail
of pomp and ceremony depending on the price paid.

I must say that were I a French bride I should bargain for a wedding of
the first class at any sacrifice. To have the big doors of the front
portal flung open at the thrice-repeated knock of the beadle's staff;
to hear Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March' pealed from the great organ; to
march in solemn procession up the aisle, preceded by that wonderful
figure in cocked hat, red sash, pink silk stockings, and shoes
sparkling with huge buckles, all the congregation a-titter--it seems to
me it were worth while being married simply for the intoxication of
such a moment.

The third-class wedding-party, entering by a small side-door, and
passing without music to the altar, made nevertheless a pretty picture:
the bride, a handsome demoiselle de boutique, or shop assistant, in
white, with veil and wreath; behind her, girls in bright dresses
bearing enormous bouquets; bridegroom and supporters, all in spick and
span swallow-tail coats, with white ties and gloves, like beaux in a
French comedy, backwards and forwards; the priests looking gorgeous,
although in their second-best robes, their gold plates shining as they
collected the money; for whether married first, second or third class,
the Church exacts its due. I felt real commiseration for these
middle-class, evidently hard-working people, as the gold plate was
presented again and again, first, I presume, for the Church; secondly,
for the poor; thirdly, for Heaven knows what. Then two of the
bridesmaids, each taking the arm of a white-gloved, swallow-tailed
cavalier, made the round of the wedding guests, begging money of them.
In fact, there seemed no end to the giving. Small wonder that marriages
are on the decline in France! We left the bridal party still on their
crimson velvet fauteuils--twelve being the number allotted to a wedding
of the third class, the remaining guests being accommodated on
rush-bottomed chairs--and next visited the underground Church of St.
Germain.

What a contrast it presented to the lightness, brilliancy, and gaiety,
if we may use such a word, of the cathedral! There the effect on the
mind is of pure delight; we feel the exhilaration, not the austerity,
of religion. Very different is the impression produced by St. Germain,
which may be described as a church of tombs, a temple consecrated to
the dead. Although on a smaller scale, this ancient burial-place of
saints and martyrs recalls the awful mausoleum of Spanish kings. The
Escurial itself is hardly more impressive.

The upper church stands airily in the garden of the town hospital, its
fine tower all that is left of the original building. The lower remains
intact. We descend into a perfect little Gothic interior, with naves,
choir, and chapel, all in darkness but for the feeble glimmer of the
sacristan's candle, every part showing ancient frescoes in wonderful
preservation. In huge niches of the walls and under our feet, the
enormous lids of the tombs yielding to our guide's touch, lie the bones
of saints deposited there nearly a thousand years ago, 'English saints,
many of them, who crossed the water with St. Germain,' our cicerone
said with animation, evidently thinking the fact would interest us
extremely. No less curious than these tombs are the frescoes,
illustrating, among other subjects, the life of St. Maxime, companion
of St. Germain, whose bones lie here. 'St. Maxime, St. Maxime,' I said,
as I laboriously deciphered the Latin inscription on the tomb. 'Does
this name, then, belong to a woman?'

'Si fait,' rejoined our guide, no little astonished at such ignorance,
'we have many names in France that do for both sexes, and she belonged
to your own country.'

I did not feel in a position to contradict the statement, but no matter
to what country she belonged, St. Maxime has secured double
immortality--first, in the saints' calendar; secondly, in the mausoleum
of Auxerre. Alike these tombs and frescoes, with the sepulchres of the
Pharaohs, seem able to defy the encroachments of Time.

During the Revolution, great consternation prevailed concerning the
precious relics. The bones of the saintly bishop were disinterred and
hidden elsewhere for safety, and in the after-confusion were never
replaced, but buried elsewhere.

The huge sarcophagus in the wall is a cenotaph.

No similar panic is likely to create a second disturbance of the sacred
relics in this subterranean abbey church. And who can say? Centuries
hence, devout Catholics, dark-skinned descendants of races only just
emerging from cannibalism, may make a solemn pilgrimage hither and find
the pictured story of St. Maxime still intact on the walls! Be this as
it may, no travellers within reach of Auxerre should fail to visit its
two beautiful and perfect churches, the one with its majestic front and
single tower rising airily above the level landscape, its noble
proportions standing out in the bright sunshine, radiant and lightsome
alike within and without; the other, hidden in the bowels of the earth,
giving no visible evidence of its existence, aisle, vaulted roofs,
vistas of delicate columns, only to be realized in the glimmer of a
semi-twilight.

But Auxerre possesses other antiquities and many ancient houses, in one
of which, the Fontaine Hôtel, the traveller is comfortably and
reasonably housed. When we descended to our late supper in the salle à
manger, we found master, mistress, and their children dining with the
entire staff of servants. Such a circumstance indicates the difference
between English and French ways. In an English hotel, would the chef
sit down to talk with boots?--the lady bookkeeper condescend to break
bread with the kitchen-maid? Just as in France there is nothing like
our differentiation of domestic labour, one servant there fulfilling
what are called the duties of three here, so there is no parallel to
our social inequalities, kept up even in the kitchen.

The chef here, who obligingly quitted the table and the company to cook
our cutlets, was a strikingly handsome man, as so many head-cooks are.
The connection between cookery as a fine art and personal beauty I
leave to others to discover. I must say that after a considerable
acquaintance with these officials I can hardly call to mind any of mean
appearance. One of the handsomest, I remember, was an accomplished
young chef, who gave me lessons in the art of omelette-making at the
well-known, home-like Hôtel du Jura, Dijon.

Auxerre, although possessing a cathedral, is not a bishopric, its See
having been annexed to that of Sens, after the Revolution.

Formerly capital of the Auxerrois part of the kingdom of Burgundy,
Auxerre is now chef-lieu of the department of the Yonne, the little
river making such pretty pictures between Sens and La Roche.

Between Auxerre and Autun much of the scenery has an English look. We
might be in Surrey or Sussex. Lofty hedges enclosing fields and
meadows, stretches of heath-covered waste, oak woods, and homesteads
half hidden by orchards form the landscape. As our train crawls on,
stopping at every station, we have ample time to enjoy the scenery and
scrutinize the agriculture, here somewhat backward. These very slow
trains off the great lines should always be resorted to by the
inquiring traveller, the Bommelzug as it is called in German, the train
de bœufs in French. What can be seen from the windows of the flying
_Rapide_? Here we might almost alight and pluck the wild flowers
growing so temptingly on the embankment. Brisk tourists might even turn
the long halt at Avallon to good account, and get a hasty peep of one
of the most wonderful sites in this part of France, not so much as
hinted at from the railway. It was hard to pass Avallon by, 'most
musical name, recalling the "Idylls of the King," a place that may be
compared with Granada, with anything;' harder still, not to revisit the
abbey church of Vézélay, beautiful in itself, so celebrated in history;
so majestically placed on a ridge overlooking the two departments of
the Yonne and the Nièvre, but Goethe's invaluable maxim must be that of
the conscientious traveller, 'An der Nächste muss man denken' (We must
think of the nearest, the most important thing). Time did not now admit
of a two days' halt here. As I have described Avallon and Vézélay fully
elsewhere, [Footnote: I allude to several papers contributed to the
_Pall Mall Gazette_ whilst under the editorship of Mr. John Morley
(September and October, 1881), also to my edition of Murray's 'Handbook
to France,' part ii., 1884.] I will only now assure all tempted to take
this suggestion and visit both, that they cannot be disappointed. So
the train crawled on till the pretty home-like landscape was lost in
the twilight, and night over took us.

It was late when we reached Autun, not too late, however, to receive a
right cordial welcome from the author of 'Round my House,' who had
ridden from his country home in the starlight to welcome us.




CHAPTER II.

THROUGH THE MORVAN (continued).


A delightful Sunday spent among delightful English and French friends,
long bright hours of perfect weather, long bright hours of genial and
affectionate intercourse, English sobriety lightened with French esprit
and playfulness-such reminiscences, however precious to the possessor,
hardly form materials for a chapter. I pass on to say something about
Autun itself, a town so rarely visited by my country-folk, that the
principal hotels have not as yet set up a teapot. The people, however,
are so obliging that they will let you go into the kitchen and there
make your own tea, even a plum-pudding, if you want it.

First some will ask the meaning of a name at the head of my page. The
Morvan-what may that be? I must explain, then, without going over
ground I have already described, that the Morvan, accessible as a
tourist-ground from Avallon, Autun, or Nevers, is a little Celtic
kingdom, isolated till recent times from the rest of France, alike by
position, language, and customs.

The name is familiar to French ears as Wales is to our own. Just as we
talk of such-and-such a place being in Wales, instead of specifying the
particular shire, so French folks will tell you that they have just
made a journey into the Morvan, that so-and-so lives in the Morvan,
without naming the department--Saône-et-Loire, the Yonne or Nièvre, in
each of which a portion of the Morvan lies. In the very heart of the
country, especially round about Château-Chinon, its marvellously placed
little capital, we still see the saie, a garment identical with the
Gallic sagum, and the Morvandial, although gradually losing his once so
strongly-marked characteristics, prefers his own dialect to French.
Throughout the entire country, indeed, Morvandial is spoken.

From many points of view this region of survivals is full of interest.
Till half-way through the present century, village communism existed
here in full force, having withstood the shocks of the French
Revolution. The last village commune was not broken up till 1848.

The ancient industry of wood-floating, or flottage à buches perdues, is
still actively carried on. The logs, which are cut in summer, each
being marked with the owner's name, are floated down the rivers in
winter to Paris, women and children doing the greater part of the work.
This simple system of water transport, without any kind of vehicle, was
invented by a Parisian, Rouvet by name, so long ago as 1569.

More interesting than these facts, perhaps, to most travellers, is the
delightful scenery of the Morvan, and the beauty of its white oxen, a
race apart. We find these gentle, majestic creatures everywhere
tenderly cared for, as perhaps no other animals are in France, and
lending wonderful picturesqueness and charm to every landscape. No
matter whither you go, winding up the forest-girt mountain road, from
Autun to Château-Chinon, traversing the romantic valley of the Cure,
from Avallon to Vézélay, exploring the pretty, Surrey-like woods and
hills around the gay little watering-place of St. Honoré-les-Bains, are
to be seen the white, lustrous-skinned, majestic creatures, who almost
make us forgive the ungallant refrain of Pierre Dupont's famous song:
'J'aime bien Jeanne, ma femme, mais j'aimerais mieux la voir mourir,
que de voir mourir mes bœufs' (I love my wife Jane, but I would rather
see her die than my oxen).

The best plan for the tourist wishing to see the Morvan is to hire one
of the light carriages called a calèche, and drive, not only round the
country so called, but right through--a journey occupying about a
fortnight when leisurely made.

Travellers pressed for time may, however, visit Château-Chinon in a day
from Autun. This five hours' drive to the former capital of the Morvan,
one continued ascent, gives one an excellent idea of the Morvandial
scenery, and in clear weather is delightful. From the not too
comfortable coupé of the cumbersome old vehicle, we come ever upon
wider and more magnificent prospects; on either side are brilliant
green pastures, watered by little rivers clear as crystal, lofty alders
fringing their banks, and the grand white oxen pasturing peacefully
here and there; beyond these gracious scenes rise wooded hills, or
masses of granite, taking weird forms; while as we journey further on
we get tremendous panoramas, with a background of violet hills. These
heights are about equal to the Cumberland range, the loftiest peak of
the Morvan rising to that of Skiddaw.

Far away the famous Mont Beuvray, the Bibracte of the 'Commentaries'
lying half-way between Château-Chinon and Autun, is a bold, grand
outline to day, under a cold, gray sky. Wild crags to climb and
romantic sites abound, also scenes of quiet caressing grace and smiling
pastoralness. Nowhere can be found  more beautiful pastures, winding
lanes, tossing streams. The country round about is wonderfully
solitary, but newly-built schools in the scattered villages tell of
progress.

Meantime driver and passengers alight whilst our steady horses climb
one sharp ascent after another. As we wind about the hills we catch
sight of tiny hamlets perched on airy crests, recalling the castellated
villages of the African Kabylia.

Arrived at our destination, the ancient capital and stronghold of the
Celtic Morvan, the whole country lies at our feet as a map--sunny
pasture and cornland, glen and dale, mountain stream, tumbling river
and glittering cascade, alternating with sterner and grander
features--dark forests covering vast spaces, rugged peaks towering
aloft, wild sweeps of heather-covered moorland. Seen as I saw this
region, under a wind-tossed lowering heaven, the impression was of
extreme desolation and wildness; only a glimpse of sunshine was needed
to bring out the witchery of each shifting scene. Nothing can be
prettier in a quiet way than these countless rivers and rivulets, each
fringed with lofty alders, these velvety glades and winding lanes.
Forests abound, and I was assured by a peasant that the poor never need
buy any firewood. They can pick up enough to last them all winter.

Immediately below Château-Chinon opens a fair valley, threaded by the
river Yonne. Bewildering is the sense of space and atmosphere we obtain
here, as we look straight down into the clifts below, or allow the eye
to wander over the vast panorama stretching around.

A town perched on a height two thousand feet above the sea-level, so
placed as to command an entire kingdom, should have a history, and the
history of Château-Chinon goes very far back indeed. The fortified
citadel of the seigneury was built on the site of a Gallo-Roman camp,
or castrum, the castrum on that of a Gallic oppidum. The once warlike,
grim little place, that often defied its enemies in the seigneurial
wars, is now the most dead-alive, sleepy little provincial place
imaginable.

'We will breakfast together,' said the gray-haired conductor of the
diligence to me; 'and you will afterwards have time to look round
before we start home.'

Although pure Celts, the Morvandiaux have not the proud reserve and,
perhaps, distrust of strangers found among the Bretons. I have driven
for miles across country alone with a Breton peasant, and he would
never once open his lips. Had I carried bags of gold about me, I should
have been perfectly safe under such protection. But a sociable
invitation to chat over the ordinary of an auberge would never have
entered the head of a diligence-driver in the Morbihan or Finistère.

The little inn looked temptingly rustic and primitive, and the smiling,
round-faced, rosy-cheeked landlady might have just walked out of a
picture. Exactly such a landlady I remember at Llangollen years ago.

I had, however, no time to stay, and we drove v back to Autun, making
the descent at a rapid rate, catching by the way the glimpse of a
stately peasant, with the Gallic saie, or mantle, thrown over his
shoulders. He might have sat for a study of Vercingetorix! It was worth
while going to Château-Chinon for the sight of such a piece of
antiquity as that!

Alas! Château-Chinon is to have a railway, and alike the mantle worn by
Vercingetorix and his countrymen, the ancient Gallic speech--even the
time-honoured system of log-floating--are doomed. Instead of being
invited to breakfast with the blue-bloused pleasant driver of the
diligence, I shall expect to find at table-d'hôte half a score of
English undergraduates, members of the bicyclist club, or a party of
enterprising ladies from Chicago.

A word about Autun itself, a town that improves marvellously on
acquaintance. This was my third visit, and I found it more attractive
than ever. The beauty of its site is best appreciated from the lower
ground beyond its western suburb. And beautiful it is--the graceful
cathedral, with its airy spire and twin towers, pencilled in soft,
silvery gray against the dimpled green hills, every feature of the
landscape in harmony with it, as if, indeed, made to be in harmony with
it. Turning from the cathedral in an opposite direction, in order to
make the circuit of the city, we realize how grand was the predecessor
of modern Autun the Augustodonum of Gallic Rome. Keeping to this higher
ground, we can follow with the eye the tremendous span of the Roman
wall, fragmentary for the most part, yet perfect in places, and built
neither of bricks nor blocks of stone, but of small stones.

Inside the enclosure we see the mediæval wall and picturesque
watch-towers of the French king Francis. Picturesque as these are--also
the bits of ordinary domestic architecture between airily-perched
dormers, stone balconies filled with flowers, little terraced gardens
rising one above the other-the mind is too much occupied with the grand
Roman aspect of the place to dwell as yet upon minor points. The
circuit of the city, so made as to visit its two magnificent Roman
gateways, and equally fine so-called Temple of Janus, is beyond the
reach of moderate walkers. All are noble specimens of Augustan
architecture, more especially the Porte d'Arroux. This stands on the
north side of the town, beyond the suburbs, its lofty arches spanning
the road, and wearing, from the distance, the look of an aqueduct. It
is built of huge blocks of stone adjusted without cement. Between the
upper tiers of arches are sculptured Corinthian columns, all happily
uninjured. So massive is this structure, so firmly it stands, that we
feel as if, like the Pyramids, it might last for ever.

Beyond, on either side, stretches the pleasant open country-fields and
meadows and market-gardens; whilst far away, in bright sunny weather
looking like a violet cloud, is the vast height of Bibracte, so
celebrated in the 'Commentaries.'

But the most curious monument at Autun is the so-called Pierre de
Couhard. From all parts of the city may be seen, rising conspicuously
from its green eminence, this stately relic-maybe of Roman or Gallic
times, perhaps raised of remoter date still--a vast pyramid of stone,
worthy to be compared to the great tomb of Caius Sextius in Rome.

It is a pleasant walk to what the townsfolk call the Pierre de Quare.
Leaving behind us the cathedral and suburbs, we follow a road winding
in a south-easterly direction to the little village of Couhard, watered
by a gurgling stream, and sheltered by a fair green hill. As we quit
the highroad to reach the monument, we come upon pretty pastoral
groups. It is supper-time-l'heure de la soupe, as French rustics
say--and before every cottage-door are squatted family groups, eating
their pottage on the doorsteps. Around are the dogs and cats, chickens,
pigs and goats. To every humble homestead is attached orchard, garden,
even a patch of corn or vineyard. All is peace and contentment.

Certainly these rural interiors would not satisfy everybody. Neatness
and cleanliness do not always prevail among poor folks in France, any
more than in England. But, alike, young and old are neatly and
wholesomely dressed. Beggars are almost nil, and the prevailing aspect
is one of unforgettable well-being, independence, and cheerfulness.

In strange contrast with these domestic pictures--pet kittens and
children playing close under its shadow, tiny cabbage and tomato beds
planted to its very edge-stands the huge, angular, pyramidal pile
called the Pierre de Quare.

Very striking is the effect of the huge, solid brown mass, tapering to
a point, from summit to base reaching half the height of the
cathedral-spire, its original height in all probability having been
much loftier.

The whole is a ruin, yet intact, if I may be pardoned the paradox.
Whilst the inner part of the monument remains uninjured, its sides have
been stripped of the marble slabs or polished stones that once in all
probability covered and adorned them. The outer surface now shows a
rough, jagged ensemble of masses of stone rudely put together, the
entire pyramid being solid.

We walked home in the evening light, getting dozens of charming
pictures in the twilight--pictures already familiar to me, yet ever
bringing a sense of newness. French towns, like French scenery, should
be revisited thus, and I hope ere very long to pay Autun my fourth
visit, and to take, for a second time, those delightful drives from
Avallon to Vézélay, and from the modern capital of the little Celtic
kingdom to the ancient, perched so airily above the surrounding hills.




CHAPTER III.

FROM LYONS TO AVIGNON BY THE RHÔNE.


From Autun to Lyons is a journey that calls for little comment, unless
made, as wise Arthur Young made it a hundred years ago, on horseback;
or unless we take the steamer at Châlon, and enjoy the scenery of the
Saône, Mr. Hamerton's favourite river.

We were too impatient, however, to reach the Causses to stop, even for
the sake of a sail on the Saône, and made haste to catch the very next
_Gladiateur_ bound to Avignon. Why all these Rhône steamers should be
called _Gladiateur_ I don't know, but so it is.

By half-past five this bright August day we are on the deck of the
little steamer, to find a scene of indescribable liveliness and bustle.
All kinds of merchandise were being stowed away--bedding, fruit,
bicycles, bird-cages, passengers' luggage, cases, and packages of every
imaginable description.

A stream of peasants poured in, bound for various stations on the way,
all heavily laden, some accompanied by their pet dogs. First-class
passengers were not numerous. We had an elderly bridegroom, who might
have been a small innkeeper, with his youthful bride, evidently making
a cheap wedding-trip; a family party or two; an excitable man with a
sick wife; a couple of pretty girls with two or three youths--brothers
or cousins; a sprinkling of priests and nuns--that was all. The
peasants with their baskets and bundles, at the other end of the
vessel, made picturesque groups, and the whole scene was as French as
French could be.

I was just thinking how pleasant it was thus to escape the routine of
travel, to find one's self in a purely foreign atmosphere, among French
people, picking up by the way French habits and ways of thought, when
one of the officials of the company bustled up to me.

'Pray pardon me, madame,' he said, bringing out a note-book. 'I see
that you are English. Will you be so very kind as to give me the name
and address of the great tourist agency in London? We are organizing an
entirely new service between Lyons and Avignon; we are going to make
our steamers attractive to tourists. You will oblige us extremely by
giving a little information.'

Crestfallen and with a sinking of the heart, I took his pencil--I
could, of course, not do otherwise--and wrote in big letters:


                       MM. Thomas Cook et Cie.,
                              Ludgate Hill,
                                     Londres.

But those few words I had written sufficed to dispel the delightful
visions of the moment before. Another year or two, then, and the Rhône
will be then handed over to Messrs. Cook, Gaze and Caygill--benefactors
of their kind, no doubt, but ruthless destroyers of the romance of
travel.

Instead of French folk, with whom we can chat about their crops, rural
affairs, the passing scenes, gaining all kinds of information, feeling
that we are really in France, and forgetting for awhile old
associations, henceforth we shall find on board these steamers our near
neighbours, whom, no matter how much respected, we are glad to quit for
a time. From end to end of the vessel we shall hear the voices of
English and Transatlantic tourists, one and all most probably
'disappointed in the Rhône;' but, indeed, for the river, we should as
well be at home! However, all this disenchantment happily belongs to
the future; let us enjoy the present experience--one long bright summer
day, so full of impressions as to seem many days rolled into one.

The whistle sounds, punctually to the stroke of six; we are off.

It is a noble sight as we steam out of the quay de la Charité: the vast
city rearing its stately front between green hills and meeting rivers;
above, white châteaux and villas dotting the greenery--below, the
quays, bordered with warehouses that might be palaces, so lofty and
handsome are they, and avenues of plane-trees.

The day promises to be splendid, but mists as yet hang over the scene.
Leaving behind us majestic cities and suburbs and the confluence of the
Rhône and the Saône--one silvery sheet flowing into the other--we glide
between low-lying banks bordered with poplars, and soon reach the
little village of Irigny, its sheltering green hills dotted with
country houses. As we go swiftly on we realize the appropriateness of
the epithet ever applied to the Rhône. Truly in Michelet's phrase,
'C'est un taureau furieux descendu des Alpes, et qui court à la mer.'
If we are in haste to reach our destination in the heart of the
Cévennes, the Rhône seems still more in haste to reach the sea. This
swift current of the bright blue waters and the unspeakable freshness
and purity of the air make our journey very exhilarating. Past Irigny
we are so near the low, poplar-bordered shore to our left that we could
almost reach it with a pebble, whilst to the right lies Millery. From
this point the river winds abruptly, and we see far-off hills and
gentle declivities nearer shore, with vineyards planted on the slopes.
The country on both sides is beautifully wooded, and very verdant.

The first halt is made at Givors, a little manufacturing town set round
with vine-clad banks; here the little river Giers flows into the Rhône,
one of the numerous tributaries gathered on the way. Just below the
town is a graceful suspension-bridge. But for the mists we should have
a lovely view a little further on, where the hills run nearer together,
the wooded escarpments running steep down to the water's edge. On both
right and left banks the scenery is now charming. Close to our left
hand rise banks fringed with silvery-green willows, and above a bold
line of hills, part wood, part vineyards, with white houses peeping
here and there; on our right, a little island-like group of poplar, the
whole picture very sweet and pastoral.

For the most part our passengers, alike first and second class, pay
scant heed to the scenery; the tiny salle-a-manger below and the
resources of the kitchen seem more attractive.

The excitable man with the sick wife, however, no sooner caught sight
of me with pencil and note-book than he rushed up, anxious to impart
information, also to pour out his own troubles.

'That sick lady yonder is my wife; does she not look ill? Oh, the
misfortune to have a sick wife!'

Then he went on to relate to me the history of his wife's long illness,
dilating on his own unhappiness in being so afflicted. It never seemed
to occur to him that it might be worse to be ill one's self, even than
to inflict one's illnesses on others. He had tried every imaginable
remedy, and now, as a last expedient, was about to take her to her
paternal home in the South, to see what native air might do. Poor lady!
ill and depressed she looked indeed.

As we get nearer Vienne the aspect of the country changes. There is an
Italian look about the vines trellised on trees, and festooned under
the tiled roofs of the little riverside châlets.

The approach to the ancient city itself is very striking. A light
suspension-bridge spans the river-banks just where Vienne faces the
village of St. Colombe, ancient as itself. On the right we see the
massive old town built by Philippe de Valois; to the left, behind the
houses, crowded together pell-mell, rises the massive pile of Vienne
Cathedral. Here another tributary, the Gère, flows into the Rhône.
Vienne was reputed a fosterer of poetry in classic times. At 'beautiful
Vienne,' Martial boasted that his works were read with avidity. The
scenery now shows more variety and picturesqueness. In one spot the
river winds so abruptly that we seem all on a sudden to be landlocked,
the hills almost meeting where the swift, impetuous stream has forced a
way. The cleft hills as they slope down to the shore show little dells
and combes deliciously fresh and verdurous. Everywhere we see the vine,
and with every bend we seem nearer the South. Between Vienne and
Roussillon the aspect is no longer French, but Italian--the distant
undulations dark purple, flecked with golden shadow, the nearer
terraced with the yellowing vine.

Our next halting-place is Condrien, on the right bank, celebrated for
its white wines, a pretty, Italian-looking little town, with vineyards
and gardens close to the riverside, the bright foliage of the acacia
and vine contrasting with the soft yellows and grays of the
building-stone. Above the straggling town on the sunny hill are
deep-roofed châlets, and close to us--we could almost gather
them--patches of glorious sunflowers in the riverside gardens. The
mists had now cleared off, and we were promised a superb day.

The traveller's mind is all at once struck by the extreme solitude of
this noble, vast-bosomed, swift-flowing river. We had been on our way
for hours without seeing a steamer or vessel of any kind, our little
craft having the wide water-way all to itself. Whilst the Saône is the
most navigable river in the world, quite opposite is the character of
its brother Rhône. Not inaptly has the one river--all gentleness,
yieldingness, and suavity--won a feminine, the other--all force,
impetuosity and stern will--obtained for itself a masculine,
appellative! And well has the Lyonnais sculptor given these
characteristics in his charming statues adorning the Hôtel de Ville of
his native city.

The Rhône has been called 'un chemin qui marche trop vîte'; the
rapidity of its currents and the difficulties of navigation up-stream
are obstructions to traffic. But before the great line of railway was
laid down between Paris and Marseilles, it was nevertheless very
important. If we converse with French folk whose memory goes back to a
past generation, we shall find that the journey South was invariably
made this way. Formerly sixty-two steamers daily plied with passengers
and goods between these riverside towns, now connected by railway. At
the present time seven or eight suffice for the work.

To render the Rhône adapted for navigation on a large scale, extensive
works are necessary in order to regulate its current and deepen its
bed. The question has long occupied the leading Chambers of Commerce
throughout France. Plans of the proposed ameliorations have been made;
works have even been begun. But the Rhône has that terribly powerful
Compagnie de Paris-Lyon-Mediterranée to contend with. It remains to be
seen whether wide public interests will be finally sacrificed to a
grasping railway company. For myself, I owe the P.-L.-M. a great and
lasting grudge.

I am in the habit of paying yearly visits to French friends living in
and near Dijon; but for the P.-L.-M., I could pleasantly vary these
annual visits to the delightful Burgundian capital, going by way of
Sens and Tonnerre, and returning by the Ligne de l'Est through
Champagne.

But no! The latter company is not permitted by the P.-L.-M. to set down
passengers in the Dijon railway-station. Those travellers desirous of
making the journey Paris-ward viâ Troyes are therefore forced to take
tickets to Is-sur-Tille, half an hour by rail from Dijon, on the Ligne
de l'Est. There they are permitted, and not before, to take through
tickets and register baggage to Paris. I rejoice to hear, however, that
influential Dijonnais are taking the matter up, and I yet live in hopes
of being able to avoid the P.-L.-M. line to and from Dijon.

It must be admitted that the great solitude of the Rhône adds to its
majesty and impressiveness. Our little craft seems insignificant as a
feather--a mere bird skimming the vast blue surface. After the clearing
of the mists, we have a spell of unbroken blue sky and bright sunshine,
followed by a deliciously cool, gray English heaven, with sunny
glimpses and varied cloudage.

Passing Serrières, with pastures and meadows close to the water's edge,
and groups of cattle grazing under the trees, we reach Annonay, crested
by a quaint ruin, the birth-place of the great balloonists, the
brothers Montgolfier. The first balloon ascent was made from this
little town in 1783. Boissy d'Anglas, the heroic president of the
Assembly in its stormiest days, was also born here.

Next comes St. Vallier, an ancient little town close to the river-side,
with its castle of the beauty who never grew old, Diane de
Poitiers--she whose mysterious cosmetic was a daily plunge in cold
water; so say the initiated in historic secrets. Opposite to St.
Vallier rises a chain of sunny, vine-covered hills, with sharp clefts
showing deep shadow.

At Arras, on the right bank, is seen another picturesque ruin. No river
in Europe boasts of more ruins than the Rhône. Then we reach the
legendary rock called the Table du Roi. Just as Æneas and his
companions made of their flat loaves, plates, and so fulfilled the
Sibyl's prediction, St. Louis saw in this tabular block a dinner-table,
providentially designed for the use of himself and his ministers. The
great advantage of such a table lay in its immunity from listeners,
thus the story runs. This al-fresco banquet above the banks of the
Rhône took place on the eve of the Seventh Crusade.

At this point the river is magnificent. Beyond the nearer hills rise
the crumbling walls of a feudal stronghold, another ruin of imposing
aspect. One hoary tower only is seen, half hidden by the folds of a
valley. On every steep slope the vines make golden patches, little
terraces being planted close to the rocky summits. This persistence in
a phylloxera-ravaged district is quite touching.

Passing Tournon and Tain, we soon come in sight of the famous little
village of the Hermitage, a sunburnt, granitic slope, its three hundred
acres once being a mine of gold. Formerly a hectare of this precious
vineyard was worth 30,000 francs. The phylloxera, alas! has invaded it.

We now see in the far distance the blue range of the Dauphinnois Alps,
and can it be--is yonder silvery glimmer on the farthest horizon the
mighty Mont Blanc? Nothing can be lovelier than these wide mountain
vistas, far above broad blue river, plain, and hill.

Passing the stately Gothic château of Châteaubourg, where sojourned St.
Louis, we get a glimpse of the sharply-outlined limestone heights
bordering on the vineyards of St. Péray, no less celebrated than those
of the Hermitage. On the topmost crag stand out in bold relief the
superb ruins of Crussol. At every turn we see gray walls of feudal
strongholds frowning above the bright, broad river. By the time we
reach Valence, soon after mid-day, we have passed one barge only.

Valence is beautifully situated. [Footnote: In the early part of this
century the Rhône threw up gold-dust here. The beaver, be it also
mentioned, had his home then on the banks of this river, but it lived
in isolation, showing little of the intelligence of the Canada beaver.]
Facing the river and tawny, abrupt rocks rises the splendid panorama of
the French Alps. Here we ought to stay, were we not in such feverish
flurry to reach the Causses. And here we leave more than half our
passengers and merchandise. The cook, having now nothing to do, comes
on deck to chat with a friendly traveller. I may as well mention that
we fare as well on this little steamer as at a second-class
table-d'hôte. There is a small dining-room below, as well as a very
fairly comfortable saloon. The attendants are exceedingly civil, and
charges regulated by a tariff.

As an instance of the prevailing desire to please, I cite the following
piece of amiability on the part of the chef. I had given tea and a
teapot, with instructions, to the waiter. The chef, however, anxious
that there should be no blunder, came up to me and begged for
information at first hand.

'Pray excuse me,' he said; 'but I did not understand whether the milk
and sugar were to form part of the decoction.'

I gave him a little dissertation on tea-making, with the result that
future travellers by the _Gladiateur_ will obtain a fragrant cup
admirably prepared. Even a French chef cannot be expected to know
everything in the vast field of cookery.

Below Valence the scenery changes. The hills on either side of the
river recede, and we look above low reaches and lines of poplar upon
the far-off mountain-range of Dauphiné and Savoy. Here and there are
little farmsteads close to the shore, with stacks of wheat newly piled
and cattle grazing--everywhere a look of homely plenty and repose. The
river winds in perpetual curves, giving us new horizons at every turn.

Lavoutte, on the right bank, is a picturesque congeries of red-tiled
houses massed round a square château. The town indeed looks a mere
appendage of this château, so conspicuous is the ancient stronghold of
the Vivarais. Livron, perched on a hill, looks very pretty. Soon we
come to perhaps the grandest ruin cresting the bank of the Rhône, the
donjon and château fort of Rochemaure, standing out formidably from the
dark, jagged peaks, running sheer down to the river's edge.

After Le Teil is passed the clouds gradually clear. We have the deep
warm blue of a southern sky and burning sunshine.

Viviers--ancient capital of the Vivarais, to which it gave the name--is
most romantically placed on the side of a craggy hill, its ancient
castle and old Romanesque cathedral conspicuous above the house-roofs.
Just above the verdant river-bank run its mediæval ramparts tapestried
with ivy, the yellowish stone almost the colour of the rocks.

The scenery here is wild and striking. Far away the grand snow-tipped
Mont Ventoux, the limestone cliffs dazzlingly white against the warm
heavens, deep purple shadows resting on the vine-clad slopes, whilst
close to the water's edge are stretches of velvety turf and little
shady dells. At one point the opposite coasts are as unlike in aspect
as summer and winter; the right bank all grace and fertility, the left
all barrenness and desolation. And still we have the noble river to
ourselves as it winds between rock and hill. Pont St. Esprit is another
old-world town with a wonderful old bridge, making a charming picture.
It stands close to the water's edge, the houses grouped lovingly round
its ancient church with tall spire. Here we do at last meet a steamer
bound for Valence.

After leaving Pont St. Esprit the scenery grows less severe, till by
degrees all sternness is banished, and we see only a gentle pastoral
landscape on either side.

Bagnols, with its handsome old stone bridge, church, with perforated
tower, facing the river, makes a quaint and picturesque scene. This
curious old town, one of the most characteristic passed throughout the
entire journey, lies so close to the water's edge that we could almost
step from the steamer into its streets. Meantime, the long, bright
afternoon, so rich in manifold impressions, draws on; cypresses and
mulberry-trees announce the approach to Avignon. A golden softness in
the evening sky, a heavy warmth and languor in the air, proclaim the
South. Every inch of the way is varied and rememberable. Feudal walls
still crest the distant heights, as we glide slowly between reedy banks
and low sandy shores towards the papal city.

At last it comes in sight, rather more than twelve hours since quitting
the quay of Lyons, and well rewarded were we for having preferred the
slower water-way to the four hours' flight in the railway express.

The approach to Avignon by the Rhône may be set side by side in the
traveller's mind with the first glimpse of Venice from the Adriatic, or
of Athens from the Ægean.

The river, after winding amid cypress-groves, makes a sudden curve, and
we see all of a sudden the grand old Italian-looking city, its
watch-towers, palaces, and battlements pencilled in delicate gray
against a warm amber sky, only the cypresses by the water's edge making
dark points in the picture. Far away, over against the city towers, the
stately snow-crowned Mont Ventoux and the violet hills shutting in
Petrarch's Vaucluse. How warm and southern--nay, Oriental--is the scene
before us, although painted in delicatest pearly tints! It is difficult
to believe that we are still in France; we seem suddenly to have waked
up in Jerusalem!




CHAPTER IV.

AVIGNON AND ORANGE.


My first business at Avignon was, of course, to visit the tomb of our
great countryman, John Stuart Mill.

As we drive to the cemetery this cloudless August day there is little
to remind us of northern latitudes: warm yellow walls, burning blue
heaven, venerable fig-trees white with dust, peach and olive
orchards--all combine to conjure up a vision of the far-off East. The
perpetual wind, however, cools the air, and if it has not the delicious
freshness of the desert breeze tasted towards nightfall near Cairo, at
least it makes August in that apparently tropic region bearable.
Avignon should without doubt be visited in the height of summer,
otherwise we lose this Oriental aspect, which is its most striking and,
at the same time, most beautiful characteristic.

Passing the colossal palace of the popes--pity such superb masonry
should be linked with the memories of crimes so horrible!--we reach the
public gardens, containing the statue of a comparatively humble
individual, who did more for the public weal than perhaps all the popes
and anti-popes put together. This is Althen, who, by the introduction
of the madder-root into France, promoted the peaceful industry and
wellbeing of thousands of honest families. From the lofty terrace of
this promenade--a natural precipice overlooking the river--we obtain a
glorious panorama--the entire city, with its towers, palace, and
churches, spread before us as a map, the glory of the Dauphinnois Alps,
the magnificent Mont Ventoux stretching across the northern horizon,
under the shadow of its sunny crest the pale violet hills of Vaucluse,
and, to complete the picture, the Rhône, silvery bright--I protest it
is not always muddy as some writers insist!--flowing swiftly between
green banks towards the sea.

An avenue of stone pines leads to the cemetery--announced by
flower-stalls and stonemasons' yards--and we soon find the
head-gardener--an ancient man, proud to show us the tomb of the 'grand
Anglais.'

'Do my country-people often come here to pay their respects to this
grave?' I asked.

'Oh, many, many!' he said; 'and the demoiselle, his daughter--it is she
who sees to everything. She is always coming. Never was any grave so
cared for, as you will see.'

He was right. The sarcophagus of pure white marble stands in the midst
of a tiny garden, exquisitely kept and railed in, with gate
well-locked. The well-known inscription inscribed by Stuart Mill to the
memory of his wife cannot be deciphered from outside the enclosure, and
no one, under any circumstances whatever, is permitted to enter it; but
the name of the noble apostle of liberty stands out bold and clear, and
may be seen from a distance. The flower-borders around the tomb were
bright with late summer and autumn flowers; not a seared leaf, not an
unsightly weed anywhere. The reverential care bestowed on this grave is
delightful to witness. Two English girls lie buried near the great
champion of women and of liberty of thought. Rare flowers--roses and
lilies--were not to be had, so I purchased a homely garland of zinnias
and China asters, and laid it just outside the little railing. In
paying this modest tribute to the memory of John Stuart Mill I
fulfilled a wish very dear to my heart. One other pilgrimage of the
like kind I would fain make did not wide seas intervene. I should like
to place a wreath on the tomb of another apostle of liberty--the
dauntless, the self-immolating Colenso!

Schiller, great in poetry as in prose, says: 'The larger portion of
humanity are too much concerned with the struggle for bare existence to
occupy themselves with the search after truth.' Let us, then, rejoice
in the memory of those who have consecrated their existences to this
lofty task!

Beautiful as is Avignon for a burial-place, we wonder how anyone could
from choice live here. The perpetual mistral-like wind, the dazzling
glare, the white dust, the malodorous streets of the old town, do not
at any rate invite a long stay during the dog-days, and much of its
picturesqueness would be lost in winter. With the prospect of the
breezy Roof of France ever before us, we certainly felt little disposed
to linger, in spite of our comfortable quarters and another attraction
not mentioned in guide-books. I allude to the great beauty of the
people, especially of the young girls and children. We seemed here to
have touched the first note of a gradually ascending scale of beauty,
the climax awaiting us in the mountain fastnesses of the Lozère. In and
around Avignon we saw many a girl beautiful as one of Raphael's
Madonnas, many a child lovely as an angel. We could not paint these
charming heads, we could not make the acquaintance of their possessors;
but it was delightful to obtain such glimpses of beauty by the way--to
feel one's self in a living portrait-gallery of beauty. The great
neatness and tidiness of the country people, and the absence of
vagrancy, are very striking. Wherever we go, we see evidence of an
existence laborious perhaps in the extreme, yet one of wholesomeness
and content.

Strange to say, chemical science has proved as disastrous to the rural
population round about Avignon as the phylloxera has done in other
parts of the department. The supersession of madder by aniline dyes
has, indeed, for a time almost ruined the small farmers of Vaucluse.

'Ah!' said an elderly man to me, 'in former days the madder made up for
everything. It was the harvest of the year. If a peasant's corn was
blighted, or potatoes and fruit crops failed, the madder was there to
take to market. The madder paid his way in bad seasons and in
good--gave him a little "argent mignon" to lay by. The peasant just
manages to live nowadays, but when madder was cultivated 'twas his own
fault if he didn't grow rich.'

The culture of this plant, which extended over 13,500 hectares in
Vaucluse in 1860, had diminished to eight, representing a loss of
millions of francs. The vineyards have also been reduced, owing to the
inroads of the phylloxera, although not in equal proportion. Even the
silkworm, the third chief source of wealth here, has suffered from a
parasite.

But the peasant-owner of the soil never loses heart. He drives his
plough across the ruined vineyard, digs up the madder-field, plants
other crops, and cheerfully accepts a fourth part of former profits.

My companion, of course, would no more have dreamed of quitting Avignon
without a visit to Vaucluse than I should have thought it possible to
go away leaving unvisited the tomb of John Stuart Mill. But next
morning brought a lowering sky, heavy rain-drops, and an ominous
rumbling of thunder. To set out for a twenty miles' drive across
country under such auspices were madness.

We decided to visit Orange instead, a short distance by railway. We
should be sure to obtain a covered carriage at the station. Under such
circumstances, need a deluging shower or two and a thunderstorm keep us
at home?

The prospect brightened towards mid-day, so we started in high spirits,
assuring ourselves of a delightful excursion. We found pleasant company
in the railway-carriage, our fellow-travellers being all bound for
Paris. One, a young Jesuit who had been in England, was delighted to
practise his English.

'You are not favoured with fine weather in your travels,' he said; 'but
you are probably going to remain at Orange some time?'

'Oh dear no,' was the reply. 'We are spending the afternoon there, that
is all--just going to see the Roman theatre!'

'I wish you enjoyment of your expedition,' he replied drily, no little
amused, but evidently somewhat accustomed to insular eccentricity.

The rest of the company could hardly keep a grave countenance. 'These
English! these English!' their faces said, and the general verdict
evidently was parodying the immortal words of Madame Roland: 'O
Pleasure, what pains are endured under thy name!'

By the time we reached our destination the storm had become truly
awful. Rain fell in torrents; the crashing thunder was like the roar of
artillery. The heavens were black as night, but for the blue flashes
that seemed to set the place on fire. Outside the station was no
vehicle of any kind; within, groups of storm-driven travellers and
pedestrians waited for the tempest to abate.

And long, indeed, we had to wait. The most rational alternative seemed
to be to take the next train back to Avignon. But we might never again
find ourselves at Orange. We recalled Addison's words, 'The remains of
this Roman amphitheatre are worth the whole principality of Orange,' so
we abided the storm. We were, after all, as well off in the
comfortably-appointed little station as in a first class
railway-carriage, and the tempest, if awful, afforded a sublime
spectacle. Lightning so vivid I think I never before witnessed.

At last the deluging rain slackened somewhat; the heavens grew clearer;
and the omnibus of the Hôtel de la Poste made its appearance. We took
our seats and rattled into the town, the poor drenched horses paying no
heed to the swiftly-recurring peals and flashes.

At the Poste, most French and old-fashioned of French inns--very
spacious, very handsome, and scrupulously clean--we found a charming
landlady, to whom we carried friendly greetings from former visitors;
and after tea and a little chat, the thunder and lightning having
abated, we ventured forth.

The streets, which on our arrival an hour before were like rivers, now
began to dry up; the raindrops fell at intervals only; the thunder
pealed from a distance. A few townspeople, like ourselves, were abroad.

A noble avenue of plane-trees leads from the station to the ancient
town. Hardly a bit of modernization to be seen anywhere, its quaint,
narrow streets having deep, over-hanging roofs and round arched
galleries, as seen in some of the old Spanish towns of Franche-Comté.
After zigzagging for awhile in rain, we come suddenly upon the Roman
theatre, a sight to take one's breath away. Rome itself shows nothing
finer than this colossal mass of masonry--façade of the Augustan
amphitheatre, and at the same time an acoustic wall, built of such
thickness and solidity in order to retain the sound of the actors'
voices. The entire façade is very nearly perfect, and forms a splendid
specimen of Augustan architecture in its prime. It is constructed of
huge blocks put together symmetrically, without the adjunct of cement.
The colour is of deep, rich brown, the entire structure majestically
dominating the town, whilst around, dwarfed by its gigantic
proportions, rise the pleasant green hills.

Close under the shadow of the façade, enhancing its grandeur by force
of contrast, are mean little houses, and in front an open space, where
poor people are washing their clothes and carrying on the homeliest
avocations. Some notion of the interior may be gathered from without,
but, on payment of a small fee, strangers are permitted to enter and
wander at will about the stone benches raised on tiers, the corridors,
and dressing-closets of the actors. Vandalism has all but done its
worst; still, enough are left of proscenium and auditorium, originally
constructed to hold 7,000 spectators, to admit of the performance of
plays here. The stone corbels, pierced with holes to hold the enormous
awning or velarium used in wet weather or extreme heat, remain intact.
The gray stone is covered with moss and greenery, and the whole scene
for magnificence and impressiveness may be compared with the great
Dionysiac theatre at Athens.

As we lingered outside, it was pleasant to witness the pride of the
inhabitants in this great monument.

'Ah, you should have been here a few days ago!' one bystander said to
us; 'you might then have seen the "Œdipe Roi" of Corneille given in
this amphitheatre, by the troupe of the Comédie Française. Never before
was a fête so brilliant seen at Orange! People flocked hither from
fifty miles and farther round!'

We found, and lost, and lost, and found our way in the perplexing
labyrinth of ancient streets, till we reached the fine but somewhat
cold and uninspiring triumphal arch at the other end of the town. Then
we returned to Avignon, the thunderstorm bursting forth with renewed
fury. Our compartment was illuminated by the lightning from the
beginning of our journey to the end, and when we alighted the blue
flashes were positively appalling; the whole place seemed ablaze with
the steely-blue, blinding coruscations. So we rattled through the
lightning-lit streets and turned into bed, the storm taking its
departure as soon as we were safely housed. It was worth while making a
great effort to see Orange, but nothing--no, nothing--will ever tempt
me to excursionize in such a storm again!

It is odd that English folk so rarely visit Orange; but the attractions
of Switzerland are too obvious, and the great Schweitzer Hof at Lucerne
has more charms for the multitude than the thoroughly French Hôtel de
la Poste.

One illustrious English traveller, however, just two hundred years ago,
thought otherwise.

In a recently-unearthed letter of Addison to Bishop Hough, dated 27th
October, 1700, he wrote: 'I was about three days ago at Orange, which
is a very fruitful and pleasant spot of ground. The governor, who is a
native of the place, told me there were about 5,000 people in it, and
one-third were Protestants. There is a Popish bishop and some convents,
but all live very amicably together, and are, I believe, not a little
pleased with their prince, who does not burden them with taxes and
impositions. There are two pieces of antiquity--Marius' triumphal arch,
and the remains of a Roman amphitheatre--that are worth the whole of
the principality.'

It may be as well to add here that the prevailing opinion of
archæologists now refers the arch to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and
that the name Marius has no reference to the conqueror of the Cimbri,
as has been generally supposed. The supposition was brought about by
the name Mario inscribed on a shield, among the many facsimiles
adorning the trophy. But it is clearly the name of the vanquished, not
the victor, found here, and Mario, part of Marion, may well have been
the name of a Gaulish prisoner.

As all spoliations throughout France indiscriminately are imputed to
the Revolution, it may be as well to remind the reader that it was
Maurice, Prince of Nassau, who did his very utmost to demolish the
noble Roman theatre of Orange.

By the Treaty of Ryswick, signed 1697, the family of Nassau were
confirmed in the possession of Orange, and the prince referred to in
Addison's letter was our William the Third. The spoliator of the Roman
theatre was his ancestor, the tyrannical and justly-hated Maurice. This
fact is to be noted.

The thunderstorm cooled the air, and the next day we had unclouded
skies and burning sunshine, tempered with a brisk wind, for our
expedition to Vaucluse. The wind blows ever at Avignon, no matter what
the weather may be, and renders the tropic heat of summer tolerable.
All the way we caught sight of beautiful faces, these peasant-girls and
children having faultless features, a rich complexion, dark hair and
eyes, and a dignified carriage. They go bare-headed in the broiling
sun, and seem to revel in the heat. Passing suburban villas,
close-shuttered, vine-trellised, handsome châteaux, each approached by
stately avenues of plane or mulberry, cypress groves and vineyards, we
are soon in the heart of the country.

Little farmhouses are seen on either side, their ochre-coloured walls
gleaming against the deep-blue sky--fig-trees in every garden, with
peach-orchards beyond, showing the brilliant fruit. It is a bit of the
East, only the blue-bloused peasant and the bare-headed, dignified
country girls, wishing us 'Bonjour' as they pass, remind us that we are
on French soil. There is no evidence here either of wealth or poverty;
but the fruits of the earth, so laboriously cultivated, are equally
shared by all. Everywhere we find cheerfulness, independence, and
thrift.

Pilgrims to Vaucluse must be prepared to pay dear for the privilege.
Once--and once only during this journey-were we thoroughly overcharged,
and it was at the little inn here.

I have not kept the bill, but was it not worth any money to taste trout
fished from Petrarch's stream, eggs whose ancestors had crowed in
Petrarch's hearing, salad grown within perhaps a stone's-throw of
Petrarch's garden? Thus doubtless our hostess reasoned, and in all
probability she was right. What devotee would be deterred from visiting
such a shrine by the prospect of a long bill?

Many, however, will be deterred by another reason. I allude to the
burning noonday sun, that makes this close-shut valley, as it is
complimentarily called, a veritable furnace. It is in reality a deep
winding cleft between lofty, yellow rocks, by virtue of position and
formation a naturally formed sun-trap, not a ray being lost. Words can
give no idea of the scorching, blinding heat this August afternoon. Yet
a little girl who acts as our guide confronts the sun bareheaded, and
as we go we find dozens of relic-vendors equally unprotected. No one
seems to require a hat or umbrella. This child had the face of a
miniature Madonna, and others we met on the way equally beautiful and
well-formed. Strange thus to escape for a time altogether from the
region of human ugliness, to be as completely isolated from
ill-favoured looks and uncomely gait as if we were in a
sculpture-gallery of Florence! These country-bred girls and children
have not only statuesque features, but the stateliest carriage, holding
themselves with the air of Nature's princesses.

I stopped when half-way through the burning, blinding cul-de-sac, and
took refuge under the shadow cast by a bit of wall and a fig-tree. If
the deluging showers of yesterday had failed to damp my enthusiasm, the
meridian heat of Vaucluse shrivelled it up. My companion, with her
angelic-faced little cicerone, perseveringly went on.

This rock-shut valley, watered by the Sorgues, a tiny thread of water
and verdure amid towering walls of bare, sun-baked rock, has lost much
of its poetry and romance. The stream flows clear as in the poet's
time, but the solitude he loved so well is invaded. Of his garden not a
trace remains. The perpetually whirring wheels of a water-mill, the
clatter of washerwomen beating clothes on the bank, now drown the
murmur of the waves, whilst at every turn the traveller is beset by
vendors of immortelles and photographs. Truth to tell, an element of
vulgarity has found its way to this once ideal spot! But it requires no
very vivid imagination to transport ourselves to the Eden described so
musically in Petrarch's letters; and close at the doors of the
hermitage he has rendered immortal lies scenery that might well recall
his native Italy. All this is vividly portrayed in the pages of Arthur
Young, who was more fascinated by the scenery of Vaucluse than either
myself or my companion.

'And what was the fountain like?' I asked, when, after a quarter of an
hour, she returned.

This was her account:

'Following the hot and dusty path, beset all the way with children
selling wild-flowers and dried grasses-it seems providential that they
don't all have sunstroke under this merciless sun-we at last reach a
semicircle of rocks, a miniature stone bay, slanting slippery rocks
leading down to the midst, covered, as my little guide said, in winter
by water. From under these rocks burst the Sorgues-not a very tiny
river at its first start-and flows into a dark pool of by no means
clear water. Indeed, I should say it looked slightly scummy. On the
only ledge of rock above, with soil enough for vegetation, is a bright
spot of green, covered with the sweet-scented flower-a plant of the
good King Henry tribe, which we had been pestered to buy all the way
from the inn. This little patch looked so inaccessible that I think the
children must find the plant elsewhere.

'It is well,' sighed my friend, 'that Petrarch cannot see his beloved
village and river; for although the Sorgues is still limpid and
beautiful when flowing over the mossy rocks, what with guides,
tourists, and paper-mills, the place is vulgarized by people who
probably never read a line of the great poet of ideal love in their
lives, and never will.' [Footnote:

                     'The love from Petrarch's urn,
                      A quenchless lamp by which the heart
                      Sees things unearthly.'
                                              SHELLEY.]

If the outward drive amid orchards of peach and fig trees, vineyard and
cypress, conjures up a vision of the East, the return journey will give
some idea of the great olive-strewn plain of the Spanish Vega.

Far as the eye can reach, nothing is seen but one continuous sweep of
country covered with the silvery-green olive. Beyond in a northerly
direction the vast grandiose outline of Mont Ventoux shows an opaline
hue, its deep violet tints being subdued in the paling afternoon light.
All the tones in the picture are uniform and subdued, but none can be
fairer, more harmonious, no spectacle more impressive, than the
delicate sea-green foliage of myriads of olive-trees--plumage were the
apter word--one unbroken sheeny wave from end to end of the immense
horizon.

That the half may be better than the whole in travel is an axiom
verified every day. Was it worth while to incur a sunstroke for the
sake of seeing Petrarch's fountain--nearly dry, moreover, at such
seasons of the year? Far better to drive home without headache, and be
able thoroughly to enjoy such compensation for what we could not see.

After the tomb of John Stuart Mill, Petrarch's Vaucluse; after
Petrarch's Vaucluse, the palace of the popes.

But the sight of torture-chambers and horrid underground prisons is not
inviting; the souvenirs here awakened are anything but attractive. The
palace of the anti-popes, moreover, is turned into a caserne. I was
content to pass it by. Does not Mr. Symonds relate, in his history of
the Italian Renaissance, how a certain pope vivisected little children
in the hope of prolonging his own infamous existence? In other words,
the pope believed in the doctrine of transfusion of blood, and hapless
little lads were bribed into undergoing the operation of blood-letting
in order that the veins of the pontiff should be thereby revivified.

The victims received the promised money and died, but I refer readers
to Mr. Symonds' work for the story--as horrible as any in the horrible
history of the sovereigns of the Vatican. Doubtless the walls of this
outwardly imposing papal palace here could tell others as ghastly. I
had not the slightest inclination to cross the threshold.

At Avignon we made inquiries right and left as to the best means of
reaching the Causses. Nobody had so much as heard of the name. One
individual thus interrogated repeated after me:

'L'Écosse, l'Écosse? Mon Dieu! je n'en sais absolument rien.'

He thought we were asking the directest road to Scotland--a strangely
random question for two Englishwomen to make, surely, in the South of
France!




CHAPTER V.

LE VIGAN.


Nîmes in August is about as hot as Cairo in May, which certainly is
saying a good deal. In front of the pleasant Hôtel de Luxembourg are
fountains and gardens, bright with oleanders and pomegranates; and the
town is open and airy, but the heat is very oppressive. The unremitting
precautions taken to keep out the sun show what is expected in
summer-time. The rooms are not only protected by shutters, but by
Venetian blinds as well, and are kept in semi-darkness during the
greater portion of the day. How the business of daily life can be
carried on in this perpetually enforced twilight I am unable to say.
Whether or no the majority of the townsfolk have acquired by sheer
force of habit the faculty of seeing in the dark, or contrive to
transact all obligatory affairs in the cool of the evening, when for a
brief moment shutters are thrown open and blinds drawn, is a mystery.

I have no intention of describing Nîmes--a city, perhaps, as familiar
to my country-people as any in France; and, indeed, time only permitted
of a glance at the beautiful Roman baths, a quite fairy-like scene, the
exquisite little Greek temple, [Footnote: Colbert wished to move this
lovely little temple to Versailles, bit by bit, and the Cardinal
Alberoni demanded that it should be encased in gold.] known under the
name of the Maison Carrée, and the amphitheatre. All these have been
well and amply described for tourists elsewhere; also the lovely group
of Pradier adorning the principal fountain of the town--a modern
chef-d'œuvre that may well figure amid so many gems of classic art. The
most hurried traveller will, of course, visit one and all.

The modern aspect of Nîmes is worthy of note.

Distinguished Frenchmen--or, for the matter of that, Frenchwomen--may
count with mathematical certainty upon the compensation of earthly
ills: they are sure of their statue after death.

Nîmes, not behindhand in this appreciative spirit, has recently
conferred such honours upon two illustrious sons--Reboul, the artisan
poet; and Paul Soleillet, the gallant African explorer. Both monuments
are well worth seeing, and both men deserved to be so remembered.

One-fourth of the inhabitants of Nîmes are Protestant; but a true
spirit of toleration was very slow to make itself felt there. In 1876,
for the first time, 'Les Huguenots' was given at the opera-house.
Hitherto the experiment had been considered risky.

It is strange that the inroads of the phylloxera should have any
influence upon the movements of religious bodies, but so it is.
Narbonne, in the neighbouring department, has lately lost its
Protestant population, most of whom were wine-growers or
wine-merchants, ruined by the terrible vine-pest. So complete was the
exodus that the ministrations of a pastor were no longer needed. These
facts I had from the then _désœuvré_ pastor himself, who was appointed
to the cure of souls in the little village of St. Georges de Didonne,
at the mouth of the Gironde, during my stay there two years ago.

Thankful as the visitor may feel to get away from Nîmes in the
dog-days, it should certainly be visited then, otherwise we lose that
impression of the South--that warm glow of colour and Oriental languor
so new and striking in Northern eyes. For ourselves, we would willingly
have lingered days--nay, weeks--in the noble Roman city, but for the
heat and our feverish desire to reach that cool, breezy Roof of France,
so near, yet so apparently difficult to reach; in fact, the nearer we
approached our destination, the more unattainable it appeared. No more
at Nîmes than at Avignon could we get an inkling of information as to
the best means of reaching the Causses.

We are but fairly off on our way to Le Vigan when we find a welcome
change in the atmosphere. The air is cooler, the heavens show
alternating cloud and sky; we feel able to breathe. Past olive grounds
and mulberry plantations, ancient towns cresting the hill-tops,
cheerful farmsteads dotted here and there--these are the pictures
descried from the railway. It was hard to pass Tarascon without
stopping, but the experience of last year was fresh in my memory. If we
lingered at every interesting place on the way, we should find the Roof
of France embedded in snow. There was nothing to be done but, in
policeman's language, 'move on.' Some of the little towns passed on the
way are very old and curious, but night closed in long ere we reached
our destination.

I had heard nothing in favour of Le Vigan. The hotel was described to
us as a fair auberge. The very place was marked down in my itinerary
simply because it seemed impossible to reach the region we were bound
for from any other starting-point. At least, the two other alternatives
had drawbacks: we must either make a circuitous railway journey round
to Mende, or a still longer détour by way of Millau.

Having therefore expected literally nothing either in the way of
accommodation or surroundings, what was our satisfaction next day to
wake up and find ourselves in quite delightful quarters, amid charming
scenery! Our hotel, Des Voyageurs, is as unlike the luxurious barracks
of Swiss resorts as can be. An ancient, picturesque, straggling house,
brick-floored throughout, with spacious rooms, large alcoves, outer
galleries and balconies facing the green hills, it is just the place to
settle in for a summer holiday. On the low walls of the open corridor
outside our rooms are pots of brilliant geraniums and roses; beyond the
immediate premises of the hotel is a well-kept fruit and flower garden;
everywhere we see bright blossoms and verdure, whilst the low spurs of
the Cévennes, here soft green undulations, frame in the picture.

The weather is now that of an English summer, with alternating clouds
and sunshine and a fresh breeze.

The people are no less winning than their entourage. Our host, a
septuagenarian of the old-fashioned school, in his youth was cook to
Louis Philippe, and has carried with him to this remote spot all the
polish and urbanity of the court. Aristocratic as he was in manner, and
evidently a man of substance, as behoved a royal cook to be, he yet
exercised supervision in the kitchen, not only giving instructions, but
inspecting saucepans, to see that the acme of cleanliness was arrived
at.

For what we may therefore call a royal cuisine, besides excellent
accommodation, we were charged the modest sum of seven francs per diem
each. Madame la patrone was no less dignified in manner than her
husband, and from the first took me into her confidence.

She told me that the prosperity of their old age had just been saddened
by the death of their only child--the hope of hopes, the joy of joys.
No one remained to inherit their good name and little fortune.

'And a young girl so carefully brought up, so well educated and
amiable, so useful in the house! Voyez-vous, madame, ces choses sont
trop tristes,' she said with tears; and what could we say to comfort
her?

To attend upon us we had a delightful peasant woman, neat, clean,
sturdy, unlettered; yet very intelligent, and full of interest in
English inventions and English ways. What a treasure such a woman would
be at home! but for the hindrance of husband and children, we should
have felt sorely tempted to bring her away with us. Then there was a
tall, handsome fellow, a man of all work, in the establishment, who
would rap at my door at all hours of the day with two enormous jugs of
boiling water. I required a considerable supply of hot water early in
the morning wherewith to fill my portable indiarubber bath--a perpetual
source of amusement in the Lozère-and he seemed to think that a warm
bath, like a cigarette or a petit verre, was a luxury to be indulged in
at all hours of the day.

I would be absorbed in the study of maps and geographies when a
thundering rat-tat-tat would make me start from my seat, and, lo! on
opening the door, there stood the tall, soldierly, well-favoured
François, holding in each hand a huge steaming jug filled to the brim,
his handsome face beaming with satisfaction at having thus anticipated
my wishes.

He evidently thought, too, that anyone with an appetite so unreasonable
in the matter of hot water must have innumerable wants equally
unreasonable. So quite unexpectedly, I believe whenever he had a spare
moment, he would knock at our door and stand there, stock-still,
awaiting commands.

Seductive as is Le Vigan by virtue of site and surroundings, I am sorry
to have to say that the town is badly kept. Its ædiles are terribly
wanting in a sense of what is due to public health and enjoyment. The
streets look as if they were never cleaned from January to December,
although there is an abundant supply of water. Sanitation is for the
most part woefully disregarded, and the little that is needed to make
the place wholesome and attractive is left unattempted. What distressed
my companion more than the neglected aspect of the streets was the
sight of so many apparently uncared-for, ill-fed cats and dogs. As a
rule, French people are kind to their domestic pets, but the
bare-ribbed cats and their kittens here told a different story.
Fortunately, when sketching just outside the town one day, the curé
came up and entered into conversation with the sketchers. Here was an
opportunity not to be neglected, and it was eagerly seized upon.

'Do, M. le Curé,' pleaded the English lady, after drawing his attention
to the destitute condition of many four-footed parishioners, 'speak to
your people, and make them see how wrong it is thus to rear cats and
dogs, and leave them to starve.'

The benevolent old man promised to do his best, reminding me of the
different response made to a similar appeal by a Breton priest.

I was once so shocked at the cruel treatment of calves at a country
fair that I boldly stopped the curé in the middle of the road, and
entreated him to preach against such wickedness.

'Madame' was his reply, 'ce n'est pas un têché' (it is no sin);
meaning, I suppose, that diabolical cruelty to animals did not come
under the head of offences against the Church.

It may be a consolation to many readers to know that the Loi Grammont
now prohibits the misdeeds ignored by so-called ministers of religion
in France; and it is a law, if not often, occasionally enforced with
little ceremony. At Clermont-Ferrand, a few weeks later, a cab-driver
was carried off to prison before our eyes for having brutally beaten
his fallen horse.

Throughout the remainder of this journey I am bound to say that we were
struck with the kindness and gentleness of our drivers to their horses.
Any sign of ill-temper or skittishness was always coaxed away, an angry
word or blow never being resorted to.

As I have said, Le Vigan might easily be made a charming halting-place
for tourists in these regions. The pulling down of a few ancient,
ill-favoured streets, a wholesale cleaning and white-washing, a general
reparation of the town from end to end, open spaces utilized as public
gardens--all this might be done at half the expense of the
supernumerary statues now being raised all over France. Sanitation
first, statues afterwards, should be the maxim of its préfets and
maires in these remote and behindhand regions. Our hotel, it must be
added, is clean and well kept, and even furnished with the luxury of
baths. A few more royal cooks at the head of French country inns, and
we should soon find cosmopolitan luxuries in out-of-the-way corners.

But such an epithet will not long apply to our favourite town. A
railway now in course of construction will soon link it to Millau, on
the Toulouse line, thus rendering it accessible from all south-westerly
points. Who knows? This quaint, old-fashioned, thoroughly French hotel
may be replaced a few years hence by some huge fashionable barracks, in
which there will be a perpetual come and go of tourists furnished with
return tickets, including the Causses, the gorges of the Tarn and
Montpellier le Vieux.

An English pedestrian or cyclist or two have, I believe, found their
way hither, but no lady tourists.

Poorly off in matters of sanitation, Le Vigan could not, nevertheless,
afford to lose its one statue to its one hero. We all know the story of
the gallant young Chevalier d'Assas, captain of an Auvergnat regiment,
and of his no less heroic companion, the Sergeant Dubois: how when
reconnoitring at night in the forest near Closter-camp, their men in
ambush behind them, they came suddenly upon the foe. A dozen bayonets
were pointed at their breasts with the whisper, 'Silence or death!'

The pair in a breath gave the warning: 'The enemy! Fire!' and fell side
by side, pierced with the bullets alike of friend and foe.

This bronze statue is the only monument the town can boast of, but it
possesses a compensation for many monuments--I allude to its noble
grove of venerable chestnuts. Well-planted boulevards of plane-trees
lead to what appears a bit of primeval forest--an assemblage of ancient
trees, their knotted, hoary trunks each in girth huge as a windmill, in
striking contrast to the bright foliage and abundant fruit. Nothing can
be more weird and fantastic than these broken, corrugated stems,
battered by storm, worn out by time, apparently dropping to pieces, yet
at the root full of vitality, sending forth the most luxuriant harvest,
the freshest, youthfullest leafage: the whole--the gray old world
below, the fairy-like greenery above--making a glorious scene under the
bright blue sky. May not this chestnut grove symbolize the phenomenal
richness and activity of highly-endowed natures in old age--the
Goethes, the Titians, the Voltaires? From these pleasant suburbs,
little paths wind invitingly upward among the hills, planted on all
sides with the vine, and although the summer is already so far
advanced, wild-flowers abound. What a paradise this would be for the
botanist in spring, or for the portrait painter! The good looks of the
people, their rich colouring, fine stature, and dignified bearing,
strike us ever with a sense of novelty.

How many makable places, if I may coin such a word, still remain in
France--sweet spots, Cinderellas of the natural world, only awaiting
the fairy godmother to turn them into princesses, courted by wealth and
fashion. Many a nook in the environs of Le Vigan doubtless answers to
this description. I will only describe one, Cauvalet, an inland
watering-place sadly in need of enterprise and patronage.

The 'Établissement des Bains' stands in a nest of greenery within ten
minutes' drive of the town; its mineral waters, strongly impregnated
with sulphur, are said to be very efficacious in rheumatic affections.
We found a few visitors lounging in the gardens; with proper
accommodation, and under good management, the place might doubtless
become a miniature Vals. The same remark might be applied to many other
equally favoured spots I have met with in my French travels. It is a
consolation to remember that, sooner or later, their time must come. So
enormously has the habit of travelling increased of late years among
French people, that France itself will erelong prove too narrow for its
own tourists, to say nothing of foreigners.

Our good hosts were very anxious that we should see everything.
Accordingly we were escorted to one of the numerous silk factories in
the town. Here, as at Vic-sur-Cère the year before, and in places to be
described later on, we were rather treated as guests in a country house
than Nos. 1 and 2 of an ordinary hotel. Everybody--master, mistress,
and servants--wanted to do the honours of their native place for us,
and this without any thought of interest or advantage. It was the good,
invaluable, middle-aged chambermaid who, out of her own head and on her
own account, carried us off to see the silk factory. The fact of two
English ladies having come so far to see the country evidently
impressed her wonderfully.

'Ah!' she sighed cheerfully, 'were it not for my good man and my
demoiselles' (her daughters), 'how pleased I should be to return with
you and see l'Angleterre!' and as she went along, having dressed
herself in her Sunday's best for the occasion, she stopped in high glee
to tell chance-met friends and neighbours that we were two Englishwomen
come across the sea 'pour s'instruire'--for self-instruction. The fact
of having crossed that tiny strip of sea ever impresses French country
folk. Had we reached France by land, no matter the distance--say, from
St. Petersburg--the exploit would not appear half so striking to them.

The work-room of a silk factory affords a curious spectacle.

At long narrow tables, stretched from end to end of the workshop, sit
rows of girls manipulating in bowls of hot water the cocoons--in
Gibbon's phrase, 'the golden tombs whence a worm emerges in the form of
a butterfly'--carefully disengaging the almost imperceptible film of
silk therein concealed, transferring it to the spinning-wheel, where it
is spun into what looks like a thread of solid gold. Throughout the
vast atelier hundreds of shuttles are swiftly plied, and on first
entering the eye is dazzled with the brilliance of these broad bands of
silk, bright, lustrous, metallic, as if of solid gold. This flash of
gold is the only brightness in the place, otherwise dull and monotonous.

Gibbon gives a splendid page on the 'education of silkworms,' once
considered as the labour of queens, and shows impatience with the
learned Salmasius, who also wrote on the subject, because, unlike
himself, he did not know everything. He tells us how two Persian monks,
long resident in China, amid their pious occupations viewed with a
curious eye the manufacture of silk; how they made the long journey to
Constantinople, imparting their knowledge of the silkworm and its
strictly guarded culture to the great Justinian; finally, how a second
time they entered China, 'deceived a jealous people by concealing the
eggs of the silkworm in a hollow cane, and returned in triumph with the
spoils of the East.' 'I am not insensible of the benefits of an elegant
luxury,' adds the historian, 'yet I reflect with some pain that if the
importers of silk had introduced the art of printing, already practised
by the Chinese, the comedies of Menander and the entire decade of Livy
would have been perpetuated in the sixth century.'

Alas! a pound of silk is no longer worth twelve ounces of gold, as the
Emperor Aurelian complained; and the education of the silkworm, instead
of being the labour of queens, is far from a remunerative occupation.

The hours in these factories are terribly long--fifteen--two of which
are, however, allowed for meals. The wages, on the other hand, contrast
favourably with those of many of our own factories in which women are
chiefly employed. About fifteenpence a day is the average pay, the
ateliers being always closed on Sundays. Several causes have brought
about a temporary depression of the French silk trade. Just as cheap
Chinese and Japanese straw-plaits have paralyzed our home industry of
hand-plaited straw in Bedfordshire, so cheap Oriental silks have, for a
time at least, done much to supplant the more solid, richer, and more
brilliant Lyons manufacture.

Again, the silkworm industry, not only in France, but in other
countries, was some years back threatened with an enemy as ruthless as
the phylloxera. It is interesting to learn that here science has come
to aid with a simple but effectual remedy, which it is said has
benefited French industry to the extent of the Prussian war indemnity,
viz., four hundred million sterling (five milliards of francs). The
silkworm-rearers are now taught to breed from healthy moths only. Girls
and women are employed in examining the bodies of the moths with
microscopes. If the diseased corpuscles are found, the eggs are
discarded.

Thus, by a simple method of artificial selection, the silkworm industry
has been rescued from what threatened to be a collapse.

Of course, one consequence of these fluctuations in rural industries is
a universal migration into the towns, and consequent diminution of
population in country places. The towns gain, but the villages lose. We
find Le Vigan a little centre of increasing commercial activity, and
the same may be averred of the secondary towns of this department, this
prosperity having originally a different source.

The Protestant communities of France, formerly deprived, like the Jews,
of civil and political rights, threw heart and soul into industrial
pursuits. Wherever they settled they founded
manufactures--cotton-mills, silk-factories, manufactures of woollen
stuffs--many of which have flourished in these small towns on the
outskirts of the Cévennes till this day.

The Gard is foremost of all other departments in the matter of
silk-worm rearing, the Ardèche alone surpassing it in the number of
silk-factories. In all the villages around Le Vigan are small silk-worm
farms, the peasants rearing them on their own account, and selling them
to the manufacturers. The curious on this subject will everywhere be
cordially received, and gain any information they may require. At
least, such was our own experience.




CHAPTER VI.

NANT (AVEYRON).


All this time Le Vigan was to us as Capua to Hannibal's
soldiers--Circe's charmed cup held to the lips of Odysseus.

We ought not to have stayed there an unnecessary hour. We should have
continued our journey at once. On and on we lingered, nevertheless, and
when at last we braced ourselves up for an effort, the terrible truth
was broken to us. Instead of being nearer to the goal of our wishes, we
had come out of the way, and were indeed getting farther and farther
from that mysterious, so eagerly longed-for region, the terribly
unattainable Causses. Our project at last began to wear the look of a
nightmare, a harassing, feverish dream. We seemed to be fascinated
hither and thither by an ignis fatuus, enticed into quagmires and
quicksands by an altogether illusive, mocking, malicious
Will-o'-the-wisp.

I was painfully reminded of what had been a pleasing puzzle in childish
days: the maze at Needham Market, famous throughout Suffolk, and
familiar to all Suffolk-bred folk. This is a wonderfully constructed
shrubbery or thicket, cut into numerous little circular and
semicircular paths, so contrived that the most ingenious are caught
like flies in a spider's trap. Round and round, backwards and forwards,
in and out, scuttle the uninitiated, only to find themselves at the
precise point whence they had started hours before. The conviction of
being thus foiled in my purpose, and for the second time, weighed upon
my spirits. My companion also became somewhat dejected. The superb
weather might forsake us. September was at hand. It really seemed as if
we were doomed to return to our dogs and cats at Hastings without
having reached the Roof of France after all.

True, a matter of eighty miles only divided us from our destination,
but surely the most impracticable eighty miles out of Arabia Petræa! We
were bound for a certain little town called St. Énimie, but between us
and St. Énimie stretched a barrier, insurmountable as Dante's fog
isolating Purgatory from Paradise, or as the black river separating
Pluto's domain from the region of light. We seemed as far off the
Causses as Christian from the heavenly Jerusalem when imprisoned in
Castle Doubting, or as the Israelites from Canaan when in the
wilderness of Zin.

To reach St. Énimie, then, meant two long days' drive, _i.e._, from six
a.m. to perhaps eight p.m., in the lightest, which stands for the most
uncomfortable, vehicle, across a country the greater part of which is
as savage as Dartmoor. Our first halting-place would be Meyrueis, and
between Le Vigan and Meyrueis relays could be had, but at that point
civilization ended. The second day's journey must lie through a
treeless, waterless, uninhabited desert; in other words, as a glance at
the map will show, we must traverse the Causse Méjean itself.

Romantic as this expedition sounded, our host, the royal cook, shook
his head at the proposal. Suppose we were overtaken by a storm in that
wilderness? Suppose any accident happened to horses or harness?
Suppose----

'In fact,' he said, 'there is nothing for these ladies to do but make
the round to Mende by railway.'

'To Mende!' I cried aghast. 'Back to Nîmes, back to heaven knows where!
Never! Get to St. Énimie we can, we will, we must, without making the
round by railway to Mende.'

After a good deal of somewhat painful excitement, a rueful inspection
of the only kind of vehicle that was practicable on the stony, uphill
Causse, the Helvellyn we wanted to climb, I gave in. Yes, it was out of
the question to drive for fourteen hours at a stretch, seated on such a
knifeboard. I had made a blunder in thinking eighty miles only eighty
miles under any circumstances. Crestfallen, and having in mind the
dictum of the great Lessing: 'Kein mensch muss müssen,' I again took in
hand maps and guidebooks. At this stage of affairs came to aid the
voiturier who had gallantly proposed to drive us to the top of the
Lozérien Helvellyn, provided we could sit on a knifeboard. He was one
of the handsomest men we saw in these parts, which is saying a good
deal. Tall, well-made, dignified, with superb features and rich
colouring, it seemed a thousand pities he should be only a carriage
proprietor in this out-of-the-way spot. He appeared, however, as every
other good-looking person does here, altogether unconscious of his
magnificent physique and striking features. What occupied him much more
was evidently his business, and the duty incumbent upon him to make
things pleasant to strangers.

'If these ladies,' he said in country fashion, thus addressing
ourselves--if these ladies will let me drive them to Millau, they can
have my most comfortable carriage, as the roads are excellent. They can
sleep at a good auberge on the way. From Millau it is only five hours
by railway to Mende, and from Mende only a four hours' drive to St.
Énimie.'

We joyfully hailed the proposal. It seemed a roundabout way to St.
Énimie, but it did seem a way; and, at any rate, if we were going back,
we were not going back to the precise point from which we had started.

My companion still persisted in the melancholy conviction that we
should never get to the Causses, but I comforted her with the
observation that if we did not get to the Causses, we should at all
events get somewhere. Before starting, our host presented us with a
letter of introduction to the master of the auberge at our
halting-place for the night--the little village of Nant, half-way
between Le Vigan and Millau.

'It is only an auberge,' he said apologetically; 'you must not expect
much. But the patron is a friend of mine; he will do his very best for
you after what I have written.'

The letter of introduction being, of course, an open one, we read it.
'Permit me to commend to your attentive care,' wrote the royal cook,
'two respectable ladies----' Here amusement got the better of
curiosity; we laid down the missive and had a hearty laugh over what
seemed at best a strange, almost ludicrous, compliment. Surely he might
have substituted an adjective of a more flattering nature, accorded us
some more winning attribute--charming, amiable, learned. Could we lay
claim to none of these?

I summed up the matter in our favour, after all. Such a testimony
coming from a courtier, as the chef of a king's cuisine must be called,
was, perhaps, the very highest he felt able to give; and to be
respectable means more than meets the ear.

Does not La Bruyère say: 'Un homme de bien est respectable par lui-même
et indépendamment de tous les dehors'? He had, perhaps, that axiom in
his mind.

Having sent on our four big boxes to Millau by diligence, we set off
for the first stage of our journey. The weather was perfect, and I
cannot at any time reconcile my experiences of French weather with
those of another ardent explorer of France a hundred years ago.
'Amusements,' wrote Arthur Young from the North of France in September,
1787, 'in truth, ought to be taken within doors, for in such a climate
none are to be depended on without; the rain that has fallen here is
hardly credible. I have, for five-and-twenty years past, remarked in
England that I never was prevented by rain from taking a walk every
day, with going out while it actually rains; it may fall heavily for
many hours, but a person who watches an opportunity gets a walk or a
ride. Since I have been at Liancourt we have had three days in
succession of such incessantly heavy rain that I could not go a hundred
yards from the house without danger of being quite wet. For ten days
more rain fell here, I am confident, had there been a gauge to measure
it, than ever fell in England in thirty.'

We are accustomed to reverse this comparison, and I should say that the
years 1787-88-89, during which the Suffolk squire journeyed through the
country on horseback, must have been revolutionary in a meteorological
as well as a political sense. I have now made travels and sojourns in
various parts of France during fifteen years, and I should say to all
who want sunshine for their holiday trip, go to France for it.

Upon this, as upon the occasion of former expeditions, a rainy day
never came except when a spell of bad weather was an unmitigated boon,
enforcing rest, and giving leisure for the utilization of daily
experiences.

On the whole, the route now decided upon has much to recommend it,
especially to travellers unfit for excessive fatigue. The drive from Le
Vigan to Millau is thus divided into two easy stages, and the scenery
for the greater part of the way is diversified and interesting.

Gradually winding upwards from the green hills surrounding our
favourite little town, its bright river, the Arre, playing
hide-and-seek as we go, we take a lonely road cut around barren, rocky
slopes covered with stunted foliage, here and there tiny enclosures of
corn crop or garden perched aloft.

The charm of this drive consists in the sharp contrasts presented at
unexpected turns. Now we are in a sweet, sunbright, sheltered valley,
where all is verdure and luxuriance. At every door are pink and white
oleanders in full bloom, in every garden peach-trees showing their
rich, ruby-coloured fruit--the handsome-leaved mulberry, the shining
olive, with lovely little chestnut-woods on the heights around. Now we
seem in a wholly different latitude. The vegetation and aspect of the
country are transformed. Instead of the vine, the peach, and the olive,
we are in a region of scant fruitage, and only the hardiest crops,
apple orchards sparsely mingled with fields of oats and rye. And yet
again we seem to be traversing a Scotch or Yorkshire moor--so vast and
lonely the heather-clad wastes, so bleak and wild the heavens.

But every zone has its wild-flowers. As we go on, our eyes rest upon
white salvias, the pretty Deptford pink, wild lavender, several species
of broom and ferns in abundance. The wild fig-tree grows here, and the
huge boulders are tapestried with box and bilberry. One rare lovely
flower I must especially mention--the exquisite, large-leaved blue flax
(the Linum perenne), that shone like a star amid the rest.

It is Sunday, and as we pass the village of Arre in its charming
valley, we meet streams of country folks dressed in their best,
enjoying a walk. No one was afield. Here, as in most other parts of
rural France, Sunday is regarded strictly as a day of rest.

After a long climb upwards, our road cut through the rock being a grand
piece of engineering, we come upon the works of a handsome railway
viaduct now in construction. This line, which, when finished, will
connect Le Vigan with Millau and Albi, will be an immense boon to the
inhabitants--one of the numerous iron roads laid by the Republican
Government in what had hitherto been forgotten parts of France. Close
to these works a magnificent cascade is seen, a sheet of glistening
white spray pouring down the dark, precipitous escarpment.

Hereabouts the barren, stony, wilderness-like country betokens the
region of the Causses. We are all this time winding round the rampart
like walls of the great Causse de Larzac, which stretches from Le Vigan
to Millau, rising to a height of 2,624 feet above the sea-level, and
covering an area of nearly a hundred square miles. This Causse affords
some interesting facts for evolutionists. The aridity, the absolutely
waterless condition of the Larzac, has evolved a race of non-drinking
animals. The sheep browsing the fragrant herbs of these plateaux have
altogether unlearned the habit of drinking, whilst the cows drink very
little. The much-esteemed Roquefort cheese is made from ewes' milk, the
non-drinking ewes of the Larzac. Is the peculiar flavour of the cheese
due to this non-drinking habit?

The desert-like tracts below this 'Table de pierre,' as M. Réclus calls
it, are alternated with very fairly cultivated farms. We see rye, oats,
clover, and hay in abundance, with corn ready for garnering.

Passing St. Jean de Bruel, where all the inhabitants have turned out to
attend a neighbour's funeral, we wind down amid chestnut woods and
pastures into a lovely little valley, with the river Dourbie, bluest of
the blue, gliding through the midst. Beyond stream and meadows rise
hills crested with Scotch fir, their slopes luxuriant with buck-wheat,
maize, and other crops--here and there the rich brown loam already
ploughed up for autumn sowing. Well-dressed people, well-kept roads,
neat houses, suggested peace and frugal plenty.

What a contrast did the little village of Nant present to Le Vigan! It
was like the apparition of an exquisitely-dressed, pretty girl, after
that of a slatternly beauty. Nant, 'proprette,' airy, well cared for,
wholesome; Le Vigan, dirty, draggle-tailed, neglected, yet in itself
possessed of quite as many natural attractions. We had been led to
expect a mere country auberge, decent shelter, no more--perhaps even
two-curtained, alcoved beds in a common sleeping-room! What was our
astonishment to find quite ideal rustic accommodation--quarters,
indeed, inviting on their own account a lengthy stay!

A winding stone staircase led from the street to the travellers'
quarters. Kitchen, salle-à-manger and bedrooms were all spick and span,
cool and quiet; our rooms newly furnished with beds as luxurious as
those of the Grand Hotel in Paris. Marble-topped washstands and
newly-tiled floors opened on to an outer corridor, the low walls of
which were set with roses and geraniums as in Italy. Below was a
poultry-yard. No other noise could disturb us but the cackling of hens
and the quacking of ducks. On the same floor was a dining-room and the
kitchen, but so far removed from us that we were as private as in a
suite of rooms at the celebrated Hôtel Bristol.

Nant is a quite delightful townling; we only wished we could stay there
for weeks. It is a very ancient place, but so far modernized as to be
clean and pleasant. The quaint, stone-covered arcades and bits of
mediæval architecture invite the artist; none, however, comes!

The sky-blue Dourbie runs amid green banks below the gray peak, rising
sheer above the town; around the congeries of old-world houses are
farms, gardens and meadows, little fields being at right angles with
the streets. In the large, open market-place, where fairs are held,
just outside the town, is a curious sight. The corn is gathered in, and
hither all the farmers round about have brought their wheat to be
threshed out by water-power.

Next morning, by half-past eight, our landlady fetched me to see some
farms. She was a delicate, even sickly-looking little woman, although
the mother of fine, healthful children, and very intelligent and
well-mannered. Without showing any inquisitiveness as to my object, she
at once readily acceded to my request that she should accompany me on a
round of inspection. First of all, however, and as, it seemed, a matter
of course, she carried me off to see the Bonnes Sœurs--in other words,
the nuns, often such important personages in rural places.

I had already seen so much of nuns, nunneries and the like, that I
sorely begrudged the time thus spent. Good manners forbade a demur.
There was nothing to do but to feign some slight interest in the
schoolrooms, dormitories, playground, chapel--facsimiles, as were the
nuns themselves, of what I had seen dozens of times before.

But one thing these nuns had to show I had never seen before. I allude
to their herbarium. The mother superior, so it seems, was a capital
herbalist and doctor, consulted in case of sickness by all the
country-folks for miles round, and, in order to supply her
pharmacopœia, had yearly collections made of all the medicinal plants
in which the neighbourhood abounds. Here in a drying chamber, exposed
to air and sun, were stores of wild lavender for sweetening the linen
presses; mallows, elder flowers, gentian, leaves of the red vine,
poppies, and many others used in medicine. What I was most interested
in was the vast stores of the so-called thé des Alpes, a little plant
of the sage tribe, of which I had heard at Gap, in the Hautes Alpes.
The country-people in that part of France, as in the Aveyron, use this
little plant largely as a febrifugal infusion; they also drink it as
tea. My landlady showed me great bundles of it that she had dried for
household use. The thought struck me, as I surveyed the mother
superior's herbarium--here is an excellent hint for the projectors of
home colonies. Surely, if poor people are to be made self-supporting in
one sense, they should be made so in all.

Why should not every home colony--for the matter of that, every
isolated village--have its medicine-chest of simple field remedies? The
originators of home colonies have only to translate that excellent
little sixpenny work, 'Les Rémèdes de Campagne,' written by Dr.
Saffray, and published by Hachette, and put it into the hands of these
backwoodsmen of the old country. The least intelligent would soon learn
to cure common ailments by the use of remedies ever at their doors, and
not costing a penny. Having taken leave of the nuns, madame la patrone
next conducted me to the country on the other side of the town,
stopping to chat with this acquaintance and that. I suppose lady
tourists are wholly unknown in these parts, for these good people,
having glanced at me, said to madame:

'A relation, I suppose, and you are showing her about?'

All seemed pleased to learn that I was an Englishwoman come to see
their corner of the world.

We then paid a visit to some elderly farming-folks, friends of hers,
just outside the town. We found the farmer and his wife at home, and
both received us very cordially. The old man had a shrewd, pleasant
face, and, without any ado or ceremony, bade me sit down beside him
whilst he finished his morning soup. I chatted to him of my numerous
travels in various parts of France, and after listening attentively for
some time, he said:

'You must be finely rich' (joliment riche) 'to travel as you do.'

'Not at all,' said I; 'my fortune is my pen. I see all that I can, and,
on my return to England, write a book for the amusement and instruction
of others, which more than covers the expense of my journey.'

The old man's eyes twinkled; he touched his forehead, and then said
something to his wife in patois. I laughingly begged him to translate
the remark, which he did with a smile.

'I said to my wife that you must have a good head' (une bien forte
tête) 'to do that.'

'Le bon Dieu has given me eyes to see and a memory to retain,' said I.
'I have only to look well about me and take note.'

He paused, and added after a little reflection:

'Above all, you must talk with learned people.'

'That is not always necessary,' I replied. 'On the contrary, what
serves my purpose best is to talk with country-folk like yourself, who
can tell me about the details of farming in these parts--prices, crops,
and so on--not with fine ladies and gentlemen, who do not know a turnip
when they see it growing.'

This observation seemed to gratify him exceedingly. We then talked of
land tenure in France and in England. When I made him understand that
the law of entail still existed in my country, he shook his head
gravely. When I added that the English peasant did not possess an acre
of land, a garden, not even a house or a cow, he looked graver still.

'Il faut que tout cela change' (All that will have to be changed), he
remarked; and I told him that I fully concurred in the sentiment, and
that a great change of opinion on this subject was taking place in
England.

His wife, who had meantime listened attentively to our conversation,
now joined in. The fact that we had no conscription seemed to strike
her more than any other piece of information I had as yet given.

'You English people are very fortunate,' she said. 'Think of what it is
to be a mother, and rear your son to the age of twenty, then to see him
torn from your arms and shot down by a mitrailleuse. War, indeed! Grand
Dieu! the world has seen enough of it.'

We then had a long talk on farming matters, the old man quite ready to
devote half an hour even at thi

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